South Africa has declared Israel’s top diplomat Ariel Seidman, “persona non grata, and given him 72 hours to leave, citing a series of violations.
A statement by the foreign ministry revealed that the measure follows a series of violations of diplomatic norms including the repeated use of official Israeli social media platforms to launch insulting attacks on President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The foreign ministry also accused the embassy of a deliberate failure to inform South Africa of purported visits by senior Israeli officials.
South African officials were angered by a tweet from the Israeli embassy in November that commented: “A rare moment of wisdom and diplomatic clarity from President Ramaphosa.”
The post was in reaction to a news story citing Ramaphosa as saying “boycott politics doesn’t work”, in reference to US President Donald Trump’s decision to not attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg.
Ties between the two nations are already strained, with South Africa bringing a case before the United Nations top court in 2023 t
o argue that Israel’s war on Gaza, an illegally occupied Palestinian territory, amounted to genocide.
