Nigel Branken
I’m done pretending Helen Zille’s line on Gaza is “reasonable.” Watch the clip. She smirks, then does the same old dance: “Genocide is a big word, I haven’t been to Gaza… but Hamas is trying to destroy Israel… two-state solution… I’m running for mayor of Joburg.”
That’s a textbook appeal to ignorance—claiming she can’t know about genocide because she hasn’t been there—and a red herring—swapping a concrete question about atrocities for an abstract “future solution.” And here’s the double standard: she claims ignorance on genocide but suddenly has total certainty about Hamas’s intentions. That is the Israeli government’s playbook, word for word.
Two-State Solution as Empty Rhetoric
Meanwhile, Israel’s own prime minister has said it plainly this month: “There will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us.” So what “two-state” is Zille dangling as an escape hatch? Has she even read the news?
Democratic Alliance (DA) Joburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille responding to Xoli Mngambi’s question on Israel’s war on Gaza, said that Genocide is a very big word, in an attempt to do dodge an outright denial of the genocide in Palestine.
And spare us the “but Hamas” pivot: even senior Hamas political figures have publicly said they’d accept a state on the 1967 borders in exchange for a long truce—while Israel’s leadership is openly rejecting Palestinian statehood right now.
Evidence of Genocide Is Overwhelming
It’s Day 717 of this genocide. You don’t need to “go to Gaza” to know. You can read. There is overwhelming, converging evidence from the UN, the ICJ, top human-rights orgs, medical NGOs, Israeli rights groups, journalists, and genocide scholars. Helen Zille chooses not to see it. That’s not “true ignorance.” That’s reciting propaganda.
WATCH FULL INTERVIEW: Zille’s take on Gaza, CoJ, and Service Delivery
ALSO READ: Helen Zille Joburg Mayor bid: A Gamble That Exposes the DA’s Weakness
My prayer: May God judge this moral evasiveness, and may every South African who thinks the DA is a party of rule of law finally see how this sanitised “neutrality” enables mass death – and yep – they are enabling genocide. Shame on them and shame on you!
