Hedy Epstein, Holocaust survivor, along with a Palestinian woman, Sandra Mansour, and a peace activist, called on Elie Wiesel to come with them to Gaza on Dec. 1. "I heard you," Wiesel says curtly, and turns his head. This after a lot of bromides he issued about questioning and human equality, during his appearance at St. Louis University two weeks ago. Thanks to Anna Baltzer, Witness in Palestine.
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I can’t get over this. How the hell does a person get into college without the slightest idea about the history and methods of colonial projects?
Easy, if you got the money (however; including affirmative action), you get in.
…Affirmative action? Really?
Every time I get close to wanting to respect you, Citizen, you disappoint me.
You see no issues at all with the power of the government behind affirmative action? It’s just all good?
Maybe if we were sending $3 billion dollars a year to Liberia, or if we were going to war with Costa Rica at the behest of Mexico, then maybe affirmative action would actually be relevant in this context.
My response was to Mooser.
I think Norman Finkelstein summarized Elie Wiesal perfectly as the ‘resident clown’ of the Holocau$t Industry.
He speaks in abstractions like Witty. The guy is a Jewish supremacist and of course, by definition a total hypocrite. Just another Zionist snake.
Problem is he holds USA citizenship because he was born here, and, easy access to Israeli citizenship–because he’s a Jew. He could go fight for the IDF today, this would not change. The US Supreme Court said so, overturning its prior decision involving a Mexican American, if memory serves, to favor a Jew. So, what’s new?
Like I keep saying — Witty IS apartheid. One set of rules for Jews (“Jews have a right to Israel”) and one set for Palestinians (“They weren’t born in the homeland? Too bad! They’re screwed. Now give the Zionists their land.”)
Jewish supremacist does not describe any (American) Zionist. The accurate term is white supremacist. Zionism requires ethnic cleansing and occupation of the Palestinians. Can anyone name a single Zionist who is not a white supremacist?
I think “Jewish supremacist” is more accurate. The Palestinians, for one thing, are not nonwhite, unless “white” is meant solely in the political sense.
Zionists pretty much use “Jewish” solely in the political sense.
American Zionists were surprised to discover upon their arrival in Israel that there were “schwarze Jews” already living there. White supremacist describes a person who believes himself or herself to be white, which has nothing to do with the whiteness or lack thereof of the person that the supremacist has a psychological need to denigrate. All of which, leaves me without being able to name even one Zionist who is not a white supremacist.
Not that that cycle is over by any stretch.
Martin Buber (among the dead), Yossi Sarid among the living.
Buber’s dead so he doesn’t apply in the present tense. And what has Yossi Sarid to say about the denial of right of return to Palestinian refugees to the places they were run out of during the Nakba? I daresay that’s the watermark to whether he is a supremacist or not — does everyone have the same rights he thinks Jews should enjoy?
I found Wiesel to be impressive, not condemnable.
It was IRRITATING to confront such an edited video presentation. I’m sure that he seeks coherence in his thinking and would respond to questions candidly.
The baited “invitation” sadly is a fraud of an invitation.
Serious individuals, rather than opportunistically rhetorical, could have actually invited him to visit in a way that would not be threatening or politicized.
You are such an incredible phony, Witty. “OOOOoooh… the video was edited! That’s why he looks bad!”
It’s like for Zionists, the camera adds ten pounds — of incompetence.
Wiesel is not impressive on Israel/Palestine. He never was. I don’t like citing Christopher Hitchens, who has become quite despicable since 9/11, but he gets Wiesel right in this essay–
link
You can’t tell from the degree the video was edited.
Who knows if he elegantly presented his stand or was just opportunistically taken out of context.
Witty’s vaunted “skepticism” in play — if you’re looking at something Jewish, obviously you just have to trust whatever happened, happened outside of the documentation.
If this were a video of a Palestinian activist speaking out about what was happening in the Sudan who was confronted about rocket attacks on Sderot, and had a similar response, Witty would be all over that.
Wittypocrisy.
“Who knows if he elegantly presented his stand or was just opportunistically taken out of context.”
You do not have the vaunted “complete material,” and neither do I – it is not clear there is any further material, you just assume it (as you always do in favor of blatant Zionists). Therefore the only reference either of us have is the past statements spoken and written by Wiesel, non of them remotely resemble “elegantly presented” and balanced stands, so it is time for you to shut up with the preponderance of the evidence that we have of what this man has written and spoken.
he elegantly presented his stand or was just opportunistically taken out of context.
Which quotes exactly suggest “opportunistic” editing? His initial humanitarian quotes? What was missing there? To use Phil’s term the special ethnocentric dimension?
He elegantly alluded to secret knowledge, which he and us don’t know. So we have to accept injustice and specific ethnic suffering till the end of times?
This elegant allusion brings us back to the secret lknowledge about tunnels into Israel in a time when Hamas kept to it’s promise. Remember?
If the “secret knowledge” is good for Israel you trust, should the Gazan’s trust too? How is he going to elegantly resolve the issue based on his initial humanitarian statements?
Here, btw, is a link to the January 24, 2001 column by Wiesel that angered Hitchens. It is pretty sleazy, a lot of talk about desire for peace mixed in with shameful lies. Wiesel is proof that great suffering doesn’t necessarily turn people into saints or consistent advocates on behalf of all oppressed people. It’s also a demonstration that the victims of one crime can become the apologists of another (not that I’m equating the Holocaust and the Nakba)-
link
Do you have any references to complete lectures and Q & A?
That would be more informative.
