Promises, platitudes and politics is all that is left on offer from Israel’s prime minister.
By David E. Kaplan
The story about the prophet Samuel informing King Saul that his kingdom was being taken away in favor of a more worthy successor, remains a pivotal moment in the biblical narrative about the wisdom of timeous political transition. (Samuel 15 and 16)
Some 3000 years later, this narrative could not be more instructive.
What if Samuel was with us today and like all Israelis on 16 June 2026, who turned on their local TV news channels to hear their prime minister address the nation on Trump’s MoU. (Memorandum of Understanding).
‘Deal’ with the Devil. In response to national anxiety over Trumps MoU, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference on the June 15, 2026, asserting that ‘we saved Israel from annihilation’ in war, admits he and Trump don’t always ‘see eye to eye,’ stresses troops will remain in south Lebanon and admits he does not know all the details of the deal. (Photo: Olivier Fitoussi/Pool)
After all, the issue is the number one existential issue facing the nation of Israel.
This is what the prime minister himself believes.
This is what he has been telling us and the world not for years but for decades. On this issue, he prides himself no less a prophet than Samuel.
So, what would Samuel have thought as he looked upon like all of us in disbelief?
What would he have wisely counseled while going about doing God’s work?
After so much war and suffering, did not the people of Israel deserve to hear at least some details from their prime minister to UNDERSTAND what was happening?
Bibi offered anything but UNDERSTANDING!
Well, not quite because we UNDERSTOOD that Bibi was as lost as all of us as the only relevant insight he could share on the MoU was that he did not know yet any details.
He let us know that we knew as much as he did.
Comforting!
As we prepared to watch Bibi’s carefully choreographed address, all were anxious having been subjected to the rumors that the agreement would:
– strengthen Hezbollah
– strengthen Iran and
– weaken Israel.
As we later learned, it did all three, virtually making Lebanon an Iranian protectorate. Bad enough for us in the center of the country but what of our fellow citizens in the north that as The Jerusalem Post editor solemnly writes would mean:
“…the difference between a family returning to Metula, Kiryat Shmona, Minara, Shlomi, or the Galilee, and another year of empty streets, shuttered businesses, improvised schooling and lives lived in suspension.”
Did the prime minister offer to them and the rest of his listening citizenry anything beyond, promises, platitudes and politics?
Like an ailing King Saul this was a failing “King Bibi” and that we, the modern citizens of Israel, needed fresh ideas and fresh leadership.
Displaying disdain for the concerns and anxieties of his people he hardly even addressed the MoU – the number one issue on all viewer’s minds and why they turned on their TVs to watch.
Desperate to hear some straight talk about what the burgeoning deal between the US and Iran would mean for us, all we got as most commentators agree was a superficial “campaign speech” using the platform to highlight Bibi’s military achievements and outlining future political goals.
Clearly, most pressing for Bibi was setting the record straight following a June 2026 interview, when U.S. President Donald Trump publicly questioned whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intended to run in Israel’s upcoming fall elections, remarking “I wonder if Bibi even wants to continue.”
Soaking in the Spotlight. While Trump was enjoying his birthday week by parading his ‘Peace Deal’ with Iran at the G7 in France that sidelined Israel’s interests and concerns, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu found himself adrift having few credible answers to an exhausted and skeptical citizenry that will in months be deciding his political future.
Bibi assured his viewers that he will be running and that “I intend to win.”
Hardly what many wanted to hear!
In a De Gaulle mode of Je suis la France (“I am France”), Bibi believes he is indispensable to Israel – that he embodies the Jewish State.
Having endured two major conflicts with the Iranian regime, spending hours in shelters as Iranian ballistic missiles rained down indiscriminately in attempts to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible, with lives lost, homes destroyed, and nerves frayed, Israelis deserved more.
They did not get it.
Where we did get the truth was from Trump’s former partner- in-chief during his first term, VP Mike Pence who blasted the U.S.-Iran MoU, warning it contains no requirement for Iran to dismantle its nuclear or ballistic missile programs and no commitment to end support for terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
All issues critical to Israel, Pence said the deal would immediately ease sanctions, unlock billions in frozen Iranian assets, and pave the way for hundreds of billions in reconstruction funding for Iran, calling it “the kind of appeasement” seen under previous administrations.
Pense making Sense. Apart from Bibi not “seeing eye to eye” with his buddy Trump, neither did former U.S. VP, Mike Pence, who called the US-Ian MoU “the kind of appeasement” seen under previous administrations.
Days later, having time to “digest”, many in Israel felt a need to belch as the final memorandum appeared even worse than the leaked version, strengthening Iran’s hold over Lebanon, ignoring Hezbollah’s disarmament and exposing a seismic gap between Trump’s declarations and the agreement he signed. This deal sounds little more than extortion – paying Iran off to open Hormuz!
While all this is going on and Israelis have made such sacrifices for their families, for their friends and for their country, thousands of Hareidi protestors are blocking highways, attacking Supreme Court Deputy President Justice Noam Sohlberg’s private residence all in support of draft dodgers. What would Samuel say listening to a representative of the Jerusalem Faction protest say:
“We will shut down the country, and anyone who thinks they have seen it all is in for surprises. The struggle is only at its beginning, and our next steps will be far more significant.”
Irate Israelis. Israeli citizens voice their discontent with the reports of the agreement signed between the US and Iran, which completely sidelined Israel.
And what is this governments response to this anti-Zionist conduct undermining and dividing the country?
Adding insult to injury, this government under this prime minister is advancing a proposed Basic Law that elevates Torah study to a foundational national value that will define long-term Torah study as equivalent to “meaningful service” in the IDF.
Shame, Shame, Shame.
What would Samuel of 3000 years ago say today?
He would say like most are feeling.
It is time for change.
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).
A South African take on “As You Like It” is playing at the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
By Craig Snoyman
“Honestly m’lord, we know he was in the bank when the robbery took place, we believe he is one of the robbers. Grant us an urgent interdict preventing him from doing any further robberies. If he is the robber then we are stopping further robberies. If he is not the robber, well then, he is not suffering any harm. We’ll bring comprehensive evidence in to due course to show that he is actually the robber, we promise.”
This is not much different from the argument presented by South Africa when it arrived at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 29 December 2023. The South African government sought renewed international relevance by filing an urgent case against Israel. And so it was that South Africa arrived, breathless with urgency, armed with the faded moral aura of Mandela with robes billowing, waving documents and followed by an army of lawyers in its wake, that might bankrupt a small country. In front of the world’s cameras, it demanded that immediate relief for what it alleged was a genocide.
The application was marked urgent.
The request for provisional measures screamed emergency.
The world was told there was no time to waste.
Hocus Pokus. Teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, the ANC announced in early January 2024 that it had suddenly managed to stabilize its finances – no explanations given – and in the same week, approached the ICJ to ask that Israel’s actions in Gaza be classified as “genocide”. Under the shadow of Iran’s plotting over proceedings, supporters of the trump-up charge outside the Western Cape High Court on 11 January 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo: Gallo Images/Brenton Geach)
And the court played its part. The world watched two days of oral argument — a mere fortnight after filing. The provisional measures order followed against the presumptive robber, sorry, make that prospective genocider. All very urgent. All very now. All very theatrical — but then the world is a stage.
South Africa’s initial application ran to 84 pages. Its memorial, filed in October 2024, ran to over 750 pages of text with more than 4,000 pages of exhibits and annexes. Having seen the general competence of the South African government, one cannot, even on the most generous assessment, believe that it was capable of producing 4,750 pages of material between the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 and the filing date of 29 December 2023. The unanswered question that the South African government has still not been willing to answer in public is how long, exactly, was this ‘urgent‘ application in the making before the moment of urgency that supposedly required it? The leader of the South African legal team, John Dugard– the man who has spent at least the last 10 years agitating against Israel – probably knows the answer. The circumstantial evidence suggests that it was not a mere three months in creation.
“Urgency” allowed South Africa to leapfrog the queue and obtain interim relief before a final hearing. The premise of urgency was that the harm was occurring now, that it could not wait for the judicial mill to grind at its exceedingly slow pace. Any delay would cause irreparable damage to rights that deserve protection. Whether the other party is left carrying the stigma as a robber, or a genocider, is outweighed by the risk of potential harm.
On 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice issued its Order on provisional measures. The court explicitly stated that its order was “not a ruling on whether Israel is in breach of the Genocide Convention.” The former President of the ICJ, Joan Donoghue — who had presided over the very hearings in question — explained that the court had not found that it was plausible that Israel was committing genocide. It had found that certain rights asserted by South Africa — not the right to be free from genocide as such, but rights under the Genocide Convention — were plausible enough to justify provisional protection from irreparable harm pending a full hearing.
Corrupting the Court. Despite former ICJ President Joan E. Donoghue clarifying to the BBC that the court did NOT conclude that there was a “plausible case” of genocide against Israel in Gaza, did not stop the global hysteria from propagating otherwise in order to besmirch the character of the State of Israel.
This finding detonated through global media like a diplomatic hand grenade. South Africa celebrated and its domestic commentators declared that the ICJ had found that Israel was ‘plausibly committing genocide.’ Legal academics issued breathless analyses confirming that the court believed genocide was occurring. I recall one very prominent South African law professor asking Natasha Hausdorff where she got her law degree, after Hausdorff had pointed out to her that the court had not found there was a plausible genocide.
The distinction is not technical wordplay. It is the difference between a court saying “we find it plausible that the party is a robber” and a court saying “we find it plausible that there are rights worth protecting while we decide whether the party is a robber.” The court followed the latter principle. South Africa’s government either did not read that part, or found it inconvenient. The world’s media, supplied with South Africa’s narrative and disinclined to examine ICJ jurisprudence on a Friday afternoon, ran with the finding that a genocide was plausible.
South Africa filed its memorial in October 2024: 750 pages of text, 4,000 pages of exhibits. Israel could and did raise preliminary objections to jurisdiction and admissibility, choosing not to raise the issues as a standalone exercise earlier, which would delay proceedings for six to twelve months while they are decided. Israel has raised these arguments in its counter-memorial, filed on 12 March 2026, requesting extensions from the court. South Africa opposed these extensions on the grounds that they “undermined the urgency of the proceedings.”
