Hundreds of supporters of Palestinian rights gathered outside Wembley stadium in London, where the Israeli national football team was playing England in the Euro 2008 qualifier. The protest was called by the Boycott Israeli Goods Campaign in conjunction with Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods. (Medyan Dairieh, Maan Images)

In one of her last acts as U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice had Nelson Mandela's name removed from America's terrorist watch list. Many Americans were shocked to learn that their favorite former political prisoner had ever been deemed a terrorist. That is because they had forgotten, or were too young to know, that the U.S. under Ronald Reagan - like Britain under Margaret Thatcher - had backed the apartheid regime in South Africa as a Cold War ally.

Isolating South Africa through sanctions and boycotts was certainly not the choice of Mrs. Thatcher or Mr. Reagan, but their governments were eventually forced to take action by the outrage of their own electorates at the suffering apartheid inflicted. The international anti-apartheid movement began at the grassroots among religious, community and labor groups, but it grew sufficiently powerful to force governments to distance themselves from a regime that they had viewed sympathetically. And that is a lesson that terrifies Israel's leaders.

Israeli government officials have spoken openly since the Gaza conflict of their growing sense of isolation. Despite their most strenuous PR efforts, the 1,417 Palestinian deaths they caused in Gaza (compared with 13 Israelis, four by "friendly fire") made it hard to sell the idea that Israel was the victim in the conflict. Israel's narrative did not fit the images of the Gaza clash. It's hard to convince people that the guys with the F-16s and Apache helicopters and the tanks are little David, while those facing them with side-arms, mortars and a handful of improvised unguided missiles are actually Goliath.

Coddled in their own narrative in which they are the eternal victims, Israelis are not accustomed to finding themselves the focus of international moral opprobrium. And they see in it a mortal threat.

The recent Gaza donor conference at Sharm el Sheikh was a familiar exercise of nations pledging large amounts of money while respecting taboos imposed by Israel that effectively block reconstruction. That was in marked contrast to the aid convoy led by the maverick British MP George Galloway that arrived in Gaza two weeks ago, comprising some 100 trucks and ambulances loaded with medical and humanitarian supplies funded and collected at grassroots level in churches, mosques, trade union branches and community groups all over Britain.

Sure, the amount of aid delivered was small potatoes relative to the need, but the gesture showed that hundreds of thousands of ordinary Britons no longer accept their government's equivocation on the fate of the Palestinians. That is exactly how the international anti-apartheid movement was born, back when the governments of the U.S. and Britain were happy to concur with Pretoria that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist.

To read the full article please visit The National.