Not Forgotten

...and now something personal: a sequel to a posting last October dedicated to the memory of my father Yisrael ben Zvy [Israel ("Srulec") Lieblich] (6th June 1924 – 30th September 1999). This is from an article on a JewishGen Web site about "The Forgotten Camps". I have just now learned with the assistance of the Mauthausen Museum that this is the camp from which my father was liberated on 9th May 1945....

Ebensee (Austria)
(sub-camp of Mauthausen)
by Mark Vadasz

Location: At the southern tip of the Traun lake aprox. 75 kilometers SW of Linz (Austria).
Established: 18 November 1943
Liberated: 9 May 1945
Estimated number of victims: Aprox. 20.000

Together with the Mauthausen sub-camp of Gusen, Ebensee is considered to be one of the most diabolic concentration camps ever built.











Liberation of Ebensee on May 9th, 1945.


The construction of the sub-camp began in late 1943 and the first 1.000 prisoners arrived on 18 November 1943 from the main camp of Mauthausen and other Mauthausen sub-camps. The main purpose of Ebensee was to provide slave labour for the construction of the enormous underground tunnels in which armament works were to be housed.

After rising at 4:30 A.M. the prisoners dug away at the tunnels until 6 P.M. After some months work was done in shifts 24 hours a day. There was nearly no accomodation to protect the first batch of prisoners from the cold Austrian winter. Thus the death toll increased astronomically. Bodies were piled in heaps and every 3-4 days they were taken to the Mauthausen crematorium to be burned. Ebensee did not yet have its own crematorium. The dead were also piled inside the few huts that existed. The smell of the dead, combined with sickness, phlegmon, urine and faeces, was unbearable. The prisoners wore wooden clogs. When the clogs fell apart the prisoners had to go barefoot. Due to this total illtreatment combined with food allocations consisting of , in the morning: half a liter of ersatz coffee, at noon three-quarters of a liter of hot water containing potato peelings, in the evening 150 grams of bread, the death toll continued to rise. Soon lice infested the camp.

The camp was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, small towers with machine guns and shacks for the SS.

The Mauthausen commendant Franz Ziereis sent his most capable and vicious man to head the camp, Georg Bachmayer. After establishing his rule, he once again returned to Mauthausen and left the camp under the command of an Obersturmfûhrer who proved to be totally deranged. The combination of these two became a reign of terror.
Survivors in Ebensee.

One of their favourite methods of torture was to tie a prisoner´s arms behind him, with the hands side by side and thumb to thumb and then suspend him from a tree about eighteen inches off the ground. Bachmayer would then let his favourite dog, an Alsation called "Lord", loose. The prisoner would be left in this unspeakable torture to die a slow and agonizing death.

In early 1944 a new commandant was appointed in Ebensee, Obersturmfûhrer Otto Riemer. During his period the conditions deteriorated even further. He personally beat, shot and tortured prisoners daily. He openly offered extra cigarettes and leave to those sentries who could account for the largest number of deaths. If a sentry at the end of a day had not a sufficient number to his credit, he would knock off the cap of a prisoner and throw it into a forbidden area. When the prisoner went to retrieve it, he would be shot dead.

Riemer like Bachmayer was a great lover of wine and women, and he would often go to wild drinking parties with some of the younger SS. On one occasion, May 18 1944, he returned to camp after an all-night drinking session with 12 of his SS command. They entered the camp shooting wildly with their pistols and roaring with delight as panic stricken prisoners scurried out of their way. 15 prisoners died as a result of this display.

Eventually the camp expanded and prisoner blocks were established. The leader of block 19 was an extreme sadist. He would wait for his prisoners to return from the day´s toil and then compel them to perform exhausting physical exercises far into the night. The following morning after a sleepless night, the men would be forced out to another full days work. Nearly all the members of his block died from exhaustion within ten days. By this sytem of elimination he had succeeded in killing in a most economical manner and was rewarded. When the sub-camp at Wels was constructed, he became the camp leader.

Ebensee also had its own crematorium. It was built apart from the other buildings with an enormous single chimney which rose high into the air.

Block 23 corresponded to the "Bahnhof" at Gusen or the "Russenlager" at Mauthausen. Here the dead and the living dead were flung together in big heaps. When the camp was at full strength, as many as 600 prisoners lay on the bare floor at one time.

When the war was coming to an end, the mass evacuation from other camps put tremendous pressure on the Mauthausen complex which was the last remaining camp in the area of Nazi power.

