Young people unite
BRAAMFONTEIN — The movement to boycott Israeli propaganda trips growing among youth.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement held a meeting in Braamfontein on 11 June with political youth parties to slam Israeli lobby groups in the country.
Muhammed De’Sai from BDS SA said that the Israeli lobby in South Africa is increasingly turning to old ‘apartheid tricks’ to entice youth with free holiday trips and other gifts to undermine the solidarity with the Palestinians.
He added that pro-Israeli groups such as SA Israel Forum, SA Friends of Israel and the SA Zionist Federation are similar to the 1980s junkets of Apartheid South Africa.
“The SA Israel Forum is an organisation that was exposed a few years back by the media, for being funded by the notorious Cape Gate Company. It is no secret that our campuses and schools are heavily biased toward supporting progressive international struggles, such as the struggle of the Palestinian people,” De’Sai said.
President of the South African Students Congress (Sasco) Ntuthuko Makhombothi added that they were the first student movement to support BDS. He went on to say several universities backed up the plight to boycott Israel and all forms of racism. The groups warned students and young people of invitations and bursaries from the Israeli lobby.
They further condemned any leader or member who participates in the Israeli holiday propaganda trips.
“We have lobbied SRCs and will be in ongoing interventions at schools around the province and the country, starting in Soweto this weekend,” said Alex Mdakane, Provincial Secretary of Young Communist League (YCL).
Representatives from the ANC Youth League, Sasco and Cosas all reiterated that disciplinary action would be taken should any of their members go on these trips.
“We are in Youth Month and we wish to extend our revolutionary solidarity to all Palestinian youth. You will overcome, just as we did,” Mdakane added.
The Group of Jewish South Africans issued a media statement where it acknowledged that millions of Palestinians living in Israel and around the world remain refugees or displaced.
“We, as a group of Jewish South Africans, travelled to Israel-Palestine two weeks ago. We acknowledged our role in Palestinian displacement and dispossession from their land. As children, we had put our pocket money into the blue boxes of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), believing that the money was going toward greening Israel. We later discovered our money had been used to plant a forest over the remnants of a Palestinian village,” the organisation said.
