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02/02/2006:

"Oprah and Elie Wiesel"

...While commenting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Wiesel, who has written fairly extensively on the conflict despite claiming "neutrality" and always, in his words, desiring peace while feeling "sadness" for it being out of reach, has consistently blamed the Palestinians completely for the conflict and, despite any notions of peace, has indirectly endorsed the worst of Zionist politics.

In a 2001 essay for the New York Times titled Jerusalem in My Heart, Wiesel began with the following:

"As a Jew living in the United States, I have long denied myself the right to intervene in Israel's internal debates. I consider Israel's destiny as mine as well, since my memory is bound up with its history. But the politics of Israel concern me only indirectly."

Those who know of Wiesel may question this alleged neutrality given his membership in Begin's Irgun in the 1940s (or his 1982 statement "I support Israel-period. I identify with Israel-period") but he goes on in the same essay to renounce any such neutrality on the question of Jerusalem:

"Now, though the topic is Jerusalem. Its fate affects not only Israelis, but also Diaspora Jews like myself. The fact that I do not live in Jerusalem is secondary; Jerusalem lives in meThat Muslims might wish to maintain close ties with this city unlike any other is understandableBut for Jews it remains the first. Not just the first; the only."
counterpunch.org