Israel has missed an opportunity to learn from a man of peace and integrity in blocking a United Nations mission led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Non-Governmental Organisation (Sangoco) said on Wednesday.
He would have shown Israelis the path to justice, peace and reconciliation, as his role in South Africa demonstrated, said Sangoco president Dolos Luka, expressing deep dismay at the decision to block Tutu’s investigation into the killing of 19 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The Nobel laureate himself has criticised Israel’s failure to cooperate with the UN human rights fact-finding mission.
Travel visas were not granted in time for the mission, which had planned to head to Israel and the Gaza Strip last Sunday.
”This is a time in our history that neither allows for indifference to the plight of those suffering, nor a refusal to search for a solution to the present crisis in the region,” Tutu told a press conference on Monday.
Voicing Israel’s concern at the mission’s platform, its foreign ministry spokesperson Mark Regev claimed it ”advances a biased anti-Israeli agenda”.
Israel has apparently blocked similar UN missions in the past.
In a statement on Wednesday, Sangoco expressed its support for member organisations of the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), criticised by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) over their support for justice and peace in the region and the rights of the Palestinian people.
”We know the work of the FXI and support its principled perspectives on human rights generally, and freedom of expression specifically, given that the right to communicate must be applicable to all peoples, particularly the most marginalised citizens of our world.”
Sangoco said it endorsed and would participate in a public meeting — to which the FXI has challenged the SAJBD — on the right to freedom of expression of all peoples. — Sapa