ANC, Pandor in Nakba hate fest against Israel

South African communal leaders have called on the country’s political leaders to stop their “unique discrimination and hostility against the Jewish state” as they tore into Israel again this week.

It began with South Africa’s minister of international relations and cooperation, Dr Naledi Pandor’s, off the cuff comment recorded on video on 10 May. “We want to hear the ICC [International Criminal Court] indicating that an arrest warrant would be issued for leaders of apartheid Israel, who are the ones who are supporting the massacre of the people of Palestine.”

Then on 14 May, the African National Congress (ANC) put out a statement pledging “solidarity with the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] on the 75th anniversary of Nakba, the catastrophic expulsion of Palestinians”. The PLO runs the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinians’ semi-autonomous government in the West Bank.

South African Jewish Board of Deputies Associate Director David Saks says, “The basic premise of the Nakba narrative is that lsrael came about through the ruthless ethnic cleansing of the Arab population in an unprovoked Jewish war of aggression. This flagrant rewriting of history conceals the reality of how five Arab countries joined with local Arab militias in a failed attempt to wipe out the Jewish state at birth, and how one of the unintended consequences of this was the displacement, for various reasons, of much of the Arab population.

“By uncritically endorsing this ideologically-driven caricature of what really took place, the ANC yet again displays its reflexive antipathy towards Israel along with a typically uncritical knee-jerk adherence to outmoded Cold War-era tropes and loyalties.”

The ANC welcomed a high-level PLO delegation led by veteran PLO central committee member, Dr Faisal Aranki, to its headquarters in Johannesburg on 12 May 2023. The delegation was received by ANC first deputy secretary general and head of international relations, Nomvula Mokonyane.

“The PLO delegation is in South Africa to mobilise solidarity as the world commemorates 75 years since the Nakba during the formation of the state of Israel in 1948,” the ANC said of the visit. The PLO delegation also travelled to Cape Town to take part in a round-table discussion with members of parliament and in Nakba Day protests.

International Relations and Cooperation Deputy Minister Alvin Botes then addressed a Nakba Day rally in Cape Town on 13 May. The event included a “simulation of Israeli check points, regimentation, control, and caging of Palestinians as part of the experiential learning of the crowd”, according to organisers, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Representatives from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), ANC, Al Jama-ah Party, and National Freedom Party (NFP) spoke alongside Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation Chief Executive Janet Jobson, Dr Allan Boesak, and Palestinian archaeologist Abeer Zayyad.

While touring South Africa in recent days, Zayyad spouted a number of false allegations, including that the Israeli government planned to “build a synagogue on the Al-Aqsa compound, destroying Al-Aqsa Mosque” and that “the Israeli government controls the media. When it wants to make major changes to Al-Aqsa, it bombs Gaza and thus redirects the media’s focus.”

Sporting a black-and-white Palestinian keffiyah, Botes addressed about 1 000 people at a Nakba Day rally in Cape Town on 15 May, saying that it was unfair that the world called out Russia’s war on Ukraine, but not the “illegal occupation of Palestinian lands” by Israel.

That march included representatives from the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the EFF, Al Jama-ah, the NFP, ANC, the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union, and the department of international relations and cooperation. It was organised by the Al-Quds Foundation and the Muslim Judicial Council. Children from several schools and madrasas were bussed in to the march.

At the rally, the Dutch Reformed Church said it was “reaffirming its support for the Palestinian cause”.

The ANC Today newspaper devoted a double-page spread to the Nakba. Dr Lehlohonolo Kennedy Mahlatsi of the South African Communist Party described the creation of Israel as the “systematic ethnic cleansing of Arab-inhabited areas of the country”.

South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) National Chairperson Rowan Polovin said, “Minister Pandor publicly supports Russia as it commits a brutal war against the people of Ukraine whilst she attacks Israel for defending itself against genocidal antisemitic terrorists. Pandor’s double-standards and rhetoric against Israel, and only Israel, are unbecoming of an international diplomat, and have further diminished Pretoria’s credibility and standing amongst democratic nations.

“Over the past week, almost 1 500 rockets, each one a war crime, were launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad from civilian areas in Gaza towards civilians in Israel, causing terror. A fifth of these rockets misfired, landed inside Gaza, killing Palestinians. Yet Pandor is blind to Palestinian terrorism and violence, notwithstanding Israel’s right and obligation to defend itself against these unprovoked attacks. Her remarks about the ICC should be contemptuously rejected. The SAZF continues to call on Minister Pandor and the South African government to cease its unique discrimination and hostility against the Jewish state.”