While hearings in The Hague on South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice have started, RT discussed the application with Ndileka Mandela, who is the founder of the Thembekile Mandela Foundation and granddaughter of Nelson Mandela.
In an exclusive interview this week, Mandela, who is a social activist, claimed that only the “global community” can achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.
“No one entity has ever ended wars. It can’t just be the UN. It has got to be the global community in my view,” she said.
One of the claims that South Africa is making at the court is that Israel is breaching the UN Convention on the Prevention of Genocide.
Mandela pointed out that “the Geneva Convention says that when any country starts attacking civilians, unarmed civilians, hospitals, and attacking humanitarian aid … it [stops] being self-defense. It [becomes] like war, [with] crimes of war, and genocide.”
Remembering the era of South African apartheid, when a white minority relegated all other ethnic groups to a sub-class, Mandela explained why Pretoria supports the people of Palestine, saying “these are the people that were in the dungeon with us during apartheid and supported us … without their freedom we are, honestly, not free.”
She said that South Africa has “the authority to be able to intervene” because it’s “a best-case study, [demonstrating] best practice of how we [Africans] gained our democracy.”
“We are a good case study of a democratic dispensation across Africa that was recorded without bloodshed,” Mandela added.
The ICJ began on Thursday to hear South Africa’s application accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians.