Tag: Ronnie Kasrils

Urgent call to action: Tell Egypt to end Gaza siege, refuse complicity in Israeli genocide

2nd August 2014 | International Solidarity Movement  | Occupied Palestine                               

Urgent call to action

In response to calls from our fellow human beings and comrades in Gaza who ask that we bring an end to the Egyptian government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of the people of Gaza:

To all of you who understand the interconnectedness of our many human struggles for justice and dignity, we implore you to act in solidarity with Palestine as Gaza burns and bleeds, gathers and buries the lifeless bodies of her children, and contends with carnage, despair, and loss for which there is no language.

More than 1.8 million human beings have been under a suffocating, deadly siege imposed by Israel and accommodated by the Egyptian government, that severely restricts all movement of people and products.

It is creating in Gaza what has been described as the biggest open air prison in the world, subject to frequent Israeli attacks and used as a laboratory to test and market new Israeli weapons.

The average age in Gaza is 17 years, with half the people under the age of 16. This is a defenceless civilian population, densely packed into this besieged enclave with no place to run or take refuge from Israel’s full-on military onslaught.

The cynical claims that Palestinians are forcing Israel to kill their children lack the basic requirements of logic and minimal vestiges of humanity. No one is forcing Israel to commit genocide or to target infrastructure like hospitals, schools, and the only power plant in Gaza.

Purposefully, of their own volition, Israelis are using the most sophisticated death machines against civilians: children, families, medical facilities and aid workers. Meanwhile Israel maintains a violent and brutal aerial, land and sea siege on Gaza, continuous since 2006.

Despite a call from Egyptian citizens to lift the siege, the Egyptian government which controls one border and has the option to be part of a humanitarian response to the besieged people of Gaza, has instead supported the Israeli plan for return to the status quo of slow genocide.

Many people in Gaza are desperate to avoid slow death by savage siege, hunger and lack of medical care and demand to live like normal human beings, but feel the only option Israel gives them is to die quickly by carpet bombings and wanton mass destruction which Israel now mercilessly executes.

Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry stated that the Rafah Crossing into Egypt is “open.” “We receive injured daily from Gaza, as we pass more than 600 tons of aid through.”

However, between the 10th and 27th of July, the Egyptian government has allowed an average of just nine wounded people a day to cross the border from Gaza to Egypt to receive medical treatment.

Several aid shipments of medical supplies, and even doctors, were denied entry. In light of the actual number of wounded in Gaza, at least 8,265 as of 31 July 2014, the Egyptian government’s allowance is condemnable.

Egypt must help their sisters and brothers in Gaza. The Egyptian government must refuse complicity in Israel’s genocide of a population they hold captive.

Here’s how you can help:

  • Go to your local Egyptian Embassy or consulate and demand the Egyptian government open Rafah crossing immediately and end its complicity with Israel’s genocide of the people of Gaza.

  • Flood embassy phone-lines/email with messages of protest. Write letters to print media holding Egypt complicit and similarly deluge radio/TV and Facebook etc.

  • Raise your concerns with your political representatives.

Please communicate your actions and the Embassy responses to us via email at: openrafahnow@gmail.com.

Updated list of endorsers:

