The Tel Aviv Heat, founded in 2021, is Israel’s first professional rugby team. In March, it was going to travel to South Africa to compete in a tournament, 2023 Mzansi Challenge, against teams from across the African continent.

But, reports Shiryn Ghermezian, the South African Rugby Union (SARU) has disinvited the team. The reason, unsurprisingly, is South Africa’s tradition of vociferous support for BDS.

The announcement was made the same day that the South African BDS Coalition released a statement expressing outrage and calling the rugby union’s invitation to Tel Avi Heat “embarrassing” and an “overtly racist move.” The anti-Israel group also said “if this apartheid Israeli team comes to play in South Africa, SARU will have blood on its hands.” The BDS Coalition then celebrated a victory after the SARU made its decision to disinvite the Israel team and said “kick apartheid Israel out of all sports now.”

Most likely, it was the Israeli Air Force that attacked eastern Syria Monday night, apparently destroying a convoy carrying Iranian weapons. Yoav Limor comments:

Israel reportedly carried out 32 attacks in Syria in 2022, and since early 2023 it has already struck 25 times in the country—at the very least. . . . The Iranian-Israeli clash stands out in the wake of the dramatic events in the region, chiefly among them is the effort to strike a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and later on with various other Muslim-Sunni states. Iran is trying to torpedo this process and has even publicly warned Saudi Arabia not to “gamble on a losing horse” because Israel’s demise is near. Riyadh is unlikely to heed that demand, for its own reasons.

Despite the thaw in relations between the kingdom and the Islamic Republic—including the exchange of ambassadors—the Saudis remain very suspicious of the Iranians. A strategic manifestation of that is that Riyadh is trying to forge a defense pact with the U.S.; a tactical manifestation took place this week when Saudi soccer players refused to play a match in Iran because of a bust of the former Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Suleimani, [a master terrorist whose militias have wreaked havoc throughout the Middle East, including within Saudi borders].

Of course, Israel is trying to bring Saudi Arabia into its orbit and to create a strong common front against Iran. The attack in Syria is ostensibly unrelated to the normalization process and is meant to prevent the terrorists on Israel’s northern border from laying their hands on sophisticated arms, but it nevertheless serves as a clear reminder for Riyadh that it must not scale back its fight against the constant danger posed by Iran.