With a genocide case against Israel, South Africa is challenging the Western-led order

After Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said spoken by telephone with Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, and later had to explain that the discussions focused on providing humanitarian aid to Gaza. .

South Africa's case against Israel could cause a backlash globally and at home. US officials have backed Israel, calling the case meritless. And some in the small but outspoken community of South African Jews, a group that played a key role in the anti-apartheid struggle, have criticized their government over the genocide case.

Zev Krengel, the chairman of the South African Jewish Council of Representatives, expressed this criticism, calling it 'a massive betrayal'.

Mr Krengel accused the South African government, led by the ANC, of ​​hypocrisy and said it had not brought cases against other countries that had committed atrocities. When Sudan's former president Omar Hassan al-Bashir came to South Africa for a summit in 2015, South African authorities refused to arrest him even though he was wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes.

“We have never seen the ANC government more excited than trying to prove that the Jewish state is committing genocide,” Mr Krengel said.

Ronald Lamola, South Africa's justice minister, said the case was not an attack on Jews but about urgently saving Palestinian lives. More than 23,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters. The Israeli attacks came after Hamas led a raid that killed 1,200 people, Israeli officials said.

“We cannot come in two or three years, when the entire population has been wiped out, and say, 'We're sorry, we should have stopped it,'” Mr. Lamola said in an interview.