The Hypocrisy on Mandela is Palpable

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Today you can watch much of the world praise the life and mourn the death of former South African President anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela. Scores of U.S. leaders and political pundits with platforms to reach millions of Americans are expressing admiration for Mandela today, but I have barely seen a single acknowledgement of the fact that the U.S. strongly opposed Mandela’s struggle and strongly supported the white supremacist apartheid system in South Africa. There has been almost no mention in the mainstream that Mandela remained on the U.S.’s terrorism watch list until 2008. Mandela spent 27 years in prison, thanks in part to the CIA assisting the apartheid regime’s secret police in his arrest.

This white-washing mostly occurs on television. Cable news is especially vapid. There are a few exceptions in print/digital media. One comes from Peter Beinhart:

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan placed Mandela’s African National Congress on America’s official list of “terrorist” groups. In 1985, then-Congressman Dick Cheney voted againsta resolution urging that he be released from jail. In 2004, after Mandela criticized the Iraq War, an article in National Review said his “vicious anti-Americanism and support for Saddam Hussein should come as no surprise, given his longstanding dedication to communism and praise for terrorists.” As late as 2008, the ANC remained on America’s terrorism watch list, thus requiring the 89-year-old Mandela to receive a special waiver from the secretary of State to visit the U.S.

…In South Africa, for decades, American presidents backed apartheid in the name of anti-communism. Indeed, the language of the Cold War proved so morally corrupting that in 1981, Reagan, without irony, called South Africa’s monstrous regime “essential to the free world.”

Believe it or not, there is an aspect of this hypocritical praise of Mandela that is mentioned even less than the media coverage of his passing. That is the uncomfortable similarity that Israel’s occupation of Palestine now has with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The Times of Israel reported last February that Alon Liel, a former Israeli Foreign Ministry director-general and ex-ambassador to South Africa, believes Israel currently qualifies as an apartheid state. “In the situation that exists today, until a Palestinian state is created, we are actually one state. This joint state — in the hope that the status quo is temporary — is an apartheid state,” Liel said in Jerusalem.

Israel’s plan for military occupation of the West Bank and ongoing settlement construction for Israeli-only areas, was compared to South African apartheid by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon himself, who actually used the word “bantustan” to describe the separating of Palestinians into cantons.

Here is a Haaretz piece from 2003 reporting on Sharon’s reference of the Bantustans:

Sharon’s map is surprisingly similar to the plan for protectorates in South Africa in the early 1960s. Even the number of cantons is the same – 10 in the West Bank (and one more in Gaza). Dr. Alon Liel, a former Israeli ambassador to South Africa, notes that the South Africans only managed to create four of their 10 planned Bantustans.

The Bantustan model, says Liel, was the ugliest of all the tricks used to perpetuate the apartheid regime in most of South Africa’s territory.

So the hypocrisy on Mandela isn’t just a case of an ugly past that we’ve now learned from (and erased). Rather, that kind of hypocrisy in U.S. foreign policy is still going on today. One wonders how much of that history will be erased when Israeli apartheid becomes as universally opposed as South African apartheid.

49 thoughts on “The Hypocrisy on Mandela is Palpable”

  1. hypocrisy is right.

    there has also been no mention in the mainstream media,
    nor here, the he WAS a terrorist.

    inconvenient, that.

  2. Not everyone in the media is mourning Mandela. Palecons have already fired some of their shots
    http://barelyablog.com/nelson-mandela-the-che-gue

    Note: She labels herself as a paleo-"libertarian" which I think is an oxymoron. Paleoconservatism is just as statist as neoconservatism, the main difference is who they want the government guns pointed at. Even Lew Rockwell while still considers Pat Buchanan a friend and at one time called himself a "Paleo-Libertarian", realized that Paleoconservatism is just another form of statism. Bad enough we have liberals who try to pass as libertarians but now the paleocons try to infiltrate the movement.