The 25 Ebensee barracks were designed to hold 100 prisoners each. At the most they held 750 each. To this number one has to add the prisoners being kept in the tunnel systems and outside under the open sky. The creamatorium was of course unable to keep pace with the deaths.

Naked bodies lay stacked up outside the blocks and the crematorium itself. At the closing weeks of the war, the death rate exceeded 350 a day.To reduce congestion, a ditch was dug outside the camp and the bodies were flung into the quicklime. On one day in april 1945, a record number of eighty bodies were removed from block 23 alone. Amongst the pile, feet were seen to be twitching. During this period, the inmate strength reached a new high of 18.000 prisoners.

US troops liberated Ebensee on May 9, 1945. Around May 19, 1945 Bachmayer commited suicide after first shooting his family. Riemer managed to escape.

A Liberal Defence of Israel

Check out A Liberal Defence of Israel, a Blog of note. Here is an exerpt from a recent posting ....

This Christmas, the international charity War on Want saw fit to print a seasonal greetings card on which Mary, Joseph and the Christ child were depicted as Palestinians subjected to oppressive treatment by Israeli soldiers beneath the shadow of the security 'wall'. I wrote to them....

QUOTE
...You might have told the story on your card of the abuse of Palestinian children, children taught in school to hate Jews, children trained to become suicide bombers and to aspire to the status of martyr from an early age, children given Kalashnikovs instead of bicycles.

... You might have told the story of how innocent young womenare murdered in the PA territories in honour killings, by their own mothers, fathers, brothers, and cousins: just holding hands with herfiancé was enough to end the life of a young Palestinian woman shotby a Hamas morality patrol earlier this year....No doubt passing through an Israeli checkpoint is many times worse than having to watch every moment in case you look at the wrong young man in the wrong way and are caughtdoing it.

You might have told the story about how gay Palestinian men and women face death and beatings on a regular basis. Or that those who can flee to Israel, where they are taken in and given protection. Instead, you chose to say that instituting checkpoints to prevent terrorist activity is a foul and dishonourable thing.

...You might, indeed, have told the many stories of Israelis of all ages, from all walks of life blown to shreds while out shopping, eating in restaurants, attending bar mitzvahs, having lunch in their university cafeteria, taking the bus home. The people who planted those bombs or who turned themselves into bombs were motivated by hatred, not a love of peace and justice and tolerance.

I take it War on Want condemns killings such as those. Why, then, does it hold up for contempt an image of peace-keeping soldiers doing their best to save lives?

There are many other stories you might have told: anti-Semitism straight from the Third Reich on Arab and Iranian TV screens, calls for the slaughter of Jews in Friday sermons from PA mosques, the clauses from Hamas's Charter that describe all efforts at peace-making, all international conferences, all negotiations, all attemptsto compromise as 'a waste of time'.... Or the story of how Israel is one of the most racially mixed countries in the world (whereas most Arab countries are not), or how Israel is one of the most economically successful countries on the planet, helping the ThirdWorld (remember the Third World) with its technology and medicine....

....You need to do some hard thinking, and you need to start by examiningyour own heart. I am a liberal, probably very like you, and, also probably like you, I believe in taking a moral stance in public matters. We probably want the same things, including a prosperous future for the Palestinian people. You seem to think that this will happen if we support Palestinian intransigence, force Israel to abandon her defences, and maybe even allow Hamas and Hizbullah to fire rockets onto Israeli towns without hindrance. Maybe you don't think that, maybe you really would like to see both sides make peaceand live together. If that's so, then please think twice before you make another card that condemns Israeli security measures and says nothing about the reasons why they have been put there in the firstplace.

...Yours sincerely,
Dr. Denis MacEoin
UNQUOTE

Eilat attack is tip of the iceberg

From JPost.com » Israel » Jan. 29, 2007, by YAAKOV KATZ ...

A suicide attack that killed three people Sunday in an Eilat bakery was just the tip of the iceberg ...a high-ranking IDF officer from the Southern Command told reporters. "I am concerned that this is just the beginning and the attacks will continue to happen."

According to the officer, in 2006, the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) caught over 100 Palestinian terrorists who originated in the Gaza Strip and tried crossing into Israel from the Sinai Desert in Egypt..... security forces also succeeded in dismantling 11 terror rings that had established infrastructure which was used for infiltrations along the border.

