CounterPunch
July 7 2004
Elie Wiesel’s Strange Parade
Madman or Commissar?
By MICKEY Z.
Parade Magazine took full advantage of Independence (sic) Day falling
on a Sunday by hiring none other than Elie Wiesel to pen a little
something called “The America I Love” for their patriotic cover
story. Over a two-page spread, the “Nobel Laureate” explained how
America “for two centuries, has stood as a living symbol of all that
is charitable and decent to victims of injustice everywhere…where
those who have are taught to give back.” The perpetually disheveled
Wiesel explained that in the U.S., “compassion for the refugee and
respect for the other still have biblical connotations.”
Those same thoughts coming from a housewife in Peoria or truck driver
in Boise are typically chalked up to ignorance so, perhaps Elie
Wiesel is just an idiot…too simple-minded to discern reality from
fantasy. But we can’t let him off the hook so easily when, after
reminding us-yet again-of his Holocaust experiences, the winner of
the Presidential Medal of Freedom admits, “U.S. history has gone
through severe trials” (apparently this is how Nobel Peace Prize
winners think: it’s “history” that undergoes trials). Ever careful to
point out his bearing witness to the civil rights movement (and
equally careful to avoid explaining what that means), Wiesel calls
anti-black racism “scandalous and depressing.” But, take heart, black
America, because dear Elie adds “racism as such has vanished from,
the American scene.”
Roll over, Mumia…and tell Leonard Peltier the news.
Wiesel deigns to mention a few more of America’s indiscretions but is
at the ready to explain: “No nation is composed of saints alone. None
is sheltered from mistakes and misdeeds” (more scholarly talk:
“mistakes,” not “policy”). “America is always ready to learn from its
mishaps,” he writes. “Self-criticism remains its second nature.”
This is the territory of madmen and commissars. Who else speaks such
words…and is convinced they speak the truth? Precisely what kind of
man is this professional sufferer, Elie Wiesel? Here are two peeks
behind the myth:
While Wiesel’s documentation of the Nazi Holocaust has earned him
international acclamation and a Nobel Peace Prize, he is not always
predisposed to yield the genocide victim’s spotlight. In 1982, for
example, a conference on genocide was held in Israel with Wiesel
scheduled to be honorary chairman, but the situation became
complicated when the Armenians wanted in. Here’s how Noam Chomsky
described the incident: “The Israeli government put pressure upon
[Wiesel] to drop the Armenian genocide. They allowed the others, but
not the Armenian one. He was pressured by the government to withdraw,
and being a loyal commissar as he is, he withdrew…because the
Israeli government had said they didn’t want Armenian genocide
brought up.” Wiesel went even further, calling up noted Israeli
Holocaust historian, Yehuda Bauer, and pleading with him to also
boycott the conference. “That gives an indication of the extent to
which people like Elie Wiesel were carrying out their usual function
of serving Israeli state interests,” Chomsky explains, “even to the
extent of denying a holocaust, which he regularly does.” Why not
welcome the Armenians, you wonder? Chalk it up to two conspicuous
factors: the need to monopolize the Holocaust(tm) image and the
geopolitical reality that Turkey (the nation responsible for the
Armenian genocide) is a rare and much-needed Muslim ally for Israel.
In Parade, Wiesel also speaks of brave American soldiers bringing
“rays of hope” to the people of Iraq. However, such rays were not
welcome in Central and South America when Israel served as a U.S.
proxy for proving arms to murderous regimes like that of Guatemala.
In 1981, shortly after Israel agreed to provide military aid to this
oppressive regime, a Guatemalan officer had a feature article
published in the army’s Staff College review. In that article, the
officer praised Adolf Hitler, National Socialism, and the Final
Solution-quoting extensively from Mein Kampf and chalking up Hitler’s
anti-Semitism to the “discovery” that communism was part of a “Jewish
conspiracy.” Despite such seemingly incompatible ideology, Israel’s
estimated military assistance to Guatemala in 1982 was $90 million.
What type of policies did the Guatemalan government pursue with the
help they received from a nation populated with thousands of
Holocaust survivors? Consider the words of Gabriel, one of the
Guatemalan freedom fighters interviewed in 1994 by Jennifer Harbury:
“In my country, child malnutrition is close to 85 percent. Ten
percent of all children will be dead before the age of five, and this
is only the number actually reported to government agencies. Close to
70 percent of our people are functionally illiterate. There is almost
no industry in our country-you need land to survive. Less than 3
percent of our landowners own over 65 percent of our lands. In the
last fifteen years or so, there have been over 150,000 political
murders and disappearances. Don’t talk to me about Gandhi; he
wouldn’t have survived a week here.”
Similar stories can be culled from countries throughout the region,
but apparently have had no effect on the rulers of the Jewish state.
For example, when Israel faced an international arms embargo after
the 1967 war, a plan to divert Belgian and Swiss arms to the Holy
Land was implemented. These weapons were supposedly destined for
Bolivia to be transported by a company managed by Klaus Barbie…as
in “The Butcher of Lyon.”
One Jewish figure that might be expected to find fault with such
policy is, of course, Parade cover boy Elie Wiesel. Here is an
episode from mid-1985, documented by Yoav Karni in Ha’aretz, which
should put to rest any exalted expectations of the revered moralist:
When Wiesel received a letter from a Nobel Prize laureate documenting
Israel’s contributions to the atrocities in Guatemala, suggesting
that he use his considerable influence to put a stop to Israel’s
practice of arming neo-Nazis, Wiesel “sighed” and admitted to Karni
that he did not reply to that particular letter. “I usually answer at
once,” he explained, “but what can I answer to him?”
One is left to only wonder how Wiesel’s silent sigh might have been
received if it was in response to a letter not about Jewish
complicity in the murder of Guatemalans but instead about the
function of Auschwitz in 1943.
In Parade, Elie Wiesel claims he discovered in America “the strength
to overcome cynicism and despair.” It sounds like what he’s actually
overcome is honesty and compassion.
Mickey Z. is the author of two brand new books: “The Seven Deadly
Spins: Exposing the Lies Behind War Propaganda” (Common Courage
Press) and “A Gigantic Mistake: Articles and Essays for Your
Intellectual Self-Defense” (Library Empyreal/Wildside Press). For
more information, please visit: