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By Haidar Eid
Expensive Ms. Lalela Mswane,
We don’t know one another. I solely know that you’re Miss South Africa and simply heard of your title two days in the past when the media reported that you’ll signify South Africa on the Miss Universe pageant on the ruins of the ethnically cleansed village of Um Al-Rashrash in apartheid Israel. I assume you don’t know sufficient in regards to the struggling of the Palestinian folks on account of Israel’s occupation colonization and apartheid in Palestine. I personally spent six years in South Africa the place I received my Ph.D. diploma and even citizenship.
Even earlier than the tip of the apartheid system in 1994, we, Palestinians, wholeheartedly supported the battle in South Africa and performed a task within the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) motion that fashioned one of many main pillars of the battle to deliver apartheid down. Nelson Mandela made it completely clear on a couple of event that with out the help of the Palestine liberation group, amongst different nationwide liberation actions, the tip of the racist regime would have been delayed.
I stay within the Gaza focus camp which has been underneath a medieval siege imposed by apartheid Israel since 2007. However even earlier than that, Israel had occupied it since 1967. Because of Israel’s racist insurance policies, our kids undergo from malnutrition; the two million folks residing within the strip shouldn’t have entry to electrical energy, clear water, drugs, and lots of of different gadgets that Israel doesn’t permit. During the last decade, the nation you might be visiting has launched 4 large wars on Gaza killing greater than 4000 civilians, together with lots of of girls and youngsters, and destroying lots of of buildings, factories, roads, and faculties.
A UN fact-finding mission, headed by none aside from your individual Richard Goldstone, has labeled these massacres “warfare crimes and attainable crimes in opposition to humanity.” And anti-apartheid activists, together with the likes of Desmond Tutu and Ronnie Kasrils, have advised us that what we’re going by in Palestine is “far far worse than apartheid.” Furthermore, two mainstream human rights organizations, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s most revered human rights group, Btselem, issued two damning stories final yr calling Israel an apartheid state that discriminates not solely in opposition to the residents of Gaza and the West Financial institution but additionally in opposition to its personal third-class Palestinian residents.
Ms. Mswane, permit me to ask you this query. How would you have got felt if a Palestinian lady determined to hitch the same contest in South Africa within the 70s and ’80s of the final century? How would you have got responded if the same contest was held in Sofia city, for instance? And the way would the South African folks have reacted to the participation of Palestinians in concert events and sports activities video games in apartheid South Africa?
It’s essential to have heard of the tens of lovely ladies incarcerated in Israeli dungeons with out cost or trial, merely for the mere motive of talking out in opposition to occupation and apartheid. Our ladies, like South African ladies earlier than them, are on the receiving finish of a multi-tiered system of oppression and count on solidarity from their Black sisters.
I’m an affiliate professor of literature; I educate lots of of feminine college students who come from refugee camps and whose dad and mom and grandparents are additionally refugees. My college students have one message after I advised them {that a} South African lady is coming to apartheid Israel; they requested me to jot down this message and attraction to you to chorus from violating our BDS pointers and stand on the suitable aspect of historical past. I’m sure you’ll not disappoint them.
Nelson Mandela’s much-quoted sentiment that “(South African) freedom is incomplete with out the liberty of the Palestinians” is adorning the partitions of refugee camps within the Gaza Strip the place tens of millions of refugees are ready for the day of their return to the cities and villages which have been ethnically cleansed in 1948 by racist gangs ruling the nation you might be visiting. We’re solely asking you to make the suitable determination that 1000’s of artists, writers and cultural figures–together with Miss Malaysia and Miss Indonesia– have made – to face in opposition to apartheid Israel.
Sincerely Yours,
Haidar Eid
Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine
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