Dear Friend

We are reaching out to you again because of your previous assistance in fighting anti-Israel hate at the University of Cape Town. 

The University of Cape Town (UCT) was recently the venue of Islamic extremism. This past Monday evening, 20 March 2023, the UCT Palestine Solidarity Forum (PSF) hosted an event with direct video feeds to representatives from two internationally-designated terrorist organisations, namely Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), who delivered radical messages of hate and extremism to UCT students. This formed part of the antisemitic Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s annual anti-Israel hatefest known as “Israel Apartheid Week” which runs on university campuses across South Africa.

As part of the meeting, two terrorist representatives, Nasser Abu Shariff from PIJ, and Dr Khalid Qodumi from Hamas, addressed UCT students in a UCT venue where flags from organisations that seek to remove Israel from the face of the earth, Hezbollah and Hamas, were hung by the PSF.

Please read more information about this event here.

The PSF is responsible for ongoing BDS activity that stirs hatred and division between student groups on campus. This includes an anti-Israel project being funded by the administration of UCT at the cost of One Million Rand, which was created as a result of the PSF’s academic boycott campaign against Israel at UCT.

You can read more about the origins of this project here and also the latest developments published recently by UCT.

The  actions of the PSF continue to demonstrate the extreme nature of the PSF, whose actions must be opposed. UCT must condemn the bringing of extremists onto campus and cease funding anti-Israel propaganda masquerading as academic research.

We urgently request your support in condemning Islamic extremism on UCT campuses, by voicing and raising your concerns with the UCT Ombud by mailing ombud@uct.ac.za.

Let us work together again to successfully address anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred and propaganda on university campuses nationwide, starting with UCT following this despicable event.

Regards

Concerned Citizens for Academic Freedom at UCT.