At a recent event celebrating the legacy of Nelson Mandela,
held at the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Academic College, with an audience of mainly elderly
ex-South Africans, it was strange to sit in front of a couple of ladies who
were gently singing the words of the South African anthem.
It occurred to me that, since making Aliyah from Manchester,
I have never felt the urge to break into “God Save the Queen.” That was
in my past. Good luck to it. Most attending this special event left the nation
of their birth for a new life in Israel but carried it with them to Israel.
They demonstrated they are still rooted to their past. The event was an attempt
to make Mandela’s legacy relevant to Israel. Those singing, or humming, their
old anthem may not have known the contents of a recent statement issued by
Mandela’s ANC party which has caused outrage in the South African Jewish
community.
I was given a copy as I entered the auditorium by someone
who, like me, is active on behalf of Israel. The statement is truly shocking!
It was written by Jessie Duarte, the deputy
Secretary-General on the ANC. In it, she
wrote “The state of Israel has turned the occupied territories of Palestine
into permanent death camps.” She writes that they are “reminded of the
atrocities of Nazi Germany.” She asks the people of Israel has the term “lest
we forget” lost its meaning.
The statement condemns what she, on behalf of the ANC, calls
“the barbaric attacks on the defenseless Palestinian people of Gaza.”
I was reading this statement on a day when 150 Palestinian
rockets had been fired at civilian areas throughout Israel. Israelis suffered
daily rocket attacks before responding with surgical strikes against a massive
bank of terror targets. Six million Israelis (does that number ring a bell,
Mrs. Duarte?) are within range of the Palestinian rockets fired by “the
defenseless people of Gaza”. Not one word about this appeared in the
iniquitous ANC statement. At an event commemorating Mandela’s legacy, how
deeply has his failing and corrupt party fallen?
One of the panelists, Nic Wolpe, is a proud ANC member. He
tried to amuse the audience by telling of a recent experience at Yad Vashem where he was accused of being an anti-Semite. I
don’t know what he said to draw such a response but he jokingly questioned if,
as a Jew, he could be called an anti-Semite. He assumed it was possible. One
can only imagine what offensive words he said that in the global center of
Holocaust memorial located in the ancient capital of the Jewish people he was
called an anti-Semite. Such is the abusive and insensitive nature of ANC, as
witnessed by Wolpe’s words and Duarte’s official document.
Wolpe may wallow in the glory of Mandela but, as a South
African Jew and a member of the ANC, if he puts his hand on his heart and reads
the awful words of his party against Israel, words that are deeply offensive
for any Jew, he must hang his head in shame. If he doesn’t, he deserves the
epithet of being called a Jewish anti-Semite.
Wolpe discussed the period when Nelson Mandela’s moved the
ANC into the armed struggle stage. Mandela is not celebrated for this dark
period of South African history but for the pragmatic and charismatic leader
and masterful politician he later became. But for those in awe of him, the
armed struggle as an essential element of the black march to freedom. As such,
the ANC and many others find equivalence in Hamas and Palestinian violence. For
them, it is part of the process. But when
Mandela and the ANC turned to "armed resistance" in 1961, they did so
on the basis there must be no killings of white civilians. The Palestinians, on
the other hand, deliberately target Jewish civilians for terrorist murder
including suicide bombings and rocket attacks. This point is lost on the ANC. They airbrush
out Palestinian terror crimes and falsify Israel’s response with passionate but
bogus claims that convert Palestinian terrorists into “the defenseless
Palestinian people of Gaza.”
Wolpe is a member of a party that endorsed the infamous
“Israel Apartheid Week” in 2014. Even fellow panelist, Benjamin Pogrund,
a close friend and advisor to Nelson Mandela, accused anyone supporting IAW as
promoting “nothing
more than slander designed to harm Israel.” (The Jewish Press, March 6,
2013)
How can Wolpe remain a member of a
party that has harming Israel as a cornerstone of its policies? It is a party
that endorses the BDS campaign against Israel. How much worse can it get? Well,
it is a party that lies without shame. It is the party that perpetrated the lie
that Israel was the last major country that aided the Apartheid regime in South
Africa, when they know full well that the wheels of the White regime’s industry
and military turned thanks to the $2 billion fuel supplies from the oil rich Arab
nations, mainly Saudi Arabia, and Israel’s business with South Africa was
miniscule in comparison. Yet, ANC supports the Arabs and boycotts Israel. How perverse can they be?
