15 June 2026: The Palestinian Solidarity Alliance condemns, in the strongest terms, the growing xenophobic rhetoric and mobilisation being promoted by Operation Dudula, March to March, and those political actors who have chosen to lend legitimacy to these dangerous campaigns.
We say this plainly: migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and foreign nationals are not the enemy of South Africa.
The enemy is not the mother from Zimbabwe trying to feed her children. It is not the young man from Malawi looking for work. It is not the Mozambican worker, the Congolese trader, the Somali shopkeeper, the Pakistani shop owner, the Bangladeshi worker, the Nigerian student, the Ethiopian refugee, or any undocumented person living in fear while trying to survive.
The real crisis in South Africa is not caused by poor and working-class people crossing borders. It is caused by a system that has failed the majority of people who live here. It is caused by unemployment, corruption, inequality, collapsing public services, landlessness, exploitation, and an economy still shaped by elites and capitalists who extract obscene profits while communities are left with hunger, debt and despair.
To blame migrants and foreign nationals for South Africa’s pain is not only dishonest. It is dangerous.
It turns neighbour against neighbour. It turns worker against worker. It directs anger downward, at the most vulnerable, instead of upward, at those who hold power and wealth. It allows the rich to continue looting while the poor are made to fight each other in the streets, clinics, schools, taxis and townships.
This is not justice. This is scapegoating.
As a movement rooted in solidarity with the Palestinian people, we know too well what happens when human beings are reduced to labels: “foreigners”, “illegals”, “infiltrators”, “criminals”, “threats”. These words prepare society to accept cruelty. They make it easier to deny people dignity, rights, safety and even life itself.
We reject the language of dehumanisation wherever it appears — whether in occupied Palestine, on the borders of Europe, in the townships of South Africa, or anywhere in the world.
South Africa’s freedom struggle was never built on hatred of the vulnerable. Our liberation struggle was supported by people across Africa and across the world. Countries and communities opened their doors to
South African exiles. They hosted our people, trained our cadres, gave diplomatic support, and suffered consequences because they stood with us. We dishonour that history when we now turn against people who come here seeking the very things our people once sought elsewhere: safety, work, dignity and a chance to live.
We are also deeply concerned by reports and allegations that some of these anti-migrant mobilisations may be encouraged or supported by external forces seeking to destabilise South Africa, particularly in the run-up to local elections. Whether through funding, political messaging, online amplification or opportunistic party-political support, any attempt to weaponise xenophobia for electoral gain must be exposed and rejected.
Those political parties and public figures who flirt with xenophobia must understand the fire they are playing with. Once hatred is normalised, it does not remain under control. It spills into homes, schools, workplaces, hospitals and communities. It becomes violence. It becomes displacement. It becomes death.
South Africa needs leadership, not scapegoating.
We need jobs, housing, clinics, schools, safety, food security and accountable government. We need action against corruption, wage theft, corporate greed, illicit financial flows, labour exploitation and the hoarding of wealth. We need immigration systems that are fair, lawful and humane. We need regional and international solutions rooted in dignity, justice and human rights.
What we do not need is a politics that tells the unemployed South African worker that his enemy is an unemployed migrant standing next to him in the same queue of poverty.
The PSA calls on civil society, trade unions, faith communities, student formations, migrant organisations, refugee rights organisations, progressive political forces and all people of conscience to reject xenophobia wherever it appears.
We call on the state to act decisively against incitement, intimidation and vigilantism.
We call on political parties to stop using migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and foreign nationals as election tools.
We call on communities not to be misled by those who offer hatred instead of solutions.
And we call on all South Africans to remember that our humanity is tested not by how we treat the powerful, but by how we treat the vulnerable.
Our struggle is not against migrants.
Our struggle is against exploitation, racism, apartheid, occupation, capitalism, imperialism and every system that makes human beings disposable.
From South Africa to Palestine, from the townships to the refugee camps, from the mines to the borders, our message is clear:
No to xenophobia.
No to scapegoating the poor.
No to the politics of hatred.
Yes to solidarity.
Yes to justice.
Yes to human dignity for all.
Issued by: Palestinian Solidarity Alliance (PSA)
info@palestinesa.co.za
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