Nelson Mandela is the perfect example of why hypocrisy awaits the militant-turned-statesman. He fought and went to prison, saying he would willingly die for the cause. This cause, as laid down in the Freedom Charter speaks of equality for all in one land: South Africa. It promises to, in the last paragraph, respect the rights and sovereignty of all nations and to strive to settle all disputes peacefully.
So, where has Madiba been since he regained his freedom regarding the occupation of Palestine? Not only was he silent (at least he didn't make it into the media to say anything on the question, which for a man of his status is surprising) on the recent slaughter in Gaza, but there is little if anything to be found uttered by the man revered by so many as the symbol (if not the leader) of the struggle against apartheid. Several of his fellow resistants, including Jews and at least one Israeli have been courageous enough to speak their mind on the oppression and struggle of the Palestinians. That is, they have stood up to denounce Israel's Apartheid-like regime.
Mandela once said he had forgiven many in South Africa, and was ready to work with Israel, although Israel had supported the Apartheid regime. Yet, he still repeated the same old tired cliches about the 'conflict'.
One has to wonder: did Mandela ever call F W De Klerk a 'man of vision'? Did he ever believe, that non-whites in South Africa should get their freedom in exchange for 'recognition' of Apartheid South Africa and 'peace' with it? And what should we make of his equation of those Jews he fought with and Israel? Those Jews who fought with him and oppose israeli Apartheid surely have reason to disagree. Perhaps we should be more understanding of those Palestinians who cosied up to Hitler during the war. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Or so some would have us believe.
And why be so surprised at the comparison of Israel with Apartheid South Africa? Of course, there is the collaboration of Israel with Apartheid South Africa. But then, one might say (and one would be right), so did the UK, the US and countless others.
Nevertheless...
Zionists (secularists?) say the land was promised to the Jews. As did early and Apartheid Afrikaners. The Zionists (of whom the pre-independence leaders also did some Nazi-cosying of their own) claim the Jewish state is well deserved considering the persecution the Jews underwent. And what of the Boers?
Realpolitik determines how the people think. It determines why Mandela is a hero, yet any Palestinian resistance fighter can be demonised and turned into a vulgar terrorist (incidentally Mandela was a 'terrorist' in Apartheid South Africa and the ANC was on the US list of terrorist organisations until well after the fall of Apartheid). Realpolitik determines why, while the 'great democracies' were doing business with Apartheid South Africa, it was politically correct to denounce - even from within the ranks of politics - the racist regime, whereas to denounce the racist regime in Israel, one has to brace oneself for the most heinous accusations of antisemitism or self-hatred (if one is a Jew). Realpolitik determines why boycott worked to bring down Apartheid in South Africa, yet calls to boycott Israel are ridiculed and attacked (see previous sentence) and likely doomed to failure (though, in my eyes, utterly justified).
Here is a link to another commentary distrubingly similar to mine
(I discovered it while writing this text).
Pulse Media
28.4.09
South Africa and Israel
16.4.09
Nine Principles of Policing by Consent
4. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives. 7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence. 9. To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
26.3.09
Fighting zionist anti-semitism
"It employs Nazi imagery by portraying Israel as a jack-booted, goose-stepping headless apparition," the statement said. "The implication is of an Israeli policy without a head or a heart."
Israel is a state like any other (to a degree!), which has a military just as other states do. What criticism of a state and it's military has to do with Nazism is beyond me. Perhaps Mr Foxman has the answer somewhere inside his pea-sized brain.
The Gaza cartoon alludes to Israel's invasion of the Palestinian territory in December to halt rocket fire from the area and weaken it militant Hamas rulers. More than 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed, according to a Palestinian human rights group.
What is anti-semitic is the use and confusion of the Star of David, jewish symbol by and with the state of Israel, the zionist state. It is at the state of Israel, that defenders of jewish culture and opponents of anti-jewish racism should aim their venom.
20.3.09
News In Brief : Self-censorship at the UN
Reparations, Israel Dropped from UN Racism Text
Negotiators drafting the declaration for next month’s UN Conference Against Racism have acceded to US and European Union demands and dropped references to Israel and reparations for slavery. The Obama administration has vowed to boycott the conference unless the two issues are dropped from conference text.
9.3.09
Viva Palestina convoy arrives in Gaza
Viva Palestina
Blogging from the convoy
Bethlehem – Ma’an
After a nearly 8,000 kilometer drive more than 1 million pounds of aid and dozens of vehicles will be trickling into Gaza this week, following the success of George Galloway’s “Viva Palestina” lifeline movement on Monday.
Women's day demonstration in Gaza
The group demanded protection for women during war time and conflict, and requested that fact-finding missions be sent to Gaza to investigate the war crimes committed against the women of Palestine.
8.3.09
Left wing in Gaza calls for unity
Maan NewsArguing that it would be necessary to counter Israeli plans, especially in the case of an extreme-right Israeli government, members of the several leftist parties urged conciliation.
