A Response to Elie Wiesel
Special Feature: 
Abstract: 

Below, we present a letter by Dr. Sara Roy in response to a statement by Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel. Roy’s letter, which appeared on the CounterPunch website on 9 September 2014, is a denunciation of Wiesel’s implicit allegation that Palestinian “terrorists,” rather than Israeli soldiers, are responsible for the fate of Gaza’s children.

 

Wiesel’s statement appeared under the photo of a Hamas fighter with the headline “Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago. Now it’s Hamas’ turn.” It was featured in an advertisement run by major English-language newspapers in late July and early August 2014, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Guardian. (The London Times refused to run the ad, saying it would have caused “concern amongst a significant number of Times readers.”) The ad was produced, paid for, and circulated by the New Jersey–based This World: The Values Network, a not-for-profit organization led by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.