Pandor Sparks Controversy
Britain just barred Jews from a football match, again. Officials claimed “security,” the convenient word bureaucrats use when fear needs a mask. Everyone knows what it was: a decision that would once have belonged to darker times, when signs outside clubs read No Jews Allowed.
This disgrace did not begin in Birmingham. It began in the soft-lit halls of Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA), the Islamist-aligned lobby group that hosted Naledi Pandor, a - South African politician and former foreign minister (2019–2024) and long-serving ANC MP (1994–2024) - during its “Palestine Awareness Week.” At the Langa Masjid Fundraising Gala on 24 August 2025, she told the audience:
“Muslims are a peace-loving people, but were permitted to engage in jihad when necessary… social justice, and our belief in it, as well as our belief in the values in the Quran, means that we should be ready to protect these values.”
From there, it spread into the tweet of British MP Ayoub Khan, a long-standing FOA ally, who proudly celebrated excluding Jews from a stadium. The rot traveled fast.
Exporting Resentment from Pretoria
Pandor spent the past year transforming South Africa’s foreign ministry into a pulpit of ideological warfare. She led the campaign to drag Israel before the International Court of Justice on fabricated genocide charges, turning Pretoria into Hamas’s diplomatic proxy. When she landed in Britain last November, FOA handed her the microphone and the audience she craved.
On stage she declared, “The United Nations must be reformed, especially the Security Council,” railing against what she called “the minority in the Global North.” Then came the real sermon: she urged her followers that “Academics around the world should boycott all academics and academic institutions which support apartheid Israel… Israel…should not be playing sport anywhere in the world.”
The words were wrapped in the language of justice but carried unmistakable agitation. It was not diplomacy, it was clear incitement.
Khan Turns Words into Action
Among those sharing the platform was Ayoub Khan, a British MP and fixture in FOA’s ecosystem. Within days of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters being barred from the game, Khan posted triumphantly:
“I welcome the news that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans will not be permitted to watch the match at Aston Villa! Well done to all those that signed our petition!”
Pandor called for boycotts; Khan delivered them. A South African minister lights the fuse, and a British legislator sets off the charge. This is how imported hatreds become domestic policy.
FOA presents itself as cultural outreach, but its record is one of relentless hostility to Israel and habitual apology for its enemies. Its chair, Ismail Patel, has defended Hamas as a “legitimate resistance movement.” FOA campaigns to sever academic ties with Israeli universities, boycott Israeli goods, and now police who may sit in British football stands.
When Pandor joined its platform, she legitimised an organisation that teaches British audiences that intolerance is virtue, so long as it is directed at Jews.
Britain’s Institutions Look Away
Pandor’s meddling does not end with FOA. She now chairs the Nelson Mandela Foundation, entrusted with preserving South Africa’s moral legacy. Under her leadership, it is preparing to host Francesca Albanese, the UN’s so-called Special Rapporteur on Palestine, recently sanctioned by the United States for political warfare against Israel.
The symbolism is stark: the head of Mandela’s foundation welcoming a sanctioned agitator, under the same banner that applauded Jewish segregation at a football ground.
Pandor’s genius lies in fusing religion, law, and grievance into a single ideology. At The Hague she weaponised international law; in Leicester she sanctified boycott; in London she baptised her converts in the language of justice; at home, she preaches Jihad. She has turned every moral instrument of the post-war world into a weapon against the civilisation that built them.
Her admirers call this leadership. It is closer to vandalism; moral, institutional, and intellectual. She uses apartheid’s legacy not to heal, but to infect, exporting South Africa’s bitterness to nations that once stood as its friends.
Silence Has Consequences
The most alarming thing isn’t what Pandor or Khan said, it’s what Britain didn’t. The Foreign Office hides behind “balance.” England’s Football Association points to “safety concerns.” The press, afraid of being called Islamophobic, stays silent. A country that once stood for inclusion now excludes Jews in the name of Palestine.
Pandor is more than a visitor; she spreads resentment. Khan carries it at home. If Britain still has any moral backbone, it must draw a line. Foreign agitators cannot decide who enters Britain’s stadiums, lectures in its Parliament, or defines decency. The threat came from abroad, through courtesy and cowardice, and now it stands on Britain’s fields, smiling for the cameras.
Pandor lit the fire. Khan fanned it. And Britain, unsure of itself, pretends not to notice the flames.
Tim Flack
South African Public Relations Strategist | Investigative Commentator
