Durban students should back sanctions on Israel

JEWISH students, or any students for that matter, should be allowed to study at whatever institution they wish if they qualify academically. Besides being unconstitutional, we cannot even think of going back to the days of apartheid when students of colour were denied the opportunity to study at various institutions.

Rather, the Student Representative Council (SRC) at the Durban University of Technology should lobby the spineless ANC government to slap a set of comprehensive sanctions on Israel. A bribe for No 1 would probably be in order.

If the US can slap sanctions on certain countries which do not toe the line, then why can’t South Africa do the same?

The Palestine Liberation Organisation gave the ANC moral support when Western nations classified the ANC as a terrorist organisation and when Israel supplied arms to the apartheid government. Mandela even said: “Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” A is long overdue.

The Durban University of Technology’s SRC should rather fight for the rights of all Palestinian students, from primary to university levels, who face severe oppression and discrimination.

Israel has demolished 27 000 homes in the occupied territories since 1967 and another 500 are being earmarked for demolition this year. Imagine another country occupying your land because the Bible said so – and when you fight back, they demolish your homes.

Israeli leaders will one day be held accountable for these war crimes; but in the meantime, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement needs to speed up its work. Imagine schoolkids coming home to demolished homes.

Here the government builds free homes for its citizens; in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israeli bulldozers demolish Palestinian homes.

Furthermore, hundreds of students are arrested annually, beaten up and imprisoned for throwing stones at Israeli security forces when protesting against these oppressive policies.

In the recent war in Gaza, Israel destroyed homes, schools, factories, hospitals, farms, businesses, ambulances, water facilities, wastewater plants and electricity facilities. Students there are suffering as a result. How can they study when there is no electricity, no water, no toilets?

It is time for Durban students to expose Israeli war crimes and provide the leadership to force the ANC government to expel the Israeli ambassador and slap comprehensive sanctions on the apartheid state of Israel. NAUSHAD OMAR East London