Division 80, headed by Brig.-Gen. Imad Faris, is in charge of patrolling the Israeli-Egyptian border which runs for 200 kilometers without a fence or as the officer said: "Any other mental or physical barrier." Three IDF infantry companies, commanded by a Lt.-Col., patrol the border area around Eilat.

...According to the officer, the Egyptians could also do more to assist in preventing the terror infiltrations from Gaza, through the Sinai and into Israel. "Egyptians can also do more just like we can," he said. "But before we look at what they can do, we need to look at what we can do."

Palestinian Politics

al Qaeda cells based in Egypt and Sinai

From DEBKAfile: Monday, January 29, 2007, 2:15 PM (GMT+02:00) ...

Israel closes Taba crossing to Egyptian Sinai after first suicide bombing attack in Eilat kills three Israelis Monday, Jan 29

Although two Palestinian groups – Jihad Islami and Fatah-al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades claimed the attack in a bakery in the Red Sea resort - DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report the mounting suspicion that it was a joint operation by the third group, the Army of Believers – an al Qaeda cover name – and Jihad Islami. This Palestinian group later named the bomber as Mohamed Faisal al-Sahsah, 21, from Gaza, claiming he entered Israel from Jordan. DEBKAfile’s sources believe this is an attempt to divert attention from the Jihad-al Qaeda collaboration. Jihad and al Qaeda cells based in Egypt and Sinai are feared to be embarking on a new suicide campaign inside Israel.

The Taba crossing to Sinai is closed and a terror alert has been declared in all parts of Israel following the Eilat attack. Saturday, a 17-year old from Alexandria, where an al Qaeda cell is believed located, was apprehended in Sinai heading for a suicide bombing in Israel. The Egyptian-Israeli border is wide open to smugglers, terrorists and arms traffickers. The explosive charge the Eilat bomber carried was packed with up to 8 kilos of explosives, but no shrapnel fragments. In its Sinai attacks, Al Qaeda has used large bombs consisting of explosives but no shrapnel, whereas Palestinian terrorists habitually lace their bombs with steel shards to maximize casualties.

The bomber is thought to have crossed from Gaza into Sinai, collected the explosive charge and then infiltrated Israel....

And also from DEBKAfile: January 29, 2007, 2:28 PM (GMT+02:00) ...

Fingerprints of Palestinian Jihad Islami terrorist ace Muhamed al Hindi on Eilat suicide bombing

Mohamed al Hindi, Jihad Islami leader

DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that the Jihad Islami leader returned to the Gaza Strip on Jan 19 after a six-month absence in Damascus, Beirut and Tehran, during which his Syrian and Iranian masters appointed him chief of the organization in place of Abdallah Ramadan Shelah.

He arrived in Gaza carrying a large sum of cash allocated by the two governments for building a new terrorist militia in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Sinai in conjunction with al Qaeda. The Islami Jihad plans to reinvent itself from an underground terrorist group to a military militia, like the Hamas special force. None of the authorities controlling the border terminal to the Gaza Strip, Israeli, Egyptian or European, interfered with al Hindi’s entry.

In Damascus and Beirut, the Jihad leader consulted with Qaeda elements operating in the Palestinian camps of Lebanon, under the title Fatah-Brigades of the Islamic Sword, the coming terror campaign against Israel. The Lebanon-based al Qaeda network maintains close operational ties with al Qaeda’s Gaza cell, which calls itself the Islamic Army and which participated in the kidnap of the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit last June. The Islamic Army holds joint custody over the Israeli captive with Hamas. In his exchanges, al Hindi most likely worked on the details of the Eilat suicide bombing.

DEBKAfile adds: ... Israel’s non-interference in Gaza’s affairs leaves the field clear for Palestinian and jihadist terrorists to use the Gaza Strip as a base and haven for more attacks in Israel like Eilat’s first suicide bombing Monday, Jan. 29, which left three Israelis dead – not to speak of missile attacks against Israeli civilian locations.

New US strategy on Iran emerges from Davos

From The Times (UK) online, 25 January 2007, by Anatole Kaletsky ...

...the main themes at Davos today were terrorism and Iraq ...about wresting back control of Baghdad from terrorists, with al-Qaeda and Shia death squads bearing equal blame.

...Three strands of policy are now being directed to achieving [an] internal shift in Iranian politics. The first is, obviously, the US effort to reduce violence in Iraq – or failing that, at least to mount a show of strength against the Iranian-backed Shia militias and to remind Tehran that America retains its capacity to deploy overwhelming military power.

