South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Photo: Ahouska via Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Frank Dimant, the CEO of B’nai B’rith Canada, said he is refusing to meet South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu during his visit to Canada this week due to Tutu’s anti-Israel views.

Tutu, 82, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work against apartheid in South Africa, has become involved in the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. As part of his visit to Canada, Tutu will speak at a conference opposing the Oil Sands project and Keystone XL pipeline in the Canadian province of Alberta, and will address Native American rights in the region.

“One need only look at the record of Archbishop Desmond Tutu to see that he is clearly not a friend of Israel, or the Jewish people,” Dimant said in a statement.

Dimant added, “The Archbishop has, on numerous occasions, referred to Israel as apartheid and called for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the Jewish State. Furthermore, his assertion that Zionism ‘has very many parallels with racism’ should not be acceptable to any rational person.”