      1. Why is that "particularly cringe worthy". The reason is because that's what you've been brainwashed to believe. Collectivist government PERIOD is "particularly cringe worthy" racist or not. Why? Case in point: Stalin didn't care who he exterminated. He killed everyone who got him into power, Russian officers and even members of his own family. Damn not even Hitler went that far! All told he killed about 20 million!

        This almost pathological hang up on race needs to stop. I don't care what the reasons are for murdering people. Mass murder is mass murder no matter what excuse someone gives. Economic class, race, paranoia or whatever. Killing is killing. PERIOD.

        Government….all it does is lie, cheat, steal, torture, and murder. It's like the mob on steroids! Sometimes it murders for religion, sometimes for race, sometimes for greed, sometimes ideology.

        1. "This almost pathological hang up on race needs to stop."

          Fully agreed but as long as their are the Sharptons, Jacksons, Farrakhans, Buchanans, Wooldrigdes, Dukes and others in the world they will continue to use race to scare their supporters.

    1. Paleoconservatives are indeed statists, who wish the guns of the state aimed at potential immigrants. Even the great Justin Raimondo (not being sarcastic here, I really respect the guy) is willing to use statist violence against the "undesirable" kind of immigrant (presumably, Mexicans and other Hispanics — he seems to forget that Italians were once "undesirables").

      But I think it is wrong to say they are every bit as statist as neocons, as at least paleos have their heart in the right place on the major issue of our times, war and peace.

      1. Eh I dont buy it, much of the Paleocon opposition to statist laws in my opinion is a mean to an end. Paleocons and their supporters became targets thats why at least in my opinion they're opposed to it. If the Patriot Act for example was just targeting Muslims, Arabs and other non-whites and non-christians they wouldn't bat an eye. In fact they would just tell those who are upset against government abuse to "go back to where they came from". Hell it was only a year or two ago that Chuck Baldwin came out against the drug war.

        1. Cynical,

          You could be right about some Paleocons, just as I could be right about some of them. The problem is, it is impossible to read another person's heart.

          Just to let you know, I am a radical libertarian anarchist who would not vote for Pat Buchanan for dogcatcher. I am particularly incensed that many so called "libertarians" in the Ron Paul movement have such a statist view on immigration, while holding to pretty much consistent free market views on nearly every other issue. The only thing I can conclude is, that, maybe you're right, and that where they do uphold liberty and the free market, it is out of convenience. Does the free market position mean I have to allow Mexicans to travel freely here? Then, I'll oppose the free market on this issue, as, clearly you can understand, Mexicans are so, well, "undesirable." Quite moronic.

  3. Actually the legacy of Apartheid is enormously bolstered by the White Genocide that replaced it in SA. Israel has obviously taken proper notice & will do what it takes to survive….stop illegal immigration, strong borders, defended by big walls & deportation of trespassers!

    1. I would take Mandela over Mugabe. South Africa has lots of problems. This love-fest over Mr Mandela' death is PR for politicians. Economist Chang Joon Ha has interesting things to say about African Economic development. You don't make Peace with your friends you make it with your enemies. Mandela was better than Mao. It could of been lots worse.

      1. "Universally Opposed," yes, but which country is taking the fight to Israel on a grand scale to try and impose sanctions and trade.? Even if any does, its done in secret so as not to piss off the US. No one is listening.

        1. I guess you were trying to respond to me. Right, so the US has to be forced to respect the law. You are totally right that it won't do it on its own. That's why we have to spread the information, not ignore it or be pessimistic about it.

          It was people preventing African Americans from having equal rights in the USA. That was overcome. This can be overcome if a big enough movement in the USA makes it happen.

          It is a good thing that the ONLY obstacle blocking the law is a few extremists in the USA. That means once we force the USA to stop blocking the law, then the law will be implemented.

          Something like this almost happened under Bush, if you can believe it, but people like Hillary Clinton stopped it. Those are the lunatics who won't concede willingly, but who cares? They can be forced by enough public pressure.

