7-302014 Henry Siegman, Leading Voice of U.S. Jewry, on Gaza: "A Slaughter of Innocents"

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/30/henry_siegman_leading_voice_of_us

 

Excerpts:

…on the face of it, Israel has a right to do what it's doing now, and, of course, it's been affirmed by even president of the United States, repeatedly, that no country would agree to live with that kind of a threat repeatedly hanging over it.

But what he doesn't add, and what perverts this principle, undermines the principle, is that no country and no people would live the way Gazans have been made to live. And consequently, this moral equation which puts Israel on top as the victim that has to act to prevent its situation from continuing that way, and the Palestinians in Gaza, or Hamas, the organization responsible for Gaza, who are the attackers, our media rarely ever points out that these are people who have a right to live a decent, normal life, too. And they, too, must think, "What can we do to put an end to this?"…

 

…An "eretz," in English—in English, it means the whole land of Israel. This is a parliamentary caucus, the largest caucus in the Knesset, which is totally dedicated to not permit any government to establish a Palestinian state anywhere in the land of Israel, headed by Likud, senior Likud members of Knesset, and headed—a party that is headed by the prime minister of Israel. And what boggles the imagination is that no one talks about this, no one points this out, and no one says, "How can you take these positions via Hamas if this is exactly what is going on within your own government that you are heading?"…

 

…That is the most important lesson of the Holocaust, not the Hitlers and not the SS, but the public that allowed this to happen. And my deep disappointment is that the Israeli public, precisely because Israel is a democracy and cannot say, "We're not responsible what our leaders do," that the public puts these people back into office again and again…

…

Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member