South African lawmakers vote to shut Israel's embassy

Parliamentarians in South Africa voted in favor of a motion to close down Israel's embassy on Tuesday and suspend all diplomatic relations with Israel until a ceasefire is agreed in its war with the Islamist militant group Hamas.

Tuesday's motion is largely symbolic as it is up to President Cyril Ramaphosa's government whether to implement the resolution or not.

It passed with 248 votes in favor and 91 votes against.

The motion was introduced by the left-wing opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

"In the name of our own constitutional values we must end these relations until human rights of Palestinians are respected, promoted and protected," EFF party leader, Julius Malema, said last week when he proposed the vote.

"Israel must comply with international law and until then any relations with them must be regarded as an offense to our constitution."

South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) referred to the "current atrocities in occupied Palestine" as its reason for agreeing with the parliamentary motion.

Ahead of the vote, Corne Mulder from the the white nationalist party Freedom Front Plus (FF+) cautioned against the move.

"The fact of the matter is that if you expel the ambassador of Israel and cut all diplomatic ties with Israel, South Africa will not be in a position to play any role, whatsoever, in terms of any mediation or any chance to try and play a positive and constructive role to bring this conflict to an end," Mulder said.

Ramaphosa's government critical of Israel

Ramaphosa and other senior officials have been vocally critical of Israel's leadership during its military campaign against Hamas, which numerous countries including the United States and Germany designate as a terror group, in the densely populated Gaza Strip.

"The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the unlawful use of force by Israel is a war crime," Ramaphosa on Tuesday told a virtual meeting of BRICS — a group of major emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

"The deliberate denial of medicine, fuel, food and water to the residents of Gaza is tantamount to genocide," he said.

Last week, Ramaphosa told reporters during a visit to Qatar that South Africa "put through a referral" to the International Criminal Court (ICC) "because we believe that war crimes are being committed" in Gaza.

The alleged crimes were being committed "in real time," Ramaphosa said. He cited Gaza's biggest health care facility, the al-Shifa hospital, as an example. The facility was besieged by Israeli forces for days, suffering from shortages of electricity, water and medical supplies.

Israel has claimed that Hamas had a command center underneath the hospital, though it has yet to produce conclusive evidence of this.

"In the hospital, we found weapons, intelligence materials, and military technology and equipment," the news agency AFP quoted chief Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari as saying.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry denied that militants had stored weapons at the hospital, and said that several people died inside the hospital during the siege, including babies.

The death toll in Gaza reached more than 14,000 on Tuesday, November 21, according to the ministry.

Pro-Israel organizations hit out at the South African government

Benji Shulman, Director of Public Policy at the South African Zionist Federation, hit back at the South African government last week — challenging it to stop interfering with Israel's right to defend itself and instead facilitate the release of hostages taken by Hamas.

"The South African Zionist Federation maintains that Israel continues to conduct its defensive war against extremist Hamas organizations in line with international law against those who have killed women and children and Holocaust survivors and have also taken 240 hostages from a variety of nationalities," said Shulman.

Political analyst Kwandile Kondlo agreed with the ANC in referring Israel to the ICC.

"If the ICC cannot stand up and act, we have no reason to believe in that institution," Kondlo said.

"If South Africa continues to be a member of that particular grouping, then I don't know the reasons why. This is the moment for the ICC, to seek to be a truthful institution, an international institution of justice."

'Double standards'

Some observers have accused South Africa of double standards when it comes to its views about the International Criminal Court.

When the ICC put a request for South Africa to execute an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin if he attended the BRICS summit that took place in Johannesburg in August, contradictory statements were given by the government and the ruling ANC party. Putin did not attend the summit in person.

Similar arguments arose in 2015 when South Africa failed to arrest former Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir, who had an ICC arrest warrant against him when he attended the African Union summit in Johannesburg.

This article was originally published on November 18, 2023. It has been updated to reflect recent events.

Edited by: Keith Walker

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