In a recent Foreign Policy article, President Cyril Ramaphosa and co-authors condemned Israel’s military actions in Gaza, citing the estimated deaths of 61,000 Palestinians as violations of international law and calling for collective action to end impunity. However, André Pienaar, founder and CEO of C5 Capital and former founding member of South Africa’s Scorpions unit, criticised Ramaphosa’s stance as hypocritical in an interview with BizNews. Pienaar argued that Ramaphosa has failed to address South Africa’s soaring murder rates, pointing out that the victims under his presidency could overflow the 94,736-seat FNB Stadium. He emphasised that the president has a constitutional duty to protect citizens from crime, highlighting daily murders, kidnappings, and low prosecution rates as constitutional failures. Defending Israel’s actions in Gaza as self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, Pienaar urged South Africans to strengthen ties with Israel. He also announced a private initiative to foster connections between South Africans and Israelis and to create a digital museum honouring victims of violent crime in South Africa. – Linda van Tilburg
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Edited transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Linda van Tilburg (00:00.815)
I have Andre Pienaar in the Biznews studio with me. He is the founder and CEO of C5 Capital. Andre, welcome to Biznews
You’ve written an article where you argued that South Africa should rebuild its relationship with Israel. Why do you think that’s necessary?
Andre Pienaar (00:35.33)
This is a very important relationship that’s more than 75 years old and it’s got many facets and components to it. South Africa has a Jewish community that throughout the country’s existence and particularly in our transition to democracy have made a really outsized contribution and continue to make an outsized contribution to the country.
South Africa was one of the very first states in the world to recognize Israel’s independence in 1947 and our relationship with Israel has been multifaceted over the last 75 years, incorporating science, culture, shared values, and of course, trade and investment. Israel is an important export market for South Africa, with approximately about half a billion dollars a year. And that underpins many South African jobs and plays a key role in our access to innovation and technology and the growth of our economy.
So this is a really important relationship that’s been very well established and that has very deep roots in South Africa that’s precious and valuable for the country and one that we have to preserve, protect and build on.
Linda van Tilburg (01:50.446)
Do you think it’s possible to rebuild it, there’s just such bad blood at the moment between the Ramaphosa government and Israel after that court case accusing Israel of genocide? Is it possible to rebuild that relationship?
Andre Pienaar (02:05.032)
President Ramaphosa’s decision to bring charges against Israel in the International Court of Justice in the wake of Hamas’s 7th of October attack on the country and its people was just one of the most ill-considered and ill-judged foreign policy steps in South Africa’s history.
Israel was at peace with Gaza on the morning of the 7th of October and Hamas launched an attack on the country and its people, which is on par with an attack from another nation state.
About 3,400 uniformed Hamas operatives invaded Israel with about another 2,000 plus terrorists in plain clothes. So all in all about 6,000 armed operatives attacked the country. That’s about the equivalent of three to four conventional army infantry regiments that invaded Israel. They slaughtered more than 1,200 civilians. They injured more than 5,400 people. And they took approximately 250 Israeli citizens as hostages. Most of the victims here are women, children, and the elderly. So this was a terrible, terrible attack.
at every level worse than the 9-11 attack which the US have suffered. If you look at the armaments which the Hamas operatives had, anti-tank weapons, drones, very sophisticated weaponry. This was really on par with an attack not only by a non-state actor and a terrorist group, but very extensively state-sponsored by Iran.
So for South Africa in the wake of this, of such an attack and of such an atrocity, to bring charges against the victim makes absolutely no sense at all. In South Africa’s case in the International Court of Justice, there is no mention of the right to self-defense which every United Nations member has on Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. And if you consider all the facts of this attack Israel acted in line with its right to self-defense both in terms of the necessity to defend itself but also in terms of the proportionality of its response. so Ramaphosa’s
Allegations and charges against Israel are completely meritorious in international law. And secondly, and most importantly here, it’s not in South Africa’s national interest. South Africa is not a protagonist in the Middle East. We’re a long way away from the Middle East. And there’s just no national interest for us to get involved in the conflict and Iran’s aggression against Israel.
Linda van Tilburg (05:09.204)
So what do you want the South African government to do? Do you think there is any chance the present government would do that? What would make them change their minds?
