Afriforum: ICJ Should Dismiss South Africa’s Case Against Israel, Based on ‘Kill the Boer’ Rhetoric

Afriforum, whch represents Afrikaners in South Africa, argued Sunday that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should dismiss South Africa’s “genocide” case against Israel based on its failure to stop genocidal “kill the Boer” rhetoric.

U.S. President Donald Trump presented visiting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with video footage of South African opposition figure Julius Malema leading rallies in chants of “kill the Boer,” “kill the farmer,” and “shoot to kill.” Though Ramaphosa condemned such speech in the Oval Office, he has never done so on home soil, and declined to do so again when asked by reporters in South Africa on Saturday.

Malema and his party, the racial nationalist and communist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), have defiantly continued to use the chants in statements and rallies since the Oval Office meeting.

Trump argued that such speech represents a call to genocide, and many South Africans believe that the chants serve to justify the murders of white farmers.

Kriel explained, in a lengthy post on X, that the “kill the Boer” chant violates the Genocide Convention of 1948 — the same international treaty that South Africa has cited in the ICJ at The Hague in claiming that certain comments by Israeli leaders are genocidal.

Ramaphosa’s “failure to condemn, prevent, and punish genocidal incitement (such as the chant ‘Kill the Boer, kill the farmer’),” he wrote, “constitutes, in itself, a grave violation of the Genocide Convention.”

He added:

Before the leftist media and farm murder denialists rush to condemn me for this statement, please note that I am merely applying the South African government’s own argument, used during its case against Israel at the ICJ, back onto them.

This video shows how South Africa’s legal representative in the ICJ case, Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, argued as follows:

“The intentional failure of the Government of Israel to condemn, prevent, and punish such genocidal incitement constitutes in itself a grave violation of the Genocide Convention. We should recall, Madam President, that in Article 1 of the Convention, Israel confirmed that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law, and it undertook to prevent and to punish it as such. This failure to prevent, condemn, and punish such speech by the government has served to normalize genocidal rhetoric and [posed] extreme danger for Palestinians within Israeli society.”

I hope the farm murder denialists and leftist media now recognise that the ANC-led government and President Ramaphosa are themselves contravening the Genocide Convention by failing to condemn or act against the genocidal chant “Kill the Boer.” If not, they should reject South Africa’s own evidence at the ICJ. They cannot have it both ways.

Kriel also noted that South Africa’s lawyer, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, also represented Malema in South African courts, where he argued, ironically, that “Kill the Boer” is not hate speech prohibited by the constitution.

Breitbart News made the same observation in January 2004, after noting that Ngcukaitobi had misquoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in claiming that a Biblical reference to “Amalek” was genocidal:

Note that South African lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, who is responsible for the biblical misquote, also defended radical black nationalist, Julius Malema, against charges of “hate speech” for using the song “Kill the Boer,” which white farmers in South Africa believe encourages the problem of farm murders. According to Ngcukaitobi, however, the song is not meant to be taken literally. He has a different standard for Israel: when a Jew quotes the Bible, apparently that is a literal incitement to genocide.

South Africa has, thus far, refused to withdraw its case against Israel at the ICJ; President Trump declined to press Ramaphosa on the issue during their Oval Office meeting.

However, the ICJ has itself ruled against the South African side on procedural matters, giving Israel an additional six months to respond — and allowing it to continue its war against Hamas — because South Africa refused to give Israel access to all of its evidence.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.