How Australian government policies led to the disaster on Bondi Beach.
By Neville Berman
Year after year governments around the world are passing deficit budgets that include massive increases in defense spending. They are arming themselves in the hope of being able to better defend themselves against external enemies. At the same time, in the name of multiculturalism, diversity, and equality, they have opened their borders to millions of immigrants who do not share their culture, language, religious practices or heritage. The threat to many countries is now internal rather than external.
What is happening is that incredibly rich Muslim oil exporting countries are promoting the subjugation of the west to Islamic doctrine. One of the ways that they are using to undermine the west is to finance the building of large mosques in major Western cities across the world. The Imams in these mosques are handpicked by the people providing the finance. They are spreading their opposition to Western culture, and are radicalizing their followers to incite and create anarchy. They are well organized and financed and face almost zero opposition from local governments. They are using the western concept of free speech in order to promote hatred.
Iman Influence. Twenty-four-year-old Bondi Beach shooting gunman Naveed Akram, was a follower of pro-Islamic State preacher Wisam Haddad (above) who has been closely watched by ASIO for most of his adult life but has never been charged with a terrorism offence. (Photo: Four Corners/Sissy Reyes).
The latest attack at Bondi Beach in Australia is the direct result of the total lack of any attempt by the Australian government to take action against hate speech. What is really amazing is to see the current TV briefing by Australian officials. Initially the New South Wales police announced that they were treating the incident as a terrorist attack. It must have taken a person of exceptional bravery or stupidity to use the word “terrorist” in this day of political correctness. The word “terrorist” has become offensive to millions of people around the world who cheered the attack against America by al-Qaeda on 9/11, 2001. It is also offensive to millions of people who celebrated the attack on Israel by Hamas on the morning of October 7, 2023. These are the people that are now setting the standards that society needs to adhere to. The word terrorist conjures up visions of hundreds of actual Muslim terrorist acts across the world, that have killed and maimed thousands of innocent people. The West has simply bowed to the demands of those who want to destroy western culture and civilization and has decided that the word terrorist is now a derogatory term that needs to be removed from the lexicon of the English language. Words like ‘apartheid’, ‘genocide’ and expressions such as ‘rape their daughters’ are now completely acceptable. Terrorists have become ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘militants’, and the Australians have now found a plethora of new words to lower the bar even further.
The Australian Prime Minister immediately called the incident an act of antisemitism. Considering the fact that that the attack was against thousands of Australian Jews celebrating the first night of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, one can assume that the detective acumen of neither a Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot were needed to conclude that it was indeed an antisemitic act. The fact that the same Prime Minister has failed to take any serious action against hundreds of demonstrations that have taken place on Australian soil, against Jews and Israel, speaks volumes about his political bias and his concerns to appease the growing Muslim immigrant population in Australia. History has shown over and over again that appeasement leads to calamity. What happened on Bondi Beach did not happen in a vacuum. Ever since the Australian government opened its borders to large scale immigration from Muslim countries, the government has allowed hate speech to go unpunished. Hate speech and Jihad should have no place in Australia or anywhere else for that matter.
In a TV broadcast soon after the attack, the head of New South Wales governing body described the terrorists who carried out the attack as “shooters.” The next speaker used the word “gunmen.” The spokesman for the New South Wales Police stated that “The offenders have been identified as a 50-year-old father and his 24-year-old son.” This is hardly the language that one would expect the spokesman of the police department to use about mass killers of innocent people celebrating on a beach!
Targeting Jews. This is where global antisemitism leads. As if playing an arcade video game, killer Naveed Akram takes aim and shoots to kill, defenseless Jews on Bondi Beach.
So, there you have it, the two radicalized Islamic terrorists that killed 15 innocent civilians and wounded 40 others on Bondi Beach are described as antisemites, then shooters, then gunmen, and finally offenders. Not a single one of the spokespersons used the words Muslim Terrorists or Militant Islamists to describe what happened on Bondi Beach. Not once have the victims of this terrorist attack been described as innocent civilians. The double standards are obvious. Welcome to Australia today.
The one person that stands out in the whole affair is Ahmed al-Ahmed who risked his life and single handedly disarmed one of the terrorists who was shooting at the people on Bondi Beach. The fact that he is a Muslim is a credit to the millions of Muslims who abhor terrorism. He is a shining light that shows that despite all the hatred that is now spreading across the world, there are still people of character and courage. Ahmed al-Ahmed deserves a medal.
Stepping Up Too Late. A report that has sat on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s desk for months is being raised by critics as key evidence that the federal government has done too little, too late to respond to the rising tide of antisemitism since the 7 October terror attack in Israel.
The tragedy on Bondi Beach needs to be the catalyst that unites Australia and the Western world against the falsehoods and hatred that has arisen in the world. Hatred is not a policy. It is a one-way street to anarchy. It is time to wake up to the fact that countries are abandoning their own culture and heritage by bowing to the demands of those immigrants that wish to subjugate the lifestyle and beliefs of the countries that have welcomed them and provided them with enormous assistance and financial aid. The past cannot be changed. The future definitely needs to be changed. The writing so to speak is on the wall. What a pity that the only action of the present Australian government is to announce that they will be tightening up on gun control. What a pathetic attempt to find an excuse for their own disastrous policies and appeasement of hatred.
*Feature picture: People paying tribute to the victims of the Bondi Beach mass shooting during the Jewish festival of Hanukkah in Sydney, Australia, where 15 people were killed and 38 others hospitalized. (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images).
About the writer:
Accountant Neville Berman had an illustrious sporting career in South Africa, being twice awarded the South African State Presidents Award for Sport and was a three times winner of the South African Maccabi Sportsman of the Year Award. In 1978 he immigrated to the USA to coach the United States men’s field hockey team, whereafter, in 1981 he immigrated to Israel where he practiced as an accountant and then for 20 years was the Admin Manager at the American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel. He is married with two children and one granddaughter.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
An article that disappointed less from what it said and more from what it did not say.
By David E. Kaplan
I come across recently an article translated from Arabic penned by Abdel Rahman Shalgha published in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat titled :
“Searching for Anwar Sadat”
In these troubled turbulent times, I reached out with enthusiasm to read this piece by an Arab journalist that was “searching” – his word – for an inspirational leader in the Middle East. His role-model was the assassinated Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, a brave warrior who risked in peace as much as he risked in war, who rose above the fears and prejudices of the masses to take risks for the ultimate goal of peace. Ask Israelis of President Sadat and the image that comes to mind is more the man who sought peace than who prosecuted war and who bravely boarded a plane that flew him into the bowels of his enemy to address its parliament – the Knesset.
Peacemakers. Prime Minister Menachem Begin welcomes Egyptian president Anwar Sadat at Ben Gurion Airport on November 19, 1997 (Photo: Moshe Milner/GPO archive)
Some will recall his deep voice resonating from the Knesset podium saying:
“Any life lost in war is a human life, irrespective of its being that of an Israeli or an Arab. A wife who becomes a widow is a human being entitled to a happy family life, whether she be an Arab or an Israeli.”
Contrasting Sentiments. While Anwar Sadat and Golda Meir got on like a house on fire in Jerusalem, most the Arab world was ablaze with fury.
