Cape Town – South Africa’s deputy international relations minister Ebrahim Ebrahim provoked an outcry this week among South Africa’s Jewish business community when he advised his fellow South Africans to avoid traveling to or visiting Israel.
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City Press reports (http://bit.ly/R9qSfe) that Ebrahim has said South Africa should “scale down” its economic relations with Israel, but Ebrahim denies that his remarks are intended to further a boycott of Israel. “Israel is an occupier country which is oppressing Palestine, so it is not proper for South Africans to associate with Israel,” Ebrahim said. “We discourage people from going there except if it has to do with the peace process.”
The deputy international relations minister made his comments after the Department of Trade and Industry issued a memo recommending that goods imported from the West Bank be labeled accordingly. South Africa’s Jewish business leaders said Israel will oppose such labeling and will simply cease to export goods and products to their country.
South Africa and Israel maintain official diplomatic ties.
With a name like ebrahim ebrahim, what could u expect?
South Africa should know all about what it means to be “apartheid”.
i guess he finished the al hagilah v,al hatmirah lkuved the yurtseit
& I am saying that the jews sould also avoid going to isreal its just dangerous, every other day another terror attack (results of figthing with there neighbors for nothing)
I guess many are too young to remember why today’s South African political leaders are pro-palestinian and anti-israel.
The former has to do with their identifying with, and sympathy for, their own history between the 40s and the 80s
The latter has to do with the very smug military and diplomatic ties that Apartheid South Africa had with Israel in the 70s, 80s and even the early 90s. Israel was one of a very few countries that openly refused to abide by the international boycott (even drawing the occasional rebuke from the USA – Israel’s own closest ally) and was one of South Africa’s only (and closest) friends. It supplied many of the weapons and equipment used to harm the non-whites …. who are now in power.
Dor Holeich Ve Dor Ba – ve ha aretz le’olam omades.