Meeting with Israeli politician really shocking; SACP pledges solidarity with the Palestinian people  

9 November 2017

The South African Communist Party expresses shock at the decision of the ANC International Relations Sub-Committee to meet with Israeli politician, Tzachi Hanegbi. We are also disturbed that the Head of the ANC’s International relations is trying to justify this meeting by suggesting that it is the same as meeting with, for example, the people of Venezuela or the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Israel is an apartheid regime guilty of oppressing the Palestinian people, occupation of their land and serious human rights abuses! It is an oppressor state and cannot be likened to the oppressed. The SACP firmly stands on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors.

The SACP is also now clearer as to why neither the ANC nor government took any action in April 2015 when our General Secretary, Comrade Blade Nzimande, in his capacity as Minister of Higher Education and Training, was denied entry into Palestine by the Israeli regime while he was scheduled to perform government work. This failure to act deserves further scrutiny as we move forward. There is a growing list of South Africans who are being denied entry to Palestine by Israel and very little visible from the government to act against the apartheid regime.

“And as in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must distinguish still more the phrases and fancies of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality”. This principle by the world’s renowned theoretician of the oppressed and the exploited, Karl Marx is more compelling and more relevant than rhetoric and justifications of the unjustifiable. 

The SACP reaffirms its support for the downgrade and shutting down of the South African embassy in Israel as called for by the Palestinians as well as by progressive Jewish people and as recommended by the recent ANC National Policy Conference. A message appears to have been clearly written on the wall; the recommendation has been undermined, if not already rendered irrelevant, before it can be considered by the forthcoming ANC national conference. The same applies to existing resolutions and declarations on the Palestinian Question that have been contradicted.   

The SACP wholeheartedly supports the Palestinian struggle for peace, national self-determination and the freedom of their land not as a favour but as a Communist duty towards universal social emancipation. We view the Palestinian struggle against Israeli apartheid as part of our larger contribution to internationalism and a more just world.

Furthermore, as explained in a statement by a group of progressive Jewish South Africans who have also rejected the meeting, Hanegbi is a racist who has previously served in the Israeli Defence Force, an institution directly involved in expanding and sustaining the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. Our Jewish comrades from the South Africa Jews for a Free Palestine have also pointed out his racism against Africans and his support in backing legislation against African refugees.

Issued by Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, National Spokesperson and Head of Communications, SACP, 9 November 2017