Arjan El Fassed's Mandela Memo was a spoof not a hoax

This will never go away.  Once upon a time a chap called Arjan El Fassed wrote a spoof "Memo to Thomas L.Friedman from Nelson Mandela".  The memo was clearly a spoof and was run in El Fassed's own name. However its descriptions of Israel and the obvious comparisons with South African apartheid were so real that the memo itself was genuinely mistaken for real.  A little checking showed that the memo was not from Mandela at all but some seem to believe that El Fassed was truly trying to deceive people in spite of him having signed off the memo in his own name.  And of course there are anti-Arab racists who have a stake in discrediting any and every Palestinian.

The latest person to mistake the memo for being by the real Nelson Mandela is the Labour MP Chris Williamson and The Jewish Chronicle can't conceal its glee.

Labour MP Chris Williamson is embroiled in further controversy after sharing on social media a notorious faked Nelson Mandela quote that compared Israel to apartheid-era South Africa.

Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow fire minister – who last week described antisemitism allegations within his party as “bulls**t” – tweeted the quote, which was made up by an anti-Zionist website, as part of an announcement that he had joined a “Picnic For Palestine” event in his Derby constituency last Saturday.

The tweet displayed a photo of Mr Williamson alongside pro-Palestinian activists and included the full version of the quote which has regularly been attributed to Mr Mandela by anti-Israel campaigners.

The quote was revealed as fake in 2007 by Joel Pollack, an American political writer, who found that it was actually written as a spoof memo by Arjan El Fassed, a co-founder of the anti-Zionist Electronic Intifada website.

In the same paragraph as the Mandela "quote" is described as "fake" it is also described as a spoof.  A fake is clearly aimed at deceiving people whereas a spoof is a joke.

I've read all about El Fassed's explanation about how people got the wrong idea about his spoof memo on his own blog which includes Ha'aretz deliberately smearing him as a hoaxer in 2001.  The Jewish Chronicle however seems to be hedging on whether the memo was a spoof or a hoax.  Sure, they call it a spoof but they say "the quote was revealed as a fake in 2007 by Joel Pollack".  And that's the bit I don't understand.  The memo was written and signed off in the name Arjan El Fassed in 2001.  He and others wrote to many newspapers to explain the spoof and to point to the byline, Arjan El Fassed, in the original.  So how and why did it take Joel Pollack six years to discover that it wasn't from the real Nelson Mandela? And if Ha'aretz was denouncing the spoof  in 2001, why does Joel Pollack get any credit in this at all (including in El Fassad's Wikipedia entry)?

I can't answer the Joel Pollack question but I suspect if anyone thought the spoof memo was really from Nelson Mandela it must be the very real similarities between The State of Israel and apartheid South Africa.

On the death of a Prime Minister

From Private Eye magazine, obviously.

ANC backs BDS at last

More good news.  According to the Jewish Chronicle, the African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, has officially adopted a boycott of Israel as policy.  You'd think this was only natural given the ANC's struggle against settler colonialism and apartheid in its own country but you'd be wrong.

Back in 2004 Ehud Olmert visited South Africa to sign a trade agreement between the State of Israel and South Africa.  I reported it at the time but the links have all expired:

The new South Africa has signed a trade agreement with the last (hopefully) of the apartheid states. According to Reuters, Israel's Ehud Olmert hailed a "new" era of South Africa ties. All very strange when you consider that Israel had ties with South Africa through the whole of the apartheid era. What is new here is that the ANC seems to have lost its political memory.

I had to do a bit of a search for the old info and I came up with this from Fin24.com, a South African mostly business and financial news site:

South Africa's improved relationship with Israel took a concrete dimension this week with the conclusion of a trade agreement and the first official visit by a leading politician from the Jewish state in over a decade.

The then South African deputy foreign minister even jumped through a few hoops to defend the then government's position:

In Pretoria, deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad stressed in a meeting with pro-Palestinian groups on the eve of Olmert's arrival, was trying to be impartial by engaging both Tel Aviv and Palestinian groups.

So I don't know what's become of the agreement but here's the JC on the situation now:

South Africa’s ruling party announced that the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement will now form part of its official policy.

The African National Congress (ANC) endorsed the campaign in response to a call from pro-Palestinian activists, including BDS South Africa.

The resolution read: “The ANC is unequivocal in its support for the Palestinian people in their struggle for self-determination, and unapologetic in its view that the Palestinians are the victims and the oppressed in the conflict with Israel.”

Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, from BDS South Africa, said the move was “the most authoritative endorsement of the BDS against Israel campaign.”

 Let's hope it's not just lip service but you never know.....

I know where your children go to school....

This is old now, over a week, but have a look at this report from South Africa's Times Live website:

Cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro stuck to his anti-Zionist views on Tuesday after a public spat with a pro-Israel supporter.

Addressing the Cape Town Press Club, Shapiro criticised South Africa-Israel Public Affairs Committee chairman David Hersch, who also attended the event.

Hersch challenged the cartoonist, otherwise known as Zapiro, for depicting anti-Zionist views in his caricatures.

"You are an anti-Zionist, aren't you? Why do you do this while you send your children to Herzlea [a Jewish day school]?" he asked.

Zapiro told Hersch to leave his children out of the debate.

"This is classic, classic intimidatory tactics. Do not ever bring up my children again," retorted an angry Shapiro.

Zapiro later said he was indeed against political Zionism.

"I think that whatever notions of religious Zionism existed in the 19th century were already perverted by Theodore Herzl and company in order to ethnic-cleanse a land that had a lot of people, who were living there over a period of hundreds of years."

Zapiro said he was, therefore, not in agreement with the way Israel was formed.

"That's not true," Hersch shouted from his chair.

Zapiro silenced him with the words: "No, it is true and I've got the mike now. You had your chance... give back the occupied land and let Palestine become a country, become a nation; and also, abide by [United Nations] resolutions," Zapiro said.

Hmm, nasty business recalling the Judge Goldstone affair down South Africa way.  I had a similar run-in myself a bit closer to home.

Eugene TerreBlanche alive and kicking in Palestine

Surely others will see the similarity here. This is Harriet Sherwood in today's Observer:

The settlers come down the hill from the outpost, mostly on foot, but occasionally on horseback or in tractors or 4x4s. They carry Israeli flags, and sometimes bring guns, shovels and dogs. There may be as few as three or as many as 40. They taunt the local villagers and sometimes attack them. Often the Israeli army arrives and trains its weapons on the villagers.

Now consider the invasion of Bophuthatswana by Eugene Terreblanche's Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB). There are details on wikipedia here and there is a documentary on youtube here.

Of course, for all the similarity, there is a key difference between the racist tormentors of the Arabs of Palestine and the racist attackers of the Blacks of South Africa. In Palestine, the racists are the state or they have the support of the state. In South Africa even the apartheid authorities opposed the AWB eventually.

An apology from Jews against Jews against apartheid

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies has apologised to those Jews who struggled against apartheid back in the day. Here's Eric Naki in New Age:

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies has publicly apologised to Jews who fought against apartheid – for not having stood by them during the struggle.

Outgoing national chairman Zev Krengel, speaking on Friday at Lilliesleaf – the farm where Nelson Mandela and other Rivonia trialists were arrested in a raid by security forces in 1963 – said: “We did not fight for people who fought apartheid. For that we must apologise as the board. I think as the board we should have done more.”

He said the mandate of the Jewish Board was not to fight apartheid, but to protect the Jewish community and civil liberties. “We understand that the Jews who fought in the struggle are upset with the Jewish Board because it did not help them,” he said.

Krengel, who was elected as the youngest chairman in the board’s 108-year history, extended an olive branch to “struggle Jews”, saying they must engage the board to develop a dialogue between them and those who were not in community organisations.

I remember during the anti-apartheid struggle rabbis in South Africa argued for abstention on the grounds that apartheid was a political issue and yet they weren't so reticent about supporting Israel and condemning its critics. "Antisemitism", they said, was a moral issue.

Israel on trial in South Africa

Here's an interesting exercise taking place in South Africa.  It's a trial of the State of Israel for the crime of apartheid being conducted by the Russell Tribunal.  The venue is perhaps the best part so far, it's the District Six Museum.  Here are a few chunks of the article on the event in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency website:

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine -- a standing organization that held two tribunals against Israel last year in Barcelona and London -- has been called for Nov . 5-6 in Cape Town “to probe whether the treatment of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories meets the criteria of the United Nations convention against the crime of apartheid.”

Local zionists aren't happy and are talking it down:

The South African Zionist Federation has called the event, which is to involve prominent South Africans and already is making national headlines here, “an irrelevant talk shop.”

JTA doesn't agree:

But because of the attention it is receiving in South Africa, the tribunal is likely to be a damaging public relations exercise against Israel.

