David Hersch writes:
From this morning's Cape Times in Cape Town.
For all the rhetoric, Tutu lost this round. Iconoclasm is good for the soul.
Alan Dershowitz said the following about Tutu:
"Tutu is a bigot and a racist," said Derschowitz about the Nobel Peace Prize winning South African archbishop. He is "blind, deaf and dumb when it comes to issues of Israel".
As for the Palestine ambassador to South Africa, Ali Halimeh, he has been in this country so long I have always suspected that Ramallah has forgotten he exists and why should they even remember him, after all, he costs them nothing as all his expenses, "embassy", staff, vehicles, residence, travel, entertainment and living expenses are funded fully by South Africa ... and that means you and me and every tax payer in this country.
As for his saying Israel must know "enough is enough", this is typical Arab projection and inversion of the very thing they are guilty of onto Israel. Do I really have to list the last hundred years of unwarranted attacks, terror, hijackings, allying themselves with Hitler and the Nazis, wars and downright evil perpetrated by the Arabs who have only called themselves "Palestinians" since 1964? Now they are the victims? What a projection from the Palestinian ambassador to refer to "Israel’s aggression towards Palestine"! George Orwell could have included him in one of his books. No Mr Halimeh, it is we, Israel and the Jewish people, who say "enough is enough" to all of you and at this time to Archbishop Tutu as well.
Congratulations to Cape Town Opera for their wise and brave decision. Nothing stops them performing in Ramallah and Palestinians can enter Israel and attend any theatre or whatever they like. It would be no different from attending a play in Bloemfontein when you live in Maseru. Just in Israel, its a lot closer.
Rhoda Kadalie is her feisty, honest and blunt self and is to be admired for her total honesty and lack of fear to express it. That there were more people like her.
A few, who knows how few, Israeli "peace activists" are also quoted supporting the BDS movement. I am inclined to think BDS stands for Balderdash, Delusional and Stupid. Obviously the same discombobulated types as we have here in our community in the five and half, or is it four and a half, "activists" in Open Shuhada Street. I am surprised they haven't jumped on the bandwagon. Maybe this comment will prompt these little "Lord Haw Haws" to drop some worldly wisdom on us.
As for Tutu and his inability to see the truth for the lies, I am beginning to think he is suffering from Altzheimer's Lite and a touch of delusional messianism. Isn't there a saying "Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad."
DAVID HERSCH
Cape Town
South Africa
Cape Times 28 Oct 2010
Furore over Tutu’s boycott Israel call
Max McLaren and Peter Fabricius
ISRAEL’S embassy in South Africa hit back at Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu yesterday, saying his call for Cape Town Opera not to perform in Israel would “do nothing but increase the intense hatred between” Israelis and Palestinians.
Cape Town Opera’s managing director, Michael Williams, said yesterday that they would not call off their trip to Israel: “Cape Town Opera respects the views held by retired Archbishop Tutu. We are, however, first and foremost an arts company that believes in promoting universally held human values through the medium of opera and we are accordingly reluctant to adopt the essentially political position of disengagement from cultural ties with Israel or Palestine.”
Social activist and commentator Rhoda Kadalie also entered the fray labelling Archbishop Tutu a “bigot” in the debate on whether Cape Town Opera should travel to Israel to perform the opera Porgy and Bess.
But the Palestine ambassador to South Africa, Ali Halimeh hailed Tutu’s call for Cape Town Opera to postpone its trip saying: “If a man like Desmond Tutu can’t speak against oppression, then who can?”
Halimeh said last night all forms of pressure should be put on Israel to stops its occupation of Palestine and calls such as Tutu’s were part of this pressure.
“When we have Palestinians who want to go out of the country to perform or go and participate in sports abroad then Israel stops them. What Desmond Tutu calls for is right because the same kind of restriction should be placed on those who want to perform in Israel. Israel must know that enough is enough,” he said.
He rejected the notion that Tutu’s call would increase hatred between Palestine and Israel.
“That is not true at all. On the contrary, it will make the world more aware of Israel’s aggression towards Palestine. Desmond Tutu’s call must be supported,” Halimeh said.
Tutu said on Tuesday that only the “thickest-skinned South Africans” would perform in Israel before an audience that would exclude Palestinian residents of the “occupied West Bank” only 30 minutes from Tel Aviv, while including people from illegal Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
Tutu added that it would be especially “unconscionable” to perform Porgy and Bess “with its universal message of non-discrimination” in the present state of Israel. He added that it would only reinforce Israel’s “fallacious claim to being a civilised democracy”.
The embassy retorted that Tutu’s call for a “cultural boycott” of Israel “is yet another phase in the biased campaign, waged by him and those who share his sentiments, that distorts and demonises Israel, while singling it out”.
“Imposing a boycott cancels out any possibility of dialogue and reconciliation; and Tutu would have achieved more had he used his position to unite warring people, rather than forcing them apart. Tutu’s words will do nothing but increase the intense hatred between the two peoples.
“Tutu’s unbased doubts regarding Israel being a civilised democracy – as well as his other false accusations – reflect either a lack of understanding of the situation, or deliberate populist incitement.
“Israel is the only country in the Middle East that secures the freedoms of media, academia, religion and various minorities, protecting inter alia the freedom of artistic expression and encouraging cultural dialogue.
“Tutu’s destructive call to avoid cultural co-operation will not only prevent such a dialogue, but rather increase hatred and hostility between Israel, its neighbours and other peoples, including South Africans.
“It is regrettable that Archbishop Tutu, while not keeping his decision to retire from public life, chooses to single out Israel and focus on what happens ‘30 minutes from Tel Aviv’ rather than concentrating on what is happening in his own backyard, in townships only 30 minutes from Cape Town..."
Yesterday, Kadalie said: "Israel, in comparison with South Africa, is a beacon of democracy. He is bigoted and continues to view things through an apartheid prism.
"His reparations failed and South Africa continues to be a basket case with high crime rates, with 40 people dying on South Africa's roads every day, 1 000 people dying daily from Aids, 18 000 murders a year and the continuing crimes of sexual violence against women and children."
"Israel is a legitimate state within the UN. It is essentially in dispute with the Palestinians about the borders of a new Palestinian state." she said.
"Quite obviouslyTutu has decided on his targets while ignoring so many other problems. Even if Israel is a rogue state, why single her out only? This is discrimination against Jews."
However, a group of Israeli peace activists, have written to the Cape Town Opera, on behalf of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, appealing to themnot to perform in Israel.
The BDS movement calls on international civil society organisationsand people of conscienceall over the world to impose boycotts on Israel, similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.