Anti-Defamation League calls Tutu `poor choice' for graduation speaker

[Purveyor]

Michigan State and UNC battled it out last night for the NCAA men's basketball title. Now they're both feeling some heat from the Anti-Defamation League for having Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a graduation day speaker. Here's a press release:

ADL: ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU 'POOR CHOICE'
FOR COMMENCEMENT CEREMONIES

New York, NY, April 6, 2009 ... Citing his long history as a strident critic of Israel and his vocal support for anti-Israel boycotts, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today said that Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a "poor choice" to deliver the commencement addresses at Michigan State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"Desmond Tutu is a poor choice for commencement speaker," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "His statements about Israel have time and again conveyed outright bigotry against the Jewish homeland and the Jewish people, and his deepening involvement in the anti-Israel boycott effort should have raised a red flag. This is not someone to be held up as a model or awarded an honorary degree, given his history of bombastic rhetoric and unceasing support for the anti-Israel boycott effort.

"It is one thing to give him a platform to speak on campus; it is quite another to confer an honorary degree on an individual who actively promotes academic boycotts," Mr. Foxman added.

MORE...

Dallas Morning News: http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/04/anti-defamation-league-calls-t.html

[Howardx]

1. foxman is unrelentingly unpleasant. n/t

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Bishop Tutu is against apartheid in ANY country. He isn't against Israel per se or Jews.

[Hugabear]

3. Why is Israel the ONLY country in the world where criticism is contstrued as bigotry?

Even here on DU, there are some who will automatically apply the 'anti-Semitic' label to anyone who criticizes Israel or its treatment of Palestinians. I don't have a problem with someone disagreeing with criticism. But it seems to me that by labeling criticism of Israel as being anti-Semitic, it's merely a mechanism to avoid having to deal with the actual criticism itself.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Foxman can't understand why Tutu would have a problem with Israel's

government, one of the few governments which gave uncritical support to the apartheid regime, each cooperating with the other's government on their illicit nuclear programs.

I'd call that tunnel vision.

[bemildred]

5. Defaming Tutu is a poor way to fight defamation. nt

[balantz]

6. They're barking up the wrong Tutu. It doesn't do much for their image. n/t