In December 2012, the African National Congress (ANC)—which has been South Africa’s governing party since the fall of apartheid in 1994—officially endorsed the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction (BDS) Israel. The party’s deputy secretary-general (among many others) has made clear that the ANC is opposed to Israel’s existence, rather than to its rule over any particular territory. Another operative praised Hitler on social media. The South African BDS movement has been particularly brutal in its tactics, and willing to engage in blatant anti-Semitism. Annika Hernroth-Rothstein explains:

The precipitous growth of the BDS movement in South Africa began with Thabo Mbeki’s presidency from 1999 to 2008, and stemmed from his unusual fascination with the Arab-Israeli conflict. . . . Mbeki’s belief was that now that South Africa had been liberated from apartheid, the natural next step was to free the Palestinians from Zionism—caricatured as a colonial movement dispossessing and expropriating the native population. . . .

[I]n the 21 years that elapsed since the death of apartheid, the government of South Africa has proved to be corrupt and weakened, deprived of an obvious enemy and an inspiring political fight. Israel has provided both those things.

One might say that the ANC and BDS South Africa are in business together, and it is a business, since both need to highlight “apartheid” in order to justify their existence and their actions to the outside world. . . . If the Arab-Israeli conflict ends, activists will not get paid or gain attention; by pursuing a line of “no compromise,” the BDS movement ensures that this will never happen. Young black South Africans, those who should be the future of the country, are being used to preserve the status quo rather than build a better future, once again paying the price for a dishonest system.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.