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South African Letter of Opposition to Peres "Peace" Lecture at Balliol College (Oxford University)

November 17, 2008

Dear Dr Andrew Graham
Master of Balliol

As South African students, academics and workers who suffered under, feel the legacy of, and played a role in overthrowing Apartheid, we strongly oppose the planned visit of Shimon Peres to the University of Oxford.

Dear Dr Andrew Graham
Master of Balliol

As South African students, academics and workers who suffered under, feel the legacy of, and played a role in overthrowing Apartheid, we strongly oppose the planned visit of Shimon Peres to the University of Oxford.

Shimon Peres was Defence Minister of Israel when South Africa's Apartheid Prime Minister, John Vorster, visited Jerusalem in 1976. At the time, Israel was one of the major arms suppliers to South Africa – despite the international embargo – and, by 1980, no less than 35 percent of Israel's arms exports were coming here, to South Africa, to stock the apartheid arsenal.

Peres twice served as prime minister during the 1980s when Israel drew closest to the Apartheid government. Chris McGreal wrote of Peres in The Guardian (Tuesday February 7 2006): "He shies away from questions about the morality of ties to the white regime. 'I never think back. Since I cannot change the past, why should I deal with it?' he says."

As South Africans whose oppression was fuelled by the Israeli state, and certainly Peres himself, we stand in solidarity with Palestinians who, for more than 60 years have lived under Israeli Apartheid. Peres' biography reads like a timetable of massacres against Palestinian civilians.

He played a leading role in the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine as the person responsible for purchasing weapons and supplies for the Haganah forces and its militias. Fifty years later, Shimon Perez was responsible, as the Israeli Prime minister at the time, for the Qana massacre of 1996, during which Israel intentionally bombed a known UN site, killing and injuring hundreds of Lebanese civilians.

The invitation of Peres and the intention to name a lecture series after him would be a celebration of Apartheid – both in South Africa and in Israel. It would be an acceptance of the disregard of the United Nations (which Israel has consistently ignored and defied), an acceptance of the disregard for the International Court of Justice (which ruled that the 700km long wall that Israel continues to build is illegal), and an act of complicity in the dispossession of the largest refugee population of the 20th century.

There are certainly heroes in both the South African and Palestinian struggles – some of whom are Israeli citizens. Any number of these men and women who have spent their lives struggling for real peace and justice could have been invited by Balliol College.

The invitation to Shimon Peres tarnishes the reputation of Oxford University's oldest college and that of one of the most prestigious educational institutions in Europe.

We assert that Balliol College should cancel the invitation to Shimon Peres and the proposed lecture series in his honour.


· Congress of South African Trade Unions
· South African Communist Party
· Ronnie Kasrils, former South African Minister
· Prof. Issa G Shivji, Mwalimu Nyerere Professor, University of Dar es Salaam and visiting academic to South Africa
· Prof. Farid Esack, visiting professor, University of Cape Town
· Mandla Langa, author
· Dr. Don Mattera, poet and author
· Salim Vally, Education Policy Unit, University of the Witwatersrand
· Na'eem Jeenah, Director, Afro-Middle East Centre
· Brian Ramadiro, Deputy Director, Nelson Mandela Institute, University of Fort Hare
· Prof. Patrick Bond, Professor of Development Studies and Director of
the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal
· Prof. Steven Friedman, Director, Centre for the Study of Democracy, Rhodes University and University of Johannesburg
· Hanif Vally, human rights lawyer, Foundation for Human Rights
· Andile Mngxitama, Foundation for Human Rights
· Dr. Dale T. McKinley, independent researcher/lecturer/activist
· Shereen Mills, lawyer, Centre for Applied Legal Studies, University of the Witwatersrand
· Dr. Leo Zeilig, lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand
· Maria van Driel, activist and PhD candidate, University of the Witwatersrand
· Dr. Gunvantrai Govindjee, lecturer, Wits School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand
· Prof. Noor Nieftagodien, Department of History, University of the Witwatersrand
· Prof. Peter Alexander, Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg
· Dr. Marcelle Dawson, senior researcher, Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg
· Claire Ceruti, researcher, Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg
· Mosa Phadi, researcher, Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg
· Enver Motala, educationist and researcher
· Martin Jansen, Director, Workers World Media Productions
· Savera Kalideen, Educational Materials Writer
· Dr Everard Weber, Wits School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand
· Emeritus Professor, Alan Lipman
· Jane Thandi Lipman, filmmaker
· Beata Lipman, filmmaker
· Palestine Solidarity Committee of South Africa
· Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa
· Muslim Judicial Council
· Khanya College

November 17, 2008
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