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Jean Ziegler, the UN special rapporteur on right to food, castigated the Israeli occupation and described it as the only "colonial regime" which refuses to abide by any international law, calling on the UN to adopt an effective policy forcing Israel to respect human rights and the Geneva Convention.

"The Israeli occupation is a colonial regime and an illegal military occupation from the UN's point of view, it continues to annex more Palestinian lands; and thus the Israeli occupation is the worst in the history of colonialism," Ziegler stated in a TV interview.

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[ 01 November 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

[ 29 October 2007: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

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Tutu drew parallels between the apartheid of South Africa and occupied Palestine of today, including demolitions of Palestinian homes by the Israeli government and the inability of Palestinians to travel freely within and out of Palestine.

“I experienced a déjà vu when I encountered a security checkpoint that Palestinians must negotiate every day and be demeaned, all their lives,” Tutu said.

Tutu said that Palestinian homes are being bulldozed, and new, illegal homes for Israeli’s built in their place.

“When I hear, ‘that used to be my home,’ it is painfully similar to the treatment in South Africa when coloureds had no rights,” Tutu said.

Tutu is a pacifist and he said only non-violent means should be used to confront the oppression at play in Palestine.

“Palestinians ought to try themselves to restrain those who fire the rockets into Israeli territory,” Tutu said.

Tutu said that while fighting apartheid in South Africa he drew inspiration from the Jewish struggle as the bible describes it.

“Spiritually I am of Hebrew decent. When apartheid oppression was at its most vicious, and all but knocked the stuffing out of those of us who opposed it, we turned to the Hebrew tradition of resistance,” and the belief that good will triumph over evil, and that a day of freedom from oppression will come, he said.

“The well-to-do and powerful complain that we are mixing religion with politics. I’ve never heard the poor complain that ‘Tutu, you are being too political,”‘ he said.

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