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.
Read more on Tower: http://www.thetower.org/article/i-love-adolf-hitler-bds-at-south-african-universities/