Editing Elie Wiesel (section)

===Support for the Israeli government===
In 1982, at the request of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Wiesel agreed to resign from his position as chairman of a [[International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide|planned international conference]] on the Holocaust and the [[Armenian genocide]]. Wiesel then worked with the Foreign Ministry in its attempts to get the conference either canceled or to remove all discussion of the Armenian genocide from it, and to those ends he provided the Foreign Ministry with internal documents on the conference's planning and lobbied fellow academics to not attend the conference.<ref>Ofer Aderet (May 2, 2021) [https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-how-israel-quashed-efforts-to-acknowledge-the-armenian-genocide-1.9766390 "How Israel Quashed Efforts to Acknowledge the Armenian Genocide"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210502212642/https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-how-israel-quashed-efforts-to-acknowledge-the-armenian-genocide-1.9766390 |date=May 2, 2021 }}, ''[[Haaretz]]''</ref>

==== On the Arab–Israeli conflict ====
Wiesel was critical of [[Hamas]]; he condemned them for the "use of children [[Use of human shields by Hamas|as human shields]]" during the [[2014 Gaza War]], and ran an ad in several large newspapers to express this message.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Almasy |first1=Steve |last2=Levs |first2=Josh |date=August 3, 2014 |title=Nobel laureate Wiesel: Hamas must stop using children as human shields |url=http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/03/world/meast/elie-wiesel-hamas-ad/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140813055528/http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/03/world/meast/elie-wiesel-hamas-ad/ |archive-date=August 13, 2014 |access-date=August 13, 2014 |publisher=CNN}}</ref> ''[[The Times]]'' refused to run the advertisement, saying, "The opinion being expressed is too strong, and too forcefully made, and will cause concern amongst a significant number of ''Times'' readers."<ref>{{cite news |date=August 6, 2014 |title=London Times refuses to run Elie Wiesel ad denouncing Hamas' human shields |url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.609096 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140813195428/http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.609096 |archive-date=August 13, 2014 |access-date=August 13, 2014 |newspaper=Haaretz |publisher=Jewish Telegraphic Agency}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Greenslade |first1=Roy |date=August 8, 2014 |title=The Times refuses to carry ad accusing Hamas of 'child sacrifice' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/aug/08/hamas-thetimes |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140812183434/http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/aug/08/hamas-thetimes |archive-date=August 12, 2014 |access-date=August 13, 2014 |newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref>

During his lifetime, Wiesel had deflected questions on the topic of the [[Israeli settlement|Israeli settlements]], claiming to abstain from commenting on Israel's internal debates.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/24/opinion/jerusalem-in-my-heart.html|title=Jerusalem in My Heart|first=Elie|last=Wiesel|work=The New York Times|date=January 24, 2001|access-date=December 6, 2022|archive-date=December 6, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206181838/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/24/opinion/jerusalem-in-my-heart.html|url-status=live}}</ref> According to Lebanese-American columnist [[Hussein Ibish]], despite this position, Wiesel had gone on record as supporting the idea of expanding Jewish settlements into the [[Palestinian territories]] conquered by Israel during the [[Six-Day War]]; such settlements are [[Legality of Israeli settlements|considered illegal by the international community]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/04/elie-wiesels-moral-imagination-never-reached-palestine/|title=Elie Wiesel's Moral Imagination Never Reached Palestine|date=July 4, 2016|access-date=December 6, 2022|archive-date=December 6, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206181840/https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/04/elie-wiesels-moral-imagination-never-reached-palestine/|url-status=live}}</ref> Wiesel often emphasized the [[History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel|Jewish connection to Jerusalem]], and criticized the [[Presidency of Barack Obama|Obama administration]] for pressuring Israeli prime minister [[Benjamin Netanyahu]] to halt the construction of settlements in [[East Jerusalem]],<ref>{{cite news |last=Cooper |first=Helene |date=May 4, 2010 |title=Obama Tries to Mend Fences With American Jews |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/world/05prexy.html |url-access=limited |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220102/https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/world/05prexy.html |archive-date=January 2, 2022 |newspaper=The New York Times}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=April 17, 2010 |title=Elie Wiesel: Jerusalem is Above Politics (ad also placed in 3 newspapers on April 16) |url=http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137057 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110826185139/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137057 |archive-date=August 26, 2011 |access-date=May 17, 2011 |publisher=[[Arutz Sheva]]}}</ref> stating that "[[Jerusalem]] is above politics. It is [[Jerusalem in Judaism|mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture]]—and not a single time in the [[Quran|Koran]]&nbsp;... It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city".<ref>{{cite web |title=For Jerusalem |url=http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/statementsandappeals.aspx |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150815025625/http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/statementsandappeals.aspx |archive-date=August 15, 2015 |access-date=May 17, 2011 |publisher=The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title='Tension, I Think, is Gone', Elie Wiesel Says of U.S. and Israel |date=May 4, 2010 |work=Political Punch |url=http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/05/tension-i-think-is-gone-elie-wiesel-says-of-us-and-israel/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141216003036/http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/05/tension-i-think-is-gone-elie-wiesel-says-of-us-and-israel/ |archive-date=December 16, 2014 |url-status=unfit |publisher=ABC News}}</ref>