ISRAEL REJECTS CARTER-ANNAN MEDIATION WITH HAMAS

Israel rejects Carter-Annan mediation (JTA)
Israel turned down an offer by Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan to mediate a cease-fire with Hamas. The former U.S. president and former U.N. secretary-general belong to The Elders, an international conflict-resolution group established last year by British tycoon Richard Branson.

Several weeks ago, the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem received a proposal that Carter and Annan come to Israel along with two other Elders, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Irish President Mary Robinson, to pursue a truce with Hamas and promote peacemaking with the Palestinian Authority.

After much deliberation, the offer was politely refused, Yediot Achronot reported Wednesday.

"Israel believes that at this time, it would not be right to introduce more players into a diplomatic process that is already in a complex stage," the newspaper quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying in a letter to The Elders.

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, had a blunter rebuff.

"Nothing good could come out of this initiative," he told Yediot. "Most members of the group, especially Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter, are people who nurse prejudices and have been shown to be hostile to Israel."

BISHOP TUTU WARNS THE JEWS

Tutu Tut-Tuts - Marty Peretz
Archbishop Desmond Tutu preached in Boston on Saturday about the evil the Jews are inflicting on the Palestinians. You wonder why a South African cleric of the Anglican Church is fixated on Israel, or at least I wonder. It could be for the same reason that many Christian clerics have always found reason to damn the Jews. With his characteristic sneer he actually threatened Israel - and not just the state but the whole people. "Remembering what happened to you in Egypt and much more recently in Germany - remember and act accordingly." Tutu has outdone even Jimmy Carter by charging that the Israeli government is worse than the apartheid government, and there is a certain gall to this since Israel's actions are a response to the refusal of most Palestinians to talk peace, let alone act peacefully.

Of course, Tutu's moralizing is historically blind. The Arabs started every war in the modern Holy Land, and each loss has emboldened them to expect more from any settlement. This is just nonsense. And Tutu knows it. Why is he encouraging such self-deception at the price of bloodshed and Palestinian blood, particularly? (New Republic)

ANTI-SEMITISM AT BOSTON'S OLD SOUTH CHURCH

Open Antisemitism at Boston's Old South Church (LGF)

Here’s an account by Joel Pollak of a truly disgusting event at Boston’s Old South Church, featuring speakers from the Arab hate group Sabeel, Desmond Tutu, and Muslim Brotherhood front man Mahdi Bray (the one who claimed his cheers for Hamas and Hizballah at a rally in Washington were just “jokes”): The cult of Israel-hatred.

CAMERA Op-Ed in Globe: "Hate at the Altar" (CAMERA)

The Op-Ed by CAMERA's Christian Media Analyst Dexter Van Zile in today's Boston Globe should not be missed. The piece, entitled "Hate at the altar," discusses the decision by Boston's Old South Church to host the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center and its founder Naim Ateek.

Here's an excerpt:

With ... three images, Ateek has figuratively blamed Israel for the attempted murder of the infant Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus the prophet, and for blocking the resurrection of Christ the Savior.

In the context of Christian-Jewish relations, language like this - which has preceded and justified the killing of Jews for nearly two millennia - is the equivalent of a noose hanging from a tree in the Old South. Its use during a time of violence can only serve to justify continued violence against Israeli civilians.

Read the whole thing here.

WAS TUTU SMEARED?

School drops Tutu speech, but ADL says let him speak
NEW YORK (JTA) -- The Anti-Defamation League is urging the president of a Minnesota university to invite Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak just days after it was revealed that he had been disinvited because of fears he might offend Jews.

Tutu had been slated to visit the University of St. Thomas next spring as part of a program that brings Nobel laureates to teach youth about peace and justice. But university administrators, after consulting with Minnesota Jewish leaders, concluded that Tutu has made hurtful comments about Israel and the Jewish people that rendered him inappropriate as a speaker.

"Tutu has certainly been an outspoken, sometimes very harsh critic of Israel and Israeli policies, and has sometimes also used ex ... Full Story

ZOA defends Tutu news release (JTA)
The president of the Zionist Organization of America is defending his organization's use of a news release that incorrectly quotes Archbishop Desmond Tutu as comparing Israel to Hitler and apartheid.

School reinvites Tutu (JTA)
A Minnesota university has reinvited Archbishop Desmond Tutu just days after it became known that the school had nixed a planned appearance by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian.

UNIVERSITY BANS TUTU SPEECH OVER HIS ANTI-SEMITISM

I WONDER WHAT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY WOULD HAVE DONE?

US university urged to lift ban on Tutu (JPost)
Faculty members, students and others have urged the University of St. Thomas to reconsider its decision opposing a campus visit by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

University spokesman Doug Hennes said the situation will be discussed next week with the school's president, the Rev. Dennis Dease.

Dease defended his decision to oppose the visit in a statement Friday, saying that a speech Tutu delivered in 2002 was offensive to the Jewish community because it compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to Adolf Hitler's policies.

"I spoke with Jews for whom I have a great respect," Dease said. "What stung these individuals was not that Archbishop Tutu criticized Israel, but how he did so, and the moral equivalencies that they felt he drew between Israel's policies and those of Nazi Germany, and between Zionism and racism."

Dease has received more than 1,800 e-mails, encouraged by Oakland, California-based Jewish Voice for Peace, asking him to reverse his stand and invite Tutu to the campus. The e-mails also asked Dease to reinstate Cris Toffolo as director of the school's peace and justice program, the group said.

Toffolo has said her support for Tutu's visit was cited as a reason for her removal from the post, but Dease denied that. Toffolo is still a faculty member at the school.

On the campus of the private Catholic university in St. Paul, students have put up fliers supporting Tutu.

St. Thomas theology professor David Landry called Dease's stance "very regrettable." Landry added that "a lot of Jews have written they don't find Tutu's remarks terribly offensive, and I've read his speech and I don't think he equates the state of Israel with Hitler, and I don't think he referred to Zionism as racism."

Mordecai Specktor, publisher and editor of American Jewish World, a weekly Jewish newspaper in Minnesota, said: "The Jewish community can survive a speech by Archbishop Tutu. We've endured worse."