A discourse with the editor reveals failures and fears to take on Islamic fundamentalism.

By Lawrence Nowosenetz

The Daily Friend (DFr) is a publication of the South African Institute of Race Relations, a proud an distinguished organisation established almost 100 years ago which has always stood for promoting democracy, freedom and rule of law. In short, classical liberalism. 

In a recent text conversation with Michael Morris (MM) the editor of DFr I drew his attention to the statement of Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, head of Gift of the Givers who was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Cape Town.  This subject was the basis of an article by the writer:  University of Cape Town’s ultimate degradation – honouring Dr Sooliman (Lay of the Land 31 March 2026).

Dr Sooliman who is widely lauded as a great humanitarian expressed some extreme views which are quite irreconcilable with democracy and freedom. In a public interview on 7 October 2024, being the first anniversary of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, he 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.”

Islamic law is quite different to Western law in that whereas democracy separates the state and its legal authority from religion, Koranic law is theocratic and makes no such distinction. The supreme authority is a religious leader whose authority cannot be questioned or challenged by legal restraints.  Sharia, the legal framework of Koranic law does not protect individual rights as understood in liberal democracy. It is repressive and authoritarian. Women and homosexuals are oppressed and discriminated against. Apostacy is punishable by death.  Historically non-Muslims were given the status of Dhimmi in Muslim countries where they were treated as inferiors, had to pay a special tax and had to dress in a certain way to identify themselves as non-Muslims. This is where the Star of David attached to the clothing of Jews originated. These practices are no longer followed but indicate the fundamentalism of Sharia law. Today Iran and Afghanistan are examples of Islamist repressive authoritarian theocratic rule. 

Mr Morris was invited by the writer to express whether this statement of Dr Sooliman was in accordance with democracy and the rule of law in South Africa. He was not in agreement. He was not prepared to say that the statement of Dr Sooliman was a clear expression of rejection of South African law. His opposition to censuring Dr Sooliman for his adherence to a theocratic ideology and rejection of man-made law are worth examining in order to expose the serious flaws. At the outset Mr Morris endorses a dispassionate approach and in a spirit of enquiry, whether he lives up to that desirable standard is in doubt:   

MM: “The statement was short and cannot be taken on face value.  The true test of what he meant would be to interview Dr Sooliman to obtain clarity or provide further context.”

There is a profound moral principal involved being that people are accountable for their deeds. Speech is included. More so when the statement is made publicly by a public figure such as Dr Sooliman. It is perfectly proper and widely practised to comment on face value of what prominent people say.  Importantly, although he made this statement in 2024, despite countless interviews he has given since then, he has never modified or repudiated a single word.   Strangely he has never been asked what he meant. No one seems to have misunderstood his message. His statement was sufficiently comprehensive to confirm that he rejects laws of man. His language is plain and unambiguous.   Shorter statements than his such as political slogans have traction and are usually well understood without any embellishment.      

MM: “It is unfair to single out the “fervent religiosity” used by Dr Sooliman as it is much like the views by Jewish and Christian fundamentalists who declare they owe fealty only to God and no other. There have been comments to this effect made by readers of the DFr.  Are they also subversive of the very values UCT should be safeguarding?”

There is a fundamental difference between the fundamentalist readers of DFr and Dr Sooliman. He is a public figure who received a high honour for his humanitarianism. This is unique and unprecedented. No leader, whether fundamentalist or otherwise has publicly rejected the law of South Africa in the democratic era. The last time that happened was during   Apartheid.

Islamism is radically different to any Jewish or Christian “fervent religiosity”. The ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, political Islam, which Dr Sooliman supports goes much further. It promotes using violence in the form of Jihad to establish domination and power in non-Muslim countries. Dr Sooliman, through Gift of the Givers made donations to Al Aqsa Foundation, an organisation forming part of the Union of Good, a coalition of Islamic charities supporting Hamas’ infrastructure, an organisation on the US State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations.  The chairman of Union of Good was Sheik Yusef Al-Qaradawi a high-ranking member of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2011, Dr Sooliman received an award from Sheik Yusef Al- Qaradawi for his service to Palestine.   Al-Qaradawi is known as the key figure in shaping the concept of violent jihad and the one who allowed carrying out terror attacks, including suicide bombing attacks, against Israeli citizens, the US forces in Iraq, and some of the Arab regimes. He was banned from entering some Western and Arab countries. A true humanitarian would have distanced himself from Al-Qaradawi as many Muslim leaders have done. 

Certainly, no religious Jewish or Christian leader in South Africa has publicly defied democratic South African law in the name of religion. If indeed people of any faith have made similar public religious claims to Dr Sooliman, they ought to be wholly and immediately censured. Such statements violate the raison d’etre of democracy: The social contract which has underpinned liberal democracy for centuries. This is worthy of guarding by custodians of freedom such as The Daily Friend .    

