President Cyril Ramaphosa wearing a keffiyeh, standing in front of ANC officials Israel embassy south africa is firmly in the spotlight
President Cyril Ramaphosa. Image: X via @myanc

Home » Is Ramaphosa stalling decision amid push for restoration of ties with Israel?

Is Ramaphosa stalling decision amid push for restoration of ties with Israel?

After a passed motion in 2023 to close Israel’s embassy, Ramaphosa is yet to pull the trigger, and now the EFF is threatening to legally force his hand.

20-10-25 11:05
President Cyril Ramaphosa wearing a keffiyeh, standing in front of ANC officials Israel embassy south africa is firmly in the spotlight
President Cyril Ramaphosa. Image: X via @myanc

South Africa’s foreign policy is once again thrown into sharp focus following the Freedom Front Plus’s (FF Plus) call for the restoration of diplomatic ties with Israel.

FF Plus member of Parliament, Corné Mulder, last week argued that normalisation of relations was a necessary starting point if South Africa genuinely wishes to contribute to lasting peace in the Middle East.

The FF Plus frame this as a pragmatic move, suggesting that if South Africa restores relations, it would send a “positive message” to the United States (US), a gesture deemed “critical at this stage” of negotiations to normalise trade relations between the two countries. This argument directly targets the ANC’s political anxiety regarding its relationship with Western states, particularly the US, South Africa’s second-largest trading partner.

FF Plus’s plea comes nearly two years after the country’s sixth Parliament, driven by seismic political shifts following the events of 7 October 2023, formally resolved to suspend those very relations.

As the African National Congress (ANC) navigates the waters of the Government of National Unity (GNU), the conflict over Palestine has surged back onto the national agenda, threatening to pit the executive against Parliament.

EFF, Al Jama-ah oppose ties with Israel

Leading the charge against any attempt at diplomatic normalisation is the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the original proponents of the 2023 motion to shut down the Israeli embassy in Pretoria. The EFF remains uncompromising in its stance: diplomatic ties must remain severed with the “apartheid state of Israel” until all Occupied Territories are returned and a lasting peaceful solution is achieved.

The party views the current US-backed Gaza ceasefire with suspicion, urging Palestinians to approach it with extreme caution. Crucially, the EFF believes the resolution passed by the National Assembly in November 2023 to suspend diplomatic relations with Israel is being deliberately ignored by President Cyril Ramaphosa, suggesting he lacks the political will to implement the parliamentary resolution.

“We will have to look into legal action to force the President to implement the motion,” said the EFF.

EFF leader Julius Malema has previously voiced his conviction that the Palestine issue has been negatively impacted – or entirely removed – from South Africa’s national agenda by the political dynamics of the GNU.

Last year, Malema argued that the ANC’s partners, including the FF Plus – who he characterised as “remnants of apartheid” and “fanatics of Zionist Apartheid Israel” – have successfully muzzled Ramaphosa. The president’s noticeable silence on Palestine during his July 2024 Opening of Parliament Address was deemed a result of being “hamstrung” and “scared to offend” his new coalition partners.

Adding to the EFF’s stance, the Al Jama-ah party vehemently rejected the FF Plus’s proposal, labelling it an “apartheid activity”. The party’s leader, Ganief Hendricks – who is also deputy minister of Social Development in the GNU executive – asserted that because Israel is a Zionist entity and an apartheid state, supporting such a proposal risks violating the Rome Statute, which is sufficient to criminally charge those supporting apartheid.

The statement went further, condemning members of Parliament who, after a “fact-finding” mission to Israel in early 2025, claimed they found no evidence of apartheid. Al Jama-ah noted that Israel is currently facing war crimes and genocide charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Hendricks also said that Al Jama-ah would introduce a Private Members Bill to outlaw such “racist and unpatriotic positions”.

Indecision over Israel embassy

When questioned directly about the status of the sixth Parliament’s motion, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said the matter of severing diplomatic ties and closing the Israeli embassy “remains under consideration”.

This non-committal response, nearly two years after the motion was passed, showcases the ongoing disconnect between the two arms of the state.

