By Na'eem Jeenah
Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool and I have known each other for a long time. In the early 1980s, we were both involved in the same anti-apartheid movement.
On Friday, I hosted a webinar at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) looking at what the new US administration’s policies mean or will mean for the next four years for the African continent as a whole and in particular for South Africa.
The theme we decided on was the new US administration and its impact on Africa, the Southern Africa region and naturally South Africa.
Ambassador Rasool was an obvious choice to invite as a keynote speaker.
He has been in the US for almost two months, and prior to that, he was there for four years as our ambassador to Washington.
Rasool is well-informed on US politics, and as he is South African, he naturally understands the priorities in the US-South Africa relations.
Four other speakers were also invited to reflect on the same kind of issues during the course of the two hours long webinar.
Trump’s false claims on South Africa
In his opening presentation, Ambassador Rasool made a point of highlighting how crucial the relationship between the US and South Africa is.
One of South Africa's most significant trading partners was the United States.
He believed that South Africa should not take an antagonistic approach towards the US despite the executive order President Donald Trump signed against South Africa.
In terms of our commerce, he further pointed out that, while 80% of what China imports from South Africa is raw materials, the US imports 70% of South Africa manufactured goods
In the question session, he was asked about why he thought that the Trump administration had taken such a strong position against South Africa.
The executive order that was issued by Donald Trump mentioned two things.
One was, as Trump himself said later, “There's Tremendously Bad Things Going On In South Africa”.
However, what the executive order said was that there was a certain group of people or classes of people being discriminated against, and he spoke about that separately referring to a law, which he falsely claimed has resulted in farms being taken over by government, among other things.
South Africa’s case against Israel
He was referring to the Expropriation Act, which was signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in January this year but is yet to be implemented. Hence, no property has been taken as a result. That was his first reason in the executive order.
The second reason was South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, ICJ, where Pretoria is accusing Tel Aviv of committing genocide in Gaza.
So, in responding to that question Ambassador Rassool explained to his largely South African audience how the new American administration works.
He made the point that over the next few years, the United States will have a demographic shift whereby only 48% of the population will be white and that the Trump administration has positioned itself as being the defender of white people.
He added that while this is a domestic issue, the Trump administration has also projected that kind of posture globally.
For instance, Vice President JD Vance extols the virtues of the racist, anti-immigrant far-right (AfD) party in Germany and right-wing UK politician Nigel Farage.
The Trump administration has similar attitude towards whites in South Africa, as if the Trump administration is the defender of whites all over the world.
America’s disproportionate response
The ambassador, attempted to clarify that what we are witnessing is a sort of mindset of white supremacy.
It was this very point that was then picked on by Breitbart, a US right-wing website and in the process ignored everything else that he said.
The Breitbart article was written by Joel Pollak, a South Africa-born American conservative political commentator, who is campaigning to be America's next ambassador to South Africa!
Pollak, essentially picked on that part about the demographic changes in the US and the Trump administration wanting to be the defender of whites.
And it was that article that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio read and used as the basis for a tweet in which he declared South Africa’s ambassador Ebrahim Rassool a persona non grata!
South Africa not ‘anti-America’
It's a very odd kind of diplomatic move to say, based on that, that an ambassador insulted the US or its president.
One would expect that the first option would be a Démarche or an attempt for the two foreign ministers to have a chat about what the ambassador had done.
Instead, here they just went to the extreme and declared Ambassador Rasool persona non grata, a kind of treatment usually reserved for a diplomat who engages in spying or espionage activities.
Naturally, We were all quite surprised when we learned, just hours after that webinar, that the Secretary of State of the United States had taken this extreme measure against our ambassador. It was quite surprising!
The ambassador was forthright and frank, but we didn’t think that he has said anything in the webinar that warranted such a harsh response.
Ambassador Rasool has served in the US before.
I don’t think that anyone, that interacted with him at that stage, whether South African or American would regard him as being anti-American.
Ironically, he was criticised for being overly kind towards the United States right after his talk here, particularly for urging South Africans to refrain from reacting negatively to Trump's executive order. He has no anti-American sentiment.
He was assigned there specifically because he had a duty to strengthen ties between the two nations at a very trying period and, in the end, to portray South Africa and himself as being very friendly to the United States.
Our president would not appoint an ambassador to Washington if he believed that he was anti-American.
All of this manufactured crisis ultimately boils down to South Africa taking Israel to the International Court of Justice.
There are now two aspects to this:
First is the Trump administration's determination to protect and defend Israel at any costs.
TRT Global - Trump has stirred a storm this week following his threat that the US would suspend aid to South Africa because of Pretoria's new land expropriation policy.
No going back on genocide case at ICJ
South Africa's case against Israel in the International Court of Justice places it at odds with the United States.
Secondly, the Trump administration has made it apparent that it does not value or respect international institutions or international law. In other words, with its approach, the law of the jungle would virtually govern international affairs.
Regarding the ICJ, South Africa is very clear that this is a case that it has taken based on principle – to uphold international law and that, as a global community, we cannot tolerate international law being flouted as Israel keeps doing in Gaza.
South Africa will not back down on this. The South African government also, believes and correctly so that we are obligated by our constitution, to promote the values of justice and human rights globally, and that is what we are doing.
Furthermore, from the standpoint of realist international relations, the kind of global support that South Africa has received for the ICJ case—primarily from nations in the Global South —means that, even if it so desired, it would be impossible for South Africa to withdraw from the case at this point. So that’s not going to happen.
South Africa does not set out to antagonise the United States. It wishes to handle matters diplomatically within the parameters that President Cyril Ramaphosa established in his state of the nation address when he declared that the country will not be bullied, that we will conduct our international relations with dignity and with integrity.
The author, Na'eem Jeenah, is a Senior Researcher at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA).
Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of TRT Afrika.
