the occasion of the United Nations International Day of Solidarity with the
Palestinian people, University of South Africa
30 November 2007
Today we remember the anniversary of 60 years of the Palestinian
catastrophe, yes Nakba - which resulted from the Zionist project of Jewish
colonial settlement, dispossessing and supplanting Palestinians through the use
of the Partition concept. This stemmed from the Balfour Declaration of 1917,
which served British interests, as reflected in the words of Churchill who
argued that a Jewish state would be 'good for Jewish people and good for
Britain'. It was similar to Herzl's 'European Wall' to keep out, in his words,
'Asian barbarism'.
This clear imperialist interest was adopted by the United States after
World
War II and informed its leading role in pressing for the adoption of the
unfortunate United Nations Partition Plan of 1947.
This was a signal for Ben Gurion and his fellow Zionists to implement an
operational plan which had been in place since 1942, where in a nutshell, a
reign of terror would be unleashed against the Palestinian indigenous
inhabitants, by the well-prepared, well-resourced overwhelming Zionist force,
which included deliberate massacres, the sowing of panic and engendering mass
flight. By the Armistice of February 1949, 56 percent of the land recommended
for the Jewish state in the Partition Plan became 78 percent, with over 60
percent of the Palestinian people being ethnically cleansed from the home of
their birth, forcing them to seek refuge in neighbouring Arab states.
Whilst all eyes are on Annapolis, hoping for progress from the talks,
Israeli Foreign Minister, Tippi Livni has astonishingly declared: "for us the
establishment of the Palestinian state is not our Nakba or disaster provided
that upon its establishment the word Nakba be deleted from Arabic lexicon in
referring to Israel".
Livni, much like Lady Macbeth, may seek to wash her hands of blood, but
these stains can never be erased. Talk of an arrogant, racist, colonial
mindset. This is unblushing Nakba denial from the representative of a people
always ready to shout holocaust denial when it comes to the tragic and wretched
case of the Nazi extermination of the Jews. Those such as Livni should be
utterly ashamed of seeking to wipe out any hideous crime of history. As we in
South Africa have shown, there can only be meaningful change and reconciliation
when crimes of the past are unmasked. Only then can people move forward.
This Nakba continues today, where we are all familiar with the plight of the
Palestinians. They are under perpetual siege, cruelly imprisoned within 12
percent of the fragmented territory that is left to them. The 1,2 million
Palestinians living within Israel are virtually confined, as black South
Africans under apartheid once were in a ghetto-type existence, without equal
rights and under constant threat of eviction, with talk that they would have to
leave and become citizens of a future Palestinian state; whether they like it
or not.
There is a real danger with Israel's territorial objectives, in terms of its
Zionist agenda, being supported by President Bush, as reflected in his April
2004 speech. Here he showed that the US was contemplating shifting its position
from the 1967 Green Line border demarcation and the numerous United Nations
resolutions to accepting the so-called new "facts" on the ground, including the
settlement block and the notion of "a Greater Israel". If this remains the
approach at Annapolis, then we are still very far from a genuine, lasting and
just settlement.
As such we must persevere with our efforts. There can be no balanced
even-handed approach by the South African government between the power of the
Israeli state, supported by the United States, and the Palestinians who are
under siege and fire, with no state, where it is amazing that they survive at
all, where they are reliant on nothing more than their "samud"; their
perseverance and courage.
The statement of Gideon Levy of Haaretz makes this plain: "a thief cannot
present demands, neither preconditions nor any other terms to the owner of the
property he has robbed".
Indeed, in a conflict between the greater and the weaker power, our
President, Thabo Mbeki, in commenting on the Mecca Agreement, has similarly
made it clear, where he argues that: "The balance of power in this regard
decisively favours Israel. To end the destructive conflict that has gone on for
far too long, will require the courage and wisdom of the more powerful. The
positive results that both the Israeli and Palestinian people pray for will not
come about of their own accord".
Mobilising international solidarity to pressurise the Israeli state is key
here. We know this from our own struggle, where the international component was
critical to our overall efforts to bring the apartheid government to its
knees.
And in organising this support, we need to clearly reject any claim that
there should be even-handedness in dealing with the Israeli perpetrator and the
Palestinian victim. We need to clearly reject the argument that Israel's
brutality and use of force is simply motivated by security concerns, for as
with apartheid repression, we see this related to a colonial and racist
mentality and agenda. In so doing, we must expose Israel's entrenched system of
colonialism, racism and denial of Palestinian human rights, which is akin to
that of apartheid
South Africa. This is after all the fundamental source of the conflict.
It is through the weapon of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
campaign, in conjunction with the internal struggles of the Palestinian people,
that we can ensure that those who have thus far refused to acknowledge this
truth, are eventually forced into accepting that they have no option but to do
so. Our government recognises our people's democratic right to engage in
peaceful means - such as the BDS campaign in registering their support with the
Palestinian cause.
As South Africans, we therefore pledge our unqualified support for this
campaign and the cause of the Palestinians, not only because we are obligated
to do so as former beneficiaries of generous international solidarity but also,
as our former President, Nelson Mandela has stated: "We know too well that our
freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians".
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Intelligence
30 November 2007
Source: SAPA
