The ANC places itself on the wrong side of history and increasingly alienates South Africa from countries on which it depends for its survival.
“The dividing line between anti-Western ANC rhetoric and action on the international stage is now rapidly blurring,” says Dr. Corné Mulder, FF Plus MP and the party’s spokesperson on international relations and cooperation.
“The world is taking note that the ANC government increasingly feels at home among the rotten ones of the world who openly trample on human rights. Ordinary South Africans are going to pay the price for this.”
A fierce debate took place on Tuesday in a session of the National Assembly (NA) over South Africa’s decision to recall diplomats from Israel for “consultation”.
Minister Naledi Pandor said insults towards her that she is a “terrorist” or “friend of Hamas” “flow like water off a duck’s back, because it is completely untrue”. She said the South African government supports a two-state solution. “We believe that Israel has the right to exist as a state alongside the state of Palestine.”
According to Pandor, the rights of Palestinians are violated daily and this amounts to apartheid. “The people of Palestine are denied the right to exist as human beings, the right to enjoy the freedoms and the rights for which we as South Africans have fought so hard. What is being done to the people of Palestine is wrong and intolerable, and we will not pretend to accept it.”
Mulder believes that South Africa’s withdrawal of its diplomats from Israel and its threat to kick out Israel’s ambassador to South Africa undeniably show where its sentiments lie.
“The FF Plus is also aware that the conflict can be summarily ended if Hamas would be willing to meet three conditions. The first is the unconditional release of all hostages who were kidnapped from Israel a month ago. Second, the immediate cessation of rocket attacks on Israel and third, the undertaking to take action against all those responsible for the attack on 7 October. Hamas is aware that it is in its hands to bring the conflict and the suffering of all Palestinians in the area to an end, but prefers to drag it out.”
The DA believes the real war is between radicalism and rationality. Emma Louise Powell, DA MP and the party’s spokesperson on international relations and cooperation, said the DA stands in solidarity with Palestinians and Israelis who are looking for a two-state solution.
“We reject any sentiment that wants to destroy either Israel or Palestine. We embrace rationality, based on peaceful coexistence for a secure Israel and a free Palestine. We seek the triumph of rational forces, committed to peaceful coexistence, on both sides of this terrible conflict. That is why we stand united in our condemnation of the brutality that Hamas unleashed on the Israeli people on October 7. This massacre evoked some of the darkest memories of centuries of persecution against the Jewish people. What is equally true is that the people of Palestine are not defined by Hamas. And the people of Palestine cannot, and must not, be subjected to collective punishment.”
Powell said little. Pandor simply cannot position the ANC government as an honest advocate of peace.
“The truth is that the ANC has no interest in building peace in the Middle East. They are only interested in provoking and exploiting this conflict. All they are interested in is using this tragedy for their own cheap political gain, in the hope that they can incite domestic division and distract the South African people from their dismal failures in government.”
