“The Trial” @ the World Forum, The Hague, July 4, 2024

(My draft speech of which I delivered only an abridged version due to time constraints)

Dear distinguished guests and friends, when I was asked to speak at this crucial event, in light of all that is transpiring both in the Middle East and here in The Hague, I wrestled much with what to say. When I was even asked to speak as a South African about South Africa, I trembled, and felt I should rather let it pass, for I am not up to such a challenge.

But then I thought of the 89^th Psalm, where it says of our blessed Messiah: “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne, love and faithfulness go out before you” and I realized I need not to be afraid… nor be ashamed of our Lord’s words. I personally and heartily believe that the Messiah of Psalm 89 is that penniless preacher from Galilee, who was crucified outside Jerusalem’s gates, raised from the tomb, and who will soon descend on the Mount of Olives to judge the living and the dead, and then to reign on this earth forever.

It is before him that we all stand here today. Before Him who shows no favouritism, but who welcomes everyone one from every nation who fears God and does what is right, as Peter told Cornelius in Acts 10. In His presence all of us should be deeply troubled about all that is happening in Gaza, and what has  happened in Israel on Oct. 7.

And so, as I wrestled about what to say, I decided to focus on four different parties, each involved in the conflict in some way or another: my own nation South Africa, who brought this case to the International Court of Justice; the two parties directly involved, Israel and the Palestinians; and lastly my fellow Christians, especially Gentile Christians, looking on from a distance. I will seek to address them all in light of God’s Word, and of his eternal standard of love, justice and righteousness, where I take justice to mean giving everyone his due, and righteousness to do that which is according to Jesus’ royal command.

To my dear fellow South Africans…

First of all, let me focus on my beloved fellow South Africans, who brought this case to The Hague. I dare to address them with much fear and trembling, because, as a white South African I also benefitted for twenty years from that unjust and oppressive system of apartheid.

I can only commend my government for seeking justice for Palestine and being passionate for those who suffer. That is a noble thing. For that is what the Bible calls us to do. More in particular, it is our governing party of the last thirty years, the African National Congress (ANC), which has laid these charges of genocide against Israel; the ANC that became so famous for its struggle against apartheid. But that is exactly why we are faced with two related dilemmas.

The first is this: The ANC is taking the moral high ground, based on the popular notion that it served for decades as the international symbol of hope and liberation to the entire world. The question is whether the ANC has really been walking on the good side of justice—just more or less—for all of this time, back in our own country? The fraction of evidence that I am about to present indicates otherwise. It is all well documented, and there for anyone to study who really wants to know the truth, and not simply an illusion they can bear to live with.

When the ANC had the option to renounce violence as a means for change in the mid 1980s, in their struggle against oppression—when the apartheid regime was busy striking down every race-law from the book and also offering freedom to Mr. Mandela—the ANC not only refused to do so, but only sharply increased their terror campaign. And what do I mean by terrorism? The attempt to terrorize a society into fear, by targeting innocent civilians, so as to bring about political change. That is always reprehensible, no matter the circumstances.

In their terror campaign the ANC not only carefully avoided fighting the SADF, but focussed on innocent civilians—black, brown and white—or whoever who would not support their violent struggle. When apartheid was finally dismantled by the ruling National Party, the ANC went on to kill 20 000 Inkatha supporters, plus almost 500 of Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) local leaders, to ensure themselves pole position going into the ‘94 elections. They cleansed the land of any significant black political rivals, in what they called “the peoples war.” The IFP, by the way, was a Zulu party based on Christian principles, which has warned against the ANC’s open Marxist ideology and anti-Christian bias still in its 2000 election campaign.

The ANC incidentally, did all of that with lots of money it received from The Hague, Stockholm, London and other places. In fact, comrades Mzo and Tambo came here to The Hague in the mid 80s to raise funds from our Dutch friends, and then went on to East Berlin and Moscow to renew their ties. The liberal Dutch elites on their part, made sure not only to support an openly Marxist terror movement, but to strangle the Christian based IFP from every last penny, according to an honourable member of the Tweede Kamer, Mr. Martin Bosma, who did extensive research.

