Africa-Press – South-Africa. ANC members will have to decide whether the party will take a tougher stance on Israel beyond the downgrading of South Africa’s embassy there.
At its 2017 conference, the party resolved to downgrade the embassy in Tel Aviv, but this was never fully implemented.
The following year, the party decided to recall Ambassador Sisa Ngombane.
The party will revisit the matter when it holds policy discussions at a conference at the end of July.
National executive committee (NEC) member Lindiwe Zulu said the party had to “review” its resolution on Israel because of a change in the political situation since the matter was discussed in 2017.
While discussing the ANC policy documents on international relations with the media on Monday, Zulu said the balance of forces had changed.
ANC NEC member Obed Bapela expanded on the party’s approach and said the resolution would remain until members fully discussed the matter and adopted a different stance at the national conference in December.
Bapela said while the policy remains a resolution until the party’s next conference in December, officials have called on branches to “engage” with it and consider whether it needs to be reviewed or not.
He said the ANC was an “organisation that looks at the balance of forces”.
He said:
Another ANC conference resolution that could be reviewed is the country’s stance on the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The ANC sought to pull the country out of the court, following the government’s defiance of an ICC order for the apprehension of former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir in 2017.
The ANC, led by former president Jacob Zuma, took issue with the demand and pointed to its concerns about the way in which the court operated.
Bapela said since 2017, a lot had changed and that the ICC was open to some form of reform. The ANC will have to discuss a change in stance.
“On the International Criminal Court, it is still an implementation until the conference. So much has happened, and now there are talks of reform of the ICC, which was not there at the time of the resolution. We had said that we would have to withdraw if they did not want to reform and amend the Rome statute. Those developments have necessitated the need for the ANC to look at the resolution. The ANC is aligning itself,” Bapela added.
Political commentators remained unconvinced that the ANC was willing to take a tougher stance on Israel.
Ebrahim Fakir, director of programmes at Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute, said if the ANC wanted practical solutions in support of Palestine, there were implementable steps that the party could take.
But he added that because ANC had a history of not implementing its resolutions, it was unlikely to take a firmer stance on Israel.
“The Israelis remain powerful, although not as powerful. The Israelis continue to behave with the kind of impunity the world has allowed them to do. The ANC continues to talk on both sides of its mouth on this issue. They have long resolved they want to downgrade this embassy; it has never really had any practical impact on what they have done when they are in government. They like to buy for taking when it is convenient for them.”
Fakir said:
Political analyst Ralph Mathekga had similar sentiments, saying the ANC was unlikely to take a firmer resolution on this issue at its December conference.
“Israel has dealt with what it considers a hostile global situation. South Africa seems to have placed this issue on the side. You need to separate the ANC’s rhetoric from the reality on the ground regarding this issue. The reality on the ground is Israel is a large trading partner for South Africa, and the ANC may not be as easy on cutting relations with the country as some may believe,” Mathekga said.
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