On January 19, 2024, Gauche Révolutionnaire (Revolutionary Left – the CWI in France)
interviewed Weizmann Hamilton, general secretary of the Marxist Workers Party, the South
Africa section of the Committee for a Workers’ International, the International that Gauche
Révolutionnaire is part of.
GR: Weizmann, why did South Africa file this complaint?
Weizmann: Looking at the brief put together by the legal team representing South Africa, it is
clear that there were very serious, legitimate legal and political reasons for filing such a
complaint against the Israeli government. The notion of proportionality was completely flouted
and the number of people killed far, far exceeded the number of human lives lost during the
events of October 7. This sparked a widespread feeling of revolt throughout the world.
Until then, the actions of the ANC government could, being very generous, be described as
symbolic – and even ambiguous: the government rejected a motion adopted by Parliament
calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy and the expulsion of the ambassador. Companies
that have extensive commercial ties with Israel bring in several hundred million rands to the
South African government…
But the Israeli government’s offensive has intensified to monstrous levels. The evidence
provided by the South African legal team helped illustrate the targeted destruction of cultural
centres, churches, universities, schools, hospitals, individuals within Palestinian society,
journalists, doctors, academics, etc.
There is much more at stake here than just the supposedly defensive response of a state that
has been attacked. What Netanyahu did through this war was to remind the Palestinians of the
fact that they had already been pushed back onto barely 20% of the land that formed historic
Palestine in 1947, before the UN decision to establish the State of Israel. This 20% of the land
had been granted to them supposedly so that they could exercise their right to self-
determination. But even that has been made impossible by the actions of this same Netanyahu,
in defiance of the stated goals of the Camp David Protocols, the Oslo Accords, etc. It is common
knowledge that he wants to make it impossible for the so-called Palestinian-only state to be
viable. And then, of course, there is everything that people know, even before the events of
October 7: the apartheid wall, the fact that Palestinians do not have the right to have their own
port at sea. Now this occupation is being allowed to develop its momentum, with the objective
of the destruction of Gaza and obliterating the very notion of a Palestinian people with their
right to exist…the same right as the State of Israel itself claims to exercise!
The ANC responded thanks to the anger of the South African population, the similarities
between the suffering of the Palestinians and that of the black majority under apartheid, and
the historic statements of the ANC, that they would “not be completely free until the
Palestinians are free”… We have seen an unprecedented level of propaganda, orchestrated by
the international mainstream media, to keep people in the dark. Unfortunately, it must be
pointed out that the South African media itself, at first, avoided fully covering the situation, so
the full horror of what was happening was not clear to people in the country, who have
benefited from international solidarity at a level that very few struggles in the world have
reached. This pressure therefore ended up weighing on the ANC to take the case to the
International Court of Justice.
GR: Do you think the legal action and the ICJ will help stop the massacre in Gaza?
Weizmann: Well, look, it is not certain that the International Court of Justice is going to issue the
order that the South African government is asking for, namely – and this without the question
of knowing whether indeed a genocide will be decided on its merits, as it will take more than a
year – an interim order regarding acts which the ANC government has convincingly
demonstrated complied with all the criteria of the definition of genocide. And, therefore, these
acts had to stop until the case was decided.
But regardless of any decision on this issue, I believe that the very act of taking Israel to the
International Court of Justice has done serious damage to Israel’s credibility and to that of the
US. They will be under enormous pressure to abstain if the issue comes before the Security
Council, rather than voting against it. The Israeli government has also defended its case very
poorly, even from a legal point of view. And this gave enormous encouragement to the
international solidarity campaign in support of the Palestinians. So, I think, from that point of
view, it’s excellent.
I think most people, including the legal team, went into this process without the illusion that
automatically, a strong case, competently presented, would be enough to win the battle. We
know that these international institutions were designed by the dominant powers, particularly
the United States so that no negative decision taken by these institutions could harm them –
but also to use them to justify, as we know it, the war in Iraq, etc. So, politically, the decision will
not be made simply on the legal grounds of the case. There is a problem for these institutions
themselves because if a case has been presented as well as it has been, and you are still not
able, as a court, to make a decision which corresponds to the evidence presented and the
arguments put forward, these further prejudices the court itself.
So, you see, whatever they do, it’s a problem for US imperialism and Israel in this case. So, let’s
wait and see. I think that if we limit ourselves only to the legal process, it is abundantly clear
that that alone will not stop the carnage that we are witnessing in Gaza right now.
GR: According to you and the Marxist Workers Party, what should be done then, in South Africa
and internationally?
Weizmann: Every support must be given to the strengthening of working-class organisations in
Palestine, Israel and across the region. In the South African struggle against apartheid, the
decisive factor was working class organisation and struggle within the country, by which I mean
mass mobilisation in strikes, stay-aways and marches rendering the system of oppression
unworkable. The international solidarity was an enormous boost to this, but ultimately played a
supporting role in this.But the same applies internationally. I think the biggest weakness of the solidarity campaign so far has been the absence of the role of workers’ organizations.
If we return to the international actions organized against the apartheid regime, there are
several excellent examples of the direct impact on the South African government, on an
economic and even military level, of the action carried out by the unions and the dockers, in
London, for example. I personally had the privilege of visiting dockworkers in Greece when I
was in exile. And the Greek dockers told me: “The day you decide that you want us to come and
take up arms and fight alongside you, please call us.” The story of Irish workers at the Dunnes
chain of stores, who refused to handle South African products in Dublin stores, is very famous.
