Global Anti-Apartheid Conference on Palestine: A Breakthrough Moment
For three days, May 10 to 12, more than 250 delegates and participants from pro-Palestine solidarity groups in over 24 countries across all five continents came together in Johannesburg to discuss how to forge and consolidate a global network and campaign against Israel’s apartheid and genocide on Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (OTs).
The conservative figure for the total number of people killed and injured by Israel in its ongoing assault on Gaza has reached 130,000 or 5.6% of the total population of 2.3 million. This is the equivalent of 18 million in the US and 72 million (7.2 crore) in India. It is not just the US and its allies but also the current Indian government that refuses to call and condemn it for what it is: an ongoing genocide. The prime minister of the “Mother of Democracy” claims to be concerned about the plight of the Palestinians yet India has been sending weaponised cargo to Israel, likely for deployment in Palestine itself. If this is not doublespeak what is?
This vital conference — organised by the South African Anti-Apartheid Steering Committee — comprised of leading figures from several pro-Palestine groups, stood out explicitly for bringing together not the delegates of governments or political parties home or abroad, but representatives from civil society solidarity groups in different countries.
Those political dignitaries who did come, fully endorsed this basic orientation, indeed recognising that the worldwide popular campaign against South African apartheid provides important lessons for how to isolate Israel in the longer run and help liberate the people of Palestine, whether in the OTs or in the diaspora. There were a few high political dignitaries — Thabo Mbeki, former South African president; Ahmet Davutoğlu, former Turkish prime minister; Yvonne Dausab, Namibia’s minister of justice, the former foreign minister of Bolivia; Declan Kearney, National Chairman of Sinn Féin from Ireland; and Mustafa Barghouti, a former Palestinian minister and the current president of the union of Palestinian medical relief committees serving diverse health needs in the OTs. Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s minister of international relations and cooperation and the key driver of her country’s action to officially take Israel to the ICJ for indictment for its multiple war crimes and its ongoing genocidal campaign, was invited to give the opening address.
Other dignitaries were also invited to make brief presentations and everyone stressed that the need of the hour was the emergence of such a global solidarity network as the crucial pre-condition for changing the consciousness of the global public and thereby exercising powerful pressure on governments. While important lessons and experiences were provided by former legendary leaders in the South African Anti-Apartheid movement like Abdul Minty and Ronnie Kasrils, the highlights of the plenary proceedings were the presentations by Palestinian voices. These included not just Raji Sourani (director of the Palestine Center for Human Rights) and Ali Abunimah (founder of Electronic Intifada website) but globally lesser-known Palestinians who gave the most powerful and moving insights into what was and is happening in the West Bank (WB) and Gaza.
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They all discussed what political, legal, and media activities could be more fruitful to pursue as well as the necessity of coordinating these and popular mass mobilisations at the national, regional and more global levels, not just in Israel and the OTs or in the wider Middle East but in other parts of the world. This is why six separate regional workshops — Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Arab world, Latin America, North America, and Europe — were organised to enable civil society clusters to lay the ground for coordinated campaigns and action plans in their respective regions.
There were also six thematic workshops organised to help flesh out different possible action plans. One, for coordinated efforts in BDS globally — an urgent and sustained effort the foundation of which echoes back to the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the 1980s, wherein a boycott of goods produced in Apartheid South Africa was amplified and imposition of sanctions was advocated.
Two, for discussing possible interfaith actions and campaigns among various faith groups in support of the Palestinian cause; this also includes the connection of anti-apartheid interfaith activities with the BDS campaign.
Three, about shifting the global narrative in favour of Palestine — specifically, breaking down binaries of the “good” and “bad” Palestinian, perceiving the issue as a “conflict” rather than a “genocide”, weaponisation of the anti-Semite label, denying Palestinian voices their agency, etc.
Four, on what legal strategies in multilateral spheres could be pursued — two major highlights in this context were that of having an expansive view of the possibilities of litigation’s impact with respect to the extra-judicial developments that impact legal developments and the need to establish legal accountability on companies who work on CSR (essentially, a differentiation between “corporate social responsibility” and “corporate criminal responsibility” i.e. of complicity with the genocide).
Five, on the ways to strengthen structures of resistance to enable non-violent forms of civil disobedience and enhance capacities for self-defence and protection against the routine violence carried out by both the Israeli army and settler groups, rendering Apartheid ungovernable and unworkable.
