BDS-BERICHTEN NEDERLANDS PALESTINA KOMITEE

This afternoon at a joint press conference held at the student center of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, national representatives of the South African Union of Students (SAUS), the South African Student Congress (SASCO) and the Young Communist League (YCL) slammed the pending trip of "Israeli Apartheid agents" to South Africa. 

The Israeli mission to South African campuses is expected to arrive on the 11th of August 2011. Palestinian students have written to South African colleagues asking them to challenge and boycott the Israeli delegation. 

Today's press conference was hosted by South Africa's oldest, largest and most representative student bodies - the South African Students Congress* and the South African Union of Students**. Furthermore, members of the University of Johannesburg and University of the Witwatersrand's Student Representative Councils were also present.

An extract of the press statement is produced below:
 
"We, students and youth of a post Apartheid South Africa, who bear the scars of a racist history and who continue to fight for complete liberation, have a duty and responsibility to stand in solidarity with those facing oppression worldwide. Israeli apartheid is one such form of oppression.
 
"Israeli media boast that a mission of 150 Israeli propagandists will be sent to universities in 5 countries to fix Israel's "serious image problems". The Israeli mission will begin on South African campuses on the 11th of August, with a delegation that includes at least two aides from the Israeli parliament. A delegation member was clear about the intention of their trip: "We have to create some doubt in their [South African students’] minds."
 
"Don’t patronize us! We lived apartheid, we suffered apartheid, we know what apartheid is, we recognise apartheid when we see it. And when we see Israel, we see a regime that practices apartheid. Israel’s image needs no changing; its policies do! We urge Israeli students to instead join the growing and inspiring internal resistance to their regime, particularly the boycott from within movement, rather than waste time and money on these propaganda trips to deceive us Black students, South Africans have no need for these Muldergate-like trips.
 
"A "major focus” of the Israeli trip will be the University of Johannesburg (UJ). On 1st April 2011 UJ's Senate, with the full backing of UJ's Student Representative Council, terminated its institutional relationship with Israel's Ben-Gurion University. Indeed, UJ set an academic boycott of Israel precedent that all other South African and international universities can follow.
 
"Following UJ’s decision, and in response to a letter sent to us by Palestinian students, we urge all SRCs, student groups and other youth structures to strategize and implement a boycott of Israel and its campaigns. We declare that all SA campuses must be Apartheid-Israel free zones.
 
"As with the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, international solidarity is key in overcoming Israeli Apartheid. In Nelson Mandela’s words: 'It behoves all South Africans, erstwhile beneficiaries of generous international support, to stand up and be counted among those contributing actively to the cause of freedom and justice….we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.'