SA prioritising Palestinians while Africa burns, says MK

Andile Mngxitama may be a controversial figure, but in his maiden speech as a uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK) Member of Parliament, he spoke straight and true.

In a debate on the budget allocation for Stats SA on 11 July, he recalled how the National Development Plan promised to work towards “international peace”, yet “we see the South African government prioritising Palestine while Africa is burning”.

“In the Sahel [Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal], there are massive terrorist attacks, our people are being moved, they’re being killed, they’re being murdered,” he said. “There’s never-ending conflict in the Sudan. We don’t see the same amount of intervention from the South African government because these are black people. These aren’t Arab people that are close to whiteness. Therefore, they don’t matter. Black lives don’t matter from this point of view.”

Analysts told the SA Jewish Report that South Africa had a duty and a crucial role to play in reducing war and violence on the continent. Not only that, but they say that if South Africa put as much energy and effort into criticising the genocide and human rights violations in Africa as it did in defending the Palestinians, it could make a significant difference.

Steven Gruzd, the head of the African Governance and Diplomacy Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs, says, “It’s a fact that South Africa seems to be pretty obsessed with the conflict in the Middle East between the Israelis and the Palestinians. It dominates foreign policy thinking, and is probably the only non-African issue that gains so much attention in our foreign policy making.

“Indeed South Africa does seem to neglect wars that are raging on the continent, be they in Ethiopia or the Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC]. We have sent troops to the eastern DRC, but we’ve had some losses of soldiers, and the mission is under equipped and is really struggling to make headway in a vast area. There have been many other conflicts in which we have tried to mediate but don’t seem to have the same resolve and drive as in the case of the Palestinian issue.

“I find it interesting that the MK party is calling the ANC [African National Congress] out on this,” says Gruzd. “It has been quite supportive of the Palestinians, but even it is recognising that there’s an unhealthy obsession with this conflict to the exclusion of many other conflicts much closer to home.”

“It’s clear that the hyper-focus on Palestinians is a distraction from the rights of South Africans who are being misgoverned,” says Dr Charles Jacobs, the founder of the African-Jewish Alliance, which seeks to highlight and fight Islamist supremacist ideology in Africa and the Middle East. “Not to mention, it’s a distraction from the plight of fellow Africans who are being murdered, raped, and kidnapped in at least nine African countries by people driven by the same ideology as Hamas.”

Adam Charnas, an analyst at the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, says, “Mngxitama has made a point which should be obvious to all. Department of international relations and cooperation policies have a hyper fixation on a single conflict in the Middle East. This stance isn’t just hypocritical, it completely disregards the many conflicts and humanitarian disasters on African soil.”

South African Zionist Federation spokesperson Rolene Marks says, “South Africa, despite its position and responsibility in the African Union, is prioritising taking sides in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians over addressing conflicts within Africa, such as in Sudan, where there’s ongoing war with more than 13 000 estimated dead. Perhaps South Africa’s emphasis on the Palestinian issue is a tactic to divert attention from its failures and neglect of responsibilities towards African nations. This is particularly concerning for a country that sees itself as a leader on the continent.

“By increasingly aligning with countries like Iran, known as significant sponsors of terrorism, and with Hamas, a recognised terror group which committed the most severe atrocity against Jewish people since the Holocaust, South Africa has compromised its ability to act as an impartial mediator in peace negotiations,” says Marks.

“South Africa’s foreign policy continues to harm itself and its economic prospects, while doing nothing to promote peace in Gaza or Israel,” she says. “South Africa’s stance towards Israel and closeness to rogue nations such as Iraq and Russia alienates it from some of its largest trading partners in northern America and Europe. South Africa should take a sensible approach to Israel, stop alienating Western powers and trading partners, and turn its attention to African conflict.”

Mirjam de Bruijn, a professor of contemporary history and anthropology of Africa at Leiden University, told the SA Jewish Report that, “South Africa, especially after the ANC came to power, expressed a wish to participate in pan-African peace building. Whether these peacebuilding efforts have been successful is a question.

“South Africa has contributed largely to United Nations [UN] missions on the continent, but two recent UN interventions in the Sahel region shows the absence of South Africa. This is, at least, remarkable. Is the Sahel and its Francophone character too far away for South Africa? Or is the economic development in these Sahelian countries not interesting enough for South Africa to invest in peace processes? Would mediation or other peace-building processes animated by South Africa for the Sahel make a difference?

“If South Africa would be interested in the Sahel region and invest in the peace process, it could make a difference,” says De Bruijn. “A conflict that has a geopolitical explanation but has by its ethnic violence also genocidal characteristics should be of concern to the world. South Africa could play a role in turning this conflict into a visible conflict. Visibility is part of the solution. It needs to be part of the search for peace, and to show who the perpetrators and victims are in this conflict.

“South Africa is politically better situated to make such contributions to the understanding of the conflicts in the Sahel than, for instance, Europe, or any other with colonial legacies associated with power,” she says. “South African governments after 1994 stand for equality, the end of apartheid, and peace, and this should be for the whole of Africa.”