UCT’S GAZA FALLOUT: DONOR EXODUS, LEGAL FIRESTORM AND A COUNCIL UNDER SIEGE

UCT’s Gaza resolutions have sparked a court battle, donor exodus and fresh scrutiny of council governance, funding losses and reputational damage.

By Marika Sboros

(Courtesy of BizNews where article first appeared)

There was a time not that long ago when becoming a member of the University of Cape Town (UCT) Council was considered a privilege.

The position carried prestige as a pinnacle of civic duty.

These days, membership of UCT’s supreme governing body looks more like a masterclass in incinerating millions, potentially billions, of endowment Rands while whistling a catchy political tune.

That’s after allegations of serious breaches of fiduciary duties and perjury by some Council members in their impugned decision-making – decisions which caused not just major financial loss but a haemorrhage of funding from high-profile, philanthropic foundations and international government agencies.

The litany of allegedly dodgy dealings preceding that haemorrhage is documented in an ongoing lawsuit against UCT Council in the Western Cape High Court.

It was launched in August 2024 by one of UCT’s own – head of historical studies Prof Adam Mendelsohn – after Council voted to adopt the Senate’s proposed “Gaza Resolutions” in June 2024.

**Stakes are High**. When Professor Adam Mendelsohn, then head of UCT’s history department and director of the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies took the University of Cape Town to court over two resolutions it adopted in June 2024 relating to Gaza, he did so out of a deep concern for the institution, its students, staff, and ordinary South Africans, made clear in the arguments of his legal team led by Advocate Eduard Fagan SC.

The court hearing concluded on October 30, 2025, before a three-judge bench with the promise of a ruling “early in the new year”.

A quarter into 2026, no ruling is in sight.

The resolutions enforce an academic boycott of Israeli academics and reject the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in favour of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA).

The JDA lends itself more easily to political boycott.

The IHRA is a gold standard adopted by more than 47 national governments, including the US, Canada, the UK, Switzerland,26 of the 27 EU countries and over 13000 organisations and institutions.

**Future Uncertain**. Supporters for Prof. Adam Mendelsohn outside the court in a case which is important not only for the future of South Africa’s premier university but the future of Jewry in South Africa.

Top global universities that have adopted the IHRA definition include Harvard and Columbia in the US, and Oxford and Cambridge in the UK.

The JDA has been adopted by UCT and a few universities with a dual approach.

In a twist of institutional irony, by adopting the JDA, UCT breached a clause specifying IHRA compliance in a funding agreement with its major philanthropic donor, the Donald Gordon Foundation (DGF) that it had itself drafted.

**Tragic Trajectory**. 2023 herald the exciting news that ‘The Donald Gordon Foundation’ was making a landmark donation of R200 million to UCT’s Neuroscience Institute (see Atrium above), which would later be withdrawn in the largest, single donor loss as a consequent of reckless decision-making by UCT’s management.

That makes Council’s rejection of the IHRA definition look less like a principled stand and more like a messy divorce from its own legal handiwork.

Court documents on public record paint a combustible portrait of some Council members who wouldn’t recognise a conflict of interest if it slapped them in the face with a 150-page answering affidavit.

Leading this modern-day bonfire of the vanities are Adv Norman Arendse SC, Chair of Council’s executive committee (Exco), and Dianna Yach, Exco member in June 2024.

Mendelsohn claims that their governance skills and behaviour were so legally and financially inflammable that he is seeking costs against both personally, and similarly against Exco members Reeza Isaacs (Deputy Chair) and Malcolm Campbell.

The move, known in legal terms as “punitive costs”, is not unusual. After all, if you play revolutionary activist with someone else’s hundreds of millions of Rands, you should be prepared to cover part of the legal fees when the revolution turns out to be an unlawful mess.

Mendelsohn’s lawsuit cites UCT Council as the first of 32 respondents, Arendse as the second, Campbell as the 6th, Isaacs as the 9th, and Yach as the 31st. He claims that all wilfully withheld from Council crucial information signalling clear and present warnings from high-profile donors.

In particular, they appear to have ignored DGF’s loudly “barking dogs” warning of significant financial and reputational damage if the resolutions were adopted.

When Council adopted the resolutions and the financial fallout happened precisely as DGF trustees had predicted, it was devastating.

The largest single, overnight loss was the DGF’s withdrawal of its R200-million gift for UCT’s Neuroscience Institute. This became the “canary” for UCT’s donor gold mine.

The DGF permanently withdrew from negotiations for a future landmark project – a new teaching hospital valued at between R400-million and R500-million. The project is now earmarked for Stellenbosch University.

The DGF also demanded a refund of the first R20-million tranche paid towards the R200-million donation for the Neuroscience Institute.

In November 2024, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation suspended its annual funding of R6.5 to R7 million per annum to UCT. The foundation’s final donation in 2024 was in support of 259 undergraduate and 29 postgraduate disadvantaged UCT students on its Dell Young Leaders Programme.

There are no new Dell Young Leaders at UCT in 2026.

The Harry Crossley Foundation, funder of student bursaries and research projects in 2024 to the value of R9.375-million, has stopped new funding from 2025. Their reasons? Concerns around “cancel culture” and the increase of antisemitism at UCT.

UCT Council appeared oblivious of the fact that ideology does not pay tuition fees, as one critic put it.

Other donors followed suit.

UCT had already alienated the university’s biggest international funding agency even before the resolutions were adopted.

The US State Department had adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism as far back as 2010. It began cooling its financial relationship with South Africa in early 2024.

In a direct counter-move, the UCT Senate proposed, and the Council later adopted the JDA, explicitly rejecting the IHRA standard. This placed UCT’s June 2024 resolutions in direct conflict with US policy guidelines.

The friction culminated in a February 2025 Executive Order that halted federal aid, immediately terminating grants from USAID (US Agency for International Development), amounting to roughly R31 million.

Since the freeze began, R172-million has been explicitly halted via “’stop-work” orders on 22 active projects. An additional R265-million remains stalled due to unissued renewals. That left a R1.67-billion portfolio of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in an indefinite limbo.

In response, in May 2025 the UCT Black Alumni Association urged the university to “prioritise partnerships with Global South nations, BRICS allies and progressive global institutions that share its values.”

By early 2026, the projected risk had solidified into a structural deficit. It has forced UCT into a strategic shift away from American partnerships in favour of survival attempts through European and philanthropic lifelines.

Facing the potential decimation of its landmark research into HIV/AIDs and TB, UCT is now trying to bridge this deficit by petitioning the South African National Treasury for emergency relief and turning toward European donors to secure its clinical trials.

In lengthy responding affidavits, Arendse and Yach have vigorously denied any and all wrongdoing. In his answering affidavits, Arendse continued to downplay the negative impact of the extensive loss of donor funding after adoption of the resolutions.

Yet for an SC who has built his career on the precision of memory and law, Arendse appears to have developed a selective case of legal Alzheimer’s.

Luckily, the information age has an infallible memory.

Court papers in Mendelsohn’s case highlight Arendse’s apparently severe bouts of memory dysfunction. In particular, he claimed to be unaware of any certainty that the DGF would withdraw funding.

He appears not to have understood the contents of a lengthy letter that he and UCT interim VC at the time, Prof “Daya” Reddy, received from a DGF executive trustee on April 30, 2024.

Arendse and Reddy were signatories of UCT’s funding contract with the foundation in September 2023.

The letter makes clear precisely what had provoked the DGF’s “barking dogs”. As the trustee wrote simply: UCT had “not upheld its side of the contractual agreement” to have a “zero tolerance attitude to antisemitism as defined by the IHRA.”

With surgical linguistic precision, the trustee proceeded to eviscerate the Senate’s resolution rejecting the IHRA as “tendentious, mendacious” and riddled with “untruths” about Israel and Jews.

He made the DGF’s position legal clear: UCT was in breach of contract. This was not a vague threat. It did not require legal expertise to understand it.

It was a formal notification that the DGF found itself “impaled on the horns of a dilemma.” It had “lost faith” in UCT, the trustee said, but believed in the Neuroscience Institute’s work and wanted to “find a way forward.” He also said that Arendse and Reddy had “opportunity to remedy” the breach of contract.

The trustee relayed that sentiment to Reddy in a follow-up email requesting an urgent meeting.

In his letter, he even helpfully suggested a way forward for UCT to fulfil its contract with the DGF. That required the university to “actively demonstrate its seriousness in tackling antisemitism head on through the adoption of guidelines, the design and implementation of training programmes and educational campaigns for staff and students and the creation of reporting mechanism and metrics to measure impact.”

All that Arendse had to do in the interim, therefore, was his legal duty: to put all relevant facts, including the DGF trustee’s letter, before Council.

This letter was not put before Council, as Council member and High Court advocate Kessler Perumalsamy confirmed in a remarkably frank “affidavit of candour” in May 2025.

In his legal filing, Perumalsamy bravely broke ranks with the Council’s official leadership to provide what he described as the “correct facts“. These flatly contradicted Arendse’s version of events.

In response to the ensuing exchange of court papers, the DGF trustee addressed a further lengthy letter on May 22, 2025, addressed to UCT’s Vice Chancellor, its Interim Registrar, Arendse and all Council members.

His language was as clear and direct in intent. He carefully rebutted claims Arendse had made under oath. In particular, he rejected Arendse’s allegation of any “uncertainty” about the DGF’s intentions should UCT’s rejection of the IHRA definition become institutional “law”.

The trustee pointed out that the DGF’s contractual agreement with UCT was “deliberately concise,” made “no excessive demands” and did not insist on the “extensive list of conditions typically associated with contracts of this kind.”

Therefore, Arendse’s claim of “uncertainty” about DGF’s position was, to the trustee, demonstrably false.

This precipitated lengthy debate during oral arguments in court during Mendelsohn’s lawsuit. It sparked questions and quizzical reflections from the three-judge Bench, over whether or not the donors actually did warn Council of terminal breaches of funding agreements, and the seriousness of perjury claims against a senior counsel of the High Court.

Yach appears similarly affected by selective memory recall in her responding affidavits. That’s likely the result of the myriad of conflicts of interest below the many different hats she wears.

Yach is one of two representatives elected by donors to Council and Chair of UCT’s HR and Remuneration Committee. She claims to be a donor in her private capacity as Chair of the Mauerberger Foundation Fund (MFF). Her grandfather, Morris Mauerberger, set up the foundation in the late 1930s.

Yach has faced a barrage of criticism over the direction MFF has taken recently. Many see these as straying from the path set by her grandfather’s legacy.

At UCT, her job ostensibly has been to nurture and safeguard relationships that keep its academic lights on. Instead, she presided over a “Great Trek” of philanthropy that ended UCT’s relationship with at least two of the country’s most high-profile donor assets.

That relationship was strained further when Gift of the Givers founder-CEO Dr Imtiaz Sooliman made a public call on a UCT-hosted platform on October 27, 2025, blatantly directed at UCT donors:

“The second most important point is, which worries me, when people withdraw their money from a South African university, being South African, saying that you take a tax benefit to benefit the students of your country, but now you’re withdrawing your money because you’re an agent for a foreign government, that makes it a big problem for me. And to me, if you do that, to threaten your students and your university because you’re acting on the base of Israel, I think you should be stripped of your citizenship and thrown out of the country.”

**In his Own Words**. Dr Imtiaz Sooliman who was conferred with an honorary doctorate at UCT on March 30, 2026, is seen here speaking at UCT in October 2025, calling himself ‘5000% antisemitic.’

Yach was seen cosying up to Sooliman in multiple social media posts between this rhetoric and UCT Council’s consideration of Sooliman for an honorary doctorate in December 2025.

UCT conferred the honorary doctorate on Sooliman on March 30, 2026, marking a definitive rupture in the university’s relationship with its historical benefactors.

For Yach, who serves simultaneously as the UCT Council donor-elected representative, as a member of the UCT Alumni and Development Board and as a major philanthropist, this institutional endorsement creates a paradox.

It signals that her donor representative’s role has transitioned from a fiduciary bridge to a symbolic observer of a Council that now views traditional philanthropy as a form of “ransom” to be broken.

In the face of UCT’s honouring Sooliman’s rhetoric, it would be understandable for all those donors who have withdrawn funding since the June 2024 resolutions to feel ostracised.

UCT presents as loudly celebrating its divorce from legacy patronage in favour of a new, politically aligned identity.

In his lawsuit, Mendelsohn alleges that Yach and Arendse actively disparaged donors to Council colleagues.

Arendse is accused in court papers of effectively calling donors “hostage takers”. He claims he only reflected on what a “sad day” it would be if UCT were “sort of held hostage or to ransom” by donors.

Court papers highlight minutes of Council Exco meetings referencing “donor power”, “donor privilege” and “manipulation by funders (with) a pro-Israel stance”.

Yach is alleged to have used language reminiscent of a mob boss to threaten Mendelsohn and his family to persuade him to drop the lawsuit. She claims she spoke solely out of concern for his professional prospects.

**Conduct outside the Court**. Outside court, anti-Israel protestors hurled abuse at supporters of Mendelsohn’s concern for UCT with Professor Usuf Chikte, the coordinator of the Palestine Solidarity blaring “Look at these disgusting Zios,” and telling the media that “the Zionists are prioritising Jewish supremacy over everybody else”. While Mendelsohn’s supporters held signs saying, “Let ideas compete, not identities,” and “Universities should teach, not preach,” Mendelsohn protestors were yelling “One Zionist, one bullet,” and “There is only one solution: intifada resolution.”

Collectively, UCT Council Exco members have appeared content not just to bite some donor hands that have fed the university, but to gnaw donor arms down to the bones.

Mendelsohn’s argument remains compelling that some Council members held extraordinarily jaundiced views of UCT’s major donors whose perceived ideological views differed from theirs.

He claims that they effectively “tricked” Council colleagues into voting for “symbolic” resolutions to further their own personal political agendas.

More proof may lie in a synchronised move Arendse and Yach made on July 15, 2025. It may have inadvertently revealed their true intention: to rewrite the narrative on the financial fallout long after the canary had stopped singing.

Both tried to access UCT’s private donor lists but were unable to do so due to legal privacy constraints. Undeterred, Arendse later presented letters from donors as retroactive “bouquets of moral approval” of the resolutions, as Mendelsohn described it in court papers.

And when UCT’s Executive instituted an independent investigation into this creative “donor stewarding“, Arendse took to an unusual high road: he declined to “be complicit in or condone an unauthorised/unlawful investigation which is contrary to the UCT statutes.”

In other words, Arendse refused to cooperate with the inquiry into his conduct because he had not authorised it.

Yach claimed that her “sole reason” for requesting the donor lists was to “encourage” donor support. That newfound zeal for outreach contrasted sharply with her response to 290-plus emails of concern from high-profile alumni and donors that she received between April and May 2025.

Yach has reportedly dismissed them as “unsolicited” approaches to her private email.

Since then, the digital world sheds further light on the darkness of UCT’s governance circus at the highest levels.

Critics have noted that Isaacs was appointed CEO of The Spar Group as of March 2026, with the ghost of the David Jones debacle during his decade-long tenure as Woolworths FD by his side. It was a R21-billion Australian misadventure that vaporised shareholder value with the efficiency of a controlled demolition.

Criticism of Woolworths Holdings following its acquisition of David Jones was generally directed at its executive leadership under CEO Ian Moir. Isaacs, as finance director at the time, would have formed part of the broader leadership cohort associated with the transaction.

That can look like a questionable background for someone holding the keys to UCT’s University Finance Committee.

Spar’s Board has declared full confidence in its CEO.

A question hanging in the ether is why Arendse and Yach are still on Council, not even suspended pending the court’s ruling, given the serious allegations against them? After all, UCT found the energy to act swiftly against Mendelsohn and to suspend him on spurious grounds.

**Hostile Environment**. SAJBD National Director Wendy Kahn said the SAJBD joined the case to demonstrate “the hostile environment in which these resolutions were adopted, and their impact on Jewish students and academics at UCT.”

UCT leadership appears impervious to criticism, unburdened by tedious constraints of good governance, financial reality and unimpeachable integrity.

Its standard for Council members appears to be “not yet convicted of anything,” while critics say that it should be “above any suspicion at all.”

The most telling thing hovering “above” some UCT Council members is the level of arrogance required to burn down the house and then complain about the fire damage.

UCT was approached for comment. Spokesperson Elijah Moholola replied:

“UCT notes that this query relates to litigation concerning the Gaza resolutions. The matter was heard in the Western Cape High Court in October 2025, and UCT is currently awaiting judgment. Given that judgement is pending, it is inappropriate for UCT to comment on the matter.”

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).

THE CONTEXT BEHIND THE CARDINAL DENIED ENTRY TO JERUSALEM’S HOLY SEPULCHRE

Sometimes missile attacks from Iran can not only shatter buildings and lives, but even a status quo.

By Jonathan Feldstein

As soon as I read reports of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa being prevented from entering Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre my heart sank.

My immediate reaction was affirming something I have long believed and articulated frequently: that the State of Israel has a unique responsibility and obligation to protect Christian holy sites and ensure freedom of worship for Christians throughout Israel.

**Cardinal Error**. Ignoring the security situation in a time of war with missiles raining over Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa quickly jumped to characterize a life-saving restriction as an “extreme departure … of reasonableness” and “freedom of worship.”

My second reaction was dismay in knowing that whatever transpired and why, Israeli officials probably could and should have done better. Both because we have that obligation, but also because it could have prevented the inevitable bad PR. Yes, we’re at war and things slip through the cracks, but still.

Third was seeing the reflexive negative and even antisemitic reactions from across the world, some that added fuel to the fire of repeated (and false) accusations that Israel discriminates against Christians, and some that were simply another excuse to find fault with the current government and Prime Minister.

Make no mistake, Israel can and should have done better. But through this mistake, lessons have been learned and will hopefully prevent future such mistakes. As of writing this, an agreement for which has been reached between the parties.

As I am writing on the anniversary of the murder of the Christian Israeli Arab policeman Amir Khoury who is still celebrated as an Israeli hero, I know that while a small minority, Christians in Israel are not only not discriminated against but are the only community of Christians in the Middle East whose population is growing steadily, and can worship and live freely without fear of persecution.

In case you didn’t hear, on Palm Sunday, March 29, Israeli police prevented Cardinal Pizzaballa, from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate Mass. The negative international response was immediate and widespread. Church authorities described it as the first such denial of the senior Catholic leader in Jerusalem from entering the site on the day commemorating Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

Initial reports were only of his refused entry, without any context. But context matters, and subsequent reports shed light on this. The incident occurred amid heightened security restrictions related to Israel’s ongoing war with Iran, and subsequent Iranian missile attacks across Israel and on Jerusalem specifically. These measures include strict limits on public gatherings across the Old City, affecting Christian Holy Week observances, as well as Jewish Passover and Islamic Ramadan celebrations.

Missile Fragments Rain Down Near Jerusalem’s Holiest Sites

Israel’s Home Front Command imposed sweeping rules: gatherings limited to 50 people in locations with adequate bomb shelter access. Jerusalem’s Old City’s narrow streets further complicate emergency vehicle access in the event of a mass-casualty event. It’s important to note that since the 1990s, when bomb shelters became mandatory in new construction, the Christian denominations that control the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and cannot agree who has the authority to move a ladder in a window for centuries, could not come together to create a safe room in the holy site to protect against modern threats. A bomb shelter could have precluded this conflict.

**Ladder of Revelations**. It is revealing that while bomb shelters are mandatory in all new construction in Israel, the Christian denominations that control the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and cannot agree who has the authority to move a ladder in a window that has been here for centuries (see above), are as well unable to collectively agree to create a safe room to protect against modern threats. Instead, blame Israel! (Photo: Wikipedia)

Security precautions limit the number of people who can assemble for public gatherings including Passover prayers. Israeli Jews are being told to limit the number of guests at their Passover Seders to safely correspond with enough places in their bomb shelters. The traditional Festival “Birkat Kohanim”, (Priestly Blessing) has also been restricted from what can draw thousands.

**Hardly Enlightening**. Light may well shine over the Edicule, traditionally believed to be the burial site of Jesus Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem, however very little media ‘light’ was shone by the international press on the true nature of the incident, playing down the dangers from incoming Iranian missiles. (Photo: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP / Getty)

The context is even broader. Since February 28, Israeli authorities closed major holy sites in Jerusalem’s Old City — including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa compound — for security reasons. Iranian missiles had targeted the area, with shrapnel striking near the Holy Sepulchre in one incident, and near the Al Aksa Mosque in another.

Just as many Jewish events have been canceled, the traditional public Palm Sunday procession was canceled. Other events have been shifted to private or virtual formats for Easter. Despite reported prior coordination, police reconsidered and halted the Cardinal’s group en route under the prevailing security guidelines. The Patriarchate issued a statement describing this as “manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate.” Cardinal Pizzaballa later led an alternative prayer service at the Church of Gethsemane, outside the Old City.

**Unholy Alliance**. One of the holiest sites in Christianity, the Holy Sepulchre does not have a bomb shelter/ safe room due to internal disagreements within the church management that might have prevented the restriction. This however was not disclosed by the international media who was more inclined to find reasons to besmirch Israel.

Israeli authorities defended the decision on safety grounds. Police cited the Old City’s vulnerability to mass-casualty incidents. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office stated there was “no malicious intent whatsoever, only concern for his safety and that of his party.” It acknowledged the symbolic importance of Holy Week and announced that security agencies were developing a plan to be announced imminently to allow church leaders limited worship access.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog not only commented publicly but called the Cardinal privately. “The incident stemmed from security concerns due to the continuous threat of missile attacks from the Iranian terror regime against the civilian population in Israel, following previous incidents in which Iranian missiles fell in the area of the Old City of Jerusalem in recent days.” He called Pizzaballa to “express my great sorrow over this unfortunate incident in the Old City of Jerusalem,” and “reaffirmed the State of Israel’s unwavering commitment to freedom of religion for all faiths and to upholding the status quo at the holy sites of Jerusalem.”

Later Cardinal Pizzaballa sounded a conciliatory tone, noting:

“There were no clashes, everything was done in a very polite manner… we want to use this situation to clarify better in the coming days what to do in respect for everyone’s safety but also in respect for the right to prayer.”

**Church in the ‘Cross’hairs**. Firing missiles toward Jerusalem shows a dangerous disregard for the sanctity of holy sites and the people who gather there to pray as evident here (see above) when missile debris from an Iranian attack landed just feet from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. (Photo: Israel police)

Before any context and clarifications, the damage was done. Swift international condemnation followed. The Vatican, Catholic leaders worldwide, and European governments voiced concern, even condemnation. Arab officials predictably decried it as further encroachment on “Christian rights in occupied East Jerusalem.” Critics argued that while security is paramount, the blanket application of rules to a handful of senior clergy undermine the delicate status quo governing Jerusalem’s holy sites, shared among Christian denominations and long protected under international norms.

This incident was placed under the microscope of those who claim that Christians and Christian rights are under attack, but without the broader context and reality of the war and necessary security precautions. The Palm Sunday incident highlighted how even minimal, pre-approved religious observance can clash with emergency protocols amid active missile threats from Iran. Unfortunately, sometimes missile attacks from Iran can not only shatter buildings and lives, but even a status quo.

An agreement for the remainder of Holy Week, learning from this incident and potentially easing access for clergy while maintaining crowd limits is imminent. The problem, as this incident showed, is that if God forbid there were to be a security incident and mass casualty event at one of the Christian sites, Israel would be blamed by the same people who are now criticizing it for maintaining these security precautions to begin with.

That’s just some of the context with Passover and Easter around the corner. Hopefully when the war is behind us and things get “normal” again, protocol can be developed to prevent any similar future conflicts.

About the writer:

Jonathan Feldstein - President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Journal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.

*Donations to provide bomb shelters in Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter and other sites can be made here.

UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN’S ULTIMATE DEGRADATION – HONOURING DR SOOLIMAN

Does South Africa’s premier university share today the same values as a supporter of terrorism against Jews?

By Lawrence Nowosenetz

The University of Cape Town (UCT) a formerly venerable university in South Africa, respected worldwide, has announced that it will be awarding an honorary doctorate to Dr Imtiaz Sooliman at its graduation ceremonies in March/April 2026.

The Doctor of Philosophy (honoris causa) is being bestowed on Dr Sooliman in recognition of his humanitarian work through his organization Gift of the Givers. In a statement by the Vice Chancellor of UCT, Professor Moses Moshabela, he described Dr Sooliman together with another doctoral recipient as a distinguished South African and “advanced values that lie at the heart of our institution.” He further lauded Dr Sooliman for “humanitarian leadership” and having served society with integrity. Qualities which he expounded are central to building a just, creative and humane society.

**Law unto Himself**. Vice Chancellor of UCT, Professor Moses Moshabela describes UCT honoree Dr Imtiaz Sooliman as advancing the “*values that lie at the heart of our institution*.” But does he?

“For more than three decades, he has dedicated his life to humanitarian service without discrimination,” the Vice Chancellor continued. It is indeed so that Gift of the Givers, the organization which Dr Sooliman founded and still heads, has provided health care and supported communities and affected by natural disasters in South Africa, earthquakes in Haiti and Turkey, famine in Somalia and the conflicts in Gaza and Syria. However, the Vice Chancellor went further: “Sooliman’s work gives practical expression to the constitutional values of dignity, equality and freedom.”

