South Africans Show Solidarity With Palestinians

South Africans have been showing their solidarity with Palestinians at protests outside the US Consulate in Johannesburg and the Jewish Museum in Cape Town. More radical protesters also turned out, expressing vocal support for militant group Hamas.

There is a longstanding tradition of championing Palestine in South Africa, best encapsulated by Nelson Mandela’s dictum: “Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

Not only do many South Africans see an affinity between their plight under apartheid and that of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation, but there were close historical ties between the White-supremacist regime in South Africa and the Israeli state.

An editorial in Die Burger, the apartheid-era South African government’s mouth-piece, stated: “Israel and South Africa ... are engaged in a struggle for existence... The anti-Western powers have driven Israel and South Africa into a community of interests which had better be utilised than denied.”

Israel reportedly assisted South Africa in its nuclear weapons programme, which ended in 1989. South African paramilitaries and volunteers paid visits to Israel, and Pretoria permitted Zionist organisations and fundraising inside South Africa.

Since independence, however, South Africa has been one of our continent’s bulwarks of support for the Palestinian cause, alongside countries like Algeria. Its third-largest political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, recently called for a significant reduction in South African-Israeli relations, including the shutting down of embassies.

What do you think? Would that be a step too far in South Africa’s show of solidarity? Let us know in the comments.