By Iqbal Jassat

The diehard supporters of settler colonialism even resort to insulting the integrity of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as a “partisan institution”.

Once again and on cue, South Africa’s shameless pro-Apartheid Israel lobby group proudly known as the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF), has to its embarrassment, rejected the latest groundbreaking ruling by the world’s highest court as a “political gesture”.

Not only that, the diehard supporters of settler colonialism even resort to insulting the integrity of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as a “partisan institution”. In their absurd logic they go on to attack the ruling as “deeply flawed” on “legal and moral” grounds.

We should not be surprised at this, because the SAZF functions as a PR agency for the settler colonial regime. In its own words it says that it “looks after matters relating to Israel and its image in South Africa”.

Standing it’s ground to defend Israel, is a commitment the SAZF has made to protect Zionism – not too different from the Afrikaner Broederbond’s pledge to uphold and defend Apartheid.

Their mission is clear: “As steadfast advocates for Israel, our mission is to build strong support and love for the State of Israel and its lands”.

South Africa’s history reminds us that Afrikaner nationalism stressed the uniqueness of Afrikaners as “God’s chosen people” and became linked with ideas of racial superiority. These ideas would develop into the policy of apartheid.

Parallels between Zionism’s goals in the land of Palestine long before violently imposing its artificial construct there known as Israel, and the goals of Afrikaner nationalism in the era leading to 1948 when the National Party as a white minority government set up a racist legal system known as Apartheid, are stark.

In a recent article, based on an extract of his book ‘The Palestine Laboratory’, Antony Loewenstein provides the following account:

“The apartheid regime in Pretoria took power in 1948 and soon put in place Nazi-style restrictions on non-whites, from forbidding marriage between the races to barring blacks from many jobs. The South African Jewish community was strongly pro-Israel and became its biggest financial backer per capita after 1948.

“A majority of these Jews benefited from South African apartheid and supported its continuation. A small but notable minority bravely opposed it and joined the African National Congress (ANC) in its campaign for liberation.”

The SAZF can neither dispute nor escape these damning facts.

Indeed Jewish stalwart of the liberation struggle against apartheid in SA, Ronnie Kasrils has been categoric in his assessment:

“Israelis claim that they are the chosen people, the elect of God, and find a biblical justification for their racism and Zionist exclusivity.

“This is just like the Afrikaners of apartheid South Africa, who also had the biblical notion that the land was their God-given right.”

Loewenstein’s article says that in 1971, the New York Times columnist CL Sulzberger wrote that Israel and South Africa had become so close that he had heard an unconfirmed rumour that “a South African mission flew to Israel during the Six-Day War to study tactics and use of weapons.”

Vorster told the columnist that Israel faced its own “apartheid problem”, namely how to manage the Arabs. “Neither nation,” wrote Sulzberger, “wants to place its future entirely in the hands of a surrounding majority and would prefer to fight.”

One of the architects of apartheid in South Africa, former prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd, wrote in the Rand Daily Mail in 1961 that “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state” after taking Palestine from the Arabs who “had lived there for a thousand years”.

One will not be mistaken in believing that the SAZF’s rhetoric to dismiss the ICJ judgment, is a fall back to South Africa’s apartheid-era logic to defend Israel’s illegal occupation.

Using discredited and archaic arguments to justify Israel’s occupation, racist settlements on stolen Palestinian lands, and practice of apartheid, resides within SA Zionism’s blind devotion to the colonial regime.

Far from being flawed as claimed by the SAZF, according to the Guardian’s Peter Beaumont, the ICJ’s judgement is “thorough, detailed and all encompassing” and a stark refutation of Israel’s claims.

Jessica Peake, an international law professor at UCLA Law, said the ruling exceeded her expectations, specifically around the issue of the Israeli government’s systemic abuses toward Palestinians.

“What was particularly surprising was that they basically made a finding that Israel is creating a situation of apartheid against Palestinians within Israel,” Peake said, “because of the racially discriminatory laws and policies in place that basically treat Palestinians as second-class citizens.”

Contrary to the SAZF, an Israeli-based human rights group B’Tselem, welcomed Friday’s judgement after many years of their own campaigns and advocacy seeking an end to Israel’s occupation.

And unlike the SAZF’s bizarre approach of fear-mongering, B’Tselem has adopted a rational course by calling on the international community to use every tool – criminal, diplomatic and economic – to force an end to the occupation.

Since the SAZF are self-proclaimed proud “advocates for Israel in this country”, it is apt to remind them that in a 1993 speech to the delegates of the Socialist International, Mandela said: “The people of South Africa will never forget the support of the state of Israel to the apartheid regime.”

In the context of Mandela’s biting remarks, South Africa has a unique moral and legal responsibility to ensure that it immediately undertakes the obligation it has following the ICJ judgement.

Among others it is obliged not to “render aid or assistance in maintaining” Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

And this must extend to the aid and assistance South Africa Zionist organizations provide, enabling and sustaining Israel’s criminal conduct in violation of international law.

– Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the South Africa-based Media Review Network. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle. Visit: www.mediareviewnet.com