Last week, the South African foreign minister announced that her country’s ambassador to the Jewish state, recalled last year over Israeli efforts to contain riots in Gaza, would not be returning, and that a liaison office in Tel Aviv with “no political mandate [and] no trade mandate” would serve in lieu of an embassy. Such a move demonstrates the extent to which the preferences of the boycott, divest, and sanction movement (BDS) have become policy in Pretoria. Ben Cohen explains how this came to be:

The conventional, and largely correct, answer as to why [South Africa is so hostile to Israel] goes back to the struggle in the late 20th century against apartheid. . . . Like most of the regional struggles of that era, the African National Congress’s battle against apartheid was incorporated into the wider cold war in Africa, with the Soviet Union presenting itself as the most stalwart friend of the anti-apartheid cause. With the USSR came its allies, especially the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); by the 1970s, the supposed correspondence between “apartheid” and “Zionism” . . . was firmly established in the PLO’s propaganda arsenal.

Yet it isn’t nostalgia alone that propels current South African loathing of Israel. Enmity toward the Jewish state is a pillar of the country’s foreign policy, but it isn’t the only one. Others include an unwavering solidarity with dictators. South Africa was famously an enabler of the totalitarian nightmare imposed by Robert Mugabe on neighboring Zimbabwe; that principle has survived in the [current] government’s vocal backing for the illegitimate regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. In supporting Maduro, South Africa finds itself in the company of Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, and all those other notorious human-rights abusers who scream about national sovereignty [only when] their own offenses are called out. . . .

[Moreover] in South Africa’s progressive circles, denying your poorer compatriots economic and educational opportunities is a blessed act when it is presented as part of the war against “Zionism.” Hence the corporate fight over the last two months concerning the proposed takeover of Clover—South Africa’s biggest dairy company—by an Israeli-led consortium. Were the bid to receive approval, thousands of jobs would be created in South Africa—where a full 28 percent of the workforce is unemployed—as well as in neighboring countries that are part of Clover’s regional distribution network. But that is less important to South Africa’s BDS lobby than an ideological victory over “Zionism,” and so the talks, and thus the jobs, are on hold.

Before exploding electronics in Lebanon seized the attention of the Israeli public, debate there had focused on the Philadelphi Corridor—the strip of land between Gaza and Egypt—and whether the IDF can afford to withdraw from it. Egypt has opposed Israeli control of the corridor, which is crucial to Hamas’s supply lines, and Egyptian objections likely prevented Israel from seizing it earlier in the war. Yet, argues Mariam Wahba, Egypt in the long run only stands to lose by letting Hamas use the corridor, and has proved incapable of effectively sealing it off:

Ultimately, this moment presents an opportunity for the United States to hold Egypt’s feet to the fire.

To press Cairo, the United States should consider conditioning future aid on Cairo’s willingness to cooperate. This should include a demand for greater transparency and independent oversight to verify Egyptian claims about the tunnels. Congress ought to hold hearings to understand better Egypt’s role and its compliance as a U.S. ally. Despite Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s nine trips to the Middle East since the start of the war, there has been little clarity on how Egypt intends to fulfill its role as a mediator.

By refusing to acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security concerns, Egypt is undermining its own interests, prolonging the war in Gaza, and further destabilizing its relationship with Jerusalem. It is time for Egyptian leaders either to admit their inability to secure the border and seek help from Israel and America, or to risk being perceived as enablers of Hamas and its terrorist campaign.