From Commentary, 23 November 2010, by Evelyn Gordon:
...it’s important to remember that the real barrier to an agreement isn’t flawed American diplomacy but rather the Palestinians’ refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist.
Nothing better illustrates this fact than a stunning new poll by The Israel Project.
Like every other poll in recent years, TIP found that a strong majority of Palestinians (60 percent) accept a two-state solution. This unvarying finding is often cited as proof that Palestinians do, in fact, accept Israel’s existence.
But unlike any other poll I’ve ever seen, TIP thought to ask the all-important follow-up question: is the goal a permanent two-state solution, or is the goal “to start with two states but then move to it all being one Palestinian state?”
Only 30 percent chose the first option, while fully 60 percent deemed two states a mere stepping-stone to Israel’s ultimate eradication. In other words, the PLO’s “Phased Plan” of 1974 is alive and kicking.
That plan called for Palestinians to gain control of any territory they could and then use it as a base for further assaults on Israel until the ultimate goal of the Jewish state’s destruction is achieved. Theoretically, the plan was superseded by the 1993 Oslo Accords, in which the PLO ostensibly recognized Israel and accepted the two-state solution. But it turns out that most Palestinians still view two states as a mere way station on the road to Israel’s ultimate destruction — just as the Phased Plan advocated.
This finding also explains another consistent polling anomaly: though all polls show that most Palestinians accept a two-state solution, they also show that most Palestinians oppose any deal that could realistically be signed.
TIP’s poll, for instance, found that only 24 percent support the Clinton parameters, which most Westerners still deem the basis for any agreement. A recent poll by the Arab World for Research and Development similarly found that while most Palestinians say a two-state solution is acceptable in principle, a whopping 85 percent oppose it if it requires “compromises on key issues (right of return, Jerusalem, borders, settlements, etc.).”
Since any realistic agreement will require compromises on these issues, that means most Palestinians oppose a two-state solution in practice. And at first glance, this seems schizophrenic: why support something in principle if you oppose it in practice?
But in light of TIP’s finding about the Palestinians’ ultimate goal, it makes perfect sense. If the two-state solution is intended solely as a stepping-stone to Israel’s eradication, then the compromises entailed by any realistic agreement are indeed unacceptable, because they undermine the deal’s ability to serve this purpose. A deal that gave Israel defensible borders, for instance, would reduce its vulnerability to attack, and one that nixed the “right of return” would make it harder to convert Israel into a second Palestinian-majority state.
Until most Palestinians give up the goal of Israel’s ultimate destruction, even the smartest diplomacy in the world won’t produce a deal. All it will do is waste a lot of time, money, and diplomatic capital that would be better spent elsewhere.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Nazi, alleged war-criminal Samuel Kunz dies before his trial
From The Australian, November 23, 2010, by Roger Boyes (The Times):
A NAZI death camp guard accused of complicity in the murder of 430,000 Jews has died in his bed, aged 89, before being brought to trial.
The case of Samuel Kunz, No 3 on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre list of most-wanted Nazi criminals, illustrates the fact that the hunt for Holocaust murderers has become a race against the ageing process.
(See these previous JIW postings for background.)
"It's incredibly frustrating," said Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter at the centre. "But it was important that he was indicted. At least a small measure of justice was achieved."
Kunz had admitted to being a guard at the death camp in Belzec, in German-occupied eastern Poland, between January 1942 and July 1943. The number of murders on the indictment corresponds to the number of people who died at Belzec during his 18-month tour of duty. He was also accused of the personal murder of 10 inmates in two shooting incidents.
"We were all aware that Jews were being exterminated there, and later also burnt," he told investigators. He also told them that the "corpses of the gassed Jews were buried in grave pits and cremated because the stench had become unbearable".
Kunz was questioned three times after the war - in 1969, 1975 and 1980 - but was never prosecuted. His testimony was being recorded for possible use in the trials of other suspected war criminals and he was left alone, with his state pension, to tend his garden and listen to classical music in his cottage in Wachtberg, outside Bonn.
But the German authorities have suddenly been seized by a sense of urgency. The last Holocaust survivors are frail, their memories often foggy. The Nazi perpetrators are well into their eighties and fend off prosecutors with claims of ill health.
Kunz came to the attention of German prosecutors when he was called as a witness in the case of John Demjanjuk.
Billed as the last significant Nazi war crimes trial, the German authorities have been trying the 90-year-old retired car worker as an accomplice in the killing of 27,900 people in the Sobibor death camp.
Mr Demjanjuk, frequently absent from the Munich courtroom because of health problems, denies the charges and denies having been an SS guard. Documents presented to court, however, have linked Mr Demjanjuk to a SS training camp in Trawniki. Kunz was also trained at Trawniki and was able to tell the court what kind of preparation Mr Demjanjuk received.
His testimony has already been given and the death of Kunz has no immediate impact on the trial of Mr Demjanjuk.
The problem of standing up cases against Nazi criminals was underlined earlier this year by the death of 95-year-old Erich Steidtmann.
The former police captain was suspected of taking part in mass shootings of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943. Yet he lived unobserved in Germany until 2007 when he inadvertently exposed himself through a libel case against a former lover. Before the full facts could be established, however, he died, like Kunz, peacefully at home....
A NAZI death camp guard accused of complicity in the murder of 430,000 Jews has died in his bed, aged 89, before being brought to trial.
The case of Samuel Kunz, No 3 on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre list of most-wanted Nazi criminals, illustrates the fact that the hunt for Holocaust murderers has become a race against the ageing process.
(See these previous JIW postings for background.)
"It's incredibly frustrating," said Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter at the centre. "But it was important that he was indicted. At least a small measure of justice was achieved."
Kunz had admitted to being a guard at the death camp in Belzec, in German-occupied eastern Poland, between January 1942 and July 1943. The number of murders on the indictment corresponds to the number of people who died at Belzec during his 18-month tour of duty. He was also accused of the personal murder of 10 inmates in two shooting incidents.
"We were all aware that Jews were being exterminated there, and later also burnt," he told investigators. He also told them that the "corpses of the gassed Jews were buried in grave pits and cremated because the stench had become unbearable".
Kunz was questioned three times after the war - in 1969, 1975 and 1980 - but was never prosecuted. His testimony was being recorded for possible use in the trials of other suspected war criminals and he was left alone, with his state pension, to tend his garden and listen to classical music in his cottage in Wachtberg, outside Bonn.
But the German authorities have suddenly been seized by a sense of urgency. The last Holocaust survivors are frail, their memories often foggy. The Nazi perpetrators are well into their eighties and fend off prosecutors with claims of ill health.
Kunz came to the attention of German prosecutors when he was called as a witness in the case of John Demjanjuk.
Billed as the last significant Nazi war crimes trial, the German authorities have been trying the 90-year-old retired car worker as an accomplice in the killing of 27,900 people in the Sobibor death camp.
Mr Demjanjuk, frequently absent from the Munich courtroom because of health problems, denies the charges and denies having been an SS guard. Documents presented to court, however, have linked Mr Demjanjuk to a SS training camp in Trawniki. Kunz was also trained at Trawniki and was able to tell the court what kind of preparation Mr Demjanjuk received.
His testimony has already been given and the death of Kunz has no immediate impact on the trial of Mr Demjanjuk.
The problem of standing up cases against Nazi criminals was underlined earlier this year by the death of 95-year-old Erich Steidtmann.
