Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western Hypocrisy, and Food Security

The Russian invasion of Ukraine will have devastating impacts across the globe. Like the wars going on against Somalia, Yemen, and of course Palestine - this brazen display of violence will only serve the interests of a select group of elites. The downtrodden masses will suffer tragic consequences from imperialist’s greed. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for oil and geopolitical ‘security’ is hauntingly similar to the imperialist rhetoric used to justify Israel’s occupation of Palestine. What is different, however, is the West’s response to the crisis. 

Where sanctions are imposed on invading Russia, Israel is rewarded with military assistance and billions of foreign aid. Where Ukrainians are lauded for bravely taking up arms against the Russians, Palestinians are branded terrorists. Where refugees and their pets are being welcomed with open arms into Poland and Hungary, Palestinian refugees are treated with the utmost contempt. These racist responses become instructive to understanding why Palestine has yet to see freedom after so many years of Israel’s illegal occupation.

The crisis in Ukraine is likely to make things more difficult for Palestinians, as global food and oil prices are set to soar. Besides being large fuel exporters, Ukraine and Russia are also among the world’s largest food suppliers. Russia’s sunflower oil exports constitute 40% of the global total, with Ukraine accounting for 18%. They are also both mass-exporters of wheat, maize, and other staple goods. In 2021, Africa imported a combined US$6.9 billion worth of food products from these countries.

It is in this context where the urgency for the South African government to intervene against the Milco consortium becomes more urgent. International instability threatens to exacerbate South Africa’s crises of hunger, unemployment, and food insecurity. Investing into the production, manufacturing, and distribution of food staples is especially important in this context. Nationalising Clover offers the state an opportunity to ensure food security in its land, and reduce its dependence on imperialist powers.

Unite Against Apartheid Israel! Unite Against Imperialism!

Gaining amnesty: a look into Palestinians living under occupation

By finding Bongani Masuku not guilty on three counts of hate speech, the Constitutional Court provided reprieve against a Zionist-lobby SLAPP suit which aimed to intimidate and silence criticism of Israel.

In the West, the Zionist lobby has been tremendously influential in its efforts to equate criticism of the Israeli state with antisemitism. This false equivocation, which actually brands anti-racism as racism, stifles free speech, limits critical thinking, and silences pro-Palestine voices. Former COSATU leader, Bongani Masuku, appeared before the Constitutional Court last month to defend himself against this false equivocation. The Court dismissed the allegations against him on three out of four counts, and the judgement emphasised the point that criticism against the Israeli state does not constitute antisemitic speech. 

Equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism has become a common tactic employed by Zionists to bully their opponents into silence. The hate speech accusations against Masuku, based on utterances made over a decade ago, clearly employed this tactic. By delineating between the acts which counted as hate speech against Jewish people, and those which counted as political speech against Israel, the Constitutional Court upheld the crucial right to freedom of expression and ruled against this abusive tactic of intimidatory bullying.

This case, where a frivolous claim of hate speech was used to silence someone speaking against injustice, is an example of another lawfare tactic employed by the Israeli lobby. Strategic Litigation against Public Participation (SLAPP) forms a branch of lawsuits which are used to silence criticism or opposition by employing the threat of legal action and target journalists, activists, whistleblowers, researchers, and civil society organisations. SLAPPs are used with the intention to intimidate, threaten or silence critics, with the threat of litigaion until the individual drops or abandons their criticism and are a form of legal harassment. Certain SLAPP suits do not necessarily take on the usual character of a SLAPP suit but are beyond the use of litigation and defamation and include interdicts. They also do not need to come from a corporation intending to suppress criticism but can also come from the state which wants to suppress information and whistleblowers.

This form of censorship has been employed considerably in order to silence and censor criticism of Zionism and Israel, with critics being branded anti-semitic. The Constitutional Court judgement and emphasis that criticism of the illegal state of Israel does not equate to antisemitism is therefore a major victory for pro-Palestinian activists as it ensures that pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist and anti-Israel voices are not silenced. 

