End the Appeasement: South Africa Should Be Getting More Emergency Orders from the ICJ on Gaza
Trump, Doing Actual Genocide with Israel, Accuses South Africa of Phony "Genocide".
Trump is scheduled to meet with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday. Israel is escalating its incredible criminality by the hour.
Trump on Feb. 7 signed an executive order attacking South Africa. The first paragraph highlights: “South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice.”
It seems fairly evident to me that the Trump administration pushing this ridiculous “white genocide” line is designed to do the following:
Retaliate against South Africa for going to the ICJ regarding the actual genocide in Gaza, to get them to back off more.
Cheapen the public discourse over “genocide” — helping turn it into just another meaningless slur.
Make it seem like Trump is standing up for alleged oppressed white folks, to play to some white working-class voters who don’t perceive that it’s actually — again — for Israel (similar to how they repackaged Palestine protests as an immigration issue).
Push back against BRICS to the extent it’s challenging US establishment dominance, or appears to be doing so.
South Africa invoked the Genocide Convention in late 2023 after many people, myself included, pushed for it.
In the first several months of 2024, South Africa asked for a series of emergency orders from the ICJ. This was excellent. On May 24, they got a strong order demanding that Israel stop its attack on Rafah.
What I wrote in "One Year Later: Seven Big Lessons from South Africa's Genocide Convention Case Against Israel" is even more crucial:
South Africa … can be urged to push for additional orders. Other nations could do likewise.
And countries like [UNSC member] Algeria … should be pushed to get proper resolutions through the Security Council to implement those orders [Algeria failed to do so for the May 2024 order on Rafah]. The US government would obviously veto such resolutions, but its criminality should be exposed more and more.
Critically what’s needed is for the UN General Assembly to pass resolutions using Uniting for Peace with teeth to make Israel stop. These could include an arms embargo, economic sanctions, even the use of a peacekeeping force.
But South Africa has not attempted to get more emergency orders since its May 29 elections last year which saw the ANC enter into a coalition government with the so-called Democratic Alliance. Naledi Pandor, who had been foreign minister, lost her seat. Final judgement on its case was recently delayed by an additional six months, which is an outrage.
In January 2024, Ramaphosa actually warned of foreign meddling in the election because of the ICJ case against Israel.
Patrick Bond has stressed that the Ramaphosa government has other corporate interests, and is even continuing economic ties to Israel.
In “VIDEO: State Dept Asked for Evidence of ‘Genocide’ Against White South Africans”
highlights various notable issues and features a timeline of Trump administration’s statements and actions regarding the alleged “genocide” of white South Africans in relation to various events related to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians.In December 2024, the Daily Maverick reported: “South Africa’s incoming ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, says he will put away South Africa’s ‘megaphone’ on Gaza to avoid antagonizing President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans gunning to kick South Africa out of AGOA because of its stances on contentious foreign policy issues like the Middle East, Russia’s war against Ukraine and China.”
Exactly the wrong instinct. South Africa should up the megaphone.
By March, Rasool was expelled by the Trump administration.
Keep in mind that Nicaragua invoked the Genocide Convention against Germany for its support of Israel’s genocide. No country did that against the US government because the US (unlike Israel and Germany) has never recognized the ICJ’s power to adjudicate the Genocide Convention in such a manner. Trump (and Biden) ramped up this disregard for international law in the service of the Gaza genocide.
Ramaphosa should inform Trump that international law — and human life — mean something.
South Africa — or virtually any other country — should go to the ICJ for additional emergency orders to stop Israel’s latest hyper-criminality. Now.
When pressed last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott both failed to provide evidence to back up Trump's claim that there is a “genocide” going on against white South Africans and dodged questions about whether they're conducting a formal genocide investigation.
Meanwhile, the “genocide” allegation has been widely—and often strongly—disputed, including by many white South Africans and/or Afrikaners (Herman Wasserman, Theo de Jager, John Steenhuisen, Ulrich Janse van Vuuren, Jaco Kleynhans, Max du Preez, etc).
See here for our full piece with video clips and sources: https://decensorednews.substack.com/p/trump-state-dept-rubio-pigott-white-south-african-farmers-genocide
I actually got comments on my FB feed from Zionists, a series of comments along the same lines, claiming that I was unfair in saying that Israel was committing genocide, because it was Hamas and that Israel had to protect against it. Who made this ridiculous charge? A Harvard professor and a Deutsch Bank VP. They had a litany of idiotic arguments that matched each other perfectly. Who do you suppose writes their script?