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Israeli involvement in SA Anti-Immigration Protests Critics have questioned the basis of Kubayi’s comments, arguing that allegations involving foreign influence should be supported by evidence, while supporters say her remarks reflect the complex international pressures South Africa faces following its ICJ case. Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg, Professor Patrick Bond, unpacked the political and geopolitical implications of Kubayi’s claims. Patrick Bond: Well, I think there is a deep dilemma when we’re in a chaotic period. It’s often very tempting to move beyond the deeper structural problems in the society and find some catalyst. And the catalyst, some might say, is a November 4 election as all the maneuvering is underway to get people’s hearts and minds. Some might say that the catalyst is the debate going on within the ANC, especially because of MK party, potentially in an alliance with the EFF and Communist Party after the conference of the left. And there are lots of catalysts. However, Kubayi didn’t give us any proof. And just one week before, a week ago, we also heard a conspiracy theory about xenophobia from former President Tabo Mbeki. And I feel that is actually a structural tendency, some call it walk right. It’s to have an internationalist and anti-imperialist posture, while not doing anything about the real underlying problems. For Mbeki, it concerned the May 2008 xenophobia, 62 people killed. And what he said at the National Democratic Revolution seminar that occurred exactly a week ago, he said it was Zimbabweans from the opposition party who had caused the xenophobes to push the other Zimbabweans here in South Africa, back to Zimbabwe to take part in an election. You know, quite a fantasy, quite a conspiracy. And it does distract us from those deeper underlying problems, doesn’t it? Shafiq Morton, Voice of the Cape: Now, Professor, I’ve had a number of conversations with a couple of guests over the last few weeks with the so called run up to June 30. And then focusing on these entities, March and March, Operation Dudula, and some of the political parties that are also very sympathetic or supportive. And in fact, joining them on a lot of these so called protests that certainly does present us with a number of dangers where there are political parties would openly support the agenda of these entities like Action SA, MK Party, Patriotic Alliance, and others, etc. But consistently through all of these conversations that I’ve had with the guests over the last couple of months, there has been talk about whether or not we are going to investigate. And is it viable for us to do that, whether or not we’re going to investigate the strong likelihood that a third force could be behind this agenda? What do you make of that, Professor? Patrick: Well, again, I’d love to see proof. I’m always open to being persuaded. Part of the proof would be where’s the money coming from? How much money was involved in the roughly 100 marches? You need to get people in and out. Sometimes you need to have a little food. But you know, there isn’t that much money that we know of. There is some evidence that one of the richest men who certainly has an agenda of undermining the ANC, Rob Hersov, has had very, very friendly relations with first Operation Dudula here in Johannesburg, in the name of the person of Nhlanhla Lux Dlamini. So they appeared together on social media. Second, that Herman Mashaba has been an old friend. And third, that Hersov’s favorite politician is Gayton McKenzie. So one could connect the dots. But we don’t have any evidence that that’s actually meant, aside from ideological sort of consistencies, it doesn’t mean that Hersov is funding it. He’s, by the way, the heir to the Anglo Vaal fortune, which after the Anglo American Oppenheimer fortune, is pretty much the biggest, let’s say, residual of the gold in Johannesburg, half the world’s gold underneath us here. And so a lot of money exists in that Hersov terrain to make this sort of trouble if he wanted to. And he certainly does seem to want to, but we don’t have any proof. So therefore, I would say one of the crucial things is to identify where proto-fascism, that is the early stages of fascism, including the Afrophobia, is coming from. And the second, in addition to this recent episode, the second dangerous area is the Zion Christian Church, because Patrice Motsepe, the brother-in-law of President Ramaphosa, has brought 110,000 regularly to Soccer City for prayer day. And there they get to hear Rabbi Warren Goldstein give pro-Israel speeches. And then the ZCC protested earlier this year at the Mandela Foundation against Naledi Pander. So one could again connect some dots and say, well, these are some consistencies in a kind of Christian fundamentalism, the sort that Donald Trump has built up. And in addition to the white right, the Western Cape Exit folks around Hersov, and they have a group there that’s called the Smutby Group or S Group, combining smut – pornography – and rugby. So yeah, you could put together a plausible connecting of