What President Ramaphosa Should Have Said to Donald Trump

Donald Trump put on a bizarre show trial today in the Oval Office, berating South African President Ramaphosa for allowing genocide in South Africa. The Washington Post reports:

President Donald Trump pressed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to protect White Afrikaner farmers from violent attacks in an extraordinary Oval Office confrontation Wednesday in which it fell to others to remind Trump of the nation’s long-standing epidemic of violence against both White and Black people.

Trump amplified false claims that White Afrikaners have been victims of a genocide, even showing video of crosses and earthen mounds that he said represented more than 1,000 grave sites of murdered farmers. The mounds were in fact part of a protest against the violence, not actual graves.

I have no problem with Trump raising the issue of the attacks on white South African farmers and his condemnation of the Julius Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, a party that advocates giving White-owned land to Black people. However, to accuse Ramaphosa of allowing genocide is obscene and ridiculous.

Here is what I wish President Ramaphosa should have said back to Trump:

Mr. President, your accusation that my government is engaged in genocide is false and libelous. Unlike you, we allow free speech in South Africa, even comments as reprehensible as those made by Mr. Malema. I would remind you that there was a time in the United States that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that neo-Nazis had a constitutional right to march, citing freedom of speech and assembly under the First Amendment—even if the speech was hateful and deeply offensive. As you may recall, this ruling concerned a march in Skokie, Illinois that was led by Frank Collin, the head of the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA)—a neo-Nazi group—in the late 1970s.

I am sad to see that you no longer are a defender of the First Amendment of your Constitution. What I find more troubling is that you apparently value the lives of white South Africans over the lives of the Palestinian people. You have welcomed and embraced Bibi Netanyahu in this very office… a man, who by his own words, advocates the slaughter of the Amaleks, a biblical word he now associates with the Palestinian people. More than 60,000 children, women, men and elderly civilians have been murdered by Israeli forces, at the direction of their government, since October 7, 2023. This is the policy of the Zionist government.

Yet, when you welcomed Bibi Netanyahu into your office, you said nothing. By your silence, you endorsed an actual genocide that is taking place now. Shame on you.

The policy of my government is that no violence against civilians, regardless of the color of their skin, is acceptable. However, I will not sit silently in the face of your unfounded accusations that I tolerate or endorse genocide in South Africa. You, as head of the United States, have no moral authority to lecture us. Your government has killed millions of civilians in Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. Your own government is still supplying weapons to Ukraine that are being used to kill civilians in Russia. I will remind you of the words spoken by Jesus: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.“

Sadly, Ramaphosa let Trump get away with this stunt.

In other news relevant to West Asia / the Middle East, Iran announced that it will meet on Friday in Rome with the US delegation to continue talks about ensuring Iran does not build a nuclear weapon. As long as the two sides are talking, there will be no bombing of Iran.

I discussed the Iran/US negotiations with Rasheed today before the news broke that the two sides agreed to meet on Friday: