Jews in crosshairs of SA government

The South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) headed by minister Naledi Pandor has called for sanctions against Israel resulting from the recent hostilities between Hamas in Gaza and Israel. As the minister of foreign affairs, one would think that her department would be aware of a host of unfortunate and tragic conflicts around the globe in which innocent civilians including children have been killed.

Unfortunately, armed with such facts, the minister, wearing her colour-coded blinkers, sees only one conflict that warrants comment from her and DIRCO.

The conflict in the Tigray province of Ethiopia, the Turkish onslaught on the Kurds, the Yemen war, the Syrian genocide, or the multifaceted conflict in Myanmar are just a few of the conflict regions around the globe claiming not hundreds but thousands of civilian casualties including thousands of children purposely targeted, as has been the case with schools and a hospital in Syria. But the good minister marks all those absent, and has yet to make any comment about the human-rights abuses in these conflict regions. Obviously these conflicts don’t constitute such abuses.

Of the 245 killed (on both sides) in the Gaza conflict, it seems there wasn’t a single combatant killed in Gaza. Of those children killed, it seems there were no child soldiers forming part of the Hamas militants. Just how blind, biased, and antisemitic can this minister be?

South African arms have found their way to most of those conflicts except Israel, in direct contravention of the country’s policy of not selling arms to countries with doubtful human-rights records. But profit overrides humanity when it comes to the morality of the African National Congress (ANC) government.

The South African government needs to do some soul searching, and look in its own backyard at the crime statistics and every other facet of its incompetent administration including its abysmal management of securing and distributing coronavirus vaccines.

When will an administration responsible for international relations find the responsibility and morality to deal fairly with all nations around the globe? It’s simple, the ANC government, in its international stand and its president’s statements, displays blatant antisemitism of the worst nature. It’s Jews that are in the crosshairs of the ANC government, and it’s time that this is called out by freedom loving nations, and the ANC is condemned for firing up hatred amongst its citizens.