The warm response of the Israeli public was captured best at the time by Israel’s former PM Golda Meir, when addressing the Knesset on the 21 November, 1977, and directed these words to her former foe:
“Mr. President, I’m sure that from the moment your plane landed at Lydda Airport, and as you drove through the streets of Jerusalem, you must have felt, in all your encounters with the many people who turned out to meet you – the little children; the mothers with babies in their arms; the old people; the people who were born in this country, the second, third, fourth and fifth generations, and those who have come recently – that all, without exception, were overjoyed to see you in our Land.”
Such was the mood of Israelis in late 1977.
From Foe to Friend. Unlike the unhappy atmosphere in Egypt and neighboring Arab countries, Jerusalem schoolchildren with balloons and flowers cheer the arrival in Israel of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat on November 21, 1977 (Photo: Ya’akov Sa’ar/GPO archive).
SOMETHING MAJORLY MISSING
So, it was about this caliber of a man in the Arab world I was hoping to read in Abdel Rahman Shalgha’s November 2025 article and his opening paragraph was promising:
“In the collective memory of nations and the chronicles of their history, there are names, years, and even entire centuries that endure, untouched by the passage of time or the tumult of events. Among them are the names of kings, presidents, and statesmen whose legacies remain etched in both the hearts of their people and the pages of history. The late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was one such man, born into an era of extraordinary transformation for Egypt, the Arab world, and the world at large.”
Then I kept reading. While interesting and informative, in the end, it was disappointingly deficient. Hoping to read about the man who sought and brought peace to Egypt with its greatest enemy, Israel – Not a word!
Price of Peace. President Sadat was the first Arab leader to recognize the state of Israel since its creation in 1948 and in September 1978, met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in the US, where they negotiated a peace accord and, in 1979, a peace treaty. For this he paid with his life.
It was all about the man of war and nothing about the man of peace. It was about the man who spied and collaborated with the Nazis during WWII and who with “cunning” deceived the Israelis “that Egypt would not attack, only to shatter that illusion when Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal, breached the Bar-Lev Line, and rewrote the script of Middle Eastern history.”
But that “Middle East history” included finally the famous peace between Egypt and Israel, ensuring that countless Egyptian and Israeli lives were not to be needlessly lost.
Not a word about this!
The achievement of peace that should have been written as the highlight of the Egyptian president’s life deserves no mention? The word peace appears not to be in this journalist’s vocabulary – at least not in so far as to praise the attributes of his hero – Anwar Sadat!
Read below the rest of Abdel Rahman Shalgha article:
“In his memoir, In Search of Identity, he [Sadat] recounts the defining stages of his life, from his birth in the village of Mit Abu El Kom on the banks of the Nile to his rise as president of the Arab Republic of Egypt.
At the time, Egypt languished under British domination, its sovereignty curtailed, its military occupied, and its monarch reduced to a mere figurehead. Against this backdrop, a dark-skinned boy from the Nile’s banks absorbed the essence of Egypt – its history, struggles, and aspirations – and carried them within him.
Sadat wrote his life story in a simple, unpretentious style, describing the national and international figures who shaped his worldview. Among them, [Mohamed Darweesh] Zahran, a young Egyptian executed by the British after the Denshawai incident, stood out as a moral beacon whose courage and sacrifice burned indelibly in Sadat’s heart.
From his humble beginnings in Mit Abu El Kom to the charged atmosphere of Cairo – a city alive with political ferment and social tension – Sadat matured amid the turbulence of an occupied nation. He completed his secondary education and began a long, arduous journey through a labyrinth of nepotism and colonial control before finally entering the Military Academy.
After graduation, he served in various posts across the country, carrying with him an unyielding hatred for British rule. His first confrontation with colonial authority came with his involvement in the assassination of Amin Osman, a minister known for his staunch loyalty to Britain – a plot that landed Sadat in prison.
During World War II, as German and Italian forces advanced from eastern Libya into Egyptian territory, many Egyptians, Sadat among them, saw in the British defeats a glimmer of hope for liberation, even if it came through the hands of others.
In that spirit, Sadat helped plan an attempt to smuggle the nationalist officer Aziz Ali al-Misri into the Western Desert to contact the German command. The operation failed when al-Misri’s plane crashed, yet Sadat’s determination did not waver. Later, when two German spies in Cairo sought his help to repair a malfunctioning radio transmitter used to send intelligence to Berlin, Sadat, then in military intelligence, agreed to assist.
Discovered by British and Egyptian intelligence, he was imprisoned again and expelled from the army. Escaping confinement, he wandered the countryside in disguise as “Haj Muhammad,” working as a porter and laborer until a royal insider helped him return to the army and join the Royal Guard.
Sadat later recounted his efforts to organize a secret military network aimed at toppling the monarchy and ending British rule – efforts he claimed predated Gamal Abdel Nasser’s founding of the Free Officers Movement, though his colleagues in that movement would later dispute the account in their own memoirs.
I accompanied Sadat on his long journey through the pages of his autobiography, where he traced his life with all its trials, risks, and triumphs. Throughout, one sees a man in perpetual pursuit of an Egypt free from colonial chains. Perhaps it was Zahran, the martyred peasant of Denshawai, who served as the spiritual force sustaining him through years of struggle.
That thread of conviction runs through every stage of his life, from his seat on the Revolutionary Command Council to the emergence of the shrewd and daring strategist he became.
Sadat never held major ministerial posts and was never seen as a likely successor to Nasser. Yet upon Nasser’s death, he assumed the presidency and began, with quiet calculation, to consolidate his power, dismantling rival factions in a single stroke.
He reorganized Egypt’s military in preparation for war with Israel and redefined the nation’s alliance with Moscow. In an elaborate campaign of deception, he convinced Israel that Egypt would not attack, only to shatter that illusion when Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal, breached the Bar-Lev Line, and rewrote the script of Middle Eastern history.
In doing so, Sadat realized his lifelong dream: the recovery of Egyptian land, achieved with the boldness and cunning of a leader confident in his destiny.
I journeyed with Anwar Sadat through his remarkable life to say this: Amid the chaos, fragmentation, and imbalance that now define our region, perhaps it is worth revisiting the life of this man – not with nostalgia, but with a political mind attuned to lessons of endurance and foresight. For within Sadat’s journey, there may yet be a light to guide us over the dark hill of an uncertain future.”
And there you have it.
Siding against Sadat. Protests in Oslo on the 11 December 1978 against the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. Sadat’s quest for peace with Israel was not welcomed in the Arab world with fellow states boycotting Egypt for breaking ranks and negotiating a separate treaty with the Jewish state. (Photo: Manuel Litran/Paris Match via Getty Images)
A well written in somewhat poetic praise of a manthis journalist “accompanied …. on his long journey through the pages of his autobiography,” admiring his life “with all its trials, risks, and triumphs.” Sadly, among Sadat’s “triumphs”, this journalist does not recognise, acknowledge or mention – even in passing – the monumental 1979 peace treaty with Israel. Think of it, together with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Sadat received the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for their roles in the Camp David Accords, which paved the way for the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty and no mention of it!
How do you arrive at a point when writing about someone’s lifetime achievements and you deliberately omit being the recipient of a Nobel Prize?
Targeting Peace. A scene from the assassination of Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat in 1981.
Clearly for this journalist, Israel is unwelcome, a colonialist entity, a blot on the map, a stain on a region exclusively reserved for Muslims or Arab-speaking folk. Sadly, it’s a perspective shared by the citizens of most, if not all, the countries bordering Israel and explains why Sadat was shot in 1981, and why the trigger-fingers of the assassins represented a multiple metaphor for millions of fingers around the Middle East.
