Against Israeli occupation

11 June 2007

On Saturday, 9 June, about 20,000 South Africans around the country participated in a number of activities, united in a single call: “Free Palestine! End Israeli occupation”. Major activities on Saturday included a march in Cape Town where 10,000 protestors braved the rain to march and listen to speakers calling for an end to the occupation and calling for boycotts and sanctions against Israel, followed by a symbolic ring of 350 cars around the US Consulate. The Johannesburg City Hall Rally, addressed by 15 speakers, including Cosatu President Willie Madisha, South African Council of Churches General Secretary Eddie Makue, Palestinian ambassador Ali Halimeh, various faith representatives, Steven Friedman, Palestinian solidarity and social movement activist Virginia Setshedi and Palestinian Legislative Council member Dr Bernard Sabella was packed to capacity. The rally was chaired by Minister Kasrils. The Durban rally was also well attended. Other activities took place in various parts of the country. All the events noted the absence of Palestinian Education Minister, Nasr al-Din al-Shaer, who was to participate in the week of action but was arrested by Israeli forces a week before he was due to arrive in South Africa.

Saturday’s protests followed more than a week of activities as part of the “Week of Action” called for by a new coalition called End the Occupation Campaign. The activities included rallies, pickets outside supermarkets selling Israeli goods, sermons in mosques and churches, seminars, radio talk shows and two parliamentary debates (one in the National Assembly and one in the Western Cape Legislature).

We call on the United Nations and its member states – including the South African government:

1.      To exert pressure on Israel to end its illegal occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights;

2.      To provide international protection for the Palestinian people living under occupation;

3.      To end the siege and financial blockade that has been imposed against the elected Palestinian Authority and to end the collective punishment of the Palestinian people;

4.      To bring to justice in the International Criminal Court or in another international or national forum – based on universal jurisdiction - to those guilty of war crimes against the Palestinian people;

5.      To end the murderous arms trade with Israel.

The activities of this week – which was the 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights, coincided with similar actions across the globe, as movements from Australia to the USA, from the United Kingdom to Malaysia, responded to a call from the International Coordinating Network on Palestine for global days of action on the 9 and 10 June to call for an end to Israeli occupation. Hundreds of thousands of people united across the globe to pledge themselves to working to end the occupation. While the Week of Action has ended our solidarity has just begun. More and more South African organisations are joining our Campaign. Already, we represent the views of the vast majority of South African citizens. We are ratcheting up preparations for the commemoration of the Nakba and 60 years of ethnic cleansing; strengthening our links with Palestinian organisations, including those in the Diaspora and those Palestinians who are deemed ‘Israeli citizens’ yet face constant discrimination as well as those facing a military occupation in the West Bank, Gaza and Syrian Golan Heights. We do this while we embrace those Israelis who stand with the oppressed Palestinians.

We face a new crisis of war and occupation, a crisis in which Palestinians continue to suffer, even more than the suffering already imposed by decades of brutal occupation and apartheid.

Thirty years ago, the United Nations recognized, condemned and committed itself to oppose the international crime of apartheid. Crucially, it defined apartheid as a general crime against humanity, not specific to the then-reality of South Africa. Today, 13 years after the end of apartheid in South Africa, Israel continues to practice a system of apartheid and, further, perpetuates the longest occupation in recent history, having created the largest refugee population in the world. We join justice-loving people from around the world to identify, condemn and commit ourselves to opposing these heinous crimes. As we were in the past, we are again determined that the perpetrators of that crime be brought to justice.

We, South Africans who have lived through apartheid cannot be silent as another entire people are treated as non-human beings, without rights or human dignity and facing daily humiliation. We cannot permit a ruthless state to use military jets, helicopter gun-ships and tanks on civilians. We cannot accept state assassinations of activists, torture of political prisoners, murder of children and collective punishment.

We South Africans understand apartheid and declare for the entire world to know that what is being perpetrated against the Palestinians by the apartheid Israeli state is worse than what we had to face under South African apartheid. Further, we see in the laws of Israel the reflection of Influx Control, Pass Laws, the Group Areas Act, the Mixed Marriages Act, the ethnic restrictions on land use, the deprival of citizenship as we had seen these in South Africa. These human rights violations were unacceptable in apartheid South Africa and are an affront to us as they continue to exist in apartheid Israel. For us, the struggle against apartheid is not over.

Despite the three-year old Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice which held Israel’s Apartheid Wall to be illegal, the construction of the Wall is nearly complete. The Wall encircles Palestinian towns and cities in the most massive land- grab since 1967. We call on the United Nations to implement the totality of the ICJ’s Opinion – especially the section calling for the illegal Wall to be dismantled. We also call on the South African government – which presented crucial testimony to the ICJ and which regards the Apartheid Wall as illegal – to use its position on the UN Security Council and its position in other inter-governmental fora to work towards the implementation of the ICJ Opinion.

We are in a critical and historical moment. We can no longer shut our eyes to the urgent crisis facing the Palestinian people and the obligations of the international community to end it; we must seize this moment to push for a real movement forward in order to achieve a just peace. We are part of those working towards creating a new reality – based on justice, human rights and international law – to end the occupation and realise the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

We are convinced that the just struggle of the Palestinian people will see its proper end: with the destruction of the Apartheid Wall, the dismantling of all the Israeli settlements in Palestinian areas, the return of Palestinian refugees and the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. We, South Africans of conscience, commit ourselves to playing our role towards this end. We will work with other solidarity groups and civil society organisations around the world to respond to the call by Palestinian civil society for a global campaign of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), based on building a non-violent movement of opposition to Israeli apartheid and occupation.

Issued by: End the Occupation Campaign.

Endorsed by: African National Congress, Al Quds Foundation, ANC Youth League, ANC Women’s League, Anti Privatisation Forum, BAWISI Youth, Cape Town Refugee Centre, Children's Resource Centre, Congress of South African Trade Unions, Congress of South African Students, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Friends of Cuba Society, Lagunyakha Ministers Association, Media Review Network, MK Military Veterans Association, Muslim Judicial Council, Muslim Students Association, Muslim Youth Movement, New Women's Movement, Not in my Name, Palestine Solidarity Committee, Palestine Solidarity Alliance, Palestine Solidarity Group, South African Council of Churches, South African Communist Party, South African National Muslim Women’s Forum,  South African Students Congress, SWEAT, Treatment Action Campaign, Thornhill Residents Association, Workers Organisation for Socialist Action, Young Communist League.