Nadene Goldfoot
A man may be brilliant in many areas and a dud in others, usually about how to be a husband. However, I find that the brilliant Desmond Tutu is capable of seeing wrongs done to his own people but cannot see the wrongs done to Israel by the Palestinians. Instead, he sees Israel as the perpetrator of wrongs done to them when it's the Palestinians who have been attacking Israelis for 63 years. He, a man who has been a champion against apartheid practices in South Africa, has compared apartheid to Nazism and Communism yet has been accusing Israel of Apartheid practices. One thing he admits is that Jews were slaughtered in the number of 6 million due to Nazism and yet he thinks that they are doing the same thing to others. He has a blind side in understanding what he sees that is hard to understand. I suppose that if one is truly interested in the motivations of others one might do something about looking into it and learning.
This man, 3 years older than myself, has acknowledged the role Jews played in fighting against South Africa's Apartheid. He has voiced support for Israel's security concerns, mainly being against suicide bombers. Yet at the same time he has been active and a prominent proponent of campaigns for divestment from Israel, likening Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the treatment of Black South Africans who were under apartheid. He cannot fathom the difference between the two situations. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, an ominous year.
To Tutu, Zionism had parallels to racism. He said this in 1988, mentioning that it excludes people on ethnic or other grounds and they have no control over it.
In 1989 he visited Jerusalem four years after I had left. He was there for Christmas and said that what was happening in Gaza and the West Bank was exactly like what happened in South Africa. Then he spoke again in 2002 about the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks. He felt they were suffering like the Black South Africans did when young white police officers prevented them from moving about.
Somehow, this reminds me of what happened to my uncle in Germany just before the war. He was a young 19 year old walking along a dirt path with his cow, taking it to market. His father was a sausage maker and this cow was for him. He used a stick to guide it along. He wasn't hitting or hurting the cow. The Nazis arrested him for beating the cow and threw him in jail where he suffered unspeakable atrocities including being forced to eat raw pork. For a Jew, that most likely was worse than the rubber hose beatings he endured. Was he being cruel to the cow? No. He was using the stick to guide it. You have to know the reason behind things before you can make a judgement. These Nazis did know. They just used it as an excuse to jail a Jew. Incidently, my uncle was one of the last to get out of Germany before it became impossible. He couldn't get his parents or 16 year old red-headed sister out and they died in the gas chambers.
In 2003 Desmond Tutu accepted the role of being the Patron of Sabeel International. We're getting to why I'm concerned about this. This is an group made up of volunteers supporting the Palestinian Christians. (I don't know if they know it, but the Christians are found only in Judea and Samaria and are not in Gaza at all) They call themselves the Voice of Palestinian Christians. They are in Oregon. These Friends of Sabeel have paid for a TriMet bus ad calling for an end to U.S. military assistance to Israel. The surprise to us all is that TriMet is now allowing political ads after its policy of prohibiting such ad because suddenly it was ruled unconstitutional earlier this year. These Friends of Sabeel are a notorious anti-Israel group. Such an ad costs about $3,600 for 90 days. It's not cheap.
For their information, Christian Palestinians make up a big majority of Israel's Arab citizens. Some are even in the knesset. A beautiful young lady was chosen as Miss Israel. The ones living in Judea and Samaria chose not to stay if they were living in "Palestine" at the time Israel was declared a state in 1948. I loved the restaurants I found in Haifa that were owned by Christian Palestinians. To understand what the situation is in Israel pertaining to Judea and Samaria would force this group and Tutu to do some reading that they evidently have not been moved to do.
I see Israel as a reservation for almost but not quite 6 million Jews at present. We've been hunted and slaughtered and have lost that many. We're almost an extinct species of homo sapiens, having been around longer than any other single group of people. Our origins as a family group go back to Abraham in the beginning of the 2nd millenium BCE. Elephants and leopards have more rights of not being shot at than we do. When things don't go right in the world, we're the first to be blamed and first to be sniped at. That's why we need Israel. No other group has ever undergone such a history. We want to live and let live. We believe in life; not just for ourselves but for all people.
I have a feeling that Tutu, educated for his Master's Degree in Theology in England, an Anglican Bishop and Archbishop of Capetown, South Africa, has not only been depending on his vision but his ears as well. What he has been told by his Arab friends should have been checked for accuracy. He should hear the other side as well before he has jumped to these illogical conclusions. Many of us in the USA have learned not to swallow everything we see and hear on TV ads. We understand their motivation is to make money. I don't think Tutu has learned to check out facts at all. It's either that or he's just plain two-faced.
After Jews helped Tutu in his efforts to fight apartheid, he has turned about face by calling Israel an apartheid state. In calling for divestment from Israel and now siding with an anti-Israel group he is causing more harm to Israel. At the very least he has created anti-semitism in many Christians who have already turned a deaf ear to anything we might have to say in defense. Is this how he wants to treat past Jewish friends?
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