South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Feb. 25 article in Foreign Policy—co-written by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Colombia President Gustavo Petro and Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, a left-wing policy adviser and co-general coordinator of Progressive International—spreads misinformation about Israel while acting as a rallying cry for anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiments.
Among the mistruths, the article claims that the deaths of “61,000 people” indicate a failed international system and are indicative of genocide—a claim that is far from the truth. The number of dead itself is already questionable, as it comes from the Hamas-run Gazan Ministry of Health, which has a perverse incentive to inflate the number of dead to condemn Israel. The number also doesn’t distinguish between genuine civilians and combatants.
The article also makes no mention of crimes undertaken by Hamas terrorists or the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for a now-late Hamas leader who helped execute the massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which kicked off this brutal war.
The article’s content is not surprising given that its writers are members of the Hague Group, which includes: Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Colombia, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa. Organizers say the group was founded to combat violations of international humanitarian law, but all of its focus has been on attacking the State of Israel.
The Hague Group has called for its member states and other nations to put an arms embargo on Israel and prevent vessels carrying military supplies to Israel from docking at their ports. Ramaphosa’s government, however, had no qualms about hosting Russian military exercises despite the country currently engaged in a brutal war of conquest over Ukraine. Additionally, while the South African government investigated and found itself not guilty of loading munitions and weapons onto the Lady R—a Russian vessel that was docked at a South African military base in 2022—accusations by the United States that the ship was transporting military equipment to Russia should not be ignored.
The South African government, and Ramaphosa in particular, have no right to claim adherence to international law as the country’s previous president, Jacob Zuma, refused to arrest Sudanese president and warlord Omar al-Bashir, who the ICC had issued an arrest warrant for in 2010 on charges of genocide with deaths predicted to be between 200,000 and 400,000. Ramaphosa was deputy president at the time.
The Hague Group itself also requires some further scrutiny.
Supporting organizations present at the founding of the group included Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and Samidoun, all entities with links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated foreign terrorist organization. Progressive International, whose co-general coordinator is acting chair of the Hague Group, has also declared that Israel is a “colonial project and imperial outpost,” a factually incorrect statement that implies a desire for the destruction of Israel itself. The entire formulation of the Hague Group seems like a way to use international law as a crutch to condemn Israel rather than an actual principle that they support.
The Hague Group and Progressive International have not been transparent with their financial data, donors or sources of funding, raising concerns over both who is footing the bill and their intentions. This links to questions as to the timing surrounding South Africa’s accusations of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice, as it was followed by the country’s ruling ANC escaping a financial crisis ahead of the 2024 general elections.
The Hague Group is not a principled group of humanitarians. Rather, it is a cabal of anti-Western actors pushing an anti-Israel agenda, one motivated by greed and hate. With hypocrisy this rife, the Foreign Policy article should rightfully be considered as misinformation and hatemongering.