PRESS STATEMENT: Duduzane Zuma comes out supporting Apartheid Israel – Disgraceful

05 August 2021

The human rights organization Africa4Palestine considers Duduzane Zuma’s recent utterances in support of Apartheid Israel utterly disgraceful, entirely at odds with the position of the SA government and in contradiction of ANC policy.

In an interview published today by the right-wing newspaper, the SA Jewish Report, Duduzane Zuma said: “South Africa should have an embassy in Israel, and the ANC should take a completely different stance” (Find the link to the full Duduzane Zuma / SA Jewish Report interview and article below)

Duduzane is the son of the (currently imprisoned) former South African president, Jacob Zuma. In 2018, his father, Jacob Zuma, was removed as President of South Africa, following the ANC having elected Cyril Ramaphosa as the party’s leader at its 2017 54th National Conference. At the same conference, the ANC “unanimously resolved to direct the SA government to immediately and unconditionally downgrade the South African Embassy in Israel”. Shortly thereafter, the South African government under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa downgraded diplomatic relations with Israel.

In today’s Jewish Report interview, Duduzane Zuma revealed that if his father (Jacob Zuma) was still president (and not Cyril Ramaphosa), then South Africa wouldn’t have downgraded its embassy in Israel, he said: “It was a strange thing that it [the Israel downgrade] happened quite quickly after he [my father Jacob Zuma] stepped down [as President]. If anything, South Africa should have an embassy in Israel, and the ANC should take a completely different stance.”

Duduzane Zuma further added that the downgraded Israel embassy and relations must be “dug into and relooked at.”

Duduzane Zuma shows utter disregard for the democratic expression of the ANC branches, regions and provinces that “unanimously” resolved to downgrade the SA Embassy in Israel at the ANC’s 54th National Conference. Furthermore he is at odds with the position of South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, and the majority of South Africans who consider Israel an Apartheid State. Earlier this year Ramaphosa described Israel as an “apartheid-type state”.

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Last month investigations revealed that Cyril Ramaphosa is reportedly among 14 heads of state who’s phone numbers have been hacked using an Israeli company’s spyware (the NSO’s Pegasus). In 2015, according to intelligence documents leaked to Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit, members of Israel’s Mossad spy agency had threatened then-Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to unleash a devastating cyber attack against South Africa’s banking and financial sectors unless the SA government cracked down on the growing campaign to boycott Israel.

We are concerned by Israel and its supporters like Duduzane Zuma interfering with the ANC, the South African government and its President’s support of the Palestinian people which is an expression of the peoples of South Africa’s view. African countries side with the people of Palestine not only because Palestinians supported us during the struggle against Apartheid and other anti-colonial struggles on the continent but also because we see ourselves in them as they struggle against Israeli Apartheid.

Click here for the full interview with Duduzane Zuma