Decision to grant Israel observer status at AU must be rescinded, SA official says

"There can be no justification for AU chairperson granting observer status to Israel. The decision was totally inexplicable and we will continue to argue that the decision should be rescinded,’’ Pandor said during a bilateral meeting at her department’s headquarters in the capital Pretoria.

Pandor said South Africa would push for the AU ministerial assembly meeting in Ethiopia next week to discuss the controversial decision by the AU Commission to grant Israel observer status.

Malki said events this year had indicated a decline in international tolerance for what he called Israel's crimes.

“It is so strange that at a time when the world looks at Israel as an apartheid state, AU discusses Israel's admission as an observer. It sends a very strange message to the world about how AU admits observers,” Malki said.

The host and visiting Palestine delegation agreed that in the absence of sustainable peace in the Middle East region there could be no global peace, stability, and economic prosperity.

This year the world witnessed some of the worst violence by Israeli security forces against Palestinian civilians, both in the Al Aqsa mosque compound and in Gaza, much of which is being investigated as war crimes.

The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and other organisations have said that the 11 day Israeli military onslaught on Gaza in May likely constituted “war crimes”.