Seriously? Wiesel is a Nakba denier and he was given the Nobel Peace Prize? For what? Are the Nobel Peace Prize committee just completely stacked with idiots? Or are those things just foil-wrapped chocolate disks? Seems like they might as well be.
Witty, do you not know how “google” works?
Why would it be more informative? Those are Wiesel’s own words, written in 2001 long after it would have been excusable for anyone to write something like this–
” In 1947 Israel accepted the plan for the division of Palestine; the Arabs rejected it. In 1948, David Ben-Gurion reached out to what was to be the Palestinian state. Not only did the Arabs reject the proffered hand; they sent six armies to strangle the newly born Jewish state. Incited by their leaders, 600,000 Palestinians left the country convinced that, once Israel was vanquished, they would be able to return home”
The last sentence is straight denialism (the rest is also misleading) and it’s also interesting that the NYT allowed it into their newspaper.
Hey Witty, have you read the Goldstone Report yet? THAT would be informative.
I don’t know if that interpretation is more accurate or less accurate than the similarly blanket “the 1948 war was an exercise in ethnic cleansing”.
If you have a more compellingly true argument, why not dialog with him at a Q & A? Calmly.
Get it on film. Present it whole so that reasonable people can form their own conclusions.
Oh I would just love to hear you apply the same moral equivocation to the Nazi invasion of Poland, Witty.
In the meantime? Wittypocrisy. Times ten.
And if you don’t know what the 1948 war was about, do yourself a favor and read the Israeli war plans, huh?
link to jewishvirtuallibrary.org
There’s more, of course.
He said that 600,000 Palestinians left because of their leaders. By 2001 it was clearly documented that a large fraction of those Palestinians were forcibly expelled. Morris had already published “Israel’s Border Wars”, which details how several thousand Palestinians (mostly unarmed, though not all) were killed when they crossed the borders in the years immediately following. (Since 2001 there have been more documentation from Israeli records of Israeli massacres in 1948 itself.) So what Wiesel said in that last sentence was a lie and a denial of atrocities and it was not excusable for someone in 2001 to say this–it also wasn’t excusable for the NYT to print it, though it did do the unintended service of revealing Wiesel’s lack of credibility on the issue.
There is possibly room for varying opinions on the behavior of the other Arab countries with respect to Israel in 1948 (though again, Wiesel adopts the simple-minded propaganda line), but not on Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. That happened and is only deniable by liars.
“Incited by their leaders, 600,000 Palestinians left the country convinced that, once Israel was vanquished, they would be able to return home”
They both can be true. They are each subjective interpretations. There is no basis to know whether the more accurate description is “they left a war zone”, or “they were driven from a war zone”.
And, there is no way for us to know the actual or perceived contexts at the time. Changes to interpretations of history seems like illumination as prejudices and self-talk is relaxed. At the same, changes to interpretations of history seem like rationalizations for current political theses, revisionism.
Realistic speculation suggests (I know that sounds like a contradiction) that some left entirely voluntarily permanently, some left voluntarily hoping to return, some were forced to leave.
61 years ago now. Rather than let the argument move on to current needs as basis of justice, it remains as historical contentions.
I consider the blanket “Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians” to be the simple-minded statement.
Witty? Historical record is not “subjective.” Crimes against humanity are not “subjective.”
Furthermore, a Jewish Zionist uprising invading your village, driving you out at gun point, razing your village and shooting you and your family when you try to return, is not “subjective.”
And yet guards at concentration camps are still getting put on trial for war crimes.
Wittypocrisy.
“And yet. Though all options appear to have been exhausted, peace remains our single common hope; violence and war have filled too many cemeteries on both sides. This cannot and must not go on. Most Israelis feel is I do: Palestinians must have the right to live freely and with dignity, without fear and without shame. It is incumbent upon the world and Israel to do everything to help them and to do so in ways that do not make them lose face. I am particularly concerned with the Israeli Arabs. They are citizens of Israel, and their civic rights must be protected at all costs. ”
From Donald’s link.
Does this sentiment indicate disrespect or expansionism or some nefarious conspiracy in his mind?
Actions speak louder than words, Witty. Israel and the Zionist philosophy it was founded on is colonial expansionism. You cannot deny what is actually taking place.
Sounds like Witty is in favor of historical revisionism, especially in light of
many government files more recently released from their secret classification
tombs, e.g., concerning various aspects of The Holocaust.
if the same sort of parsing were applied to any single fact of holocaust, the parser would be labeled a holocaust denier. note that one commenter felt compelled to disclaim an equivalence between holocaust and Nakba – why not?
in some countries, such a label could lead to loss of freedom; in many American institutions, such a label could lead to loss of employment. In the case of Iran, such a label could lead to threats of military attack and of economic strangulation with the goal of starving a civilian population.
in Witty-ville??
I disclaimed a direct comparison between the Nakba and the Holocaust because the Holocaust was much worse. 6 million dead vs hundreds or possibly thousands killed and 700,000 people expelled.
So I don’t compare the two–the Holocaust is up there on the list of terrible crimes of all time, while the Nakba is one of a great many terrible, but lesser crimes.
That said, Richard’s attempt at defending Wiesel’s words is, to put it as kindly as possible, ridiculous. 400 villages were leveled and hundreds of thousands of people were expelled against their will, some as the result of cold-blooded massacres. To call this anything other than ethnic cleansing is to be a denialist and not that different from a Holocaust denier (even if the crime is smaller).
I’ll remember this, Richard, any time you accuse someone here of support for violence.
As for Wiesel’s nice words, they are cancelled out by his lies. It’s common among Western defenders of atrocities (not just Israeli, of course) to claim to have good intentions, to wish the best for everyone, even while making excuses for atrocities committed by the home team. We all know this, Witty included. Except among the most extreme, it’s not fashionable to be openly hateful.
Wiesal is a yuppie Jewish supremacist like Witty.
They possess privileged ‘identities’ – never being challenged.
So of course, the lazy bastard will just respond ‘I heard you’ – he won’t comment further because he’s a fake piece of trash.
Witty is actually slightly less of a coward though because he explains himself here (by not saying anything of meaning). With clowns like Wiesal, you just read between the lines. With Witty, just read what he’s saying – he beats himself.
Here’s another alternate headline that might apply, since so much focus on headlines is directed there by certain persons on the board.
One Holocaust survivor makes money hand over fist on the lecture circuit, another isn’t.
“Incited by their leaders, 600,000 Palestinians left the country convinced that, once Israel was vanquished, they would be able to return home”
It is now well documented that 300,000 Palestinians were expelled before May 15 1948 when the Arab League acted.
link to representativepress.org
( Abu Sitta and other Palestinian sources put the figure higher (434,000))
It is also well documented that the Arab leaders did not incite the villagers to leave. Even Hitchens testifies to this:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Wiesel knows all this.
Is it just me, or is The Economist at the heart of no less than a third and as much as half of the anti-Arab propaganda in Western civilization? Don’t trust a magazine that is unwilling to identify its authorship.
I’ve read the Economist on and off for decades and it hasn’t struck me as an Islamophobic or excessively Zionist rag.
One half-remembered example may not prove much – but the Economist did point out when there was all the anger about the Hamas rockets against Israel that the blockade was leading to several deaths every month and that many of these were of non-combatants. That did strike me as more balanced and factual than many other reports at the time.
The Economist still sticks, like Tony Blair, to its original judgment supporting the invasion of Iraq.
Mhughes,
Rocket damage in Sderot:
link to jewishvirtuallibrary.org
The bottom two are particularly horrific.
MRW,
nothing like mocking a deaf kid who couldn’t hear a rocket being flung at him.
…says the vile piece of… let’s say, work… who mocked Gazan children under siege whose guardians had to resort to painting donkeys up as zebras because so many of the animals had perished in Israel’s onslaught.
Heh, you beat me to it.
yonira is such a pretentious douche.
You two are so predictable its almost sad. spoiled little college kids trying to change the world without getting their hands dirty… I love it, if you two douche-wads are the future of America, I am making Aliyah tomorrow.
I know you two are on holiday break, why don’t you go back to the post about the donkeys and actually look at what I said, its definitely not worth my time, but i am sure you two have nothing better to do.
Witty paraphrased, and applied to similar circumstances, to clearly point out the hypocrisy and denialism:
Incited by their leaders, 400,000 GERMAN JEWS left the country convinced that, once Germany was vanquished, they would be able to return home”
They both can be true. They are each subjective interpretations. There is no basis to know whether the more accurate description is “they left a war zone”, or “they were driven from a war zone”.
And, there is no way for us to know the actual or perceived contexts at the time. Changes to interpretations of history seems like illumination as prejudices and self-talk is relaxed. At the same, changes to interpretations of history seem like rationalizations for current political theses, revisionism.
Realistic speculation suggests (I know that sounds like a contradiction) that some left entirely voluntarily permanently, some left voluntarily hoping to return, some were forced to leave.
70 SOME YEARS ago now. Rather than let the argument move on to current needs as basis of justice, it remains as historical contentions.
I consider the blanket “Germany’s ethnic cleansing of the Jews” to be the simple-minded statement.
Denialism. It doesn’t get any prettier when you apply it to what happened to the Palestinians. Another case of Witty’s Jewish exceptionalism. When the Nazi Germans did it, it was ethnic cleansing, when Zionist Jews did it, somehow its all too “simple-minded” to call it ethnic cleansing, despite the fact that most Israelis will now admit that ethnic cleansing was done, even as some excuse it because a Jewish state would not have been possible without it. But Witty is still in denial, because to admit ethnic cleansing is to shake the foundations of his Israel fantasy and his fantasy of Jewish moral superiority.
Tree, Its simple-minded because it is innaccurate, and not parallel in the slightest.
Really? Let’s play a game!
Some words are missing! Can you identify what they are talking about?
What does that sound like to you? Maybe you guessed this?
Well, here is the original text! Thanks for playing!
Pretty funny, tree and chaos.
People have an obvious and manifest right to leave their homes temporarily, especially if the area where they live has become a scene of violence. Everyone also has a right to take advice, so it is absurd to suggest that the right to avoid violence lapses if it is exercised on the advice of one’s leaders, furthermore absurd, and contrary to the whole nature of right, to suggest that exercising a right leads to loss of rights. Thus the right to leave implies and implies unconditionally the right to return.
So the refusal to the Palestinians of their right to return, which becomes the refusal of their right to share in the sovereignty over their country, is itself and has always been a massive and in a sense manifest wrong.
Well, it isn’t, I must admit, manifest within the mainstream culture of the West. That culture has accepted the obfuscating disguise of a simple moral question as a complex historical one – as if we might always turn up some documents or recordings or put together an audacious interpretation of events which would show the Palestinians in a light bad enought to justify their dispossession. The claims that ‘they were advised to leave’ play a useful part even when they are starkly false – they insinuate the idea that there could in actually be a situation where the exercise of a right should be treated a in effect as a crime, morally numbing as it is even to entertain that possibility.
I’m glad you’ve added your voice to the conversation, MHughes. You are a welcome influx of carefully considered commentary (which I openly admit, my own commentary style lacks… but I cannot help being an emotionally driven person).
Thanks for kind words! Nothing wrong with a bit of emotion.
Heh. I’ve gotten some… er, negative feedback, about the intensity I display here at times. :)
Elie Wiesel was a member of the Irgun back in 1948. AFAIK, he didn’t shoot anybody. He was a journalist. A propagandist. And he still is a propagandist.
Wiesel is a big hawk. And he never criticizes Israel, no matter what Israel does.
He has become a wealthy man, in part because of the ties he has with the Holocaust Industry. (I once ran across a speakers agency that listed speakers and their fees. Wiesel was in the category $50,000 and up. At that rate, 20 speeches = $1Million). If he were to criticize Israel, he would risk breaking those ties. He’s not about to run that risk.
Wiesel is a big hawk, and a big hypocrite. Lots of pious blather about his concern for human suffering, combined with support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, and support for the war in Iraq.
Before that rumor is repeated “Ned”, that Wiesel was a member of Irgun, you better provide a source.
Uri Avnery was a member of the Irgun. Wiesel?
From the “Jewish Virtual Library”:
link to jewishvirtuallibrary.org
Richard, this stuff is easy to look up, why don’t you try it before shooting your mouth off? I googled “Weisel Irgun” and got a Wikipedia entry that cited the Jewish Virtual Library passage I quoted. Took me 1 minute of googling.
Witty’s arguments are as sound as his prejudice, and he has plenty of that to the hilt. His challenge for “Weisel” is based on the same foundation, prejudice, and is as strong as his suspicions of edited material and the “elegantly presented” response that does not exist. Completely full of shit.
Maybe its true. I never heard it before. Very limited involvement.
Witty! Professional apologist for (Zionist) terrorists.
Actually, tree, this time Richard is right. The jewishvirtuallibrary is making more shit up, as so many organizations have done with stories and personalities from that time. You just have to look at the timeline to suss that one out. Enters school in Sept 1948 and then takes off for Israel, but somehow manages to get within his doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne? Studying at the Sorbonne was a very formal affair; no California-dreamin’ show up for a class here, a class there once a week. I’ve known Wiesel’s relatives from Sighet for over three decades. More than half the stories they told me about him are completely different than what’s published about him; in fact, half his history is made up of whole cloth, esp since the Nobel Prize, and he’s the chief exaggerator. His family regaled me with with stories as they mocked the tales he tried to pass off in front of them at seders. They spoke Yiddish and Hungarian in Transylvania, and some Rumanian. No Hebrew, because I asked over 30 years ago; enough to be cantors and rabbis, but not fluently. And Yediot Achronot certainly did not keep Foreign Correspondents that they paid to go around the world, if you check it. Some rich guy ran it as a hobby and his sons ran the paper. In 1948 there was a mass exodus of Yediot Achronot journalists and editors to form Maariv. Wiesel lived in Paris with his sisters Hilda and Bea right after the war — not that romantic story about his sisters seeing his picture two years later — they all were supposed to have been sent to the same concentration camp, remember? so the sisters knew where he was — and his family told me, he taught Yiddish in Paris to make ends meet. I heard this long before he was mr. famous. There’s more but this is enough.
I just want to correct part of what I wrote above, because I am writing from memory. The notes I took then are not with me so I can’t check. After writing this I seem to remember that I was told Elie also spoke French, or was exposed to French, because that was the language of the intelligensia in Rumania, the language of books, even though Sighet bounced back and forth between Hungarian to Rumanian ownership like Bialystock in its region. The dialect — combo of Hungarian and Rumanian and some other language (Yiddish?) in Transylvania, where Sighet is located — is the indigenous language, not pure Hungarian, nor pure Rumanian.
Hitchens nailing Wiesel as an imposter–note the US Army- posed pic of Jewish
camp inmates and the text on that:
link to fpp.co.uk
To readers: Please note that Citizen is linking to David Irving’s site.
And I’ve linked to the Virtual Jewish Library at times. What’s your point?
The point is to smear the poster and invalidate anything he says. A commonplace nasty tactic.
We can read, WJ.
And the original article is dated February, 2001.
Guilt by association, WJ?
I don’t know why Cit linked to that site instead of The Nation’s, but the fact that Irving picked it up doesn’t invalidate the original essay.
Yeah, big deal. Irving’s site has been parked since he went to jail in Austria for years. So Irving picked it up. So what? Google has started to put anything against Zionists reported on white supremacist sites or David Dukes’ site in the top 10 for the past six months thinking everyone will shrink from linking to it.
There’s two ways to play that manipulation.
Yes, David Duke has AIPAC quotes up there also, so lets throw them under the bus…lol Same goes for Levi Shemtov, etc.
Yes, I’m sure that Citizen’s attitude towards David Irving is the same as David Duke’s attitude towards AIPAC.
Let’s say it were. That’s nothing compared to the racist, genocidal Israeli attitude towards Palestinians.
Yes, I’m sure you’re sure–you must be God. You should change your nick to
crystal ball jew, just to be consistent. My attitude towards AIPAC is the same as Walt’s and Mearsheimer’s. My attitude toward Irving is that he has done some objective and some slanted history pieces. My attitude towards Duke is that he is a racist. BTW, let’s here a few of your trusted objective sources.
