Taking a principled position on the situation in Gaza can be costly -- as one South African political party has discovered.

Cancelled fundraisers. Cancelled sponsorships. Cancelled funding pledges.

This has been the experience of Rise Mzansi, the political party led by former Business Day editor Songezo Zibi, after speaking out against Israel's onslaught on Gaza.

Zibi confirmed this to Daily Maverick on Wednesday, 30 July, speaking on the sidelines of Parliament's meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, which he chairs.

"There are lots of people who had undertaken to support us, and had already been assisting us, who basically stopped," said Zibi.

"Some of these were people unhappy on their own steam; others were people getting pressure from within their own community to cut ties with us. I really feel sorry for those people, because they have lost relationships along the way."

Zibi says it is hard to accurately quantify the scale of the party's financial losses as a result of its stance on Israel, because relationships with funders are built over time, but that it is likely to be in the millions.

He says the party was put under extreme pressure to take a line more supportive...