Another Trump Circus, Another Dangerous Deflection

Why is South Africa being subjected to baseless accusations of white genocide?

It is now South Africa’s turn to be confronted by the madness of the Trump circus. This time, Trump dimmed the lights during his meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to showcase a series of videos supposedly supporting his claim of white genocide. The videos featured Julius Malema from the Economic Freedom Fighters, singing inflammatory songs about killing farmers.

This is typical manipulative behaviour from Trump, rooted in untruths. Malema does not govern South Africa and represents a fringe party that commands less than 10% support. Trump also claimed an image of white crosses were burial sites of white farmers when in fact they were erected as a protest. As It is now South Africa’s turn to be confronted by the madness of the Trump circus. This time, Trump dimmed the lights during his meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to showcase a series of videos supposedly supporting his claim of white genocide. The videos featured Julius Malema from the Economic Freedom Fighters, singing inflammatory songs about killing farmers.

This is typical manipulative behaviour from Trump, rooted in untruths. Malema does not govern South Africa and represents a fringe party that commands less than 10% support. Trump also claimed an image of white crosses were burial sites of white farmers when in fact they were erected as a protest. As well as showing some pictures of South African farm killings, he also showed photos from a report in the Democratic Republic of Congo, claiming they were from South Africa.

The claim of white genocide has been repeatedly debunked, including by prominent white South Africans who refuted the claim in the meeting with Trump. The Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU) estimates 50 people, across all races, are killed on farms and small holdings each year. This is deeply concerning but in a country with 26,000 criminal murders a year this is not extraordinary.

The key question, therefore, is: why is South Africa being subjected to baseless accusations of white genocide? The answer is simple. This is all about ongoing accusations of genocide in Gaza, and specifically South Africa's International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against Israel.

Photo Credit: Jaber Jehad Badwan, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

We once again witnessed classic Trump resorting to smoke and mirrors. Trump showcases videos of speeches from a minor political party in South Africa claiming South Africa is implicated in genocide, while allowing Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to evade accountability for acts that have been labelled genocide by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others. While Malema’s rhetoric is abhorrent, Netanyahu has an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court for directly authorising war crimes and genocide, not merely singing about it. Furthermore, the US gave Israel $17.9 billion in military aid between October 2023 to October 2024, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University.

Yet hypocritically Trump chooses to spend time admonishing President Ramaphosa for a fabricated claim of white genocide, attempting to tarnish his reputation by linking him to the incendiary words of Malema who is from a different political party altogether.

But this is more than deflection or hypocrisy, it is dangerous. It won't be long before Netanyahu attempts to invoke double standards in the ICJ genocide case, despite the absurdity of such a comparison. Meanwhile, Palestinian civilians continue to be killed and the wholesale destruction of Gaza downplayed.

It is critical we resist the pull of the political theatrics and return to the core issue: Trump’s government, alongside much of the West, is supporting and allowing genocide to occur in Gaza.

Published by Brandon Hamber on Substack and Medium, 27 May 2025.

Genocide in Gaza

Detailed reports concluding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. 

Last updated on 6 January 2025.

Reports

March 2024
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese
Anatomy of a Genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese. Report.

May 2024
University Network for Human Rights
Genocide in Gaza: Analysis of International Law and its Application to Israel's Military Actions since October 7, 2023. Report.

November 2024
UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices
Israel's warfare methods in Gaza consistent with genocide, including use of starvation as weapon of war. Report.

December 2024
Amnesty International
Investigation concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Report.

December 2024
Médecins Sans Frontières
Gaza death trap: MSF report exposes Israel's campaign of total destruction. Report

December 2024
Human Rights Watch
Israel's Crime of Extermination, Acts of Genocide in Gaza. Report.

December 2024
Lee Mordechai, Historian and Israeli citizen
Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War (Version 6.5.5). Report. 

Ongoing Cases

International Court of Justice
Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel). Details.

January 2024
Center for Constitutional Rights' (CCR)
Defense for Children International-Palestine et al v. Biden et al. Detail

Amnesty International Report December 2024

What I learnt in 2008

There is a saying in cricket that, if you are going to go for a big, shot go at it hard. This might sound obvious, but there is a tendency among batsmen, even when deciding to play a specific shot, of not committing to it fully, in the hope that they can prevent themselves from making a mistake as they strike the ball. But it is often hesitation, coupled with a lack of confidence, that can be a batsman’s downfall.

So what has this got do with what I learned in 2008? Let me explain.

The year 2008 will be remembered for the collapse of the global economy, with giants such as Lehman Brothers going under. But it was also the year of the bail-out, with governments pouring trillions into failing banks. Apparently, without the bail-outs, a ripple effect could have ensued, destabilising the entire economy and resulting in mass unemployment.

So the lesson is that, if you are going to undertake a business venture, do it on as big a scale as possible. The more people tied into your transactions and borrowings, the more likely someone will come to your aid. Being in R1-billion debt is not too different to being in R1 000 debt if you cannot pay your dues. In other words, and paying homage to McDonalds, if you are going to go for it, go large.

Robert Mugabe has successfully employed the 'go large' strategy too, coupling it with a passionate belief that he is doing the best for his people. But Mugabe, in the words of blogger and UCLA professor Mark Kleiman, proves that “there is no more destructive force in human affairs – not greed, not hatred – than the desire to have been right”. But believing one is right is often not based on rational thought.

Robert Burton, a neurologist and author of On Being Certain, argues that although we may feel we know something and we think it is a product of reason, this is generally not the case. Scientific evidence suggests that feelings of certainty stem from primitive parts of the brain. These parts of the brain are independent of reasoning and conscious reflection. In other words, the feeling of being right is about emotion and is a psychological state.

This suggests that we should be wary of our own belief in certainty, whether this concerns politics or economics. Sadly, however, 2008 taught me the irrational opposite. When it comes to making money and furthering a political ideology or cause, it seems that fortune favours those who believe, whether misguided or not, that they are right and pursue their goals with vigour.

At the end of 2008, the Israeli government put this into practice by killing over 500 people (most of them civilians) in ten days, apparently to prevent Hamas from sending rockets into Israel. But, according to journalist Robert Fisk, Hamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, making the response savagely disproportionate. Of course, Israeli deaths are a tragedy too, but the overwhelming force used by Israel, besides other factors, seems to have stunned the international community into silence.

So this is my advice for 2009: whatever you decide to do, do it with the force of a hurricane and the confidence of a prizefighter, who cares nothing for consequence. The world likes single-minded arrogance, or at least does not act against it and sometimes even rewards it.

Fly as high as you can in 2009 and forget about bombed children, unemployed labourers and those with cholera in Zimbabwe because, after all, falling from 100 m has the same result as crashing to the earth from 100 000 m. What is more, flying at 100 000 m with gay abandon is a lot more exhilarating and seemingly no one will try to stop you, in case they crash and burn too.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 15 January 2009 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Fear in Gaza by Barbara Weyerman, OPSI

The latest invasion of the Israeli defence forces IDF in the Gaza Strip ended with the massacre of the Al-Athamna family. A few days before the 8 November, when seven shells hit their house and killed 19 of them, “a tank entered the garden, destroying hothouses, trees, pipes and a generator, until it hit a wall. The soldiers made a hole in the wall and entered the house, gathered all the family members and sent the women to a room on the first floor. The men were put in the kitchen and bathroom. The soldiers collected all the cell phones, and with leashed dogs, searched all the rooms on all four floors. They called out the names of all the family members….After two hours, the soldiers left. They returned three days later through the hole in the wall. They again gathered all the family members, counted them, searched and left after three hours. ‘They knew very well who was in the house, how many children, how many women. They knew very well there were no terrorists and no arms in this house,’ said Majdi”, one of the surviving family members. (Amira Hass in Ha’aretz, 13.11.2006). – During the 9-day long invasion of Beit Hanun, altogether 80 Palestinians were killed and hundreds were wounded by the IDF. David Becker and I arrived a day before the invasion started. We came to work with the team of the Women’s Empowerment Project of the Gaza Community Mental Health Project (GCMHP). This was our 7th visit; we had been training WEP staff twice a year in the psychosocial approach since 2004, when we began by working with the team on an accompanied self-evaluation of their program for the support of women affected by domestic violence (see publications:“Overcoming fragmentation – linking counselling and income generation”). This time, we spent many hours talking to the team members about their experiences of the preceding few months. Four hundred people have been killed since late June 2006, when the IDF intensified its operations in the Gaza Strip. These attacks were hardly noticed because of the media focus on Lebanon. One of the team members mourned her fourth brother; he had been killed by gunfire from a helicopter a month before. The women talked about other close friends and neighbours they had lost. They said it was even more difficult to lose someone in the internal clashes between Fatah and Hamas than at the hands of the Israeli army. “If he is killed by the Israeli, he is a martyr, if he is killed by a Palestinian, the life is lost for nothing.” To make it worse, every death calls for another death in revenge. Families are divided, brothers are on different sides, and everybody is armed. But the women’s worst fears are of the Israeli operations. Six women had recently received a call that their house would be exploded. Such calls, they said, are made by IDF 15 minutes before the house is destroyed. However, none of the staff’s houses was blown up. Nowadays, they said, it is very hard to know whether a call is real or if it is made by other Palestinians to terrorize people. One woman described how struck by panic she was when she received such a warning, unable to move or speak. “My hair stood up straight from my head, fear is the worst feeling - no words can describe it.” Others reported not being able to sleep for nights after such a call. One woman said she and her children sleep in the same room: if the Israelis attack from the sea, she moves to the back of the house, if the neighbour receives a call that his house might be destroyed, she moves to the front of the house. The children cling to her. When one of them wants to go to the toilet, she has to accompany him or her; but then the other children are scared to stay in the room alone and come along too. All the women described how the children cling to them and wet their bed. Each staff member has had experience with bed-wetting children. Even though or because everybody recognizes bed-wetting as a symptom of fear and sadness, it is considered shameful. When talking about their children, the fragmentation and disintegration of structure becomes evident. Adults can't really protect and calm their children as they are themselves too scared and too vulnerable. One woman said she didn't have the words to speak to her children about the killing of five people they recently witnessed. Another staff member described how she panicked when she saw her daughter coming back from the market, covered in blood. The girl stood next to a man who was shot in his head by another Palestinian. One woman described how she and her family were locked into their house for many hours, during another attack on their neighbourhood. A tank was positioned just outside their house. They heard the sounds of gunfire and soldiers conducting searches. Her husband, a political ex-prisoner, was terrified. As soon as the tank left, he shouted at his children; he was agitated and aggressive. “I told him to stop it, it is not the children, it is your fear,” she said. The staff members hardly mention such experiences when they talk about their clients, women who seek advice and support because they suffer from domestic violence. And yet, there is a clear connection between the deteriorating political and economic situation, the lack of perspectives, the decades of occupation and the daily experience of humiliation and powerlessness for men who try to defend their honor where they still can – in the family. The growing conservatism and the control of and restrictions against women in Gaza. WEP works to supports victims of violence and supports campaigns towards changing discriminatory laws that condone and perpetuate such violence. For additional background on violence against women in Gaza see the Human Rights Watch Report: A Question of Security. Violence against Palestinian Women and Girls http://hrw.org/reports/2006/opt1106/

Author: Barbara Weyerman, 22/11/2006