Tony Karon has a moving piece about Mandela, and his ability to unite blacks and Afrikaaners in a new idea of what it meant to be South African:
Today Mandela is often invoked as an exemplar of non-violent change –
nowhere more frequently than in the conflict between the Palestinians
and Israel, whose partisans love to bemoan the absence of a
“Palestinian Mandela”, as if such a figure would be more willing than
the current Palestinian leadership to accept Israel’s terms. But the
South African Mandela has always insisted that in Palestine, just as in
South Africa, justice is the key to peace and reconciliation.
nowhere more frequently than in the conflict between the Palestinians
and Israel, whose partisans love to bemoan the absence of a
“Palestinian Mandela”, as if such a figure would be more willing than
the current Palestinian leadership to accept Israel’s terms. But the
South African Mandela has always insisted that in Palestine, just as in
South Africa, justice is the key to peace and reconciliation.
Karon implicitly raises the point: If a Palestinian Mandela does emerge (and the English Prospect has suggested that might be Marwan Barghouti), what type of division of the West Bank could he possibly accept? Aren't we waiting equally for an Israeli Mandela: an Israeli who will bring an enlightened view of majority (Jewish) rule to Israel/Palestine, and an end to apartheid conditions? Isn't the idea of a Mandela the idea of one state?