Six, on supporting Palestinian political prisoners (now around 12,000, who are regularly denied access to clean water and cooked food while some on the Israeli far-right even call for summary executions) and establishing people-to-people solidarity.
To develop strategies to counter Israel, one needs to grasp what Israel’s plans are. There was a consensus that Israel seemingly has four basic perspectives all aimed at further expansion of its territorial dominance. From the north, it must ensure complete control over the Jordan Valley region which makes up 30% of the WB. From the west, Israel is extending the Apartheid wall which already includes 13% of the territory in the WB but another 30% remains to be built and that means more territory will be included.
The construction of this wall long betrayed the idea that it would only travel along the 708-kilometres Green Line that separates Israel from the WB. It is already more than twice as long. In East Jerusalem, Israel’s process of ejecting as much of the population as possible is continuing. Furthermore, Israel plans on having Gaza permanently delinked from the WB and dealt with separately. This is because the heart of Judea and Samaria resides in the WB.
The most desired goal not just of Netanyahu or the far-right political parties but of a significant section of the security establishment — Israel, after all, is not a nation with an army but an army with a nation — is to now complete the Nakba of 1948. That is, get Western support for the expulsion of as much of the Gaza population as possible to Egypt and neighbouring countries even on ‘humanitarian’ grounds. Moreover, Israel is willing to offer financially-backed schemes for the ‘voluntary re-settlement’ of Palestinian refugees to poorer countries in Africa and elsewhere.
In the West Bank, the aim is to push as many as possible out to Jordan. If this strategy doesn’t succeed because of sufficient resistance from both within the OTs and from neighbouring Arab governments, then go in for an ‘Oslo 2.0’. This would be another ‘two-state solution’ whose terms would justify and legitimise the existing Bantustan fragmentation and brutal army rule both in the WB and Gaza. Here, the US would be the key, behind-the-scenes actor to persuade the Saudi Arabian government to ‘lead’ negotiations that would eventually arrive at this outcome which a ‘reluctant’ Israel would be ‘pressured’ by the US to accept. The Arab governments could be portrayed as victors of a sort and Israel the ‘defeated’. Wider normalisation of Arab relations with Israel could then follow.
But Israel’s behaviour since the October 7 horrific attack as it is, has also broken, regionally and globally, the political glacis that existed for over two decades. Zionism as an ideology has been undermined and exposed as never before. Large-scale further immigration into Israel — something that the Israeli government very much wants for its expanding settlement project — has been seriously halted while there could well be a higher rate of Jewish emigration than before.
There is also the expanding recognition that united Palestinians need a more united and democratic structure of leadership to overcome their own existing internal social and political divisions and an end to subcontracted forms of fragmentation and subordination. This no longer dormant sense of personal agency and belief that there can be a steady and cumulative process of progressive transformation in the OTs owes not a little to the great eruption of international solidarity and protest actions. It is also clear that the Palestinian Diaspora will from now on play a much bigger role in the ongoing liberation struggle.
Palestinian activists on the ground have been at the forefront of acknowledging that Israeli and South African apartheid regimes share many of the same brutal characteristics. There have been deep and lasting links established between activists in Palestine and South Africa over decades, and it was abundantly clear that many lessons have been shared and continue to inspire whatever be Israel’s opposition or Fatah’s political manoeuvres. In a country like India, once a staunch opponent of apartheid, the current context provides strong support for activists to advocate against Israeli apartheid and build a robust movement around the Palestinian cause.
The conference was significant because apartheid remains a universally condemned practice. No country in the world supports apartheid, which underscores the need to strengthen the movement against it. The origin of this global anti-apartheid initiatives in South Africa lends it even more credibility.
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The conference ended with the release of its Declaration on Israel’s Settler-Colonialism, Apartheid and Genocide: Towards a Global Anti-Apartheid Movement for Palestine. But the great importance of the conference is that it is for the first time in the new millennium that there has been such an effort to establish the basis for a global network of civil society associations to create ever greater public awareness of the justice of the Palestinian cause and to bring about more coordinated solidarity actions on several fronts and in several parts of the world.
Nadeem Khan is a social activist, Prakriti is a feminist researcher working on civic and rights-based issues and Achin Vanaik is a retired professor of International Relations. All the three authors are members of Indians for Palestine.
This article went live on May twenty-second, two thousand twenty four, at thirty minutes past seven in the evening.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