MM: “Not only the Koran, but the Torah and Bible are not repositories of human rights either” 

At best a half truth. Indeed, there are parts of the Jewish and Christian Bible such as acceptance of slavery that are today abhorrent.  However, modern political notions of justice and individual liberty owe much to Jewish and Christian teachings, rather than the Koran. The US Constitution is a prime example of the influence of Christianity.  Koranic law places submission to Allah as a foundational value whereas the same cannot be said of Judaism and Christianity with regard to the relationship with God.  Judaism teaches a holy covenant and Christianity teaches love of God through Jesus Christ.  Islamic theocracy is inconsistent with the rule of the law of man.

MM: “Preserving liberty cannot be advanced by curbing liberty. Freedom of speech must be tolerated in order to counter intolerant ideas.”  

In principle, yes, subject to Popper below. There is no suggestion of curbing the freedom of speech of Dr Sooliman. His speech is however subject to censure. The  DFr  should be in the forefront of declaring Dr Sooliman’s statement inappropriate and in clear conflict with Western democracy and liberty.  Karl Popper, the renown Austrian-born British philosopher to whom I referred in our conversation, proposed the paradox of tolerance:

“We should therefore claim in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”  (My emphasis)

The Open Society and its Enemies Vol 1: K.R Popper (Routlege 1966) p 211 

Dr Sooliman’s statement has not reached the criminal level but his Islamist theocratic views are clearly on the trajectory of intolerance.  To repeat: He should be censured, not prevented from expressing himself freely.  The South African Constitution itself recognises limitations to basic rights. Section 36 provides that the Bill of Rights “for limitation to the extent that it is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity equality and freedom …”  There is no room for repressive Sharia authority in South African law. 

MM: “Confronting him with semi-facts, innuendo, guilt by association and so on, only risks making him seem strong and you seem weak.” 

A somewhat vague, personal and unsubstantiated remark unworthy of dispassionate discourse. The confrontation is based on the ipse dixit (exact words) of Dr Sooliman. There is nothing semi factual or innuendo (suggestion).  His Islamist Muslim Brotherhood affiliations are on public record and indeed his own biography makes that plain. It is the duty of responsible people to call out dangers to democracy – no contest of strength is involved. Just accurate and reasonable analysis to enlighten and inform. 

MM: “The meaning given to Dr Sooliman’s statement by the writer was convenient to his preconceptions.” 

This is an ad hominem, personal and unsupported attack on the objectivity and the careful, fact-based assessment by the writer.  The ideological background of Dr Sooliman is well documented and this includes beyond any question his adherence to the Muslim Brotherhood teachings as well as his support of Hamas. These are not preconceptions or subjective opinions of the writer but well documented background history on the worldview and political stance of Dr Sooliman. No reasonable person can conclude otherwise. 

IN CONCLUSION

On 27 October 2025 Dr Sooliman declared to certain UCT interested parties:

“… 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.”

An illiberal proposal which raises serious problems not merely because of its injustice and unconstitutionality, but also because it would require man-made law and enforcement to put into effect. The same legal structure Dr Sooliman says he does not need. It also is problematic because it is intrinsically anti- humanitarian and in violation of basic human rights.  It does not behove a person who is bestowed with a prestigious honour for his services to society to make such dishonourable remarks. 

Fortunately, South Africa has principled leaders prepared to speak out in upholding democracy. Recently convicted and sentenced EFF political leader Julius Malema made threatening and disparaging remarks about the prosecution and judiciary. This too cannot be tolerated.

“At a time when South Africa continues to confront significant challenges within its criminal justice system, it is important that leaders act responsibly and uphold the institutions designed to protect citizens. Accountability must be accepted with dignity, and disagreements must be addressed within the framework of the law. The rule of law is not negotiable. It is the foundation upon which our democracy stands. Undermining it, through reckless and unfounded attacks on the Judiciary, places that foundation at risk, and with it, the rights and freedoms of all South Africans.

Statement issued by Adv. Glynnis Breytenbach MP, DA Spokesperson on Justice and Constitutional Development, 17 April 2026.    

It is troubling that an editor should go such lengths to find contrived and disingenuous arguments to evade the pressing and unavoidable reality that Dr Sooliman holds very hostile views on Western democracy and the rule of law which stand uncontradicted. The Daily Friend should protect freedom of expression by publishing the comments made by the writer about the views of Dr Sooliman as they are central to protection of democracy. At the very least, freedom of speech demands a frank and open publication of the concerns raised, no matter how unreasonable or disagreeable these are to Mr Morris.  The loser in stifling this crucial examination of Dr Sooliman’s language is the hard fought South African liberal democracy itself.

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.

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).

Concerned directors, who are family members, have  taken three fellow directors of the Mauerberger Foundation Fund (MFF) to court for alleged serious breach of fiduciary duty, deliberate deception and mismanagement.

By Marika Sboros

(Courtesy of BizNews where article first appeared)

In the quiet, wood-panelled world of South African philanthropy, the Mauerberger Foundation Fund (MFF) has long stood as a bastion of generational legacy and social justice.

