From the Editor: In his last week’s article in Lay of the Land ‘Insights from the Inside’, recently retired senior intelligence analyst in the South African Secret Service, Derek Arnolds, posited that: “Hamas’s propaganda war has fundamentally shaped South Africa’s policy vis-à-vis Israel.” The article solicited plenty feedback, both praise and criticism, so much so that Arnolds felt inspired to respond, which appears hereunder. David E. Kaplan Editor.
Dear readers,
On August 11th, 2025, I penned an article in Lay of the Land, “Succumbing to Hamas’ propaganda, South Africa’s government is part of an immoral minority on the wrong side of history”, wherein I provided a critical commentary, based on evidential foundations, about the African National Congress and the South African government for its position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, without calumny. Specifically, I posited that strained bilateral relations require recalibration despite the ongoing International Court of Justice genocide case. The article aimed to spark a conversation with a diverse audience, even those who might have found its contents unpalatable. While some have welcomed the article as incisive, others have found it overly critical and biased. I welcome a contrarian perspective lest I be accused of being a grumpy writer. As always, I am amenable to constructive criticism as we find meaning in differences. This is the essence of the Socratic method of reasoning. I am inspired by the works of great authors like Khalil Gibran and Martin Buber on humility and building enduring interrelationships despite differences. After rereading Buber’s seminal book, “I and Thou” (1923), I do believe human beings should seek to build relationships based on mutual recognition and dialogue.
Martin Buber’s work of I and Thou has had a profound and lasting impact on modern thinking including Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, but maybe found too few readers among South Africa’s current leadership.
Critical debate and dialogue are essential in solving South Africa’s myriad societal problems, not only in the foreign policy domain. South Africans are alarmed at the country’s negative economic growth trajectory and the impact of the United States’ stinging tariffs. South Africa has matured into a durable democracy and remains Africa’s last great hope. South Africa is not an Orwellian society; hence, South Africans of all persuasions have the right to criticise its government’s foreign policy as it is representative of the whole. While foreign policy formulation remains the purview of the South African presidency, it must take into account domestic and external considerations. Foreign policy, like ‘strategy’ and ‘grand strategy’, is a blueprint for a country’s engagement with the external environment. Therefore, it must be adaptable in the face of radical uncertainty, disruptive and emerging technologies and the weaponisation of artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, misperceptions about South Africa’s foreign relations with other countries do exist. Criticism of South Africa’s foreign policy does not constitute disloyalty in the same way as support for the Palestinian cause does not amount to extremism. In a related vein, not all Israelis support their right-wing government’s policies in Gaza. At the time of writing, thousands of Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to demand an end to the war in the Strip and the release of all hostages. Even Israel’s military leaders have misgivings about a prolonged presence in Gaza. Although Israel’s security cabinet has set specific conditions for a ceasefire, including a post-war governance structure sans Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA – the entity that governs the West Bank), I do believe it is misguided to exclude the PA since it is an international legal entity that emerged out of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement (1994) and the Oslo Accords. Despite its dysfunctionality, the PA – supported by Israel, the international community and key regional players – should be revitalised to take over governance of Gaza. This debate is already taking place in the Arab world. Although angst permeates the Israeli and Palestinian national psyche due to the war, no one can object that the Palestinians deserve a state of their own. For this to materialise, direct talks between the two sides are necessary, and mutual trust – broken due to decades of wars – needs to be rebuilt. In essence, this is what peace-loving South Africans want. South Africa can play a crucial part in future peace initiatives in the form of outreach programs and best practices from our reconciliation project. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies and Friends of Israel are part of outreach programs with other faith-based organisations. The article was written in that spirit.
Yours sincerely
Derek Arnolds
About the writer: Derek Arnoldsis a freelance writer and analyst. Opinions expressed in this letter are my own and do not reflect those of my past employers.
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).
Succumbing to Hamas propaganda, South Africa’s government is part of an immoral minority on the wrong side of history
By Derek Arnolds
(recently retired senior intelligence analyst in South Africa’s Secret Service)
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war on October 7th, 2023, South Africa has emerged as the most vitriolic opponent of Israel over the latter’s military actions in Gaza. This article posits that Hamas’s propaganda war has fundamentally shaped South Africa’s policy vis-à-vis Israel. Employing discourse and deconstruction techniques, it unpacks the motivations for this negative trajectory trend. Despite a less-than-sanguine prognosis in resetting Israel-South Africa bilateral relations, renewed hope is possible if the South African government withdraws the International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case against Israel in The Hague.
Dressed to Kill. The war between Israel and Hamas has exposed deep divisions in South Africa, with the government’s one-sided support for the terrorist group as reflected by President Ramaphosa and his ANC collogues attired in Palestinian headscarf’s and colours.
Pretoria, then under the leadership of Hamas’ acolyte, the rapacious and morally bankrupt African National Congress (ANC), took the Kafkaesque step to charge the only Jewish state with genocide in the ICJ. Apart from the genocide case being meritless, it is the timing that reveals the extent of Hamas’ influence on South Africa’s foreign policy viz-a-viz Israel. Shortly after Hamas’ genocidal attacks on Israeli border communities, the South African government, under the direction of Naledi Pandor, former minister of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), used various platforms to issue the vilest statements against the Israeli government for purported “genocidal actions”, while providing moral succour to Hamas leaders such as the late Ismail Haniyeh. Pandor initially denied engaging with Hamas leaders, only to admit it later. Most disturbingly, Pandor and the ANC leadership failed to immediately condemn the perpetrator of the October 7th massacre despite Israel exercising its right to self-defence according to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
Pandor pandering to Terrorists. Ten days after Hamas launched its deadly attack resulting in a massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor, did not call Israel’s leaders to offer condolences for the mass killings but phoned instead the leader of Hamas to offer support.
South Africa’s cabinet then took the reckless decision to close its embassy in Tel Aviv, disrespecting officials of the Israeli embassy in Pretoria, which prompted Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to recall Ambassador Eliav Belotserkovsky, and laid a genocide case against the Jewish state just a few months after October 7. This is not isolated and fits a familiar pattern:
Hamas and its principal patron, Iran, have gradually captured South Africa’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Hamas and Iran have done this through disinformation campaigns, messaging, imagery, symbols, and media narratives, thereby controlling the narrative ecosystem in South Africa. This predates October 7. Pandor’s successor, Ronald Lamola and the puerile Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, minister in the presidency, continue to spew anti-Israel venom to the delight of Hamas and Iran supporters in South Africa.
South Africa’s AND government support for Hamas goes back in time as seen here of Hamas officials, Khaled Mashaal (left) and Moussa Abu-Marzouk (right) at a press conference with officials of South Africa’s ANC party, in Pretoria on Monday, October 19, 2015 (screen capture: YouTube)
It is abundantly clear why Israel views the South African government as the most antisemitic following the genocide case. Since the war, South Africa has intensified its hackneyed broadside against Israel in international forums. This also resonates in statements, speech acts and policy positions of the South African government. The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, were influenced by South Africa’s hostile anti-Israel policy. Subsequent threats by Israel’s staunchest allies, France, Canada and the United Kingdom, to recognise a Palestinian state in September 2025 if no solution to the Gaza war is found, are a corollary of South Africa’s extremist anti-Israel policy. The timing of the genocide case warrants special scrutiny. The threshold for proving genocide is high, yet it took South Africa’s legal team less than four months to present its initial charge in The Hague. A case not in South Africa’s national interest, Israel’s allies in South Africa’s coalition government should pose the following necessitating an appropriate reply:
– When, where, and why was the egregious decision taken to charge Israel with genocide?
– Was it a coterie of ministers or a whole cabinet that deliberated on the matter? If so, was it a closed meeting? If it were not a closed meeting, then the minutes of that meeting should be made available to the South African public as per Section 32 of the South African Constitution, which guarantees the right of access to information. This is apposite since, in terms of the law of armed conflict, Israel has taken reasonable steps to prevent genocide during the initial stages of the conflict. The genocide case does not advance peace between Israel and Palestine, and only emboldens Israel’s enemies, like Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Yemen’s Houthis and the homicidal Iranian regime.
Hamas at home in South Africa. Chief of Hamas Politburo, Khaled Mashaal addressing the media following bilateral meeting with ANC leadership in South Africa in 2015.
While historically, Hamas maintained close ties with the ANC under the pretext of being fraternal liberation movements, Hamas is not a liberation movement but an armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood hellbent on obliterating the State of Israel. Although Hamas’s military capabilities and senior leadership have been eliminated, it remains intact relying on – as Netanel Flamer masterfully explains in his new book, The Hamas Intelligence War Against Israel – geospatial, human, open-source, signals intelligence and cyber warfare against Israel. This was laid bare on October 7th.
Another dimension – although not addressed by Flamer – is Hamas’ influence on countries like Algeria, South Africa, Qatar and Türkiye. It is known that Hamas has ‘declared’ and ‘undeclared’ officials abroad, who promote the organisation’s extremist ideology as defender of the Palestinian resistance. According to open-source information, the movement has no official representation in South Africa. However, since October 7th, ANC officials and senior government members have openly met with senior Hamas leaders. In addition, Hamas’ propaganda war against Israel has emboldened extremism in some circles in South Africa. On a casual drive through some of Cape Town’s Muslim suburbs, one would be astounded by the sheer number of mosques festooned in the colours of the Palestinian flag as well as the flags of terrorist organisations – Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. Pro-Palestine groups like Africa4Palestine have been leading the campaign to delegitimise the Jewish state, impose sanctions and prosecute South Africans who serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Social media is abuzz with imams glorifying the October 7th attacks, and one useful idiot even uttering:
“We are all Hamas”.
‘Gunning’ for Jews. Jewish-owned businesses are being targeted by BDS SA for purported links to the Israeli government and the IDF such as this branch in Cape Town of Cape Union Mart, an outdoor gear retail chain founded in 1933.
Jewish-owned businesses are being targeted for purported links to the Israeli government and the IDF. Hamas’s messaging is clear: Most Jewish-owned companies aid and abet the “genocide” in Gaza. This is a fallacy since South African Jews are part of our society and have made a remarkable contribution to the Republic. It has always been recognised in South Africa that Israel, as the ancestral home of the Jewish people, is central to Jewish identity. However, useful idiots under the direction of Hamas and Iran have turned the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is a political conflict over territories, into a religious conflict. Scornful terms, notably, “apartheid”, “baby killers”, “occupiers”, “war criminals” and “genocidaires” are bandied about and have been normalized resulting in the “New Antisemitism”. Despite several countries taking steps to designate Hamas as a terrorist organisation, the movement nevertheless enjoys strong support in South Africa. This threatens South Africa’s Jewish community as well as the country’s national security. Recent findings by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering watchdog, reveal that South Africa is a central regional hub for terror financing. It should be noted that South Africa remains on the FATF grey list pending progress in compliance. However, the relevant South African authorities have been ineffective in combating this scourge. It behooves law enforcement and the civilian intelligence agencies to monitor suspected Hamas financiers, institutions and their modus operandi. More importantly, the State Security Agency, a once rarefied institution, turned into a Potemkin agency by the feckless Ntshavheni, who is also responsible for state security, should immediately investigate if there are links between DIRCO officials and Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood members in South Africa and abroad. In this context, the South African government often deploys ANC loyalists and demagogues to key postings, instead of career diplomats. In April 2017, Ambassador Ashraf Suleiman, then South Africa’s head of the Ramallah Liaison Office, met Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders in Gaza. The meeting took place in the same year that the ANC passed a resolution to downgrade the South African embassy in Tel Aviv to a liaison office. Suleiman’s meeting with Hamas terrorists drew condemnation from Jerusalem. The liaison office’s riposte was that the mission is mandated to meet with all Palestinian political entities. The same ambassador is now serving as South Africa’s Head of Diplomatic Mission in Syria, which is governed by génocidaires and terrorists. South Africa’s ambassador Ebrahim Rasool’s expulsion in March 2025 from Washington, DC, was hardly surprising when, over and above his public antipathy towards Israel, it was revealed that Rasool had expressed during a webinar that Trump was “mobilising a supremacism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle” as the white population faced becoming a minority in the US. Hardly an astute choice of words for a prospective diplomat to Washinton, DC!
Talking Heads. Former South African President, Jacob Zuma (left) engages in conversation with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. (Photo: Reuters/S.Sibeko)
It is palpable that Hamas is ascendant in the information operations domain, as antisemitism across the globe has increased dramatically, as evidenced by the magnitude of violent attacks against Jews. The South African government is now part of an immoral minority on the wrong side of history. It chose to pursue a case that elicited opprobrium from the American administration, its second-largest trading partner. This is the unintended consequence of siding with extremist entities such as Hamas and Iran. The best South Africa can do to extricate itself from an unfavourable situation – both morally and financially – is to withdraw its genocide case against Israel which is anyway grounded on fallacious reasoning. In the main, most South Africans have an affinity for Israel, and let it be known that the ANC’s position on Israel does not represent all South Africans. It is a position that reeks of “ideological necrophilia” – blind fixation with dead ideas. In a related vein, the media landscape is seemingly dominated by leftists or liberals who have abandoned classical liberalism to direct hateful scorn against the Jewish state. Contrarian or alternative perspectives are deemed as Zionist and pro-Israel. A Derridean approach of recent analyses by so-called pundits fits this pattern. On August 4th, 2025, Ziad Motala, professor of law at Howard University in the United States, penned an article in the Sunday Independent, titled “Propaganda masquerading as strategic realism”, wherein he took broadsides against the Sunday Times, a venerable South African newspaper. The central plank of Motala’s thesis is that the Sunday Times’s editorial integrity and journalistic objectivity had been compromised through its overt support for Israel and America and the Sunday Times had always welcomed diverse opinions. Motala further took umbrage at the newspaper’s journalists, who have advocated for improved bilateral relations between Israel and South Africa. Scornfully, Motala highlights a recent trip to Israel – sponsored by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) – by one of the newspaper’s staffers. The newspaper initially did not disclose the fact that the SAJBD sponsored its staffer’s trip; it later acknowledged the omission. Motala remained unforgiving and insisted that the paper’s editorial integrity had been captured by pro-Israel and pro-American apologists. What Motala failed to mention was that the SAJBD paid for the staffer’s trip to observe the objective reality on the ground, without fear of favour. Liberals who share Motala’s perspective have forsaken classical liberalism.
Situation at Knife’s Edge. Addressing a rally in Hamas’ honor in Cape Town, South Africa in 2015, Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal told a crowd of several hundred supporters waving Hamas’s white-and-green flags that the wave of knife attacks against Israelis would continue “until freedom is achieved and the land is for Palestine ….” (Photo: AFP/Rodger Bosch)
The renowned American political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, deftly defends classical liberalism, based on limited government, the rule of law, and individual rights, and criticizes those on the political right and left that have pushed its core tenets to the extreme. In essence, the crisis of liberalism is not a failure of the classic variant, but rather the tolerance of authoritarianism, ethno-nationalism, extremism and bigotry under the guise of liberalism.
