Trump also accused South Africa in his executive order of working with Iran ‘to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.’

By Ailin Vilches Arguello, The Algemeiner

South Africa has vowed to continue pursuing its case against Israel at Trump also accused South Africa in his executive order of working with Iran ‘to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.’the United Nations’ top court accusing the Jewish state of committing genocide in Gaza, saying it will not change course despite strong US opposition.

There is “no chance” of South Africa withdrawing its case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague, Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told the Financial Times in a new interview.

“Standing by our principles sometimes has consequences, but we remain firm that this is important for the worldLamola, and the rule of law,” he added.

The comments from South Africa’s top diplomat came after US President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order to “halt foreign aid or assistance” to South Africa partly in response to the country’s ICJ case and anti-Israel stance.

Trump’s order was also a response to South Africa’s new land expropriation law, which the US argues discriminates against Afrikaners, a minority South African ethnic group of European descent.

During the interview, Lamola denied such accusations, stating that the White House’s statements were “misinformation.” He also argued that the land reform is not “arbitrary,” but an essential measure to rectify the land ownership inequalities left by apartheid.

Trump also accused South Africa in his executive order of working with Iran “to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.”

“While we do have a good relationship with Iran, we don’t have any nuclear programs with them, nor any trade to speak of,” Lamola said.

US intelligence agencies have for years described Iran as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, and Iranian leaders routinely declare their intention of destroying Israel.

Trump’s executive order puts at risk not only $440 million in aid to South Africa but also tariff-free access to US markets under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, presenting a major challenge for the South African coalition government, which took power last year after the ruling African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority in parliament for the first time in South Africa’s post-apartheid democratic history.

The ANC still remained the largest party and retained power at the national level through a coalition.

“We are willing to engage with them to persuade them, if they are willing to be persuaded,” Lamola said.

Since December 2023, South Africa has been pursuing its case at the ICJ accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

Israeli leaders have condemned the case as an “obscene exploitation” of the Genocide Convention, noting that the Jewish state is targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military campaign.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s Jewish community have lambasted the case as “grandstanding” rather than actual concern for those killed in the Middle Eastern conflict.

Last year, the ICJ ruled there was “plausibility” to South Africa’s claims that Palestinians had a right to be protected from genocide.

However, the top UN court did not make a determination on the merits of South Africa’s allegations, which may take years to go through the judicial process, nor did it call for Israel to halt its military campaign.

Instead, the ICJ issued a more general directive that Israel must make sure it prevents acts of genocide. The ruling also called for the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the terrorist group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Last month, Cuba officially became the latest country to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, following Ireland, Nicaragua, Colombia, Mexico, Libya, Bolivia, Turkey, the Maldives, Chile, Spain, and “Palestine.”

Since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, the South African government has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel’s military campaign, which seeks to free the hostages kidnapped by the terrorists and dismantle Hamas’s military and administrative control in Gaza.

In late 2023, South Africa temporarily withdrew its diplomats from Israel and shut down its embassy in Tel Aviv, saying the government was “extremely concerned at the continued killing of children and innocent civilians” in Gaza.

Then in December of that year, South Africa hosted two Hamas officials who attended a government-sponsored conference in solidarity with the Palestinians. One of the officials had been sanctioned by the US government for his role with the terrorist organization.

Months later, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa led the crowd at an election rally in a chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” — a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

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Incidents of assault, threats, and vandalism have skyrocketed since October, 7th.

By Ben Cohen, The Algemeiner

The claim of South Africa’s Justice Minister that there is no antisemitism targeting the country’s Jewish community drew a forthright response from Jewish leaders on Wednesday, who also accused the South African government of “creating an environment that emboldens antisemites.”

In an interview with the BBC’s “Hard Talk” program on Monday, Justice Minister Ronald Lamola flatly denied that antisemitism — which has soared in South Africa in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel and the Israeli government’s military response — was a problem.

When presenter Stephen Sackur quoted South African Jewish leader Howard Sackstein saying that he was “staring at my suitcase contemplating whether it’s time to leave the only home I’ve ever known,” underlining as well his fear that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government had been “captured by radical Islamists,” Lamola dismissed these concerns outright, going on to attack the “Zionist state.”

“It’s a very unfortunate statement not backed by any facts, it’s a figment of his own imagination,” Lamola said.

Lamola added that the case charging Israel with “genocide” brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by South Africa was “not against the Jews as a people, it’s against the Zionist State of Israel,” which was “maiming and killing the Palestinians as a group in Gaza,” he said.

The ICJ’s ruling last week essentially rejected South Africa’s argument, with no immediate order issued to Israel to halt the war, only the demand that assistance must be provided to improve humanitarian conditions and measures taken to prevent acts or incitement against the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention.

When Sackur pointed out that there had been a precipitous rise in antisemitic attacks in South Africa since Oct. 7, Lamola fired back, “there’s no such…there is no antisemitism in South Africa against the Jewish people.”

A statement from the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) on Wednesday highlighted that between October and December of last year, in the weeks following the Hamas assault, 139 antisemitic incidents were recorded, compared with 19 in the same period of 2022 — an increase of 631 percent.

The statement pointed out that there had also been as “a sharp increase in physical attacks against Jewish persons or property, something which had occurred only rarely in previous years. There were six cases of physical assault, whereas the annual average had been only one in the preceding decade.”

Among the violent incidents recorded were two cases of assault outside a Johannesburg synagogue, an attack on a Johannesburg rabbi, and a Jewish community member being repeatedly struck over the head with a pole at a pro-Hamas rally in Cape Town. Vandalism included damage and desecration to Jewish cemeteries in Pretoria and Durban.

During the incident in Cape Town, the targeted individual was surrounded by dozens of violent protestors who bellowed “Viva Hamas” and “Murderers,” telling him “Hitler did not kill all of you guys, just so that we could all see exactly why he did it.”

South Africa’s Jewish community “has prided itself on the relatively low levels of antisemitism compared to other Jewish Diaspora communities,” the SAJBD remarked. “However our government has created an environment where antisemitism can flourish with Minister Lamola’s comments being an example. We call on Minister Lamola and the ANC Government to stop dismissing antisemitism and to stop creating an environment that emboldens antisemites.”

A report on South African antisemitism submitted by the SAJBD to the US State Department and shared with The Algemeiner described how South African Jews increasingly face opprobrium and hatred in their daily lives.

“A ‘naming and shaming’ process has been adopted, where people are encouraged to shun those characterized as ‘genocidal baby killers’ and the like,” the report noted.

In one of several hateful emails sent to members of the community, a Jewish doctor in Cape Town was virulently abused by a former patient who accused him of financial dishonesty.

“I don’t expect anything from a Jewish c*** like you; it’s true what they say about you Jews, it’s ******* huge noses ***** greedy,” the email ranted. It ended, “my sexy rat-eyed y*d, we are coming for you. Hail [sic] HITLER.”

Lamola’s denial of South Africa’s antisemitism problem followed his assertion last week that the ICJ case brought against Israel meant that Nelson Mandela, the late South African President who led the ANC in its struggle against apartheid, “will be smiling in his grave.”

ANC leaders have repeatedly invoked Mandela in a political campaign against Israel that has intensified over the last decade. However, Mandela was a supporter of the two-state solution, declaring in a 1993 address to the Jewish community, “As a movement we recognize the legitimacy of Palestinian nationalism just as we recognize the legitimacy of Zionism as a Jewish nationalism. We insist on the right of the state of Israel to exist within secure borders but with equal vigor support the Palestinian right to national self-determination.”

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