          1. I am trying very hard to be optimistic here when it comes to the US and Israel. If you look at some of the atrocities that is committed by Israel on the civilian population in Gaza (not armed fighters) and how the US response, "Israel has a right to defend it self." and that's the line they used to sway public opinions. Only solution, if Obama get rid of the lobbyist as promised, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

          2. Enough public pressure can be used to make almost anything happen, especially something with so much worldwide support.

            We have to make it so public and so shameful for Obama and the US to keep supporting Israel while it's doing this, that the USA simply has no choice but to enforce or allow the law to be enforced.

            I am very aware of the crimes. In 2009, after Obama was elected, Israel used US-provided white phosphorus bombs to attack Gaza. They targeted civilians, including exploding the chemical bombs onto TWO hospitals where thousands of civilians were taking shelter from the massacre. Israel knew there were no militants in the hospitals.

            This can all be read about in Rain of Fire, by Human Rights Watch.

            So yeah I know the extent of the problem: it's limited to a few anti-democratic extremists in Washington, like Obama and Hillary Clinton.

            We helped force Obama not to illegally attack Syria overtly.

            With enough public pressure, which there currently is not, we can force Obama to allow the law to be enforced on Israel.

            We just need to keep chipping away to get the US public to exert that pressure.

  4. Mr. Glaser, great article exposing US imperial lies, here.

    I would, however, take major issue with your last line: "One wonders how much of that history will be erased when Israeli apartheid becomes as universally opposed as South African apartheid."

    In fact, Israeli infringement into Palestinian land IS universally opposed:

    Every year since 1981, the UN General Assembly poses a resolution stating that Israel must end its illegal occupations of Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Syrian Golan Heights. Every year, the vote is the same: the whole world in support of the resolution, and the USA and Israel opposed. This year, the vote was 165 to 6, the whole world against the US, Israel, and some US-dependent islands in the South Pacific, such as Micronesia and Palau.

    The consensus is also shown in the opinions of the human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, and even many Israeli human rights groups.

    It is also agreed on by the highest legal body in the world, the International Court of Justice, which issued a ruling in 2004 that Israel's occupations of Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan heights are illegal and Israel must withdraw and respect the June 1967 borders. All fifteen judges, even the US judge agreed. No controversy.

    All 22 states in the Arab League are also in agreement.

    Hamas, since being elected in Gaza, has expressed agreement multiple times.

    Even George W. Bush and Colin Powell have said that while any country is free to build a wall, it is obviously wrong to build that wall outside of one's own borders and use it to steal the land of others.

    The whole world is in agreement, and ready to implement a solution, as is required by law.

    There is only one thing blocking democracy in favor of Israel's hardcore fascist expansion campaign: the usual suspect, the USA.

    Even in the USA, it is only the lunatic, extreme imperial fringes – people like Hillary Clinton – who support Israel's current wall, which steals land reserved for the Palestinians. Like I said, even George W. Bush and Colin Powell are against it.

    We need to inform everyone we can that it is only the USA allowing this to go on, so that we can demand that the US puts a stop to it, as it easily could by threatening to revoke the 13 million dollars per day that Israel gets of US tax money, all illegal under international law because Israel constantly violates the law and has illegal nukes.

    Here are details, if you like: http://empireslayer.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-solu

    And on Hillary Clinton's Pro-War extremism: http://empireslayer.blogspot.com/2013/11/hilary-c

  5. forget isreal for now. this article is not about the current
    apartheid state that transferred nukular bomb technology and
    materials to the former apartheid state.

    this is about the fawning over a terrorist who freely admitted
    to over 150 acts of terrorism at his trial. acts like setting
    off bombs in shopping centers and movie theaters, and laying
    landmines in public roads.

  6. Expect a new US national holiday and a statue even bigger than MLK"s in honor of this murdering communist terrorist.

    1. Tell us the name of the person or persons you accuse the man of murdering. The ANC's "terrorist" activities involved bombing empty phone booths, post offices, and other government properties. People were not the targets. You've just proven that scum lies on clean water in ponds.

