Late last month, I went to hear Bishop Desmond Tutu speak
at Boston's Old South Church at a conference on "Israel Apartheid." Tutu is a
well respected man of God. He brought reconciliation between blacks and whites
in South Africa. That he would lead a conference that damns the Jewish state is
very disturbing to me.
The State of Israel is not an apartheid state. I know
because I write this from Jerusalem where I have seen Arab mothers peacefully
strolling with their families -- even though I also drove on Israeli roads
protected by walls and fences from Arab bullets and stones. I know Arabs go to
Israeli schools, and get the best medical care in the world. I know they vote
and have elected representatives to the Israeli Parliament. I see street signs
in Arabic, an official language here. None of this was true for blacks under
Apartheid in Tutu's South Africa.
(...)
Bishop, when you used to dance for Mandela's freedom, we
Africans -- all over Africa -- joined in. Our support was key in your freedom.
But when children in Burundi and Kinshasa, all the way to Liberia and Sierra
Leone, and in particular in Sudan, cried and called for rescue, you heard but
chose to be silent.
Today, black children are enslaved in Sudan, the last
place in the continent of Africa where humans are owned by other humans -- I was
part of the movement to stop slavery in Mauritania, which just now abolished the
practice. But you were not with us, Bishop Tutu.
So where is Desmond Tutu when my people call out for
freedom? Slaughter and genocide and slavery are lashing Africans right now.
Where are you for Sudan, Bishop Tutu? You are busy attacking the Jewish state.
Why?
I wonder if Bishop Tutu is a Leftist. What other explanation could there be for this astonishingly perplexing spectacle of Bishop Tutu ignoring slavery in the Sudan while attacking a peaceful, tolerant, egalitarian Free World nation such as Israel?
