{"id":123094,"date":"2025-08-07T17:00:25","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T15:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=123094"},"modified":"2025-08-07T07:35:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T05:35:11","slug":"07-00-113","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=123094","title":{"rendered":"New Research Links South Africa\u2019s Genocide Case Against Israel to Growing Ties With Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>New Research Links South Africa\u2019s Genocide Case Against Israel to Growing Ties With Iran<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Ailin Vilches Arguello<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Chatsworth, South Africa, May 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS\/Rogan Ward<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Newly released research links\u00a0South Africa\u2019s expanding ties with Iran<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0to its contentious genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), raising questions about the motives behind Pretoria\u2019s legal battle.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last month, the Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI) unveiled a report exploring the South African government\u2019s relationship with Iran and the ways in which this partnership has shaped the country\u2019s foreign policy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The report \u2014 \u201cTies to Tehran: South Africa\u2019s Democracy and Its Relationship With Iran\u201d \u2014 argues that\u00a0deepening ties with Tehran<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>has led South Africa to compromise its democratic foundations and constitutional principles, aligning itself with a regime internationally condemned for terrorism, repression, and human rights abuses.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Iran maintains support for South Africa\u2019s coalition government in part due to a shared revolutionary, liberation ideology, Pretoria has frequently defended Tehran at the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by voting against sanctions or choosing to abstain, the report says.<\/span><\/p>\n

In doing so, the\u00a0study claims<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0that the South African government has both undermined its democratic values and bolstered Iran\u2019s regional ambitions by defending its nuclear program and downplaying its human rights abuses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adam Charnas, an analyst at the\u00a0South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD)<\/a>,<\/strong> <\/span>condemned the government\u2019s long-standing ties with Iran and other regimes with questionable human rights records, calling them deeply troubling.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis relationship was notably underscored when, shortly after Oct. 7, then-Minister of International Relations, Naledi Pandor, visited Iran for a two-week period to meet with [then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi],\u201d Charnas told\u00a0The Algemeiner<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Africa\u2019s foreign policy appears to be more concerned with enhancing relations with rogue states,\u201d he continued. \u201cThis narrow and party-led strategy jeopardizes its relationship with key trading partners rather than with addressing domestic challenges or advancing the welfare of its citizens.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

MEARI\u2019s report also questions whether South Africa\u2019s case against Israel at the ICJ, the UN\u2019s top court, was genuinely rooted in constitutional principles \u2014 or driven by outside political pressure.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the study, South Africa\u2019s\u00a0open hostility toward Israel and its biased approach<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0in filing the case \u2014 failing to acknowledge Hamas\u2019s role in launching the war with its Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel \u2014 undermines the government\u2019s credibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time of the ICJ filing, senior South African officials were holding high-level meetings in Tehran.<\/span><\/p>\n

The study explains that shortly afterward, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), struggling with financial difficulties, unexpectedly paid off a multi-million-rand debt, fueling speculation about possible covert support from Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence for such a claim is entirely circumstantial, but bears relating. In early December 2023, the ANC, South Africa\u2019s ruling party, faced imminent liquidation. It allegedly owed R102 million to a service provider, which it could not pay,\u201d the report says.<\/span><\/p>\n

In prior years, the ANC has on several occasions been unable to pay staff salaries. But just days after the South African government filed its case against Israel at the ICJ, which MEARI describes as \u201can undertaking involving a phalanx of lawyers of international stature that could cost as much as R1.5 billion [about $84.35 million] in taxpayer money,\u201d the ANC announced that it had\u00a0reached an out-of-court settlemen<\/strong><\/span>t<\/a>\u00a0with its creditor to settle its debt and turned its finances around.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, since the party\u2019s finances were not available to the public, a fact-check by a leading South African newspaper could not find evidence to prove that the ANC had received funding from any particular source, Iran or otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the ANC claimed it complies with South African law requiring the of donor funding exceeding R100,000, the law is \u201cweakly enforced,\u201d MEARI notes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be pure coincidence that Hamas thanked South Africa for bringing a genocide case against Israel at the ICJ, and that this case aligns perfectly with the \u2018mutual bilateral interests\u2019 of South Africa and Iran,\u201d the report says, with a not-so-subtle bit of sarcasm. \u201cIt could be pure coincidence that within days of taking this grave step, South Africa\u2019s ruling party, the ANC, managed to pull back from the brink of bankruptcy by settling a substantial debt out of court after having ignored multiple court orders and left staff unpaid.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Since December 2023, South Africa has been pursuing its case\u00a0accusing Israel of committing \u201cstate-led genocide<\/strong><\/span>\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in its defensive war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Iran and Hamas have publicly praised the South African government\u2019s legal action.<\/span><\/p>\n

For its part, Israeli leaders have condemned the case as an \u201cobscene exploitation\u201d of the Genocide Convention, noting that the Jewish state is targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, South Africa\u2019s Jewish community has lambasted the case as \u201cgrandstanding\u201d rather than actual concern for those killed in the Middle Eastern conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, the ICJ ruled there was \u201cplausibility\u201d to South Africa\u2019s claims that Palestinians had a right to be protected from genocide.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the top UN court did not make a determination on the merits of South Africa\u2019s allegations,\u00a0nor did it call for Israel to halt its military campaign<\/a>.<\/strong><\/span> Instead, the ICJ issued a more general directive that Israel must make sure it prevents acts of genocide.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ruling also called for the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the terrorist group\u2019s Oct. 7 rampage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be that South Africa simply did not have the resources to respond in international courts to the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the war crimes committed by the latter in the pursuit of that war of aggression,\u201d the MEARI report says. \u201cIt could be that it didn\u2019t feel there was sufficient historical solidarity to oblige it to speak out about genocides of Uyghurs in China, or Rohingya in Myanmar, but Israel just went a step too far.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the start of the war in Gaza, the South African government has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel\u2019s military campaign, which seeks to free the hostages kidnapped by the terrorists and dismantle Hamas\u2019s military and administrative control in Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond its open hostility toward Israel, South Africa has actively supported Iran\u2019s terrorist proxy by\u00a0hosting two Hamas officia<\/strong><\/span>ls<\/a>\u00a0at a state-backed conference expressing solidarity with the Palestinians in December 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n

In one instance, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa led the crowd at an election rally in a chant of \u201cFrom the river to the\u00a0sea,<\/a> Palestine shall be free\u201d \u2014 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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New Research Links South Africa\u2019s Genocide Case Against Israel to Growing Ties With Iran Ailin Vilches Arguello South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Chatsworth, South Africa, May 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS\/Rogan Ward Newly released research links\u00a0South Africa\u2019s expanding ties with Iran\u00a0to its contentious genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), raising […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123094"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123112,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123094\/revisions\/123112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}