They need reminding that Mandela said in October 1999 that “I
cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel
within secure borders.” This has not happened, not under Arafat or rejectionist
Abbas, and certainly not under Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Let’s be honest; it
won’t happen for two profound reasons explained by Palestinian human rights
activist, Bassan Eid, a panelist at the Mandela Legacy event.
He admitted that
the Palestinians had failed to produce a Mandela. Certainly not Abbas who
speaks the same twisted language as Duarte by referring to the Holocaust when
Israel was a forced to respond to incessant Palestinian rocket attacks against
its citizens. How easily they drop these Jewish symbols to demonise the Jewish
state. We are reminded that Abbas has a master’s degree in Holocaust denial.
One
of the biggest failings of Arafat, Abbas, and the ANC, is that they failed to
apply unity and reconciliation when it comes to Israel. Unity and
reconciliation were two pillars of Mandela’s wisdom.
Some perceive Shimon Peres as the Israeli Nelson Mandela.
Even if this were so, the Palestinians have failed to produce a De Klerk.
Without De Klerk even Mandela’s road to peace would have failed.
Panelist, Benjamin Pogrund, a close friend and advisor to
Mandela, assumes that he has to support the Palestinian cause because it’s good
for Israel, and it’s good for his Jewish soul. He is reliving the echoes of his
past and imposing it on the Palestinian conflict and Israel even as both Fatah
and Hamas reject the notion of a Jewish state. His view is shared by many. They
do nothing to hone Hamas into a pragmatic party seeking true democracy, a la
Mandela. They do nothing about finding a Mandela figure among the Hamas and
Islamic Jihad leaders. Mission impossible, I suspect. No matter. The cause is
just as it reflects the old ANC struggle for freedom and liberty. Worthy
causes, to be sure. As such, they are in denial as to the real face and aim of
the Islamic terror arm of Palestinian society.
Proof of this could be seen in the Palestinian rocket fire.
Does it not occur to them that the Palestinians are fighting Israel not for a
land over there, but for the land here? Did they notice the violent ANC party
of the Palestinians failed to target one West Bank settlement? Instead, they
used all their terror assets to try and destroy central and southern Israel.
Doesn’t it occur to them that this is the ultimate aim of both Fatah and Hamas,
and everything else is a distraction aimed at weakening Israel in advance of
the final fatal blow?
No matter, they say. Just give them victory, a la ANC, and
they will share Mandela’s legacy. Such is the political absurdity that is
driving the ANC-type dreamers, all blinded by Mandela’s unique example.
If the ANC supports the notion of a nation that respects all
its citizens then Israel is their shining example of the Rainbow Nation. A “Judenrein”
Palestinian state would be an apartheid state. It would be a state where even
the Christians flee, Archbishop Tutu, as they have done from a Bethlehem under
Palestinian control. Or if you live in
Islamic Hamastan, where minorities quake in fear, if you are gay in Gaza you’d
better find safety in Tel Aviv.
All this they fail to see. They are so blinded by Mandela
that the Palestinian cause, no matter how evil, is a blessed cause, and it is
Israel that is preventing it from coming into fruition. So let’s demand that Israel get out of the
way, or curse it forever! It is this
that is at the deep dark heart of the ANC statement. It is a dangerous concept
for which they will take none of the deadly consequences when it goes wrong.
They share the struggle without taking responsibility for a deadly outcome.
Theirs was successful. They naively assume that every struggle will end the
same way. Nelson Mandela was a unique figure at a unique moment in history. You
can’t cut and paste Mandela on to the Palestinian conflict. Finding
similarities is like seeing distant water in an arid desert. It is a mirage
devoutly to be wished, but it will not keep you alive because it is a false
image.
Noted South African writer, Nadine Gordimer told HardTalk’s
Stephen Sacher in April 2011 that “the original values of ANC are being
betrayed.” Can there be any doubt about the truth of this following the
latest foul ANC statement?
The problem of the ANC without Nelson Mandela is that is has
sunk to become the failing, violent, divisive, corrupt party it is. It was so
under Winnie Mandela. It is so today. Remove Nelson Mandela from the ANC and
you have Fatah, and even worse, Hamas.
Barry Shaw is the Special Consultant to the Strategic
Dialogue Center at Netanya Academic College. He is the founder of the Netanya
Terror Victims Organization, and also the author of
‘Israel Reclaiming the
Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com
