It says everything about our government — or at least its leading party — that even as a plan was first proposed and then signed by both Israel and Hamas to put an end to the horrible two-year-long war in Gaza (long may it hold), the ANC has been conspicuously silent on hailing, let alone pushing for, something that doesn’t just end the so-called “genocide” but promises a genuinely better future for the people of Gaza.
What the ANC and ANC-captured department of international relations and co-operation decided to direct its attention to instead was something that was, at best, completely unhelpful and, at worst, a deeply cynical publicity stunt. I’m talking, of course, about the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” — or as it is officially titled, the Global Sumud Flotilla. That total sham.
The Sumud Flotilla is only the latest in a long line of “freedom flotillas” that have been launched against Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, which has been in place ever since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007. During “peace time”, the blockade was in place to prevent weapons from being smuggled into the hands of Hamas — with limited success, sadly — and during the past two years it has been a fairly typical tool of warfare used by Israel to further limit Hamas’ abilities.
Though the majority of these flotillas have escaped the notice of anyone not directly plugged into the Middle East, the two major flotillas this year — both helmed, at least spiritually, by enfant terrible and former (?) climate activist Greta Thunberg — have got tonnes of international attention. Which, presumably, is what the activists, D-list celebrities and disgraced politicians on board were hoping for. Though considering just how little they helped actual Palestinians, it’s hard not to be cynical about where they wanted that attention directed.
Hatred of Jewish state
This most recent flotilla was especially suspect. Not only did it spurn offers to distribute its aid by institutions that were far more likely to actually get it into Gaza (including the Vatican), but it turned out that the flotilla ultimately had precious little aid to give — even less than the relative handful of Thunberg’s previous publicity stunts. This is to say nothing of the flotilla’s enormous carbon footprint, which suddenly seems entirely unimportant to the most significant climate activist since Al Gore.
Thunberg may be the loudest, but she was hardly the only one on board with questionable motives.
To the surprise of precisely no-one, SA’s embarrassment of a leading party was represented on this flotilla by a handful of activists led by Mandla Mandela, proving once again that there is no depth the latter would not plumb in his quest to defame the memory of his legendary grandfather.
Mandela has been consistent in his bilious hatred of the Jewish state and in his use of anti-Israel rhetoric to deflect attention from his many controversies — not least his utterly abysmal performance in his actual day job — but there is something particularly gross about his performance here (in every sense of the word).
After the previous flotilla failed to cause the appropriate levels of outrage, the “activists” aboard the Sumud Flotilla were careful to present a unified face of supreme victimhood against the might and cruelty of those evil, evil Israelis — even if they had to manufacture it wholesale.
A case in point is Mandela’s pre-recorded message: “I’m a citizen of the Republic of SA. If you are receiving this video, it means that we have been intercepted and have been abducted by the state of apartheid Israel. I call you to request our government to exert pressure for my immediate release.”
Despite being about as transparent a manipulative publicity stunt as you could find, some media immediately fell over themselves to promote Mandela’s lies.
So, Mandela sailed across the world to break through a naval blockade in the middle of a war, fully understanding that he would rightly be arrested and then deported for his actions — and then moaned to the world that he had been “abducted” and was desperately in need of help to be released. Did he really expect people to buy this?
Well, they did. In droves.
Despite being about as transparent a manipulative publicity stunt as you could find, some media immediately fell over themselves to promote Mandela’s lies, to such a degree that a Google search for “Mandla Mandela” would suggest “kidnapped” as a helpful autofill.
Worse even than the hypocrisy, wastefulness and blatant propaganda of the whole cynical stunt was the way the word “abducted” was repeatedly invoked to draw some sick parallel between these “activists” and the Israeli hostages who were actually abducted on October 7 and who had experienced a level of suffering that most of us couldn’t begin to conjure in even our worst nightmares.
Mandela family’s true activists
What’s especially galling about Mandela’s part in all of this is that while he was cynically indulging in this grotesque theatre, two of his cousins were quietly working to actually make life better for ordinary Gazans. As the much ballyhooed flotilla neared and then reached its destination, sisters Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway and Zamaswazi (Swati) Dlamini-Mandela had quietly flown into Israel on September 27 to learn more about what was happening and to actively help with the distribution of aid to more than 10,000 women and children in Gaza.
They packed in a lot during those five days. They met Israeli President Isaac Herzog, toured the Old City of Jerusalem and spoke to women’s groups, Palestinian artists and Ethiopian-Israelis. They visited the sites of the October 7 massacre — notably Nir Oz and the Nova Festival site — and met the families of the victims and the hostages, including Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was taken hostage but was executed by Hamas before he could be rescued. They also entered Gaza itself with the Gaza Humanitarian Fund to distribute aid and talk to the Palestinian men, women and children who have lost so much during the war.
Unlike Mandla Mandela, who learnt nothing from his publicity stunt and helped even less, the sisters came away with a far deeper understanding of the situation and, in a few short days, helped real Palestinians more than any of these flotillas ever have. As they told the Jewish Report, “Our grandparents taught us that human dignity must never be selective. My grandmother always said that if you can, go and see for yourself. Don’t be afraid to bear witness. That’s what we tried to do.”
What they “bore witness” to was that “the suffering is on both sides. We saw pain everywhere, but also people refusing to give up on peace”. However, they also saw the extent to which Israel has been defamed over the past two years, especially in terms of its so-called “starvation” of the civilian population in Gaza: “Reports in the media have led us to believe that there was little or no aid going into Gaza. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We gave out humanitarian aid to Palestinian mothers and children in Gaza and saw their desperation. [But] we also saw that tonnes of aid were being delivered daily by humanitarian organisations.”
For their compassion, integrity, nuance and ability to listen and engage with multiple voices, it is a relief to see Madiba’s spirit still alive and well in his granddaughters. It’s been a long while since it was part of the political party he once called home, and it certainly never came within a million miles of that ridiculous, self-serving flotilla.
• Preskovsky is a freelance journalist.
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