And then, in the decades following our democratic elections of ‘94, the ANC — to this day — refused to call any of its leaders to order who chanted “Bulala Amabhulu…” (kill the white man), sometimes with thousands dancing and baying for white farmer’s blood at political rallies, inspiring the most savage attacks on the farms of our country. Please note that these farms do not feed white people, but an entire sub-continent.

How does all of this compare with a true passion for justice? Or should we reckon blind, random, indiscriminate violent revenge as justice? Would such a response to former injustice create a better world for us all?

When we believe that all men are created equal in the image of God, and that they should not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character, then this looks like no solution to that which went before. It rather sounds like the rhetoric of some far-right radicals in Israel who would now love to see Gaza razed to the ground.  And that is what puzzles me so deeply about my country, taking the moral high ground here. Why not stand up for justice back home? Yes, not only for your own supporters, but for all?

So that was my first point. The ANC can hardly claim the moral high ground here, but has lots to be ashamed about and repent from. But, secondly, it also annoys me that Israel is called an apartheid state, which is seemingly the very worst label to pin on anyone alive. So, if the ANC (and the world) wants to go there, let’s go there. Let’s have a quick glance at a side of apartheid that the world prefers to ignore.

When I mention the following, please do not read it in any way as an exoneration of the odious apartheid system, which was oppressive and humiliating in many ways. I am deeply ashamed of every despicable deed of racism committed by a significant section of our white population during those years, and of all those humiliating race laws that caused so much confusion, disruption and pain. Yet, allow me to ask a few simple questions, in light of the fact that Israel is condemned as an apartheid state, while many ANC supporters (including our former Minister of Foreign Affairs) dare to defend the attitudes and actions of Hamas.

There were some strange anomalies in apartheid South Africa that we should be cognizant of.  I will present you with only a few, which not a single person my age still living there would dare to deny today with a good conscience.

The white government of the time sometimes forcibly removed communities from their land, removing the boundaries of their neighbours contrary to God’s law, causing untold trauma. I am thinking specifically of some of the Coloured people of the Western Cape, descendants of the earliest native peoples of Southern Africa. And yet, the National Party government also allocated large chunks of land to its African people groups, and even encouraged them to declare independence, if they so wished, promising to help them in that. It built many schools, universities and hospitals for our black and brown population.  I still recall going with my dad to the University where he taught and marvelled at the beautiful campus nestled in the natural surroundings of the Northern Transvaal. I recall how the largest hospital in the entire world stood in Soweto, built with white taxpayer money.

Okay, it was all part of the system, I get that… but one can at least say that the system, regardless of all its many evils, did not wish to eliminate or to denigrate other peoples, even though it did mean that we hoarded Western civilization too much for ourselves, as Chief Albert Luthuli said back in the day, and that we whites benefitted way too much from the cheap, back-breaking labour of our black and brown brothers.

Yet, the simple fact is that the system never encouraged in books, songs or speeches to hate or denigrate our people of colour, but to respect their traditional cultures and traditions.  Here is some hard proof in my hand, my social sciences exercise book of 1973, when I was just a small kid. Look at the pictures we drew of our traditional African tribes, it tells you a whole story. I am willing to donate this book to the South African Museum in Amsterdam to prove that the world’s one-sided characterization of my old country was a lie. The simple fact is that African people wanted to come and live there, from all over the continent, whereas today, almost everyone wants to get out.

All of this is easy to explain if one remembers that fear was the main driving force behind apartheid. The fear of a small Western Christian minority to be overwhelmed by a majority of another faith, culture and custom. A fear to lose one’s own identity and the ability to determine your own future.  A fear not uncommon to many minorities all over the world today. I have a suspicion that such fear may also have motivated the construction of the big wall that’s running through Israel at the present moment, without insinuating that Israel is an apartheid state.