Cause of Death. Sadat’s death was attributed to “violent nervous shock and internal bleeding in the chest cavity, where the left lung and major blood vessels below it were torn.” In truth, the actual cause of death was that he outreached to the Jewish state to make peace with Israel.
Is it any wonder today that so many kids in the Arab world today are named Nasser after the uncompromising militant president that preceded Sadat, and very few, if any are named after the assassinated Anwar Sadat!
Whatever Abdel Rahman Shalgha is really “searching” for, it is not peace with Israel.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
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It is with great sadness that Lay of the Land wishes its Jewish readers a ‘Happy’ Hanukkah in the light of the mass terror attack on the Jewish community’s festive gathering for Hanukkah on Bondi Beach, Australia. From the stabbing attack in the UK at a Synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur to today’s mass shooting at a Hanukkah lighting of the first candle in Sydney, Australia, Jews today are threatened, hounded and murdered. The message of Hanukkah – resistance and resilience against insurmountable odds – resonates ever so much more today. Our thoughts are with all the families directly affected and the Jewish community of Australia.
ARTICLES
Please note there is a facility to comment beneath each article should you wish to express an opinion on the subject addressed.
(1)
THE GREAT PRETENDER
Behind the polished façade, the “gifts” of Gift of the Givers has a price tag. By Allan Wolman
Charitable Charlatan. While engineering that his Islamic charity – ‘Gift of the Givers’ – is rewarded with generous media coverage of their presence at disaster scenes across the world, what are the real aims behind the façade of this increasingly powerful and influential political puppeteer?
WHAT LIES BEHIND UCT’S BATTLEFIELD AGAINST ‘PESKY’ JEWS?
No surprise university’s recent Convocation election has been described as“Kristallnacht 2025”! By Marika Sboros
Cry the Beloved Campus. No surprise UCT’s recent Convocation election became “a battleground with the hallmarks of a hijacking, purge, even a ‘pogrom’ against Jews.” A core campaign slogan had nothing to do with academia and all to do with ensuring that UCT is “never a home for Zionists”. “Zionist” today is codeword for “Jew”.
BETWEEN AUSCHWITZ AND BE’ERI: COMMUNITIES CAUGHT BETWEEN MEMORY AND RENEWAL
How do traumatized kibbutzniks build a new life amongst the rubble and remnants of personal horror? By Gadi Ezra
From ‘Streets’ to ‘Dead Ends’. With rows of kibbutz houses destroyed as well as the lives of its former occupants, are these horrific remnants to remain as stark memorials like Auschwitz or should they be respectfully removed to make way for rebirth and renewal? Tough decisions lie ahead!
Fear that independent scrutiny will expose false narratives, Israel’s opponents discourage “See for Yourself” visits to the Jewish state. By Kenneth Kgwadi
He Came, He Saw, He was Vilified.The recent visit to Israel by a cousin of Nelson Mandela, King Dalindyebo of the AbaThembu nation, created a storm of protest on his return to South Africa? Why? What are Israel’s opponents in south Africa afraid of – the TRUTH?
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
08 December 2025 – Who stays in Eurovision and who walked out in a mighty tantrum? This and more on The Israel Brief.
09 December 2025 – Tel Aviv begins to dismantle Hostages Square? This and more on The Israel Brief.
10 December 2025 – Palestinian activist exposes how Hamas hid baby formula in clandestine warehouse and more on The Israel Brief.
11 December 2025 – Is the US about to designate UNRWA as a foreign terror organization? This and more on The Israel Brief.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Behind the polished façade, the “gifts” of Gift of the Givers has a price tag.
By Allan Wolman
Back in the 1950s, The Platters made a hit song called The Great Pretender. Over the decades it was revived by any number of performers — most memorably Freddie Mercury in 1987. Since then, the world has never been short of “great pretenders”, not only on the entertainment stage but very prominently on the political one, where the list of contenders is endless.
Today I want to propose the greatest of the modern-day “Great Pretenders”: none other than Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of Gift of the Givers, a man who has pulled the wool over an entire nation’s eyes and risen to become South Africa’s most admired humanitarian — both at home and abroad.
Parallel Power. Why is this man – Imtiaz Sooliman – treated by the media as a minster?
With every natural or man-made disaster anywhere in the world, Gift of the Givers is among the first to appear on the scene, ensuring their efforts are rewarded with generous front-page coverage — complete with a full-colour photograph of the good doctor in his trademark green shirt and boldly displayed logo. Not to mention the tsunami of philanthropical donations he attracts.
Sooliman has once again made headlines, this time regarding the mysterious “unknown aircraft” that recently landed at OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg. I urge you to read this excellent exposé posted on Facebook by Ivor Blumenthal:
*[Editor’s note: Soon after this article was written, South Africa revoked visa-free access for Palestinian passport holders. Taking its cue from Sooliman’s outrageous initial accusation, the SA government followed blindly reiterating the antisemitic rhetoric of the Gift of the Givers CEO by speculating without substantiation that the mystery flight is an Israeli plot to ethnically cleanse Gaza.]
The South African media should hang their heads in shame. But as the obedient mouthpiece of a rotten and corrupt government, that same media — devoid of morality, integrity, or even the most basic sense of journalistic honesty — would never dare venture into the territory that exposes who and what this organisation really is — and, more importantly, what the man’s true agenda appears to be.
Over decades, Imtiaz Sooliman has cultivated an image of saintly benevolence, rushing from one disaster zone to the next, dispensing aid and compassion with no political or ideological motive, (I also once believed in the tooth fairy). Very few people living a ‘humble’ lifestyle could command aircrafts and other costly facilities at a moment’s notice, but Gift of the Givers opens more doors than presidents and monarchs. Scratch even lightly beneath the surface and a very different picture emerges — one of a shrewd operator who understands perfectly how to manipulate optics, press coverage, and public sentiment.
Unapologetic Law Breaker. In his own words, this man is a law unto himself.
BLOWING THE WHISTLE However, the true face of Sooliman and his Gift of the Givers is being revealed not by the media but by ordinary folk – non-Muslims – who not only see through but experience the ‘packaged’ deception. Watch the video clip below of a South African woman exposing the true face on this so-called Muslim human rights organization that weaponizes food aid by tying it to conversion. Her outrage disabuses the polished public image of Gift of the Givers, exposing it for leveraging hunger as a recruitment tool for Islam. It has been reported that food parcels have been distributed exclusively to Muslims, while vulnerable Christian families were told they will “get more” if they embrace Islam. Behind the polished façade, the “gifts” of Gift of the Givers has a price tag.
Gift of the Givers is a slick well-oiled reputational machine, capitalizing on every episode of suffering that Sooliman exploits to the full creating another opportunity for branding, hero-worship, and political leverage. The green shirt is no accident; it is a uniform designed for instant recognition, ensuring that Sooliman himself — not the cause, not the victims — becomes the headline.
And here’s where the media and gullible public looks the other way, ignoring the company this man keeps. He has no shame aligning himself to radical Islamic causes, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah and ISIS, openly stating on national television that he adheres to only one law, NOT the law of the land. That’s a statement that goes beyond mere arrogance, but showing his middle finger to his country and the world.
