Tutu Patronises, Blames Jews

Joel Pollak, at Guide to the Perplexed has a report on Archbishop Desmond Tutu's recent speech at an Israel bashing conference at Boston's Old South Church.

The entire speech is available here.

I have honestly tried to believe that Tutu's views on the Israeli Palestinian conflict have somehow been misunderstood. But its all in vain. The voice of morality in South Africa is completely impaired when it comes to the Israel Palestinian conflict.

Tutu takes a simplistic weak-versus-strong angle implying that God will ultimately turn against the Jews.

Fo we had learned from our Jewish tradition that God, our God, is notoriously biased, forever taking the side of the weak, the oppressed, the downtrodden against the kings and the powerful oppressors. [...] God is not neutral.

Joel sums it up succinctly. He blames the Jews. And only the Jews.

Of course, we will be denounced as alarmist, riddled with persecution complexes, and against freedom of expression simply because we disagree with what Bishop Tutu has said.

It's quite sad really.

Comments

[Hard Rain]

"Some people are enraged by comparisons between the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and what happened in South Africa. There are differences between the two situations, but a comparison need not be exact in every feature to yield clarity about what is going on. Moreover, for those of us who lived through the dehumanizing horrors of the apartheid era, the comparison seems not only apt, it is also necessary. It is necessary if we are to persevere in our hope that things can change."

From Tutu's editorial in the Boston Globe.

In other words, exploit the horrific iconism of Apartheid to suit some form of "necessity"... in what? Formulating sole responsibility and blame on "Jews who have turned away from god."

Nice one, Desmond.

[Gary]

Tutu is talking the same type of theology that led to Jews being persecuted through the millenia.
He is talking the language of the Spanish Inquisition and Torquemada.
I hope Geoff Sifrin and Jocelynn Hellig take note of this after their defence of Tutu in the Jewish Report.

[Brett]

There church has been persecuting Jews for 2 thousand years and now we surprised?

[cindy]

It would be good strategy if the Jewish community could at least learn the two basic theological splits within Christendom of "Covenant Theology" versus "Dispensational Theology," since this would go a very long way towards predicting and understanding who within Christendom are their enemies (usually covenant theologians, like Tutu) and who are their friends (usually dispensationalists). Up until recently the Jewish community was getting it very reversed, but now they are barely starting to come around--unfortunately, one of the main reasons for this is a dispensationalist pro-Israel lobby leader who I suspect is a charlatan and due for scandal, and this will hurt, too.

There really are strong advocates for Israel working within Christendom to change anti-Israel and anti-Jewish theology, which in turn would change attitudes and practice, since the bad theology is driving the hate.

Irene Lancaster has a post on the translation of Matthias Kuentzel's book "Jihad and Jew Hatred" into English and she ends of with this little bit which seems to appropriately place Tutu in context:

"This is why Matthias Kuentzel's book, or rather translation of the book which he first wrote in 2002, is so important. It is the best book written in English on the subject of the psychology of the Jew hatred which has gripped the world for the past 10 to 15 years.

I myself have been one of those who has tried to deal with the Christian aspects of this peculiar hatred, which includes the 1990 founding of Sabeel (Patron Archbishop Desmond Tutu), the Anglican Peace and Justice report of 2004, comparing Israel to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, the 2006 Church of England Synod divestment vote, the general Church appeasment of Islam in Britain, ..."

http://irenelancaster.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/11/review-of-jihad.html