Nelson Mandela, who passed away last week and whose life is now being memorialized by the world and its leaders, was an amazing and complex man who accomplished great things for human relations. Yet from his life there are lessons to be learned about how even the most iconic historic leaders persevere despite possessing the same human flaws and frailties as the rest of us.

Most know the story of how Mandela endured 27 years in a South African prison, then partnered with South African President F. W. de Clerk to achieve a peaceful transition from apartheid to nascent egalitarian democracy. His humility and soft-spoken approach to working with de Clerk, the leader of the pro-apartheid National Party, to transition into free elections, led to Mandela’s 1994 election as the first black president of South Africa and a 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for him and de Clerk.

Mandela eschewed the path chosen by Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, among many other revolutionaries. Castro disillusioned many of his early supporters by fully embracing Marxism, allying with the Soviet Union, and installing himself as dictator of Cuba for over half a century. Mugabe, like Mandela, was a promising young anti-apartheid leader, but has clung to vicious thuggery and absolute power into his mid-80s. Mandela, by contrast, exercised true statesmanship by serving only one term and encouraging a new generation of leadership.

Yet in his 95 years, Mandela’s spectacular successes were accompanied by some dubious choices and conduct. As a youthful firebrand in the African National Congress, Mandela formed partnerships with radical elements, including the Communist Party of South Africa, during the height of the Cold War. The threats and violence of Mandela and his colleagues’ early actions, which were branded as terrorism by various nations including the United States, looked quite dissimilar to his later diplomatic advocacy.

Then there’s the history of Mandela’s relationship with Judaism and Israel. Domestically, Mandela’s early and most loyal mainstream supporters included Helen Suzman, the only Jewish woman to serve in the South African parliament, and who was a steadfast and courageously outspoken opponent of the apartheid system installed by the National Party in 1948. And Mandela received his first job as a law clerk from a Jewish attorney. There were other prominent Jewish South African leaders, however, who continued to support the apartheid construct well after its creation.

On the Israel front, Mandela was also supportive of a safe and secure Jewish state, promoting the two-state solution as the most effective course to peace. But his own oppression-fighting history led him to sympathize with and be close to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian movement, which has naturally tainted his humanitarian legacy among many Jews.

The past weekend’s very balanced essay “Mandela and Israel,” by Steve Linde, South African-native Editor of the Jerusalem Post, demonstrates the duality of the leader’s relationship to Jews and the Jewish State. “While he supported Zionism in principle,” wrote Linde, “he believed that if there was to be peace in the Middle East, Israel must negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians and avoid becoming a binational ‘apartheid state’ — or risk becoming an international pariah like apartheid South Africa.”

Mandela recognized not only the issues but the possibilities. He and de Clerk came together after the latter wisely concluded that the apartheid status quo in South Africa was unsustainable morally as well as practically. The two men ignored the extremists in their respective parties to forge an enduring democratic system. 

And so it is with Israel. If the Palestine Liberation Organization and now the Palestinian Authority had leaders like Mandela instead of the duplicitous Arafat or the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas, peace by now could have been achieved with any number of Israeli leaders. Indeed, former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak were prepared to make a generous peace with Arafat, but he adamantly refused and instead fomented the Second Intifada against Israeli civilians. The frustrations of these failed efforts have resulted in a much more hard-line position in today’s Israeli government and society.

Nelson Mandela will leave an indelible legacy of respect, personal integrity, and magnanimity towards his former opponents, attributes which allowed South Africa to avoid the bloodbath many had feared as apartheid came to an end. As we pay tribute to the remarkable career of this exemplary man, let us hope that the Middle East will be blessed by leaders with his vision, generosity and willingness to take great risks in the interest of peace.