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South African
Protesters Demand Severing Ties with "Apartheid" Israel
PRETORIA,
March 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - More than 1,000 Protestersgathered in the center of Pretoria Thursday to mark the
country's human
rights
day by expressing their solidarity with the Palestinians and
demanding severing ties with the "apartheid state" of Israel.
Various
organizations, including the ANC, Cosatu and the SA Communist Party,
urged the government to sever diplomatic ties with Israel by
recalling the country's ambassador, reported South African daily
newspaper, The Star.
The call was made Thursday, March 21, during a march on the Union
Buildings, organized by the Palestinian Action Group (PAG).
In a memorandum, the group also demanded that South Africa
institutes sanctions against Israel, end all arms deals with it, and
investigate South Africans being recruited into the Israeli
occupation army.
The
group refused to hand over the memorandum to two officials from the
department of foreign affairs, claiming their rank was too low.
"Our government must start taking the struggle of the
Palestinian people much more seriously," PAG organizer Naheem
Jeenah told the jeering crowd.
Two separate memoranda were also prepared for the U.S. and Israeli
governments. The PAG drew parallels between the struggle of South
Africans against apartheid and that of Palestinians against
"the unlawful occupation of Palestine by the Israelis", The
Star reported.
The PAG called on the Israeli government to withdraw from
Palestinian refugee camps and occupied territories, called for the
introduction of an international force to protect the Palestinians,
and urged recognition of the Palestinian state.
Jeenah said the past few weeks had seen more violence against the
Palestinian people, "even more than during the 1967 war", The
Star said.
ANC MP and member of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs,
Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim, called Israel a racist state and condemned
the "brutal action" by the Israeli occupation army against
the Palestinians.
The SACP's Mazibuko Jara said Israel was "nothing more than an
apartheid state" supported by "imperialist America".
"How long are we [South Africans] going to watch Palestinians
being slaughtered?" he asked.
Trade
union leader Joyce Pekane, addressing the rally, called for South
African support for the Palestinians.
"The
South African government coupled with the Arab
League must serve as a platform for resolving all outstanding
questions relating to the resolution of the Palestinian state,"
she said, quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"We
must reject the prescriptive proposals that the Zionists, with the
support of the United States, have now put forward as a precondition
for peace," she added.
Protesters echoed the calls by political and other leaders with
banners proclaiming that Israel and Zionism were equal to ethnic
cleansing and racism. Protesters also called for the continuation of
the Palestinian uprising. One poster called the U.S., Israel and
Britain an "axis of evil".
The march went off without incident, but organizers were unhappy
that police prevented them from marching to the U.S. and Israeli
embassies. Police said they had denied the request because of
security concerns.
The
country's human
rights
day marks the date in 1960 when apartheid regime South African
police opened fire on a black demonstration in Sharpeville in which
69 people were shot dead.
The
South African demonstration in support of the Palestinian people
followed a series of demos held in world capitals against the recent
deadly Israeli incursions into Palestinian land. In Tokyo, peace
activists held a round-the-clock "funeral procession" at
the Israeli embassy Thursday, March 14, calling for the Israeli
army's immediate withdrawal from Palestinian areas.
The
Japan-based Peace Boat human rights group vowed to maintain its
demonstration 24 hours a day until the Israeli occupation army pulls
out.
"We
have many friends in Gaza, West Bank and Jerusalem, and their lives
are in peril even at this exact moment," Peace Boat campaigner
Tatsuya Yoshioka said as the protest got under way.
"Let's
start here at the Israeli embassy in Tokyo even though we don't know
if this voice will reach Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and others
responsible for the military strikes," he said. "We will
continue 24 hours until the military action ends."
Peace
Boat said it planed to rotate its members to continue the walk
around the embassy indefinitely.
The
protest started with 20 silent participants circling the city block
where the Israeli mission stands.
They
were carrying a mock coffin covered with a black cloth and a sign
protesting the murder then of more than 1, 150 Palestinians in 17
months.
The
death toll of the now 18-month-old Intifada has reached 1, 560, most
of them Palestinian women, teenagers and children.
Peace
Boat said the sign would be constantly updated with the latest death
toll.
The
death toll actually made it Thursday to 1,526, including 1,178
Palestinians, mostly teenagers and children, and 343 Israelis.
Other
activists were carrying a blow-up picture of a boy kissing the
blood-smeared head of a woman and of children killed in Gaza.
No
immediate comment was available from the Israeli embassy.
Also
in France, hundreds of people gathered in central Paris Thursday,
March 7, in a demonstration called by left-wing political rights
groups in support of the Palestinians.
Carrying
banners bearing slogans such as "Stop the massacre in
Palestine", the crowd listened to speakers demand the
dismantling of Jewish settlements and the dispatch of an
international peacekeeping force to the Middle East.
On
the same day, in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, some 1,000
Israeli Arabs marched through the city center to protest deadly
Israeli incursions in the Palestinian territories.
Protestors,
mainly from the Arab Israeli Hadash party, carried signs saying:
"The occupation is the terrorist," and "The
government is murderous."
Thousands
of university students in Cairo, Damascus, Beirut and Amman have --
in the last two weeks -- organized demonstrations against the latest
large-scale military operations by Israel in the occupied
Palestinian territories, where hundreds of Palestinians have been
killed.
Within
the same context, African leaders, attending a recent Community of
Sahel-Saharan States (COMESSA) summit in Syrte, Libya, condemned
Israel's "state terrorism" and pledged their support for
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
The
summit, in a final statement, said COMESSA "firmly condemns
Israel's state terrorism and calls on the international community to
take immediate measures to exert pressure on the occupation force
and lift the blockade imposed on President Arafat."
Russia
has also condemned Israeli violence against Palestinians, saying it
was fast and presented "a very dangerous scenario".
Even
the United States, Israel’s closest alley, criticized the Israeli
army practices against the Palestinians, with U.S. President George
W. Bush describing them Thursday, March 14, as “not helpful”.
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