Sooliman relies on dubious sources to promote Antisemitic conspiracy theories
In her article, Sex, Power and Control, published with an apparent blind eye toward editorial responsibility by the Mail & Guardian, Quraysha Ismail Sooliman purports to make the three points:
1) Israel is involved in sexual deviancy,
2) Israel uses the threat of exposure of sexual deviancy as leverage to keep international countries and politicians in their pocket and
3), local academic Ivor Chipkin is a sexual deviant, and his institute is funded by a neo-liberal organisation, so therefore cannot be trusted.
To support these outrageous claims, Sooliman relies on dubious X accounts and overtly racist conspiracy theories.
It’s frankly shocking that a postdoctoral scholar would take such sources seriously, and even more disheartening that a reputable publication like the Mail & Guardian would allow such an article even to be published.
The central conceit of this smear piece appears to be a crude attempt to introduce a new antisemitic trope — that one of the ways in which Jews control the world is through the fear of exposure of sexual deviancy.
The idea that Jews control politics, media or foreign governments is not only misinformed but also deeply conspiratorial and bigoted.
While Sooliman is careful to avoid using the word “Jew”, the sources she relies on have no such restraint, openly claiming the existence of a global Jewish conspiracy.
The premise of her argument and the clear insinuations it makes form a seriously antisemitic concept that should be widely and loudly admonished.
Sooliman is quite comfortable about accepting an international Jewish sexual deviancy conspiracy yet is apparently incapable of accepting that people are able to believe in Israel’s moral legitimacy without needing to be coerced.
One can only assume that her sense of perspective in this area has been hopelessly distorted by her own unbridled anti-Israel prejudices.
All reasonable people accept that measured criticism of Israel does not constitute antisemitism, but when the nation state of the Jewish people is effectively demonised, defamed and falsely depicted as some kind of rampaging monster, it is all but inevitable that such smear tactics will cross over into vilifying Jewish people in general.
Much as she will no doubt deny it, Sooliman’s article is just one more example of this.
In addition to its use of plainly despicable source material, the article is full of blatant falsehoods, inaccuracies and omissions.
In the first line, she states that 7 October marks a year of alleged Israeli crimes in Gaza, which is of course untrue, as October 7 marks a year since Hamas heinously attacked Israeli civilians; the Israel Defence Forces never entered Gaza until some time after these attacks.
Sooliman states that politicians and rabbis have supported the rape of Palestinian minors — which is also plainly untrue, not to mention libelous.
She also uses an isolated sexual assault case as proof of a strategy of mass sexual violence, a leap in logic that is both offensive and absurd.
By her reasoning, any country with ongoing sexual assault cases — including South Africa — would have to be accused of adopting mass rape as a policy.
As goes without saying, the mass rapes perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October, something even the generally biased United Nations has acknowledged and condemned, features nowhere in her piece.
Now, let’s discuss the sources on which Sooliman relies: conspiracy theorists on X.
In one example she goes so far as to use clearly doctored videos, one titled “How Does Killary Plan to Kill Puffy,” in which Hillary Clinton is animated to discuss her plans to kill P Diddy, just as she supposedly killed Jeffrey Epstein.
In another instance, Sooliman states that sexual blackmail is used as a weapon to “fuel violence and control” with an image provided as the proof, “The revelations surrounding Jeffrey Epstein”.
The image states that Epstein is linked to Harvard and was appointed there as a visiting fellow by Jews. Epstein’s religion, as well as those who appointed him, should be irrelevant to her argument, which, in any event, is not made, anywhere in the screengrab. This is clearly a bigoted and antisemitic conspiracy that Sooliman maliciously uses to push a modern antisemitic libel.
These are only two of at least 12 such sources that apparently can be used to prove a conspiracy by a postdoctoral student in a legitimate news source.
It is frankly laughable that the X accounts that Sooliman cites to legitimise her hatred would be considered as credible in even the least respected of papers.
What a pity then that once again the M&G has failed its readership, and dropped the baton on its responsibility toward journalistic integrity.
It is with reference to these unreliable and morally repugnant examples that Sooliman purports to bolster her assertion that sexual blackmail is a tool used by the pro-Israel movement to fuel violence and control.
She uses the example of Epstein, suggesting that the Israeli intelligence services were somehow complicit in his crimes.
This is then explained as a new tactic to add to the already widely used, and blatantly antisemitic claim, that Jewish money controls the West.
She then references a sexual scandal involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn and asks, “Was it a coincidence that this powerful figure, who posed a threat to certain economic agendas, was brought down by a sexual scandal?”
At this point, Sooliman takes a bizarre turn to discuss the African Global Dialogues which she claims took place at Constitutional Hill (which it didn’t), arguing that it was an attempt to whitewash supposed Israeli atrocities in Gaza by feigning commitment to peace talks while perpetrating atrocities.
She appears to have taken offence to the conference organiser, Ivor Chipkin, for his stance against South Africa’s case against Israel before the International Court of Justice.
Rather than engaging with what Chipkin might have to say on the subject (which is what one normally expects of reputable academics) she dredges up a discredited case of sexual misconduct from his past — the inference, unsupported by any logic or evidence, is that those who support Israel are somehow all sexual deviants.
For good measure, Sooliman smears Chipkin’s New South Institute, insinuating that its funding from the Millennium Trust somehow makes it less trustworthy.
Put together, this article is libellous, antisemitic, unscholarly and conspiratorial. It is an embarrassment to the publication that carried it.
For Jews, antisemitic rhetoric too often leads to real-world violence. We have long memories, recognising the dangerous patterns in such discourse.
Such hateful stains against any recognisable community, whether Jewish or otherwise, should not be allowed to become part of the public record.
Adam Charnas is a member of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies.