SA Foreign Policy in tatters
11 April 2022
In her latest attempt to justify South Africa’s morally bankrupt stance on the Ukraine invasion Minister Naledi Pandor can do no more than resort to her usual knee-jerk Israel bashing. Addressing the Heads of State on Friday, she chose to make outrageous comparisons between the devastation that Russia is wreaking on the Ukrainian people and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Apart from being a weak and obvious attempt to dodge the question by dragging in a completely unrelated matter, the comparison Pandor presumes to draw is as logically absurd as it is factually baseless. No possible parallels exist between Israel defending its citizens against rocket fire and terror attacks and Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against a sovereign country.
Of all the injustices taking place in the world today, the only ones that appear to concern Pandor are those she considers Israel to be guilty of perpetrating. In her view, it is only the Jewish state that must be put in the dock and condemned out of hand.
In a now common refrain, Pandor seeks to explain away our country's failure to condemn the Russian invasion and the multiple barbarities that have ensued by stating that 'South Africa does not take sides’ and prioritising South Africa’s role as a mediator. Viewed against her unreflectingly condemnatory, one sided stance on Israel, this display of hypocrisy would be laughable were it not so damaging and destructive.