Andre Pienaar (05:20.76)
I think where we are right now, ordinary people have to do extraordinary things. so ordinary South Africans have to take the initiative to protect this relationship with Israel and to preserve it and to build on it. And so I’m launching a private sector initiative to make sure that we continue to build our relationship with Israel and expand it and grow it despite the Ramaphosa governments being foolish in joining the attack on Israel alongside Iran.
If we had a sensible government, they would have withdrawn the case in the International Court of Justice and they would have made it clear that they want to be part of a peace solution in the Middle East and they would have steered well away from the terrorist sponsorship of Iran and its proxies, Hamas. But I’m afraid that’s highly unlikely.
President Ramaphosa yesterday published an article in Foreign Policy Magazine where he doubled down on his alliance with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran and tried to make the case – using South African taxpayers’ dollars to pursue this meritless case and allegations in the International Court of Justice against Israel, Why he’s allying South Africa with Colombia and a sprinkling of other small states to try and create an international pressure group behind this case. It’s such a waste of taxpayers’ money and from a moral point of view, an absolute, absolute folly and a disaster for South Africanist people.
Linda van Tilburg (07:09.739)
Well, could you give us more information about this bridge you want to build between South African businessmen and Israel? What does the programme entail?
Andre Pienaar (07:19.022)
In 2004 under the Mbeki government South Africa signed an investment agreement with Israel, a reciprocal investment agreement. The trade and investment relationship between South Africa and Israel is very well established. In 1931, a group of South African businessmen, even before the state of Israel., established the Africa Israel Investments Company specifically to invest in the future of Israel. It became one of the first listed companies on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Since then, we’ve brought a very extensive trade and investment relationship and Israel is a very important export market for South Africa. We depend on a lot of our technology and know-how in key areas like healthcare and other fields on Israeli star-tups and the extraordinary innovation that’s happening in Israel. So there’s so much to be built on and that’s leaving aside our shared Abrahamic heritage.
During President Trump’s first term, the Abrahamic Accords were signed between Israel and Bahrain, later joined by the UAE, Morocco, Sudan and the values that underpins that peace agreement is really something shared by all South Africans. Across the Christian, the Muslim and the Judaic faith, we share the same values which goes back to Abraham and a very rich heritage of faith and belief and common values. so, beyond our trade and investment relationship, there’s a very rich heritage of faith and also of culture that binds our countries together.
Then of course, there are many Israelis who’ve lived in South Africa and have contributed to South Africa and many South Africans who today live in Israel. So, we have people moving between our countries and people who contribute to the relationship and to the growth of our two countries. So, there’s so much here to be built on.
By way of contrast, South Africa really doesn’t have a relationship with Iran. Most ordinary South Africans cannot place Iran on a map. The Shia mullahs who run a theocracy in Iran, a repressive theocracy, are a complete anathema to ordinary South Africans who have an unbridled love of freedom.
One of the things we pride ourselves on in our country is women’s rights. The mullahs in Iran have one of the most repressive regimes for women in the world. Iran is a teeny tiny little export market for South Africa that’s very recent, about $10 million. So, a fraction of our export market to Israel. So why on earth Ramaphosa has allied our country with this terrible autocratic repressive regime that’s at the center of global terrorism beggars belief?
Linda van Tilburg (10:45.426)
You also said you are surprised that Mr. Ramaphosa, who is a Christian, aligned himself with a movement like Hamas.
Andre Pienaar (10:58.648)
Yes, Islamist terrorism, which is distinct from the Muslim faith, is a serious and growing escalating threat across Africa. These extremist terrorist groups, whether it’s Al-Qaeda,
ISIS or Hamas or Hezbollah are responsible for the murder of thousands of Christians across Africa on an annual basis. By the last tally, more than 6,000 in 2023. So, why Mr. Ramaphosa was brought up in a Christian home and brought up with the Bible would align himself with these
terrible organisations that are repressing Christians and persecuting Christians across Africa, again, just beggars’ belief.
Linda van Tilburg (11:54.793)
Well, the other question I have to ask you is, while acknowledging the suffering that Israel has undergone, how do you justify or how does Israel justify the fact that so many Gazans were killed and the place was basically destroyed in their bombing?
