The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will ask the government to withdraw its ambassador from Israel in solidarity with the people of Palestine, its president, Willie Madisha, said on Wednesday.
He was speaking after Cosatu held a meeting with Palestinian activist Leila Khaled in Johannesburg. “We will also push for the Israeli ambassador to go home until the Palestine problem has been solved.”
Madisha said Cosatu will mobilise its national and international partners to stop the genocide in Palestine.
“The apartheid wall in Palestine has got to be demolished for the free movement of the people,” Madisha said.
Khaled said Cosatu’s intervention will contribute to the liberation of the Palestinian people.
“Cosatu has the experience of punishing the South African apartheid regime and they are going to use that experience to punish the Israeli apartheid regime,” she said.
Khaled is a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, part of the secular, left-wing Palestinian rejectionist front. She was involved in a plane hijacking in 1969 and another the following year, both carried out by the PFLP.
Earlier this month, Madisha said the “apartheid Israel state” is worse than the apartheid that was conducted in South Africa.
He said Palestinians are being attacked with heavy machinery and tanks used in war, which never happened in South Africa.
Madisha said Israel should be seen as an apartheid state and the same sanctions must be applied that were established against South Africa.
Jewish bodies hit back at Cosatu following Madisha’s call for boycotts. His statements were based on a “a highly distorted view” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, read a joint statement by the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) and South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD).
They “reveal[ed] an unacceptable level of prejudice against the state of Israel and its people”, they said.
“The SAZF and SAJBD unequivocally reject the statement … denouncing the Israeli military incursion into Gaza and calling on South Africans to boycott the State of Israel.”