Nelson Mandela, Friendly to Jews but Not to Israel

The Israeli Left, which is chareidi extremist in its worship of all Leftist projects and issues has been bombarding the media, which they actually run, with what they call the disgraceful lack of "a senior delegation" to "Memorial Ceremony" or whatever has been going on is South Africa.

On Thursday evening, Channel 10's Or Heller, reporting from Johannesburg, expressed disappointment "as an Israeli" that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor President Shimon Peres would be attending Tuesday's memorial service for Nelson Mandela or Sunday's funeral.He also stressed that the South African Jewish community was angry and ashamed that only a second-tier delegation (Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein and MKs Pnina Tamano-Shata, Dov Lipman, Nitzan Horowitz, Gila Gamliel and Hilik Bar) would be representing Israel at the events. Ruthie Blum, Israel Hayom

Photo: Courtesy Knesset

Actually, Israel did send an impressive delegation, but it didn't include Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Considering Mandela's anti-Israel policies and statements, there was no reason for Netanyahu to go.  The media has been parading various Jews who had very good personal relationships with Mandela, but that didn't make Mandela a friend of the State of Israel.

Mandela was very old; he was of my father's generation, born just a year before him.  Mandela's contacts with the Arabs were from very early on.  Mandela was obviously an intelligent man, and I found via professor google a very interesting public letter he had written to Thomas Friedman:

Perhaps it is strange for you to observe the situation in Palestine or more specifically, the structure of political and cultural relationships between Palestinians and Israelis, as an Apartheid system. This is because you incorrectly think that the problem of Palestine began in 1967. This was demonstrated in your recent column “Bush’s First Memo” in the New York Times on March 27, 2001.
You seem to be surprised to hear that there are still problems of 1948 to be solved, the most important component of which is the right to return of Palestinian refugees. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not just an issue of military occupation and Israel is not a country that was established “normally” and happened to occupy another country in 1967. Palestinians are not struggling for a “state” but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa.

In the letter to Friedman, he wrote that he didn't see the Arabs as demanding a state. I have no doubt that was the case fifty years ago, before the Left, international and Israeli, convinced the Arabs here that they are "Palestinian" and needed their own state Mandela brings up one of the points which I use to prove that Israel's victory in the 1967 Six Days War and the land we thereby liberated is not the cause of the "problem" between us and the Arabs.

This so-called "Palestinian nation" is something very new, and it doesn't have a long history. It was invented by those who wanted to delegitimize Israel.  And unfortunately the "cause" has been adopted even by Israelis who refuse to see that such a  state would cause the destruction of the State of Israel, G-d forbid.