South Africa: Exposed

Strange how events, seemingly unrelated, can suddenly turn a spotlight on a situation that has gone under the public radar for far too long. It is well known that the UN is not a venue where Israel is viewed with favor. (Great understatement.)

With about 50 Islamic nations in the UN, one quickly sees Israel's handicap. Add to that the nations that would like to put their thumb in Uncle Sam's eye; namely, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and the like. For them, Israel provides a convenient surrogate. In other words the odds for Israel getting a fair hearing become even more remote. But there is one more block of nations that seems interested in sticking it to Israel; namely, the nations of the African Union (AU).

A fair number of AU nations are Islamic. So it isn't too hard to figure out where they stand vis a vis Israel. But perhaps the most important AU country, south of Africa's northern tier, is the Republic of South Africa. This nation gained its independence after a grinding battle against Apartheid. And, along with its leader, Nelson Mandela, it became recognized as a nation that had defeated racial discrimination. For this reason, it has, for the longest time, been accepted as a voice for fairness and justice.

It has, however, been cut slack on matters that would have given another country very low grades. The brutal necklacing of her political opponents by Winnie Mandela's gang of youthful hoodlums was judged an aberration. (To his credit, Nelson Mandela divorced her.)

But then the person to whom Mandela passed on the leadership of this country began giving out quack advice on how to cure HIV over the objections of medical authorities. There were other signs too that South Africa still had a ways to go before it could be viewed as a reasonably mature nation. But, little attention was payed by anyone, other than Jews, to the vilification that this young country directed towards the State of Israel.

Now, with the defeat of Col. Muammar Qaddafi, we begin to see how South Africa allowed itself to be prostituted to the will of this sadistic tyrant. Indeed, South Africa stalled as long as was reasonably possible in acknowledging the transfer of power from Qaddafi over to the Libyans who overthrew him. The reason for South Africa's reluctance to recognize the authority of the rebels has become crystal clear. In his drive to make himself the "King of Africa," Qaddafi had spread great sums of oil money around to various African nations. High on his list of nations so favored was South Africa. But now his overthrow has torn the veil off of Qaddafi's payoffs to South African leaders. We can begin to understand the unreasonable enmity of South Africa towards Israel. Hopefully, a new day will begin to dawn on South African-Israeli relations.