Al Jama-ah Party, That Called for the Destruction of Israel, Seeks Prison Time for South Africans who Support Israel

Al Jama-ah is a two-seat Islamist party in South Africa’s parliament. It is closely associated with the African National Congress (ANC) and has a long record of hardline positions against Israel. Last month, Al Jama-ah announced that it would introduce a private member’s Bill into parliament to criminalise support for Israel.

The draft law would make it a crime to work with, support, or publicly back any country that the state labels an apartheid regime. The South African government has consistently applied that label to Israel.

Under the Bill, donating to hospitals or charities in Israel, volunteering or studying there, posting pro-Israel views on social media, working in firms with Israeli partners or using Israeli technology in business would be interpreted as assistance to an apartheid regime and leave the perpetrator open to criminal prosecution.

Support for Zionism would thereby become a basis for criminal prosecution. Jewish communal organisations, Zionist groups, pro-Israel Christian churches, schools and nongovernmental organisations that run Israel programmes, academics who work with Israeli universities, and journalists who report favourably on Israel would all be liable for prosecution.

Israeli tourists, business owners, visiting academics, diplomats, athletes, performers, and humanitarian workers could all face prosecution.

The Bill would allow South African authorities to claim jurisdiction over actions committed outside of the country and enable South Africa to prosecute citizens, residents, and even foreign nationals who later enter South Africa.

The Bill is in line with the South African government’s long-term hostility towards Israel. The government has long accused Israel of being an apartheid state and led the global genocide charge against Israel following the October 7th massacres. Senior South African officials have maintained close ties with Iran whilst the ANC maintains fraternal ties with the Hamas terrorist group.

The South African government’s close ties to Iran have become a particularly fraught issue of late given the mass killings of Christians in Africa by terror groups with Iranian ties.

The Al Jama-ah party, which only holds two seats in parliament, is seen by critics as an Islamist front for the ANC to advance its campaigns against Israel and South Africa’s Jewish community. As global scrutiny of South Africa’s foreign policy ties has increased, Al Jama-ah has become increasingly important to front ideas that the ANC and senior government leaders can no longer easily be associated with.

The Bill seeks to build on a 1973 United Nations convention that declared apartheid to be a crime against humanity and an international crime. It seeks to introduce that concept into South African law. Once such a definition is written into South African domestic law, support for Israel would be treated as participation in or assistance to an apartheid regime and would then result in prosecution.

Jewish South Africans would be uniquely vulnerable, as most have deep cultural, familial, religious, and educational ties to Israel, while religious life often includes Israel-focused activities. Communal bodies routinely raise funds for hospitals, schools, and welfare programmes in Israel, and many families send children on youth or study trips to the country.

Al Jama-ah, the sponsor of the Bill, has already made clear that it sees South Africans who support Israel or Zionism as complicit in apartheid and as people who should face the full force of the law. It has previously called for South Africans who actively support Israel to be prosecuted.

The day after the October 7th massacre. Al Jama-ah posted the following note on social media referencing remarks made by its leader: "I call the parliament[s] in South Africa to arm their resistance to Palestine... I invited Hamas to Parliament, I’m not sure whether they got the weapons but soon after my call they came to parliament and in the afternoon, I invited the ANC to have tea with them...Then I went to Iran, and I asked Iran to give weapons, and I went to speak to people of Lebanon and I asked them to give resistance weapons... Its only weapons that’s going to end the occupation in Palestine...We know we love the Israeli people, but they are not a state. The state needs to be wiped off the face of the earth. The IDF need to be wiped of the face of the earth.”

Watch the Al Jama-ah leader make the above comments here.

The Bill will require majority support in South Africa’s parliament in order to pass into law. In practise this means that the ANC will have to vote in favour of the Bill. Should it do that the consequences would be to take its relationship with the United States to new lows and likely trigger immediate sanctions against senior ANC leaders.