SACP Free State calls for immediate annulment of University of Free State’s memorandum of understanding with apartheid Israel’s University of Haifa

16 October 2020

The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Free State Province is concerned by the decision of the University of Free State (UFS) to establish a relationship with apartheid Israel’s University of Haifa. We have learned that UFS has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the University of Haifa. The SACP Free State views this decision as taken unilaterally by individuals in the institution who seem to yearn for the enrollment and reintroduction of apartheid thought and supremacist mentality.

The SACP in Free State calls for the immediate annulment of the MOU and termination of UFS’s inconsiderate relations with the University of Haifa. University of Haifa, as an institution of apartheid Israel, is extremely discriminatory in its admission consideration, particularly against Palestinians and those sympathetic to the genuine cause of Palestinians. Some of the departments at the University of Haifa are geared towards producing graduates whose focus is on enhancing the geo-strategy of Israeli expansionism into Palestinian territory. Academic and cultural boycott on apartheid Israel, therefore, remains necessary, together with other interventions such as disinvestment and sanctions that must be designed to force Israel to stop the occupation of Palestinian land and also completely abandon the system of apartheid. 

The SACP Free State therefore believes UFS cannot associate itself with such an institution and impose such relations on its student community and society, more so given South Africa’s painful history of apartheid. The SACP Free State calls upon UFS to instead engage in a thoroughgoing programme of transformation of their institution, including rooting out remnants of racism still prevalent at different levels within this university. The SACP will engage with progressive formations, stakeholders and student organisations at UFS to consolidate all means necessary for ensuring that the university abruptly terminates its relations with this apartheid Israeli university.

Issued by Bhekie Stofile, SACP Free State Provincial Secretary, SACP, 16 October 2020