Israel and South Africa are at Odds

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Sydney, N.S.] Cape Breton Post

South Africa’s Chief Rabbi, Dr. Warren Goldstein, addressed the Congressional Summit of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington March 10, spotlighting a growing issue that elicits scant media coverage: the murder of Africans by terrorist groups.

The ideology of Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Islamic State (ISIS) throughout much of Africa is the same ideology espoused, funded, and propagated by Iran and its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, he asserted.

Recent atrocities have included mass kidnappings, beheadings, and the explicit targeting of children. “Israel’s war with Hamas – and by extension Iran – is against the same enemy raping and pillaging its way through African villages.”

During the 1950s and the 1960s, Israel had strong agricultural, economic, and trade ties with sub-Saharan Africa, and bilateral relations with states were very warm. The newborn state of Israel and the newly independent states in Africa were looking to build on their shared experiences as developing nations, confronted with parallel economic and security challenges.

However, between 1967 and 1970, these relations began to deteriorate. This culminated in the October 1973 war between Israel and a coalition of Arab States led by Egypt and Syria. The majority of African states severed their diplomatic ties with Israel. Over time, formal and informal relations began to improve, resulting in the renewal of some diplomatic ties.

But as Goldstein is of course aware, relations between Israel and his own country have worsened. Once one of Israel’s most significant partners on the continent, South Africa has gradually come out as one of its most vituperative critics, calling Israel an “apartheid state” and accusing it of “ethnic cleansing” and now, finally, also of genocide.

It is the nadir of a relationship that had survived some inherent challenges, largely thanks to the leadership of Nelson Mandela, who in 1994 became South Africa’s first president after apartheid.

Mandela supported Israeli territorial concessions and was close to the Palestinian cause, but he was also supportive of Israel, which he’d visited and where he’d received an honorary doctorate. His viewpoint was that Israel had the right to exist.

Today South Africa strongly backs the Palestinian cause, with formal diplomatic relations established in 1995, a year after the end of apartheid. It downgraded its embassy in Tel Aviv to a liaison office in 2019.

After the war in Gaza broke out, South Africa took Israel to the U.N.’s International Court of Justice on genocide charges, cementing itself as one of the most outspoken countries against Israel in the world. South Africa also recalled its ambassador to Israel and suspended diplomatic relations. The Israeli airline El Al is planning to cancel its Tel Aviv to Johannesburg route, given a steep drop in demand.

The issue of whether Israel should be granted observer status in the African Union (AU) has been subject to heated debate. In February, Israel thwarted an effort by South Africa and Algeria to deprive it of observer status in the AU. The two countries had also planned to urge the 55 member states to cut off relations with Israel. Nevertheless, leaders at the AU summit in Addis Ababa still condemned Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

Both the pro-Israel and pro-Palestine movements in South Africa are large. The groups are openly hostile towards each other, especially since last Oct. 7, when the Hamas-Israel war started. Pro-Palestine marches bringing together up to 200,000 people.

The South African Jewish community numbers some 75,000, making it the twelfth largest Jewish community in the world. Goldstein gave a fiery speech condemning the South African government at a pro-Israel rally the week after the Hamas attack.

Gabriella Farber-Cohen, former spokesperson for the African National Congress Women’s League in Gauteng, resigned from the party in mid-October. She called South Africa accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinians a “slap in the face for all Jews in South Africa.”

Following threats by South Africa’s government to prosecute citizens who served in Israel’s army, leaders of South African Jewry in February organized a ceremony in Israel for members of their community who were killed or wounded defending the Jewish state.