Is Israel moving its Eswatini embassy back from South Africa?

By Phathizwe Zulu

MANZINI, Eswatini (AA) – The tiny Southern African kingdom of Eswatini has diplomatic ties with Israel going back over five decades.

Today, as Israel faces growing international isolation for its genocide in Gaza and escalating assault on Lebanon, Eswatini seems to be among the few countries moving ever closer to Tel Aviv.

This could, according to local media reports, soon lead to another major development: the return of an Israeli diplomatic mission to Africa’s last absolute monarchy.

There was an Israeli Embassy once in the capital Mbabane but that was shut down in 1994. Diplomatic relations between Eswatini and Israel have since been managed from South Africa’s administrative capital Pretoria.

Relations between Israel and South Africa are currently strained, to say the least, with the latter leading the international legal charge against Israel’s Gaza genocide.

While that increases the likelihood of Israel actually planning an Eswatini mission move from South Africa, authorities from either side have remained tight-lipped over the plan.

In June, Newman Ntshangase, principal secretary at the Eswatini Foreign Ministry, told local media that consultations on the matter were “at a high level and in early stages.”

Information would be made public once it was “mutually concretized by both states,” he told local publication Times Sunday, adding that Eswatini would view it as “a positive outcome.”

While there has been no official comment from Israel, Ntshangase told Anadolu that matters were still at the same point as the government has not “received new information with regards to Israeli’s foreign policy decision to reopen (a diplomatic mission) in Eswatini.”

He said Israel has the right to make the sovereign decision of where to station its diplomatic missions, which would be “done through a formal mutual consent process with the host nation.”

“Should there be any (progress), the ministry will gladly bring it to the public domain,” he said.

Percy Simelane, spokesperson for Eswatini’s King Mswati III, also defended the country’s right to engage with Israel.

“Israel had an embassy in Eswatini even before the incumbent king,” he told Anadolu.

“Eswatini has a sovereign right to choose, which comes into force without having to be passed or approved by other nations. The kingdom is at liberty to pick its diplomatic partners just like any other country.”

- Israel is ‘running the regime’

Thokozane Kunene, general secretary of the Communist Party of Swaziland, slammed the idea and asserted that it was a reflection of the Eswatini government’s level of collusion with Israel.

“Israel has always had an important role in defending the Swazi regime, protecting its economic interests and helping it accumulate strategic territories,” Kunene told Anadolu.

He asserted that Israel has also “supported the regime by placing its agents in the executive, judiciary and security agencies.”

They have increased their “presence in the country, becoming more dominant to a point that they are literally running the regime,” he said.

The accusations have been denied by the Eswatini government.

Back in 2018, online investigative outlet Swaziland News revealed that Clayford Holdings Corp, an international intelligence company with links to the Israeli weapons industry, was paid nearly $700,000 by the Eswatini government in a controversial arms deal.

The report also exposed alleged spying by the Eswatini government, charges that authorities denied.

In 2019, Times of Eswatini reported that the government had lined up a $72 million controversial cybersecurity deal with Israel Aerospace Industries.

In April this year, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed how an Israeli company gave highly sophisticated spying technology to Eswatini police, allowing them to intercept phone conversations and access text messages without leaving a trace.

- Is Eswatini endorsing Gaza atrocities?

Petros Qambukusa Magagula, a former political science lecturer at the University of Eswatini, warned of the implicit message being conveyed by the Eswatini government.

“If they (Israel) want to move the embassy because South Africa doesn’t agree with their behavior, and if we allow them, it would mean Eswatini is in agreement with the atrocities they are committing in Gaza,” he told Anadolu.

A relocation of the embassy, he added, would be a heavy blow to democracy in Eswatini.

“The collaboration of the Swazi monarch and Israel is leading to a consolidation of dictatorship,” he said.

“This is nothing new … Even in apartheid South Africa, Israel was a great collaborator of the apartheid regime.”

Magagula said Eswatini has received a lot of development aid from the Arab world over the years.

King Mswati III, he explained, strategically shifted his foreign policy towards the Arab world because he was irked by the conditions of “good governance and human rights which were always attached to Western development aid.”

If Eswatini opens the door to Israeli diplomatic presence, it could lead the country to hostilities with others in the Middle East, he added.

“Are the Arab governments going to be happy? Definitely not. It will then depend on how the Arab world reacts to Eswatini’s betrayal …. Are they going to react in terms of material support or diplomatically? Will they punish or sanction Eswatini as far as economic assistance is concerned?”

Simelane, the king’s spokesperson, rejected these concerns, asserting that Eswatini is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and Arab countries should respect its position.

“We have no reason to think the Arab world would disassociate itself from Eswatini if Israel brings back its embassy,” he said.

“There is a country that supplies Israel with weapons that are used against Arab states, but that country has not been dumped by the Arab world as yet.”