The second is the sabre-rattling over Iran’s nuclear programme, especially the semi-public threats of Israeli bombing, perhaps even with tactical nuclear weapons. America’s announcement that two aircraft carrier battle groups will move to the Gulf within a month or so are clearly a reminder that Washington still has plenty of firepower to attack Iran directly or to back Israeli bombing – and also to protect international oil shipments through the Gulf against Iranian retaliation. These deployments and public warnings do not necessarily suggest that an actual attack on Iran is likely but rather that America wants Iran to realise that it is playing for very high stakes in its confrontation with the West.

The third strand of America’s Iranian policy is less visible, but may well turn out to be more important. The idea is to thwart Iran’s threatened hegemony with an economic pincer movement consisting of financial diplomacy on one side and energy policy on the other. The main responsibility for this strand of policy rests not with America or Israel but with the third member of the unlikely new anti-Iranian alliance: Saudi Arabia. The financial diplomacy consists not just of the sanctions against Iran agreed last month by the UN Security Council but also in the donors’ conference for Lebanon in Paris this week. The toughened UN sanctions are beginning to have some impact on Iran’s domestic economy and on its ability to do business and raise money internationally. Meanwhile, the Lebanon conference is demonstrating that the US-Saudi coalition can easily match and exceed the financial subsidies channelled by Iran to Hezbollah, Hamas and its other regional proxies. In doing this the Saudis’ involvement is crucial because of their ability to spend large sums of money without the budgetary and political oversight faced by Washington. At best, Saudi open-handedness would persuade key players, not only in Lebanon but also in Iraq and Syria, to desert the Iranian camp. At a minimum, Saudi efforts to buy support in the region would tempt Tehran into a bidding contest which the Iranian economy could simply not afford.

This brings us to the final and most interesting strand in the anti-Iranian policy nexus: the price of oil. Iran’s economy depends entirely on oil sales, which account for 90 per cent of exports and a roughly equal share of the Government’s budget. Since last July, a barrel of oil has fallen from $78 to just over $50, reducing the Government’s revenues by one third. If the oil price fell into the $35 to $40 range, Iran would shift into deficit, and with access to foreign borrowing cut off by UN sanctions, the Government’s capacity to continue financing foreign proxies would quickly run out. Iran has reacted to this threat by calling on Opec to stabilise prices but, in practice, only one country has the clout to do this: Saudi Arabia. Earlier this month, in a highly significant statement, Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi Oil Minister, publicly opposed Iranian calls for production cuts to halt the decline in prices. Mr Naimi's pronouncement was cast as a technical matter unconnected with politics, but it seemed to confirm private warnings by King Abdullah that his country would try everything to thwart Iran’s hegemony in Iraq and throughout the region, whether by military intervention or more subtle economic means.

This policy was spelt out with surprising precision in an article by Nawaf Obaid, a senior Saudi security adviser, in The Washington Post ...[see below]

...This article attracted huge attention in the Middle East and Washington, but was hardly noticed in the financial markets and the business community. But that was when the bulls still thought that they commanded the oil market and most analysts believed that the only direction for oil prices was up. Maybe they should think again.

This article from the Washington Post, November 29, 2006, by Nawaf Obaid, an adviser to the Saudi government, today has added relevance ....

...Over the past year, a chorus of voices has called for Saudi Arabia to protect the Sunni community in Iraq and thwart Iranian influence there. Senior .... They are supported by a new generation of Saudi royals in strategic government positions who are eager to see the kingdom play a more muscular role in the region.

... Abdullah may decide to strangle Iranian funding of the militias through oil policy. If Saudi Arabia boosted production and cut the price of oil in half, the kingdom could still finance its current spending. But it would be devastating to Iran, which is facing economic difficulties even with today's high prices. The result would be to limit Tehran's ability to continue funneling hundreds of millions each year to Shiite militias in Iraq and elsewhere....

The writer, an adviser to the Saudi government, is managing director of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project in Riyadh and an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The opinions expressed here are his own and do not reflect official Saudi policy.

Land for peace concept failed

From Ynet News, 26/1/07, by Hagai Einav ...

Strategic affairs minister says, ‘Since 1977 we have given up land equal to four times the size of Israel, and the result is that today we have less security’....

Israel must do away with the concept according to which peace can only be achieved by giving up territories, Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Friday regarding Syria’s recent peace overtures.

“This concept has failed,” he said during a tour of IDF outposts in northern Israel. “Since 1977 we have given up land equal to four times the size of Israel, and the result is that today we have less security.”

The minister said the fact that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad are operating from Syria “is proof to all of us that this is a country that does not want peace, but rather acts like a terror state.” ....

Combating Islamic Terrorism

From an interview with Graeme Leonard, President of the Executive Council of Austalian Jewry (ECAJ) for ICJS Research by Ruth Gilmour, posted Wednesday January 24, 2007 ...

The language of hate by radical Islamists in Australia has increased in recent times or at least has become more obvious. This is exemplified in particular by the widespread publicity given to DVDs containing the ugly views of a young Australian-born youth leader and cleric, Sheik Feiz Muhammad. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s (ECAJ) concern is that such rhetoric will inspire equally hateful actions, threatening Australia’s democratic way of life and of course the Australian Jewish community. The inevitable question is how a civilised society should respond.

...Some argue that this is a freedom of speech issue and hence these views should be openly debated rather than suppressed. In this particular instance, the ECAJ responded with public statements, which were widely circulated, expressing its concern. Our line was that extremism is a problem for all Australians, something we firmly believe.

In such a case, however, I believe that countering such emotive, dangerous language with reasoned argument doesn’t go far enough. In the increasingly charged atmosphere of the last decade when violence and terror are increasingly commonplace, there is a great danger that a call to arms will prompt violent action, particularly by the young and the unstable.

As all Australians are under threat, the ECAJ thinks it is up the Australian government to take action. It has the tools at its disposal in the form of the sedition offences contained in the Anti-Terrorism Act (No 2) 2005 (Cth). Sedition is a political crime that punishes certain communications critical of the established order. ...

...In our opinion, however, ultimately the best answer to extremist Islam is moderate Islam. Thus for example the ECAJ supports in principle the Australian Government’s establishment of a National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies which will aim to counter extremism by training moderate local imams. This aim is achievable, as long as the Centre’s courses and outcomes are stringently monitored to ensure that radical teachings supporting terrorism and violence are not taught or endorsed.

At the end of the day moderate Islam can only predominate if desired and led by Muslims themselves. The great challenge for Muslim Australians, their leaders in particular, is to demonstrate in word and deed that the advocates of terror increasingly hitting the headlines are as unacceptable to their community as they are to the rest of us. This is a longer term solution and the question remains whether the Islamic community has the will and courage to act. It is up to the rest of us to support them in every possible way in what will be a long and difficult battle.

Katsav must resign

From JPost, Jan. 24, 2007, by ASSOCIATED PRESS ...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday called on embattled President Moshe Katsav to resign after the attorney general announced his intention to press criminal charges, including rape, against him.

Addressing the annual security conference in Herzliya, Olmert said that "under these circumstances, there is no doubt in my mind that the president cannot continue to fulfill his position and he must leave the president's residence," Olmert said at the beginning of a policy speech at a security conference.

...and from Ynet News, 24/1/07, by Aviram Zino ....

Livni says President Moshe Katsav must resign, despite his right to the presumption of innocenence, so as not to fight rape charges from the president's office. Internal Security Minister Dichter, Tourism Minister Herzog join Livni's call

Stepping forward as the first government minister to demand his resignation, Foreign Affairs and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni called on President Moshe Katsav to consider what would most befit the institution of the presidency and step down following Attorney General Menachem Mazuz's decision to indict him .

Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter echoed Livni's statements, and called on the president to not only suspend himself temporarily, but to resign.

"The public significance (of the charges) obligates the president to resign and wage his battle outside the president's residence," Dichter concluded.

In a written statement issued Wednesday morning Livni stressed that while from a legal standpoint Katsav is entitled the presumption of innocence, due to the nature and gravity of the accusations against him it would not be fitting for him to fight rape charges from inside the residence of Israel's presidents.

"It is fitting for Katsav to resign," concluded Livni....

Follow this link for the full article, and this link for Ynet News' full coverage of The Katsav Affair

Waiting for the Mahdi

From MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 1436, January 25, 2007...

Official Iranian Eschatology Outlined in Public Broadcasting Program in Iran

The website of the governmental Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) has posted a lengthy document titled "The World toward Illumination." The document is a transcript of an IRIB series on the imminent arrival of the Mahdi, the Twelfth or Hidden Imam, awaited by Shi'ites as the Messiah. [1]

The program describes in glowing terms the messianic age to be inaugurated by the Mahdi. He is to begin his uprising in Mecca, and then march on Iraq, where he will establish his "seat of world government" in the city of Kufa and subjugate the current world powers. This will be an age of unparalleled happiness; there will be completely new technologies at mankind's disposal, and "corruption, war, and rebellion will no longer exist." Neither will "liberal democratic civilization."