  • Ahmed Kathrada, Former Robben Island inmate, anti-Apartheid icon, ANC leader – South Africa
  • Mr. Ronnie Kasrils Former ANC Minister for Intelligence Services – South Africa
  • Luisa Morgantini Former Vice President of the European Parliament – Italy
  • Richard Falk Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
  • Breyten Breytenbach, anti-Apartheid writer, painter, novelist and icon – South Africa
  • Noam Chomsky, linguist, philosopher, political commentator and activist – USA
  • Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) – South Africa
  • Mosireen – Egypt
  • Abu Dis Popular Committee – Palestine
  • Adalah- NY (the New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel) – USA
  • Al Eizariya Popular Committee – Palestine
  • Alternative Information Center – Palestine
  • Alternative Tourism Group – Palestine
  • Al Walaja Popular Committee – Palestine
  • Al Mufakara Popular Committee – Palestine
  • Al Masara Popular Committee – Palestine
  • Assopacepalestina – Italy
  • At Tuwani Popular Committee – Palestine
  • Australians for Palestine – Australia
  • Autónomos de Palestina – Spain
  • Badil – Palestine
  • BDS Catalunya – Catalunya
  • BDS Italy – Italy
  • BDS Kampagne – Germany
  • BDS Los Angeles for Justice in Palestine – USA
  • BDS Madrid – Spain
  • BDS – Netherlands
  • BDS – South Africa
  • Bil’in Popular Committee – Palestine
  • Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign- Vancouver – Canada
  • Boycott Israel Network – UK
  • British Muslim Initiative – UK
  • Campagne BDS France – France
  • Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – UK
  • Canadian Boat to Gaza – Canada
  • CODEPINK – USA
  • Collectif Palestine Libre (Toulouse) – France
  • Complicitats que Maten – Catalunya
  • Diensten Onderzoek Centrum Palestina – Netherlands
  • European Jews for a Just Peace – Europe
  • Felagid Island – Palestina – Iceland
  • Fourteen Friends of Palestine, Marin – USA
  • Free Gaza – International
  • Freedom Flotilla Italia – Italy
  • Gaza’s Ark – International
  • Global Peace and Justice Auckland (GPJA) – New Zealand
  • Hawai’i Coalition for Justice in Palestine – USA
  • Holy Land Trust – Palestine
  • International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network – International
  • International League for Human Rights – Germany
  • Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign – Ireland
  • Irish Anti-War Movement – Ireland
  • IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation – Turkey
  • International Solidarity Movement Northern California – USA
  • International Solidarity Movement Estado Espano – Spain
  • International Solidarity Movement – Palestine
  • Italian Peace Research Institute (Civil Peace Corps) – Italy
  • Izquierda Anticapitalista – Spain
  • Jews Against Genocide – International
  • Jews for Palestinian Right of Return – USA
  • Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost – Germany
  • Just Foreign Policy – US
  • Kenya Palestine Solidarity Committee – Kenya
  • Kufr Qaddum Popular Committee – Palestine
  • Labor for Palestine NY – USA
  • Lluita Internacionalista – Catalunya
  • Ni’lin Popular Committee – Palestine
  • Nabi Saleh Popular Committee – Palestine
  • Occupied Palestine and Syrian Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative
  • One Democratic State Group – England
  • Palestine Festival of Literature – Palestine
  • Palestine Forum in Britain – UK
  • Palestine Solidarity Alliance – South Africa
  • Palestine Solidarity Campaign – Scotland
  • Palestine Solidarity Campaign – South Africa
  • Palestinian-American Women’s Association of Southern California – USA
  • Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People – Palestine
  • Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall) – Palestine
  • Palestinian Union of Social Workers and Psychologists – Palestine
  • People for Peace, London – Canada
  • People for Peace London – Canada
  • The Ahmed Katharda foundation – South Africa
  • PFB – Friends of Al Aqsa – UK
  • Plataforma de Boicot Acádemico contra Israel – Spain
  • Plataforma de Solidaridad con Palestina Madrid – Spain
  • Popular Struggle Coordination Committee – Palestine
  • Red Sparks Union- Vancouver – Canada
  • Red de Solidaridad contra la Ocupación de Palestina – Spain
  • Roman Solidarity Network for Palestine – Italy
  • Rumbo a Gaza – Spain
  • Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – Canada
  • Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign – Scotland
  • Ship to Gaza – Norway
  • Ship to Gaza – Sweden
  • Social Democratic Party – Kenya
  • Stop the War – UK
  • Students for Justice in Palestine at Brooklyn College – USA
  • Students for Justice in Palestine Auckland – New Zealand
  • Student Senate of Bethlehem University – Palestine
  • Susya Popular Committee – Palestine
  • Unite Union – Palestine
  • Youth Against Settlements – Palestine

A call from Gaza

20 December 2009

This week marks one year since Israel began its attack on the Gaza Strip: a year since phosphorus bombs, dime bombs and other weapons of death and destruction were unleashed on a defenseless civilian population. A year since the people of the world demanded that Israel end its attack on Gaza.

