South Africa has recalled its diplomats in Tel Aviv, Israel, for consultation as the Hamas-Israel conflict intensifies. Government said it wants to hear firsthand experience from its diplomats, before deciding about future diplomatic relations with Israel.
“This is normal practice when there’s a situation which is causing a great deal of harm and concern to a country, you would get your officials to come back to the national setting, in order to provide you with a full briefing so that you can make a determination as to whether there’s any potential for you to be of assistance and whether the continued relationship can be sustained.
“So we need to have this engagement with our officials because we’re extremely concerned at the continued killing of children and innocent civilians in the Palestinian territories,” said the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa (DIRCO) Dr Naledi Pandor.
She was speaking in Pretoria during a visit of her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba.
The Minister stressed that Pretoria believes that the nature of response by Israel, “has become one of collective punishment which falls fully outside the practice of international humanitarian and international human rights law”.
Pandor also expressed displeasure about what she described as disparaging remarks by Israel Ambassador to South Africa, Eliav Belotserkovsky.
This as government is not happy about the ambassador’s criticism against people who are opposed to the “atrocities and genocide of the Israeli government.”
“The Ambassador of Israel has been making a number of comments, almost akin to the statements that were made without proof by the United States Ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, a few months ago.
“We felt it important that we should call the Ambassador in, and he should desist from making the kinds of statements he’s making without having had any discussion with senior members of the government of South Africa,” explained Pandor.
Brigety earlier this year alleged that South Africa sold weapons to Russia, to help it in the fight against Ukraine.
A probe commissioned by President Cyril Ramaphosa however found that this was not the case, as no weapons were loaded into the Russian cargo ship Lady R, when it docked in Simonstown Naval Base in December last year.
The Minister also expressed concern about the conduct of some ambassadors in the country, describing them as undiplomatic.
“There seems to be a strange practice among some Ambassadors in South Africa, that they can just say what they like and our ambassadors conduct themselves with good grace because that is the directive from us for their deployment elsewhere.
“But people think they can have a license, I don’t know if it’s because it’s an African country and they disrespect us, but it is something that we should not tolerate,” said Pandor.
Cabinet has also instructed DIRCO to take necessary measures within the diplomatic channels and protocols to deal with the conduct of Belotserkovsky.