Israel’s First Lady of Human Rights: A Conversation with Shulamit Aloni | Democracy Now!
AMY GOODMAN: Yours is a voice of criticism we don’t often hear in the United States. Often when there is dissent expressed in the United States against policies of the Israeli government, people here are called antisemitic. What is your response to that as an Israeli Jew?
SHULAMIT ALONI: Well, it’s a trick. We always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in this country people are criticizing Israel, then they are antisemitic. And the organization is strong and has a lot of money, and the ties between Israel and the American Jewish establishment are very strong. And they are strong in this country, as you know. They have power, which — it’s OK; they are talented people, and they have power, money and media and other things. And their attitude is: Israel, my country, right or wrong, the identification. And they are not ready to hear criticism. And it’s very easy to blame people who criticize certain acts of the Israeli government as antisemitics and to bring up the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jewish people. And that’s—that justify everything we do to the Palestinians.