MEDIA RELEASE: HAMAS WELCOMES CANCELLATION OF AFRICA-ISRAEL SUMMIT NEXT MONTH

Issued: 11 September 2017

The Islamic Resistance Movement, HAMAS, welcomes the “postponement” of the Africa-Israel Summit which was due to be held in Lomé, Togo, from 23 to 27 October 2017. 

The summit was to be the culmination of sustained diplomatic, political, and economic activity by the Zionist entity and its supporters on the African continent, including bribery, provision of arms to parties in conflict, diplomatic threats, and economic aid. The attempt to hold the summit followed the visit of Benjamin Netanyahu to four East African States and his speech at the summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) earlier this year.

However, from the time the summit was announced by the apartheid state of Israel, there has been a growing campaign across the African continent and outside of it for the summit to be canceled, with various taken actions by both civil society and certain African states to ensure the conference was scuppered. 

We therefore thank those African states that boldly and publicly called for a boycott of the Lomé conference for their determined efforts to prevent the Zionist state from increasing its legitimacy in Africa. We also thank the various Palestinian and other civil society organizations around the world, including solidarity groups in various African countries that have worked tirelessly to lobby their governments to boycott the summit and to pressure Togo to cancel it. They all understand that, were the summit to take place, it would be in the context of increased Israeli warmongering, the continued Israeli-imposed hermetic siege on the tiny territory of Gaza, the continued and increased theft of Palestinian land in the West Bank, continuing apartheid policies against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and ongoing evictions of Palestinian Christians and Muslims from their homes and places of worship in Jerusalem, all while 6 million Palestinian refugees languish in refugee camps, waiting to realize their right to return to their homes. 

We Palestinians know that the postponement of the Togo summit is not the end of the Israeli effort to cajole African states into its camp, in its effort to attain observer status at the African Union, and in order to use African states as voting fodder in the United Nations General Assembly and other international bodies. We call on African governments to resist these efforts of this apartheid state, to resist the inducements and the pressure, and to continue to support the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and human rights, as their African predecessors had done, as a matter of principle. 

No matter what the Zionist state can offer, Africa should not be for sale!

Dr. Mousa Abu Marzouq, Member of Politburo 
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Palestine