Excluding Israel renders Dirco visit ‘irrelevant’

A senior South African government official is in “Palestine” on a working visit for the second time in six months, but has totally ignored Israel. In fact when the department of international relations and cooperation (Dirco) announced that Director-General Zane Dangor was heading to the Middle East, the word “Israel” wasn’t mentioned.

Dirco said that Dangor would “co-chair the second round of the South Africa-Palestine political consultations at director-general level, scheduled for 22 to 25 January 2023 in Ramallah. The visit will afford the two sides an opportunity to strengthen bilateral relations and exchange views on the most recent developments in Africa and the Middle East in order to identify areas of further co-operation.”

This is the second time in recent months that Dirco has sent a high-level official to the region and ignored the Jewish state. Dirco Deputy Minister Candith Mashego-Dlamini visited the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria in August 2022, but left Israel off the itinerary.

That trip was made soon after Dirco Minister Dr Naledi Pandor told visiting American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “We must use the proven tools of diplomacy, peace-building, dialogue, and mediation to resolve conflict. South Africa is keen to be a partner in this endeavour.” And two months ago, Pandor said, “We’ll continue to support the achievement of a two-state solution, with a viable, contiguous Palestinian state existing side-by-side in peace with Israel.”

Regarding Dangor’s trip, local political analyst Daniel Silke says, “South Africa doesn’t try anymore to have any even-handedness on the Middle East situation. It seems that it has decided that its relationship is going to be with the Palestinians, and further agreements, close ties, and bilaterals are going to ignore Israel. I think it has made a clear decision. One should accept that that is the current position.”

While Pandor has paid lip service to a two-state solution and a mediating role, “In practice they don’t want to give legitimacy to the state of Israel by engaging with it, and it does make their support for a two-state solution ring hollow,” says local political analyst Steven Gruzd. “You can see the fight that they’ve mounted to get Israel’s observer status at the African Union rescinded.”

Gruzd says this has an historical context. “There’s been an unofficial barring of senior South African government officials from travelling to Israel over probably the past decade or so, as the peace process ground to a halt. The South African support for the Palestinian struggle is well-documented. It’s quite clear that there’s a freeze on high-level contact with Israel, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon unless there’s a major breakthrough in forging peace in the Middle East.”

In broad terms, “South African foreign policy is ‘all over the place’,” says Silke. “The movement towards military exercises with China and Russia, Pandor’s views of the invasion of Ukraine, show that South Africa’s foreign policy has no clear directive. There’s probably some kind of justification in Pretoria that South Africa is making the right decision by not visiting Israel in view of the current Israeli government.”

But others believe that South Africa’s lack of engagement with Israel can and must change. “Dirco needs to come to grips with reality,” says Glen Segell, research fellow at the University of Haifa and visiting professor in the department of political studies and governance at the University of the Free State.

“The most important development in the Middle East and Africa is the Abraham Accords,” he says. “They have created space for a radical transformation in thinking regarding Israel and the Palestinians. They include two African states, Morocco and Sudan. Unfortunately, the Palestinians refused to see any opportunity in the new development, and rejected it.

“Consequently, those who signed the agreements felt that there was no need to address the Palestinian issue. If Dirco really believes in a two-state solution, it needs to improve relations with both of these ‘two states’, especially on such a visit. Dirco can return its ambassador to Israel, point out to the Palestinians that the Accords are an opportunity to make progress, and be an active mediator to achieve this.”

South African Zionist Federation National Chairperson Rowan Polovin notes that “South Africa has diplomatic relations with Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but engages in ‘political consultations’ with only the Palestinians. At the same time, South Africa is quick to condemn only Israel and has an embassy but no ambassador in the country. South Africa has dialogue with one party, and denounces the other.

“This lack of consistency in diplomatic relations and discrimination only against Israel prevents our country from having any constructive role to play in the Middle East, which is warming up to Israel,” he says. “South Africa ought to de-hyphenate the Israeli-Palestinian issue so that our relations with Israel aren’t dependent on the Palestinians. This approach would allow our country to work constructively with Israel in order to benefit from Israeli solutions to the challenges we face here.”

South African Jewish Board of Deputies National Director Wendy Kahn says, “We remain perplexed at South Africa’s lack of political will to contribute to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and in turn improve the lives of Palestinians. To make any difference to the current impasse and to move towards a peaceful resolution, engagement with both sides would be required.

“To continue the senseless rounds of one-sided ‘Palestine political consultations’ is a futile exercise only paying lip service to assisting the people of Palestine,” she says. “South Africa’s refusal to engage also with the Israelis, having no diplomatic presence on the ground in Israel, makes it irrelevant in this space. We reiterate a call for our government to work towards a two-state solution, working with Palestinians and Israelis towards a peaceful outcome.”

The SA Jewish Report reached out to Dirco for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of going to print.