That is set to change with an explosive, urgent filing in the Western Cape High Court on April 13, 2026, against three of the MFF’s five directors, including MFF Board Chair and Managing Director Dianna Yach, granddaughter of the Fund’s industrialist-philanthropist founder Morris Mauerberger.

The applicants are two of the MFF’s directors: Yach’s cousin, Steven Levy, a businessman and the Board’s longest-serving director, and her brother, Dr Derek Yach, a US-based medical doctor, public health specialist and World Health Organisation (WHO) veteran.

The interim relief the applicants seek, pending the final determination of the court proceedings, is Dianna Yach’s immediate suspension from the MFF Board, along with fellow directors Igshaan Higgins and Prof Brian Figaji. 

Higgins is an attorney and a director of De Klerk en Van Gend Incorporated. He is also founder-curator-director of the Cape Heritage Museum (also called the Cape Muslim and Slave Heritage Museum) that receives generous MFF funding.

Figaji is an engineer and Chancellor of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), has served on the UNESCO Executive Board and chaired the South African National Commission for UNESCO. He is Chair of the fishing company, I&J, a trustee of the WWF Nedbank Green Trust and Chair of the Abe Bailey Trust. 

As CPUT Chancellor, Figaji serves an institution that receives MFF funding for the “Brian Figaji Scholarship for Women in Engineering”.

Crucially, among the final relief sought is for the court to declare Yach, Higgins and Figaji “delinquent directors“. 

Under South African law, the declaration can be a professional death sentence. A delinquent director is disqualified from holding a directorship in any company, from being the trustee of a Trust or bearing office in a non-profit organisation (NPO) for at least seven years. 

In some cases, the declaration is for life. That legal “nuclear option” is reserved for those found guilty of gross abuse of position, wilful misconduct or a total breach of fiduciary trust. It brands them as a permanent threat to the public interest.

A leading precedent is the Pretoria High Court case of Dudu Myeni, former Chair of the South African Airways Board. She was declared a delinquent director for life in 2020 after a relentless legal challenge by OUTA (Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse), a civil-action NPO dedicated to challenging the abuse of authority and misappropriation of public funds. The order led to Myeni’s personal financial ruin. OUTA successfully pursued punitive legal costs against her personally, moving for sequestration when she failed to pay. 

In the present case, Kumesh Moodley, attorney for the applicants, says that an application to have directors declared delinquent under section 162 of the Companies Act is “a step of the most serious consequence.” His clients have not taken this action lightly or prematurely.

“They have taken it now because their evidence before the Court, and the gravity of what is at stake for the MFF and its beneficiaries, dictate that it is not a step open to them to avoid,” Moodley says.

“It is a step they are obliged to take in discharging their fiduciary duties as directors.”

For Figaji, these court proceedings are not the first relating to how he carries out his fiduciary duties. In the 2020 High Court case involving Marib Holdings (the Chapman’s Peak tollgate operator), valid legal grounds were proven for shareholders to sue Figaji and two fellow directors for a potential breach of fiduciary duties.  The court record established that the directors bypassed the Companies Act by paying themselves just over R2-million in fees in the 2017 financial year, without the required shareholder approval, leading the judge to rule that their actions must face legal scrutiny. Their attempt to use the Court to block a shareholder’s quest for accountability was unsuccessful. 

At the core of their application, Levy and Derek Yach’s extensive court filing of over 1100 pages is a battle for the legacy and soul of the institution that Mauerberger created in the late 1930s.

The MFF has funded community-based and academic institutions in South Africa, Israel and the West Bank in education, health and alleviation of poverty for more than 80 years.

The applicants claim that Dianna Yach has effectively seized control of and laid “siege” to the MFF, turning it into a personal “fiefdom”. They say it is one where compliance, procedure and corporate governance have been rendered relics of the past. 

No fewer than nine formal complaints have been made against her, Higgins and Figaji for breaches of the Companies Act and conduct inconsistent with the overriding duty to act in the MFF’s best interests. 

Levy and Derek Yach allege a deliberate, systematic “governance collapse” and “methodology of financial misrepresentation” behind more than 11 years of constitutional non-compliance with the MFF MOI (Memorandum of Incorporation).

The MOI records Mauerberger’s express wishes. It imposes a mandatory distribution regime requiring 50% of annual, distributable income to be allocated to Israeli entities, 25% to South African Jewish entities and 25% to South African non-Jewish entities. 

Despite this prerequisite, from 2014 the Israeli allocations were skewed, declining as low as 4% in 2017; 6% in 2021; 7% in 2022 and 5% in 2023. In 2024, Israeli beneficiaries made up 10% of total donations, which were just under R15- million. 

The applicants argue that the MFF lost its primary “moderating influence” in a matter of days when two experienced directors walked away in early 2025.

The papers reveal that brother Jonathan Yach resigned as a director with immediate effect on December 25, 2024, after 23 years of service. He stated that “recent events” had fundamentally challenged his perspective on how to best serve the MFF.

