Revolutionary and fraternal greetings to all members of the ANC and in particular to the President, Deputy President, Secretary General, Deputy Secretary General, Treasurer-General, and all ANC National Executive Committee Members.

We send our warmest comradely greetings to all ANC leaders, members, leagues and Alliance partners on the occasion of the ANC’s 2015 National General Council.

We extend our gratitude to the ANC and its membership for its long-standing commitment and support of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and self-determination.

We welcome the ANC’s pro-active solidarity with the Palestinian people, indeed with all oppressed peoples. The ANC indeed remains an internationalist party celebrated globally for its principled positions in solidarity with international liberation struggles.

We in particular welcome the ANC’s participation in awareness raising initiatives such as the annual Israeli Apartheid Week program as captured in the 2015 international relations NGC discussion document.

We welcome the strong position of the ANC on banning government travel to Israel and participation in Israeli propaganda trips that are used as a white washing exercise of Israel’s violation of human rights against indigenous Palestinians. We are confident that the NGC in its deliberations will certainly reaffirm the position of the ANC on this issue.

The international community including the Palestinian Authority view the Israeli settlements as illegitimate and an obstruction to any just peace. The state of Palestine and President Mahmoud Abbas have accordingly called on governments of the world, as governments, to initiate a boycott of illegal Israeli settlements, the illegal Israeli settlement industry and illegal Israeli occupation more generally.

We welcome the South African Government’s initiative to prevent the false labeling of Israeli settlement products, we also welcome the ANC’s NEC resolution from September 2014 to boycott Israeli settlement products and the settlement industry including international companies involved in the illegal Israeli occupation. We look forward to this ANC resolution becoming State policy and South Africa joining various other countries who have taken similar steps.

The majority of Palestinian political parties and civil society support non-violent civil society campaigns in solidarity with the Palestinian people including the highly successful BDS campaign. We call on the people of South Africa, and in particular the ANC and its branches, to support the growing boycott of Israel and assist in strengthening the BDS movement in South Africa but also throughout the African continent.

We wish the NGC well in its upcoming deliberations and look forward to welcoming you to a free Palestine.

Issued by Dr Nabeel Shaath

Member of Fateh Central Committe
Commissioner General of International Relations