In a Democracy, You Have to Speak Out  

As the South African government charges Israel with genocide, Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein insists that it’s his duty as a rabbinic leader to challenge the country’s powerful politicians and speak up for his people

AS Israel prepared last week for some Shabbos peace after three months of war, a new front was opening in the distant Hague. The small Jewish population of the Netherlands city of a half million was boosted by Israeli media anxiously relaying the scenes out of a court room as the International Court of Justice — an institution under the UN umbrella — tried Israel for war crimes in Gaza.

It was the denouement of a process that had begun on November 17, when South African president Cyril Ramaphosa told reporters on a trip to Qatar that Gaza “has now turned into a concentration camp where genocide is taking place.”

To observers of South Africa’s increasingly radical anti-Israel stance and budding alliance with Iran, the pronouncements weren’t surprising. But as head of the African National Congress (ANC), the political party founded by Nelson Mandela that has governed South Africa since the fall of apartheid, Ramaphosa wields significant influence by touting the Mandela legacy of human rights leadership.

Against strong pushback from the Biden administration, South Africa brought the case to the ICJ, accusing the IDF of genocide and seeking an immediate halt to Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Under no obligation to defend itself in the court, Israel chose to do so, seeing it as an important opportunity to push back against the modern-day blood libel.