SA should do to Israel what the world did to the apartheid government — sever all diplomatic and trade ties.
This is according to Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane, who says while the anti-Israel protests nationwide have put pressure on the Middle East country, more needed to be done against the “apartheid state”.
Israel has been widely condemned amid mounting pressure to stop its occupation of Palestine and air strikes, which have killed thousands of people, including women and children over a decade.
Israel has said previously that it is fighting against Hamas fighters who have fired rockets on its citizens.
But Mabuyane says it is time for SA to take the lead in cutting all ties with Israel as the ANC resolved at its national elective conference in 2017.
The first step was the downgrading of the SA embassy in Israel.
“We fought colonialism in Africa, the effects of which we all know, but our people have been liberated, so those few countries that are still fighting for their liberation will be supported by us because we know we got our liberation because of the support of the world and international solidarity,” he said.
Asked if he wanted SA to cut all diplomatic and trade ties with Israel, Mabuyane said if need be, that should be done.
“That’s the call we’re making.
“Those issues are being processed at a diplomatic level because we can’t continue allowing that situation to go on unabated.
“If it means we are with the people of Palestine without Israel, let it be so, as much as we don’t want to isolate any country in the world.
“But all countries must respect human rights and understand that they must participate in making it a point that people are free in the entire world.
“It’s part of our ongoing campaign to say if need be, let’s cut all ties with Israel.”
Asked for comment, international relations and co-operation department spokesperson Clayson Monyela referred The Herald to a May 30 media statement, which he said represented the government’s position on the Palestine-Israel conflict.
The statement said SA welcomed the adoption of the UN Human Rights Council Resolution to establish an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate alleged human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel to date.
SA has bemoaned the killing of innocent people in the decade-long fight.
“The protracted Israeli-Palestine conflict is one of an unbalanced power equation, between a nuclear state, as the occupying power, and a people with no military power resisting occupation while striving for the right to self-determination and exercising their basic human rights,” the statement read.
“The continued discriminatory Israeli occupation and annexation policy entrench the Balkanisation of the Palestinian territory as an apartheid-style Bantustan, denying the Palestinian people their right to self-determination, and impeding peace and a viable two-state solution.”
Questions were sent to the Israeli embassy in Pretoria on Monday, but it had not responded by Tuesday.
Calls to the embassy a few minutes after 3.30pm on Tuesday were also fruitless, with a recorded message stating that the embassy was closed.
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