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South Africa’s showdown with Israel has spilled into Washington’s corridors of power, where the Trump administration weighs punishing Pretoria without severing ties.
Analysts warn exclusion from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) and targeted sanctions against outspoken leaders could follow, yet the US is unlikely to risk a full diplomatic rupture.
ICJ action turns bilateral row into global test
At the heart of the clash lies South Africa’s defiant stand at the International Court of Justice and its parliament’s vote to shut Israel’s embassy – moves that have turned a bilateral spat into a test of international law, trade politics and moral resolve.
Independent political analyst Sandile Swana said the US might sanction ANC officials, as well as some anti-US and anti-Israel leaders such as EFF’s Julius Malema and those from Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe party.
“I do not expect them to issue blanket sanctions against South Africa. But they will target individuals,” Swana said.
He said the US didn’t want to impose blanket sanctions because such action would also hurt the white population.
Diplomatic ‘breaches’ and protocol violations
Another independent analyst, Goodenough Mashego, said Israel had breached the international law governing diplomatic relations by allowing its embassy in Pretoria to exceed its diplomatic mission in South Africa.
He said it was wrong to insult the state president and for it to undertake direct liaison with local institutions without consulting the government.
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Mashego said Israel violated the Vienna Convention to declare the SA ambassador to Palestine as persona non grata because the envoy had not submitted his credentials to Tel Aviv, but to the Palestinian authority in Ramallah.
He said Israel had no authority over an ambassador based in another state.
Retaliatory expulsions deepen diplomatic standoff
In a diplomatic spat, South Africa declared Israeli chargé d’affaires to South Africa Ariel Seidman a persona non grata, giving him 72 hours to leave the country.
In retaliation, Israel did the same with South Africa’s ambassador to Palestine, Shaun Edward Byneveldt. “For Israel to expel a foreign ambassador from a neighbouring sovereign nation is against international law,” said Mashego.
“The South African ambassador submitted his credentials to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, rather than to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“By law, Israel should not have the right to expel an ambassador of another country.”
The Israeli chargé d’affaires allegedly violated diplomatic protocol by insulting President Cyril Ramaphosa on social media on a few occasions in response to the president’s statement that sanctions do not work.
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US ties remain intact but trade risk grows
“It has been insult after insult,” Mashego said.
He said diplomatic relations with the US were sealed and unlikely to be affected by the Israeli issue and the new US ambassador-designate to South Africa, Leo Brent Bozell III is on the way.
But Pretoria could be excluded from Agoa as punishment for the latest Israeli-SA fallout.
Currently, the Israeli embassy in Pretoria and its South African counterpart in Tel Aviv are running on autopilot.
Previously, both countries recalled their respective ambassadors for consultation when South Africa protested at Israel’s retaliatory bombings in Gaza following attacks by Hamas on 7 October, 2023.
Mashego said Israel acted undiplomatically when it organised junkets for Nelson Mandela’s grandchildren to Israel and visited Eastern Cape health facilities and flood victims to offer humanitarian assistance in a tour led by Israeli senior envoy, David Saranga.
Mashego said Israel delayed its reply to the International Court of Justice finding on genocide plausibility, hoping that Trump would succeed in putting pressure on Pretoria to drop the case.
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