Non-violent mass organisation in relation to armed struggle

A response to Yousha Tayyob on Salaamedia (16 October 2024).

By Paul Hendler and Martin Jansen (3 December 2024)

At a 16 October Wednesday evening Salaamedia panel discussion about ‘lone soldiers” (volunteers to the Israel Defence Forces [IDF]), with specific reference to Aaron Bayhack and the ‘Ghost Unit’ snipers group that he has participated in, in killing civilians in Gaza, discussion turned to the inaction by the National Prosecution Authority (NPA), in respect of volunteers to the IDF, despite charges laid against about 100 people together with prima facie evidence.

There was consensus amongst the panelists (Martin Jansen, Yousha Tayyob, Paul Hendler and Umayya Theba) that this inaction reflected a lack of political will amongst the African National Congress government’s leadership, influenced by Zionist lobby group the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF), a very well organised network of formations that spans the breadth of Jewish institutions in South Africa, linked to the apparatuses of the state of Israel.

Organisational chart of SAZF network. SOURCE: self-constructed from public-domain-sourced information.[1]

The question arose what strategy should be adopted and implemented in order to shift the authorities and political leadership to at the very least implement local legislation banning such unregulated recruitment and at best to prosecute violators of these laws, including institutions that facilitate, aid and abet the recruitment process.

We articulated the strategy of grassroots mobilisation and organisation of local South African communities, through linking local campaigns to the geo-political resistance to United States (US) imperialism, Zionism and the state of Israel.

Yousha Tayyob, another panelist, who assisted Palestine Solidarity Campaign Cape Town (PSC CT) in its pursuit of a case against lone soldier Deane Goodson in 2017/2018, was skeptical, and critical, of our view, also of legal campaigns such as have been attempted over the past 15 years to end recruitment of volunteers to the IDF through criminal sanction. He said that he was inclined to think that there was little if any potential in grassroots organising to affect a changed attitude at national political level that would result in the Hawks (specialist investigation unit) and the NPA’s Priority Crimes Litigation Unit acting decisively on the charges with substantive evidence. He suggested that he should approach us with his Al Queda connections in order to (at least in our understanding) debate what he sees as the strategic limitations of our grassroots mass mobilisation approach versus the armed activities exemplified by Al Queda and its formations.

Listen to the full video — the points made by Yousha, to which this article is a response, occur at 1hr 4mins 42 seconds and end at 1hr 24 mins 42 secs, and are emphasised again at 1hr 23 mins 07 secs and end at 1hr 24 mins 42 secs.

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This comment was met with silence although one of us later intervened to note that the armed resistance by Palestine Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah had revealed the limits to Israel’s military force as well as to its political, economic and ideological power. The point was to clarify the changed geopolitical environment which is part of the context within which local mobilising and organising around local campaigns as well as anti-Zionist campaigns, takes place, and that PSC CT has been supporting and participating in these types of mobilisations as well as building local organisational structures. We also referred to our colleagues’ political practices that extend into towns in the Western Cape countryside (as far afield as George).

Synopsis of the Gaza Docket. Source: Media Review Network.

Yousha was involved in preparing the Gaza Docket, the first submission of comprehensive charges, with prima facie evidence, of about 70 volunteers to the IDF during the 2008/09 Operation Cast Lead attack on and destruction of large conurbations in Gaza with over 962 civilians killed. Yousha was also involved in legal support to bring charges against Deane Goodson, who had openly bragged about his exploits during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, an even severer bombardment of the structures and people of Gaza, with 1614 civilians killed.

Yousha’s reference to Al Queda reflects his understanding of the struggle in historical Palestine as a religious struggle to implement a religious society around Islamic principles in which justice for all would prevail.[2] While working on the charges against Goodson for participating in the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, and with the war in Syria raging, he further explained his understanding of this civil war as a struggle between the forces of liberation (i.e. Islamic State in Syria [ISIS] and the Al Nusra Front, the local Al Queda franchise in Syria) and a repressive and oppressive secular regime led by Bashar al Assad.

PSC CT’s vision of a future liberated Palestine is a unitary, secular democratic state with equal rights for all — this would include the equality of religious faith rights. PSC CT understands the struggle for freedom in Palestine not as a religious struggle but as a national liberation struggle against colonialism and apartheid, taking place in the context of US imperialism and its economic exploitation of the energy-rich Middle East region. We also perceive the rise of competing global hegemons, like China and Russia, as well as regional powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia, as capitalist class-dominated societies that are driven by economic, ideological and political competition with the US and Israel as its Middle East proxy. The civil war in Syria was also a campaign by the US and Israel to destabilise — and ultimately ‘change’ — the Assad regime as part of the US’s and Israel’s struggle against what they identified as the ‘Crescent of Evil’ — Hezbollah, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

Because of our in-principled differing worldviews vis-a-vis Middle East geo-politics we ended the direct working relationship with Yousha in 2019 — as mentioned earlier he had been advising us on the submission of charges against one lone soldier, Deane Goodson. Our specific reason at the time was our in-principle opposition to attacks on civilians (a war crime), as evidenced by ISIS campaigns against certain Kurdish and Christian communities in Iraq and their threat to the Alawite community in Syria, a support constituency for the Assad regime. In 2020 ISIS insurgents in Cabo Delgado (northern Mozambique) decapitated at least 50 people when they attacked and terrorized communities in that region.

Furthermore we were already then aware of the history of the Mujaheddin, Bin Laden, Al Queda, ISIS and the Al Nusra Front and their significant connections with US and Israeli intelligence and military forces, partly unintended but definitely also by design.[3] So, our termination of the working relationship with Yousha at the time was based on sound ethical and political principles as well as our knowledge of the collaboration between Al Queda-linked forces (opposing the Assad regime) and US imperialism and its proxy, Israel.

In addition, we are struck by the provocative nature of Yousha’s comments, especially directed towards Martin. Our thinking is that if you are serious about engaging in armed struggle and its related acts of violence, you don’t talk about this in the public domain. Talking that way with groups like PSC CT, which is committed to non-violent struggle as its role, exposes us to the risk of being attacked by the repressive apparatuses of the US, Israeli and South African states, as we have seen with the likely Federal Bureau of Investigation — sting operation that effectively jailed the Thulsie Twins for up to six years. Such attacks would short-circuit the organisational structures and communication that we have already set up and are committed to continue setting up to lay the basis for mass mobilisation and organisation in the Western Cape. It would undo all the diligent and hard work that we as a Palestine solidarity formation completed in the last decade.

Hendler and Jansen are long-standing members of PSC CT.

[1] Hendler, P 2023 Making sense of the World Conference against Racism battle of discourses — A critique of Zionist reflections (see reference list for links).

[2] This assertion reflects what he stated during discussions with him at the time, about our conflicting weltanshauungen (worldviews).

[3] The US provided arms to what it designated as ‘moderate rebels’ fighting Assad in Syria. Cf. Norton, B 2017 *Al-Qaeda is attacking major Syrian cities with US weapons — but you wouldn’t know that from the media; Khalek, R 2017 [How a Free Syrian Army unit uncovered the rebels’ Israeli connection and switched sides](https://thegrayzone.com/2017/08/08/free-syrian-army-israel-golan-brigade/); and, Mate, A 2022 [‘Al Qaeda is on our side’: in Syria dirty war, US empowered a sworn enemy](https://www.aaronmate.net/p/al-qaeda-is-on-our-side-how-obama). *This point is particularly relevant currently, as an offshoot of Al Queda, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has launched a strong offensive against the Assad government.