Look who's supporting it:

South Africa’s leading federation of trade unions, the ruling African National Congress party, the South African Communist Party, and Zackie Achmat, the AIDS activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee......

Two Israelis are slated to participate in the tribunal: attorneys Michael Sfard, who has represented Israelis refusing to serve in Israeli army operations in the West Bank and is the legal counsel to Peace Now's Settlement Watch project, and Leah Tsemel, who represents Palestinians in cases against Israel.....

Nobel Peace laureate and Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu, a frequent critic of the Jewish state, is slated to open the proceedings.

The “jury” will include Ronnie Kasrils, the Jewish former South African minister of intelligence who gained international notoriety some 10 years ago when he promoted several anti-Israel measures in parliament; Alice Walker, the African-American author who tried to take part in this year’s flotilla to Gaza and has defended suicide bombings as “last-ditch resistance"; Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire, who in 2009 was arrested by Israel for sailing on a boat attempting to break Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip; and Spanish Supreme Court judge Jose Antonio Pallin, who has accused Israel of war crimes.....

South African “witnesses” will include Steven Friedman, a Jewish proponent of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign targeting Israel; John Dugard, a former U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine; and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the ex-wife of anti-apartheid activist and former South African President Nelson Mandela.

And for the defence?

While the tribunal said it invited Israel, Dov Segev-Steinberg, the Israeli ambassador to South Africa, denied the claim.

“I have not seen any approach by the tribunal to Israel or the embassy,” he told JTA. Segev-Steinberg said Israel views the tribunal as a "kangaroo court without any justification.”

Why South Africa?

“The world expects South Africa to champion the rights of other people,” Kasrils said.

And why the District Six Museum?

The tribunal will meet at the District Six Museum, which was set up to commemorate some of the early forced removals of “Cape Coloreds,” as mixed-race South Africans from a particular ethnic group in Cape Town were known, from their homes and businesses under the apartheid government.

More on District Six here.

More on the Crime of Apartheid here.

UJ BDSs BGU

When I first saw this I thought the email said that the UJS had voted to sever ties with Israel.  It is the UJ, the University of Johannesburg which has voted to sever links with BGU, which is Ben Gurion University.  Here is Joseph Dana's website with what I think was the first report of the happy news:

In a major victory for proponents of the academic boycott of Israel, the University of Johannesburg has voted to end its relationship with Ben Gurion University. This decision to boycott Ben Gurion University carries special significance given South Africa’s history of Apartheid and the successful boycott that was launched against the country in the 1980’s. The university’s decision is another confirmation of the efficacy of the global BDS movement which, in a remarkable short time, has had a major impact on Israel’s ability to continue its occupation of West Bank with little international regard. Below is the press release detailing the decision.

Today, setting a worldwide precedent in the academic boycott of Israel, the University of Johannesburg (UJ) has effectively severed ties with Israel’s Ben-Gurion University (BGU).

This was after UJ’s Senate rejected a last ditch motion by pro-Israeli lobbyists to have two separate bilateral agreements – one with a Palestinian University and another with an Israeli University. UJ chose instead to uphold its previous Senate Resolution that required taking leadership from Palestinian universities. Palestinian universities unanimously rejected any collaboration with BGU (in any form) and have come out in full support of the the academic boycott of Israel. UJ chose to respect this.

UJ is the first institution to officially sever relations with an Israeli university – a landmark moment in the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel campaign. Throughout the campaign, academics and international human rights activists have been anticipating this decision. This boycott decision, coming from a South African institution, is of particular significance. This has set a precedent and must start a domino boycott effect!

The movement to end ties with BGU was boosted by the overwhelming support given to the UJ Petition (www.ujpetition.com) – a statement and campaign in support of UJ academics and students who were calling on their university to end its apartheid-era relationship with BGU. As the UJ senate met today, over 400 South African academics, including nine Vice-Chancellors and Deputy Vice-Chancellors, had signed the UJ Petition.

Included in the list of supporters are some of South Africa’s leading voices: Professors Neville Alexander, Kader Asmal, Allan Boesak, Breyten Breytenbach, John Dugard, Antjie Krog, Barney Pityana and Sampie Terreblanche. South Africa’s popular cartoonist Jonathan “Zapiro” Shapiro, Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu, Bishop Rubin Phillips, former Minister Ronnie Kasrils and leading social activist Zackie Achmat also backed the campaign.

Further, over 100 internationals began to lend their support, including several prominent international scholars: Professors Judith Butler, Vijay Prashad, Michael Burawoy, Wendy Brown, Ernesto Laclau, and acclaimed British author, John Berger.

Today UJ has made history by upholding and advancing academic moral integrity. Palestinians, South Africans and the international academic and solidarity community celebrate this decisive victory in isolating Israeli apartheid and supporting freedom, dignity and justice for the Palestinian people. UJ now continues the anti-apartheid movement – against Apartheid Israel.

ISSUED BY BDS WORKING GROUP (South Africa)

A bit of googling suggests that the happy news hasn't hit the mainstream yet but I'm guessing even the mainstream media isn't quite ready to accuse someone like Desmond Tutu of being antisemitic so best to say nothing.

Shell shock!

Here's a curious cartoon from the Jewish Daily Forward website:



What do you think?

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that Ron Cohen, one of the mods at the Just Peace UK list, posted the link to the Forward. I mention that because Mike Cushman has now posted a link to the "whole archive".

Israel's apartheid quality

Many thanks to Gert in the comments for pointing me in the direction of this article in The National by South African anti-apartheid activist, Tony Karon. I knew that Thatcher and Reagan said that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist but I never knew this:

In one of her last acts as US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice had Nelson Mandela’s name removed from America’s terrorist watch list. Many Americans were shocked to learn that their favourite former political prisoner had ever been deemed a terrorist.

But international solidarity and people power put paid the powers that be, or rather, that were. But what has that to do with us?

The international anti-apartheid movement began at the grassroots among religious, community and labour groups, but it grew sufficiently powerful to force governments to distance themselves from a regime that they had viewed sympathetically. And that is a lesson that terrifies Israel’s leaders.

But why should that be? South Africa was an apartheid state.

Even as Israeli officials admitted last week that they were hoping to “rebrand” Israel’s image abroad, the Israeli media were reporting that six Israeli soldiers who had fought in Gaza were alleging that men in their units had indiscriminately killed Palestinian civilians because of what they said were permissive rules of engagement. There is only so much that “rebranding” can achieve when it is the product, rather than its packaging, that is at the root of the problem.

And that is where the apartheid warning used by Mr Olmert and other Israeli advocates of a two-state solution becomes an unintended confession. It is not some demographic milestone that will tip Israel into the realm of apartheid, because apartheid is a qualitative rather than a quantitative term: it refers to a situation in which a whole category of people were denied the rights of citizenship in the state that ruled over them. South Africa’s apartheid would have been no more acceptable to the world had black people comprised 45 per cent of the population rather than 80 per cent. And since 1967, the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza have been living under the control of a state that denies them citizenship.

What Mr Olmert and others are really saying, without realising it, is that Israel is already in an apartheid situation – and that if it doesn’t end that situation soon, the world will notice and begin to respond accordingly.

Apartheid is qualitative not quantitative. So many people try to get Israel off the hook of the apartheid tag on the grounds that Arabs are a minority under Israel's rule. This ignores the ethnic cleansing that made that the case. It also ignores the fact that apartness is what apartheid means and that apartness is the crux of zionist rule.

Durban II - this time it's practical

This Durban II took place in Durban itself and it involved more than just denunciations of the zionist regime, project and ideology. Dockworkers in the South African port refused to handle Israeli goods. Here's Mike Marqusee in The Hindu:

Photo: Reuters

Learning from the past: South Africans protesting Israel’s blockade of
Gaza.

Immediately and concretely, the dockworkers were responding to Israel’s three-week attack on Gaza, which left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead, including 431 children, as well as 5,300 injured, including 1,870 children and 1,600 permanently disabled. Israel’s losses were of a different order: three civilians and 10 soldiers killed, 113 soldiers and 84 civilians injured. Gaza’s infrastructure was battered. 120,000 houses were damaged and 4,000 demolished. In the course of the operation, the Israelis are said to have dropped 1.5 million tons of explosives on Gaza — one ton for each inhabitant.

The dockworkers were also responding to — and respecting — the call and lesson of their own history. They remembered the importance of international support in the battle against apartheid. Initially, the international campaign had been little more than a small-scale irritant, reliant on the patient, sometimes lonely labours of grass-roots activists. An early success came when dock workers in various countries refused to unload South African goods. In time, the boycott grew and took a material toll on the apartheid regime.

