With a vote of 248 for and 91 against, the amended EFF motion calling on the government to close the Israeli embassy in Pretoria and cut diplomatic ties was carried in the National Assembly on Tuesday.

Crucial to the vote was that the governing ANC got the amendment it had indicated in Thursday's often tense debate as necessary for its support. But it was made clear in the House this was not a binding resolution, but a "politically persuasive" one.

Tabled by ANC Chief Whip Pemmy Majodina, and publicly formally agreed to by EFF leader Julius Malema, this amendment introduced the governing party's wish for conditionalities - a ceasefire and a lasting United Nations-facilitated peace.

The amended resolution of the House on Tuesday called "upon the government to close the Israeli Embassy in South Africa and suspend all diplomatic relations with Israel until a ceasefire is agreed and Israel commits to binding UN-facilitated negotiations whose outcome must be a just, sustainable and lasting peace".

Shouts of "Free Palestine" and "Free Palestine, from the river to the sea" erupted from the ANC and EFF benches following the vote in which the two parties were also supported by the one and two-seaters, al Jama-ah, the National Freedom Party, the African Transformation Movement and the Pan-Africanist Congress.

But, as always, the devil is in the details.

As presiding officer and House chairperson Cedric Frolick put it in explaining...