Israel–South Africa relations
diplomatic relations between the State of Israel and the Republic of South Africa
Israel–South Africa relations refer to the current and historic relationship between the Republic of South Africa and the State of Israel. As of January 2024, South Africa maintains only "limited political and diplomatic interaction" with Israel due to the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
In 1947, South Africa voted in favor of the UN Partition Plan to create Israel. During the 1950s and 1960s, Israel criticized the racial policies of South Africa. But from 1967 onwards, Israel deepened relations with the apartheid South African regime, and maintained diplomatic relations with the "Bantustans". Israel and South Africa also had a military alliance, including collaboration on nuclear weapons. Up to 1986, Israel also had a vibrant economic relationship but was forced to sanction South Africa in 1987 as a consequence of American pressure.
Relations began to deteriorate after apartheid ended in 1994. Nelson Mandela visited Israel, but was critical of its treatment of Palestinians. In 2019, South Africa downgraded relations with Israel in response to its killing of Gazan protestors.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Israel–South Africa relations” is diplomatic relations between the State of Israel and the Republic of South Africa. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Israel, South and Africa, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “diplomatic relations between the State of Israel and the Republic of South Africa” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6087807. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2024, 1947, 1967 and 1986.
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This entry incorporates text from “Israel–South Africa relations” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.