WATCH: South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa Backs Hamas; ‘Free Palestine’

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa posted a video Saturday of a speech he delivered to a rally in support of Palestinians in the wake of a devastating terrorist attack by Hamas that saw 1,300 Israelis murdered, 3,600 wounded, and 100-200 kidnapped.

We pledge solidarity with the people of Palestine. #FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/3iMUhhfm98

— Cyril Ramaphosa (@CyrilRamaphosa) October 14, 2023

Ramaphosa spoke in front of a backdrop of electrified fencing, a common sign in South Africa, where violent crime is rampant and murder is at its highest rate ever. He wore a Palestinian keffiyeh, a common traditional scarf that has become a symbol of Palestinian opposition to Israel.

Fascinating chart, via @jamesmyburgh of @Politicsweb, on murder & robbery in South Africa. After the chaos of the 1990s, things improved; the 2010 World Cup was the best moment in post-apartheid South Africa. But it’s been a growing nightmare ever since. The red line is murders. pic.twitter.com/wbluZgbNOA

— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) October 6, 2023

The demonstration was staged by the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress, the country’s ruling party, widely regarded as corrupt and incompetent in a country that experiences regular electricity shortages for several hours per day.

Ramaphosa’s party has long been anti-Israel, dating back to its Cold War-era alliance with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) within the Soviet orbit.

Ramaphosa did not condemn Hamas terror, and said that the South African government stood in solidarity with the “people of Palestine.” He said that South Africa had expressed condolences to both Israelis and Palestinians, but only noted that it had expressed solidarity with the latter. He detailed what he called “atrocities” against Palestinians, without once describing the brutality of the Hamas terror attacks.

Ramaphosa said that Palestinians had been “under occupation” for “almost 75 years” — meaning that he, and the South African government, consider all of Israeli territory to be “occupied,” including within the pre-1967 borders, and therefore illegitimate.

He defended Palestinians as “people under occupation who have been waiting a struggle against an oppressive government that has occupied their land,” and added that Israel had recently been “dubbed an apartheid state.” Ramaphosa also said Palestinians were aggrieved at the presence of “settlers so close and into their land,” though Israel pulled all of its settlers out of Gaza in 2005.

Ramaphosa protested the Israeli order for Palestinian civilians to evacuate northern Gaza ahead of an expected ground invasion, saying that the coming conflict would be “almost genocide.” He called for the “peaceful resolution of conflict” and the “two-state” solution, though he did not explain how that “solution” would deal with sovereign Israeli territory that he considers “occupied.”

Update: South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein responded to Ramaphosa at a pro-Israel rally on Sunday:

“Just before this event began, somebody came over to me and said we should take down the South African flag because of the comments of President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC. I want to tell you all, and I want to tell the ANC: ‘You are not South Africa.'”

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 the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.