The former police captain was suspected of taking part in mass shootings of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943. Yet he lived unobserved in Germany until 2007 when he inadvertently exposed himself through a libel case against a former lover. Before the full facts could be established, however, he died, like Kunz, peacefully at home....
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Obsessing about the Settlements
From The JPost, 16 November, by GIL TROY*:
Barack Obama and his followers talk constantly about “The Settlements.” Obsessing over this pretends the conflict began in 1967.
Israel remains more popular ...with most Americans – than the hysterical hand-wringing suggests.
Unfortunately, Ivy- League, ivory tower, left-leaning, New York Times-reading Jewish intellectuals are souring on Israel. Typically, these elites claim to represent more people than they do, although, unfortunately, they are in sync with the president of the United States.
Barack Obama and his egghead followers talk constantly about “The Settlements.” Reducing the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict to any one dimension does violence to the truth.
Reducing the conflict to the settlements is an act of historical vandalism, defaming the memory of nearly 30,000 Israelis, very few of whom died in settlement-related violence – most of whom died because of the continuing Arab refusal to accept Israel’s existence.
Obsessing about the settlements blames Israel while absolving the Palestinians of responsibility. It is a form of liberal racism, condescendingly treating the Palestinians as if they are not accountable for their deeds and words. It ignores the fact that the delegitimization of Israel today does not stop at the settlements but attacks the essence of the Zionist project. It glides over the fact that Israel withdrew from 25 settlements in Gaza and Samaria in 2005, then endured thousands of rocket attacks and a Gaza takeover by Hamas, whose charter targets the entire Jewish state – and the Jewish people. It overlooks the fact that when Yasser Arafat led his people away from the Oslo negotiations back toward terror in 2000, Palestinians blew up Jerusalem buses, Tel Aviv felafel stands and Haifa cafes, treating all of Israel as a “settlement.”
Emphasizing the settlements pretends the conflict began in 1967, even though the PLO started in 1964, six Arab armies attacked the new state in May 1948 and the Arabs rejected the UN partition compromise in November 1947.
Emphasizing the settlements circumvents negotiation, caving in to Palestinian land claims, mindlessly embracing their one-sided narrative....
We also know that traditionally, when countries fight, the winner keeps the territory. I challenge my historian colleagues, asking them to name one example when a country won a defensive war then voluntarily returned the territory it conquered, if it had a prior claim to the land. The only answer is Israel, returning the Sinai to Egypt in 1979, relinquishing control under Oslo in 1994 and leaving Gaza in 2005...
...Fighting delegitimization is fighting for peace. Just as the Palestinians, and many Israeli and international NGOs, complain each time a Jew breaks ground outside the Green Line, Israel, the US and the entire pro-peace infrastructure must complain every time a Palestinian delegitimizes Israel, denies its right to exist or attacks the Jews. There must be zero tolerance for such language, which only discourages compromise.
...we need a coalition of conscience ...to fight demonization from all sides and to work for peace, improvising a solution based on mutual accommodation rather than stubbornly and artificially freezing boundaries in one random historical moment or another.
*The writer is professor of history at McGill University and a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am A Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today and The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. giltroy@gmail.com
Barack Obama and his followers talk constantly about “The Settlements.” Obsessing over this pretends the conflict began in 1967.
Israel remains more popular ...with most Americans – than the hysterical hand-wringing suggests.
Unfortunately, Ivy- League, ivory tower, left-leaning, New York Times-reading Jewish intellectuals are souring on Israel. Typically, these elites claim to represent more people than they do, although, unfortunately, they are in sync with the president of the United States.
Barack Obama and his egghead followers talk constantly about “The Settlements.” Reducing the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict to any one dimension does violence to the truth.
Reducing the conflict to the settlements is an act of historical vandalism, defaming the memory of nearly 30,000 Israelis, very few of whom died in settlement-related violence – most of whom died because of the continuing Arab refusal to accept Israel’s existence.
Obsessing about the settlements blames Israel while absolving the Palestinians of responsibility. It is a form of liberal racism, condescendingly treating the Palestinians as if they are not accountable for their deeds and words. It ignores the fact that the delegitimization of Israel today does not stop at the settlements but attacks the essence of the Zionist project. It glides over the fact that Israel withdrew from 25 settlements in Gaza and Samaria in 2005, then endured thousands of rocket attacks and a Gaza takeover by Hamas, whose charter targets the entire Jewish state – and the Jewish people. It overlooks the fact that when Yasser Arafat led his people away from the Oslo negotiations back toward terror in 2000, Palestinians blew up Jerusalem buses, Tel Aviv felafel stands and Haifa cafes, treating all of Israel as a “settlement.”
Emphasizing the settlements pretends the conflict began in 1967, even though the PLO started in 1964, six Arab armies attacked the new state in May 1948 and the Arabs rejected the UN partition compromise in November 1947.
Emphasizing the settlements circumvents negotiation, caving in to Palestinian land claims, mindlessly embracing their one-sided narrative....
We also know that traditionally, when countries fight, the winner keeps the territory. I challenge my historian colleagues, asking them to name one example when a country won a defensive war then voluntarily returned the territory it conquered, if it had a prior claim to the land. The only answer is Israel, returning the Sinai to Egypt in 1979, relinquishing control under Oslo in 1994 and leaving Gaza in 2005...
...Fighting delegitimization is fighting for peace. Just as the Palestinians, and many Israeli and international NGOs, complain each time a Jew breaks ground outside the Green Line, Israel, the US and the entire pro-peace infrastructure must complain every time a Palestinian delegitimizes Israel, denies its right to exist or attacks the Jews. There must be zero tolerance for such language, which only discourages compromise.
...we need a coalition of conscience ...to fight demonization from all sides and to work for peace, improvising a solution based on mutual accommodation rather than stubbornly and artificially freezing boundaries in one random historical moment or another.
*The writer is professor of history at McGill University and a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am A Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today and The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. giltroy@gmail.com
Remember the 'Refuseniks' rough road to Israel
BOOK REVIEW from The Washington Post, Friday, November 19, 2010, Anne Applebaum:
...In the years that followed, the Soviet Union collapsed; the refuseniks left the U.S.S.R. and were forgotten.
In "When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone," a fresh, surprising and exceedingly well-researched book, Gal Beckerman has retold their story. Or rather, he has retold two stories: that of the Soviet Jews who made their religion and their desire to emigrate to Israel into a protest movement, and that of the American Jews who championed their cause. Alternating chapters between Russia and the United States, Beckerman shows how the two groups developed in a strange symbiosis, even while knowing very little about each other.
Their relationship changed both groups profoundly. Beckerman believes, in fact, that advocacy for Soviet Jewry "taught American Jews how to lobby." Before the American Jewish community coalesced around the emigration issue, its leaders had been wary of transforming their money and numbers into political clout. The need to save Soviet Jews, he argues - not the need to support Israel - taught American Jews how to use the tools that are so familiar today, from "targeting local congresspeople to asserting influence on the Hill."
It's an unexpected thesis, and completely convincing. Beckerman shows that the movement did not arise out of the blue but was rather the product of the events of the 1960s:
Over time, both groups taught themselves to help each other. Like the rest of the dissident movement, activist Soviet Jews learned how to document the repression used against them and to get their reports out of the country. American Jews learned, in turn, how to beam these facts back into the U.S.S.R. on Radio Liberty, as well as how to present them to Congress, the news media and the White House. For years they pounded away at the advocates of realpolitik - Nixon and Kissinger among them - who wanted U.S.-Soviet relations to focus on arms and trade, not human rights.
