TONY Leon is not a Sabra (Israeli-born Jew).
Having been born and residing in South Africa for most of his life counts him as part of the Jewish diaspora.
Considering that he’d lived 38 years of his present 68 years under an apartheid state which repressed its native population, he ought to had known better than to cavil and carp about the South African government’s decision to haul the Israeli government to the International Court of Justice for its genocide of Gaza Palestinians – through rationalizing the action as infamous and initiated by a rights-delinquent government which managed to filter out far worse violators of regional and international peace.
Such partiality, contained in Leon’s new memoir titled, Being There, reeks of glaring bias premised along the proverbial line of “two wrongs don’t make a right.” One wouldn’t have expected an enlightened public figure of his calibre to tumble face down into the icy crevasse! Unsated, he then pontificates about South Africa’s moral blindness in conciliating Hamas (which was responsible for the October 7, 2023 massacre of Israelis) whilst condemning Israel – as if he expected the government to restrain its reaction to injustices, irrespective of which side commits them.
Peradventure, Leon’s viewpoints stemmed from being a Jew of the diaspora – described by a British Jew he once interviewed as possessing angst, in comparison to Israelis he claimed to being “not really Jews at all” – but his sweeping indictment of the South African government’s choice of international allies traipses along disingenuousness avenue.
Incidentally, Leon issued his spiel within the context of his 2004 Jerusalem rendezvous with the then Israel prime minister, Ariel Sharon. And when Leon enquired of the leader whether South Africa could participate in peace-making in the Middle East, Sharon retorted: “Your government is completely pro-Palestinian. It has no role to play here.”
Leon falsely noted that Sharon never once met Yasser Arafat tete-a-tete – instead, mentioning that such a moment befell unto himself when the Palestinian Authority’s president granted him an audience at his Ramallah compound during a fact-finding mission to obtain a first-hand view of the region’s situation, in October 2002.
Alleged to be sworn nemesis despite being inextricably linked by the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Leon writes that Arafat’s widow implicated Sharon in the poisoning from which he succumbed in 2004.
Although a recollection of experiences from his political career, a substantial portion of the narrative by the longest serving leader of the official opposition in the parliament of a democratic South Africa rankles as if he still assumed such a role, as evidenced by a plethora of jibes he randomly directs at ANC apparatchiks – particularly those who dared hold a view on the Israel-Palestine dichotomy in relation to the October 7 event and its aftermath.
One such ‘culprit’ Leon singled out for umbrage is fellow Jew of the diaspora, viz Ronnie Kasrils, whom he excoriated of stomaching a bilious stew of hatred for Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas atrocity.
Leon mentions that back in the early 2000s, Kasrils’ pro-Hamas and anti-Israel stance so infuriated his wealthy brother-in-law Abe Jaffe that he decided to abruptly discontinue a living allowance he’d been contributing for the notorious communist’s upkeep – and instead commenced to divert his largesse towards Leon’s ANC-opposing Democratic Alliance.
On a quest to stymie what he described as the ANC’s hegemony between the 1990s and 2000s, Jaffe happened to be an accidental donor to the DA’s coffers, as opposed to Leon expressly approaching businessmen such as Anglo American honcho Harry Oppenheimer and “the largest of the Stellenbosch big-business beasts” (presumably Anton Rupert) in fundraising efforts for the opposition’s ‘Fight Back’ campaign against – as well as big business’ phobia of – ‘Goliath’ (id est, the ANC).
Leon discloses that after “Harry O” had contributed R600 000 towards a unified opposition comprised of the DA and Marthinus van Schalkwyk’s New National Party, the mining magnate nodded to its establishment as “a jolly good thing” – converse to a Nelson Mandela who, during his address to an ANC 50th anniversary conference in Mahikeng, accused the duo of being “an arrogant group of unscrupulous racists whose sole aim is to demonise the movement.”
To a Leon who revered Madiba, the liberator’s vitriol was uncharacteristic – with him blaming, incorrectly so, then party deputy president Thabo Mbeki of having written his speech.
Leon’s plethora of backstories aren’t only about his unpretentious disdain for the ANC though.
Among others, he intimates about being invited in June 2024 – having quit politics in 2009 – to participate in the formation of the present Government of National Unity. He takes the reader behind-the-scenes of what unfolded as the nation waited in bated breath for parties to come up with an acceptable consensus to administering the republic henceforth.
An erudite globe-trotter, Leon further reveals junctures of being wined and dined such as when: Arafat treated him to mezzes of Arab cuisine during the 2002 Ramallah visit; Nando’s owner Adi Enthoven treated himself and his DA colleagues to sumptuous fare at his 1910 Sir Herbert Bakerdesigned Glenshiel mansion during their protracted June 2024 negotiations with the ANC on forming a GNU; he became a gobsmacked guest at the Oppenheimers’ á la Buckingham Palace dinner at their La Lucia beachside compound at which Harry O’s wife Bridget teased Anglo American Corporation’s then CEO Tony Trahar by saying that “you are not so important that we will open more than one bottle” – in alluding to treating the honoured guest to expensive, rare and exquisite Petrus French Bordeaux.
As well as he in turn wining and dining others such as when he fed South African newspaper editors Mondli Makhanya, Tim du Plessis and Peter Bruce ‘obligatory’ football-size steaks accompanied by copious amounts of Malbec wine at his official residence in Buenos Aires during the period he was bestowed the pompous title of ‘HE Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of South Africa’ to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Being There is published by Jonathan Ball Publishers.
Available at leading bookstores countrywide, it retails for R350.
