Michael Moore: 'Nobody who is Jewish should have to spend another day on this Earth worried about their survival...'
by Thoughtfox staff
This is a screenshot of the November 5, 2023 YouTube upload of Marc Lamont Hill’s interview with Michael Moore for the UpFront programme of Al Jazeera English. (Screenshot Credit: Thoughtfox)
In a virtual interview uploaded to the YouTube account of Al Jazeera English on November 4, the well-known American documentarian and social activist Michael Moore made a concerted pitch for peace in Palestine—and asserted the Jewish right to live safely and fearlessly worldwide.
In the interview, Moore—known for directing such controversial socio-political documentaries as Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) and Sicko (2007)—briefly touched upon a range of issues relevant to the United States and Israel, focusing upon the ongoing invasion of Palestine by Israel. Agreeing with the interviewer (Marc Lamont Hill, the host of Al Jazeera’s UpFront programme), Moore underlined the similarities between how the US had responded after 9-11—a response that led to two disastrous wars—and how Israel has been responding after October 7.
Moore argued that Israel should not continue to respond to Hamas’ violent incursion out of fear and terror—which is how terrorists themselves respond, to no great outcomes.
Harshly critical of Israel’s strategy toward Palestine historically and all the way to the present, Moore also shared his anguish and resentment as a citizen of the US—the biggest funder of Israel. ‘I, as an American, um...I'm helping to fund that...,’ he blurted in exasperation. Acknowledging that the US foreign policy is fundamentally hypocritical on the issue of human rights, he stressed that the American support for Israel has always been based upon self-interest, whereby 'the United States has been using Israel' as a strategic base in the Middle East for intelligence purposes as well as to ensure oil supply within the Middle East.
But Moore was scathing in his criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu—in the following statement, for example: 'It is very hard to trust things that are coming out of his administration.’
US media
Asked to comment on the US media’s double standards, Moore criticized the media for generally not trusting real-time Palestinian claims (through the ongoing Israeli invasion) while generally trusting those from their Israeli counterparts; he exhorted the media to put out similar disclaimers (say, regarding the lack of an independent confirmation) no matter the source, given the 'fog of all this'.
Moore nevertheless stressed, in agreement with Hill, that the US media's handling of October 7 has been wiser than its handling of 9-11. He cited a few examples to support his claim.
American opinion
Moore didn’t think that Israel has much support for how it has been handling the situation since the October 7 attack. 'The majority of Americans do not support the slaughter,' Moore said in reference to the Israeli bombardment and invasion of Palestine. 'If you're killing children in my name, with my money, that's not a war to defend yourself—that looks like something else,' he opined.
Seeking to criticize those who conflate Israel's critics with anti-Semites, Moore also highlighted the Jewish resistance inside the US to the Israeli attack on Gaza and to the notion of revenge itself.
Guarded optimism regarding Biden and prospects for the Left in the US
In his responses in the latter half of the interview, Moore was generally supportive of Biden as a pro-poor president—stressing that Biden's public posture on Israel is no indication of what he must be doing privately to steer Netanyahu (whom Biden deeply dislikes) away from the ongoing invasion of Palestine and toward letting in more aid there.
Moore also sounded cautiously optimistic about the Left’s prospects in the US. 'I don't believe Trump is going to get elected back into the White House’, he said.
Moore’s appeal to Hamas, Israel, and the world
Toward the end of the interview, Moore made a strong pitch for peace: 'None of us are safe if our response is more killing and more death.'
Without naming it, he appealed to Hamas 'to release the hostages'—and to prevent Israeli government from continuing to have an excuse for the invasion.
Moore, who has a Catholic background, also stressed the immediate need for a ceasefire—and made a general declaration supporting the Jewish right to live without fear: 'Nobody who is Jewish should have to spend another day on this Earth worried about their survival…’
In regard to what should be done as an immediate solution to the current crisis, Moore suggested the following outline for action: 'We need to stop the slaughter in Gaza; the hostages have to be returned; and sensible people—who care about peace, who care about each other—have to sit down at a table and work this out.'
The interview lasted a little under 25 minutes—and Moore claims in it that it was his first interview on TV in the aftermath of October 7.