At the time of writing, Israel is about to launch a major offensive on Gaza City to eliminate any vestige of Hamas, ensure a steady supply of humanitarian aid to Gazans, and allow the enclave to be rebuilt and governed by a non-Hamas entity. Despite the entreaties of its sponsors, Hamas refuses to disarm and leave the Strip. As Hamas will eventually be eliminated in Gaza, it still poses threats abroad. Qatar and Türkiye continue to host Hamas leaders, who, by extension, were complicit in the October 7th attacks on Israel. These leaders, including Khaled Meshaal, Bassem Naim, Mousa Abu Marzouk and Khalil al-Hayya, should be brought to justice as designated terrorists. South Africa should take a noble step to designate Hamas and its parent, the Muslim Brotherhood, as terrorist organisations. Several countries, like Switzerland and Britain, have banned Hamas activities in their territories. While Hamas’s military capabilities have been degraded, it is almost a Sisyphean task to destroy its extremist ideology, which permeates the globe. Therefore, its activities in South Africa should be closely monitored.
Israel should not abandon South Africa, as the country cannot be blamed for a venal ANC that is on life support and afflicted with political atrophy. Despite strained diplomatic relations, South Africa remains Israel’s largest trading partner in Africa. Thus, Israel must intensify a sustainedstrategic communications campaignto counter Hamas and Iran’s grey zone operations in South Africa and beyond. David Saranga, Israel’s special envoy and seasoned diplomat, recently undertook an outreach and fact-finding mission to South Africa to open a dialogue channel between the two countries. This Israeli initiative is commendable, yet the biggest obstacle is the ICJ genocide case. The Israeli government can rest assured that it has allies in South Africa’s coalition government, who should exert pressure on the ANC, which initiated the ICJ case, to withdraw the lawsuit. Article 88 of the Rules of the ICJ makes provision for parties to withdraw a case “either by jointly notifying the Court of their agreement to discontinue the proceedings or by the applicant state informing the court that it no longer wishes to pursue the case”. The said Court may then direct that the case be removed from the list. Continued lawfare against Israel militates against dialogue between Israel and Palestine, is costly to the South African taxpayer, and only advances the extremist ideologies of Hamas and Iran.
About the writer:
Derek Arnolds is a freelance writer and corporate intelligence specialist. Educated at the universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch, he previously held a teaching position in strategic studies at the South African Military Academy. He later served as a senior intelligence analyst for Africa and the Middle East in the South African Secret Service (later the State Security Agency: Foreign Branch). He retired from the Agency in May 2025.
Disclaimer: Although I previously served in the South African defence department and intelligence services, the opinions expressed in this article reflect my independent, open-source research. They are not intended, in any way, to reflect the views of the South African government.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
South Africa’s hateful obsession against Israel, reflects its failure to address monumental problems at home.
By Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe
September, a month synonymous with renewal and new beginnings, will be the most challenging period in South Africa’s political and economic landscape due to actions likely to be taken by the US against the country. The first is the end of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which is set to expire in September. However, the new 30% tariffs introduced by the US for SA will likely override the existing AGOA conventions when they take effect at the beginning of August 2025. The second biggest conundrum will be the possibility of the US Senate’s decision on the US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act of 2025.
Rand on the Run. Already a vulnerable currency, South African rand falls before looming US tariffs. Nevertheless, South Africa continues to antagonize the US with its anti-Western policies.(Photo: Reuters /Mike Hutchings)
The ground is fertile in the US to act against the South African government, which is believed to have acted against the US’s national interests. The US has been very critical of South Africa’s foreign policy stance, which, on many occasions, went against the American national interests. This has been evident in their divergent voting patterns on various United Nations (UN) platforms, where South Africa and the US have often taken opposing positions. The relations between the US – SA did not break during the Trump administration, and Joe Biden also raised similar concerns about South Africa.
The ANC should be told, “You made your bed, now lie in it.” They have chosen to strengthen their alliances with the geopolitical rivals to the West at the expense of decades of working partnerships with the Western powers. It was very shortsighted of the ANC to believe that there would not be actions or reactions from the side of the US on how it is being undermined by Africa’s powerful regional bloc.
The escalating tensions between the US and South Africa took an uphill path in 2022 when South Africa was alleged by the US to have loaded the Lady R with armaments that would be used in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The South African government dismissed this allegation. In 2023, in the aftermath of Israeli attacks by Hamas on the 7th October 2023, we saw South Africa continuing with its support for Hamas, a designated terror organisation by countries such as the US and European Union (EU) countries. Dr. Naledi Pandor kicked off a diplomatic storm when she admitted that she had a telephonic conversation – offering support – with the same Hamas that invaded Israel and massacred more than 1200 innocent civilians as well as kidnapping more than 250 people, some still held under the tunnels in Gaza to date.
Closer to Home. While this 2024 photo of angry South Africans taken outside a courthouse in Soweto crying over the horrendous murders of women and children, the government prefers to allocate its scarce resources to issues it knows little about outside the country – notably the war in Gaza.(Photo by Sharon Seretlo/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
Just when we thought that the ANC would tone down its anti-US messaging, it dragged Israel into the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ). Their legal basis was that Israel was committing genocidal acts in Gaza. While this act by the South African government would be seen as heroic by some, others criticised the move because it failed to deliver a viable solution to the longstanding Israel-Palestine conflict. It is possible that the ANC’s thinking at the time was to maximise its electoral fortunes, which drastically dropped to below 50%. Their energy on the issue is draining because it is not yielding them the political capital they had planned.
“Do More” but Does Less. In 2024, while the ANC government focused its attention against Israel neglecting the interests of its own people, the people responded at the polling booths denying the ruling party a first-time outright majority for the first time since winning in the first post-apartheid elections 30 years earlier.
If indeed South Africa was genuine about fighting for the rights of the vulnerable people around the world, they could have started with their own population, wherein 14 million people are living in dire poverty, not knowing what they would eat the next day and where so much of the youth are dangerously unemployed. The youth unemployment rate in South Africa – which measures job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old – climbed to 62.4% in the first quarter of 2025, the highest level since the first quarter in 2022 up from 59.6% in the previous period.
Devious Diversions. South Africa’s government prefer to have photos on their TV screens of hungry children in Gaza in the midst of a war with Israel then the visuals of their own children starving to death.
Furthermore, if South Africa’s corrupt and inept leadership directs its attention to deaths in wars abroad, what about those dying a violent death AT HOME every day. Between January and March 2025, 5,727 people were murdered, an average of 62 per day. Some 6 985 attempted murders were recorded amounting to 75 per day. These staggering figures are unmatched throughout the world – a record we should be ashamed of!
The South Africa obsession with Gaza is a mere diversion of its failures to address pressing issues at home.
*Feature Picture: The ANC government is failing to address the poverty across Southy Africa preferring to divert public attention to problems outside the country.
About the writer:
Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe is a political writer and researcher based at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
A breed of South African vultures prey upon the deceased to further their political narrative.
By Josh Schewitz
There is a grotesque political theatre that has been actively around for years in South Africa, hiding in the wings, that is, until Israel was invaded by marauding mass killers from Gaza on October 7, 2023!
The star director in these theatrics is DIRCO, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, in ‘cooperation’ with a suspect cast that includes terror-sponsoring states, professional full-time activists, journalists, and bureaucrats who feed not on facts but corpses – literally – all to undermine the legitimacy of the one Jewish state in the world – Israel. This is the script in a nutshell.
As if taking their cue off the local wildlife, they wait like vultures circling the wounded. They need and feed off death and salivate over child-sized coffins to prop up their message. They may call themselves humanitarians but in reality they are scavengers feeding off proverbial carrion.
Every Gazan life the Hamas terror organization purposely sacrifices as a human shield is a new talking point. Every IDF airstrike targeting terrorist’s intent on killing and holding hostages is spun into another indictment – not of Hamas, but of Israel.
The facts do not matter to them. The context does not matter either because to people like Jo Bluen – a former newspaper columnist for the South African daily ‘Business Day’ and presently a PhD candidate in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) in genocide studies – tragedy is not a humanitarian crisis – it is political capital.