Andre Pienaar (12:23.522)
In any war, civilian casualties are a tragedy and in the war in Gaza, there have been a significant number of civilian casualties. But one must bear in mind that Israel was at peace with Gaza and with Hamas on the morning of October the 7th. The government of Israel was facilitating aid in the region of a billion dollars a year for the 2.1 million residents in Gaza. Israeli officials were taking some of this aid in person into Gaza on a weekly and a monthly basis to make sure it gets properly distributed and in many ways Israel did not interfere with Hamas’ self-rule and self-government in the Gaza region.
On the morning of October the 7th, Hamas launched a very well-prepared, very well-concealed attack on the people of Israel, which was on the scale very similar to that of a conventional invasion of another country. If you consider the number of soldiers who participated, the sophistication of the armory, the territorial scale of the attack and the target selection. In this attack, they chose to focus on soft targets and they committed terrible atrocities against ordinary Israeli civilians and killed a very large number of women, of very small children and of elderly people.
In the second phase of this attack, they abducted more than 250 Israeli citizens and residents. This was the largest kidnap and hostage-staking incident that a nation state has suffered in the 21st century. Incomparable in scale. In Israel, of course, it’s a very clear memory of what happened at the Munich Olympics in the 1970s when a terrorist group took about 11 Olympic athletes and their coaches hostage and massacred all of them.
So, the state of Israel had no choice but to go into Gaza to try and secure the safety of their people, to try and secure the safety of these hostages. In doing so, launched a very limited attack into a heavy residential area, a very close urban setup.
One of the most difficult forms of combat to conduct is in an urban warfare environment. Most conventional forces would try to avoid fighting in an urban warfare environment altogether because there are so many risks in getting bogged down in urban warfare. And of course, when Israel went into Gaza to retrieve the hostages, they were very well aware of the fact that this was potentially a strategic trap that Hamas set for it, with pre-positioned weapons, pre-positioned points of attack, to launch a massive ambush on Israeli troops as they came into the territory. Despite that, the Israeli Defense Force went out of its way to avoid civilian casualties.
I cannot think of another conventional armed force today in the world that would be able to
conduct an operation of this kind with so much discipline and forethought and consideration to limit civilian casualties. The total civilian casualty toll that’s been provided by the Palestinian authorities is in the region of 46,000.
Not all of those casualties are attributable to the Israeli Defense Forces. Many of these casualties came about as a result of Hamas’ attack on the Israeli Defense Forces. And also came about because Hamas, using Mao Tse-Tung’s old dictum, used the civilians in Gaza as human shields and tried to conceal themselves amongst the civilian population
So, there were multiple causes for the civilian casualties in Gaza, not all of which can be placed at the feet of the Israeli Defense Force. Given the density of the area and the difficulty of urban warfare and the scale of this operation, I think the civilian casualties were rather limited.
If you were to look at this from a just war point of view, from a just war perspective,
It is comparable to the operation which the Allies conducted during the Second World War when they went after the Nazis in Germany.
The Allies took the decision to do a strategic bombing campaign of Nazi Germany because they had no choice. It was the only way in which they could overthrow the Nazis and restore peace and protect their own people and also end the Jewish Holocaust which the Nazis were perpetrating. Unfortunately, in circumstances of war, it’s highly likely that there would be civilian casualties.
During the Second World War, we had significant German casualties because of a strategic bombing campaign. But I don’t think anyone today would argue that that was wrong and that instead we should have left the Nazis in power and instead we should have let the Holocaust continue. I think everyone today accepts, although that was a very difficult decision and a terrible toll associated with the war, it was the only morally right thing to do and
and justly done in the context of the just war tradition.
Linda van Tilburg (18:43.469)
Is there anything else you want to add?
Andre Pienaar (19:14.754)
I want to add that in South Africa, over the last 24 months, we’ve had more civilian casualties than the total civilian casualties in Gaza at the hands of organised crime and drug syndicates.
In 2023, 30,000 South Africans were murdered by criminals and in 2024, 35,000. So, more than 65,000 ordinary South Africans have been brutally and violently murdered by criminal syndicates and gangs over the course of the last 24 months, far exceeding the civilian casualties that have been suffered during the war in Gaza.
This means that on an average day in South Africa about 100 ordinary innocent South Africans get murdered by criminals. At least a third of these victims are women and children. President Ramaphosa has now been in power for four terms, two terms as a deputy president, one term as a president.