  7. The defeat of the South Africans in the third Boer war has been so complete that their history has been erased. The now passed monster is lamented as a saint. May he find his reward in afterlife.

    1. What in God's name has this defeat to do with anything? And how does it make Mandela a monster? You already have found your reward: you are obscure and ineffective in whatever objective you believe you are pursuing.

  8. If Mandela were a young man today, doing the same thing he did in his youth, Barack Obama would murder him.

    Mandela was part of a left-leaning militant group that was opposing a racist, authoritarian regime supported by the USA (one of many).

    The USA put Mandela and his group, the ANC, on its list of terrorists. Mandela was a leader of this militant "terrorist organization".

    Who do you think Obama is assassinating, besides civilians?

    Leaders and militants of organizations on the USA's terrorist list.

    As a leader of a militant "terrorist group", Mandela would have been a priority target.

    While Obama is currently making phony statements about how Mandela inspired him, if today Mandela were a young man doing what he did in his youth, Obama would, at the very first opportunity, turn him into a charred, smoking pile of human hamburger.

    So, Obama, STFU.

  9. The ongoing genocide of whites and Christians will not be broadcast.

    However, the news of the ongoing slaughter in Africa is relayed through Christian networks.

    Pray for Africa, to end the new holocaust of Christmas everywhere.

    1. Black America is in no danger of dying out as long as welfare exists. It is Whites that are in danger of dying out, both in N. America by unrestricted non-White immigration and in South Africa now that Mandela is dead, the Blacks will go on a genocidal killing spree. Since aparthied ended in 1994, over 3,000 White S. Africans have been murdered by them.

      1. The 3000+ number is just White commercial farmers. The total number is in the neighborhood of 70,000 according to Genocide Watch.

      2. Due to its historically-low modern birthrate (a matter of "choice"), "white" America has largely itself to thank for its acceleration into minority status. But, hey! Maybe that's the surest way to shift welfare benefits in their direction.

        1. It is a choice on the part of some Whites to not have children when they can have so much fun being distracted by crass consumerism and other "me-isms espoused by the zio-media to reduce their numbers. Radical feminism, and being taxed to death to support massive non-White breeding and welfare to the point wher they can't afford to have children or perhaps only 1 child certainly factors into it, too. Don't hold your breath about Whites getting more welfare either, when there won't be enough productive Whites left to pay for it or will be purposely denied them because the government is anti-White and they want us to disappear.

          1. @"…when there won't be enough productive Whites left to pay for it…"

            Seems to me that we are already borrowing from productive "Yellows" in order to pay for most of it. Just sayin'. (The late Sam Francis would probably enjoy your rhetorical ethnic aspersions.)

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  11. During the cold war America backed the oppressive South African government as a bulwark against Communism.Nelson Mandela's enduring legacy will always be the abolition of apartheid in South Africa. It's hard to imagine that during the height of apartheid,in the 1950s South Africa actively sought tourists proudly boasting ( without a whiff of irony) that South Africa was a land of contrasts. Slow to oppose apartheid, Americans traveled freely to this land of contrasts. Take a peek at these vintage travel ads http://wp.me/p2qifI-1SJ

  12. What is the violent crime rate in SA now compared to 20 years ago? Think Israel may have some justification in their actions?

  13. Believe it or not, there is an aspect of this hypocritical praise of Mandela that is mentioned even less than the media coverage of his passing. That is the uncomfortable similarity that Israel’s occupation of Palestine now has with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

  14. Believe it or not, there is an aspect of this hypocritical praise of Mandela that is mentioned even less than the media coverage of his passing. That is the uncomfortable similarity that Israela??s occupation of Palestine now has with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

  15. During the cold war America backed the oppressive South African government as a bulwark against Communism.Nelson Mandela's enduring legacy will always be the abolition of apartheid in South Africa.

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