by Nitsan Keidar
Israel to summon South Africa’s ambassador following anti-Israel remarks made by two senior officials.
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Israel’s Ambassador to South Africa Arthur Lenk was also instructed to communicate his country’s outrage at the comments in a message to officials in Pretoria.
In one incident, South Africa’s Minister of Water and Sanitation, Nomvula Mokonyane, accused Israel of conducting a system of water apartheid against Palestinian Arabs.
“Israel uses water to control the Palestinians. This matter was investigated and confirmed,” she claimed.
Mokonyane also referred to the incident in which IDF soldier Elor Azariya shot a neutralized terrorist and claimed that Azariya “murdered an innocent protester who was lying helpless on the ground.”
She also claimed that Azariya’s shooting illustrated that the IDF was a “murderous machine.”
In another incident, the Deputy Secretary-General of South Africa’s ruling ANC party, Jessie Duarte, called on the government to strip South African Jews of their citizenship if they had drafted into the IDF.
She also said that "the United States supports Israel's heinous policies of collective punishment against innocent civilians and it must be stopped."
These incidents are not the first time that South African officials have publicly spoken out or taken actions against Israel.
The ANC party at one time proposed new rules regarding dual citizenship meant to stop South African citizens from joining the IDF.
In another example, the county’s Foreign Minister slammed Israel's plans to build new homes in Jerusalem, saying she was “losing sleep” over the size of “Palestine”.
The ruling party has in the past compared Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza to the actions of the Nazis during World War II, evoking outrage from Jewish groups in the country.
Nitsan Keidar
Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/226473
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