Delegation of Arab Political Leaders and Adalah Representatives in South Africa Meet with Lawyers from the Legal Resources Center, Ministers and Government Officials to Discuss Constitution Building and Human Rights

A delegation composed of representatives of Arab political parties represented in the Knesset, the High Follow-up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel and Adalah traveled to South Africa on 5 June 2008 to undertake a week-long study tour focusing on constitution building. This visit is the first of its kind by a united delegation of Arab political leaders, lawyers and academics in Israel in which meetings have been and will be held on issues concerning the Arab minority in Israel with officials from the South African government, human rights NGOs and legal experts.

One of the delegation’s first meetings was with legal experts from the most prominent human rights organization in South Africa, The Legal Resources Centre (LRC). The meeting was attended by senior lawyers who challenged Apartheid in the courts for decades, in addition to the former attorney of Nelson Mandela, George Bizos. The participants discussed the importance of laying down basic principles for the constitutional process, including the principle of full equality. The experts gave a presentation of the South African experience in drafting a constitution in the early 1990s. This process was based on wide participation and negotiations between the various parties; matters that were unacceptable to a certain party were rejected, and international standards of human rights and human dignity were stressed. The experts confirmed that the constitution-building process owed its success to agreement over the basis for constitutional negotiations and the active participation of all parties, based on respect for the positions of all and aimed at reaching a constitution by consent.

On 6 June 2008, the delegation met Mr. Aziz Pahad, the South African Deputy Foreign Minister, and Mr. Kgalema Motlanthe, the Deputy President of the African National Congress (ANC), who recently returned from a visit to the 1967 Occupied Palestinian Territory. In the meeting Mr. Pahad and Mr. Motlanthe stressed the South African government’s support for the Palestinian people. Mr. Motlanthe stated that in his view the current situation for Palestinians in the OPT is worse than conditions were for Blacks under the Apartheid regime.
 
The members of the delegation gave briefings on recent developments concerning the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. Mr. Shawqi Khatib, Chairman of the High Follow-Up Committee, provided historical background on the Arabs in Israel, from the Nakba of 1948 until the present day. He also described the racist laws that have been enacted by the government of Israel in order to strip Arab citizens of their basic rights and the policy of institutionalized discrimination that is practiced against them in all fields. Khatib stressed the importance of working in two parallel paths: to strive to end the Occupation, achieve the right of the return for the Palestinian refugees, and establish a Palestinian state on the one hand; and to realize complete civil and national equality for Palestinians in Israel on the other. Member of Knesset (MK) Sheikh Ibrahim Abdullah (United Arab List) talked of Israel’s policy of land confiscation and dispossession against Arab citizens of the state, focusing on the issue of the Islamic waqf properties. MK Jamal Zahalka (National Democratic Assembly – Balad) then discussed Israel’s attempts to obtain recognition from the international community for itself as a Jewish state, calling for the rejection of these attempts. He described the enormity of the danger posed by this definition for the Arab minority in Israel, stating that such recognition would be detrimental not only to the rights of the refugees but also the ability of Arab citizens in Israel to gain equality.

Mr. Ramez Geraisy, the Mayor of Nazareth, discussed the need to reject state practices of discrimination against Arab citizens. He expressed the view that a political solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict should be based on the two-state solution and the right to self-determination, with a guarantee of total national and civil equality for the Palestinian minority in Israel and the achievement of justice and full democracy. MK Taleb al-Sana (United Arab List) talked about the issue of negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis and underlined the importance of dialogue between the two people, rather than between leaders alone. He also discussed the problem of the unrecognized villages in the Naqab (Negev), likening them to the Apartheid-era Bantustans in South Africa. Professor Marwan Dwairy stressed the importance of challenging Israel’s claims that it is the only democratic state in the Middle East and urged the South African government not to simply back the two-state solution, but the two-democratic-states solution.

At the end of the meeting the Deputy South African Foreign Minister spoke of the urgent need to mobilize international support for the Palestinian people. He emphasized that the government of South Africa is working intensively to effect a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, and that South Africa was the only state to have put forward a clear position against the “isolation wall” at the International Court of Justice, despite the fact that Israel fails to take Security Council and other United Nations resolutions seriously. His aides suggested further meetings with ministers to hear the views of the delegation.

On 7 June 2008, the delegation met the Deputy Minister of Culture, Mr. Mohamed Enver Surty, and the Mayor of Moses Kotane (a municipality named after a South African leader of the Communist Party), Mr. Peter Molelekeng. Mr. Molelekeng proposed that the Municipality of Nazareth be twinned with his municipality, and Mr. Ramez Geraisy, the Mayor of Nazareth, welcomed this suggestion. The Deputy Minister of Culture underlined the importance of establishing cultural links between South African and Palestinians in Israel. Regarding constitution building, he stated that the South African experience demonstrates three principles: human dignity, equality and freedom. He noted the apparent absence of this triangle from Israel’s laws, and urged the delegation to launch an international campaign to emphasize the fundamental and universal nature of these principles.