This fear of ethnic or religious minorities, in losing all they have, is fully realistic and legitimate, and the arrogance and indifference of the majority with respect to it, only serve to validate its existence. The question for us though, and for Christians anywhere, is what to do with such fears? Apartheid was clearly the wrong answer.

Yet when the ANC received our country on a platter, causing Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa to laugh in unbelief, and Mr. Joe Modise to joke that “these Afrikaners are truly generous, for they gave us a country, while we only gave them a few cabinet posts” the new rulers embarked on a grand new project to enact more race-laws in SA than any other nation had done since the days of Noah! Clearly, fear could not have been their motivation here, for the demographic ratio in favour of the ANC was only getting better all the time. So what was it?

That the system was born out of fear, and not out of hate or even racial antagonism, could further be illustrated from yet another, and very unsuspected angle. When the BBC made a four-part documentary called “War of the World,” covering a century of bloodletting based on race or class, stretching from the Japanese occupation of Korea to the Rwandan Genocide, South Africa was strangely nowhere mentioned anywhere.  When David Belinsky listed three pages of sordid savagery in his book The Devil’s Delusion, listing all the conflicts of the last century, killing 166 million around the globe, South Africa was strangely enough also nowhere mentioned. When Nigel Cawthorne wrote a book on the world’s most brutal dictators, including nine from Latin America, eight from Africa, and seven from Europe during the last century, no Afrikaner leader was mentioned. How strange? Did they not rule South Africa from 1910 to 1990?

Unintentionally, these sources are all condemning the world’s one-sided condemnation of my old country, admitting that its distorted picture does not add up to reality. Maybe this is why Ilana Mercer—once an anti-apartheid activist and daughter of a Jewish rabbi—could dedicate her book on Post-Apartheid South Africa (with its dire warnings for America), to “my Afrikaner brothers betrayed.” So let us be careful with giving Israel the despicable apartheid label.

You may ask, why mention all these things? I mention them because everything boils down to two simple things, land and life. That is what the living God promised to Abraham long ago, with his eternal blessing. Land and life mean, do you wish others their own wellbeing under the sun, free from your interference, as you wish for yourself? Yeh, or neh?

So how does all of this compare with the rule of the ANC’s friends Hamas? We speak here of Hamas, and not of millions of peace-loving Muslims all around the world. How does this all look in light of those demonic terror attacks on October 7? How does it all sound in light Hamas’ own famous Charter? In light of their holy sharia?

Would they also show respect to a culture and religion not their own?

Would they allow another nation or people their own place under the sun?

Would they protect the lives of those who don’t want to recite their shahada?

Would they build hospitals and schools for those who don’t worship Allah?

Or would they call disbelievers filth, forcing them to conversion or reducing them to second-class dhimmis?

Is sharia really better than apartheid?

Is this not why there is so much fear in Israel? If Hamas would lay down their weapons today, what would happen? There would be peace! And Gaza would begin to flourish. But if the IDF would lay down their weapons today, what would happen? Do we even have to answer the question!

Is this not in essence why we are here in The Hague? Because of Israel’s legitimate fear on the one hand, which by no means imply that we must defend their political sins and military atrocities. But that is why we are here, considering the bigger picture.  And we are here because of Marxism and Islamism’s dream to see the end of Judeo-Christian civilization on the other hand, making use of a Western democratic institution such as the ICJ. Incidentally both  Islamism and Marxism proved itself to be thoroughly totalitarian many times over, seeking to reign through deception, fear and terror…

Consider also this… While we all knew that there were some secret arms deals between SA and Israel, I cannot recall any Jew speaking up for the apartheid regime during those years. But we all know how many Jews spoke out against it.  Yet long before Oct 7, my government became hostile toward Jews and Israel. You can’t but wonder why…

And so, my dear fellow South Africans, may I beg you to consider that Islamism and Marxism have never brought us any good, anywhere. Please, do your own research.

