By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News
South Africa’s far-left, communist Economic Freedom Fighters (EEF) party slammed Israel in an incendiary statement last Thursday, openly calling on Twitter for the state to be destroyed.
“Israel is an evil state, which must be destroyed as a matter of urgency!” the party shared with its 1.8 million followers.
Embracing the Palestinian narrative that Shireen Abu Akleh was intentionally killed by Israel due to her reportage, the EEF wrote that it “condemns the sadistic, cruel and genocidal apartheid state” for the “assassination.”
The “sick, fascist and inhumane” Israeli “regime” is so terrible, the EEF said, that its “actions [are set to] eclipse those of apartheid [South Africa.]”
The party characterized international powers’ desire to wait until the results of an investigation into the killing before rushing to attribute blame for Abu Akleh’s death as “shameful.”
The “patience” that “the world has with the brutality of Israel has led these Zionist maniacs to believe they are untouchable,” the statement continued.
The Israeli ambassador to South Africa must be expelled and the embassy should be shuttered, the EEF demanded.
Additionally, Israel should be “isolated, deprived of economic relations with the rest of the world, and subject to the same sanctions that are so easily imposed on socialist countries.”
Extreme measures against Israel are needed because “it is clear we are dealing with an evil regime that is beyond negotiation or amicable solutions.”
Although the EEF subscribes to extremist ideology, it is not a fringe party and it holds significant political sway, both in South Africa and in continental politics.
The EEF holds some 10 percent of the seats in South Africa’s National Assembly and National Council of Provinces.
It also holds one of South Africa’s five seats in the Pan-African Parliament.
The party has faced criticism in the past for its rampant anti-white and anti-Indian racism, with its leader, Julius Malem, convicted of hate speech for calling for non-black South Africans to be murdered.
