This probably comes as no surprise to most onlookers, but rot growing in South Africa’s political elite has extended its reach in recent yerars, adding to its embarrassing mismanagement of the country and flagrant corruption on the international stage.
Despite losing major support in the past election, the African National Congress (ANC) is still the leading party in South Africa’s “government of national unity.” It has always had some less-than-savory, anti-Western associations, but since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, it has tripled down on siding with dictators, autocrats, and, perhaps most worrying of all, radical Islamists over the rest of the liberal democratic world.
Though plenty has been written about the ANC’s libelous court case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, what is less known to international readers (and many local ones, too) is the way a certain not-for-profit organization has been exerting a stronger influence on the government, especially in terms of that court case. Such ignorance is hardly unexpected, of course, because it requires knowledge of the inner workings of South Africa’s governmental echelons. Also, the NGO in question is an extremely well-respected humanitarian organization that has provided major relief for countries and communities worldwide that have suffered from natural disasters and war. But the more you dig, the more you find just how rotten its roots truly are.
Gift of the Givers, for that is its name, has, quite undeniably, done some exceptional work on the world stage. It has provided crucial, life-saving aid to those in desperate need of it, and none of what follows takes away from that work. It also doesn’t change the fact that its founder, Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman, seems to be using those good works as a cover for something much more nefarious.
Sooliman first entered the public eye during the run-up to the elections in 1994 that transitioned South Africa from apartheid into a liberal, constitutional democracy as one of the founders of the African Muslim Party, a fringe Islamist political party that gained zero seats during the election and only enjoyed some very limited success in the Western Cape province. As his political career fizzled out almost as soon as it had begun, he turned his attention toward the philanthropic efforts that he had already begun. Though these weren’t just any philanthropic efforts.
In 1991, Sooliman founded the South African branch of the Al-Aqsa International Foundation, an entity that, according to international intelligence agencies, had and still has strong links to Hamas and other Islamist terror groups. It also fell under the umbrella of the so-called Union of Good (aka Coalition of Good), which was itself sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for ties to Islamist terror.
A year later, he shifted tactics. Trying to distance himself from obvious Islamism, Sooliman created Gift of the Givers Foundation as a more universal charity; one with Islamic roots, sure, but with a mission statement to help all people, regardless of their background.
On a surface level, he succeeded. But just because he buried the ties between Gift of the Givers and his previous charity, they were still there. Even if Sooliman maintained questionable associations (especially with members of Hamas’s parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood) and even if Gift of the Givers’ relationship with Islamist terror groups in the Middle East seemed a bit too cozy on closer examination, he made sure that Gift of the Givers never looked anything less than squeaky clean. So much so that for Jewish South Africans, it was a point of national pride, no doubt with many throwing their support behind it.
And then Oct. 7 happened, and everything changed.
Almost at once, the facade dropped. As Sooliman amped up efforts to win over the government and the media, his interest in maintaining a reputation as a nonpartisan, apolitical, moderate figure has all but vanished. He had little to fear as he and his anti-Western Islamist associates had built up Israel in the minds of average South Africans as an “apartheid state” over at least the past quarter century. South African Jews may be protected by the country’s constitution, but the Jewish state has been fair game for years, and in the aftermath of Oct. 7, President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC immediately sided with Hamas and ignored the South African Jewish community.
Sooliman has brazenly boasted about breaking secular law and following only Sharia law, appeared at rallies under the banner of “We are Hamas,” denigrated calls against antisemitism as “boring” and used his public platform to demonize Israel at every turn. In recent months, he has wormed his way into the media through numerous closed-door meetings with some of the country’s biggest news agencies and become something of a patron saint for the South African police force. He is also a major adviser to Ramaphosa and was appointed to serve on a group that will lead the country’s “National Dialogue” initiative to help set the agenda for South Africa going forward.
Considering how often Jews are accused of controlling governments, the media and financial institutions, I don’t type these accusations of Islamist influence on such institutions lightly. But as Sooliman becomes increasingly untouchable and Israel’s reputation continues to plummet worldwide, he seems less interested than ever in hiding his true face, laughing off even the most pointed concerns leveled at him.
As a result, what used to require extensive research into Sooliman’s background, political associations and beliefs is now pretty much out in the open for everyone to see. And what’s there to see is extremely worrying not just for South African Jews, but for anyone clear-eyed enough to understand the threat posed by an increasingly well-organized strain of radical Islamism.
