The international firestorm which erupted last week after authorities at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota cancelled an invitation to South African Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak at the University is yet to subside. 
According to Doug Hennes, vice president for university and government relations, the Rev. Dennis Dease, St. Thomas' president, decided to ban Tutu from campus because,
"He (Tutu) has been critical of Israel and Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians, so we talked with people in the Jewish community and they said they believed it would be hurtful to the Jewish community, because of things he's said.”
So is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of South Africa’s foremost anti-apartheid and peace activists, who is believed to have coined the term “Rainbow nation”, anti-semitic and an enemy of Israel?
According to news reports,
“Hennes said the university does not believe Tutu is anti-Semitic. But Hennes cited a 2002 speech in which he said Tutu criticized "the Jewish lobby." Hennes also said Jewish groups feel Tutu has compared the Israeli policy toward Palestinians to how Adolf Hitler treated Jews.”
So what exactly did the Desmond Tutu say in 2002 that so outraged Jewish groups to the point of putting the venerated archbishop on the same black list as Osama Ben Laden and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran? Find below Tutu's now incriminated speech. You decide whether Tutu’s criticism of Israel was unwarranted and if the speech justifies the actions of the authorities at the Catholic university.
Apartheid in the Holy Land
Desmond Tutu
Monday April 29, 2002 - The Guardian
In our struggle against apartheid, the great supporters were Jewish people. They almost instinctively had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the voiceless ones, fighting injustice, oppression and evil. I have continued to feel strongly with the Jews. I am patron of a Holocaust centre in South Africa. 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. 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.
On one of my visits to the Holy Land I drove to a church with the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem. I could hear tears in his voice as he pointed to Jewish settlements. I thought of the desire of Israelis for security. But what of the Palestinians who have lost their land and homes?
I have experienced Palestinians pointing to what were their homes, now occupied by Jewish Israelis. I was walking with Canon Naim Ateek (the head of the Sabeel Ecumenical Centre) in Jerusalem. He pointed and said: "Our home was over there. We were driven out of our home; it is now occupied by Israeli Jews."
My heart aches. 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? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden?
Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another people. A true peace can ultimately be built only on justice. We condemn the violence of suicide bombers, and we condemn the corruption of young minds taught hatred; but we also condemn the violence of military incursions in the occupied lands, and the inhumanity that won't let ambulances reach the injured.
The military action of recent days, I predict with certainty, will not provide the security and peace Israelis want; it will only intensify the hatred.
Israel has three options: revert to the previous stalemated situation; exterminate all Palestinians; or - I hope - to 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.
We in South Africa had a relatively peaceful transition. If our madness could end as it did, it must be possible to do the same everywhere else in the world. If peace could come to South Africa, surely it can come to the Holy Land?
My brother Naim Ateek has said what we used to say: "I am not pro- this people or that. I am pro-justice, pro-freedom. I am anti- injustice, anti-oppression."
But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticise it is to be immediately dubbed anti-semitic, as if the Palestinians were not semitic. I am not even anti-white, despite the madness of that group. And how did it come about that Israel was collaborating with the apartheid government on security measures?
People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe. 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. Those who are powerful have to remember the litmus test that God gives to the powerful: what is your treatment of the poor, the hungry, the voiceless? And on the basis of that, God passes judgment.
We should put out a clarion call to the government of the people of Israel, to the Palestinian people and say: peace is possible, peace based on justice is possible. We will do all we can to assist you to achieve this peace, because it is God's dream, and you will be able to live amicably together as sisters and brothers.
Desmond Tutu is the former Archbishop of Cape Town and chairman of South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission. This address was given at a conference on Ending the Occupation held in Boston, Massachusetts, earlier this month. A longer version appears in the current edition of Church Times.
UPDATE
Sister Elaine Kelley of the Friends of Sabeel has kindly provided me with the full transcript of the Archbishop's speech. Click here to print or download Achbishop Tutu's 2002 speeach (PDF) .
It's interesting to look at the "past events" pages on the U. of St. Thomas website. It shows that Ann Coulter, an icon of hate speech, spoke at U. of St. Thomas a couple of years ago. Karl Rove too. They allow the likes of these to speak on campus but not one of God's truly special ones, like Desmond Tutu. What kind of Christianity is this? It escapes me.
Posted by: Sister Elaine Kelley | October 09, 2007 at 11:52 PM
Evidently, many Jewish groups do not agree with this decision by St Thomas University. Universities around the world are failing to exercise principle, judgement and courage.
Tutu barred from speaking at school
October 09, 2007 08:17 AM
by Rethabile Masilo
www.africanpath.com
“I am Jewish, and stifling debate and dissent [and] criticism of Israel is a disservice to all Jews, the state of Israel and the American people,” [Marv Davidov] said.
[source]
Mr Davidov was referring to the decision by St Thomas University in Minnesota not to invite Desmond Tutu. The reason the school gave was that Bishop Tutu “compares Jews in Israel to Hitler [and] in another section he questions Jewish faithfulness to God. (1)”
It is indeed a pity that those who made the decision to bar him from speaking at the school feel Israel cannot be criticised, or that people’s faith cannot be questioned.
