As part of a tweet celebrating what would have been Nelson Mandela’s 105th birthday, Palestinian-American congresswoman Rashida Tlaib included a quote by the late South African president advocating on behalf of Palestinian “freedom.”
This is but the latest example of Mandela’s memory being misappropriated by pro-Palestinian voices to convey the impression that he was a staunch supporter of the Palestinian national movement while also being an opponent of Zionism and the Jewish state.
However, the truth is much more nuanced and complex than the way that it is portrayed.
In reality, Nelson Mandela recognized the legitimacy of Zionism and the Jewish state while also being a firm supporter of Palestinian national aspirations, Yasser Arafat and the PLO.
Shame on you, @RashidaTlaib for co-opting Nelson Mandela to advance your crusade against Israel.
The only quote you use to commemorate his birthday deals with Palestinian issues – disrespectful.
Also, that quote doesn't accurately reflect his views. 🧵 https://t.co/an3ndcwH2i
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 19, 2023
Nelson Mandela’s Relationship with Israel and the Palestinians
“Complex,” “complicated” and “ambivalent.” These are just some of the adjectives that have been used to describe Nelson Mandela’s relationship with Israel.
Indeed, he held a wide range of divergent views about Zionism and the Jewish state.
Mandela is on record as recognizing the “legitimacy of Zionism as a Jewish nationalism,” as affirming the right of Israel to “exist within secure borders,” and calling on Arab leaders to recognize the Jewish state.
During a speech that he gave at a Cape Town synagogue following his presidential win, Mandela called on Jewish expats to return to South Africa, aside from “those Jews who left for their homeland – Israel.”
At a time when the ANC was taking a firmer stance against Israel, Mandela happily accepted an honorary doctorate from Israel’s Ben Gurion University.
He is also known to have looked fondly upon his Zionist supporters who sheltered him during his days in the underground, was allegedly trained by the Mossad in 1962 and was thankful to Israel’s national airline, El Al, for being the only carrier willing to fly one of his comrades to Europe without a passport.
Related Reading: The ‘Apartheid’ Myth: The Improper Use of False and Misleading Claims Regarding Israel
However, at the same time, Mandela also vehemently supported Palestinian statehood, aligned himself with the PLO during its terror heyday, and ignored the Jewish connection to the territories that were captured by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967.
After meeting with the PLO’s Yasser Arafat in 1990, Mandela even went so far as to call Israel a “terrorist state.”
Why did someone who recognized the legitimacy of Zionism and the State of Israel exhibit such “ironclad loyalty” to the Palestinian cause, including support for those who perpetrated terrorism against Israeli civilians?
Mandela’s embracing of the Palestinian cause is largely due to the identification of him and his party, the ANC, with the Palestinian narrative and the PLO.
As well, during the Apartheid era, Mandela received support from the Soviet bloc and the Arab/Muslim world. Thus, in his fight for freedom, he aligned with such non-democratic regimes as the Ayatollah’s Iran, Gadaffi’s Libya and Assad’s Syria.
In addition to his alignment with other self-styled “liberation” groups and the nations that funded them, Mandela’s complex relationship with Israel also stemmed from its continued ties with South Africa into the 1980s. These ties included civilian trade, military trade and nuclear cooperation.
Although this trade with South Africa paled in comparison with that of the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan, and Israel had opposed Apartheid South Africa in the UN from the 1960s on, these material ties were still seen as leaving a stain on Israel’s image in the eyes of Mandela and the ANC.
Thus, Mandela’s recognition of the legitimacy of Zionism alongside his stalwart support of the Palestinian national cause led to a complex, tense and often contradictory relationship between himself and the Jewish state.
Did Nelson Mandela Call Israel an “Apartheid” State?
One of the claims made by anti-Israel activists is that Mandela once labeled Israel as an “apartheid” state. As he led the fight against South African Apartheid, such an assertion would certainly be a damning indictment of the Jewish state.
However, it is simply not true.
This claim stretches back to 2001 when a memo addressed to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman alleged that Israel was mimicking South African Apartheid in its treatment of the Palestinians.
This memo, which was “signed” by Nelson Mandela, soon became a viral hit on the internet, with both the BDS movement and former US President Jimmy Carter citing it as proof of Israel’s inhumanity.
Yet, the memo was not written by Mandela but by Arjan El Fassed, a co-founder of the virulently anti-Israel web page, Electronic Intifada.
El Fassed claims that he wrote it as a response to Friedman’s views on Israel and it was written in the style of the columnist’s satiric “memo” series that had gained popularity around that time.
However, along the way, El Fassed’s byline had been removed from the piece and it was being presented as an authentic memo from the late president of South Africa.
Thus, although it is the fabricated work of an anti-Israel propagandist, the Nelson Mandela memo has taken on a life of its own online and is still used as a cudgel with which to beat the Jewish state until this day.
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Photo Credit: Alessia Pierdomenico via Shutterstock
