The Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town Desmond Tutu doesn't object to Secretary of State John Kerry's use of the word "apartheid" to describe the future of Israel if a peace agreement is not reached.
Kerry has since apologized for his remarks while remaining strongly in support of a two-state resolution. In a HuffPost Live interview Tuesday, however, Tutu likened his own experience under apartheid in South Africa to that of Israel.
"I go and I visit the Holy Land and I see things that are a mirror image of the sort of things that I experienced under the apartheid," Tutu told HuffPost Live host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani. "How can you stop me from the right to describe as I feel. You go anywhere in the world and if I see things that mirror the kind of experience that I know first-hand, I think it's cheek in a way for someone else to tell you, 'no, you are wrong in feeling as you feel about what you have seen.'"
Although Tutu and his daughter, Reverand Mpho Tutu, admitted to having "missed" Kerry's remarks initially, the anti-apartheid leader did not balk when asked directly if there was anything wrong with invoking this language in the context of Israel.
"No," he replied. "I will say it is even more important because, you know, one cares enormously for both sides of that quarrel or tussle."
Watch Archbishop Tutu's full interview below.