As horrible as South African apartheid was, what is happening to the Palestinans is degrees worse.

Ordinary South Africans still remember the deep damage Apartheid perpetrators inflicted on us, it’s poisonous remnants are still affecting us as a country to this day as we try to heal as a people.

Now imagine South Africans seeing what Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinians, now and in the past. It’s a punch to the gut, a searing pain, to see what was done to us and our parents being done to Palestinians. We’re seeing a gross refined version of Apartheid that was inflicted on us being inflicted on the Palestinians. And largely the so called west/ global north is cheering for the Israeli Apartheid regime commiting genocide. It makes me sick to my core.

For these reasons there is immense pressure on our government by civil society to denounce Israel and support Palestine. It does help that the ANC has always been pro Palestinian in the first place. Also it’s elections this year so the ANC definitely wants some good pr too.

I would say that these points factor in way more than any link to Russia or China