Aayesha J. Soni (top left) poses with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. Photo: Twitter.

A recent opinion piece featured in South Africa’s The Mail and Guardian accused Israel of carrying out crimes similar to those of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, media watchdog HonestReporting revealed on Monday.

 The author of the op-ed, Aayesha J. Soni, is a South African physician and vice-chairperson of the Media Review Network — an organization that believes “Muslim perspectives on issues impacting on South Africans are a prerequisite to a better appreciation of Islam.”  

Calling Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon’s recent appointment to chair the world body’s Law (Sixth) Committee a “horrible irony,” she accused the Jewish state of breaking “more UN resolutions than any other country in UN history.”

HonestReporting called her to task for citing over 80 UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israel as proof of her claims. What she is covering up, it said, is the fact that the UN “has passed more resolutions against Israel than the rest of the world combined,” garnering more attention than atrocities in the Middle East such as those in Syria, Iran, Yemen and areas controlled by ISIS.

Issuing her most heinous allegation last, Soni accused Israel of crimes against humanity akin to those of the Nazis, and criticized the UN for imposing a “double standard” in allowing Israel to chair the Sixth Committee, writing:

…Not only is Israel guilty of breaching international law, it is also responsible for crimes against humanity — as determined by the UN Human Rights Commission itself.

The commission was set up to push for fulfilment of the requirements of the UN Charter. The concept of a crime against humanity goes back to the Nuremberg Charter of 1945, devised to enable the trials of the major Nazi war criminals.

The paradigmatic example of a crime against humanity is what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish people in Europe — this is what the UN Human Rights Commission determined that Israel is doing to the Palestinian people.

So, legally, Israel is guilty of the same crimes as Hitler…

In its analysis of the piece, HonestReporting noted that Soni’s “drawing [of] comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis specifically fits the international definition of antisemitism, as backed by many governments (though not South Africa’s).”

This is not the first time Soni has expressed antisemitic and anti-Israel views. In a November 2010 Tweet, Soni wrote, “I’m busy reading Mein Kampf (Hitler’s book)..the font size is 2 and half :/.” The Tweet has since been deleted from her account. Making fun of the Holocaust, Soni posted in a December 2015 Tweet: 

When you’re a Zionist and you haven’t used the holocaust to defend all your actions in ten minutes. pic.twitter.com/cFdXk7bfSQ

— Aayesha (@AayeshaJ) December 17, 2015

In an October 2015 post, Soni praised Hamas head Khaled Mashal, following his visit to South Africa, calling him “a leader committed to bringing justice to the Palestinians.”  

“Here was a charismatic, articulate, goal-driven man, whose every answer reflected his peoples’ best interests at heart and whose clear desire is peace,” she wrote. “As he joked with journalists, greeted every single person in the room personally before every meeting or conference and addressed the media with his unwavering smile, I was flabbergasted to think such a man and his movement could be branded as terrorists.”

Earlier this month, Soni promoted on Twitter a false story alleging Israel was waging war against the Palestinians by cutting off their water supply. As reported by The Algemeiner, while certain Palestinian villages reported decreased water flow for a short period of time, this was due to a burst pipe that supplied water to Palestinian areas in the West Bank. Within hours, the pipe was fixed and water flow restored.