Young Nelson MandelaIsrael made great efforts to cultivate newly independent Africa starting with Ghana in 1957. But after most African countries succumbed to the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargo, and broke diplomatic relations with Israel, the Jewish state upgraded relations with the Pretoria regime without endorsing Apartheid which it continued to denounce. Progressive Jews like Helen Suzman and Joe Slovo were stalwart crusaders against Apartheid. Nevertheless, relations between Israel and the African National Congress were never good. The PLO strongly supported the ANC, and Nelson Mandela—who walked a tightrope when he visited Israel in 1999—reciprocated Yassir Arafat’s friendship. Nobel Prize Winner Desmond Tutu was much more outspoken in his strident criticism of the Jewish state. The UN’s World Conference against Racism (WCAR), held in Durban in 2001, revived the equation of Zionism with racism and played a role in solidifying the anti-Israel animus of South Africa’s ruling ANC. The Lebanon War of 2006 and subsequent series of Gaza conflicts further inflamed Israeli-South African relations. Now, Tony Ehrenreich, a trade union official and Cape Town mayoral candidate, in a Facebook post, has called for “an eye for an eye” for “killings and maimings that have been taking place in Gaza.” He explicitly incited violence in generally against South Africa’s Jewish community, that once numbered 100,000, and specifically against Jewish Board of Deputies because of it is allegedly “complicit in the murder of the people in Gaza.” This is a sad day for Africa-Israel relations as well as Black-Jewish relations globally. See the “Forward” at http://forward.com/articles/204131/south-african-union-leader-calls-for-eye-for-an-ey/