South Africa excluded from Sharm el-Sheikh Gaza ceasefire summit

Key topics:

• South Africa excluded from Gaza peace summit despite moral claims.

• ANC ties to Muslim Brotherhood shape anti-Israel diplomacy.

• Mandela Jr. and allies push Islamist agenda, ICJ case continues.

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By Joshua Schewitz* 

Veteran South African politicians and commentators have noted the deep irony that South Africa was not invited to the Sharm el-Sheikh Gaza Ceasefire Summit—despite being among the loudest voices calling for one. As Tony Leon observed, the country that boasts of being a “moral superpower” capable of teaching conflict resolution through “the legacy of Nelson Mandela” found itself shut out of the peace process it had so vigorously claimed to champion. 

Lean further emphazied that “President Cyril Ramaphosa, channelling [Ebrahim Rasool] his expelled ambassador to the US, recently advised the UN General Assembly that ‘inspired by its own history’, South Africa ‘strives to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes through negotiation and dialogue, not war’,” said Leon. The South African government had “after all … expended vast amounts of its ‘moral superpower’ to hold Israel to account for its Gaza incursion and never let a single Israeli human rights violation, real or disputed, pass without comment and condemnation,” he said. The African National Congress (ANC), its accomplices, and handlers clearly knew that no genocide was underway. 

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But, by pursuing on behalf of Muslim Brotherhood-offshoot Hamas a ceasefire against the tiny country defending itself against jihadists explicitly intent on repeating their murderous achievements of 7 October 2023, South Africa’s legal counsel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), most prominently including the veteran human rights lawyer John Dugard, cannily if unsuccessfully sought through lawfare to tie the Jewish state’s hands militarily. At the same time, the ANC and its allies have worked with great effect diplomatically and economically to foment hatred against Israel and Jews and their friends on the streets globally (what they call “international solidarity against apartheid”). 

Even as much of the world celebrated progress toward peace in October 2025, South Africa’s government and media proxies like Redi Tlhabi and Judge Navi Pillay continued promoting “the genocide libel.” Pillay dismissed charges of bias, claiming absurdly that “rarely does a suspect come forward and concede yes, I committed genocide,” revealing, as Leon put it, “malice and ignorance presented as legal expertise.” 

From Moral Superpower to Global Pariah 

As Ray Hartley and Greg Mills noted, while world leaders—from Erdogan to Al Sisi, Abbas, and even Qatar’s emir—signed the Gaza peace deal, South Africa was not only absent but silent. Its “script to isolate Israel” was shredded not by its usual adversaries, but by those who are far from friends of Israel. 

Leon summarized: “This moral blindness might explain our exclusion… perhaps also the perception, as Police Minister Firoz Cachalia warned, that South Africa is sliding toward lawlessness—‘the next Colombia or Ecuador’—not exactly the image of a moral beacon.” 

Hartley and Mills added that the problem “starts at the top,” arguing Ramaphosa appears “more radical than Hamas.” As anti-Israel mobs chanted hatred at OR Tambo Airport, Hamas leaders were shaking hands in Egypt—“South Africa, out of tune with peace and out of touch with global events.” 

The Islamist Nexus: Mandela Junior, Pandor, and Sooliman 

Mandla Mandela’s Radicalization 

A recurring figure in this story is Mandla Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s grandson, who has tied his grandfather’s name to Islamist causes. A convert to Islam and executive member of Al-Quds Parliamentarians for Palestine (a Turkish Muslim Brotherhood group), he maintains ties with Hamas and Hezbollah figures. 

In South Africa, Mandela is a patron of the Al Tawheed Foundation, led by Sheikh Abdel Salam Bassiouni, a known Muslim Brotherhood affiliate who once faced detention in Egypt. The Foundation’s use of the R4BIA “yellow hand” symbol—a Brotherhood emblem—makes its ideological roots clear. 

After losing his parliamentary seat in 2024, Mandela continued acting as a social influencer for Islamist causes, aligned with figures like Naledi Pandor and Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of Gift of the Givers. 

Pandor and Sooliman: The “Coalition for Good” 

Pandor and Sooliman co-founded The Coalition for Good, modeled directly on Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s “Union of the Good”—a network sanctioned for fundraising for Hamas. With quiet coordination from government channels, this coalition has driven South Africa’s international anti-Israel movement. 

Pandor herself has courted Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations in the UK and US, including Friends of Al Aqsa, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)—whose head, Nihad Awad, a long-time Hamas supporter, publicly honored her for “suing Israel when others failed to act.” 

Mandela’s “Global March to Gaza” in June 2025, backed by Gift of the Givers, aimed to breach the Egyptian side of the Rafah border. His rhetoric—accusing Egypt of “starving 1.2 million Palestinians to death”—was met with firm resistance. 

Egyptian General Samir Farag warned, “There are those who want to harm Egyptian national security, and Egypt will not allow that.” Mandela and his South African delegation were detained and later escorted back to Cairo. Activists responded with anti-Egypt protests and vandalism of the Egyptian Embassy in Pretoria, spray-painting “Sisi sold Palestine.” 

When Mandela’s march failed, his tone shifted from “humanitarian” to threatening: “We should now shift our focus onto exerting pressure on those countries [like Egypt].” His comments mirrored Muslim Brotherhood legal tactics once used to target Egypt’s own government. 

In 2014, Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party (the Brotherhood’s political arm) appointed Tayab Ali and John Dugard—the same Dugard now representing South Africa at the ICJ—to file war crimes charges against the Egyptian government at the ICC. 

South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel is a continuation of that strategy, demonstrating that Muslim Brotherhood-aligned interests have captured the ANC’s foreign policy. 

The refusal to drop the ICJ case—even after the Gaza peace deal and the severe diplomatic cost to South Africa—suggests deeper ideological alignment. Success against Israel at the ICJ could later serve to re-legitimize Muslim Brotherhood cases against Egypt’s Sisi government. 

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Inside South Africa’s new Government of National Unity (GNU), Dr. Corné Mulder of the Freedom Front Plus led calls to “normalize relations with Israel” and end “the great and expensive failure of the ICJ genocide case.” 

But Ramaphosa rejected this, insisting: 

“The peace deal will have no bearing on the case before the ICJ. The case is proceeding.” 

This obstinacy, analysts argue, underscores how detached South Africa’s foreign policy has become from national interest, aligning instead with Islamist lawfare networks operating under a humanitarian guise. 

South Africa’s exclusion from Sharm el-Sheikh was not simply diplomatic snubbing—it was a matter of Egyptian national security. The ANC’s foreign policy establishment, seemly infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood-aligned actors and their Western partners (such as CAIR), has turned the country into a proxy voice for Hamas rather than a neutral peace broker. 

South Africa was arguably excluded from Sharm el-Sheikh due to security concerns. DIRCO has arguably been captured by Muslim Brotherhood-aligned elements hostile to international security agencies and counter-terrorism efforts. 

The irony is stark: a nation once revered for reconciliation and moral authority now finds itself isolated, distrusted, and absent from the very peace tables it claims to lead. 

*Joshua Schewitz is a researcher and analyst specialising in Africa and the Middle East, with a focus on security-related topics in addition to blockchain technology