The South African Students Congress (SASCO) has suspended some of its members who participated in a recent trip to Israel. Local Palestinian solidarity organisations have labelled these holidays as “propaganda trips”, an attempt by the Zionist lobby to wage a counter offensive to the local solidarity campaigns. SASCO believes the Zionist sponsors trips aim to give an unbalanced perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“It is an attempt to reverse the gains SASCO has made to raise the consciousness of our members and students in general. We have noted that the funders of this trip are complicit in the oppression of the Palestinian people,” said Ntuthuko Makhombothi, president of SASCO.

“We view the targeting of students and members of SASCO in particular as a deliberate attack on our organization in order to neutralize our rank and file membership on the impeding question of Palestine.”

Last month, a coalition of student organisations in support of Palestine jointly condemned the trips, urging students not be swayed. SASCO said it has taken clear resolutions in line with the global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

“We have further resoled on the Academic boycotts and the isolation of Israel. We view an act by some of our members to visit Israel as crossing the picket line. We believe that our position on Palestine is amongst the clearest position the organization holds as part of its international solidarity work.”

SASCO’s National Executive Committee will make a decision on the future of the students pending disciplinary hearing. Makhombothi said the organisation would take a tough stance as the students have tainted SASCO’s name and “brought it into disrepute”.

“We wish to send a clear message to our members that as an internationalist organization, we will never accept that in our name our members contradict our standing positions. The oppression of the people of Palestine by apartheid Israel is no different if not worse than our own oppression. It would be an indictment on our part if we do not take action.”

Local Palestine advocacy groups have singled out the SA Israel Forum, as one of the organisers of the trips to Israel. The SA Israel Forum was previously stopped from taking local mayors and municipal members on holiday propaganda trips to Israel in 2012. BDS South Africa believes they now seem to be targeting students after having failed at a government level.

SASCO, along with BDS South Africa and the Progressive Youth Alliance have appealed to its members not to participate in any Israeli funded trips.

“We went at pains to explain and expose the real intention of these trips, however these members decided not to listen. We even warned that disciplinary action will be muted against those who defy the instruction not to attend, yet these members and leaders ignored the organization.

“Lastly we wish to state categorically that SASCO is a voluntary organization where members join and subordinate themselves to its constitution, its policies and its resolutions. Therefore we urge all our members to respect, defend and advance all decisions of the organization without exception.” VOC