Zionist Brent Bozell Confirmed as Trump’s Ambassador to South Africa
He's vowed to press Pretoria to "end" its genocide case against Israel
On December 18, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Brent Bozell — also known as Leo Brent Bozell III or L. Brent Bozell III — as the new U.S. ambassador to South Africa.
You’ll be forgiven for missing this, as it does not appear to have been reported on by most major outlets, including (for example) The Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, Fox News, or Politico.
Part of the reason why might be that Bozell and almost a hundred other nominees for various positions within the Trump administration were considered “en bloc,” meaning that a single vote was taken for all of them at once, instead of one by one.
The roll call broke down along party lines, with all 53 Senate Republicans voting “yea,” and no Democrats or Independents.
It was the “third nominations tranche” Republicans have confirmed since they changed the rules in September to allow such votes.
‘Standing by Israel’
Bozell is a longtime “conservative” activist and talking head who served for decades as president of the Media Research Center (MRC), a “watchdog” organization he founded in 1987, which in turn created the well-known NewsBusters blog. He stepped down earlier this year after Trump announced his nomination, handing the reins to his son David.
As with so many of Trump’s other selections — e.g., Pete Hegseth, Mike Huckabee, Tammy Bruce, Dan Bongino, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s “dear friend” Marco Rubio, just to name a few — Bozell is a longtime, avowed Zionist.
During his confirmation hearing on October 23, he openly stated that, if confirmed, he will “press South Africa to end proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice.”
Watch:
“What South Africa did in leading the charge against Israel in the International Court of Justice was an injustice!” Bozell said in response to a question from Senator Mike Lee. “It’s going to be a top priority because the President has made it a top priority, and the President has told me it’s a top priority to do something about that.”
“Our alliance with Israel is ironclad,” he insisted moments later. “They are one of our greatest friends in the world. The President’s gonna stand by Israel, and that means we have to address this with South Africa.”
Bozell also vowed to “pressure the International Criminal Court prosecutor” Karim Khan to discontinue what he called “lawfare” against Israel, which he said is “belied by Israel’s support for the ceasefire in Gaza and commitment to the rules of war throughout the conflict.”
Khan announced in May 2024 that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, plus several high-ranking Hamas officials.
In the case of Netanyahu and Gallant, Khan said that his office had evidence that the two bore “criminal responsibility” for the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population, and other war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The following month, after Khan was reportedly subjected to “several forms of threats” and “hostile intelligence activity” from Israel, 93 countries signed a statement in support of the ICC, vowing to “preserve its integrity from any political interference and pressure against the court, its officials and those cooperating with it.”
The arrest warrants were issued later that year.
Friend of the IDF
A self-described “good, good friend” of Mark Levin, Bozell has a long history of propagandizing for Israel and its government and praising U.S. policies that align with Israeli goals.
On December 6, 2017, for instance — the day Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — Bozell wrote:
Anyone who reads the Bible knows what the real capital of Israel is. Good for Trump for finally making it official.
In August of 2019, Bozell shared a Fox News story about Israel denying entrance to U.S. congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib amid pressure from Trump and wrote:
It’s not often that you support a foreign government over members of your own, but Israel has every right to bar anti-Semites from entering.
In May of 2021, Bozell shared an article on Twitter from the (Ben Shapiro-founded) Daily Wire and wrote:
Self-described Marxist BLM organization backs Hamas terrorists. I’m shocked.
That story now says at the beginning: “This article and its title have been corrected to note that Black Lives Matter declared ‘solidarity’ expressly with Palestinians rather than Hamas.”
In October 2023, as Israel was beginning its genocidal onslaught in Gaza, Bozell sent out a fundraising letter comparing Hamas to Hitler, pushing Israeli atrocity propaganda, including the infamous “40 beheaded babies” hoax, and encouraging people to donate to “Friends of the IDF,” writing in part:
As a rule, I don’t make appeals for anything outside of the Media Research Center. . . . But there are exceptions when there are emergencies. And this is an emergency. You are well aware of the atrocities being committed by Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists against the Israeli people. . . . Their stated goal is to eradicate the Jewish people. Their stated goal is exactly what Adolf Hitler wanted. He did it with gas chambers. They are doing it by butchering men, women and children with indiscriminate bombing, shooting, raping and slitting throats. The terrorists are even using their own women and children as shields. Think about this for a moment. Imagine you are a father, or a mother, and return to a kibbutz to find that your little baby has been beheaded by these monsters. That is exactly what these monsters did to 40 little babies.
On October 7, 2024, Bozell — who unsurprisingly does not appear to have ever posted anything Israel’s Hannibal Directive — said on X:
We will always remember October 7.
We will always support Israel and the Jewish people.
We will always defend civilization from evil terrorists trying to destroy Judeo-Christian society.
Apartheid Era
Bozell’s involvement with South Africa actually goes back to at least the late 1980s, per a letter surfaced by Talking Points Memo (TPM).
“As Black activists in South Africa fought against their country’s racist apartheid government decades ago, some on the American right felt they took it too far,” TPM reported earlier this year.
“One of those people who stepped up and spoke out against their fight was L. Brent Bozell III,” they wrote, before going on to explain some of the specifics:
In 1987, Bozell was president of the National Conservative Political Action Committee. On January 28 of that year, he wrote a letter to his counterpart at The Conservative Caucus, a right-wing policy group, declaring that his organization was “proud to become a member of the Coalition Against ANC Terrorism.” The group was opposed to the militancy of the African National Congress (ANC), which was the largest Black nationalist organization dedicated to ending the apartheid regime. (…) The coalition… included at least 34 different right-wing groups, formed to discourage President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, George Shultz, from a planned meeting with ANC president Oliver Tambo. Despite this pressure campaign, Shultz met with Tambo on the same day Bozell’s letter was sent.
