Dore Gold and the South Africa-Israel Partnership

Last Friday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold arrived in South Africa for a historic three-day visit. It was the first such visit by an Israeli diplomatic official of his rank in a decade, and it was surely galling to the local ‘Boycott Israel’ lobby that it coincided with the latter part of their “Israel Apartheid Week”. In the various meetings between Gold and his South African counterparts it was agreed to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in water management, agriculture and technology, fields which are crucially important to South Africa’s national interests. We are encouraged to see that our government is no longer choosing to cut itself off from such beneficial partnerships simply to appease the radical anti-Israel lobby. Apart from the obvious lost beneficial opportunities for South Africa, such a policy would have (and has in the past  had)  no impact on Israel, done  nothing whatsoever to advance peace prospects and would obviously not improve one iota the position of the Palestinians, the very people for whose sole benefit the BDS lobby claims to be acting.