In the face of the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza, the decision by Africa’s top university to reject the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and to cut ties with some Israeli academics has turned it into a battleground for anti-Zionist and pro-"Israel" groups as the latter seeks to shut out any criticism of the Zionist entity.

On June 22, 2024, the University of Cape Town (UCT) reached two bold resolutions. The first was to reject the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s 2016 definition of anti-Semitism, which classifies any criticism of the Zionist entity of "Israel" as anti-Semitism, in favour of the narrower definition put forward by the Jerusalem Declaration of 2021. This definition clearly makes a distinction between genuine anti-Semitism – discrimination against Jews based on religion, race, or ethnicity – and so-called anti-Semitism, which refers to criticism of "Israel" or Zionism. The second resolution was to end all relationships with Israeli academics with links to Israeli occupation forces (IOF). When the two resolutions, which are commonly referred to as the ‘Gaza Resolutions’, were put to a vote, they passed by a large majority. The two resolutions included a clause that condemned the destruction of Gaza’s education sector and the killing of teachers and university staff during the ongoing aggression. 

But the pro-"Israel" lobby in South Africa and across the world was unhappy with the two resolutions, with some of its members peremptorily cutting their funding to the university while others mounted a court case seeking to overturn the two resolutions on account of their perceived “irrationality”.

‘Resolutions unlawful, unconstitutional’

Professor Adam Mendelsohn, director of UCT’s Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies, is leading the pro-Zionist lobby on the legal front. On August 22, 2024, he filed an application in the Western Cape Division of the South African High Court, seeking to overturn the two resolutions passed by the university’s council, its highest decision-making body, on the basis that they are “unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid.”

In the application, Mendelsohn claims that the motions were passed in an “irrational” manner, and therefore would infringe upon his right to academic freedom. He contends that his research, mainly focused on modern Jewish history, would be adversely affected, as it involves Israelis, including those serving in the IOF or within the broader Israeli military establishment.

“First, the (UCT) Council decided to pass these resolutions in an irrational manner,” Mendelsohn said in his founding affidavit. “The Council failed to consider an array of relevant considerations before passing the resolutions, including the resolutions’ financial, relational and reputational implications for UCT. Second, the resolutions are not linked rationally to any legitimate purpose.”

Norman Arendse, chairperson of the UCT council, opposed Mendelsohn’s application by defending its resolutions and pointing out that the university’s ‘Gaza Resolutions’ do not constitute an academic boycott, but are rather meant to defend free speech, affirm academic freedom, and assert institutional freedom.

While the dispute has been playing out, Zionist donors have withdrawn at least R200 million ($11.3 million) from UCT in protest of these resolutions.

‘Disentangling Judaism from Zionism’

The case highlights the growing split within global Jewry between Zionists and anti-Zionists, especially amid ongoing Israeli aggression in Gaza. In this context, South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP) have applied to be admitted as amicus curiae (friends of the court).

In the application filed on June 9, 2025, through its member Dr. Jared Sacks, an academic and writer, SAJFP says the case “impacts the rights and interests of SAJFP, of its dozens members who are staff or students at UCT, and of persons in the broader UCT community and the general public.”

It says some of its members have been harassed and threatened for their support of anti-Semitism and pro-Palestine resolution.

“This case therefore directly affects the safety, the political speech and academic freedom of our members.”

In the court application, SAJFP says a key element of its work is “helping to disentangle Judaism (a religion that is thousands of years old and made up of diverse ethnicities and cultures that have flourished in many parts of the world) and Zionism (a nationalist and white supremacist ideology aiming to colonise historical Palestine in the name of Jewish self-determination).”

“In disentangling Judaism from Zionism, we aim to demonstrate that it is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel, and it is not anti-Semitic (or anti-Jewish) to oppose the existence of a Jewish state as a state which seeks to manufacture demographic majority and Jewish political supremacy over others,” it says.

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In his affidavit, Sacks also defended UCT’s resolutions.

“The IHRA, by conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and Zionism with Judaism, places these crimes (that the university has every right to dissociate itself from), on the heads of all Jewish people. Thus, it is its Jewish staff and students who bear the brunt of association if there are no active measures to reject the conflation of Judaism with Zionism,” Dr. Sacks  pointed out. “SAJFP submits that to safeguard Jewish students on campus, the university has a responsibility to take steps to ensure that Israel’s century-long history of violent oppression against Palestinians is not wrongly attributed to its Jewish students, staff and alumni.”