The False Humanitarian. At a protest against Israel in Cape Town on the 5 October 2024, ‘humanitarian’ charity ‘Gift of the Givers’ founder, Dr Imtiaz Sooliman stood beneath this banner “WE ARE ALL HAMAS” and engaged in antisemitic conspiracy theories, railing against Israel and Jews who “run the world with fear … and control the world with money”.
Aligning himself with the ANC ‘s agenda of open hostility to Israel and the Jewish people has elevated his stature within South Africa’s political elite affording him a hotline to government ministers who comply to his demands. All this while the media tip-toes around the mysterious aircraft incident at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport and allows Sooliman and his cunningly crafted ‘humanitarian’ Gift of the Givers to weaponize their aims.
Behind the veneer of humanitarianism, a toothless media lacking courage and hiding the truth from the public, feeds the man and his hidden agenda.
Asserting this point, Tim Flack writes in BizNews (8 December), that institutions in South Africa today:
“…have grown weak and individuals with charismatic branding have filled the void. Sooliman is the clearest example of this trend. He speaks like a minister, moves like a minister, negotiates like a minister, and is treated by the media as if he has the democratic legitimacy of a minister.
But he does not.
He is unelected. He is unappointed. He is unaccountable. And the country has quietly allowed him to operate as a parallel authority in everything from refugee management to foreign policy interpretation.
This is not humanitarianism. It is governance without consent.”
Its time for the media to do their job and expose the true aims behind the façades ofDr. Imtiaz Sooliman and his Islamic charity – Gift of the Givers.
About the writer:
Allan Wolman in 1967 joined 1200 young South Africans to volunteer to work on agricultural settlements in Israel during the Six Day War. After spending a year in Israel, he returned to South Africa where he met and married Jocelyn Lipschitz and would run one of the oldest travel agencies in Johannesburg – Rosebank Travel. He would also literally ‘run’ three times in the “Comrades”, one of the most grueling marathons in the world as well as participate in the “Argus” (Cape Town’s famed international annual cycling race) an impressive eight times. Allan and Jocelyn immigrated to Israel in 2019.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
How do traumatized kibbutzniks build a new life amongst the rubble and remnants of personal horror?
By Gadi Ezra
(Courtesy of YNET news where this article first appeared)
Communities find themselves unwillingly at the center of a struggle between remembrance and renewal, underscoring the need for the state to better preserve national heritage.
Would you demolish Auschwitz? Of course not. The memory of the victims, the documentation of the crimes, the proof of the horrors — all must be preserved despite the pain, for the sake of future generations. But what if you had to keep living there? To face the destruction every morning? To rush to class or grab a coffee by passing through a murder scene frozen in time? In that case, the answer might be different. The need to move forward, rebuild and reestablish routine would all enter the equation.
This is precisely the heartbreaking dilemma the members of Kibbutz Be’eri recently confronted. Still trying to rise from the disaster, they voted by a narrow margin that life inside a memorial site is not life. The decision means clearing and demolishing the homes destroyed in the October 7 massacre. One house will remain, a testimony to what happened and to what must never happen again.
Killing Kids. A ‘Welcome to Our Home’ sign to a kindergarten on kibbutz Be’eri has not welcomed any kids since Hamas terrorists tore through it on October 7, 2023. (Photo: Baz Ratner/AP)
This is not a decision anyone can fairly criticize. No one can claim to know better than those who endured devastation and must now live again at the center of trauma. Whatever they say deserves a quiet amen. Yet what matters is understanding that Be’eri’s decision will not be the last on this issue. It opens a window into the present and future dilemmas of Nir Oz, Kfar Aza, Nirim, Nahal Oz, Re’im and other communities along Israel’s border. These are places that, against their will, have become focal points in a struggle between remembrance and renewal. That reality highlights not only the depth of the tragedy. It underscores the need for more effective state action in preserving the national heritage.
Silent Swing. Once an area of family fun, a Be’eri home’s patio and play area in the aftermath of the massacre.
The Tekuma Authority has allocated tens of millions to establish a national memorial for October 7, but its creation depends on legislation that remains unfinished. More than two years have passed since the massacre, yet the necessary administrative work is still incomplete. A state commission of inquiry is also deliberately avoided. As a result, the content that would fill any memorial institution is, by definition, partial and lacking. Such commissions are not only meant to assign responsibility. They are designed to form a narrative explaining how the country reached this point. Just as the Holocaust did not begin with the establishment of the death camps, October 7 did not begin on October 7.
Death and Destruction. One of the many houses which was burned and destroyed during the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre.
The problem with this dynamic, in which the state moves at its own pace, is that life is not a made-to-order program. It does not wait for government directives, bureaucracy or paperwork. It pushes past every document on its way to the next stage and forces survivors to confront decisions they must make. A community’s ability to tell its own story must always be preserved. But had the authorities and political leadership operated with greater transparency and efficiency, the members of Be’eri could have considered how future national commemoration would be shaped. That would have allowed them to highlight aspects the state does not emphasize or raise issues that matter to them in a different way. Their decision would have been made in context, not in a fog.
Gazan ‘Stormtroopers’. Hamas terrorists taking civilians hostages from kibbutz Be’eri.
Disclosure: At the end of October 2023, I was there as a reservist. The walls of the dental clinic that still stood practically screamed. The path leading to it ran through the same buildings now slated for demolition. ZAKA teams were still searching them for remains. Crushed cars lined the road. Other homes appeared intact but were anything but. Bloodstains on balconies revealed what had happened inside. Still others remained as they were the day they were abandoned — to Gaza, to the next world or to evacuation hotels. In truth that scene has not ended. War does not finish when the last soldier crosses back over the border. Even after Ran Gvili returns, it will end only when the residents return home. It is the state’s duty to ease that journey. Shaping memory in a way that helps them make decisions is an inseparable part of that responsibility.
Tough Decisions. Once a family home, now a horrifying ‘memorial’ to lives snuffed out. Can people return to this site to once again live?
About the writer:
Gadi Ezra is the Former director of Israel’s national public diplomacy unit.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Fear that independent scrutiny will expose false narratives, Israel’s opponents discourage “See for Yourself” visits to the Jewish state.
By Kenneth Kgwadi
In one of the most influential TED Talks to date, acclaimed Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explores:
“The Danger of a Single Story.”
She argues that to truly understand any event or conflict, one must consider multiple perspectives; relying on a single narrative inevitably leads to distortion and misunderstanding. Her message is particularly relevant to the Israel/Palestine debate, where too many overlook or dismiss Israel’s story while presenting Palestine as the sole victim.
The recent visit to Israel by King Dalindyebo of the AbaThembu nation illustrates this dynamic clearly. His trip triggered criticism from individuals who seem determined to prevent others from examining the facts for themselves. Instead of encouraging open inquiry and balanced engagement, these voices prefer that the public adopt their preferred narrative – one that portrays Israel as the villain through carefully crafted misinformation and propaganda. Their response reveals an underlying fear:
that independent observation may contradict the narrative they have worked hard to entrench.
The fiercest critics of Israel often rely on claims of apartheid, genocide, and other exaggerated allegations that do not align with the realities on the ground. Deep down, these naysayers fear that independent scrutiny will expose the inconsistencies in their narrative. Every year, numerous individuals and delegations travel to Israel on fact-finding missions to see, experience and decide for themselves on the reports and agenda-driven narratives presented by international, local and social media. It would be profoundly irresponsible to accept these narratives at face value without challenging the claims and allegations for accuracy, context, as well as the agendas of those who disseminate them. Hence the immense importance of visits.
