Protesters stand up to bullying of Cape Union Mart

The tide could be turning against antisemitism in Cape Town, demonstrated by a group of young South Africans who came out this past weekend to stand up to extremists protesting outside Cape Union Mart at the Victoria & Alfred (V&A) Waterfront. They protested silently and stoically as slurs were hurled at them and Hezbollah flags were waved. 

Thom Thamaga, senior pastor of Without Walls Christian Family Church in Khayelitsha, brought together young people from faith communities and civil society to counter-protest. “Many were Christians who stand with Israel,” Thamaga told the SA Jewish Report. “Others were ordinary South Africans who differ on political details but are deeply troubled by the normalisation of intimidation and extremism in public protest.” 

For more than two years, extremists have harassed shoppers and defamed Jews in protests outside local Cape Union Mart stores. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its supporters falsely claim that Cape Union Mart Executive Chairperson Philip Krawitz supports Israel’s military and was complicit in its Gaza war, lies they have perpetuated despite the truth being clearly conveyed to them. Krawitz has since sued several individuals and the PSC, and the case will be heard in February. 

The group of young protesters stood silently in the face of open intimidation, holding their posters criticising extremist violence. “What unfolded was a counter-protest on multiple fronts,” Thamaga says. “Different groups highlighted related concerns, including the threat posed by radical ideology and the persecution of minorities across the Middle East and Africa. Others expressed solidarity with the Iranian people, drawing attention to the world’s selective silence.” 

He organised the counter-protest because he says what has been happening outside Cape Union Mart “has moved beyond legitimate protest into harassment, intimidation, and economic targeting”. 

South Africa has “a painful history of coercion and intimidation”, and “we recognise those patterns when they re-emerge”, Thamaga says. Repeated demonstrations aimed at “pressuring a business, intimidating staff and customers, and publicly vilifying people by association, cross a serious line”. 

Staying silent “would amount to complicity”, he says. The counter-protest was necessary to say that South Africa mustn’t normalise “intimidation, antisemitism, or the abuse of protest culture to bully businesses or communities”. 

The counter-protesters also made it clear that “supporting Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself isn’t a crime”, and that disagreement over geopolitics “doesn’t justify targeting Jewish people or businesses”. 

The counter-protest also showed that protest culture shouldn’t be allowed to be “captured” by “extremist ideologies, militant symbolism, or selective outrage” that ignores persecution “when it doesn’t fit a preferred political narrative”, he says. 

South Africans expressed agreement in December 2025, when ordinary people and the South African National Bioinformatics Institute stood up to the PSC, which wanted a Kirstenbosch concert by local musician David Scott – known as The Kiffness – cancelled, because Scott is critical of radical Islam and terrorism. On social media, hundreds of ordinary South Africans condemned anti-Israel extremists’ hatred and hypocrisy, signalling that they wouldn’t tolerate such radicalism. 

South Africans also criticised extremists for waving the Hezbollah flag, and the V&A Waterfront for allowing it. One woman, speaking anonymously for her own security, rhetorically addressed Waterfront management, saying, “There has now been two-plus years of this [hatred] outside one of your most loyal anchor tenants, being targeted as a Jew, and terrorist flags being openly waved.” 

She pointed out that Hezbollah is proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the United States; United Kingdom; multiple European countries; Canada; Japan; Malaysia; New Zealand; Argentina; Saudi Arabia; the United Arab Emirates; and Bahrain. “Yet [Waterfront] visitors from these very countries are being confronted by this flag. What will it take to stop this insanity?” 

Thamaga says the counter-protesters felt “deeply disturbed” at seeing the Hezbollah flag. Waving such a flag in a public space is “intimidation and provocation”, he says. That moment “confirmed that these protests are increasingly about radical ideology and the legitimisation of terrorist movements”. 

In August 2025, the Western Cape High Court ordered protesters to stop harassing customers outside Cape Union Mart stores and preventing shoppers from going into the stores. The V&A Waterfront has since ensured that extremists protest only in a designated area opposite the store. However, many observers feel that this isn’t enough. 

A Jewish community member who posts under the account @that_jew_from_southafrica, also speaking anonymously for her own safety, called on the shopping centre to stop the extremist protests “before you have blood on your hands”. 

Addressing the fact that children were seen waving Hezbollah flags, she asked how centre management could allow it. The extremists “spew vile, hateful rhetoric, breaking several rules of the V&A Waterfront’s code of conduct”, she says. 

South African Zionist Federation spokesperson Rolene Marks says flying the Hezbollah flag “is an endorsement of terror. When this is directed at perceived Jewish-owned businesses, it becomes targeted intimidation.” 

She says extremists know that Hezbollah isn’t designated a terrorist organisation in South Africa, and exploit this. But that legal technicality “doesn’t make the act morally defensible. It exposes a profound ethical bankruptcy.” She commends ordinary South Africans who say, “Not in our name.” 

However, “a society that allows terrorist flags in its most prominent public spaces cannot claim to oppose extremism”, Marks says. “Where is the City of Cape Town? Where is the South African Police Service? Where is Waterfront management?” 

“We welcome the support of South Africans who peacefully stood up to extremist protests,” says Cape South African Jewish Board of Deputies (Cape SAJBD) Executive Director Daniel Bloch. “We encourage continued support for this proudly South African business, which has been unfairly targeted for more than two years.” 

The Cape SAJBD is “deeply concerned” by the “ongoing intimidation” of shoppers, including the open display of a Hezbollah flag. Hezbollah’s flag is a symbol of “terrorism against Jews and Israelis; impacting Jewish, Christian, Druze, and Muslim communities alike”, Bloch says. 

That a “rag-tag but vocal group is permitted, weekend after weekend, to wave such symbols in a public, family-friendly space is unacceptable”, he says. “We will continue to raise these concerns with the relevant authorities. This behaviour mustn’t be normalised.” 

Says Simone Sulcas, the legal advisor of Cape Union Mart Group, “We respect the right to peaceful protest,” and “urge all groups to exercise this democratic freedom lawfully and responsibly.” Disruptive actions “undermine public safety and the rights of shoppers and businesses” and have an impact on the Waterfront as an internationally recognised tourist attraction. 

The #EndJewHatred campaign which has 115 000 followers on Instagram, shared videos of the counter-protesters, saying that their message was “stark and urgent” because the “massacre of Christians [by jihadists] cannot be ignored or excused – [it is] the direct result of extremist ideologies that glorify violence and dehumanisation”. 

To the South African Jewish community, Thamaga says, “You aren’t alone. Many South Africans stand with you and in defence of your right to live, work, and worship without fear or intimidation.” 

The SA Jewish Report reached out to V&A Waterfront management, but didn’t receive a response by the time of publication.