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November 2014

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In the midst of Israel’s latest seven-week military assault on Gaza, up to 200,000 people took to the streets of Cape Town, South Africa to march in solidarity with the Palestinian people–in what many say was the largest single protest that country has seen since the mass movements that overthrew apartheid. The people who filled this crowd—including prominent as well as lesser-known anti-apartheid heroes—made direct links between South African history and present-day reality for Palestinians. Sarah Lazare talks with three South African activists on the parallels between South Africa under apartheid and Israel/Palestine today, as well as the state of the Palestine solidarity movement in South Africa.

Annie Robbins comments on “First they came for the Palestinians”, a political cartoon by renowned cartoonist and political-cultural commentator Michael Leunig: “My initial response to the cartoon was that the conversation surrounding events in Palestine and Israel require and demand public engagement. The onus is on all of us and this is not primarily a Jewish conversation, nor should it be. We cannot be silent. This is a global conversation as well as an American conversation. Be part of it.”

A recent headline in Haaretz claimed the Israeli government withholding of corpses, Said Abu Jamal and Uday Abu Jamal the two Palestinians cousins responsible for carrying out the synagogue attack in Jerusalem last Monday, was an “unprecedented move”. How odd, for there’s nothing unprecedented in the least about Israel refusing to release the bodies of deceased Palestinian militants to their families for burial. How short are our memories?