The planeload of Gazans arriving in South Africa has so far been a saga of silence and falsity.
By Lawrence Nowosenetz
There is something deeply wrong with the way this story has been framed in South Africa. For a week, the country has been fed a fake narrative that suits the political and activist sector that favours casting Israel as a malignant player. The South African media swallowed it whole, without questioning the source, the motives, or the glaring contradictions.
On 13 November a commercial jet belonging to Global Airways landed at OR Tambo Airport, Johannesburg carrying 153 people from Gaza. They had lawfully departed from Gaza through the Israeli Keren Shalom crossing to Ramon Airport, a civil (not military) airport near Eilat in Israel and had flown to Nairobi, Kenya.
For 9 hours Border Management officials barred them from disembarking from the aircraft due to lack of documentation. They did not have exit customs stamps of Israel and entry visas to South Africa. They had not sought refugee status with the United Nations prior to their departure. Nor had they applied for asylum under South African immigration or refugee law. The Department of Home Affairs was apparently unaware of their arrival and regarded their entry as illegal. Eventually, 130 were granted 90-day tourist visas and entered South Africa under the care of a local Muslim charity, Gift of the Givers. The remainder transferred to their ultimate destination.
The narrative of the South African Government was that it did not want to collaborate with Israeli “ethnic cleansing” and the travellers had no legal documentation to enter South Africa. Imtiaz Sooliman of Gift of the Givers presented himself as the heroic interlocutor of the crisis. Politicians claimed confusion and ignorance. Commentators repeated the same talking points and as usual blamed Israel for everything while blindly accepted the Palestinian Authority’s version without hesitation or scrutiny.
Yet the one group that the media should have been listening to has been completely sidelined. The people who actually made the journey from Gaza to South Africa.
TESTIFYING TO THE TRUTH
While newsrooms were still recycling press statements, Tim Flack, a PR professional specialising in crisis management and media relations, did the basic work that journalism used to value:
He spoke to the individuals involved.
Two Gazan women spoke to him independently. One who is in South Africa and another who travelled on to Indonesia.
-Both used the Al Majd humanitarian pathway that has been operating quietly and legally.
– Both voluntarily applied to leave Gaza.
– Both willingly boarded the flights.
– Both thanked Al Majd and Israel for coordinating their safe exit.
According to Tim Flack, their testimonies destroy the pre-packaged narrative about abandonment, scams, trafficking, forced removal and Imtiaz Sooliman’s new buzzword:
“Ethnic Cleansing“.
These testimonies completely contradict the claims made by Sooliman who in pushing for an investigation by the South Africa President, took to the media in an Al Jazeera style operation of blame Israel at all costs. The testimony of these women clearly undermines the political theatre that played out in South Africa.
FLIGHT CONTROLL TO OUT OF CONTROL
One of the women shared a WhatsApp directive that she allegedly received from the Palestinian Embassy in South Africa. It was not a request – it was an instruction.
Hereunder is the translation:
“We are about to issue an official press statement regarding the situation of the Palestinian group that arrived from Palestine. It is very important that you all commit to not issuing any statements on social media and not communicating with any press outlet. If any journalists contact you, please direct them to speak with Sara. [ Presumably Sarah from Gift of the Givers] The purpose of these instructions is not to restrict your freedom, but to protect your privacy and to ensure a better legal situation for you. We do not want any statements being made outside the approved framework, because that would create obstacles for the group.”
The Embassy’s message was clear:
* No talking to media.
* No social media posts.
* Only speak to a designated individual who is not even a government official named Sara Oosthuizen who works for Gift of the Givers.
* No public statements outside the approved framework.
This reads like a gag order disguised as concerned counsel.
Even more sinister, is the claim by the Gazan woman passenger that the Palestinian Authority forced the embassy in Indonesia to cancel visas earlier in the year just as another group of Gazans was preparing to leave. Those visas were unduly revoked under political pressure.
The flights being legal raises the important question of why the Palestinian Authority attempted to block people from leaving Gaza legally and peacefully:
Could it be that an orderly and legal departure of Gazans does not fit with the Palestinian narrative of Gaza being “an open-air prison”?
Clearly, it refutes that there is no truth in the South African statement that the Gazans are being “expelled” or that they are barred from returning.
The core issue I am addressing is:
What is the explanation for such media submissiveness to deliberately ignore reporting the full story?
Is governmental pressure being applied and perhaps ‘duly assisted’ by the conniving Israel-hater Imtiaz Sooliman? And why are journalists not investigating the actions of the Palestinian Authority (PA) with the same intensity and zeal they apply to Israel? Many questions; too few answers!
‘ON BOARD’ WAS ALL ABOVE BOARD
The story about South Africa being blindsided does not stand up to scrutiny. Palestinians do not require visas for visits up to 90 days. It’s on the South African Department of Home Affairs website.
The South African government officially announced in September 2023 that Palestinians with valid Palestinian passports are visa exempt travellers. The only requirements for entry are valid travel documents and perhaps proof of resources for accommodation and intent to return.
As to the false and malicious allegation against Israel regarding the failure to stamp the Gazans passports on exit, Israel did away with this practice in 2013. This is common knowledge and to have over-dramatically pedalled to the media this false accusation as did Gift of the Givers’ founder and CEO Imtiaz Sooliman was nothing less than slander to besmirch the Jewish state.
The plane carrying the Gazan passengers could not have landed without South African approval as the third country and Israel publicly confirmed that the exit was coordinated. France24 too confirmed that the unnamed third country was South Africa.
Air traffic control at OR Tambo was always aware of the incoming flight and its landing schedule.
Despite all of this, South African media outlets continued to present the false narrative that the Gazans arrived in some irregular fashion.
The facts say otherwise.
The law says otherwise.
The testimony of the Gazan women passengers says otherwise.
MEDIA’S SCANDELIOUS ‘SOUNDS OF SILENCE’
Several questions remain unanswered.
- Why are the testimonies of the most affected people – the Gazan passengers – not being reported?
- Why are the media outlets in South Africa failing to investigate a significant lead in the story that respected media relations expert Tim Flack exposed?
- Why are the investigative journalists not doing their job by tenaciously pursuing the allegations of the Gazan passengers against the Embassy of the Palestinian Authority in Pretoria for trying to subdue them into silence?
- Why have Sooliman’s outrageous claims not been challenged against available evidence?
- Why is the public subjected to one exclusive politically motivated narrative that is only against Israel?
Failure to all of the above sadly affirms a quiescent mainstream media that is subservient to the South African government, the Embassy of the Palestinian Authority in South Africa and the Gift of the Givers being their enablers and abetters.
The shabby truth is that once the Rainbow Nation, South Africa is now a country where crime and corruption are part of the unwritten constitution, and in step with this decline, turned its foreign policy against true democratic Western interests and values to which it pays lip service. Instead, it embraces BRICS and the so-called global South which includes rogue nations such as Iran. It pursues a perverted and hypocritical stance on human rights which is passive about the ongoing atrocities in Sudan, Yemen and massacres of Christians in Nigeria and other African countries.
TIME FOR TRUTH
This saga is not only about a flight from Gaza. It is about how narratives are manufactured, manipulated and spun and how easily journalists abandon independence and human empathy. The human aspirations of the Gazan travellers and their quest for a better life does not seem to be a topic worthy of pursuit.
Journalism is debased when a particular narrative – in this instance demonisation of Israel – becomes paramount, either because it aligns with the prevailing popular worldview or so that a journalist can hold onto his or her job without offending.
A CALL FOR MEDIA ACCOUNTABILITY
Migration from conflict zones in the Middle East has become commonplace hence not complicated to report on. When people who survived the Gaza war speak, the responsible act is to listen to their personal account. There was no shortage of tearful accounts of Gazan suffering during the war but suddenly this fails to be of interest when Gazans leaving for a better life wish to tell their story! Why?
Two Gazan women, thousands of kilometres apart – one still in South Africa the other now in Indonesia – each told the same story. They explained how they left Gaza legally, willingly, and were grateful for all the assistance they received.
They also revealed how they were subjected to pressure and intimidation after landing in South Africa and explained how the Palestinian Authority played a disruptive role in the pursuance of their plans for a new life outside of Gaza. Is this the narrative the anti-Israel lobby do not want to hear? That there is life outside of Gaza free of Hamas?
Ignoring these corroborative testimonies amounts to a moral and media failure.
By failing to follow the facts and track the truth – the guiding principles for any journalist – these professionals would be doing a disservice to their audience. There is a story is out there to be told, a true story from passengers who will testify to their personal experiences and the paths they have opted to pursue. It is time for the media to step up and ask the questions they should have been asking from the very beginning.
About the writer:
Now retired, Pretoria-born human rights and labour lawyer, Lawrence Nowosenetz practiced at the Pretoria and Johannesburg Bar. Recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, Nowosenetz completed an internship in the USA and served as a part-time Senior Commissioner at the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) as well as a panellist at Tokiso Dispute Settlement – the largest private dispute resolution provider in South Africa. He has also served as an Acting Judge of the Hight Court, South Africa.
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