South African Jews for a Free Palestine welcomes the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Judge “Navi” Pillay. She has been honoured with no more than she deserves, for she is a towering and fearless role model for what it means to be devoted to human rights.
It is with pleasure that we hail her as a fellow South African. We believe that her courage is based solidly on her foundation in South Africa’s historic struggle against racism and fascism. . For example, Judge Pillay served on the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, including four years as its President, dealing with the genocide during 1994 in which 800,000 people were killed. It is striking that she has been awarded the Peace Prize for her pan-African work while South Africa is being tormented with rising Afrophobic violence.
In 2025 she also led a United Nations’ commission of inquiry that determined that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Her report is clear:
‘The Commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit the following actus reus of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, namely (i) killing members of the group; (ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (iv) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group’.
The SAJFP notes the implications of what Jørgen Frydnes, the Chairperson of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, stated when announcing the award to Judge Pillay — that Pillay’s finding of Genocide was explicitly recognised by the Nobel Committee. In other words, the Nobel Committee has recognised the fact of genocide in Gaza and that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide must be prosecuted.
In light of Judge Pillay’s recognition, the SAJFP draws attention to the attitude of the Holocaust and Genocide Centres in Durban, Cape Town, and Johannesburg. Despite the rising tide of disgust at what Zionism means to Palestinians, these Centres remain silent on Israel’s conduct in Gaza, providing cover to the Israeli regime that they allow to no other country guilty of genocide.
We do not tire to repeat: criticism of Zionism is not antisemitism. Israel is not immune from the charge of genocide simply because it claims to act on behalf of Jews. It is shameful that the South African Holocaust and Genocide Centres refuse to acknowledge the genocide in Palestine, and refuse to open their doors to a frank and public study of it.
Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to South Africa’s Judge Pillay is a direct challenge to the Centres: will they remain pusillanimous and resolute in their determination to protect ignorance, or will they seize the moment to act and to undertake their self-defined task?
Their mission as genocide centres is to recognise all genocides, no matter who is responsible for them. Instead, they continue to shut down recognition of Israel’s genocidal conduct. In conceding to what Israel has done and continues to do, they would also be acknowledging the honour and respect shown to Judge Pillay by her prestigious award. It is ironic that it is the result of their current policy of conflating criticism of Zionism with antisemitism that they dare not invite her to address the Holocaust and Genocide Centres, for fear of what she would be certain to say.
The award to Judge Pillay also has profound implications for South Africa as a whole. South Africa continues to provide material support to Zionist Israel, including directly fueling the genocide with coal. We cannot with integrity hail her as a daughter of our freedom struggle and as loyal to our Constitution unless our government meets its obligations in regard to the Palestinians.
Our government must no longer be cowed by the pressures being forced on it by Zionists. South Africa must honour the justified observation by Nelson Mandela when he linked our freedom with that of the Palestinians, for if we fail the Palestinians then we fail to protect what Judge Pillay has dedicated her life to — the strengthening of international law, which is the reason why she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In the context of the campaign for the human rights of Palestinians, the SAJFP regards her Nobel award as an incentive and as a challenge, and we re-commit ourselves to our task with even greater resolve.
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