The Cancellation of Bishop Tutu’s Speech – The African World

Thus, we have the case of the cancellation of the speaking engagement of one Bishop Desmond Tutu, world-renowned human rights activist and one of the chief architects of the South African Truth & Reconciliation Commission. To the surprise of many, Bishop Tutu’s speaking engagement at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, Minnesota was cancelled, apparently because Bishop Tutu is a harsh critic of the Israeli regime and its occupation of Palestinian territories. According to startribune.com of Minneapolis-St. Paul, the University decided to cancel the speaking engagement because Bishop Tutu’s criticisms of the manner in which the Israelis are treating the Palestinians in the occupied territories would be considered hurtful to the Jewish community.

Bishop Tutu, it should be noted, along with former President Jimmy Carter, have joined the legions of human rights activists who have compared the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories to the conditions that were faced in South Africa by non-whites under the apartheid regime. Understandably, such comparisons unsettle those who wish to believe that it would be impossible for victims of the Holocaust to perpetrate crimes against another people, but the documentary evidence is very clear on this point.

To my knowledge, there are few other subjects that are considered so off limits. The anti-Palestinian lobby has been quite successful in intimidating many people who would like to see a rational discussion of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and US policy towards the Middle East. Fortunately, the tide seems to be turning — the publication of Jimmy Carter’s best-selling book Peace Not Apartheid representing an element of evidence of this — and there is a growing dissatisfaction with the “off-limits” signs that seem to be posted around any discussion of Israel and the occupation. It is for that reason that the anti-Palestinian forces are becoming less rational, more passionate, and, indeed, quite scared.