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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">From South Africa to
Palestine: Trump's war to defend apartheid</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Soumaya
Ghannoushi</div>
<div class="gmail-meta-data">
<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">February 12, 2025</div>
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<p>US President Donald Trump’s executive order <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/trump-cuts-us-aid-south-africa-over-stance-israel"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">suspending
aid</a> to South Africa was framed as a righteous
intervention. He positioned himself as the defender
of an embattled minority, <a
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3e6ypk7xdo" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">wielding sanctions</a> to
punish a government he accused of racial
discrimination.</p>
<p>His target? A land-reform policy aimed at
dismantling the entrenched economic and structural
inequalities left by apartheid.</p>
<p>To his supporters, the story was simple: white
farmers under siege, land confiscated without cause,
another battle in the so-called war on western
civilisation.</p>
<p>But the truth is far more insidious. This is not
about justice. It is about shielding the last
remnants of apartheid, propping up
settler-colonialism, and preserving a world order
built on racial and territorial supremacy.</p>
<p>Trump did not act alone. Behind him stood two
powerful forces: a network of libertarian
billionaires with ties to apartheid-era South
Africa, and the pro-<a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">Israel</a> lobby, both long
invested in maintaining systems of racial and
territorial dominance.</p>
<p>Elon Musk looms largest among them. More than just
the billionaire face of Tesla and SpaceX, he is a
key figure in the so-called<a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk-peter-thiel-apartheid-south-africa"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> “PayPal
Mafia”</a>, a tight-knit circle of ultra-wealthy
libertarians, many from South Africa’s white elite.</p>
<p><a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/elon-musk-and-peter-thiel-south-africa-raised-billionaires-fomenting-global-race-war"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">Peter Thiel</a>,
one of Trump’s most influential backers, was
educated in a southern African city where Hitler was
still openly venerated. He champions the supremacy
of economic power over democracy, and has even
questioned whether women should have been granted
the right to vote.</p>
<p><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk-peter-thiel-apartheid-south-africa"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">David Sacks</a>,
another major figure in Musk’s inner circle, was
born in Cape Town and raised in the privileged world
of the white South African diaspora. Roelof Botha,
the former CFO of PayPal, has an even more direct
connection to apartheid’s old guard: his
grandfather, Pik Botha, was the last foreign
minister of South Africa’s apartheid regime.</p>
<h3>Colonial project</h3>
<p>These men are not outliers. They are the modern
heirs of a colonial project that was never truly
dismantled. Raised within a system that treated
racial and economic hierarchy as natural law, they
now wield their wealth and influence to protect its
legacy.</p>
<p>Their opposition to South Africa’s land reforms has
nothing to do with fairness. It is about
safeguarding a status quo where land remains in
white hands, long after apartheid’s official demise.</p>
<p>Ironically, Musk’s public embrace of antisemitic
conspiracy theories and Nazi imagery has done little
to dent his standing among pro-Israel elites. When
he appeared to give <a
href="https://apnews.com/article/musk-gesture-salute-antisemitism-0070dae53c7a73397b104ae645877535?utm_source=chatgpt.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">a Nazi
salute</a> during a speech in Washington last
month, outrage erupted - but instead of
condemnation, Israeli Prime Minister<a
href="https://forward.com/fast-forward/691147/elon-musk-nazi-salute-response-adl-holocaust-joke/?utm_source=chatgpt.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> Benjamin
Netanyahu</a> and the<a
href="https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"> Anti-Defamation League
(ADL)</a> defended him. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Trump's attack on South Africa has nothing to do
with economic freedom or justice. It is about
defending the consequences of apartheid</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Netanyahu called Musk “a <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/elon-musk-jokes-about-nazis-after-netanyahu-defends-him-as-great-friend-of-israel/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">great
friend</a> of Israel”, while the ADL - usually
quick to brand pro-<a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/palestine" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">Palestinian</a> activists
as antisemitic - downplayed the incident as merely
an “awkward gesture”.</p>
<p>This selective outrage is no accident. Musk may
flirt with Nazi imagery, but as long as he supports
Israeli apartheid, he remains politically useful.</p>
<p>Standing alongside this billionaire class is<a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/miriam-adelson-gives-100-million-to-trump-campaign-making-good-on-reported-pledge/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> Miriam
Adelson</a>, Trump’s largest financial backer and
one of the architects of his pro-Israel policies.
She has poured more than $100m into his campaign, <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/miriam-adelson-gives-100-million-to-trump-campaign-making-good-on-reported-pledge/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">more than</a>
any other donor, and made her expectations clear.</p>
<p>In a recent interview, she spoke of Trump’s
“unfinished business” in Israel, openly advocating
for the<a
href="https://forward.com/fast-forward/618034/miriam-adelson-funding-trump-israel/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> annexation
of the West Bank</a>. For her, Trump is the key to
fulfilling a vision of Israeli expansionism that has
been decades in the making.</p>
<p>It is no coincidence that these two forces -
libertarian billionaires with South African roots
and the pro-Israel lobby - have aligned behind
Trump’s apartheid-reinforcing policies. Their
alliance is not new; it is deeply entrenched in
history.</p>
<h3>Shared ideology</h3>
<p>For decades, Israel and apartheid South Africa were
bound by a shared ideology and mutual interests.
