PRETORIA (Middle East Eye) – Pro-Palestinian activists have accused South Africa’s national governing body for tennis of normalizing crimes against humanity, following its decision to go ahead with a Davis Cup tie against the Zionist regime on Friday.
Organizations associated with South Africa’s Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) coalition said they were “outraged” that fixtures scheduled for Friday and Saturday would be going ahead despite calls for the games to be scrapped over the Zionist regime’s treatment and occupation of Palestinians.
The games, which give South Africa a chance to return to Group 1 in the international team competition, are scheduled to take place in Ashdod, an Israeli-occupied city some 32km south of Tel Aviv that was built on the ashes of the Palestinian town of Isdud.
“South Africa Tennis cannot feign ignorance about the growing evidence from Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, various UN mechanisms, human rights legal experts and eminent South Africans such as the late Archbishop Tutu, that Israel is an apartheid regime,” South Africa BDS said in a statement.
“The Palestinians of Isdud were forced to flee their homes under relentless aerial bombardment. They remain as refugees up to today, unable to return to their land.”
The BDS movement seeks to challenge the regime’s occupation and abuses of Palestinian human rights through economic, cultural and academic boycotts of the regime, similar to the successful boycott campaigns of apartheid South Africa.
The movement’s pressure on the South African government has heightened after Amnesty International became the fourth major human rights group to accuse the occupying regime of creating and maintaining an “apartheid” system to control Palestinians.
Calls to boycott the tennis tie come as Western governments are imposing sanctions against Russia and European and U.S. companies have severed ties with Moscow over its operation in Ukraine.
Lana Tatour, an assistant professor in global development at the School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, said that while many of the anti-Russia measures were being implemented, calls by Palestinians to sanction the Zionist regime went ignored.
“Suddenly, boycott and sanctions are a legitimate strategy. No ‘why are you singling out Russia arguments, no whataboutism, no claims that boycott harms prospective peace and dialogue, that culture should be apolitical & about building bridges rather than being divisive.”