CONVENTIONAL WISDOM DICTATES THAT SOUTH AFRICANS
AND ISRAELIS DON’T LIKE EACH OTHER, SOMETHING THE
AMBASSADOR HAS FOUND NOT TO BE TRUE.
tioning the “significant” trade between
the two countries – over R5 billion in
2013 in goods alone – as well as services.
Tourism between the two is also thriving.
“There are some good roots in the relationship. So while it may not be the
United States and Canada for Israel, it
also isn’t Iran or Turkey or Egypt – it’s
somewhere in the middle.” Could it be
improved? “I think it could and that’s
the fun part of the job,” he enthuses.
Lenk feels his “fun challenge” encompasses some great opportunities, and
that “by trying some things a little bit
differently than we’ve tried in the past,
we could achieve some things, perhaps,
that we hadn’t achieved before.”
Though, he concedes, “Lots of things in
politics or diplomacy are beyond any
one person’s control.”
Conventional wisdom dictates that
South Africans and Israelis don’t like
each other, something the ambassador
has found not to be true. “Wherever
I’ve gone, from the Zion Christian
Church to different communities in the
Western Cape, to business people in
Limpopo, to the tennis community in
Soweto – people are interested.
“They know about Israel and the
things we do well – agriculture, hi-tech,
water management, innovation – that
are important to South Africans and
that they want to learn about. Not only
can we do things, we are doing them,”
he states of worthwhile collaborations
that are already happening.
The number of people who refuse to
engage with Israel is “a tiny minority, almost a statistical mistake”, he insists.
“Are those people noisy? They are. Do
they sometimes want to be influential?
They do. But I think that the vast majo ɥ