Former Johannesburg mayor in hot water over pro-Hamas post
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has ordered former Johannesburg mayor and current Al Jama-ah councillor, Thapelo Amad, to issue an unconditional public apology or face a case in the Equality Court.
Amad posted and then deleted images on X showing him with a rifle, endorsing Hamas shortly after its attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023.
The attacks, carried out by Hamas and other affiliated terrorist groups in southern Israel, took the lives of over 1,200 people and led to the abduction of 251 hostages, sparking a devastating two-year war.
“We stand with Hamas, Hamas stands with us. Together we are Palestin and Palestin will be free,” wrote the former Johannesburg mayor. “With our souls, with our blood, we will conquer Al Aqsa.”
A complaint was lodged with the SAHRC in January 2024 by Cape Town-based public relations strategist Tim Flack, who accused Amad of spreading hate speech and incitement.
The SAHRC recently determined that “the statement demonstrates a clear potential to incite harm and promote hatred, particularly in a society still marked by racial tension and inequality.”
It found that the combination of the firearm image and militant wording would reasonably be construed as inciting harm and propagating hatred.
Therefore, it falls outside the protection of Section 16 for free expression. It added that digital deletion does not erase harm, since screenshots continue to circulate and cause ongoing impact.
“It serves as a compelling example of how harmful digital speech must be curtailed in a democratic society committed to dignity, equality, and the rule of law,” said the SAHRC
The recommended remedy proposed by the SAHRC is an unconditional public apology on the platform where the post appeared, with a referral to the Equality Court if he fails to comply.
The Commission’s decision does not preclude Flack from approaching the Equality Court himself.
Al Jama-ah told Newsday that it does “not have a comment yet as we are still in the process of consulting with our lawyers.”
Amad, whose party is part of Johannesburg’s governing coalition, currently serves as chairperson of the section 79 oversight committee on health and social development.
Defending his post in 2023, Amad told News24 that “seeing a silent picture incites a reaction depending on what lenses you are wearing.”
However, the SAHRC found that “symbolic harm can be as constitutionally significant as physical harm.”
“People should not be told how to protest in South Africa,” said Amad, adding that while not condoning violence, he has “an obligation to continue the fight against apartheid,” further expressing his support for Palestine and Hamas.
The October 7 attacks led Israel to declare war, invading Gaza on October 27, 2023. The conflict includes ground, air, and regional escalations.
According to official reports, over 67,000 Palestinians and about 2,000 Israelis have died, with an estimated 169,000 Palestinians and over 20,000 Israelis injured.
Other reactions
Flack told the Jewish Report that “this ruling matters because it draws a moral and legal line that should have been obvious: glorifying Hamas isn’t political speech, it’s hate speech.”
“The commission’s finding confirms that public figures cannot hide behind slogans while promoting violence or antisemitism.”
“Justice begins when accountability replaces impunity, and this decision is a step in that direction. I have not yet been informed whether Mr Amad has complied, but his apology will mean little if it’s not matched with genuine remorse,” he added.
Flack said he does not expect an apology, saying that during mediation, there “didn’t seem to be any acknowledgement of anything, really.”
At the time Amad posted the tweet, South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) National Chairperson Prof. Karen Milner said that “this kind of incitement is unacceptable for any South African, but it is all the more deplorable from a political leader.”
Adam Charnas from the SAJBD told Newsday that it is “encouraging that our country’s advanced hate speech legislation protects all South African citizens from hateful rhetoric and threatening language.”
“This finding has set an important precedent for current and future hate speech cases… We would hope that a political leader in our country would comply with a ruling laid down by a constitutional body,” added Charnas.
Charnas said that since October 7th, the Jewish community in South Africa, which is not unitary in its beliefs, has witnessed an increase in threats and intimidation.
He praised South Africa’s laws, which “protect minority rights” in the country, which he said is evidenced in the recent SAHRC ruling.
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*TEN WAYS TO RESPOND TO THE GENOCIDE LIE*
Only days after October 7, a chorus of so-called “genocide scholars,” NGOs, and activists began hurling the charge of genocide at Israel. In reality, this accusation functions as a deliberate inversion of 10/7 itself. Hamas carried out mass killings with openly genocidal intent, yet the charge has been flipped onto Israel to whitewash those crimes and blame their victim. In the months since, the charge has only accelerated, turning into a kind of groupthink repeated through recycled slogans (“Israel is targeting healthcare”), canned storylines (“intentional starvation”), and misrepresented quote snippets (“remember Amalek”). These claims are delivered with an air of authority, but they collapse under even basic scrutiny. If Israel truly had a national policy to exterminate the Palestinian people, the evidence would be overwhelming and undeniable. The ten questions that follow cut through that haze. They cannot be answered honestly without exposing the genocide accusation as false, which is precisely why the accusers never confront them directly.
1. If extermination of the Palestinian people is Israel’s goal, why hasn’t it happened?
If Israel wanted to kill 100,000 or more Gazans in a single day it easily could, for example by carpet bombing the Al-Mawasi humanitarian area. You claim Israel’s leaders are pursuing a policy of extermination, directed from the highest levels of government and the IDF, against Palestinians solely for their identity. Some point to Hamas’s claim of 60,000 deaths as proof, but that only sharpens the question: if extermination of the Palestinian people were truly the goal, why stop at tens of thousands when Israel has the capacity to kill millions in days? Why, after 22 months, has no such attack ever been carried out? Do not evade by pointing out that genocide does not require mass killings; address why a state supposedly bent on extermination of the Palestinian people has not taken the obvious steps to achieve it.