Bluen’s Logic! “Actually, the idea of Zionism is in itself a very antisemitic idea,” says Jo Bluen.
A good insight on Bluen’s bias is revealed in this 2 December 2023 posting of hers that articulates her ignorance as well as her naked prejudice:
“Abolish the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. Abolish the South African Zionist Federation. They do not speak for Jews, but for Zionists. They are dangerous, Islamophobic, racist and antisemitic.”
The ultimate evildoer in the world today for Bluen is the Zionist, and if evil is not rooted in Western colonialism, it warrants no concern to her. Hence ethnic cleansing of the Kurds, the slaughter of the Armenians by the Turks and the persecution of Christians by Muslims conveniently escapes her attention for it fails to fit into her worldview.
PATRON SAINT OF WEAPONISED GRIEF
Bluen is not some fringe radical shouting from the digital wilderness but has evolved into an amplified voice in South Africa’s anti-Israel propaganda machine – in classrooms, in the media, and outside the offices of companies that provide jobs for many South Africans. Her tantrums, incitement and hate speech towards Jews and her calls outside the US Consulate in Sandton or on her social media pages to “abolish” the State of Israel have not gone unnoticed.
Whether she lies about “290,000 children being starved to death,” or discredited stories about Israel bombing hospitals, her circle treats her malicious messaging as gospel. They do not question her sources but accept and recycle them.
Most of their talking points originate from rogue Hamas-run media offices in South Africa, Iranian-funded channels, or anonymous Telegram accounts.
POSTING FOR PERFORMANCE, NOT PEACE
Bluen boldly accuses Israel of “genocide” when there is no evidence whatsoever. Yes, the crime of genocide requires a specific intent, known as dolus specialis, that is, to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. Israel has no such “intent” other than to defend its civilian population by rooting out and removing an existential threat. That is the nature of war not genocide. Bluen would off course know this but choses to ignore that her Hamas heroes killed scores of innocent people younger than herself while they were dancing and enjoying life; that they raped, beheaded, kidnapped and tortured, not to mention facts that Hamas:
– hijacks their own Palestinian people’s aid
– slaughters Gazan’s in cold blood and
– has built terror tunnels under hospitals and
– uses their own civilians as human shields.
Out of the mouth of Joe Bluen: “Genocide is not unique to the Nazi Holocaust; it is the story of colonial modernity” and “While Israel weaponises Judaism, it is a settler colonial fascist state, not a religion.”
When Israelis were slaughtered – babies decapitated, Israeli families burned alive and civilian apartment buildings and Israeli hospitals were destroyed by Iranian missiles, Bluen said nothing.
No outrage!
No grief!
Just lies and justification of terrorist murderers she has grown to admire and wilfully chosen to stand by, aid and support.
Because in her warped worldview, Jewish blood is not to her human loss but – using her lexicon – “colonial” consequence.
‘RED TRIANGLE’ RITUAL
Every time Israelis are murdered whether festival goers gunned down in fields, toddlers shot in cold blood or taken hostage only to be brutally murdered by their kidnappers, families burned alive in safe rooms or even an unrelated Israeli civilian diver killed in a Mediterranean off-shore shark attack, Jo Bluen has ZERO sympathy. Instead, she marks or nay we say celebrates the moment with an inverted red triangle – originally a sign of resistance in the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks – today the symbol adopted by online Hamas sympathisers to identify, harass, and target Israelis and Jews. Glorifying Hamas’ terror, the inverted Red Triangle – is a dog whistle for increased violence against Jews.
This Woman is Evil.Modeling herself on the women who sat beside the guillotine during the French Revolution and would knit at public executions, Cape Town’s Jo Bluen uploads onto her social media accounts the inverted Red Triangles when Israeli soldiers are killed as in this posting on her X and Instagram accounts rejoicing following the death of 3 Israeli soldiers.
This symbol, banned in Germany since 2024, appears on Bluen’s profile not when Jewish civilians are spared, but when they are slaughtered. It is her euphemism for:
“They had it coming.”
In any other conflict, waving the emblem of a terror group after a massacre would be called what it is: glorifying violence, but for Bluen, the red triangle has become her badge of honour – her digital bloodstain.
Bluen is Blunt. Joe Bluen says on Salaamedia, “The Nazi Holocaust has become something that is being used as a political point scoring thing ….that is being taken out on Palestinians and Muslims as a European Zionist Colonial project that has found its antisemetism being directed to Muslims and Palestinians.”
CULTURE OF COWARDICE
Let us not pretend South Africa has a watchdog culture. There is no press council challenging this infectious poison. The South African Human Rights Commission is complicit as are the NGOs that claim to champion human rights but are conveniently silent or captured. There are those South African journalists that quote these vultures masquerading as “experts”. They are invited onto panels; address public functions and provided op-ed space. Platformed and protected, this is not activism, it is indulgence. It comes at a cost. Because every unchecked lie about Israel “targeting children” while ignoring Hamas’ military tactics is not just bad journalism -it is incitement. It fuels antisemitism. It radicalises youth. It tears at the social fabric of an already fractured society and it will eventually kill.
CALL IT WHAT IT IS
What is in ‘play’ here in these theatrics is not peace-building but fetishised war porn masquerading as social justice and Jo Bluen and her comrades do not want the conflict to end because the minute the rockets stop flying and the cameras stop rolling, they lose the one thing they crave more than anything – relevance. This orchestra of enablers that includes government figures, academicians, media operators, and NGO apparatchiks have built entire careers out of blaming Israel while absolving terror.
Voice of Violence. Screenshots from Bluen’s Public Instagram account leave little doubt about her dangerous intent towards Israelis. (left) a neon sign reading “Every day is f**k Israel day”; (right) Bluen appears in a red keffiyeh with the caption “good afternoon from serious face – abolish ‘israel’”.
Far from being humanitarians, these are political morticians who dress corpses in talking points. Unless South African institutions grow a backbone, they will keep thriving on the blood of others.
A Woman of Waffle. Hard to believe from this rambling interview that Jo Bluen of Cape Town will be accepted to study for a PhD at the London School of Economics unless the LSE welcome candidates who suggest to “Free Palestine” is to “….Abolish ‘Israel’ and the Zionist entity and its white internationalisms of genocide settler colonial inter-nationalisms.” ( Jo Bluen online post August 2024)
About the writer: Josh Schewitz is a researcher and analyst specializing in Africa and the Middle East, with a focus on securitiy related topics in addition to blockchain technology.
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).
Consistent in his skewed prejudice against Israel, coupled with concealing facts and distorting the truth, South African Jewish cartoonist stokes the fires of antisemitism and endangers the Jewish community.
By Stephen Schulman
The Cape Town Jewish community is presently in an unenviable position: under siege with many of its members fearing for their own and their family’s safety and even their future in this so called “rainbow nation”.
Why in such a “happy land” finally freed from the shackles of Apartheid should such a situation exist? Simply because the ANC that has been ruling South Africa for the last thirty-one years, through widespread corruption, an institutionalized kleptocracy and the appointing of its party hacks (who also mostly happen to be clueless nincompoops) to official positions, has managed to ruin and reduce it to the status of third world country. The government has also zealously devoted itself to the cultivation of ties to countries with odious human rights records. At the present, South Africa and Iran are snug in each other’s arms, locked in a passionate embrace with Pretoria assiduously disseminating that regime’s genocidal and virulently antisemitic vitriol. Cape Town is extremely fertile ground as it also has a large Muslim population that over the years has become deeply radicalized and increasingly militant, supporting Hamas and Hezbollah. Its clerics draw from the well-known pigswill bucket of anti-Semitic tropes, preach jihad, view the terrorists as freedom fighters, whitewash their atrocities and call for the destruction of Israel.
