This is a follow-up to the dispatches on this email list in 2002 concerning Portuguese Nobel laureate for Literature, Jose Saramago, who while paying homage to Yasser Arafat on a visit to Arafat in Ramallah, said that Israel's actions in the West Bank were worse than what the Jews had experienced at Auschwitz. Needless to say, those accusations were as offensive as they were inaccurate. As I wrote at the time, Saramago obviously has no idea what a Nazi concentration camp was.
Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua said Saramago's words were "an unprecedented outrage." He said, "You cannot blame him for blindness, because this is intentional blindness." Yehoshua's words were chosen to draw a connection to one of Saramago's books, "Blindness," a 1995 novel that helped pave the way to his Nobel Prize award.
MK Tommy Lapid (Shinui), a Holocaust survivor, said Saramago had caused great damage not only to Israel, but also to his own name and standing in the intellectual world. (Unfortunately this has not proven the case.)
-- Tom Gross
IRISH NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE: ISRAELI NUKES ARE JUST LIKE NAZI GAS CHAMBERS
[Note by Tom Gross]
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire on Sunday (December 19, 2004) compared Israel's alleged nuclear arsenal to Hitler's gas chambers.
"When I think about nuclear weapons, I've been to Auschwitz concentration camp," Maguire said during a joint press conference with nuclear whistle-blower and convicted criminal Mordechai Vanunu in Jerusalem. "Nuclear weapons are only gas chambers perfected... and for a people who know what gas chambers are, how can you even think of building perfect gas chambers?" she said.
Maguire was awarded the 1976 prize for her Northern Ireland peace campaign. That prize was later badly discredited after Yasser Arafat was awarded it.
To my knowledge, Maguire has not criticized in any comparable way Iran's or North Korea's nuclear programs, nor any other country which has nuclear weapons, such as Britain, France, the U.S., Russia, India and Pakistan.
Israel follows a policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying it has nuclear arms.
I attach below a report by The Associated Press.
Shai Tsur, an Israeli subscriber to this email list, adds: "Even if Maguire is dumb enough to make the comparison in her head, why on earth does she think that the best way to engage Israelis in a fruitful discussion on nuclear disarmament is to call us Nazis?"
MISSILES HIT SYNAGOGUE IN GAZA STRIP DURING PRAYERS
Two anti-tank missiles struck a synagogue in a Jewish community in the Gaza Strip during prayer services this morning (Tuesday). No casualties were reported, but the building took a direct hit and sustained extensive damage.
I mention this because the mainstream media in general have not. Were Israel to deliberately bomb a mosque during prayers, media like CNN international and the BBC would no doubt highlight it in their main headlines.
-- Tom Gross
FULL ARTICLE
NOBEL LAUREATE COMPARES ISRAELI NUCLEAR ARMS TO NAZI GAS CHAMBERS
Nobel laureate compares Israeli nuclear arms to Nazi gas chambers
The Associated press
December 20, 2004
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/516461.html
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire on Sunday compared Israel's alleged nuclear arsenal to Hitler's gas chambers and called on Israel to lift travel restrictions on nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu.
Maguire, awarded the 1976 prize for her Northern Ireland peace campaign, was at the prison gates to welcome Vanunu when he was released in April after serving an 18-year sentence for disclosing Israel's nuclear secrets.
"When I think about nuclear weapons, I've been to Auschwitz concentration camp," Maguire said during a joint press conference with Vanunu in Jerusalem.
"Nuclear weapons are only gas chambers perfected... and for a people who know what gas chambers are, how can you even think of building perfect gas chambers?"
Israeli foreign ministry officials were unavailable for comment. In the past, Israeli officials have expressed disgust at comparisons between Israel and the Nazis, who systematically murdered 6 million Jews during World War II in an attempt to wipe out all the Jews of Europe.
Israel follows a policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying it has nuclear arms.
Since being freed from prison, Vanunu has been under rigid Israeli restrictions barring him from traveling abroad or speaking to foreigners, a prohibition he regularly flouts.
Vanunu said at the press conference that he has become estranged from his biological family and wants to spend Christmas in St. Paul, Minnesota with his adoptive parents, peace activists Nick and Mary Eoloff.
"I, as a Christian, am demanding from Israel, let me go and celebrate Christmas with my family and my friends around the world," he said. "They should give me my total freedom, I suffered 18 years in isolation in prison. They should not continue to punish me."