Nelson Mandela The Humanist

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 in the village of Mvezo, in the southeastern part of South Africa .Was affectionately referred to by his traditional Xhosa clan name, "Madiba" because it was a term of endearment, respect and familiarity.
In Mandela’s autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom" you can find that it is full of positive references to Jews and occasionally even Israel.

In his 1994 autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom,” he wrote of his respect for the Jewish law firm Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman that hired him in the 1940's as a young black clerk during the height of South African apartheid. In his autobiography he specifically mentions Lazer Sidelsky, one of the firm’s partners, who was among the first whites to treat him with “enormous kindness” and respect. Mandela wrote,“I have found the Jews to be more broad-minded than most whites on issues of race and politics, perhaps because they themselves have historically been victims of prejudice.” Furthermore in his 1994 autobiography, Mandela acknowledged the disproportionate role that Jews played in the struggle against apartheid. In his memoir Mandela states that he learned about guerrilla warfare from Arthur Goldreich, a South African Jew who fought with the Palmach during Israel’s War of Independence.Yet despite all these positive Jewish references, Nelson Mandela remained outspoken on the difference between his ties to the South African Jewish community and critical of Israel as a country.

The associate director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies David Saks stated that “Mandela always strove to be scrupulously fair to both sides, even though his inclination was very much towards the Palestinian side”. “He was deeply supportive of the Palestinian struggle for independence, but never deviated from his view that this could only be attained through all parties recognizing Israel’s legitimate right to exist within secure borders.”

With the passing of Nelson Mandela, there are statements attributed to him in many cases that have been taken out of context by the "Falestinians" and their supporters into making it seem that Mandela was totally on their side.

A prime example of this is from the Libyan International Qadhafi Prize for Human Rights for 1989 web page  On this web page “In an interview given to journalists at the airport in Tripoli, Nelson Mandela (is attributed to have) declared:

"The ANC has, on numerous occasions, maintained that the PLO is our comrade in arms in the struggle or the liberation of our respective countries. We fully support the combat of the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine for the creation of an independent state".

With the passing of Nelsom Mandela there has been a literal flurry of Blog pages and news articles alluding to a dark side of Nelson Mandel's view towards Israel. Now though Mandela did make some highly controversial statements –some that I have seen have been posted on web sites and Blogs. I defer to acknowledge them since there are no confirmed citations that Mandela actually made these statements.

Though there are countless pictures of Mandela embracing some of the worst anti-Israel figures in modern history the impetus to make him into a totally anti-Israel / anti-Semite does seem to be an open and shut case.

Mandela, Communism and the Jews:

Mandela held a close association with several leading South African Jewish Communists and confirmed anti-Zionists.  Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) was closely aligned with the Soviet Union as was atypical of all post 1917 Russian Communist Revolution "Freedom Movements" against oppressive Imperialistic regimes.  Mandela and the ANC’s leanings towards communism may have originated with the Jewish Communists in the “Torch  Commando” that arose from the Springbok Legion, a South African organization of World War II veterans which was open to all servicemen regardless of race and was avowedly anti-fascist and anti-racist.
The organization became radicalized by members of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) who joined it and served in its upper and lower structure. These Jewish servicemen of Eastern European origins such as; Joe Slovo, Harry Schwarz, Lionel Bernstein and Wolfie Kodesh were founders of the ANC African National Congress and its military wing “Umkhonto we Sizwe” under the command of Nelson Mandela.

The Jews of Eastern Europe had embraced communism in the later half of the 19th century mainly because of their abject poverty and their desire to be free of the yoke of Czarist anti-Semitism. The same tired old anti-Semitism from Czarist Russia so alive today in the example of that pervasive lie of the "Blood Libel" as retold in Bernard Malamud's famous book "The Fixer".
In the book the chief character Yakov Bok, the "Enlightened humanist Jew", is falsely accused by the "Black Hundred" of murdering the young Russian boy Zhenia Golov for his blood for the making of Passover matzos. This same story of the "Blood Libel" still thrives in the Arab world and on YouTube today. It is due to these types of revolting anti-Semitic stories learned from his association with the South African Jews that Mandela was aware of the sensitivities of the Jews to Apartheid race issues and oppression.

