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Tutu Lashes At Israel’s ‘Apartheid In Holy Land’
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Desmond
Tutu |
LONDON,
April 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - South Africa's Archbishop
Desmond Tutu accused the Israelis of treating Palestinians in the same
way the apartheid South African government treated blacks, news
agencies reported.
In
a commentary published Monday by the British daily newspaper, the
Guardian, Tutu, former Archbishop of Cape Town and chairman of South
Africa's truth and reconciliation commission, lashed out at Israel’s
humiliating and discriminating treatment of the Palestinian people.
“I
believe Israel has a right to secure borders. What is not so
understandable, not justified, is what it did to another people to
guarantee its existence,” said Tutu.
“I've
been very 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,” he added.
Tutu’s
condemnation of aggressive Israeli policies toward the Palestinians
came at a conference on “Ending the Occupation” held in Boston,
Massachusetts, early April.
Tutu
also criticized the silence of the American people and their fear of
the strong Jewish lobby there.
"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.
"People
are scared in this country [the U.S.], to say wrong is wrong because
the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful. Well, so what?
"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," Tutu declared.
The
Nobel Prize winner went on attacking the Israelis treatment of
Palestinians, reminding them of what they cry about of Nazi
humiliation.
"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 asked.
Israel must "strive for peace based on justice, based on
withdrawal from all the occupied territories, and the establishment of
a viable Palestinian state on those territories side by side with
Israel, both with secure borders," he said.
“Israel will never get true security
and safety through oppressing another people. A true peace can
ultimately be built only on justice,” Tutu added.
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