A breed of South African vultures prey upon the deceased to further their political narrative.
By Josh Schewitz
There is a grotesque political theatre that has been actively around for years in South Africa, hiding in the wings, that is, until Israel was invaded by marauding mass killers from Gaza on October 7, 2023!
The star director in these theatrics is DIRCO, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, in ‘cooperation’ with a suspect cast that includes terror-sponsoring states, professional full-time activists, journalists, and bureaucrats who feed not on facts but corpses – literally – all to undermine the legitimacy of the one Jewish state in the world – Israel. This is the script in a nutshell.
As if taking their cue off the local wildlife, they wait like vultures circling the wounded. They need and feed off death and salivate over child-sized coffins to prop up their message. They may call themselves humanitarians but in reality they are scavengers feeding off proverbial carrion.
Every Gazan life the Hamas terror organization purposely sacrifices as a human shield is a new talking point. Every IDF airstrike targeting terrorist’s intent on killing and holding hostages is spun into another indictment – not of Hamas, but of Israel.
The facts do not matter to them. The context does not matter either because to people like Jo Bluen – a former newspaper columnist for the South African daily ‘Business Day’ and presently a PhD candidate in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) in genocide studies – tragedy is not a humanitarian crisis – it is political capital.
A good insight on Bluen’s bias is revealed in this 2 December 2023 posting of hers that articulates her ignorance as well as her naked prejudice:
“Abolish the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. Abolish the South African Zionist Federation. They do not speak for Jews, but for Zionists. They are dangerous, Islamophobic, racist and antisemitic.”
The ultimate evildoer in the world today for Bluen is the Zionist, and if evil is not rooted in Western colonialism, it warrants no concern to her. Hence ethnic cleansing of the Kurds, the slaughter of the Armenians by the Turks and the persecution of Christians by Muslims conveniently escapes her attention for it fails to fit into her worldview.
PATRON SAINT OF WEAPONISED GRIEF
Bluen is not some fringe radical shouting from the digital wilderness but has evolved into an amplified voice in South Africa’s anti-Israel propaganda machine – in classrooms, in the media, and outside the offices of companies that provide jobs for many South Africans. Her tantrums, incitement and hate speech towards Jews and her calls outside the US Consulate in Sandton or on her social media pages to “abolish” the State of Israel have not gone unnoticed.
Whether she lies about “290,000 children being starved to death,” or discredited stories about Israel bombing hospitals, her circle treats her malicious messaging as gospel. They do not question her sources but accept and recycle them.
Most of their talking points originate from rogue Hamas-run media offices in South Africa, Iranian-funded channels, or anonymous Telegram accounts.
POSTING FOR PERFORMANCE, NOT PEACE
Bluen boldly accuses Israel of “genocide” when there is no evidence whatsoever. Yes, the crime of genocide requires a specific intent, known as dolus specialis, that is, to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. Israel has no such “intent” other than to defend its civilian population by rooting out and removing an existential threat. That is the nature of war not genocide. Bluen would off course know this but choses to ignore that her Hamas heroes killed scores of innocent people younger than herself while they were dancing and enjoying life; that they raped, beheaded, kidnapped and tortured, not to mention facts that Hamas:
– hijacks their own Palestinian people’s aid
– slaughters Gazan’s in cold blood and
– has built terror tunnels under hospitals and
– uses their own civilians as human shields.
When Israelis were slaughtered – babies decapitated, Israeli families burned alive and civilian apartment buildings and Israeli hospitals were destroyed by Iranian missiles, Bluen said nothing.
No outrage!
No grief!
Just lies and justification of terrorist murderers she has grown to admire and wilfully chosen to stand by, aid and support.
Because in her warped worldview, Jewish blood is not to her human loss but – using her lexicon – “colonial” consequence.
‘RED TRIANGLE’ RITUAL
Every time Israelis are murdered whether festival goers gunned down in fields, toddlers shot in cold blood or taken hostage only to be brutally murdered by their kidnappers, families burned alive in safe rooms or even an unrelated Israeli civilian diver killed in a Mediterranean off-shore shark attack, Jo Bluen has ZERO sympathy. Instead, she marks or nay we say celebrates the moment with an inverted red triangle – originally a sign of resistance in the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks – today the symbol adopted by online Hamas sympathisers to identify, harass, and target Israelis and Jews. Glorifying Hamas’ terror, the inverted Red Triangle – is a dog whistle for increased violence against Jews.
This symbol, banned in Germany since 2024, appears on Bluen’s profile not when Jewish civilians are spared, but when they are slaughtered. It is her euphemism for:
“They had it coming.”
In any other conflict, waving the emblem of a terror group after a massacre would be called what it is: glorifying violence, but for Bluen, the red triangle has become her badge of honour – her digital bloodstain.
CULTURE OF COWARDICE
Let us not pretend South Africa has a watchdog culture. There is no press council challenging this infectious poison. The South African Human Rights Commission is complicit as are the NGOs that claim to champion human rights but are conveniently silent or captured. There are those South African journalists that quote these vultures masquerading as “experts”. They are invited onto panels; address public functions and provided op-ed space. Platformed and protected, this is not activism, it is indulgence. It comes at a cost. Because every unchecked lie about Israel “targeting children” while ignoring Hamas’ military tactics is not just bad journalism -it is incitement. It fuels antisemitism. It radicalises youth. It tears at the social fabric of an already fractured society and it will eventually kill.
CALL IT WHAT IT IS
What is in ‘play’ here in these theatrics is not peace-building but fetishised war porn masquerading as social justice and Jo Bluen and her comrades do not want the conflict to end because the minute the rockets stop flying and the cameras stop rolling, they lose the one thing they crave more than anything – relevance. This orchestra of enablers that includes government figures, academicians, media operators, and NGO apparatchiks have built entire careers out of blaming Israel while absolving terror.
Far from being humanitarians, these are political morticians who dress corpses in talking points. Unless South African institutions grow a backbone, they will keep thriving on the blood of others.
Hard to believe from this rambling interview that Jo Bluen of Cape Town will be accepted to study for a PhD at the London School of Economics unless the LSE welcome candidates who suggest to “Free Palestine” is to “….Abolish ‘Israel’ and the Zionist entity and its white internationalisms of genocide settler colonial inter-nationalisms.” ( Jo Bluen online post August 2024)
About the writer:
Josh Schewitz is a researcher and analyst specializing in Africa and the Middle East, with a focus on securitiy related topics in addition to blockchain technology.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
