Nathan Cheiman
It makes excellent reading despite the fact that he probably wrote the piece prior to the Zuma/Gupta breaking story.
The meeting with Ambassador Dore Gold and members of the Department of International Relations and Co-operation recently is of no consequence whatsoever. The reasons are inter alia that the ANC and government prefer Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir as a friend. Bashir is a war criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court.
Government has turned a blind eye to the fact that there are no churches, synagogues or Christians or Jews allowed in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Yemen and other Muslim countries. This is expediently not deemed as “apartheid”.
Furthermore, under President Jacob Zuma, South Africa has become the laughing stock of the Western world because of fallacious policies, monetary and otherwise.
The Gupta saga has only served to rub salt in the wounds.
(Parliamentary Speaker) Baleka Mbete’s statement that “the Israeli regime, just like the apartheid regime before it, is obstinate and uncompromising”, is brainless and inane, given the fact that Arabs make up 20 per cent of Israeli citizenship and university attendance. More so, because she has never visited Israel.
With Zuma, now referred to in the media as “the wrecking ball” and (ANC Deputy General Secretary) Jessie Duarte, Zuma’s close ally and anti-Israel proponent, both embroiled in the Gupta saga, the ANC is in a struggle with its own members. Zuma seems intent on bringing the country down and along with it, his party, the ANC.
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions is also an irrelevancy because its wings have been clipped by most Western governments. The movement has also failed dismally with Israel Apartheid Week and various other anti-Israel campaigns.
South Africa, on its downward spiral, is inconsequential in Africa, and global affairs. The ANC has also become extraneous and if another political party is voted into government, the Israeli question may become significantly different.
Until then, government and ANC will continue to spew out its empty-headed rhetoric about Israel’s policies, while no one takes notice.
Johannesburg
