U.S. lawmakers are now trying to turn reprimands into punishments.
A bipartisan bill introduced after a court upheld South Africa’s lawsuit calls for an overhaul of the U.S.-South Africa relationship. In their bill, Rep. John James (R-Mich.) and Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) state that South Africa has ties to Russia, China, and Iran, as well as non-state actors such as Hamas. claims. The bill calls for “an unclassified determination specifying whether South Africa has engaged in activities that undermine the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”
The bill claims that the African National Congress, the political party that has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994, maintains a “hardline stance that consistently accuses Israel of practicing apartheid.” Apartheid is a system of white supremacist oppression that has long characterized South African society. The bill accuses ANC leaders of anti-Semitic motives behind their condemnation of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, and government officials “agreed to meet with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.” He blames it.
The authors threw the kitchen sink at South Africa, accusing it of corruption, incompetence and inability to govern itself. “The government has a history of gross mismanagement of various national resources and has often proven unable to effectively deliver public services, threatening South Africans and the South African economy,” they wrote.
Ever since South Africa allowed the US-licensed Russian cargo ship Lady R to enter its port in December 2022, calls for South Africa to be punished have been growing. South Africa denied allegations that weapons were unloaded.
That being said, the optics aren’t great. It is to attack one of Africa’s biggest economic engines that envisions the crime of fighting genocide and apartheid.
As a foreign policy perspective, it seems unwise to punish South Africa. The country is the United States’ largest trading partner on the African continent, with $21 billion in trade goods flowing between the two countries in 2021. Successive U.S. administrations, including the Biden administration, have made it clear that U.S. interests in Africa are counterbalanced by the influence of African countries. Chinese. What better way to push South Africa into the hands of America’s rivals?
“We have a lot of policy disagreements with countries around the world,” a Democratic Congressional staffer told me. Consider Turkey. “We’re friendly with Russia, we’re openly friendly with Hamas, and we just agreed to send them a bunch of F-16s.” I don’t think so.”
And that’s bad politics, especially for Democrats. In the multi-ethnic nation, Black, Arab and Muslim Americans increasingly oppose the regime’s policies in the Gaza Strip, while President Biden’s party has helped win reelection by taking a hostile stance toward South Africa. do not have. More than 1,000 black faith leaders called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Last month, a poll conducted by USA Today and Suffolk University showed support for Biden among Black Americans had fallen to 63% from 87% in 2020.
I called Atlanta’s Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, to get his thoughts on the potential political damage. “A lot of people in the community have a kind of frustration with not only President Biden, but the Democratic Party,” he said. “And now some Democrats are working with Republicans to attack a country that we empathize with on an issue that most black voters empathize with.” If that happens, it won’t end well. This is a serious election issue.”
Still, South Africa is persistent. It has returned to the International Court of Justice to request emergency measures for the “immediate and effective implementation” of measures to stop genocide in the Gaza Strip. Vusimuzi Madonsela, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, said on Tuesday: “South Africa has a special obligation both to its own people and to the international community to ensure that the gross and offensive practices of apartheid must be condemned wherever they occur…” and It ended immediately. ”
South Africa’s victory over apartheid, which it had fought for many years, means that it has special moral strength in the eyes of the world. Transnational movements contributed to the fall of apartheid. It is that power that threatens those who want to enable Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brutal war in Gaza, and it is why they are fighting back so violently. The international black solidarity movement has overcome the most inhumane colonial strategies and the most sophisticated supremacist systems, all without missiles or genocidal operations against oppressors.
Once again, America found itself on the wrong side of (black) history. South Africa deserves respect for standing by the oppressed Palestinians, not for retaliation.