Political scientist questions the credibility of the African country’s lawsuit against Israel in the international court considering its history and diplomatic ties with the terrorist group
South Africa, the country that accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians, maintains diplomatic relations with the terrorist group Hamas. Official visits and the close relationship between the leaders show that the lawsuit filed before the United Nations International Court of Justice against Israel is biased and unfounded, according to political scientist André Lajst, executive president of StandWithUs Brazil.
A photo of the former president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and Khaled Meshaal, former head of the terrorist group Hamas, who now heads the group’s diaspora office in Qatar, gained notoriety on social media recently, following the African country’s accusation against Israel before the International Court of Justice. Other images showing South African leaders together with Hamas have also re-circulated.
The featured image dates back to 2015, and shows the official visit of a Hamas delegation to South Africa. At the time, Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing concern about the meeting, and stating that the visit “provides support for terrorism and ignores the position of the international community that considers Hamas a terrorist organization”.
Eight years later, Hamas was responsible for the biggest attack in recent Israeli history, leaving more than 1,200 Israelis dead. Today, the terrorists continue to hold almost 130 hostages, and Israel has started to wage war against the group in order to rescue its citizens who are still being held captive and put an end to the terrorist group, according to its official sources.
The South African government was slow to condemn Hamas’ atrocities, although it eventually did, but was quick to speak out against Israel’s retaliation in Gaza. A few days after the October 7 attack, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations, Naledi Pandor, had a telephone conversation with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, apparently to discuss getting aid to Gaza. Hamas claimed that Ms. Pandor expressed solidarity with the group, although she later denied this. The call was followed by a visit by the minister to Tehran, where she discussed the issue with Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president.
Last week, South Africa brought the case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. However, exactly a week before the country filed the charges against Israel, South Africa’s current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, received Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, the Sudanese general whose Janjaweed militia and his successor are accused of genocide and war crimes in Darfur. However, Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, later visited the genocide museum in Kigali, Rwanda.
In addition, a Hamas delegation led by Bassem Naim, a senior official of the terrorist group, visited the capital Pretoria on December 5 last year and took part in a march in honor of Nelson Mandela together with the anti-apartheid leader’s own grandson, named Mandla. Hamas members laid a wreath next to the statue of Mandela outside the president’s office, together with Lindiwe Zulu, minister of social development.
“With the history of contacts between the South African government and Hamas, the action brought by South Africa against Israel in the International Court is clearly biased,” points out André Lajst. “Maintaining diplomatic relations with a group that deliberately attacked Israelis just for being Israelis, and also with other leaders accused of war crimes, shows a clear divergence in understanding of what genocide actually is.”
Lasjt believes that this is yet another false accusation that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population. “According to the definition of genocide adopted by the UN – formulated by a Jew to describe the horrors of the Holocaust – what constitutes such a crime is the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic or religious group,” explains the Middle East expert. “What Israel has done, however, is quite different from this. Evidence of this is the many measures to avoid civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip during the war against Hamas, such as the distribution of humanitarian aid and the issuing of warnings and guidelines for civilians to leave conflict zones before Israeli military action.”
“Brazil and the other countries that supported this action brought by South Africa, whose concepts are distorted, should analyze the circumstances in a less biased way and understand that Israel is fighting to defend itself against a terrorist group that is holding its civilians hostage, just as any other country that has suffered a tragedy of this magnitude would do, and is not deliberately eliminating the Palestinian civilian population,” Lajst concludes.
South Africa’s accusation
Brazil officially supported South Africa’s action, as did Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Morocco, Malaysia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Maldives, Namibia, Jordan, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia. Germany rejected the South African complaint and stressed that Israel was only defending itself. Israel also received support from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.
Regarding the accusation, Lior Haiat, spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said in a press release that South Africa’s action was “one of the greatest demonstrations of hypocrisy in history, compounded by a series of false and unfounded allegations”. In addition, it accused the African country of being a “legal arm of the Hamas terrorist organization” and of having distorted reality, ignoring the fact that “Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel, murdered, executed, massacred, raped and kidnapped Israeli citizens simply because they were Israelis” – which can be classified as genocide.
*** Translated by DEFCONPress FYI Team ***