In 1974, they won. That was the year that saw the passage of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, legislation that linked Soviet trade deals to Jewish emigration. Sponsored by Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a non-Jewish politician who had made this issue his own, it forced the White House to establish links between human rights violations and wider diplomatic issues. After the amendment passed, U.S.-Soviet relations were never the same...
After the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, the movement disappeared, a happy victim of its own success. In the subsequent decade, some 1 million Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union to Israel. Beckerman wants to ensure that the story of this epic struggle isn't forgotten...
WHEN THEY COME FOR US, WE'LL BE GONE...the Soviet Jews ...most of whom had applied to emigrate to Israel and had been turned down: They were "refuseniks..."
The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry
By Gal Beckerman
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 598 pp. $US30
...In the years that followed, the Soviet Union collapsed; the refuseniks left the U.S.S.R. and were forgotten.
In "When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone," a fresh, surprising and exceedingly well-researched book, Gal Beckerman has retold their story. Or rather, he has retold two stories: that of the Soviet Jews who made their religion and their desire to emigrate to Israel into a protest movement, and that of the American Jews who championed their cause. Alternating chapters between Russia and the United States, Beckerman shows how the two groups developed in a strange symbiosis, even while knowing very little about each other.
Their relationship changed both groups profoundly. Beckerman believes, in fact, that advocacy for Soviet Jewry "taught American Jews how to lobby." Before the American Jewish community coalesced around the emigration issue, its leaders had been wary of transforming their money and numbers into political clout. The need to save Soviet Jews, he argues - not the need to support Israel - taught American Jews how to use the tools that are so familiar today, from "targeting local congresspeople to asserting influence on the Hill."
It's an unexpected thesis, and completely convincing. Beckerman shows that the movement did not arise out of the blue but was rather the product of the events of the 1960s:
- Jewish participation in civil rights marches,
- the Adolf Eichmann war crimes trial,
- the Broadway debut of "Fiddler on the Roof" and
- the Six Day War...
- there was Israeli input, too. A special department of the Mossad offered seed money to the first lobbying groups and even had a couple of paid agents....
- the political thaw that followed Stalin's death,
- the growth of the Soviet human rights movement,
- the institutionalization of Soviet anti-Semitism.
Over time, both groups taught themselves to help each other. Like the rest of the dissident movement, activist Soviet Jews learned how to document the repression used against them and to get their reports out of the country. American Jews learned, in turn, how to beam these facts back into the U.S.S.R. on Radio Liberty, as well as how to present them to Congress, the news media and the White House. For years they pounded away at the advocates of realpolitik - Nixon and Kissinger among them - who wanted U.S.-Soviet relations to focus on arms and trade, not human rights.
In 1974, they won. That was the year that saw the passage of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, legislation that linked Soviet trade deals to Jewish emigration. Sponsored by Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a non-Jewish politician who had made this issue his own, it forced the White House to establish links between human rights violations and wider diplomatic issues. After the amendment passed, U.S.-Soviet relations were never the same...
After the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, the movement disappeared, a happy victim of its own success. In the subsequent decade, some 1 million Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union to Israel. Beckerman wants to ensure that the story of this epic struggle isn't forgotten...
Phosphorous bombs fired from Gaza
From Ynet News, 19 November 2010:
Palestinian sources reported that the Air Force bombed two targets in the Gaza Strip Friday afternoon, after four phosphorous bombs were launched into Israel along with three mortar shells...
Palestinian sources reported that the Air Force bombed two targets in the Gaza Strip Friday afternoon, after four phosphorous bombs were launched into Israel along with three mortar shells...
The Middle East problem ...in 5 minutes...
From Prager University, October 24, 2010:
Why is the Middle East Problem so intractable? Dennis Prager, nationally syndicated talk show host and best-selling author, answers that question in this thought-provoking video course.
Why is the Middle East Problem so intractable? Dennis Prager, nationally syndicated talk show host and best-selling author, answers that question in this thought-provoking video course.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Romania's ambivalence to its Holocaust past is undermined by new evidence
From Time Magazine, Friday, Nov. 12, 2010, by Rupert Wolfe Murray:
One day in 1941, Vasile Enache was tending his cows in the forest of Vulturi, near the city of Iasi, 260 miles (420 km) northeast of Bucharest, when he heard people sobbing. He went to investigate and saw hundreds of civilians being marched through the forest by Romanian army soldiers. Enache didn't know it at the time, but he was witnessing part of Romania's "Iasi pogrom," which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 14,000 Jews.
For almost 70 years, successive Romanian governments have downplayed the nation's role in the Holocaust. But now a suspected mass grave has been found in the Vulturi forest, and some are hoping that the discovery will help Romania face up to one of the darkest periods in its history. (See pictures of Auschwitz after 65 years.)
Rumors about a mass grave in the Vulturi forest had been circulating for years; when a similar grave was found near Iasi in 1945, it led to a trial that ended with several top military commanders being sentenced to jail. After persuading Enache to show him the exact location of the Vulturi grave, local historian Adrian Cioflinca organized a team of people from Romania's Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust to start excavating the site last month. They uncovered the remains of 16 bodies — including the skeletons of children, a lady's shoe and Romanian-army bullets from 1939 — but have since called a halt to the dig while they wait for rabbis to bless the site.
Now 86, Enache is a bit wobbly on his legs, but his eyes are still clear blue, and his memory of what happened that day in 1941 is fresh. He describes how he was grabbed by a couple of Romanian soldiers who said, "You are a Jew! Come with us." They arrived at a series of deep graves where the civilians were made to sit down, 10 at a time, and then shot. Others were ordered into the grave to arrange the bodies so more victims could be thrown in. The killings continued all day, but Enache managed to convince his captors that he was a local, an Orthodox Christian, and when this was confirmed by the local forester, he was released. (See pictures of Adolf Hitler's rise to power.)
The Vulturi forester who saved Enache died in 1945, but his daughter still lives nearby. Sitting in her kitchen, Lucia Baltaru describes what she remembers from 1941, when she was 6 years old. "We used to go and play at the grave," she says. "There was a thin layer of soil over the grave, and when we played, the bodies would move around. I think there are thousands of bodies buried there."
The site is currently sealed off by the Romanian police, who are guarding the bones and artifacts still on the site, and both journalists and the public are forbidden access. Outside the forest, an old couple had walked up from a nearby village to look at the grave. Ioan Aftanase was 7 years old in 1941 and vividly remembers columns of civilians being marched through the village. "They were in a terrible state," he says. "They were obviously hungry and thirsty and were being marched to their deaths. It was a terrible thing to do." During Romania's communist regime, it was dangerous to talk about the country's role in the Holocaust, and as a result, says Aftanase, "the young people today in the village have no idea about what happened in this forest." (See a brief history of World War II movies.)
Elie Wiesel, a Romanian-born survivor of Auschwitz, has described Romania's approach to the Holocaust as "ambivalent." Anti-Semitism was virulent in the country from the mid–19th century to the end of World War II. In 2004, President Ion Iliescu apologized for Romania's role in the Holocaust, saying in a speech before the International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, "The Holocaust was one of those serious historical issues which was avoided both during the communist period and after 1990."
