Politics just got personal

The community was sucker punched this week with the government voting to downgrade the South African embassy in Israel to a mere liaison office.

It’s true that the embassy has been effectively downgraded ever since September 2018, when the government quietly brought the last South African ambassador, Sisa Ngombane, back home. Even then, it was obvious that the government had no intention of sending him back, nor did it plan to appoint anyone else to the post. It just left things as they were, slowly draining the embassy’s resources.

For the most part, South Africans thought that the embassy had been downgraded, but it hadn’t. Every now and again, we would remind people in the newspaper that the embassy was still an embassy. At other times, we thought it best not to say anything because we didn’t want to remind people of the reality just in case it pushed the government to act on its unresolved 2017 African National Congress (ANC) conference resolution.

Now, nothing can stop the downgrade. President Cyril Ramaphosa may have the power to do so, but as he has made abundantly clear over the years as our leader, he’s not going to rock the boat.

He’s not going to stand up for this minority – albeit powerful – community, South African Jews. It takes guts, a deep sense of what’s right and wrong, and a genuine benevolence for your civilian population to stand for us. I don’t believe, at this point, that our president cares enough to do something like that. He’s never one to stand up against his party, and it was his party that railroaded the vote.

So, why, you may wonder, am I or the community surprised?

This is a deep insult to us as a community, and a clear disregard of our connection to the Jewish state. It’s also yet another indicator of the government’s blatant one-sided view of the Middle East. It’s pally-pally with Iran, Cuba, China, and I can name so many more countries that have disgusting human rights records against their people. South Africa ignores what these countries do but goes guns a-blazing for Israel, this tiny Jewish state that remains the only democracy in the Middle East.

There were parties who stood with us, the African Christian Democratic Party, the Freedom Front Plus, the Inkatha Freedom Party, and the Democratic Alliance, but their numbers couldn’t come close to those within the ANC. The ruling party’s position was clearly and vehemently against Israel – or was it against us?

It feels personal, although I’m not sure that those outside of the community would necessarily understand why. It’s just a diplomatic posting in a Middle Eastern country, isn’t it?

The reality is that it is all about us. Israel doesn’t care what the South African government does. Yes, it may feel the insulting slap and be irritated by it, but not much more than that.

The only people who will be affected by this are those in our community. Our relationship with Israel, the Jewish state, is deeply important to us. And it’s hard to stomach our government cutting yet another tie with Israel. It feels like a personal attack.

Is it, though? I cannot categorically say.

I wonder if the government has any idea how upsetting this is for us. Who does it honestly think it’s hurting by doing this?

Surely our leaders realise that after all they have said about Israel, it’s “water off a duck’s back” for the powerful Jewish state.

And it’s possible that the next step that Israel takes will be to downgrade its embassy here, and recall its ambassador. Again, it wouldn’t hurt Israel, but it would be devasting for us. Another link broken between our community and the Jewish state.

The crazy thing is that it was Lindiwe Sisulu when she was minister of international affairs and cooperation, who first began going on about the downgrade, but never actually did anything about it.

Then, it was incumbent foreign affairs minister, Dr Naledi Pandor, who took up the cudgels from Sisulu and began to attack Israel, going on about the downgrade as if it had already happened.

However, neither of them did anything about it. It took a politician, Ahmed Manzoor Shaik Emam, from the National Freedom Party, a party with only one seat in parliament, to ultimately bring it about.

And once the vote happened, it was a done deal. The numbers were overpoweringly against Israel.

For some reason, there were people within our communal leadership who thought a miracle would happen and we wouldn’t lose the vote. I have no idea why they thought this, but I believe we needed to do everything we could to avoid it happening. Did we?

What impact will this have in the long term? I’m not sure. It may well be a matter of us finally recognising where we stand in the eyes of the party presently ruling government – hopefully not for long.

Is the ruling party antisemitic? I cannot categorically say it is, but I wonder why it has just one bugbear that seems to be more important to it than dealing with load shedding and corruption.

Does the government care that it hurts us? Again, I don’t think so.

But then, I’m not sure that it’s terribly interested in what the general populace feels. If it was, it might have maintained Eskom, the roads, and infrastructure better.

Is this the beginning of the end for us? I don’t believe so. It makes us angry, and we’re definitely reeling from the side swipe.

Are things going to be different after the downgrade? Considering that we haven’t had a South African ambassador in Israel for almost five years, it’s unlikely to change anything very much.

And what if Israel recalls its ambassador? Let’s not jump the gun. It may never happen. We’ll consider it if it does.

I hope Israel recognises that decision would hurt us more than the ANC government.

We have every reason to be grumpy and angry with the government for making this happen because it’s a massive blow. Is it a blow that will have a reverberating and long-term impact? I’m not sure it will.

To be honest, load shedding and potholes are still far more important in our day-to-day lives. And these are things we can do something about.

Clearly, we aren’t going to change the ANC’s mind. We will prevail, and we’ll get past this. But will we ever forgive the government? Unlikely!

Shabbat Shalom!

Peta Krost

Editor