Netanyahu is not going to attend Mandela's funeral because the trip is too expensive. Peres is not going because he is sick. But surely the expense and the illness would be cleared in an instant if the shadow of the long and ugly history between Israel and South Africa was obliterated by the sun of forgetfulness...
One of Nelson Mandela’s richest legacies to the world is his treasure trove of quotes that inspire and encourage. Just look at these from the Daily Beast or these on Brainy Quote – or take a little traipse on Twitter or Facebook and you’ll feel convinced we can all do the impossible, that democracy will overcome tyranny, that the bitterest of enemies can make peace.Assessing his legacy in this part of the world is a little more complicated. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced on Monday that the premier would not attend the Mandela’s funeral, citing the soaring costs of a last-minute trip, it underscored the less-than-chummy relations between Israel and South Africa. President Shimon Peres is also staying home, because he has the flu.
But tight budgets and sick notes do little to mask the lingering discomfort between the two nations. Jerusalem maintained close military and economic ties with Johannesburg even in the final days of the apartheid regime, when most of the world was backing away, and the then-leader of the African National Congress never forgot it.
To be fair to Israel:
Israel's decision in September of 1987 to join the rest of the world in imposing sanctions on South Africa left the apartheid regime totally dumbstruck, so much so that its leader at the time, president P.W. Botha (long known as the "Great Crocodile"), sent a secret letter to prime minister Yitzhak Shamir accusing him of stabbing him in the back. "How could you do this to us, after so many years of friendship and alliance?" Botha railed. Botha, who died Tuesday night aged 90, was a staunch friend of Israel and the architect of the Pretoria-Jerusalem alliance during the dark years of apartheid. He felt so personally hurt by the Israeli sanctions that he wrote directly to the prime minister. Being a stickler for formalities, like many an Afrikaner gentleman, and also such a loyal friend of the Israelis, Botha didn't make his pain public, and would not release the "top secret" memo to the media.Few alliances in the 20th century are as historically strange (even twisted) as the one that formed between Pretoria and Jerusalem.