Geraldo Rivera was asked on the Fox show “The Five” on April 3, 2018 whether he ever regretted a story he had done.
In reply he said that he regretted not supporting Palestinians during the Second Intifada (uprising) against Israeli “occupation and oppression.” He said he regretted “chickening out” and not “adding my voice as a Jew.”
The Second Intifada was a mass, largely unarmed Palestinian uprising that began in fall of 2000. To see those killed on both sides scroll down here. For information on the current situation in Gaza go here.
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is now calling for Fox to fire Rivera.
Below is a transcript of Rivera’s remarks:
That’s an excellent excellent question. Let me tell you what I regret. I regret in 2002 backing down from backing the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel, the Second Intifada. Because I saw with my own eyes how, and I know this is going to resonate very poorly with the people watching right now– but still, I have to tell you how I feel. I saw at firsthand how those people were– and now you just had 14, 15 people killed in Gaza. Palestinians killed by the IDF forces. I saw what an awful life they live under constant occupation and oppression, and people keep saying, “Oh, they are terrorists, or they are this or they are that.”
They are an occupied people and I regret chickening out after 2002 and not staying on that story and adding my voice as a Jew, adding my voice to those counseling a two-state solution. It’s so easy to put them out of sight, out of mind, and let them rot, and be killed, and keep this thing festering. And I think a lot of our current problems stem from – that’s almost our original sin, Palestine and Israel. I want a two-state solution. I want President Trump to re-energize the peace process.
