Under the title “Israel: Apartheid State” and with the participation of many activists from around the world and supporters of the Palestinian cause, at the initiative of the Instituto Brasil Palestina IBRASPAL, Council for International Relations of Palestine CIR, and Free Journalists.

Zwelivelile Mandela: Member of South African Parliament MP, Traditional Leader of Mvezo Komkhulu. President Nelson Mandela’s grandson, in which he addressed the similarities between racism in Israel and racism in South Africa.

“I greet you in the universal greeting of peace and trust that you are all well and enjoying good health. We convey our heartfelt greetings to the leadership and people of Palestine and salute you for your bravery and courage through seven decades of occupation. 

 

Allow me to express my thanks and appreciation to the Council on International Relations Palestine and the Instituto Brasil Palestina for organizing this symposium on a topic that is relevant, contemporary and of critical importance in this phase of struggle.

 

Much has been written and spoken about the parallels between South Africa and Israel especially in characterizing both states as Apartheid States and the popular struggles and global solidarity movements. I would just like to take a moment though to acknowledged the deep rooted anti-colonial struggle of Brazil and how generations of Brazilians too had to grapple and probably still have to grapple with the complex struggles of race and class. In particular, I want to acknowledge the Brazilian Palestine solidarity movement that scored a major success for the sanctions campaign against Israel. If you recall it was at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games that, for the first time, activists mobilized against the Israeli securitization of sport. Brazilian-Palestinian solidarity action, calling for Rio to be an ‘Olympics without Apartheid’, led the then Brazilian government to distance itself from a $2 billion agreement with an Israeli security company. We salute you and look forward to many more small and huge victories in effort to mobilize global solidarity with Palestine.

 

Ladies and gentlemen; the strategy and tactics of struggle demands that we always embark on a course of action that enhances the broad objectives of struggle at a given moment in time. Such course of action at another time may be ineffectual, irrelevant and unable to deliver us the desired results.

 

Ladies and gentlemen; it is in the nature of boycott campaigns that it may start out with very limited support but with effective planning, structured organization, strong networking and lobbying may achieve extraordinary results. I am encouraged by the hard work undertaken by Dr Basem Naim and the Boycott Campaign Palestine. I am on record as saying that the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) is probably currently the most powerful weapon in the hands of the Palestinian people and all who support this noble cause globally.

 

If anyone ever doubted that Israel is an Apartheid State the confirmation is evident in how it has and continues to react to the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions. Let me put it slightly different to you; the first characteristic that the Apartheid State in South Africa displayed towards the call for sanctions by the global Anti-Apartheid Movement and internally was it's brutality. 

 

Today, Apartheid Israel continues in its efforts to brutally crush any call for sanctions. It does this firstly through targeting the leadership of the sanctions movement and liquidating the space within which they can operate, restricting personal freedoms and liberties, and attempting to defeat the strategic objectives.

 

In Apartheid South Africa leadership and even ordinary struggle operatives and activists were hounded, detained without trial, interrogated and tortured in a way that leaves no doubt that these were twin Apartheids that were not only conjoined at the hip but deployed identical strategies and committed similar atrocities.

 

Internally we faced banning of all political formations, the incarceration of the struggle leadership and the forced exile of leading activists. This lead to mass protests and conscientisation of multiple generations of youth of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. This in turn lead to greater global awareness of our struggle as the Apartheid State became even more brutal in its attempts to crush the internal uprising.

 

Externally, the Apartheid State colluded with the forces of global imperialism in the West to liquidate and capture our leadership, cooperate with rogue elements and states in sanctions busting, engage in disinformation campaign to counter our successes in the sanctions campaign, and it mobilized it's right wing allies to undermine the work of the sanctions campaign including through legal action. 

 

The second characteristic of Israel as an Apartheid State in relation to the Palestinian Boycott Campaign is the way it has mobilized an extensive network of lobbying groups especially in the legal fraternity to keep us engaged in protracted legal action that not only drain meagre resources but also sought to divert our energies from the core elements of struggle. A classical example of this was the attempt to stop the Global Palestine Expo in London about two years ago. 

 

The third characteristic of the Apartheid State is it's unrelenting efforts at seeking legitimacy. It does this primarily in two forms. Firstly it deploys extensive chequebook diplomacy to exercise political influence over nations through the extension of development aid. This serves to neutralize hostility or opposition towards apartheid Israel on the one hand and on the other hand it attempts to influence voting patterns if not outright support for its position or to encourage abstention from voting against Apartheid Israel in international forums.

 

The fourth characteristic of Apartheid Israel is it's extensive efforts at sanctions busting either through collusion with front companies that conceal Apartheid Israel produce through dodgy labels or relabelling. It also employs diversionary tactics much the way that Apartheid South Africa did. The most classic example of this is the military armoured personnel tanks captured by the Polisario Front in its war with Morroco. These South African manufactured tanks had actually been supplied via Apartheid Israel.

 

On the 30 November 1973 United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid was the first binding international treaty which declared the crime of apartheid and racial segregation under international law. This was both an indictment of Apartheid South Africa's nature as a racist state as well as a condemnation of the atrocities it committed against innocent civilians. In this regard seven decades of pogroms by Apartheid Israel has resulted in mass exodus and some six million Palestinian refugees in the diaspora, the illegal expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, the mindless war and blockade on Gaza that has killed, wounded and maimed innocent women and children and destroyed the lives of many youths, the incarceration of hundreds if not thousands of activists without trial some as young as 12 years old. There can be no doubt whatsoever that Israel is an Apartheid State.

 

We must and will continue this noble struggle to defeat Apartheid Israel and to ensure that every Palestinian is accorded full human rights; the right of return of all refugees; restitution of land especially the illegal Israeli Apartheid settlements, the release of all political prisoners and to charge the criminals with perpetrating acts against humanity otherwise defined as Apartheid. 

 

Symposiums such as these give us an opportunity to gauge the barometer of our efforts and to measure and assess the extent to which we have achieved our strategic objectives and what is to be done. I wish you well in the critically important work that you do and may you grow from strength to strength until we meet in a free Palestine. 

 

The fight goes on!!!

 

Thank you.