South Africa's well-organised zionist movement is up in arms at what it sees as the revolutionary tripartite alliance's "constant stream of anti-Israel vitriol."

Ben Levitas, who chairs the council of the SA Zionist Federation in the Cape, perceives a "general climate of heightened intolerance" against "the only state that also happens to be Jewish."

He accuses the alliance - the African National Congress, Communist Party and Cosatu trade union federation - of taking this stance in pursuit of the "large Muslim vote" in the provinces of Western Cape, controlled by the opposition Democratic Alliance, and Gauteng.

This is not a new line. Levitas made similar accusations just over a year ago, noting that South Africa-Israel relations had "deteriorated" since President Jacob Zuma's government recalled his country's ambassador from Tel Aviv following Israel's 2009 Operation Cast Lead massacre in Gaza.

In Levitas's view the ANC was "wooing Muslims" by taking "a hostile and partisan stance on Israel," calculating that the small Jewish minority "can be sacrificed politically."

The zionist leader compared South Africa's current government stance unfavourably with that of former president Thabo Mbeki, who attempted in 2003 to intervene constructively in support of a two-state solution.

He accused foreign ministers Ebrahim Ebrahim and Maite Nkoana-Mashabane of having "hijacked" policy on Israel and Palestine and urges the country to "regain" control over its foreign policy.

Levitas is correct in seeing that public opinion has hardened against Israel in light of its repression, denial of human rights and inexorable colonisation of Palestinian land that has made a two-state solution barely feasible.

It would be unthinkable if that shift of opinion were not reflected in government policy.

But the zionist representative takes a leaf out of the book of Israel's leaders in ascribing criticism to anti-semitism rather than to justified concern over Israel's brutal expansionist policies.

Fresh from his controversial acquittal on corruption charges, former Israeli foreign minister and deputy prime minister Avigdor Lieberman wasted no time in accusing the Zuma government of fostering anti-semitism.

He said that a pogrom in South Africa was "only a matter of time," calling on "all Jews who still live there to make aliya (come to Israel) as soon as possible and without delay, before it is too late."

Ben Turok, an ANC MP of Jewish origin, accused Lieberman of "clutching at straws," asserting that Jews live a "very safe and secure" existence under the ANC government.

To be fair, both the SA Jewish Board of Deputies and SA Zionist Federation called Lieberman's comments "alarmist and inflammatory," but their own tendency to conflate condemnation of Israel with anti-semitism fuels such hyperbole.

Lieberman's ratcheting up of rhetoric to encourage Jewish migration to Israel echoes former prime minister Ariel Sharon's call to French Jews a decade ago to leave their homeland to escape a supposed resurgence of anti-semitism.

It also reflects official disquiet over the number of Jews leaving Israel to live overseas, disillusioned by life in the zionist state.

Levitas describes himself as having been an opponent of apartheid in South Africa and a founder of the non-racial Boston House private school in Cape Town in 1979.

Fair enough. During the struggle against apartheid, a number of symbolic acts that contradicted the government's uncompromising racist divisiveness took place and were praised as gestures of resistance.

But no-one should confuse such symbolism with the deeds and sacrifices of those who worked for mass mobilisation, armed struggle and the international campaign to isolate the apartheid regime economically, militarily and culturally.

South Africa's Jewish community produced an impressive array of volunteers in that struggle, disproportionate to its numbers among South Africa's white minority.

Joe Slovo, Denis Goldberg, Rusty Bernstein, Ronnie Kasrils, Ruth First, Albie Sachs, Wolfie Kodesh, Ray Alexander, Ben Turok and many others took their place in the ranks of the liberation movement.

They have since distinguished themselves by speaking out in support of the Palestinian people, denouncing their collective imprisonment in an apartheid existence bearing similarities to that endured by South Africans.

South Africa's oppressed majority appreciated the global solidarity extended to their cause and feel a duty to reciprocate now.

In this spirit Ahmed Kathrada, who was jailed for life in 1964 in the infamous Rivonia trial, launched an international campaign three weeks ago to win the release of Marwan Barghouti and all Palestinian political prisoners.

Now 84, he welcomed Barghouti's wife Fadwa to Robben Island where he and other black prisoners served their sentences.

Barghouti has become iconic in a similar way to Nelson Mandela, acknowledged as a liberation leader by both Fatah and Hamas and feared by Israel to the extent of refusing to consider his release in negotiations that saw captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit freed.

Kathrada told the campaign launch meeting: "While we disagree with the policies and practices of Israel, we have never been and will never be anti-Jewish."

Such sentiments will be dismissed by zionist leaders including Levitas, who insists that Israel and, by implication, all Jews are treated exceptionally.

In reality, the demand made of Israel, as of South Africa before it, is that the same tenets of international law should apply to it as the rest of the world.