After a successful few years growing the Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) campaign in South Africa, the local solidarity movement is hoping that more African countries will support the awareness campaign. This year will be the 15th year of the global campaign and its believed that African countries such as Zambia, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia, Kenya, Mozambique and several others will join the event from the 1st – 7th April.

“Africa For Palestine” is this year’s continental theme for #IsraeliApartheidWeek, and will focus on, among other things, the historic relationship between African liberation struggles and that of the Palestinians. It’s well known that the PLO and Palestinians have long been a friend to African liberation movements and countries, having provided some countries, including South Africa, with military training, financial resources and various other forms of support and solidarity in the fight against Apartheid and other anti-Colonial struggles. Israel, on the other hand, has supported oppressive regimes on the continent.

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an international series of self-organized rallies, protests, lectures, cultural performances, concerts, sports events, films and workshops held annually in over 250 cities, communities and campuses across the globe.

This year, organisers have invited Lema Nazeeh, the deputy chairman of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC), which operates in Occupied Palestinian Territories to deliver talks across the country. She is well-known political activist engaged in popular resistance to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She specialises in detainees rights, litigation related to land entitlement as well as coordination of media campaigns. Lema and other leaders of popular resistance are constantly threatened by Israeli authorities that carry out political arrests of Palestinian activists on charges of preparing or participating in terrorist attacks.

IAW spokesperson Palomina Jama said the campaign is not meant to reduce activism to only one week, but should be a catalyst for ongoing engagement on the Palestinian issue.

“It’s about concsientising ordinary communities, civil society, religious leaders to see where the Palestinians need our support.  We use this week and activating the tone for the rest of the year. We see it as a mobilization and educational week for the activism tp continue throughout the year,” said Jama.

The event is endorsed by more than 110 African based organisations, trade unions, embassies, youth movements and other groups including the continents oldest liberation movement, the continent’s largest student movement and some of the continent’s largest trade unions. VOC