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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.
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Israel to Send Delegation to Qatar for Gaza Ceasefire Talks
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem, Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
Israel has decided to send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, an Israeli official said, reviving hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations to end the almost 21-month war.
Palestinian group Hamas said on Friday it had responded to a US-backed Gaza ceasefire proposal in a “positive spirit,” a few days after US President Donald Trump said Israel had agreed “to the necessary conditions to finalize” a 60-day truce.
The Israeli negotiation delegation will fly to Qatar on Sunday, the Israeli official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters.
But in a sign of the potential challenges still facing the two sides, a Palestinian official from a militant group allied with Hamas said concerns remained over humanitarian aid, passage through the Rafah crossing in southern Israel to Egypt and clarity over a timetable for Israeli troop withdrawals.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due to meet Trump in Washington on Monday, has yet to comment on Trump’s announcement, and in their public statements Hamas and Israel remain far apart.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said Hamas must be disarmed, a position the terrorist group, which is thought to be holding 20 living hostages, has so far refused to discuss.
Israeli media said on Friday that Israel had received and was reviewing Hamas’ response to the ceasefire proposal.
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Tucker Carlson Says to Air Interview with President of Iran
Tucker Carlson speaks on July 18, 2024 during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photo: Jasper Colt-USA TODAY via Reuters Connect
US conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson said in an online post on Saturday that he had conducted an interview with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which would air in the next day or two.
Carlson said the interview was conducted remotely through a translator, and would be published as soon as it was edited, which “should be in a day or two.”
Carlson said he had stuck to simple questions in the interview, such as, “What is your goal? Do you seek war with the United States? Do you seek war with Israel?”
“There are all kinds of questions that I didn’t ask the president of Iran, particularly questions to which I knew I could get an not get an honest answer, such as, ‘was your nuclear program totally disabled by the bombing campaign by the US government a week and a half ago?’” he said.
Carlson also said he had made a third request in the past several months to interview Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be visiting Washington next week for talks with US President Donald Trump.
Trump said on Friday he would discuss Iran with Netanyahu at the White House on Monday.
Trump said he believed Tehran’s nuclear program had been set back permanently by recent US strikes that followed Israel’s attacks on the country last month, although Iran could restart it at a different location.
Trump also said Iran had not agreed to inspections of its nuclear program or to give up enriching uranium. He said he would not allow Tehran to resume its nuclear program, adding that Iran did want to meet with him.
Pezeshkian said last month Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons but will pursue its right to nuclear energy and research.
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Hostage Families Reject Partial Gaza Seal, Demand Release of All Hostages
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – As Israeli leaders weigh the contours of a possible partial ceasefire deal with Hamas, the families of the 50 hostages still held in Gaza issued an impassioned public statement this weekend, condemning any agreement that would return only some of the abductees.
In a powerful message released Saturday, the Families Forum for the Return of Hostages denounced what they call the “beating system” and “cruel selection process,” which, they say, has left families trapped in unbearable uncertainty for 638 days—not knowing whether to hope for reunion or prepare for mourning.
The group warned that a phased or selective deal—rumored to be under discussion—would deepen their suffering and perpetuate injustice. Among the 50 hostages, 22 are believed to be alive, and 28 are presumed dead.
“Every family deserves answers and closure,” the Forum said. “Whether it is a return to embrace or a grave to mourn over—each is sacred.”
They accused the Israeli government of allowing political considerations to prevent a full agreement that could have brought all hostages—living and fallen—home long ago. “It is forbidden to conform to the dictates of Schindler-style lists,” the statement read, invoking a painful historical parallel.
“All of the abductees could have returned for rehabilitation or burial months ago, had the government chosen to act with courage.”
The call for a comprehensive deal comes just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares for high-stakes talks in Washington and as indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas are expected to resume in Doha within the next 24 hours, according to regional media reports.
Hamas, for its part, issued a statement Friday confirming its readiness to begin immediate negotiations on the implementation of a ceasefire and hostage release framework.
The Forum emphasized that every day in captivity poses a mortal risk to the living hostages, and for the deceased, a danger of being lost forever. “The horror of selection does not spare any of us,” the statement said. “Enough with the separation and categories that deepen the pain of the families.”
In a planned public address near Begin Gate in Tel Aviv, families are gathering Saturday evening to demand that the Israeli government accept a full-release deal—what they describe as the only “moral and Zionist” path forward.
“We will return. We will avenge,” the Forum concluded. “This is the time to complete the mission.”
As of now, the Israeli government has not formally responded to Hamas’s latest statement.
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