South African trade unionists know this history well. That was seen last year when they turned away a Chinese ship carrying arms to the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe.

Lovely stuff. I remember zionists complaining about Ronnie Kasrils condemning Israel and not saying anything about Zimbabwe. They don't have that singling out complaint in this case, not that it was or is ever valid. Another thing, back in the day, when goods from apartheid South Africa were being boycotted, South African businesses used to get their not so pariah chum, Israel, to re-label the goods and sell them on. Israel must have been very disappointed when that nice little earner closed down. But where do you re-route and re-label your goods when the people are sanctioning Israel, historically the worst of the sanction busters?

Mike Marqusee's own website is here.

Durban poison?

From the BBC website:

The US is likely to boycott a UN racism conference, reports suggest, saying a text drawn up for the event criticises Israel and restricts freedom of speech.

An unnamed state department official said the draft document for April's forum in Geneva was "unsalvageable".

Canada and Israel have also said they plan to boycott the meeting.

In 2001, US and Israeli delegates walked out of a similar conference in Durban, South Africa, when a draft document likened Zionism to racism.

The 2001 draft expressed "deep concern" at the "increase of racist practices of Zionism and anti-Semitism".

It talked of the emergence of "movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas, in particular the Zionist movement, which is based on racial superiority".

Fair enough. The zionist idea is that Jews from anywhere have more right to most of Palestine than natives that are not Jewish. The word racial has been jettisoned of late, we prefer ethnic now, but I'm sure zionists wouldn't stoop to a mere technicality to get Israel off the hook.

But America has a two-fold beef here. Obama's representatives have found something about America to object to. It's the slavery thing. Some people at Durban II want to discuss the slave trade and America's role in it. Well America's first African-American president isn't having any of that.

I suppose the good to come out of that is that it vindicates those of us who suggested that Obama's ethnicity wouldn't make a, what is it they say over there? ah yes, dime's worth of difference.

Spirit of '68?

You guessed, another occupation, this time at Glasgow University. The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign is naturally rather pleased about that.

Glasgow University students have entered into occupation.

"We are currently occupying the top floor of the Computer Science building in solidarity with the Gazan people, and in protest to the war crimes committed by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people, the University\'s complicity in this via links to the arms trade, and the BBC\'s refusal to show the DEC appeal.

If you want to join the occupation, or show your support outside, the Computer Science building is located behind the Queen Margaret Union, and opposite the Boyd Orr building.

The Demands of the Occupation will follow.

In Solidarity,

The Occupying Students of Glasgow University."

Website: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://glasgowunioccupation.blogspot.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54333547006

E-Mail: glasgowunioccupation@gmail.com

Please send your messages of support, and join the demonstration outside the Computer Science building tomorrow (Tuesday) at 11am.

Philip Weiss has picked up on the Independent's report likening what Israel's barbarism has sparked off to the student rebellions of 1968.

Around the UK, thousands of students have occupied lecture theatres, offices and other buildings at more than 20 universities in sit-down protests. It seems that the spirit of 1968 has returned to the campus.

The Independent quotes the SWP's John Rose as saying that the fury sparked by Israel has led to University's complying with student demands. This, for him, is the 68 factor, in that this shows what student actions can achieve.

But we must ask, what did '68 achieve? Eleven years later, we in the UK got Thatcher for PM. Now among the student demands of '68 were divestments from and boycotts of South Africa because of apartheid. Thatcher's legacy is still very much with us in the UK. But apartheid was defeated in spite of the support it received from both Thatcher and Reagan. If nothing else gives, might the right sacrifice racist Israel over all this? Here's hoping!

Israeli ship not welcome

FREE PALESTINE! ISOLATE APARTHEID ISRAEL!

COSATU and PSC launch Week of Action for Palestine
supported by YCL and other progressive organisations
3 February 2009

In a historic development for South Africa, South African dock workers have announced their determination not to offload a ship from Israel that is scheduled to dock in Durban on Sunday, 8 February 2009. This follows the decision by COSATU to strengthen the campaign in South Africa for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Apartheid Israel.

The pledge by SATAWU members in Durban reflects the commitment by South African workers to refuse to support oppression and exploitation across the globe. Last year, Durban dock workers had refused to offload a shipment of arms that had arrived from China and was destined for Zimbabwe to prop up the Mugabe regime and to intensify the repression against the Zimbabwean people. Now, says SATAWU's General Secretary Randall Howard, the union's members are committing themselves to not handling Israeli goods.

SATAWU's action on Sunday will be part of a proud history of worker resistance against apartheid. In 1963, just four years after the Anti-Apartheid Movement was formed, Danish dock workers refused to offload a ship with South African goods. When the ship docked in Sweden, Swedish workers followed suit. Dock workers in Liverpool and, later, in the San Francisco Bay Area also refused to offload South African goods. South Africans, and the South African working class in particular, will remain forever grateful to those workers who determinedly opposed apartheid and decided that they would support the anti-apartheid struggle with their actions.

Last week, Western Australian members of the Maritime Union of Australia resolved to support the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and have called for a boycott of all Israeli vessels and all vessels bearing goods arriving from or going to Israel.

This is the legacy and the tradition that South African dock workers have inherited, and it is a legacy they are determined to honour, by ensuring that South African ports of entry will not be used as transit points for goods bound for or emanating from certain dictatorial and oppressive states such as Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Israel.

COSATU, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Young Communist League and a range of other organisations salute the principled position taken by these workers. We also take this opportunity to salute the millions of workers all over the world who have openly condemned and taken decisive steps to isolate apartheid Israel, a step that should send shockwaves to its arrogant patrons in the United States who foot the bill for Israel's killing machine. We call on other workers and unions to follow suit and to do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free.

We also welcome statements by various South African Jews of conscience who have dissociated themselves from the genocide in Gaza. We call on all South Africans to ensure that none of our family members are allowed to join the Israeli Occupation Forces' killing machine.

In celebration of the actions of SATAWU members with regard to the ship from Israel, and in pursuance of the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and our call on the South African government to sever diplomatic and trade relations with Israel, this coalition of organisations has declared a week of action beginning on Friday, 6 February 2009. The actions will be organised under the theme: FREE PALESTINE! ISOLATE APARTHEID ISRAEL! Activities that have already been confirmed for this week will include:

� Friday, 6 February: A protest outside the offices of the South African Zionist Federation and the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, 2 Elray Street, Raedene, off Louis Botha Avenue. Both these organisations unquestioningly supported the recent Israeli attacks against Gaza, and supported the massacre of civilians and the attacks on schools, mosques, ambulances, and UN refugee centres. Protestors will be addressed by, among others, SATAWU General Secretary Randall Howard, and ex-Minister Ronnie Kasrils. Protest starts at 14:00.

� Friday, 6 February: A picket outside parliament in Cape Town. COSATU members and solidarity activists will be joined by a number of members of parliament. Picket starts at 09:30.

� Friday, 6 February: A mass rally in Actonville, Benoni, at the Buzme Adab Hall. The rally will be addressed by, among others, COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, PSC spokesperson Salim Vally, South African Council of Churches General Secretary Eddie Makue, and ex-Minister Ronnie Kasrils. Rally starts at 19:30.

� Sunday, 8 February: A protest at the Durban Harbour Mouth, off Victoria Embankment. Protestors will be addressed by, among others, COSATU President Sdumo Dlamini. Protest starts at 10:00.

� Sunday 8 February: A mass rally in Cape Town at Vygieskraal Rugby Stadium. The rally will be addressed by, among others, COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi. Rally starts at 14:30.

For more information, call:
Patrick Craven (Cosatu National Spokesperson) 082 821 7456
Salim Vally (PSC spokesperson) 082 802 5936

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Visit the COSATU web site at http://www.cosatu.org.za/homep.htm
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The BNC Salutes South African Dock Workers Action!

Press Release

Palestine, 3 February 2009 -- The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, BNC, warmly salutes the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), a member of COSATU, for its decision today not to offload an Israeli ship that is due to arrive in Durban, South Africa, on 8 February. Coming weeks after the massive Israeli massacre in Gaza, this distinguished expression by SATAWU of effective solidarity with the Palestinian people in general, and with Gaza in particular, sets a historic precedent that reminds us of the first such action during the apartheid era taken by Danish dock workers in 1963, when they decided not to offload ships carrying South African products, triggering a similar boycott in Sweden, England and elsewhere.

Last week, endorsing the Palestinian Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), the Maritime Union of Australia (Western Australia) resolved to boycott all Israeli vessels and all vessels bearing goods arriving from or going to Israel. A few weeks before, Greek dock workers threatened to block a ship carrying weapons to Israel during its criminal war on Gaza. Those actions, together with the SATAWU decision today, will most likely usher in a new, qualitatively advanced phase of BDS that goes well beyond symbolism. We call on dock workers’ unions around the world to endorse similar sanctions against Israeli or Israel-bound cargo.

