Desmond Tutu is to speak at the Hay Festival this year, and is being billed as “an extraordinary individual”. He is, but perhaps not entirely in the way that is being suggested. Tutu is a relentless Israel-basher, and his criticism at times strays into dark territory. He often compares Israel to apartheid-era South Africa, a ludicrous comparison that is as offensive to black South Africans as it is to Israel.
While in America in 2002, he made some particularly sinister insinuations and parallels. “People are scared in this country to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful,” he said. “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”. This was an orgy of antisemitism: imagery of Jews terrifying people out of speaking out against wrong, Israel seemingly compared to the Nazis, an aspiration that the Jewish state will bite the dust.
Tutu has also said that Zionism has “very many parallels with racism”. He regularly calls for boycotts of the Jewish state. His nadir came during his visit to Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, when he urged Jews to pray for the Nazis. The Simon Wiesenthal Center called that “a gratuitous insult to Jews and victims of Nazism everywhere”.
I leave the final word to the great Alan Dershowitz: Tutu is a racist and a bigot.
Edward T
But Chas, Desmond Tutu is a black Christian who fought apartheid.
So he MUST be right – even if he’s wrong
23 May 2009 at 1:56 PM
Edward T
It costs £50!
23 May 2009 at 2:58 PM
Chas Newkey-Burden
You can’t put a price on bigotry!
23 May 2009 at 3:05 PM
elixelx
But we Jews do indeed pray for SOME Nazis!
E.g. just as the Muslims say “Pees be upon him”(PBUH) whenever they say the name of Mohammed, so we Jews say “May his bones be crushed” about Hitler (MHBBC). That’s if we are in a vicious mood!
In a more forgiving mood Jews tend to say “May his death be an atonement for his sins” and , yes, I’ve heard THAT said about Hitler (MHDBAAFHS) too!
24 May 2009 at 7:53 AM
Stan
The only bigotry here I see is from the author. Of course, the Israeli genocide machine can do no wrong. Tutu is a great man.
25 May 2009 at 9:56 PM
sammish
Tutu’s antisemitism springs from his Anti-Jewish Christian doctrine and his authoritarian ANC political socialization…. An exploisive tandem that seems to allow this religious figure to speak about human sufferings as if he was a political leader and speaking about suffering only selectively (No mention of Darfur, or the never ending slaughters in the Congo and Ruwanda)…. It just happen to fit his anti-system rhetorics… since all the African debacles are so near to him, he must be blind that he would rather taken on a greater burden to be a spokeman for the Middle Easter conflict..
I guess in order to be a world leader of sort, one needs to take on a much bigger problem (as if the Arab-Israeli issue is a global one) than what is happening in his own backward…..Tutu is a fool, not a great man… He may have fooled you Stan, but not me….
26 May 2009 at 7:57 PM
Chas Newkey-Burden
“Tutu is a great man.”
He might have done many great things but that shouldn’t exempt him from criticism. Don’t patronise him.
28 May 2009 at 7:46 PM
Social justice? « Seismic Shock
[...] using Christian language, is often supported by suspicious characters, and its international patron Desmond Tutu promotes paranoid, antisemitic conspiracy theories about a powerful Jewish lobby in America. [...]
2 July 2009 at 4:32 PM
Ben White recommends Roger Garaudy essay in ‘Israeli Apartheid Guide’ « Seismic Shock
[...] Tobin to denounce Israel, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who thinks the Jewish lobby in America is “powerful, very powerful.” Whilst Desmond Tutu clearly has a good record on South African human rights, he clearly falls [...]
17 July 2009 at 10:05 PM
The Theology Behind the ‘Israeli Apartheid’ Gospel « Seismic Shock
[...] prominent Christians, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who likewise believes the Jewish lobby is ‘powerful, very powerful’ in America, and Garth Hewitt, the Anglican canon who came up with the idea to re-write Christmas [...]
21 July 2009 at 1:12 AM
“I’m a verbal mercenary” « Seismic Shock
[...] lyrical when discussing Desmond Tutu’s views on Jews and Israel (clearly Tutu’s weakest subject): There is hardly a more unimpeachable moral authority in the world than Archbishop Tutu so it [...]
13 August 2009 at 1:15 AM