Elie Wiesel, David Axelrod Talk Fanaticism, Appear To Reach Agreement On Park51 (VIDEO)

UPDATED

White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel sat down at the 92nd Street Y in New York City Wednesday night to talk about a perceived swell of fanaticism and intolerance in the country.

Wiesel, a holocaust survivor, appeared disturbed by the growing power in this campaign season of certain political pundits that he claimed were using hyperbolic, inflammatory and hateful attacks on the President to stir up hostility.

"This time there are...more than 20 million people who listen to certain political commentators, so to speak, the language they use, some of them compare President Obama to Hitler. How far can indecency go?" Wiesel asked. "I understand adversity, of course political adversaries, but there is hatred. Why such hatred?"

Wiesel continued:

"In this campaign, there is already a new political fanaticism which I believe is dangerous and unworthy of [this] noble American tradition," he said.

"We've seen in the last 20 months an unwillingness to compromise egged on by the kind of discourse that you're talking about," Axelrod responded. "The big test after November is whether people are going to accept the sense of responsibility on both sides to move the country forward. We're eager to do that, but the environment is working against that."

Axelrod asked Wiesel about his views of what he saw as the growth of frenzied political and religious activity.

"I'm afraid that fanaticism is like a black plague, it's contagious," Wiesel continued. "Why I'm so worried is that it's growing in many, many quarters."

According to Ben Smith of Politico, the conversation then shifted to how these issues of fanaticism and tolerance correlated to controversial plans to build an Islamic community center two blocks away from Ground Zero.

Wiesel, 82, said his solution would be to affirm to Imam Faisal Rauf that "I know your intentions are good" but that his plan would "hurt some people who have suffered."

"Let's turn it around - let's do it together. Jews, Christians, and Muslims together will create this place, a center for interfaith, but sponsored together, financed together, worked out programs tighter, and show a symbol of solidarity, of religious solidarity," Wiesel said. "It can become a very great symbol here - a great monument for humanity."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Axelrod replied, later calling it "a great idea" and one that "gives me hope."

UPDATE

On Thursday afternoon, Axelrod e-mailed a statement to Greg Sargent at the Washington Post saying he did not endorse any sort of compromise:

I was at a forum with Elie Wiesel. In answer to a question, he threw out an idea about an interfaith center. I said I thought it was an intriguing idea. But he didn't make a formal proposal, nor did I make an "endorsement."

WATCH:

Comments

[SrAN]

08:29 AM on 10/09/2010

I have deep respect for Elie Weisel. And this only deepens that respect. I completely agree that interfaith work needs to accomplish what this Imam proposes. But I do not think it should stop at just the Abrahamic religions. They need to open the doors to all religions such as Pagans, Buddhists and Hindus to name a few. Open the center where all faiths can come to commune together and learn from each other. This discussion is definitely a step in the right direction, especially from someone who has lived through the violent side of diversity and extremism.

[ebg2465]

05:35 PM on 10/08/2010

Yet me get this straight. Two Jews have reached an agreement on how a privately financed Muslim community center should be converted into an interfaith center for Jews, Christians and Muslims. Well how wonderfully colonial of them! Maybe the 52nd Street Synagogue should be converted into a Mosque in the name of ecumenicism. I'm sure we can find two Muslims who would make such an ignorant request because there are sure enough Jews and Christians who think who do. Wiesel should stick to what he does best, excusing Israeli injustice to Palestinians in the name of the Holocaust.

[lunarsnare]

01:16 PM on 10/08/2010

Many in the middle like myself are appalled by the extremism on the outer fringes both sides increasingly bullying themselves into the middle.
I don’t hate republicans
Don’t care for Palin and Co., but the some of the stuff said here on HP is disturbing and definitely border line on h@te speech.
The same can be said for the other side about the Obama.
No side here is better than the other, though they like to think so.
As they continue to top each other in meanness and outrageousness, they poison the dialog, divide and disgust each other.
Way to much outrage by proxy.
Totally cool to disagree on issues.
But in the end you only get respect if you bring respect.
And that's what's missing.

[mommom]

11:16 AM on 10/09/2010

Bringing respect would require you to say "President Obama",not "the Obama".

[HeadlessHessian]

11:59 AM on 10/08/2010

"I understand adversity, of course political adversaries, but there is hatred.
Why such hatred?"
This passage says it all.
I'll leave the answer to your own experience and not inject my own perceptions and conclusions

[siamao]

08:22 PM on 10/08/2010

Faved!

[wyb]

11:00 AM on 10/08/2010

Elie knows what well what the twenty percent, illiterati of a nation, can do to the rest.

[fibre akaiso]

08:50 AM on 10/08/2010

Why did Elie Wiesel win the nobel?...Hope he will one day believe in the absolute right to self determination, freedom, world citizenship and international morality for ALL people and nations and condemn occupations, colonialism. That will be noble Mr nobel

[Frog in a pot]

01:54 AM on 10/08/2010

“Charles Murray is a darling of the right wing and he isnt ignorant...not by a long shot.But he is a dangerous bigot with the veneer of respectability slatherered on him.The Bell Curve is a racist thesis giving cover to the right wing for its disgusting ideas.

"The book argues that I.Q. scores -- and their large genetic component -- are the key to understanding who gets ahead in America and who languishes in crime, poverty and dependency.

The authors say the country is witnessing the rise of a cognitive elite, people who are intermarrying and passing on to their children their genetic advantages. They see an underclass operating in reverse, with unemployed men and welfare mothers passing on genetic disadvantages in communities rife with disorder. As the gap widens between the mental haves and have-nots, the authors predict the rise of a new conservatism, "along Latin American lines," with the cognitive elite employing repressive, police-state tactics to protect themselves from the growing danger.

."Unsurprisingly, Murray sees the low intelligence of the poor as a reason to abandon remedial education and similar programs designed to help them, since "for many people, there is nothing they can learn that will repay the cost of teaching."


www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/magazine/daring-research-or-social-science-pornography...

Read him and you'll need to shower after to get the stench of eugenics off .”

[siamao]

08:23 PM on 10/08/2010

Very interesting and link appreciated, but what does it have to do with this article?

[Frog in a pot]

01:47 AM on 10/09/2010

just trying to show the back ground and intellectual foundation for "conservative " "thinking".
They dont believe in public education and use bigots like Murray to excuse their racism and classism.

[Frog in a pot]

01:52 AM on 10/08/2010

Alot of teabaggers are Ayn Randian cult members......you want to see where some of the intolerence comes from?


"in her spare time wrote lavish torrents of praise for serial killers and the Bernie Madoff-style embezzlers of her day. She opposed democracy on the grounds that "the masses"—her readers—were "lice" and "parasites" who scarcely deserved to live. Rush Limbaugh hails her as a prophetess. With her assertions that government is "evil" and selfishness is "the only virtue," she is the patron saint of the tea-partiers and the death panel doomsters."

How Ayn Rand Became an American Icon

www.slate.com/id/2233966 · Cached page

She created an entire philosophy designed to make sociopathy normalized and selfishness a virtue.

[bill987654]

09:59 AM on 10/08/2010

F & F

...thanks for the article...

[siamao]

08:28 PM on 10/08/2010

Don't know about you, but old Ayn Rand was high school reading for me.
"Fountainhead", "Atlas Shrugged", ad nauseum. By the end of a couple
years of college, folks were way beyond Ayn's pitifully contrived philosophy.

The only sense that I can make of it is her celebration of "selfishness",
and there are apparently TPer folks just willing to take that seriously in
today's complex world of diversity. It would be as if suddenly there
emerged a political party which embraced Skinnerian concepts and
thought child rearing should be done in a Skinner Box. I won't
say that too loudly; some nut might just latch on to the concept!

[Frog in a pot]

01:44 AM on 10/09/2010

My lips are sealed........they take things too literally you know.

[lizr]

01:31 AM on 10/08/2010

isnt it time for the mods to come back from coffee break and start doing the job?

[Nel Pineda]

01:15 AM on 10/08/2010

Yes! Let's build it together.

Let's show the Baggers that there are left of us who are willing to listen to each other.

[Joshy X]

12:18 AM on 10/08/2010

Elie Wiesel has just gone on record as saying a mosque at Ground Zero is a Mistake

[Pandaforum]

12:31 AM on 10/08/2010

he's right.

[lizr]

12:36 AM on 10/08/2010

only because wackos on the right have made it a platform for making political points.

[PitBull6]

02:07 AM on 10/08/2010

Like those liberal New York whackos...on the right?

[Joshy X]

07:58 PM on 10/08/2010

only wackos want a mosque at the ground zero hole... funny the people don't

[Rescisco]

11:59 PM on 10/07/2010

The fanaticism and intolerance in the country is indeed growing. A growing number of people, on all sides of the partisan divide correctly find it difficult to believe that the best interests of the American people are being served by the existing system and they are past impatient with the current state of affairs. But instead of finding some common ground to exert intelligent control over the course of a nation held captive by corporate criminals and political hacks, they have taken to demonizing each other, dismissing fact, embracing fantasy, nominating and electing ever more feeble brained candidates, airing the oldest of fears and prejudices, and debating utter nonsense. This of course perpetuates the status quo and the corporate death grip on our economy and our politics. The "new political fanaticism" is the product of the oldest human weaknesses and the tool of corporate deciet, corruption, and plunder.