When disciplinary measures were taken against them, the workers decided to take action.
Initially, their own union did not want to support them, or even the official anti-apartheid
movement. The workers took action every day for almost three years. Their determination
resulted in Ireland becoming the first Western European country to impose sanctions against
the South African government. They were supported by the late comrade Nimrod Sejake, who
was a member of the Marxist Workers Tendency in the ANC at the time, and who was in Ireland
and remained with them throughout their action. The only time he wasn’t on the picket line was
when he felt was not feeling well he was due to his advanced age.
These kinds of actions – the disruption or severing of sporting, even cultural, ties, all of this –
because it was an organized movement, had a considerable impact on the pressure exerted not
only on the apartheid regime but also on the governments which defended it. Let us not forget
that the United States and Britain particularly, Israel’s strongest supporters today, were those
who engaged in what was then called “constructive engagement.” with the apartheid regime,
and unambiguously refused to condemn the white minority regime and its own racism at that
precise moment. Mandela remained on the list of people suspected of terrorism four years
after being elected president following the official end of apartheid!
We can therefore have no illusions in these imperialist governments. Their position in the
current situation is steeped in completely toxic hypocrisy. It is just as hypocritical as their
position of empathy with the Jews themselves. They exploit and destroy the true memory, the
true struggle of the Jews against pogroms, against discrimination and injustice.
So I think what we need to call for is a reawakening of these old methods of struggle: that all
arms deliveries, no matter at which end of the chain, from the very beginning, wherever they
are manufactured, be stopped by the labour movement. But I also think that we should go even
further. I think what is needed is coordinated action by the global labour movement on this
issue. And if the governments of the countries in which these unions are active, such as the US
or Great Britain, continue to ignore people’s opinions on this issue, then action must be taken
against these governments themselves, under the leadership of the unions in these countries.
This is what we would call for because it is the most effective solidarity action.
Let us also remember that the First World War ended following the insurrection of the German
working class. The British comrades, in the material they have written about the war, say that
the working class is the real superpower. It is this power which must be brought to bear on
these events, from the point of view of the working class.
Ultimately, I would say that what these events have shown us is the correctness of what Trotsky
developed in the 1940s: that the establishment of an Israeli state in the Middle East would be a
trap for the Jewish working class. This is exactly what happened. But now this has created the
problem of the Jewish working class and the oppressed Arab masses as well. Out of this chaos,
lasting peace can only be achieved through solidarity between the Israeli working class and the
Palestinian working class, and indeed with the working class throughout the Middle East, in the
common struggle against capitalism and to establish a socialist Middle East, with a socialist
solution that the Jewish working class and Palestinians agree on. And which allows all subjects
to be put on the table to be debated democratically on this basis. Once an agreement is
reached on the real enemy, the capitalist system, then all other subjects will become a
discussion, not between enemies but between friends, between allies, between comrades in a
common struggle – whether on the question of religion, culture, language…
GR: Thank you very much Weizmann for this very interesting quality interview. Do you have any
other final comments?
Weizmann: Well, you know, in response to events and wanting to share our experience in South
Africa with our brothers and sisters in Palestine, as the Marxist Worker’s Party, we have a
responsibility to share our own experience on what was supposed to be the end of apartheid.
In our struggle the ANC leadership, especially under the influence of the South African
Communist Party and its “stages” theory, separated the question of the economic foundations
of post-apartheid South Africa from the question of democracy. The result was that we were
given the right to vote… but the power to take over the economy was excluded and placed
beyond the reach of our democratic rights, in the so-called “most progressive” Constitution in
the world. The consequence of this is that we have not achieved our own liberation. The CWI
warned about this at the time.
South Africa is today the most unequal society in the world. And the greatest inequality is no
longer between whites and blacks, but within the black population itself. Unless the Palestinians
inscribe on the banner of their liberation struggle not only the realization and removal of their
domination by the Israeli regime but also the abolition of the capitalist system itself, then it
matters little what form this takes, it will not be a liberation. Because the Palestinian society
that will be built on this basis will have left the capitalist system intact, and a tiny parasitic elite
will take the place of those who previously exploited the Palestinian working class, for their own
benefit.
Among the workers of South Africa, there was an understanding at the time, among the ruling
layers of the working class, particularly in the mid-1980s, that we could not achieve our
liberation unless we overthrew simultaneously the white minority regime and capitalism itself.
Unfortunately, the leadership of the mass movement prevented the struggle from being carried
out in this direction and has kept the question of ownership of the economy, and therefore of
the capitalist system itself, beyond the democratic reach of the masses themselves, and in fact,
anchored it in the new constitution.
The result: the horror, the social misery experienced by the majority of the black working class
today. Youth unemployment rates among the highest, crime rates and violence against women
the highest in the world, still millions of people suffering from HIV/AIDS… This is the fate that
awaits the Palestinians unless they adopt a socialist program for their liberation. What they
need to examine are the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving their liberation on this
basis. And this base is the Israeli state itself, which has a social base, founded on the Israeli
working class. An appeal must be made to the Israeli working class to fight with them for the
socialist transformation of society, and therefore, an appeal to the Israeli working class to turn
against its own exploiters: the Israeli capitalist class. On this basis, a struggle that might
otherwise take the form of the horrors of a national civil war, consuming the lives of all, on both
sides, can be avoided, and a relatively peaceful transformation of society can be achieved on
this basis. This is what we believe to be our internationalist duty to the Palestinians, to share
with them the lessons of our own experience.
