Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, the International Relations Minister of South Africa, told South African ministers last week not to visit Israel, although she did not officially order them to cut diplomatic relations with Israel. She stated at a Cosatu international relations committee meeting, “Ministers of South Africa do not visit Israel currently. Even the Jewish Board of Deputies that we engage with here, they know why our ministers are not going to Israel.”
Responding to her statement, Avidgor Lieberman, Israel’s former foreign minister, accused her and South Africa of “anti-Semitism.” He wrote on his Facebook page, “The comments by the South African foreign minister at the weekend, that South African government ministers will no longer visit Israel as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinians, are a combination of hypocrisy and classic anti-Semitism.”