Tutu Too?!

The Israel Lobby Goes Nuts on Desmond Tutu.

Supporters, within the United States, of the Apartheid regime in Israel have recently shown higher and unusual sensitivity toward academics, political commentators and world figures who dared criticizing the ongoing criminal actions of the Zionist State. The witch hunt campaign to stifle public debate and to muzzle journalists have been going on for years, but the recent and flagrant loss of subtlety shows how arduous it has become for the Lobby to keep on with the business of "intellectual terrorism."

The publication last year of the ground-breaking and courageous article "The Israel Lobby" by Mearsheimer-Walt (who since produced the book), has broken the omerta surrounding the issue of US-Israeli relationship. The authors (who are renowned and respected scholars), have been targeted by an unprecedented campaign of vilification; accused of being "anti-Semitic" and "unpatriotic." But their work had the effect of a psychotherapy on those (so many) who were spooked and terrorized by the fear of being labeled anti-Semites and subsequently running the risk of being ostracized.

Many prominent voices, including distinguished Jewish figures, in America and the wider Western world and within Israel itself, made their voices heard: people like Gilad Atzmon, Robert Trivers, Gary Leupp, Cindy Sheehan, Andrew Bacevich, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Uri Avnery, Amira Hass, Ilan Pappé, Israel Shahak, Ed Hermann, Howard Zinn, Johnathan Cook, Bill & Cathy Christison, Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, Norman Solomon, Ralph Nader, Jeffrey St. Clair, Robert Fisk, Alexander Cockburn, Gideon Levy, Scot Ritter... and so many, many others.

The most recent sortie of the Lobby deserves the Gold Prize for "Ludicrousness & Insanity." The charming, peace loving Desmond Tutu, Archbishop of Cape-Town and Nobel Prize laureate, was banned from speaking at St. Thomas University in Minneapolis because of his characterization (in a 2002 speech) of the occupation regime in the West Bank as an Apartheid-like regime. He was dismissed and "suspected" of being... guess what?... anti-Semitic!

Read this post from "Rootless Cosmopolitan" by Tony Karon.

(picture credit: "Salon.com")