Storm in a D-Cup

On Sunday, the government announced that it had withdrawn its support for Miss South Africa to compete in the Miss Universe competition. The competition is due to be held in the sunny southern city of Eilat in Israel on 12 December.

The anti-Israel crowd has been hard at work, trying to bully Lalela Mswane and the Miss South Africa organisers to pull out of the pageant. So far, the latter have stood their ground. But why is the South African government so obsessed with demonising Israel that it will lend its support to such a cheap and nasty campaign?

For instance, in its statement on 14 November, the department of sport, arts, and culture said, “The atrocities committed by Israel against Palestinians are well documented and government, as the legitimate representative of the people of South Africa, cannot in good conscience associate itself with such.”

The South African government loves using emotive words like “atrocities” when referring to Israel. If anything is atrocious, it’s this department’s utter neglect of artists, performers, and heritage sites that it’s supposed to fund and support, especially during the pandemic. It chooses, instead, to channel time and political energy into trying to ban a beauty queen from the world stage. Minister Nathi Mthethwa was quoted in this statement, making an unveiled threat to a 24-year-old South African citizen – this is conduct unbecoming a minister, surely?

The African National Congress (ANC) has a long history of fraternal support of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and latterly terrorists like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Yet it utters not a whisper about terror tunnels dug into Israel, rockets, or incendiary kites and balloons. You simply don’t criticise family. The ANC also cannot get past filtering what happens in Israel through its own historical experience in South Africa, drawing analogies where they simply don’t exist.

Israel has become the South African government’s bête noire. Just pick any statement made by the department of international relations and cooperation about Israel over 25 years, and it will be dripping with one-sided, undiplomatic, and venomous language squarely blaming Israel for all the problems in the Middle East.

The list of anti-Israel actions by the government is long. Most recently, the government fought tooth and nail to reverse the granting of observer status to Israel at the African Union in June. It has rallied southern and northern African states to this cause.

South Africa recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv in May 2018 during unrest on the Gaza border, and hasn’t replaced him. The ANC took a decision at its 54th national conference in 2017 to downgrade the embassy to a “liaison office”, which hasn’t officially happened, but the absence of an ambassador is a de-facto downgrade. We’ve also seen increasing support by high-profile ANC figures for hateful anti-Israel organisations and campaigns, a refusal to consider Israeli desalination technology for drought-hit Cape Town, and a ban on ministers travelling to Israel. Even its support for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is disingenuous – it has never said that one of those two states should be a Jewish one.

South Africa has cut off its nose to spite its face about Israel – it resembles the Sphinx. All this while the country faces so many dire problems of its own – the pandemic, a low-growth, low-jobs economy, load shedding, racism, crime, and more. For all its claims about supporting dialogue and compromise, South Africa behaves very differently when it comes to Israel. It’s simply hypocritical.

South Africa is also out of step with its BRICS partners – Brazil, Russia, India, and China. All of them maintain cordial ties with Israel, do a lot of business with it, and still manage to support the Palestinians. So do the bulk of the countries in Africa which are cementing relations with Israel.

Like a puppy vigorously shaking a slipper in its teeth, South Africa thrashes and growls about Israel. Israel doesn’t really give a damn about what South Africa says or does – it has much more important relationships.

The government spends a disproportionate amount of time and energy on Israel-bashing. It regularly supports systemic criticism of Israel in the United Nations Human Rights Council, but abstains or votes against any resolutions on other country-specific situations. And not a whisper about human-rights violations by its friends Iran, Saudi Arabia, or China, or many other countries in Africa. It seems to ignore any wrong that it or anyone else – other than Israel – does. And Israel is wrong even when it doesn’t do something bad.

You can be sure that if Miss Universe was in Iran, Zimbabwe, or Afghanistan, Miss South Africa would be free to go, no questions asked.

• Steven Gruzd is a political analyst at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg. He writes in his personal capacity.