Chronicle Editor
That South Africa has brought a case of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice, the world court, as it is called, is a historical and political event of some global proportions. So historical and political is the event that it demands we look carefully at South Africa and Israel in their actuality and essence within the world system. When the news broke out that South Africa had filed papers against Israel regarding the attack on Gaza, citing the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948, I immediately posted a question in the online groups of two of the many academic associations that I belong to in South Africa.
I asked colleagues in the South African Association of Political Studies (Saps) and the Philosophical Association of South Africa (Pasa) to say what the meaning of this historical and political event might be. The many answers were as clear as they were unclear, indicating that it is still difficult even for philosophers and political scientists to make sense of the event as everyone waits for the processes and outcomes of the case at the world court. Because of that, I elect to ask more questions and advance some views while we all watch history take a walk amongst us the world over.
To start with, why did it have to be South Africa in the whole world that was moved enough by the attacks on the Palestinians to approach the bench in the World Court? Next, how is it that Israel, the nation and the state that led to the declaration of the Genocide Convention after the Holocaust has become the accused of Genocide? In pondering the two stubborn questions, I stumbled on the question of 1948 as just not another year but a pregnant year, especially for South Africa and Israel.
The year 1948 is special and important for both Israel and South Africa specifically, and the world generally. Philosophically, I can argue here that the fight between South Africa and Israel at the World Court right now is a fight over 1948 and all its political and historical metaphors, symbols, and materials. The fight, as legal, political, and historical as it is, is a fight over an epoch and its events and meanings. It is a curse of 1948 in its zenith and climax.
The curse of 1948
Years come and go. Some are eventful and others are not. Some years pass by as if they never did, non-events. But others load the world with spectacles, disasters, catastrophes, and other remarkable developments. The year 1948 was an eventful year that had disasters and remarkable developments of unforgettable proportions. The world is what it is and what it looks like today, partly because of the disasters and remarkable developments of 1948, I observe.
It was in 1948 that the National Party in South Africa legalised apartheid and its policy of separate development that naturalised and normalised racism. Black people had to be kept away from white people, Indians and the coloureds, by law and force.
The South African people, state and nation, have not forgotten that and they will see apartheid when it begins anywhere in the world including Palestine and its enclave of Gaza. It is a story in the public domain now that when the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu arrived in Palestine on a visit, he cried and remarked that apartheid was still alive in the world. South Africans, especially those of historical conscience and political sensibility like Tutu was, see themselves as Palestinians.
Palestinians gave their solidarities to South Africans under apartheid, and South Africans have always given their solidarity to Palestinians during the occupation of their land since 1948, through 1967, and to date. The case of South Africa against Israel in the World Court is just another episode in the war of resistance against the Empire, an old war in other words.
The year 1948 is also the year that the State of Israel, against the State of Palestine, the Jews against the Arabs, was declared. The natives of Palestine were sidelined in favour of the settlers of Israel, a historical and political move that was endorsed by the United Nations. It was the year of Nakba, catastrophe for the Arabs, and deliverance and victory for the Jews.
The year 1948 produced Israel as a victor and Palestine as a victim, under the midwifery of the West and Europe, using the political weight of the United Nations. The birth of the state of Israel was in the same year as the birth of apartheid South Africa. South African solidarity with Palestine, therefore, is not an accident but a historical incident. It was also an incident when the state of Israel continued to supply apartheid South Africa with weapons against a United Nations arms embargo. That governments of the United States of America and the United Kingdom supported the apartheid regime, especially the Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher regimes, is a well-known truth.
The year 1948 was that dark year. And as usual, darkness is always accompanied by light. In actuality there would be no darkness if there was no light, and the opposite. It is also in that year that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was made, and the year when the Genocide Convention itself was made. As Mahatma Gandhi, a living symbol of non-violence was assassinated, declarations for human rights and against genocide were being made. And that was as Israel was coming to being and apartheid was being fortified in South Africa.
One may observe that black and democratic South Africa and Israel were always going to fight, legally and politically. As such, the legal fight at the World Court, between South Africa and Israel, is pregnant with many political meanings.
The political meanings of South Africa versus Israel
Within the world system South Africa, black South Africa, has always been a metaphor of resistance and liberation. That is from the Free Mandela Movement, the struggle against apartheid, to the present De-dollarisation Movement that is led by the BRICS economic and political union. The South African establishment was not going to miss the opportunity to make a political point against the Empire. South Africa is putting the world system on trial in its own court using its own laws. Just by filing the papers against Israel, South Africa has won, no matter what the outcome of the case will be. South Africa, in this case, stands on high moral ground and is doing what many other countries of the Global South wish to do but are afraid or unable to do so. High moral ground is high legal and political ground.
Genocide, that Israel is charged with is according to the United Nations a crime “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” My good friend, Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi argued compellingly that based on the statements of the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and many Israeli senior soldiers and other spokespersons, Israel had from the start an intention to commit Genocide in Palestine. On 28 October 2023, Netanyahu told the Israeli army for instance, that “remember what Amalek has done to you.” This statement invokes the Biblical command from God to Saul, instructing him to destroy an entire group of people.
After being bullied for its historical friendship with China and Russia, recently, South Africa will not miss the opportunity to point to the nakedness of the Empire. The challenge to Israel is a confrontation, in lawfare mode, with the USA and the entire NATO alliance. As such, the case is an episode of the unfolding World War III that is enveloping the world.
Led by the ANC, the South African political establishment is aware that it is only as recently as 2008 that Nelson Mandela and the liberation movement he led were removed from the list of terrorist persons and organisations in the world by the United States of America.
One can only be surprised that many political scientists and political philosophers in Africa are surprised that it has to be South Africa of all countries in the world that has invested in taking Israel to the World Court. It is only historical and politically natural that South Africa should lead Africa and the Global South in asking strong questions and demanding strong answers from Empire.
Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from Mabusabesala Village in Siyabuswa, Mpumalanga Province, in South Africa. Contacts: [email protected].
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