According to the 1930 Census, there were 759,000 Jews in Romania before World War II. Historians estimate that 280,000 to 380,000 were killed by Romanian forces during the war, mainly in the areas of Moldova and Ukraine they occupied as part of the German thrust into the Soviet Union. Today there are fewer than 10,000 Jews living in Romania.
The communist regime, which was in power in Romania from 1945 to 1989, developed a strong nationalistic streak which, according to Holocaust historian Radu Ioanid, "tried to dilute or completely deny the responsibility of Romanians in the slaughter of the Jews, placing all the blame on the Germans." The education system has changed little since the fall of communism, and many Romanians still believe that their country's role in the Holocaust was minimal. (See a TIME cover story on the Holocaust.)
This ambivalence is reflected in the Romanian media coverage of the latest mass-grave discovery. The country's main private TV channels are skeptical, basing their reports on a statement by the chief prosecutor in Iasi, Cornelia Prisacaru, who said, "At this moment we don't know if these are civilian or military bodies. Or could they be Russian or German soldiers? The front line was in that area during World War II. We can't confirm that they are Jews." But such comments make no sense to the investigators who found so many civilian items in the grave — or to Vasile Enache, who still remembers being dragged off to the killing ground on the assumption that he was a Jew.
See if German diplomats were complicit in the Holocaust.
See why a new Hitler exhibit caused a stir in Germany.
One day in 1941, Vasile Enache was tending his cows in the forest of Vulturi, near the city of Iasi, 260 miles (420 km) northeast of Bucharest, when he heard people sobbing. He went to investigate and saw hundreds of civilians being marched through the forest by Romanian army soldiers. Enache didn't know it at the time, but he was witnessing part of Romania's "Iasi pogrom," which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 14,000 Jews.
For almost 70 years, successive Romanian governments have downplayed the nation's role in the Holocaust. But now a suspected mass grave has been found in the Vulturi forest, and some are hoping that the discovery will help Romania face up to one of the darkest periods in its history. (See pictures of Auschwitz after 65 years.)
Rumors about a mass grave in the Vulturi forest had been circulating for years; when a similar grave was found near Iasi in 1945, it led to a trial that ended with several top military commanders being sentenced to jail. After persuading Enache to show him the exact location of the Vulturi grave, local historian Adrian Cioflinca organized a team of people from Romania's Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust to start excavating the site last month. They uncovered the remains of 16 bodies — including the skeletons of children, a lady's shoe and Romanian-army bullets from 1939 — but have since called a halt to the dig while they wait for rabbis to bless the site.
Now 86, Enache is a bit wobbly on his legs, but his eyes are still clear blue, and his memory of what happened that day in 1941 is fresh. He describes how he was grabbed by a couple of Romanian soldiers who said, "You are a Jew! Come with us." They arrived at a series of deep graves where the civilians were made to sit down, 10 at a time, and then shot. Others were ordered into the grave to arrange the bodies so more victims could be thrown in. The killings continued all day, but Enache managed to convince his captors that he was a local, an Orthodox Christian, and when this was confirmed by the local forester, he was released. (See pictures of Adolf Hitler's rise to power.)
The Vulturi forester who saved Enache died in 1945, but his daughter still lives nearby. Sitting in her kitchen, Lucia Baltaru describes what she remembers from 1941, when she was 6 years old. "We used to go and play at the grave," she says. "There was a thin layer of soil over the grave, and when we played, the bodies would move around. I think there are thousands of bodies buried there."
The site is currently sealed off by the Romanian police, who are guarding the bones and artifacts still on the site, and both journalists and the public are forbidden access. Outside the forest, an old couple had walked up from a nearby village to look at the grave. Ioan Aftanase was 7 years old in 1941 and vividly remembers columns of civilians being marched through the village. "They were in a terrible state," he says. "They were obviously hungry and thirsty and were being marched to their deaths. It was a terrible thing to do." During Romania's communist regime, it was dangerous to talk about the country's role in the Holocaust, and as a result, says Aftanase, "the young people today in the village have no idea about what happened in this forest." (See a brief history of World War II movies.)
Elie Wiesel, a Romanian-born survivor of Auschwitz, has described Romania's approach to the Holocaust as "ambivalent." Anti-Semitism was virulent in the country from the mid–19th century to the end of World War II. In 2004, President Ion Iliescu apologized for Romania's role in the Holocaust, saying in a speech before the International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, "The Holocaust was one of those serious historical issues which was avoided both during the communist period and after 1990."
According to the 1930 Census, there were 759,000 Jews in Romania before World War II. Historians estimate that 280,000 to 380,000 were killed by Romanian forces during the war, mainly in the areas of Moldova and Ukraine they occupied as part of the German thrust into the Soviet Union. Today there are fewer than 10,000 Jews living in Romania.
The communist regime, which was in power in Romania from 1945 to 1989, developed a strong nationalistic streak which, according to Holocaust historian Radu Ioanid, "tried to dilute or completely deny the responsibility of Romanians in the slaughter of the Jews, placing all the blame on the Germans." The education system has changed little since the fall of communism, and many Romanians still believe that their country's role in the Holocaust was minimal. (See a TIME cover story on the Holocaust.)
This ambivalence is reflected in the Romanian media coverage of the latest mass-grave discovery. The country's main private TV channels are skeptical, basing their reports on a statement by the chief prosecutor in Iasi, Cornelia Prisacaru, who said, "At this moment we don't know if these are civilian or military bodies. Or could they be Russian or German soldiers? The front line was in that area during World War II. We can't confirm that they are Jews." But such comments make no sense to the investigators who found so many civilian items in the grave — or to Vasile Enache, who still remembers being dragged off to the killing ground on the assumption that he was a Jew.
See if German diplomats were complicit in the Holocaust.
See why a new Hitler exhibit caused a stir in Germany.
Palestinians Say No to Negotiations
From TIP, Nov. 16, 2010:
•Refusal comes ahead of Israeli govt. vote on U.S. offer
•Israeli PM pushing for freeze as gesture to restart negotiations
•PLO Executive Committee member pushes for unilateral statehood
Jerusalem, Nov. 16 - Palestinian officials said they won’t return to peace talks with Israel even if the country agrees to a three-month construction freeze the United States is pursuing as part of a package of incentives to revive the negotiations.
The Palestinians said they would only go back to the table if Israel imposes a comprehensive freeze.
"If (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu stops the settlements, we will go back to direct negotiations," said Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority. A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas echoed Erekat’s sentiment.
Meanwhile, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee said in a statement that Palestinian leaders shouldn’t negotiate and instead push for unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state via the United Nations.
The latest round of Israeli-Palestinian talks began Sept. 2 but ended a few weeks later when Abbas walked away because Israel wouldn’t extend its voluntary 10-month construction moratorium. The Palestinian precondition for a freeze in order to continue the talks was a first since the two sides began negotiating 16 years ago.
The Palestinian refusal this week comes even before a vote by the Israeli government to approve the U.S. offer. Netanyahu presented the U.S. package to his cabinet Saturday (Nov. 13); the government is expected to vote on it Wednesday (Nov. 17).
Netanyahu, who has been pushing his government to approve the offer, said Monday (Nov. 15), “We are trying to resume negotiations with our Palestinian neighbors and promote peace accords with the rest of the Arab countries.”
Defense Minister Ehud Barak too spoke in favor of the U.S. offer at a gathering in Paris.
Netanyahu met with his seven senior cabinet ministers on Saturday to try to push through the U.S. offer, which includes 20 F-35 fighter jets worth $3 billion and other advanced weaponry as a security measure in exchange for an extension of Israel’s housing moratorium.
