South African Ambassador to U.S. Ebrahim Rasool Boasted of Hamas Leader’s Autograph

South African ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool boasted last year that he owned a keffiyeh that had been signed by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Rasool posted on Facebook on September 23, 2023 — two weeks before the Hamas terror attacks of October 7:

The story of 3 scarves: on the left is a gift from Yasser Arafat in 1990 when I was a fly on the wall as he & Madhiba reunited in Cairo after 30+ years; in the middle is one given to me by [Islamist] Shaykh Raaid Salah, leader [sic] of the Palestinians in Israel, when I hosted a dinner for him at Leeuwenhof [the governor’s mansion in the Western Cape Province]; and the one on the right is signed by Ismail Haniyyeh, and presented to me as I was part of an ITI programme with Hamas to share strategic wisdom in the face of Arab “normalisation”, further Israeli occupation , & US approval.

Haniyeh was killed in Tehran, Iran, in July, in an operation for which Israel has taken credit. Raid Salah is not the “leader” of “Palestinians” in Israel, but rather the leader of a radical Islamist movement that has been banned.

The Middle East Forum documented the history of Rasool’s flirtations with extremist Islamic groups. He is known as a moderate in the context of South African politics, but has courted the support of radicals who want to destroy Israel.

Rasool served as an ambassador during the Obama administration, and was recently reappointed to the position.

Rasool said earlier this month that given the imminent return of Donald Trump, South Africa should “put away the megaphone” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — but without abandoning the substance of its anti-Israel positions.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.