Will South Africa walk back its Gaza genocide stance under new coalition govt

By Iqbal Jassat 

Has South African politician and leader of the country’s second-largest political party, Helen Zille, emerged as a leading agitator to reverse South Africa's groundbreaking efforts in solidarity with Palestine's freedom struggle against Zionism's illegal settler colonial regime?

Her demands on the African National Congress (ANC), the country’s largest party, to concede a number of key ministerial posts in the proposed Government of National Unity (GNU), to her Democratic Alliance (DA) party, include that of International Relations.

If the foreign affairs portfolio falls into the hands of the DA, South Africa may have to say goodbye to the enormous strides made by successive ANC governments from the time of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela until this GNU moment.

DA's mimicking of the Israeli regime’s hostile position on Palestine’s leading resistance movement is spelled out by it in these words:

"In Palestine, radicalism (sic) is represented by Hamas. The DA, along with most of the world, regards Hamas as a terrorist organization..." 

The language used by the DA is coded in typical Zionist semantics. "Radicalism" is often associated with Islamophobic racists to imply that Muslims are "irrational" and unwilling to "conform" to "normalized behavior". 

If one decodes the word "radicalism" in the context applied by the DA linking the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas to it, apart from the fact that such malicious usage comes straight out of Israel’s propaganda handbook, it also makes clear the DA's pro-Israel bias. 

To illustrate how far-removed John Steenhuisen and his party are from the reality of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, the DA willfully ignores what many human rights organizations cite as root causes for Palestinian resistance: settlements, annexation, ethnic cleansing, siege and occupation. 

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South Africa has formally lodged a case against the Israeli regime at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the genocide of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Failure to correctly diagnose the source of Palestinian discontent will result in the type of misalignment evident in the DA's bizarre "solution":

"Part of the path to peace involves eliminating (sic) Hamas’ capacity to utilize Gaza as a staging ground for terror attacks and a supply base for its militants". 

Again, once such outrageous language is decoded, it reveals that the DA shows scant regard for South Africa's own freedom struggle against years of apartheid. 

Importantly, to proclaim without any shred of evidence that it, the DA "... along with most of the world, regards Hamas as a terrorist organization...” displays arrogance, and a sense of recklessness coupled with Israeli-styled impunity. 

Sure, the Zilles and Steenhuisens of the world are free to align their anti-Palestinian bias with that of the Zionist regime's racist war criminals led by Benjamin Netanyahu, but to do so by regurgitating false Israeli propaganda is extremely naive. 

If the DA lives under the illusion that the US administration along with the British and German governments equate to "most of the world", it demonstrates how skewed their understanding is. 

Also by demonizing Hamas as a "terrorist organization", the DA seems not to have learned any lessons from South Africa's political history during the notorious era when liberation movements, its leaders and members were hunted and mowed down as "terrorists". 

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The successive regimes in Tel Aviv have acted no differently to the National Party's racist mantra: proscribe your opponents especially those engaged in armed struggle against your policies of oppression and subjugation as "terrorists". 

Once dehumanizing is underway, "most of the world (sic)" i.e. Western capitals and their respective military-industrial complexes will spare no effort to finance and arm you to the hilt to "eliminate" freedom movements wrongly and deliberately profiled as "terrorists". 

The DA's participation in any form of coalition with the African National Congress in the proposed coalition government is problematic, to say the least. 

Being firmly embedded in the North by articulating Western hegemony in its vision of international relations, whether concerning Ukraine or Israel, the DA will remain an impediment. 

Equally, it is highly unlikely for the DA to suddenly embrace South-South cooperation. 

Developing countries in the Global South have adopted meaningful plans of cooperation, in which South Africa has been pivotal, especially in pursuit of human rights. 

Having failed to take a principled position on the defense of Palestinian rights by not supporting South Africa's groundbreaking legal initiatives at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), one is skeptical of the DA's so-called plea for "peace" in the absence of justice. 

To ridicule Palestine's freedom struggle in terms associated with Islamophobia such as "radicalism", "fundamentalism" and "terrorism", does very little to engender hope, that Zille and Steenhuisen's Democratic Alliance will move away from its pro-Israel position. 

Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Will South Africa’s stance on Israeli genocide in Gaza change under new coalition govt?

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