COSATU welcomes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Woolworths shareholders' demand for end to trade with apartheid Israel

COSATU takes this opportunity to welcome on our shores the President of occupied Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas who is in the country on a two-day visit.

In doing so, we emphatically state our unwavering and unconditional support to their struggle for freedom from apartheid, colonialism and occupation towards sovereign statehood for the Palestinian people.

The world stands behind the Palestinian people and their legitimate struggle against the Zionist enemies of peace and justice, the apartheid state of Israel. The intensification of the just struggle on the ground is a fundamental necessity for our intensification of the Global BDS campaign in all our countries and the world at large.

We call on our government, business and civil society to work together with the progressive forces of South Africa towards real and biting sanctions against Israel if we are serious about peace in the Middle East. The problem of the Middle East is an apartheid bully and terrorist state that has no shame disregarding international law and killing children and innocent civilians under the cover of fighting terrorists.

In the same vein, we welcome and call for the intensification of the impressive and great BDS campaign against Woolworths, which soon should be moving to other companies involved with the apartheid state of Israel.

All businesses and institutions must be warned against any and all forms of association with apartheid, colonialism and occupation wherever it happens. Every South African is morally bound to support the end of occupation and advance to freedom and justice for the people of Palestine.

What Woolworths is doing is against job creation as they prefer Israeli products over local content, which undermines our call for the use of local content to boost job creation in the country and on the continent. We mustn't allow workers jobs to be traded for narrow selfish profiteering by a few shareholders at the expense of our country and jobs.

We are impressed by the growing movement of shareholders who refuse to be part of the anti-jobs crusade and support for a barbaric and inhumane regime, which has blood on its hands.

In the words of one shareholder, "we will put [it] to them that what Woolworths' management is doing flies in the face of good corporate governance. It is neither good public relations nor good business that they are holding on to the R12-million-a-year [business from Israel]," he said.

We also feel inspired by the reports that "representatives of BDS South Africa will be jetting off to Australia to launch their campaign there after Woolworths recently concluded a R21-billion acquisition of David Jones. Just as it has been doing with ANC heavyweights in South Africa, BDS has started lobbying the Australian trade union movement".

Finally we are inspired to march on by such stories as that of Marthie Momberg, a Stellenbosch University research fellow and PhD candidate at the university's faculty of theology, who said she joined the public discourse because Woolworths did not take her seriously when she inquired about the effect of the BDS campaign on sales.

Momberg said her actions were also based on monitoring human rights abuses by Israel in Palestine. She went on to say, "This is not an emotional reaction on my part. I feel that Woolworths is not living up to expectations about being an ethical business".

On another note, Allan Horwitz, a Jewish human-rights activist who represents some Jewish Woolworths shareholders, said they supported the campaign because of human-rights violations as recognised by the UN.

The campaign was about Israel denying Palestinians political rights, said Horowitz.

Finally, it's important to us that, "The support by the Jewish investors will lend credibility to the fact that the campaign is not anti-Semitic. We have been receiving threatening calls about us supporting the destruction of Israel. All sorts of insulting names such as self-hating Jews and Nazis have been hurled at us," he said.

Statement issued by Patrick Craven, COSATU national spokesperson, November 28 2014

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