Cape Town - A concerted mobilisation campaign spanning several weeks saw thousands of people calling for the South African government to comprehensively isolate Israel through the implementation of an Apartheid Convention Bill.
The march started at the corner of Hanover and Chapel Street, District Six, to Parliament, on Saturday, ahead of the sombre one-year remembrance of the unprecedented war on Gaza, with Israeli attacks expanding to include the invasion and attacks on Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, as well as the West Bank in Palestine.
The mass march was organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and a coalition of civil society organisations, faith-based groups and human rights activists.
It saw activists, creatives, health and aid workers, students and those within the education sector, trade unions, political parties, religious and civic organisations, solidarity organisations, and the general public, taking part.
Some of the these included South African Jews for a Free Palestine, Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine SA, Housing Assembly, Salt River Heritage Society, and Journalists Against Apartheid.
Political parties endorsing the action included the ANC, Al Jama-ah, EFF, GOOD, PAC, MK Party, and the NCC.
The River Goddess Puppet, created by Ukwanda Puppets and Designs Art Collective in collaboration with the University of the Western Cape (UWC), made its way through the scores of people.
Speakers included Gift of the Givers founder Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, Palestinian South African professor Haidar Eid, anti-apartheid activist Reverend Dr Allan Boesak, Al Quds Foundation SA director Shaykh Ebrahim Gabriels, UWC PSC chairperson Hajar AjamMathee, Muslim Judicial Council president Shaykh Riad Fataar, and Stellenbosch University speaker Malaika Ngwena, among others.
Professor Eid shared that he had left Gaza in December.
“Since October 7 last year, until today, more than 42 000 civilians have been killed, 78% of whom are children and women including some of my own students, some of my colleagues and my relatives.”
He said what Palestinians wanted was for the international community to isolate Apartheid Israel, an immediate ceasefire, and the withdrawal of Israeli troops in Gaza and the West Bank.
“I want the implementation of the United Nations Resolution 194 which calls for my Right of return. I want to return to the village from which my family was ethnically cleansed in 1948, and want compensation. Seventy-six years now of dispossession, exile, occupation, horror, genocide, settler-colonialism, who would accept something like this? We want justice. And we want equality.”
A massive banner with the image of slain GOTG Gaza Office head Ahmad Abbasi was carried throughout the march by GOTG team members.
Abbasi was killed by an Israeli airstrike when the mosque he was praying at for the early morning prayers was targeted on November 16.
He was killed alongside his brother, Dr Mustafa Abbasi. Dr Sooliman said Abbasi refused to move per Israeli directives and vowed to remain put with his family in Gaza City, and to continue delivering aid to the Palestinian people.
“We will wait for the bombs to fall and we will die as non-combatant martyrs. For as long as I'm alive, I will deliver aid for the people of Palestine,” Sooliman quoted Abbasi as saying.
Sooliman said the GOTG team in Gaza has lost 175 family members.
“They haven't given up, and we haven't given up. Our aid continues from inside and our aid continues from outside.”
Sooliman thanked the local communities who had come out to show support, as well as the local anti-Zionist Jewish community for speaking out against injustices committed by Israel, while facing isolation and alienation from family and friends.
Ajam-Mathee said: Dear friends and family, part of supporting the resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, and all over is to listen to them and their struggles, for confronting the Israeli genocidal machine directly and that is why I stand here in front of you all here today, and I say proudly with my chest, long live the resistance, long live!”
“Please keep all oppressed persons in your thoughts and in your prayers, I'm talking about Sudan, Congo, Rohingya, Yemen, Uyghur, and Kenya. Smash the patriarchy and smash white supremacy.”
Ngwena said: “If you are silent now, you are saying yes to apartheid, yes to genocide. If you are an institution that has not said anything up until this point, you are saying yes to apartheid, I'm speaking to Stellenbosch University and to Stellenbosch University students, speak out!”
PSC chairperson Martin Jansen said they have, for the past ten years, been calling on the government to implement Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, however this call was not heeded.
“We know that the Government has taken the case of genocide to the ICJ, but we know that Israel and the USA has defied the ruling of the ICJ. They are still murdering people en masse every single day. And we’re saying that we’ve lost patience with our government, that it needs to do much more to punish Israel and to contribute towards stopping the genocide, and liberating Palestine.”
Jansen said the PSC, PSA, and SA BDS Coalition have drafted legislation, called the Apartheid Convention Bill.
“Which we want Parliament to adopt the legislation as soon as possible so that we can start punishing Israel and putting an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people and the threat that Israel poses to international peace.”
The Apartheid Convention Bill is based on the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid Bill, with calls for its adoption into law which would enable BDS against Israel by South Africans compulsory and mandatory; as well as enabling the prosecution and punishment of those implementing and/ or supporting apartheid anywhere in the world.
The bill and memorandum was handed over to the Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation, chairperson Supra Mahumapelo.
Donning a keffiyeh, Mahumapelo said he accepted the memorandum on behalf of Parliament Speaker Thoko Didiza and assured that the memorandum would reach the Speaker, who will look at it and ensure feedback is provided thereafter.
In addition to this, Mahumapelo was also handed a weighty document, “Killed in Gaza” with the names of the over 30 000 people murdered by Israel and whose murders are often merely reported as numbers.
shakirah.thebus@inl.co.za
Cape Argus