He continues: “My heart aches. I say why are our memories so short. Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden?

“Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another people. A true peace can ultimately be built only on justice. We condemn the violence of suicide bombers, and we condemn the corruption of young minds

taught hatred; but we also condemn the violence of military incursions in the occupied lands, and the inhumanity that won't let ambulances reach the injured.

“The military action of recent days, I predict with certainty, will not provide the security and peace Israelis want; it will only intensify the hatred.

“Israel has three options: revert to the previous stalemated situation; exterminate all Palestinians; or - I hope - to strive for peace based on justice, based on withdrawal from all the occupied territories, and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state on

those territories side by side with Israel, both with secure borders.

“We in South Africa had a relatively peaceful transition. If our madness could end as it did, it must be possible to do the same everywhere else in the world. If peace could come to South Africa, surely it can come to the Holy Land?”

Speaking about the particular nature of Israel, Archbishop Tutu noted: “But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal, and to criticise it is to be immediately dubbed anti-semitic, as if the Palestinians were not semitic. I am not