| "He decries terrorism, yet never apologizes for the terrorism perpetrated by his employer, the Irgun, for whom he worked from November 1947 to January 1949." — Daniel McGowan |
The following letter written by Daniel McGowan about Elie Wiesel was taken from the web site of Bradley R. Smith's Committee for Open Debate On the Holocaust (CODOH), whose home page can be accessed by clicking this URL, www.codoh.com, or else the CODOH logo below: The McGowan article appears on the CODOH web site at: http://www.codoh.com/newsdesk/970706.HTML |
Elie Wiesel, the American icon of Holocaust survivors, has won hundreds
of prestigious awards. Still, he is referred to by Noam Chomsky and others
as "a terrible fraud." Why? Perhaps it is because this man who
has written literally volumes "Against Silence" remains silent
when it comes to issues involving Palestinians, issues such as land expropriation,
torture, and abrogation of basic human rights.
Perhaps it is because Elie Wiesel proclaims with great piety that "the
opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference" while he remains
totally indifferent to the inequality and suffering of the Palestinians.
Perhaps it is because he decries terrorism, yet never apologizes for
the terrorism perpetrated by his employer, the Irgun, for whom he worked
from November 1947 to January 1949. Indeed, as author David Green points
out, he chooses to stay at the King David Hotel, site of Irgun's most notorious
act of terrorism (although Prime Minister Netanyahu begs to differ, calling
it a guerrilla operation, not terrorism).
But even the prime minister cannot whitewash the terrorism perpetrated
by the Irgun at Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948. Elie Wiesel worked for the
Irgun as a journalist for its newspaper, "Zion in Kamf," before,
during and after this horrific massacre and yet he dismisses this act of
terrorism in eight short words in his memoirs, "All Rivers Run to the
Sea." He remembers the Jewish victims at Kielce, Poland (July 1946)
with great anguish and angst, but ignores the Palestinian victims of his
employer. The irony is breath-taking. It is even more shocking that the
world's best known Holocaust survivor can visit Yad Vashem and yet keep
silent about the victims of Deir Yassin who lie within his sight 1,400 meters
to the north. He bitterly protests when Jewish graves are defaced, but has
nothing to say when the cemetery of Deir Yassin is bulldozed. He refuses
to answer repeated requests that he join a group of Jews and non-Jews who
wish to build a memorial at Deir Yassin.
Elie Wiesel may profess modesty and claim he is "not a symbol of
anything" but, unfortunately, he has become a symbol of hypocrisy.
[End]