Israel’s apartheid libel: South African students weigh in

About two-dozen people filed into Dodd 175 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus last Thursday night, scouting out seats and picking at the kosher pizza in the back of the lecture hall.

Miyelani Pinini knows the drill. A former student president of the University of Cape Town in South Africa, she’s attended and even organized her share of free-pizza events. But now she and a fellow South African student leader — both non-Jewish black people — were the stars of this one, brought to campus by StandWithUs, a pro-Israel education and advocacy organization, and Students Supporting Israel, a national network of pro-Israel campus groups. 

“Our apartheid narrative is literally being stolen right under our feet just as our resources have,” Pinini said.

Having ridden the tides of campus politics—she was removed as her university’s student president, in part because she visited Israel—she’s well versed in a political landscape where pro-Palestinian students build solidarity with South Africa’s black majority, winning by default on a playing field where opposing Israel is the norm. She views the connection as illicit.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is well-traversed territory at American colleges, with pro-Palestinian students seeking to cut ties with companies doing business in Israel and pro-Israel students loudly objecting. But despite increased anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incidents on American campuses, the chips often stack in favor of pro-Israel students, in part because many universities—including the 10-campus University of California system—defer questions about whether and when to divest to the State Department, which stands by Israel despite periodic policy disagreements.

In South Africa, the tables are turned. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) ac-cepts BDS as a plank in its platform. There, BDS is government policy.