[pastrybanking]

Desmond Tutu was critical of Israeli government policy in the treatment of Palestinian people and even earlier when Israel maintained friendly relations with the apartheid regime in South Africa. This is also the same man who criticised Arab nations for refusing to recognise Israel as a sovereign state, sympathised with the historical atrocities committed against Jewish people and condemned violence from both parties in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.

There is no irony in celebrating the life of a man who universally condemned oppression and called for a peaceful resolution to one of the most complex conflicts of modern times.