London Times refuses to run Elie Wiesel ad denouncing Hamas' human shields

[Fozzledick]

The London Times refused to run an ad featuring Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel speaking out against Hamas’ use of children as human shields.

The ad sponsored by The Values Network, which was founded by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, has run in The New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among other U.S. newspapers. The refusal was first reported by the New York Observer.

The London Times refused the ad because “the opinion being expressed is too strong and too forcefully made and will cause concern amongst a significant number of Times readers,” according to a statement from a representative of the newspaper, the Observer reported.

Headlined “Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago. Now it’s Hamas turn,” the ad began running last week. It reads, in part: “In my own lifetime, I have seen Jewish children thrown into the fire. And now I have seen Muslim children used as human shields, in both cases, by worshippers of death cults indistinguishable from that of the Molochites.

“What we are suffering through today is not a battle of Jew versus Arab or Israeli versus Palestinian. Rather, it is a battle between those who celebrate life and those who champion death. It is a battle of civilization versus barbarism.”

Countering the London Times statement, Boteach said in his own, “Elie Wiesel is one of the most respected human beings alive, a Nobel Peace Laureate, and is the living face of the Holocaust. No greater expert on genocide exists in the whole world. His call for the end of child sacrifice by Hamas, who use children as human shields, and a stop to their genocidal charter, which calls for the murder of Jews everywhere, could only offend the sensibilities of the most die-hard anti-Israel haters and anti-Semites.”

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.609096

[oberliner]

1. Has the ad run in other papers?

If so, do you know which ones?

Edit to Add: I believe it's run in the NY Times and Washington Post.

[Fozzledick]

2. Um, according to the article

The ad sponsored by The Values Network, which was founded by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, has run in The New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among other U.S. newspapers. The refusal was first reported by the New York Observer.

[DonViejo]

3. Aside from the papers mentioned in the article?

The ad sponsored by The Values Network, which was founded by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, has run in The New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among other U.S. newspapers.

Interesting. The Murdoch owned WSJ ran the ad, the Murdoch owned Times won't.

[oberliner]

4. Somehow I missed that the first time through

Last edited Wed Aug 6, 2014, 11:50 PM - Edit history (1)

Wondering if it's run in any non-US papers.

[4now]

5. Good for them

We don't need that kind of ignorant bigotry in the world.
What a sick and disturbing creature he is. I don't care what his reputation used to be.
I would say that Israeli settlers in the occupied territories are human shields also.
Netanyahu used the deaths of 3 students in the occupied territories to start this war.

[Shaktimaan]

6. Well, he's not wrong though.

What about his letter constitutes bigotry iyo?

How could the settlers be human shields? Hamas and Islamic jihad, etc., actively target Israeli civilians. Their presence hardly offers soldiers any protection. Actually, the soldiers are there to protect the settlers.

Can you give me an example of the IDF using settlers as cover for launching attacks or to hide amongst? You know, like what Hamas does.

Lastly, if it was bibi who started this war, how do you explain the existence of all those tunnels into Israel? It was the destruction of one of them (which also killed several Hamas fighters), that instigated the rocket fire from Gaza. And that tunnel was certainly built way before those kids were kidnapped.

[4now]

7. He is blinded by his own hatred

How sad.

[Fozzledick]

10. Why are you so desperate to make excuses for Hamas' practice of child sacrifice?

Vilifying Elie Wiesel for speaking out against genocide is sinking pretty low.

[leftynyc]

8. They're afraid to

They know what will happen - rioting in the streets. They've helped create a Frankenstein and have zero control over it.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

9. "Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago"

but as long as they sacrfice Palestinian children they apparently don't give a fuck.

It is pretty sad that the endless cry of victimization comes from the chorus of Israel apologistas minus much if the victimization. That now gets lumped onto the back of the Palestinians.

I'm glad that the ad was rejected. It's premis is foul.

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. Public opinion in the UK is generally strongly against Israel's actions in Gaza.

Last edited Thu Aug 7, 2014, 01:20 PM - Edit history (1)

Israel is seen as the aggressor, and Israel's actions with regard to the occupied territories are broadly seen as barbaric and unjustifiable. Running an advert like that would in fact probably offend a significant percentage of the Times' readership. It would be seen here as exactly what it is: a cynical public relations ploy designed to lay responsibility for the hundreds of children killed in Gaza at the feet of Hamas, rather than the IDF. It's no different in that respect to Golda Meir's sickening bit of piety "we can forgive the Palestinians for killing our children, but we can never forgive them for making us kill theirs".

And Weisel is a sanctimonious hypocrite. (See for instance his campaigning against recognition of the non-Jewish victims of Nazi genocide in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum...which earned him some harsh words from Howard Zinn, among others.)