On November 16, the EFF introduced a motion to the Speaker of parliament, seeking the termination of diplomatic relations with the apartheid state of Israel and in particular, the removal of its embassy from South Africa.
A draft resolution was subsequently tabled with the understanding that when the full plenary of parliament sits at a date yet to be set, the house will hopefully vote in favour of the EFF and set the correct tone for dealing with mass murderers.
The motion was also propelled by the brutal and inhuman violence that Israel has unleashed on the people of Palestine over the past several weeks. This violence has seen more than 11,000 Palestinians massacred in an unprecedented military bombardment of unarmed, innocent and helpless civilians. The Israeli Defence Force has murdered 4,650 children, 3,145 women, 198 medics, 22 civil defence personnel and 51 journalists.
Further reports indicate that 3,600 people remain unaccounted for and there are 29,200 Palestinians in Gaza who are said to be injured. The number of people unaccounted for includes 1,755 children. These are the results of the brutality meted out by Israel. The injured cannot seek assistance as 25 hospitals and 52 health-care centres are out of service and ambulances are being targeted. A clear illustration that Israel intends on wiping Palestine off the face of the Earth.
The EFF will not be deterred by MPs who might seek to reduce the atrocities in Palestine to a provocation by Hamas. The story of Palestine must be presented in its entirety and it must include the 70 years of inhumanity rendered by Isreal when it started with colonial military occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Zionist forces that established Israel in 1948 as an apartheid state.
The public deserves a true and accurate account of the history of Palestine and not one that seeks to defend the actions of Israel. The brutal history stems back to what the Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, when Zionist colonial forces backed by British and US governments expelled a staggering 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, thus capturing 78% of historic Palestine.
Even with the remainder of 22% of the land, the Palestinians were never allowed any form of self-determination. They have lived under Israeli military occupation without basic human rights such as the right to life, the right to equality, the right to a fair trial, the right to protest, the right to freedom of speech, movement, assembly and media freedom.
Since 2000 more than 12,000 Palestinian children have been detained. Of these, more than 700 are the children who are prosecuted every year, mostly in military courts. In addition, Israel has more than 7,000 political prisoners, 200 of whom are children. This gives credence to the fact that the lives of Palestinian children are not valued by Israel, with an average of 204 children placed in custody monthly since 2012. So what we are witnessing today definitely did not start in 2023.
Israel treats Palestinian children in the same manner that the apartheid government in South Africa treated Tsietsi Mashinini, Hector Peterson and many others who were murdered in Soweto in 1976 and beyond.
Israel constructed a wall and fence that separates Palestinian towns and villages from Israeli settlements that are designated for Jews only in the occupied West Bank and other areas around Gaza.
In Gaza, for more than 50 years, this has caused a population of 2-million people living on top of each other, in spaceless conditions that can be described as open-air prisons. This is the most densely populated area on Earth.
And in true apartheid fashion there are more than 100 racially discriminated checkpoints. These are designed to target and dehumanise Palestinians. Israel has also launched four protracted military attacks on Palestine between 2008 and 2021. The 2008 assault involved internationally banned weaponry, such as phosphorus gas.
In 2014 Israel killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians and close to 500 children. During the assault dubbed Operation Protective Edge, Israel wounded 11,000 people, destroyed 20,000 homes and left half-a-million Palestinians displaced.
It is an evil war by an evil regime that is driving an evil agenda. Israel is a Zionist apartheid regime seeking to wipe Palestinians off the face of the Earth
What is happening in Palestine is a systematic and gradual genocide unleashed by a state that established itself as an ethnic exclusive state for Jews at the expense of indigenous populations. This must be vehemently rejected by all South Africans and the rest of the world because Israel calls itself a Jewish state, and opposing its brutal apartheid system is considered antisemitic. There is nothing antisemitic about opposing an injustice, particularly apartheid.
Zionism does not equal Jewishness or Judaism. No-one must manipulate scriptures in the Bible or the Torah to promote ethnic cleaning, racism and mass murder. There are no special human beings with the right to massacre others so that they can benefit from the subsequent stolen land. We are all chosen people of God. We are all loved by God and we must all oppose any form of inequality and racism even by those who do it in the name of God.
The world must therefore never buy into the lie and propaganda that this is a religious war because what is happening is Palestine is not a Holy War. It is an evil war by an evil regime that is driving an evil agenda. Israel is a Zionist apartheid regime seeking to wipe Palestinians off the face of the Earth. The Palestinians who have all the rights to exist, particularly in the land of their ancestors.
The world should isolate Israel through boycotts, divestments and sanctions until it ends its military occupation and allows Palestinian refugees in surrounding countries such as Lebanon and Syria the right to return to their home.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and his ANC government should immediately shut down the Israeli embassy in Pretoria and end all diplomatic relations with that brutal apartheid Israeli regime. In the name of our own constitutional values, South Africa must cut relations until the human rights of Palestinians are respected, promoted and protected. Israel must comply with international law and until then any relations with it must be regarded as offensive to our constitution.
Malema is president and CIC of the EFF
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