A professor at the university who was pushing for the invitation to be accepted by the school has been “removed as director [of] the university’s justice and peace studies program. (2)” Someone was very strongly against inviting Tutu to the school, which says that Tutu “has been critical of Israel and Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians, so we talked with people in the Jewish community and they said they believed it would be hurtful to the Jewish community, because of things he’s said. (3)”
Please visit The Jewish Voice for Peace (4) and join the campaign to write to St Thomas’s president, Father Dease, about the injustice of this act, and demand the reinstatement of Professor Toffolo as head of the university’s justice and peace studies program.
The Jewish Voice for Peace further says that “the rumor of Tutu’s alleged ‘anti-Semitism’ is based entirely on a propaganda campaign waged by the extremist group, the Zionist Organization of America. Though he is outspoken in his criticism of Israel’s occupation regime, sometimes even bellicose, Tutu has never displayed anything other than deep concern for all peoples and his sympathy for Palestinians suffering under the yoke of occupation.”
Posted by: Ma Mary | October 10, 2007 at 10:20 AM
The Archbishop spoke from his disappointment with what he saw (i.e. from evidence). Therefore I see nothing wrong with his criticisms of the Jews.
Are the Jews not to be criticised? Are they always right? Have they suddenly become God?
Wasn't a renowned Jewish President and military exponent (who had the greatest chance of bringing a resolution to the Jewish-Palestinian problem) murdered by a Jewish (home) terrorist? Who on earth could ever have dreamed of a Jewish leader losing his life to another Jew? Do we not now hear in the news of some Jews in Israel who perform Nazicistic actions on their own compatriots? Wasn't it another Jewish military leader who authorised the massacre of innocent Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camp?
The Jews of modern times are a far cry from the helpless souls who were dominated and persecuted by Hitler. They fought the effects of the holocaust well, caught the sympathy of the world, and showed the world how to turn negatives into positives. Thumbs up to them!
The result has been that they now have the world in their hands, and with that comes the scourge of the powerful - arrogance, over-sensitivity to worthy criticisms, tendency to see themselves as God on earth, insensitivity to the plight of the unfortunate (i.e. Palestinians), abuse of power (e.g. over-reactions when retaliating to attacks), etc.
Funny enough, these were the same tendencies that led Hitler to treat the Jews like excrement. They are the same tendencies that stand in the way of peace between Israel and Palestine.
Peace in the Middle East lies solely in the hands of the Jews. If they want it they will get it! I put it in their hands because they are the domineering force in the region, backed by the all-powerful Jewish lobby in the West.
As the leading power in the region, and the big brains in the region, they have the knife and the yam. Yet, thus far, they have mostly abused power.
Peace cannot exist with the Palestinians if the Jews can only see them as terrorists. For peace to exist there must be mutual respect and a complete transformation of attitudes from current and past ways.
In particular, the Jewish lobby in the West must use its powerful position in responsible ways that encourage and promote peace. They should stop their arrogance and power abuses, and fine-tune their thoughts and language to communicate peace and consideration for others (particularly, consideration for the Palestinians - who are greatly disadvantaged in this conflict).
In return, the Jews must demand and get reciprocity from the Palestinians and Arabs. Reciprocity is the fundamental basis for long lasting peace.
With attitudes, language, and actions changing for peace, over a period of time comes the unprecedented event of Jew and Palestinian living happily together in the same cities and getting on with their life without fear of attacks from the other.
Jew and Palestinian will not only do business with one another without prejudice, but will dine with one another, inter-marry, and discuss the foolhardiness of the past - when Palestinian and Jew was killing each other because of ideological differences (in the same way that the indigenes of many civilised nations discuss and laugh at the stupidities of their past histories).
With this peaceful scenario established, the crunching issue of Jerusalem becomes child's play. Common historical sites in the city (which have caused, and are still causing, confusion in peace talks) are simply shared between Jews and Palestinians - i.e. Jewish and Palestinian monuments and memorials are built on these sites to commemorate them. Each disputed site may host a Jewish section (for Jewish monuments and memorials) and a Palestinian section (with Palestinian monuments and memorials) with separate Palestinian/Jewish entry and exit doors.
Peace in the Middle East is a definite reality; but the chips lie in the hands of the Jews who have the might and the brain to bring about peace, if only they would change their attitudes towards the Palestinians and demand that the Palestinians reciprocate, and if only they would make more responsible use of their powerful positions to encourage and attain peace.
Posted by: Dr A A Agbormbai | October 10, 2007 at 09:30 PM
its a pity and i cant even believe we divide the world in classes.I hear of first world.First world in What?All the imoral things happening on earth trace its root back to this same first world.We should not pretend as if the Palestinian people are not suffering.the jewish manner makes me to remember the book (the merchant of Venice)i read some time ago.
Posted by: Eko | October 14, 2007 at 01:06 AM