South Sudanese freedom fighter, worldwide humanitarian activist, and Christian Simon Deng, as soon as a slave, flew to Israel earlier this month. Along with fellow South Sudanese – residents of Tel Aviv – and joined by Israelis alongside the best way, he marched (twice) from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for instance the solidarity of the South Sudanese and lots of Africans with the Jewish individuals and the State of Israel “of their hour of want.”
These walks have been carried out within the spirit of the primary Sudan Freedom Stroll that Deng organized in April 2006, from New York Metropolis to Washington, DC, to boost consciousness of the enslavement and homicide occurring in Sudan. It was adopted by the second Sudan Freedom Stroll from Brussels, Belgium to The Hague, Netherlands in December 2006, and the third Sudan Freedom Stroll in Chicago in Might 2007.
Whereas in Israel, Deng additionally met with hostages’ households and frolicked as a volunteer choosing strawberries at Kibbutz Kedima Zoran. He additionally met with former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky whereas in Jerusalem.
A former slave’s story and solidarity with Israel
Enslaved on the age of 9, Deng ultimately escaped to Egypt and later immigrated to america the place, from the Nineties, he grew to become very lively in campaigning for the liberty of Black Sudanese slaves. As a pacesetter on this marketing campaign, he met with president George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and lots of members of Congress, and previously has traveled the nation talking on schooling and the anti-slavery motion to audiences, starting from center faculties to the United Nations.
He recalled, how in 1969, 1,500,000 southern Sudanese have been massacred by Muslim terrorists armed by Khartoum and lots of extra have been enslaved.
“Throughout the terrorist assault on my individuals in southern Sudan, just one nation helped us with arms, tactical, and army help – the Jewish State of Israel,” he mentioned.
In 1969 Israeli agent David “Tarzan” Ben-Uziel headed a Mossad operation to help and prepare South Sudanese rebels in the course of the first Sudanese civil conflict, organizing medical provides and tools, uniforms, and weapons to be parachuted in from Kenya. In 2011, when South Sudan grew to become unbiased, president Salva Kiir Mayardit nominated Ben-Uziel because the nation’s consultant in Israel.
“As a good friend [of Israel],” Deng famous, “I’ve to be there after they want me. It was essential to me to indicate solidarity as an African, particularly now after the October 7 assaults – and in opposition to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and South African Communist chief Julius Malema who’ve referred to as Israel an apartheid state.”
Malema, he mentioned, has organized “a whole lot of 1000’s of Africans” to denounce Israel for “apartheid.”
To Deng, accusing Israel of apartheid is “an insult to the Africans who have been victims of real apartheid,” and subsequently he needed to “present Israelis that after they hear these voices of denunciation, there are additionally [other] voices on their aspect, saying “alone behalf and that of many Africans.”
As we speak, impressed by the plight of the Israelis held captive by Hamas In Haza, Deng is returning to his anti-slavery activism.
Charles Jacobs, founding father of the American Anti-Slavery Group in 1993 who, whereas a pupil at Rutgers in 1963 attended Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legendary “I’ve a Dream” protest in Washington, was additionally in Jerusalem, having flown in from Boston to contribute to Deng’s efforts. Amongst his achievements, Jacobs is co-founder of the Boston department of the Jewish media watchdog CAMERA, and a human rights activist, abolitionist, and activist for Israel.
Jacobs and Deng first met in america within the mid-Nineties. Their partnership concerned the liberating of 1000’s of Sudanese slaves, an effort led by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSI) which even in the present day redeems slaves in Sudan. Jacobs instructed The Jerusalem Submit that they started serving to CSI purchase the liberty of tens of 1000’s of African slaves at $30 per head.
“Finally,” Jacobs, mentioned, with assist from Israel, in addition to from Jewish abolitionists in America who helped free tens of 1000’s of Black slaves, largely Christian, South Sudan was liberated from the Muslim north and have become the world’s latest nation.”
“The horrors that Israelis endured on October 7 are eerily just like the raids that slaughtered and enslaved Simon’s personal individuals in the course of the jihad proclaimed in opposition to his individuals in Sudan’s Christian South, launched by the Islamic regime in Khartoum when Arab militia stormed Black villages killing innocents, raping the ladies, and abducting individuals who have been taken north as captives and enslaved,” Jacobs mentioned.
As a toddler, Deng was kidnapped in a bloody slave raid on his Christian southern Sudanese village, throughout which he noticed kids and adults killed by machine gun hearth; and others burned alive of their huts. He was a slave to a household in North Sudan for a number of years, the place he was usually crushed generally even by Arab kids.
After his escape, he managed to succeed in Egypt and be a part of the black Sudanese refugee neighborhood in Cairo. Whereas there, he continued to face racial discrimination and abuse from Arabs – together with fellow members of the skilled swimming group he ultimately joined.
Deng likened “the October 7 pogrom in Israel” to the Arab Muslim onslaughts in opposition to Black Africans; evaluating Hamas’s modus operandi with what jihadists have been doing to the Africans for the reason that seventh century, “and is going on now by Boko Haram in Nigeria and by jihadists in Darfur, western Sudan.”
“When persons are kidnapped and brutalized by individuals screaming ‘Allahu akbar,’ I do know what meaning,” he mentioned. “Jihadists shot our males, raped and tortured our girls and kids, and took them into captivity.”
“For these within the Christian world who know in regards to the decades-long mass slaughter and enslavement of Black Christians in Sudan, which they name the ‘hidden Holocaust,’ the scenes out of Israel have been shockingly acquainted,” mentioned Jacobs.
In a jihad from 1983-2005, northern Sudanese Arabs subjugated and enslaved Black Sudanese dwelling within the – largely Christian – South. Some 2.5 million Black Sudanese have been slaughtered and round 200,000 extra have been taken as slaves. The Arab Muslims have been gang raped, mutilated, and kidnapped. A extremely detailed report of an Arab Muslim pogrom in opposition to Black tribesmen and Christians in Africa throughout that interval testifies to the sickening similarities between the anti-Black African jihad raids and Hamas’s pogrom in opposition to Jews, mentioned Jacobs.
South Sudan remains to be within the grip of a serious humanitarian disaster with hundreds of thousands displaced internally and hundreds of thousands extra dwelling as refugees in different international locations; whereas north Sudan is within the midst of a conflict between rival factions of the Islamic army authorities.
Jacobs additionally instructed the Submit that “Upon listening to of Deng’s go to to Israel, the Nigerian American neighborhood that I work with, whose households in Nigeria are struggling October 7-like Islamist raids virtually each week now by Boko Haram and Fulani militia, requested me to assist them manage a solidarity journey to Israel.” ❖
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