In a statement released on Saturday morning, just hours after US State Secretary Marco Rubio called Rasool a “race-baiting politician” who despises the US and President Donald Trump, the presidency of South Africa urged “all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter.”
Rubio claimed on X that Rasool was no longer a “welcome in our great country,” adding that “we have nothing to discuss with him and that he is therefore regarded as PERSONA NON GRATA.”
Rubio cited Rasool as saying that Trump “mottoed a “white victimhood” and “white victimhood” as a “dog whistle” during the 2024 elections in an article by the right-wing media outlet Breitbart.
However, Sandile Swana, a political analyst from South Africa, claimed that Pretoria’s decision to file a genocide case with the International Court of Justice against Israel, a close US ally, was at the heart of the conflict.
What South Africans underwent during the apartheid regime “is on steroids in Palestine,” according to Rasool, an anti-apartheid campaigner, who spoke to the Zeteo news site in February.
Swana further stated that the US “supported the apartheid regime” in the struggle against apartheid.
Rasool continued to criticize the behavior of the United States, which supports apartheid and genocide, he continued.
Land policy
The South African ambassador’s dismissal comes at a time when there are growing tensions between the two nations, with Trump cutting funding for the country after he criticizes its land-grabbing policy, which he claimed allows to seize land from white farmers.
Trump went further and said farmers in South Africa were welcome to settle in the US last week, reiterating the government’s claim that it was “confiscating” land from white people.
Elon Musk, a close ally of Trump, who was born in South Africa, has also claimed that the nation has “openly racist ownership laws.”
Source: Aljazeera
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