Testimonies of Jewish experts

To support its application, SAJFP roped in testimonies of local and international Jewish experts on the matter. These are Professor Steven Friedman from the University of Johannesburg, Isaac Kamola, a professor of Political Science at Trinity College in the United States who is also the director of the Centre for the Defence of Academic Freedom (CDAF) at the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), as well as Professor Joan Scott of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, the same institute that prominent Jew, Albert Einstein, joined after seeking refuge in the US from Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Prof. Friedman said it is strange that the IHRA’s anti-Semitism definition, which is favoured by the West, actually accuses Jews of discriminating against themselves.

“It is used to accuse (even) Jewish people of anti-Semitism, which in effect means accusing people of discrimination against themselves or harbouring prejudices against themselves,” Prof. Friedman explained in his testimony filed in SAJFP’s court application.

“Besides the fact that there are Jewish people that prefer peace to war and who oppose the electoral college system or nuclear power, some Jews share the view that the Israeli state discriminates against Palestinians. In this view, all Jews who hold this view are ‘anti-Semites’.”

He said, despite this obvious oddity, Zionism and the New Anti-Semitism continue to imply that Jews who are not connected to or oppose "Israel" are "anti-Semitic".

“It is clear that anti-Zionism and principled opposition to the Israeli state or its conduct are not anti-Semitic. The IHRA definition includes ‘examples’ of anti-Semitism that portray opposition to the Israeli state or its conduct as inherently racist, effectively seeking to delegitimise such criticism and deny it a platform. A decision by a university to reject the IHRA definition cannot be described or regarded as either anti-Semitic or irrational. It is, in reality, an affirmation of the right of all views on the Israeli state and its actions to be expressed freely. This is particularly true when this university has committed itself to opposing actual instances of anti-Semitism and has adopted the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.”

‘UCT a repeat of situation at US varsities’

Both Professor Kamola and Professor Scott drew strongly on their experience in the US where universities and their students and staff are being financially blackmailed and harassed by the pro-"Israel" lobby for their rejection of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

“It is my opinion that compelling UCT to capitulate to donor directives, against the shared governance of that institution, and requiring the adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, would be a clear threat to academic freedom and university autonomy as defined by T. B Davie (former UCT chancellor in the 1950s), the AAUP, and all major understanding of academic freedom,” Professor Kamola pointed out in his own testimony.

“Allowing donors to determine what speech is acceptable or not, such as defining criticism of the state of ‘Israel’ as anti-Semitic, fundamentally undermines UCT’s guiding principles on academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and shared governance, which are central to T.B Davie’s four freedoms. As the case of the United States demonstrates, there are considerable risks that come with allowing donors to dictate campus policy, especially around what constitutes acceptable speech and inquiry. Giving donors this power fundamentally threatens the intellectual work and mission on the university, smothering the ability of the university, and its faculty, to determine what can be taught and researched.”

He warned that capitulating to donor demands has dire consequences for higher education as this is vividly demonstrated by recent and current experience in the US.

“It means abandoning the core principle that universities are places of free and critical thought. It means giving individual donors influence over whether and how students are punished, and which faculty are hired, fired and promoted. And, even more fundamentally, it muzzles the ability of faculty and students to speak truth to power, to criticize those who perpetuate injustice, or to demand a more equitable world.”

‘Same Zionist pressure evident’

Prof. Scott drew similarities between the situation in the US and that which is unfolding at UCT.

“The US experience is, in my opinion, relevant for South African universities, where the same Zionist pressure is evident in the insistence that the IHRA definition must be used to define anti-Semitism,” she highlighted.

“That definition, a weapon that the current Israeli government deploys internationally, results in the silencing of the kind of critical research and teaching that is the hallmark of a liberal democratic education. Academic freedom is perversely invoked as an individual right by those very people who would deny it to those asserting the collective academic right of faculty to decide university policy.” 

Prof. Scott argued that donors will be offended by the university’s refusal to adopt the IHRA definition.

“The result in the US and in South Africa will be the same: restrictions on what can and cannot be said about Israel in the name of a spurious and contested definition of antisemitism; the censorship of research and teaching about Palestine specifically and the Middle East more generally; the infringement on the autonomy of the university and its institutions of faculty governance.”

The court case is set to be heard by a full bench later in the year. UCT is but the latest of South Africa’s 26 universities to move toward cutting ties with the Zionist entity.