For the past two years, the world has been a witness to the genocide of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Livestreamed as it unfolded, we could not and must not turn away as Israel commits its atrocities with US and Western backing against the Palestinians and, more disconcertingly, with impunity.

Earlier this year, I heeded a call from the South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP) movement to protest outside the venue hosting the Zionist Connect conference, organised by the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF), at the Israel Centre in Hatfield Street, Cape Town.

The conference featured Gilad Erdan, an Israeli politician and diplomat who served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2020 until 2024, well into the genocide. He notoriously shredded the UN Charter at the UN General Assembly last year, after the world body overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution calling for the reevaluation of Palestine’s bid for full UN membership.

The SAJFP denounced the conference as a “hasbara, genocide-mongering” event, saying it was “crucial that the hateful event is protested.”

Eight panellists proudly platformed alongside Erdan, who delivered a speech titled ‘A Lone Voice for Truth, Defending Israel at the UN and Beyond’. Some of the other topics were Zionism, Identity and Survival, and Counting the Costs of Anti-Israel Capture.

Among the panellists was Rabbi Nissen Goldman, the co-director of Chabad on Campus, UCT. During the protest, I held up a poster exposing his association with Erdan and the genocidal state that he represents and defends.

Goldman has subsequently launched legal action against me for my stance – a stance I will defend, because that is what the Palestinian people are expecting us, the world, to do.

Reporting on the case for the South African Jewish Report, Tali Feinberg classifies the SAJFP as a local extremist group and states that Rabbi Nissen Goldman is the son of Rabbi Yossy Goldman, life rabbi emeritus of Sydenham Shul and the president of the South African Rabbinical Association.

In 2012, Rabbi Yossy Goldman appeared as an expert witness for the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) in their case against local community radio station Radio 786, a case which the SAJBD failed to win. Rabbi Yossi Goldman’s testimony was weak and unsubstantiated, forcing the SAJBD to withdraw documents it presented as evidence.

I am the son of a scholar and prolific writer, namely the late Shaykh Abdurraghiem Sallie. I, too, am an author, and have written the international sirah The Beloved Prophet (s) – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme. I have also penned two children’s books, We Love to Play Pray, and We Love Ramadan, and I write a weekly newsletter: Allah, the Prophet, and me.

My father not only taught me the love of the page and the pen, but also to always stand for justice, even against my own. Thus, when I stand alongside millions around the world in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their decades-long struggle for liberation and justice, or against any injustice, I don’t just fight for the rights of the oppressed, I honour my father, too.

To continue this fight, I require financial assistance for my committed team of legal experts for the pre-trial phase.

Every bit of moral and financial support will help us to resist Zionist intimidation and their attempts to silence us in exposing Israel’s crimes and atrocities and holding its supporters accountable for their complicity therein.

More than a year after the landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel’s actions in Gaza constituted a plausible case for genocide, the SAZF, in a show of total disregard, planned and hosted the Zionist conference flagrantly in the very country that brought the case before the world’s highest court. It remains our moral duty to act and speak up.

Yours in Solidarity

Zaahied Sallie