THE ‘PLOT’S’ (ANTI)CLIMAX
On 21 May 2026, a notice was published on the ICJ website which granted South Africa until 22 November 2027 to file its replying memorial, and set 22 May 2029 as the deadline for Israel’s rejoinder. The same country that stated extensions undermine the urgency of the proceedings asked for and was granted an extension of 18 months. If previous court procedure is followed then Oral Hearings, should probably occur in late 2029. A final judgment as to whether genocide actually occurred would only be expected sometime in 2030 or 2031.
If the matter was urgent enough to demand provisional measures within two weeks of filing, it is curious that when faced with Israel’s 1,000-page counter-memorial and its 4,000 pages of exhibits, South Africa now requires 18 months to formulate a reply. Perhaps South Africa’s founding memorial represented the entirety of the government’s awareness, and the subsequent 4,750-page memorial required far more critical analysis on a matter which is far more complex than it had initially led the world to believe. One wonders whether Pretoria’s legal team had war-gamed the scenario where the funding pipeline has dried up when further rounds of written pleadings and oral hearings still need to be attended to. Perhaps that accounts for the 18-month extension request. Perhaps the delay is not about complexity. Perhaps it is about waiting to see whether the financial climate improves, whether the government in Tehran survives and proves generous, or whether some other source of support emerges to defray the huge costs of this case.
Murky Machinations. Responding to allegations that the ANC received funding from Iran to finance the legal costs to charging Israel at the ICJ in the Hague of “genocide”, the Iranian Ambassador to South Africa, Mansour Shakib Mehr, refuted such allegations at a press conference saying that in any event, “the case was filed by the South African government” and “not filed by the ANC.” (Photo: Supplied)
Israel has carried the ‘genocide state’ label since 7 October 2023 — the date Hamas committed the largest massacre of Jews since the Second World War. This label was magnified by the January 2024 order, mischaracterised by governments, adopted by protest movements, and has been continuously repeated by worldwide legacy and social media for the last two and a half years.
No finding of genocide has been made.
The ICJ has not concluded that genocide occurred or is occurring. The court has issued provisional measures — temporary interdicts pending a full hearing — but has explicitly declined to rule on the merits. But Israel will continue to carry the ‘genocide state’ label until the finalisation of the case.
What will happen if, sometime around 2030, the ICJ finds for Israel on the preliminary objections alone, by holding that the court lacks jurisdiction, or that the application is inadmissible or that the genocide convention cannot be expanded into a general mechanism for adjudicating the legality of the use of force? Or my personal favourite: that no dispute exists because no “positively opposed views” had been found and there had been no exchanges, either publicly or privately, to establish a dispute. This would be a monumental screw-up on the part of South Africa, and Dugard did not address the issue particularly well in January 2024. The case would be dismissed without any finding on the merits. In the court of public opinion, Israel would not be found innocent of genocide, because the court would have examined whether genocide occurred. It would simply have been determined that South Africa had no standing, or that the court had no jurisdiction, or that the application was procedurally defective.
“WORDS, WORDS, WORDS”
The genocide label, however, will remain in circulation. The articles will not be retracted. The resolutions will not be rescinded. The protest chants will not be updated. Public opinion operates on narratives, and the narrative of a “genocide state,” “ICJ genocide case” “plausibly genocidal” will be further grist to the mill.
Israel would emerge from nine years of lawfare and worldwide accusations of genocide in the world’s highest court, having its reputation treated as collateral damage by a government in Pretoria that has neither the answers to confront it legally or to comply within the timeframes it originally demanded to prevent undermining the process.
Rot in the Republic. While the republic of South Africa’s government focuses on pursuing false charges of genocide against Israel, it fails abysmally in dealing with humanity issues at home like these foreign nationals sleeping on the street after fleeing their homes amid anti-immigrant protests in Durban, South Africa on June 9, 2026. While demonstrations across the country have escalated into violence, resulting in injuries and the deaths of foreign nationals, South Africa’s government prefers to focus on Gaza! (Photo: Reuters/Rogan Ward)
And what if Israel is successful on the merits? There is apparently an amicus curia brief (a report to aid the court by a non-party) by some of the world’s pre-eminent military experts, stating that Israel’s war in Gaza has been more protective of non-combatants in a warzone than any other war in the history of mankind. It makes no difference. For the duration of this case — which will extend into the 2030s, Israel has carried and will continue to carry a status in international community that one might describe as the legal equivalent of a skunk at a garden party. No formal finding of genocide. No conviction. A verdict of acquittal. But the association, repeated daily in global media, in university campuses, in governmental statements from hostile states have real-world effects on trade, on diplomatic relations, on the treatment of both Israeli nationals and Jews abroad.
South Africa will continue to play the role of the global avenger until a final verdict is delivered and possibly even beyond. And while it reads its lines and while its government officials talk of accountability and international law, they speak with the sincerity of men who have spent the better part of the last few years avoiding both.
About the writer:
Craig Snoymanis a practising advocate in South Africa.
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).
South Africa exposes through ineptitude its true motivations behind its fabricated case against Israel.
By Kenneth Moeng Kgwadi
Nearly two months after Hamas launched its deadly surprise attack on the State of Israel, the ANC-led government brought a case against Israel before the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing it of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention. South Africa alleged that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were committing acts of genocide in Gaza.
The move was not entirely surprising, given that the ANC had refrained from unequivocally condemning the initial Hamas attack, during which approximately 1,195 people were killed, more than 5,400 were injured, and 251 others were abducted and taken into the dark and dangerous tunnel network beneath the Gaza Strip.
What a Drag! South Africa’s “genocide” case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to drag on for at least another three years after Pretoria requested an 18-month extension to file its response to Israel’s defence.
There have been allegations that Iran influenced and financially supported the ANC in pursuing legal action against Israel. While these claims remain contested, they have fueled debate about the motivations behind South Africa’s decision to bring the case before the International Court of Justice.
It is also noteworthy that none of the 22 Arab states spanning the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region took the lead in initiating similar legal proceedings against Israel. This raises legitimate questions about why South Africa, located thousands of kilometres from the conflict zone, assumed such a prominent role.
To make matters worse, Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza through the Rafah Border Crossing, maintained strict controls on the movement of Palestinians into its territory during much of the conflict. Given the geographic proximity and direct regional implications of the war, it would have seemed more logical for one or more neighbouring states to spearhead the legal challenge against Israel rather than a country situated at the southern tip of Africa.
The South African government’s recent request for an 18-month extension to submit its written response, or Memorial as it is formally known, demonstrates that there was no real sense of urgency from the outset, despite claims to the contrary when it initiated its legal campaign against Israel at the end of 2023. Common sense suggests that, had the matter truly been urgent, South Africa would have acted with greater speed and efficiency in assisting the ICJ by providing the necessary legal material and evidence required for the Court to make a determination.
Pitfalls of the Plotters. What began with pretentious haste by South Africa’s legal team has now slowed to a snail pace through ineptitude. Seen here in early days of the proceedings at the ICJ are Vusimuzi Madonsela, the South African ambassador to the Netherlands (right), with South Africa’s justice minister, Ronald Lamola. (Photo: Hollandse Hoogte/Rex/Shutterstock)
It is quite evident that the ANC-led government was misled by Iran and Hamas, who knew that the allegations levelled against Israel were fabricated and lacked any factual basis.
It is hypocritical for the ANC-led government to initiate a legal case and then become the very party requesting a delay in its own proceedings. There appears to be little logic in such a course of action. What, then:
– becomes of the claims that genocide was taking place in Gaza?
– Was this legal action not intended to halt what the government described as an ongoing genocide?
If the government already possessed the facts and evidence that prompted it to approach the ICJ, why would it require almost two years merely to submit a written Memorial? Such a delay would perhaps be more understandable if it had been requested by Israel, the respondent in the case, rather than by South Africa, the applicant.
So far, we have learned that this ICJ case has already cost taxpayers a staggering R130 million, and it is likely to require even more funding beyond 2029 should the government of the day choose to continue pursuing it. The prolonged delay risks rendering the case increasingly irrelevant, as geopolitical realities are constantly evolving and may ultimately diminish its significance in the years ahead. Israel is expected to hold elections before the end of this year, while South Africa is preparing for its own national elections in 2029. These political developments could significantly influence the nature of relations, or tensions, between the two countries.
‘BURDEN’ OF PROOF
What is clear is that the ICJ case carries not only a substantial financial burden but also far-reaching economic and diplomatic consequences, some of which South Africa has already begun to experience. Several individuals have effectively been shown the door after the United States declined to approve South Africa’s nominee for ambassador to Washington, D.C. Relations between Pretoria and Washington continue to deteriorate, with tensions further exacerbated by the United States’ Afrikaner refugee programme. At the same time, escalating tariffs threaten to affect ordinary South Africans who are already grappling with economic hardship.
Unwelcome in the USA. Not mincing his words in offending the US president, the newly appointed South African Ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool was declared persona non grata and expelled in mid-March 2025.
South Africa would be better served by adhering to a policy of non-alignment, refraining from direct involvement in foreign conflicts while continuing to advocate for peace and dialogue, principles it has sought to champion since 1994. Becoming entangled in distant geopolitical disputes risks imposing severe economic costs on citizens who are already struggling to make ends meet. Major BRICS members such as China and India have generally avoided unnecessarily escalating tensions with the United States, recognising the significant economic and diplomatic consequences that can arise from such confrontations.
About the writer:
Kenneth Moeng Kgwadi is a political scientist, columnist and research fellow at the Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI).
Professor Seymour Fox, one of the most influential figures in modern Jewish education, dean of the School of Education at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1967–1981), where the School of Education was later named in his honor, was the founder of the Melton Centre for Jewish Education, a major center for Jewish educational research and leadership training.
President of the Mandel Foundation, he was also the architect of the Jerusalem Fellows program (launched in the early 1980s), an elite leadership development fellowship for experienced Jewish educators from abroad. Fellows spent extended periods in Jerusalem studying educational philosophy, Jewish thought, leadership, and institutional change, then returned to leadership roles in their Jewish communities.
