A South African politician vowed to "immediately close a Jewish school if he is elected.
Mehmet Vefa Dag, a Land Party candidate for the position of premier of Western Cape, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) earlier this week, "WE WILL IMMEDIATELY CLOSE Herzlia SCHOOL, which trains thousands of students as soldiers for the Israeli army."
He added, "WESTERN CAPE IS CHANGING HANDS.CHILDREN OF LAND AND TRUTH AND SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT ARE COMING."
This is not the first time the Turkish-born Vefa Dag has attacked the Cape Town United Herzlia Schools.
In November, after another politician, Nazier Paulsen, called for the school's closure, Vefa Dag said, “Shut down the baby killer’s high school."
Last month, in a video posted to TikTok, he vowed that the "first thing" he would do as premier would be to shut down the Herzlia school, which he called a "devil school."
Vefa Dag has made his extreme anti-Israel stance a center point of his campaign. On Wednesday, he posted a poll asking who would be the next premier highlighting his "pro-Palestine" stance and his opponent, incumbent premier Alan Winde's "pro-Israel" stance in lieu of any other issues. Another poll posted by him asks if voters consider the school to be an educational institution or an "Israeli army camp."
He has also claimed multiple times that damage caused by a recent storm was because "God is very angry with Western Cape for standing with Zionists" and that the DA party he opposes is controlled by the Israeli Mossad.
Vefa Dag has a history of antisemitism. In June, 2023, the South African Jewish Report reported that Vefa Dag had tweeted, “100 000 Jews control the entire SA economy. 100 000 people can’t control the wealth of 60 000 000 South Africans. The system needs to be changed. Enough is enough.”
He claimed then that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are controlled by Jews.
Emeritus Professor of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town Milton Shain, the author of the book 'Fascists, Fabricators and Fantasists: Antisemitism in South Africa from 1948 to the Present,' called Vefa Dag's remarks “unabashedly antisemitic” and said that his conspiracy theorizing "betrays a worldview built upon fantasy."
