JOHANNESBURG—South Africa’s embattled governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), said a “fightback” against it has begun and that it’s encountering “repercussions” after it recently took Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague for its military operation against Hamas in Gaza.
The “repercussions” could extend into domestic politics, and could involve an effort to instigate “regime change,” South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa told a meeting of senior ANC officials last week.
A majority of judges presiding over the ICJ case granted most of the measures requested by Pretoria’s legal team, including that Israel take all necessary steps to prevent genocide in the Palestinian territory.
The court also found that there was a prima facie case that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that it had the right to fully investigate the charge.
However, the ICJ didn’t grant South Africa’s request for Israeli troops to cease fire in Gaza, where, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry, more than 27,000 people have been killed and about 66,000 wounded since Israel began its offensive three months ago.
The violence in Gaza was ignited on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli settlements. They killed about 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostages, most of whom are still being held in Gaza.
Mr. Ramaphosa said his ANC government would do everything in its power to “achieve Nelson Mandela’s dream of a free Palestine,” and because of its efforts in this regard and its success at the ICJ, it’s being “vilified” and “targeted.”
“Our success has exposed not only atrocities that have been carried out by the state of Israel, but it has also exposed the moral bankruptcy of those countries who, by their acts of omission and commission, are allowing genocide to take place in Gaza on their watch. We say this humbly, without pointing fingers,” he told ANC officials in Johannesburg.
Several senior government officials told The Epoch Times that Mr. Ramaphosa was indeed “pointing fingers” at the United States, the UK, and Germany, countries that made strong statements against South Africa’s ICJ case.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Pretoria’s charge of genocide “baseless” and “without merit.”
The office of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said South Africa’s case was “completely unjustified and wrong.”
The German government issued a statement saying it “expressly rejected the accusation of genocide” against Israel, and that the accusation had “no basis whatsoever.”
In his speech, Mr. Ramaphosa warned that the ANC government was facing “systematic fightback campaigns” from Israel and its allies.
“There will be no doubt that these forces will do anything in their power to prevent South Africa from concluding their case on the merits of the matter,” he said.
“The fightback may focus on our domestic politics and our electoral outcomes in order to pursue a regime change agenda.”
Mr. Ramaphosa characterized this as a “David and Goliath contest.”
He said the ANC was being “blamed” for taking Israel to a court that it and its Western allies had established, and so it should be “absolutely vigilant and resolute” in the face of “interference” in its efforts to help Palestinians.
The ANC is expected later this year to face the greatest challenge yet to its 30-year hold on power.
Polls show that the party’s support is falling fast, on the back of allegations of corruption, the world’s highest unemployment, violent crime, and a service delivery crisis that leaves much of the country without electricity and water on a daily basis.
Last week, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor said the country is “paying the price” for taking “moral action” that she said had embarrassed Israel and its partners, and that “fallout” from South Africa’s opposition to Israel could include interference in the country’s elections.
“For example, I’m hearing in [international] media it’s likely we'll have an election that will have contested results. We’ve had excellent election administration. There’s no suspicion of incapacity of the Independent Electoral Commission; never has been! Why suddenly now? It’s all part of a pattern,” Ms. Pandor told journalists in Pretoria.
Recent statements from leading ANC members, especially Mr. Ramaphosa’s “regime change” comments, show a party “wracked with paranoia” ahead of elections expected in May, South African political analyst and professor Susan Booysen told The Epoch Times.
“All indications are that the ANC will fall below the 50-plus-1 percent threshold needed for it to hold onto outright governance.
“It will need to form a coalition government if it wants to remain in power, and that will be a huge blow to a party used to getting its own way about everything in South Africa; it will represent severe humiliation for the ANC and perhaps be a foreboding of its demise.”
However, she said, the “conspiracy comments” were also “very strategic” and designed to present the ANC as bravely standing up to the world’s “big bullies.”
“So what the ANC’s saying is: ‘Forgive us for our mistakes and vote for us so that we can continue fighting on your behalf against the powers that want to oppress all of us as Africans and South Africans,’” Ms. Booysen said.
“It’s a very clever strategy, and I believe it will pay off, to some degree, at the polls for the ANC.”
While the South African government presented a good, moral case against Israel at the ICJ, she said, filing the charges was also a “political masterstroke” that had rallied South Africans of all races and persuasions behind the state at a time when the ANC “needs all the support it can get.”
Most Jewish organizations and some opposition parties in South Africa are outraged by Pretoria’s charge of genocide against Israel, but the majority of the country is clearly pro-Palestinian, according to South African political analyst and journalist Stephen Grootes.
“Millions of South Africans see the Palestinian struggle for self-determination as reminiscent of their struggle against apartheid,” he told The Epoch Times.
“When they see Israel confining Palestinians to Gaza, they remember how the apartheid state tried to confine black South Africans in homelands and townships.
“When they see Israel raining bombs down on Gaza, and raiding hospitals to kill terrorists, they remember how apartheid forces waged war on the ANC in neighboring countries and assassinated anti-apartheid activists.”
Mr. Grootes said Ms. Pandor had “added fuel to the fire” with comments that, since the ICJ findings, she and other South African officials had been subjected to a “coordinated misinformation campaign.”
She said “fake news” on the social media platform X, for example, had portrayed her as calling on Arab states to attack Israel.
Ms. Pandor said she also noted statements made by senior Israeli government officials that her government was anti-Semitic, “friends of Hamas,” and a “proxy” of Iran.
She told The Epoch Times: “We’re not stupid; we know who is planting false stories in the international media claiming that our legal team was paid by Iran.
“Firstly, our legal team hasn’t been paid yet, as far as I know. Secondly, when they do get paid, it won’t be by Iran or anyone else, for that matter.
“South Africa is a poor country compared to many others, but we have enough money to pay for our own lawyers, thank you very much.”
Ms. Pandor also said that there was commentary in media “across the world” about how “hypocritical” South Africa was to charge Israel with genocide while ignoring atrocities elsewhere in the world, especially in Africa.
“We charged Israel with genocide because, like us, it is a signatory to the United Nations Genocide Convention, and that was the basis we used to launch our action at the ICJ,” she said.
“But let’s talk about hypocrisy and double standards. I recently met with the International Criminal Court chief prosecutor [Karim Khan]. I asked him why he issued an arrest warrant for [Russian President] Vladimir Putin [for alleged war crimes in Ukraine] and not for Israel’s Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu].
“He was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation.”
South Africa made a referral to the International Criminal Court late last year that the court must investigate Mr. Netanyahu and senior officials in his government for war crimes and crimes against humanity over the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) operations in Gaza.
The Epoch Times made several unsuccessful attempts to contact Mr. Khan.
The South African government says Israel continued to commit genocide in Gaza in “flagrant violation” of the ICJ’s rulings.
Ms. Pandor suggested that the U.N. Security Council be reformed to give it power to enforce peace, and not just monitor peace agreements.
“I believe South Africa has done what it can, and now the global community must answer the question: Do these conventions mean anything?“ she said. ”Or do we now have a world in which there is open license where you can act as you will against any vulnerable group?”