Here’s the link I was referring to:
link to rense.com
I don’t know why Cit linked to that site instead of The Nation’s, but the fact that Irving picked it up doesn’t invalidate the original essay.
The original essay has already been linked to in this thread by Donald on Dec. 12 at 1:23 p.m. You don’t know why Cit linked to David Irving instead of to the original essay? I can suggest a theory or two for you to consider.
You’ll say anything to avoid talking about the actual essay, won’t you?
How about maybe to piss you off. :-) Get you hyper-ventilating with self-righteousnous.
Give it a break, WJ….or are you worried that others might be taking you to task for cavorting on a site where links to David Irving aren’t banned?
Dont you know that Irving was banned from continuing his site by court order? He had some great aggregated news on his site.
I was not aware when I posted that the original article had been so recently posted here. The original did not come up immediately when I did my search and I was in a hurry. Hitchens has some objective and well-written gravity; or at least he use to–
I can suggest a theory or two, also. Like it was the first link that came up on Google and Cit didn’t recognize the name of the site, he only saw The Nation’s headline.
But you have to take this as evidence that he’s a “jewhater”. This is called “prejudice.” And character assassination.
The arguing techniques of anti hasbara- 1. you’re wrong; this is not an example of Jewhating and then the fallback 2. you’re right it is Jewhating, but you or Israel are worse. and also 3. why do you talk about that rather than what I want you to talk about.
You want to wag-wag-wag at Chaos for linking to someone you disapprove of, and that we could care less about. Chaos has been on this board a long time.
It wasn’t chaos; it was citizen.
Don’t bother. WJ is an intellectual coward. What he wants is you to distract yourself with his runaround and ignore the original article from the Nation.
Citizen has been on this board a long time. Nothing changes. There’s no need for your innuendo.
Here you go, WJ. The original article from the Nation.
link to thenation.com
I doubt you have the spine to discuss it, of course.
In the article Christopher Hitchens attacks Elie Wiesel who a few days earlier had attacked the Israeli team’s negotiating position vis a vis Jerusalem in January of 2001 when the Barak government was still in power negotiating with the PA.
First Hitchens refers to Wiesel with these words and phrases: poseur, windbag and grotesque deference. Then he gets down to specifics.
The quote from Wiesel’s op ed piece in the NY Times:
“As a Jew living in the United States, I have long denied myself the right to intervene in Israel’s internal debates….”
First Hitchens accuses Wiesel of membership in the Irgun, whereas his presence in Israel before the declaration of the state and before the disbanding of the Irgun has not been proven.
Then Hitchens attacks Wiesel’s statement: “the fact that I do not live in Jerusalem is secondary; Jerusalem lives within me… That Muslims might wish to maintain close ties with this city unlike any other is understandable. Although its name does not appear in the Koran, Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam. But for Jews, it remains the first. Not just the first; the only.”
Wiesel continues that Jerusalem is “mentioned more than 600 times in the Bible,” which Hitchens correctly points out consolidates rather than weakens the attachment of Christian Palestinians to the city.
In this throwaway line (in parentheses) Hitchens casts aspersions on the mention of Jerusalem in the Bible. “Incidentally, let me ask any reader how often the city is mentioned in the Torah.” Because Jerusalem is not mentioned by name in the first five books in the bible (which would have been difficult for the city was not established as an Israelite city until the time of David which occurred hundreds of years after the first five books of the Bible.) somehow weakens the Biblical attachment to Jerusalem.
Then Hitchens attacks Wiesel’s assertion that in 1948, “incited by their leaders, 600,000 Palestinians left the country convinced that, once Israel was vanquished, they would be able to return home.”
This assertion by Wiesel is indeed unconfirmed by any evidence that I have seen and thus to dismiss it as a lie is appropriate.
Then Hitchens quotes Israel Shamir, a man who since 2001 has converted out of Judaism and who has a questionable reputation regarding veracity.
In the piece of Shamir’s that Hitchens quotes, Shamir speaks glowingly of the Islamic culture’s contributions to the beauty of Jerusalem, a sentiment that I share.
Then Hitchens quotes Wiesel’s apparent support for the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, with no words of remorse for the inhabitants of Sabra and Shatila.
In essence I agree with Hitchens, I was pleased when Ariel Sharon was forced to quit as defense minister and when Begin was forced to resign as Prime Minister. (Since then I think that Sharon was an effective Prime Minister from 2001 until 2006, especially when compared with Barak, Olmert and Netanyahu. He was not a man of peace, but he was a man of action. His withdrawal from Gaza was a step in the right direction, but the avoidance of any political content to that withdrawal served to strengthen Hamas and create a vacuum in Israel’s wake and that vacuum was not filled by anyone and taints that withdrawal with an aftermath of lawlessness.) (Since then I think that Begin was a great man vis a vis the peace treaty that he signed with Sadat and his austere lifestyle contrasts favorably with the corrupt men I just mentioned : Barak, Olmert and Netanyahu.)
Unlike Wiesel who opposed any compromise on the Old City of Jerusalem I would favor a compromise on the Old City. I think the connection of diaspora Jews to Jerusalem definitely allows them to express their opinions, but those on the ground in Israel vote for the Knesset and the Knesset members should vote regarding the future of Jerusalem. At this point in time most Knesset members are not as willing to compromise regarding the future of the Old City as I am.
(Another note: If one has in one’s possession a link to an article about the most famous Holocaust survivor and one has to choose between linking to the Nation or to a web site that belongs/belonged to the most famous Holocaust denier, I would think that temperance if not wisdom would lead one to link to the Nation and the choice of linking to the world’s most famous Holocaust denier is not irrelevant.)
