But the similarities are too strong to go unremarked. The odd white soldier who died putting down black rebellion was mourned as a hero. He was given a state funeral, his life celebrated, the media carried endless interviews with grieving relatives. In mainstream Israel these past months, the Palestinian dead have scarcely registered beside the far smaller number of Israeli fatalities. Photographs and biographical details of the two Israeli boys stoned to death last week, for instance, were broadcast around the world.
Most Palestinian fatalities remain nameless and faceless.
It is not coincidental that Israel was one of apartheid South Africa's few friends. The two cooperated extensively militarily, not least in the development of nuclear weapons. In Israel's case, many in the Arab world are thought to resent its very existence. Both depended heavily on superpower indulgence. It is no coincidence that F W de Klerk started talking to the ANC around the same time that the end of the cold war dispensed with the need for dodgy allies in strategically important parts of the world.