The prime minister urged approval of the incentive package as an important gesture towards the Palestinians and a critical step towards creating a two-state solution for the Israelis and the Palestinians. The formula proposed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addresses Israel's security concerns in the region while fighting Israel's de-legitimization.
Netanyahu and Clinton met Nov. 11 for seven hours to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Washington asked Israel to immediately freeze building in the West Bank and discuss the future borders of a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu has received strong criticism and negative portrayal as "weak" in the Israeli media for trying to pass the formula, according to Israel Radio.
The U.S. administration will ask Congress to approve the incentive package in exchange for the building freeze.
•Refusal comes ahead of Israeli govt. vote on U.S. offer
•Israeli PM pushing for freeze as gesture to restart negotiations
•PLO Executive Committee member pushes for unilateral statehood
Secretary Clinton with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
(Photo: U.S. State Dept.)
Jerusalem, Nov. 16 - Palestinian officials said they won’t return to peace talks with Israel even if the country agrees to a three-month construction freeze the United States is pursuing as part of a package of incentives to revive the negotiations.
The Palestinians said they would only go back to the table if Israel imposes a comprehensive freeze.
"If (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu stops the settlements, we will go back to direct negotiations," said Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority. A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas echoed Erekat’s sentiment.
Meanwhile, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee said in a statement that Palestinian leaders shouldn’t negotiate and instead push for unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state via the United Nations.
The latest round of Israeli-Palestinian talks began Sept. 2 but ended a few weeks later when Abbas walked away because Israel wouldn’t extend its voluntary 10-month construction moratorium. The Palestinian precondition for a freeze in order to continue the talks was a first since the two sides began negotiating 16 years ago.
The Palestinian refusal this week comes even before a vote by the Israeli government to approve the U.S. offer. Netanyahu presented the U.S. package to his cabinet Saturday (Nov. 13); the government is expected to vote on it Wednesday (Nov. 17).
Netanyahu, who has been pushing his government to approve the offer, said Monday (Nov. 15), “We are trying to resume negotiations with our Palestinian neighbors and promote peace accords with the rest of the Arab countries.”
Defense Minister Ehud Barak too spoke in favor of the U.S. offer at a gathering in Paris.
Netanyahu met with his seven senior cabinet ministers on Saturday to try to push through the U.S. offer, which includes 20 F-35 fighter jets worth $3 billion and other advanced weaponry as a security measure in exchange for an extension of Israel’s housing moratorium.
The prime minister urged approval of the incentive package as an important gesture towards the Palestinians and a critical step towards creating a two-state solution for the Israelis and the Palestinians. The formula proposed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addresses Israel's security concerns in the region while fighting Israel's de-legitimization.
Netanyahu and Clinton met Nov. 11 for seven hours to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Washington asked Israel to immediately freeze building in the West Bank and discuss the future borders of a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu has received strong criticism and negative portrayal as "weak" in the Israeli media for trying to pass the formula, according to Israel Radio.
The U.S. administration will ask Congress to approve the incentive package in exchange for the building freeze.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Seeking academic integrity
From Ynet News, 10 November 2010, by Martin Sherman:
Last week a heated debate on the topic was held in the Knesset's Education Committee with the participation of Education Minister Gideon Saar. Clearly the charges as to deliberate ideological imbalance were not directed at the faculties of the natural or exact sciences but focused on the social sciences and the humanities.
... representatives of the institutes of higher learning rejected the accusations of intentional exclusion of pro-Zionist perspectives, opposed any discussion of the issue, and questioned the very legitimacy of debate on the subject, warning that it constituted a grave threat to academic freedom which could undermine democratic governance in the country. As to bias in the appointment of faculty, and in promotion criteria, they endeavored to reassure the participants that these were based solely on academic achievement and professional excellence.
However their protestations raised at least two trenchant questions.
First, With regard to academic freedom and its limitations: As early as 1919, the US Supreme Court handed down a seminal ruling that false statements which could inflict harm on others were not protected as "free speech" under the Constitution....
Surely few would contest that the very raison d'etre of academic freedom is to facilitate the pursuit of truth and not the propagation of falsehoods. For example, it is highly implausible that a geography professor would win the support of his colleagues were he to promote a theory that the earth is flat....
...How about the claims that Israel is an "apartheid state", implementing a policy of racial discrimination like that of South Africa, alleged proven by the different legal systems applied to Israeli citizens - whether Jewish or not - and to Palestinians without Israeli citizenship? After all, any informed observer must be aware that this disparity is not rooted in any doctrine of racial superiority, but in exigencies of security.
There is an enormous difference between legitimate disagreement on the prudence and/or efficacy of measures taken to defend one's civilian population, and the baseless accusation that a country - in which non-Jews are elected to parliament, appointed to senior positions in the judiciary and the diplomatic corps, and serve as ministers in the government - is in any way similar to the apartheid-era South Africa.
So if academic freedom does not apply to theories of a flat earth and non-existence of gravity, why should it be invoked to cover equally ridiculous social theories?
Real-time reality check
...In the field of social science and the humanities, it is rare that an opportunity presents itself to allow a theory to be subjected to an almost real-time reality check. Fortunately the political developments in recent decades have afforded just such an opportunity.
With the commencement of the "peace process", the virtually entire cadre of social scientists and their colleagues in the humanities endorsed a policy previously eschewed by all Israeli government; a policy whose major thrust was wide-scale withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the evacuated areas. Policy papers were written, research conducted, articles published, public declarations of support signed, all expressing professional optimism as to the rosy future this bold new vision heralded for the region. There was hardly a dissenting voice to be heard.
However, beyond the confines of the "ivory tower," many expressed their concern, warning that the noble vision was in fact a dangerous fantasy. Then came bitter reality. And alas ...the forecasts of the academic experts and the learned scholars, [were shown to be] totally baseless.
Now imagine that a group of civil engineering professors were to endorse a new revolutionary system for the construction of bridges, ...[and] all the bridges actually built by this method collapsed catastrophically, causing widespread loss of life and limb. ...surely their work would not be branded as reflecting "excellence" ...as is the case with those who endorsed the failed Oslowian "architecture" of the peace process.
The Israeli academic establishment needs to muster much intellectual integrity to scrutinize what is taking place under its alleged auspices: the propagation of baseless allegations which fly in the face of both fact and logic; misleading research whose grounding in reality is at best tenuous; almost total exclusion of faculty members who foretold the calamitous failure of the "peace process," relative to a glut of those who did not….
The Israeli academia must indeed engage in some searing soul-searching without delay. In fact, if those responsible for its future do not initiate such a process, others will soon impose it on them.
“Had such professional misconduct occurred in the natural or physical sciences there would have doubtless been serious consequences: e.g. the collapse of a bridge following phony engineering calculations… Yet it would seem that when it comes to the social sciences or the humanities… the researcher can escape punishment for the worst kind of malpractice.” Prof. Efraim Karsh in "Fabricating Israeli History"The furor over allegations of post/anti-Zionist bias in the Israeli academe refuses to subside.
Last week a heated debate on the topic was held in the Knesset's Education Committee with the participation of Education Minister Gideon Saar. Clearly the charges as to deliberate ideological imbalance were not directed at the faculties of the natural or exact sciences but focused on the social sciences and the humanities.