Wonderful. So where did you cut and paste that analysis from? I’m guessing your words are the “Another note” parenthetical at the end. Pressing a persistent ad hominem is more your style.
Uncalled for, Chaos.
Alright, fine, that was a low blow, but we only got that analysis at all because he was pressed, and only after I called WJ out for lobbing false accusations of anti-Semitism around and trying to bury the actual article. And then he still has to include an innuendo attack at the end of his post.
You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust that WJ is willing to insincerely say nice things about Palestinians just to make some elbow room for himself to justify Israel’s crimes later on. He points out in his own post that Jerusalem is only a Jewish city after the fact — “which would have been difficult for the city was not established as an Israelite city until the time of David which occurred hundreds of years after the first five books of the Bible.”
So Israel does not have any divine Jewish claim on Jerusalem and WJ is dishonest for endorsing, even tacitly, Israel’s military expansionism into the West Bank. Who had armed troops occupying Jerusalem first, by 1948? Jordan… or Haganah?
I should clarify my remarks regarding Israel, Judaism and Jerusalem — I am saying that the nation of Israel has no right to Jerusalem, especially by military invasion and ethnic cleansing. Jewish access to the Holy City is another matter entirely — but then that’s not a practical problem right now, only Muslim or Christian access… thanks to Israel.
Chaos, I don’t think you are right or fair here. I think WJ took an hour to really discuss this in detail.
WJ, many would not have a clue what Irving’s website’s address is, and I would suspect, who the Irving is.
With all due respect Eva discussion of all of the by WJ while commendable is still open to criticism, I would dare say that the preponderance of his posts bear the same marks as others who defend Zionism here (you will notice I do not make a distinction between “extreme and light,” that is because one cheers when shooting and the other cries). Recitation of content does not answer anything that Hitchens wrote, except a nod that prejudicial reading has occurred. So with this i mind lets just look at a few things that WJ has mentioned.
Mentioning the fact of Barak’s government as opposed to others makes no sense in the historical context, because it is by the so-called “liberal” Zionist parties that a good portion of the damage has been done. During Barak’s time in the midst of the negotiation there was more territory stolen than the last three administrations – in the midst of the “peace negotiation.” The very framework and results of the “negotiation” provided the worse preconditions of Israeli/ Palestinian relationships to this day (ostensibly growing worse with a foundation of the bogus agreements).
Calling Wiesel a “poseur, windbag and grotesque deference,” is rather mild in comparison to the statements he has made, and it also is a trademark of English style in argument. The idea of making much adu about ad hominem is a characteristically US trait, especially in the light of the following facts in argument – if the personal attack does match the impact of the argument it is questionable, but not in the case of a gross offender like Wiesel. That is because Wiesel is the quintessential argument of “correct by Holocaust” embodied, and he has used it shamelessly and repeatedly (in a “tearful” manner), and he was a chief proponent in the Holocaust Industry giving it the appearance of a moral voice. He is the grand master of excusing all of the atrocities committed by the Israeli government who until recently made its survivors eat dog food while it built a monument to the Holocaust, and siphoned all their designated money to build facts on the ground of their “great society.”
In regard to the charge of Wiesel being in the Irgun, apparently many have not read his Memoirs, All Rivers Run To The Sea (I like it when people defend someone or accuse someone and have not even read his writings…). In light of the fact that he rages on about how offended he was that Ben Gurion call to dismantle Irgun and paramilitary organization hardly makes him innocent.
When speaking about the “attachment” of Jews to Jerusalem for purposes of worship is not denied, what is denied and also not mentioned by WJ is that almost ALL attacks on Palestinians have used the “religious” bridge to finally dispossess the Palestinians from their homes and land. So, just like the despicable use of the Holocaust to smother the moral voices of the Palestinians in the name of numerous atrocities, so Judaism is used as a tool for the same. On a personal note, they do this in my name, and than they use the military hardware of the US to murder innocent men, women and children – I strongly reprobate this.
In the spirit of brevity lets get down to Sharon, when WJ gives accolades to the murderous and corrupt Sharon, whose corruption early on was so severe that it could not even be given the classic treatment of Israeli whitewash but had to be answered. “A man of action,” what temerity and slop. Than the leap to the accusation of lawlessness on the part of the Palestinians! When Gaza from that point forward was turned into an open air prison, sealed by air, land, and sea – simply amazing that such a bogus position would be proffered.
Deliberations about what the Knesset member should do in regard to the Old City is quite besides the point, it is a setting of theft and dispossession of the Palestinians – this is what the Knesset deliberates, not on compromise. All the wishes of good will do nothing to expose the reality of the given scenario, and appeals to a corrupt body asking it to compromise is absolutely fatuous. The final remark made in parenthesis is not even worth mentioning, it is just a case of the patently thin veneer of this inadequate fig leaf offered by WJ so filled with pedestrian “tolerance” for the purpose of gaining recognition.
Which brings us to a simple conclusion, if someone is going to take up a defense or anaylsis of a position, or display an uninformed opinion sometimes it is better to say nothing at all.
VR – Clearly discussion with me is not worthy in your estimation, so this advice does not apply in my case, but I would recommend that if there is ever someone around who you might wish to dialogue with, you might rein in your contempt and you might find some areas of agreement. Whereas Phil Weiss seems to indicate that discussion is one of the goals of this site, if you agree with him, you might wish to take off your halo for thirty seconds and deign to listen to people who don’t agree with you.
