South Africa’s Charge Against Israel is Attempt to Divert Attention Away From Its Own Miserable State

 BY HUGH FITZGERALD, JIHAD WATCH   JAN 13/24

The whole business of taking Israel to the International Court of Justice on “genocide” charges gives Pretoria an excuse to strut its stuff on the world stage, in an attempt to divert people’s attention from the miserable state of the economy, the skyrocketing crime rate, and the corruption at the top, among the leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) who run what is a one-party state. At the center of the web of corruption sits President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose private fortune was estimated in 2018 at $450 million. Now, however, the Christians of South Africa are rallying in support of Israel: “South African Christian leaders oppose ICJ charge: Cannot keep silent,” by Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman, Jerusalem Post, January 10, 2024:

In addition, the letter said that the slogan “‘from the river to the sea’ means Israel must become Palestine and Jews must be destroyed. Aside from denying the Jews a right to a homeland in the aftermath of the Holocaust, where does this leave us Christians?

It’s good to remind South Africans what those slogans really mean. “From the river to the sea” may sound innocuous to some, but it has only one meaning: the entire area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea must be transformed from a Jewish state into the twenty-third Arab state, that of Palestine, and all the Jews must be either expelled or killed.

The letter from the Christians raises another key point: what happens if Hamas and the other Palestinian terror groups were to succeed and take over all of Israel? Will the Christian holy sites now protected by the Jewish state continue to exist, free of harm, in a Muslim state? Not likely, given what happens to Christians and their churches in many parts of the Muslim world. Won’t Muslim persecution lead to the last Christians living in the Holy Land — now Muslim “Palestine” — leaving as well? And what of Christian churches? Will the Muslim Palestinians treat them better than Muslims have treated Chaldean and Assyrian churches in Iraq, or Coptic churches in Egypt o Maronite churches in Lebanon? What might happen to the Church of the Nativity, or the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, in a state peopled, and ruled, by Muslims?

“Places of worship for Christians in the Holy Land will be destroyed,” the Christians said.

The writers added that South Africa is not a Muslim country but majority-Christian.

By a wide margin: the country is 86% Christian, and only 1.6% Muslim. 

“The South African government has prejudiced the interests of its own people to achieve the political and religious objectives of others [i.e., Muslims, and those politically on the extreme left]. The government is also aware that the one-sided approach it has adopted has placed its Jewish citizens at risk by inciting antisemitism as well as eroding the freedom of religion of Christians in South Africa,” the letter read….

By placing itself squarely against the Jewish state, and accusing it of the most terrible of crimes — genocide — the South African government is also endangering the physical safety of the 60,000 Jews in South Africa. If your government tells you that the Jewish state practices genocide, aren’t some likely to want to blame all Jews, and to take out their animus on the Jews of South Africa? Haven’t the pro-Palestinian protests around the world so often included attacks on Jews, seen as “agents of Israel”? Won’t government loyalists in South Africa go out on the street to chant about “genocide” and attack any identifiably Jewish passerby who takes a wrong turn and lands in the middle of the protest?

The Christians in South Africa have raised their voices as they sense the rise in anti-Israel — and antisemitic — sentiment, which in South Africa comes from the top down. Like the Evangelicals in the U.S., these Christians are unshakably pro-Israel.

Motaung’s hope is that this hideous antisemitic transgression by the South African government, in accusing Israel of the very “genocide” that the terrorists of Hamas have been seeking to accomplish since the terror group’s founding in 1988, will weaken the authority of the country’s rulers so that the long-suffering people of South Africa, almost all of whom are Christians, will be “delivered” by God from the calvary of the colossally corrupt ANC. Even atheists will hope that she may turn out to be right.