In a high-profile diplomatic move, Iran and South Africa have publicly affirmed their growing political alliance in efforts to delegitimize Israel on the international stage. Iranian Deputy Speaker Hamid-Reza Babaee, speaking at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) summit in Tashkent, outlined a partnership with South Africa designed to expose what the two countries describe as the ‘true face’ of Israel. Iranian and South African officials met during the conference to coordinate strategies that include action in international legal forums, notably the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
Iranian media outlets widely reported the meeting, quoting Babaee as confirming extensive collaboration tied to South Africa’s legal case against Israel now before the ICJ. While specifics of Tehran’s assistance remain closely held, multiple signals—including repeated references by Babaee to ongoing cooperation and recent investigative reporting—suggest that Iran has played a significant role in supporting South Africa’s legal offensive.
Reports by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) revealed that in the days preceding South Africa’s ICJ filing, both Iran and Qatar made sizable contributions to South Africa’s ruling African National Congress. These revelations raise fresh concerns regarding the influence of outside actors in shaping South Africa’s foreign policy and wider global initiatives targeting Israel. The ICJ case, which accuses Israel of acts of genocide, comes amid heated debates over Israel’s ongoing defensive operations against Iranian-backed Hamas militants in Gaza following the catastrophic October 7 attack—the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Iran, the principal state sponsor of terror proxies across the Middle East, has long sought to undermine Israel both militarily—by backing organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis—and diplomatically, by supporting international lawfare and information campaigns intended to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state. The South African case at The Hague is now understood by many regional analysts and Western officials as part of this broader Iranian strategy, with legal and diplomatic pressure acting as force multipliers for Iran’s regional terror campaign.
South Africa’s Pursuit of Legal Action
South Africa has distinguished itself in international bodies for its outspoken advocacy against Israel. Since the ANC took power, the country has repeatedly aligned itself with anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, echoing talking points utilized by Iranian and Qatari networks. Its move to pursue charges of genocide at the ICJ, widely condemned by legal experts and leading Western democracies as unfounded and politically motivated, marks a new level in its campaign.
The charges, if left unchecked, risk distorting the factual narrative of the ongoing war—ignoring the actions of Hamas on October 7 and subsequent attacks on Israeli civilians while painting Israel’s military response, carried out with unprecedented warnings and humanitarian efforts, as criminal. Israeli leaders and international analysts argue that these efforts are an extension of Iranian strategic objectives: to tie Israel’s hands militarily, weaken morale, and open new fronts in the diplomatic and information spheres when battlefield victories prove elusive.
Tehran’s Regional Context and Strategy
Iran’s involvement in the legal offensive comes as no surprise to Israeli security officials, who have for years tracked Tehran’s multipronged campaign. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has invested in a network of militant proxies—Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and armed groups in Iraq and Syria. With its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) providing weapons, funds, logistics, and ideological indoctrination, Iran aims to surround Israel geographically and apply relentless pressure.
But the fight is not limited to the military realm. Iranian leaders, facing growing international pressure and domestic unrest at home, have expanded operations into the legal and diplomatic domains, seeking to challenge Israel’s international legitimacy and paint its self-defense efforts as violations of international law. Collaborative legal actions like the ICJ case are seen as complementary to Iran’s parallel campaigns of terror and disinformation.
Financial and Political Links
The ISGAP report on monetary transfers from Iran and Qatar to the ANC just before the ICJ filing underscores how the lines between political advocacy, foreign funding, and coordinated legal action have blurred. Such support ensures that anti-Israel campaigns are not mere diplomatic protests but part of an orchestrated, well-financed, multinational strategy aimed at tilting the balance of international opinion and policy.
Implications for Israel and the International Community
The intensifying Iran-South Africa partnership should be understood in the wider context of the Iranian-led ‘Axis of Resistance’—a network of states and non-state groups dedicated to the destruction of Israel and to the expansion of Tehran’s influence across the region. From the UN to The Hague, tools of international law are now enlisted in this struggle, raising profound questions about the politicization of global institutions. For Israel, defending itself in courtrooms has become as urgent as defending its people against rockets and abductions.
Israeli diplomats and their allies underscore that conflating Israel’s response to the October 7 massacre—a campaign characterized by compliance with the laws of armed conflict and unparalleled humanitarian measures—with the systematic war crimes of Hamas and its patron states is both a factual distortion and a moral failure. The pressure campaign to release convicted terrorists in exchange for innocent hostages further underscores the asymmetry of the conflict and the cynical exploitation of legal platforms by actors who openly abet terror.
Many Western governments and juridical scholars have voiced skepticism about the South African case, framing it as a grave misapplication of international law motivated more by political alliances than impartial humanitarian concern. There are concerns that such misuse of legal forums undermines confidence in global institutions and enables authoritarian states to wage war by other means.
Conclusion
The alliance between Iran and South Africa in Tashkent marks an expansion of Tehran’s anti-Israel campaign from the battlefields of the Middle East to international courtrooms and diplomatic platforms worldwide. As these efforts intensify, Israel and its partners face an evolving battlefront—one where legal and political warfare, backed by Iranian state sponsorship and financial intervention, threaten not only the Jewish state’s legitimacy but the credibility of the international system itself.
The world now witnesses the real face of coordinated lawfare: a campaign to criminalize the right of a sovereign democracy to defend its citizens from terror, manipulated by states whose own records on terrorism and human rights remain among the most egregious. For Israel, the stakes are existential—not only to survive on the battlefield, but to ensure that truth prevails over propaganda wherever the next front may open.
