Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) Minister Naledi Pandor has called for Israel to be deemed an apartheid state.
Acting on the concerns for Palestine as an ally, the South African authorities’ decision came at the second meeting of the Palestinian Heads of Mission in Africa, which was recently held in Pretoria.
Pandor emphasised the similarities in the socio-oppressive regimes that had marked both our homeland and the Israel-Palestine grounds of conflict. She noted that “we cannot stand by while another generation of Palestinians are left behind.” Pandor further added that Palestinians had always been an ally in the South African struggle, drawing parallels between the two nations once again.
Upon recalling a story regarding a former speaker of our National Assembly, Pandor relayed that the speaker’s visit to Palestine was likened to a township experience in the old South Africa. Drawing on the oppressive roots South Africa knows well, Pandor relayed that South Africa’s position on Palestine has “always been clear”.
DIRCO has thus pushed for the apartheid classification in hopes that the United Nations General Assembly will form a committee to decide if the classification is accurate, as Al Jazeerah reports. This would allow some sort of consensus on what the oppression really is in a systemic way as opposed to the broad rhetoric of “conflict”.
Pandor commented that the only way to find peace in the Middle East is after the conflict finds its resolution. She further suggested a two-state solution that would be beneficial to people on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict as both sides have seen loss, predominantly along the Gaza Strip. A two-state solution has long been proposed by international organisations, but the solution circles around the very nature of the conflict in the first place – territory and who gets what.
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Picture: @DIRCO_ZA