South Africa chooses racism again

In 1992, the disastrous apartheid regime fell in the Republic of South Africa, and the world believed that a social and political coexistence was beginning where everyone would be equal before the law regardless of their sex, religion, political opinions and physical characteristics. But it was a mirage.

Apartheid South Africa governed all aspects of society through segregation based on a supremacist ideology. The goal of the anti-apartheid movement, personified by the great Nelson Mandela, was a social democratic society in which all citizens were equal under one legal system. But the reality is that the African National Congress has not lived up to the vision of its legendary leader, and 30 years after the end of the apartheid, the ANC has not fulfilled any of its basic promises, while the vast majority of South Africans continue to live in poverty. The ANC is grappling with a very low public approval rating ahead of the 2024 elections due to a wave of violent crime and crumbling infrastructure. Corruption is rampant among the ruling party leadership, making it one of the worst governments in the world.

South Africa has been governed since 1994 by the African National Congress (ANC), a party affiliated with Socialist International, which governs the country in a parliamentary alliance with the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the COSATU union. In 2023, it ranked among the top 10 countries in the world for homicide rate, with tens of thousands of murders annually and inadequate basic services such as electricity, nutrition, housing and employment. However, instead of focusing on transparency in its own party, the ANC has once again resorted to the world's oldest of scapegoats. South Africa made headlines recently because its government filed a complaint for "genocide" against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), though it has not provided any evidence.

The claims made by the South African government at The Hague are nothing less than modern blood libel. The current ANC government is deflecting from its own failures by attacking the world's only Jewish state and threatening South African Jews with prison for, for example, serving in the Israeli military.

The ANC has not been shy about displaying its good relations with Hamas terrorists. In October 2015, it welcomed one of the leaders of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, and treated him as an important foreign leader, in a meeting that received harsh criticism from both the South African opposition and other governments. On Oct. 27, 2023, 20 days after the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel, South Africa was one of the countries that supported a now infamous resolution at the U.N. that did not condemn that terrorist attack and omitted any reference to the hostages that were kidnapped by Hamas. Even after that terrorist attack, on Dec. 5, the ANC welcomed a Hamas delegation to South Africa, in an event aimed at rallying support for the Palestinian cause.

The claims made by the South African government at The Hague are nothing less than modern blood libel. The current ANC government is deflecting from its own failures by attacking the world's only Jewish state and threatening South African Jews with prison for, for example, serving in the Israeli military.

It is very clear that South Africa, long identified with institutionalized racism and then with the fight against it, is now a world leader in promoting racism and racist violence against Israel and the Jewish people as a whole. Indeed, South Africa's false accusations not only represent a danger to Israel's international standing, but would also give a green light to antisemites around the world, who have taken every opportunity in recent months to spew Judeophobic propaganda and incite violence against Jews.

Last October, a wave of antisemitic violence was unleashed when Hamas falsely claimed that Israel had bombed a hospital in Gaza. The international media joined in that accusation without questioning its source, which was Hamas. After Hamas' claims proved to be unfounded, the media called it a mere journalistic error. Given the explosion of global antisemitism that followed fake news about the hospital bombing, the potential magnitude of the backlash that would occur if a United Nations body accused Israel of genocide is enormous. But it would not be surprising, since the U.N. is full of deception, indoctrination and prejudice through its exclusive agency for Palestinian refugees, which has proven to be a center of anti-Israel indoctrination. South Africa's accusation against Israel is not its only a manifestation of racism. In 2016, the government surpassed all limits by targeting the white minority, ensuring that the legitimate owners of the land are black people and that no white person is a legitimate land owner on the entire African continent.

In 2016, the government surpassed all limits by targeting the white minority, ensuring that the legitimate owners of the land are black people and that no white person is a legitimate land owner on the entire African continent.

This racist rhetoric is on the rise, and it is having consequences in South Africa. Between July 1994 and 2012, more than 3,000 white farmers were murdered, while authorities let these crimes, which are often accompanied by horrific acts of torture, go unpunished. For example, in October 2011, a couple was shot to death after the wife was raped and their 12-year-old son was killed after being plunged into boiling water. In March 2016, a family of four was brutally murdered: a 73-year-old man, his 42-year-old son, the son's 46-year-old wife and their 9-year-old daughter. In January 2017, Hannes Kidson and his wife, Ester, both 69, had their throats brutally slit. In February 2017, Robert, 66, and Sue, 64, were tied up on their own farm, stabbed and tortured with a blowtorch for several hours. Finally, Sue was murdered with two shots to the head, and Robert was shot in the neck. When police found the wife's body, she was almost unrecognizable, with skull fractures, gunshot wounds and horrible burns on her breasts caused by the blowtorch. Fanie and Colleen Engelbrecht, a farming couple aged 78 and 74, were also killed in their home.

The 1996 Constitution of South Africa states that the country cannot discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, but a 2018 proposal in the South African Parliament, which passed by an overwhelming majority, allows land to be confiscated from white farmers without compensation. Critics have compared the move to the disastrous land redistribution in neighboring Zimbabwe that was accompanied by violence and left farms abandoned. In South Africa, corruption and lack of training for farmers remain obstacles to land redistribution. The government's land reform policy has been criticized over the years, as many farms that were transferred to black farmers remain fallow and unproductive.

The corrupt and racist South African government has allied with Hamas knowing that the group calls for the genocide of the Jews, the destruction of Israel and the murder of the entire Jewish community. South Africa is risking everything for Hamas, attracting the most repugnant antisemites and racists in the world to represent them at The Hague. At a time when South Africans are facing a huge social and economic crisis, with the highest unemployment rate in the world according to the World Bank, and crime and murder rates out of control, the South African government should focus on its own problems. However, they choose to embark on a miserable accusation. Once again, like decades ago, South Africa has chosen to be racist.