An Open Letter to Elie Wiesel 

Noble Laureate in Peace Andrew Mellon Professor in the Humanities Boston University Boston, MA USA

From Dr. Asad Ibn Pino*

February 4,2001

Dear Sir:

I have long followed your public career and poured over your writings with great avidity.Living in Brazil in 1985, I read the text of your eloquent speech to President Reagan urging him not to visit the graves of SS soldiers buried at Bitburg, Germany and thereby pay homage to genocide. The president went anyway, but your words were not forgotten.Your chastisement of President Clinton in 1994 for doing nothing to stop the slaughter of the Muslims in the former Yugoslavia took great courage, even though I disagreed with your proposed solution of NATO bombings. A few years ago you penned a moving essay, published in the New York Times (NYT), begging the Master of the Universe, All Praise Be Upon Him, (Subannah wa t'a ala)to forgive you for forsaking your religion during the nightmare of the Holocaust My history students have been assigned your book NIGHT, recounting that horror, and they and I both profited from your insights. I was therefore quite saddened when I read your essay "Jerusalem in my Heart", published in the NYT on January 24, 2001. You start out by saying that you are "a Jew living in the United States", and not an Israeli citizen, and so feel no compulsion to speak out on Israeli domestic politics. That is your prerogative, and an honorable political position. Much more honorable than, say, that of Cuban-Americans,(among whom I originated) who favor the US trade embargo against their homeland without having to suffer the consequences of this evil deed.

But then tell your readers that you are breaking your long-held silence on "Israeli politics" because of the question of the fate of Jerusalem, which to you is not only the capital of Israel but of all Jewry..."Mentioned more than 600 times in the Bible..." What about Muslim claims to at least partial sovereignty over the city we call al-Quds? This you dismiss by noting "That the Muslims might wish to maintain close ties with this city unlike any other is understandable. Although its name is not mentioned in the Koran, Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam. But for Jews, it remains the first; the only..." Sir, may I respectfully suggest that Allah (SWT) does not measure holiness by arithmetic. No one people can claim a piece of territory because "it is three times holier to us than to you." And, by the way, The Koran does mention Jerusalem, where it is called "the place of the Far Mosque." Having broached the issue of Jerusalem, you then proceed to enter further into "Israeli politics." Addressing the question of the right of return for Palestinian refugees in the diaspora you reject it on the grounds that "In 1947 Israel {which did not yet exist-Pino} accepted the plan for the division of Palestine; the Arabs rejected it." Of course. No one had the right to partition Palestine in 1947---not the British; not the United Nations; no one.

Dr. Wiesel, from this premise you go on to revise Middle Eastern history. You write: "Incited by their leaders, 600,000 Palestinians left the country convinced that, once Israel was vanquished, they would be able to return home." Sir, "left" is an ethically neutral verb--reminiscent of Bill Clinton's infamous "It depends on what your definition of is, is." It is logically absurd to believe that 600,000 men, women and children (and incidentally, this is the lowest estimate---the one used by the Israeli government) would leave the homes and villages they and their ancestors had occupied for thousands of years on the basis of "incitation." The Palestinians, Muslims and Christians, did not "leave", they were expelled, on the example set by massacres such as the one at Dar Yassem. Will you accept the word of an Israeli scholar on this question? Then let me guide you to THE FOUNDING MYTHS OF ISRAEL by Zeev Sternhell. Dr. Sternhell documents that not the Irgun and Stern Gang and other terrorist organizations but the Israeli army was chiefly responsible for the mass expulsions, demolitions and murders that drove most of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine from their homes. Yet, you inisist, "a mass return {of the refugees} is unthinkable. To many Israelis, that would be tantamount to suicide." What is the term, then, for the original cause of the "refugee problem"?

Diving deeper into "Israeli politics" you state: "I am particularly concerned with the Israeli Arabs. They are citizens of Israel, and their civic rights must be protected at all costs." Dr. Wiesel, there are no "Israeli Arabs." This is a racist term coined, much as calling African-Americans "Coloreds." It was coined by the Zionists to describe those Palestinians held captive in their own country. And, if you believe "their civic rights must be protected at all costs", why do you remain silent on the daily carnage of Palestinians inside Israel? (I note that of residents of the West Bank and Gazza, you have nothing to say.)

Sir, you end your essay by urging negotiators to "defer" the issue of Jerusalem for another generation, until "the faces of young Palestinians twisted with hate" disappears. No, Doctor, peace cannot wait.I shall quote another Noble Peace Laureate to you, Dr. Martin Luther King."When {Whites} tell us to 'go slow' what they really mean is, 'don't go at all'". Justice for Jerusalem (al-Quds) and all of Palestine cannot wait; and it will be seized, peacefully if possible, but by the right of force exercised by free women and men throughout history, if necessary.

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* Dr Asad Ibn Pino Asad is an Associate Professor of History at Kent State University. He can be reached at jpino@kent.edu

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