COSATU, South Africa’s largest trade union federation with over 2 million members, defends the country foreign policy on Israel, regarding recent statements by South Africa’s Minister for International Relations and Cooperation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane. “It must be made clear to everyone, particularly the Israeli Ambassador in South Africa, the South African Zionist Federation, and the South African Board of Jewish Deputies that South Africa’s Foreign Policy is not accountable to them or even worse the apartheid state of Israel. It is accountable to the people of South Africa who gave an overwhelming majority to the ANC as a movement that defeated apartheid to rightfully support all other struggles against occupation, colonialism apartheid and all forms of injustice wherever they happen. At our recently held International Relations Committee (IRC) meeting of COSATU, Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabne communicated South African government’s foreign policy on south-south cooperation and international solidarity, when she also touched on the issue of the Middle East and solidarity with the people of Palestine,” said Bongani Masuku, International Relations Secretary.
South Africa’s Minister for International Relations and Cooperation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane (Photo: Al Ittihad)
Firstly, COSATU “has always encouraged and supported a stronger position with regard to curtailing relations with Israel. It is for that reason that we fully lend our unwavering support to the principled position that the South African Government, through the Minister, articulates, despite coming under extreme pressure from the Israeli lobby and its supporters.”
Secondly, COSATU condemns the ways in “which Israeli supporters and Israeli government officials including, Avigdor Liberman (Chairman of Israel’s Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Affairs) is making our criticism of Israel, our boycotts of that regime and our solidarity with the Palestinians as an anti-Jewish policy. To be against the policies of the Israeli government is not to be anti-Jewish. To be in solidarity with the Palestinians is not to be anti-Jewish. In fact, COSATU condemns all forms of racism including anti-Semitism, xenophobia and apartheid.”
Finally, “curtailing relations with Israel by progressive and democratic post apartheid South African Government is long overdue. A mandate, to be in solidarity with the Palestinians that was so well articulated by Comrade President Nelson Mandela back in 1997 when he said: “Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” To support the boycott of Israel and be in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinians is to be on the right side of history, with the majority of South Africans, indeed, with the majority of peace-loving peoples of the world.”
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