Gauteng ANC Women's League spokesperson Gabriella Farber has resigned following the ruling party's stance on the Hamas attack. Photo: Ilan Ossendryver/ Jewish Report
Gauteng ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) spokesperson Gabriella “Gabi” Farber has resigned from her position and terminated her party membership, claiming there is “no space for a proud Jew to belong in the ANC”.
Farber explained in a her initial statement posted on X on 16 October that she decided to resign after several failed attempts to engage with party leaders as to why the ANC did not outright condemn the unprecedented surprise attacks on Israel by Hamas militants on 7 October.
The attacks, which claimed at least 1,400 lives, have since escalated into a full-blown war in the Gaza Strip.
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“Time and again I stressed that condemning Hamas’s atrocities would not in any way sell out the ANC’s support for the Palestinian cause. I asked why the ANC, as a party who stands up for human rights, refuses to recognise the painful violations done to my people? However, no answer was given,” Farber said.
The now-former spokesperson said she was inspired to join the ANC because of “the example set by the many Jewish freedom fighters who fought side-by-side with the ANC in the liberation struggle”.
She added that she always supported its position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is to continue to call for “the return to the negotiation table to give effect to a two-state solution that will see a sovereign State of Palestine peacefully co-existing alongside the State of Israel”.
Farber said the ruling party, however, has shown this week that it is “unable to stand with the Jewish people during this time [and] engage faithfully and fairly with both parties”.
According to her, the “final nail in the coffin … was coming out of my holy Sabbath to hear my party’s leader Cyril Ramaphosa tacitly justifying the way Hamas took up this issue and waged war”.
“As for the mass murder of 1,400 Jews, this was dismissed with an empty comment stating: ‘We send condolences to Israel’. As an organisation who stands for human rights, sending condolences is not enough.”
On 14 October, President Cyril Ramaphosa and members of the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) were seen donning keffiyehs and waving mini Palestinian flags during their meeting in Boksburg.
“We have a full understanding of how the people of Palestine have taken up this issue,” the president, who will attend the Cairo Summit for Peace in Egypt on Saturday, was quoted as saying by the Jewish Report.
“They are people who have been under occupation for almost 75 years. They have been waiting and waging a war against a government that has been dubbed an apartheid state.”
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In her resignation letter which Farber posted on X on 19 October, she condemns International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) Minister Naledi Pandor’s phone conversation with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh earlier this week.
ALSO READ: ‘Those who say we are imagining apartheid in Palestine, didn’t experience it’ – Pandor
The SA Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) has since called for Pandor’s resignation or firing.
The organisation’s chairperson Prof Karen Milner has condemned Pandor’s actions:
“Minister Pandor has chosen a side in this war. She has engaged with an Islamist Jihadist organisation and, in so doing, has dragged our country into very dangerous waters.”
ALSO READ: ‘Ramaphosa unashamedly supports Jihadists’- SA Jewish Board of Deputies
Speaking to broadcaster Newzroom Afrika on Thursday, ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said it was well within Pandor’s “to speak to all interest groups in Palestine”.
“From where we are sitting at Luthuli House, we do not see anything remiss with that. There is no decision not to ever speak to Hamas.”
Bhengu-Motsiri, however, took pains to explain the historically close ties the ANC has maintained with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
“Our historic ally has always been the PLO, and the PLO, like any other liberation movements in various parts of the world, unfolds as it unfolds,” she said.
“But that is our historic liberation (ally). You would recall that various historical visuals and images portray Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat, and we remain dutiful to that history of our forebears because there was something that joined them together.”
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Members of the ANC took part in a march to the Israeli Embassy in Tshwane on Friday in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
“The ANC‘s participation in this initiative is in line with our long-standing support for a two-state solution to one of the longest running conflict in the Middle East,” a statement by the party read.
ALSO READ: ANC set to march in solidarity with Gaza and Palestinians
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