SA’s anti-Israel hypocrisy held to account

“Massacre, carnage, butchering, and ethnic cleansing,” were just some of the ways that the African National Congress (ANC) described Israel’s defensive actions in Gaza over the weekend. This was while more than 1 100 missiles were launched into Israel by the Gaza-based terror group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), over the weekend. Many of these missiles (about 200 of them) fell short of the Gaza border, killing Palestinians in Gaza.

The ANC’s statement came shortly after equally extreme remarks from the department of international relations and cooperation (Dirco), which said that “the killing of children by the Israeli government must urgently be addressed”.

Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor’s remarks clearly insinuated that Israel was deliberately targeting youth, in spite of the fact that it was rockets launched from Gaza that killed Palestinian children.

This was confirmed by Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s spokesperson, Keren Hajioff, on 6 August. “Tonight, Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza fired a rocket towards Israeli children but ended up killing Gazan children instead.” According to media reports, 16 Palestinians lost their lives because 200 PIJ missiles fell within Gaza over the weekend.

“We’ve become all too used to gross displays of hypocrisy on the part of Dirco, but with this latest demonstration, Minister Pandor has sunk to a new low,” says Wendy Kahn, the national director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. “She has shown one set of standards for the Jewish State and another for the rest of the world. It makes a mockery of South Africa’s pretensions to being a moral voice on the global stage.

“Six months and tens of thousands of civilian deaths later, we’re still waiting for Dirco to condemn Russia’s barbaric war of aggression against the Ukrainian people,” Kahn says.

“By comparison, within hours of clashes breaking out on the Israel-Gaza border, Pandor rushed to issue yet another virulent denunciation of the Jewish State.

“South Africa evidently has no problem with most countries defending themselves against violent Islamist extremism. In fact, South African troops have been fighting that very scourge just across our border in Mozambique. When it comes to Israel defending its citizens against terror by the PIJ, however, it appears as though our minister has little sympathy for Jewish lives.

“One waited in vain for our government to express condolences when dozens of Israelis were killed or injured in a wave of terrorist attacks earlier this year. As always, all expressions of outrage were reserved solely for condemning Israeli acts of retaliation.”

Regarding the ANC’s statement, Kahn says, “It’s regrettable that the ANC, with his proud history of peace building and reconciliation, has betrayed these principles. The hypocrisy and double standards have destroyed the credibility and integrity it once upheld. By singling out of the Jewish State for its hate and venom, it makes a mockery of these values. This bizarre rant distresses not just the Jewish community, but all South Africans who oppose hate.”

The South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) also released a strong statement in response to Pandor’s words on Gaza. “The SAZF notes that the South African government has jumped on the opportunity to bash Israel for doing what any responsible country would do to protect its citizens against senseless terror and violence,” said SAZF spokesperson Rolene Marks.

“PIJ, an Iranian proxy operating in Gaza and the West Bank, has been responsible for horrific terror attacks and murder of hundreds of innocent Israeli citizens. PIJ has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, European Union, Japan, United Kingdom, and others. Israel has taken action to prevent PIJ from carrying out further barbarous acts.

“Israel has a moral obligation to protect Israeli citizens,” said Marks. “Instead, the South African government is misconstruing the situation so as to signal to anti-Western sentiments that place our country at odds with the modern world. Not one word has been said by South Africa to condemn the double war crimes PIJ commits each time it fires rockets and mortars from civilian areas in Gaza towards civilians in Israel. We call on the South African government to clarify why it’s taking the side of an international pariah organisation responsible for the killings of innocents,” she said.

The SAZF also condemned the ANC statement. “The extent to which the ANC has recklessly ignored the key factors of the recent conflict cannot be overstated. It refuses to consider the danger in which PIJ has placed civilians during attacks by selecting firing locations in densely populated urban areas. Israel, on the other hand, has gone far beyond the expectations of a modern military to reduce civilian casualties. This includes evacuating buildings, aborting strikes on PIJ leadership, and utilising Israel’s Iron Dome to protect urban areas.

“The ruling party ignores its laundry list of domestic failures. Instead, the ANC shifts the focus to a conflict which has no impact on the lives of South Africans. Where Egypt, a fellow country in Africa, acted to broker a ceasefire and save lives, the ANC government has simply fanned the flames of hate. The ANC’s deplorable hypocrisy should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.”

“It seems as though most of the South African state at institutional level has largely abandoned any effort to be even remotely even-handed on Israel,” says local political analyst Daniel Silke. “It’s possible that much of this is pre-December ANC conference bluster in which Israel provides a useful base to rally the ANC troops. But at the moment, South Africa isn’t attempting to look more critically at events on all sides.”

Hussein Solomon, senior professor in the department of political studies and governance at the University of the Free State, says, “Dirco seems to be trapped in a time warp. The ANC is in an existential crisis and all it can do is cling to the memory of the anti-apartheid struggle. If it really wants to make a difference, it should be seen to be engaging objectively, neutrally, and dispassionately with both sides.”