There are many who tend to forget that many Eastern European Jewish Partisans during WW II were also Communists because many had no choice since many of the non Communist Partisan groups were highly anti-Semitic and would either kill the Jews or turn them over to the SS for money.
Also during Israel’s struggle against “Imperialist England” during the Mandate Period many Jews in Israel – mainly those of Eastern European origins continued to adhere to the Communist Party anti Imperialistic line.
Israel’s communist party thrived up to and including the Post Stalinistic purges in the late 1950’s. The assumption in "todays" communism  that only by the negation of ones religious ties, beliefs and "Zionistic" nationalistic aspirations can all people be equal is still alive in today's joint Arab-Jewish Mapam and Balad political parties.
Matzpen (Hebrew: מצפן‎, lit. 'Compass')  was the name of a revolutionary socialist and anti-Zionist organisation, founded in Israel in 1962 by former members of the Israeli Communist Party who viewed Zionism as a colonizing project, and strove for Arab–Jewish coexistence, based on full equality.Matzpen offered a more radical analysis of and opposition to Zionism.

The Eastern European Jewish embrace of communism can be attributed to the mistaken and irrational belief that many late nineteenth century Czarist Jews had believed that through “HaHaskalah” - the “Enlightened or Educated” movement - the Jewish people would be free of religion so that they may unite or become absorbed into society so as to defeat anti-Semitism. It this mistaken concept of secular “acceptism” or "self-negation" that has plagued the Jewish people from time immortal. This misguided concept is still found among today's "Liberal assimilated" Jews who go out of their way to denounce not only themselves but Israel. The belief that Jews could be accepted and absorbed if they deny their religion and inheritance as exemplified in Hellenistic times and pre-World War II Europe have been shown to be a fallacy.

Mandela had recognized that there were historical parallels between the oppression suffered by South African blacks under racist white rulers, and Jews living under hostile non-Jewish rulers. The enforced separation of Jews into the “Pale of Settlement” by the Russian Empress Catherine in 1791 can be compared with the notorious Group Areas Act, which restricted black residency. Many other anti-Semitic actions like those of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany were echoed in apartheid regulations like the ban on sexual relationships between whites and blacks. 

  

Many of us of the older generation who grew up in the USA and the west during the Cold War we were taught that the “Communists” are “Boogey Men” and that they disguised themselves as “liberation movements” as was the case with Fidel Castro. Throughout it's existence the Communist regime in the Soviet Union aspired to influence “liberation movements” and their corresponding terrorist organizations from Algeria to Viet Nam to the  PLO. The communists aspired to reign over third-world dictators like; Mao Tse Tung,  Ho Chi Minh, Colonel Muammar Al Qadhafi, Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria and Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt.

There are those who defend the ANC for its “Gandhian” influence which dominated the freedom struggles on the African continent right up to the 1960s. Theoretically the official stance of all major African coalitions was nonviolence, and the South African A.N.C. remained implacably opposed to violence for most of its existence. The communists on the other hand strived to convince the African freedom movements to chose violent means as was seen in the Congo, Uganda and Rhodesia. 

According to Mandela he remained committed to nonviolence; "I followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We founded Umkhonto we Sizwe and added a military dimension to our struggle. Even then, we chose sabotage because it did not involve the loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Militant action became part of the African agenda officially supported by the Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.) following my address to the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) in 1962, in which I stated, "Force is the only language the imperialists can hear, and no country became free without some sort of violence."

Mandela in this decision was influenced by the fact that Gandhi himself never ruled out violence absolutely and unreservedly. That Mohandas Ghandi conceded the necessity of arms in certain situations. Ghandi is quoted as saying, "Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor ..."

As to the whole Israel = Apartheid scam started with a fabricated a letter linking Israel with apartheid, purportedly written by Nelson Mandela but in actuality was written by a Palestinian activist named Arjan el Fassed. Today’s advocates of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement cite the fabricated letter when claiming Nelson Mandela as one of their own. In actuality it is Mandela’s comrade Archbishop Desmond Tutu the major duped individual who wanted to push the "Palestinian" agenda for the equation of Israel’s democracy with apartheid and not Nelson Mandela.

The true stance of Nelson Mandela can be found within the wording of his address at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People from the 4th December 1997, in Pretoria.
In the first paragraph below from the address if we “read between the lines” we see that Mandela does equate the Palestinians dilemma to that of his as an African. That Mandela though he was deeply supportive of the Palestinian struggle for independence, he ... never deviated from his view that this could only be attained through peaceful negotiations. And that the "Palestinians" and their backers must,"...recognize Israel’s legitimate right to exist within secure borders”.

