South Africa filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice in The Hague last December 2023, accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
After examining the case in January 2024, the court ordered in its decision six interim measures, including asking Israel to refrain from committing acts falling within the Genocide Convention, punishing direct and public incitement to genocide, and taking immediate and effective steps to ensure the provision of humanitarian aid to civilians. in Gaza.
Later, specifically on May 24, the Court of Justice – in response to an urgent request submitted by South Africa – issued a decision obligating Israel to stop its military operations in Rafah and open all land crossings into the Strip, especially the Rafah crossing. It also stated that the conditions were met to take new emergency measures. In the case of accusing Israel of genocide.
The Tel Aviv Tribune Institute for Studies published a report by the Nigerian researcher specializing in African affairs, Hakim Alade Najmuddin, entitled “South Africa’s relations with the West after the International Court of Justice’s ruling against Israel.”
The report explained that there are indications that Israel and its allies, especially in the West, are moving against South Africa in the international arena after this lawsuit. This development requires reading Pretoria’s pro-Palestinian position through its view of the world order and its relations with the West.
South Africa and the New World Order
Some of South Africa’s current political, economic, and leadership status in the African Union is due to the period of building the new state that followed the apartheid era, and the democratic transition in 1994, which ended the country’s use as a Western center on the edge of Africa.
What is noted – in the statements of South African officials – is that they believe that the ideal world order will not amount to a return to the bipolarity that prevailed in the Cold War, or the unipolarity of the post-Cold War period.
South Africa also views new and rising powers such as China and Russia as allies, which has made Washington consider Pretoria biased towards these parallel powers, especially since South Africa joined the BRICS group in 2010 at the invitation of China, and its membership in it affects its foreign policy, and it even hosted a summit. The group in 2023, which witnessed the invitation of new countries, Egypt and Ethiopia, to join it.
Economy and relations with the West
Pretoria’s strategic position in Africa and its role today as a global player provide it with opportunities to secure its interests and independence in taking positions on international issues according to its foreign policies. They also make it vulnerable to the repercussions of the geopolitical competition between the West, Russia and China, noting that most of the country’s relations with Western countries are of a nature Economically, while its relations with countries in the Global South are deeper.
Perhaps the biggest example of this is Pretoria’s partnerships with members of the BRICS group, such as Russia, whose relations with the ruling African National Congress party government go back to the Cold War period, when the Soviet Union supported this party’s efforts to combat apartheid, while Washington at that time classified it as a terrorist group, and hesitated to Implementing sanctions against the apartheid regime until 1986.
South Africa’s efforts in the International Court of Justice against Israel came after diplomatic relations between Pretoria and the United States became tense over the Ukrainian-Russian crisis when Pretoria refused to condemn the Russian war on Ukraine.
The development and economic factor has the greatest impact on the neutrality of the South African government’s position, as the country faces obstacles to the national development plan and the slowdown in economic development, and its economy benefits from relations with the West, as the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States represent more than 77% of foreign direct investment. About 11% of South Africa’s exports go to the United States.
South Africa and the war on Gaza
One explanation for South Africa’s interest in what is happening in Gaza indicates that it stems from many transgressions and imbalances in international politics and its principles, and is linked to the position of the country’s policymakers on the necessity of seeing a more pluralistic world order.
In addition to this, there are strong feelings in support of the Palestinian cause within South Africa as a result of the long relationship between the ruling Congress Party and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which dates back to the era of the apartheid regime, when Israel supported the apartheid regime and traded with it in weapons, while the PLO supported this party and the resistance.
The position of South African leaders has been consistent towards the Palestinian issue, starting with leader Nelson Mandela, the country’s first democratically elected president, who stated months after his release from apartheid prison in 1990 that the leader of the Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, is a “comrade in arms” and likened the organization to The “blacks” in South Africa and the Congress Party who were fighting for the right to self-determination.
This is the same position that was affirmed by the former activist and current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, on January 14, and other party leaders even repeated a similar statement, saying that the attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in October 2023 was the result of provocations by the Israeli government and its politicians.
Also, the largest percentage of South Africans who support the Palestinian cause view the issue from a moral perspective and believe that it is in line with their country’s principles and humanitarian obligations. Therefore, since October 7, 2023, they have organized protests and marches in rejection of the Israeli war on Gaza, and several organizations in the country have expressed their readiness. To provide humanitarian aid to Gaza.
South Africa’s move towards international justice was a popular demand confirmed by the statements and movements of several influential figures in the country, in addition to pressure from various political parties, and the parliament’s adoption, last November, of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters party’s proposal to close the Israeli embassy. In South Africa, representatives from the ruling Congress Party asked Parliament to suspend the country’s diplomatic relations with Israel until a ceasefire and until Israel committed to binding negotiations from the United Nations.
Added to the above South Africa’s approach to the International Court of Justice was to achieve two main goals:
the first goal: Short-term: stopping the systematic destruction of homes, schools, hospitals and human life in Gaza, while increasing humanitarian aid to the Strip.
And the second goal Long-term and includes using South Africa and its supporters to use the findings of the International Court of Justice regarding the genocide in Gaza to curb the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and achieve a two-state solution.
After the international justice ruling… repercussions and expectations
The first repercussions of the International Justice ruling regarding the lawsuit filed against Israel are related to bilateral relations between the two sides (i.e., South Africa and Israel), as Pretoria is Israel’s largest trading partner in Africa, and the value of trade between them in 2021 amounted to about $285 million, i.e. a third of Israel’s total trade with Sub-Saharan Africa. Grand.
This means that trade between them will not be what it was before South Africa headed to The Hague, especially since the developments also put Pretoria in the face of Western countries that support the Israeli war on Gaza.
One of the repercussions of heading towards The Hague is that the South African government now finds itself in front of the international gaze or balance, and in the face of doubts about its intentions or its “hypocrisy” to maintain and strengthen its relations with Israel in recent years despite its support for the Palestinian cause, and its efforts were described in the highest international courts as a search for international influence and exploitation. The Palestinians to achieve special agendas among the international community, and Israel has described South Africa as the legal arm of the Hamas movement.
Some also criticized what they called South Africa’s contradictory positions on international human rights issues, especially in Syria, Sudan, Iran, and others.
It is expected that Pretoria’s relations with some Western countries will decline, especially Washington, as a bill was submitted to Congress last February to review bilateral relations with Pretoria.
Positive repercussions
On the other hand, there are indications that the Court of Justice’s decision – despite its lack of enforcement authority – will force Washington to put pressure on Israel to comply with some temporary measures of the ruling or stop some violations.
Another important aspect is that South Africa’s efforts reduced Israel’s usual prestige at the international level, and made it easier for others to accuse Israel of committing crimes within an official international framework.
South Africa’s efforts are also expected to strengthen its position as the new peacemaker on the global stage, and will encourage governments in the Global South to openly oppose and challenge Washington and other Western countries within an international legal framework on global issues.
There are signs of the emergence of a new alliance that can be seen in the strong support that the decision to refer the Palestinian issue to the International Court received from the countries of the Global South, and the new complaint filed by Indonesia against Israel in the Court of Justice, and the plans of Chile and Mexico to accuse Israel of committing suspected war crimes, and agreeing to Resolution calling for a quick ceasefire at the Non-Aligned Movement Conference.
Pressure is also expected to increase to reform the United Nations because its failure is one of the main factors driving South Africa’s resort to the Court of Justice, and the general feeling is increasing that the aggravation of the ongoing Palestinian crisis is linked to the ineffectiveness of the UN Security Council due to countries using veto power.