The nomination of an ambassador to South Africa who vows to "pressure" the country over its Gaza case confirms that the U.S. considers the practice of following international law to be a punishable offense.
Originally published in Electronic Intifada.
A right-wing media watchdog extremist who isnât willing to express his viewpoint on whether the United States should reimpose white supremacy and voting limits on Black citizens is likely to become the next US ambassador to South Africa. President Donald Trumpâs nominee to be that ambassador, L. Brent Bozell III, spoke before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at his 23 October nomination hearing.
The interaction did not go well.
Asked by Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut whether he would support bringing back âlaws in this country to only allow white people to vote,â Bozell refused to give a direct answer.
âSenator, Iâm going to serve as ambassador to South Africa, and Iâm going to focus on that.â
Murphy tried again: âYou will not share your personal views on whether it is right or wrong to reinstitute discriminatory policies in this country to prevent Black people from voting?â
âSenator, my personal views are irrelevant,â Bozell argued. âI am serving here to do what the president is asking me to do in South Africa.â
Bozell also would not give his direct, personal view to Murphy on implementing a hypothetical refugee policy that would admit only white refugees. Trumpâs immigration policy has recently favored white South Africans from the former apartheid state. The president contends, without evidence, that South Africa is being subjected to a genocide of white farmers. He holds this view, which is not upheld by genocide experts, while rejecting the view that Israel has been carrying out a genocide in Gaza â despite the many genocide experts, including the International Association of Genocide Scholars, maintaining that genocide is an apt description for what has been transpiring in Gaza.
This would-be ambassador, who once likened President Barack Obama, to a âskinny, ghetto crackhead,â may now be responsible for carrying out US policy toward the post-apartheid nation. Think what you will of Obama, but this is a vile comment from Bozell that reflects racial animosity.
President Trumpâs nominee is not new to a path disparaging Black people, whether an American president or the freedom aspirations of Black South Africans.
As president of the National Conservative Political Action Committee, Bozell wrote in a January 1987 letter to The Conservative Caucus that his organization âis proud to become a member of the Coalition Against ANC Terrorism,â calling an âimpending meeting between Secretary of State [George] Shultz and ANC President [Oliver] Tamboâ an âunsatisfactory trend in US policy towards South Africa.â
Bozell, with his anti-ANC luggage, is an in-your-face choice that will surely insult â and is presumably intended to insult â South Africans who fought for decades to overturn the horrors and abuses of apartheid. The nomination hearing comes several months after the decision by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to expel Ebrahim Rasool, South Africaâs ambassador to the United States. Trumpâs aid suspension and trade policy toward South Africa have been a vicious signal of his intent to play up claims of âwhite genocideâ over Black economic empowerment in a country now upholding equal rights and intent on moving beyond colonialism.
Perhaps recognizing some of the harm of his earlier words, Bozell did tell Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland that if asked today âwho do I think is the most revered person in South Africa, who do I have the most respect for, it would be Nelson Mandela.â Better late than never â and quite possibly just a stab at grabbing some Democratic votes â but the words carry less weight decades later than when his support could have made a meaningful difference in ending apartheid in South Africa.
Israel
Bozell also promised in his preliminary remarks to use his position to hammer South Africa for supporting international law with its legal challenge of Israelâs genocidal onslaught in Gaza.
Expressing his support for Israel, Bozell stated: âI would press South Africa to end proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice and to pressure the International Criminal Court prosecutor to discontinue this lawfare, which is belied by Israelâs support for the ceasefire in Gaza and commitment to the rules of war throughout the conflict.â
This displays remarkable ignorance of the Gaza reality and the Israeli-imposed carnage there, but is very much in keeping with the ability of American officials to look the other way when it comes to Israeli war crimes and genocidal actions.
Bozell is not new to such ignorance and has previously displayed a willingness to propagandize readers at his Media Research Center with falsehoods on behalf of Israel.
Shortly after Hamasâ unexpected October 2023 cross-boundary attack from Gaza, the founder and then-president of the right-wing Media Research Center wrote the following to supporters: âAs a rule, I donât make appeals for anything outside of the Media Research Center universe simply because that must always be my priority, and our little enterprise must always be fed. But there are exceptions when there are emergencies. And this is an emergency.â
He then asked readers to âimagine you are a father, or a mother, and return to a kibbutz to find that your little baby has been beheaded by these monsters. That is exactly what these monsters did to 40 little babies.â
Yet there is zero evidence any Israeli babies were beheaded during the 7 October attack.
Two infants were killed inside Israel that day and Israeli media reports indicate 38 Israeli children overall.
According to the United Nations and its Independent International Commission of Inquiry, 40 Israeli children were reportedly killed that day â two of them, Liel Hatsroni and apparently her twin brother Yanai, in Kibbutz Beâeri by Israeli tank shells â but certainly not 40 babies beheaded by Palestinian armed groups as Bozell lied to his supporters.
In a June 2024 investigation for The Electronic Intifada, David Sheen debunked claims of decapitated babies promoted by Israeli officials, building on evidence available for many months but too frequently disregarded or left uncorrected by mainstream journalists such as CNNâs Dana Bash and Hadas Gold. CNNâs Sara Sidner did apologize for her own reporting on the matter.
There is no addendum to the Media Research Center letter apologizing for Bozellâs own error. Such rhetoric helped stir the genocidal environment Palestinians quickly faced as dozens of Palestinian children were routinely killed by the Israeli military day after day with American weaponry.
Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who introduced Bozell to the committee, castigated South Africa for what he termed as âleading the unfounded case against Israelâs defensive war in Gaza.â He later denounced South Africaâs criticism of Israel for practicing apartheid, apparently believing that he understands the manifestations of apartheid better than South Africans who recognize it when they see it after living through such discrimination themselves in their own country.
Lee asked Bozell about South Africaâs genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Bozell agreed this is an âimportantâ matter before stating: âWhat South Africa did in leading the charge against Israel in the International Court of Justice was an injustice. Itâs going to be a top priority because the president has made it a top priority and the president has told me itâs a top priority to do something about that.â
This suggests that Trump might further pressure post-apartheid South Africa in order to protect apartheid Israel. The presidentâs campaign to âMake America Great Againâ implicitly suggests a return to a bygone era that Trump is trying to recapture in which apartheid, white supremacy and ethnic cleansing reign â if not at home, then elsewhere.
Covering all his talking points, Bozell stressed that the US âallianceâ with the apartheid state is âironclad.â
None of this is surprising.
Just last year, Bozell praised an op-ed by Julie Strauss Levin in the Cleveland Jewish News, tweeting, âIn one column, Julie Strauss destroys the âPalestinian homelandâ argument.â
Apparently, for Bozell, Palestinians have no right to live in freedom and with equal rights in their own homeland. And, for the record, the author did not use the word Palestinian a single time in the column.
Nor is right-wing anti-Semitism real to Bozell. In his view, right-wing, anti-Jewish hatred isnât real because right wingers love Israel. As he puts it: âAnti-Semitism is not a right-wing phenomenon. We love Israel!â
All is excused with proper affection for Israel and its war crimes.
Bozell wonât speak out confidently for voting rights for Black citizens in the US or for freedom and equal rights for Palestinians in their homeland. Consequently, heâs a safe pick for a Trump administration looking for someone to excuse the Gaza genocide while pressuring Black South Africans to ignore the lessons of their recent history.
Michael F. Brown is an independent journalist. His work and views have appeared in The International Herald Tribune, The Nation, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The News & Observer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Post and elsewhere.
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