Lasting Legacy. Arguably one the most important visionary in Jewish education, Seymour Fox (1929 – 2006) was the founder of the Melton Centre for Jewish Education, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
A visionary, a mover and shaker, a disruptor, a brilliant fundraiser, Seymour co-opted significant leaders and philanthropists to his cause.
I was extremely fortunate to be selected for the Jerusalem Fellows, and being surrounded by the best and the brightest on the program, which took me way out of my ghetto comfort zone on the backwater slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town. Here, I was able to thrive in an environment which empowered me to exponentially sharpen my knowledge base and practice, develop my leadership skills and levels of confidence, establish a cohort of mentors – and essentially, jet-fueled my career.
I thought about the Jerusalem Fellows program, which still impacts Jewish education, after attending an inspirational lecture by Dr. Tal Becker, a vice president at the Shalom Hartman Institute, international lawyer, Israeli peace negotiator, and one of the leading voices in Jewish thought on Israel and global affairs.
My main takeaway from his presentation was that while in the Middle East, post-October 7, Israel may have “won,” whatever that means, we have unfortunately lost the West.
We in Israel and in the Jewish world, besides being hopelessly and tragically unprepared for the traumatic, Holocaust-like massacre of October 7, were also disastrously unprepared for October 8 – and for what continues to this day, unabated: the roller coaster, runaway tsunami of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred that had clearly been orchestrated and choreographed way in advance.
Unprepared and Unresponsive. The reflexive antipathy on the streets across the world following October 7 surprised the Jewish world that was totally unprepared against a rising tide of global antisemitism.
It is backed by millions of dollars invested over many years, in an ongoing, vitriolic, anti-Israel campaign, backed by the legacy media, adding fuel to the cause – which has consequently made it unsafe for Jews around the world.
What is especially sad is that we were reaping the fruits of the golden age of global Jewry: post-Holocaust to October 6, reveling in and being liberated by our newly found freedoms of acceptance and admiration, perhaps the pinnacle being the ultimate status symbol of marrying a Jew!
Jewish people internationally thrived, developing sophisticated health, education, and welfare services in our local communities, but also enthusiastically sharing our good fortune, making huge contributions as entrepreneurs and captains of industry, and being incredibly generous to the larger communities in which we lived – in many cases, being significant philanthropists of note, held in awe.
Jewish leadership globally engaged with and was instrumentally involved in helping to build the State of Israel on many levels – from investing huge sums of money via the organized Jewish community – to sending hundreds of thousands of youngsters on Birthright, an established rite of passage, to visiting frequently and to making aliyah, leading by example.
And yet, it seems, notwithstanding the outstanding leadership and dedication of people of exceptional calibre, that we somehow took our eye off the ball, seemingly unaware of the simmering antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment bubbling just below the surface.
We also played down the impact of more than $1.1 billion donated by Qatar to US colleges and universities in 2025, the single largest foreign source of university funding that year, giving Qataris access to political leaders, academics, policy experts, journalists and business elites. Do the math!
We also did not consider the impact of faculty on students at elite universities in the US and globally, in the post 60’s progressive era who focused, in the main, on Israel as an “oppressor and colonialist state.”
Rid the Jew. “Nothing prepared me” was a common response from Jewish students at US campuses to the sudden post October 7 outbreak of antisemitism. (Photo: Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Neither did we factor in the impact of NGOs in the “human rights” sphere, with millions of dollars at their disposal, who continue to be preoccupied with, and constantly demonizing and delegitimizing, Israel.
Of course, the power of social media, driven by the multiplier, viral effect of algorithmic, visual hatred of Jews, has left us entirely flatfooted.
SECURING ISRAEL’S FUTURE THROUGH LEADERSHIP AND EDUCATION
Consequently, we are constantly in reactive mode, seemingly unable to counter this rolling snowball avalanche of hate, anti-Israel marches around the world, and now, perhaps climaxing with Kristof’s recent hit-piece screed in The New York Times, essentially comparing us with Hamas – and playing down the self-documented brutality of Hamas in their orgy of rape and violence as documented in the Israeli Civil Commission Report: “Silenced No More” (May 2026).
The cumulative effect of this global strategy of destroying Israel has placed us in a precarious situation, with few friends around the world, feeble government responses, and the crumbling of protective guard rails, literally placing Jewish lives in jeopardy.
I would argue that no matter what we do or say, for the foreseeable future, we will be the pariah of the international community.
Returning to Professor Fox and his Jerusalem Fellows model: what is desperately needed is to intensively train the next generation of elite leaders, who are knowledgeable and can be proactive, and respond with facts and figures, who will be influencers and have exceptional writing, social media, and content-producing skills.
Think of Eylon Levy, of people who will have that rare combination of intellectual depth, moral seriousness, public clarity, and persuasive presence to handle any contingency, and who will be able to engage effectively in the intellectual and moral contests of our time as well as take on the establishment. This, after all, is the new battlefield. Think Bari Weiss.
Man on a Mission. Eylon Levy, who served as an official spokesman for the State of Israel at the outbreak of the October 7 emerged as one of the world’s most recognizable advocates for Israel driving billions of impressions across social media.
Imagine bringing 20 exceptional people annually from a diversity of fields of expertise from around the world, over a 10-year period, to spend two years living, conversing, and debating together in Jerusalem. They would create a living, intellectual ecosystem and combustion chamber in real time where excellence becomes contagious, where Fellows are feeding off each other, and while sitting at the feet of and being trained by Tal Becker and Tal Becker clones.
They would be exposed to the best scholars, educators, and practitioners from Israel and around the world, in the Rabbi Jonathan Sacks mold, perhaps the greatest scholar and teacher of our generation – all united by a common mission: to be prepared, as part of a strategic network, to take on the mantle of responsible Jewish leadership in a topsy-turvy, unstable world, which has its sights set on destroying Israel.
Inspiring Example. The writer draws inspiration from the towering philosopher, author, and moral voice of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (1948–2020) who was unyielding in his articulate public resistance to rising antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and who eloquently stood up to protect Jewish communities across the world.
A fund of at least $100 million is needed to concretely plan for and to set up urgently the equivalent of Rhodes Scholars, in essence, adapting the model of the Jerusalem Fellows into a long-term, elite leadership incubator, to rigorously prepare a new generation for the intellectual, cultural, and media battles ahead. These future leaders will help shape thousands of lives through media, policy, education, scholarship, diplomacy, and institutions.
This initiative should be given the highest priority – if we are to help secure the future of Israel and the Jewish people.
Are we up to this existential challenge?
Feature photo: Leadership Circle. The Mandel Program for Leadership in Jewish Culture aims to promote a rich and diverse, deep and connecting Jewish culture that will impact the future of Israeli society and the Jewish people.
About the writer:
Solly Kaplinski, a graduate of Herzlia School, Habonim, the Jerusalem Fellows and the Universities of Cape Town and South Africa, headed up Jewish Day Schools in Cape Town, Toronto, and Vancouver before making Aliyah with Arleen in 2000. Author of the novella, A World of Pain: A Redemptive Parable?, and 2 volumes on Donors, and Fundraisers – see http://www.journeysintothegentleheart.com, Solly’s professional life in Israel is bookended by working at Yad Vashem and The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Solly and Arleen’s three daughters, their spouses, and a minyan of grandchildren all live in 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).
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has recently kicked the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel further down the road. It has authorised the filing of a second round of written submissions (court pleadings). The first round of pleadings consisted of a memorial and counter memorial. The court was requested by South Africa last month that a second round of pleadings was required because of the complexity of the case and the volume of Israel’s counter-memorial with numerous annexures. Israel also filed objections to the court’s jurisdiction and the admissibility of South Africa’s application.
Article 49 (3) of the rules of the ICJ provides:
“The Reply and Rejoinder, whenever authorized by the Court, shall not merely repeat the parties’ contentions, but shall be directed to bringing out the issues that still divide them.
In a ruling dated 29 May 2026, the ICJ has given South Africa until 22 November 2027, to file its reply and Israel has until 22 May 22, 2029, to submit a rejoinder.
Dr Gilad Noam, a member of Israel’s legal team said in a post on X dated 31 May 2026:
“… it demonstrates that South Africa’s allegations are wholly unfounded and that this is a case that should never have been brought in the first place. This case constitutes a manifest misuse of the Genocide Convention and of the Court itself. Regardless of how long it may take, the only tenable outcome remains the dismissal of South Africa’s claims in their entirety.”
What is the significance of this extension of time limits and the filing of further documents and what does this mean for the future of the case?
Clearly Israel’s counter memorial, its statement of defence has seriously derailed the entire case of genocide brought by South Africa. This is not surprising. The memorial filed by South Africa was filled with tendentious and inaccurate material which cannot stand scrutiny.
South Africa’s Basket Case. Dr. Gilad Noam, Israel’s Deputy Attorney General at the ICJ Ruling in January 2024, recently posted on X that “South Africa’s allegations are wholly unfounded and that this is a case that should never have been brought in the first place.” (Photo: ICJ.)
Legal wisdom has it, that if you cannot make out a decent case in your founding papers, you will be most unlikely to fix it in reply. The odds are that the case against Israel was at its high point in December 2023 when it brought the application for provisional measures but since then it is on a downhill trajectory as it has to embark on damage control to try and rebut Israel’s counter memorial. No doubt it will seek to introduce new material based on events subsequent to filing its original memorial. This is a two-edged sword. Much of the hype and misinformation about starvation, bombardment, violence against civilians, children etc has now been extensively researched by Israel and it is in a far better position to critique the unreliable reports by UN agencies and humanitarian organisations based in Gaza, many based on Hamas and lacking verification and sound methodology. Israel will be afforded the opportunity to offer these critiques in its rejoinder as well as its own careful research. Some of the reports stripping away the genocide case against Israel have already been published, for example the report of 311 pages published in September 2025 by the Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies in association with Bar Ilan University (BESA) entitled:
“Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Re-examination of the Israel-Hamas War from October 7, 2023 to June 1, 2025”.
Let’s rewind.
On 29 December 2023, South Africa filed an application in the ICJ claiming that Israel was in breach of the Genocide Convention seeking preliminary urgent measures from the court to prevent genocide. This was less than three months after the invasion and atrocities by Hamas in Israel on 7 October 2023. Yet South Africa was able to assemble a fully researched account of Israel’s previous conduct in Gaza in earlier wars and an up-to-date record of the new war.
This application follows a similar approach to the 2019 Rohingya genocide case brought in the ICJ by the Gambia on behalf of the Organisation for Islamic co-operation against Myanmar. On 23 January 2020, the ICJ issued an order for provisional measures ordering Myanmar to prevent genocidal acts against the Rohingya Muslims. Since then, two rounds of memorials were also filed and the case was heard in January 2026. Judgment is expected in about six months. A relatively smooth passage yet at least seven years will have passed before a final outcome.
In the Gaza case, the court issued a provisional ruling on 26 January 2024 which has been widely misunderstood and often wilfully misrepresented. South Africa hailed it as a success and a vindication of its genocide claims. The ruling went down 5 to 2, with judges Julia Sebutinde (Uganda) and Aharon Barak (Israel) dissenting. Former president of the ICJ, Joan Donoghue, clarified that the court decided the Palestinians had a “plausible right” to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court. She emphasised that, contrary to some reporting, the court did not make a ruling on whether the claim of genocide was plausible, but found that there was a risk of irreparable harm (my emphasis). A far cry from establishing actual genocide in any shape or form.
Playing with Plausibility. The words of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have been subject to intense scrutiny since South Africa brought its case and has centred around the use of the word “plausible” in the ruling. Then-president of the International Court of Justice Joan Donoghue said the ruling had been misinterpreted.
For those unfamiliar with legal procedures, in proceedings for interim or provisional measures, the threshold of proof is not as high and easier to establish than in a final adjudication. A mere likelihood or plausible risk of harm suffices. In South Africa, this is called a prima facie case. However, in a final hearing, proof of genocide is far more onerous. Proof of genocidal intention is called dolus specialis (special intent) which amounts to evidence which allows no other conclusion. The normal standard of proof of criminal intent is beyond a reasonable doubt. Dolus specialis does not even allow any reasonable doubt. Genocide is the ultimate crime against humanity and this term has been carelessly and promiscuously bandied about in condemnation of Israel by many countries, activists and human rights groups alike without any respect for its true international legal meaning.
The case has progressed as follows:
On 28 March 2024, following a second request for additional measures, the ICJ issued an order for further emergency measures, that Israel must ensure basic food supplies, in order to allay famine and starvation allegedly facing Gaza.
On 24 May 2024 a further order was issued requiring Israel to cease operations in Rafah. The court was divided. The Israeli, German, Ugandan and Romanian judges interpreted the ruling as not requiring a ceasefire in Rafah, and allowing for defensive operations against Hamas including the rescue of hostages. Israel continued its operations as it interpreted the order likewise.
In April 2024, the ICJ requested filing of pleadings in the main case i.e. determination of violation of the Genocide Convention. South Africa submitted its memorial in October 2024, and after being granted an extension of time limits, Israel submitted its counter memorial in March 2026.
There is more.
Between May 2024 and December 2025 several countries joined South Africa against Israel including European countries Ireland and Belgium. Somewhat less countries have stated their support for Israel including the UK and the USA. Canada and Australia remained neutral. It bears mentioning that Ireland intends arguing for an expansion of the concept of ‘genocidal intent’ to include blocking by Israel the supply of food to Gaza. Someone seems to have missed the point that food could also enter Gaza through Egypt. No one is pointing fingers at Egypt.
The Presidency of South Africa issued a statement on 2 June 2026. It noted that a second round of pleadings is common in ICJ cases. It is indeed correct that in the Rohingya genocide case there was indeed a second round where the parties were afforded time limits of 6 months, but what the Presidency fails to explain is why South Africa requested 18 months to file its reply. According to the Presidency –“South Africa’s response is a simple one: self-defence is not a defence to genocide, there is none.”
In South African parlance this called a blaps or howler. Faux pax if you like. Why did the South African legal team plead complexity to the court in asking for a second round of pleadings and extended time limits if Mr Ramaphosa says South Africa’s case is simple.
The Presidency got it breathtakingly wrong. Israel’s case is not simply self defence. It is based on a firm foundation of lawful military action in compliance with humanitarian law and the law of war (jus in bellum) as well as absence of genocidal intent. Astute observers are asking whether South Africa’s case will hold up at all.
Clear Distinction. Following the misuse of the term for political propaganda against Israel, former president of the ICJ, Joan Donoghue, clarified in a BBC interview that the ICJ did not rule that the core claim of genocide was plausible but that the Palestinians in Gaza have “plausible rights to protection from genocide”. (Photo: Biography file, ICJ)
It is unlikely that the ICJ will hear the case any time soon, perhaps an outcome can be expected after 2030 if at all. By then a new government will have been elected in South Africa which might adopt a different foreign policy which is not aligned with the adversaries of Israel. Even if the case is unwisely pursued by South Africa, it will yield insuperable factual and legal hurdles which will ultimately be its nemesis.
About the writer:
Born in Pretoria Lawrence Nowosenetz obtained his BA at University of the Witwatersrand and LLB at the University of South Africa. He has been admitted as an Attorney in South Africa and as an advocate in South Africa. He practiced at the Pretoria and Johannesburg Bar and worked as a human rights and labour lawyer at the Legal Resources Centre a public interest law firm. Lawrence was Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and completed professional internship in the USA. He was a a labour arbitrator and mediator, part time Senior Commissioner at the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) as well as a panelist at Tokiso Dispute Settlement. He was a member of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and Pretoria Chairman. He has also served as an Acting Judge of the High Court, South Africa. He now lives in Tel Aviv.
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).
Media Watch: Arab world is watching Israel like never before says Arab journalist.
Explaining this phenomenon is veteran Arab journalist and author Nazir Majli, widely known for his extensive career as a political correspondent covering Israel and the Middle East for the London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat. He has served as the publication’s Israel bureau chief, offering analysis and breaking news across both Arabic and international media. Reported in Ynet, Majli questions how Irael seems impervious to the negative impact many of its actions are having on Arabs in the region who were growing to the idea – once an anathema – of closer ties with Israel following the Abraham Accords. He characterizes Israel by its conduct as “a subcontractor for Hamas,” for the self-inflicted harm damage it is causing. Let Majli explain – it is well worth a read.
David E. Kaplan Editor, Lay of the Land
ARAB WORLD WATCHING ISRAELI MEDIA LIKE NEVER BEFORE, BUT ISRAEL IS FAILING TO UNDERSTAND WHY
By Nazir Majli
No country draws the attention of the Arab world more than Israel. Perhaps it began as “know your enemy,” but it did not remain only that. Many Arabs wanted knowledge and answers. For years, they learned about Israel mainly from hostile Arab sources, mobilized media, propaganda and incitement. Many believed that distorted picture until they encountered another truth.
Israel’s achievements in science, technology, security, high-tech and the economy raised more questions and increased the demand for reliable information.
When that demand became real hunger, Arab media faced a major challenge. Major newspapers such as Asharq Al-Awsat and Al-Hayat began employing Arab citizens of Israel as correspondents in the early 1990s. Al Jazeera later joined, followed by Al Arabiya. Today, there is no influential Arab channel or newspaper without a correspondent in Israel. Even Hezbollah-linked Al Mayadeen has commissioned reports from Arab Israeli journalists.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, the Israeli voice has reached the Arab nation live and from the source. Netanyahu’s speeches and those of his ministers have been broadcast live with simultaneous Arabic translation and later quoted in news bulletins. Studio discussions were repeatedly interrupted for statements by Israeli leaders.
Even as Israeli planes bombed universities, schools, mosques and churches, even as thousands of women and children were killed and homes were destroyed in Gaza and in West Bank refugee camps, the voice and image of IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari appeared on screens in Palestinian and Arab homes. Every appearance was broadcast and translated reliably for Arab audiences.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, who before October 7, 2023 was an unfamiliar face in Saudi Arabia is seen here interviewed in June, 2024 by Al Arabiya. Al Arabiya, Saudi Arabia’s alternative to Al Jazeera and has no problem giving repeated airtime to Israel’s army spokesman.(Credit: Still from Al Arabiya IDF Spokesman)
At the same time, while Israel practiced military and self-censorship over IDF operations in Gaza and later Lebanon, and while broadcasters, reporters and commentators in Israeli studios often concealed the harsh consequences, Arab media made sure to carry the other voice — the Israeli one.
It was openness against opacity. Veteran Arab journalists remembered the 1960s, when Israel projected great self-confidence and often told the truth, while Arab media concealed it.
After 50 years of deeper and more authentic Arab familiarity with Israel, there is no longer one united Arab hostility toward Israel. There is an internal Arab conflict over Israel. The Abraham Accords were one of the clearest expressions of that change.
Hamas, inspired by Iran, attacked Israel in an effort to destroy that process. Israel’s harsh, unconventional and destructive response turned it, in effect, into a subcontractor for Hamas, helping it advance that goal and damaging the new Arab current that wanted normalization with Israel.
What had been seen as Israeli wisdom suffered a severe blow after Oct. 7.
The questions I now hear from Arab colleagues, influencers and policy figures have become much harder. Covering Israel for the Arab world has become more difficult. Israeli policy is seen as a gamble with everything on the table. Even those who hate Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah cannot digest Israel’s conduct throughout the war. Many believe this policy is helping the extremist axis.
Top Israeli journalists from Channel 2 are seen here on 3 June, 2026 on Iran’s PRESS TV.
Even friends of President Donald Trump, who strongly supports the Israeli government, do not understand how Netanyahu has placed everything in his hands.
They ask me:
“Don’t you think about the day after? Is there no responsible body analyzing reality, examining scenarios and drawing professional conclusions about the future? How is policy made in Israel? What are the considerations? How do Israelis understand the value of good neighbors? Even if there are military achievements, why not use them for a diplomatic horizon? The first rule of wars is to end them with political achievements. Is Israel waiting for Trump to do that work, too?”
A wealthy, educated woman from Gaza, now a refugee in Egypt and known for opposing Hamas, asked me in despair: “Don’t Israelis have children? Don’t they think about their future? Do you know that my grandson talks about revenge?”
A Syrian intellectual living in Canada, who celebrated the fall of the Assad family’s regime, canceled his plan to return to Syria with his family because of the uncertainty there.
Yonit Levi from Israel’s Channel 12 appears on UAE news channel. For decades, the appearance of Israeli speakers in Arab media was the stuff of science fiction. To the Arab mainstream press, Israel was a monolithic, distant entity, “the Zionist enemy”, whose voice was permitted only through the rigid filters of local propaganda and censorship. However, the last three decades have triggered a dramatic revolution, transforming Israelis from unseen adversaries into regular, and often fiery, participants in Arab public discourse.
“What do the Israelis want from Syria already?” he asked. “A country without an army, extending a hand for peace and ready to cooperate against terrorism — why is it met with such hostility from Israel?”
A senior Egyptian diplomat I met in Tel Aviv told me: “You know how much I hate Iran. But Israel has been exposed. For me, it is the second Iran in the region. What it did in Gaza conveys weakness more than strength. The arrogance of its leaders and the talk of turning Israel into the most powerful force in the region and the world express a sick internal weakness.”
Former Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Al Arabiya
A senior official in Abu Dhabi, once an enthusiastic supporter of the Abraham Accords, spoke of deep shock.
“What Hamas did was not only carry out a cursed, murderous attack,” he said. “It also pulled Israelis out of judgment and strategic thinking, dragging them into sacrificing future generations to a dark future.”
He recalled Netanyahu’s 2015 comment at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, when he was asked whether Israel would forever live by the sword and answered, “Yes.”
“Do Israelis understand what that means?” the Abu Dhabi official asked. “What leader promises his people wars for life?”
With pictures like this of Gaza-based Palestinian photographer Mahmud Hams documenting buildings destroyed in Israeli bombardment at the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on November 2, 2023, the writer questions if Israel realizes that such exposure in effect turns the Jewish state into “a subcontractor for Hamas,” damaging the “new Arab current that wanted normalization with Israel.” (Photo: AFP)
The Arab world is watching Israel more closely than ever. But attention is not support. Israel’s words are translated, its leaders are heard and its military briefings are broadcast. Yet everything Israel says is now weighed against what Arab audiences see.
The question is whether Israel understands what it is showing them.”
Jewish family supports historic move for Cape Town to rename Strand town square honouring family founder to recognition of local Muslim community.
By Ben Friedman
Ra’anana in central Israel is my home today. It wasn’t always.
I hail from the Strand, a beautiful False Bay town which is part of the area described as the “Fairest Cape”, bracketed by the majestic Hottentots Holland mountains, Somerset West and the turquoise blue of the Atlantic Ocean. Today, this town is making news in South Africa and it involves my family. Of this I am proud – proud of the past and proud of how we are forging a favourable future.
My family surname – Friedman – is so embedded in that town’s history. However, it is not only the past but the message we are sending for the future that is making news.
In a historic gesture of recognition and reconciliation, our family have approved the renaming of Ben Friedman Plain honouring my grandfather and family founder in South Africa to Strand Muslim Square. The exciting and enriching drama unfolding could not – and maybe not unsurprisingly – escape controversy.
It is no secret that today we live in a polarised, post-truth world where narratives are shaped by people’s prejudices and affiliations that cloud facts and the truth. Israelis and Jews know this more than most, given the sustained campaign of lies against Israel in the mainstream media, by influencers, social media, and sinister state-backed NGOs.
So, when local Muslim leader, Ebrahim Rhoda approached my brother, Barry Friedman with the request to approach the city council to rename the square to finally redress the wrongs of the past and to honour the Muslim contribution to the town, Barry expressed enthusiasm, but said that he would need to discuss it with the family. He knew that their only concern would be that the family’s history not be erased. With full understanding and sensitivity, Ebrahim, after some thought and investigation, suggested that if the renaming was approved, the traffic circle in front of our family store could be renamed Ben Friedman Circle. This, our family considered fair and agreed to the renaming of the town square subject to council approval.
Prime Movers. Taking a stand in the Strand are (l-r) Ebrahim Rhoda, Barry Friedman and Feisal Daniels at a recent Council meeting. (Photo: Carl Punt.)
The process took a few years and now the renaming will proceed but not without an ugly backlash resulting from the usual ‘culprit’ – misinformation.
There were those trying to frame it as a roughshod attempt to erase the “White” history of the Strand, or to view it in terms of a Muslim/Judeo-Christian conflict issue. It is neither. It is simply the long overdue acknowledgement of the Muslim’s community’s enduring history and contribution to the town that had for too long been neglected. I am sure that my late friend, Oesman Wentzel, who owned a classic diesel-powered fishing boat that I spent many happy hours on in my youth catching mackerel and snoek, would be very happy with this historic restitution — reflecting the harmony and unique community relations that characterised our lives in the Strand, in spite of the policy of Apartheid that tried to disrupt it.
Roadworthy. Ben Friedman Plein named after Benjamin Friedman who immigrated from Lithuania to South Africa in 1910 is to be renamed Strand Muslim Square honouring the over 200-year history of the Muslim presence in the town . (Photo: Jamey Gordon).
ENTWINED HISTORY
My grandfather, Benjamin Friedman, who arrived in Cape Town around 1903 as a penniless immigrant from Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, is the man that the Ben Friedman Plein (square) controversy is all about.
Speaking Yiddish without any knowledge of English or Afrikaans, he started work as a labourer at a salary of 2/- (20 cents) per day at the Cape Town docks.
Friedman & Cohen Department Store — “Since 1903”
Once he had acquired some knowledge of English and had enough funds to buy a bicycle, he cycled to Somerset West where a dynamite factory was opening to supply explosives to the mines. He bought a general dealer’s license, and with no funds and amazing divine providence was able to open a line of credit with JW Jagger, a major wholesaler in Cape Town.
Muslim Festivity. Friedman & Cohen “Wishing our Muslim Customers and Staff a blessed Eid Mubarak!”
He married Anna Cohen and they had five sons, including my father, and two daughters. The business thrived and eventually became a large department store in the Strand that still stands today. Benjamin played a big role in the development of the Strand and was a leader of the Jewish community, and was instrumental in the founding of the Strand Synagogue in 1930.
Strand Shul. The Strand Synagogue which Benjamin (Ben) Friedman laid the foundation stone in 1930
Strand Synagogue Stone. This stone was laid by Benjamin Friedman, April 21st 1930.
PARRALEL PIONEERING
Pioneering and building ingrained in the Friedman family was not only confined to South Africa’s developing coastal town of Strand but also in the future Jewish state of Israel. While Benjamin and most of his family were centered at the Strand, his one son, Solly Friedman, my uncle, was a visionary and a Zionist and emigrated to the then British Mandate of Palestine in the 1930s. He settled in Haifa, opening a law office in 1939 and went on to develop one of the biggest law practices in Israel specializing in marine law with ZIM shipping company being one of his major clients. Founded in 1945 by the Jewish Agency, the Israel Maritime League and the Histadrut, ZIM’s main task during its first years was transporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the emerging state. Some of the other ships that had been used for clandestine immigration before the establishment of Israel as a state were confiscated by the British Mandate authorities, and later joined the company’s fleet. My uncle would travel abroad negotiating the purchase of ships that formed the basis of Israel’s merchant marine fleet. In the days of the Mandate, he was constantly active in the courts, defending Haganah men brought up on charges by the British and trying to negotiate the release of impounded refugee ships. Emerging as Israel’s expert in maritime law, it would stand him in good stead as the lawyer for ZIM Shipping Company in the ensuing decades as it developed into one of the world’s top 20 cargo carriers. He relates that when the British left Palestine, most of the ships they had impounded were in Haifa harbour and the new Israeli government simply reclaimed them. How poignant that the biblical word ZIM means “a fleet of ships”. (Number 24:24).
Friedman & Friends. The writer’s uncle (2nd left), pioneer marine lawyer in Haifa, Solly Friedman with friends in British Army uniform during WWII in Tel Aviv.
In parallel at the Strand, the Cape Malays are an ethnic group descended from enslaved and freed Muslims brought to the Cape from Indonesia and Malaysia in the mid-17th century. They were skilled labourers and political exiles, such as Sheik Yusuf, whose Kramat (a sacred shrine or tomb honoring a holy person in Islam) at nearby Macassar Beach is still a place of pilgrimage. This is undertakable as Sheik Yusuf is credited as the founding father of Islam in South Africa, having established the first enduring Muslim community in the region in 1694, during the governorship of Simon Van der Stel.
Friedman Family. Benjamin, his wife Anna and their five sons and two daughters.
Over time, the Cape Malays formed a unique cultural and religious identity with a distinct cuisine and a dialect of the Afrikaans language. They were among the first settlers in the Strand, which was originally called Mostert’s Bay. They were mainly engaged in fishing in False Bay and settled in the area of the current CBD of the Strand, where they had a thriving community of craftsmen, carpenters, builders, small traders, tailors and fishermen.
However, in the 1950s, when Apartheid was being heavily enforced, they were forcibly relocated to an area called Rusthof, located between Strand and Gordons Bay — a low-lying area subject to severe flooding in winter.
Story of a Store in the Strand. The staff today of Friedman & Cohen on the beach (top) and the early days of the store in the Strand.
However, the original mosques that were located around the CBD were maintained and remained, so that their physical link to the area endured.
Benjamin, whose small trading store on the Lourens River where the dynamite factory had opened manufacturing explosives for the gold mines, grew and flourished. He invested in properties and land, many of which were in the centre of the Strand, and where the original store was moved to. Over time, it developed into the modern Friedman and Cohen Department Store, which is now 110 years old.
Family Founder. What began with a bicycle ride, Benjamin Friedman from Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, founder of the family in South Africa.
The Strand had 25 Jewish families at its peak, but neighbouring Somerset West had 40 Jewish families. Relations between the Jewish and Muslim community was excellent – and many from the Muslim community were, and still are, employees of Friedman and Cohen. Many ‘old-timer’ customers would relate stories of how they used to buy on credit at our store, but when the frequent gale-force south easterly winds used to blow, they were unable to pay their accounts because the fishing boats couldn’t put to sea. Benjamin Friedman would tell them to pay when they could, and never placed any pressure on them.
As the town grew, so did the Jewish community, and Benjamin Friedman was instrumental in founding the Strand Shul (synagogue), where he laid the foundation stone in April 1930. It is interesting to note that the furniture for the new Somerset West shul was made by Muslim carpenters again reinforcing the enriching connection of the two communities.
