Desmond Tutu’s vision of peace and reconciliation knew no bounds, but Alan Dershowitz dissents
TRIBuTES to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died in South Africa on Dec 26 at 90, flowed around the globe. Former president Barack Obama tweeted that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was ‘a mentor, a friend, and a moral compass for me and so many others.’ Tutu was a ‘universal spirit,’ he added, “grounded in the struggle for liberation and justice in his own country, but also concerned with injustice everywhere.”
uN Secretary General António Guterres praised Tutu as “a towering global figure for peace and an inspiration to generations across the world. During the darkest days of apartheid, he was a shining beacon for social justice, freedom and non-violent resistance.”
Said Guterres: “Tutu’s passing leaves a huge void on the global stage, and in our hearts, we will be forever inspired by his example to continue the fight for a better world for all.”
Those testimonials stood in sharp relief to the slime hurled at Tutu by former Harvard Law professor and media contributor Alan Dershowitz. As the commendations were pouring in, Dershowitz took to Fox News to interject, “I hope you don’t mind if I do this,” he began.
“The world is mourning Bishop Tutu, who just died the other day. Can I remind the world that, although he did some good things, a lot of good things on apartheid, the man was a rampant antisemite and bigot?”
Because of Tutu’s prominence and impact, the archbishop was “the most influential antisemite of our time,” Dershowitz said. “In reckoning with the careers of people with mixed legacies, whether it be Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and others,”
Dershowitz said, “we have to include in a reckoning of Tutu, his evil bigotry against Jews, which has existed for many, many, many years.”
The late archbishop Tutu needs no defense from me. The totality of his life and works on behalf of human rights speaks for itself. His advocacy of compassion and his quest for equality were not limited by race, religion, cultural affinity or geography. He rose to the defence of the oppressed whether the offenses were occurring in the townships of an apartheid South Africa, on the repressive streets of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe or in China with the mistreatment of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo.
Tutu took on bigotry wherever its ugly head was raised, including continental Africa, where same-sex relations are outlawed in most countries.
Opening a campaign for LGBTQ rights in Cape Town, Tutu said, “I would not worship a God who is homophobic,” and “I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven.” Added the archbishop, “’Sorry, I would much rather go to the other place,’ I would say.”
Tutu held to his convictions, even when it meant speaking out against his own South African government for bowing to Chinese pressure and failing to support Tibetans who are ‘viciously oppressed by the Chinese.’
He called on the international community to impose sanctions on the military junta of Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha after it hanged environmental activist and playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa and others in 1995.
Finding evidence of thousands of people killed and displaced in Sudan’s Darfur region, Tutu condemned African leaders for supporting and protecting thenSudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir from an International Criminal Court arrest warrant on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
And, yes, he was a harsh critic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, informed, in part, by his experience in apartheid South Africa.
until the attack on Fox News, I was unaware of Dershowitz’s animus against Tutu. Subsequently, I came across an Oct 1, 2014, New York Jewish Week story: “Dershowitz: Carter, Tutu Have Gaza ‘Blood On Their Hands.’” In the Jewish Week interview, Dershowitz charged that former president Jimmy Carter and Tutu ‘encouraged’ Hamas’s alleged strategy of using Palestinian civilian deaths, including children, to score public relations points against Israel.
And 11 years ago, the Jerusalem Post published a column by Dershowitz accusing Tutu of having an ‘ugly hatred toward the Jewish people, the Jewish religion and the Jewish state.’
Dershowitz has the right to use his position of prominence to speak for himself, and presumably others who share his views, against Tutu. And perceived critics of Israel, who unfortunately risk being labeled antisemites.
But that makes it, it seems to me, all the more necessary to use the occasion of Tutu’s death, and Dershowitz’s resultant attack, to restate US fundamentals on the Palestinian territories and Israel.
Whether under a Democratic or Republican administration, Israel’s security is not up for grabs. US foreign policy has many cornerstones. Security of the country that the united States was the first to recognise in 1948 is and will remain one of them. That leaves room for conflicts and disagreement, but no daylight for severance.
What’s more, the development of a ‘secure, free, democratic and stable Palestinian society and governance’ is an equal US commitment, according to President Joe Biden’s State Department.
I don’t know how any of this fits with Dershowitz’s cramped views, but I believe that achieving a comprehensive and lasting negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where freedom, security and prosperity are shared by all sides, is the right way to proceed. I venture to guess it’s also something that Archbishop Tutu, who preached peace and reconciliation, wouldn’t mind at all.