Anti-apartheid II, this time it's personal

South Africa's Minister for Intelligence has added his voice to the demand for a boycott of Israeli universities on the grounds that Israel is an apartheid state and that its academics do not do enough to assuage the effects of its apartheid system on its victims. Ronnie Kasrils is a former commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the African National Congress. Together with Victoria Brittain in today's Guardian, Kasrils makes a forceful case for the boycott. On the same page, two zionists argue against the boycott citing the old chestnuts of harming those it seeks to help, singling out Israel and of course, they say, it's anti-semitic. Anyway, the sad thing is that, in spite of the clear similarities between Israel now and South Africa in the apartheid era (yes I know Israel's based on expulsion whereas South African apartheid was based on exploitation - it's the principle stupid!) Ronnie Kasrils has to issue a disclaimer that he is writing in a personal capacity. And why so? Because South Africa has precious trade arrangements with Israel. Unbelievable huh? Israel does not simply have an apartheid state structure, it was South Africa's chief, sometimes its only, ally. Israel broke the arms embargo against South Africa, goods made in South Africa were often labelled "Made in Israel" to subvert the boycott of South African goods, there was co-operation in the nuclear weapons sphere and of course there was the vile and cynical visit of John Vorster (the late South African PM) to Yad Vashem during a one week trip to Israel during which he met with the great and the good of the Israeli government and opposition. Humanity's great champion, Shimon Peres, together with other zionist leftists like Chaim Herzog and David Ben Gurion had already visited the nazi collaborator, Vorster, in South Africa. I remember a pamphlet, back in the eighties, called Israel-South Africa: a strategic alliance. That was an over-simplification; Israel's relationship with the other apartheid state was ideological, not simply strategic.