Outreach organisation gives antisemitism a platform

The Gift of the Givers (GOTG) Foundation and its founder, Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, claim they aren’t antisemitic, even after Sooliman recently spouted antisemitic tropes at a Cape Town rally and GOTG’s Facebook page is riddled with hatred towards Jews.

The organisation posts on its Facebook page multiple times a day about its impressive outreach work. Yet amidst all this, it allows extreme antisemitic comments and graphics to be posted on the page, actively choosing not to delete the comments or block the users.

“Imagine being so vile, sneaky, and disgusting that laws have to be created to keep normal people from hating or condemning you,” posted one Facebook user in the comments section of a GOTG post in early November, along with an image of an evil-looking Jew with a kippah and a long nose. The same user posted another comment with a graphic of an Israeli flag being burned, saying that Jews are “the synagogue of Satan”.

According to social media law expert Emma Sadleir, “The law in South Africa says that if you have the ability to stop something from being published and you choose not to, you become legally responsible for that content. If you post something on my Facebook page, I become legally responsible for it because I could delete it, but I choose not to.”

The Facebook page appears to offer the same responses to our community as Sooliman did at the rally on 5 October, when he said, “Every time we protested, the Zionists were too clever. They were arrogant, acting with impunity, putting 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.”

Shaun Sacks, a senior researcher at NGO Monitor, says, “GOTG presents itself as a humanitarian charity, yet ongoing questions about its funding sources and activities in Gaza persist. Now, it has come to light that the organisation’s social media hosts blatant antisemitism and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. This raises serious concerns. Why does a charity that claims to champion noble values become a magnet for such hateful rhetoric? This troubling pattern calls for greater scrutiny and accountability from the financial institutions associated with the organisation.”

“A cursory glance at the graphics displayed on the GOTG Facebook page demonstrates without a shadow of doubt a disturbing and ugly trend,” says antisemitism expert Professor Milton Shain. “Well-worn anti-Jewish tropes are abundant, with Israel alone being demonised. This supports those scholars who argue that anti-Zionism is merely a fig-leaf for Jew-hatred. I’m surprised that an organisation known for its humanitarian work allows such debased and ignorant nonsense on its page. Surely it can recognise the difference between criticism and pure hate?”

The only items that GOTG posts about are its work and condemning Israel. In October and November 2024, it posted at least 40 posts condemning Israel. In that time, it didn’t condemn any other country or conflict. In these posts, it never calls for peace, never condemns Hamas’s violence, never mentions Israeli victims, and never calls for the hostages’ release. The organisation favours posting content from anti-Zionist Jews.

GOTG also clearly showed support for the 7 October Hamas massacre, describing it as “resistance” in a post on 5 November 2024. “The story of Palestinian resistance began long before 7 October 2023; the Israeli occupation stretches back over 75 years,” it stated, implying that Israel has no right to exist. On 1 November it shared statements that “the Houthis are the hero of heroes” and “Israeli society’s view of Palestinians [is] as not equal human beings to them.”

Another user posted an image of a man with a Magen David on his shirt and the words, “If I don’t steal it, someone else will.” A third user posted an image of a man using the Israeli flag as toilet paper, and numerous graphics saying Israel is the same as the Nazis. A fourth user wrote the words “Nazi Jewmany [Germany]” and said “the entitlement of Jews is sickening”.

Says advocate Mark Oppenheimer, “The Equality Act explicitly prohibits the publication of hate speech and unfairly discriminatory content based on religion. These posts on GOTG’s Facebook page could reasonably be interpreted as propagating hatred against Jewish people and causing harm to them as a group. Furthermore, the content appears to discriminate unfairly against Jews.

“The people making the posts and those administering the page could be held liable for publishing the content,” he says. “By allowing this antisemitic material to remain on the page, the administrators could be deemed to have played a role in its publication.”

According to antisemitism watchdog the Anti-Defamation League, singling out Israel is antisemitic. The organisation explains that anti-Zionism becomes antisemitism when “frequently demonising the state of Israel as uniquely evil among the nations of the world”. In addition, while “denying Israel’s right to protect itself”, this kind of antisemitism “magnifies every wrongful act possibly associated with the country, strips these of all context, and even invents new criminal accusations”.

GOTG does this on an almost daily basis, characterising Israel as the epitome of evil. Its silence on human rights atrocities worldwide only adds to this characterisation.

GOTG also allows conspiracy theories about Jews to flourish. For example, one user commented on its page, “The problem is you [Jews] are not the chosen people, you infiltrated the land with the help of British and USA [United States] to strategically place European Zionist[s] in the Middle East under the guise of Jews, which you are not and have no genetic relation to. Israhell [Israel] was created as a military base for USA in Middle East, not for Jews but for Zionist[s] to destroy the real Judaism.”

Another user asked, “I still don’t get it – how did the Zionist-sympathising DA [Democratic Alliance] win the Western Cape?” to which another user answered: “[They] rigged the elections.” In a separate post, a user asks, “What has the South African Zionist Federation done for South Africa?” to which another user responds, “They hold dual citizenship. That should tell you everything you need to know.”

Another user stated, “Tony [Leon] and Helen [Zille] are the most dangerous Zionists in South Africa. Watch out for them South Africans, remember they are settlers in South Africa.”

GOTG has also engaged in conspiracy theories, posting on 16 October 2024 that, “In Gaza, starvation is a weapon of war used by the apartheid, occupying, genocidal Israeli government in their quest to ethnically cleanse the entire Palestinian population.” On 23 October 2024, Sooliman posted a video in which he said Israel had “to import people from Africa to fight for them”.

South African Jewish Board of Deputies analyst Adam Charnas says, “It’s deeply troubling that an organisation that claims unconditionally to ‘serve all people of all races, religions, colours, classes, political affiliations, and any geographical location’, as per its website, would allow its platform to host such unbridled hate. It’s heartbreaking that the toxic comments that we have seen spewed by Sooliman are becoming even more common on its platform.”