DAPHNE ANSON: ELENA BONNER ON SHALIT AND WORLD SILENCE
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The late Russian Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov’s Jewish widow, Elena Bonner, who died recently, remarked in a speech in Oslo a couple of years ago:
“[A]nother question that has been a thorn for me for a long time. It’s a question for my human rights colleagues. Why doesn’t the fate of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit trouble you …?
[D]uring the … years Shalit has been held by terrorists, the world human rights community has done nothing for his release. Why? He is a wounded soldier, and fully falls under the protection of the Geneva Conventions. The Conventions say clearly that hostage-taking is prohibited, that representatives of the Red Cross must be allowed to see prisoners of war, especially wounded prisoners, and there is much else written in the Geneva Conventions about Shalit’s rights…. Do human rights activists also fail to recall the fundamental international rights documents? ….
Returning to my question of why human rights activists are silent, I can find no answer except that Shalit is an Israeli soldier, Shalit is a Jew. So again, it is conscious or unconscious antisemitism. Again, it is fascism.” (Hat tip: Ruth King)
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