The South African Union of Jewish Students (SAUJS) is pulling out all the stops to see the Palestinian Solidarity Committee (PSC) suspended as a campus organisation for “spreading hatred”.

The decision to pursue an application for suspension against the PSC was taken after it allegedly invited Bongani Masuku, Cosatu international relations secretary and Palestinian sympathiser, to talk at a rally in Lenasia recently.

Masuku was charged with hate speech by the Human Rights Commission (HRC) in December after he was accused of making anti-Semitic comments in his speech at last year’s Apartheid Israel Week, an event organised by the PSC. Masuku failed to make a public apology – despite the HRC’s ruling – and posted more anti-Semitic statements on his private blog titled It’s Almost Supernatural. He then allegedly appeared as a guest speaker at the Lenasia rally hosted by the PSC, PAC and Cosatu on January 27.

SAUJS national chairperson Stephanie Hodes wrote a letter to the head of the PSC on campus, Muhammed Desai, asking him to issue a statement apologising for “inviting a hatemonger onto campus” last year and to distance himself and his organisation from Masuku.
Desai failed to respond and told Vuvuzela that he had no knowledge of a rally in Lenasia and that he had “no idea what [SAUJS] was talking about”.

But Masuku himself issued a Cosatu press release, advertising the rally and including the following statement:
“Finally, dear comrades, we salute the courageous efforts of the Palestine Solidarity movement for organising these bold initiatives and they have our full support. We shall not be intimidated by attempts to silence us or some of our comrades. We shall be inspired to speak out even more louder and anger [sic] for the threat to deny us our right to shout loud against savagery.”

Desai wrote a letter to Deputy Vice-Chancellor Yunus Ballim and Dean of Students Prem Coopoo after SAUJS’ outcry last year stating that the PSC was “against all forms of racism… as well as anti-Semitism” and also prided itself on being “an open space allowing communication, debate and disagreement”. 

But SAUJS vice chairperson Rafael Eliasov disagrees. “The PSC don’t care about the Palestinian people. All they are doing with the kind of events they plan is spreading hatred and falsely creating a view of Jewish people as racists. This is an issue for campus and for South Africa because the PSC is out there to pursue a hateful agenda.”

SAUJS has written to Coopoo requesting that the PSC be disbanded or suspended.