International Relations and Co-operation Minister Naledi Pandor confirmed that the Cabinet has yet to deliberate on the closure of the Israeli embassy in South Africa and the proposed suspension of all diplomatic ties. Picture: Jacques Naude / Independent Newspapers
International Relations and Co-operation Minister Naledi Pandor confirmed on Wednesday that the Cabinet has yet to deliberate on the closure of the Israeli embassy in South Africa and the proposed suspension of all diplomatic ties.
“Until Cabinet has made a decision, there would be no action on the resolution that Madam Speaker alerted Cabinet to,” Pandor said.
When asked why South Africa took long to cut diplomatic ties with Israel whereas Brazil was the latest to do so, Pandor said Brazilians had made an indication to cut ties.
She also said South Africa had approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to complain that Israel had not responded positively to the court judgment delivered earlier this year.
Pandor also said South Africa was in constant communication with various stakeholders and leaders in Israel in support of peace in Palestine and freedom for Palestinians.
The recent approach to the ICJ was to indicate that there was another intention by Israel to commit genocide against Palestinians.
“We continue to pursue that case along with other like-minded countries that indicated strong intention to join the case.”
Pandor said more actions must be considered by the South African government to indicate various concerns they have, particularly now that there were threats to Palestinians in Rafah.
“We believe we should look at what steps we might take to ensure all hostages held by Hamas must be freed as part of a package to achieve the two state solution,” she said.
She insisted that South Africa believed in a sustainable peaceful solution without isolating another party in a conflict.
“Where there is great harm caused, a country such as South Africa has to indicate its concerns and take concerted action to point to its displeasure with harm visited on the oppressed people.”
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Thandi Modise said the SANDF was not doing anything untoward with its involvement in domestic security activities.
The SANDF has been deployed in parts of the country to combat gang warfare, fighting illegal mining syndicates and addressing other internal threats and assist in disaster situations, among other things.
Modise said the primary role of the SANDF was the protection of territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country.
“While our budget should be slanted towards our primary role, we do find ways of training to be on the secondary role.
“That is why when the military is deployed, we make sure we refresh on military codes and that they understand the role of police and behave in their support.”
Modise defended the SANDF’s supporting of the police to fight illegal mining.
“When you start touching systems and integrity of the economy, you are touching us.
“We are not apologetic that we find ourselves in these roles, even though most of the time we are not adequately budgeted for. What country can stand anywhere if it can’t show it is strong enough to protect itself and its economy,” Modise added.
She dismissed a suggestion that the appetite to deploy the overstretched SANDF was because of failed state departments, most notably SAPS.
Modise said if anybody failed to provide for defence adequately, it was the decision by the first post-1994 Cabinet that decided to spend more on social spending and the dignity of people than re-arming and maintaining the equipment of the defence force.
“That might have been a good thing to do, but it also created a problem. Therein lay the lack of maintenance, identified funds and we have been hard at work to rectify that.
“We will be coming to the committees to tell you what we have been doing. We have a plan which I am happy you will be happy to hear,” she said in reference to finding resources and funds for the cash-strapped defence force.
Modise confirmed that there was no specific budget item for the R2 billion to be spent on the deployment of SANDF soldiers to the Democratic Republic of Congo for the whole year.
“We are expecting that we would be given an allocation for the current deployment,” she said.
“We will be funded because we raised that with Treasury and the Presidency.”
Cape Times