4 September 2026
Pro-Palestinian protesters have been interdicted from making any claims that Cape Union Mart or any of its brands are associated with genocide in Gaza. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks
Pro-Palestinian protesters have been interdicted from making any claims that Cape Union Mart, or any of its brands, are associated with the State of Israel in any way.
Brands include Poetry, Old Khaki and K-Way.
In terms of an order granted by a full bench of the Western Cape High Court on Friday, protesters are barred from claiming that the retailers are funding a “genocide” in Gaza, killing children, complicit in killing children or supporting a genocide in Gaza. They were also barred from blocking access to the stores and ordered to comply with the law when protesting.
Cape Union Mart International and its executive chairperson, Philip Krawitz, sought relief against named protesters and the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC) for what they said was defamatory and unlawful conduct.
Judge Judith Cloete, who penned the judgment, said the protests had continued since November 2023 for 19 months, even after an interim order was granted by agreement in August last year.
According to the PSC, the purpose of the gatherings was to urge the public to boycott Cape Union Mart stores as part of a broader campaign.
The company was targeted because Krawitz was known to hold leadership positions in organisations which raised funds for Israel.
The PSC admitted to displaying posters and making utterances at these gatherings about what was occurring in Gaza, and targeting Kravitz.
Judge Cloete said the PSC had said its conduct could not be viewed in a vacuum. However, while its members were entitled to their views, “it is important to contextualise the actual litigation before us, since we are not a court of public opinion but a court of law.”
Judge Cloete said the dispute was not about limiting any rights to criticise the State of Israel or events that unfolded in Gaza; the orders sought were to prevent the respondents from defaming the company and offending the dignity of Krawitz under the guise of freedom of expression.
She said Krawitz, in his affidavit, had said neither he nor Cape Union Mart had any involvement in the war in Gaza. The ties he has with Israel in his personal capacity stem solely from his family’s religion of Judaism. These are ties with a spiritual homeland, not with its government.
He said the company employed about 3,000 people at 270 stores, from different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds.
He said he had been involved in both Jewish and non-Jewish organisations his entire career. He said he had been awarded the Keren Hayesod Yakier Award for philanthropy in 2015, “the timing of which was a surprise to him”. At the award ceremony, he and his wife were photographed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He believed that it was his involvement in Keren Heyesod that led to allegations in 2023 that he had pledged to “raise money for the Israeli war fund”, which he said was completely false.
Judge Cloete said the PSC had admitted to most of the conduct being complained about, but argued that if the relief is granted, it would be a “prior restraint” on core rights.
PSC also claimed that while Keren Hayesod was a charitable foundation, it was effectively an Israeli government entity, “which not only supports its military and paramilitary structure but also supports Jewish settler organisations operating in occupied East Jerusalem”.
In their answering affidavits, however, PSC had relied mostly on hearsay evidence regarding this, the judge said.
“The admissible evidence establishes that Mr Krawitz is not funding a genocide or murdering babies, whether directly or indirectly … ,” Judge Cloete said.
“The PSC and other unknown protesters have regrettably conflated their reliance on articles and reports downloaded from the internet, and their own perceptions, with facts.”
She said any right-thinking person with an independent mind would be understand the dangers of relying on what is found on the internet as the truth.
The PSC had advanced defences on defamation by relying on inadmissible hearsay evidence.
The PSC had since undertaken to comply with the Gatherings Act.
In granting the interdicts, she said it would put an end to conduct in breach of the company’s and Krawitz’s rights.
She ordered each party to pay their own costs, noting that Krawitz had “probably stoked the proverbial fire” by a sarcastic comment in an interview he did in October 2024, with full knowledge of the international outrage generated by the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
In that interview, he spoke of being accused of being the biggest funder of the Israeli army, to which he responded that he would be privileged to be “the biggest funder of anything in Israel”. In his evidence, he claimed he was being sarcastic, as that would imply that he was a man of such wealth.