Support in South Africa for the Palestinian struggle against Israel’s colonial and apartheid policies and its war crimes is reaching new heights, with COSATU, the South African Council of Churches, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Young Communist League and many grassroots organizations and networks leading diverse forms of BDS campaigns, informed by the long and ultimately successful struggle of South Africans against apartheid. The Palestinian and global BDS movement against Israel is indebted to the people of South Africa for their inspiring and morale-boosting solidarity.

If Gaza today has become the test of our universal morality and our common humanity, the fast spreading BDS movement around the world has passed the test with flying colors. In fact, worldwide support for BDS against Israel in reaction to its war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, has shown that international civil society fully recognizes that Israel must be held accountable before international law and must pay a heavy price for its atrocities and ongoing willful destruction of Palestinian society. In this context, the decision by each of Venezuela, Bolivia, Qatar and Mauritania to sever diplomatic ties with Israel was a particularly commendable way of challenging Israel’s impunity. The shift from traditional, mostly symbolic, solidarity to BDS in Norway, Sweden, Britain, Ireland, Turkey, Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Spain, USA, Brazil, New Zealand, among others, is a resounding endorsement of effective, morally and politically sound action to end Israel’s multi-faceted oppression of the indigenous people of Palestine and to bring about a just peace to Palestine and the entire region.

The Palestinian civil society Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, launched in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian political parties, unions and organizations, offers the vehicle for all people of conscience, organizations and institutions around the globe to join the collective effort to reaffirm the primacy of international law, human rights and dignity. To replicate the strength and effectiveness of the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, the BNC urges civil society institutions and every concerned citizen around the world to:

- Integrate BDS in every struggle for justice and human rights, by adopting wide, context-sensitive and sustainable boycotts of Israeli products, companies, academic and cultural institutions, and sports groups, similar to the actions taken against apartheid South Africa;
- Ensure national and multinational corporations are held responsible and accordingly sanctioned for profiteering from Israel’s occupation and other violations of human rights and international law;
- Work towards cancelling and blocking free trade and other preferential agreements with Israel, including the EU-Israel and the Mercosur-Israel trade agreements; and
- Pressure governments to impose a direct and indirect arms embargo against Israel that guarantees end-user compliance with international law and human rights principles.

Our “South Africa” moment has arrived. The time for BDS is now!


Secretariat of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC)

Israel's Sharpeville?

I mentioned in an earlier post that the assault on Gaza may turn out to be Israel's Sharpeville. The Sharpeville massacre was carried out by the apartheid authorities in South Africa back in 1960.

From South African History On line

It was the turning point that transformed the struggle against apartheid from a left-wing cause into a mainstream liberal one. Of course Israel has committed many a Sharpeville but the media, western governments and official oppositionists have so favoured Israel, its massacres of the natives and neighbours of Palestine have gone mostly unreported or their cause and meaning has been distorted. The apartheid regime had nothing like the hasbara mule corps that Israel has. But I think the zionists may have lost the plot this time.

Tony Greenstein has a good round up (with pics) of the university occupations and he too notes that this is a first for the cause of Palestine, a turning point if you like. And when I wrote to a magazine earlier today, using the term "Israel's Sharpeville" I googled it first, and what do you know? it had been used before but only by one person (that I could find) and that was only a few days ago.

Lord Dykes (Lib Dem) used the expression after a little grovelling to a minister (I haven't checked which one) invoked Sharpeville in the House of Lords on January 19th and before that it's nowhere to be found on the net, not by google anyway:

My Lords, while accepting that the Minister has to be—and, indeed, is—even-handed between the combatants in this matter, does he not accept the reality that Israel is the established state?. The Palestinians are still seeking their independence and their state, which President Bush originally promised in 2005. Does the Minister therefore agree that the British Government have a duty to warn Israel about the stage it has reached with this monumental mistake of the invasion in Gaza? This is the equivalent of Israel's Sharpeville. Gaza will now be remembered throughout Arabia [I think he means the Arab world] as Israel's Sharpeville. The whole tone has now changed towards Israel in that whole area.

I think Lord Dykes might find that the people "in that whole area" were already wise to Israel's existence being predicated on its racist war crimes. It's the rest of the world that's taken a bit of a jolt from Israel's barbarism and it's world opinion that will make Gaza into Israel's Sharpeville.