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Mpumelelo Mkhabela | SA's foreign policy unassailable when it focuses on right to human dignity

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South Africa's delegation to the ICJ after concluding its legal bid to force the immediate suspension of Israel's military operation in Gaza.
South Africa's delegation to the ICJ after concluding its legal bid to force the immediate suspension of Israel's military operation in Gaza.
Crispin Phiri/Supplied

Mpumelelo Mkhabela writes that those questioning South Africa's intervention at The Hague should read a bit about how your ancestors may have been victims of something that has some similarities with what's going on in Gaza. 

Thomas Hobbes, a philosopher who hated anarchy and loved order, said something profound about the duty of human beings to each other.

In his influential book, Leviathan, he wrote: "Before the names of Just and Unjust can have a place, there must be some coercive power to compel men equally to the performance of their covenants. Where there's no commonwealth, there nothing is Unjust."

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