Foundation slammed for platforming Albanese, a sanctioned antisemite

When United States (US) Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, sanctioned United Nations (UN) special rapporteur Francesca Albanese in July, he said that it was because she had “spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the US, Israel, and the West.” 

Less than three months later, the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) chose Albanese to deliver its prestigious 23rd annual lecture, named for Mandela, on Saturday, 25 October at the Sandton Convention Centre. Albanese will also speak at the University of Cape Town’s Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance. 

“The NMF was once a symbol of unity, integrity, and reconciliation,” says South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) National Director, Wendy Kahn. “Today, under the chairpersonship of Dr Naledi Pandor and the platforming of Francesca Albanese, it has become something else entirely, a stage for antisemitism disguised as human rights advocacy. Two women, both repeatedly accused of antisemitic bias, now stand together under the banner of the Mandela name, not to bring South Africans together, but to unite them in hate.” 

The NMF showed that it wasn’t bothered by Albanese’s record of antisemitism and US sanctioning when the SA Jewish Report wrote to its head of marketing and communications, Tshepang Motsekuoa, to give the organisation the opportunity to address these concerns. The SA Jewish Report also asked for an update on the NMF’s Solidarity in Action Awards, which target Christian Zionism. 

Motsekuoa emailed her team, mistakenly copying in the SA Jewish Report. She said that the concerns about Albanese’s antisemitism and sanctioning were “nothing”, and “we do not need to give this air. Happy to move on if everyone is.” 

According to one analyst, such a prominent organisation inviting Albanese to South Africa could hurt this country’s relationship with the US, which is already on fragile footing. 

Benji Shulman, director of the Middle East Africa Research Institute, said, “The NMF has, for a long time, increasingly taken an anti-Israel stance in its public communications and organising.” However, under the chairmanship of Pandor [since September 2024], this has ratcheted into a new gear. The invitation to Albanese is likely to further undermine South Africa’s relationship with the US because of Pandor’s past role as minister of international relations and cooperation.” 

Given Albanese’s sanctioned status and the fact that South Africa is at a critical juncture in terms of its negotiations with the US for a new trade deal, among other things, “This is likely to attract the attention of those in the US who are concerned about this relationship, and focus a spotlight on the people and activism that the NMF has been enabling since Pandor became chairperson,” Shulman says. 

South African Zionist Federation spokesperson Rolene Marks points out that the US sanction means that “those who materially support Albanese, including by facilitating her visit to South Africa, risk sanctions themselves”. 

Kahn says that for years, the SAJBD has warned that Pandor’s conduct “has created a hostile environment for South African Jews”. As minister of international relations, “she presided over the ideological capture of South Africa’s foreign policy, turning the Department of International Relations and Cooperation [Dirco] into an instrument of anti-Israel hostility and selective morality. Even after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 massacre, Dirco failed to condemn terrorism.” 

Now, as chairperson of the NMF, “Pandor continues that same trajectory, and the NMF has followed her lead.” By hosting Albanese, “a figure widely condemned for antisemitic bias and Holocaust inversion, the NMF has betrayed its founding values.” The institution that “once symbolised unity and reconciliation has become a platform for division”. 

The theme of Albanese’s talk is “enhancing peace and global co-operation,” but the NMF and Albanese have both taken extreme stances against Israel, and the NMF has been silent about the new ceasefire and peace plan. 

The last statement the foundation made on the Middle East was on 3 October, condemning Israel for detaining participants of the Global Sumud Flotilla who illegally tried to break its Gaza blockade. It made no mention of the hostages who were still held by Hamas at the time, and hasn’t commented on the ceasefire, peace plan, or release of hostages. 

On X, the Israeli embassy in South Africa commented that after the US sanctioned Albanese, “the NMF saw that and thought, ‘Perfect! Let’s make her our keynote speaker.’” The embassy said Albanese was “punished for hate, and rewarded for it too”. 

Advocate Mark Oppenheimer has long tracked the NMF’s turn to radicalism. Now, he says, “Francesca Albanese, the UN’s tireless apologist for terror masquerading as a special rapporteur, has finally found her perfect partner in sanctimonious hypocrisy: the once-noble, now-rotting NMF, whose descent from moral clarity into fashionable antisemitism is tragic.” 

He predicts that the NMF event will be “a hate-fest” and “an echo chamber of self-righteous venom”. 

“Expect speeches about ‘resistance’ delivered with the moral earnestness of a snake-oil salesman, and applause from those who believe that hating Israel is the highest form of compassion,” says Oppenheimer. “No doubt the gathering will invigorate the hearts of jihadis, armchair revolutionaries, and every champagne socialist who mistakes moral confusion for virtue. 

“In the shadow of Mandela’s legacy, these new acolytes have erected a shrine not to peace or justice, but to resentment,” Oppenheimer says. “The foundation that once embodied reconciliation now plays host to those who excuse rockets fired at civilians and call it human rights. And Francesca Albanese, ever the performer, will surely relish the stage, her sanctimony sharpened, her applause assured, her conscience conveniently asleep.” 

Marks says the NMF’s decision to invite Albanese to deliver its prestigious lecture is “a shameful stain on Mandela’s legacy”. Albanese isn’t a neutral human rights lawyer, she is “a figure widely condemned for repeated antisemitic rhetoric, and has been sanctioned by the US government.” 

She says Albanese’s record is clear and well-documented. “She has claimed that America is ‘subjugated by the Jewish lobby’; accused the ‘Israeli lobby’ of infiltrating politics ‘like it’s in your veins’; shared conspiracy theories blaming Mossad for terror attacks; and described Gaza as a ‘concentration camp.’” 

Even after Hamas’s massacre of 7 October, “she insisted the victims ‘were not killed because of their Judaism’, grotesquely downplaying antisemitism,” notes Marks. “These are classic antisemitic tropes and Holocaust distortions, condemned by democratic governments and watchdogs worldwide.” 

Worse still, “This invitation forms part of a broader, co-ordinated attempt to hijack the Mandela name to delegitimise Israel,” says Marks. “Figures like Mandla Mandela have long used their family legacy to promote this agenda, and the recent appointment of Pandor, a vocal Hamas sympathiser, as chair of the foundation, deepens that trend.” 

Kahn says that the NMF is at a critical juncture. “Antisemitism has no place in government, in diplomacy, or in any civil society organisation that bears Mandela’s name. The NMF must decide whether it will follow South Africa into isolation, or reclaim the moral clarity that once made it a symbol of unity, justice, and peace.”