UUCSA: Fact-Finding Mission or Brainwashing Tour?
AN UUCSA PRESS STATEMENT
The United Ulama Council of South Africa (UUCSA) condemns the recent farcical fact-finding mission to Israel undertaken by certain political groups and faith leaders.
Genuine fact-finding missions engage with all relevant stakeholders to understand the complexities of a situation. With such an impartial approach, it is inevitable to acknowledge the systemic discrimination, dispossession, repression of dissent, the maiming and killings that are part of a system designed to privilege Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians. Yet, with their own collaboration, the supposed fact-finding members of the delegation chose to be content with an insidious narrative that borders on brainwashing.
Even before leaving these shores, the delegation should have known that the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank is a widely recognised violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its own civilian population into an occupied territory. The United Nations has repeatedly affirmed the illegality of such actions, through numerous resolutions.
By disregarding the voices of those who bear the brunt of this occupation, such missions risk perpetuating a narrative that dismisses the lived realities of Palestinians and undermines efforts towards a just and lasting resolution to the conflict.
The propagandistic assertion made by the said delegation that there is “no apartheid in occupied Palestine” flies in the face of the many and growing numbers of authoritative voices, that even suggest that the systemic discrimination Palestinians have been subjected to, is worse than what was experienced in South Africa under white minority rule. Examples of enacted discriminatory laws and practices in Occupied Palestinian Territories include:
- The Law of Return (1950): Granting automatic citizenship to any Jewish person worldwide while denying the same right to Palestinians who were displaced from their homes.
- The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (2003): Prohibiting Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from obtaining Israeli citizenship through marriage, effectively separating families and perpetuating the demographic goals of a Jewish state.
- The Nationality Law (2018): Enshrining the right of self-determination in Israel as exclusive to the Jewish people, further marginalising any non-Jewish communities and institutionalising discrimination.
Law professor John Dugard concluded in 2013:
“On the basis of the systemic and institutionalized nature of the racial domination that exists, there are indeed strong grounds to conclude that a system of apartheid has developed in the occupied Palestinian territory. Israeli practices in the occupied territory are not only reminiscent of – and, in some cases, worse than – apartheid as it existed in South Africa, but are in breach of the legal prohibition of apartheid.”
These laws are not mere policies but a manifestation of a supremacist ideology rooted in Zionism. We call on political leaders and faith groups to engage in honest dialogue and not whitewash the realities of apartheid in Israel. It is only through acknowledging these injustices that we can aspire to a future of peace, equality, and justice for all.
Released by:
Yusuf Patel (Moulana)
Secretary General
16 Shawwal 1446 / 15 April 2025