Royal Visit. A cousin of the late Nelson Mandela, His Majestiy King Buyelekaya Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo of the AbaThembu Kingdom in South Africa meets with Israeli President, Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem.
Tensions between governments — such as those of South Africa, Israel, and the United States — should not influence the relationships between ordinary people in these countries. Communities should not be vilified for cooperating across borders simply because their governments disagree politically. Human connection is often driven by shared histories, mutual interests, and collective aspirations, not by diplomatic rifts.
It was in this spirit that King Dalindyebo chose to visit Israel and engage directly with Israeli officials. As a leader, he sought firsthand clarity on the long-standing conflict rather than relying solely on secondhand accounts crafted by the media. His decision reflects a commitment to informed leadership: he wanted to see the situation with his own eyes, hear directly from those involved, and explore opportunities to build constructive relationships for the benefit of the people he leads.
STANCE OF SILENCE
What is particularly troubling about South Africa’s foreign policy under President Cyril Ramaphosa is the growing inconsistency that seems to define it. On the surface, the country presents itself as a defender of human rights across the world, most notably through its strong support for the Palestinian cause. However, this principled stance is not applied consistently. In many parts of the world, innocent and defenceless people are being killed by oppressive regimes, yet South Africa remains largely silent.
A few weeks ago, hundreds of people were reportedly killed in post-election conflict in the Republic of Tanzania, a fellow member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Despite the seriousness of this crisis, South Africa took no meaningful action to hold those responsible to account. The same can be said about Sudan, where acts of genocide are unfolding before our very eyes on television, but no steps have been taken to sanction or pressure those who are responsible. Zimbabwe presents another example: for years, the ruling ZANU-PF has violated the human rights of ordinary Zimbabweans, forcing millions to flee the country in search of safety and economic security. Yet Pretoria has maintained a stance of silence and non-intervention.
Tragedy in Tanzania. Far closer to home than Gaza, hundreds of protesters and others have been killed and an unknown number injured or detained in Tanzania following recent elections according to the UN human rights office (OHCHR), yet South Africa has not taken any action as it did against Israel.
This pattern of selective condemnation raises important questions about what truly drives South Africa’s foreign policy and undermines its claim to moral authority on the global stage. Blasted by so much mis and disinformation, the global ill-informed fail to understand that Israel is a functioning democracy, defined by an independent media, judiciary, executive, and parliament (Knesset), each operating without interference from the other. This is precisely why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently facing corruption charges: the institutions of state have the autonomy to hold even the highest office-bearers to account. The left-leaning newspaper Haaretz is a clear example of a vocal and critical media outlet that conducts its work without fear or favour, often challenging government actions and policies in the strongest of terms.
Sudanese Suffering. While South Africa’s foreign minister was quick to call the Hamas leader following its orchestrated massacre in Israel on October 7 2023 to “offer support”, masses of displaced civilians on its own continent such as in war-torn Sudan (above) is of less concern. (Photo: AFP/via Getty Images)
VISIT AND VERIFY
There is a danger, like in all conflicts, of spreading lies to control the narratives, and people should be aware of that. Hence it is important indeed, essential for opinion makers, journalists, researchers, and all those who work in the business of information and knowledge to visit Israel and tell the story as it truly is, rather than relying on narratives circulated by others who may have political agendas to advance.
First-hand experience remains the most reliable antidote to misinformation.
Meeting with fellow South Africans. Unlike South Africa’s ANC leaders who showed no concern for South African-born Jews killed in Israel as a result of the attack from Gaza, His Majesty, AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo met with Rabbi Doron Perez (right), father of Daniel Perez, South African born 22-year-old who was killed on October 7 during the Hamas attack, and his body was held in Gaza for nearly two years.
About the writer:
Kenneth Kgwadi is a research fellow at the Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI).
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
The University of Cape Town (UCT) was once a glittering jewel in South Africa’s – and the African continent’s – academic crown.
No longer.
That’s thanks to UCT’s unedifying recent history of being held to ransom by students and staff pushing political and ideological agendas.
It has become as one writer put it, “a public university applauding the removal of Jews from a space they helped build, under the polite cover of modern political language.”
UCT’s Council is its “supreme governing body responsible for policy, strategic direction and ensuring sound governance and financial sustainability,” As such, it should be a bulwark against institutional capture.
Cry the Beloved Campus. The 2024 Israel Apartheid Week at UCT saw present senior representatives from the ANC, Al Jama-ah, the EFF, and Palestinian Solidarity Campaign where taunts and insults were directed at Jews such as: “Child killers”; “We are Hamas”; “October 7 will happen again”; “You f**king b*tch”; and “I will place your photo all over this campus you P*es”.
However, one of its Council members, Dianna Yach, has become embroiled in yet more public controversy that is chipping away at that bulwark. Yach faces scrutiny after UCT’s abrupt announcement on October 30, 2025, that it was switching off life support after 56 years for its “most cherished cultural landmark,” the Irma Stern Museum. The spotlight is on Yach’s role as Chair of UCT’s Irma Stern Museum Committee at the time of UCT’s decision to sever its ties with the museum.
As a Council member, Yach is already mired in damaging allegations, including lying under oath and serious breach of fiduciary duties, in a landmark lawsuit launched by Prof Adam Mendelsohn, head of UCT’s Department of Historical Studies.
Mendelsohn launched the lawsuit after UCT adopted the so-called “Gaza conflict resolutions” in June 2024. A ruling is expected early next year.
POLITICAL, IDEOLOGICAL EXPEDIENCY
UCT’s decision to sever support for the Irma Stern Museum came as a shock to supporters. Stern is widely acknowledged as one of South Africa’s most prolific and powerful artists, one who played a leading role in introducing avant-garde art to the country.
Some saw UCT’s decision as political and ideological expediency. UCT compounded that by shrouding the decision in secrecy, ratifying it on October 18 and only announcing it after being called out publicly.
Preservation concerns have centred over structural deterioration and maintenance challenges of housing Stern’s collection in The Firs, her Cape Town home since 1927. Reports of the collection now in “secure storage” pending uncertain refurbishment plans have fuelled fears of irreparable damage to the irreplaceable integrity of South Africa’s only artist’s house museum.
Heritage researcher Phillippa Duncan has described UCT’s decision as yet more “cultural bloodletting” and “a systematic lack of respect for history, older buildings and objects that require care.”
Stern’s whiteness and Jewishness made things “a little more difficult” by “not fitting in with UCT’s political conversations,” Duncan says. She does not believe that race and religion were “primary triggers” for UCT’s decision.
Jews Unwelcome. What kind of ‘safe’ environment is it for Jewish students at UCT when (as captured on video) a demonstrator, smacked the kippah (a traditional Jewish head covering) off a student’s head, while he was praying, and when confronted refused to apologise?
HIVE OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
I think that’s charitable. The primary triggers may lie, more likely, in the hive of conflicts of interest buzzing under the many different hats Yach wears.
Among others, Yach chairs UCT’s Human Resources (HR) Committee; is a member of the UCT Remuneration and Governance Committees; serves “by invitation” on UCT Law Faculty’s Law Clinic Advisory Board; and is one of Council’s two Senate-elected donor representatives.
She is also the Chairperson and the executive director of the Mauerberger Foundation Fund (MFF) Board, one of South Africa’s oldest Jewish, philanthropic organisations and a donor to UCT and the Irma Stern Museum for decades.
