EFF observes Nakba day as the founding of the Israeli apartheid state

15 May 2023

The EFF reaffirms its solidarity with the people of Palestine on the 75th commemoration of the Palestinian Catastrophe also known as "the Nakba".

Nakba Day is marked by Palestinians every year on May 15, the anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, which led to the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians. Israel's ongoing Nakba aims to erase the presence, identity and memory of indigenous Palestinians and the theft of Palestinian land.

This was again highlighted when Israelis attacked indigenous Christian and Muslim Palestinians when worshippers entered the Al-Agsa Mosque in Jerusalem during the month of Ramadaan.

The EFF joins Israeli Human Rights organisations, Yesh Din and B'Tselem and International human rights organisations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in its condemnation of Israeli apartheid as a crime against humanity.

We call on the international community to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people.

Furthermore, we call on South Africans to intensify their support for the resistance and freedom struggle of the Palestinian people by demanding the isolation of Israel.

The South African government should develop and implement institutional frameworks that would:

I. Enable the effective investigation and prosecution of South Africans who aid and abet the crime of apartheid and to prosecute South Africans serving in the Israeli Defence Force under the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, 1998

2. Display zero tolerance and hold to account with the full might of the law, South African organisations such as the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and United Jewish Campaign which finances the continued colonisation of Palestinian land.

There is no meaningful solidarity that does not impose consequences of a repressive system, accordingly, the South African government should sever all diplomatic, trade, sporting, cultural and academic relations with the apartheid Israeli state.

South Africa led the call for the removal of accreditation of Israeli observer status at the African Union, which is in any case in contravention of the Constitutive Act of the AU and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.

Let us band together and put an end to the catastrophe which continues to confront the people of Palestine.

Issued by Sinawo Thambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 15 May 2023