- EURASIAREVIEW.COM - A la une - 06/08/2024 22:09

The African National Congress And Israel: A Failure To Connect – OpEd

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. 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 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-backedInkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which has notably avoided condemningIsrael. 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.” TheMagnitsky Act, signed into law by PresidentBarack Obamain 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 theBRICS 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.