We Reject Israel-Africa Summit in Zambia – Go and Free Palestine Now!!!
Joint Statement in opposition to the Proposed Israel-Africa Summit slated for Zambia in 2018 | Issued by the Economic Liberation Association – Zambia, and
the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party
Issued on 30 December 2017 |
- The proposed plan by the Imperialist and war-mongering State of Israeli to hold a first ever Israeli-Africa summit in Lusaka, Zambia come 2018, is a plan that must be roundly condemned and flatly rejected by all peace-loving and progressive Zambians, Africans of all nations, and people of the world. The Zambian government of the Patriotic Front (PF) under the leadership of President Edgar Lungu must uphold the popular opinion of the Zambians on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: we will always stand with Palestinians in their struggle for freedom from the occupation of their land by apartheid Israel! The Zambian government must therefore act in accordance with our position and cancel the Israeli-Africa summit slated for Zambia in 2018. We refuse to associate with, host, participate, or facilitate any summit whatsoever with international war-mongers and murderers with the blood of children on their hands! Our national tradition is one of hosting, harbouring and aiding freedom fighters and liberation movements, not hosting international perpetrators of war and mass genocide!
- For our part, we shall not condone any open or secret collaboration with Apartheid Israel, by allowing them to use Zambian soil as a base and launchpad for its neo-liberal and capitalist global domination agenda in Africa! We know that zionists initially had plans (prior to 1947) to colonize and settle its landless people in Uganda, Sudan, Zambia or Madagascar! We therefore reject this soft aggression aimed at establishing Israeli/zionist colonies/corporations anywhere in Africa!
- Simply put, Israel has its hands and boots soaked with the blood of millions of Palestinians – innocent men, women and children whom it has been shooting, bombing, butchering and imprisoning in high-walled and razor-gated open-air concentration camps in Gaza and the West Bank, since it illegally occupied Palestinian territory with the approval of the United States (US) and its all-weather-puppet, the United Nations (UN). It must be mentioned that no African state must allow itself to be deceived by Israeli diplomacy, or courted, patronized, induced or coerced through the promise of aid, ‘bilateral relations’ or otherwise; into entering unholy unions with a murderous nation such as Israel. We must continue to call for Apartheid Israel to surrender the land they now occupy by force, to the true heirs and rightful owners – the Palestinian people!
- The Palestinian people, like any other people; have the right and duty to fight for the liberation of the land that has been stolen from them, and to do so by all means necessary! They are not terrorists as western capitalist media would want us to believe. No; they are gallant freedom fighters! Their only crime is to assert their right to independence and self-determination, and to seek for a free red Palestine where they shall live in peace without the oppressive shadow of Israeli forces looming over, and ruling over their lives.
- Since 1947, and towards the 50’s and 60’s, when many European colonies in Africa and around the world were gaining their independence, part of Palestine was illegally declared Israel. This immoral decision was given the sham stamp of approval by the U.S, Britain, the UN and capitalist allies. They wanted a strategic territory and permanent military center they could control and use as a base for launching wars of aggression in the Oil rich middle-east. That is what Israel is to the United States, a military state armed and funded to secure its strategic position on oil assets in the middle-east!
- But the people of Palestine have since waged a heroic and relentless struggle to expel the Israeli occupying forces that have always had the financial, military and political backing of the United States and its capitalist allies. It must be noted that from inception, the war-mongering Zionist State of Israel never had, and now has no land of its own, anywhere on earth! Israel is just the latest European/US sponsored settler colony, created from stolen land. The land referred to as Israel today is in fact occupied Palestinian territory! The war-mongering and American backed Israeli regime has long waged a land-grabbing campaign under the pretext of protecting itself from the Palestinian resistance, whose organized resistance under the Palestinian Liberation Organisation – PLO, has won the sympathy and support of many people and progressive nations of the world. Independent African States in particular, have always been united, unanimous and unwavering in their call for Israel to end the killings and displacement of the Palestinian people, and grant Palestine freedom with Jerusalem as its Capital!
- Fast forward to today, December 2017, Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his American war-mongering ally, Donald Trump, have purposely decided to further provoke and aggravate the tensions in Palestine and the middle-east, by legitimizing Israel’s position as a State in the middle-east and its capital as Jerusalem! This is a direct provocation which has thrown all efforts of reaching a peaceful resolution out the window. The pronouncements of Trump and Netanyahu must be treated with disdain, for they do not speak for the world, but for capitalist interests. Jerusalem has always been in Palestine. Israel was only fabricated and superimposed on the Palestinian people and their land in 1947 to serve capitalist interests in the middle-east.
- It is within this context that Israel must always be viewed globally, not as a victim of terrorist attacks, but rather, as an architect of terrorism itself. Israel is as an aggressor and perpetrator of innumerable atrocities on an innocent, unarmed and defenseless people who are only fighting for their existence and place under the sun. The Palestinian people are only armed with truth, sticks and stones; unlike the Israeli oppressive apparatus which is armed to the teeth with American made tanks, jet fighters, attack helicopters, missile batteries, and nuclear bombs!
- Therefore, in light of the above, and in honour of the common struggle for true freedom that we Africans continue to wage against global oppression in the form of Global empires like America and its capitalist lackeys, it is immoral and unjust for any right thinking African State that knows about the Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people, to turn a blind eye to the suffering of our fellow brothers in arms, and to embrace the enemy that persecutes and oppresses them day and night. We must, and will continue to stand for a free Red Palestine, and the return of all exiles to their homeland!
- *Down with the Israeli occupation of Palestine!
*Down with Israel-Africa Summit in Zambia!
*Down with America’s Support for Apartheid Israel!
*All Africa for a free and liberated Red Palestine!
*For the Palestinians right to nationhood and self-determination!
*Abash Israeli Imperialism! Free Palestine now!
Cde. Mainda Simataa, General Secretary – Economic Liberation Association – ELA, Zambia
All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) Email: contact@aaprp-intl.org and World-Wide Pan-Africanist Movement (WWPAM)
Websites: www.elazambia.org | www.aaprp-intl.org | www.wwpam.org