Time for world to follow South Africa’s moral lead on Gaza war
- Viewing themselves as victims of colonialism and apartheid, black South Africans support Palestinians’ struggle against Israel and Zionism
- Palestinians’ suffering weighs on the conscience of many Africans and is turning their cause from a pan-Arab concern to a pan-African one
After all, it was African countries which buttressed UN Resolution 3379 of 1975 that determined that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”. Since then, many Africans no longer view the Palestinian cause merely as an Arab one but as a cause of all oppressed peoples who have been deprived of the right to a homeland.
In March 2023, for instance, the South African parliament voted in favour of a motion that would downgrade its embassy in Israel into a liaison office in solidarity with Palestinians. Later that year, the parliament adopted a motion that called for shutting down the Israeli embassy and suspending all diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv. In November, South Africa and Chad recalled their diplomats from Israel.
In short, the predicament of the Palestinians weighs heavily on the conscience of many Africans, who see the Gaza war as a spin-off of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not a Hamas-Israeli war. Hence, Africa will witness regional shifts and new geopolitical realignments in the coming years, with the struggle for Palestinian liberation slowly changing from a pan-Arab cause to a pan-African one. It is no wonder that South Africa filed a case against Israel at the ICJ; South African President Cyril Ramaphosa well knows what constitutes genocide and war crimes.
The current South African government taking the lead reminds me of the words of the late ANC leader Nelson Mandela during a tour of Gaza: “The histories of our two peoples, Palestinian and South African, correspond in such painful and poignant ways, that I intensely feel myself being at home amongst compatriots.” While serving as South Africa’s first black president, Mandela often tied his country’s anti-apartheid struggle with the Palestinians’ battle for statehood.
The ICJ orders will add to the moral pressure on Tel Aviv. It is now incumbent upon the international community, particularly Western nations, to buttress the court orders and fully denounce Israeli wartime conduct that has thus far left more than 32,000 Palestinians dead and more than 80 per cent of Gaza’s population displaced and facing famine.
Mohamed El-Bendary, an independent researcher based in Egypt, taught journalism in the United States and New Zealand