Special Analysis Israel and South Africa

The postponement of a quasi-academic panel discussion within the Foreign Ministry of Israel’s policy towards South Africa highlighted the current concern and sensitivity surrounding this issue here. The panel was to have been led by the Ministry’s political Director-General, Dr. Yossi Beilin, who is the closest confidant of Vice Premier and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. It was to include veteran Ministry staffers, officials of other government departments, and outside experts.

But Peres is in Europe and the acting Foreign Minister, Ezer Weizman, ordered Beilin to call off the conclave.

The Director-General had no choice but to obey. But he pointedly insisted, in interviews, that the discussion would take place “next week, when the Minister (Peres) returns.

A STRONG LOBBY WITHIN GOVERNMENT CIRCLES

Weizman, a former Minister of Defense and long-time Air Force officer, is one of a strong lobby within government circles — the lobby is largely defense-oriented and crosses political party lines — which is reluctant to suddenly sever Israel’s long-standing ties with South Africa in the wake of American and Western European decisions to adopt sanctions against the apartheid regime in Pretoria.

Newsweek magazine reports this week that Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin visited South Africa recently to warn the government there that a shrinkage in the relationship was inevitable.

FORCES IN FAVOR OF A BOYCOTT

Beilin, for his part, has long led the forces — mainly of the left and center — which press for Israel to place itself solidly alongside the Western countries in their steadily increasing boycott of South Africa.

These forces put forward moral arguments, but also severely practical ones they assert that the white supremacist regime is ultimately doomed, and it would therefore be as well for the Jewish State not to be seen, in Africa, as going down with the sinking ship.

The other group points to the cant and hypocrisy which sully the positions of many of the Western — and indeed Black African — countries regarding South Africa.

They note that some of the most vociferous statesmen demanding sanctions represent states with much larger volumes of trade with South Africa (not to mention investments) than Israel. And they add that many states and firms that ostensibly adhere to boycott principles in fact circumvent them in myriad ways.

They add that for every South African weapons system that, according to foreign publications, have Israeli components or Israeli know how, there are many much more crucial systems that are wholly supplied by the leading Western powers, especially France and Britain.

They assert, with much justice, that lumping together Israel and South Africa has been a deliberate Arab propaganda ploy which, unfortunately for Israel, has won much success over the years.

EXTENT OF ISRAEL’S TRADE WITH SOUTH AFRICA

Israel’s trade with South Africa includes the import of coal and raw materials, and some Israeli industrial exports. Israel gives no official information regarding military-related trade. And there are always firm and blanket denials to the repeated foreign media claims of a nuclear relationship between the two countries.

If the debate could remain in the realm of quasi-academic, Israel’s concern would not be so deep. But the U.S. Congress has taken action that suddenly lifts this issue into the realm of immediate and painful decision-making.

The Congress has required of the Reagan Administration that it report by April on U.S. aid recipients that have military supply relationships with South Africa — and the sanction could be a cut-off of military aid to such countries.

Israel, of course, with a $1.8 billion per annum military aid package at risk, cannot afford to cross the Congress or embarrass the Administration in the eyes of Capitol Hill.