With the ongoing hardship and harsh treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli, more and more people from around the world have raised concerns in the bid to disapprove of Israel’s many unfriendly actions. IBTimes reports yesterday, 26th of June, that: “An increasing number of South African Christians are being deported from Israel for being critical of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”
Israel has been reportedly harsh in their dealings with virtually any one, group or community that will not follow their wills and dictates. The report continued that: “Over the last decade, approximately 20 South African political activists, and volunteers from various religious organisations, have been refused entry to Israel, bodily searched and held in detention for hours before being deported – with little to no assistance from the South African Embassy in Tel Aviv.
“Those deported have included internationally-renowned figures including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Justice Richard Goldstein, Head of the United Nations fact-finding mission, who was investigating violations of international human rights law in the Palestinian territories in connection with the Gaza War (Operation Cast Lead 2008-2009)”.
The case of a journalist who was assaulted was also reported. A journalist with Radio 786, Gadija David, “who was covering the 2010 Freedom Flotilla that was attempting to break the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip was held against her will in an Israeli prison, assaulted, interrogated and denied consular access and legal representation.”
These among other unfriendly attitude of the Israeli in recent times have called for serious concern. On the part of the South African Council of Churches, they have described this as the worse apartheid of modern times.
“Based on the information before us, it is clear that Israel is structured in a way that fits and even surpasses the description of an apartheid State, which robs Palestinians of their citizenship and treats them in a discriminatory way.
“With our experience of apartheid that the whole world recognized and condemned as a crime against humanity, we see the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel as worse than apartheid.”
