It all stems from 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 condemned 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, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat. When he visited Israel in 1999, Mandela 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. By 2019, when South Africa downgraded its embassy in Tel Aviv to a liaison office, bilateral trade amounted to only $407.7 million. In 2023, it fell to about $350 million.
The ANC ruled South Africa for 30 years until, in the general election of May 2024, the party lost its majority. As part of the deal that stitched together a governing coalition, President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has repeatedly labeled Israel an apartheid state (without ever visiting the country), was re-elected. Since then, the ANC-led coalition government has maintained its unyielding opposition to Israel, despite the far softer attitudes of its coalition partners toward the Jewish state. Israeli Foreign Ministry legal adviser Tal Becker and British jurist Malcom Shaw sit in the International Court of Justice on January 12, 2024. (credit: THILO SCHMUELGEN/REUTERS)
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 the 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 rumors and perhaps unprovable accusations 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 (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 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 act, signed into law by president Barack Obama in December 2012, authorized the US government to sanction foreign government officials worldwide who are human rights offenders or have been involved in significant corruption.
The lawyers’ letter alleged 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 revealed 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 wrote: “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, had 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 the allegations are eventually proven, 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’s thoughts on the relationship
FORMER ISRAELI ambassador to South Africa Arthur Lenk believes that the Israeli-South African relationship will remain strained for as long as the Gaza conflict and the case in The Hague continue. 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, Lenk pointed out that the ANC government saw the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) organization 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 United Nations.
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.
The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. You can follow him at a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.
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Publish date : 2024-07-28 22:12:59
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