PRESS STATEMENT
15 April 2025
For Immediate Release
Al Jama-ah Condemns Visit to Apartheid Israel by Members of Parliament
Al Jama-ah notes with utter disgust the recent visit by Members of the National Assembly to the apartheid state of Israel, where they met with Israeli officials. This visit, by members of the Democratic Alliance (DA), African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), and the Patriotic Alliance (PA), took place during the constituency period – a time specifically set aside by Parliament for MPs to engage with and serve their constituents.
It is deeply concerning and shameful that public representatives would choose to spend this important week not in their communities, but in a country that is actively engaged in a genocide and systematic apartheid policies against the Palestinian people. Their actions represent not just a dereliction of duty, but a clear alignment with a regime that continues to oppress and dispossess. The MP’s are in contravention of the international convention on the suppression and punishment of the crime of apartheid. The visit was an activity of apartheid and a crime against humanity. Al Jama-ah is taking legal advise on lodging a criminal charge. We call upon the National Commissioner of Police and Director of public prosecutions to be more vigilant on these matters.
As South Africans, we carry the lived memory of apartheid – its pain, humiliation and deep injustice. For any Member of Parliament to now show support, tacit or explicit, for a state practicing apartheid is nothing short of a slap in the face to the people of South Africa. It undermines our own history, our Constitution, and our global standing as a country committed to justice, human rights and the liberation of all peoples.
Advocate S. Salie MP has reported the matter to the Speaker of the National Assembly, calling for the Speaker to investigate this conduct and to impose appropriate sanctions on the members involved. The failure to prioritise constituency work, coupled with participation in such a politically loaded and morally bankrupt visit, cannot be overlooked. The speaker must further decide whether the member of the joint committee on intelligence membership on the committee is in the national interest given his support for the apartheid promoting activities and crimes against humanity.
The President of Al Jama-ah, Mr Ganief Hendricks, MP has echoed the sentiments of numerous National and international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch calling Israel an apartheid state.
Al Jama-ah reaffirms its full support for the Palestinian struggle and calls on all South Africans to reject complicity in apartheid – both past and present, at home and abroad. We urge Parliament to hold its members accountable and to ensure that our democratic institutions are not used to embolden oppression anywhere in the world.
Issued by Asghar Khan on behalf of Al Jama-ah
Media Enquiries:
Nisa Hendricks
082 613 1917