Supporters wave Israeli flags before an election campaign event with Benny Gantz, leader of Israel’s Blue and White Party, in Herzliya, Israel, March 31 2019. Picture: BLOOMBERG/CORINNA KERN
The brazenness of the Zionist lobby and its so-called Rule of Law Project in exerting pressure on the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) intention to impose an academic boycott of Israeli universities must be challenged by all South Africans, including the ANC government, which is required to uphold the obligations of our constitution.
That Israel is an apartheid state has been repeatedly established by international authorities including the UN, but also in 2018 by the Israeli government itself with its nation state law. While the term “apartheid” originated in SA, its Zionist variant in Israel-Palestine is even worse than we experienced here.
That advocate Mark Oppenheimer cites section 9 of the SA constitution and bill of rights to make the spurious claim that a UCT boycott of Israeli institutions would be “unconstitutional” is totally unfounded. Section 9 (1) declares: “Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law.”
The Israeli government dismally fails the stipulations of sections 9 (2), (3), (4) and (5) both within “Israel proper” and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Thus, for UCT to buckle under Zionist pressure would make a mockery of SA’s constitutional democracy.
