UCT to honour Sooliman, who describes himself as ‘5 000% antisemitic’

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is set to bestow an honorary doctorate on Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of the humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers, who has a long record of antisemitic and antizionist statements. This comes as UCT is embroiled in a court case over anti-Israel resolutions that its highest decision-making body, its Council, adopted in 2024, which led to major donors withdrawing thousands of rands. 

At a lecture at UCT in October 2025, hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Sooliman called himself “five thousand percent antisemitic”, saying “we know antisemitism is used to shut you up. So, if we stand up against Zionists and they say you’re antisemitic, it’s because they want to cover their faults.” He said that the antizionist lobby had to “break the fear, break the money, and break the [accusation of] antisemitism [to succeed]”. 

Now, in those same hallowed halls, the university will bestow “the highest recognition UCT confers, acknowledging individuals whose lives and work have made a sustained and meaningful contribution to society”, according to the announcement on 26 March. 

The Doctorate of Philosophy will be given to Sooliman on Monday, 30 March. 

However, an anonymous source on the Council has indicated that the nomination of Sooliman for an honorary degree was highly contentious. According to this account, the nomination secured only the minimum number of votes required for approval, with several Council members objecting to it. The objections reportedly centred on concerns about Sooliman’s alleged anti-Israel and antisemitic views, as well as widely publicised statements attributed to him that he is bound only by the law of the Koran rather than by man-made legal systems. 

It is further understood that some within Council warned that awarding him an honorary degree could inflict additional reputational harm on the university. In particular, concerns were raised that such a decision might be perceived as reinforcing UCT’s controversial stance on boycotting Israeli scholars [as per its June 2024 resolutions], and that it could strain the institution’s relationships with partners in the United States. 

This relationship is already strained by the two resolutions UCT adopted in 2024. The first “resolves to reject the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism”. The second states that “No UCT academic may enter into relations with, or continue relations with, any research group or network whose author affiliations are with the Israel Defense Forces or the broader Israeli military establishment”. 

UCT Professor Adam Mendelsohn is asking the Western Cape High Court to order the university to review or set aside the two resolutions because, he says, UCT did not follow its own processes when adopting them, and they are unlawful and unconstitutional. The case was heard in October 2025, with judgment reserved. 

According to court records, UCT Vice-Chancellor Mosa Moshabela allegedly asked the Council to withdraw the resolutions because they severely hinder fundraising. Major donors such as the Donald Gordon Foundation and the Dell Foundation withdrew grants because of antisemitic and antizionist sentiment at UCT, encapsulated by the resolutions. 

But on 26 March, Moshabela ignored Sooliman’s antisemitic record, saying that “in recognising Dr Sooliman [with an honorary doctorate], we affirm our commitment to engaged citizenship and service. His life reminds us that knowledge and expertise carry a responsibility to advance the public good.” 

Sooliman is the founder of Gift of the Givers, the largest disaster-response organisation of African origin on the continent, which has operated for more than three decades. However, he has made many statements that have been questioned by the Jewish community in South Africa and internationally, such as stating that the Gaza war would “end Israel”, and repeating that Zionists, Jews, and Israel control the world with fear, money, and accusations of antisemitism.  

He has also used his organisation’s social media platforms to spread lies about members of the Bibas family, who were slaughtered by Hamas; propagate medieval antisemitic tropes; and give free rein to antisemites commenting on the organisation’s many antizionist posts. 

A US think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), recently released a paper titled “Hiding in Plain Sight: A Playbook for Combatting Hamas in South Africa”, which states that the US Treasury “should investigate the extent to which Gift of the Givers and its leadership, including Sooliman, may be acting or purporting to act on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Hamas”. 

Co-author of the paper and FDD research manager David May says that “honouring Sooliman, a virulent antisemite who tries to hide behind the façade of merely opposing Israel, will damage UCT reputationally and, possibly, financially”. 

However, “seeing as the university boycotts Israelis while welcoming members of the Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups [by invitation from student groups], the school might wear it as a badge of honour”, adds May. 

With a sharp decline in donations related to its Israel boycott, and US government research grants mostly drying up, “UCT can ill afford more controversy”, says May. “But it has steered directly into this mess, giving the US government more reason not to resume funding.” 

Executive Director of the South African Zionist Federation Cape Council, Joshua Schewitz, says Sooliman’s recorded statements are “standard, old-fashioned antisemitism”, and yet this is “the same man UCT feels proud to honour”. 

He explains that Sooliman founded the Al Aqsa Foundation, an organisation that was later sanctioned by the US. “The Al Aqsa Foundation is listed as a member of the Union of Good, a designated terrorist-financing organisation,” says Schewitz. “Gift of the Givers, also known as the Waqful Waqifin Foundation in Arabic, and Ebrahim Gabriels [Sooliman’s successor at the Al Aqsa Foundation] are also listed as members of the Union of Good on that organisation’s own website.” 

Schewitz notes that “two prominent UCT Council members, Dianna Yach and Reeza Isaacs, are financially associated with Sooliman and Gift of the Givers. Is that a coincidence?” he asks rhetorically. 

He says that on the first anniversary of the 7 October 2023 Hamas massacre, Sooliman chose to speak at a Cape Town rally where “We are all Hamas” was the open and prominent message on a giant banner. Yet “UCT is apparently proud to stand with him”. 

For Schewitz, “This is disgusting, and an insult to the institution and all those associated with it. Alumni will be angry, donors horrified, and Jewish students insulted by the short-sighted actions of a once-honourable institution.” 

Veteran journalist William Saunderson-Meyer, who previously described UCT’s refusal to modify or set aside the resolutions as “opting for suicide”, surmises that UCT may have thought that honouring Sooliman could “unlock a substantial stream of Muslim philanthropy”. 

“It would have to be substantial indeed to make up for the many hundreds of millions that their suicidal, radical anti-Jewish, anti-American posture is costing them,” says Saunderson-Meyer. 

“Sooliman is rabidly antisemitic, unapologetically pro-Hamas, and has in the past stated bluntly that when it comes to ties between his organisation and proscribed Islamic groups in the Middle East, he is indifferent to what the laws of the Republic of South Africa decree,” he continues. “So, if Sooliman, in the words of the vice-chancellor, ‘advances values that lie at the heart of our institution’, more shame on UCT.”