In this Israeli war of aggression on the occupied Gaza Strip, many of our civilians were massacred by Israel’s indiscriminate bombing, condemned by UN experts and leading human rights organizations as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This assault left over 1,440 Palestinians dead, predominantly civilians, of whom 431 were children. Another 5380 Palestinians were injured. We, the 1.5 million Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, the overwhelming majority of whom are refugees who were violently expelled from our homes by Zionist forces in 1948, were subjected to three weeks of relentless Israeli state terror, whereby Israeli warplanes systematically targeted civilian areas, reduced whole neighborhoods and vital civilian infrastructure to rubble and partially destroyed scores of schools, including several run by the UN, where civilians were taking shelter. This came after 18 months of an ongoing, crippling, deadly hermetic Israeli siege of Gaza, a severe form of collective punishment described by John Dugard,the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights as “a prelude to genocide.”

The war on Gaza was predicated and advocated for by Israeli generals and politicians. Matan Vilnai, ex-Deputy Defense Minister of Israel, told Army Radio during “Operation Hot Winter” (29 February 2008):

They will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.

In the days following this statement, 107 Palestinians, including 28 children, were killed. The international community failed to take action. This inaction, followed by European declarations of intentions to upgrade their trade agreements with Israel, served as a green light for the atrocities that were to be committed in January 2009.

But the attack on Gaza is not yet over: we, the Palestinians of Gaza are still living with our physical, mental and emotional wounds. Our bodies cannot heal because the medicine that we require is not allowed into the Gaza Strip .Our homes cannot be rebuilt and the mangled steel and concrete cannot be removed because the trucks and bulldozers that can remove them are not allowed into the Gaza Strip.

Never before has a population been denied the basic requirements for survival as a deliberate policy of colonization, occupation and apartheid, but this is what Israel is doing to us, the people of Gaza, today: 1.5 million people live without a secure supply of water, food, electricity, medicines, with almost half of them being children under the age of 15.

It is a slow genocide of the kind unparalleled in human history.

Earlier this month, Ronnie Kasrils, ex South African Intelligence Minister and member of the ANC, said in the UK, that what Israel is doing to the Palestinians is far worse than what was done to black South Africans under apartheid. And, former American president Jimmy Carter said, on his visit to Gaza, that the Palestinian people trapped in Gaza are being treated “like animals.”

The people of Gaza need your support to end the blockade. Over 1400 international activists from over 42 countries will be in Gaza on December 31. They will march with us to demand that Israel lift its’ blockade of the Gaza Strip immediately and permanently. We ask you to show your solidarity with Gaza on the same day: wherever you may be, organize a protest, a march or a petition collection in your own country.

There are 1.5 million people in Gaza: we want to see 1.5 million people around the world support us as we take our demands to the Israeli state.

We need you to show Israel that we have a common humanity; that you watch what it does and you will not tolerate it because silence is complicity.

We need you to show Israel on December 31 2009 that there is no place for their kind of war mongering and barbarism in the world and that the people of the world reject it.

We need you to show us, the people of Gaza, that you remember the horror that we face each day, and that you are with us as we fight against the Israeli-apartheid killing machine.

Gaza

20 December 2009

Signed by:
Academic Sector
Boycott National Committee
PNGO (Civil Society Sector)
Labor Sector
Women’s Sector
Students’ Sector
Youth Sector

Israel 2007: Worse than Apartheid

Ronnie Kasrils
Ronnie Kasrils
by Ronnie Kasrils | Mail & Guardian

Travelling into Palestine’s West Bank and Gaza Strip, which I visited recently, is like a surreal trip back into an apartheid state of emergency.

It is chilling to pass through the myriad checkpoints – more than 500 in the West Bank. They are controlled by heavily armed soldiers, youthful but grim, tensely watching every movement, fingers on the trigger. Fortunately for me, travelling in a South African embassy vehicle with official documents and escort, the delays were brief.

Sweeping past the lines of Palestinians on foot or in taxis was like a view of the silent, depressed pass- office queues of South Africa’s past. A journey from one West Bank town to another that could take 20 minutes by car now takes seven hours for Palestinians, with manifold indignities at the hands of teenage soldiers.