"When in 1977, the United Nations passed the resolution inaugurating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, it was asserting the recognition that injustice and gross human rights violations were being perpetrated in Palestine. In the same period, the UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system.

(Mandela who strived to receive backing from the UN Arab Block stated;) "But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians."

Indeed, all of us marveled at the progress made a few years ago, with the adoption of the Oslo Agreements. Leaders of vision, who saw problems not merely from the point of view of their own narrow constituency, had at least found a workable approach towards friendship and peaceful co-existence in the Middle East. – (here Mandela tries to point to hope by those who can envision peace.)
I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to these Palestinian and Israeli leaders. In particular, we pay homage to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin who paid the supreme sacrifice in pursuit of peace.
We are proud as humanists, that the international consensus on the need for the implementation of the Oslo Agreements is finding expression in the efforts of the multitude of Israeli and Palestinian citizens of goodwill who are marching together, campaigning together, for an end to prevarication. These soldiers of peace are indeed sending a message to us all, that the day is not far off, when Palestinian and Jewish children will enjoy the gay abandon of children of God in a peaceful and prosperous region.- (here Mandela paraphrases Martin Luther Kings famous “I have a dream” speech as a show of hope.)
These soldiers of peace recognize that the world we live in is rising above the trappings of religious and racial hatred and conflict. They recognize that the spurning of agreements reached in good faith and the forceful occupation of land can only fan the flames of conflict. They know from their own experience that, it is in a situation such as this, that extremists on all sides thrive, fed by the blood lust of centuries gone by.
These Palestinian and Israeli campaigners for peace know that security for any nation is not abstract; neither is it exclusive. It depends on the security of others; it depends on mutual respect and trust. Indeed, these soldiers of peace know that their destiny is bound together, and that none can be at peace while others wallow in poverty and insecurity.
Thus, in extending our hands across the miles to the people of Palestine, we do so in the full knowledge that we are part of a humanity that is at one that the time has come for progress in the implementation of agreements. The majority of the world community; the majority of the people of the Middle East; the majority of Israelis and Palestinians are suing for peace."

We need to do more as government, as the ANC and other parties, as South Africans of all religious and political persuasions to spur on the peace process. All of us should be as vocal in condemning violence and the violation of human rights in this part of the world as we do with regard to other areas. We need to send a strong message to all concerned that an attempt by anyone to isolate partners in negotiations from their own mass base; and attempt to co-opt this is bound to hurt the peace process as a whole.”

Mandela rightly believed in justice for the Palestinian people but above all he believed in non-violence.
Yet, even as an outspoken critic of Israel's "Occupation" beyond the 1967 "Green Lines" Mandela was just as adamant that Israel had the right to exist within secure borders.
Mandela fervently believed that only by teaching love and understanding in the manner of Ghandi can both sides realize a peaceful end to the conflict. And that the only rational path to peace was in negotiations not war.

Mandela's major failure was that he did not openly admonish Yasser Arafat for his deceitful conduct in the instigation of the wave of suicide bombings that ended all hope in the Oslo Accords. Mandela also failed in not ending the outrageous Palestinian curriculum of continual hatred and glorification of death within the Palestinian schools in the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority under Abbas. Both of these issues once again were major failures on the part of the Palestinian leadership to grasp a chance at a just and lasting peace.

Mandela's greatness was in his humanity and his achievement for the end of Apartheid in his beloved South Africa. He was a symbol of humanity. It is too bad that his "Palestinian" friends used him for propaganda purposes and ignored his words.

In deference to Mr. Shavit

I wanted to begin by "paraphrasing" a comment from an interview of Ha'aretz columnist Ari Shavit were he a stated his "horror" and traumatization of being a "Prison Guard" at a "Detention Camp in Gaza.

I too did several stints of reserve duty, as the Chief Medic of a MASH unit, assigned in the early '90s at Ketziot detention camp in the Negev. In deference to Mr. Shavit I was not "horrified" nor "traumatized" for doing my duty.  I knew exactly why these men were interned.

In deference to Mr Shavit I knew that we had no choice. We slept merely a meter or two away from their tents under the same conditions in the Negev heat. We could hear their "lessons" being taught to them by their fellow internees as we in our Medical tent on the other side of the fence tended to their fellow inmates. We were guided as medics by our motto to “save lives” and the Geneva Convention. They were guided by lessons on vile hatred and means by which to murder us. They did not even spare their own who they would murder at random and leave for us to find to be blamed for their demise. They bullied, beat and tortured each other with a passion. Yet these vile acts of depravity were never spoken of nor mentioned by those of the Ha'aretz ilk.

