World leaders have heaped praise on the late Nelson Mandela, but among the countries paying tribute are some that had long backed the South African apartheid regime that jailed him.
Many of the eulogies for the iconic peacemaker
have glossed over Western support for the white supremacist regime in
Pretoria during the Cold War, when Mandela and his African National
Congress (ANC) were blacklisted as Soviet proxies.
Israel was one of South Africa’s closest allies at
a time when Pretoria was facing UN-led sanctions, maintaining defence
ties which also benefitted an authoritarian anti-communist regime in
Taiwan.
Fear of communism prompted Britain’s Margaret
Thatcher to support the apartheid regime during the 1980s, and Mandela
himself was only removed from the US terror watch list in 2008, just
days before his 90th birthday.
Eulogising Mandela, Israeli President Shimon Peres
described him as a “fighter for human rights who left an indelible mark
on the struggle against racism and discrimination.”
But during the 1970s and 1980s, when Mandela was
serving a 27-year prison sentence, Israel’s stance on South Africa was
very different.
The Jewish state had initially supported UN
sanctions on South Africa, but finding itself increasingly isolated
after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, it cultivated ties with Pretoria -- a
process in which Peres was deeply involved, first as defence minister
and then as foreign minister.
“As defence minister, Peres was involved,” said
Yossi Beilin, a former foreign ministry director who worked to distance
Israel from apartheid South Africa in the late 1980s. “Despite the UN
resolution in 1977, which was a very clear decision to boycott transfer
of weapons or security cooperation with South Africa, Israel did not
respect it at all,” Beilin told AFP.
Israel’s close defence and security cooperation
with South Africa left the Jewish state isolated and nearly cost it
crucial US military aid as it flew in the face of UN resolutions
sanctioning Pretoria.
