Johannesburg, South Africa – Fatima Seedat has been campaigning for Palestine for 20 years. She joined the Palestinian Solidarity Committee in her first yr on the College of Witwatersrand.
Now 39, the social employee and counsellor in Johannesburg nonetheless often attends pro-Palestine rallies as a member of Healthcare Staff 4 Palestine (HCW4P South Africa), a bunch that has raised greater than 100,000 rand ($5,000) to purchase ambulances for Gaza and has held vigils in Cape City and Johannesburg in solidarity with Palestinians.
HCW4P South Africa has additionally known as for an “end to the targeting of healthcare workers, facilities, ambulances and civilians, including women and children” and “a permanent ceasefire and a diplomatic solution for lasting peace”.
“I’ve always been aware of the atrocities that Palestinians go through on a daily basis,” Seedat mentioned.
However she is insistent that extra must be achieved for Gaza. Like hundreds of thousands of protesters around the globe who’ve taken to the streets in opposition to Israel’s conflict on the besieged enclave, Seedat mentioned she had been horrified by the photographs from the Palestinian territory, the place greater than 23,000 folks, together with almost 10,000 youngsters, have been killed since October 7.
“Israel should be held accountable. They have led people to believe that they are fighting for their safety,” she mentioned. “However, it is them that have continuously violated Palestinians’ basic human rights and right to live in freedom.”
It’s a sentiment that’s widespread in South Africa because the nation’s authorities takes Israel to the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice (ICJ) on costs of committing genocide in opposition to Palestinians within the Gaza Strip.
Pretoria compares the Israeli occupation to apartheid, the white minority rule that was in place in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. Veterans of the apartheid wrestle, lawmakers within the ruling Africa Nationwide Congress (ANC) and the opposition Financial Freedom Fighters (EFF) all have supported the case earlier than the ICJ, which started listening to arguments on Thursday in The Hague.
And it’s not simply South Africans who grew up underneath apartheid who’re sympathetic to the Palestinian trigger. Sthabile Mthethwa, who says he was unaware of the battle between Israel and Palestine earlier than the conflict broke out on October 7, believes the killing of harmless youngsters has to cease.
“If people have been killed deliberately, then, yes, they’ve committed genocide,” says the 31-year-old, who teaches isiZulu in Dainfern, simply exterior Johannesburg.
‘Caught in the crossfire’
In its 84-page submitting pinned on the 1948 United Nations Genocide Conference, South Africa says Israel violated the conference by indiscriminately killing civilians.
The case lists the killing of Palestinians in Gaza in massive numbers, particularly youngsters; the destruction of their houses; their expulsion and displacement; and a blockade on meals, water and medical help to the strip as acts of genocide. It additionally contains the destruction of important well being providers essential for the survival of pregnant ladies and infants as additional crimes of genocide in opposition to Israel.
Israel denies the allegations of genocide and says it launched the bombardment and floor invasion of Gaza to destroy Hamas, which killed 1,139 folks in assaults on October 7 in southern Israel.
To make sure, there’s a minority view in South Africa— principally among the many small white neighborhood — that’s extra sympathetic to Israel. “The comparison to South African apartheid is fully embraced by some but rejected by others,” mentioned 28-year-old Mark du Plessis, a Cape City-based multimedia producer who requested that his actual identify be withheld in South Africa’s charged environment over the conflict. “Complicating the problem severely is the traumatic reminiscence of the Holocaust, the persecution of Jewish folks, which will get conflated with Israel the state, which at the moment is endeavor abominable actions, supported by the US.
“Both Israel and Hamas are at fault with the Palestinian people caught up in the crossfire.”
Why has a case been filed now?
Because the case begins, there are additionally questions on South Africa’s true intentions for pursuing it.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has been underneath a variety of home stress forward of this yr’s elections with the 108-year-old ANC at a historic low level. Assist for the social gathering has fallen attributable to corruption inside its ranks and a failure to deal with poverty, huge energy cuts and the hovering price of dwelling.
This led to former President Thabo Mbeki predicting two years in the past that Arab Spring-like protests may occur at any time.
In elements of South Africa, some folks have mentioned Ramaphosa’s hardline stance on Israel is a part of the ANC’s technique to shore up its help in time for the final election because the EFF and fundamental opposition Democratic Alliance shut in.
Dale McKinley, spokesperson for the advocacy group Kopanang Africa In opposition to Xenophobia, helps the case however is suspicious of South Africa’s motivations right now, seeing because the nation has taken a controversial non-aligned stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
McKinley believes South Africa had the prospect to behave equally with the continuing killings of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the conflict in Syria.
However human rights lawyer Nkanyiso Ngqulunga believes the ANC-led South African authorities has been constant in its place on Palestine.
“South Africa’s foreign policy position since the [Nelson] Mandela presidency has often been on the side of Palestinians against occupation, settler colonialism, indiscriminate bombing and genocide against Palestinians in their territories,” the 29-year-old instructed Al Jazeera.
He’s optimistic about South Africa’s probabilities on the ICJ and says a ruling in opposition to Israel would expose the double customary of its allies like america – which is but to again requires a ceasefire – on human rights.
For Palestine supporters in South Africa, the case is lengthy overdue, and they’re eagerly awaiting the court docket’s resolution.
Seedat mentioned that after 75 years of Palestinian wrestle and silence from the worldwide neighborhood, the South African authorities is doing the best factor.
“For the first time, the world has finally seen the truth,” she mentioned.