The combination of these two contributing factors has made the Jewish community come under assault; for Jews and Zionists are seen as one of the same. Jewish schools and institutions have naturally come under attack. There have been continuous demonstrations and mass protests, often violent, in areas that have a large Jewish community with the suburb of Sea Point now becoming the epicenter. Only recently, not content with demonstrations, a large motorcade with horns blaring, Palestinian flags waving and megaphones broadcasting slogans drove through the suburb. Unsurprisingly, all protests about this disturbance of the peace were brushed off by the municipal authorities for after all, when so many people are unemployed, live in squalor without basic services and suffer from a horrendous crime rate, there is nothing like the distraction of a well funded and organized demonstration against a common enemy i.e. the Jewish State to take their minds off their miserable plight.
Shapiro, a most gifted caricaturist, is well aware of the power of his cartoons in shaping public opinion Consumed and contorted by an obsessive and visceral hatred of Israel, devoid of any moral proportion with a tunnel vision that sees Trump and Netanyahu as the sole enemies of civilization – he is nothing less a groveling Iranian proxy eerily echoing the message of his evil masters that see the USA and Israel as the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan”.
The caricature of the 24th June, “Theatre of War” is just one more example of his warped mentality. The message is crude and clear: Israel is the instigator of a war with Iran but suffers far less damage. Trump enters to help his old friend. However, the genuine causus belli is an act, a divisionary ploy to distract the world from Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Moreover, in case you missed it, Shapiro feels the need to remind us that Trump is a “sulky egomaniac”
On the very same day, to drive his twisted message home, Shapiro eagerly churned out a second cartoon with the inspiration lifted straight from the 1964 film “Dr Strangelove“. In it, the grotesquely demonical Netanyahu, intent on needless destruction, is sitting astride a bomb while pulling Trump along like a dumb ox. Once again ad nauseam the State of Israel is the root of all evil. With such an impressive portfolio of distorted caricatures that would do a totalitarian regime journal proud, our Jonathan’s work could easily find a place at a Tehran gallery’s current exhibition of antisemitic cartoons and land a job at the North Korean and Iranian press offices.
A reasonably informed person would be aware of Iran as the leading state sponsor of global terrorism as well as being a genocidal state seeking Israel’s destruction. This person would also be aware of its contravention of limits imposed on its uranium enrichment and Israel’s defensive pre-emptive strike that concentrated on Iran’s military- nuclear complex. He/she would also learn from the media that Iran purposely sent missiles against population concentrations in the Israeli cities causing much devastation and rendering thousands of people homeless. Iran has also destroyed a large hospital serving the Jewish and a large Muslim community and ruined invaluable medical research laboratories in the famed Weizman Institute thereby destroying priceless research. It also used cluster bombs, outlawed in over one hundred countries, when targeting civilian centres.
True to form, Shapiro consistent in his hatred, concealing facts and distorting the truth, not only creates a willfully misleading picture. He – once more – not only deeply offends his home town’s proudly Zionist affiliated community but increases its fears and insecurity as he diligently stokes the fires of antisemitism and feeds the flames of racial hatred.
Donald Trump, our Jonathan’s other fixation and object of his venom is constantly and luridly depicted as a fully uniformed, jackbooted Nazi SA storm trooper complete with his swastika armband. The US president may be many things, but a Nazi he is not. His pride in his three Jewish grandchildren and his rallying to Israel’s side are hardly the actions of a subscriber to that abhorrent ideology. Shapiro in his typically shameless insensitivity, indiscriminately and arbitrarily abuses the term “Nazi” to describe anyone whose ideas do not dovetail with his own definition of political correctness. He has lifted the word out of its true context, distorted and debased it: a defilement of the memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust and an affront to the survivors – a number of whom reside in Cape Town.
A visit to Shapiro’s official site is both instructive and illuminating. A perusal of a lengthy list of his caricatures reveals a natural ongoing concern with SA’s problems, his chronic fixation with the USA and Israel – but next to nothing else (in well over two hundred and fifty of his caricatures, one relates to Bashar Assad and two to Putin). The “Why I am still fighting monsters everywhere!” fearless dragon slayer mounted on his high horse, preening himself on his ethics is simply incapable of or unwilling to seek out other “monsters” in this world. Hollow words from a little hollow straw man.
Jonathan Shapiro sees himself as an African and identifies with the struggle of its oppressed peoples, yet here he suffers from bad case of moral myopia and conveniently turns his head to look the other way. The continent is currently roiled by many wars and sufferings. There are the massacres and the genocide in Sudan perpetrated by the Janjaweed militia with the consequent mass starvation and devastation whose dimensions dwarf all other conflicts. In Nigeria, the Fulani tribesmen have destroyed many Christian villages and churches, murdering thousands, raping and abducting young girls. In some African states such as Mauritania, slavery is still actively practiced with millions still in bondage. And further afield, what about the atrocities committed by Al Qaeda and ISIS? Where is his voice? The silence of our shining knight with his self touted conscience is deafening. The reason is crystal clear: the perpetrators are Moslem and Jonathan, knows full well on which side his bread is buttered. Why cause offence, possibly be called Islamophobic and suffer the backlash? Why lose the support of your public when it is far more pragmatic to flush your so–called ideals down the bowl where they will spill out to further pollute the Cape beaches. Our man has to make a living by selling his books, penning caricatures for the newspapers, and peddling his cutesy statuettes of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu (the unsigned ones are now on sale for a bargain half price!) Much better to turn a blind eye!
The jewel in the crown of Shapiro’s website is a filmed interview conducted by a most affable and accommodating young man who from his name appears to be Muslim. Ensconced in his comfortable Camps Bay home, sitting next to his drawing board with anti-Netanyahu caricatures prominently displayed, the self promoting, fawning, and sycophantic Shapiro, falls all over himself in his feverish eagerness to extol his moral virtues and display his political correctness. And lest we forget, the video opens with the camera focusing on two especially chosen exceptionally lurid and denigrating caricatures of – yes, you guessed it! – Netanyahu.
I must confess that after a few minutes of watching this cloying performance, I was overcome by nausea and had to stop. Those gifted with strong stomachs and endowed with infinite patience are welcome to try to watch a tedious and repetitive twenty-six minutes until the end.
In Jewish history there are many recorded instances of aberrant members who have forsaken, turned against and harmed their people. However, Jonathan Shapiro in sinking so low has created a new category: that of a self serving hypocrite who through his actions knowingly harms the community but has no qualms about exploiting its services for his own needs. Such an abhorrent individual, devoid of conscience, scruples and common decency is beneath contempt.
Stephen Schulman is a graduate of the South African Jewish socialist youth movement Habonim, who immigrated to Israel in 1969 and retired in 2012 after over 40 years of English teaching. He was for many years a senior examiner for the English matriculation and co-authored two English textbooks for the upper grades in high school. Now happily retired, he spends his time between his family, his hobbies and reading to try to catch up on his ignorance.
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).
Ink dripping with blood, South African Jewish cartoonist endangers his people.
By Stephen Schulman
Like so many others, I am familiar with the work of the South African cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro better known as Zapiro. Shapiro, the source of many biting caricatures has been gifted with exceptional artistic talent but most sadly, very little else.
Shapiro positions himself as the great and fearless crusader wielding his mighty pen “fighting monsters” whilst carrying the banner of an unbiased moral authority that clearly differentiates wrong from right in exposing the injustices in our world. Unfortunately, his hatred of the State of Israel runs so deep that all of his cartoons of our country overflow with such venomous bilge that all pretence of his vaunted morality is jettisoned.
