Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor made the comment earlier this week at a Palestinian solidarity event attended by officials from South Africa's ruling African National Congress party.
She also encouraged people to protest outside the embassies of what she called the “five primary supporters” of Israel and its military action in Gaza. She didn’t name them but almost certainly was referring to the United States, the U.K. and Germany among others.
“I have already issued a statement alerting those who are South African and are fighting alongside or in the Israeli Defense Forces: We are ready. When you come home, we are going to arrest you,” Pandor said, to rapturous applause from the audience.
In December, the foreign ministry said that the South African government was concerned that some of its citizens or permanent residents had joined the IDF to fight in Gaza and warned that they could face prosecution if they hadn't been granted permission to do so under South Africa's arms control laws.
Those with dual South African-Israeli citizenship could be stripped of their South African citizenship, the foreign ministry said.
Pandor's comments represented an apparent hardening of the government's stance.
It's not clear how many South African citizens have fought for Israel during the current war in Gaza. South Africa has a significant Jewish population of around 70,000 people.
The South African government was a vocal supporter of the Palestinian people and a critic of Israel even before the current war.
The issue is close to the ruling ANC party and many South Africans, who for years have compared Israel's policies against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with the treatment of non-whites in South Africa during its apartheid era of forced racial segregation and oppression.
Israel denies South Africa's charge that it has enforced a form of apartheid on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and strongly rejects the charge by South Africa in the International Court of Justice that it is committing genocide in Gaza. That case may take years for a verdict.
Israel has replied by accusing South Africa of being a representative of the Hamas militant group that attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 Israelis and taking 250 hostages back to Gaza, sparking the war.
3 comments:
typical ungrateful evil b****. the blacks in south africa have no loyalty or hakarat hatov. she wouldn't be able to even ride a bus in cape town if not for the jews in south africa. instead she'd be cleaning toilets if not for the jews of south africa. the jews were the ones who fought the hardest to free the blacks from apartheid. (google rivonia trial) some sat in prison for 25 years plus and many even died to free them. some of the highest ranking people in nelson mandela's anc were jews, including joe (yossel) slovo who was an otd jew from Lithuania
If The Jews of SA expected any different,who is an idiot
Ahh, South Africa that land where jews were as usual were so progressive & were the primary factors in bringing down the (though admittedly unfair ) white socially conservative Gov't system..
They now keep on suffering belated consequences.
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