5.3.09
Changing the world - one shekel at a time
An economic settler who knows 'his' land is conquered land, wishes to get out of the West Bank - with compensation. Did he not know it was conquered land when he moved there in 1992?
A man with a vision?
Jerusalem Post
Mofaz's words did nothing to assuage Karnei Shomron resident Benny Raz who has been leading the charge in his community for voluntary evacuation under the belief that his settlement would eventually be slated for destruction.
"It's bullshit," said Raz, who accused Mofaz of playing for votes. Initial assurances by Mofaz that his settlement would be inside the fence had also be proved false, said Raz."I will only believe it when the Americans say it," said Raz. He said he would see a future in his settlement only when it is deemed part of Israel within the context of internationally recognized agreement.
"I'm not stupid, until then my time here is suspect," he said.
3.3.09
Mark Steel on the the role of the teddy bear in holy Jihad
Mark Steel's blog
Maybe this is how the police plan to fund themselves from now on. They'll follow the practice of celebrities and stage their events so they can be sold to OK and Hello. Major criminals will find themselves lying on the floor in handcuffs, while a photographer claps his hands and calls out "That's lovely, now can we do the arrest one more time while the Inspector stands just behind kissing his wife, and then have a profile of the murderer's assistant on a sheepskin rug in front of a coal fire."
27.2.09
25.2.09
'Waltz with Bashir', an admission of guilt, or the removal of guilt?
The waltz rests on two ideological foundations. One is the "we shot and we cried" syndrome: Oh, how we wept, yet our hands did not spill this blood. Add to this a pinch of Holocaust memories, without which there is no proper Israeli self-preoccupation. And a dash of victimization - another absolutely essential ingredient in public discourse here - and voila! You have the deceptive portrait of Israel 2008, in words and pictures.
(...)
We have not yet made a movie about the other blood, which we have spilled and continue to allow to flow, from Jenin to Rafah - certainly not a movie that will get to the Oscars. And not by chance.
(...)
What's left is hallucination, a sea of fears, the hero confesses on the way to his therapist, who is quick to calm him and explains that the hero's interest in the massacre at the camps derives from a different massacre: from the camps from which his parents came. Bingo! How could we have missed it? It's not us at all, it's the Nazis, may their name and memory be obliterated. It's because of them that we are the way we are. "You have been cast in the role of the Nazi against your will," a different therapist says reassuringly, as though evoking Golda Meir's remark that we will never forgive the Arabs for making us what we are. What we are? The therapist says that we shone the lights, but "did not perpetrate the massacre." What a relief. Our clean hands are not part of the dirty work, no way.
23.2.09
Avraham Burg, 'the good Israeli' or how to justify Israel's persecution complexe.
Raymond Deane (EI)As a small but growing number of good Israelis (without quotation marks) know, only when the Palestinians find justice will Hitler truly be defeated.
21.2.09
What Israel wanted?
According to Fawzi Barhum, a spokesperson for Hamas, “We do not differentiate between criminals,” urging the international community to stand by the Palestinians and to curb Israeli assaults. “They all committed crimes against the Palestinians,” he added, insisting that “changing faces does not mean changing policies.”
Exchange of fire between Israel and Lebanon
Xinhua BEIRUT, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Shiite armed group, Hezbollah has denied Saturday its knowledge of Katyoush rockets launched from southern Lebanon into northern Israel, al-Arabia TV reported.
16.2.09
Unconventional pilgrimage to Bethlehem
On Sunday the group saw all of the standard Bethlehem attractions, including the milk grotto church, Nativity church, old city and markets. Then in the afternoon the group began a jog through some of the lesser-toured areas of the city. Residents were surprised to see a group of Europeans running in shorts in cool spring weather, and many paused to watch the group proceed.
12.2.09
Hamas reiterates offer of long-term truce through Egypt
CAIRO (AFP) — Hamas has accepted an Egyptian-brokered 18-month truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip which Egypt will announce in 48 hours, state news agency MENA quoted a senior Hamas official as saying on Thursday.
Mussa Abu Marzuk, the Islamist movement's deputy leader, said after meeting with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman that Hamas had accepted the truce in return for the lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
(...)
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told AFP in Jerusalem that he did not wish to comment.
11.2.09
Clinic shelled in northern Sri Lanka: 16 dead
At least 16 people have been killed at a makeshift hospital in Sri Lanka's northern conflict zone after the facility was shelled, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said. The 16 victims - all believed to be patients - died in the clinic in Putumattalan on Monday, Red Cross officials said on Tuesday.
al-Quds 2009
MaanJerusalem – Ma’an – Events for the celebrations of “Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture,” (QCAC) will be broadcast live on Palestinian and Egyptian Satellite television so they can reach all state-members of the Arab League.