In Iran, a theocratic, despotic and repressive government boasts an atrocious human rights record of incarcerating, torturing, murdering and publicly executing its critics; in the first four months of 2025 alone, there have been at least 343 recorded executions. It has also long trumpeted its declared aim – with all means at its disposal – of obliterating the Jewish state. The IAEA has revealed that this regime while employing its well-honed strategy of prevarication, threats, obfuscation, subterfuge and outright lying has blatantly contravened all imposed limits and manufactured large amounts of highly enriched fissionable uranium suitable for the construction of an atomic bomb. How did our Shapiro react to this scenario of a Holocaust denying genocidal rogue state acquiring the means of mass destruction? His cartoon of the 12th June speaks for itself:
If you are looking for any condemnation or even hint of Iran’s actions, you will be sorely disappointed for once again Shapiro’s old flogging horse Netanyahu reappears, now depicted as a sinister war monger with a mushroom cloud spouting from his head. To our Jonathan it matters not one whit that Iran’s actions have been condemned by the European community and many Western countries. For, as usual, as portrayed in his regular vilifying and demonizing cartoons, Netanyahu i.e. Israel i.e. the Jews are the root of all conflicts and injustices in the Middle East.
Why his silence on Iran’s crimes and transgression? The answer lies with SA’s ruling African National Congress party’s accumulation of huge debts that were suddenly paid off by a mysterious but well known benefactor: Iran. Shapiro is not only a highly moral but also a most pragmatic individual and knows full well that any attempt to criticize his government’s close ally and party bankroller would have officialdom fall on him like a ton of bricks. How true for him is the old adage: “A dog barks for his masters.” After all, a man has to put food on the table for all those hungry mouths and nobody likes to be unceremoniously hoofed out of lucrative newspaper jobs and see his dedicated buying public boycotting his books. So accordingly, principles must be swept under the carpet and a politically correct silence must be maintained.
On the 13th June, only one day after the publication of this scurrilous cartoon, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s military-nuclear complex – a war for its survival that has been condoned by the enlightened international community. While Israel has confined its targets to Iran’s military and nuclear installations, Iran, unsurprisingly, has had no compunction about sending its UAV’s and missiles into a hospital and heavily concentrated urban areas.
The war is still ongoing and Shapiro’s pen will be busy drawing for his select audience. If anyone wonders about the content of his forthcoming cartoons, a glance at a few of his notorious past endeavors should leave no doubt. The cartoon of the 8th October 2024 is so disgusting in its distortion of truth and warped narrative that it is simply beneath contempt. Other repulsive cartoons portray Israel’s P.M sitting in a bath of Arab blood and as the charioteer behind the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
But what about Shapiro’s pursuing of some genuine “monsters” in this world such as the repressive North Korean regime and China’s persecution of the Falun Gong sect and the cultural genocide of the Tibetans and the Uyghur? Neither a squeak nor a plaintive bleat emanates from our crusading knight, for after all, China is a valued trading partner and investor in SA’s crumbling economy and it wouldn’t do to ruffle their feathers.
On October 7th 2023, a Hamas terrorist army invaded Israel in an orgy of rape, sodomy, plundering and destruction, sadistically murdering twelve hundred people – the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Two hundred and fifty innocent people – from little children to infirm octogenarians were forcibly abducted into Gaza and held in unspeakable conditions, suffering sexual abuse, torturing and beatings while being systematically starved and dehydrated. Many of them were murdered in captivity including a young mother together with her toddler and his small brother. Fifty hostages still remain and of those twenty are reputed to be still alive. Would this not arouse outrage in the heart of any decent, thinking person? Jonathan Shapiro, true to form in his callousness and selective morality, turns a blind eye to the suffering of his fellow Jews in Israel and never a hint of the tragedy or condemnation of its perpetrators has ever appeared in his work.
Revolting Reality. More revolting than Zapiro’s false caricatures is the true picture of Iran such as seeing a 75% increase in executions during first four months of 2025 over 2024 with at least 343 according to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO).
Nevertheless, to Shapiro living in Cape Town, Jewish lives do matter. They do indeed matter very much to him when they are in close proximity and when they can serve him or be exploited for his personal needs. He besmirches Israel at every opportunity, yet had no problem in sending his children for a good education to Herzlia, the Jewish day school. He also sent them to a Zionist Jewish youth movement’s summer camps knowing that they would be well looked after and he would have peace of mind. He also had no qualms about applying for a place for his aged mother in the Jewish home for the aged in Cape Town.
Jonathan Shapiro is nothing more than a self serving hypocrite, a pitiable individual hiding behind the façade of a crusader with a high moral stance but who applies his principles only when they serve his needs. The stench of a putrid morality has long clung to this despicable personage.
About the writer:
Stephen Schulman is a graduate of the South African Jewish socialist youth movement Habonim, who immigrated to Israel in 1969 and retired in 2012 after over 40 years of English teaching. He was for many years a senior examiner for the English matriculation and co-authored two English textbooks for the upper grades in high school. Now happily retired, he spends his time between his family, his hobbies and reading to try to catch up on his ignorance.
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).
Why should a minority foreign import be allowed to determine the future of the majority?
By Kenneth MoengMokgatlhe
I was taken aback by the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) when it accepted the application of the Shariah-based political party called the Islamic State of Africa (ISA). This application was forwarded by a man who is not new to controversy. Farhad Hoomer was arrested in 2018 after he was accused of being involved in the deadly attack at the Imam Hussain Mosque in Verulam, a town 24 kilometres north of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, however, his charges were later withdrawn.
The name Islamic State of Africa raises a serious concern as it suggests that Hoomer may be associated with Islamic State (ISIS or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations (UN) and many countries around the world, including Muslim countries.
Hoodlum Hoomer. Farhad Hoomer and four others were arrested at a warehouse in Mayville, Durban in June 2021 where police seized more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition, handguns, an AK-47, a bolt action rifle with a scope and a cellphone jammer. Charges were later dropped against Hoomer and his co-accused. (Photos: SAPS)
This terrorist organisation needs no introduction in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as it continues to cause chaos in Mozambique where South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has been involved to stop the Jihadi terrorism unleashed by a group known as Islamic State of Mozambique (ISM).
The accusations by some Western politicians that Africa – to some extent – is an enabler of growing terrorism on the continent could be true. Countries such as Sudan and Chad have allowed the Islamic organisations to operate in their countries, at times offering their countries as covers for wanted terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden.
The ideology and political aims of South Africa’s new party, ISA, does not in any way align with the country’s constitution. Just as the founder, Hooker, has said, its constitution makes it very clear that it will implement Shariah law – a legal and moral framework within Islam derived from the Quran and Islamic tradition. The chaotic scenes deriving from the Middle East and Asia are entirely caused by the proponents of this belief, who are convinced that the whole world should be forced, through violence, to follow Islam.
Farhad has visions of getting far ahead. Durban businessperson Farhad Hoomer – accused by the US of leading an “Isis cell” – denies being a terrorist but says his goal is the establishment of an Islamic caliphate and he is willing to take up arms to achieve his goals. He sees democracy as a form of “evil, tyranny and enslavement”.
What Hoomer should understand is that South Africa is and will forever remain a secular state, which has a greater respect for all religions and has always allowed everyone to practice their religion. Section 15 of the South African Constitution guarantees to all the “freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, and opinion.” With South Africa being a predominantly Christian country – a legacy due to its colonial past – it is not nor will ever be a religious state. From this vantage point, it does not make sense that a minority Islamic sect could be allowed to determine the future of the majority.
Spearheading Sharia. Farhad Hoomer who wants his new political party, the Islamic State of Africa (ISA), to be part of South Africa’s political landscape said in an interview with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime “Will I fight for Sharia? I would say yes.”
