South Africa’s Soft State Capture: Gaza and Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman
Around the world, the phrase “state capture” tends to evoke images of oligarch networks, corrupt political dynasties, or foreign actors seizing control of national institutions. Yet the most enduring and quietly corrosive form of influence is not the kind that arrives through the front door with political slogans and party banners, but the kind that slips in through the side entrance wearing the cloak of humanitarian benevolence. Soft capture, as we may call it, is far harder to detect, far more difficult to challenge, and often far more dangerous in the long run because it rewires the moral architecture of a society long before anyone realizes that power has migrated from the state to a single personality.
This is an insidious dynamic that Israelis and Middle Eastern observers understand instinctively. The rise of Hamas in Gaza, the entrenchment of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the decades-long ascent of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt all follow an eerily consistent trajectory. None of these movements began by seizing ministries or storming parliament. They began by filling the gaps left by weak states, offering welfare networks, social services, clinics, student programs, and community protection under the unthreatening brand of progressivism or in South Africa, charity. Only later, when the population had become dependent and the state too embarrassed to challenge them, did the true political consequences reveal themselves. By then, the humanitarian halo had already hardened into political armor.
It is in this international context that South Africa’s domestic situation demands attention, because the pattern that has played out across the Middle East is beginning to reappear in a distinctly South African form through the figure of Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of Gift of the Givers, the country’s most celebrated and revered humanitarian organization. To an international audience unfamiliar with South Africa, Gift of the Givers is part disaster relief powerhouse, part national therapy project, and part symbol of what many South Africans believe their state should be but is not. It is the organization people call when government fails, when communities flood, when hospitals collapse, when diplomats fall silent, and when crises overwhelm the institutions supposedly designed to handle them.
Resulting from that, Sooliman has accumulated a degree of moral authority that no NGO leader should possess in a functioning democracy. His recent appearance on CapeTalk, one of South Africa’s major talk-radio platforms, demonstrated this with startling clarity. The interview was ostensibly about the recent arrival of Gaza evacuees into South Africa, yet it became something far more revealing: a window into a man who now speaks not as a civic figure offering humanitarian reflection, but as a parallel minister who assumes for himself the right to critique regulators, instruct government departments, interpret refugee law, pronounce on international diplomacy, and shape the national narrative on foreign affairs with an authority that comes not from the ballot box, but from the cultivated reverence around his brand.
In short, the Gift of the Givers led by Dr. Sooliman is the metaphorical tail wagging the foreign policy and immigration law of the South African government dog.
For an international reader, imagine the head of a well-known charity responding to a refugee crisis by publicly chastising the national aviation regulator, then explaining immigration policy as if he were writing the official manual, then contradicting himself about whether he opposes or supports the arrival of evacuees, and finally describing his own organization’s role in receiving, processing, advising, transporting, and even financing those same arrivals. It is the sort of performance one expects from a politician with executive responsibility, not from a humanitarian figure supposedly acting on behalf of a NGO, a private citizen on a voluntary basis.
The contradiction at the heart of Sooliman’s comments is revealing. He insisted that he urged the South African government to halt the Gaza flights, while simultaneously boasting about how his organization met these passengers at the airport, briefed them, advised them on their documents, transported them to their accommodation, and in many cases funded their onward travel. He maintained that the passengers did not know they were coming to South Africa, even while discussing their visa arrangements in a level of detail that would be impressive for an immigration attorney. He described the humanitarian evacuation corridor as a form of “ethnic cleansing” and applauded the decision of the South African government closing its airspace and preventing further arrivals.
Apparently, a planeload of 153 Gazans landing in South Africa according to the thinking of Dr. Sooliman the humanitarian icon and the South African government intent on pursuing a genocide claim in the International Court of Justice, would be conspiring with a shadowy Israeli system to depopulate Gaza. Gone is the open prison narrative and evil Israel closing their movement from the territory. That shibboleth has been quietly discarded. People are indeed free to leave Gaza and indeed as is the case with every war torn conflict zone, Gazans wish to freely migrate to seek safety and a better life elsewhere. It may be worth bearing in mind that since the start of the war in Gaza in 2023, 40,000 Gazans or almost 2% of the pre-war population have migrated from the territory. Since the ceasefire about 1 000 Gazans have chosen to leave. The uncomfortable truth is that there was no cry of ethnic cleansing then because the humanitarian corridor was through the Egypt controlled Rafah crossing. That has now closed and the humanitarian corridor is now through the Israeli controlled Keren Shalom crossing. Suddenly the narrative has shifted to demonize Israel as being complicit in forced evacuations of Gazans. A rather threadbare ethnic cleansing of a few hundred people (adding the first South African planeload in October). No self-respecting person or government serious about migrant rights can seriously defend closure of flights from Gaza with patently false narratives.
