IFP: Davies' Israel Stunt Hurts National Interest
I wonder what possesses Minister Rob Davies and prompts him to issue a formal notice of his intention of requiring that products imported from Gaza and the West Bank be marked as coming from the "Israeli-Occupied Territories" rather than from "Israel". I can only suspect that it is the same folly which prompted him to sign an agreement which effectively donated R350 million of our money to the Castro brothers who have imposed a reign of terror, famine, destruction and desolation on Cuba for 45 years.
There are no legal bases in our law or in international law to require that products coming from the West Bank or Gaza should be marked as coming from Israeli-occupied territories. This is obviously a provocation aimed at promoting a consumer boycott of such products.
As much as donating our money to Cuba, this action is not in the interest of South Africans. It reflects the political interest of the ANC which continues to utilise the State as if it were its private property to pay off its political debts, constantly confusing the nation interests of South Africans with the private interests of the ANC as a political party.
The action taken by Minister Davies is detrimental to our national interest, trade relations, economic growth and employment generation, all of which Minister Davies obviously deems to be more important than pleasing his party's hierarchy by paying off petty political debts with the Palestinian authorities.
I accept that one must subject the pursuit of national interest to matters of principle. That would be the case if Minister Davies requested products from Tibet being market as originating from "Chinese occupied Tibet". But that probably does not even cross Minister Davies' mind in spite of there being in the democratic world clear and universal condemnation of such occupation. In Israel's case at best the point of principle is unclear and disputed.
Statement issued by Mario Oriani-Ambrosini, MP, IFP Spokesman on Trade & Industry, June 19 2012
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