How revoking Naledi Pandor’s US visa was engineered

A SERIES of articles against former International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor by Lawrence Nowosenetz, formerly associated with the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, appear to form part of Zionist hasbara with specific goals.

- IQBAL JASSAT

In his recent piece published in Times of Israel titled “Naledi Pandor - The South African Jihadi Emissary”, the intent to tarnish Pandor is clearly evident.

Crafted as an open letter to the US government, Nowosenetz describes Pandor as a “malign activist” and accuses her of being a supporter of “Islamist radical ideology”.

He writes that Pandor’s remarks are consistent with Hamas, whom he describes as a “terror organisation”. A designation that emanates from Israel’s war criminals, parroted by rightwing US “think tanks” and shared by the Trump administration.

Believing Hamas’s ideology to be “fundamentally rooted in the concept of jihad (holy war)”, and in his desperate attempt to justify his characterisation of Pandor as a “jihadist”, he leans on photographs of her “in direct conversation with senior Hamas figures Dr Bassem Naim and Emad Saber at a conference in Sandton, Johannesburg”.