Photograph Source: Bb3015 – CC BY-SA 4.0

Patrick Bond sat down with the Media Review Network (Pretoria) to offer insights into the reality behind the rhetoric on Israel. He explains the deep-seated links between the SA elite ruling class and corporate business and how this impacts on SA’s moral stance on Palestine. Prof. Bond also talks about the ecological links in the social justice movement and illuminates why we can no longer separate issues of economic inequality and ecological exploitation.

Mariam Jooma Çarikci: Welcome to the inaugural episode of Critical Currents, the official podcast of the Media Review Network, where analysis meets activism and narratives from the Global South rise to the forefront. I’m your host, Mariam Jooma Çarikci, and in this space we cut through propaganda, challenge dominant discourses, and spotlight stories too often sidelined by mainstream media. In each episode, we’ll be joined by thought leaders, activists, scholars, and journalists who bring clarity to the chaos and help us to connect the dots between geopolitics, media framing, and the lived lives of oppressed communities – from the war zone of Gaza to the boardrooms of BRICS, from Sudan’s shifting sands to South Africa’s policy contradictions. We unpack it all, critically and unapologetically. This is not just commentary; this is resistance through reason. Welcome to Critical Currents.

And today, our first guest – our inaugural guest for our podcast – is Professor Patrick Bond. Professor Bond is a distinguished political economist, public intellectual, and author, and is currently professor at the University of Johannesburg, Department of Sociology. Professor Bond has written extensively on global justice, financialization, climate debt, BRICS, and, of course, subimperialism – which is a topic we are quite interested in today. His seminal works include Elite Transition, Politics of Climate Justice, and BRICS: An Anti-capitalist Critique. He was also a former adviser to former President Mandela’s Reconstruction and Development Program. Professor Bond is known for his sharp critique of neoliberalism and elite state capture, particularly in post-apartheid South Africa. Welcome, Professor Bond. We’re honored to have you on the show.

Patrick Bond: Oh Mariam, thank you. Salam alaikum, and what a great honor. I mean, Media Review Network doing the podcast is a wonderful expansion. I always relied on the analysis, the articles, the letters to the editor – hey, you’ve spent decades keeping us informed. So thanks to the network.

Miriam: Thank you so much indeed. It’s been a long journey – it’s 30 years of the MRN – but we’ve been invigorated by intellectuals like yourself. So today, we’re digging into South Africa’s relations with Israel, the BRICS contradictions, and the role of elites in shaping foreign policy – and, more critically, the climate crisis. Let’s start with the subimperialism and Israel trade question. So, you’ve argued that BRICS states have often reinforced the global capitalist structure rather than resisting them. How do you see South Africa’s – what some would argue – rhetorical solidarity with Palestine squaring with its continued trade with Israel, and looking at the coal issue in particular?

Patrick: Well, thanks. Lots there. I mean, the general ideological problem is one we face all the time: it’s called ‘talk left, walk right.’ That is to say, it’s easy to have a rhetorical anti-Zionism and anti-genocide position, but then, when key people are profiting from it, you kind of wonder – well, how deep is this? Once you scratch the surface. Because the BRICS – all of them – will have some statement about a two-state solution, the need to have a ceasefire. They’ll certainly have rhetoric. And South Africa, to its credit, has gone in two directions: the International Court of Justice, with the International Criminal Court arrest warrant; but also that ICJ determination that there’s a genocide underway. And backing the ICC, is the ‘Hague Group.’

Secondly, that is not just to rely upon judges – at least one of whom, from Uganda, the deputy chair of the ICJ – is very pro-Zionist, so we’re not sure what will happen. And even if it does lead to a good ruling, we know that in Tel Aviv there are two words that they use to describe what happens, and those are: ‘Hague Shmague.’ In other words, they don’t care. So, the other process – the Hague Group – is to say, governments can come together against the United States’ prosecution and persecution of International Criminal Court, with its sanctions and the attempt to delegitimize the ICC, when it has an arrest warrant against Netanyahu and others.

Now, that becomes another point of hypocrisy, because it would be wonderful if that was the, let’s say, template for standing up to Trump. That is, you put a collective together, you have the moral high ground, you stand up for international values – especially against genocide. And then, in that Hague Group declaration, January 31 this year, you say: ‘We will not provide military fuel, and we will not facilitate military fuel.’ That would be wonderful. And if we could expand that spirit, now that the tariffs, now that the climate crisis, the public health, the humanitarian food aid – all of that – is now something I think the G20 here in Johannesburg in November will have to figure out: do we even want the United States in the G20?