... representatives of the institutes of higher learning rejected the accusations of intentional exclusion of pro-Zionist perspectives, opposed any discussion of the issue, and questioned the very legitimacy of debate on the subject, warning that it constituted a grave threat to academic freedom which could undermine democratic governance in the country. As to bias in the appointment of faculty, and in promotion criteria, they endeavored to reassure the participants that these were based solely on academic achievement and professional excellence.
However their protestations raised at least two trenchant questions.
First, With regard to academic freedom and its limitations: As early as 1919, the US Supreme Court handed down a seminal ruling that false statements which could inflict harm on others were not protected as "free speech" under the Constitution....
Surely few would contest that the very raison d'etre of academic freedom is to facilitate the pursuit of truth and not the propagation of falsehoods. For example, it is highly implausible that a geography professor would win the support of his colleagues were he to promote a theory that the earth is flat....
...How about the claims that Israel is an "apartheid state", implementing a policy of racial discrimination like that of South Africa, alleged proven by the different legal systems applied to Israeli citizens - whether Jewish or not - and to Palestinians without Israeli citizenship? After all, any informed observer must be aware that this disparity is not rooted in any doctrine of racial superiority, but in exigencies of security.
There is an enormous difference between legitimate disagreement on the prudence and/or efficacy of measures taken to defend one's civilian population, and the baseless accusation that a country - in which non-Jews are elected to parliament, appointed to senior positions in the judiciary and the diplomatic corps, and serve as ministers in the government - is in any way similar to the apartheid-era South Africa.
So if academic freedom does not apply to theories of a flat earth and non-existence of gravity, why should it be invoked to cover equally ridiculous social theories?
Real-time reality check
...In the field of social science and the humanities, it is rare that an opportunity presents itself to allow a theory to be subjected to an almost real-time reality check. Fortunately the political developments in recent decades have afforded just such an opportunity.
With the commencement of the "peace process", the virtually entire cadre of social scientists and their colleagues in the humanities endorsed a policy previously eschewed by all Israeli government; a policy whose major thrust was wide-scale withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the evacuated areas. Policy papers were written, research conducted, articles published, public declarations of support signed, all expressing professional optimism as to the rosy future this bold new vision heralded for the region. There was hardly a dissenting voice to be heard.
However, beyond the confines of the "ivory tower," many expressed their concern, warning that the noble vision was in fact a dangerous fantasy. Then came bitter reality. And alas ...the forecasts of the academic experts and the learned scholars, [were shown to be] totally baseless.
Now imagine that a group of civil engineering professors were to endorse a new revolutionary system for the construction of bridges, ...[and] all the bridges actually built by this method collapsed catastrophically, causing widespread loss of life and limb. ...surely their work would not be branded as reflecting "excellence" ...as is the case with those who endorsed the failed Oslowian "architecture" of the peace process.
The Israeli academic establishment needs to muster much intellectual integrity to scrutinize what is taking place under its alleged auspices: the propagation of baseless allegations which fly in the face of both fact and logic; misleading research whose grounding in reality is at best tenuous; almost total exclusion of faculty members who foretold the calamitous failure of the "peace process," relative to a glut of those who did not….
The Israeli academia must indeed engage in some searing soul-searching without delay. In fact, if those responsible for its future do not initiate such a process, others will soon impose it on them.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in US
WASHINGTON — A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II...
The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades...
The report catalogs both the successes and failures of the band of lawyers, historians and investigators at the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which was created in 1979 to deport Nazis.
Perhaps the report’s most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi émigrés. Scholars and previous government reports had acknowledged the C.I.A.’s use of Nazis for postwar intelligence purposes. But this report goes further in documenting the level of American complicity and deception in such operations.
The Justice Department report, describing what it calls “the government’s collaboration with persecutors,” says that O.S.I investigators learned that some of the Nazis “were indeed knowingly granted entry” to the United States, even though government officials were aware of their pasts.
“America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became — in some small measure — a safe haven for persecutors as well...”
The report also documents divisions within the government over the effort and the legal pitfalls in relying on testimony from Holocaust survivors that was decades old. The report also concluded that the number of Nazis who made it into the United States was almost certainly much smaller than 10,000, the figure widely cited by government officials.
The Justice Department has resisted making the report public since 2006. Under the threat of a lawsuit, it turned over a heavily redacted version last month to a private research group, the National Security Archive, but even then many of the most legally and diplomatically sensitive portions were omitted. A complete version was obtained by The New York Times.
The Justice Department said the report, the product of six years of work, was never formally completed and did not represent its official findings. It cited “numerous factual errors and omissions,” but declined to say what they were.
More than 300 Nazi persecutors have been deported, stripped of citizenship or blocked from entering the United States since the creation of the O.S.I., which was merged with another unit this year.
In chronicling the cases of Nazis who were aided by American intelligence officials, the report cites help that C.I.A. officials provided in 1954 to Otto Von Bolschwing, an associate of Adolf Eichmann who had helped develop the initial plans “to purge Germany of the Jews” and who later worked for the C.I.A. in the United States. In a chain of memos, C.I.A. officials debated what to do if Von Bolschwing were confronted about his past — whether to deny any Nazi affiliation or “explain it away on the basis of extenuating circumstances,” the report said.
The Justice Department, after learning of Von Bolschwing’s Nazi ties, sought to deport him in 1981. He died that year at age 72.
The report also examines the case of Arthur L. Rudolph, a Nazi scientist who ran the Mittelwerk munitions factory. He was brought to the United States in 1945 for his rocket-making expertise under Operation Paperclip, an American program that recruited scientists who had worked in Nazi Germany. (Rudolph has been honored by NASA and is credited as the father of the Saturn V rocket.)
The report cites a 1949 memo from the Justice Department’s No. 2 official urging immigration officers to let Rudolph back in the country after a stay in Mexico, saying that a failure to do so “would be to the detriment of the national interest.”
Justice Department investigators later found evidence that Rudolph was much more actively involved in exploiting slave laborers at Mittelwerk than he or American intelligence officials had acknowledged, the report says.
Some intelligence officials objected when the Justice Department sought to deport him in 1983, but the O.S.I. considered the deportation of someone of Rudolph’s prominence as an affirmation of “the depth of the government’s commitment to the Nazi prosecution program,” according to internal memos.
The Justice Department itself sometimes concealed what American officials knew about Nazis in this country, the report found.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Arafat's persistent mendacity and use of terrorism lives on...
From The Rubin report, by Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal:
Six years ago, on November 11, 2004, Yasir Arafat died. On that occasion, former President Bill Clinton explained why he wouldn’t attend Arafat’s funeral:
...As the editorial in the London Times put it, he was the man who “threw away the best chance in a generation for an honorable settlement to the Middle East conflict.” In the New Yorker, David Remnick accurately wrote, “Rarely has a leader blundered more and left more ruin in his wake.”
Yet, too, perhaps, as never before in modern history, have so many relentlessly airbrushed away a leader’s career of faults and crimes. What was especially remarkable in so much of the coverage and discussion was the virtual erasure of a career in terrorism which had spanned forty years. There were no scenes of past carnage shown; no survivors or relatives of his victims interviewed. In political terms, his dedication to the elimination of another state and people, consistent use of terrorism, and rejection of peace were thrown down the memory hole of history.
The timeline for Arafat’s life prepared by both the BBC and the Associated Press omit any mention of terrorist attacks and skip the fatal year 2000 altogether. In its timeline the Associated Press only invokes the word terrorism to claim that Arafat had “renounced” it in 1988, though this had not prevented the PLO from committing scores of attacks—usually with Arafat’s blessing—thereafter.