The concern here is not whether this Sharia-based party’s application to the Electoral Commission would be approved or that Hoomer may not even get a parliamentary seat, but about the principle. The IEC was not supposed to even entertain the application of Farhad Hooler which would be a green light to import violence to South Africa. Just on our doorsteps in Mozambique, our brothers and sisters are terrorised by similar Islamic groups.
South Africa is also harbouring immigrants and refugees who are running away from the Middle East and African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Nigeria, and many others.
Potential Import. In South Africa’s northern neighbour Mozambique, residents near Macomia in Cabo Delgado province, gather after their village was attacked in 2024 by the Islamic State group. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
According to the Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI), South Africa has been and remains a source of funding for many terror activities across the African continent. There are Islamic State-loyal cells inside our country who are acting as middlemen by consolidating all the funds from all related terror organisations to generate income. MEARI further observes that Somalia and South Africa are financial hubs of all Islamic State cells or provinces as they are called, the money is then pooled inside South Africa and laundered across East Africa through an intricate network that finances the Islamic State’s activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Mozambique.
Frying Pan into the Fire. Fleeing civil wars, these refugees from Somalia, the DRC and Burundi camp outside the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) offices in Cape Town, South Africa in 2019 fearing for their lives due to local xenophobia. (Photo: Ashraf Hendricks/GroundUp)
Recent terrorist encounters in Djibouti and Mozambique should sound alarm bells for South Africa to neither associate nor tolerate any Islamic State related organisations to operate on its soil. To do so will only create a conducive environment for radical Islamic terrorism to thrive in a country that has absorbed so many illegal migrants from across the African continent.
On a matter of principle, South Africa’s Electoral Commission should not have entertained the application of ISA whose party platform is both foreign to South Africa’s political, cultural and social ethos and most certainly at odds with the country’s internationally acclaimed liberal constitution.
As much as we respect religious nations, we are not a religious state and do not wish to become one.
Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe is a political writer and researcher based at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
ICJ finds serious procedural violations in South Africa’s submission against Israel that should be acting with integrity and transparency not procedural violations, hearsay ‘evidence’ and secrecy.
By Craig Snoyman
(*First appeared under different title in the SAJR)
Last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered a curious decision – one that the South African legacy media has largely ignored. Instead of holding Israel to filing its answer to South Africa’s case by the original deadline of 28 July 2025, the court granted a massive extension, to 28 January 2026.
On the face of it, this does not appear to be significant. But looking beneath the surface, there are serious implications for South Africa.
Funding the initial application: Why don’t we know where the money came from?
After South Africa instituted its application against Israel, alleging that it was committing genocide, speculation swirled about who was funding the case. After a lengthy silence, the Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, stated in Parliament in December 2024 that South Africa was allocating a further R95 million to pursue the costs of the memorial (the founding case) at the ICJ. What remains unstated, and which the legacy media no longer questions, is who financed the initial application for preventative measures, which is distinguishable from the memorial. Credible sources such as the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy suggested that this funding came from Iran, and possibly Qatar as well. While the Department of International Relations and Cooperation said that the government had paid for it, Godongwana was more circumspect, dealing only with the memorial. The problem with this is that two years down the line there are still no financial records showing that any South African ministry either paid for, or budgeted for, the initial application.
Colourful Charade. South African lawyer Adila Hassim (left), South Africa’s justice minister Ronald Lamola (centre) and ambassador to the Netherlands Vusimuzi Madonsela at the International Court of Justice on Thursday. (Photo: EPA-EFE/Remko de Waal)
Professor John Dugard, the de facto leader of the South African legal team, refused to give a straight answer, merely stating that:
“…allegations of covert funding are politically charged but legally irrelevant. The ICJ assesses cases on merits, not on financial origins.”
The suspicion that the government is either concealing information from its voting public or misrepresenting the position remains.
While doubts persist about the government and the initial funding, there was never a question about the capability of the South African legal team. This was the “A Team” – South Africa’s best silks and highly qualified and experienced international jurists. But with last week’s ICJ order this, too, needs to be looked at more closely.
The memorial submission: A legal battle shrouded in secrecy
The first substantive step in the case to prove that Israel has violated the Genocide Convention was the submission of a memorial detailing the genocide allegations. This memorial came at the hefty price of tens of millions of rand, and a substantial amount of it was used for investigation and legal fees. South Africa’s memorial amounted to a monumental 750 pages, accompanied by more than 4 000 pages of exhibits and annexes, setting out its evidence against Israel, including accusations of forced displacement, starvation, and mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza.
However, in keeping with ICJ protocol, memorials are not made public, and so South Africa’s memorial content remains locked away from public scrutiny. Israel was obligated to submit its counter-memorial (its defence) by 28 July 2025, approximately six months after the filing of the memorial. That deadline has now taken a dramatic turn.
A stunning ICJ ruling: SA exposed for serious procedural violations
The ICJ, after considering both South Africa’s and Israel’s submissions, ordered that Israel need only file its counter-memorial next year. This postponement to allow Israel to file its response (adding 9 months to the time given to respond), suggests that the ICJ found serious procedural violations in South Africa’s submission.
Vague at The Hague. Distracting attention away from its own abysmal record, (South Africa’s murder rate of 45 per 100,000 (2023/24) is the second highest for countries that publish crime data), it pursues Israel on unsubstantiated charges at The Hague. Seen here is a rather bored South African ambassador to the Netherlands Vusimuzi Madonsela checking his phone during a hearing at the ICJ in The Hague, Netherlands, January 12, 2024. (Patrick Post/AP)
Reliable leaks from “Western diplomats” have elaborated on the court’s order concerning the averment that “the counter-memorial had been significantly impeded because of a range of evidentiary issues that had arisen in connection with the memorial of the Republic of South Africa and in light of which the scope of the case remained unclear”. These leaks have now also been independently verified. In layman’s terms, South Africa is playing evidential hide-and-seek with Israel’s legal team. The diplomatic sources, and as verified by Israeli Professor Eugene Kontorovich and former Israeli Ambassador and an expert in international law, Alan Baker, state that South Africa submitted crucial evidence but concealed it from Israel, and it has submitted numerous unsubstantiated hearsay testimonies stemming from Hamas sources. South Africa’s response implicitly acknowledged that there was fire below the smoke responding that:
“…the evidentiary issues raised concerned a limited number of documents and could in no way prejudice the respondent in the preparation of its case”.
For the “A Team” to pursue justice dishonestly would betray the very principle of justice itself and South Africa’s image as this benevolent pursuer of human rights. South Africa should be acting with integrity, transparency, and rigorous evidence – not through procedural violations, unreliable hearsay evidence, and secrecy. It should not be left to Israel to make sense of South Africa’s mess.
As any first-year law student would know, in these circumstances, this would be a violation of fundamental legal principles, coupled with an inability to prove that Israel has committed “genocide” as accepted by the Genocide Convention. My law professor once said my essays were neither quantitative nor qualitative. It seems the ICJ has viewed South Africa’s procedural irregularities in a similar vein. Its response has been to give South Africa a virtual harsh slap across the face.
Killing Kids. The massacre in Israel that began the hostilities is irrelevant to South Africa. This photo of children’s toys and personal items lying on the bloodstained floor of a child’s bedroom, following the murderous attack by Hamas gunmen in Kibbutz Beeri on October 7 would probably solicit a yawn from South Africa’s ‘illustrious’ legal team. (Photo: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun)
A fiasco at the ‘expense’ of South Africa
With a government refusing to clarify who financed the initial application, and the “A Team” seemingly committing basic legal errors, South Africa’s financial and legal missteps are costing the nation dearly. At a time when South Africa is feeling international political heat, legal egg on the face is not what is needed now. If the case for genocide lacks the legal foundation and it doesn’t have the evidence, then South Africa must stop throwing millions into a losing battle. Justice demands more than passion. It demands precision. And right now, South Africa may not be offering either.