The writer’s father, Abe Friedman who joined 10,000 South African Jews in the fight against Hitler and Nazism is seen here with his army unit (5th from left back row) on Temple Mount Jerusalem.
ROAD TO RENAMING
A prime mover in the renaming process is local Muslim community leader Ebrahim Rhoda — a school teacher and historian — who when he approached my brother Barry, explained that in spite of their community’s history and contribution to the Strand, there “was not one street name reflecting their heritage.” Most cities and towns name their streets after local residents who have left an enriching legacy and so, “it was time to truly acknowledge the Muslim contribution to the story of the Strand,” said Ebrahim.
Cape Muslim families such as the Rhodas, Gabiers, Wentzels, and Salies were prominent community members, and it is time that their stories and legacies of the Muslim community are honoured.
The proposal to rename Ben Friedman Plein to Strand Muslim Square is rooted in reconciliation and restorative justice — acknowledging a community forcibly removed during the Apartheid era from the Strand CBD under the Group Areas Act in the 1950s, whose 200-year heritage includes three mosques that still anchor the square today: Nurul Anwar, Market Street and Nurul Islam. The first place of worship in Strand, the Market Street Mosque, was built on the square itself.
Historic Gem. Constructed between 1850 and 1870 by freed slaves and free blacks, the Javia Mosque stands as the oldest surviving place of worship in Strand and is today a Provincial Heritage Site. The structure is recognized not only as an architectural gem but a cornerstone of the Muslim community’s heritage in the Western Cape.
Eddie Andrews, the City of Cape Town’s acting mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, expressed during this year’s Freedom Day on the 27 April in his address at City Hall, that the proposed renaming of Ben Friedman Plein to Strand Muslim Square adds weight to both history and reconciliation. Said Andrews:
“Ben Friedman Square stands in an area shaped by the long-standing presence of the Strand Muslim community, whose heritage stretches back over two centuries. Importantly, this process has been characterised by cooperation — supported by the Muslim community, endorsed by civic and faith-based organisations, and undertaken with the support of the Friedman family themselves.”
The renaming reflects what Andrews called Cape Town’s unique tradition of interfaith coexistence. “Cape Town is a city where Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and other faith and cultural communities do not simply coexist — but have, over generations, built relationships of respect, partnership, and shared belonging. This renaming reflects that reality.”
Sheikh’s Shrine. When Sheikh Yusuf, regarded as the father of Islam in South Africa, passed away in 1699, he was buried not far from the Strand on the hill overlooking Macassar. His Kramat or shrine is a place visited by pilgrims.
The proposal has been endorsed by the Strand Muslim Council, Nurul Islam and Aneeqah Congregation, Rusthof Methodist Church, and the Muslim Judicial Council. Business owners bordering the square raised no objections.
The controversy will pass as it should.
However, what must not pass is the good relations between the communities of the Strand. The Muslim and Jewish contributions to the town go back in time and stand to ensure an enriching future.
I look forward in the future when revisiting from Israel my hometown to see the renamed Strand Muslim Square and Ben Friedman Circle.
Benjamin who began this journey on a bicycle well over a century ago would be pleased and proud.
About the writer
A resident of Ra’anana, Israel, Ben Friedman was born and grew up in the Strand Western cape, South Africa and matriculated at Hottentots Holland High school Somerset West. He completed a BCom degree at UCT which was interrupted in 1967 by the Six Day War where he served as a volunteer on Kibbutz Amir. Prior to immigrating to Israel with his family in 2010, he served on the Western Province Zionist Council for two years and was vice Chairman of The Phylis Jowell Jewish Day school Cape Town . Retired after a successful career in fashion retailing, Ben is a lifelong passionate angler and a keen reader especially on Israeli /Jewish and Zionist history.
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).
People would far rather believe that pigs can fly and Israel trains dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners than that Hamas-led terrorists randomly mass raped and slaughtered women, children and some men on October 7. Here’s why:
There are moments when language fails, when violence outstrips the vocabulary available to describe it.
October 7, 2023, in southern Israel was one of those moments.
The unprecedented violence, mass rape and sexual savagery that the Hamas-led attack unleashed on that day was so deliberately, systematically calculated to destroy bodies and families that no existing legal framework had a word for it.
Until now.
A new, independent report released on May 12, 2026 is the most comprehensive documentation and analysis to date of that violence. It is the work of the Israel-based, internationally focused NGO, CCO7 (Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children).
Buried in it is a word the Commission’s investigators coined soon after October 7, for what they found in their early research: kinocide – from kin (family) and cide (the systematic nature of destruction).
World media have yet to embrace the word.
The Commission’s leader, Dr Cochav Elkayam-Levy, an Israel Prize laureate and international law expert, developed the concept of the word with principal contributor, former Canadian justice minister Prof Irwin Cotler.
Founder and chair of the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes against Women and Children, Dr. Cochav Elkayam Levy is an expert in international law and human rights, recipient of the 2024 Israel Prize (Israel’s highest civilian honor) and teaches at Reichman University. After October 7, she represented the Israeli women’s rights protest movement at the UN.
They did so after watching video after video of Hamas terrorists forcing parents and grandparents to watch their children and grandchildren be tortured, raped and murdered, and children to watch their parents and grandparents suffer the same fate.
Elkayam-Levy describes kinocide as:
“The deliberate, systematic torture of families and the weaponisation of familial bonds in order to maximise suffering.”
While looking and analysing the videos, they started seeing the pattern – moments that made them “understand that we were seeing something that needs to be defined,” Elkayam-Levy says in an interview with TheJerusalem Post.
These moments made her move after October 7 to secure evidence before denial could take hold.
“We saw silence and denial .. very quick denial,” she told the Times of Israel. This made her “understand that we have to collect evidence as quickly as possible and establish an archive under stringent international standards.”
The Commission’s two-year investigation has done so. It has drawn on legal scholars, international jurists, researchers, archivists and trauma experts, conducted in collaboration with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
Prof David Crane, founding chief prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone has endorsed the report. So have Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Israeli Supreme Court president Aharon Barak and Anila Ali, president of the American Muslim and Multi-Faith Women’s Empowerment Council.
Their endorsement alone should silence those who would dismiss this as a partisan document.
Investigators documented 13 recurring forms of sexual violence across the Nova music festival, kibbutzim, roadside shelters, military bases, abduction routes and hostage captivity in Gaza. These were rape, gang rape, sexual torture, forced nudity, genital mutilation, executions linked to assault, post-mortem abuse and assaults in front of family members.
Photos of young men and women butchered to death in cold blood at the Nova Music Festival, Kibbutz Re’im. (Photo: Zeev Stein
Some examples: a male survivor of the Nova musical festival slaughter, identified only as D, reportedly passed a polygraph after describing his gang rape:
“They laughed, they were really pleased, as if I was their sex doll … They did whatever they wanted to me.”
A 17-year-old hostage called her mother from Gaza:
“Mum, they’re going to rape me.”
Two related minor children held hostage in Gaza were coerced into sexual acts against one another. Their captors stripped them, touched their genitalia and whipped them.
These are not isolated accounts. They are part of what the Commission documents over two years and 300 pages, in a report titled “Silenced No More: Sexual Terror Unveiled”: a “systematic, widespread and integral” use of sexual violence, designed, planned and organised to terrorise Israeli society as a whole.
The Commission’s legal conclusion is unequivocal – these are war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal acts under international law.
After reading the Commission’s report, Lord Zac Goldsmith, British peer and former Cabinet minister, took to X to ask questions that journalists globally haven’t asked
I include them in full, as a handy reference for journalists who might yet cover it:
What kind of a depraved monster slices off a woman’s breast while she is being gang-raped, and throws it into the dust to be used as a plaything?
What kind of a twisted pervert turns rape into necrophilia by shooting a woman in the head while he is still defiling her?
What kind of ‘freedom fighters’ go into battle with a set of handy Arabic-to-Hebrew phrases, including ‘take off your pants’, ‘lie down’ and ‘spread your legs’?
What self-respecting human being presses nails, scalpels, a hammer, an axe, screwdrivers and other household tools into a woman’s genitals?
How hard do you have to rape someone, and with what, to shatter their pelvis?
Who shoots a young girl in the face and then films her mutilated corpse on her brother’s mobile phone?
“What kind of a depraved monster slices off a woman’s breast while she is being gang-raped, and throws it into the dust to be used as a plaything?” posted British peer and former Cabinet minister Lord Zac Goldsmith (above) after reading the Commission’s report.
The answer is staring us all in the face: Hamas terrorists.
I call them terrorists while many in the media call them “militants”. Unlike “militant”, “terrorist” has a specific meaning – someone who deliberately targets civilians to create fear for political ends. It carries legal weight and moral condemnation.
The October 7 attack meets every legal and common-sense definition of terrorism. Hamas is formally designated a terrorist organisation by the US, the EU, the UK and Australia, among others.
When the Civil Commission’s report landed in newsrooms, many mainstream editors may well have reached for a familiar refrain not to publish: the report is “not new”.
Technically, they are correct. The Civil Commission’s first detailed report was in November 2023. And accounts of mass rape and sexual violence began circulating online in the wake of October 7.
Yet there is not wide acknowledgement of why the full extent of that violence has never found its way into public consciousness – and the media’s role in that.
It’s not because the story is not new. It is because a sustained, organised, sophisticated global propaganda campaign has, over more than two years, successfully seeded doubt, denial and deliberate distraction into the information ecosystem.
This may arguably persuade those in positions of power and influence to give credence to claims that accusations of mass rape and massacre of innocents have been “exaggerated” and that Israel “doctored” all the evidence to make October 7 look worse than it was.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese lends ongoing institutional cover to this line of thinking. She regularly underplays the extent of the violence of October 7 – when she acknowledges it at all. She has opined that reports of Hamas’s sexual violence “may have been exaggerated.”
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese (left) seen here with Greta Thunberg (center) at an anti-Israel march in Italy, has opined that reports of Hamas’s sexual violence “may have been exaggerated.”
What is new about the “Silenced No More” report is the scope, rigour and forensic depth of its documentation – two years of painstaking evidence-gathering producing the most comprehensive war crimes archive ever assembled on these events.
It is designed to be undeniable.
Yet the denialism goes on, as does the global propaganda campaign.
Acolumn in TheNew York Times on 11 May by the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof is relevant in that regard. The irony of its headline, “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians”, is probably lost on Kristof
It mirrors the moral language condemning the silence around October 7 in the Civil Commission’s own report headline: Silenced No More”. It makes Kristof’s column look like a deliberate attempt to pre-empt precisely the rhetorical space the Civil Commission’s report deserves to occupy.
Kristof’s column is riddled with terminal weaknesses, not the least is its most sensational claim: that Israel trains dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners in its jails.
Kristof is careful not to make the claim himself. He leaves it to his sources.
The claim quickly went viral. It is not only unverified. It is old.
Nicholas Kristhof’s outrageous New York Times article accusing Israel of training dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners relied on sources such as the Euro-Med Monitor, whose Founder and Chairman (seen above) has publicly declared that Israel has “an insatiable appetite for drinking the blood of Palestinian children.”
As Honest Reporting has noted, Euro-Med Monitor, Kristof’s chief source for his column, and a self-described “human rights” NGO, was pushing it in June 2024.
The claim is physiologically and biologically impossible. As veterinary experts could have told Kristof, if he’d bothered to ask
They could have told him that the canine sexual response is governed by species-specific pheromones that humans do not produce; that canine mounting behaviour is non-sexual; and that canine anatomy is incompatible with human anatomy for penetrative acts.
Veterinary scientists call the dog-rapist claim biologically implausible. It is also a fabrication of a fevered mind designed to overwhelm critical faculties before implausibility registers. In the context of the Middle East conflict, it helpfully contributes to demonising Israel and Jews.
It’s tempting to see that Kristof’s column as preparation for undermining the Civil Commission’s report that launched the next day.
TheNew York Times did run an extensive news report of the Civil Commission’s the next day, by its Jerusalem correspondent, Isabel Kershner.
Some analysts see that as giving due credence to the Commission’s report. Others have a more jaundiced view. Whether it constitutes balance, accountability or damage control remains to be seen.
Euro-Med’s record alone should have disqualified it entirely as Kristof’s source.
The NGO spread the debunked claim that Israel harvested organs from Palestinian prisoners. Israel has designated its founder, Ramy Abdu, as a Hamas operative in Europe. Abdu publicly declared on X (formerly Twitter) that Israel has “an insatiable appetite for drinking the blood of Palestinian children.”
(The tweet has since been deleted or made inaccessible, but not before Honest Reporting took a screen shot of it.)
Abdu was just spreading a modern “blood libel”, the word given to the first one that was weaponised in 12th-century England to trigger massacres and expulsions of Jewish communities across medieval Europe for centuries. In its original “glory”, the blood libel claimed Jews kill Christian children and drink their blood for religious ritual.
That TheNew York Times allowed Kristof to present Euro-Med as a credible watchdog over Israeli prisons without flagging any of this context is a notable editorial failure.
Times of Israel senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur gives his views of Kristof’s column in a YouTube video on May 12. He says that Kristof was not tasked with revealing sexual crimes but “covering for them. And it worked.”
Middle East analyst Eitan Fischberger was more blunt on X:
“Utter depravity from (Kristof) for parroting such cartoonishly evil Hamas propaganda that would make Goebbels blush.”
The paper has stolidly defended the column.
In South Africa, the largest news platform, News24 and EWN were practically alone in covering the Commission’s report.
Contrast that with the considerable space and attention South African media gave toevery procedural twist in the ongoing, ill-judged genocide case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel that South Africa launched following October 7.
Some even treated it as a matter of national pride. They also later falsely reported (many journalists still do) that the ICJ found “a plausible case of genocide” against Israel in its ruling in January 2024.
The ICJ did nothing of the sort.
Former ICJ president Judge Joan Donoghue explicitly corrected this publicly in a BBC interview in April 2024: the court “did not decide that the claim of genocide was plausible.” The court did decide that the Palestinians had a “plausible right to be protected from genocide.”
Many Jewish legal and historical scholars consider the genocide claim to rival the original blood libel about Jews killing kids to drink their blood as the worst modern-day libel against Israel and Jews.
Many journalists still make the false claim about the ICJ’s ruling. Many South African media have yet to correct their record.
That’s not incidental. It is an editorial choice that amplifies allegations against Israel and suppresses documented evidence of atrocities against Israelis. It has a cost – paid by the women, children and men whose suffering is erased from public consciousness when false claims are not debunked.
Silence and denialism from journalists on the full extent of the Hamas-led mass rape and other sexual violence of October 7 is one thing; the ongoing silence from feminists globally is another.
Women’s rights organisations built on the principle of believing survivors have still not found their voices. The slogan “Believe Women” turned out to have a gross political limit:
“Believe Women, Except Jewish Women.”
UN Women took weeks to issue even a hedged statement. The UN’s own special rapporteur on sexual violence in conflict reportedly labelled survivor accounts “disinformation”.
When former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg took to the UN podium in December 2023, two months after October 7, to demand that the world acknowledge Hamas’s sexual violence, she was not addressing a hostile audience. She was addressing a silent one.
“The silence on these war crimes is deafening,” Sandberg told the assembly. “Silence is complicity.”
She later added: “I never thought that politics could make any group or feminist leader turn a blind eye to just such clear documentation of sexual violence.”
Her contribution to breaking that silence was to produce a film, titled Screams Before Silence, to give voice to the silenced.
The Civil Commission’s report, which Elkayam-Levy, herself a feminist scholar of international law, built in direct response to that silence, is in part a rebuke to her own field.
The deafening silence still ongoing from feminists over the sexual violence of October 7 is troubling enough. Compounding it with an ironic veneer of respectability is Jewish voices among the loudest dismissing or minimising it.
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the American antizionist organisation, blamed Israel for the attack on the day it happened. It has e cast doubt on the sexual violence documentation.
The Antidefamation League (ADL) has noted that JVP “uses its Jewish identity to shield some in the anti-Israel movement from allegations of antisemitism and provide a veneer of legitimacy.” That veneer gives the denialism of October 7 sexual violence a halo it would not otherwise have.
In South Africa, the halo hangs over the quaintly named South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP) and the non-profit Jewish Democratic Initiative (JDI) when it comes to Israel’s war against Hamas.
The implicit message is insidious: if Jews themselves say something didn’t happen or was exaggerated, how could doubting it be antisemitic or antizionist?
When people with professional credentials in women’s advocacy, or the perceived moral righteousness and authority of being Jewish, line up to cast doubt, the propaganda campaign need not argue its case. It simply points at them.
This is the ecosystem in which the Civil Commission’s report lands in 2026.
Of course, none of the above justifies ignoring credible accounts of abuse in Israeli detention facilities. Confirmed abuse allegations demand accountability, no matter the perpetrators or victims.
Rettig Gur is among Jews prepared to acknowledge the existence of documented cases of Palestinian prisoner abuse. These are “real”, he says, but “far smaller” than alleged and mostly not sexual. He identifies Israeli government ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich as responsible for treating prisoner welfare as a political liability rather than a legal obligation.
He also stresses that “the vast majority of (IDF) soldiers are honourable men (and women) who walked into fire so our families may live.”
Israel’s government has served notice that it will sue The New York Times for Kristof’s article. An announcement that it was addressing and investigating concerns about abuse of Palestinian prisoners would have been more helpful.
Rettig Gur posits the way forward: the failures of a minority must be fixed from within and must never be weaponised to erase what Hamas did.
The denialism goes on. As the Civil Commission’s CEO, Merav Israeli-Amarant, told Kershner in TheNew York Times, sexual crimes are “the easiest crimes to deny.” This is especially true of the October 7 attack “because most of the victims were murdered and are unable to testify.”
History has its own power.
It will not remember the perpetrators of kinocide kindly. It will be equally unkind to those who had all the evidence and chose to stay silent.
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).
Can one separate the art from the artist when troubling actions conflict with your values?
By Motti Verses
For years, the music of Oliver Shanti was mainly part of my mornings. His 1996 album Well Balanced, perhaps his most iconic work, blended atmospheric melodies, Tibetan influences, and meditative world music into something that felt almost spiritual. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, his music became deeply associated across Europe with yoga, tai chi, meditation, and relaxation.
Shanti’s soft rhythms and calming soundscapes created a sense of peace that stayed with me long on my way to work. There was something almost healing in the atmosphere he built. Music that seemed disconnected from noise, aggression, and darkness. For years, I woke up to it at 7 o’clock each morning.
But sometimes art and the artist collide in a way that changes everything.
Oliver Shanti, whose real name was Ulrich Schulz, was convicted in Germany two decades ago for serious child sexual abuse crimes involving minors. When I discovered the full story behind the man whose music had accompanied so many quiet moments in my life, I felt a profound internal conflict. It was shocking.
How could music that sounded so spiritual come from someone capable of causing such harm?
For a while, I tried separating the music from the man. Many of my friends argued that art should stand on its own. And honestly, part of me wanted to keep holding onto those melodies because they were connected to memories, emotions, and years of my life.
Eventually I realized I could no longer disconnect the beauty of the sound from the reality behind it. Every song began carrying a shadow I could not ignore. What once felt peaceful no longer felt innocent.
So, I made a personal decision to stop listening to his music.
Fast forward to 2026.
A confession: I have loved FC Barcelona for almost 40 years. Long before football became a global industry driven by endless money and marketing, Barça already felt different to me. It was never only about trophies. It was about style, emotion, identity, and the feeling that football could still be beautiful.
I grew up watching generations of players who played with imagination and soul. In stadiums in Spain as well as other cities across Europe, but mostly on TV. From the influence of Johan Cruyff to Ronaldinho’s joy, Messi’s genius, and now the rise of young talents like Lamine Yamal. Through glorious victories and painful defeats, Barcelona remained part of my life because supporting this club always felt like something bigger than football. It felt like belonging to a story, a culture, and a dream that lasted across generations.
Then came another emotional conflict.
During Barcelona’s recent championship celebrations a few days ago, images circulated showing Lamine Yamal posing with a Palestinian flag among supporters and celebrations. For some fans, it was viewed as a gesture of solidarity with Palestinians – but for me – emotionally affected by the trauma of October 7, and the atrocities committed by Hamas – the image felt painful, political, and deeply uncomfortable.
That is where another dilemma begins.
I have supported FC Barcelona for decades. The club is connected to memories, identity, emotions, friendships, and entire chapters of my life. Then suddenly, a young player, the current symbol of the club who may likely endure for a long time, became associated, at least emotionally in my eyes, with a political symbol that hurts me deeply.
It created an inner conflict between love for the club and discomfort with what I saw.
Of course, becoming a Barça fan and remaining one does not mean agreeing with every political gesture made by every player. Football clubs are enormous global institutions filled with people from different countries, backgrounds, religions, and political beliefs. But this one felt different.
So perhaps the real question is not: “Should I stop being a Barcelona fan?”
Maybe the deeper question is:
“Can I emotionally separate my lifelong connection to the club from one political moment involving the current mega star?”
Unlike the Oliver Shanti story, this situation is fundamentally different. One involved horrific criminal acts against children. The other involves political expression, symbolism, identity, and the emotions these subjects awaken in so many people, wherever they are.
Logically, I understand the difference.
Emotionally, it is far more complicated.
Spain Again. A return to its bleak past, three elderly Israeli women, including a Holocaust survivor, were kicked out of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid on February 14. The response from the museum staff was not to remove the people who were harassing them but to remove the people who were targeted with antisemitic abuse.
What will I feel the next time I watch Lamine Yamal playing for Spain during the upcoming summer FIFA World Cup? A national team representing a country where public attitudes toward Israel have often felt increasingly hostile and uncomfortable to many Israelis and Jews.
After a few days came the team reaction: FC Barcelona officially tried to distance itself from the incident, without attacking Lamine Yamal personally. The club’s message was essentially:
The gesture was spontaneous and not coordinated by the club. Barcelona would not feature the flag moment in official highlight broadcasts or club media. The club acknowledged that many Israeli fans were upset and its response emphasized values of respect and inclusion.
Grave Concerns. Following the desecration of 20 Jewish headstones at Les Corts Cemetery in Barcelona in January, 2026, local Jewish leaders linked it to the sustained normalization of antisemitic hostility in Spain since the October 7th massacre in Israel. They accused authorities of failing to confront a trend of antisemitic violence.
I am relieved, but is the dilemma history?
I have a feeling it is not.
Time will tell.
*Feature picture: Ulrich Schulz and Lamine Yamal – The Shanti Soundtrack of Yamal dilemma (photo generated by AI).
About the writer:
The author is a seasoned hotel expert, traveler, writer, and videographer, and formerly served as Head of Public Relations for Hilton Hotels & Resorts in Israel. Today, as a travel writer and hospitality trends analyst, his insights and experiences are regularly featured in leading Israeli media outlets.
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).
There are words here that will direct you to look away – DON’T! You need to read, process and bear witness.
By Rolene Marks
[Warning: Sensitive Content]
In 2024 I was invited with a small group of journalists and diplomats to view some of the evidence that was found on the terrorists on 7 October and what was subsequently discovered in the Gaza strip. Under close supervision and military intelligence headquarters, we viewed weapons, maps, books and material – and orders in specific detail to commit acts of appalling sexual violence, including instructions for the victims to remove their clothing.
This article will be extremely uncomfortable and difficult for many to read. I appeal to you to please persist – we must bear witness and be the voices of victims and survivors.
Ushered into another room, phones prohibited, we were shown a 20-minute collation of footage from Hamas body-cam, first responders and desperate family members searching for their loved ones. This we were told, would be evidence submitted to the ICJ where South Africa had filed a case accusing Israel of genocide. The images are seared into my conscience – including that of a partially burnt woman, her legs splayed, dress pushed up and naked, intimate parts for the world to see. There was a slice across her one thigh. I recall another image that I see as clear as day. The body of a woman, on top of a pile of corpses, bleeding from her crotch where she had been shot with the deliberate intent to defile her femininity.
A picture taken during a media tour organized by the Israeli military shows food on a table inside a burned house in the kibbutz Nir Oz on October 19, 2023, following the October 7 attack by Hamas. (Photo: Menahem Kahana / AFP)
The evidence of what I saw is undeniable.
These are two specific examples of the horrific crimes of Sexual and Gender based Violence (SGBV) and crimes against humanity committed against Israeli men, women and children on 7 October 2023 and to hostages in captivity.
Despite irrefutable proof noted in reports by UN Women, the Dinah Project and one from the Association of Rape Crisis Centres, denial, downplaying and even justification of the atrocities still continue – including from feminist organisations. It would appear that the voices of victims matter – unless they are Israeli. What message does this send future victims of SGBV?
This week, the Civil Commission – an independent Israeli non-profit organisation led by human rights expert and 2024 Israel Prize laureate Dr Cochav Elkayam-Levy – released their report. “Silenced no more” was meticulously documented and referenced for over two years and is a devastating collation of the crimes against humanity and SGBV committed on that day and to hostages in captivity.
Children were no less a target for Hamas savagery as seen here at a blood-stained kindergarten in Kibbutz Beeri following their bloody barbarous rampage. (Photo: Reuters/ Amir Cohen)
The report is close to 300 pages long and contains documentation of at least 10,000 items including videos, photographs, forensic findings and the testimonies of 430 victims and survivors. Hamas proudly filmed and distributed evidence of their crimes. The hope is that not only will this be documented to fight back against denial – but could lead to further legal action against the perpetrators. Israel’s Knesset has approved the convening of a special tribunal to try the perpetrators of 7 October.
The individual testimonies are absolutely devastating.
In the weeks and months following the atrocities, eye witnesses and forensic experts testified about what they witnessed. Forensic experts spoke about the condition of the bodies that were brought in for identification, saying how they were shot in their eyes, their faces and their breasts, and even targeted in their most intimate parts. Women were stripped, bound, stabbed, shot and burned. Heads were decapitated and pelvic bones shattered. Even after death, sexual assault continued. A Nova survivor testified to a victim being shot in the head while her rapist continued his assault. The intention was clear – to destroy their beauty and femininity. Forensic pathologists spoke of an “obsession with sex organs”. First responders echoed the same sentiment and have addressed numerous NGO’s and global institutions sharing their testimonies to the defilement and horror they saw on the kibbutzim, road 232 and at the Nova festival grounds.
Raz Cohen, a survivor of the Nova Music Festival on October 7 and a key witness to the horrific acts committed by Hamas terrorists provided detailed testimony which included witnessing the rape of a young woman. (Photo: Tomer Shunem Halevi, Hagai Dekel)
“I saw them raping her,” says Raz Cohen, who escaped the Nova Music Festival, “Then they murdered her. And then they raped her again.”
New report details ‘systematic’ rape and sexual violence during Hamas’ Oct 7 attack on Israel. Seen here is an Israeli soldier patrolling the Nova Music Festival sites following the massacre. (Photo: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images)
Eden Wessely, who came to Nova to rescue a friend, found and filmed a naked, burned body. “Her dress was pulled up, and she wasn’t wearing underwear, not because it burned, because there was no trace. . . . Her legs were spread. Her genitals were exposed.” Was it the same image I saw?
“There were horrific scenes, difficult to take in,” said Eden Wessely who saw “hundreds of corpses, and a girl who had been raped and [her body] burned. Things that human eyes have difficulty looking at.”
Former hostages have spoken about the abuse they suffered in captivity. Guy Gilboa-Dalal spoke about how he was touched on his private parts and how his captor “wanted to make a porn movie with him.” Arbel Yehud testified to daily abuse.
Keith Siegel, a 66-year-old grandfather who was taken from Kibbutz Kfar Aza along with his wife Aviva, 65, testified that he was made to undress in front of a terrorist who then shaved his pubic hair and made comments about his penis.
Former hostage Aviva Siegel seen here speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer reveals in the Civil Commission Report how she was nearly executed after she comforted a young girl who was sexually assaulted in captivity.
Aviva Siegel spoke about how she was nearly executed after she comforted a young girl who was sexually assaulted in captivity. Siegel recalled telling young girls to take feminine products with them to the bathroom so that if their captors thought they were on their period, they would not abuse them.
A male says he was gang-raped at the Nova site, providing medical records and a detailed account:
“They laughed, they were really pleased, as if I was their sex doll.”
The Commission also identified thirteen recurring patterns of sexual and gender-based violence repeated across multiple sites. They include a damning list of crimes:
* Rape, gang rape, and other forms of sexual assault.
* Sexual torture, including intentional burning and mutilation.
* Deliberate shooting in the head, face and genital area.
* Killings and executions following or committed during abuse.
* Postmortem sexual abuse, humiliation, and the desecration of bodies, including cutting off body parts.
* Forced nudity and exposure including to family members.
* Handcuffing, binding, and restraint of victims.
* Public displaying and parading of women and children. One such example is the parading of the body of Shani Louk, whose partially undressed and twisted limbs were paraded on a truck in Gaza while men spat at her.
* Abduction of mothers and children.
* Sexual violence in the presence or near vicinity of family members including Kinocide – the deliberate targeting and destruction of families as a weapon of war or terror, recognized as a distinct form of violence against humanity.
The graphic image by freelance AP photojournalist Ali Mahmoud depicts 22-year-old Shani Louk’s half-naked body being taken by Hamas terrorists on October 7. The Jewish Chronicle has blurred her image. (Photo: Ali Mahmoud)
* Filming and digital dissemination by the perpetrators including the use of social media to document, glorify, and amplify the atrocities.
* Threats of forced marriage.
* Rape and other forms of sexual violence against boys and men.
President Herzog released a statement on social media platform X on behalf of his wife, Michal, who said:
“We must continue to amplify around the world the voices of the victims of sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists on October 7th and thereafter.”
Mrs. Herzog commended the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes against Women and Children “for their dedicated research and tireless work, resulting in the publication of an important new report that once again gives voice to the victims.”
The victims and survivors of these most evil of crimes will no longer be silenced by those who deny, downplay and justify the atrocities committed by Hamas. Please do not look away. As unbearable as the testimonies are to read and hear, we must bear witness. We have a moral duty to be their voices. Silence is a second violation.
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).
