Palestinians marked the death of South African leader Nelson Mandela by remembering the great man’s indefatigable support for their struggle to end Israeli occupation and establish their own independent state. And US Secretary of State John Kerry urged both sides to take inspiration from Mandela in ongoing peace talks as he rounded up another visit to the region. In fact as the world celebrated Mandela’s life and achievements, many Palestinians wondered why their decades-old sacrifices for liberation and freedom against a regime that is as bad as South Africa’s apartheid state had failed.
At one point Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin appeared to be repeating the successful historical reconciliation between Mandela and F.W. de Clerk that ended decades of racial confrontations in South Africa. But Rabin was assassinated in 1995 and the Oslo Accords were neutralized by his hard-line successors. Attempts to conclude a final peace treaty between the Palestinians and Israelis collapsed in Camp David in 2000, and the following years were marked by tragedy, violence and political failures. Arafat himself died under suspicious circumstances in 2004 and with his departure the historic moment that was inspired by Mandela’s release and triumph dissipated forever. Mandela and Arafat faced similar challenges in their early lives. Both had to decide how to deal with injustice that had befallen their people. Arafat launched the national liberation movement that gave the Palestinians a sense of purpose and belonging. Mandela joined the ranks of the African National Congress (ANC), opting at first for peaceful resistance against the apartheid regime of the white minority, but later deciding to resort to violence. His arrest and subsequent sentence to life imprisonment in the 1960s sidelined him, but the national struggle continued as a new generation of black South African leaders took over. He later became the symbol of his people’s fight for justice and liberation.
Arafat’s path was different. He turned the PLO into an umbrella organization for all Palestinian groups fighting against Israeli occupation. But he was moving farther away from Palestine; to Amman, Beirut, Yemen and Tunis. Israel accused him and the PLO of terrorism. The Palestinian cause was embroiled in inter-Arab confrontations of the 1960s and ‘70s. He was forced to choose sides and he paid for grave miscalculations like when he supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Despite growing international sympathy for the Palestinian cause, exemplified in numerous UN resolutions, Arafat was unable to turn the world community against Israel. He realized that he was fighting the US as well as Israel. The Palestinian issue was at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which saw three major wars in addition to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. But in later years and after the US recognized the PLO the political momentum changed dramatically. Arafat renounced violence and gave up armed struggle in exchange for Israeli recognition and the beginning of years of painstaking peace negotiations under US auspices. Mandela’s success is due to three major factors: His personal strength and refusal to compromise with the apartheid regime, the unabated struggle for freedom that the black majority and their leaders carried on for many years and the fact that the world community imposed political and economic sanctions against the Pretoria government that finally brought the regime to its knees.
The culmination of these factors had produced that historical moment when de Clerk decided to release Mandela without conditions, paving the way for the ultimate collapse of the apartheid system in South Africa.
Arafat had said repeatedly that he wanted to make “a peace of the brave” with his mortal enemies. After the first intifada, Rabin and Shimon Peres, understood that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians couldn’t go on any more and that a deal must be struck. Arafat was the only Palestinian leader who could make such a deal. Both sides reached an agreement in Oslo, which was later signed in Washington.
While white South Africa was ready for change, Israel was not. Rabin’s assassination was followed by major political shifts in Israel. Hard-liners, such as Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, who were against the creation of an independent Palestinian state, had taken over. In the following years most of the agreements that were reached in Oslo and Washington fell apart. The US, now fighting international terrorism, sided with Israel, which reoccupied the West Bank and besieged Arafat in his Ramallah compound. In the end Arafat was abandoned by the US, forgotten by the world and he died feeling betrayed by all.
Today the Palestinians are engaged in dubious negotiations with Israel hosted by the Americans. They had failed to stop Israel’s settlement activities and now they face a humiliating deal that cancels the right of return for millions of refugees, leaves most illegal settlements in the West Bank under Israeli control, gives them token access to East Jerusalem, hands control of their airspace to their enemies and prevents them from running territories in the Jordan Valley. The Palestinians are alone, again, and their leadership is under US pressure to accept such shameful conditions. If the deal goes through it will be a complete victory for Israel; a reward for its occupation and crimes against the Palestinian people. The Palestinian struggle has veered off course many years ago. Arafat realized this only too late. There must be another option for the Palestinians, one that reinstates them as victims being subjected to an unjust and humiliating deal. If the legacy of Mandela is to survive in Palestine today the Palestinians must renew their belief in their just cause and rekindle the will to struggle for their freedom.
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