Pro-Palestine activists slam Davis Cup tie with Israel

Pro-Palestinian activists have accused South Africa's national governing body for tennis of normalising crimes against humanity, following its decision to go ahead with a Davis Cup tie against Israel on Friday.
 

Organisations associated with South Africa's Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) coalition said they were "outraged" that fixtures scheduled for Friday and Saturday would be going ahead despite calls for the games to be scrapped over Israel's treatment and occupation of Palestinians.
 

The games, which give South Africa a chance to return to Group 1 in the international team competition, are scheduled to take place in Ashdod, an Israeli city some 32km south of Tel Aviv that was built on the ashes of the Palestinian town of Isdud.

"South Africa Tennis cannot feign ignorance about the growing evidence from Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations, various UN mechanisms, human rights legal experts and eminent South Africans such as the late Archbishop Tutu, that Israel is an apartheid state," South Africa BDS said in a statement.

"The Palestinians of Isdud were forced to flee their homes under relentless aerial bombardment. They remain as refugees up to today, unable to return to their land."

The BDS movement seeks to challenge Israel's occupation and abuses of Palestinian human rights through economic, cultural and academic boycotts of Israel, similar to the successful boycott campaigns of apartheid South Africa. 

The movement's pressure on the South African government has heightened after Amnesty International became the fourth major human rights group to accuse Israel of creating and maintaining an "apartheid" system to control Palestinians