[siamao]

12:14 AM on 10/08/2010

Fanned and faved--if you'll permit me to go all compulsive and correct the spelling
in your last sentence--deceit (i before e except after c, remember?)!  I just want
to make sure that all get the message of your excellent, well written comments
that "corporate deceit", corruption, and plunder" have been with us for over
a decade, and unfortunately our POTUS of 18 months gets ALL the blame!
So unfair!

About those "feeble brained candidates" which you emphasize, I wonder what
history will write about the tendency here in the most complicated of complex
times--that there seems to be pure chicanery in selecting those seemingly
most likely to make an even greater mess?  As one of our HP commenters, jetski,
observed so wisely today: People are now running on a platform of, "I am not a witch!"

[Kimiko Austin-Rijs]

06:45 AM on 11/02/2010

I'm not a witch....I'm you!

[siamao]

11:51 PM on 10/07/2010

There's a point made by Ellie Wiesel which bears repeating verbatim.  (One word,
according to my humble understanding, is a name which is not allowed on this site,
but since it's a quote, I hope it is allowed.) 

This time there are...more than 20 million people who listen to certain political
commentators, so to speak, the language they use, some of them compare
President Obama to Hitler. How far can indecency go?" Wiesel asked.
"I understand adversity, of course political adversaries, but there is hatred.
Why such hatred?"  [emphases added]

Thank you Ellie Wiesel for your astute observation and courage to proclaim the truth.
When I've seen the President of the United States belittled or devalued with coy terms
or modern idioms, I empathize with the great indignity that has been done to a good and
decent man, and that emphatic attunement evokes shame--shame for those who generate
such intolerance, especially those in high profile situation who don't recognize their own
execration for what it is. It is exactly as Ellie Wiesel has described it to be: hatred.

[Pandaforum]

12:33 AM on 10/08/2010

I'm sure you agree that this also applies to those who did the same to President Bush.

[siamao]

12:51 AM on 10/08/2010

No, now you're using distraction through digression to try to diminish
the strength of my message and that of Mr. Wiesel.  He was NOT
talking about politics during the Bush era, or the scurrilous names
or criticisms of George W. Bush.  He was talking about the
political climate of fanaticism and hatred during the immediate
political environment--midterms 2010--and YOU KNOW IT!

"In this campaign, there is already a new political fanaticism
which I believe is dangerous and unworthy of [this] noble
American tradition," he said.  [emphases added]

You are disingenuous and disrespectful of both Mr. Wiesel's message
and my summary to try to dilute the emphasis on current political fanaticism.

[lizr]

01:30 AM on 10/08/2010

no, while Bush was hated, it was for his actions and he was not demonized for his race, nor demeaned.

there was respect in the media for the office of the President. But now that it is a BLack Man, no such respect, apparently, needs to be shown.

[lizr]

12:39 AM on 10/08/2010

thanks Siamao...

and kudos to Elie Wiesel for having the courage to speak the truth about the indecent and immoral behavior of those who would destroy our political discourse,and demean our country.

They do not deserve to be called Americans.

[siamao]

12:53 AM on 10/08/2010

Thanks, lizr, for your strength, as always!  Faved again.

[lizr]

01:08 AM on 10/08/2010

thank you Siamao for your kind comments, even though in the infinite wisdom of you know who they were scrubbed.

Big hug of appreciation!

[pantherburns]

11:12 PM on 10/07/2010

Elie Wiesel has lived it and seen it up close. I'm not surprised he's disturbed by the sight of the level of religious intolerance and the undercurrent of violence coursing through the right wing in this country. They can't accept not ruling and if democracy has to go to reach their ends, I'm sure they would jettison it in a heartbeat. It wouldn't surprise me if he sees this as a replay of the rumblings of 75 years ago.

[Pandaforum]

12:34 AM on 10/08/2010

it is you who are spreading hate. Wiesel did not say right wing at all. 

[lizr]

01:09 AM on 10/08/2010

it's obvious who is spreading the hatred and fear.

The Right wing and Fox - this is not a matter of dispute.

[lizr]

01:31 AM on 10/08/2010

no one needs to say it.

it is quite obvious to everyone he is talking about right wing Republican, Fox behavior.

[lizr]

01:10 AM on 10/08/2010

F/F

Exactly.

[rougebaisers]

10:43 PM on 10/07/2010

More dangerous that Washington being a cesspool of corruption and corporately owned?