TALI FEINBERG
“I am against BDS,” Liel continued. “They can only be a player if we make them a player. The more we talk about them, the more PR we give them!” he added, urging South Africa’s Jewish community to rather focus on encouraging the Israeli government to restart the peace process and to stop expanding the settlements in the West Bank, “which are an irreversible obstacle to peace”.
Liel explained that since the latest government coalition in the Knesset was formed, the two-state solution was no longer the official policy of Israel. “It has been removed, and if the prime minister mentions it, it is added that those are his personal views.
“US President Donald Trump has crashed the remnants of the peace process. There is no peace process… there isn’t even a table to sit at.”
And, he said, the lack of involvement or pressure from the international community and the Arab world means that “we need a U-turn of Israeli and Palestinian leadership”.
Given his extensive experience of SA-Israel relations, Liel has noted that when the peace process stalls, SA-Israel relations immediately go south, as can be seen with the ANC’s recent decision to downgrade the SA embassy in Israel. “However, I don’t think it will become a government decision… there is a big difference between a party decision and a government policy,” he added.
Going back to the time he served as Israel’s ambassador to South Africa from 1992 to 1994, Liel explained that because of Israel’s previous close relationship with the apartheid regime, he came with the aim of building trust between Israel and South Africa’s black leadership.
To this end, during his time as ambassador, Liel met with only black leaders, while his deputy met with white leaders. He was so separate that he didn’t even enter certain parts of the building during his entire tenure. “I don’t think this has ever been done in the history of diplomacy,” he said.
It was a meeting with Nelson Mandela during his first week as ambassador that opened doors for Liel to connect with the ANC. “I met Dr Selma Browde at a party hosted by Harry Oppenheimer, and she agreed to introduce me to her friend, Madiba,” remembers Liel. He did not know who Madiba was, but by the next morning he was talking to him on the phone, and the two maintained a close relationship.
Madiba encouraged Liel to meet Lazer Sidelsky, the Jewish lawyer who gave him his first job, and said that the only two countries which had not invited him for a visit were Ghana and Israel. Liel invited him on the spot and arranged Madiba’s eventual visit to Israel in 1999.
As talks were held between the then president Mandela, Liel and then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem, Madiba offered to be the mediator in the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians, explaining that this was why he had chosen to visit Israel at that moment.
In a classic moment of taking the opportunity to miss an opportunity, Barak turned him down, saying that the Israeli public would have seen Mandela as being biased towards the Palestinians. “I was a coward,” said Liel, who saw the disappointment written all over Madiba’s face. “I should have stood up to Barak… we missed Mandela as a mediator.”
Turning back to Israel’s current situation, Liel explained that the balance of power was currently tipped towards the Jewish state, with so many Arab states in the region having “committed suicide” during the past decade. “Israel’s stability and economic success stands out in stark contrast to the deterioration around us.”
Speaking on February 11, the 28th anniversary of Mandela’s release from prison, and in a week when President Jacob Zuma’s continuation as South Africa’s head remained uncertain, Liel reminded the audience that he had been here during the transition to democracy, and that during this latest visit, politicians told him that this time he had to ensure the latest transition was concluded before he left for Israel!
