[wvns] Tutu urges Jews to challenge oppression
Tutu urges Jews to challenge oppression of Palestinians
By Michael Paulson
Globe Staff
October 28, 2007
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/10/28/tutu_urges_jews_to_challenge_oppression_of_palestinians/
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won a Nobel Peace Prize
for his role in the struggle against apartheid in
South Africa, appealed yesterday to Jews to challenge
what he described as the Israeli government's
oppression of Palestinians.
In a lengthy and emotional address to a packed Old
South Church, where the faint din of pro-Israel
protesters could be heard through the stone walls,
Tutu cited passages from the Hebrew Bible to argue
that the God worshiped by Jews would champion the
cause of Palestinians.
"Remembering what happened to you in Egypt and much
more recently in Germany - remember, and act
appropriately," he said, alluding to the enslavement
of Jews in Egypt described in the book of Exodus, as
well as to the Nazi Holocaust. "If you reject your
calling, you may survive for a long time, but you will
find it is all corrosive inside, and one day you will
implode."
His remarks, to a congregation of about 850, created
controversy even before they were delivered. A wide
array of Jewish community leaders and organizations
denounced Sabeel, the Palestinian Christian
organization that put together the conference at which
Tutu spoke, as anti-Israel, and rued Tutu's support of
the group.
About 200 people protested the conference on Friday;
yesterday, the Jewish Sabbath, the protest was
smaller, with a few dozen people holding signs and
shouting from the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth
streets. The pro-Israel demonstrators said Tutu's
comparison of Israel to apartheid in South Africa was
unfair because Israel is a democracy where Arabs have
rights.
===
READ THE ADDRESS: Full text of Tutu's speech
"That conference is bad for peace, it's bad for
America, it's bad for Israel, and it's bad for the
Palestinians," Steve Grossman, a Democratic activist
who is chairman of the Jewish Community Relations
Council's Israel Action Center advisory board, said
Friday. "Israel wants peace, regardless of the
falsehoods and misrepresentations which will be heard
at Old South Church this weekend."
Tutu, 76, was frail but defiant. After the conference,
he joined a pro-Palestinian rally in Copley Square at
which Israel was denounced as an apartheid state.
Noting that the rally was sponsored by a group called
Jewish Voice for Peace, he said, "You are sometimes
vilified as self-hating Jews, but thank you for
standing up for the truth."
The rally was attended by a few hundred people;
hundreds more carrying peace flags walked by as part
of a march against the Iraq war.
During his speech in the church, Tutu said the Israeli
government is in some respects worse than the South
African apartheid government, citing what he described
as the Israeli government's use of "collective
punishment" of Palestinians. At a press conference
before his speech, Tutu criticized the Israeli
government for brutality and what he described as
"gross violations of human rights."
But his remarks inside the church were aimed directly
at Jews. He said he was delivering "a cri de coeur, a
cry of anguish from the heart, an impassioned plea to
my spiritual relatives, the noble offspring of Abraham
like me - please hear the call, the noble call of your
scriptures, of our scriptures, to be with the God of
the Exodus who took the side of a bunch of slaves
against the powerful pharaoh."
"Jews are indispensable for a good, compassionate,
just, and caring world," he said. "And so are
Palestinians."
Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.
(Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in
Sunday's City & Region section about Archbishop
Desmond Tutu's speech to the Sabeel Conference in
Boston said that pro-Israel protesters could be heard
inside the hall. While chants from the street could be
heard, it was not possible to discern their source,
and protesters with a variety of agendas were gathered
outside the Old South Church, where the conference was
held.)
===
Archbishop Tutu Addresses Sabeel Conference
The Muslim Observer
www.muslimobserver.com
October 27, 2007, Boston, MA -- Nancy Kaufman of the Jewish Community
Relations Council (JCRC), under the leadership of Hillel Stavis of the
David Project, which is an Israel advocacy group, stationed themselves
on the corner next to Old South Church in order to protest the
Palestinian Christian organization Sabeel's annual Conference entitled
"The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine/Israel: Issues of Justice and
Equality."
Despite inclement weather, a far larger audience attended the
conference than was expected, and far fewer stuffed grape leaves were
available than the number of attendees.
After the audience sang "Happy Birthday" to Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
the Nobel Laureate gave the keynote speech.
Tutu first discussed the slander to which he was subjected by
President Rev. Dennis Dease of the University of St. Thomas. Although
Tutu was grateful for the gracious apology and for the invitation to
come to speak, he reiterated his unwillingness to visit the University
before it reinstated Professor Cris Toffolo to her position as
director of the University's peace and justice studies program with
her personnel file cleared of all criticism related to the incident.
Next, the Archbishop observed the similarity of the seizure of
Palestinian property and forced relocation of the native Palestinian
population to squalid refugee camps in 1947 to the seizure of property
and forced relocation of the non-white population of Capetown to
squalid ghettoes at the beginning of the 20th century. The Archbishop
remarked that Palestinians were subjected to forms of oppression that
non-whites had never experienced in South Africa.
Then, Desmond Tutu discussed several Bible passages in order to
demonstrate that God demands justice and that therefore Palestinians
have the right to justice. He asserted, "When you uphold an unjust
dispensation it corrodes your humanity."
Overall Desmond Tutu sent an extremely mixed message. Tutu claimed to
support justice for Palestinians even as he advocated a two-state
solution that unjustly sacrifices Palestinian property rights to
illegitimate Zionist claims. Tutu confused modern Ashkenazi Jews, who
have no ancestral ties whatsoever in Palestine, with the Judeans and
Galileans of Jesus' time period.
At the conclusion of the Archbishop's address, the conference
organizers requested that the audience not engage the protesters as it
departed for the rally in Copley Square, where peace marchers circled
the Square to express solidarity with the Sabeel Conference.
In Copley Square, American Jews harassed two women in hijab, trying to
intimidate them into expressing support for Israel.
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