By Nabila Ismail – The Media Review Network (MRN) notes with great disgust and disappointment the South African Police Services (SAPS) purchase and use of riot-controlling (water cannons) vehicles from the Zionist Apartheid State of Israel.

According to weekend newspaper reports the vehicles used by SAPS during the #FeesMustFall campaign to disperse students are manufactured by Israeli company Beit Alfa Technologies (BAT) and owned by Kibbutz Beit Alfa. These vehicles are first tested and used in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The water cannons used in the OPT releases the worst most foul smelling liquid called ‘Skunk’. The stench emanating from this liquid is worse than that of human excrement. Former Prime Minister Menachim Begin considered non-Jewish races as worse than human excrement.

Kibbutz Beit Alfa is known to have had a profitable relationship with the South African Apartheid regime providing anti-riot vehicles used in the townships during our liberation struggle. It is interesting but unconvincing that the SA democratic government of today through the SAPS maintains a relationship with the Zionist entity which conspired with Apartheid SA to oppress the South African disenfranchised population. What is the difference between pre-1994 Apartheid SA and post-1994 democratic SA?

The ANC has confirmed its commitment to the Palestinian cause by supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. In view of this commitment we insist that the ANC fulfils their undertakings by ensuring SAPS refrains from these questionable links.

After 1976, the SA/Israel military and economic ties strengthened. The two countries saw themselves confronted with a common enemy. Alon Liel a former Israeli Ambassador to Pretoria declared: ‘We created the SA arms industry. We gave the know-how and they gave the money. We had Israeli officers co-operating with SA army during the Angolan war.’ Kibbutz Beit Alfa was in the forefront of this military relationship.

The MRN urges the SA government and in particular, SAPS, to reconsider its present ties with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), in view of the sinister history between Apartheid SA and the illegal Zionist regime occupying Palestine. Media Review Network