Thursday, July 29, 2010
Someone Needs to Call Archibishop Desmond Tutu
Quick, someone needs to get ahold of Tutu and explain that boycotting Israel hurts the Palestinians that he wants to help. Surely, he will release a repudiation of this statement after someone tells him what Chomsky has to say about it.I, Desmond Tutu, fully support and endorse the Olympia Food Co-op’s boycott of Israeli products. The Olympia Food Co-op has joined a growing worldwide movement on the part of citizens and the private sector to support by non-violent tangible acts the Palestinian struggle for justice and self-determination. Cooperatives have a long history of working for and with the oppressed to strive for a better world, and now Olympia Food Coop has been the first to build off of that legacy in support of freedom for Palestinians. I encourage other cooperatives, grocers, and businesses to follow their courageous example of boycotting Israeli goods and for shoppers to support their principled stand.
On a more serious note, Tutu's statement is just another reflection of how there are no longer any gatekeepers when it comes to support for the Palestinians. People like Tutu and Tariq Ali understand, but others don't. The spontaneous energy is with those in the BDS movement, with those who are working to try to try break the siege of Gaza, instead of those who remain constrained by a romanticized Zionism that never existed. Palestine is an essential arena of conflict against US imperialism in the Middle East, a conflict that cannot be prosecuted to a successful conclusion absent the creation of a secular, multiethnic state.
Labels: American Empire, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions, Gaza, Israel, Noam Chomsky, Palestine
