Apology to Tutu over Hitler jibe

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. File picture: Ashwini Bhatia

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. File picture: Ashwini Bhatia

Published Dec 19, 2014

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Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has received an unreserved apology from pro-Israel Likud-SA chairman Leon Reich, who compared the Nobel laureate to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

“I, the undersigned, Leon Reich, retract the defamatory statements made about Archbishop Tutu. I apologise unreservedly to Archbishop Tutu for this gross defamation. I undertake not to make any similar statements in the future,” he wrote.

In an opinion piece on the South African Jewish Report website, Reich had written that Tutu would “kill Jews before protecting Christians”.

The story has since been removed from the website.

Reich’s article was published on September 10 in response to a protest march in Cape Town in August, when Tutu urged Israel’s leaders to turn away from policies that humiliate and undermine Palestinians. In a subsequent radio interview, Reich refused to apologise for the comparison.

Jewish Voices for a Just Peace – a South African organisation opposed to human rights violations – then reported Reich to the SA Human Rights Commission.

Reich had accused Tutu of “preying” on Israel, together with Hamas, and that they were working towards the destruction of the Jewish state.

Online and social media editor of the SA Jewish Report Ant Katz had initially said he saw nothing wrong with the comparison, but the publication has since apologised to Tutu.

 

JVJP spokesman Leonard Shapiro said: “Being against the occupation by a racist state is not being anti-Semitic. People who support the state of Israel in its current form cannot simply defame and demonise others who are calling for a country where there is equal rights for everyone who lives in it.”

The National Coalition for Palestine chairman Edwin Arrison was shocked when he read Reich’s article.

 

Tutu, who was in a “bad state” on Thursday after undergoing a new course of medication for prostate cancer, said: “I accept the apology and consider the matter closed.”

Tutu’s lawyer Jonathan Mort said he received Reich’s written apology last month and considered the matter closed.

 

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Cape Times

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