I remember those days in the post Six Day War period when we did have a relative peace in the "Occupied" West Bank. When Jew and Arab alike were able to do commerce and eat together in peace. From 1967 until 1987 an Israeli Jew was welcomed and could move freely unarmed in the “Liberated Territories” of the once Jordanian “Occupied West Bank” or Egyptian controlled and “Occupied” Gaza Strip. Then there was a hope a slight glimmer of true Peace that could be made.

But in 1987 Arafat and his "Shabb"- youth chose their "Intifada" to defy us and to raise their hands in acts of extreme terrorism and means of violence against us. We were forced by “Our Neighbors" to take action. I witnessed how these neighbors of ours were doing terrible things to us as terrorists, and we in turn were forced to doing oppressive things to them by imprisoning them. They had chosen violence and acts of terrible atrocities to which they accused us of not giving them the fresh air needed to survive and live properly.

In 1993 steps were undertaken to create a new page in our joint history, a new beginning in which we could have shared this land in peace and tranquility. Yet once again as in 1947 the leadership of the “Arabs of the Mandated Area” chose the way of violence. They have shown that they will never sit with us as equals that we as Jews have no right to this land which was that of our forefathers. They insist that we are “usurpers”

There is a saying "good walls make good neighbors" we were forced to create a physical barrier - a wall to prevent these increasing acts of wanton violence. High walls were necessitated in many places where snipers would shoot at those who were once their neighbors. The wall or fence was necessitated to keep out those who would manipulate the "good hearts" of stupid "good meaning" Israelis, and their duped ISM (International Solidarity Movement)  lackeys,to gain entry beyond the 1949 Rhodes Agreement Cease-Fire Lines. This same Cease-Fire (Green) Line that is so mistakenly referred to as a "Border". These poor Arab youth are so full of hate that they carried suicide belts on their bodies to murder Jews in restaurants and on buses. Here are just three examples from the city most identified with Arab - Jewish "Co-existence":

The Matza restaurant suicide bombing occurred on March 31, 2002, when a Palestinian Hamas suicide bomber 22-year-old Shadi Tubasi who originated from the Jenin area detonated his bomb inside the Matza restaurant in Haifa, Israel, near the Grand Canyon shopping mall, killing 15 Israeli Jewish civilians (Two families were completely wiped out) and  an Israeli Arab Suheil Adawi, 32, of Turan. Over 40 people were injured.

On March 5, 2003 on an Egged bus in Haifa, Israel. 20-year-old Mahmoud Umdan Salim Qawasmeh, a student at the Palestine Polytechnic University carried a bomb, strapped to his body, laden with metal shrapnel in order to maximize the number of injuries,Seventeen passengers were killed in the attack - 16 Israeli Jews most of them under the age of 20 the youngest being Yuval Mendelevitch, 13, from Haifa and one Druse youth Kmer Abu Khamed, 12, from Daliyat al Karmel and 53 were injured. Many of the victims were students from Haifa University.

On October 4, 2003, the 28-year-old Palestinian suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat detonated the explosive belt she was wearing inside the co-owned Christian Arab-Jewish Maxim beachfront restaurant located near the south entry to Haifa. 21 Israelis  (3 Christian Arabs and 18 Jews) were killed, and 51 others were wounded.

There are those who vocally decry the barriers construction by describing it as a “Land Grab”. Yet they in turn choose to deny the fact that there is no real border between us, since borders are reached through negotiation, which our neighbors consistently refuse to abide by.

So here we are once again at a sharp corner. Our neighbors are hoping for the intervention of others as they scream “Nakbah” and claim that it is not a self inflicted wound. They have been in total self-denial for 65 years now and there is no end in sight.

They and their lackeys proclaim by screaming at the top of their lungs that we expelled their forefathers and forced them into exile to be interned in squalid refugee camps by their brethren in embarrassment until today.

The (The Arabs of the Mandated Area) or as they have come to call themselves -"Palestinians"  deny that these same “Arab brothers” in 22 Arab lands did the same to our brethren and we in deference to them embraced our brothers and brought them in.

In deference to Mr. Shavit we Jews, born in the Diaspora, do remember. It has only been a mere 70 years ago when our martyred brothers and sisters cried out for a place to leave to in refuge from the hate of Nazism in Europe. Our Arab Neighbors out of their hatred implored the occupying British to close the door to our Promised Homeland as did our other world neighbors who also slammed shut ALL the doors to them. This paved the way for Hitler's plan to murder the Jews.

