Towards a Constructive Foreign Policy on Israel
It is misleading to suggest, as many South African commentators have done, that the current conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is a function of Israeli aggression. Nor is it acceptable to compare Israel to Nazism, as was done by the African National Congress (ANC) last week. Rather than seeking to drive divisions between Israel and South Africa, it is important to drop such partisan invective and start working towards a closer and more constructive diplomatic relationship.
Over the past week, several hundred missiles have been fired from Gaza into Israel. The South African Zionist Federation reports that over 100 of these had to be intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defense system, which targets only those missiles likely to land in heavily populated civilian areas.
Organisations such as Human Rights Watch have previously condemned such rocket attacks as ‘deliberately and indiscriminately' targeting civilian areas in Israel. In a 2009 report, Human Rights Watch also found that many of these attacks are ‘deliberately intended to strike Israeli civilians and civilian structures', and thus categorised them as ‘war crimes'. Human rights organisations have also repeatedly warned about human rights abuses, including torture and extra-judicial killings, perpetrated by Hamas in Gaza against its own civilian population and political rivals.
Yet the South African debate makes little mention of these abuses or of Israel's right and responsibility to defend its civilian population from harm. Consider how many other societies would react to such a rain of missiles over so many years, and Israel's response could be interpreted as one of remarkable self-restraint. This does not, of course, excuse abuses where these are perpetrated by Israeli security forces. Nor does it justify acts of deliberate Israeli provocation, such as the extension of Israeli settlements into the West Bank.
The debate in South Africa is so one-sided, that it is rarely mentioned, if at all, that Israel, for all its political problems, is the leading example of a multi-party democracy and thriving economy in the Middle-East. Most South Africans are not aware, for example, that last week Arab members of the Knesset spoke out forcefully against Israel's military actions in Gaza. By contrast, most of Israel's regional neighbors have deplorable records on freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. However, these seldom attract the public attention, let alone the vitriol, that is reserved for Israel.