The Kasrils Affair

Description

In 2007, Minister Ronnie Kasrils, the highest-ranking Jew in South Africa’s post-apartheid government, launched a campaign against Israeli policy in the occupied territories. In so doing, he ignited a public debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that challenged the identity of South African Jews in the new South Africa.

Kasrils offered Jews a choice–oppose Israel and Zionism, and be welcomed into the post-apartheid order, or else remain stuck in the apartheid past, on the fringes of South Africa’s changing society, ostracised by the African National Congress (ANC) government.