Nobel Peace prize winner, Archbishop Emiritus Desmond Tutu, today "denounced what he called the international community's silence and complicity over the situation in the besieged Gaza Strip," according to the AFP.Tutu is on a three-day UN fact-finding mission to investigate the deaths of 19 Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli action on November 2006 in Gaza (40 people were wounded).
Tutu said the "incident ... was a violation of human rights in the fact that civilians were targeted."
He called the blockade of Gaza "a gross violation of human rights" and he urged Hamas to stop rocket attacks against Israel.
Tutu said Israel and Hamas must speak to each other and he used the South African example to illustrate the need for enemies to engage.I am not holding my breath.
Nontheless, Tutu and his team will now put together an assessment report that will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Onward!
Image credits in order: AFP and Al Jazeera
2 comments:
Hmm...
On the one hand, Archbishop Tutu urges the Palestinians and the Israelis to talk.
On the other hand, John McCain chides Barack Obama for suggesting that we talk to our enemies.
Tutu is a man of peace. McCain is a broken lunatic.
Thanks, Ridwan, for pointing out that there are other ways of doing things than resorting to violence. Americans have trouble remembering that.
Hello Dade. Thanks for your comment brother.
Remember how Bush said in Israel that he supported the Israeli position on Hamas.
He also went on to compare the Palestinean resistance in total to Nazism.
I wonder what goes on in the heads of Bush and McCain.
But Obama and Clinton are hardly different.
The time to call Israel on their brutal oppression of Palestineans is more than due.
There can be no peace in denial and oppression.
Peace Dade,
Ridwan
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