Yes yes WJ predictably you’re only response possible. Maybe it should have dawned on you that in order to post what I did I had to read the post you made, I just strongly disagreed. It is not necessary to be in total agreement to have dialogue, but it is necessary to answer heavily veiled presuppositions in someones post, that might have a degree of persuasion for the naive. Than again it may just be that you are not aware of the facts I posted, and further still some use the light ignorant thrust to gain an audience (similar to Witty’s “expert/agnostic” ploy, only using minor points to establish credibility).
VR- Regarding the Ehud Barak government compared to other governments. I think the settlement enterprise (except for the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter in the Old City) was a mistake and insofar as Barak deepened the settlement enterprise he was no better than the others.
Looking back in time, my opinion on the chances of actually reaching an agreement back in 2000 vary. Today I am the pessimist: I don’t think Arafat wanted an agreement. When I watched Arafat’s hesitation on the signing of the Gaza portion of the accords in May of 94 I became convinced that Arafat would not sign a final peace treaty unless he had no choice and between the Israeli public’s hesitations and Clinton’s unpreparedness, there was very little chance that there could have emerged a peace treaty out of Camp David.
I was too vague when I referred to the lawlessness that emerged because of the vacuum left in place after Israel removed its forces from inside Gaza. The lawlessness was on both sides, not just the Palestinian side. I think the siege is “lawless”. I certainly think that Hamas and Palestinian society in Gaza’s reaction to the withdrawal was lawless as well.
My politics is more practical and less ideological. For example: when I heard that they were kicking Arab families out of the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood, I thought, “Why kick them out? Let the Arab families stay there and pay rent.” When I found out that this was in fact what the courts had ruled back in ’88, I felt that I had been fooled by the headlines. Still I oppose kicking out the families at this time, because it is provocative.
The Zionist movement was and is a movement with an emphasis on military power. This is unfortunate, but I feel it is impractical to wish that it had been otherwise, given the history of the years between 1920 and 1945. The expulsion of the Palestinian refugees is unfortunate, but given the leadership of the Zionist movement and the history of the Arab rebellion of 1936 to 1939, it feels inevitable to me.
Finally there are those that feel that given the violence perpetrated by Israel the sensitivity of people like me to Jewhatred is misplaced. I will not argue the point. I will point out Jewhatred whenever I see it. If someone comments smilingly at some comments written on David Irving’s site, I will react to that. I will try to avoid condemning everyone on this site or on this talkback for specific individuals’ Jewhating comments, but reacting and pointing out Jewhatred is something I will continue to do.
On the European side of the Atlantic Ocean and even on the American side of the Atlantic Ocean there are habits of incivility in discussions and arguments that have developed. Since peace and justice are far away and not on the horizon I cannot point to a goal that this incivility is holding us back from and I too am capable of losing my temper. Yet, I think that civility is preferable to nastiness.
Very interesting post, VR. Wiesels’s outrage at Ben Gurion is odd.
(1) Curiously, I just ordered All Rivers Run to the Sea earlier today. Because of his description on pages 139-140 about the Red Army putting lethal “Jewish Communists” in charge of running the national police from early 1944 until the end of the war. This was when General Zhukov, with his army of 5.5 million, was bearing down on the Nazi army (3 million) and running them back in Germany with amazing dispatch and power. Zhukov broke the Nazi back and liberated Auschwitz.
Look at the map of Zhukov’s move from August/43 to December/44.
link to en.wikipedia.org
The Romanian “Jewish Communist” police went on a trail of terror — Romania was allied with Germany until Zhukov showed up, then switched — used the Sighet town jail to exterminate the Romanian elite in 1944, from politicians to police to writers etc. Sighet was predominantly Jewish, yet Wiesel claims that the Nazis showed up in the town of Sighet in May 1944 and hauled them all off to Auschwitz. Sighet was controlled by Romania from the end of WW1 to the start of WWII, then Hungary claimed it. Here’s what Wiesel wrote: “The red army had given control of the police to some young Jewish communists returning from Bucharest, the labor battalions, and the camps. Whom else could they have any confidence in? (one of them, Aczi Mendelowics, later become Amons Monor, chief of formidable Shin Bet Security Service in Israel).” Zhukov reached Romania at the start of 1944. [For those without the book you can search on parts of the quote using Amazon's Look Inside search feature.] So, I await the book.
(2) Ben Gurion despised Menachem Begin and what Begin and Shamir were doing with their gangs. Reason why he started the Mossad…to take away their power, and why he made the institution uncompartmentalized: everyone had to know what the other was doing. (In 1967 Ben Gurion said, “If Menachem Begin ever becomes Prime Minister that will be the death of Israel,” which I heard second-hand and later confirmed directly with Teddy Kollek Jr. Ben Gurion called Sharon a “gangster” and never conceived that Israelis would elect him PM. Ben Gurion had a real animus against Begin.) Ben Gurion may have been many things but he understood what he had to do to start a country, and what he had to do to keep a country. That’s a rare quality in a revolutionary; not even Fidel Castro could pull it off. He was a real statesman. And Wiesel is a prevaricator with no stature to judge Ben Gurion’s reasons.
To be absolutely fair to Wiesel he also stated later that he did admire Ben Gurion, although he disagreed with his course. I am glad you are getting the book, do read it in the context of historical analysis, and even with such caution you can find, lets say, persistent themes in his content which are not becoming.
