Jewish Leader Henry Siegman on Gaza: ‘A Slaughter of Innocents’
Henry Siegman was born in Germany three years before the Nazis came to power in 1933. In a two-part interview with "Democracy Now!," he discusses the Israeli assault on Gaza, the myths surrounding Israel’s founding in 1948, and his evolution from German-Jewish refugee to leading voice among American Jews and vocal critic of Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories.Henry Siegman was born in Germany three years before the Nazis came to power in 1933. In a two-part interview with “Democracy Now!,” he discusses the Israeli assault on Gaza, the myths surrounding Israel’s founding in 1948, and his evolution from German-Jewish refugee to leading voice among American Jews and vocal critic of Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories.
“Democracy Now!” says of Siegman’s background:
From 1978 to 1994, Siegman served as executive director of the American Jewish Congress, long described as one of the nation’s “big three” Jewish organizations along with the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. Born in Germany three years before the Nazis came to power in 1933, Siegman’s family eventually moved to the United States. His father was a leader of the European Zionist movement that pushed for the creation of a Jewish state. In New York, Siegman studied the religion and was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi by Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, later becoming head of the Synagogue Council of America. After his time at the American Jewish Congress, Siegman became a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He now serves as president of the U.S./Middle East Project.
Siegman says in the first part of the interview, “When one thinks that this is what is necessary for Israel to survive, that the Zionist dream is based on the repeated slaughter of innocents on a scale that we’re watching these days on television, that is really a profound, profound crisis — and should be a profound crisis in the thinking of all of us who were committed to the establishment of the state and to its success.” Responding to Israel’s U.S.-backed claim that its assault on Gaza is necessary because no country would tolerate the rocket fire from militants in Gaza, he remarks: “What undermines this principle is that no country and no people would live the way that Gazans have been made to live. … The question of the morality of Israel’s action depends, in the first instance, on the question, couldn’t Israel be doing something [to prevent] this disaster that is playing out now, in terms of the destruction of human life? Couldn’t they have done something that did not require that cost? And the answer is, sure, they could have ended the occupation.”
In the second part of the interview, Siegman discusses the assault on Gaza, Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel, and how peace could be attainable if the Obama administration reversed decades-long U.S. support for the Israeli occupation.
Commenting on the Hamas charter that calls for Israel’s destruction, Siegman says, “The difference between Hamas and Israel is that Israel is actually implementing [a destruction policy] — actually preventing a Palestinian state which doesn’t exist. Millions of Palestinians live in this subservient position without rights, without security, without hope, and without a future.” And on Israeli justifications for killing Palestinians in the name of self-defense from 1948 through today, he remarks, “If you don’t want to kill Palestinians, if that’s what pains you so much, you don’t have to kill them. You can give them their rights, and you can end the occupation. And to put the blame for the occupation and for the killing of innocents that we are seeing in Gaza now on the Palestinians — why? Because they want a state of their own? They want what Jews wanted and achieved? This is a great moral insult.”
‘Democracy Now!’:
— Adapted from “Democracy Now!” by Alexander Reed Kelly.
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