The reality points otherwise. Dr Sooliman is an avowed Islamist and disciple of the Muslim Brotherhood. He supports Hamas and is a truculent and vocal inciter of anti-Zionist and Israel hatred. His record is abundantly clear and is well documented in his public utterances. In 2011, he received an award from the US designated terror organization Union of Good which (like Hamas) is a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate.

His thinly veiled antisemitic bigotry and hatred of Zionists leave nothing to the imagination. He publicly stated on 27 October 2025 and significantly at UCT:

“…we had to break the fear we have to break the money, and we had to break the thing antisemitism, and we know antisemitism is used to shut you up. So if we stand up against Zionists and they say you’re antisemitic because they want to cover their faults, then I’m 5000% antisemitic to speak the truth.”

A vicious tirade of inflammatory hate speech, conspiracy theories and demonization which would have made Dr Goebbels proud. It is hard to reconcile this rhetoric with the constitutional values of dignity and equality. In short, the cherished liberal democracy that UCT purports to uphold.

**Honoring Hamas**. The man UCT will honor has no problem participating at protests in Cape Town under the banner “WE ARE ALL HAMAS” following that terrorist organization’s massacre of Jews on October 7, 2023. (Photo: Gallo Images/Die Burger/Jaco Marais)

The very notion of constitutional values and rule of law have been rejected by Dr Sooliman who said he follows Koranic law, not man-made laws. In an interview on 7 October 2024, Dr Sooliman said:

“I don’t follow international law or human law. I follow Koranic law. I am a Muslim. I don’t need any permission from anybody in the world to tell me what to do. I break the laws all the time. Breaking the law is laws of the West and people and governments. It’s not Islamic law. I follow Islamic law, and Islamic law overrides any other law. … I don’t have to follow any law. My law is very clear to me. Allah himself has instructed me. I don’t need men to tell me what to do. I don’t follow them.”

This is subversive of the very values UCT should be safeguarding. South Africa prides itself rightly on its long and hard-fought constitutional democracy, the protection of fundamental freedoms, the separation of powers and secularism. The antithesis of Dr Sooliman’s benighted worldview. To honor a person who undermines so completely the raison d’etre of the Republic of South Africa is a travesty and betrayal of the most profundity and severity. An academic institution which is prepared to overlook this inescapable contradiction commits a gross lack of judgment and makes a mockery of not only itself but all South Africans who respect and show fealty to the Constitution. All the NGO’s and human rights lawyers who respect universal human rights should not abide this injustice. Hatred, racism and bigotry have emerged under the guise of the humanitarianism of Dr Sooliman.

The Koran is no repository of human rights and freedom. Among many other major shortfalls, women are suppressed, non-Muslims are not accorded equal citizenship under Islamic law. Christians and Jews historically were regarded as dhimmi or second-class citizens under Islamic rule. The separation of church and state as well as religious freedom are totally contradictory to the theocratic ideology of political Islam. Liberties such as freedom of thought, opinion and expression are suppressed. Nowhere is this more glaringly evident that in the Islamic Republic of Iran which has brutally suppressed dissent and murdered at least thirty thousand of its citizens, now in the throes of a war with Israel and the USA

Another egregious falsehood is crediting Dr Sooliman with providing humanitarian services without discrimination. During October and November 2024, Gift of the Givers posted at least 40 anti-Israel posts on its Facebook page. These posts did not call for peace, never condemned violence by Hamas and never mentioned Israeli victims or suffering. Certainly, no calls for the release of the hostages.

The humanitarian services of Gift of the Givers are partisan and far from neutral. While Gift of the Givers was active in Gaza providing aid to the local population, Dr Sooliman made no effort at all to assist the Israeli hostages held by Hamas over two years under appalling conditions. Such an egregious omission speaks to the lack of universality and integrity of Gift of the Givers as a humanitarian organization. This can be contrasted with the initiative of Gift of the Givers in negotiating successfully to secure the release of Pierre Korkie, the South African hostage held by terrorists in Yemen. He was however tragically killed by Al Qaeda shortly before his release.

**True Colours**. Decked out in green, Imtiaz Sooliman, who has expressed that Jews “… control the world with money,” addresses a protest in Sea Point, Cape Town (above) before demonstrators holding banners that read “Zionism is Racism” and “Boycott Apartheid Israel”. (Photo: Ashraf Hendricks)

The support of the South African ANC led government for Hamas and its backer Iran, indicates the state of capture by radical Islam. DIRCO, (South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation) and its foreign policy leans towards the global South, which includes undemocratic and unconstitutional countries which are not aligned with Western values. It is tragic to see UCT abandon these values and fall prey to the Islamist state capture of foreign policy.

Worth noting are the financial ties between at least two UCT Council members and Dr Sooliman/ Gift of the Givers. Dianna Yach, chair: HR committee donated R1 million to them in September 2025 through the Mauerberger Foundation Fund. Reeza Isaacs chair: Finance Committee and a senior Spar manager, appeared in a photograph on a Gift of the Givers Facebook page in February 2026, building Spar Group corporate partnership ties. These same persons sat on the UCT Council which approved bestowal of the honor. A more blatant conflict of interest and bias would be hard to find.

When a respected academic institution is prepared to bend its values and honor a person who is morally tainted and an outspoken adversary of traditional Western liberal values, there are no longer any standards left for UCT to support or teach. It becomes a broken institution.

*Feature picture: University of Cape Town

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 Hight Court, South Africa. He now lives in Tel Aviv.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S LEGACY

How Obama misread the aims of Iran

By Neville Berman

In January 2009, the Democratic Party nominee, Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44^th President of the United States of America. It was a watershed moment in American history. America finally had a black President that seemed to fulfill the dreams of the Democratic Party and liberals. The Norwegian Nobel Committee immediately bestowed on him the Nobel Peace Prize.

For his first foreign policy statement, Obama chose to speak at a university in Cairo. The choice of venue was a message in itself. Obama was greeted by rapturous applause by an overflowing audience of students. His speech revealed his positive view of Islam.

**Great Expectations**. An Egyptian youth displays a t-shirt designed by his father Gamal Shosha in their souvenir shop on June 3, 2009 in Cairo, which reads “OBAMA NEW TUTANKHAMON OF THE WORLD” , lauding the US President who was due to deliver his key Middle East policy speech at Cairo University. (Photo: David Silverman/Getty Images)

He started off by saying that he had come to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, and that they share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. He blamed the attacks of 9/11 on violent extremists who represented a small but potent minority of Muslims. He stated that “his father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims, but that he was a Christian, who as a boy had spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of Islam at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk.”

Below are some additional quotes from his speech that clearly demonstrated his thinking towards Islam:

“Civilization’s debt to Islam that paved the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment.”
“Since America’s founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States.”
“Let there be no doubt Islam is a part of America.”
“America is not and never will be at war with Islam.”
“Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace.”
“I will fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
“Throughout history Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”
“America and Iran must work together in mutual respect.”
“I will seek a world in which no nation has nuclear weapons.”
“America would support human rights everywhere.”
“Islam is a nation of tolerance.”
“There is one rule that is common to all religions and that is we do unto others what we want to do to ourselves.” “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
“The Holy Koran tells us to be conscious of God and speak always the truth.”

Obama’s views of Islam as a tolerant and peaceful religion must have come as news to hundreds of millions of Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Hindus around the world. The claim made by Obama that Islam is a peaceful religion is contradicted by centuries of Islamic subjugation and oppression. Obama was obsessed with promoting peace and refused to see the reality of the fact that millions of Muslims around the world cheered on September 11, 2001 when 2,977 people were killed by al-Qaeda on American soil. The attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, makes a total mockery of

“Do unto others what we want to do to ourselves.”

**Symbolic Shift**. In a respectful effort to move beyond the hostility of the post-9/11 era, Obamas addresses the Muslim world at the beginning of his presidency, seeking a “new beginning” between the United States and Muslims in delivering a pivotal speech at Cairo University.

The truth is that subjugation and domination are part of the pillars of Islam. Obama never mentioned the Islamist division of the world into Dar al-Islam and Dar al-harb. The former is the land where Muslims have sovereignty and where Shariah law is the law of the land. The latter refers to land that still needs to be conquered and subjugated to Shariah law. He also never mentioned the Islamic religious call for jihad against infidels.

Let us now turn our attention to Iran. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Any attempt to enrich uranium to weapons grade levels is a violation of this treaty. By 2013, the UN Security Council had passed 6 resolutions that imposed various levels of sanctions against Iran for refusing to comply with demands to end its nuclear enrichment program. The resolutions included the freezing of Iranian exports of oil and gas. This drastically reduced Iran’s foreign income. Iran was also banned from using the Swift system that dominates international banking and money transfers. Billions of dollars of Iranian money were frozen in Western banks. The sanctions were crippling Iran’s economy. By 2013, the value of the Iranian Rial was in freefall and the Iranian people were out in the streets demanding changes. Despite all the calls of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”, Obama decided that it was time to negotiate a deal with Iran.

In October 2013, representatives of the P5+1 (USA, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China) held talks with Iran in Geneva. The main aim of the American negotiating team was to ensure that Iran would never be able to acquire nuclear weapons, and in return, sanctions on Iran would then be lifted. To lead the American team of negotiators, Obama appointed Under Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman, who had previously negotiated the deal with North Korea that was supposed to end its nuclear program.

It was a total failure.

**Out to Impress**. Cutting a fine image as he tours the sites of Egypt, where today lies his boast “I will seek a world in which no nation has nuclear weapons?”

An interim agreement with Iran was reached in November 2013. It partially removed some of the sanctions imposed by the United Nations and encouraged Iran to continue with the negotiations. Negotiations continued for twenty months. In 2015, John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, took the lead in the negotiations. For 18 days in Vienna, he worked with the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javid Zarif, to finalize the deal. The final deal between Iran and the P5+1 delegates, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was officially reached on July 14, 2015. It was subsequently adopted on October 18, 2015.

**Pathway to Armageddon.** In March, 2026, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran possesses enriched uranium in quantities that could theoretically produce more than ten nuclear warheads.

The JCPOA deal achieved the exact opposite of what was originally intended. The sunset clause in the deal simply kicked the can down the road for when Iran could legally acquire nuclear weapons once the deal ends in October 2030. No restrictions or inspections were placed on Iran’s missile program. Iran was allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67% without any limit as to the amount it could produce at this level. It was also agreed that if Iran enriched uranium above the agreed level, it needed to either destroy the uranium enriched beyond 3.67% level, or send it to another country for safekeeping. In effect the deal allows Iran to acquire the knowledge of how to enrich uranium to weapons grade level, and to then send it to another country for safekeeping. Russia would be the most likely country to receive the enriched uranium. The absurdity of Russia protecting the West by safekeeping weapons grade uranium produced by Iran was what was effectively agreed to. In addition, the deal allows Iran to produce unlimited intercontinental missiles that could threaten the world. After October 2030, these missiles could be legally armed with nuclear warheads.

**Lethal Cocktail**. A newly-upgraded Sayyad-3 air defense missiles on display in 2017 following Iran’s parliament voting to increase funding for its ballistic missile program. (Photo: Ho/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

Iran agreed that inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could take place at certain sites. Surprise inspections required 48 hours’ notice. The agreement included a clause that if Iran did not abide by the agreement, Iran could be referred back to the Security Council to reimpose sanctions on Iran. This so-called “snapback sanctions” clause could be exercised at any time during the first 10 years of the agreement. China and Russia would not be permitted to vote if Iran was referred back to the Security Council to reimpose sanctions for non-compliance.

Under the deal, sanctions on Iran were immediately lifted. Iran was given permission to export oil and gas and companies were given permission to invest in the Iranian oil and gas industry. Iran was allowed to rejoin the Swift Banking system. If this was not catastrophic enough, the deal immediately released frozen Iranian money plus interest on the money. Reports vary as to the actual amount released, but all agree that the sum was in the tens of billions of dollars. One report estimated that the final amount released was approximately $100 billion. Obama ordered part of the money to be transferred in cash. The obvious intention of providing cash was to prevent American banking oversight of what the money would be used for. Iran immediately received all the benefits, while America received commitments by Iran to comply with the agreement in the future. It turned out that Iran had no intention to keep to its commitments.

In plain language, Iran lied.

Obama realized that the deal would never be approved by the Senate if it was presented as a treaty. What actually happened was that the negotiators signed the cover page of the agreement in Vienna, and then the parties to the deal, announced that they had agreed to it. There was no ceremony where the deal was signed. Obama was determined to bypass all the rules of approval needed in a treaty. What this meant was that any future American President could withdraw from the agreement. The Iranians were laughing all the way to the bank.

With the windfall of money that Iran received, it immediately increased funding to its proxy terrorist organizations around the world, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis in Yemen. Iran continued to claim that its nuclear program was only for peaceful purposes. This was clearly a blatant lie. There is no peaceful use for uranium that is enriched to weapons grade levels. Its only use is to manufacture nuclear weapons. Iran also denied access to certain sites by the IAEA inspectors. Questions raised by the inspectors were either ignored or non-plausible answers were provided. The inspections would eventually become an absolute farce. In the final analysis, Obama did nothing to rid the world of nuclear weapons. What he did was to sanctify that the world’s leading terrorist state would legally be allowed to have a nuclear arsenal of unlimited magnitude once the sunset date was reached.

***Unable to Inspect***. Obstructed by Iran from inspecting the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center (above), the IAEA disclosed that it was unable to perform its “watchdog” role and therefore could not verify the suspension of enrichment-related activities or the size of Iran’s uranium stockpile. (Photo: via Reuters)

On May 8, 2018, President Trump announced that the United States was withdrawing from the JCPOA agreement. He called the agreement “a horrible one -sided deal that should have never, ever been made. ” He added that the deal would never bring peace.

The present war in Iran can be traced back to President’s Obama’s naïve assumption that once Iran was treated with respect, it would become part of liberal based international order, and would live in peace with the world. Without any doubt, the JCPOA deal helped Iran out of a crisis, and empowered the Shiite mullahs of Iran to spread terrorism around the world. The deal provided Iran with frozen money as well as billions of dollars of future profits derived from the sale of Iranian oil on the world market. The money made it possible for Iran to finance its missile program, its nuclear program and to greatly increase funding to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The money transformed Iran into a threat to world peace.

Obama either misunderstood the Islamic goal of subjugating the world, or he had some ulterior motive to conclude a deal with Iran. Whatever the case, Obama set in motion the events that led to the present war with Iran. Obama undoubtedly made the world into a much more dangerous place. The long arm of President Obama’s legacy is the present war with Iran.

About the writer:

Accountant Neville Berman had an illustrious sporting career in South Africa, being twice awarded the South African State Presidents Award for Sport and was a three times winner of the South African Maccabi Sportsman of the Year Award. In 1978 he immigrated to the USA to coach the United States men’s field hockey team, whereafter, in 1981 he immigrated to Israel where he practiced as an accountant and then for 20 years was the Admin Manager at the American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel. He is married with two children and one granddaughter.

SOUTH AFRICA’S ‘SOUNDS OF SILENCE’

While quick to accuse Israel, South Africa’s is silent when close associate, Iran, commits ‘Crimes Against Humanity’.

By Peter Bailey

The current war against Iran is being waged to prevent the Islamic Republic from developing nuclear weapons and increasingly powerful ballistic missiles capable of threatening Europe and America, while also manufacturing drones capable of wreaking havoc on geographically closer targets. The U.S. and Israel are thus attacking nuclear facilities, missile storage centres and missile launchers, as well the numerous factories manufacturing these weapons and accessories. Prior to hostilities breaking out, Iran had threatened to retaliate with attacks on U.S. military bases in the Gulf States of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait.

**IDF** Spox. BG **Effie Defrin** at a civilian home impacted by an Iranian cluster bomb.

The outbreak of the war saw the U.S. and Israel target leading figures within the political and military leadership of Iran, eliminating many of them, while also attacking numerous strategic military targets. Intensive missile and drone attacks against Israel and the U.S. military bases in the Gulf States were expected and prepared for, and indeed have been taking place ever since the outbreak of hostilities. Iran has treated the Geneva Conventions for the conduct of war with scant disregard by indiscriminately attacking civilian populations in Israel and the Gulf States. Civilian casualties in Iran have in the meanwhile been minimal in view of the intensity of the attacks on the country.

Two elderly innocent civilians were killed in Ramat Gan in an Iranian cluster missile attack.

Israel and the Gulf States have faced a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting civilian population areas with cluster or fragmentation missiles. These missiles release a large number of small bombs which rain down on a wide area, exploding as they land, with the intent of causing maximum property damage and death. Israel’s military installations certainly qualify as legitimate Iranian targets, but civilian population areas most definitely do not fall into that category. Similarly, U.S. military bases in the Gulf States could be considered legitimate Iranian targets, but civilians and infrastructure in those states should definitely not be deliberately targeted as has been the case. While I don’t have proof, it would appear that many, if not all, the cluster bombs are not merely of the explosive variety designed to cause damage, but are in fact incendiary bombs, as spontaneous fires have been breaking out immediately after impact.

A cluster missile as it releases its load of cluster bombs. (Photo credit: Israel Live News)

All this brings me to South Africa, the bombastic self-appointed global defender of human rights, that saw fit, under questionable circumstances, to bring spurious charges of Genocide and other human rights abuse crimes against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague. This world’s self-appointed human rights defender has inexplicably consistently remained silent with regard to breaches of the Geneva Conventions by Iran and its proxies.

Following the 7 October 2023 murderous invasion of Israel by Hamas, South Africa had lost no time in expressing its admiration and support for Hamas’ action in a telephone call to the Hamas leadership by Naledi Pandor, International Affairs Minister at the time. On 22 October 2023, Pandor was in Iran on “official business”, with the subsequent press handout following her meeting with Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, advising that Pandor had emphasised South Africa’s stance of non interference, while expressing support for Palestinian aspirations. She had further emphasised the importance of the adherence to International Humanitarian and Human Rights laws.

**Iran Intrigue**. Two weeks after Hamas’ massacre of Jews on October 7, 2023, South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Naledi Pandor, visits Hamas sponsor, Iran for one day visit on October 22, 2023. (Photo: Naser Jafari)

Speculation at the time was that she had received instructions and a large donation to the governing African National Congress (ANC) in return for opening a case against Israel at the ICJ. Two months later, on 29 December 2023, South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel at the ICJ. Israel Defence Force ground forces invaded Gaza on 28 October 2023, with the timeline of South Africa’s submission suggesting that the papers were being prepared before Israel’s invasion of Gaza. This leaves unanswered questions with regard to its motives and also when South Africa decided to advance the charges, in all probability immediately after Pandor’s visit to Iran, before Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip.

The launching of missiles by Iran, most of which are directed at civilian areas causing loss of life, injuries and property damage constitutes a Crime Against Humanity. Adding insult to injury, while committing Crimes Against Humanity, Iran has been firing missiles carrying a payload of cluster munitions, which means that up 30 or more smaller projectiles, each carrying an explosive charge are released in the upper atmosphere, or alternatively released if the missile is intercepted by anti-missile fire. An AI overview advises that cluster munitions are canisters that open in mid-air, dispersing numerous smaller explosive submunitions or “bomblets” over a wide area. This design is intended to destroy dispersed targets such as armored vehicles or airfield runways. The use of these munitions against civilian targets by Iran is considered a Crime Against Humanity, a blatant and flagrant breach of the Geneva Conventions.

**Cluster causing Chaos**. One warhead contains hundreds of bomblets. Intended to harm people, whether soldiers or civilians, cluster munitions often contain metal pellets in addition to explosive material.(Photo: U.S. Army, Public domain)

The opening paragraph of the Convention on Cluster Munitions reads as follows:

The Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) prohibits under any circumstances the use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions, as well as the assistance or encouragement of anyone to engage in prohibited activities. The text of the Convention is available for download in the six official UN languages.

Despite the fact that Iran is a signatory to the relevant Geneva Conventions in respect of Crimes Against Humanity, this item in Israel’s YNet Breaking News dated 18/03/2026 02:45, highlights Iran’s open admission of launching cluster munitions directed at civilian populations, in defiance of the Conventions.

Iran: ‘We fired at Tel Aviv in revenge for Larijani’s assassination’

Iran claimed that the heavy fire at the center (of Israel) was carried out in revenge for the assassination of Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. This was reported on Iranian state television, which noted that ‘cluster bombs were fired at Tel Aviv.’

One result of this particular incident was the death of a disabled couple, both in their seventies, who never made it to a safe area in time, and were killed by a direct strike on a residential building by a cluster bomb. The news item below refers to the attack.

**Terror in Tel Aviv**. Interception of a cluster missile over Tel Aviv in central Israel. (Photo: AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Israel Live News

“Ramat Gan cluster hit:

Footage from the apartment of the couple killed overnight in Ramat Gan shows the damage from a direct hit by a cluster bomb.

A cluster bomb breaks apart in the air and scatters smaller explosives over a wide area, making it one of the most dangerous weapons for civilians”.

**On Track**. Targeting Israeli civilians such as this Iranian missile attack on Tel Aviv’s Savidor Central railway station which caused extensive damage and fortunately no loss of life. (Photo: Lihi Gordon)

South Africa’s inaction in not opening an ICJ case against Iran for this deadly breach speaks volumes, leaving little doubt as to the hypocrisy and double standards of the South African government and which guide its actions. Adding to the gravity and breach of international law, the cluster munitions are possibly also incendiary, causing fires to break out where they strike. The AI Overview on incendiary weapons reads as follows:

The use of incendiary weapons against civilian populations is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law (IHL). These weapons, designed to cause burn injuries or set fire to objects through chemical reactions (such as napalm, white phosphorus, and thermite), are considered excessively injurious and often indiscriminate, particularly when used in populated areas.

The magnitude of the breaches of numerous laws governing human rights, as well as the breaches of the Geneva Conventions on prohibited munitions, should gravely concern any country that claims to be the leading global defender of human rights. On the contrary, rather than filing legal papers charging Iran with gross violations of the Geneva Conventions and equally grave breaches of United Nations Human Rights Laws, South Africa expresses support for Iran, as shown by the following excerpt from a statement by South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Co-operation (DIRCO):

“South Africa has previously condemned the unlawful attacks on Iran by Israel and the United States, which violate Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibiting the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. These principles are fundamental to the international rules‑based order and must be upheld by all Member States.” Click on the link below to read the full statement:

https://dirco.gov.za/shttps://dirco.gov.za/south-africa-expresses-deep-concern-over-the-escalating-crisis-in-the-gulf/outh-africa-expresses-deep-concern-over-the-escalating-crisis-in-the-gulf/

Noteworthy about this statement is the absence of any reference to the Hamas invasion of Israel on 7 October 2023, which set off the chain of events that have followed since that date.

Readers are reminded that Iran is the country that has for many years provided extensive funding and arming of the terrorists of its so-called axis of resistance, notably:

– Hamas in Gaza

– Hezbollah in Lebanon

-the Houthis in Yemen

– as well as numerous terror groups in Syria and Iraq.

Iran itself has been making threats of annihilation against Israel and the U.S. for the 47 years of the existence of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Readers are also reminded that the current war against Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas began with the Hamas invasion of Israel on 7 October 2023. An invasion that was carried out with indescribable cruelty and lack of regard for human life and dignity, that killed over 1,200 innocent Israelis, Jews and Arabs alike, while others were maimed, raped and tortured, with over 230 taken to Gaza as hostages, all in the space of a few hours. Bearing in mind Iran’s background role in funding and arming these terrorists, it is absolutely disgraceful and impertinent of South Africa to accuse the U.S. and Israel of breaching U.N. laws by commencing military action against Iran. Iran sits at the apex of its self-created axis of resistance, better described as an axis of evil terrorism, while South Africa insults the memories of the untold numbers of victims drawn from all walks of life, all nationalities and all religions, murdered, maimed or tortured by Iran and its proxies.

**Friends who South Africa Flock Together**. Only weeks after Israel suffered on 7 October the gravest act of mass murder since the Holocaust at the hands of Hamas, a Hamas delegation is welcomed in South Africa to participate in the Fifth Global Convention of Solidarity with Palestine. The Hamas delegation included the Hamas representative in Iran Dr Khaled Qaddoumi; Hamas representative in East, Central and Southern Africa, Emad Saber and Hamas member Dr Basem Naim who publicly and consistently denied that Hamas kidnapped innocent women and children, killed civilians, and raped women, putting it all down to “fabricated Israeli propaganda.”

About the writer:

The writer, Peter Bailey, a military history buff, was a Major in the South African Army Reserve before making aliyah in 2013. He has conducted intensive research into the Jewish contribution to South Africa’s military history, writing many papers and lecturing on the subject. He is the author of two published books, Street Names in Israel and Men of Valor, Israel’s Latter Day Heroes.

MISUSE TO MALIGN – AID AGENCIES EXPOSED

When humanitarian agencies misuse the word “genocide” to malign Israel, they erode its meaning, cheapen the suffering of genuine victims and erode trust.

By Marika Sboros

Who would ever have imagined the forked tongues with which some of the most recognisable names in global humanitarianism speak about genocide?

There was a time when the word, genocide, travelled slowly across the globe carrying weight and gravitas. It moved truthfully with the solemn pace of courts, bewigged judges, historians and survivors of genuine genocide.

Genocide is weighted with meaning from the ashes of the crematoria of the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II. It was meant to be a rare word, precise in depicting the “Crime of Crimes” that forced its invention in the first place.

**Genuine Genocide.** There is a clear distinction between genocide and war and when aid agencies deliberately blur that distinction, it is not only a misuse but an abuse of the word “genocide” that is “weighted with meaning from the ashes of the crematoria of the Holocaust.”

Today, the word shoots across continents like falling stars on steroids. Its casual misuse by groups carrying the halo of humanitarian speaks volumes about the moral moment of our time.

Leading this linguistic debasement are Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) that started in France, Oxfam GB in the UK and South Africa’s home-grown Gift of the Givers.

All do vital, often heroic work to deliver food, medicine, shelter and logistics where governments fail and disasters fall. All share aggressive political advocacy and gratuitous use of the word, genocide, against Israel and Jews who support it.

In Gaza, these groups have made genocide a linguistic weapon in Israel’s war against Hamas since the terror group’s horrific attack against civilians in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

They do so in a wider, global struggle over law, language and the moral credibility of the global humanitarian mission since that day.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MFS)

MSF’s fall from the grace of medical neutrality has been particularly precipitous.

The group’s humble origins began in 1971 with just 13 idealistic physicians and journalists from the medical journal, Tonus. All declared commitment to témoignage, the French word for “bearing witness” to human rights abuses and atrocities.

Their guide for their early, self-funded interventions was a revolutionary manifesto prioritising victim care over national sovereignty.

From this scrappy foundation evolved the giant global network that MSF is today, and that won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 for its famed impartiality in conflict zones.

**Shield of Shame.** Morally shielded by its Nobel-winning brand, Doctors without Borders is exposed for shielding terrorists whose intent is to annihilate Israel and all Jews who inhabit it.

MSF claims still to “bear witness”. Critics see significant, potentially terminal degradation in its communications that prioritise highly charged legal and political accusations over objective, humanitarian reporting.

NGO Monitor has come out with a blistering, comprehensive report that charts MSF’s transformation, post October 7, into a global source of disinformation and demonisation targeting Israel. It reveals how the charity joined other influential NGOs in an intensive advocacy campaign framing the Israeli response as “genocide” based on “manipulated and distorted evidence to support a predetermined conclusion”.
It shows how MSF effectively erased Hamas’s “weaponisation” of hospitals and clinics and the
“exploitation of schools, mosques and other civilian facilities for terror”.

MSF’s refusal in January to comply with Israel’s request to provide staff lists for vetting speaks volumes. The request is not unusual in active conflict zones. By refusing it and shielding potential terrorists from scrutiny, MSF is prioritising the security of compromised members over the universal laws of war and civilians.

It has effectively created convenient vacuums for terrorists involved in rocket production, sniper activity and more to hide behind a medical badge.

In February, MSF suspended all non-critical operations at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the largest in the region, after admitting to a total breakdown of medical neutrality. Its internal reports confirmed a pattern of “unacceptable acts,” including masked and armed gunmen roaming hospital corridors and intimidating and arbitrarily arresting patients.

Crucially, MSF acknowledged “suspicion of movement of weapons” within the facility. Hamas predictably claimed that the masked gunmen were civilian police.

**Machiavellian Medicine**. Apart from the weapons discovered by the IDF at the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City (above), documents found revealed how Hamas regulated international NGOs, including MédecinsSans Frontières (MSF) with each being assigned a Hamas-approved “guarantor”. MSF’s guarantor was the deputy head of its Gaza leadership. (Photo: IDF)

However, the admission substantiated long-standing intelligence that Hamas was exploiting the hospital as a military headquarter, thereby stripping the medical site of protected status under international law.

A recent article by two medical doctors in the Times of Israel is even more damning. The authors, one a formerMSF Secretary General, give alarming examples of terrorist infiltration within MSF’s Gaza staff and operations.

They highlight instances of multiple MSF-affiliated healthcare workers who were members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Evidence includes MSF staff photographed in Hamas uniforms alongside senior terrorist commanders.

The authors refer to the case of Fadi Al-Wadiya, an MSF staffer who was a PIJ rocket manufacturing expert for over 15 years. Al-Wadiya was no exception.

They describe a chilling, “centralised regime” in Gaza in which Hamas regulates NGOs (non-governmental organisations), such as MSF, through designated “guarantors”. These are senior officials who liaise with the terror group’s security services to influence operational decisions.

The authors, say that MSF’s deputy head of Gaza leadership served as a Hamas-approved “guarantor”.

Such advocacy boosts critics who say that MSF has become a partisan actor using its Nobel-winning brand to shield extremist elements in Gaza intent on annihilating Israel and all Jews who inhabit it.

Oxfam GB

In the UK, Oxfam GB provides a different, no less revealing case study as the most “storied institution”.

Founded in 1942 as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (hence the acronym), its mission was to persuade the British government to allow food relief to starving Greek villagers under Nazi occupation.

More than 80 years later, Oxfam is a global confederation of 21 affiliates, led by Oxfam GB. Just as MSF has done, Oxfam GB has drifted into slightly different humanitarian work after October 7: combustible political activism against Israel.

Then came Dr Halima Begum, British-Bangladeshi academic, development expert and Oxfam GB’s first woman-of-colour CEO in December 2024.

**Oxfam’s Obsession**. Sacked as Oxfam GB’s CEO, Halima Begum accused the global charity of antisemitism that rushed to accuse Israel of genocide without the support of “evidence and good legal advice.” (Photo: video clip)

Begum’s academic pedigree is impeccable. She has a BSc in Government and History and an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics. Her PhD from Queen Mary University of London is in Political and Human Geography. In 2024, she received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the university.

She was reportedly brought in to “decolonise” Oxfam GB. Her tenure ended abruptly in late 2025 after a leadership review, which she has called an orchestrated “witch-hunt”.

Begum did not go quietly. She set off a whistleblowing flare on her way out. The fallout sent shockwaves through Oxfam’s global confederation and the NGO world.

She quickly launched a legal offensive against her former employer. In her Employment Tribunal filing and high-profile Channel 4 interview in February 2026, Begum claims an incriminating “institutional whiteness” and “toxic antisemitic culture” infecting Oxfam GB’s heart.

Her core allegation is the “Gaza exception”. She says that Oxfam GB prematurely and ideologically began promoting the “genocide” slur against Israel in Gaza to appease its activist wing.

She ascribes this to “toxic” internal pressure specifically targeting Israel while ignoring other areas, among them El-Fasher in Sudan. That’s despite UN investigators finding clear “hallmarks of genocide” in the Sudanese sand.

Begum also claims that the environment that Oxfam GB created for Jewish staff was hostile and left them feeling “unsafe”.

Oxfam rejects all Begum’s allegations and says its use of the term, genocide, followed formal, legal “review”.

The dispute set off an inquiry by the UK Charity Commission that is examining whether Oxfam GB’s advocacy crossed the legal boundary separating charitable work from political campaigning.

Under British law, charities’ activities are required to align with stated humanitarian purposes, not partisan or ideological agendas. Whether Oxfam GB crossed that line is for regulators to determine.

The controversy raises broader questions about the humanitarian sector’s relationship with political advocacy and truth-telling.

Gift of the Givers

South Africa’s Gift of the Givers presents a different but no less compelling case.

Founded in 1992 by medical doctor Imtiaz Sooliman, the charity has an impressive reputation as the African continent’s most effective disaster-relief organisation.

Gift of the Givers is acknowledged globally for rapid deployment, low administrative overheads and ability to operate in difficult conflict zones. It has delivered billions of South African Rands in aid in more than 47 countries, including Bosnia, Somalia, Syria, Haiti and Yemen.

Its longstanding presence in Gaza since 2009 has drawn claims (routinely and hotly denied by Sooliman) that its donations meant for humanitarian aid sometimes found their way into Hamas’s coffers by default or design.

Critics argue that Sooliman’s public statements often blur lines between humanitarianism and political advocacy. They cite his public rhetoric at anti-Israel rallies, including antisemitic tropes of “Zionists” (the anti-Israel lobby’s code word for Jews) who “rule the world with money and fear,” and regular genocide references.

**What ‘Gives’?** Belying his humanitarian image, ‘Gift of the Givers’ founder and chair Imtiaz Sooliman when addressing a rally in Cape Town on 5 October 2024 sounded more jihadi than humanitarian by indulging in antisemitic tropes about Israel and “Zionists” who “run the world with fear … and control the world with money”.

To casual readers, Sooliman’s implication is unmistakable: Israel is committing the “Crime of Crimes” in Gaza.

He may feel emboldened under cover of his contacts at the highest levels of South Africa’s ruling ANC (African National Congress) government, particularly in DIRCO (Department of International Relations and Cooperation).

Sooliman appears oblivious to the heaviest of ironies in DIRCO leading the country’s lawsuit it launched at the International Criminal Court (ICJ) against Israel on a genocide charge just weeks after the horror of Hamas’s genuinely genocidal attack on October 7.

Gift of the Givers has thrown its weight behind the lawsuit.

Dr Ivor Chipkin has exposed the political and moral hypocrisy behind the lawsuit in a prescient article in the South African Journal of International Affairs in November 2025.

Chipkin is an academic political scientist specialising in public administration, public policy and governance in post-apartheid South Africa. He lectures in public policy at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science and is co-founder and director of the New South Institute, a Johannesburg-based think tank focused on government and public-sector reform.

His focus in the article is the “peculiarity” of South Africa’s decision to charge Israel with the “Crime of Crimes” at the ICJ “while treating Hamas (at least in front of the ICJ) as largely blameless.”

Chipkin ascribes this double standard to an “organic crisis” facing the ANC, related to the ANC’s fading “revolutionary” character and the lawsuit’s likely effects on South Africa’s foreign policy. None of it bodes well for the country or the ruling party.

By Chipkin’s reckoning, the crisis lies in South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s inability to give “revolutionary meaning to ANC politics domestically.” Instead, Chipkin says that Ramaphosa has vainly attempted to “build its revolutionary credentials on the international stage as a vanguard of anti-imperialism and the struggle against colonialism.”

The ICJ lawsuit and Ramaphosa’s appointment of Naledi Pandor, a Muslim convert with extremist views, as foreign minister, “signal” that strategy, Chipkin writes.

He examines in graphic detail the legal basis for the lawsuit’s genocide claim. He finds it wanting on so many levels that “not only must the observer ask why South Africa did not seek any court order against Hamas, but why it did not even try.”

Sooliman should not be surprised that critics see similar gaps in his genocide claims against Israel.

Along with MSF and Oxfam GB, Sooliman uses the genocide accusation as advocacy to mobilise outrage, donations and political pressure.

Yet the genocide claim is a highest-order legal accusation which none of these organisations has the legal, moral authority to make. Doing so before an unequivocal legal ruling (expected in 2027) is not rhetorical flourish.

It is moral inversion and historical revision.

Genocide is not a slogan and the legal threshold for a finding is deliberately high.

Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, it requires proof of specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

Determining such intent is not the purview of activists, charities or social-media campaigns. It belongs to the ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC) that were created to examine evidence, test witnesses and weigh competing legal arguments.

They are not meant to operate on rhetoric, miasma and press releases. And despite the best efforts of the anti-Israel lobby, the scaffolding against genocide claims aimed at Israel remains strong and intact:

Jews were the primary victims of the crime that inspired the word, genocide; the Nazis murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust; the modern State of Israel emerged partly from world recognition that Jews needed a place where such annihilation could never happen again; the October 7 attack by Hamas had all the hallmarks of true genocidal intent; Hamas, PIJ and other terror groups have “the same genocidal message in the DNA of their charters – the extermination of the Jews.”

All that history should impose a degree of humility on those accusing Israel of genocide while ignoring Hamas’s blatant genocidal intent on October 7, and its public promises to repeat it “over and over until Israel is annihilated.”

That humility is absent, most likely because of the existential burden Jews face as targets of the “world’s oldest hatred” (Jew hatred).

British author, humourist and Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson identified it 12 years ago when he asked rhetorically:

“When will Jews ever be forgiven for The Holocaust?”

His answer: “Never.”

In a flurry of columns for The Observer in the UK after October 7, Jacobson vents his fury at “progressives” who downplayed the barbaric mass murder and rape Hamas perpetrated on the day and exaggerated Israel’s response.

He points out that “genocides don’t leaflet the populations they want to destroy with warnings to stay out of harm’s way.”

That leaves Israel looking very good at war and very bad at genocide.

Jacobson’s latest book, Howl (Jonathan Cape, 2026) is a novel based on October 7, with a delicate balance of humour and horror that only he could get just right. It allows readers who would weep even more, the respite of occasionally being able to laugh after October 7.

Humanitarian organisations present themselves as guardians of moral clarity and defenders of international law. But law and morality depend primarily on truth and truth telling requires restraint.

When humanitarians use forked tongues to stretch the truth about genocide, they erode its meaning, cheapen the suffering of genuine victims and erode trust.

If everything is genocide, then nothing is genocide.

Truth-telling is not a pastime. It is the foundation of humanitarianism. Without it, even the most well-intentioned humanitarian charity turns into a storyteller – and not always a truthful one.

About the writer:

THE SILENT WOUNDS OF WAR IN ISRAEL

There is the war people see on the news – and then there is the war people carry home in their bodies.

By Bev Moss-Reilly

It lives in the mother who pulls a sleepy toddler out of bed at two in the morning because the siren has gone off again. It lives in the baby who cannot understand what is happening but feels the panic in the arms holding him. It lives in the child who has started clinging, crying more easily, wetting the bed again, or refusing to sleep alone. It lives in grandparents trying to sound steady when they themselves are frightened. It lives in every family in Israel that has had to keep going while their hearts are under siege – and it lives in every Jew throughout the world because Israel is our homeland, the people of ha’aretz, our family.

Human resilience during a complex security period. Mother and baby in a protected space.

War does not only injure people physically. It unsettles the nervous system. It robs people of the ordinary comforts that make life feel safe. Home no longer feels fully restful. Night no longer feels quiet. Sleep is interrupted, sometimes repeatedly, by sirens, rushing feet, phones ringing, alarms sounding, and the sickening knowledge that danger may be near. When this happens for days, weeks, and months, it does something profound to mental health. Research has consistently shown that broken sleep and disrupted circadian rhythms affect mood, concentration, memory, emotional regulation, and overall mental functioning. People become more fragile, more reactive, more exhausted, and less able to think clearly, not because they are weak, but because they are human.

People take shelter in an underground parking lot in Tel Aviv during the war between Israel and Iran, June 24, 2025. (Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90).

And then there are the families. The family unit is where so much of this pain lands. Parents are trying to comfort children while hiding their own terror. Husbands and wives are carrying fear in different ways and at different volumes. Siblings are separated by military service, reserve duty, evacuation, injury, grief, or sheer emotional shutdown. Some families are physically together but emotionally frayed from the relentless strain. Others are missing someone around the Shabbat table, at bedtime, or in the morning rush. In war, family life does not simply pause. It absorbs the shock. It is often the first place where trauma shows itself and the last place people think to support.

This is especially true for children. They may not have the language to explain what they are feeling, but their bodies often tell the story. A child may become more anxious, more angry, more withdrawn, or more needy. Teenagers may look distant, numb, irritable, or flat, even while suffering deeply inside. Research published after October 7 has found a high burden of trauma related symptoms, anxiety, and depression in the Israeli public, and more recent work has shown troubling levels of probable post-traumatic stress among Israeli adolescents as well. That matters deeply, because when children and teenagers grow up under prolonged threat, the emotional effects do not simply disappear when the sirens stop.

“Dad is back!” A boy hugs his father who came back from the reserves. (Photo: “Beitmona” Archives).

There is also the emotional burden carried by ordinary people trying to make an honest living. The small shop owner opening despite exhaustion. The grocer wondering whether stock will arrive. The café owner trying to smile at customers while checking the news every few minutes. The worker who knows that if the business does not survive, neither does the family income. Financial fear and mental strain are deeply intertwined. Studies looking at small business owners during the ongoing conflict have found significant psychological distress, which is hardly surprising. It is very hard to feel calm, hopeful, or secure when one’s livelihood is as uncertain as tomorrow’s siren.

Then there are the families of the IDF, the IAF, and all those protecting our beloved
Eretz Yisrael. These families wake every day with a private ache in their chest. There
is pride, yes, but also dread. There is the constant checking of messages, the
waiting, the imagining, the praying. Mothers and fathers try to be strong. Wives and
husbands hold households together while carrying the fear that one phone call could
change everything. Children miss their parent and do not always understand why the
grown-ups seem distracted or tense. There is no neat way to carry that kind of love
and fear at the same time.

Medical teams are carrying a burden of their own. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, trauma teams, surgeons, support staff, and first responders have worked under relentless pressure, long hours, and heartbreaking circumstances. They have treated injuries, witnessed fatalities, supported grieving families, and often put their own emotional needs aside so that others could survive. The World Health Organization has described a significant mental health crisis affecting frontline workers in Israel in the wake of October 7, and that should make all of us stop and take notice. The people who care for everyone else also need care. They are not machines. They are human beings who see too much, hold too much, and are too often expected to simply continue.

No group, however, embodies the long shadow of this trauma more painfully than the former hostages and their families. On October 7, 251 people were taken hostage, including babies, children, women, men, and the elderly. For those who returned alive, freedom did not mean the suffering simply ended. Official Israeli health guidance recognises that captivity can leave long lasting physical and emotional consequences and that survivors and their families need comprehensive, deeply compassionate, ongoing care. The body may come home, but sleep, trust, appetite, safety, and peace of mind do not always come home with it.

What of the families who waited? The mothers, fathers, siblings, spouses, grandparents, and children who lived in suspended agony, not knowing whether to hope, fear, pray, rage, or prepare for the worst. That kind of waiting is its own trauma. It stretches time into something unbearable. It invades every waking moment. It reshapes the nervous system around dread.

The names of little Ariel Bibas and baby Kfir Bibas pierced hearts around the Jewish world, together with their mother, Shiri. Their faces became symbols of innocence stolen, and of a grief too deep for words. Even writing their names is painful. They were not symbols first. They were a family. A mother. Two little boys. Loved, held, kissed, known. Their story reminded so many people that the wounds of October 7 were not abstract, not political, and not distant. They were intimate, devastating, and brutally personal. Their surviving father/husband lives with unimaginable mental scars, ones that are irrevocable.

The Bibas family (L- R) Ariel, Yarden, Shiri and Kfir.

People often speak of Israeli resilience, and it is real. It is extraordinary. Israelis do keep going. They do show up. They do rebuild, volunteer, comfort, fight, donate, cook, pray, and stand shoulder to shoulder. But resilience must never be used to minimise pain. Strong people still break down. Brave people still have panic attacks. Loving parents still cry in the shower, so their children do not see. Soldiers still come home carrying things they cannot yet say. Survivors still wake in terror. Bereaved families still must face mornings they never asked for. Resilience is not the absence of trauma. It is what people do while carrying it.

That is why mental health support is not optional. It is essential. People need spaces where they can speak honestly and without shame. They need trauma support, counselling, community care, practical help, and the reassurance that struggling does not mean they are failing. Families need checking in on. The bereaved need people who are willing to sit with them in their sorrow, not rush them through it. The wounded need continued support long after the visible injuries begin to heal. Medical staff need rest and psychological care. Military families need support before, during, and after deployment. Children need adults who understand that behaviour is often the language of distress.

Anxiety treatment and psychotherapy for children, adolescents and adults suffering from various types of anxiety.

Sometimes support is very simple. A phone call. A meal. A lift. A quiet visit. An offer to sit with someone who does not want to be alone. A willingness to listen without trying to fix the unfixable. A reminder that they are not forgotten. In Jewish life, we know this instinct well. We gather. We show up. We carry one another. We understand, at our best, that if one Jew feels pain, we all do.

That truth matters now more than ever.

The fight for survival is not only about borders, sirens, or uniforms. It is also about preserving the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of our people. It is about protecting the minds and hearts of babies, children, families, shopkeepers, soldiers, medical staff, survivors, and the bereaved. It is about making room for grief and fear while still choosing life. It is about refusing to let trauma have the final word.

Israel needs strength, yes – but it also needs tenderness. It needs mental health support that is accessible, compassionate, and sustained. It needs communities that do not disappear once headlines fade – and it needs all of us, wherever we live, to remember that solidarity is not only political or practical. It is emotional. It is deeply human. It is the act of saying, your pain matters to me, and you will not carry it alone.

We stand by our people and our homeland, and we pray for peace for all. We are grateful to all who carry the supportive and emotional weight of this war, and those that have preceded it. Kol HaKavod v Todah Rabbah. Am Yisrael Chai.

About the writer:

Bev Moss -Reilly is a Jewish freelance content writer living in South Africa with a deep and heartfelt focus on mental health, emotional wellbeing, trauma, grief, and the unseen struggles people carry every day. Through her writing and her Mental Health Packs, she aims to bring comfort, awareness, compassion, and practical support to individuals, families, workplaces, and communities. Her work is rooted in empathy, dignity, and the belief that nobody should feel alone in their pain, especially in times of crisis.

THE ROEDEAN-KING DAVID ‘AFFAIR’ – A MARATHON MATCH

How a cancelled school tennis match escalated into a wider political battle over Israel, antisemitism, and boycotts.

By Marika Sboros

(First published in BizNews)

If you think the dust has settled over the “Roedean affair” – as the cancelled tennis match between two top Johannesburg private schools (one of them Jewish), is being grandly called – then think again.

The “affair” became public knowledge within days of Roedean Girls High School refusing to play the scheduled match against King David Linksfield girls on February 3, 2026.

From that moment on, the anti-Israel lobby has been hard at working trying to turn a tennis match into an international propaganda tool.

It has not let go. The lobby appears determined to keep the “affair” moving in its desired direction, supported by extremist, Islamist, jihadist lobbies.

That’s despite both schools moving in the opposite direction. Both have gone past claims of antisemitism and back to their core business of educating children.

Roedean has resisted the lobby’s undisguised fury at its public (though prompted) written apology to King David on February 12. The apology does not admit antisemitism but acknowledges the “deep hurt” to the Jewish community.

Roedean showed good faith by promising to reschedule the match, which further infuriated the anti-Israel lobby. If Roedean honours its promise, the lobby will likely use it to maximise political capital for its own agendas.

The drivers of those agendas are not difficult to spot.

These include barely disguised calls for ongoing sports boycotts of King David schoolchildren; revival of claims of “genocide” and “baby killers” against Israel and Jews who support it, with “apartheid” slurs thrown in for good measure; and support for South Africa’s ill-fated, ongoing ICJ (International Criminal Court) lawsuit against Israel on a charge of genocide in Gaza.

Ironically, South Africa lodged the case against Israel just weeks after a genuine genocide attempt by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Underpinning these drivers is the anti-Israel lobby’s pathological anti-Zionism.

Legal and historical scholars say that anti-Zionism is a modern mutation of the ancient virus of Jew hatred known euphemistically in modern English as antisemitism.

It is also the lifeblood of the supposedly “pro-Palestinian” movement.

I say, “supposedly” because of the Orwellian manipulation of language lobbyists indulge in to justify support for groups that clearly don’t give a fig for Palestinians.

Hamas is a prime example. Video evidence shows it diverting humanitarian aid in Gaza into its own coffers, thereby worsening poverty and starvation, and shooting civilians who try to access the aid.

It also routinely uses public executions to stifle dissent and oppress marginalised groups, including LGBTQ+ people.

Hamas does not typically employ the theatrical “rooftop execution” method associated with extremist groups, such as ISIS. Instead, it maintains a systemic environment of criminalisation, torture and extrajudicial killing of LGBTQ+ individuals in Gaza.

It boasts of using its own people as “human shields” in conflict zones. On October 26, 2023, Hamas’s Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh declared in a Lebanese TV broadcast:

“The blood of the women, children and elderly … we are the ones who need this blood, so it awakens within us the revolutionary spirit …(and) resolve.”

Call me picky but I can think of adjectives other than “revolutionary” and “resolve” to describe spirits requiring such infusion to keep going.

Diabolical springs to mind.

I can also think of choice descriptions for Jews who voluntarily support groups that openly desire their destruction.

Unsurprisingly, among the first local anti-Zionist voices supporting Roedean and vilifying King David, was Jo Bluen, the public face of the bizarrely named South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP).

**Bluen Morally Bankrupt**. A Hamas admirer, Jo Bluen celebrates the death of Israelis soldiers killed in Gaza by inserting inverted red triangle in her social media posts. (Source Instagram. jo bluen (@jozi_blue) • Instagram photos and videos)

I say, “bizarrely named”, because there’s something unhinged about Jews voluntarily supporting groups whose goal is the same as Nazis intended for them in Germany.

The Nazis wanted to make their country “Judenrein” or “Judenfrei” – “cleansed” or “free” of Jews, according to the National Socialist term applied in the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”. Hamas and cohorts work towards the same goal extended to the entire world.

The best Bluen says about Zionism is that it is “a fascist project” and “settler colonialisation”. The worst? She accuses King David of being “prepared to sacrifice its own children at the altar of a wild and violent zionism (sic) that is deeply racist and misogynistic.”

No matter: to anti-Israel lobbyists, facts are less important than rhetoric and theatrics.

In a September 2025 article in an online magazine ironically titled Critical Thinking, Bluen accuses “Israel and its accomplices” of having “murdered nearly 700,000 Palestinians in the course of the genocide in under two years since 2023, half a million of whom are children.”

Even Hamas’s own thumb-sucked figures on the civilian and child casualty rates since October 7 never reached such stratospheric heights.

At most, the terror group claimed around 70,000 civilian deaths in Gaza. Its Ministry of Social Development proved that false with its plans in early February 2026 to pay stipends to “50,000 widowed families.” In other words, to the widows of 50,000 combatants!

Bluen, like Hamas, continues a practice that the Nazis introduced of distinguishing Jews and other groups in concentration camps with inverted red triangles. Hamas uses the symbol to identify Jewish and Israeli targets. Bluen adopted it on a social media post celebrating the deaths of IDF soldiers in Gaza.

Anti-Israel lobbyists often resort to pulling the race card when all rational argument fails them. Bluen is no exception.

She calls Zionism a “patriarchal white supremacy” and claims that King David deliberately “targeted” Roedean’s (first black) principal Phuti Mogale. That was probably news to Roedean’s leadership and Mogale, who reportedly resigned rather than waited to be pushed.

Bluen and others also criticise King David schools as bastions of Jewish exclusivity, yet not all its pupils are Jewish. King David Linksfield’s high school’s head girl in 2024 was a Chinese girl and not from a Jewish background. King David schools routinely accepted black children who were not allowed to attend state schools during the apartheid era.

On the global stage, “pro-Palestinian” Islamist activists continue to amplify voices supporting Roedean’s tennis boycott of King David.

New York-based journalist Azad Essa writes for Middle East Eye, an independent UK-based digital channel focusing on the Middle East, North Africa and the broader Muslim world.

**Mad Hatter**. Throwing his proverbial hat onto the court, former Al Jazeera, now New York-based journalist Azad Essa writing for Middle East Eye, praised the Roedean girls for refusing to play their King David counterparts accusing the Jewish Day School of “supporting apartheid and cheerleading a genocide.”

In an article on February 21, he frames the cancelled tennis match as a heroic, moral stand by the Roedean girls. He claims that they rightly refused to play King David schoolgirls because the school was “supporting apartheid and cheerleading a genocide.”

That’s a textbook study in the collective-guilt argument the anti-Israel lobby uses to demonise and delegitimise Israel.

Essa describes the King David school network as a tool of “settler-colonial ideology.” He quotes a parent comparing playing tennis at King David to “playing against a school still flying the apartheid flag.”

By this logic, Jewish schoolchildren are inherently complicit in the actions of a foreign state thousands of kilometres away simply by attending a particular school.

That’s not political activism. It’s the targeted exclusion of a specific community on the basis of their religion and cultural affiliation. It clearly violates South Africa’s Constitution.

In the South African Daily Maverick on February 25, Kalim Rajab, a Johannesburg-based, Oxford-educated corporate executive, plays the “Framing Game”. Rajab calls King David Linksfield’s “victory” over Roedean “pyrrhic”, with a “chilling” effect rather one that achieves due accountability.

He omits from his potted biography that he is Chair of the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF). The HSF honours one of South Africa’s most prominent and beloved Jewish anti-apartheid activists, who was also a committed supporter of Israel throughout her life.

Rajab writes, as one critic puts it, with the “measured cadence” of someone who has learned the most effective way to delegitimise a community’s experience of discrimination – by calling it a “strategy.”

He describes King David supporters as “successful in their strategy of framing the narrative as one where the school and its pupils were victimised because of their religion as opposed to any overt political ideology espoused.”

He uses the word “strategy” strategically – to transform victim into perpetrator and a factual description of the “affair” into an allegation of manipulation. Facts that emerged from leaked phone recordings between Roedean’s Mogale and King David head Lorraine Srage tell a different story.

Rajab then does something disturbing: he offers a tactical manual for future boycotts of King David schools and not just on sports fields. These could involve “silent peaceful protests by visiting schoolchildren, including wearing armbands, pins or bodywear to show Palestinian solidarity,” he helpfully writes.

Pupils could “conscientiously object to taking part in interactions with King David.”

Really? A columnist in a prominent South African publication advising on more effective boycotts of a Jewish school? What if columnists in mainstream South African publications published blueprints for boycotting Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Chinese or other schools?

Other fringe, local and usual-suspects ranged against King David include the Media Review Network’s Iqbal Jassat and the ironically titled Jewish Democratic Initiative (JDI).

All show predictable, monomaniacal obsession with one issue, one state and one tribe.

What escapes them all is that Zionists are not cheerleaders for war or participants in any “evil”, as British writer, theologian and “English gentile” Mark Pickles puts it.

Pickles similarly tears through the “genocide” narrative with consummate ease. It is, after all, a modern iteration of the medieval “blood libel” – that Jews murder non-Jewish children (traditionally Christians) to use their blood for baking matzah during Passover.

Pickles argues that the genocide claim is “as irrational as it is evil…highly damaging and dangerous.” It aims to justify “the murder of Jews, and all attempts – economic, diplomatic, and kinetic – to destroy the sole Jewish nation.”

Groups and organisations with a notoriously long history of antisemitism continue to push the claim with impunity. Yet the “true perpetrators of genocidal intent,” he says, are Islamist factions whose founding documents explicitly call for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews.

The premise on which the anti-Israel, “pro-Palestinian” lobby hope to sustain the Roedean “affair” is that Zionist Jews are “complicit in genocide“.

That’s a shaky, dangerous premise.

As Canadian anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein warns, it is a way to mark Jews as “fundamentally stained and evil.” Anti-Zionists aim to “escalate all accusations toward the genocide libel… until it hardens into a global consensus,” Louis-Klein writes.

In this “new doctrine”, the Holocaust is no longer remembered but is “overwritten” to serve contemporary agendas.

This linguistic capture is likely what anti-Israel lobbyists hope will sustain the Roedean “affair” in their direction. The “quiet, student-led”, principled stance they claim to want will be the implementation of a hateful dogma against Jews.

It means that the time has come, as New York Times Jewish columnist Bret Stephens argues, for Jewish communities to end their “perpetual apology machine” in pro-Israel advocacy.

**Change Gears**. *New York Times* Jewish columnist Bret Stephens urges Jewish communities to shift from “perpetual” apology mode to “unapologetic Jewish confidence”.

He calls for a shift toward “unapologetic Jewish confidence” and “moral clarity” over Israel’s existence and right to defend itself.

The shift is now more necessary than ever because, as British-Jewish columnist and Man Booker Prize-winning author, Howard Jacobson said:

“Jews will never be forgiven for the Holocaust.”

Feature picture:
Empty Court. In early February, when a group of girls from Jewish King David High School in Johannesburg travelled to nearby Roedean Girls High School girls’ school for a tennis match, they found no one at the courts.

About the writer:

ANC AMNESIA

As South African leadership indulges in state-sponsored antisemitism, it should remember the Jewish state’s unique contribution in the transition to post-Apartheid.

By David E. Kaplan

Attending from Israel the South African Limmud Conference in Johannesburg in 2016, I recall a presentation by the then Israeli ambassador to South Africa, Authur Lenk. He fended off questions from a deeply troubled audience about a rumor of El Al reducing its weekly flights between Israel and South Africa. There were animated exchanges reflecting how concerned people were. It would not only complicate travel arrangements for a community that has many family members living in Israel but it would also send a “depressing and distressing message” to a strong Zionist community of increasing isolation. The fear was as much psychological as geographic.

The anxiety in 2016 over flight reduction would end up in March 2024 of El Al suspending all flights to South Africa.

This termination of Israel’s national carrier flights that began in October 29, 1950, proved a metaphor for the flight path of diplomatic relations between South Africa and Israel, culminating with South Africa recent expulsion of Israel’s top diplomat in the country under the pretext of “violating diplomatic norms“. South Africa, who welcomes terrorists and their sponsors – Hamas and Iran – with red carpet fawning, declared Israel’s chargé d’affaires Ariel Seidman, persona non grata and gave him 72 hours to leave the country.

“Zionism” has become anathema to this South African government and its President, Cyril Ramaphosa, who probably is unaware that the South African Zionist Federation was established in 1898, the second country after the UK to do so, and one year after the first Zionist Conference in Basel in 1897. It predates the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948, and the establishment of South Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, in 1912.

AGE OF TRANSITION

All this I was pondering from my home in Kfar Saba, north of Tel Aviv and thought while South Africa offends, insults, demonizes, accuses and kicks out Israel’s diplomats, I thought back in time and to a place only a few kilometers north of where I live, to a complex called Beit Berl and the enriching contribution it made to the emerging new South Africa of the 1980 and 1990s.

Back then, if you by chance were to stroll along the stone paths of the wooded Beit Berl Campus outside of Kfar Saba in central Israel, you would have been surprised to overhear conversations in Xhosa, Tswana, Zulu or Afrikaans. Participants of every shade of colour from South Africa’s “Rainbow Nation” were attending a unique ‘Community Development & Leadership Training’ programme. Why unique?

Well, there was no other country in the world – besides Israel – providing this essential training for South Africa’s future!

**Learning to Lead**. Aspiring leaders in the new South Africa with local South African resident, Janine Gelly at Beit Berl in the 1990s. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)

SECRET STUFF

That it has been doing so without any fuss or fanfare may explain why so few Israelis or South Africans knew about it then or would even know about it today. Then it was a closely kept secret – a programme running since the dark days of Apartheid.

On the day in 1997 that a delegation of the Kfar Saba branch of the South African Zionist Federation in Israel (Telfed) visited the campus, the atmosphere was vibrant. Met with traditional South African dance and music, the 28th group of participants from South Africa was celebrating the near completion of their leadership course with a farewell cocktail party. Among the graduates of the Beit Berl programme at that time were over two dozen mayors of South African towns and cities including the present mayors of the country’s two largest cities, Johannesburg and Cape Town, as well as those from smaller towns like Randburg, George, and Grahamstown. Adding to that list was Port Alfred’s mayor, Eric Khuluwe who addressed us:

“Port Alfred is growing at an enormous pace as people are streaming in from the rural areas, seeking employment. The job situation is bleak and we are finding it an uphill battle to provide basic civic services. We have sixty-one local councils in my district and we need to involve as many people on the local level as possible in decision-making. This is the policy of the ANC government and is indicative of the nature of our democracy that empowers people to determine their own destiny. The Beit Berl three-week intensive course was excellent; it widened my horizons and provided practical guidance on team-management. I feel far better equipped to return to my city now and impact on its future.”

**Campus Contribution**. Beit Berl’s graduates that comprise almost one-fifth of all Israeli secular public-school teachers – Jewish and Arab – and hold prominent positions in Israeli national and local government, also include amongst its alumni 24 mayors of South African towns and citiesincluding the past mayors of the country’s two largest cities, Johannesburg and Cape Town, as well as those from smaller towns like Randburg, George, and Grahamstown.

From 1986 until that evening in 1997, over twenty South African Members of Parliament, as well as hundreds of local government officials and ministers of provincial councils had passed through Beit Berl. Patrick Adams, in charge of Emergency & Disaster Management for the Cape Metropolitan Council in Cape Town, had this to say:

“The course was very professional. I am in charge of Reconstruction & Development programmes in the Western Cape region, and my team is currently immersed in running numerous housing and community projects. Not only have I learned a new dimension of problem solving, but I have also been exposed to the problems in Israel and enjoy a greater understanding of the issues here.”

UNDERCOVER OPERATION

What would seem inconceivable today in 2026 seemed routine back then 1997. Fascinated, I began to research on the genesis of this wonderful programme of South Africa/Israel cooperation and enriching partnership and learned that it all began in the undercover world of the early 1980s when clandestine contacts took place between progressive Israelis and the anti-Apartheid forces in South Africa. The Israeli powerhouse behind the project was Prof. Shimshon Zelniker, who masterfully manoeuvered between South Africans, Americans and Israelis, a fascinating amalgam of colourful characters that included Hollywood stars, Jewish politicos, civil rights activists, freedom fighters and donors. A professor of political science at Beit Berl and UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), Zelnicker, was a member of Shimon Peres’ advisory team in 1982.

“I was given responsibility for third-world policies, and my first mission was making positive contact with leaders of the struggle in South Africa,” said Zeiniker.

COLOURFUL CHARACTERS

The players in this unfolding theatre of clandestine operations spread across three continents. In South Africa, Clive Menell of Anglovaal paved the way by bringing on board Archbishop Benjamin Tutu. Soon other internationally renowned personalities like Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden joined the circle, as did Ethel Kennedy, who twisted the arm of a reluctant Tutu into meeting with the Israelis. This was the turning point, for what followed was a secret meeting in South Africa between a delegation of Israelis representing anti-Apartheid sentiment and prominent Blacks, such as Albertina Sisulu and Ntatho and Sally Motlana.

**Charismatic Characters**. In the inner circle that inspired the Beit Berl project were Jane Fonda and husband Tom Hayden (above), Ethal Kennedy, the American human rights advocate and widow of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy as well as in South Africa, Clive Menell of Anglovaal and Archbishop Benjamin Tutu.

“We came out of the meeting with a clear mandate for action. Armed with an understanding that there would be no political manifestos and no pictures of politicians kissing each other, but a programme geared solely to assisting in the struggle, we approached Jews in the United States for support. In Israel, Yossi Beilin, Alon Liel, Ruth Baron and myself, among others, spearheaded the programme to be called the Israeli and South African Centres for International Cooperation” (ICIC) and would be based at Beit Berl.”

CLANDESTINE RECRUITMENT

“The early days saw us,” explained Zelniker, “pounding the pavements in South Africa for some twenty months recruiting support and participants. The success of the operation was predicated on our ability to keep it under wraps.”

Asked how that was possible, Zelniker replied:

“You know how porcupines make love? Very carefully.”

The first group of twenty arrived in 1986 representing three constituencies:

– Soweto,

– the Cape Coloured community and

– Women’s groups.

“We brought in the Histadrut (General Federation of Labour) to help in the initial training,” said Zelniker. “After the success of that first group, it was easier to obtain more funding. We approached very prominent, radically anti-Israel, Black leaders in the U.S. and received their blessing. Individual Jews donated large sums of money in the full knowledge that they would receive no recognition, and the American Government very quietly also assisted us in funding.”

Zelniker’s shuttling to-and-fro between Israel and South Africa was not without risk.

“My associate Ruth Baron was also detained. There were many ways the South African Authorities could have derailed the programme and they made it crystal clear that physical intimidation could be escalated. We were worried about the graduates being whisked away on their return from Israel for interrogation and intimidation, which on occasion did happen.”

Despite all the harassment, including infiltration by the South African Bureau of State Security (BOSS), the programme flourished. At one point in the late 1980s, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times bumped into a group of Black trainees in Tel Aviv. He thought he had uncovered the scoop of the century:

‘ANC and AZAPO forge secret ties with Apartheid’s ally!’

“He telephoned me and said, ‘this is sensational. What’s it all about?” When I explained to him the need for secrecy, I thankfully managed to persuade him that the programme and South Africa’s future were far more important than his ego. He dropped the story.”

THE NEW AGE

It was only a year or so after Mandela’s release in 1990 that the programme’s profile entered the public domain.

“In 1993, we introduced a rural community development programme in the former homelands, and it was then that we came out into the open,” revealed Zelniker.

The participants had such interesting stories revealing the enormity of the challenges they faced in South Africa. Thabisile Msezane from Boksburg, who ran a daycare centre related that:

“…in the Boksburg area there were no schools and children loitered aimlessly in the streets wasting away their lives. Each day I noticed a little boy roaming around the shopping centre where I bought milk. He would ask me for money to buy food. I thought:

“What kind of future does this child have? As I was starting a day care centre, I wanted to enroll this kid and so went in search of his parents. I was directed to a shabby compound behind a farmhouse, where I found them. While speaking to the boy’s father, the child spread the word amongst his friends telling them he was going to school. By the end of my conversation, I had enrolled another twelve children. Today I have 150 pupils, some of whom walk a distance of twelve kilometres to get to the school.”

Trevor Ngwame, a councilor from Johannesburg, was all praise for Israel’s ‘Beit Berl Programme’.

“We are dealing with the legacy of apartheid – no jobs, lack of housing and poor education. My approach is to offer people hope, and motivate them to organize themselves. We have seen how successful Israelis have been in overcoming insurmountable odds. Like South Africa, Israel has never been short of problems and yet it manages to advance amazingly. This is what we want to do. Of course, Israel’s problems are very different, and in the South African context we must ensure that people see a light at the end of the tunnel. I am not naïve to believe that matters are going to fall into place overnight. While the government must deliver the goods, the people also must rise up to the challenge and they need the tools to it. This programme has been a tremendous help in this regard.”

Reflecting on his role, Zelniker’s expressed to me:

“As a Jew, I have learnt that liberation is not simply about taking the people out of the ghetto. It means taking the ghetto out of the people. To say that I am proud of this programme would be an understatement.”

In the years that followed, this writer, together with fellow South Africans living in Israel became actively involved in the project offering home hospitality and engaging with the participants. One of the South Africans living in Israel taking a keen interest in the project was architect and artist Prof. Arthur Goldreich, who years earlier had been recruited by Nelson Mandela to join uMkhonto weSizwe, the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress. Arrested during a raid at Lilliesleaf Farm, he would later escape from the Old Fort prison in Johannesburg, flee to Israel where he became a prominent figure at the famed Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem. Such were the personalities that were involved in the Beit Berl project that had as its primary goal – to help the new South Africa emerge from the darkness of Apartheid.

**Pulsating Partnership**. Seen here with a gathering of South African participants on the Leadership and Community Development programme are Arthur Goldreich former member of uMkhonto weSizwe, the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress (bottom left) and local South Africans Hilary Kaplan (holding flag) and Vivianne Abelsohn (right bottom). (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)

Today, in 2026, I reflect back to those encouraging days of partnership as I observe what is tragically playing out presently in South Africa. Rather than focus on uplifting its people after three decades after Apartheid, the South African government is focused on:

– falsely accusing Israel of genocide

– expelling Israel’s diplomats

– sabotaging Israel’s offers of its expertise in agriculture and water management.

**Toasting Enriching Tomorrows**. South African Ambassador to Israel, Frank Land and wife Maatchen (top left) at a cocktail party with Prof. Arthur Goldreich, initiator and head of the unique Israel leadership programme for South Africans Prof. Shimshon Zelniker, and local South African Janine Gelley with participants from across South Africa at Beit Berl in the 1990s.

Worst of all it is fueling antisemitism like what transpired earlier this month when Johannesburg’s prestigious private girls’ school, Roedean, cancelled a scheduled tennis match against players from King David – a Jewish day school. It was revealed that some parents at Roedean argued “that the school should align with the government’s anti-Israel stance.” Little wonder what is unfolding has been characterized as “State-sponsored antisemitism.”

We have seen how and where unchecked vitriol leads to – the murderous attack at a synagogue in Manchester in October 2025 and the massacre on Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach on the 14 December. Can anybody say they would be surprised if a terrorist against Jews was to occur in South Africa?

All this I reflected on and wondered where are all those graduates of Kfar Saba’s Beit Berl Programme today? What contribution did they make and what impact did they have on the lives of fellow South Africans?

And what would they think of how their country has so turned against the Jewish state that had voluntarily helped them to help South Africa and remains ready to help?

**Full Steam Ahead**. Young and ambitious to lead their people, where are these South African Beit Berl graduates of the 1990s today and what impact did their experience in Israel have on their future?

Feature picture: Participants from South Africa on the Community Development & Leadership Training programme at Beit Berl, Israel with members of the South African community and South African embassy staff in 1997. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)

THE SUBVERSIVE HATERS

Roedean no-show at scheduled tennis match against Jewish Day School exposes deafening silence in mainstream South African society to antisemitism.

By Craig Snoyman

Johannesburg’s elite Roedean School cancelled an inter-school tennis match against King David School Linksfield

Something that seemed superficially normal, but by scratching the surface the puss of festering religious bigotry oozed out. The match wasn’t cancelled because of rain or injury or a genuine scheduling conflict. It was cancelled because a clique of parents demanded their daughters not play against Jews. This was not whispered bigotry; it was explicit and Roedean was too scared to deal with its internal demon. Roedean’s head of senior school, Phuti Mogale, in a telephone call to King David’s principal Lorraine Srage was candid – some parents were applying “significant pressure” not to play “a Jewish school.” This was religious and ethnic discrimination in its purest form — Jewish children excluded from a children’s sporting event solely because of who they are and what they believe.

Under any honest reading of the Constitution this is unlawful. Mogale did not know how to deal with the issue. Whether she should have been left alone to solve the problem reflects very poorly on the Roedean school board that had not grappled with this intolerance and showed no desire to rebuke the parents urging this boycott. The real culprits, the bigots, would remain completely untouched:

no identification
no sanction
no public shaming
no mandatory re-education, nothing!

They, as part of Roedean’s fee-paying ecosystem, would remain protected while the school pretended the problem is administrative. Money talks, but bi money talks louder!

Roedean conducted itself shamefully. In two separate, statements, crafted days apart, and published by Flow Communications — a supposedly sophisticated PR firm that should know better — the school peddled outright fabrications: “prior school commitments,” “compulsory academic workshops,” “scheduling clashes,” “miscommunication.”

**Go with the Flow**. Sophisticated South African PR firm, **Flow Communications** facilitates antisemitism by pedalling outright fabrications by Roedene of “prior school commitments,” “compulsory academic workshops,” “scheduling clashes,” and “miscommunication.”

The second release on 10 February even wrapped itself in virtue-signalling piety: “We will place the best interests of young people first.” It promised an “independent review” and “facilitator” for vague “student concerns,” all while studiously avoiding the non-kosher elephant in the room. These were not clumsy errors. The audio clip of the telephone conversation between the two school heads has gone viral. These statements deliberately gaslighted the Jewish community, buying time, shielding the real perpetrators and deceived the South African public, casting aspersions on King David and indirectly the entire Jewish community. Flow allowed itself to participate in laundering antisemitism using nice polished corporate language. This was not benign PR, this was Bell Pottinger style propaganda. It tapped South Africa’s religious sensitivities, in suggesting that King David, the Jewish school, was lying. It disseminated falsehoods, it resulted in public social media attacks on the Jews and Zionists, and it ignored the humiliation of the young Jewish tennis players, and amplified the school’s denial.

The truth was on the audio clip between the two school heads. The statements were indisputably false. And at this stage Roedean’s house of cards collapsed. A reluctant school board was finally forced to take the first steps in confronting religious intolerance. A grudging written apology admitted that its actions were “deeply hurtful to the Jewish community” but studiously avoided any suggestion that its actions had been antisemitic. Phuti Mogale was under the bus – probably pushed but officially resigning. But in reality, she was the only person who tried to address this discrimination. She didn’t invent the excuses. She was not part of the deception. Somebody had to take the fall and she was the convenient scapegoat. An unwitting high profile non-Jewish African victim of an antisemitic incident, not of her making.

**Thrown under the Bus**. School principal Phuti Mogale (above) was the only person – says the writer – who tried to address the discrimination. “ She didn’t invent the excuses… was not part of the deception,” but was the “convenient scapegoat,” who resigned – whether voluntarily or pushed.

Let us not forget the deafening silence of the guardians of equality enforcement. The Gauteng Department of Education and the national Department of Basic Education — lightning-fast when a racist WhatsApp message from white pupils surfaces — didn’t utter a single word.

-No statement.

-No investigation

-No precautionary suspensions

-No public statements

-No condemnations

-No equality court referrals ISASA, the independent schools’ body that was just as culpable. It too, remained mute.

**Sounds of Silence**. The writer notes that while the Gauteng Department of Education is customarily quick to respond to racist WhatsApp messaging from white pupils, it was silent with no statement or condemnation of Roedean’s antisemitic conduct towards King David School.

All the parties one expects to know better were on show, and displaying selective tolerance of antisemitism. The pattern is both unmistakable and shameful. South African institutions normalised the exclusion of its Jewish citizens at the expense of “Palestine solidarity”. The South African Rugby Union banned Tel Aviv Heat from participating in a tournament in 2023. Cricket South Africa stripped David Teeger of his Under 19 captaincy because of Jewish identity and views. Universities like UCT have blacklisted Israeli academics. The climate of passive discrimination has created environments were Jews conceal their identities and opinions to avoid harassment. Forced declarations of anti-Zionism to join groups are now en vogue. What is framed as “principled politics” is really rank discrimination. But the principled politics of boycotting has been seen to work, and the Roedean parents simply followed the national playbook.

King David Linksfield and Lorraine Srage have shown what actual moral courage looks like: they recorded the call with consent, refused to accept lies, demanded truth, and ultimately accepted an apology so the girls could play tennis without politics poisoning the court. On the other hand, Roedean, its school board, Flow Communications, the bigoted parents, the mute authorities all displayed a spineless cowardice and a disregard for what is right. This cannot be accepted as ‘politics as normal’. This is discrimination by another name. Religiously intolerant action was nipped at school-level, but the rot will spread.

**Antisemitism Exposed**. The recorded conversation between the heads of the two schools revealed the truth from the lies leading to in the writer’s words, the collapse of “Roedean’s house of cards.”

The Roedean incident is not an outlier, it is not an aberration. It is the logical outcome of a society that has decided some bigotries are more equal than others. Until parents face consequences, until PR firms are held to account for lies, until school boards stop tolerating intolerant organisations that claim to teach about religious tolerance, until educational institutions take strong constitutional stands for what is right rather than acquiesce to the ethnic and religious prejudices of fee-paying parents and until authorities enforce equality without fear or favour, until people and organisations stand up and oppose this, the guarantee of South African human dignity is worthless. Dignity should not be negotiable – and that applies to Jews as well.

About the writer:

Craig Snoyman is a practising advocate in South Africa.

Category: International Relations

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