As an aside let me say something about historical inconsistencies in some instances, as an example of the foregone conclusions of such in lets say, Simon Wiesenthal’s obvious difficulty with facts, etc. I was once asked by someone why I went so easy on the criticism of Wiesenthal when there were so many inaccuracies – it was at first and uncomfortable question for me.
As much as I full force condemn current practices in Israel against the Palestinians, it is markedly difficult for me to verbally assault my Holocaust elders even when I disagree with them particularly about what some claim like Wiesenthal. This is because no matter how much we dislike it we live in a wounded community, that is just the nature of recent history and some of our personal experiences.
There are times when you have been so crushed and hurt that you want to lash out and you want justice so bad that you are sometimes given to myth, and myth creating. I can remember in some of my experience wanting to embellish my reactions and activity because the truth was painful, I resisted and it was in no way remotely close to the suffering of the Holocaust. We live the pain by proxy, some have seen it in their parents who survived – or their grandparents (though the majority died), and it reverberates down to my generation. The fact being that you would want what someone said about Nazi hunting to be true, and you wanted to believe it badly because their must be something attained of justice for such barbarity and unforgivable atrocities.
I only write this because I do not want people to think I delight in having to demand the truth, especially in the current debacle between Israelis and Palestinians. The only shield that you can hold as you disagree and defend the rights of victims is the Never Again, it must be universal, and that way you can stand against what is wrong having not left the moorings of the lessons of tragedy among us.
VR
it must be universal
Absolutely, otherwise there is no lasting value to the suffering. Otherwise, the suffering is just the way of the world, and not its scourge.
WJ I read you’re response wit interest, and I can appreciate some of the conclusions because of the verbiage you use (practical, unfortunate, provocative, feel), so I am going to be kind and chalk it up to you just don’t know.
Glad to see that you agree on Barak. When you get into observing Arafat and your take on the situation I think you need to do more study. I am not going to elaborate, because if I do on each of your points we are in the wrong venue and it would require voluminous writing.
In regard to your comment on the withdrawal from Gaza I am just amazed at how you blank out about the whole context of the debacle. Not only in regard to the “power vacuum,” but the reaction you have to the squeeze of the tiny territory. In regard to Sheik Jarrah the Ottoman documents are available to the public, and there was no authority to kick them off the property from the caretakers, because that is all they are in owning nothing, merely caretakers because they held the land in trust for the Palestinians have not owned anything (just like the properties in Israel proper that are supposed to be held for “when the Palestinians return,” which are being sold with impunity). You are just going to have to do your own study on the matter. So doing what they did is not only “provocative,” it is illegal.
It seems like you are deficient in knowing what took place during the mandate yours, and if I dredge up what I have previously writter on this blog it will be for a third time, so I am just not doing it. The best recommendation I can make for you (because many of the official materials I have read are not readily available to you) is to read The Iron Cage by Rashid Khalidi – it will keep you from making ill informed comments about the riots in the 30′s (as well as deliver evenhandedly what was taking place at the time). Google “Michael W, VR, and mandate” for this site, or “Richard Witty, VR, mandate” and find it for yourself. In reference to military force and the “inevitable” I am of the view of Buber, Arendt, and Einstein (in your paragraph you should have developed the Mandate period before you spoke about military force, because the two are inextricably tied together for a number of reasons), and believe that as Buber said the use of force was the following of Hitlers lead of might makes right, rather than the way of the spirit (therefore in all good faith I cannot delight in what Israel has done or become, nor participate).
In regard to Jewhatred I totally agree with you, if we are talking about true Jewhatred. I have had a few run ins here with antisemitic trolls. However, I do not believe imprisoning people is the proper way to address the situation, unless you are going to afford that same opportunity to others – nor do I think the current course of suppression in the USA of those who disagree with Israel’s policies can be confounded with antisemitism nor be construed as a criminal offense.
I have had numerous conversations about “civility” when it is trying to trump facts and truth, I will never abandon one for the other. You mistake brisk, blunt, and clear for incivility – which is swiftly becoming the last refuge of no argument. Please be assured that I appreciate your comments, and look forward to more.
RE: “In essence, I agree with Hitchins.”
Interesting that you finally read the article and agree with it’s POV; why didn’t you read it in the first place and comment on its content? Instead you smeared the url source (a messenger) and with it, me (a secondary messenger). But stalwart regulars on this blog called you to account, including MRW, Chaos, Postherd.
Well, here’s some more on Wiesel’s contributions–please read it and comment on its content, not on me (whom you don’t know). Thanks.
Here’s the link I was referring to:
link to rense.com
Regarding the Cockburn article cited by rense.com: Wiesel is not a flawless man, neither in his memory (feasibly) nor in his morality. Those who weren’t in Auschwitz can judge his morality (on the Israel Palestine issue) easier than they can judge his memory.
Citizen, you not only referred to the Hitchens article, you also referred to the text under a photo on the Irving site. “–note the US Army- posed pic of Jewish
camp inmates and the text on that:” Are you merely the messenger on that too? Should I not draw some conclusion from that?
David Irving is a historian of some repute. He is also a scumbag of some repute. If one wishes to quote an article by Hitchens about Wiesel, might I suggest googling the words Hitchens and Wiesel. If you feel that David Irving is not a scumbag, then I suggest you continue linking to his web site.
My recommendation to you WJ is to look what I said in response to Eva’s deference to your previous statements regarding Wiesel.
“That is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.”
vs.
“As a Jew living in the United States, I have long denied myself the right to intervene in Israel’s internal debates.”
Elie Wiesel doubleplusgood doublethinker.
It’s simple, really. Palestinians don’t count as human beings.
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