Mandela: I was inspired by Begin’s struggle against the British

By Larry Derfner December 11, 2013 | Edit

Mandela’s statements about Begin on the one hand and Arafat on the other should make just about everyone uncomfortable.

In Chapter 42 of his autobiography “Long Walk to Freedom,” Nelson Mandela describes how, in 1961, he began forming the African National Congress’ (ANC) military wing to launch guerrilla attacks on the apartheid regime. “I, who had never been a soldier, who had never fought in battle, who had never fired a gun at an enemy, had been given the task of starting an army. … I began in the only way I knew how, by reading and talking to experts.”

Mandela recalls that he read about Castro and Che Guevara, about Mao Tse-Tung, about the uprisings in Ethiopia, Kenya, Algeria, even about the Boer revolt against their former British rulers. He mentions three books that were crucial to his education. One was Commando by Deneys Reitz about the Boer rebellion. The second was Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China about Mao’s revolution. And this was the third:

I read The Revolt by Menachem Begin and was encouraged by the fact that the Israeli leader had led a guerrilla force in a country with neither mountains nor forests, a situation similar to our own.

Interesting. It gets even more interesting when you read what Mandela told Yasser Arafat in 1990, two weeks after he was released from 27 years in prison:

There are many similarities between our struggle and that of the PLO. We live under a unique form of colonialism in South Africa, as well as in Israel…”

Mandela against apartheid, Begin against the British Mandate, Arafat against the occupation. Their differences as rebel leaders are not as important as what they had in common: All three took up arms in the cause of freedom.

I was a columnist and feature writer for The Jerusalem Post, as well as the correspondent in Israel for the U.S. News and World Report, for many years. I wrote feature articles for the Sunday Times of London during the second intifada, and have been writing for American Jewish publications since 1990. Politically, I would describe myself as an ultra-liberal Zionist; as journalist Bradley Burston put it, I’m “probably as far left as a centrist can be.” I was born in New York, grew up in Los Angeles and moved to Israel in 1985.

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TEST TEST GAL Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war. The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza, inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians, as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence. We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies. This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized siege on Gaza. We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives. Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.

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