Published in the Jerusalem Post, 29 July 2024
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It all stems back to the dark days of apartheid. Israel, aware of its obligations to the large Jewish community living in South Africa, maintained diplomatic, military and trade relations with the government – even though it did condemn the regime’s apartheid policies, and applied trade and cultural sanctions from 1987 until apartheid ended. The African National Congress (ANC), fighting tooth and nail to eliminate apartheid, perceived Israel as less than a whole-hearted friend, and embraced the Palestinian cause.
On Nelson Mandela’s
release from prison in 1990, one of the first leaders he met with was his close
friend and confidante, PLO leader Yasser Arafat. When he visited Israel in 1999, he was very supportive of the Palestinian cause.
Efforts by Israel to repair relations, especially after the election of the ANC government in 1994, had little or no effect, although bilateral trade remained healthy for many years. In 2012 bilateral trade peaked at $1.19 billion, but as ANC anti-Israel policy began to harden, trade began to decline. In 2015, then-ANC leader and president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, hosted a Hamas delegation including Khaled Mashaal.
The ANC ruled South Africa for thirty years until, in the general election of May 2024, the party lost its majority. As part of the deal which stitched together a governing coalition, President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has repeatedly labeled Israel an apartheid state (he has never visited the country), was re-elected. Since then the ANC-led coalition government has maintained its unyielding opposition to Israel, despite the far softer attitudes toward Israel of its coalition partners.
When South Africa under the
ANC took Israel to the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) in January on allegations of genocide in Gaza, the
ANC’s main rival at the time, the right-leaning Democratic Alliance (DA),
opposed the step. The right-wing populist Patriotic Alliance (PA) called the move
a “joke”. Both the DA and the PA are now
in the coalition, as is the conservative Zulu-backed Inkatha Freedom Party
(IFP), which has notably avoided condemning Israel. The question must arise as to whether the
views of the coalition partners will in future modify the vehemently
anti-Israel stance of the ANC, and particularly whether South Africa will maintain its lawfare
against Israel in the ICJ.
The answer to this
question may be lost in the fog of rumor and perhaps unprovable accusation
surrounding the ANC’s approach to the ICJ.
The facts are that shortly
before South Africa accused Israel in the ICJ of committing genocide in Gaza,
the South African ruling party, the ANC, known to have longstanding and
crippling debts, suddenly announced that its financial problems had been
resolved. It provided no information as to how this had been achieved.
In
May a group of 160 lawyers drawn from 10 different countries wrote to US
Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, calling for members of the ANC to be
investigated under the Magnitsky Act for participating “in acts of significant
corruption involving bribery.” The Magnitsky Act, signed into law by
President Barack Obama in December 2012, authorizes
the US government to sanction foreign government officials worldwide who are
human rights offenders or have been involved in significant corruption.
The lawyers’ letter
alleges that ANC officials agreed to pursue a case in the ICJ accusing Israel of
committing genocide in Gaza in return for bribes from Iran intended to cover
ANC debts.
The letter reveals a
series of events that began in October 2023, shortly after the outbreak of the
war. South Africa’s then-foreign minister,
Naledi Pandor, traveled to Iran to meet with the Iranian president. In
December South Africa filed the accusation against Israel in the ICJ. In
January, despite well-publicized crippling financial difficulties within the
ANC, the party surprisingly announced that its finances had been stabilized.
The lawyers write:
"This change of economic fortune coincided with the South African
government’s lodging a complaint in the ICJ. This sequence of events strongly
suggests that the ANC party’s financial woes were resolved by Iran as a quid
pro quo for South Africa’s anti-Israel complaint.” The ANC leadership, the letter continued, has
engaged "in the corrupt practice of accepting a bribe from Iran in
exchange for serving as a diplomatic proxy for Iran against Israel.”
The lawyers who signed
the letter are urging the White House, the Attorney General and the US Congress
to investigate how the ANC mysteriously got out of debt, what deal was made
with Iran, and why the ANC government is so driven to support Hamas.
If these allegations are
eventually proved, it could explain why South Africa’s government has continued
to adhere to the rigid ANC anti-Israel line despite the presence of other
parties in the coalition who are known to oppose the ANC on this. If the ANC did indeed accept Iran’s
debt-clearing payment, it would be obligated to deliver the goods.
The ANC has denied all allegations
of corruption.
Former Israeli Ambassador to South Africa, Arthur Lenk, believes that the Israeli-South African relationship will remain strained as long as the Gaza conflict and the case in The Hague continues. An anti-Israel position, he says, fits with the ANC’s broader foreign policy, which has always been aligned with anti-Western causes to varying degrees.
Speaking before the
recent election, he pointed out that the ANC government saw the BRICS
organization (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as a key
international grouping. It led South
Africa to deepen its relationship with China, and to support Russia, albeit
unofficially, in its war against Ukraine by abstaining from votes against
Moscow at the UN.
As for the ANC’s
fixation on Israel, Lenk said it was “cold and calculated…They’re literally
representing Hamas, but it serves a purpose; it matches the ANC foreign policy...”
Forming what he called a
government of national unity, Ramaphosa gave a deputy ministerial post to the
Muslim Al Jama-ah party – a clear sign that he intends to continue backing the
Palestinians over Israel, despite opposition from the DA.
This perception was
strengthened by the appointment of former justice minister Ronald Lamola as
foreign minister. A lawyer, Lamola led
South Africa's opening arguments in the genocide case it brought against Israel
at the ICJ.
It looks very much as
though the stand-off between South Africa and Israel is fated to last a bit
longer.
Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Why South Africa's ANC political party has taken an anti-Israel, pro-terrorist stance", 29 July 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-812244
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