2. Why are millions of Palestinians safe under full Israeli control?
Arab-Israelis, about 2 million people, are ethnically the same people as the Palestinians in Gaza and are often called Palestinian citizens of Israel. They live under full Israeli authority, yet not a single one has been exterminated. History shows that when genocidal regimes have unimpeded access to the very population they seek to destroy, that population is in immediate and mortal danger. Can you cite a single genocide where millions of the supposed victims lived safely under the perpetrator’s rule, even serving in its government and institutions? If Israel is pursuing extermination of the Palestinian people, how do you reconcile this reality?
3. Why are Palestinians in the West Bank untouched?
Three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, the same people as in Gaza. Israel could kill many thousands there in a matter of hours if extermination were truly the policy, but this has not happened in 22 months. Why would a state bent on destroying the Palestinian people leave millions unharmed while supposedly carrying out a genocide next door? If extermination of Palestinians as such were the policy, there would be no reason to differentiate by geography or governance. And do not fall back on the claim that the West Bank is different because the war is against Hamas, since your own accusation insists that the only reasonable inference from Israel’s actions in Gaza is exterminating Palestinians as such.
4. How does the legal standard for proving genocidal intent fit here?
The ICJ has held that genocidal intent must be the only reasonable inference from a state’s conduct (Bosnia v. Serbia, para. 373; Croatia v. Serbia, para. 148). Israel’s declared goal has been to destroy Hamas and recover its hostages. In pursuit of that goal, IDF soldiers have suffered over 3,000 casualties including 450 killed, evidence of an actual war against an armed adversary. Genocidal regimes do not send soldiers to die in door-to-door combat when they can exterminate entire populations wholesale. How, then, can genocide be the only reasonable inference from Israel’s actions in Gaza?
5. How does “intentional starvation” fit the actual food data?
You claim Israel’s extermination policy against Palestinians is also being carried out through deliberate starvation. Yet Israel has allowed over 1.4 million tons of food into Gaza since 10/7, exceeding prewar daily averages and, by standard calorie estimates, sufficient for the population over this period. UN reporting for much of the war shows daily truck entries matching or exceeding prewar levels. Do you dispute these figures? If so, provide your numbers and methodology, and explain how they square with a state policy to starve Palestinians to death. If your answer is distribution problems inside Gaza, that is not evidence of an intent to withhold food by policy. And if extermination were truly the goal, why allow any food in at all?
6. Where is the famine, where are the starvation deaths?
Even by Hamas’s count, roughly 200 people have died of starvation since 10/7. Without food, most people die within about two months. A sustained famine over this period would have produced deaths in the hundreds of thousands. How do you reconcile that with a claim of a deliberate Israeli starvation policy aimed at extermination? If you argue there was severe hunger only recently, you concede there was no famine for the first 20 months while the alleged genocide was supposedly already under way. How is that timeline consistent with an extermination policy by starvation?
7. Why does the IDF risk soldiers’ lives in door-to-door combat?
Israel has suffered thousands of casualties in Gaza, much of it from close-quarters fighting against snipers, IEDs, and booby traps. If genocide were the goal, why would Israel choose a combat method that exposes its soldiers to high risk instead of avoiding casualties by annihilating everyone from the air? If your claim is that the only reasonable inference is genocidal intent, how do you explain these costly ground operations?
8. Why is the civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio lower than in other recent urban wars?
Hamas claims that about 60,000 Gazans have been killed, while Israel says more than 20,000 were combatants. Even taking Hamas’s figure at face value, the civilian-to-combatant ratio is roughly 2:1. By comparison, reported ratios in U.S. and allied operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were 3:1 to 5:1. If Israel’s intent were the indiscriminate massacre of Palestinians, why are its ratios lower than those of other Western militaries in urban war? If you dispute these numbers, provide your own analysis—and then explain whether they resemble recognized patterns of genocide, or the tragic but typical outcomes of modern urban combat.
9. Why are IDF tactics often consistent with avoiding civilian harm?
Israel has repeatedly used tactics such as advance evacuation warnings, and designated humanitarian corridors before strikes, measures that slow operations and provide advance warning to enemy fighters. For example, Israel waited weeks to attack Rafah, allowing for an evacuation. Some military experts have called these steps unprecedented in the history of warfare. These measures are not always perfect or effective, but they are unnecessary if the intent were to slaughter the Palestinian people. In known genocides, perpetrators have never taken active steps to limit casualties among the very group they sought to exterminate. How can such actions be explained if Israel’s true objective is genocide?
10. Why facilitate mass medical care if the goal is extermination?
In February 2025, the WHO, with Israel’s cooperation, completed a mass polio vaccination campaign for over 600,000 Gazan children under age 10, about 95 percent of that age group. This was the third round of vaccinations that began in September 2024. Why would a state intent on killing Palestinians for their identity simultaneously help vaccinate nearly all of Gaza’s young children against disease? In recognized genocides, do perpetrators ever devote resources to preserving the lives of the very population they are accused of trying to destroy? How do you explain this contradiction?
Conclusion
These ten questions show that the genocide accusation is not just weak but unsustainable. A charge as serious as genocide requires clear and overwhelming evidence, yet the record is full of contradictions: millions of Palestinians remain unharmed under Israeli authority; casualty ratios resemble other modern wars rather than mass extermination; food, medicine, and vaccinations have continued to reach Gaza throughout the conflict; and the supposed statements of “genocidal intent” by Israeli leaders collapse under scrutiny. In reality, the genocide charge is a deliberate inversion of 10/7 itself: Hamas carried out mass killings with genocidal intent, yet the accusation is flipped onto Israel to whitewash those crimes and recast Israel as the villain. When facts so consistently point away from intentional extermination, persisting in the genocide narrative is no longer scholarship. It is propaganda posing as scholarship.
H/T @aizenberg55
Via Reuven Taragin