Racism against Africans by the Israeli regime will take centre stage during the South African leg of this year’s 14th international #IsraeliApartheidWeek campaign from 12 – 18 March 2018. #IsraeliApartheidWeek 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. With “Afro-Palestinian solidarity” as this year’s theme, #IsraeliApartheidWeek in SA will focus on both Israel’s apartheid policies against the Palestinians as well as the Zionist regime’s discriminatory policies against Africans.

Israel is expelling thousands of Africans, giving them an ultimatum: leave by 1 April or risk indefinite imprisonment. Israel has offered one hundred thousand rands in bonuses to civilians who aide in forcibly deporting African asylum seekers. Israel has portrayed non-Jewish Africans as a threat to Israel’s Jewish character calling them “infiltrators” with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly calling for their expulsion saying that Africans “threaten the social fabric of society.”

Israel’s Minister of Interior, Eli Yishai, has said that African immigrants “think the country doesn’t belong to us, the white man.” The Israeli Minister of Culture and Sport, Miri Regev, has compared Africans to “a cancer”. In 2013 Israel was revealed to be forcibly sterilising African women without their consent.

“Under the theme Afro-Palestinian solidarity this year’s #IsraeliApartheidWeek will highlight the African community in Palestine and will host events that celebrate the historic support and solidarity that African liberation struggles and countries received from the PLO and the Palestinian people during the 1970s and 1980s. While Israel supplied the Apartheid regime with weapons used to kill our people, the Palestinians provided the ANC with arms, military training, financial resources and various other forms of support in the fight against Apartheid,” said the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement in South Africa (BDS SA)

#IsraeliApartheidWeek is endorsed, in South Africa alone, by more than 110 organisations, trade unions, embassies, youth movements and other groups including South Africa’s governing party, the country’s largest student formation and SA’s largest trade union federation.

#IsraeliApartheidWeek has previously hosted former South African president Kgalema Motlanthe, the National Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete as well as several Government Ministers, Mayors, Ambassadors, sports-people, artists, actors, comedians and many other well-known South Africans.
“United in our diversity, South Africans from various racial and religious groups participate in

#IsraeliApartheidWeek including members of the Jewish, Hindu, Christian, Tamil, Muslim and other communities. A group of Jewish Israelis have written an open letter urging South Africans in general and members of the South African Jewish community in particular to participate in IAW.”

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem has written a letter to South African muslims and clergy to participate in #IsraeliApartheidWeek and from the Holy Town of Bethlehem, Palestinian Christians have publicly called on South African Churches to participate and support #IsraeliApartheidWeek.

Here are some of the Cape Town IAW events:

Monday 12 March 2018 ( 18h30 )
Film Screening : Anti-Black Racism & Israel’s White Supremacy (Empire Files, teleSur)
VENUE: Jammie Plaza, UCT
HOSTS: UCT PSF
CONTACT: 0820619676

Tuesday 13 March 2018 (18h30 )
Panel Discussion : Race, Settler Colonialism and Palestine
SPEAKERS: : Zwelinzima Vavi, Shaeera Kalla, Jackie Shandu, Natasha Vally, Nigel Patel
VENUE: Leslie Social 2D, UCT
HOSTS: UCT PSF
CONTACT: 0820619677

Wednesday 14 March 2018 ( 13h00  )
Public Talk : Judaism vs Zionism, and the Palestinian struggle
SPEAKERS: : Mitchell Joffe Hunter (SA Jews for a Free Palestine)
VENUE: AC Jordan 3A, UCT
CONTACT: 0820619678

Thursday 15 March 2018 ( 13h00 )
Rally : Annual UCT #IsraeliApartheidWeek Rally
VENUE: Jammie Plaza, UCT
HOSTS: UCT PSF
CONTACT: 0820619679

Thursday 15 March 2018 ( 17H00  )
Cultural Event Congolese solidarity with Palestine
MUSICIANS: Congo Band
VENUE: Maitland Congolese Church, Main Road, Maitland
HOSTS: ANC, BDSSA, Embassy of the State of Palestine
CONTACT: 0813530699

Thursday 15 March 2018 ( 18h00 )
Public Lecture : Winning the Battle for Justice in Palestine
SPEAKER: : Ali Abunimah, Palestinian journalist, author and activist)
VENUE: New Lecture Theatre Building, Upper Campus, UCT, Cape Town
HOSTS: UCT PSF, UWC PSA
CONTACT: 0820619674

Friday 16 March 2018 (12h00 )
SPEAKER: : Ali Abunimah (Palestinian journalist, author and activist)
VENUE: Claremont Main Road mosque

Friday 16 March 2018 ( 18h00 )
Public Lecture : Prospects for Palestine’s Liberation in the Era of Trump
SPEAKER: : Ali Abunimah, Palestinian journalist, author and activist
VENUE: 28 Sir Lowry Road, Foreshore, Cape Town
HOSTS: Palestine Museum, PSC
CONTACT: 0820619676