Rethink Tutu's honor

Letters

Editor: It seems that nowadays those who support Israel and Jews are fair game for hecklers and protesters at North American universities. On the other hand, those who embrace anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic, views are honored and praised by faculty and students alike.

Case in point: Bishop Desmond Tutu was recently honored by two of our local universities with honorary degrees and celebrations, with some Jewish dignitaries, including rabbis, joining in the shameful ceremony. It would be a futile exercise to wonder why this is happening, better to let the clergyman be known by his own words.

In a comment piece for a British newspaper, Tutu repeated statements he had made at a conference in Boston, which compared Jewish leaders in the United States with the worst genocidal murderers of the 20th century. Tutu expressed his conviction that "the Jewish lobbby" will share the same fate: "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?... Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust." (Guardian, April 29, 2002)

This seems to be a standing leitmotif of his anti-Israel propaganda. Tutu continued with a repetition of the same canard: "Somehow the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the U.S.], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed as anti-Semitic, as if the Palestinians were not Semitic." (Guardian, April 29, 2002)

Please realize he wasn't talking about the pro-Israel lobby, but the "powerful" Jewish one, using the same arguments we always hear from extreme anti-Semites, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and their supporters.

Finally, fitting into his "humanistic" image, he went on to proudly state, "I am not even anti-white, despite the madness of that group." (Guardian, April 29, 2002) Could one only imagine what would have happened to another bishop, or any public figure, saying similar things about Asians or blacks?

Jack Chivo
West Vancouver

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