That places Yach squarely in the crosshairs of overlapping donor and governance roles, with duties and loyalties to UCT and the MFF potentially pulling in different directions.
Her maternal grandfather, Morris Mauerberger, an industrialist and a committed Zionist, founded the MFF in the late 1930s. His philanthropy included regular support for Zionist organisations and projects that strengthened Israel’s infrastructure and education.
Felling a Family Legacy. A proud Zionist was the late Morris Mauerberger, one of South Africa’s leading industrialists and Jewish philanthropists whose Mauerberger Foundation supported a multitude of causes in Israel but is today managed by his granddaughter Diana Yach who some critics believe is not following the path he forged for MFF support for the Jewish state.
Mauerberger’s will expressly allocated half of the MFF funds in perpetuity to Israel, the other half split equally between South African Jewish and non-Jewish communities.
The MFF’s decades-long support for Israeli projects includes:
– the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
– theTechnion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa (where there is a Mauerberger building) and
– direct involvement in establishing Ben Gurion University of the Negev in 1969.
Lasting Legacy. The Mauerberger name is proudly embedded in the hills of Haifa in shaping education and research in the Mauerberger Building at Israel’s prestigious Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel oldest university and with four Nobel laureates having been associated with the university.
RED FLAGS WAVING
Yach took over as MFF executive director in 2013. Since then, she has appeared intent on taking the MFF down a different path from the straight and narrow one her grandfather forged – if wildly waving red flags are any indication.
One red flag is her support, well-documented in court papers on public record in Mendelsohn’s lawsuit, for the Gaza resolutions.
The boycott includes, by implication, all tertiary institutions in Israel that the MFF supports, as these can be interpreted, particularly by the BDS movement, to form part of the greater Israeli military establishment.
Suffice to say, blanket academic boycotts on shaky foundations are fundamentally incompatible with the core values of any university worth its academic-freedom salts.
Yach appears oblivious to conflict emanating from her support for resolutions that diametrically oppose her grandfather’s legacy – and, perhaps more importantly from the perspective of potential conflicts of interest, the MFF’s stated mission of support for Israel.
ISRAEL AND PALESTINE
Another red flag is few public reports since the horrific terror attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, of MFF donations to the Jewish state – apart from vague references to support for “mental health programmes”.
Yet another flag is reference in an affidavit Yach submitted in Mendelsohn’s lawsuit to MFF donations to “Israel and Palestine”. That will resonate well with anti-Israel groups active on UCT campus, among them South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP) and UCT Alumni for Palestine, with which Yach is closely allied.
This raises questions about Yach’s involvement with these entities and under which of her multiple hats it lies?
Yach is also actively involved in alumni affairs and wears a further hat as a member of UCT’s Alumni and Development Advisory Board.
Before UCT Convocation’s AGM and Elections on December 4, 2025, Yach nominated UCT law lecturer Caitlin le Roith, the public face of SAJFP and publicly backed by UCT Alumni for Palestine, to run for the Executive Council (Exco) election. Her nomination was seconded by an SAJFP member and was successful.
Convocation ended up top-heavy with a president and four of five Exco members firmly in anti-Israel camps. The elections became a battleground with the hallmarks of a hijacking, purge, even a “pogrom” against Jews.
The aims, as supporters of newly elected officials swiftly and gleefully declared on social media, were twofold:
– to defeat the Zionist bloc (a mythical creation of their own making)” and
– ensure that UCT is “never a home for Zionists”.
If any rhetoric proves that Zionist really is the anti-Israel lobby’s code word for Jews, that was it.
INVERTED RED TRIANGLES
SAJFP leaders have distinguished themselves, if that’s quite the right word, as enthusiastic spreaders of that code word and by using inverted red triangles on social-media posts to celebrate deaths of Jewish soldiers in Gaza.
The Nazis used inverted red triangles to distinguish political groups in concentration camps. After October 7, Hamas began using the symbol as a propaganda prop to identify Israeli military targets. The symbol has spread to anti-Israel protests, especially on university campuses and social media.
The Anti-Defamation League cautions that the symbol’s ties with Hamas help to normalise terrorism and extremism under cover of “resistance”.
Yach raised eyebrows – and hackles – in September 2025 when she donated R1-million of MFF funds to Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, founder-CEO of Gift of the Givers, for medicines for children in Gaza.
Many consider Sooliman to be an incorrigibly vocal, virulent opponent of Israel and all Jews who support it. He speaks publicly under banners claiming, “We are all Hamas”. He routinely punctuates his rhetoric with antisemitic tropes about “Zionists” who rule the world with money.
Sooliman still faces claims (hotly denied) that Gift of the Givers has funnelled funds to Hamas and other terror groups active in the Middle East for decades.
Yach is impervious to criticism of the MFF donating to a man implacably opposed to her grandfather’s stated mission and vision for the family foundation.
Sooliman has been nominated for a UCT honorary doctorate. UCT’s Council was expected to vote to accept his nomination at its regular meeting on December 6.
Suspicious Support. Unable to voice disapproval, the bust of Morris Mauerberger looks on at his granddaughter Dianna Yach presenting a cheque of one million rand to Give of the Givers’ controversial founder and CEO, Imtiaz Sooliman, who proudly appears at South African anti-Israel demonstrations under banners claiming, “We are all Hamas”.
REVIEW OF PUBLIC POWER
In the meantime, as Mendelsohn’s legal team notes in heads of argument, the lawsuit has generated “noise” around “geopolitics, antisemitism, genocide and accusations of bad faith” that drowns out what it is really all about.
The application’s merits turn simply on a “review of public power,” his lawyers say.
That review covers allegations against Yach of lying under oath and serious breach of fiduciary duties involving her allegedly deliberately withholding crucial information on predicted loss of donor funding if UCT adopted the resolutions.
It also covers UCT’s adoption of the resolutions despite robust communication beforehand from a major funder, the Donald Gordon Foundation, clearly identifying a significant breach of a clause in their donor-funding agreement.
Breach has legal consequences. It culminated in termination of DGF’s funding relationship with UCT.
In her affidavit, Yach appears to believe that the DGF had no evidentiary “dogs” barking loudly enough to alert Council members to the serious possibility of funding withdrawal.
DGF trustees have confirmed that its dogs were present throughout, barking loudly and clearly.
FUNDING HAEMORRHAGE
And when the predicted donor withdrawal materialised, the bite was devastating.
UCT instantly haemorrhaged R220-million DGF funding for its Neuroscience Institute and lost the opportunity of a more than R500-million DGF donation for a new private hospital.
The Dell Foundation withdrew R7-million in student support, agreeing only to continue support for current students but not to admit any new ones to its programme.
Another question the review raises is why Yach and other Council members decided that “expressing indignation at Israel’s conduct (in Gaza) outweighs the futures of hundreds of prospective students at UCT who have lost funding”?
Yet another question is:
Why they decided that rejecting the IHRA definition of antisemitism was more important than R750-million for both the Neuroscience Institute and a brand-new, state-of-the-art hospital, “without even knowing that such donations were at stake”?
They appear not to have thought through all the implications of the resolutions for UCT of donations from any donors with strong Israeli ties in future.
Yach strenuously denies any wrongdoing. I wouldn’t have expected her to do otherwise.
As Mendelsohn’s lawyers contend, she and certain other fellow Council members may be exposed to damages claims from UCT for non-disclosure of pertinent financial information.
