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Who really said it

There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists

Disputed — traced only to Libyan state media Nelson Mandela 1918–2013 · Anti-apartheid leader · President of South Africa 1994–1999
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

Wikiquote files this line under Disputed, and the only source anyone can point to is Mathaba.net — an outlet of the Libyan-government-aligned “Worldwide Mathaba,” whose account of Mandela’s May 1990 visit to Tripoli puts these words in his mouth during his meeting with Muammar Gaddafi. No independent record of the sentence exists: the wire report filed on that same meeting quotes Mandela quite differently, the line is absent from his archived speeches, and we could not find it in any digitised book.

Last verified 27 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists” Disputed. Attributed to Nelson Mandela in Tripoli, May 1990, but the wording survives only in an unbylined account published by the Libyan-aligned Mathaba organisation (earliest copy: Internet Archive, 19 Feb 2001). Wikiquote lists it under "Disputed." The UPI wire report of the same meeting quotes Mandela differently and contains no such sentence. — Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Nelson Mandela. Use the credit shown above instead.

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We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of justice, freedom and courage. Theme: "There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The only paper trail

Sole source
“Nelson Mandela’s Historic Visit to Great Jamahiriya,” Mathaba
Occasion claimed
Mandela’s meeting with Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli; the account dates his arrival to 18 May 1990
Translation
Unattributed English text — no translator, byline or publication date given
Earliest copy located
Internet Archive capture of mathaba.net, 19 February 2001

“We consider ourselves to be comrades in arms to the Palestinian Arabs in their struggle or the liberation of Palestine. There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists…” Libyan state-aligned account · unverified

Reproduced exactly as it stands in the Mathaba text, including the apparent typo “struggle or the liberation” and the closing ellipsis; the copy on Wikiquote reads “struggle for the liberation” and drops the ellipsis.

Archived web page
Read the 2001 Internet Archive capture
Wikiquote: Nelson Mandela, Disputed section

How we traced it

  • The quote is not in Wikiquote’s sourced material. It sits in the Disputed section of the Nelson Mandela page ↗, whose entire citation reads: “This appears at Mathaba.net.”
  • Following that pointer leads to an unsigned account of the May 1990 Tripoli visit on mathaba.net ↗ — the site of the Libyan-aligned “Worldwide Mathaba for Resistance to Imperialism, Zionism, Racism, Fascism and Regression.” The earliest Internet Archive capture of that page is dated 19 February 2001.
  • The independent record of the same meeting says something else. UPI’s dispatch from Tripoli ↗, published 19 May 1990, has Mandela saying “We consider ourselves comrades in arms” about Libya’s military training of ANC fighters — and carries no sentence about Palestinians or Zionists.
  • When Mandela returned to Tripoli as president, the speech was published in full. His 22 October 1997 address at Gaddafi’s banquet ↗ does not mention Palestine, Israel or Zionism once.

No rights status can honestly be asserted here, because the origin of the wording is not established. What exists is an unbylined, undated English text on a Libyan-aligned website, itself apparently translated from another language by an unnamed hand. Nothing about this is public domain: both the 1990 remarks it purports to report and the translation that carries them are modern, and if the underlying utterance were ever authenticated it would fall well after the 1931 US copyright cut-off.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

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Fact-check

How one web page became a Mandela quote

This is not a case of a famous line drifting from one speaker to another. It is a case of a single, unverifiable text becoming the whole evidence base — and then being quoted as though it were a transcript.

Mathaba, the Libyan-government-aligned “Worldwide Mathaba” Unbylined

The passage appears in an unsigned, undated English account of Mandela’s May 1990 Tripoli visit on mathaba.net ↗, written throughout in Libyan revolutionary idiom — Gaddafi is “the Guide of the Worldwide Revolution,” Israel is “the Zionist entity.” No translator, no byline, no date, no transcript.

Wikiquote Disputed

Wikiquote does not place this line among Mandela’s sourced quotations. It sits in the Disputed section ↗ with a one-line note: “This appears at Mathaba.net.” That is the entire citation.

United Press International Contradicts

UPI’s correspondent filed from Tripoli on the Mandela–Gaddafi meeting; the report ran in the Los Angeles Times on 19 May 1990 ↗. There, “We consider ourselves comrades in arms” is said of Libya and the ANC, about military training and the 1986 US air raids. There is no Palestinian sentence in it at all.

Op-ed pages and quote aggregators No citation

The day after Mandela died on 5 December 2013, Giulio Meotti’s Arutz Sheva column “Mandela Was an Enemy of Israel” ↗ reproduced the passage with nothing more than “During a trip to Libya” — no date, no source. The line now circulates on quote sites in both directions: as proof of Mandela’s solidarity, and as proof of his hostility.

