Countering the Israeli apartheid metaphor in SA

VANESSA VALKIN

This was echoed by International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who remarked at the time: “The last time I saw a map of Palestine, I couldn’t go to sleep… It is just dots, smaller than those of the homelands, and that broke my heart.”

What a stark contrast to the intimacy of the relationship that the Israeli government had with the National Party in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Although Israel, at times, expressed criticism for South Africa’s apartheid, the two countries, surrounded by hostile nations, were almost driven into one another’s arms, becoming close military and economic allies.

Today there is no official policy of boycotting Israel nor cutting diplomatic ties, but support for BDS and the Palestinian struggle is very strong among ANC members. Grabbing the banner of the apartheid struggle to compare the plight of Palestinians to the plight of disenfranchised black South Africans pre-1994, has become a very motivating slogan for both ANC elite and younger struggle activists of all ethnicities

I heard one South African student leader say last week that “If you are pro-human rights then you are pro-the Palestinian cause (and against Israel)”. Today, most of the South African political leadership are too intimidated to visit Israel. For many there is a genuine affinity for the Palestinian struggle and a desire to boycott Israel, but for those who would be open to engaging in dialogue, there is a genuine fear of ostracism.

How we are countering the boycott

Luckily our community never just throws their hands up in hopelessness. As you read this, the largest ever delegation of MPs from the Democratic Alliance (DA) to visit any foreign country are spending a week in Israel, visiting the territories and meeting with members of both Israel’s Foreign Ministry as well as with representatives of the Palestinian Authority.

The trip is being organised by a very innovative group called the South Africa-Israel Forum, run by a dynamic young American, Dan Brotman. Working closely with DA Shadow Minister of Labour Michael Bagraim, they managed to convince the 8 participants to join.

The group even includes DA Deputy Shadow Minister of Higher Education and Training Yusuf Cassim, South Africa’s youngest member of parliament in history, who sits on the Muslim Judicial Council and who helped organise a rally last July in support of the Gazans during Operation Protective Edge. Any previous attempts to get a big delegation to go, had failed.

“The Jewish community should not take it for granted-that DA MPs would go to Israel,” says Brotman. “They are very concerned about the Muslim vote.”

SAIF is taking a whopping 200 individuals to Israel this year. They include journalists, politicians, and student leaders. Their strategy is to focus on the country’s younger political leaders – future job creators and opinion makers who are also more likely to be persuaded to go than their older more established counterparts.

In conjunction with the South African Union of Jewish Students, SAIF took a delegation of 16 Student Representative Council (SRC) members from Wits, University of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Rhodes, to Israel in January, many with ties to the ANC Youth League and Sasco.

Jamie Mithi, one of the delegates, spoke about how the six-day trip “cleared the fog” of propaganda and information he and friends are continually fed on campus and through the media.

Although Zionist church groups visit Israel all the time and the South African Jewish Board of Deputies take 10 journalists a year, there has to be more done to take non-Jewish decision-makers and politicians to Israel to see matters for themselves. Durban University of Technology SRC’s call last week for the deregistration of any students who did not support the Palestinian cause, make trips like these all the more vital.

We have a lot to learn from North American Jewry with strong lobby groups like AIPAC in the US and CJPAC in Canada, who have extensive human and financial resources behind them to win the propaganda war and to build as many bridges as possible between Israel, their Diaspora communities and government leadership in Washington and Ottawa respectively.

We, within South Africa, of course have a much more hostile environment than North America, to contend with. But we are not powerless at all. Our community, both here and in Israel, has a glittering reputation for success – academically and financially.

Our fellow-South Africans do want to learn from us. For example, a privately funded trip to Israel last year took seven powerful South African business leaders, many with strong ties to ANC and government, who wanted to learn about Israel’s business practices and build economic ties. Like the SRC leaders last month, they were overwhelmed by the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit they witnessed and were anxious for further connection and collaboration.

We cannot change the minds of a whole nation, many of them attached to the apartheid struggle metaphor for the Israeli-Palestinian issue, nor can we fund trips for even a fraction of them. But there is power in individual connections and in giving leaders the opportunity and exposure to make up their own minds about Israel. We need to commend and support these game changing initiatives.