As a South African Christian with close family ties in Israel, I spent the formative decades of my life fighting apartheid, and the years since fighting the falsehood that equates Zionism with racism – the "apartheid Israel" lie.
That latter campaign of denigration moved into new territory recently with South Africa's decision to level charges of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
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The full-frontal assault in The Hague would be just a little more believable if South Africa's ruling ANC had any claim to moral leadership in the international community. Instead, it has remained silent in the face of aggression and atrocities committed by its BRICS partners Russia and China in Ukraine and Xinjiang respectively, And Pretoria's failure to arrest Sudanese dictator Omar Bashir at the behest of the ICC for war crimes in Darfur remains a badge of shame.
I say South Africa's ICJ campaign would be just a little more plausible if the applicant had more credibility – but the reality is that even if the ANC was the human rights champion it purports to be, its charges of genocide would still be as baseless as they are repugnant.
Any responsible state would have reacted with all the force at its disposal to the orgy of murder, rape, and kidnapping of its citizens perpetrated by Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists in southern Israel on October 7.
Blame for the resulting war lies solely at Hamas' door, for its initial barbarism, its criminal strategy of embedding itself among civilians, and its refusal to return the hostages.
Israel's well-documented policy of issuing millions of warning messages urging Palestinian civilians to move to safer areas ahead of airstrikes hardly fit the playbook for genocide.
Yet South Africa chose to align with Hamas, despite its depraved actions, and with the fundamentalist regime that sponsors it, as witnessed by Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor's visit to Tehran shortly after October 7.
Looking beyond its expressions of concern wrapped in human rights jargon, the ANC's real motivation is deeply suspect.
Thirty years after winning South Africa's first democratic election, the party is facing its biggest electoral challenge yet, thanks to rampant corruption, violent crime, rolling power blackouts, and failure to deliver on promises to improve the lives of millions impoverished by apartheid's legacy.
The ANC has been plagued by internal financial problems. Last year it faced the very real prospect of bankruptcy after failing to pay a marketing company millions for services provided during its 2019 election campaign. A declaration of insolvency, as sought by the creditor, would have prevented the ANC from taking part in the 2024 election. In a surprise January announcement, the party said it had reached an out-of-court settlement with the creditor. No details were provided.
Some South Africans better informed than I suspect that Pandor's post-October 7 visit to Tehran secured a windfall that enabled the ANC to settle the lawsuit. Could the lodging of the ICJ case against Iran's sworn foe be a quid pro quo? The notion is hardly far-fetched.
With the ANC's woes at home, and the crucial election looming, what better way to distract attention from its ineptitude than to front a legal case bound to attract widespread local and international coverage?
It gives me no pleasure to disparage the ANC. It's the first political party I ever formally joined, becoming a member just days after its was unbanned in 1990. Nonetheless, after years of repulsive foreign policy positions, its actions in The Hague crossed a new red line. For shame, Cyril Ramaphosa.
I'm not naive enough to think my views will change the minds of those who disagree, least of all the keffiyeh-draped 'useful idiots' protesting in Western capitals, unwittingly lending succor to an ideology whose antisemitism is matched only by its homophobia and misogyny. But if these words do provide some comfort to those reading them in Israel, that will be enough.
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