The facts of course speak out. No South African media bothered interviewing migrants who landed in South Africa as to their motives and officials have fudged this issue. Fortunately an astute social media specialist, Tim Flack was able to interview two Gazan women who were on the flight. They confirmed that they were voluntary migrants and were grateful to the South Africans for landing there. The Palestinian Embassy advised the migrants not to speak about their arrangements for exiting Gaza, thus suppressing the true voluntary nature of their migration and bolstering the conspiracy theory of ethnic cleansing.
Dr. Sooliman said he does not encourage Palestinians to remain in South Africa, while expounding on the legal pathways, asylum options, and procedural rights available to those who choose to stay. All of this was delivered with an air of unshakeable authority as if he held a mandate to interpret the country’s immigration policy for the public.
This is exactly how soft institutional capture takes root. It does not happen when a person storms a parliament or seizes a treasury. It happens when the public becomes so emotionally indebted to a celebrated humanitarian figure that government officials, journalists, and even civil servants hesitate to confront out of fear that they would appear heartless or ungrateful. Once this psychological shield forms, the individual becomes effectively untouchable, and the state begins to orbit around them rather than the constitution. The Middle East offers countless examples of this dynamic, and anyone familiar with that region will feel a sense of déjà vu listening to Sooliman’s interview.
This matters to Israel and the international community for a simple reason: South Africa has positioned itself as one of Israel’s most aggressive diplomatic adversaries on the global stage. Much of this hostility is not generated organically or through broad democratic debate. Large tracts of the South African population, particularly traditional African Christian churches are very supportive of Israel. The ANC is no longer the majority party but ignores members of the coalition government which does not share its foreign policy on Israel. Instead, policy is through the influence of a small network of unelected Islamist actors who shape public sentiment and foreign policy rhetoric. Sooliman is one of the most powerful among them. His positions are portrayed as morally unassailable, and because of this, they flow naturally into the broader anti-Israel narrative that dominates South Africa’s diplomatic posture.
When a humanitarian figure begins to overstep into the terrain of immigration policy, diplomatic messaging, and international legal rhetoric, the impact does not remain confined to the home country. It travels outward, shaping perceptions, influencing diplomatic partners, and reinforcing hostile narratives that Israel is forced to combat on multiple international fronts.
The world often forgets that political influence rarely begins with explicit ideology. It begins with emotional trust. Once that trust becomes unconditional, the individual or organization that commands it can operate with a level of authority that no constitutional structure can match. That is the deeper danger in the South African case. It is not that Sooliman is malicious or power hungry. It is that he represents an Islamist ideology and structure that has precedent in many regions, and those precedents almost always end badly for states that allow themselves to be overshadowed by unelected moral figureheads. The history of Dr. Sooliman’s association with and financial support of the Coalition for Good in the early 1990’s is documented. This organization was subsequently proscribed by the USA as a terrorist supporting entity. Today Gift the Givers is part of the Coalition for Good a network of anti-Zionist /Israel South African organizations and individuals an overtly Islamist activist-oriented group.
South Africa, like so many countries before it, now faces a choice. It can confront the early warning signs of NGO-driven political overreach, or it can continue drifting toward a system where perceived benevolent personalities exercise more practical authority than elected leaders. For Israel, and for the international observers who track how humanitarian narratives shape global politics, the lesson is clear. Power does not always announce itself through force. Often it arrives through kindness, credibility, and the illusion of neutrality. And by the time the public realizes it has been captured, the humanitarian halo has already become the new seat of political authority.
If South Africa values its democratic institutions, and if the international community values clarity in understanding how global anti-Israel narratives are manufactured and sustained, then it must pay attention to this emerging pattern. Because the humanitarian saint, left unchecked, can become the most unaccountable political force of all.
