BY: GILLIAN SCHUTTE
As the three-week media furore created by Lindiwe Sisulu’s article, (Hello Mzansi have we seen justice?) began to fizzle out, President Ramaphosa received letters of credence from heads of mission-designate, including Israel ambassador Eliav Belotsercovsky, in Pretoria.
This unconditional acceptance of the letter of credence from Israel is in direct contradiction to ANC’s stated stance on Israel, yet the response from the public and the media is lacklustre in comparison to Sisulu’s article.
Moreover the outrage has, as yet, not been overwhelming from politically progressive elements of society. Other than a few tweets calling out the President for his ideological hypocrisy, the bulk outrage shows itself in chorus of false morality and lack of concern for the plight of Palestinians.
Rather than speaking to this as a blow to the Palestinian struggle, the public call is focused on demanding that Ramaphosa apologise to Miss SA, Lalela Mswane, for the ANC’s withdrawal of support in her participation in the Miss Universe pageant to be held in Israel.
In November 2021 the ANC government announced its withdrawal of support for the Miss South Africa pageant after it failed to convince its organisers to pull out of the Miss Universe pageant which was held in Israel in December 2021.
“The atrocities committed by Israel against Palestinians are well documented and government, as the legitimate representative of the people of South Africa, cannot in good conscience associate itself with such,” it said.
In a show of shameless inconsistency Ramaphosa has, unconditionally, accepted the letter of credence from the very country responsible for the atrocities’ it claims to abhor.
The President has effectively, overturned a resolution passed unanimously by the ANC in 2018 to downgrade its Israeli embassy to a liaison office, in line with the resolution taken by the ANC during its 2017 elective conference.
The resolution stated, “In order to give our practical expression of support to the oppressed people of Palestine; the ANC has unanimously resolved to direct the SA government to immediately and unconditionally downgrade the South African Embassy in Israel to a Liaison Office.”
A brief history of this resolution follows.
In May 2018 in response to the aggressive attack on Palestine and the wanton killing of protestors by the Israeli army in Gaza, the South African Ambassador, Sisa Ngombane, was recalled from Tel Aviv, giving credence to ANC’s commitment.
On April 5, 2019, International Relations Minister Lindiwe Sisulu announced to the public that the downgrade was in progress and that South Africa's ambassador to Israel was not be replaced. She indicated that a future second stage would be to downgrade the Israeli Embassy in South Africa.
In a speech, published on the Department of International Relations and Cooperation's (Dirco) website, Sisulu stated categorically that the decision to not replace ambassador was part of the downgrade process as the first stage of the resolution.
She wrote, "Our liaison office in Tel Aviv will have no political mandate, no trade mandate and no development cooperation mandate. It will not be responsible for trade and commercial activities. The focus of the Liaison Office would be on consular and the facilitation of people-to-people relations"
In early May 2019, days before the national elections, Ramaphosa contradicted Sisulu’s pronouncement in a pre-election interview with the Jewish Report in which he stated that Cabinet had not yet approved the downgrade. Sisulu was immediately set up for an orchestrated and vitriolic attack. Led by the national vice-president of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), Zev Krengel, he said in The Jewish Report article released on May 16 2019 that, “International Relations and Cooperation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu is “the single biggest enemy” in government to South African Jewry.”
He added that he had two theories. “Either the minister was electioneering and trying to cosy up to the BDS-SA movement and other radical elements within the Muslim community, or she was adding to internal ANC struggles, and trying to embarrass the president.”
He went on to say that Sisulu “had an agenda” and “is obsessed with criticising the Jewish state.”
In this outburst he seemed oblivious of the fact that Sisulu was in fact, announcing a unanimous decision made by the ruling party, headed by Ramaphosa.
Sisulu was to soon find herself in the centre of another speculative media furore. On May 17, 2019, Feirial Haffajee wrote in the Daily Maverick, “President Cyril Ramaphosa is said to have isolated his foreign minister and said in meetings that her stances on Israel and Rwanda (she has criticised extrajudicial killings of political opponents of President Paul Kagame in Johannesburg) were making geopolitics tough for him.”
By the time Ramaphosa announced his new cabinet ,Sisulu was wholly snubbed by him, not only as Deputy President, after waging a campaign for this position, she was redeployed from her International Relations portfolio back to Human Settlements.
Ramaphosa, it seems, deliberately overlooked her suitability for international relations as outlined by Malcolm Ferguson in an OPED found on AllAfrica’s website 20 May 2019. He writes,
“Minister Sisulu, when she was minister of intelligence, had substantial experience of direct engagement with the Palestinians and Israelis. She travelled in the region and met Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the highest level. She is also steeped in the demands of what it takes to be a serious player in the Middle East region.”
Some have speculated that this obvious snub and redeployment was a pointed local and international shaming of Sisulu by Ramaphosa.
That the President has accepted, unconditionally, the letter of credence from the Israeli Ambassador is a stark reminder of the fragmentation within the ANC. This begs the question of who really runs the ANC if resolutions are not implemented after they have been passed.
It could also signal another oblique public rebuking of Sisulu based on the sharp ideological differences between herself and Ramaphosa. The President needs to assure Israel that the process of downgrading stopped with Sisulu’s redeployment in 2019. Sisulu’s passing of the first stage of the resolution on Israel has, effectively, been rendered null and void by the Ramaphosa camp.
This, it seems, is an electoral manoeuvre to assure Israel (and the US) that Sisulu’s call for pro-poor transformation, decolonisation and justice for the dispossessed African population, is not a threat to white economic hegemony – so long as he retains the presidency. With this in mind the South African Jewish Board of Deputies is sure to dig deep into their pockets for his electoral campaign.
The noticeable silence around this debacle from ANC’s supposedly left arms such as Cosatu as well as the Ahmed Kathrada and Helen Suzman Foundations, amongst others, is resounding. This can only signify that their support lies with the profits-before-people camp and that theirs is a false morality when it comes to the Palestinian crisis as well the war against the poor in South Africa.
*Gillian Schutte is a feminist, activist, social commentator, filmmaker and writer. Her work is widely published in local and international journals and newspapers. She is a published poet, author and columnist.
** The views expressed here may not necessarily be that of IOL.