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Cabinet has yet again consulted widely and done the opposite of what the
consultation suggested. The decision requiring that products imported from
Gaza and the West Bank be marked as coming from the "Israeli-Occupied
Territories" rather than from "Israel" is against our national interest and
one must wonder why it was adopted.

Surely it was not adopted to fulfil international obligations, as there are
no legal bases in our law or in international law to require that products
coming from the West Bank or Gaza should be marked as coming from
Israeli-occupied territories.

It is not a matter of principle for if that were the case products from
Tibet should also be marketed as originating from "Chinese occupied Tibet"
and the same should apply in respect the other 72 territories listed by the
UN as occupied, none of which is referred to in Cabinet decision.

Instead of attending to enlarging our industrial bases and enhancing our
international trade, Davies constantly dwells in foreign affairs and social
welfare. His department is loaded with wide-ranging welfare policies, now
extended to unproductive businessmen and industrialists at the enormous cost
of our economic growth, long-term employment generation and international
competitiveness. He has forgot that his primary mandate is to promote
economic growth and help the country to make money.

This is obviously a provocation aimed at promoting a consumer boycott of
such products which will hurt the Palestinians who often produce them.

Why are we doing it? Perhaps for the same reasons Cabinet donated our money
to Cuba, Cabinet decision on Israel action is detrimental to our trade
relations, economic growth and employment generation, which Cabinet must
deem less important than paying off ANC's political debts with the
Palestinian authorities.

The ANC is showing a policy dislike for advanced democracies and free and
prosperous societies and feels instinctual political affinities with
dictatorships, closed societies and totalitarian regimes. It dislikes the
US, UK, Canada, Australia, European Counties and Israel and snuggles up with
Gaddafi's Libya, Aristide's Haiti, Castro's Cuba, China, Putin's Russia,
Iran, Chavez's Venezuela, Mugabe's Zimbabwe, Kabila's DRC, et cetera. Why?

We should follow the righteous path rather than stick with the wicked.

Probably, when dealing with the latter countries, the ANC feels more
comfortable about its incompetence, endemic tolerance of corruption,
political immaturity, lack of efficiency in government delivery and the
manner in which in closed or undemocratic countries political leaders are
respected, showered with privileges and absolved of sins.

Our foreign policy seems dominated by the personal interests of ANC leaders
and their political and business clients.

This main thrust of foreign policy seems to be complemented by a strange
sentiment. It is a sense of global solidarity with people other than those
the ANC perceives as white supremacists. This is the projection on a global
and historical canvass of the mindset created during our struggle against
apartheid.

During the committee debate on the Cuban "solidarity grant", having run out
of rational arguments to justify it, ANC MPs stated that "Cubans are our
people". Why, as they are not South Africans, African or even black? The
same expression was used during others debates relating to Palestinians,
countries in Asia, American Indians and Australia's indigenous people, in
short, the populations in need of development.

It suggests that underdeveloped peoples are such because other peoples have
achieved development. The poor is such because the rich is rich, even when
dealing with populations which have had no contact with developed countries.

This projects a collective sense of inferiority and the naive and pathetic
desire, which alas became foreign policy, that by making common cause with
those whom the ANC wrongly thinks share its inferiority complex such complex
will be overcome. It almost feels as if the ideologically-based Marxist
notion of a global class struggle has been replaced within the racist-based
notion of a global struggle between oppressive and oppressed races. This
excludes those like China who, because they give our leaders money and
goodies, are seen as on our side, which boggles the mind!