Arabs, who knew him and his history better, were more critical. An article surveying Arab reaction in Cairo’s al-Ahram newspaper concluded that most Arab officials’ private reaction was one of “relief.”
They said he had been an obstacle to achieving peace “largely for the sake of his own glory” and called him a man “too self-centered to really care about the misfortunes of his own people.”
Not a single interviewee expressed a word of sorrow.
At the time of Arafat’s death his people still did not have a state, a functioning economy, or the most elementary security after following his leadership for thirty-five years. Much of that situation remains the same today.
Yet Arafat’s narrative had largely triumphed, certainly in persuading those who wanted to believe it that the movement he shaped and created was noble and sympathetic, a victim of other’s treatment rather than of its own policies.
Arafat was widely proclaimed a hero of national resistance for opposing an occupation that could have already ended on more than one occasion if he had chosen to achieve a negotiated peace. He was hailed as the victim in a war which he had begun and continued despite many opportunities to end the fighting. He was said to be striving only for a state when he had long invoked the idea that a separate state living peacefully alongside Israel was treason.
He was said to be popular and loved by his people even though—despite his considerable degree of real support—he stole so much from them and was ridiculed by them in private. In fact, Arafat’s performance in Palestinian public opinion polls had never been impressive. Even a British reporter who revered him admitted that Arafat didn’t have support from his people. “Foreign journalists,” she recounted, “seemed much more excited about Mr. Arafat's fate than anyone in Ramallah.”
At the time of his death he was more popular in France, where almost half the population saw Arafat as a great national hero, than among his own people. In a June 2004 poll, only 23.6 percent of Palestinians named him as the leader they most trusted.
...Since Arafat’s death, most of the leadership of Fatah and the PA has made clear their interpretation of Arafat’s legacy was the need to fight on for total victory, no matter how long it took or how much suffering or lives it cost. One Palestinian leader recalled that when, in 1993, he had reproached Arafat for signing the Oslo accords, Arafat replied that by making the agreement, “I am hammering the first nail in the Zionist coffin."
Actually, though, Arafat biggest achievement may have been hammering the last nail into the Palestinian coffin.
Six years ago, on November 11, 2004, Yasir Arafat died. On that occasion, former President Bill Clinton explained why he wouldn’t attend Arafat’s funeral:
"I regret that in 2000 he missed the opportunity to bring [Palestine] into being….” Not Israel, but Arafat did so.Today, the Arafat era’s lessons have been largely swept under the rug: his persistent mendacity, use of terrorism, cynical exploitation of an “underdog” posture to garner sympathy, and unfailing devotion to the dream of wiping Israel off the map. The placing of that last priority over creating a Palestinian state is why there is none today. Not Israeli policy, not settlements, but the preference for total victory over compromise.
...As the editorial in the London Times put it, he was the man who “threw away the best chance in a generation for an honorable settlement to the Middle East conflict.” In the New Yorker, David Remnick accurately wrote, “Rarely has a leader blundered more and left more ruin in his wake.”
Yet, too, perhaps, as never before in modern history, have so many relentlessly airbrushed away a leader’s career of faults and crimes. What was especially remarkable in so much of the coverage and discussion was the virtual erasure of a career in terrorism which had spanned forty years. There were no scenes of past carnage shown; no survivors or relatives of his victims interviewed. In political terms, his dedication to the elimination of another state and people, consistent use of terrorism, and rejection of peace were thrown down the memory hole of history.
The timeline for Arafat’s life prepared by both the BBC and the Associated Press omit any mention of terrorist attacks and skip the fatal year 2000 altogether. In its timeline the Associated Press only invokes the word terrorism to claim that Arafat had “renounced” it in 1988, though this had not prevented the PLO from committing scores of attacks—usually with Arafat’s blessing—thereafter.
Arabs, who knew him and his history better, were more critical. An article surveying Arab reaction in Cairo’s al-Ahram newspaper concluded that most Arab officials’ private reaction was one of “relief.”
They said he had been an obstacle to achieving peace “largely for the sake of his own glory” and called him a man “too self-centered to really care about the misfortunes of his own people.”
Not a single interviewee expressed a word of sorrow.
At the time of Arafat’s death his people still did not have a state, a functioning economy, or the most elementary security after following his leadership for thirty-five years. Much of that situation remains the same today.
Yet Arafat’s narrative had largely triumphed, certainly in persuading those who wanted to believe it that the movement he shaped and created was noble and sympathetic, a victim of other’s treatment rather than of its own policies.
Arafat was widely proclaimed a hero of national resistance for opposing an occupation that could have already ended on more than one occasion if he had chosen to achieve a negotiated peace. He was hailed as the victim in a war which he had begun and continued despite many opportunities to end the fighting. He was said to be striving only for a state when he had long invoked the idea that a separate state living peacefully alongside Israel was treason.
He was said to be popular and loved by his people even though—despite his considerable degree of real support—he stole so much from them and was ridiculed by them in private. In fact, Arafat’s performance in Palestinian public opinion polls had never been impressive. Even a British reporter who revered him admitted that Arafat didn’t have support from his people. “Foreign journalists,” she recounted, “seemed much more excited about Mr. Arafat's fate than anyone in Ramallah.”
At the time of his death he was more popular in France, where almost half the population saw Arafat as a great national hero, than among his own people. In a June 2004 poll, only 23.6 percent of Palestinians named him as the leader they most trusted.
...Since Arafat’s death, most of the leadership of Fatah and the PA has made clear their interpretation of Arafat’s legacy was the need to fight on for total victory, no matter how long it took or how much suffering or lives it cost. One Palestinian leader recalled that when, in 1993, he had reproached Arafat for signing the Oslo accords, Arafat replied that by making the agreement, “I am hammering the first nail in the Zionist coffin."
Actually, though, Arafat biggest achievement may have been hammering the last nail into the Palestinian coffin.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Establishing the true facts on the ground ...all the way to Amman
From the announcement of a meeting with David Wilder and Noam Arnon, Councilmen, leaders and spokesmen for city of Hebron, Israel, Thursday, November 18, 2010 at Luxe Hotel Sunset, Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles:
Arab leaders know that if Israel is willing to give up any of its land, that means we don't believe it belongs to the Jewish people For if we did believe the land is ours, we wouldn't think of abandoning it.
Hebron is one of Israel’s holy cities. It is the home of our Patriarchs and Matriarchs, including Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. Jews have lived in Hebron throughout the thousands of years of our history. For nearly a thousand years, the Islamic rulers of the Holy Land forbade Jews from entering the tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, allowing them to climb only seven steps into the tomb but beating them mercilessly if they rose any higher. In 1929, an Arab pogrom led to the massacre and expulsion of all the Jews living in Hebron at the time.
Through the miracle of the Six Day War, Israel liberated Hebron in 1967 and the Jews returned to reclaim their ancient city. Since that time the Jews of Hebron have been surrounded by tens of thousands of bloodthirsty Arabs who lust to replicate the pogrom of 1929. The Jews of Hebron live under the shadow of terrorism every day, and are demonized and defamed by Israel’s enemies. Yet they live their lives with dignity, vowing never again to be separated from their origin.
There is only one Jewish state. In contrast, the despotic Arab League includes 22 Arab states, and 56 countries under the Organization of the Islamic Conference, (OIC) define themselves as Muslim nations. Yet only Israel is singled out for condemnation. It is anti-Semitism, plain and simple.
