Mailbox: Pieter Kriel’s Hebron holiday - Shakshuka, Shawarma, and delusional expertise

Key topics:

• Kriel falsely claimed to witness genocide despite not visiting Gaza.

• SABC misrepresented Kriel’s trip, undermining journalistic credibility.

• Serious allegations made by Kriel lack evidence and distort the conflict.

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By Tim Flack

Every generation produces its share of self-appointed activists - individuals whose certainty far outpaces their understanding. Pieter Kriel's recent trip to Hebron, Bethlehem, and Nablus appears to have inspired precisely this condition. From a few days in the West Bank, he has returned declaring not just expertise on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the existence of a  "genocide." According to the SABC, he "visited the enclave" and witnessed the destruction "firsthand." 

Let’s be clear: Pieter Kriel did not visit Gaza. The places he visited are under Palestinian Authority control and are located more than 100 kilometres from the Gaza Strip. The SABC's tweet gives the unmistakable - and factually incorrect - impression that he was on the frontlines of a war zone. This misrepresentation is not just misleading, it’s deeply irresponsible journalism. 

Kriel has claimed, among other things, that Israeli "settlers" disguise themselves as Muslims to infiltrate Palestinian areas and commit violence. These are extraordinary allegations which require clear, credible evidence. Yet no such evidence has been presented. No images. No footage. No eyewitness reports from neutral observers. Just claims - serious ones - with no substantiation. 

He further spoke of blood "every five meters" in Hebron. Again, this kind of language implies ongoing massacres in areas heavily monitored by international media and NGOs. If such events were occurring with the frequency and brutality he describes, the world would know. These statements read more like theatre than testimony. 

Kriel has also asserted that Israel is a state of European colonisers who arrived after 1948. This ignores the fact that over half of Israel's Jewish population descends from Jews expelled from Middle Eastern and North African countries. These communities did not arrive with power or privilege - they fled violence and persecution. To call them "settlers" is not only inaccurate, it erases the experience of hundreds of thousands of refugees. 

And if that's the standard - that returning to a land from which your ancestors were expelled constitutes "settlement" - then South Africans returning from exile post-apartheid would also be settlers. That logic, quite obviously, is unsustainable. 

Perhaps most concerning is the relative weight Kriel appears to give to the atrocities of October 7, when more than 1,200 Israelis were killed by Hamas in a coordinated attack that included mass murder, torture, rape, and kidnapping. He references it briefly, but quickly pivots to frame the broader conflict as morally equivalent, or worse. That framing does not hold up to scrutiny.

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None of this is to say that Palestinian suffering does not exist - it does. Civilian casualties and  hardship are a tragic part of this conflict. But to equate all use of force by Israel with  genocide, to allege conspiratorial tactics by civilians without evidence, and to erase Hamas’s  role in triggering this war is not human rights work. It’s activism untethered from accuracy. 

The SABC’s role in uncritically amplifying these views - while conflating geographies and  misrepresenting the nature of Kriel’s visit - should alarm anyone concerned with journalistic  standards. This was not coverage. It was a narrative promotion. 

Pieter Kriel is, of course, entitled to his views. But when those views are presented as fact,  especially on public platforms, they should be interrogated - not accepted at face value. His  experience in the West Bank does not make him a war correspondent. Eating shawarma in  Bethlehem, no matter how heartfelt the conversation, does not confer foreign policy insight. 

There is no shame in caring about the Palestinian people. There is no harm in seeking to  bear witness. But there is danger - real danger - in overstating, distorting, and amplifying  claims without evidence. South Africans deserve better than this kind of theatre. And our public broadcasters owe us more than unfiltered polemics.