A history defined by ideology and atrocity

South Africa’s turbulent relationship with Israel and Palestine stretches back decades, providing the ideological foundation for the current conflict. When the democratic government took power in 1994, it inherited the strong military, intelligence and nuclear ties that apartheid South Africa had forged with Israel. Ironically, HF Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, viewed Israel as a kindred state, famously stating: “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.”

Since 1994, democratic South Africa has attempted a balancing act, simultaneously retaining relations with Israel while initiating formal diplomatic links with the State of Palestine in 1995. However, this balance eroded following Israel’s major operations in Gaza, leading to the ANC’s decision to adopt the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in December 2012.

The downward spiral accelerated significantly in 2018 when South Africa recalled its ambassador following the killing of Palestinians during the Great March of Return demonstrations, a withdrawal that became permanent.

By November 2023, in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 operation and Israel’s subsequent relentless bombardment of Gaza – referred to by South Africa as a campaign of “genocide”- Cabinet decided to withdraw all remaining diplomats from Tel Aviv.

The scale of the current conflict (now under a fragile ceasefire) is staggering, serving as the backdrop against which the FF Plus makes its call for normalisation. Hamas’s Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on 7 October 2023 resulted in the deaths of around 1,350 people in Israel, many of whom were military personnel.

Israel’s retaliatory onslaught on Gaza has led to widespread destruction, targeting civilian infrastructure, and, according to Palestinian health authorities, the death of more than 67,000 Palestinians by October 2025.

Crucially, South Africa has embarked on an unprecedented international legal path, filing an application against Israel at the ICJ in December 2023, accusing it of violations of the Genocide Convention. This step was described as deliberately refocusing South Africa’s foreign policy to revive the Mandela dictum that policy must be guided by the “light of human rights”.

Ramaphosa confirmed in October 2025 that this ICJ genocide case would proceed, irrespective of the ceasefire agreement now in place, with Israel expected to respond to South Africa’s submission by January 2026. Furthermore, reports indicate that Israel has breached the recent US-backed ceasefire agreement 80 times, killing at least 97 Palestinians since the truce began in October 2025.

Will Ramaphosa pull the trigger, or is the GNU a gag?

The FF Plus’s calculated move to normalise ties, framed around geopolitical expediency (appeasing the US) and the recently announced ceasefire, comes at a moment when the ANC’s foreign policy ambition is entangled in the constraints of the GNU.

If Ramaphosa were to heed the FF Plus and normalise ties, it would imply a fundamental backtracking on the “new path” South Africa has pursued since October 2023. Such a reversal would risk alienating the vast majority of Global South states who applauded South Africa’s ICJ action and enhanced its global prestige. Furthermore, restoring relations while simultaneously pursuing a genocide case at the ICJ – where the Court has already issued provisional measures against Israel – would be widely viewed as an abhorrent contradiction.

However, the pressure from the GNU coalition partners, who universally rejected the 2023 severance motion, cannot be discounted. The fact that Ramaphosa, after the November 2023 parliamentary vote, merely stated the matter was “under consideration”, rather than implementing the resolution immediately, suggests political reluctance, likely driven by concerns over Western relations and potential trade fallout.

The ultimate dilemma is twofold:

  • Severing Ties : If Ramaphosa were finally to pull the trigger and implement the 2023 resolution, South Africa’s mission in Ramallah, which serves the Palestinians, would likely be forced closed by Israel, severely hampering direct relations with Palestine. This outcome directly conflicts with the ANC’s stated goal of promoting Palestinian self-determination.
  • Restoring Ties : To entertain the FF Plus proposal risks confirming Malema’s accusations – that the GNU has indeed gagged Ramaphosa, prioritising domestic political stability and favourable Western trade relations over the constitutional mandate to champion human rights.

Given that the ICJ case against Israel is irreversible and ongoing, and the political capital gained by the ANC globally is intrinsically linked to its hardline anti-Israel stance, a formal restoration of diplomatic ties-as demanded by the FF Plus-appears politically untenable for Ramaphosa. The more likely scenario is prolonged Presidential indecision, keeping the severance “under consideration”.

This allows the executive to satisfy Parliament by maintaining the status quo (no ambassador since 2018, diplomats withdrawn since 2023) without officially committing to the full, legislatively mandated closure of the embassy, thus stalling implementation until the GNU coalition dynamics or the ICJ process dictates the next political move.

South Africa remains stuck in geopolitical limbo.