The enemies of our people want to drive us out of Eretz Yisrael. They hate all Jews, but especially the Jews of Judea and Samaria, and the Jews of Hebron most of all. For it is the Jews of Hebron who, although badly outnumbered, refuse to be intimidated by the howling mob. It is the Jews of Hebron who defiantly refuse to be forced to abandon our birthright. Without their courage, first Hebron would fall, then Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and all of Israel. We owe the Jews of Hebron a debt we can never repay.
Arab leaders know that if Israel is willing to give up any of its land, that means we don't believe it belongs to the Jewish people For if we did believe the land is ours, we wouldn't think of abandoning it.
Hebron is one of Israel’s holy cities. It is the home of our Patriarchs and Matriarchs, including Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. Jews have lived in Hebron throughout the thousands of years of our history. For nearly a thousand years, the Islamic rulers of the Holy Land forbade Jews from entering the tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, allowing them to climb only seven steps into the tomb but beating them mercilessly if they rose any higher. In 1929, an Arab pogrom led to the massacre and expulsion of all the Jews living in Hebron at the time.
Through the miracle of the Six Day War, Israel liberated Hebron in 1967 and the Jews returned to reclaim their ancient city. Since that time the Jews of Hebron have been surrounded by tens of thousands of bloodthirsty Arabs who lust to replicate the pogrom of 1929. The Jews of Hebron live under the shadow of terrorism every day, and are demonized and defamed by Israel’s enemies. Yet they live their lives with dignity, vowing never again to be separated from their origin.
There is only one Jewish state. In contrast, the despotic Arab League includes 22 Arab states, and 56 countries under the Organization of the Islamic Conference, (OIC) define themselves as Muslim nations. Yet only Israel is singled out for condemnation. It is anti-Semitism, plain and simple.
The enemies of our people want to drive us out of Eretz Yisrael. They hate all Jews, but especially the Jews of Judea and Samaria, and the Jews of Hebron most of all. For it is the Jews of Hebron who, although badly outnumbered, refuse to be intimidated by the howling mob. It is the Jews of Hebron who defiantly refuse to be forced to abandon our birthright. Without their courage, first Hebron would fall, then Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and all of Israel. We owe the Jews of Hebron a debt we can never repay.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Is the Palestinian Authority preparing its people for peace?
PMW Incitement Watch looks at the PA during the peace talks, July - August 2010
by Itamar Marcus, Nan Jacques Zilberdik and Barbara Crook
Click here to see the complete report
The following is the introduction to the report:by Itamar Marcus, Nan Jacques Zilberdik and Barbara Crook
Click here to see the complete report
| US State Department on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks: "After completing the first round of proximity talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders both parties are taking some steps to help create an atmosphere that is conducive to successful talks, including President Abbas's statement that he will work against incitement of any sort..." [Washington D.C. May 9, 2010] |
The start of the proximity talks in May 2010 created hope for the renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas declared that the PA would fulfill its commitments, with special focus on stopping incitement.
Findings
 |
| Map of "Palestine" erases all of Israel, displayed at Fatah event. [PA TV (Fatah), Aug. 31, 2010] |
Contrary to the PA's moderate statements to the West, its statements to its people in Arabic continue to delegitimize Israel's existence, deny Israel's right to exist, define the conflict with Israel in religious terms, promote hatred through demonization and libels, and glorify terror and violence:
- The PA continues to teach on PA educational TV that Israeli cities across the entire country, including Jaffa and Haifa, are Palestinian cities.
- The official PA media deny Israel's right to exist by using terminology that refers to Israel as "Palestinian Interior" and "the homeland occupied in '48."
- Maps used by the PA still erase and replace Israel with "Palestine."
- The conflict with Israel is defined by PA-appointed political and religious leaders not as territorial but as a religious conflict, sometimes even as Ribat - religious war.
- The PA continues to demonize Israelis and Jews:
- PA daily: Israel spreads drugs among Palestinian youth.
- PA TV and daily: Israel killed Arafat
- The PA continues to honor terrorists and glorify violence:
- PA TV: "The Martyr who bears arms threatens the enemy."
- PA summer camps teach kids "the culture of resistance [violence], the culture of stones and guns"
To see earlier reports:
Click here to see PMW Incitement Watch, June 2010 in PDF
Click here to see PMW Incitement Watch, May 2010 in PDF
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
88-year-old alleged Nazi murderer, Samuel Kunz 'may be tried as minor'
From the BBC, 29 July 2010:
Mr Kunz is accused of being a guard at Belzec death camp in occupied Poland in 1942-1943
An 88-year-old man charged with taking part in the killing of 430,000 Jews at a Nazi death camp may be tried as a minor, officials say. Samuel Kunz is also charged with personally shooting dead 10 Jews at Belzec in occupied Poland in 1942-43.
The retired civil servant was 20 when he is alleged to have started working as a guard at the camp. ...Prosecutors brought charges against Mr Kunz at the adolescent chamber of Bonn's regional court earlier this month. ..."The prosecution decided to file the charges with the chamber because at the beginning of the period the accused was an adolescent," court spokesman Matthias Nordmeyer told the BBC.
Under German law, suspects aged between 18 and 21 can be charged as minors or adults; the maximum sentence adolescent courts can impose is life in prison.
Red Army
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Nazi-hunting organisation, puts Mr Kunz as number three on its most-wanted list. He had been questioned several times by German investigators, but not charged. However, his name emerged recently during the trial of another Nazi war crimes suspect, John Demjanjuk. Prosecutors say both men were born in what became the Soviet Union and became camp guards after being captured by the Germans while serving in the Red Army.
Mr Kunz has already been called as a witness in the trial of 90-year-old Mr Demjanjuk, who was deported to Munich from the US last May. Mr Demjanjuk is charged with participating in the murder of 27,900 people at the Sobibor death camp. ...Both men allegedly trained at the same SS camp, at Trawniki in Poland....
Mr Kunz is accused of being a guard at Belzec death camp in occupied Poland in 1942-1943
An 88-year-old man charged with taking part in the killing of 430,000 Jews at a Nazi death camp may be tried as a minor, officials say. Samuel Kunz is also charged with personally shooting dead 10 Jews at Belzec in occupied Poland in 1942-43.
The retired civil servant was 20 when he is alleged to have started working as a guard at the camp. ...Prosecutors brought charges against Mr Kunz at the adolescent chamber of Bonn's regional court earlier this month. ..."The prosecution decided to file the charges with the chamber because at the beginning of the period the accused was an adolescent," court spokesman Matthias Nordmeyer told the BBC.
Under German law, suspects aged between 18 and 21 can be charged as minors or adults; the maximum sentence adolescent courts can impose is life in prison.
Red Army
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Nazi-hunting organisation, puts Mr Kunz as number three on its most-wanted list. He had been questioned several times by German investigators, but not charged. However, his name emerged recently during the trial of another Nazi war crimes suspect, John Demjanjuk. Prosecutors say both men were born in what became the Soviet Union and became camp guards after being captured by the Germans while serving in the Red Army.
Mr Kunz has already been called as a witness in the trial of 90-year-old Mr Demjanjuk, who was deported to Munich from the US last May. Mr Demjanjuk is charged with participating in the murder of 27,900 people at the Sobibor death camp. ...Both men allegedly trained at the same SS camp, at Trawniki in Poland....
Monday, November 01, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)