Attorney Ziyaad E Patel
Pic Courtesy: Media Review Network
by Iqbal Jassat
“Time for accountability: For too long have South Africa’s Security Laws been Flouted by Israel’s Zionist Agents”
At the core of what promises to be a paradigm-changing legal case filed at Pretoria’s High Court, is a body of evidence on illegal mercenary activities in Israel requiring accountability from the South African government.
A press release issued by the applicant’s attorney Ziyaad Patel, confirm that voluminous bundles over 12 200 pages in law and evidence have been served on the Presidency, respective Government Ministries, South African Investigative and Prosecutorial Authorities, the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), the South African Police Services and others.
The core demand revolves around the nagging question: where are the prosecutions of South Africans fighting in the Israel Defence Forces?
Irrefutable evidence – much of it exists in the public domain via boastful posts by South African citizens who are engaged in illegal military services in the Israeli army – apparently ignored to date by the authorities, has to have a D-day for accountability.
From forensic investigations conducted it is confirmed that not a single SA citizen has been authorised nor granted permission for bearing arms against Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
An executive summary of the case makes reference to a number of elements of the litigation. Pertinent to it is comprehensive evidence of unlawful recruitment, financing, and participation in the settler colonial regime’s army of killers, in direct violation of South Africa’s security laws.
Apart from the fact that the ongoing uninterrupted ability for SA nationals and citizens to render foreign military service in the IDF is seemingly “condoned” by relevant state institutions due to their failure to criminalise and stamp it out, the impunity whereby apartheid Israel’s local Zionist lobbyists facilitate it is outrageous.
The context for this overdue and groundbreaking case stems from a series of criminal complaints filed against South African citizens who are alleged to have joined and militarily served in the IDF.
The applicants – Safoodien Bester and Attorney Ziyaad Patel – correctly contend that such military service is unlawful under South African law and undermines both domestic security and South Africa’s credibility as a champion of international justice.
As expected, the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act (RFMAA), which strictly prohibits South African nationals and citizens from providing military assistance to foreign states without applying for explicit authorisation, has been cited as a central plank in the case.
Both the record of evidence submitted through engagement with the specialised organs of the National Prosecuting Authority Service over the years and the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), have confirmed no such authorisations have been granted to South Africans serving in the IDF between the period 2006 emanating from Israel’s war in Lebanon to its present wars and military operations in Gaza since 2023 and the broader middle east region.
In addition it is important to note that latest findings against Israel under the Convention Against Torture treaty, records several severe violations by Israel against Palestinians.
Criminal conduct by the Zionist regime include various forms of torture including repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, waterboarding, prolonged stress positions, sexual violence, humiliation such as being forced to act like animals or being urinated on, denial of medical care, excessive restraints causing amputations, surgery without anaesthetic, exposure to extreme heat or cold and a lot more worse.
In the specific case of torture, it is important to establish from the number of South Africans in the IDF, how many are directly complicit in these horrific acts.
Military duty imposes many obligations on the recruits. Engaging in intelligence gathering operations is thus not excluded. But despite the strict regulations of the Convention Against Torture, assessments of Israeli state conduct have established widespread abuse.
So while active mercenary deployment in the IDF is prohibited in SA and punishable as a serious criminal offence, by being complicit in the torture of Palestinians, compounds the crime.
Nevertheless, the present High Court application raises serious questions about the apparent disconnect in enforcement of South African law, the country’s constitutional obligations, and its international responsibilities.
The Applicants contend that “Government silence and this disconnect by its national law enforcement authorities and organs of state is not merely an oversight but rather evinces an endemic and systemic problem, whereby these authorities and organs of state remain captured by pro Zionist influences”.
Interestingly, news reports are currently ablaze with allegations of South Africans involved in the Russia/Ukraine war.
In direct contrast to SA mercenary activities in Israel and absence of any high-level intervention on it, in the case of Russia/Ukraine, President Cyril Ramaphosa has ordered an investigation into the circumstances that led to the recruitment into seemingly mercenary activities.
And again in sharp contrast to his silence on Israel’s recruitment of SA mercenaries, Ramaphosa has ordered an investigation into the circumstances that led to the recruitment of 17 young men into suspected mercenary activities in the war-torn region of Donbas in the Ukraine.
Such disconnect does suggest that if South Africans are deployed as mercenaries in Ukraine, the highest office of state will intervene, but not in the case of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
This critique does not in any way take away the enormous strides made by Ramaphosa administration at the International Court of Justice as well as the International Criminal Court.
However, by failing to discharge SA’s domestic legal obligations, it unwittingly provides Israel and its local agents unprecedented impunity to breach the provisions of the RFMAA.
Being aware as government indeed is as per a DIRCO statement issued during the October 2024 filing of its Memorial to the ICJ,
“Israel’s continued shredding of international law has imperilled the institutions of global governance that were established to hold all states accountable”, we certainly cannot contribute to it.
By not bringing SA mercenaries to trial by charging them as well as their funders and recruiters, the criminal justice system will continue facing accusations of hypocrisy and double standards.
Iqbal Jassat
Executive Member
Media Review Network
Johannesburg
South Africa
*For Executive Summary kindly access www.mediareviewnet.com*