A Deal with the Devil: The Strange Case of Israel and South Africa
Review of The Unspoken Alliance by Sasha Polakow-Suransky
Israeli checkpoints, concrete walls, and the ongoing blockade of the Gaza strip continue to reinforce the growing opinion of Israel as an apartheid state. Sasha Polakow-Suransky’s The Unspoken Alliance details Israel’s ties to the original apartheid state—South Africa. The book describes how “material interests gave birth to an alliance that greatly benefited the Israeli economy and enhanced the security of South Africa’s white minority regime.” (p11)
The background to this cooperation is complex. South Africa’s governing political party, the National Party, primarily represented the Afrikaner people. These were the descendants of Dutch, French, and German Protestants. They were marked by their staunch Calvinism as well as their unique ethnic identity. Despite early opposition to Jewish immigration and some pro-German sympathies during the Second World War, the Afrikaners were not inherently anti-Jewish. The strong Protestant religious feeling that shaped much of Afrikaner identity played a role in their perception of Israel as the ‘Holy Land.’ As Polakow-Suransky notes, “Afrikaner nationalists drew heavily on Jewish history and symbolism.” (p14) In 1953 South African Prime Minister D.F. Malan would become the first head of government to visit Israel while in office. During the 1967 Six-Day War the South Africans cheered the Israeli success as a David-and-Goliath victory against Soviet-backed regimes. Read more






