Archbishop Tutu: Arabs Paying the Price of Germany's Crimes

Saturday August 29, 2009 02:49 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

In an Interview with Haaretz newspaper, Archbishop Desmond Tutu stated that Israel must learn from the Holocaust that it cannot gain security through fences, walls, and guns.

Archbishop Tutu was commenting on statement made by the Israeli occupation government prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Germany, in which he said that “Israel should always defend itself”. Tutu said that “the regime in South Africa never managed to get security from the barrel of the gun, but got security after recognizing and respecting every person”.

The Nobel Prize laureate made his statement to Haaretz in Jerusalem and “The Elders” concluded their tour in Israel and Palestine, except the Gaza Strip.  The Elders are hoping to be able to visit Gaza in the future.

 Archbishop Tutu added that the west was consumed with the guilt for what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust, “and they should be, but the people who are paying the price for that are that Palestinians”. 

He also referred to a meeting he had in the past with a German ambassador who told him that Germany is guilty for two wrongs; what it did to the Jews, and the current suffering of the Palestinians.

Archbishop Tutu criticized some Jewish groups in the United States who intimidate any person who criticizes the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and accused them of being anti-Semite.

He said that such groups pressured many universities in the United States into cancelling his appearance on their campuses.   

 Tutu added that this is a very unfortunate issue, and that his opinions are derived from the Torah. 

“God created us on his own image”, he said, “God is always in favor of the oppressed”. 

Commenting on the a statement made by Professor Neve Gordon, of the Ben-Gurion University, in which he said that selective sanctions should be imposed on Israel, archbishop Tutu stated that sanctions played an important role in fighting apartheid in South Africa.

He added that sanctions are one of the most “psychologically powerful instruments", and that sanctions “hit the pocket of the government in South Africa, when we had the arms, the embargo, and the economic boycott”. 

 The Elders visited the West Bank village of Bil’in, near Ramallah, as dozens of Palestinian, Israeli and international peace activists were holding their weekly nonviolent protest against the Annexation. 

Archbishop Tutu said that the peace activists in Bil’in remind him of Ghandi, as he managed to overthrow the British rule in India by nonviolent means.

Commenting on some Israeli schools refusing to receive Ethiopian Jews in their schools, Tutu stated that he hopes the Israeli society would evolve.

During the live webcast on the Elders Website, Archbishop Tutu said that he hopes to see a free Palestine and a secure Israel and added that peace is possible.

“We are with yes, and yes, don’t’ give up, don’t give up, peace is possible, and we will be coming to celebrate with you when Palestine is free, and when Israel is free and secure”

--

You can watch the full video on the Elders Website at

 Related Link(s): http://www.theelders.org