SA Communist Party on the Caster Semenya controversy

"The [Central Committee of the South African Communist Party] joins millions of other South Africans in congratulating our IAAF World Championship medal winners, Caster Semenya and Khotso Mokoena. We share the sense of deep outrage at the inhumane, undignified manner in which Caster Semenya has been treated."

Source: SACP Central Committee Press statement
Blogs: Roya
Newslinks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Article on Uri Davis' election to the Fatah RC

His presence on the 120-member council, sometimes referred to as the Palestinian parliament, is unlikely to make a significant difference to Fatah's policies, which will continue to be largely dictated by Mahmoud Abbas, the president, and his inner circle. But it does have huge symbolic significance.

His polling in the 31st place for one of 80 seats contested by more than 600 Fatah members, he said in an interview, challenged Israel’s suggestion that the Palestinian people and its leaders regard the Jews as their enemies.

Or as one local Palestinian pundit noted of the vote's message: "It is not Judaism that Palestinians are fighting, it is Zionism."

It also finally puts Dr Davis in a position from which he hopes to shake up the complacency that has bedevilled the Fatah leadership and the PLO in their neglect of supporters outside the Palestinian fold.

"In my view [Fatah] is conducting a struggle with one hand tied behind its back," he said, sipping Arabic coffee in the garden of St George’s cathedral in East Jerusalem.

"The PLO represents a democratic alternative for all, including the current coloniser people, the current perpetrator of war crimes and crimes against humanity," he said in reference to Israel and its Jewish population. "In the 25 years since my joining the Fatah and PLO, this message has been marginalised. The mainstream went another direction, the Oslo accords direction."

[...]

His chief task, he said, will be to push Fatah to become a broad-based resistance movement modelling itself on the African National Congress, which brought down apartheid in South Africa.

The reference to South Africa is not unexpected. Dr Davis started describing Israel as an apartheid state in the early 1980s, long before it had become fashionable even on the far left.

His most recent book is Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within, published in 2003, in which he argues that discrimination against Palestinians is embedded in Israeli law and sets out what he regards as the four classes of citizenship established by Israel's parliament.

full text at Ramallah Online

Video: Andrew Feinstein speaks about Apartheid, Israel and the South African experience

Andrew Feinstein, a South African Jewish politician, former African National Congress MP, speaks about Israel, Palestine, South Africa and the possibilities of historical comparisons.

Ronnie Kasrils on Israeli Apartheid

Ronnie Kasrils writes on the parallels between South Africa and Israel, and how the advocates of Apartheid in South Africa saw Israel as its ally. Link to the text at Pragoti.

South African dockers will refuse to unload Israeli cargo shipments

A union of port workers in Durban, South Africa, South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), has declared that it will refuse to unload cargo from Israeli ships, reports Pulse Media. The SATAWU general secretary Randall Howard stated yesterday that the union supports the "historic and heroic struggle of the Palestinian people for self-determination". In regards to which products will be blocked from being unloaded, Howard stated that the union wouldn't differentiate between vegetables and weaponry, all Israeli products will be barred from entry into the South African market.

SAWATU has a combined membership of 82,325. Last year the Durban dockers refused to unload a Chinese shipment of weapons for Zimbabwe (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). The determination of the Durban dockers is a clear sign that internationalist trade union solidarity is alive and kicking.

See statement by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and COSATU on the SAWATU action. Protests are being held today, and on Sunday there will be rallies in Durban and Cape Town.

South Africa: Protests will continue

The Palestine Solidarity Committee has vowed to continue their mass mobilizations against the Gaza massacre. Yesterday a rally was held outside the Egyptian embassy, protesting the complicity of the Mubarak regime in the killings of the people of Gaza.

A world in outrage - videos from more protests around the world

Venezuela


Jakarta, Indonesia; Mass protest march to US Embassy Jakarta to stop Gaza massacre, January 2009


Amandla Intifada! March for Gaza in Cape Town, South Africa, January 8


Austin, Texas, January 8


Hong Kong, speech by Leung Kwok-hung



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Swedish news links on Gaza conflict: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6