It is the Bible, and Jesus in particular, that gave us the precious principles of human rights, equality before the law, of the freedom of speech, etc. If you stand up for that, and for our God given responsibilities as well, in His name, you will be honoured for eternity. If you seek justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly before God Almighty my friends, you will bring untold blessing to all the people of the Rainbow Nation and to yourselves…

And your name would be held honour.

So may I beg you in Christ’s name, let us forgive us each other from the heart, for all our many transgressions against each other and against the Lord, and let us join hands in rebuilding our wonderful country. We owe it to our Creator and to all our people.

To Israel and the Palestinians…

Let me now briefly turn my focus to the two parties directly involved.

We also owe it to ourselves and to the world to ask some serious questions to Israel: But first of all we would like to say that we mourn with you about that terrible loss of life that occurred on Oct. 7. We pray for all who were bereaved and for the return every last hostage, and we will never deny your right to the land and to defend yourself against hostility. What happened on Oct. 7 was unimaginably evil…  but why does it seem all the more that some of your leaders allowed it to happen? Or that they were at least shockingly negligent? Let us be honest, if it’s true, then it is abhorrent beyond words, making us all wonder, what was really going on that day?

But we must also ask whether the problems in Gaza would ever be solved with brute force and violence? I have been reading Abraham Heschel’s beautiful book on the prophets at bedtime and was made to wonder how many Jews still care to listen to Amos, Isaiah, to Joel and Micah, like Heschel did?  We are deeply concerned about the huge loss of life in Gaza.

We would humbly want to plead with Israel to stand at the crossroads (Jer. 6) and return to the good path from which you as a people have strayed so far away. May we humbly entreat you to consider that stone that you have rejected and delivered over to be crucified, but whom the Blessed One has chosen to be his chief cornerstone by raising him from the dead.

Please read the 31^st chapter of Jeremiah, and see how passionate the Lord is for your return and restoration, and what it will look like. Meditate on it and see, how God wants to bless you… not only by gathering you from every corner of the earth, but by giving you brand new hearts cleansed from all sin through repentance. Consider that Elohim Adonai would sooner forget his covenant with the moon and the sun, and with the ocean not to cross its limits, than with you the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

May he deliver you from all pride and fear, and show you the only way to the future, through the One of whom Moses and all the prophets had spoken. May the Beatitudes of Jesus and his Sermon on the Mount grip your hearts and lead you into a new future.

 

And to my friends in Gaza, I want to ask with fear and trembling, in the midst of your great suffering: In what way did Hamas do you any favour? Look what they have brought upon you. And is it not because your holy book glorifies death instead of life? And because your imams teach you taqiyya (deception), instead of a love for the truth?  Is it not because you are conditioned from birth to seek revenge, and not to forgive? And that you will be made victorious through terror? Was Golda Meir not 100% right when she said that there will be peace in the Middle East the day when the Palestinians have learned to love their children more than they hate the Jews?

May I humbly ask you to look at Jesus of Nazareth, whom you admit was born of a Virgin, whom your Quran says is the Word and Spirit of God, who cured the blind and raised the dead. He alone will teach you the way of salvation, of forgiveness, of love and respect for others, and no other.

But then you must cease to corrupt his holy gospel. That gospel that was revealed six centuries before your prophet was born. My dear friends, you must return, before it is too late. Look around you, to the many lands you have subdued by the sword. To the millions you must keep in line through the terrors of sharia. If there is no compulsion in religion, why? If saving the life of one is like saving the world, why all the killing? My dear friends, if you dare, read Surah 9 of your holy book and compare it with Matthew 5 or John 10 in the New Testament, and you will notice the radical difference.

