Humanitarian icon spouts hate speech as allegations swirl

Many admire the humanitarian work that the Gift of the Givers Foundation performs in the world’s disaster areas, providing relief from floods, earthquakes, and wars. It has built hospitals, schools, and provided water in dire circumstances.

But now its much-decorated founder and director, Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, is in hot water for antisemitic comments, captured on video. Allegations have also surfaced that his organisation is supporting terrorists like Hamas, apparently illegally funnelling funding to them under the cover of humanitarian actions. Its website provides no audited accounts nor financial information beyond claiming to have distributed R6 billion in aid to 47 countries in 32 years. There are now calls for Sooliman’s invitation to deliver the Helen Suzman Memorial Lecture on 14 November to be rescinded. The Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF) has reconfirmed his participation.

On 5 October 2024, Sooliman shared a platform under a banner proclaiming, “We are all Hamas” with known Islamist extremists. He said, “Every time we protested, the Zionists were too clever. They were arrogant, acting with impunity, put fear into you. They put fear into corporate corporations, into universities, into communities, into governments, into political parties, into associations. They run the world with fear. They control the world with money. And every time you say something, they terrify you and they say it’s antisemitic. But I’ve got a message for them. Find a new narrative, this one is dull, boring, and stupid.”

Milton Shain, emeritus professor of historical studies at the University of Cape Town, an expert on antisemitism said, “Dr Imtiaz Sooliman crosses the line that separates anti-Zionism from antisemitism. Zionists are characterised in an ugly, uncompromising, and conspiratorial way. Although the ‘J-word’ is studiously avoided, the tropes employed by Sooliman betray a classic anti-Jewish mindset, informed by fantasy, which is often the hallmark of antisemitism. His allusions are deeply troubling. Sooliman will, of course, deny the charge, but his apparent worldview and his resort to fantasy surely raises questions. The generalisations he makes, and the resonance of his charges with well-worn anti-Jewish tropes are disturbing to say the least. Such language is invariably informed by Jew-hatred. Replace the word ‘Zionist’ with ‘Jew’ in Sooliman’s diatribe, and we have The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And we all know what that means.”

On 7 October 2024, Sooliman said, “I don’t follow international law or human law. I follow Koranic law. I’m a Muslim. I don’t need any permission from anybody in the world to tell me what to do. I break the laws all the time. I follow Islamic law, and Islamic law overrides any other law. My law is very clear to me. Allah himself has instructed me. I don’t need men to tell me what to do. I don’t follow them.” He has previously called Israel a “terrorist, apartheid, genocidal state”.

These issues were brought to light on 23 October through an open letter to the HSF executive director by Lawrence Nowosenetz, a South-African-born Tel Aviv attorney who served as the Pretoria chairperson of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies.

Nowosenetz alleges that Sooliman founded the South African branch of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Al-Aqsa Foundation in 1991, dedicated to obliterating Israel. This foundation belongs to the Union of Good, run by the radical jihadi Sheik Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.

Nowosenetz said that the HSF should call on Sooliman to be transparent about Gift of the Givers’ finances, and criticise his disdain for the law. Their operations are now on the radar of organisations following illicit financial flows.

According to Shaun Sacks, senior researcher at Israel’s NGO Monitor, “Dr Imtiaz Sooliman … has acknowledged past connections and even donations to the radical Al-Aqsa Foundation and the Union of Good, blacklisted by the United States Treasury in 2008 for allegedly financing Hamas. Although Sooliman and Gift of the Givers have demonstrated humanitarian intentions, they have operated in areas with significant terrorist and corrupt elements, including Gaza – with Hamas – and Syria. Sooliman’s public remarks downplaying international law, coupled with the lack of published audits or donor disclosures, raise serious concerns about the organisation’s activities.”

The issue has sparked public reaction. On 27 October, the HSF said it couldn’t determine the merits of the allegations, but believed Sooliman’s assurances that they were baseless. It said the HSF opposed antisemitism unequivocally, and that the lecture would proceed.

According to News24, Sooliman said he wasn’t upset by the allegations, and long knew he would be targeted for his strong support for the Palestinians. He claimed he could account for all money received and expended. He challenged his critics to file charges against him through law enforcement agencies and banks.

Next, former Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon wrote on News24 that though Suzman would likely not have disinvited Sooliman, she would have called him out for his bigotry.

This led to an article by former HSF Director Nicole Fritz in Daily Maverick. She pointed out that too many people – all men – publicly presume to know what Suzman would have thought or said. “That’s why,” Fritz said, “the legacy foundations of South Africa, peculiar creatures that they are, cannot and should not be attempts at resurrecting or substituting for the person whose legacy they are meant to honour. They cannot be a kind of Ouija board. They can only try as best they can to uphold that legacy, defend the principles that were core to that person’s life, and look to emulate their best example.”

She doesn’t deal with the allegations about Sooliman. In a WhatsApp conversation with the SA Jewish Report, she said, “I understand Dr Sooliman’s comments to traffic in antisemitic tropes. I understand Mr Nowosenetz’s letter to Naseema Fakir, rather than the board, to be sourced in anti-Muslim and sexist prejudice.”

Predictably, the Muslim Judicial Council (SA), #Africa4Palestine, and Media Review Network weighed in to defend Sooliman and criticise his dastardly “Zionist” critics for “malicious and defamatory” attacks. Former HSF Director RW Johnson called for the lecture to be cancelled.

A former HSF official who requested anonymity said the organisation had made its mark with excellent research and critical public litigation, “but then things went their own way. It’s messy there, to put it mildly. It has had a too-rapid turnover of chief executives and chairpersons, and faced a series of crises of its own making. They have taken the foundation in another direction, saying they are ‘reimagining’ the HSF. Sooliman’s outburst is very, very troubling. To hide behind the ‘Zionist fig-leaf’ is actually not good enough. Many donors may not want to support something like this. And you can’t just do good without oversight and accountability.”

The questions linger. Will we ever know if tender procedures were followed to distribute the copious funds given to Gift of the Givers by the South African government? How was Sooliman able to operate so freely in territories controlled by Islamists? Where has all the money come from, and gone to?

The SA Jewish Report approached Sooliman for an interview or comment. His only response was to say that “All these matters have already been covered extensively in the mainstream media” and referred us to other publications and media agencies.