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South Africa Is Not Pro-Palestinian, It’s Pro-Hamas
A general view inside the International Court of Justice (ICJ), at the start of a hearing where South Africa requests new emergency measures over Israel’s operations in Rafah, in The Hague, Netherlands, May 17, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
On October 5, 2024 Sheikh Riad Fataar declared, “We are all Hamas.”
Fataar — who is the president of the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC), a large Muslim organization in South Africa — delivered this message at a rally in Cape Town. Fataar’s comments and other actions coming out of South Africa reflect an open embrace of Hamas, the terrorist group that massacred 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped another 250 people last year on October 7.
In South Africa, support for Hamas and hostility for Israel isn’t limited to Muslim clerics.
President Cyril Ramaphosa described October 7, 2023, as “the start of an onslaught against the Palestinian people” rather than a murderous and antisemitic attack on Jews.
Ramaphosa also invoked past grievances to justify Hamas atrocities. The week after the October 7 massacre, he cast the event as a consequence of the “occupation of Palestine,” as if killing women and children and raping girls at a music festival is the inevitable outcome of disputes over land.
Ramaphosa also compared Israelis snatched out of their beds and held in dungeons in Gaza to Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails for plotting, supporting, or carrying out terror attacks against Israelis.
But this support for Hamas isn’t new.
The South African government’s friendship with Hamas extends back to at least 2006, when it was one of the few countries to recognize the terrorist group’s victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Pretoria’s ruling party affirmed this relationship by hosting Hamas delegations in 2015, 2018, and even during the current war.
Then, in December 2023, the South African government established itself as Hamas’ lawyer on the global stage by initiating an International Court of Justice (ICJ) case accusing Israel of committing genocide.
Though US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and others have described the case as “meritless,” the proceedings have nevertheless helped normalize the outlandish charge of Israeli “genocide,” and increased political pressure against Israel. By doing so, South Africa has rewarded Hamas’ strategy of endangering Palestinian civilians for political gain.
The government’s open support for Hamas helps explain Sheikh Fataar’s declaration of allegiance to Hamas. Fataar similarly said in September 2024 that the whole world was praising Hamas and bragged about the meetings that his organization has held with Hamas leaders, including Khaled Meshaal and the late Ismail Haniyeh.
The October 5 rally at which Fataar spoke featured large pictures of leaders from Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups. Signs declaring “Death to Zionism,” “Death to Israel,” “We are Hamas,” and praise for the “Al-Aqsa Flood” — Hamas’s name for the October 7 attack — dominated the procession of thousands.
Al Jama-ah Party chief Ganief Hendricks, who is a member of South Africa’s cabinet, clarified how he worked to bring about “Death to Zionism.”
Hendricks said, “I call the Parliament in South Africa to arm the resistance in Palestine. I invited Hamas to Parliament. I’m not sure whether they got the weapons, but soon after my call, they came to parliament.” Hendricks went on to say that he went to Iran and “asked Iran to give weapons,” and that Israel “needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth.”
Hendricks is hardly the only member of his party openly embracing Hamas. In November 2023, Thapelo Amad, a Johannesburg city councilor from the Al-Jama-ah Party, posted a picture of himself holding an assault rifle with the caption, “We stand with Hamas.”
In his rally speech, Imtiaz Sooliman, director of Gift of the Givers, a humanitarian organization, crossed the line between violent anti-Zionism and rank antisemitism. Sooliman declared that “Zionists … run the world with fear. They control the world with money.”
Seemingly aware of the anti-Jewish stereotypes he employed, Sooliman continued, “And every time you say something, they terrify you and they say you’re antisemitic.” Gift of the Givers and the MJC were part of the Union of Good, according to the union’s website in the early 2000s. The United States sanctioned the union in 2008 for funding Hamas.
President Joe Biden or his successor should determine if the South African government has disqualified itself from receiving trade and investment benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act by supporting Hamas’ political objectives and engaging “in activities that undermine United States national security or foreign policy interests.”
And the US Department of the Treasury should investigate — and possibly sanction, depending on the results of those investigations — South African leaders who declare or demonstrate that they “are all Hamas.”
David May is a research manager and senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Follow David on X @DavidSamuelMay. Follow FDD on X @FDD.
The post South Africa Is Not Pro-Palestinian, It’s Pro-Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.