But unfortunately, that strength is balanced by a weakness. And the weakness is profiteers. And there are profiteers across the BRICS. And South Africa’s profiteers include an arms merchant who’s a bastion of the Zionist establishment – Ivor Ichikowitz – and he’s had deals with Elbit, deals that supply fascistic governments in Latin America – Ecuador’s army – with not only military vehicles, but Elbit souping them up for communications. And that continues. He’s also – Ichikowitz – supplying the Israeli, well, the Jewish people’s spiritual support, which is tefillin, which is a leather strip that you bind around with a verse from the Torah in a small box on your head. That – that’s what this guy Ivor Ichikowitz, who is an arms merchant and an ANC member, and, as recently as mid-2023, the number one donor to the ANC, as the public records at least have shown. And that means, when the genocide began in October 2023, Ichikowitz was schizophrenic and split. And instead of still supporting the ANC, he has come out very strongly – especially in articles in 2024 and statements the whole time – against South Africa’s support for Palestine.

Now, that’s just one angle – the arms dealing. And then we have Rheinmetall, which is the German company that owns big chunks of Denel, South Africa’s state-owned arms company. Are weapons being made in South Africa – in Somerset West or in Centurion – are they going up to not only to Rheinmetall in Germany, but onward, including to Israel? It’s an open question. We’re not sure. We have a very ineffectual National Conventional Arms Control Committee meant to look this over – and they’re not doing well. There are a few other arms dealers that we’re curious about – the extent to which, certainly historically, Armscor and Israel, and indeed going back to the 1970s nuclear collaboration.

The other big problem, though, is coal – which is very open. Because we can track the coal-bearing ships that go from Richards Bay all the way up to Hadera port, and to some extent Ashdod. At Hadera, there is the Orot Rabin power station. At Ashdod, it’s the Rutenberg station. And those are supplying Israel with about 20% of its grid-based energy. And that’s a very important part of the supply that the Israel Defense Forces would use to prosecute that genocide or to maintain apartheid. And it would therefore be against the International Court of Justice ruling in July – that was actually codified by the United Nations General Assembly in September – that says: don’t do electricity supply or any other goods crucial for the apartheid, the land grabbing of the West Bank too, not just the genocide of Gaza.

So we’ve got a couple of, let’s say, screaming contradictions. And it’s even more embarrassing, I think, for South Africa, because President Ramaphosa used to be the main partner of the main company that sells coal to Israel – both from South Africa, but also from Colombia. And they’ve continued that, even into this year, in spite of the Colombian president telling them not to.

And that company – Glencore – is notorious for bribing African governments. They were not prosecuted for the activities in South Africa, but across the rest of Africa, the prosecutions, including in the US and Britain, have shown that this is a very corrupt company. And they have chosen – particularly because their predecessor, Xstrata, was doing deals with the African Rainbow Minerals chief executive, Patrice Motsepe, who happens to be President Ramaphosa’s brother-in-law.

Now we have found – and a protest in early April confirmed this – 23% of Glencore’s ownership is of the mines in question in Mpumalanga that get the coal out and get them coal over to Israel. That would be profits to Patrice Motsepe, we estimate, out of about a $5 million profit – that is the net income after the costs – for each of the 177,000 tons of coal that are put on the ship and shipped out to Israel, Patrice Motsepe makes about a million dollars. So these are the sorts of, let’s say, contradictions that just scream out, and that we hope more pressure will allow us to resolve – resolve in favor of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of Israel.

Mariam: Wow. That’s – you know, that’s a lot to process. And it definitely raises the question about civil society. So what kind of leverage do we have? Is this about complete elite state capture, where we’ve now become almost enslaved to the political system without any avenue for protest that’s meaningful? Because protests have been going on. But, you know, what is the stumbling block?

Patrick: Yes, I mean, I think we are now looking at – if you’re a genuine anti-imperialist from civil and uncivil society – and you’re interested in Palestinian survival and solidarity, and you’re also interested in the climate catastrophe and interested in future generations’ welfare, which is something that I think obviously go together. We see activists in South Africa embody those in coming to protests against coal with both hats. That is, they don’t want to see coal as it’s combusted – a ton will create more than two tons of CO₂. And when that happens,........

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