"I am a Zionist. I am a Zionist because I understand that we Africans share a tragic history with the Jews. As they have lived through the Holocaust, we have lived through slavery. They have triumphed against all odds, and so shall we. "
His name is Justice. A year ago, he was a leader in the South African boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, which made headlines across the world for its aggressive tactics, including the University of Johannesburg academic boycott, the massive boycott campaign against Woolworths department store, the South African Artists Against Apartheid cultural boycott campaign, and the annual Israel Apartheid Week.
In 2013, members of BDS South Africa stormed a concert featuring the Israeli jazz saxophonist Daniel Zamir at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. While the activists claimed it was an "anti-Zionist" action, some of its participants began chanting the slogan "Shoot the Jew" ("Dubula e Juda" in Zulu), based on a protest song sung in the 1980s against white oppressors in the apartheid regime. When questioned, Muhammed Desai, coordinator of the protest and leader of BDS South Africa, said the protesters did not mean the slogan literally.
"Just as you would say "Kill the Boer" at a funeral in the '80s, it wasn't about killing white people, it was used as a way of expressing opposition to the apartheid regime," he said, adding that "the whole idea [of] anti-Semitism is blown out of proportion."
I heard Justice speak at an event organized by the South Africa Israel Forum, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and the South African Zionist Federation. For the past few years, they have organized trips to Israel to combat the growing anti-Zionist sentiment in the South Africa and to inform the young future leaders of the country of what Israel is, and is not.
A dozen youth leaders, ages 20 to 30, visited Israel earlier this year, and they were taken to see everything from Hebron to Tel Aviv, speaking to representatives from the political Left and Right, Israelis as well as Palestinians, and encouraged to ask whatever questions they needed to form their own opinions.
As I meet them in a conference room in downtown Johannesburg, they have just returned from their journey, and they share their stories, having gone from prejudice to knowledge. I'm struck by one young man in particular, Earnest, a member of the African National Congress youth league, and the bravery he has shown in order to stand up for what is right.
"They called me a traitor and a sellout," he says. "The moment it got out that I was going on this trip, the hatred from the BDS [movement] flooded us, the entire group, and we were told we were selling out our people. In that moment, I knew something was wrong. How could I be a traitor for simply finding out the facts and seeing for myself? What is it they did not want me to see?"
The BDS movement has latched on to the ANC, using the dark history of South Africa and apartheid to discredit Israel. And it has been effective, and South Africa is becoming a hub for anti-Zionist sentiment. I ask one of the young ANC leaders why that is, and he tells me that his former involvement in BDS was directly tied to Israel's contact with the apartheid regime, and that this has been an open wound for many South Africans to this day.
When I ask if that has changed at all after the trip, he shakes his head in negation.
"I still want an apology from Israel for what happened back then, but the difference between now and before the trip is that I see Israel as any other country, with issues as any other state," he says. "They are not apartheid, and I know apartheid, they are a part of a conflict, and every single person I met wanted nothing but peace."
His words stayed with me because they encapsulated that thing I have longed for but never really believed existed. Here was a young man who used to be radically anti-Israel, active in the BDS movement, but education had changed his mind and opened his eyes. He still did not agree with me on most policy issues, but we were finally talking policy, not engaging in punditry or demagoguery based on misinformation or emotion.
There is such cynicism in the BDS movement's strategy of using the ANC to further its anti-Semitic cause. The more I heard of these young people's experiences, the angrier I became at the crassness of the methods being used. In using the word "apartheid," they are evoking anger and salting a wound that is rightly open and still bleeding. As the youth leaders made public their plans to go on the Israel trip, the BDS movement offered them 40,000 rand ($3,200) to publicly decline. When they insisted on going, they were publicly vilified on social media as well as threatened to be ousted from the ANC.
"I may not have a future in the party anymore," Justice tells me, "but at least I live up to my name. They lied to me, and I don't like being lied to. They used me, and I, as a proud black South African, am tired of being used."