“The ANC’s armed wing… was founded in 1961 by a group that included the late legendary anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela,” TPM explained.
“The organization conducted bombings and guerilla attacks, some of which were deadly. Mandela, who is now widely seen as a heroic figure, spent 27 years in prison for his role.”
Regarding the coalition's campaign to discredit and undermine the ANC — and how Tambo, Mandela, and their organization ultimately prevailed — TPM wrote:
Ahead of his meeting with Shultz, Tambo addressed criticism of the ANC’s militancy. He described it as a necessary evil in light of the brutality of the apartheid regime, which committed extensive atrocities including the murder of peaceful protesters.
“We tried nonviolence for nearly 50 years, until 1961,” Tambo told the Washington Post at the time. “Then we decided we had to do what other people do — to embark on armed struggle.”
As part of its opposition to the meeting between Tambo and Shultz, the “Coalition Against ANC Terrorism” produced a publication that highlighted the ANC’s Soviet and communist ties. The group also held hearings in the weeks before Tambo’s visit that were presided over by the late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), who was a prominent advocate for segregation here in the United States. Speakers at the coalition’s hearings included John Gogotya, a Black South African politician who led a moderate group that was later revealed to have been backed by the apartheid regime’s military intelligence operation.
While Bozell’s coalition and others on the right were opposed to the ANC, Mandela and the group ultimately received extensive international support that helped end apartheid. In 1990, in response to widespread civil unrest and global sanctions, South Africa’s ruling white National Party released Mandela and other jailed ANC leaders. South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994 and Mandela became president. He held that position for five years, but the ANC has remained the country’s leading political party.
As discussed in a previous Decensored News article about Israeli spy Arnon Milchan (see the subsection entitled Spying and Propagandizing), Israel had a years-long secret alliance with the government of apartheid South Africa, whereby the former covertly provided military technology and weapons systems, public relations assistance, and critical nuclear components in exchange for access to the latter’s vast natural resources, particularly uranium, which Israel needed for its own covert nuclear weapons program.
‘Not a Lawyer’
As we reported earlier this year, Trump has said that a “white genocide” is taking place in South Africa — a claim that has been widely (and often strongly) disputed, including by Human Rights Watch, Geoff Hill, Andile Zulu, Pauline Bax and many white South Africans and/or Afrikaners, and which seems to be intended in part as a propaganda measure against South Africa, meant to paint them as hypocrites and undermine their case at the ICJ.
Asked by Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) at his confirmation hearing whether he agreed that such a “genocide” is taking place, Bozell — who, again, says he plans to press South Africa to drop their genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice — said he “can’t address” that because he’s “not a lawyer.”
Transcript:
VAN HOLLEN: Mr. Bozell, in February of this year, President Trump made the legally and morally absurd claim that the government of South Africa was engaged in genocide against Afrikaners there. If confirmed you will of course be our ambassador to South Africa, so I have a pretty straight-forward question: Do you agree that that claim was absurd?
BOZELL: Thank you Senator for that question. My answer to you is this: If you were to talk to those people who are involved, they fear–
VAN HOLLEN: Mr. Bozell, I’m sorry. Genocide is a legally defined issue… It’s not a question of someone’s impression. There’s a legal definition for it. To your knowledge, has the State Department legal advisor concluded that the government of South Africa’s engaged in genocide?
BOZELL: Senator, I don’t know that answer, but–
VAN HOLLEN: You should. You should.
BOZELL: But Senator–
VAN HOLLEN: No, it’s a straightforward question… There’s a legal definition of genocide. I wanna know if you agree that it’s an absurd claim made by the President of the United States.
BOZELL: Senator, I’m not a lawyer. So I can’t address it that way.”
Van Hollen went on to ask about Trump’s favoritism toward Afrikaners and whether he thinks we “should have a refugee policy based on race.” Bozell repeatedly refused to give a direct answer.
When Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) followed up and reasked the question, Bozell not only dodged again, but also refused to say whether or not he’d support reinstituting laws in America “to only allow white people to vote.”
“Senator, I’m going to serve as ambassador to South Africa, and I want to focus on that,” Bozell replied.
When Murphy reiterated the question, asking Bozell whether he thinks it’s “right or wrong to reinstitute discriminatory policies” in America to “prevent black people from voting,” Bozell said his views are “irrelevant” while still not providing an answer.
“Well, that’s just simply not true,” Murphy replied. “The whole reason that you’re appearing before this committee is because your personal views, your history, is absolutely relevant to your fitness to serve.”
Rejecting Bozell
Under Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations:
1. The receiving State may at any time and without having to explain its decision, notify the sending State that the head of the mission or any member of the diplomatic staff of the mission is persona non grata or that any other member of the staff of the mission is not acceptable. In any such case, the sending State shall, as appropriate, either recall the person concerned or terminate his functions with the mission. A person may be declared non grata or not acceptable before arriving in the territory of the receiving State.
2. If the sending State refuses or fails within a reasonable period to carry out its obligations under paragraph 1 of this article, the receiving State may refuse to recognize the person concerned as a member of the mission.
“South Africa can decline to accept Bozell as ambassador,” journalist Sam Husseini wrote on X on Monday, citing this text and tagging numerous accounts run by the country’s government.
“It should do so. Now.”
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