The best comment on the horrifying Desmond Tutu blacklisting in Minnesota comes from Tony Karon, who grew up in South Africa and notes that he heard the same maligning of Tutu from the apartheid leaders. (God does Karon’s blog look nice; wish I knew how to do that!) And Richard Silverstein points out that ZOA is misrepresenting Tutu… who once had the temerity to blast "the Jewish lobby."
For many years, advocates for Israel have had to struggle with the fact of its affiliation with apartheid South Africa. Once they were allied. That made for a p.r. headache, when talking to liberal American Jews. When Jimmy Carter said Israel was practicing apartheid in the territories last year, defenders ran to the parapets to boil the oil. Joseph Lelyveld wrote in the New York Review of Books that it isn’t nearly as bad as apartheid. Jeffrey Goldberg argued in the New York Times that such analogies are antisemitic, as I recall, the argument he wheels out again against Walt and Mearsheimer. Defenders of the faith! Still the analogy won’t go away. Alas for good reason…
