Another Steve Apfel expose, exampling his motto, “To fight evil you gotta first understand it.”
At the helm of a foundation named after a pugnacious advocate of Human Rights, Helen Suzman, Jewish born and buried, are two Muslims. Naseema Fakir is the Exec Dir. and Kalim Rajab is the Chairman of the Helen Suzman Foundation. Contemplate the reverse: a foundation named after a Muslim, and at the helm are Jews.
What impediment makes the proposition too ludicrous for words? What can it be except the big T? ‘Tolerance’ is the impediment factor. Muslims are not known for showing it – certainly as regards tolerance for Jews and the one Jewish state among 50 Muslim states.
The commonsense difference
To be pro-Palestinian Arab rather than pro-Hamas, Kalim Rajab must put the interests of the former ahead of the latter. His column in the Daily Maverick lacked even the ghost of a statement making the Palestinian Arabs his # 1 concern. It does not take an Elon Musk to come up with an idea or three for putting a quick end to the Palestinian Arabs’ dreadful plight, caught between warring armies. Rajab could easily have:
- Put the onus on Egypt to open the border it had closed, deliberately to stop Palestinians escaping the hell that is Gaza.
- Told Hamas to return every hostage – at the very least the women, kids and a baby snatched from its cot – conditional on both armies declaring a humanitarian truce.
- Picked out Hamas for hijacking convoys of aid trucks entering Gaza, laden with food, medicine, tents, even cigarettes, and shooting its own people when they tried to help themselves.
- Picked out Hamas for turning hospitals, tenements and schools into bunkers, rocket launching sites and command centres.
These would be hand-wring signals of paranoia over the plight of Palestinian Arabs. For one moment forget hate-mongering; blame Israel if you must, but meantime attend to the victims in dire straits. Hating the supposed cause of it all will help a single soul.
But see what Kalim Rajab is doing. He, busy with some craven concerns, might as well be telling the grieving and moaning Palestinian Arabs to ‘shush it!’ And his concerns are? To catalogue blood libels, popularly known as ‘Israeli crimes against humanity.’
Still worse – worse than mimicking Hamas warfare propaganda, Rajab sadistically contorts the cruelty theme of his column to flex a white hot abhorrence at the prospect of Jews giving the Muslim enemy a drubbing. Palestinian Arab women and kids will have to be patient while Rajab uses them, not for human shields, but for a lightning rod down which to conduct his bolts of wrath to Israel.
Pro-Palestinian or pro-Hamas?
Tell-tale markers
Marker (A) Birds of a feather
Rajab chose to honour Imtiaaz Sooliman who is proud to go public as a card-carrying fan and financier of Hamas. He obeys, “Koranic law only, not international law nor any human law.”
The same jihad beliefs which drive Hamas, drive Sooliman. “Allah himself instructed” him.
At a Cape Town rally, he was ring fenced by images and declamations regarding the murder of Jews as something to be celebrated. “We are all Hamas” and “Death to Israel” accompanied Sooliman’s rant. His conspiracy rhetoric echoed that of Adolf Hitler. Zionists, he declaimed, control the world through money and fear.
On his Facebook page was a graphic of the evil Jew, hooked enlarged nose and all, accompanied by the text: “Imagine being so vile, sneaky and disgusting that laws have to be created to keep normal people from hating you.” (SA Jewish Report, 7-14 Nov. P.7) Another comment said the Jews were, “the synagogue of Satan.”
Kalim Rajab tapped this Hitler reincarnation to deliver the memorial lecture in honour of Jewish born and buried, Helen Suzman.
Possible to think of mockery more ‘in your face’ than what Rajab did? Possible to equal his contempt and hypocrisy to honour Sooliman who admits that he holds international law in contempt, even while he supports the government’s international law case at the Hague?
There can be two possibilities – and no third – why Rajab tapped a Jihad terrorist proxy to deliver the Memorial lecture.
Pick one or the other. Either: Rajab and his Exec Dir are stricken with a personality disorder over which they have no command. Or, Rajab and she, of sound mind, share the eliminationist ideology of fervid Hamas supporter, Sooliman: “Death to Israel”.
Marker B ‘Free speech for me but not for thee’
A statement signed by Exec Dir Naseema Fakir and Chairman Kalim Rajab stated their commitment to “freedom of speech.” Imtiaaz Sooliman, they declared would, upholding free speech, give the memorial lecture, “as planned.”
A personal anecdote about anti-free speech tactics used by Muslims in the city of Johannesburg:
It was the time when the mass circulation Star was owned by a UK-based group. The Deputy Editor (‘Kevin’) invited me to submit an article on Zionism for the centre page. It made sense that he would invite me. Formerly the group Chairman (‘Ivan’) invited me, and the Star duly published my article on centre page: “‘Is the press anti-Semitic?”
But the second time was different. (1) The paper published my article as a letter, on the Letters page; and (2) the name beneath the letter was not Steve Apfel. It was Ebrahim Apfel. Outrageous! I wrote to ‘Kevin.’ Why? ‘Janet’ phoned to explain. The paper had received violent threats for publishing articles considered too pro-Israel. One such threat was setting the head office building ablaze. The paper “dare not” publish a pro-Israel article, especially under a Jewish name. The best she could do was a letter, under a Muslim name. Her fear turned out well justified; my anecdote happened before the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris.
“Freedom of speech.” What happened to Rajab’s and Fakir’s commitment to it when fellow “We are all Hamas” Muslims violated the freedom of speech of Jews? In 2024 at a facility in Sydenham, Johannesburg, a mob ripped down posters of hostages held by Hamas – not sparing the poster of a baby.
Marker C Mouthpiece for Hamas
“What we have witnessed over the last year has been a genocide, played out in real time, while we watch.
“What we have witnessed over the last year has been a genocide, played out in real-time while we watch. It has been an urbanicide. It has been a scholasticide. It has been Death by stalking. Death by thirst. Famine. Done with an impunity which simultaneously declares itself virtuous.”
Natale Labia 9 October 2024 at 11:42 Beautifully put, thank you Kalim.
I copied the comment to reveal the mind of every Leftist reader of DM’s international coverage and opinion columns on Israel. The comment reveals how the Leftist mindset works. She never asked herself, “Is it true?” “Beautifully put...” The sentiment is 100% emotional, 0% cerebral. Had she stopped to think, “How much truth is there in what Rajab wrote?” she would there and then leave the Left.
And....How much truth is there in what Rajab wrote? As much truth as there is in:
- Fatality counts issued by the Hamas health authority
- Claims of starvation made by UNWRA, employment bureau to Hamas.
- Reports on the ‘Apartheid Israeli State’ by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch
- ‘Jews have no right to life’ declarations by Francesca Albanese, UNHRC’s Rapporteur.
- The Hague’s ICC and ICJ arrest warrants and opinions
- And so on...
Their common denominator? All are today’s “Sieg Heil!’ Adolf Hitler adorers. All are driven by the imperative to eliminate the Jewish state and ethnic cleanse its 6 million (that number again) Jewish inhabitants.
That is correct. The HSF, named after a Jewish woman, has fallen into the hands of Muslims possessed by the Hitler drive to exterminate the Jewish State and the Jewish people.
Steve Apfel, author, economist and management accountant, is a long established authority on anti-Zionism