The Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) – South African Chapter – strongly condemns the Democratic Alliance (DA) and its Federal Chairperson Helen Zille for their shameless defence of Israel’s genocide against the people of Palestine. By siding with perpetrators of crimes against humanity, the DA has abandoned the principles of justice and aligned itself with reactionary forces that justify oppression, colonialism, and mass murder.
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry has confirmed that Israel has committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention, including mass killings, starvation of civilians, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and deliberate acts of dehumanisation. These findings affirm what Palestinians and solidarity movements have long asserted: Israel is pursuing a state-led campaign of extermination. To deny this reality or excuse it is to be complicit.
Helen Zille says genocide is a big word. Reality is that, as Rev. Chikane says:
> “Genocide is not just a word, it is reality, it is a word happening in a big way in Gaza now. Children are being starved to death; Palestinians are killed in their thousands; hospitals, schools, places of worship, and any life-supporting systems, settlements destroyed and bombed. This falls within the definition of Genocide in terms of the UN Genocide Convention. You can’t lie and say, you don’t know or did not know!”
Helen Zille’s remarks are not accidental but a deliberate attempt to whitewash genocide. Her position mirrors the logic of South Africa’s former apartheid rulers and undermines the values of our own Constitution. We are not surprised considering how the DA governs the Western Cape, where the poor communities are attacked through deliberate actions of deficiency in service delivery.
South Africans know from lived experience that liberation is only possible when global solidarity isolates perpetrators of injustice. Today, we carry that same responsibility to stand with the Palestinian people, intensify boycotts, and mobilise for sanctions and an arms embargo against Israel.