Barking at the Big Dogs: South Africa's Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East

Abstract

This article places South Africa's foreign policy towards the Middle East in the context of the country's general foreign policy. South Africa is classified as a middle power, given its penchant for international ‘bridge-building’ and multilateralism. With regard to the Middle East, South Africa has frequently offered itself as a mediator in the region's various conflicts and continues to do so. However, the argument proposed here is that there is an ‘anti-imperialist’ strain in South Africa's foreign policy that renders it unlikely to be regarded as an impartial broker in the various Middle East conflicts. South Africa's middle power proclivities, as well as its anti-imperialist tendencies, are demonstrated with regard to Iran's nuclear ambitions, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, recent events involving Lebanon, and Hamas's 2006 electoral victory.