In 1990, fresh from serving over two decades in prison on charges of trying to “overthrow the state,” South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela delivered harsh remarks likening Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the oppression of black South Africans under apartheid rule.
“If one has to refer to any of the parties as a terrorist state, one might refer to the Israeli government, because they are the people who are slaughtering defenseless and innocent Arabs in the occupied (by Israel) territories, and we don’t regard that as acceptable,” he said at the time.
It was a version of remarks the Nobel Peace Prize winner would repeat during his career as an anti-racist crusader and when he took office as president of South Africa in 1994. In government, he called on his country “to stand up and be counted among those contributing actively to the cause of freedom and justice.”
It thus may come as no surprise that South Africa’s current government argued last week in international court that Israel’s war on Gaza is not just a means of crushing Hamas, the de facto rulers of Gaza whose gunmen grossly assaulted Israeli civilians on October 7, but also aims to commit genocide against Palestinians.
South African prosecutors accused Israel of purposefully attempting “to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as part of the broader Palestinian national racial and ethnic group.”
Israel responded forcefully and furiously. Its advocates said the case “profoundly distorted the factual and legal picture,” was “barely distinguishable” from Hamas propaganda and that Israel acted rightfully and legally in self-defense over “the slaughter of October 7, which Hamas has vowed to repeat.”
The legal stakes are high. South Africa is asking the International Court of Justice, a United Nations institution, to order Israel to end its Gaza operations immediately.
After granting this “immediate measure,” the court would then be obliged to take up the charge of intentional genocide in a proceeding that could last several years. Even if the court rules against it, Israel could simply refuse to comply as the ICJ has no legally binding enforcement mechanism.
Besides truncating the war, South Africa’s action and Israel’s defense reflected other stakes: political reputation. A potential ICJ judgment against Israel would put it in the position of flouting international law. It would also place it in the similar category of international scofflaw, in league with Russia, which rejected an ICJ demand to end its invasion of Ukraine.
Not only Israel would be put on the defensive in such a scenario. The United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union have all supported Israel’s right to counter the Hamas invasion, though EU countries have pressed for Israel to declare a ceasefire to ease civilian suffering.
In a pre-emptive move, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared the South Africa case as “meritless” which “distracts the world from important efforts for peace and security.”
Germany declared it would file a brief in support of Israel to the ICJ, even though it already came out in favor of provisional measures against Myanmar for its gross mistreatment of the Rohingya people, a Muslim ethnic minority pushed in their hundreds of thousands into neighboring Bangladesh by military “area clearance operations.”
South Africa’s case has arguably already negatively impacted Israel and its allies. Supporters of the measure include the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which includes NATO member Turkey, the 22-member Arab League, and left-leaning governments in Brazil, Colombia and Bolivia in Latin America.
Parallel to all this, the South African government, by trying to win a reprieve for Gaza, seeks to burnish its faded Mandela-era reputation as a human rights champion.
In part of its court presentation, South Africa said Israel’s wartime rhetoric alone betrayed genocidal intent against Palestinians. Since the war began, top Israeli officials have explicitly or indirectly called for the mass killing of Palestinians, prosecutors claimed.
President Isaac Herzog, for one, offered a sweeping condemnation of all Palestinians in Gaza: “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the Biblical tale about eliminating a murderous nation known as Amalek and compared it to the Palestinians. “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember,” he said. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told soldiers, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
Israel, clearly perplexed by having to defend itself in the televised court proceeding, launched full-throated attacks on South Africa’s motives for taking the accusations to the ICJ.
The first Israeli speaker, diplomatic advisor Tal Becker, said Pretoria’s case was “barely distinguishable” from Hamas propaganda and aimed at simply “weaponizing” an unfounded accusation of genocide.
“South Africa enjoys close relations with Hamas,” Becker said. “These relations have continued unabated even after the October 7 atrocities.” The seemingly genocidal words from Israeli officials did not represent policy and were taken out of context, Becker added.
Netanyahu dampened any notion that his government would comply with an order to curtail the fighting. He called the hearing a “hypocritical attack in The Hague on the Jewish state that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust, by emissaries of those who came to perpetrate another Holocaust on the Jews.” The genocide charge “is a moral low in the history of nations,” he added.
“No one will stop us—not The Hague, the Axis of Evil and no one else,” Netanyahu added, referencing a label placed on Iran, Iraq and North Korea by former US President George W Bush and, more recently, by certain Republican Party politicians to include Iran, North Korea, Russia and China.
There are historical factors that affect the stands of both South Africa and Israel that give the courtroom drama an especially bitter flavor. It derives from South Africa’s period under white supremacist rule governments and Israel’s relation to South Africa during that period.
The African National Congress, the anti-apartheid organization that Mandela led, maintained close relations with post-World War II anti-colonial liberation movements including the Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO.
When Mandela spoke in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1990, he was welcomed not only by African leaders but also by PLO head Yasser Arafat, who memorably planted a kiss on each of Mandela’s cheeks. The ANC, which has ruled South Africa ever since, has continued to support Palestinian causes including statehood.
Israel, after declaring the State of Israel in 1948, sought friends among emerging African states in the 1950s and ‘60s. It also criticized apartheid.
However, the sentiment collapsed after the 1973 Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan, in which Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank and the Sinai Peninsula. Eager to regain new allies, Israel turned to South Africa, which was also looking for friends.
In 1973, South Africa’s president John Vorster visited Israel. Then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin greeted him and said South Africa reflected “ideals shared by Israel and South Africa” and that both countries faced “foreign-inspired instability and recklessness.”
The event further soured relations with what is now known as the Global South. It also provided a partner willing to provide arms and military technology. Israel did not take part in international sanctions against the apartheid regime.
Shimon Peres, a two-time Israeli prime minister and a former president, was defense minister when Vorster visited.
In 2006, Peres reluctantly talked about relations with South Africa. He described the relationship as a necessity of Israel’s constant attempt to gain international recognition.
“At that time the movement of black South Africa was with Arafat against us. Actually, we didn’t have much of a choice,” he told the Guardian newspaper in 2006. He insisted that, “We never stopped denouncing apartheid. We never agreed with it.”
“I never think back,” Peres added. “Since I cannot change the past, why should I deal with it?”