When the world turned its back on South Africa,
Israel remained its most loyal ally.</p>
<div>
<p><a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/elon-musk-and-peter-thiel-south-africa-raised-billionaires-fomenting-global-race-war"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"><img
src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/trump-thiel-CROP-december2016-afp.jpg.webp?itok=THAZP3Uq"
width="400" height="250" alt=""
class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img"
moz-do-not-send="true">
</a></p>
<p>Elon Musk and Peter Thiel: The billionaires
fomenting a global race war</p>
<p>
<br>
</p>
</div>
<p>In 1976, Israel’s prime minister at the time,
Yitzhak Rabin, toasted his South African
counterpart,<a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/07/southafrica.israel"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> John
Vorster</a>, a former Nazi sympathiser and leader
of a pro-Hitler militia, declaring that the two
nations faced a common struggle against
“foreign-inspired instability”.</p>
<p>Behind the scenes, their relationship ran even
deeper. Israel helped build South Africa’s arms
industry, providing technology in exchange for
funding.</p>
<p>Together, they developed military systems,
intelligence networks, and most damningly, South
Africa’s nuclear programme. It was an open secret:
Israel supplied the know-how, South Africa supplied
the money.</p>
<p>The ideological bond was just as explicit. South
Africa’s apartheid government made no effort to
disguise its worldview, <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/07/southafrica.israel"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">stating</a>
in an official publication that “Israel and South
Africa have one thing above all else in common: they
are both situated in a predominantly hostile world
inhabited by dark peoples”.</p>
<p>This alliance collapsed only when apartheid
officially ended. But the underlying ideology - the
belief in racial superiority, the right of a select
group to seize land and rule over others - did not
vanish. It evolved, found new champions, and gained
new political patrons.</p>
<h3>Cast as victims</h3>
<p>Trump’s attack on South Africa has nothing to do
with economic freedom or justice. It is about
defending the consequences of apartheid.</p>
<p>At the heart of his executive order is<a
href="https://aje.io/9n883p" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"> South Africa’s
Expropriation Act</a>, a law designed to correct
centuries of racialised land dispossession.</p>
<p>For generations, Black South Africans were
systematically driven from their land, forced into
barren “homelands”, while white settlers claimed the
country’s most fertile soil. Even today, three
decades after apartheid’s fall, around<a
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn01z1yy0jno" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"> 75 percent </a>of South
Africa’s private farmland remains in white hands,
despite white South Africans making up only seven
percent of the population.</p>
<div>
<p><img
src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/us-trump-musk-brownsville-launch-november-2024-brandon-bell-getty-images-afp.jpg"
width="433" height="244"
alt="Donald Trump, then the president-elect, watches a SpaceX launch with Elon Musk on 19 November 2024 in Brownsville, Texas (Brandon Bell/Getty Images/AFP)"
class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img"
style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true">
</p>
Donald Trump, then the president-elect, watches a
SpaceX launch with Elon Musk on 19 November 2024 in
Brownsville, Texas (Brandon Bell/Getty Images/AFP) </div>
<p><span><img
src="cid:part1.xgDwZtWQ.jD0n5u2Z@freedomarchives.org" alt="image.gif"
width="15" height="15" class=""></span></p>
<p><span><img
src="cid:part1.xgDwZtWQ.jD0n5u2Z@freedomarchives.org" alt="image.gif"
width="15" height="15" class=""></span>The
Expropriation Act does not mandate mass land
seizures. It simply establishes a legal framework to
reclaim abandoned land or land acquired through <a
href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/2/7/trumps-fear-mongering-on-south-africas-land-reform-exposes-his-hypocrisy"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">racial
privilege</a>, under strict conditions.</p>
<p>Trump’s response?<a
href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-signs-executive-order-aimed-south-africa-white-house-official-says-2025-02-07/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> Sanctions</a>.