On January 3, 2025, independent director Adv Joe van Dorsten, a renowned author and tax law and Companies Act expert, resigned in direct response to Dianna Yach’s “personal criticism” and declaration that she had “lost trust” in him after he raised reasoned governance concerns about boardroom transparency.

The applicants allege that the resignations were not just administrative exits. They were the first documented casualties of a clear pattern where independent directors who dare to challenge the Chair are not heard but are instead driven out.

With these two directors out, Higgins, who sits on the UCT Law Clinic Advisory Board with Yach, was appointed to the Board.

In this way, court papers say that Yach formed a majority “voting bloc” with Higgins and Figaji that marginalised dissenting voices and insulated her conduct from any form of meaningful oversight. 

The MFF’s departure far from the MOI’s legacy path and non-compliance deepened, the applicants claim. 

They note that Figaji conceded in August 2025 that funding allocations were non-compliant with the MOI. He proposed returning the MFF to compliant status by 2028.  Yach and Higgins promptly supported and accepted the proposal. 

The applicants refer to this roadmap of “deliberate deviation” as a “programme of continued non-compliance, dressed in the language of gradualism.”  In contrast, Levy had proposed “a path to immediate restoration of the Founder’s wishes”.

They claim further that Yach has routinely ignored MOI’s mandates through “creative accounting” designed to provide a false appearance of constitutional compliance.

One example is the “intentional” miscategorisation of a controversial R1-million MFF donation in September 2025 to Gift of the Givers charity as an allocation to an Israeli beneficiary.  

Perhaps the single most explosive evidence in the filings is what the applicants call the “Ghost Email” fabrication. It marked the transition from a messy boardroom brawl to an alleged scandal of documented instances of fabrication, fraud and fundamental dishonesty. 

It was set off, according to court papers, by a relatively large R600,000 MFF grant allocated in the 2025/2026 budget to Higgins’s Cape Heritage Museum. 

The applicants see this funding as a suspicious 500% increase in just five years, starting from R100,000 in 2021. Similarly, they see Higgins voting on his own 2025/2026 grants for his museum without disclosing his personal interest as breaching the Companies Act.

When Levy tried to act as a proper fiduciary by requesting a “Verification Register” to assess whether the grant was properly considered and to assess compliance and risk indicators, he says Yach responded dismissively. She apparently contended that non-executive directors are not entitled to that information and went so far as to invite Levy to resign and Higgins backed her up.

The message to directors appeared clear, say the applicants:

Stop asking questions or resign; either way, you are not getting the information you seek. 

Court papers present a digital forensics analysis showing that Higgins drafted a Board letter to block Levy’s attempted oversight of his own museum and sent it to Yach only, allowing her to pass it off on March 6, 2026, as her independent decision.

This effectively exposed the “Ghost Email” ruse, the applicants say, when she dispatched the complex document after a physically “improbable” 16-minute window. 

Perhaps most damning was Yach’s apparently simple oversight: in the rush, she failed to delete remnants of Higgins’s professional law-firm signature before firing the email off to the full Board.

It became a digital “smoking gun”.

By adopting the grantee’s objection as her executive decision, the applicants say Yach transformed “from the guardian of the grantor’s interests into the protector of the grantee’s interests.”

They see this as a pattern of “betrayal of office of the most extreme and gravest form.” 

They raised a separate event on March 31, 2026, supported by metadata establishing that Figaji used his personal computer to draft a resolution to appoint himself as MFF Vice-Chairperson. Yach then circulated it as her own proposal and later dismisses this misrepresentation as “procedural minutiae”.

Metadata show that this document was created just 55 seconds apart from a retaliatory disciplinary resolution against Levy. The applicants say this aimed to obstruct Levy’s attempts to access grantee funding information.

They say that Figaji officially recorded his vote in favour of his own appointment on April 1, 2026, without disclosing his authorship to the Board. On April 8, Yach announced Figaji’s “election” as Vice Chair of the MFF Board.

The applicants contend that this appointment is invalid and carries no authority as the resolution behind it was “clandestinely” engineered by the very person who stood to benefit from it. 

They see this as a “self-serving” breach of fiduciary duty designed to ensure that a “sympathetic successor” remained in power should the High Court suspend Yach as Chair. 

Levy and Derek Yach say these events involve different directors and dates but are linked by a single “modus operandi of concealment”. They say Figaji’s actions reinforced the bloc’s “retaliatory and self-serving character,” mimicking the “covert collaboration” that the “Ghost Email” exposed. 

Evidence of multiple attempts by both applicants to gain access to information on funding decisions over the years supports their contention of an incriminating “wall of silence”, which the respondents constructed.

They argue that “where three directors of a charitable foundation collectively refuse to engage with questions about the application of that foundation’s funds, the inference is that engagement would expose what silence is designed to conceal.”

Court papers note Dianna Yach’s unilateral suspension of the MFF’s decades-long commitment to funding Telfed, South African Zionist Federation (Israel) in March 2021. 

Telfed has long served as “a bridge between the Southern African Jewish diaspora and Israel, supporting immigrants (olim) and fostering the educational, cultural, and communal ties that bind (Jewish) communities across continents,” CEO Dorron Kline writes in a letter to MFF directors in March 2026.

When Kline engaged her at a donor gathering in Cape Town in March 2025 and raised the possibility of resuming Telfed’s relationship with the MFF, he recalls her conveying the following sentiment: 

“Israel’s reaction to the Hamas 7th October (2023) atrocity is outrageously disproportionate. Israel is clearly committing genocide. Therefore, Israel has lost its right to call itself a nation amongst other nations. There is no reason for Telfed to approach the Mauerberger Foundation for funding until the Israeli government ceases to kill innocents and agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian State.” 

The applicants see this as Yach’s pattern of holding the MFF hostage to her personal political beliefs with impunity. 

Initial court filings create an overwhelming impression of the respondents transforming the MFF Board into a virtuoso performance of “musical hats“. It is brimming with conflicts of interest, allowing them to rotate seamlessly at will into donors, recipients and “independent” auditors of their own self-advancement. 

Yach’s dual role as both MFF Chair and MD makes her the Foundation’s only paid employee. This allows her to control oversight of her own executive conduct, the applicants note. 

This structural conflict is mirrored in her senior governance roles at the University of Cape Town (UCT), where she sits on its Council as one of two representatives elected by donors, and chairs the HR and other committees. 

Court papers show that UCT has become a primary beneficiary of “over-allocations” while Israeli funding has been systematically slashed. In 2023, for example, UCT received R3.8-million from the MFF, while the mandatory Israeli allocation was a mere R600,000. 

Critically, Yach voted in favour of academic boycotts against Israeli institutions at UCT as part of the “Gaza resolutions”. She then deposed to a sworn affidavit in the ongoing Mendelsohn lawsuit against the university, explicitly using her title as “Chair of the Mauerberger Foundation Fund” to support this political stance without Board authorisation or notification, the applicants allege.

In this intricate web of entanglements, the applicants say that Yach has advocated for boycotting the very beneficiaries MFF is constitutionally mandated to fund, while her colleagues moonlight as clandestine ghostwriters of their own grants and vice-chair appointments. 

As the matter heads to the High Court on May 4, 2026, the question remains:

Can a foundation survive when its “proper channels” are “actively barricaded by the very individuals who would later insist, with indignation, that those channels should have been used”?

The applicants are family but their filing is clearly not the fruits of a family squabble. They see it as their duty as fiduciaries to ensure that their grandfather’s legacy is preserved and that its beneficiaries’ work in South Africa and Israel continues to thrive with MFF support.

If the court finds that Dianna Yach, Higgins and Figaji have used “ghost” channels to govern and wilfully breach their fiduciary duties, the MFF may finally be forced to course-correct. 

*Dianna Yach, Brian Figaji and Igshaan Higgins were emailed for comment.

Yach replied by return email:

“I will not respond to any of the averments that you make at this time. I will request my lawyers to respond to you in due course, and only once the matter that you have referred to has been called in open court on 4 May 2026.”

Figaji and Higgins did not reply. 

All have since filed a notice of intention to oppose the application. They have until April 30, 2026 to submit answering affidavits. 

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).

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.

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. 

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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).

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.

“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.

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.

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.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

How 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).

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.

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.

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:

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).

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!

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.”

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.

“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.

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.

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?

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)

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).

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Diplomatic ties hit all-time low between Jerusalem and Pretoria

By Rolene Marks

When the dark years of Apartheid came to an end, South Africa brimmed with promise. Humanitarian icon, Nelson Mandela became the country’s first black President, resigning the previous racist regimes to the garbage bin of history. Investment poured into the country. Sports teams like the national soccer and rugby teams, blessed with that “Madiba Magic” won the African Cup of Nations and Rugby World Cup respectively. The “Rainbow Nation” had been born and the future could not be brighter.

I can’t help but think if Madiba and the other icons of the struggle against Apartheid, saw what has happened to the country they fought so hard to bring a true democracy to, where everyone is equal, they would feel not only betrayed, they would be heartbroken. The dignified examples set by these stalwarts of the struggle to pursue reconciliation and dialogue – especially with those you disagree with, have been dashed by their successors who prefer capture over cohesion and ideology over ideas.

Nothing is more emblematic of this than the recent expulsion of Israel’s highest ranking diplomat in the African state. The story is quite mind boggling.

For decades, South Africans have experienced a lack of basic services due to government incompetence. Some report having no access to water for days on end or no electricity. Many public hospitals are in disarray and in parts of the country that are poverty stricken, there is barely any access to clean water or adequate healthcare. On the contrary, the State of Israel, a leader in so many fields including Agritech, water technology, medical technology and other industries, is perfectly poised to provide solutions. Israel faces some of the same challenges that many African countries do and over the years more and more countries have sought solutions from the Jewish state. Their foreign policy stances have been resolute – why do we have to choose sides between Israelis and Palestinians when we could make decisions that benefit our people?

It is a great pity and loss to the people of South Africa that their government’s foreign policy has been so firmly captured by the tyrannical Iranian regime that has and continues to slaughter tens of thousands of its own citizens. I do want to stress not all parties support the fanatics in Tehran whose “empire of evil” has traversed the region and beyond, leaving a trail of murderous terror attacks in their wake.

Which brings me back to Seidman. It beggars belief that in a country beset with so many challenges, the government would rather place ideological allegiances above the well-being of their citizens.

The crime that Seideman stands accused of is “a series of unacceptable violations of diplomatic norms and practice” that DIRCO said amounted to a direct violation of the country’s sovereignty. The reality? The embassy’s social media had criticized South Africa’s allegiance with internationally recognised terror organization Hamas. We know this was just the cover up so what was the real “crime” that had the South African authorities in a snit?

In recent weeks, Israel’s Foreign Ministry dispatched diplomat David Saranga to serve as a “visiting ambassador.” South African officials viewed the move as an attempt to impose a de facto ambassador without their approval. Declaring Seideman, the highest-ranking Israeli diplomat in the African country as persona non grata is largely seen by Israeli officials as a response to that.  

Israeli officials said that under an agreement between the two countries, holders of diplomatic passports are exempt from visa requirements. This allows Israeli diplomats to enter South Africa without prior approval. They said South Africa’s objections centered on what they described as the diplomatic profile Saranga maintained during his visits.

During his trips, Saranga had visited the province of the Eastern Cape, a part of the country beset with many challenges – one being access to clean drinking water.  Saranga met with the Xhosa king, a strong supporter of Israel who recently visited the Jewish state. Saranga offered Israeli solutions in the field of water management, citing shortages of running water and drinking water in parts of the country. Help was also offered for the repair of hospitals in the Eastern Cape that would give many better access to much-needed healthcare. Israeli officials said those initiatives embarrassed the South African government by highlighting deficiencies.

Israel’s response was swift. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on X that it was expelling a senior South African diplomat, Shaun Edward Byneveldt, in response and ordered him to leave Israel within 72 hours.

Seidman was not officially informed by DIRCO (Department of International Relations and Cooperation) – instead he found out when he was door-stopped by the media after he returned to the embassy following an event that day.

Relations between Israel and South Africa at a diplomatic level have reached an all-time low. Israel’s solution is to engage people to people. That is how we move forward.

Foreign policy does not just affect bilateral relations – it is also filtering down on a micro scale. One example is the recent refusal of elite girl’s high school, Roedean, to play tennis against King David High School. The incident attracted international headlines. Roedean denied the charge that discrimination was at play when it didn’t show up for its February 3 meeting with the King David High School girls’ team. South Africa’s Constitution protects the rights to religious freedom and the freedom of association.

A leaked recording of a conversation days later between representatives from both schools seemed to show that Roedean was under significant pressure from parents to withdraw from playing against a Jewish school. “We’re facing a bit of pressure from our community and our constituents regarding just not playing against King David,” a teacher is heard saying with a tone of regret in the recording, which was leaked a few days later. “Parents are basically saying, because of the stance that the government took, we’re supposed to support that.” The remark was a reference to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party’s anti-Israel stance.

Following a week of intense media scrutiny, the headmistress of Roedean, Phuti Mogale, resigned and the school has apologized to King David. One hopes that lessons in tolerance have been drawn from this.

It is no great secret that South Africa’s foreign policy has been duly captured by Iran with their pathological hatred of the Jewish state. In post-Apartheid South Africa, one of the tenets that South Africans have been so proud of is the spirit of Ubuntu. The word “Ubuntu” is often translated as “I am because we are” or “humanity towards others“. It reflects the belief that a person’s humanity is affirmed through their relationships with others and their contributions to the community. South Africa’s Jewish community is as an integral part of the country’s mosaic of people – as is Israel in the family of nations. One hopes that the spirit of Ubuntu extends to the Jewish community who are proudly Zionist as well as Israel’s envoys who seek to find the best possible solutions to deal with the challenges so many in the rainbow nation face. Recent events have eerie echoes of a past where discrimination was the order of the day. I can’t help but cry for the beloved country.  I think the founders of the post-Apartheid South Africa are crying too.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

A tennis match that did not take place between two girls’ schools in Johannesburg exposes attitudes and antipathy towards Jews.

By Marika Sboros

(First appeared in Biznews)

Roedean was once one of South Africa’s premier private girls schools. It was even considered a “finishing school” for the country’s future leaders.

Some of its pupils have become strong, principled, polished young women, academically formidable, able to negotiate the frays of prejudice and party politics, no matter how petty.

The gloss on that reputation has been dimming for years. Roedean now remains mired in accusations of antisemitism for failing to honour a scheduled tennis match against King David Linksfield girls on February 3, 2026.

That’s even after offering what many consider a “sincere” apology in writing.

Roedean probably hopes the apology will put an end to the scandal. That’s unlikely, despite the school acknowledging that its actions “were deeply hurtful to the Jewish community.”

Roedean also conceded that its earlier public justifications of “communication challenges” for the failure to hold the match were “incorrect.”

It was not just incorrect. It was false.

Roedean admits in its apology that these “challenges” were not the cause of the cancellation of the match. It does not admit to antisemitism.

Leaked recordings of phone calls between King David principal Lorraine Srage and Roedean senior school head Phuti Mogale, who has since resigned “with immediate effect,” are revelatory.

Anti-Israel lobbyists either don’t or don’t want to know that in South Africa, it is not illegal (though not generally recommended) for people to record a conversation in which they are a participant for their record even if they haven’t told the other person(s).

Legal implications depend on what happens to the recordings thereafter. That’s according to RICA, (the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act 70 of 2002). 

Lobbyists also ignore the fact that Srage tells Mogale upfront that she is recording and has recorded previous conversations. Mogale offers no objection whatsoever.

Who leaked the conversations and why is currently unknown. Perhaps, if Roedean had not lied publicly in statements from the outset about why it failed to honour the tennis fixture, the recordings may not have been leaked. 

In one, Mogale says clearly that the failed fixture began with pressure from Roedean parents who did not want their daughters playing against King David girls because this did not align with the ANC government’s anti-Israel stance.

When a startled Srage asks whether the parental objection is because the King David girls are Jewish, Mogale confirms it. To her credit, Mogale also says she told the parents that Roedean is “apolitical.” That clearly didn’t wash with the parents.

The mere fact that some supposedly well‑educated, influential Roedean parents would treat the ANC’s foreign‑policy posturing as a moral compass is a plot twist even Kafka might have rejected as implausible.

The same ANC refuses to condemn its close ally, Iran, for slaughtering more than 30,000 of its own people, many of them teenagers in the streets during the ongoing uprising.

Roedean has turned to PR spin doctors to handle the fallout from the failed tennis match. They’ve wasted their money.

The school first claimed in writing that the tennis match was cancelled due to “prior school commitments” and “compulsory academic workshops” and that this was “miscommunicated” to King David. Its first apology was on that basis alone.

That was disingenuous, as phone conversations showed.

EMPTY COURT

Roedean communicated clearly to King David the day before the match that all contentious issues were resolved and the match was going ahead. On that basis, King David girls turned up to play tennis against Roedean. On arrival, they were greeted by an empty court.

Mogale didn’t help herself or Roedean by claiming in conversation that the girls themselves didn’t want to play the match as they were still suffering “distress” and “trauma” after visiting King David’s campus last year to play tennis.

That raised the question: what on earth happened on King David campus to distress and traumatise them?

Mogale is heard saying (to a presumably gobsmacked Srage) that the sight of armed guards outside at King David’s school entrance had “disturbed” the girls. She’d have been wise to stop there.

Instead, she said the girls were also “traumatised” by seeing posters on King David campus. Poster of hostages, including children, babies and the elderly, still in captivity in Gaza after the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas against mostly civilian targets in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

The problem for Roedean is that there was nothing distressing or traumatising whatsoever about the posters.

They were not images of bloodied young women dragged by their hair after being raped by terrorists, of children and babies in their pyjamas, tortured, mutilated, torn from their parents’ arms and homes.

The posters were of happy, smiling people before their savage kidnapping on October 7. Families supplied the photographs to raise awareness of the hostages’ ongoing plight in Gaza.

One might reasonably have expected Roedean’s tennis coach to have easily soothed the girls’ ruffled, sensitive feathers with non-distressing facts.

Facts, such as, that King David schools don’t post guards at their gates because they like the optics; armed guards outside Jewish schools as a sign that South Africa is a dangerous place for Jews; and antisemitic attacks are a real threat to Jews worldwide.

One would also reasonably expect Mogale not to have been so absurdly theatrical and hyperbolic in describing the feelings the posters evoked in Roedean girls as a “trauma”.

The only real trauma behind those posters was that suffered by hostages and their families and friends. Not the Roedean girls. Such moral inversion is as mystifying as it is a common driver of antisemitism.

National director of the South African Jewish Board of deputies Wendy Kahn is clear that the incident on Roedean campus on February 3 was blatant antisemitism.

On a Facebook post, Kahn defines antisemitism as:

 “prejudice, hatred or  discrimination directed against Jewish people, identity or institutions.”

She says that phone conversations make clear that the tennis fixture was a “Jewish day school issue” and that King David’s identity, like that of other faith-based schools, is based on the religious, cultural and historical life of the community it serves.

Roedean’s refusal to honour a sporting fixture based on the players’ Jewish identity, therefore, “constitutes an antisemitic act and is discrimination based on religion,” Kahn says.

It clearly violates South Africa’s constitution.

Section 9 of the constitution, as Kahn notes, provides that:

 “No person may be unfairly discriminated against, directly or indirectly, on the grounds of religion, belief or culture.”

Roedean’s leaders should have known that.

Anti-Israel lobbyists have been predictably quick to support the Roedean pupils’ refusal to play against Jews. One lobbyist said that students who raised “principled concerns about war, state violence or ideology” should not be made to feel that these were “illegitimate or hateful.”

That’s true but that’s not what King David was making Roedean pupils feel.

After all, Roedean had not expressed any “principled concerns” that the Roedean pupils had. Just intimations of miasmic “distress and trauma” at seeing armed guards and posters of happy faces.

Roedean’s tennis-match debacle does not exist in religious, political isolation.

In 2020, Roedean was one of several schools hit by waves of social media testimonials from alumni detailing experiences of institutional racism. Activists and ANC-aligned commentators criticised Roedean for being “too slow” to change and for maintaining a “colonial” culture that excluded Black students. White students also felt under pressure.

In 2023, Roedean invited the Ummah Al-Rahma madrasah to provide religious, spiritual programming – Ummah Heart – on its campus for Muslim pupils. It spun the initiative as a gesture of inclusivity.

It signalled something darker: a willingness to outsource moral judgment to the loudest ideological faction in the room.

The madrasah’s public record and associations had already drawn significant criticism and concern. It was accused of expressing sympathy and support for Hamas, including sharing or endorsing material aligned with Hamas and other jihadist causes.

That represented “school capture” as South African attorney and essayist Richard Wilkinson has argued. Roedean was not just accommodating Muslim pupils within a pluralist, school‑controlled framework. It was outsourcing part of its religious curriculum to a “fundamentalist Islamic provider.”

Critics have warned of the perils of combining ‘woke’, diversity rhetoric with a hard‑line madrasah. It allows reactionary, radical and religious politics to shelter under the language of “true inclusivity and belonging,” while narrowing the space for dissenting or minority views – particularly Zionist or even just openly Jewish ones.

Appeasing a particular worldview, including one openly sympathetic to a terrorist organisation, is not a smart move and not just for schools. Bringing a Hamas-aligned group onto any campus normalises rather than challenges a climate in which Jewish pupils are already vulnerable – and in which ANC‑style, anti‑Israel agitation quickly slides into open antisemitism.

To its credit, Roedean allowed the partnership to peter out. However, failing to honour a simple tennis fixture with Jewish schoolgirls has put its credibility and moral scruples again under a microscope that may linger.

It signals more school “capture”. It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to work out where that can lead. It’s where ringing calls to “globalise the intifada” bring us.

Roedean statements, prepared and distributed by its PR company, Flow Communications, have been a study in obfuscation, euphemism and sophistry, beginning with the opening line of its February 10 offering: “We will place the best interests of young people first.”

Roedean demonstrably did not place the interests of its own “young people” first in this incident. It trampled over the interests of King David’s young people.

The only interests it did place first were those of the (hopefully) minority of staff, unnamed parents and students who don’t want to play sport against Jews.

Roedean has “engaged an independent party to review allegations.” It has also engaged “an independent facilitator to work with our students to resolve their concerns fairly and respectfully.” 

If there really was no antisemitism involved, then why the need for an “independent facilitator” to resolve students’ “concerns”?

And if concerns mean some Roedean girls don’t want to play tennis against Jews, they will have a problem in future. There are Jews in private schools other than King David. Presumably, Roedean girls won’t be asking every schoolgirl they face on sports fields whether or not she is Jewish?

Roedean’s apology on February 12 was a good move but did not go far enough. It does speak of intentions to learn from mistakes made. However, repairing the damage will require more than facilitated dialogues and public-relations-spun messaging.

It requires ensuring unequivocal future action to ensure that prejudice, discrimination and antisemitism, whether dressed up as politics, “distress”, “trauma” or scheduling confusion, will never again decide who is allowed onto Roedean’s sports fields.

Sport should be a crucible where differences are put aside. Women’s tennis, in particular, has a rich history of breaking barriers and fostering respect across lines of class, race, religion and nationality.

To see that ideal undermined by a narrative that says “we won’t play against you because of who you are, your religion, what you think” is to witness the descent of sport into the tribalism it should transcend.

Tennis is a simple game. Serve, rally, score. It requires focus, the ability to reset after a lost point and, crucially, respect for your opponent.

In contrast, Roedean’s handling of its tennis fixture with King David was all fault and no reset – a series of clumsy, unforced errors in strategy, empathy and communication.

It leaves Roedean with scrambled linguistic egg on its face. It has spawned a satirical, informal verb in the urban dictionary: Erodean.

It is defined as “stripping credibility from an institution by knowingly recasting antisemitic exclusion or hostility as a neutral, administrative error, while shifting responsibility onto the Jewish person affected, despite clear, contrary evidence”.

Here’s an example of common usage:

“Watching institutions attempt to erodean their way out of accountability has become a disturbingly familiar pattern.”

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).