Friday, May 30, 2008

Tutu Comes To Gaza

Desmond Tutu was visiting Gaza:
Liberation Theology proponent and Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu Thursday departed the Gaza Strip after a two-day "fact-finding" mission, as a result of which he reportedly plans to condemn Israel for a 2006 "massacre" of Arabs by the IDF.

A South African national who holds the rank of archbishop in the Anglican Church, and who has for years nurtured a pro-Arab position, Tutu was invited by the "Palestinians" to investigate the alleged Israeli shelling of a Beit Hanoun home in which 18 members of a family were killed.
I suppose we are supposed to be grateful for the few crumbs Tutu throws Israel's way:
The South African said afterwards he had told Haniyeh that the launching of rockets against Israel was "a gross violation of human rights."

But Tutu made no mention of any plans to report to the UN on the numerous atrocities perpetrated by Haniyeh's men.

Surely an oversight.

This is not the first time he has been adding his Tutu sense. Here is a sampling of the wit and wisdom of Desmond Tutu:
The Israeli daily Ha'aretz (April 29, 2002), reporting Tutu's remarks at a conference in Boston, quoted him as saying:

* "Israel is like Hitler and apartheid" "I've been deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa ... I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about... "I say why are our memories so short? Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?
[Tutu seems to forget that Jews were not just humiliated but expelled from countries (such as England and France) or murdered (besides the Holocaust, in both Europe and in Muslim countries )]
... The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust. Injustice and oppression will never prevail."
[Strong words from the man who meets with terrorists.]

* "The Jewish lobby is very powerful": "People are scared in this country [the U.S.], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful--very powerful."

"Critics of Israel are being smeared": "You know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the U.S.] and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic, as if Palestinians were not Semitic."

"Jewish Arrogance" Tutu accused Jews of exhibiting "an arrogance--the arrogance of power because Jews are a powerful lobby in this land and all kinds of people woo their support,"(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Daily News Bulletin, Nov. 29, 1984)
[Tutu precedes Mearsheimer and Walt by a quarter of a century. Now we now how the world got along until those two had the courage to speak out! Not surprisingly, 1984 was the Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize]

"Jewish Monopoly of the Holocaust Tutu complained about the Jewish monopoly of the Holocaust." (Jerusalem Post, July 26, 1985)
[Tutu apparently does not limit himself to attacking Israel, but goes after Jews in general as well.]

"Forgive the Nazis" During his 1989 visit to Israel, Tutu "urged Israelis to forgive the Nazis for the Holocaust" (Jerusalem Post, Dec. 31, 1989), a statement which the Simon Wiesenthal Center called "a gratuitous insult to Jews and victims of Nazism everywhere." [But Tutu cannot neither forgive nor understand the right of Israel to protect herself against terrorists]. During the visit, Tutu remarked "If I'm accused of being antisemitic, tough luck," and in response to questions about his anti-Jewish bias, Tutu replied, "My dentist's name is Dr. Cohen." (Simon Wiesenthal Center's Response magazine, January 1990)
[In one masterful stroke, Tutu has proven that he neither prejudiced against Jews nor dentists! Seeing that he visited Haniyeh, we also now know that he is not prejudiced against terrorists either]

"Zionism Is Racism" Tutu has claimed that Zionism has "very many parallels with racism." (American Jewish Year Book 1988, p.50)

"Jews Thought They Had a Monopoly on God" Speaking in a Connecticut church in 1984, Tutu said that "the Jews thought they had a monopoly on God; Jesus was angry that they could shut out other human beings." In the same speech, he compared the features of the ancient Holy Temple in Jerusalem to the features of the apartheid system in South Africa. (Hartford Courant, Oct. 29, 1984)
[Tutu speaks out against Israel, Jews and Judaism--he's quite the triple threat]

"Palestine, Not Israel": In conversations during the 1980s with the Israeli ambassador to South Africa, Eliahu Lankin, Tutu "refused to call Israel by its name, he kept referring to it as Palestine." (Simon Wiesenthal Center's Response magazine, January 1990)

"Jews Cause Refugees": Asked about the Zionism-is-racism resolution, Tutu complained that "the Jewish people with their traditions, religion and long history of persecution sometimes appear to have caused a refugee problem among others." (South African Zionist Record, July 26, 1985)
[But don't worry--Tutu has a Jewish dentist!]
Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu--2 of a kind.

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