Mohamed Ameen Dabhelia – 2018/03/13

The National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) has thrown its weight behind the Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), highlighting the atrocities Palestinian people are going through.

Speaking to Radio Islam, the unions’s Khaya Xaba says the campaign addresses a very important question on the Palestinian struggle.

“We are very close to the Palestinian struggle, our experience during apartheid, as Comrade Mandela said that ‘our freedom is not complete without the freedom of the Palestinians’.”

Xaba says the union aims to educate South Africans concerning the Palestinian struggle.

“That they partake and call for boycotts, and that we call for sanctions against apartheid Israel.”

Xaba adds that bringing to an end the Israeli aggression is largely dependent on the international support of countries such as South Africa and the wider international community.

“Working people possess the power to fight and resist the annihilation of the people of Palestine. This can be achieved through international solidarity programs of workers, working together with trade unions in other countries for Palestine to be an independent state.”

Xaba says the level of support South Africa received during apartheid, needs to be given to Palestine.

“For South Africans and our liberation, people of the world mobilized in their hundreds of thousands – if not millions in solidarity with our fight for liberation. “

In pledging solidarity with the Palestinians, NEHAWU has planned various programs focusing on Israeli Apartheid week across all provinces.