FORTY AND FIFTY YEARS AGO, few foreign stories ranked higher in British interest than what was happening in South Africa. The depth of our moral concerns for Israelis and Palestinians are comparable to those we used to have for black and white South Africans. We decried apartheid and we broke off defence agreements and restricted such trade as was prudent to do so.
Much like the democratically-deficient countries ringing Israel, we didn’t apply our strictures to the “frontline states” which bordered South Africa either. For some reason we only expected South Africa to be democratic, and not her neighbours. Why this was so became clear 30 years ago when South Africa finally did become democratic.
For whatever we claimed at the time, our concern for the sufferings of poor black South