This Mr Shavit may not be politically correct to you and your friends, but to most of “US” Israelis it is the difference. We Israelis value life above the love of death but above it all we want our one corner of this globe to be our one home.

Eden Atias And Palestinian Blind Hate

Eden Atias z"l a 19 year old young man, had been conscripted into the Israeli army just two weeks earlier, was fast asleep in his seat on a bus inside Israel when Hussein Rawarda a 16 year old Palestinian teenager consumed with hatred murdered him in cold blood.
Here is the blood stained bus seat.

Below we see the young Palestinian "Hero" enjoying his meal that his fellow cellmates in the Israel prison have made for him.

Hussein Rawarda was raised and educated in a climate of unflinching hatred of Israeli Jews as "Occupiers" and "usurpers of the dream of Palestine". This same society which lingers in self-pity as they ignore the historic fact they refused statehood and independence in 1947 but instead choose to allow themselves to be disposed and occupied by their Arab “brothers”. These same Arab Brothers who after 60+ years refuse to absorb them into their societies and insted relegate their “Arab brothers” to squalid refugee camps. These crowded areas with simple concrete shacks built in areas with no modern infrastructure of proper electricity, running water or sewage. These same Arabs of the Mandated Areas could have established a state on the entire West Bank from 1947 until 1967 while under Jordanian Arab occupation! Or in Gaza under Egyptian Occupation. These same Arabs do not question their own leadership for their repeated obstinate refusal to negotiate for a true peace in good faith when conditions and offers were given them for a better life and future for themselves and their Children. Instead they continue to languish in squalor in “Refuge Camps” existing on handouts from UNWRA and they lay all the blame on Israel and the Jews. And all the while their leaders live lives of luxury.

The Palestinians leadership and their “Leftist” supporters scream out that the “The Source” of all the ills afflicting the dismal relationship between Israelis and the Arabs of Palestine is “The Settlements = Settlers = Occupiers" who are "usurpers of the dream of Palestine.” The term that they bandier about most often as an excuse for these acts of Palestinian barbarism is “Incitement.” That is that Jewish settlement of the Jewish Homeland and inside of Israel is the sole basis for all their woes.

The term “Incitement” is vague and means little until you start watching the Arabic language video’s of Palestinian children’s TV programs. On studio sets full of decorative and colorful child filled backdrops filled with images for pre-schoolers you see the children in unprompted interviews, unthinkingly parrot the vicious curses against Israel that their cynical elders have fed them, and vow with the earnest innocence of their manipulated young psyches that they are willing to martyr themselves — to murder and be killed — for the noble, divine cause of harming the terrible "Occupiers" and "usurpers of the dream of Palestine".

Now, right now, day after day — in Gaza and in the West Bank, and in countries all across the region— in schools and in youthful get-togethers and in newspapers and on television and on Facebook pages and in the speeches delivered by political leaders — millions of young minds like that of Hussein Rawarda are being gradually poisoned. Children are being persuaded by those they trust that Israel is the embodiment of iniquity, and that all Israelis must be slaughtered. This is the society in which this hate filled teenager, who was brainwashed into believing that ONLY the Jews were at fault for all his woes repeatedly and viciously, stabbed another human being to death.

Eden Atias death, like that of the Fogel family, demonstrates just how depraved an atmosphere and a mindset prevails among the Palestinian youths in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The insistent approach by the Secretary of State John Kerry, is to focus almost exclusively on the settlement enterprise, while doing next-to-nothing to tackle pervasive negation of Israel’s legitimacy among Palestinians, a guaranteed approach to failure that will cause peace efforts to never succeed. By consistently telling and by applying pressure on the Israeli government and people by telling them that you regard settlements as illegitimate will not bring peace. The main enemy of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation is the hatred for Israel that is being nurtured daily in the hearts of so many in the West Bank and Gaza — the constant narrative that says Israel has no right to exist, and that its people are rapacious invaders who must be struck down. Sixteen years filled only with hatred and lies brought Hussein Rawarda to the moment, on Wednesday morning, when he shed the last vestiges of his humanity and took away Eden Atias’s life.

If the cold-blooded murder of Eden Atias, at the hands of a youth two years his junior, does not prompt a realization of the imperative to halt the heartless, soulless poisoning of the Arabs with anti-Israel incitement than we will never see peace.