26 January 2024
Equal Education statement of solidarity with the children and people of Palestine: For hope, resistance and liberation
Over the years, Equal Education (EE) has identified with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. As a youth-led, working class movement advocating against inequality and oppression, EE continues to be deeply committed to the principle of international solidarity. We recognise the militarised occupation and attack of Palestine as one of the most vicious manifestations of imperial violence in our lifetime. We strongly condemn the killings and the destruction of families, schools, hospitals and lives in Palestine – which have proven beyond any doubt that Israel has imposed a system of apartheid on the people of Palestine. We therefore lend our support to the Palestine solidarity movement worldwide and we add our voice to demanding an immediate ceasefire!
Israel is a rogue state – it shows the utmost contempt for international organisations, humanitarian urgency, diplomacy, and for international law. Israel has previously refused even to attend proceedings regarding its violations of international law at the ICJ, and has also boycotted proceedings against it at the International Criminal Court, whose jurisdiction it does not recognise. In an international order where the label of ‘rogue state’ has routinely been used by Global North States such as the United States of America, we refuse to enable those same actors to evade accountability for threatening global peace and security, behaving with deliberate disregard for the most fundamental obligations of every State.
With at least 8 600 children killed in Gaza, this a genocide. End the blockade and allow humanitarian aid. Protect the children of Palestine! Free all martyrs in prison, like our comrade Ahed Tamini and others.
While cautiously aware that, like us, young people in Palestine hold little faith in international human rights institutions, we hope to see the International Court of Justice (ICJ) respond to the pressure of millions of people across the world to use today’s hearing outcome to denounce imperialist rule, apartheid and grant all nine provisional measures put to the ICJ on 11 January 2024. We invite our members and other youth formations to organise and join watch parties wherever they are.
Today, 26 January 2024, the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) will be in the US Federal Court presenting a historic case against Biden under the genocide convention. EE has joined an amicus brief filed on behalf of 77 international human rights organisations, in support of Palestinian organisations and peoples, calling for the Biden administration to stop funding apartheid-Israel with arms in aid of the bombardment of Gaza. CCR has set up a page with instructions for joining the livestream at 7pm. There will also be an Instagram live to explain this court case to the public, from 5:30pm onwards.
While schooling and education cannot continue under these conditions, we encourage the children of Palestine to draw strength from our solidarity in the continued fight for freedom and liberation in these dark times.
You are not alone in your struggle for a free and peaceful future. Our nearly 5000 Equalisers (school-going learner members) and post-school youth stand in solidarity with you. The young people of South Africa recognise Nakba, we bear witness to today and will continue to lead and join collective actions in solidarity.
Amandla! To your absolute liberation,
Equal Education
Download our statement here.