UCT as “an organ of state controlling public funds earmarked for educational purposes” is, therefore, under “obligation to investigate whether it has such a claim, and if advised that it does, to pursue it.”
Yach and fellow Council members can take comfort knowing they have UCT’s full backing – for now. Despite the serious allegations against her, Yach remains in her multiple positions of power and influence.
That raises the question of whether her position as UCT’s HR Committee Chair has insulated her from the consequences of alleged non-disclosure of pertinent information, or at the very least, an inquiry into her behaviour?
INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION
Another question is why UCT chose to act only against Mendelsohn.
UCT suspended him for lodging the lawsuit, citing colleagues’ complaints that he was unfit to head UCT’s Department of Historical Studies. An independent investigation exonerated him and found that the complaints stemmed from colleagues’ dislike of his views on the resolutions.
Despite the exoneration, UCT has yet to reinstate Mendelsohn. One could reasonably expect Yach, as HR Committee Chair, to have nudged UCT to remedy that. One would be routinely disappointed.
UCT’s Council has fresh faces and voices after last year’s elections that offer hope of new vision, perspective and direction.
The same cannot be said for UCT’s Convocation. It may be ready, willing and well-placed to accede to growing demands effectively to “cleanse” UCT of troublesome, pesky Jews.
A UCT academic notes in response that “Jews have lived this pattern (of blatant Jew hatred) many times before in many countries…, the world recognises it only in hindsight” but “South Africa is watching it unfold in real time” on UCT campus.
It is telling that the academic has authored the response anonymously to protect her own safety. That speaks volumes about UCT as a campus that has become an increasingly dangerous place for Jews, despite official statements to the contrary.
The academic describes the Convocation elections as UCT’s “Kristallnacht 2025”.
Here is an excerpt: “No windows were smashed. No buildings burned. No mobs gathered. Instead, the purge arrives through motions and voting tallies. Through polite language and procedural respectability. Through the illusion of moral clarity.
“The result is the same. Jewish identity is framed as racism. Jewish belonging becomes conditional. Jewish safety is treated as optional.
“Yet here we are. A public university applauding the removal of Jews from a space they helped build, under the polite cover of modern political language.
“If this is what human rights discourse has become, then the words have lost their meaning.”
Unfolding alongside that collapse of moral meaning is a dystopian irony of ironies: Jews are among those contributing to UCT’s attempts to rid its campus of Jews who happen to be Zionists.
That leaves UCT urgently in need of Council members who prioritise education, ethics and human rights over politics and ideology. It requires leaders prepared to put their political ideologies aside and work together to stem the rising tsunami of antisemitism (under the guise of anti-Zionism) currently engulfing the campus.
If not, UCT will never reclaim its once glittering, global reputation as a bastion of higher learning and academic freedom.
*News Flash:
Dianna Yach is facing a call from a prominent South African-born Harvard Medical School neurology professor to stand down or be fired as Chairperson and executive director of the Mauerberger Foundation Fund (MFF) Board. Prof Jeremy Schmahmann, a University of Cape Town (UCT) medical school graduate, makes the call in a letter emailed to the MFF Board before its special meeting on Friday, December 12, 2025. He describes Yach’s support for the “Gaza conflict resolutions” as “unfathomable”. Her statements and actions effectively “violate the MFF commitment to academic freedom and MFF’s long history of deep support for Israel,” Schahmann writes. “They aim to torpedo academic engagement between Israeli and UCT academics. They erode donor support for UCT.” He pays tribute to Yach’s grandfather, MFF founder Morris Mauerberger, as a man who “understood the need for philanthropy” to support the foundation’s commitment to “academic freedom and long history of deep support for Israel.” Yach should resign or be fired to “allow the MFF to return to its proud past focus”, Schahmann writes.
About the writer:
Marika Sboros is a South African freelance investigative journalist with decades of experience writing fulltime for the country’s top media titles on a wide range of topics. She started her career as a hard-news reporter in the newsroom of the now defunct Rand Daily Mail, a campaigning anti-government newspaper during the worst excesses of the apartheid era. She commutes between South Africa and the UK.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
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Torrential rains triggered widespread flooding across Israel’s arid south
Appearing as if by divine intervention, flash flooding occurred across Israel’s southern desert region, isolating the coastal resort city of Eilat for 9 hours, blocking roads and filling long-dry reservoirs.
ARTICLES
Please note there is a facility to comment beneath each article should you wish to express an opinion on the subject addressed.
(1)
WHY THE DOUBLE STANDARDS?
As the US was justified in killing Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, Israel is justified in liquidating Hamas leaders wherever they reside. By Neville Berman
Justice for All. If it was acceptable that “Justice has been done” as President Obama said in announcing the elimination of Osama bin Laden for 9/11, why not for the Hamas leaders who perpetrated on 10/7, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust?
An opportunity wasted as the Pontif threw his faithful under the wheels of his own proverbial Popemobile. By Jonathan Feldstein
Pointless Pope. Pope Leo’s visit to Lebanon was for the writer “a pageant play of the absurd.” Full of message, prayer and appeals, all will be ignored and the people will continue on the long predictable path of unending suffering.
Israel exposes global hypocrisy by showing in deed how facts dismantle slogans. By Grant Gochin
Out of Africa. Despite the false accusations of “racism” and “apartheid”, Israel is the only country that has taken large numbers of Black Africans from the continent – not in chains to be enslaved – but to begin new lives safe from persecution as seen here in a rescue operation.
Perspectives and insights from writers in the Arab media.
Frustration and Fatigue. How are Arab writers treating the situation of Gaza in the wake of the US cease-fire deal? Lay of the Land publishes the articles by 2 renowned Arab journalists whose concern that frustration and fatigue will lead to both Arab and Western policymakers becoming resigned to simply managing the crisis rather than solving it?
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Perspectives and insights from writers in the Arab media.
Stressed over Gaza and its future, Arabs across the region in the words of one of the writers below:
“…debate its meaning, divide over ‘resistance’ and ‘normalization’, and quarrel in capitals and cafés alike.”
Both the two Arab writers below – publishing pieces on Gaza this past November in the wake of the cease-fire deal – lament the result of a “weakening” of the Palestinian cause, allowing it to turn from a unifying symbol of Palestinian liberation into a catalyst for regional Arab fragmentation, with many Arab states simply weary of the endless turmoil.
Turning inward and focusing on self-interest and their own security, coupled with the recognition of a fatigue that has settled in Western capitals from Washington to London to Paris, has a situation arrived where policymakers have become resigned to simply managing the crisis rather than solving it?
David E. Kaplan Editor Lay of the Land December 6, 2025
(Articles translated from the Arabic by Asaf Zilberfarb)
GAZA: A FORBIDDEN ZONE IN HISTORY By Mohammed Al Rumaihi
Asharq Al-Awsat, London, November 2025
Today, Gaza finds itself in a liminal state — neither engulfed in full-scale war nor basking in genuine peace. The same can be said of the West Bank, caught between two unrelenting forces, suspended in a grim equilibrium. Lebanon, too, drifts in a historical gray zone, belonging neither to open war nor to stable peace.
This suspended reality has turned Gaza, home to more than two million people, into a tragic emblem of frozen conflict and fading hope. Under siege, divided, and repeatedly destroyed, it stands as a symbol of human rights violations and a draining battlefield that exhausts Palestinians, Arabs, and global powers alike. When politics offer no exit, people become hostages to geography, and regions such as Gaza, the West Bank, and southern Lebanon remain trapped, unable to progress or break free.
