South Africa Jews threatened with boycott - and violence - by COSATU officials

COSATU, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, issued this statement on July 30 threatening to boycott Jewish stores and companies unless the Jewish community stops supporting Israel:

The Jewish Board of Deputies is allowed to spread their Zionist-supporting lies with impunity in South Africa. ... If the Jewish Board of Deputies wants to advance a Zionist agenda, they should leave South Africa and go advance their agenda elsewhere. To let these funders of a war against a defenceless people act with impunity in South Africa, is against South Africa’s commitment to the people of Palestine. The Jewish Board of Deputies must be advised in no uncertain terms that if they are not part of the solution then they are part of the problem.

The Jewish Board of Deputies are given until the 07 August 2014 to stop their Zionist propaganda in Cape Town, failing which we will boycott and call strikes at all of their member - and supporting companies and organisations. The Jewish Board of Deputies should know that just because Premier Zille supports them, it does not mean that they can act with impunity against the will of the majority of South Africans.

With questions, please call COSATU Western Cape Provincial Secretary, Tony Ehrenreich, 0827733194

There is no fundamental difference between this threat to blacklist and boycott Jews and the similar call by neo-Nazis to boycott and target Jewish stores in Rome last weekend.

But then Tony Ehrenreich went even further - to actually physically threaten Jews. He wrote on his Facebook page:

The time has come to say very clearly that if a woman or child is killed in Gaza, then the Jewish board of deputies, who are complicit, will feel the wrath of the People of SA with the age old biblical teaching of an eye for an eye. The time has come for the conflict to be waged everywhere the Zionist supporters fund and condone the war killing machine of Israel.

The SA Board of Jewish Deputies is responding:

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) is in the process of instituting both criminal and civil charges against Tony Ehrenreich, Provincial Secretary of COSATU (Western Cape branch), for hate speech and incitement to violence against the elected, representative leadership of the SA Jewish community. This will include laying charges of incitement with the police and lodging a formal complaint with the SA Human Rights Commission.

Ehrenreich denies that his statements were inflammatory:

I am not anti simetic or calling for violence against jews. I do say stop being polite in responding to Isreali war crimes. +JBoD endorsment
— Tony Ehrenreich (@TonyEhrenreich) August 14, 2014

There is one way Ehrenreich can successfully defend himself in court. Both his tweet and his Facebook post are filled with spelling, stylistic and grammatical errors. He can claim that he is functionally illiterate and therefore has no idea what words actually mean. Because there is no way to interpret his actual words as anything but a call, twice, to physically attack Jews who support Israel.