Global Anti-Apartheid Conference for Palestine begins in South Africa

By Anadolu staff

South Africa is hosting the first Global Anti-Apartheid Conference for Palestine aimed at highlighting the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza and the illegal Israeli settlers’ colonialism among other issues.

The three-day conference started Friday at the Sandton Convention Center in Johannesburg and has attracted international speakers including Declan Kearney, the chairperson of Sinn Fein, the Irish republican and democratic socialist political party, Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian human rights activist and politician, and Ronnie Kasrils, a former South Africa Minister of Intelligence, among others.

“We will not forgive what has happened to Palestinians. The dehumanization of Palestinians. They did not allow Palestinians to bury their loved ones,” Mustafa Barghouti said at the conference.

Barghouti said what is happening in Palestine is a global injustice against a people. “What we face is not only apartheid, it’s an evil plan by the settler Israeli system to destroy Palestine. 70% of the Palestinian population has been displaced,” he added.

He said the world should ask where international law and human rights are amid the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza and other global conflicts.

He said Palestinians will not leave their land, surrender, or give up. Barghouti also thanked South Africa for standing with the oppressed Palestinian people by taking Israel to the International Court of Justice, where Israel stands accused of genocide.

An interim ruling in January said it is "plausible" that Tel Aviv is committing genocide in the coastal enclave, and ordered Tel Aviv to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians.

Kearney said the solidarity of ordinary people for Palestine across the world is “unprecedented” and South Africa's ICJ case against Israel is “courageous.”

He said Israel will never defeat the Palestinian spirit of resistance, adding: “We are with the Palestinian people on their long walk to freedom and will never abandon them.”