Monday, July 24, 2006

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Calls for End to Israeli Apartheid

Archbishop Desmond Tutu joined a growing list of South Africans who have called for an end to Israeli aprtheid in peice called "Against Israeli Apartheid."

Quoting That Article:
"Divestment from apartheid South Africa was fought by ordinary people at the grassroots... Eventually, institutions pulled the financial plug, and the South African government thought twice about its policies.

Similar moral and financial pressures on Israel are being mustered one person at a time.

These tactics are not the only parallels to the struggle against apartheid. Yesterday's South African township dwellers can tell you about today's life in the occupied territories. To travel only blocks in his own homeland, a grandfather waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in Israel's cities, but their luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar.

Many South Africans are beginning to recognize the parallels to what we went through. Ronnie Kasrils and Max Ozinsky, two Jewish heroes of the antiapartheid struggle, recently published a letter titled "Not in My Name." Signed by several hundred other prominent Jewish South Africans, the letter drew an explicit analogy between apartheid and current Israeli policies. Mark Mathabane and Nelson Mandela have also pointed out the relevance of the South African experience. "

Veteran South African journalist Allister Sparks also recently compared Israeli Apartheid to the South African struggle.

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