My friend, peace activist Terry Boullata, has virtually given up her teaching job. The monstrous apartheid wall cuts off her East Jerusalem house from her school, which was once across the road, and now takes an hour’s journey. Yet she is better off than the farmers of Qalqilya, whose once prosperous agricultural town is totally surrounded by the wall and economically wasted. There is only one gated entry point. The key is with the occupation soldiers. Often they are not even there to let anyone in or out.

Bethlehem too is totally enclosed by the wall, with two gated entry points. The Israelis have added insult to injury by plastering the entrances with giant scenic posters welcoming tourists to Christ’s birthplace.

The “security barrier”, as the ­Israeli’s term it, is designed to crush the human spirit as much as to enclose the Palestinians in ghettoes. Like a reptile, it transforms its shape and cuts across agricultural lands as a steel-and-wire barrier, with watchtowers, ditches, patrol roads and alarm systems. It will be 700km long and, at a height of 8m to 9m in places, dwarfs the Berlin Wall.

The purpose of the barrier becomes clearest in open country. Its route cuts huge swathes into the West Bank to incorporate into Israel the illegal Jewish settlements – some of which are huge towns – and annexes more and more Palestinian territory.

The Israelis claim the purpose of the wall is purely to keep out terrorists. If that were the case, the Palestinians argue, why has it not been built along the 1967 Green Line border? One can only agree with the observation of Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad, who has stated: “It has become abundantly clear that the wall and checkpoints are principally aimed at advancing the safety, convenience and comfort of settlers.”

The West Bank, once 22% of historic Palestine, has shrunk to perhaps 10% to 12% of living space for its inhabitants, and is split into several fragments, including the fertile Jordan Valley, which is a security preserve for Jewish settlers and the Israeli Defence Force. Like the Gaza Strip, the West Bank is effectively a hermetically sealed prison. It is shocking to discover that certain roads are barred to Palestinians and reserved for Jewish settlers. I try in vain to recall anything quite as obscene in apartheid South Africa.

Gaza provides a desolate landscape of poverty, grime and bombed-out structures. Incon- gruously, we are able to host South Africa’s Freedom Day reception in a restaurant overlooking the splendid harbour and beach. Gunfire ­rattles up and down the street, briefly interrupting our proceedings, as some militia or other celebrates news of the recovery from hospital of a wounded comrade. Idle fishing boats bob in long lines in the harbour, for times are bad. They are confined by Israel to 3km of the coast and fishing is consequently unproductive. Yet, somehow, the guests are provided with a good feast in best Palestinian tradition.

We are leaving through Tel Aviv airport and the Israeli official catches my accent. “Are you South African?’ he asks in an unmistakable Gauteng accent. The young man left Benoni as a child in 1985. “How’s Israel?” I ask. “This is a f**ked-up place,” he laughs, “I’m leaving for Australia soon.”

“Down under?” I think. I’ve just been, like Alice, down under into a surreal world that is infinitely worse than apartheid. Within a few hours I am in Northern Ireland, a guest at the swearing in of the Stormont power-sharing government of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness.

Not even PW Botha or Ariel ­Sharon were once as extreme as Ian Paisley in his most riotous and bigoted days. Ireland was under England’s boot for 800 years, South Africa’s colonial-apartheid order lasted 350 years. The Zionist colonial-settler project stems from the 1880s. The Israeli ruling class, corrupt and with no vision, can no longer rule in the old way. The ­Palestinians are not prepared to be suppressed any longer. What is needed is Palestinian unity behind their democratically elected national government, reinforced by popular struggles of Palestinians and progressive Israelis, supported by international solidarity.

South Africa’s stated position is clear. The immediate demands are recognition of the government of national unity, the lifting of economic sanctions and blockade of the Palestinian territories, an end to the 40-year-old military occupation and resumption of negotiations for a two-state solution.

On a final note, the invitation to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh as head of a national unity government was welcomed by President Mahmoud Abbas, and will be dealt with by our government.

As they say in Arabic: “Insha ’Allah [God-willing].”

Ronnie Kasrils is South Africa’s Minister of Intelligence