In total, the course of his four terms in office, he has led a government that has seen more than half a million ordinary South Africans being murdered by criminal groups and by syndicates. The question is, why does President Ramaphosa not focus on this near and present danger to his own people instead of going to file charges against Israel in his hour of crisis and need in the International Court of Justice?
Last year, 17,000, or to be precise, 17,676 South Africans were kidnapped and taken as hostages. So a multiple of the 250 Israeli citizens that were kidnapped by Hamas. The prosecution rate for those kidnappings is zero. Today, most of those South Africans are still being held hostage by criminal groups across the country. There’s no public debate about this. The government has made no statement about this.
President Ramaphosa has allowed drug cartels to make kidnap for ransom in South Africa a multi-billion dollar business on his watch. He’s done nothing about it. The question is, why would we go and spend South African taxpayer monies to pursue a long-standing trade and investment partner and an ally like Israel in the International Court of Justice, if ordinary South Africans have to suffer this tragedy, this terrible, terrible tragedy, daily at home. The prosecution rate for murder cases in South Africa is less than one out of ten.
Why doesn’t the President and Opposition spend the government’s money to address this near and present danger? Is it negligence? Is it cowardice? Or is it complicity with these criminal groups? Ordinary South Africans need to know. Ordinary South Africans demand to know.
If we were to take the souls of all the murdered South Africans and convene them in the FNB stadium, there would not be enough space for all of them. If we were to convene the loved ones of those who have been murdered under President Ramaphosa’s watch, there would be more than 10 million people gathered outside the FNB stadium for this terrible wake. It is the souls of the murdered and their loved ones who are crying out for justice and demanding justice and justice should first start at home.
The government’s got to address this near and present danger to its own people in the first instance and that’s where the country’s national interest lies. In the absence of the government doing anything about this, I’m launching a museum, a digital museum in the memory of murdered South Africans. I’m giving ordinary South Africans an opportunity to tell the story
about their loved ones, their neighbours, their family members, their children, the members of their community, their colleagues who’ve been murdered at the hands of criminals or who’ve been kidnapped so that we can recognise each South African as a precious human life and as a precious human being and that we can tell the story of this atrocity that’s happening on a daily basis in South Africa.
I’m not talking about farm murders. Farm murders are definitely part of the story and our isolated rural communities are at risk of organised crime. I’m talking about murders and violence, kidnappings that are taking place inside black communities, inside urban communities. I’m talking about an atrocity and a threat that’s completely colour blind in our country but that continues unabated on a daily basis and that is far worse than a conventional war or a civil war and that our government need to address as a matter of great urgency and that’s where the question of impunity lies.
Under South African laws and under the constitution, the president has a responsibility, legal responsibility, to prevent crime from happening to all the South Africans. The South African constitution guarantees the right to life for all its citizens. It guarantees that no South African have to suffer violence or any form of torture under the policing and prevention of organszed crime act, it places an obligation on the police to protect South African citizens from crime. The fact that we have more than a hundred South Africans being murdered on a daily basis, the fact that we have thousands of South Africans being kidnapped annually, the fact that we have an almost minuscule prosecution rate of these criminals are very serious breaches of South African law.
They are very serious violations of our constitution on the part of President Ramaphosa and the ANC’s ministers who have prevailed and presided over this tragedy. This is the injustice that South Africans demand should be addressed as a matter of urgency. Not things that are thousands of miles away from us. It’s what’s happening at home on a daily basis that’s where the cry for justice is coming from. That’s where the legal liability and legal responsibility lies. That is what some Africans now demand this government address.
Linda van Tilburg (26:07.182)
Andre just quickly, a last question: what form would this museum take?
Andre Pienaar (26:11.904)
To begin with, it will be a digital museum where any South African can post and tell the story of anybody that they know that have been a victim of serious and violent South African crime, whether it’s murder or kidnapping. It will involve posting a photograph of the victim and
telling their story as a precious human being, not the story of their crime, but their story as a precious human being. I think this is a very important first step for us to start an open debate about what is happening in the country, to start an open debate about what is happening with crime.
I think it’s an opportunity for everyone in South Africa to come together to honor the victims of
of violent crime and to recognise the value of these human lives and to begin to document what happened to them and the suffering that they’ve had as a first step towards making a claim against President Ramaphosa and his ministers for redress for this grave and serious violation of the constitution and South African’s laws, which is not only morally reprehensible, but also for which they carry a very serious legal liability.
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