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Published on Sunday, April 14, 2002 in the Boston Globe |
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Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu
Calls US Soft On Israel Nobelist speaks to Boston group on Mideast crisis |
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by Steven Wilmsen |
| Likening Israel's treatment of
Palestinians to the oppression of blacks by the white apartheid government
in South Africa, Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu yesterday chided the Bush
administration for being too soft on prime minister Ariel Sharon.
''I can't believe the United States really believes in its impotence'' to halt Israel's military reprisals, Tutu told reporters at Boston's Old South Church, where the retired archbishop spoke at a conference aimed at ending the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. ''They have leverage, and they know they have leverage,'' he said. ''Any administration knows it has the capacity. Whether they have the will is another thing.'' Tutu said the Bush administration should demand Israel withdraw from the Gaza and the West Bank, adding that Israel's isolation of Yasir Arafat was ''bizarre and humiliating.'' Speaking earlier to a gathering of about 500 peace activists and members of the pro-Palestinian group Sabeel at the church, he urged a movement in the United States to ''put out a clarion call to the people and the government of Israel.'' ''An unjust Israeli government - no matter how powerful - will ultimately fall,'' he said. Jewish leaders reacted strongly to Tutu's remarks. ''It's tragic that a person of his moral credentials would sacrifice them with such an ugly slur,'' said Rob Leikind, director of the New England chapter of the Anti-Defamation League. ''Israel is in a simple fight for survival. It's a sad day for all of us when people engage in that kind of hyperbole.'' Tutu said that he opposes Palestinian suicide bombings, but that the only way to achieve peace is for Israel to make the first move. With a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters lining the sidewalks outside, Tutu said he also is ''saddened'' by the apparent lack of sympathy for the Palestinian cause in America and by the Bush administration's apparent unwillingness to rebuff Israeli interests at home. ''Somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal, where to criticize them is to be immediately dubbed as anti-Semitic,'' he said. ''The Jewish lobby is powerful. Very powerful. So what? This is God's world.'' Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his role in dismantling the white government of South Africa, in part by inspiring a peaceful black uprising and focusing world attention on the region - said the movement was inspired ''on a deep level'' by Jewish traditions and by Israeli Jews themselves. But on a recent visit to Palestinian towns, he said he viewed Israeli destruction with a Palestinian villager. ''He pointed out in the distance and said, `That used to be my home, but Jews live there now,''' Tutu said. ''I then recalled how in South Africa, people of color would point in much the same way at their homes that were now occupied by whites. ''I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at roadblocks. It reminded me of what happened to us in South Africa, where they battered us and heckled us, and they took joy in humiliating us. My heart aches. Have my Jewish friends forgotten their own history? Have they turned their backs on their own profound religious traditions?'' Tutu urged college students to protest Israel's action as they protested apartheid in the 1980s and said the fact that blacks are free now should give people hope for peace in the Middle East. ''We are free today in South Africa because of people like yourselves, people who - when it looked like they were trying to make hell freeze over - you went on. And look at us now. We are free.'' Meanwhile, protesters outside displayed banners and signs reading ''Palestinians are People Too'' and ''No more US $$ to Israel.'' ''Why is there so much hate?'' asked Husam Hamdam, who lives in Boston but grew up in the Palestinian town of Jenin, where Israeli bulldozers have wreaked havoc in recent days. ''My parents went there to start a new life, and now it is taken away again. These people, they have been crucified twice.'' © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company |
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