What those who paid tribute to Archbishop Tutu conveniently forgot

The world recently mourned the death of renowned South African Archbishop and anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu. Obituaries presented the wonderful qualities he lived and stood up for during his life and times.

However, there was one item that was conspicuously missing in the glowing tributes in the media: The fact that Archbishop Tutu firmly supported the Palestinian cause and spoke against the Israeli occupation and its cruel war machine.

That such a memorable fact could be broadly ignored or discounted across the global media spaces shows the deeply disturbing bias and "taboo" way in which the mainstream media handles the question of Palestine in what only empowers the Zionist oppressor to coldly continue perpetrating what is already known as the longest conflict of territorial dispossession in the modern human history. 

Whereas an apologist to this storytelling indifference might want to cut in with a free sermon on the neutrality of the press, we cannot forget the powerful words of Archbishop Tutu that said: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

After several visits to the occupied territory of Palestine, Archbishop Tutu became more convinced and vocal in the significance of the Palestinian struggle and equated the dark situation there with what used to happen way back in the apartheid era of South Africa.

He famously said: "I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid."

He also made another more critical observation that: "When you go to the Holy Land and see what's being done to the Palestinians at checkpoints, for us, it's the kind of thing we experienced in South Africa.

Whether you want to say Israel practises apartheid is immaterial. They are doing things, given their history, you think, 'Do you remember what happened to you?' Then they clobber you and say, 'You are anti-Semitic'."

Fatefully, Alan Dershowitz, a notorious lapdog for Israel and its Zionist mission appeared on Fox News after the demise of Archbishop Tutu to attack his pro-Palestinian legacy by reproving him as being a 'bigot' and 'anti-Semite'.

But the good news is that this anti-Semitic spin, which is a common harassment against every known pro-Palestinian activist and politician—as was also lately the case for the famous British actress Emma Watson—only serves as an anchor and encouragement to say and do more with the unshakeable faith that history and morality will never be umpired by such a rascal who see right and wrong with tainted lenses that disgorge cheap defamations as opposed to leaning towards the real curvature of justice, fairness and freedom.

May 2022 bring better hope for Palestinians and all those who ever more rally behind their just cause for an occupation-free, peaceful and progressive state.