I think South Africans just have a more defined (and more recent) sense of pride when it comes to standing up against Apartheid. They recognize the rhetoric and the legal justifications from Israel’s right wing. I had the privilege of studying law under someone who helped to right the ship in South Africa, an American constitutional law scholar who worked with President Mandela to help write their new Constitution in the late 1990’s. They are immensely proud of it as a document that secures human rights for people.

As an aside, just as Hamas must be thought of as separate from the Palestinians, the far right Israeli leadership needs to be thought of distinct from the Israeli people.

There are plenty of people in Israel who think their government has been going too far, and there are plenty more people who think their response after the attacks were justified but have since gone too far.

The danger is not really Israel or Zionism, it is nationalism, a perversion of patriotism that works to justify people’s worst emotional reactions.