Mandela, Qadaffi's

New Brother

Ruth King

South Africa's President Nelson Mandela recently paid a state visit to Libya in spite of requests from Western leaders that he avoid any exchanges with a nation which harbors and instigates international terrorists, including those responsible for destroying Pam Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. He not only rejected all criticism, but with a gall that should define the outer limits of "chutzpah" for years to come announced: "Those who say I should not be here are without morals. I am not going to join them in their lack of morality." And he hugged Qaddaffi, kissing him on each cheek, exclaiming "My brother leader, my brother leader." He followed up by giving Qadaffi South Africa' s highest award for a foreigner.
No doubt it escapes the South African president's attention that in his "brother's" country he would not have languished in jail for 27 years. It's a safe bet that there are relatively few political dissidents in Libya's jails- not because of leniency- but because the evil and lunatic strongman who rules Libya customarily summarily executes them without benefit of trial, or media notice, or the notice of Western human and civil rights activists. Furthermore, Mandela's mantra, "one man, one vote" is loosely interpreted by Muammar Qaddaffi to mean that only one man, namely himself, can vote. In short, Qaddaffi is a barbarian by any definition of that word, and a crazy one at that, as anyone who has perused the pseudo-Maoist ranting of his notorious "Green Book" will aver.

However, it is really not our purpose to comment on President Mandela's behavior, outrageous as it may be. What both outrages and amuses us is the contrast between the respectful silence that human rights "groupies" extend to Mandela, and the obloquy that was heaped on Israel's Prime Ministers when they dealt with Mr. Mandela's predecessors in South Africa. From A (Anthony Lewis) to Z (Ze'ev Schiff)--they all decried Israel's exchanges with a racist regime. To add to the hypocrisy, they ignored the fact that all of Africa's black governments engaged in a lively economic exchange with South Africa. Even those who "understood" Israel's political imperatives made sure they went on the record to voice their "shame and sorrow" that Israel maintained diplomatic relations with the "poster-boy" of Western moral posturing.

That Israel is held to a double standard comes as no news to anyone, but what continues to rankle is that unlike all other examples of a double standard, those who conduct the chorus of criticism of Israel are so often Jews. In the Diaspora and in Israel, their immoral self-loathing is unique among ethnic groups. Mandela will remain free to flout moral sensibilities, his stature as a "moral exemplar of our time" unassailable by our self-styled, self-righteous Jewish human rights "watchers." But Israel's Prime Ministers cannot even act in the national self-interest without bringing upon themselves a tidal wave of vituperation by these same guardians of international "morality."

Ruth King is a member of the Executive Committee of Americans For a Safe Israel.

Where Do Murderers

of Jews Go?

(Continued from p.4)

demanded their extradition and in response the Palestinian Authority swung the door and the four went free, not through a window whose bars had been removed but through the front door.

A senior Israeli security official observed that 'the headlines and stories in the media regarding arrests of

Hamas activists by the Palestinian Authority are tales from the Arabian Nights. Prison is not prison. Most of the prisoners have special conditions and there are prisoners who come to jail only for the night. The problem is that we have never witnessed hostility on the part of the population towards the detainees. They live in a supportive environment. The street sees them as heroes.' The senior official emphasized the behavior of the Palestinian Authority and its chairman, Yasser Arafat, towards the arrest of suspects is two-faced.

According to this official, shortly after standing

beside U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and

declaring to the media that he would arrest suspects and

fight terrorism, Arafat telephoned Dr. Abd al-Asiz Rentisi,

the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, telling him: "Don't pay any attention to my talk of arrests."

Shaked notes that after the identities of the Jerusalem suicide bombers became clear, Arafat, declaring he was disappointed in Hamas which had promised its bombers would come from abroad, closed 16 Hamas institutions in Gaza and arrested 20 activists bringing the number of Hamas detainees in Palestinian Authority prisons to 90. But in releasing Sheikh Yassin (who has since repeatedly called publicly for Israel's total extermination) Israel has ensured their prompt release.

Concludes Shaked: "The head of the Palestinian GSS in Gaza, Mohammed Dahalan, was quick to warn that 'following the release of Sheikh Yassin, Hamas will pressure us to release its imprisoned people," and the [Israeli] security establishment says that the wave of releases of Hamas activists, and the reopening of the 16 Hamas institutions in Gaza, starting with the Islamic Mujama'a, founded by Sheikh Yassin, is only a matter of time."