How it started?
On March 27, 2001, Thomas Friedman wrote a column in the style of a 'mock memo' entitled Bush's First Memo. In this 'mock memo' Thomas Friedman writes in the name of U.S. President George W. Bush A Memo to Palestinian President Yasir Arafat. Arjan El Fassed wrote in the the 'mock memo' style that Friedman himself liked to use and offered Nelson Mandela responding to Friedman's [Bush] Memo to Yasser Arafat.

Mandela's first memo to Thomas Friedman  (30 March 2001)

Since Thomas Friedman tells his readers that Palestinians should forget about 1948 and forget about returning to their homes, I wanted to show that current policies against Palestinians resemble an apartheid-like situation. Since Nelson Mandela has become the personification of the struggle against apartheid, I thought a 'mock memo' including Mandela was the logical thing to do. I could also have taken Steven Biko who has said that "the most potential weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed" or Oliver Tambo or others anti-apartheid activists.

Soon, however, I found the 'mock memo' I wrote and which clearly indicated that I wrote it, on various listservers and websites but without the byline mentioning that it was in fact written by me. This led to a vast confusion amongst editors of newspapers in many countries ...

What Nelson Mandela indeed has said

"It is completely wrong that the United States must be the mediator in this conflict. Everybody knows the United States is a friend of Israel."

"As far as we are concerned what is being done to the Palestinians is a matter of grave concern. We are the friends of Yasser Arafat. We are the friends of the Palestinians. We support their struggle" (Reuters, 1 June 2001, Mandela, speaking at a news conference after talks with French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin).

"Israel should withdraw from the areas which it won from the Arabs -- the Golan Heights, south Lebanon and the West Bank -- that is the price of peace" (Dispatch, 20 October 1999)

"Our men and women with vision choose peace rather than confrontation, except in cases where we cannot get, where we cannot proceed, where we cannot move forward. Then, if the only alternative is violence, we will use violence" (Associated Press , 20 October 1999)

"The histories of our two peoples, Palestinian and South African, correspond in such painful and poignant ways, that I intensely feel myself being at home amongst compatriots" (Associated Press , 20 October 1999)

"The long-standing fraternal bonds between our two liberation movements are now translating into the relations between two governments" (Associated Press, 20 October 1999)

Address by President Nelson Mandela at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Pretoria, 4 December 1997

h/t to Mondoweiss - Israel apologists attempted to discredit Mandela with false Israel apartheid quote.

Have a peaceful cultural summer