About the writer:
Craig Snoymanis a practising advocate in South Africa.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
A modest Passover products display at a South African Pick n Pay leads to antisemitic rage and the Johannesburg supermarket’s surrender.
By Tim Flack
Let’s not sugar-coat this.
I’m not Jewish. Never claimed to be. But I’ll be damned if I stand by while open antisemitism gets paraded as activism in the middle of a grocery store. What happened at Pick n Pay Norwood on 11 April wasn’t protest. It was targeted harassment, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows it.
Propping up Jew-Hatred. When Pick n Pay took down its props indicating where the kosher-for-Pesach section was in the Norwood Mall before the festival, the Jewish community was shocked and angry, questioning how this could happen at a store with one of the biggest and most loyal kosher customer bases.
This wasn’t about foreign policy or the Gaza war. It wasn’t about challenging so-called Israeli aggression. It was about matzah and kosher grape juice. That’s it. A display of basic Passover products in the kosher section of a supermarket was turned into a battlefield by a group of attention-seekers who think yelling “genocide” into an iPhone makes them freedom fighters.
The kosher section featured traditional food items used during Passover, alongside symbols of Jewish identity, the colour blue, known as tekhelet, and the Star of David. That was enough to send the mob into a meltdown. Why? Because in their minds, even existing as a Jew is now a provocation.
Let’s set the record straight.
The Star of David is not a Zionist logo. It’s a Jewish symbol. Full stop. It predates the modern State of Israel by centuries. It’s etched into synagogues, stitched into prayer shawls, and engraved on gravestones around the world. Calling it controversial because it appeared next to matzah on a shelf is not political critique. Its antisemitism dressed up as moral outrage.
Uproar to Uprooting. Staging a protest inside the Norwood store on 11 April, the BDS Movement and its cohorts objected to the inclusion of what they called “Israeli imagery,” specifically a national flag and the Star of David, and demanded their removal resulting in the store removing the ‘offensive’ signs.
Pick n Pay stocks Halaal food (allowed under Islamic law) year-round. It runs specials during Ramadan. It marks Diwali – the Hindu ‘Festival of Lights’. It hangs tinsel and puts up Christmas trees in December. Nobody complains. Nobody stages a protest in the bakery aisle over hot cross buns. But when Jewish South Africans get a small, modest display for Passover, out come the hashtags and the rage. The double standard is blinding.
Norwood has a long-standing Jewish community. These products are local staples. It’s not some Zionist plot to destabilise South Africa. It’s people buying the food their families have eaten for millennia during one of the holiest times of the year.
And let’s not ignore the obvious. If this were any other religious group, the outrage would be instant. Imagine someone tearing down a Ramadan display and accusing Muslims of terrorism. They’d be charged with hate speech before they made it out the parking lot. But when it happens to Jews? It’s uploaded to Instagram with a filter and a “Free Palestine” slogan.
There is a clear line between political dissent and religious discrimination. That line was bulldozed at Pick n Pay Norwood. BDS and its affiliates don’t care about nuance, coexistence, or real solutions. They care about vilifying Jews under the false flag of human rights.
It’s time we called this what it is: an attack on Jewish life in South Africa.
What lies in ‘store’? The knee-jerk reaction of the Pick n Pay store taking down the Pesach décor apparently began when SA actor, writer, and radio and television personality, Eric Miyeni posted on social media that he would never shop at Pick n Pay again because of its Pesach display featuring Magen Davids and blue and white ribbons. Miyeni’s post went viral stirring an antisemitic rage against the “symbols of Judaism” but felt “vindicated” when the decorations were removed.
WHICH WAY PICK n PAY?
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies is right to demand an apology. Not because they want extra privileges, but because they want equal treatment. Jewish families should be able to shop in peace without being shouted at by strangers armed with smartphones and slogans.
Pick n Pay has a decision to make. Either it stands for all South Africans or it allows bigotry to masquerade as political activism. There is no middle ground here.
Apologise. Clarify your position. Reinforce that your stores are places of inclusion, not platforms for intimidation.
Because once you legitimise this kind of behaviour, it doesn’t stop with one community. Today it was the Jews. Tomorrow, it could be anyone.
About the writer:
Tim Flack is the CEO and Head of Comms and Public Relations and founder of Flack Partners PR, a boutique public relations firm in Cape Town, South Africa. Tim specialises in providing tailored communication strategies for businesses in the political, safety and security, and small business fields.
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 first encounter at a Passover seder left this Capetonian enriched by the experience.
By Tim Flack
This year, I found myself at a Passover Seder table for the first time in my life. I hadn’t planned on it. A kind friend asked if I had ever been to one – not being Jewish – and when I said no, she quietly arranged for me to attend the annual Seder at the Gardens Shul.
I knew that the Gardens Shul – also known as the Great Synagogue – had been established in 1841, making it the oldest Jewish congregation in South Africa.
The Garden Shul in Cape Town, South Africa with Table Mountain to the right.
I went alone, and to be honest, I was nervous. I had never been to a synagogue before. I went through the necessary security checks and felt completely out of place. I’m a big guy in a white kippah sruga (knitted yarmulke/skullcap) and a star of David on it, (I picked this kippah because I’m an unashamed Zionist, but that’s another story) with a yellow ribbon pinned to my shirt and a full Japanese tattoo sleeve. I knew I stood out.
I made my way up the stairs to the Seder Hall and sat at the first table I saw with open seats. There were two couples sitting there, around my age, and they welcomed me warmly. Just as I sat down, my blood sugar dropped sharply. I’m diabetic, so I explained what was happening. Someone quickly handed me grape juice and some water, and I managed to stabilize. That small act of kindness set the tone for the entire evening.
The Seder was led by Rabbi Osher, and I listened and took part in a tradition that has been observed for more than 3,000 years. I was quietly taking it all in and trying my best to follow, we had gotten to the 4 sons, someone leaned over during the reading and said something that stopped me in my tracks. They said, “You’re the Fifth Son.” I didn’t know what that meant entirely, I do now.
Inside the Gardens Shul, Cape Town.
If you know the Passover Haggadah, you’ll know it speaks of four sons. The wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who does not know how to ask. But there is also a powerful teaching from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. He spoke of a Fifth Son, the one who is not at the table at all.
He may be disconnected, unaffiliated, uncertain if he belongs, or unaware there’s even a place for him. The Rebbe taught that it is not enough to engage with those already present. That there is a responsibility to reach out to those who are absent, to find the Fifth Son and bring him in, regardless of background or circumstance. It is an act of inclusion, of compassion, and of spiritual responsibility.
That night, I was that son. Not because I was missing, but because someone made sure I was invited. It truly was special.
Preparing the tables for a Passover seder at the Gardens Shul.
Rabbi Osher and his wife introduced themselves to me and were incredibly welcoming. So was everyone else I met. There was no suspicion. No hesitation. Just warmth and generosity. I came in quietly, and I left quietly, but I will never forget being welcomed into something so meaningful and sacred.
To the couples that allowed me to sit with them, thank you for making me feel like I belonged. To the Gardens Shul community, thank you for allowing me to be part of such an important tradition.
I may have slipped in and out of the room quietly. But I will always stand with the Jewish people. Your story, your values, and your courage have left a mark on me.
You have a friend in me. Always.
*Feature picture: The Garden Shul in Cape Town, South Africa with Table Mountain to the right.
About the writer:
Tim Flack is the CEO and Head of Comms and Public Relations and founder of Flack Partners PR, a boutique public relations firm in Cape Town, South Africa. Tim specialises in providing tailored communication strategies for businesses in the political, safety and security, and small business fields.
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)