South Africa must be punished for attempting to
right historical wrongs. White landowners must be
cast as victims.</p>
<p>Yet this same Trump, who condemns land
redistribution in South Africa, has spent his
political career endorsing and legitimising Israeli
land grabs in Palestine.</p>
<p>His hypocrisy does not end there. He denies South
Africa the right to decide how to deal with land
within its own borders, while pushing for <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/us"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">US</a>
control over land beyond its own. He has floated the
idea of buying Greenland from Denmark, entertained
seizing Canada, discussed taking over the Panama
Canal, and now unabashedly rants about <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-takeover-plan-biden-couldnt-finish-us-nor-will-trump"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">owning Gaza</a>. </p>
<h3>Extreme ambitions</h3>
<p>Trump has aligned himself with Israel’s most
extreme territorial ambitions, declaring that Israel
is a<a
href="https://youtu.be/jd1Svyj4cWA?si=o8aIDRngSO2qAenu" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"> “tiny little spot”</a> in
the Middle East and should be enlarged.</p>
<p>He stands alongside Israeli extremists like Finance
Minister<a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/smotrich-calls-israels-borders-extend-damascus"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> Bezalel
Smotrich</a>, who has openly called for Israel’s
expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates, and
settlers like<a
href="https://www.facebook.com/PalestinianEmbassyinCyprus/videos/israeli-politician-daniella-weiss-says-she-wants-israel-to-have-its-borders-from/284577887970541/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> Daniella
Weiss</a>, who envisions annexing parts of<a
href="https://x.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1845287842290991569"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> Saudi
Arabia</a>. The same man who insists that South
Africa must not alter its colonial land ownership
patterns is eager to redraw maps to suit his own
imperial ambitions.</p>
<p>In Israel, far-right leaders speak openly about<a
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv2g8r0nppgo" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"> expanding beyond the West
Bank</a> - into <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/jordan" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">Jordan</a>, <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/egypt" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">Egypt</a>, and even <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/saudi-arabia"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">Saudi
Arabia</a>. These are not fringe ideas. They are
mainstream.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The real question is whether the world will once
again allow colonialism, racism and apartheid to
dictate its moral order</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Recent polls show that around<a
href="https://www.jpost.com/international/article-840500"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> 80 percent
of Israelis</a> support the forced transfer of
Gaza’s population, while only three percent of
Israeli Jews believe it to be immoral.</p>
<p>Trump is not just complicit in these policies. He
is their champion.</p>
<p>He claims to protect white landowners in South
Africa while emboldening illegal settlers in Israel.
He offers <a
href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-white-south-african-group-rejects-trumps-offer-of-asylum-in-the-us/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">asylum</a>
to Afrikaners, while <a
href="https://time.com/7022828/trump-travel-ban-refugees-gaza/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">blocking
Palestinians</a> from entering the United States.</p>
<p>The irony was not lost on South Africa’s foreign
ministry, which responded with biting sarcasm: “It
is ironic that the<a
href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-signs-executive-order-aimed-south-africa-white-house-official-says-2025-02-07/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"> executive</a>
order makes provision for refugee status in the U.S.
for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the
most economically privileged, while vulnerable
people in the U.S. from other parts of the world are
being deported and denied asylum despite real
hardship.”</p>
<h3>Act of resistance</h3>
<p>It was no accident that South Africa took the lead
in bringing Israel before the <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-icj-case"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">International
Court of Justice</a>, accusing it of genocide <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-war-gaza"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">in Gaza</a>.
More than just a legal battle, the case is a defiant
act of resistance - one that underscores South
Africa’s unwavering commitment to dismantling
oppression, and highlights the deep, inextricable
ties between the struggles against apartheid and
colonialism.</p>
<p>But for this act of courage, it now faces
retribution. Trump and the <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-lobby" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">Israel lobby</a> are
determined to make it pay.</p>
<p>South Africans know apartheid when they see it.</p>
<div>
<p><a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/video/icj-hearing-why-south-africa-accusing-israel-genocide-0#autoplay"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"><img
src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/video_thumbnails/-8X2S1sIk8A.jpg.webp?itok=_QZqs9md"
width="400" height="250" alt=""
class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img"
moz-do-not-send="true">
</a></p>
<p>ICJ hearing: Why South Africa is accusing Israel
of genocide</p>
<p>
<br>
</p>
</div>
<p>John Dugard, a renowned South African lawyer and
former UN human rights monitor, drew a stark
parallel: <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/07/southafrica.israel?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">“Apartheid
was all about land.”</a> It was about reserving
the best parts of the country for whites, while
relegating Black South Africans to the most barren,
least habitable areas. The same dispossession has
been unfolding in Palestine, he noted.</p>
<p>Ronnie Kasrils, a Jewish South African and former
cabinet minister, was even <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/06/southafrica.israel"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">more direct</a>:
“Apartheid was an extension of the colonial project
to dispossess people of their land.” That is
precisely what has happened in Israel and the
occupied territories - the systematic use of force
and legal manipulation to facilitate dispossession.
“That is what apartheid and Israel have in common.”</p>
<p>Nelson Mandela, who understood the common roots of
colonial subjugation, left no room for doubt. His
words remain a rallying <a
href="http://www.mandela.gov.za/mandela_speeches/1997/971204_palestinian.htm"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">cry for
justice</a>: “Our freedom is incomplete without
the freedom of the Palestinians.”</p>
<p>The question before the world is not merely whether
South Africa will be sanctioned for daring to
challenge apartheid’s persistence, nor whether
Israel will be granted full sovereignty over
occupied land. The real question is whether the
world will once again allow colonialism, racism and
apartheid to dictate its moral order.</p>
<p>Because from Johannesburg to Gaza, from Pretoria to
the West Bank, the struggle is one.</p>
<p><i>The views expressed in this article belong to
the author and do not necessarily reflect the
editorial policy of Middle East Eye.</i></p>
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