October 2007

Desmond Tutu - Realizing God's dream in the Holy Land

Some people are enraged by comparisons between the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and what happened in South Africa. There are differences between the two situations, but a comparison need not be exact in every feature to yield clarity about what is going on. Moreover, for those of us who lived through the dehumanizing horrors of the apartheid era, the comparison seems not only apt, it is also necessary. It is necessary if we are to persevere in our hope that things can change.

December 13, 2006

Relief Web - Tutu criticises Israel's blockage of his UN mission to Beit Hanun

South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu on Monday sharply criticised Israel's failure to cooperate with a UN human rights fact-finding mission into the killing of 19 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Tutu, who is leading the inquiry, confirmed that Israeli authorities had effectively thwarted the mission, which was planning to head to Israel and the Gaza Strip on Sunday, by failing to grant travel visas in time.

December 12, 2006

Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Israelis adopt what South Africa dropped

(The author is a South African former anti-apartheid leader.)

Restrictions on freedom of movement imposed by a rigid permit system enforced by some 520 checkpoints and roadblocks resemble, but in severity go well beyond, apartheid's "pass system." And the security apparatus is reminiscent of that of apartheid, with more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and frequent allegations of torture and cruel treatment.

November 13, 2006

24.com (South Africa) - Tutu blasts Israeli 'atrocity'

South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu condemned an Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip which killed 18 people as an atrocity on Thursday, saying "security does not come from the barrel of a gun."

"It is an outrage that cries out to heaven and we must condemn it unequivocally as we do the atrocities committed by suicide bombers against Israeli civilians," Tutu, former archbishop of Cape Town, said in a statement.

July 15, 2002

Against Israeli Apartheid

Desmond Tutu & Ian Urbina

The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure--in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s. Over the past six months a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation.

April 29, 2002

Apartheid in the Holy Land

Desmond Tutu
The Guardian (UK)

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.

April 29, 2002

Tutu condemns Israeli 'apartheid'

BBC News

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused Israel of practising apartheid in its policies towards the Palestinians. The Nobel peace laureate said he was "very deeply distressed" by a visit to the Holy Land, adding that "it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa".

More on Israeli Apartheid

The Key to Peace: Dismantling the Matrix of Control

by Jeff Halper, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

A second set of controls derives from Israel's policy of "creating facts on the ground" - virtually all of them in violation of international law (including the Fourth Geneva Convention signed by Israel itself). These include:

• Massive expropriation of Palestinian land;
• Construction of more than 200 settlements and the transfer of 400,000 Israelis across the 1967 boundaries: about 200,000 in the West Bank, 200,000 in East Jerusalem and 6000 in Gaza (the latter occupying a fourth of the land, including most of the coastline);
• A massive system of highways and by-pass roads designed to link settlements, to create barriers between Palestinian areas and to incorporate the West Bank into Israel proper;
• Imposing severe controls on Palestinian movement;
• Maintaining control over aquifers and other vital natural resources;
• Restrictions on the planting of crops and their sale, together with the wholesale uprooting of hundreds of thousands of olive and fruit trees since 1967; and
• Employing licensing and inspection of Palestinian businesses as a means of political control.