From one anti-apartheid activist to another, a South African pays tribute to Ismail Haniyeh

In 1998 I led a delegation of senior South African Muslim leaders to Palestine. Amongst those who joined the delegation was the former President of the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC), Maulana Ihsaan Hendricks and Yousuf “Tara” Seedat. Maulana Hendricks was a great advocate of the Palestinian cause in South Africa. Yusuf Tara was a widely loved figure and a leading activist within the South African Muslim community: may Allah The Almighty be kind to them both and accept them in the Highest Gardens of Paradise. Ameen.

This was the first visit of its kind and the beginning of a relationship which saw the development of very close ties between Palestine and the South African Muslim community.

We visited the West Bank, Palestine occupied in 1948 (Israel) and Gaza. Our main stop inside the 1948-occupied territory was Umm Al-Fahm. We were invited to attend the annual Al Aqsa Muhrajan Festival, an annual arts and cultural event organised by, amongst others, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah.

Our final stop on that 1998 visit was Gaza. In those days, notwithstanding several checkpoints, it was possible to enter Gaza from Israel through the Erez Crossing. In was then that I first met Ismail Haniyeh, a man who became prime minister of Palestine in 2006 but was then robbed of his electoral victory by a boycott of the “free and fair” (according to international observers) Legislative Council election led by Israel and the US in collaboration with the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmood Abbas, who “sacked” Haniyeh.

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In 1998, Haniyeh was an aide of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the paraplegic, wheelchair-bound leader of the Islamic Movement in Gaza and founder of Hamas who was assassinated by Israel in March 2004. We had a very productive visit were able to discuss, at length, our South African struggle against apartheid and its similarities with the Israeli apartheid imposed in Palestine. We also had a lengthy political discussion with Dr Abdul Aziz Rantisi, a senior official of the movement and intellectual who was also assassinated by Israel in April 2004, a month after the murder of Sheikh Yassin.

I met Haniyeh in Qatar on several occasions while I lived and worked there. Notwithstanding his career growth and new political status, he remained a humble servant of his people; in many respects, he was the same, genuinely caring person that I had met in Gaza years before.

Ismail Haniyeh’s face and personality shone, giving the place an immediate sense of his presence whenever he entered a room. Whether wearing a formal suit or a traditional thobe, he had the dignity and charm that very few people in his position are blessed with. When he smiled, he did so from the heart, and when he spoke to you, he gave you his full attention. With his murder by Israel, the Palestinians have lost a great leader. May his example live on and continue to inspire generations of Palestinians to come.

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