Maimane defends Israel visit and backs two-state solution

DA leader Mmusi Maimane does not agree with Israel’s stance on Palestine, but will not support violence as a solution.

“It is important to understand and look at the history of Palestine and Israel; I think Israel is wrong. But the resolution does not lie in violence,” he said.

Like SA, the opposition party believes in a two-state solution for the region.

Maimane continues to be tied in a knot over his visit to Israel and Palestine.

The DA has a big Muslim and Jewish constituency both in the Western Cape and Gauteng and the visit risks alienating one or both of these groups.

On Tuesday, ANC secretarygeneral Gwede Mantashe said the DA’s visits to countries such as Israel and Taiwan undermined SA’s policies.

The DA was consolidating relationships with parties hostile to SA and the ANC, he said.

“The DA is paying inherent attention to undermining the ANC … and the sovereignty of SA,” he told a round-table discussion with editors.

Maimane, however, was adamant there was nothing wrong with his visit, saying in order to understand the source of the conflict, one had to visit both countries.

According to Maimane, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) passed a resolution recently that Christians and Jews had no historical claim on Jerusalem.

He said that he was disturbed that SA did not have a problem in protecting and hosting Sudanese President Omar AlBashir, who faces charges of human rights violations.

Maimane said SA, as a leading country in Africa, needed to revise its foreign policy, which he believed was outdated as other African countries were visiting Israel.

Cosatu has called Maimane’s visit a “stunt” and accused the DA leader of “supporting the racist pariah of the world, the apartheid state of Israel”.