Jesus came to us from heaven, as God’s one and only Son, with no sword or club, and no word of deceit on his mouth. But when he called his sheep they followed, for he is the Good Shepherd, who laid down his life for his sheep.  And there is no compulsion in the gospel. But all who came before or after him are thieves and robbers.

My friends, tell your leaders to release those hostages immediately. To forsake all hatred and revenge, and you will also have a future. For when Jesus comes, he won’t break the cross and kill the pigs like you think, but save all his people from those who hated them, judging all who rejected his grace.

Call on him my dear friends, for no other name under heaven was been given through which you may be saved…and through which your land and families may be healed and blessed.  He is the One who alone can destroy the wall of division between you and your Jewish neighbours, through his cross, to bring lasting peace. We mourn with you over the huge loss of life. And we pray for the war and bloodshed to end and for Gaza and the Westbank to flourish like a well-watered garden.

 

To my fellow Christian believers…

To my gentile Christian friends, I have word for you as well. First to those of you who think that standing with Israel means we may never criticize her, but support everything she does. The Law and the Prophets, much less the Gospel, would never commend us for taking such a position. Where in the world is it coming from? We sound like those of whom the God of Jacob once said: “They ran though I never sent them, they prophesied though I never spoke to them, for they dress the wound of the daughter of my people lightly by saying ‘peace, peace’ when there is no peace” (Ezekiel.13).

Neither are we doing God’s old covenant people any favour, or the name of Jesus Christ in this world, by doing so.  Is it not because of such blatant favouritism and partiality, for so many years, that we have now aroused the anger of the world? Of a new generation that understands almost nothing about history? Have you ever seen a spoiled child turning out well? Or a spoiled son that was treated well by his brothers? Just think of Joseph.  Remember how the God of Amos said, “You, o Israel have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore, I will punish you for all your sins” (Amos 3:2). God is no respecter of persons, nor of nations.

Lastly, I also have a word for my Gentile brothers who think God has forever rejected his people, Israel. Beware my brothers, be not be so quick to jump to conclusions or to spiritualize everything in the Old Testament away. Read Romans 9-11 carefully again. Those chapters would not have been there had St. Paul shared your viewpoint. For the Lord will never forget his ancient covenant people. His decrees with heaven and earth would sooner pass, than for Israel to cease as a nation before him.  These prophetic words mean nothing, if they were not also meant literally. Yes those words  were empty, if they did not mean that Yahweh would not one day lure his wayward people back to him, for his own praise and glory.

Let us who are like a wild olive branch that was grafted into the Olive tree, take care lest we presume on God’s grace and boast like Israel did. For just like they were cut off because of arrogance, so shall we too be cut off lest we consider his kindness.  For we are his chosen people today, only because of Israel, and our amazing Jewish Messiah. They, the natural branches, were broken off because of unbelief, but we stand only by faith.

Let us therefore not be arrogant, but tremble.

For if God did not spare the natural branches, why would he spare us? Consider therefore the kindness and severity of God. His severity over those who fell away… and his kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness in humble faith.  If the rejection of the Jews brought salvation to us (for how else would Jesus have died on that cross for your sins) what will their acceptance be, but life from the dead!

Don’t you remember how Yahweh asked his prophet Ezekiel in chapter 37, “Son of man, can these dead bones live?” And he replied: “Sovereign Lord, you alone know…” And Yahweh said “Prophecy, and preach to them…” for I am perfectly able raise a valley full of dead bones back to life again! And he will do so, for the sake of Yeshua whom they rejected, and who is soon to descend on the Mount of Olives with glory and power.

Therefore, you nations, be careful what you do or say to Jerusalem. For this is what the sovereign Lord says: “I am very jealous for Jerusalem, I am burning with passion for her.” And you, o kings be wise. Be warned all you rulers and nations of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and celebrate his reign with trembling. Kiss his Son, lest he be angry and you perish on your way. For blessed are all who take refuge in him, who bow the knee to Jesus and pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Shalom! May God bless you and keep you all…