Simon Wiesenthal responds to Desmond Tutu on Israel.

by silo Thu Oct 31, 2002 17:23

"If there is no peace in the Mideast, It is because Arafat rejected former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer of a Palestinian State and deployed terror as a deliberate means to kill Israeli civilians. This is what Arafat calls his phase by phase plan."

gross distortion of fact. palestinians were offered a micro-state, this also ignores ongoing israeli occupation.

"If there are security check points in Israel, it is because there have been 120 suicide attacks that have murdered more than 460 Israeli men, women, and children, many of those attacks carried out by terrorist groups affiliated with Arafat's own Fatah organization. If ambulances are checked, it is because the Palestinians have used them to conceal terrorists and weapons in their attacks"

conveniently ignoring the much greater palestinian death toll from state terrorism. all sides have suffered horrifically, but to dismiss or ignore the basic numbers is to resort to propaganda, which is what this news story is.

"Are Israeli policies fair game for criticism? Of course. But it is not "criticism" to falsely smear Israel as racist -- not when the Arab world seethes with a hatred of Jews more rabid even than the Nazis'."

israeli policies are racist, not only in the occupied territories, but also inside israel against the arab population.

"It is not "criticism" to accuse Israel of apartheid, when it is the Arab world that preaches "Kill the Jews!" and dances in the street when terrorists kill Israeli civilians.

It is not "criticism" to lay the blame for the violence of the Middle East at Israel's doorstep while ignoring the immense risks that Israel has taken and the sacrifices it has made in pursuit of peace with the Palestinians.

It is not "criticism" to accuse Israel of apartheid, when it is the Arab world that preaches "Kill the Jews!" and dances in the street when terrorists do so."

rhetoric & propaganda. ignored.

This is not criticism -- it is calumny. It butchers the truth and subjects Israel to an outrageous double standard. It abets the cause of the world's foremost Jew-haters -- people whose explicit goal is the liquidation of the Jewish state.

ludicrous conclusion but, unfortunately, standard amongst propagandists.

by Des Thu Oct 31, 2002 19:12

It is sad and depressing to note that a person such as Simon Wiesenthal who has personal experience of the German Fascists policies of racial genocide and ethnic cleansing has ended up supporting the very same policies been implemented by the Zionist Racists.