What Netanyahu should learn from the fall of apartheid
By Ilan Baruch
Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/what-netanyahu-should-learn-from-the-fall-of-apartheid.premium-1.535069
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared his – at least rhetorical - willingness to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas without preconditions, even if he must do so in a tent on the way from Jerusalem to Ramallah. Netanyahu even committed to confining himself in the tent until peace is concluded. United States Secretary of State John Kerry has focused his efforts in recent weeks to bringing the two to a negotiating ‘tent’ in Jordan but, so far, without success.
What is likely to bring the two leaders - from Ramallah and from Jerusalem - to this tent of meeting? Can we in the Middle East learn how to negotiate a settlement to a conflict that spans generations from South Africa’s experience during the twilight of apartheid? Can the examples of leadership embodied by Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk at that time and place offer us a way to break the ice separating the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships right now?