I recently landed in Cape Town, South Africa, for the first time since 1990. On my earlier trip, I had the honor of meeting Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie soon after his release from Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town.

Our encounter was characterized by the fervent but solemn optimism of the time — a sense of boundless opportunity tempered by the knowledge that South Africa had some hard work ahead. Though Mandela was free, it would take years of negotiations and civil unrest before the country held its first free and fair democratic elections in 1994.

Today, South Africa is again facing serious domestic and diplomatic challenges, especially regarding its relationship with the United States, but I remain optimistic that the relationship can be repaired to mutual benefit.

Tensions are high. Less than a month ago, the Johannesburg City Council voted to allow the renaming of Sandton Drive, a major thoroughfare on which the United States consulate sits, after convicted terrorist Leila Khaled. In the same meeting, a Jewish city councilmember was met with chants of, “We want Hitler” and “from the river to the sea” for displaying symbols of South African friendship with Israel.

As a member of the Marxist terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Khaled participated in two violent airplane hijackings in 1969 and 1970. During one, she attempted to detonate a hand grenade on a flight full of civilians; thankfully for the passengers, the explosive failed to detonate.

Khaled continues to defend her actions, saying in a 2014 interview that “I am OK with using all means of resistance … We are facing an apartheid state, Zionism as a movement, the Americans, and in general, the West.” She characterized the hijackings as “my contribution to my people, to the struggle.”

South Africa’s Patriotic Alliance party, which opposes the ruling coalition led by the African National Congress (ANC) party, characterized the impending renaming as “profoundly insulting” to the United States and “contrary to South Africa’s diplomatic relations” with America, South Africa’s second-largest trading partner.

A day after the Johannesburg meeting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio expelled South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, and declared him persona non grata. Secretary Rubio further characterized Rasool as “a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates [President Donald Trump].”

The former ambassador has thoroughly earned that label. He’s described Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin as “one of the greatest inspirations,” and held prayers in his Cape Town mosque after the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyyeh, where the imam publicly prayed for the liberation of “Palestine in its entirety from the filth of the Jews.” At a foreign policy seminar, he accused President Trump of leading a global white supremacist movement.

Not all South African politicians share Rasool’s antipathy toward America and our ally Israel. Last week, 15 members of Parliament, including members of the ANC-led national unity government, visited Israel, meeting with Israeli lawmakers and touring communities that were devastated during the Oct. 7 massacres.

The ANC has vocally opposed Israel, accusing it of perpetrating genocide before the International Court of Justice, which has preliminarily affirmed the accusation in an outrageous decision. In last May’s election, however, the ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since South Africa’s first free elections in 1994, garnering just 40% of the vote.

Ashley Sauls, a member of parliament for the Patriotic Alliance, said, “The ANC does not speak for everyone … Israel is not an apartheid state, and there is no genocide going on in Gaza.”

While the ANC condemned the group on their return, the trip was a promising sign that cooler heads will prevail in South Africa. Those 15 lawmakers recognize that it’s in South Africa’s interest to engage constructively with the United States, and that friendship is superior to recrimination.

I wish them the best. South Africa has changed immensely in the 35 years since I first visited, and its future is still full of boundless opportunity. The late President Mandela did not forget the boost to his fortunes and the ANC from the U.S. Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986.

Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.