Selective morality in case against Israel

BY ITS glowing January 9 editorial endorsement of the ANC regime’s “courageous” decision to indict Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over alleged acts of genocide in Gaza, The Mercury seems to have short-term memory loss.

In June 2015, when the Stalin of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, attended the AU Summit in Johannesburg, the Zuma government breached international obligations by refusing to arrest him and dispatch him for trial by the ICC.

Bashir ruled Sudan with an iron fist for 30 years. According to the UN, he was responsible for scorched-earth policies that killed 300 000 people and displaced 2.5 million in the Darfur conflict.

The US listed Bashir as a state sponsor of terrorism. Amnesty International branded the ANC regime’s failure to execute a warrant of his arrest as “shameful”. Where was the ANC’s “courage” then to condemn crimes against humanity?

In that context, The Mercury’s assertion that bringing Israel to the ICC “underscores the country’s moral obligation to speak out against injustice” constitutes a case of selective morality on a huge scale.

Of course, the ANC’s chapter on human rights is a very dark one, going back to its camps in Tanzania and Angola, to say nothing of its silence when Robert Mugabe practised ethnic cleansing against the Ndebele in 1983 and 1985; his violent seizure of farms 22 years ago and the Mbeki government’s tolerance of Mugabe’s socio-economic destruction of Zimbabwe.

What disparages the case of genocide against Israel is that Hamas and its terror sponsors in the Arab world pledged to perpetrate genocide in Israel and to eliminate it from the map.

The barbaric massacre they perpetrated on October 7 leaves no doubt about the integrity of their intentions.