Dr. Hanan Chehata
Middle East Monitor November 11, 2011
Stѐphan Hessel was one of the jurors of this year’s Russell Tribunal onPalestineheld inCape Town. Mr Hessel, who is of Jewish origin, is lauded as a hero of the French Resistance who survived torture in Nazi concentration camps following his capture by the Gestapo in World War Two. He went on to be one of those who drafted the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In his long and distinguished career he served as a French Diplomat and a UN Ambassador. Recently, at the age of 94, he became a publishing success when his slim 4,000 word French booklet “Indignez-Vous!” (“Time for Outrage”) became an overnight best-seller, selling over a million and a half copies in a matter of months. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of this phenomenon was his harsh criticism ofIsrael, particularly its 5-year siege and 2008-9 war against the people of the Gaza Strip. MEMO caught up with Mr Hessel one morning over breakfast inCape Townand asked him to explain a little more about his stance on the Palestine-Israel situation.
Hanan Chehata: Mr Hessel, in your best-selling “Time for Outrage” you encourage people to find their own reason for indignation and encourage us all to get outraged over issues that matter, whether it’s the growing gap between rich and poor or France’s appalling treatment of illegal immigrants or anything else. You say that for you, personally, the biggest outrage isPalestine. Why is that?
Stѐphan Hessel: I say that it is the outrage that I am most concerned with for a very personal reason. I was there when the state ofIsraelwas created inNew Yorkin 1948-9. I then worked as a UN official and my friends and comrades were engaged actively in seeing to it (Israel), so that the Jews should get a state. We were all still terribly affected by the Shoah (Holocaust) and we felt thatIsraelwas essential; that the injustice done to the Palestinians when the state was created was unavoidable and that one should live with it. But then when the Six Day War started [in 1967] I felt that the Israelis did the wrong thing by colonising and occupying [the rest of]Palestine. I thought that the Israelis should have withdrawn andIsraelshould have started to make peace with the Palestinians. So from that time on I have paid many visits to Israel and to Gaza and to the West Bank and that is why I feel that what is happening there is particularly dangerous for the world because that little spot in the near East, which is only a few thousand square miles, has such historical importance. When Obama came to the Presidency I was so happy with his speech inCairoand I thought now maybe we will be able to live together peacefully, the West and Islam, and Palestinians and Israelis. For all these reasons I feel very strongly about what goes on there. I was inGazaa few months after Operation Cast Lead and I read the Goldstone Report and I even drafted a little preface for that report in German. I was therefore also very sad when Goldstone withdrew from his position. For all of these reasons, while I feel that there are many, many terrible problems in the world,Chechnya,Sudan,Guatemalawherever, this particular spot is terribly important for all of us. It is only if there is a change of mind within the Israeli government, overthrowing Netanyahu and putting somebody there who wants peace, that things can change.
HC: What can you tell us about your visit toGaza?
SH: We saw exactly what is in the Goldstone Report; of course we did not see as much as he did, he really enquired, but we saw the destruction. We saw the blockade. One could not get in or out. We managed, my wife and I, to get intoGazabecause we have diplomatic passports and somehow the French Consul-General inJerusalemmanaged to help get us in but for all others it became impossible. We found that fishing was made impossible because of the Israeli navy blockade. We saw the destruction and the lack of hope for rebuilding. The next year we also went back and saw the tunnels and we realised that this was of course the only way for the poor Gazans to receive some food and so on.
HC: You helped to draft the Universal Declaration on Human Rights but it looks as though every clause in it is being breached byIsrael. How would you categoriseIsrael’s human rights record today?
SH: I think that [this applies] not only to the Declaration – which is not a legally binding instrument – but on the two covenants on Human Rights: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The witnesses that we have heard at the Russell Tribunal here have all indicated clearly that Israel is respecting none of those covenants nor the Geneva Convention on humanitarian law so one can really say that these violations of human rights and of international law is, as we are saying in our Tribunal conclusions, something that cannot be allowed any more in our new global society.
HC: You have supported the flotilla efforts to break the siege ofGazaand you support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. You are also participating as a Juror at the Russell Tribunal onPalestinehere inSouth Africa. Do you think that, sinceIsraelclearly has no regard for international law or any international bodies, it is now down to such civil society initiatives to bringIsraelto account?
SH: It is clear to me that governments, all of our governments, are terribly intimidated by Israeli propaganda and unfortunately they are not strong enough to really act. They have drafted resolutions but they are not implementing them; they come together in Quartets but nothing occurs. For that reason we feel that civil pressure from public opinion is absolutely needed. We are not too hopeful that it will prevail quickly but I also have the feeling, and that is the focus of my “Time for Outrage”, that it is time for the civil population to take responsibility.
HC: What do you make ofIsrael’s demand that it should be recognised as an exclusively Jewish State? As someone who is Jewish yourself do you support that demand?
SH: That demand is really what allows us to say that what happens there is similar to apartheid because when there is one part which claims to be something that the others cannot be, and the others cannot be Jewish, then therefore this Jewish state is a little bit like the whites here during Apartheid South Africa saying, “we are the ones”; “we the Jews”; or “we the whites” and the others have to be disregarded. So that is why we feel that there is a similarity between what is happening to the Palestinians and South African apartheid and we are trying to show that in our statements.
HC: Many very courageous Jews have been speaking out and criticising the actions of the Israeli government: yourself, Professor Richard Falk, Ronnie Kasrils and others; are you not worried about the criticism of anti-Semitism or being labelled as “self-hating”? How do you bear the criticism?
SH: We are standing it and we are trying to convince those who throw that at us that we are more concerned for the future of Israel than they are. We feel that it is still possible forIsraelto be a good secure country living in peace with the Palestinians and that all those who disregard that possibility and say they have to be strong and violent, they are on the wrong path.
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