By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The SA Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) has condemned South Africa’s latest move to file an application against Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The South African government applied to institute proceedings against Israel at the ICJ, the judicial arm of the UN, over its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza.
Its application listed instances where it had been vocal against attacks by Israel, including a meeting at the presidential house in November with the SAJBD.
The SAJBD said it was “deeply concerning” that the government had included their meeting in making its case against Israel. It also said the meeting was in December and not November as stated in the application.
SAJBD national chair Karen Milner said the meeting was to express “its concerns about rising anti-Semitism in SA and about the lack of consular services to SA citizens in Israe”.
“The SAJBD made it clear that we are not the representatives of the state of Israel nor go-betweens of the two countries. We are South African citizens like any other, with valid concerns about our human rights as citizens of this country. That the South African legal case against Israel twisted the meeting in this way, shows the depths to which the government will sink in doing the bidding of its friends Hamas,” Milner said.
She said the country continues to “humiliate itself” in the international community as it has previously been found by the International Criminal Court that it had flouted its duties to the ICC by failing to arrest wanted Sudanese head of state Omar al-Bashir.
“This latest media-seeking stunt lacks credibility and is evident that they have no real understanding of the current conflict, international law or interest in finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” said Milner.
South Africa described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”.
The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction,” the application said.
The ICJ, also called the World Court, is a UN civil court that adjudicates disputes between countries. It is distinct from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which prosecutes individuals for war crimes.
As members of the UN, both South Africa and Israel are bound by the court.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank with his country’s past apartheid regime of racial segregation imposed by the white-minority rule that ended in 1994.
Several human rights organisations have said that Israeli policies towards Palestinians amount to apartheid.