THE Western Cape High Court has handed down a judgment that will likely reshape how activist campaigns in South Africa frame allegations against corporate targets — even as it stops well short of settling the underlying political dispute that sparked it.
Judge Cloete’s ruling, delivered on 4 September, interdicts the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its supporters from claiming that retailer Cape Union Mart, its brands, or executive chairperson Philip Krawitz are “funding genocide” or the Israeli military, or are complicit in the killing of children. The case had run since Cape Union Mart first sought relief in mid-2025, following protests outside its stores that began in November 2023.
At the heart of the judgment is a pointed finding about evidence. Cloete found that the PSC relied almost exclusively on hearsay to support its claims against Krawitz, and noted that PSC did not dispute the statements were defamatory — instead arguing they should be protected on grounds of truth, public benefit, and public commentary. That distinction — between asserting something is true and actually proving it — appears to have been decisive. Cape Union Mart’s legal team had earlier told the court that the activists’ claims rested heavily on internet sources and unverified interpretations, which they characterised as speculative, rejecting any suggestion the company or its leadership supported military activity.
For PSC chairperson Martin Jansen, who has led the Cape Town branch’s campaign against the retailer since the boycott began, the ruling narrows — but does not eliminate — the organisation’s room to manoeuvre. Crucially, the judgment is specific rather than sweeping. Cloete was explicit that the case was not about limiting criticism of the State of Israel, nor about shielding Krawitz and Cape Union Mart from scrutiny and accountability. The respondents remain free to assemble publicly and to boycott the retailer. What they may not do is repeat the specific, unproven factual allegations the court found were never substantiated.
That distinction matters for how this should be read. The interdict is a defeat on the narrow question of whether PSC could keep making a specific set of factual claims without evidence to back them — it is not a judicial verdict on the Gaza war, on genocide as a legal or moral question, or on the legitimacy of boycott activism generally, which remains constitutionally protected. PSC’s counsel, Advocate Ismail Jamie, had argued throughout the proceedings that the protest slogans amounted to protected political speech and hyperbole rather than defamation, and that there was no evidence PSC’s conduct had caused Cape Union Mart harm. The court disagreed on the specific claims at issue, but PSC’s broader campaign — pickets, vigils, boycott calls — continues under the ruling’s own terms.
A central plank of the company’s case was that the protesters were, in the words of its senior counsel, Advocate Chris Woodrow, “barking up the wrong tree” — that Cape Union Mart itself has no operations in Israel at all. The company’s corporate social investment policy restricts donations to organisations within the communities where it does business, and Krawitz stated categorically that Cape Union Mart has never donated to any person or organisation outside Southern Africa. Any Israel-linked giving in the case was personal to Krawitz, not corporate.
On that personal giving, the record undercuts the “genocide funder” framing in a specific way: Woodrow noted the irony that most of the projects Krawitz has donated to in Israel work towards uplifting Arab Israelis and Palestinians, and fostering peace initiatives. Court papers also detailed programmes offering immediate grants to terror victims within 72 hours of an attack, along with longer-term rehabilitation aid and group therapy for affected communities — support aimed at victims of violence, not at funding it
Costs were split, with each side bearing its own — a detail that undercuts any reading of this as a total rout. What the judgment does settle, at least for now, is a narrower but consequential point: that protest movements making explosive factual accusations against named individuals and companies need more than conviction and circulated claims — they need evidence that survives cross-examination.