'I wouldn't cry if he was killed'

Wiesel speaks of petition against Ahmadinejad, signed by 50 Nobel laureates.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
elie wiesel (photo credit: AP [file])
elie wiesel
(photo credit: AP [file])
Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor Eli Wiesel, 81, spoke out against both the Iranian regime and the Goldstone Report on Tuesday, in an interview with Army Radio.The prolific author and 1986 Nobel Peace Prize laureate has put together a petition denouncing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, signed by about 50 other Nobel prize winners, which will run as a full page advertisement in newspapers such as The New York Times.
“We’re sure that the president of Iran, the world’s No. 1 Holocaust denier, plans to destroy and annihilate the Jewish state, and bring disaster to the entire world,” he said. “We plan to distribute the petition... so that it reaches as many people as possible.”
Ahmadinejad is “dangerous because he openly claims that he wants to annihilate the State of Israel, to exterminate another six million Jews,” Wiesel said.
“I wouldn’t cry if I heard that Ahmadinejad was assassinated,” he quipped, calling the Iranian president “a pathological danger to world peace.”
Wiesel also leveled fierce criticism at the Goldstone Report, which accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
“One thing is clear to me, that document was unnecessary,” he said.
Of the report’s main author, South African jurist Richard Goldstone, Wiesel said, “That man has a good name, and I’ve known him for years... He should have refused to head the committee, because of the anti-Israel mandate under which it was established.”
“I can’t believe that Israeli soldiers murdered people or shot children. It just can’t be, and Goldstone certainly should have thought twice before taking a role in such a body,” Wiesel said.