We do not hate Jews. We hate oppression – Naledi Pandor

Our efforts at social justice should extend beyond support from outside and include a full role for beneficiary communities as builders, teachers and community leaders. Some of those who embrace Islam regard this as access to charity. We need to help unlearn that attitude and ensure that they become participants in the development opportunities that they may be fortunate to receive.

The values of social justice that are enshrined in the Quran also require attention to economic empowerment for our brothers and sisters and to learning the lessons of self-reliance, which are so important. We must not allow dependency and charity to be the sole basis of new relationships and embrace of our faith. Furthermore, we know that in many of our communities some of us have business formations that provide employment opportunities and manufactured products.

Our values of social justice require that we should be honest and committed workers and that as employers and business owners we should be fair and just in paying fair wages and ensuring good working conditions. The most embarrassing moments for me often are when workers come and complain about a member of my community who is ill-treating them or denying them wages for fair work. This is not who we should be as this community.

So it is important that we do not allow that characterisation of who we are. Our obligations are, I believe, even broader as social justice in Islam mandates concern about all human beings. Thus, while we are concerned very correctly about Muslims in Myanmar and in Kashmir, about Muslims in Palestine, we are equally concerned about Christians who are oppressed, about Jews who are oppressed, about Buddhists who are oppressed, about Palestinians who are oppressed.

We support justice for the oppressed, not just for those who belong to our faith. The concept that is so prevalent in our faith of social justice and promotion of human rights imposes the important duty on us to be alert about injustices that exist everywhere and to work at ensuring all people enjoy protection and access to justice and freedom. Those of you who follow social media would have seen there’s an American gentleman called Colonel Roger or something and he talks about me on a regular basis.

He says, I hate Christians, I’m anti-Semitic, I’m a tool of Iran and any other name that he can find. The gentleman has never met me. He apparently lives somewhere in America but he has thousands of followers to whom he communicates these lies.

I have always been absolutely precise about indicating that we support the cause of the people of Palestine for freedom and justice but we also support the cause of Christian Palestinians who wish to be free and to enjoy human rights. We do not hate Jews. We hate oppression.

We hate injustice. And in all the work that we do, we must make this absolutely and abundantly clear. We are fortunate, I believe as South Africans, to live in a country in which there is a clear constitutional imperative to advance the human dignity of all, to advance social justice, to advance freedom and democracy.

Our perspectives on international relations and foreign policy are shaped by these constitutional imperatives. Our constitution is clear in stating that we seek to promote and practise a foreign policy that advances peace, security and justice. We have committed as South Africans to be active in opposing all forms of continuing colonial oppression.

The MPs returned very jubilant and loudly proclaimed they had not found any apartheid in Israel. So people like Naledi Pandor, who referred to Israel as an apartheid state, are wrong, they said. The news did not report as to whether those MPs visited Palestine, but it’s almost certain that they did not.

They were clearly not permitted to visit Palestine because their funders were dishonestly fearful that our belief that Israel is an apartheid state imposing oppressive racist apartheid laws on the people of Palestine would be exposed. Researchers and human rights organisations have investigated what the practise of apartheid means and have looked at the practises of Israel under its illegal occupation and have reported that the policies of Israel against Palestinians constitute apartheid policies as they mirror practises South Africans had to endure under apartheid. These practises include the reality that the land of the people of Palestine is illegally occupied.

The land owned by Palestinians can be seized by any Israeli without compensation, just as we had under apartheid. Palestinians have to carry IDs that identify them as Palestinians. They need special permits to work. They do not have citizenship. They cannot vote. They cannot control their revenue or govern themselves. Even worse, they can be arrested on sight and detained for years without trial. They face torture or death in prison and enjoy no human rights. This situation has existed for over 75 years.

It is apartheid. The attacks on Gaza civilians from October 8, 2023 caused us to decide to approach the International Court of Justice. The killing and the bombing of more than 300 schools, of all 13 universities, of libraries, of hospitals, of cultural centres, of clinics, as well as the murder of thousands indicated to us that a genocide was underway in Israel.

The government of South Africa believes that international law must be exercised to support those facing injustice and hence our approach to the court. The case has been an important test of international law, global cooperation for peace and security, and global adherence to human rights. Now you know they have the English saying that a prophet has no friends except in his own home.

We were criticised as South Africa for approaching the International Court of Justice. Today, all the countries that criticised us are suddenly saying that Israel is breaching international law. South Africa was the first.

The rest who supported Israel, many of them, are now following our lead. And we need to say that to the world. Belief in social justice encouraged South Africa to be the first country to stand up and challenge the murderous onslaught in Gaza.

The support that we gave also resulted from the Palestinians’ traditional support for our own struggle against apartheid. The Palestinian people don’t need to thank us for taking the action we did because they supported us when we were struggling against apartheid. They trained our freedom fighters.

So they don’t have to thank us. It is our obligation to stand with them in their time of trouble. Many, many decades ago, social justice and our belief in it drew our freedom fighters into an unbroken international solidarity with the freedom fighters of Palestine.

Tell them it is a very important concept that leaders such as Oliver Tambo, Ahmed Kathrada, Amina Cachalia, and our leaders placed on the podium of the United Nations. It is called international solidarity. It means when I’m denied my rights as a human being, you, as a fellow human being, have a responsibility to join with me in the fight against oppression.

We, as South Africans, went to the world and said that about apartheid. So today, we cannot turn our back on the Palestinian people and all others who supported us. The fact that we enjoyed that solidarity means we have an obligation to give back to others, supporting them to fight injustice.

We belong to a wonderful country. And social justice and our belief in it, as well as our belief in the values elaborated in the Koran, means that we should live in terms of these values and we should be ready to protect them when they are threatened. I said recently in America that we, as Muslims, we are a peace-loving people, but we are permitted to engage in jihad when necessary.

The full speech can be viewed below:

https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/we-do-not-hate-jews-we-hate-oppression–naledi-pan