This January, in Jerusalem alone, Israel demolished thirty structures, leaving seventy-eight people without a home. This is just a microcosm of the routine destruction, dispossession, and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Israel continues to oppress Palestinians from the river to the sea – destroying their food supply, depriving them of water, preventing them from receiving medical attention, and incarcerating them en-masse. This month, several Palestinians, including minors, have been murdered in cold blood by Israeli armed forces. These murders occur against a backdrop of ongoing settler violence that is aided and abetted by the military regime. Palestinians’ freedom of movement is being increasingly restricted, while settler violence continues with impunity. Attacks in and around the Al-Aqsa precinct are escalating together with mass displacement in the Naqab. These attacks are firmly ingrained in the fabric of Zionism – whose mandate is to establish an ethnonationalist state at the expense of the indigenous people’s existence. It is abundantly clear that the violence we are witnessing in the Naqab, the West Bank, and Jerusalem constitute acts of genocide against the Palestinian people.

Israel’s genocidal intent was made explicitly clear by its founding father, David Ben Gurion, when he wrote to his son in 1937: “We must expel Arabs and take their place.” Recently leaked meeting minutes from 1948 also detail how Ben Gurion asserted, in reference to Palestinian villages, that “we must wipe them out.” This is indeed what happened in the Nakba when 530 villages were destroyed and over 750,000 people were expelled from their homes. 

As history and current events have proven, the Nakba never ended. Palestinians – young and old – are regularly massacred, tortured, maimed, imprisoned, and expelled. In Gaza and the West Bank, the Israeli regime controls every aspect of day-to-day life – from the medical resources they receive to amount of electricity, food and water they can consume. Genocide is deeply entrenched within the ethos and practice of the state of Israel today.

Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians is profoundly visible in al-Naqab. Palestinians living in the region are deliberately denied access to electricity, water, sanitation and other basic services. Their farmlands are regularly razed and their homes are habitually demolished. 

In the immediate aftermath of Israel’s establishment as a state, 11 000 Bedouins remained in al-Naqab – less than ten percent of the original population. Generations later, the ethnic cleansing of Bedouins in al-Naqab continues. In 2021, over 3000 homes were demolished. Israel treats the Palestinians of al-Naqab, not as legitimate citizens of the state, but rather as unwanted ‘squatters’ to be displaced and expelled. 

Without respect for ancient Bedouin land rites and rituals, Israel routinely confiscates land to increase Jewish settlement and plant alien forests over the area. The trees planted – cypress and pine – have been shown to actively increase desertification of the surrounding area. The Zionist praxis is to destroy the Bedouin way of life in al-Naqab – to keep them in poverty and desecration, make the area unliveable, and erase the population from the land. The story of al-Naqab is the story of Palestine as a whole. It is a story of violent dispossession, erasure, and genocide.

The brazen racism of Zionism is abundantly manifest in the actions of the Israeli regime. Palestinians, whether in the ’48 areas, Occupied Territories or elsewhere, are subjected to the cruellest treatment. From Sheikh Jarrah to al-Naqab to Gaza, the Zionist message stays the same. The Nakba never ended. The genocide against Palestinians continues. The Apartheid State of Israel has made it clear that it will continue to subject Palestinian men, women, and children to the most inhumane living conditions, and grant them no reprieve from this violent onslaught. Moreover, Zionist forces have shown, time and time again, that any and all forms of revolution will be repressed. This, however, does not dampen the zeal and spirit of the Palestinian resistance. From the river to the sea, and beyond Palestinians have remained ardent and steadfast in their calls for liberation and justice. We have a moral obligation to support this call and bring an end to the genocidal Israeli regime. 

One of the ways in which we can help further Palestinian liberation is to ensure that we do not put more money into the pockets of Israeli-owned businesses. Doing so will help you make your home an Apartheid Free Zone. As the people of a post-Apartheid country, it is important that we do not give Apartheid space in our homes. Your money has power. Being conscious about who owns specific products and what we buy helps us aid calls for boycotts. This month, we highlight Coca-Cola as a direct beneficiary of Apartheid. 

Coca-Cola uses its business model to evade allegations of complicity in Israeli occupation. The reality, however, is that it is deeply intertwined in the ongoing occupation and violence against Palestinians. The Israeli-owned Central Bottling Company (CBC) is the exclusive distributor of Coca-Cola products in Israel. This relationship, from which both parties benefit, is hugely detrimental to the people of Palestine. CBC operates on illegally occupied land, in the Atarot settlement of East Jerusalem. They abuse their monopoly power and Israeli documentation to capture Palestinian markets and prevent competitors from trading on an equal footing. CBC has also been known to donate to far-right Israeli organisations who lobby for increased settlement and directly fund the IDF.

Make your home an Apartheid Free Zone by boycotting Coca-Cola and all products that benefit from the Zionist occupation of Palestinian land.