Peter Dickson
Hundreds of Eastern Cape Muslims are heading for the West Bank to help fight Israel.
The Eastern Cape residents have banded together under the banner of a recruitment body formed by six local Muslim community organisations called Friends of Palestine, which says it is prepared for the men to sacrifice their lives in the conflict. In a statement issued in Port Elizabeth on Monday this week by its official representative, Ebrahiem Mohamed, Friends of Palestine said 322 young men over the age of 18 had been recruited so far out of a target of 400 to arrive in Palestine before Ramadaan at the end of this month.
Depending on their progress in “various programmes”, a further 100 would be dispatched after the Ramadaan fasting period ends.
Mohamed said that the men – mostly doctors, clergymen, businessmen and other professionals, plus shopkeepers and even taxi drivers who have responded to newspaper advertisements placed by the group – would not receive any prior military training but would help Palestinian communities “even if they have to sacrifice their lives” by taking part in the uprising. A small group leaves Port Elizabeth next week to arrange accommodation for the recruits. The South African embassies of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt have been approached for help by the group in securing accommodation in those countries.
Mahomed said the young recruits felt it their “duty to help their brothers” in Palestine, to “protect our faith, Islam” and “to fight for Jerusalem”.
The move also follows talks between the South African government and local Jewish and Muslim leaders on curbing activities that could spark violence in South Africa.
The Eastern Cape move was condemned by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, which appealed on Monday for a careful rethink.
Legal sources told the Mail & Guardian the planned mission was illegal under South African law governing foreign military support. Permission for aid to any participants in any military conflict zone, even medical, first requires the authorisation of the national conventional weapons control committee.
Mahomed said recruitment efforts were also under way in the Western Cape and that Muslim leaders from both coastal provinces planned a consultative meeting later this week.
A total of 8 213 Muslims, including women, have already signed up in the Western Cape following a mass meeting by the Qeds (Arabic for Jerusalem) Support Committee in the Green Point Stadium on October 14, according to a statement by committee representative Anwar Shaik. Young men, who include Christians, were also being recruited in Britain, Australia, Egypt and the United States, Mohamed said.
The leader of Port Elizabeth’s Pagad-styled People against Drugs and Violence (Padav), Wasief Lagardien, said in a statement that the men would render community services but would also take part in “military operations” if necessary. Lagardien, who also plans to go, said the local Muslim community was financing the mission and had raised sufficient money for airfare and accommodation for the recruits. They were fully supported by their families.
It is not the first time that militant young men from Port Elizabeth’s small Muslim community have headed north in the spirit of jihad (holy war). Just over a decade ago, several hundred headed for Afghanistan to join the guerrilla war against occupying Soviet forces. On their return home late in 1990, as the city’s northern suburbs where many of their parents owned businesses was engulfed in the burning and looting of a community uprising against rent increases, they were seen on shop rooftops blazing away at looters with automatic weapons.
A few hundred more, trained on the grounds of a youth camp on the city’s outskirts, headed for the Persian Gulf the following year in defence of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein before their plane was turned back by Saudi Arabian authorities after hasty intervention by the South African government.
A representative for the Department of Foreign Affairs said this week that talks with local Muslim leaders were ongoing and that the Friends of Palestine mission would be investigated. Lagardien, who says the mission is “spiritual and not political”, said the campaign would be formally launched this Friday night at the Muslim Movement Hall in Port Elizabeth’s Parkside.