COSATU Calls for Sanctions Against Israel

I’ve just come across a recent COSATU press release dated 3 March 2008. It’s really frightening and is the sort of stuff that can effectively chase Jews away from South Africa.

COSATU is a partner in the Tripartite Alliance together with the ANC and the South African Communist Party. Bear in mind that COSATU has renewed strength and power since Jacob Zuma's election to the ANC presidency. They are his strongest backers and certainly have the ‘ear’ of the president.

I don’t wish to come across as alarmist, but this venom really does frighten me. Zuma himself has called to 'mobilise our people to condemn Israel and its backers.' Are my fears unwarranted?

COSATU condemns Israeli massacre Patrick Craven, COSATU National Spokesperson, 3 March 2008 COSATU is outraged and disgusted at the latest massacres by the Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza, which have claimed an estimated 100 Palestinian lives in the past five days alone, most of them civilian women and children. The Israelis have even targeted ambulances, trapping the injured people inside. There can be absolutely no justification for such brutality. While United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon has rightly condemned the violence as a “disproportionate and excessive use of force”, that is too mild; COSATU sees the Israeli attacks as nothing less than mass murder, an escalation of the ongoing genocidal campaign to crush and destroy the people of Palestine. COSATU reaffirms its 2006 National Congress resolution which pledged solidarity and support to the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom, and demanded that: • Our government should impose sanctions against Israel until the aggression on Palestine and Lebanon is stopped. • We should step up the campaign for the release of Palestinian prisoners. • COSATU members must boycott Israeli goods and demonstrations must be held at the embassies of Israel and the United States in South Africa. • The government must end with immediate affect the diplomatic ties with Israel including recalling the ambassador. COSATU will support any moves by the South African government to promote peace in the Middle East and advance the struggle of the oppressed people of Palestine for national sovereignty and human rights, and appeals to the workers of the world to take to the streets to show their disgust at these Israel atrocities and demonstrate their solidarity with legitimate fight of the oppressed masses of Palestine.

The ANC press release wasn’t much better. You can read it at the ANCToday website: Stop the collective punishment of the Palestinian people

According to a Pew[1] Global Attitudes study in 2007 28 percent of South Africans overall sided with Israel compared to 19 percent which sided with the Palestinians? So why such one sided hostility from our leaders? To me its clear that the Palestinian lobby exerts great political influence in South Africa. COSATU has even used their terminology calling the IDF, Israeli Occupation Forces. I wonder if Craven even wrote this. Take a look at the similarities between their press release and this one from a local Palestinian lobby group.

* Apologies to anyone who clicks on the COSATU link. I reckon the person who advises them on policy is the same person who does their website. I hope your eyes are ok.

[1] Pew Global Attitudes Project: Spring 2007 Survey of 47 Publics," Pew Global Attitudes Project, 2007

Comments

[BLACKLISTED DICTATOR]

Steve,
Take a chill-pill.
I can promise you that there is nothing to worry about.
Jacob Zuma has spoken to the Chief Rabbi at Investec ! Are you suggesting that the meeting was a waste of time??

[Castor Troye]

Blacklisted Dictator, I was not present at the Zuma/Chief Rabbi talk but anyone can see from the transcript that the speech was written by an ANC ghost writer and obviously not Zuma himself. I have no doubt, Zuma has a standard speech when he addresses the comrades at COSATU and their puppeteers, the PSC.

Zuma told us what we want to hear and I trust he tells his real backers what they want to hear as well

[Castor Troye]

Oh and by the way, a socialist republic doesnt have resources to spend on innovations such as the internet....so naturally, COSATU, in the spirit of their actual progress, most probably use Windows 95 and Netscape Explorer when designing their internet page.

[BLACKLISTED DICTATOR]

Castor,
I still can't believe that the Chief Rabbi invited Zuma to Investec. I think, when it is properly analysed, that the meeting might go down as one of the worst moments in post- apartheid South African Jewish history.

[Castor Troye]

Not to digress from the point, but Blacklisted raised an interesting thought. Our Jewish community leaders have made a dash for the ANC to renew ties and work on our image after we were so comfortable in the old apartheid regime...kind of like a dad makes up for lost years with his son by buying gifts for him when he is 18.

In playing politics we backed the old apartheid horse (tacitly at least in the eyes of the majority of south africans), we tried to build bridges with government recently and now Mbeki and his freinds are being witch-hunted. Perhaps our leadership should think well beyond poltical opporutnism and should consider that playing politics, either with Zuma, Mbeki or the old regime could get our fingers burnt somehow in the long run.

[Coolio]

he calls them occupying forces bc thats what they are. accept it. he doesnt need any lobby to tell him that.

viva cosatu viva!
viva anc viva!
viva palestinian lobby viva!

DOWN DOWN ISRAEL!
DOWN DOWN ISRAEL!

[Mediocrates]

It wouldn't be the first time Jews failed to recognize a coming pogrom. It's not entirely inconceivable, is it? After all we live in an age where genocides of all shapes and sizes are part of the landscape. My ancestors were smart enough to leave The Pale before it was too late.

[BLACKLISTED DICTATOR]

"The campaign for Palestinian liberation needs to be intensified both at the national and international level. We South Africans need to establish solidarity links with the international solidarity movement and mobilize our people to condemn Israel and its backers and call for mass action to demonstrate our solidarity with Palestine." (Zuma)

I wonder whether Zuma condemned the Chief Rabbi at Investec... he is, after all, one of Israel's backers. Perhaps during tea, Zuma turned to our Chief and took the opportunity to say...
" Jewish Chief , nice kosher biscuits. By the way I nearly forgot... I condemn you for backing Israel. Yes, I condemn you."

[TC]

Coolio,

Yeah, yeah. The Jews are occupying Jerusalem and Judea. What next? Are the Indians occupying India? Are the Zulus are occupying Kwazulu-Natal?

[JoeTalin]

I think this is quite obvious.
Let COSATU boycott Israel and Israeli products.
Let's see how far they get as an organization.
Coolio and COSATU, here is a list of companies that you should boycott:
http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-brands.html

At first glance I didn't see Microsoft, but you need to boycott them also.
Enjoy!!

[Castor Troye]

Whoever wants to boycott Israel and its backers can boycott them, because the one with egg on their face is not the Jews but the guy sitting at home hungry because he won't go to Pick n Pay which is owned by a Jew aka "Zionist". Needless to say, they would boycott using computers and almost all modern agriculture and technology.

I wonder if Zuma checked the label of the biscuits when eating them with the Chief Rabbi, to see if they were made in Israel?

[BLACKLISTED DICTATOR]

Castor,
Cosatu must now pass a resolution "condemning" Zuma for eating
Israeli produced biscuits during his meeting with the Jewish Chief.

Interesting to note that :
"COSATU will support any moves by the South African government to promote peace in the Middle East and support to the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom."
Did Cosatu issue any comment when Hamas was recently butchering Fatah in Gaza ? Has Cosatu ever opposed Hamas suicide bombing?
If it hasn't, why does Cosatu pretend that it wants to "promote peace in the Middle East"
The only thing that Cosatu and Zuma is actually promoting in the Middle East is an Islamic jihad and it is about time that everybody woke up to this fact.