dots between these three sorts of forces. However, we must confess there’s no proof. What we do have proof of is that Minister Kubayi’s boss, Cyril Ramaphosa, has a brother-in-law, Patrice Motsepe, who’s making lots of money from coal sales to Israel. And Ramaphosa’s former colleagues at Glencore are driving that. And the Israeli genocide is being fueled, and therefore all of the hot talk about the ICJ, and indeed about a Hague Group that links supporters of the International Court of Justice, to me is a talk left so they can walk right. In other words, this government, including Parks Tau the Trade Minister, including the Mining Minister Gwede Mantashe, including Energy Minister Ramokgopa, they’ve all been asked about the private coal sales to Israel. They’ve all endorsed it. They cannot bring themselves to put a block, the way the Colombian government did. They use all manner of excuses like the WTO. And it’s for that reason I don’t think that we’re really looking at Israel feeling threatened by South Africa, since it gets 100% of its coal to fuel the genocide from Richards Bay. Voice of the Cape: Certainly requires some thoughtful and major investigations. There are a couple of investigative journalists that have kind of, maybe in a muzzled way, Professor, because it hasn’t really come out largely or significantly. But a couple of weeks ago, a few investigative journalists were saying, can we look at the founder and the leader of March in March, Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, having visited the United States and having acquired funding from the United States? Can we then look at connecting those dots and what contribution that could have made towards March in March, and then essentially then spreading their tentacles across the country? Patrick: If this was something that just happened this year, and that Ngobese-Zuma had actually been part of Donald Trump’s internationalism, which is with especially a man called Steve Bannon, who does this sort of promotion of the broader xenophobic movement around the world. And he’s very successful in places like Germany, France, and the UK and Italy. There have been and are very strong movements connected to MAGA. However, we also know that the Trump regime is racist. And that basically Ngobese-Zuma went when Joe Biden was president. That was a very different scene. They had a National Endowment for Democracy, all sorts of, let’s say, liberal vanities that if you bring free markets, you get free politics. And so I would say it might be actually the opposite conclusion. You would draw that probably, although I don’t know this for sure, during the Biden era, there was an ideological orientation that was very different than the one that started in January 2025, the so-called paleo-conservative era. What you get if you go into the US, and I happen to have done my PhD there, well, you get the training in neoliberalism, that is, that free markets are the best. I suspect that’s what she got. But I would say that if you are looking for a foreign element, look at home, because a lot of what is creating the incentive or the push factor from immigrants to come here is indeed the way South Africa behaves in the region. Three things. One would be the extractive industries, our mining industry. Bobby Godsell from AngloGold Ashanti, for example, in 2005 admitted that he was working, his company was working, with warlords. And that was when six million Congolese were being killed, right? And the resource wars were over all of those valuable minerals, and many Congolese came here as a result. And there are so many such resource wars across the subcontinent where South African firms are involved in creating that pressure. Second, the SANDF has behaved abominably with mass rape cases in places like eastern DRC, or working with Total Energies in northern Mozambique against Al-Shabaab, working in the Central African Republic with the ANC’s Chancellor House firm. So some appalling ways our army behaves, like a US Yankee army. And third, our climate change contribution, which is number one in the world, that is emissions per person per unit of output, which means we’ve got situations like Lake Malawi’s rising temperature, and no fish, and then people come here. And that was actually explained by the Malawian consul general in Durban just a week and a half ago. I think those are the international sub-imperial factors that I would look to, rather than some theory that Mbeki has about the MDC in 2008, or that Kubayi has about Israel now. I mean, we really do know the concrete implications of a South African sub-imperial business and army in creating push factors, in addition to the crises we have here in employment, in housing, and in retail. So let’s look at the structural conditions and not be distracted by conspiracy theories, right? Voice of the Cape: Very interesting indeed, Professor Patrick Bond, as always, distinguished professor of sociology. https://vocfm.co.za/kubayi-suggests-israel-may-have-sought-to-undermine-south-africa-through-anti-immigration-protests/ Back |
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