COSATU statement on the Palestinian struggle – ending the root cause of the violence means ending 75 years of occupation and Apartheid.
11 October 2023
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) pledges its unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people in their quest for justice, peace and for the end of violence.
The daily crimes committed against the Palestinian people, coupled with the suffocating blockades on Gaza, have created a humanitarian crisis that has persisted for far too long.
COSATU has always been a key part of the international solidarity movement with various struggles across the world, including the struggles of the Palestinian people against apartheid rule and occupation.
This is not only based on the South African experience of apartheid and colonialism, but on the intolerable abomination of all crimes against humanity.
COSATU regards global solidarity as an important pillar of working-class struggles against all forms of oppression, exploitation, and injustice across the world.
Towards that end, COSATU:
1. Unequivocally reaffirms its support for the struggles of the people of Palestine to end apartheid, colonial occupation and for the right to independent statehood.
2. Reaffirm our full support for the Palestinian trade union movement and express disappointment in the Israeli trade union federation, Histradut, for refusing to condemn the occupation and the daily brutalisation of Palestinians, despite repeated calls by the global progressive trade union movement to this effect.
3. Calls on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure the criminal prosecution of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all those responsible for war crimes. The ICC must end its selective and targeted bias as well as its double standards in prosecuting war crimes.
4. Reaffirm our call for all countries of the committed to democracy, human rights and freedom from apartheid and colonialism; to diplomatically isolate Israel and close down Israeli embassies.
5. Further reaffirm the resolutions of the United Nations’s (UN) World Conference against Racism (WCAR) declaring Zionism as racism and a crime against humanity.
6. Call on all progressive forces to mobilise and join the various pickets, including the events planned for the 29th of November UN Day of Solidarity with Palestine.
7. Call for end to all forms of violence and for a cessation of hostilities towards a serious process of negotiations for a genuine settlement that accommodates Palestinians and Israelis, as equals in a united and democratic society with sovereign rights and freedoms for all.
Issued on behalf of COSATU by Bongani Masuku(COSATU International Secretary), 11 October 2023