Rebuilding will involve a lot more than simply reconstructing and even that will not be easy.
Since 1948, the Palestinian territories have been perpetual victims of geography hemmed in:
– by Israel, which treats them as a security buffer
– by a Palestinian Authority paralyzed by its own stagnation
– by an Arab world torn between sympathy and confusion; and – by regional actors exploiting the crisis for their own ends.
It is a vivid example of what historians describe as a “deadly political vacuum,” a moment when history itself halts, rendering solutions impossible and societies immobile, left only to wait for deliverance from beyond the realm of politics.
This is not unprecedented: The Korean Peninsula has remained frozen since the 1953 armistice, its borders tense, its people still waiting for a peace that may never arrive. Berlin once stood divided by a wall of fear and suspicion; its people imprisoned in competing ideologies until the Soviet Union’s fall opened a way out. Kashmir, too, has long been locked in a deadly stalemate between India and Pakistan, where periodic violence shatters lives and stifles progress.
Gaza today mirrors all these examples — sealed borders, a crippled economy, deep internal fractures, and a population suffering in silence. The internationalization of the conflict has stripped it of its human and national essence, leaving Palestinians torn between a self-preserving Authority and a Hamas leadership trapped in its own past. Amid this paralysis, Gazans survive between poverty, isolation, and dependence. Education and health systems have collapsed, an entire generation deprived of opportunity. They know only destruction and blockade, their days filled with unemployment and displacement. Palestinian ingenuity has turned inward —from building a nation to simply enduring its ruins. The middle class, once the stabilizing core, has eroded, and the concept of the state has crumbled into factional control.
The Palestinian national project itself risks shrinking into a fragment of land, a wounded memory, and a collection of sacrifices. Gaza’s tragedy has spilled across the Arab world, politically and emotionally. Arabs across the region debate its meaning, divide over “resistance” and “normalization”, and quarrel in capitals and cafés alike. This discord has weakened the Palestinian cause, turning it from a unifying symbol of liberation into a catalyst for fragmentation. Some Arab states, weary of endless turmoil, now prioritize their own security, while regional powers manipulate the conflict to serve their ambitions.
The result is fatigue in Western capitals — from Washington to London to Paris — where policymakers manage the crisis but no longer seek to solve it. The international momentum once pushing for peace has vanished, and even global sympathy, once rekindled by recent tragedies, has cooled. The stalemate has hardened into permanence. Yet the gravest danger lies not in Gaza’s physical ruin but in the decay of meaning itself. A Palestinian child grows up knowing only the whine of drones and the crash of bombs, learning that peace is an illusion and justice an empty word. Over time, despair turns to rage, and human lives are reduced to weapons. Gaza transforms from a cause into a curse, from a struggle of resistance into an enduring tragedy.
A Gazan woman stares at the remains of her house and ponders more philosophically what remains of her future.
What Gaza needs is not pity or another conference, but a courageous, unified vision to break this historical impasse. The lessons of Berlin, Korea, and Kashmir teach us that a state of neither war nor peace is deadlier than war itself — it kills by suffocation. Breaking free demands that Arabs reclaim their role, not as passive spectators but as builders of renewal, urging Palestinian factions: Enough division — unite! Only then can the Palestinian people recover their dignity and restart history’s halted march. In the end, neither war has been salvation nor peace a fulfilled promise. Only a unified Palestinian will can forge a new meaning for life amid the ashes.
– Mohammed Al Rumaihi
WHAT WILL BE THE FATE OF GAZA? By Tarek Fahmy
Al-Ittihad, UAE, November 8, 2025
Amid the continuing developments in the Gaza Strip, efforts to stabilize the fragile ceasefire, and mounting pressure on Israel to halt its violations and unprecedented assaults, a critical question emerges:
Has Gaza become primarily an Arab concern, or has it evolved into an international issue now shaped by the United States and European powers alongside certain Arab states?
The reality suggests that the Strip’s affairs were internationalized the moment the ceasefire was declared and swift diplomatic action — particularly by Washington — took center stage. The establishment of a US-Israeli coordination center operating on the outskirts of Gaza, in partnership with several European nations, highlights that Gaza’s future is now an international concern. The active involvement of countries like France and Britain reinforces the notion that whatever unfolds next will not be decided by local actors alone, but within a global framework led by major powers. Developments point toward the Strip being placed under a form of international trusteeship, possibly through a multinational force authorized by a UN resolution that defines the scope of intervention.
Israel, for its part, seeks to shape this resolution to ensure it serves its long-term political and security objectives — allowing it freedom of action in response to any future movement by Palestinian factions and aligning with its plan to divide the enclave into two zones of control. After consolidating its security presence over more than half of Gaza, Israel appears determined to maintain the situation under an international umbrella involving the United States, Britain, France, and select Islamic countries. This reinforces the understanding that Gaza’s destiny now lies in the hands of external powers that will manage it within regional and global parameters.
In this context, Arab involvement may be confined to funding reconstruction projects that remain impossible as long as Hamas retains control. While it is hoped that Arab states will contribute financially, questions persist:
How, where, and under whose supervision will this reconstruction occur amid such fluid circumstances?
These uncertainties highlight the limitations of Arab influence, particularly as Egypt prepares to host a reconstruction conference later this month within an Arab, Islamic, and international framework. Yet Europe is already planning a separate reconstruction model, potentially implemented in areas under Israeli control as a first phase — an approach that could deepen international intervention in Gaza.
The overlapping agendas and conflicting objectives among all parties make any consensus elusive. While all publicly claim to seek a ceasefire, beneath the surface lies a web of competing interests and contradictions. The American position remains aligned with Israel’s core priorities; differences between them are tactical, not fundamental. Israel continues to steer US policy to fit its own interests, while Washington, aware of this dynamic, increases its pressure on Tel Aviv within limits.
They came together in Egypt but what did the combined leaders of the Arab world and the West effectively resolve?
The establishment of the US-Israeli coordination center represents not only tighter collaboration but also Washington’s acknowledgment that security dominates all other considerations. Reconstruction, collective security arrangements, and the deployment of an international force are thus postponed indefinitely — effectively freezing the Strip’s situation in place. Meanwhile, tensions between Hamas, other Palestinian factions, and the Palestinian Authority remain unresolved. The PLO’s insistence on administrative control in Gaza complicates any Egyptian-led efforts to reach a broader agreement, as cooperation between the Authority and the factions seems improbable under current conditions.
The Gaza crisis is now moving in multiple, often conflicting directions, each shaped by distinct calculations. All sides publicly stress the need for a ceasefire, fearing that renewed war could ignite a wider regional confrontation. This fear drives international actors to prioritize de-escalation, containment, and incremental stabilization while maintaining the uneasy status quo.
Hamas remains armed, reconstruction has not begun, and political commitments remain unfulfilled. The situation drifts toward stagnation, with each player recalibrating its options. For now, the prevailing approach centers on managing rather than resolving the crisis — maintaining the current state of controlled instability. Israel continues its unilateral security measures with American military backing, while Washington insists on de-escalation despite Israeli breaches of its plans. Until the broader vision becomes clear, Gaza — and its ripple effects across the Middle East — will remain an issue governed by international dynamics rather than Arab agency.
-Tarek Fahmy
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