Mandela’s support for the Palestinians is real and easy to document — but in his own recorded words. On 4 December 1997, at a UN solidarity gathering, the sentence he is on record delivering was “we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians” ↗. Nothing in his archive resembles “the Zionist racists.”

Context

Tripoli, May 1990

Three months after walking out of Victor Verster Prison, Mandela toured the countries that had bankrolled and armed the ANC. Algiers, then Tripoli. United Press International reported that on the way to the meeting, Libyan officials stopped and showed him the ruins of Gaddafi’s former residence, the one the United States had struck on 15 April 1986, and that Mandela insisted on seeing every room; he then embraced Gaddafi outside the Bedouin tent at the Bab al-Azizia barracks and thanked him for training ANC fighters. The wire copy that ran in the Los Angeles Times on 19 May 1990 records him saying, “We consider ourselves comrades in arms” — about Libya and the ANC.

Libya’s own propaganda apparatus published a much longer account of the same visit. In it, the “comrades in arms” phrase has migrated onto the Palestinians, and a second sentence follows that nobody else recorded: the one about every South African citizen standing by his Palestinian brothers against “the Zionist racists.” The passage even trails off in an ellipsis, as excerpts do. That text — not any transcript, recording, or contemporaneous news report — is the whole documentary basis for one of the most-shared “Mandela on Palestine” quotes on the internet.

One source. No transcript, no recording, no wire report — and it belonged to the government hosting him.

What Mandela is actually on record saying about Israel and Palestine

21 August 1993, Johannesburg. Addressing the 37th Congress of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, Mandela said: “As a movement we recognise the legitimacy of Palestinian nationalism just as we recognise the legitimacy of the Zionism as a Jewish nationalism. We insist on the right of the state of Israel to exist within secure borders but with equal vigour support the Palestinian right to national self-determination.”

22 October 1997, Tripoli. At the banquet Gaddafi hosted for him as president, Mandela’s address thanked Libya for its support of the anti-apartheid struggle and spoke of trade, investment and African solidarity. The official text mentions Palestine, Israel and Zionism precisely never.

4 December 1997, Pretoria. At the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People: “we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians; without the resolution of conflicts in East Timor, the Sudan and other parts of the world.” This is the line the disputed quote is usually shelved next to — and it is the one that is fully documented.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Justice Freedom Courage

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Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: Nelson Mandela (Disputed section)en.wikiquote.org

Files this exact quote under “Disputed” and names Mathaba.net as its only source.
Mathaba: “Nelson Mandela’s Historic Visit to Great Jamahiriya”web.archive.org

The Libyan-aligned account of the May 1990 Tripoli visit that carries the quote — earliest copy we located, captured 19 February 2001.
UPI / Los Angeles Times, 19 May 1990web.archive.org

Independent wire report of the same Mandela–Gaddafi meeting; quotes “We consider ourselves comrades in arms” about ANC military training, with no Palestinian sentence.
Mandela’s address at Gaddafi’s banquet, Tripoli, 22 October 1997web.archive.org

The official text of his presidential speech in Libya — it never mentions Palestine, Israel or Zionism.
Address at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, 4 December 1997web.archive.org

The documented source of Mandela’s genuine “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
Address to the 37th Congress of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, 21 August 1993web.archive.org

Mandela recognising “the legitimacy of Palestinian nationalism” and of “Zionism as a Jewish nationalism” in the same breath.

The man it is pinned on

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

1918–2013 · Anti-apartheid revolutionary & first President of democratic South Africa

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) led the armed and political wings of the African National Congress, spent 27 years in prison, and became South Africa’s first democratically elected president in 1994. His solidarity with the Palestinian cause is genuine and documented — he called Yasser Arafat a comrade in arms and told a 1997 UN solidarity gathering that South African freedom was “incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” But in the speeches preserved in his official archive, his language on the subject is that of a negotiator: in 1993 he told the South African Jewish Board of Deputies that the ANC recognised both Palestinian nationalism and Zionism as Jewish nationalism, and insisted on Israel’s right to exist within secure borders.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Best available source

Earliest copy located: “Nelson Mandela’s Historic Visit to Great Jamahiriya,” Mathaba, www.mathaba.net/info/mandela.htm, Internet Archive capture of 19 February 2001. Listed under “Disputed” in Wikiquote, “Nelson Mandela,” with Mathaba.net given as the sole source. Compare United Press International, “Mandela Visits Libya, Thanks Kadafi for Helping Train ANC,” Los Angeles Times, 19 May 1990.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists’?” Last verified 27 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-is-not-a-single-citizen-in-south-africa-who-is-not/

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