BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Saturday condemned Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank. Speaking at a conference on violence in the Middle East at Boston’s Old South Church, Tutu said he supports the idea of Israel and its right to secure borders. He also spoke out against suicide bombers and “the corruption of young minds through hatred.”
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Saturday condemned Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank. Speaking at a conference on violence in the Middle East at Boston’s Old South Church, Tutu said he supports the idea of Israel and its right to secure borders. He also spoke out against suicide bombers and “the corruption of young minds through hatred.”
“What is not so understandable, not justified, is what (Israel) did to another people to guarantee its existence,” said Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his role in fighting South Africa’s apartheid regime. The Anglican archbishop said his visits to the area have reminded him of the way blacks were treated in South Africa.
“I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks suffer like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about,” he told the packed conference, which was organized by Sabeel, a Jerusalem-based Palestinian ecumenical center.
Tutu said people in America are sometimes afraid to criticize Israel because they will be dubbed as anti-Semitic and because “the Jewish lobby is powerful, very powerful.”
He also questioned coverage of the conflict in America. “You do see the harrowing images of what suicide bombers have done, something we all condemn, but we see no scenes of what the tanks are doing to Palestinian homes and people,” he said.
Earlier Saturday Tutu joined about 300 people gathered outside the church for a pro-Palestinian rally.
The rally, organized by the Boston Committee for Palestinian Rights, called for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and an immediate pullout of Israeli forces from the West Bank.
