South Africa is showing a growing interest in the Arab world. Dina Ezzat looks into Pretoria's Arab policy By playing host to a delegation from Israel's Likud Party during the past few days, South Africa is promoting itself as a potential diplomatic player in the most central issue for the Arab world: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. South African President Thabo Mbeki met the Likud delegation. This is not the only sign of growing South African interest in the Arab world. During the past couple of years -- and certainly during the past few months -- Pretoria has been working hard to strengthen ties with the Arab world. Arab capitals have been receiving increasing correspondence from Pretoria over issues of joint interest within the context of the African Union and the United Nations. Arab officials are being encouraged by the embassies of South Africa to visit Pretoria for talks with their counterparts. In addition to its involvement in promoting peace and stability in Africa, Pretoria is offering its good offices as a mediator to resolve the Middle East conflict. South Africa is also proposing to mediate between Algeria and Morocco. Late last week senior South African officials toured the region. Ayanda Ntsaluba, the director general of the Department of Foreign Affairs, was on a Middle East tour that took him to Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Egypt. During the ten-day tour Ntsaluba conveyed the clear message that Pretoria wishes to consolidate relations with the Arab world. "South Africa believes that it has some very good relations in the Arab world -- historically and through its support of Arab causes in the multilateral context of the UN -- and we want to improve these relations on the bilateral level," he told Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo following talks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa. So far, South Africa and Arab countries have indicated several fronts that they should jointly work on to improve their bilateral relations. Trade and economy is the prime objective for both sides. But political coordination, Arab officials and Ntsaluba agree, is the core of any serious progress of relations. Ntsaluba believes that a serious South African development on the Palestinian-Israeli front is necessary. "We are concerned because of the current stalemate in the peace process," he said. South Africa, he added, is willing to use its growing relations with Israel to serve this purpose. "We have some ideas on this issue and we wanted to make sure that they sit comfortably with the other ongoing efforts [particularly] the Egyptian initiative," he said. The crux of the ideas that Pretoria is currently considering is based on promoting dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis. South Africa, Ntsaluba said, has much experience when it comes to peaceful co-existence and it wants to share this experience with both the Israelis and Palestinians. Pretoria, therefore, invited a group of Likud members to see first-hand how old grudges could be overcome. South Africa is willing to do more to promote the concept of peaceful co- existence between Palestinians and Israelis. It is also willing to coordinate its efforts with key players in the region such as Egypt. Ntsaluba said that he received a positive response from his interlocutors in the Middle East on this proposal. However, he hastened to add that his country had no illusions about what it can and cannot do as far as the Arab-Israeli conflict is concerned. For their part, Arab officials say that they perceive the efforts of South Africa as those exerted by countries like Switzerland: promoting better relations among peoples and intellectuals. This they say does not necessarily mean much when it comes to promoting peace negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli officials -- certainly not with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in office. Some Arab officials argue that the best thing South Africa could do now to promote peace in the region is to put pressure on Israel and use its influence within Third World groupings to lobby support for an Arab appeal to impose sanctions on Israel for its continuous violations of Palestinian rights. Ntsaluba appreciates the Arab point of view. "What is happening in Gaza now is much worse than what happened in apartheid South Africa. Israel," he stressed, "is the key problem" when it comes to establishing security in the Middle East because of its possession of nuclear weapons. However, the director general of the Department of Foreign Affairs was quick to add that South Africa cannot play a constructive mediator role if it starts lobbying for sanctions against Israel. Not only will the US oppose this proposition but it will also make sure that if subjected to sanctions by a group of Third World countries, Israel will be compensated. Ntsaluba said that sanctions against Israel will not achieve anything. Rather, lobbying for more international support for the Palestinians and helping the Palestinians put their act together will be more effective. "To me it seems that Sharon knows what he is doing... Palestinians need to remember this," he said. Arab officials say that they appreciate South African efforts to strengthen ties with the Arab world and with Israel, Iran and Turkey. But, they say that they are also aware that this increasing attention is prompted mainly by South Africa's attempt to win a seat on the UN Security Council. Egyptian officials, in particular, say that they are aware of the growing diplomatic ambitions of South Africa not just in relation to the UN but also within the context of the African Union (AU) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). This is an argument that Ntsaluba is quick to reject. South Africa, he says, is genuinely interested in promoting relations with the Arab world irrespective of the "on-going talk of the reform of the UN which we do not know when it will take place". After all, he added, South Africa imports over 60 per cent of its oil from Arab countries. As for the AU and NAM, Ntsaluba insisted that Pretoria is more than willing to coordinate efforts with Cairo should Egypt decide to give more attention to its Third World relations. "We would love to coordinate with Egypt," he said. Ntsaluba contributes what he terms as Egyptian sensitivity to the two recent incidents where Egypt lost its bid to host the 2010 soccer World Cup and the headquarters of the AU Parliament to South Africa. "In the case of the World Cup the entire world knows that South Africa was cheated out of hosting the 2006 World Cup and that hosting the 2010 World Cup was its right, and as for the AU Parliament Egypt knows very well that we had been working on our bid for a long time and that it offered its bid very late," he said. For their part, Egyptian officials say that they have no quarrel with South Africa over either the World Cup or the AU Parliament. They add that they welcome South Africa's keenness to strengthen its ties with the Arab world. South Africa should also realise that Arab countries are also keen to have a seat on the UN Security Council. "Regarding global governance, our efforts are aimed at the reconstruction of an international order in which multilateralism and international law prevail," Ntsaluba said. This, he added, his country is willing to do along with its Arab, African and other friends.
