South Africa’s moral leadership on Palestine must not be betrayed

Imraan Buccus 

South Africa is in deep crisis. The scale of unemployment, the collapse of public services, the precipitous decline of major cities, and pervasive corruption have left many people disillusioned. The ANC, once the bearer of our democratic hopes, has squandered much of its legitimacy.

It would be naïve to deny these failures.

But amid this bleak domestic reality, there is one area where South Africa has stood firm and offered rare global moral leadership: its unwavering support for the Palestinian people. That principled stance, culminating in the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, has resonated across the globe and reminded many of what ethical internationalism can look like in an age of cynicism.

Why Normalising Ties with Israel Is Morally Indefensible

It is precisely because of this moral clarity that William Gumede’s recent call in the Sunday Times for rapprochement with Israel is so alarming.

In his piece, Gumede argues that the Government of National Unity should reinstate ties with Israel, drop its genocide application at the ICJ, and learn from countries like India and China that have maintained economic relations with Israel despite ongoing atrocities. But this position is morally indefensible.

At a time when the Israeli state is executing a campaign of mass slaughter in Gaza — described as genocide not just by South Africa but by leading legal scholars, UN experts, and global human rights organisations — to advocate normalisation is to capitulate to power over principle.

The Hidden Networks Behind the Call for Rapprochement

Gumede couches his argument in the language of pragmatism. He invokes trade, technology, and economic growth. But there are moments in history when pragmatism, stripped of principle, becomes complicity.

The brutal reality unfolding in Gaza — the killing of over 50,000 people, the use of starvation as a weapon, the targeted bombing of hospitals and schools — is not a sideshow to be politely ignored while we talk commerce. It is the central question of our moral standing in the world.

For South Africa, a country whose freedom was won with the solidarity of the world’s peoples, to turn its back on another people facing annihilation would be a betrayal of our history and of the very idea of justice.

Gumede’s article fails to disclose his deep entanglement in Western-funded networks that are aggressively hostile to South Africa’s stance on Palestine. His NGO, the Democracy Works Foundation, has received substantial support from actors including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), and the International Republican Institute (IRI). USAID and the IRI are part of a wider ecosystem of 'democracy promotion' that drives the foreign policy objectives of the US.

Exporting Democracy — or Engineering Regime Change?

For decades the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was one of the central institutions in this ecosystem. USAID, operating under the guidance of the U.S. State Department, allocated billions annually to advance what it called development and democratic governance. But it did so in ways that reinforced U.S. economic and geopolitical interests.

In November 2023, Democracy Works Foundation (DWF) was awarded a $4.5 million cooperative agreement by the US Mission to South Africa.

This funding directly tied the DWF to a foreign government with a long record of shielding Israel from international accountability.

Of course, Donald Trump’s presidency took an axe to USAID, as part of a broader shift in US foreign policy away from multilateralism and soft power diplomacy toward a more openly coercive and transactional posture.

However, this retreat from traditional “democracy promotion” strategies does not fundamentally alter the ideological infrastructure that organisations like Democracy Works Foundation are part of. In fact, in the context of declining funding, there is now a strong incentive for organisations like DWF to show their commitment to US foreign policy in order to compete for a shrinking funding pool.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), created in 1983 by the US Congress, is another key player. It was designed to take over many of the political functions once carried out by the CIA, under the more acceptable banner of civil society support. As the NED's first president Allen Weinstein openly acknowledged, "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." The NED operates through four core institutes: the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the Solidarity Center. It has funded projects across the world that align with U.S. strategic interests. While it promotes itself as an NGO, the NED is funded and supervised by the US Congress and plays a strategic role in US foreign policy.

As leading academics have repeatedly shown, the NED has played a significant role in many US-backed coups and attempted coups against elected governments around the world.

Among the NED’s grantees, the International Republican Institute (the IRI) has played a particularly prominent role. Founded in 1983 and closely linked to the US Republican Party, the IRI has an extensive history of interventionist programming under the banner of "party development" and "democratic reform." It has supported regime change efforts in Haiti, Venezuela, and Honduras — all countries where left-wing governments or movements challenged US power.

In South Africa, the Democracy Works Foundation has partnered with the IRI to build the capacity of political parties across Southern Africa. These initiatives may seem innocuous, but they must be read against the backdrop of the IRI’s ideological commitments and political history. An organisation like the IRI does not give money for projects that it does not deem to be ideologically aligned to its core mission.

When an NGO long embedded in these kinds of structures begins calling for rapprochement with a state accused of genocide, it would be naïve in the extreme to think that it is not acting as a part of a broader ecosystem of Western imperial power. It is a real political alignment that should be a matter of public concern.

When an NGO that has long been supported by Western donors with such clear political agendas echoes the positions of its funders on critical moral questions — we are entitled to ask difficult questions. South Africa's foreign policy must reflect the values of its people, not the preferences of foreign donors.

Defending South Africa’s Moral Compass — and Our Legacy

Dropping the genocide case at the ICJ, as Gumede suggests, would not be a mere technocratic adjustment. It would be a historic betrayal. It would signal that South Africa's role as a voice for the oppressed can be bartered away for investment deals and diplomatic handshakes. The Palestinian people — and the world — deserve better.

Gumede is entitled to his opinion. But when that opinion aligns so seamlessly with the geopolitical agenda of Israel's most powerful allies, and when it is promoted through an organisation so deeply entangled with US funders, we are obligated to respond with principled critique. South Africa has many problems. The ANC has many failings. But our stance on Palestine has been clear, brave, and principled. That must not change.

**Dr Buccus is research fellow at UFS and senior research fellow at ASRI 

***The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of IOL or Independent Media

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