Various days of the year are mentioned as being propitious for the appearance of the Mahdi, though the program says that the precise date cannot be known.

The series also includes... a lengthy polemic against the West, focusing on Evangelical Christians, Zionism, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Hollywood. It also gives a historical survey of Western thinking, from Saint Augustine to Francis Fukuyama.

Follow this link for excerpts from the transcripts of the World Toward Illumination program from the IRIB website, in the original English [2]

BLAME AMERICA . . . AND OH YEAH, THE JEWS

Doron likes this book review by Jeffrey Kopstein* from The Globe and Mail, 20/1/2007 ...

Book: "Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America" By Andrei S. Markovits

...After decades of writing scholarly books sympathetic to the European left, U.S. political scientist Andrei Markovits is fed up with the anti-Americanism of Europe's intellectual and political elites. Anti-Americanism, Markovits writes, "is unifying West Europeans more than any other political emotion -- with the exception of hostility to Israel. In today's Western Europe, these two closely related antipathies and resentments are now considered proper etiquette. They are present in polite company and acceptable in the discourse of the political classes."

I think it is safe to say that Markovits is going to lose some of his European friends with this book. Markovits sensibly distinguishes between disapproval of the United States for what it does and dislike of the United States for what it is. The former is not anti-Americanism; the latter is. In practice, however, the line isn't so easy to draw. Some people find fault with the United States no matter what it does. It is bad for intervening militarily to stop a genocide in Kosovo but equally bad for failing to intervene to stop a genocide in Rwanda. It is wrong for promoting free trade and globalization but equally wrong for raising tariffs to protect its industries. It is this damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't approach of Europe's elite critics of the United States that bothers Markovits.

George Bush and the war in Iraq have fuelled anti-Americanism among Europe's masses, but Markovits impressively documents the long history of anti-Americanism among Europe's elites going back to the settlement of the New World. ....from the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc...to the German pulp fiction novelist Karl May....philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel....Heinrich Heine .... Sigmund Freud .......Britain's Frances Trollope .... Charles Dickens... 19th-century journalist Frédéric Gaillardet..... The list goes on. A broad array of Spaniards, Italians, Russians and even Norwegians (including Nobel Prize-winning novelist and Nazi sympathizer Knut Hamsun) have found the United States distasteful not for anything it did but for what it is and what it stands for.

In a fascinating twist, Markovits highlights the gradual transformation of European anti-Americanism after the Second World War from an ideology of the discredited right to one of the anti-imperialist left. .... It became the source of all of modernity's evils. Longer working hours, "publish or perish" at French universities, the dramatic increase in lawsuits and the prestige of "L.A. Law" lawyers in Great Britain, reality TV (which, in fact, originated in Europe), even the dominance of black over brown squirrels in German parks, are seen as evidence of a pernicious "Americanization."

And then there is the anti-Semitism. In what is surely his most controversial chapter, Markovits draws the connection between European anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. He maintains that the old and discredited anti-Semitism of the European right has migrated to a new anti-Semitism of the left. In some ways, of course, this should not surprise anyone. Many early socialists -- most famously Karl Marx -- shared the romantic right's prejudice of Jews as embodying everything that was bad about capitalist modernity. Markovits, however, is saying something different and far more volatile: The issue is not capitalism but ethnic identity. The left accepts Jews, but only on the condition that they shed their Jewishness. In a moment at once self-revelatory and accusatory, Markovits writes, "Indeed, the Left always reserved its universalism for the Jews while applying the legitimacy of its identity politics to all other nationalities."

Anti-Zionism and the demonization of Israel have become vehicles for the reintroduction of anti-Semitism into respectable European conversation, especially since the Six Day War in 1967. The syllogisms are simple enough: Israel commits atrocities. Why? Because the United States lets it. Why? Because guess who controls the United States? You got it: the Jews.

What is disturbing for Markovits is that this is not simply the nutty left but his old buddies, the Social Democrats and the Greens. He notes that "all the historical ingredients used to demonize Jews are simply transferred to the state of Israel, which -- in the standard diction of anti-Semitism -- behaves Jew-like by grasping for global power, exhibiting Old Testament-like (pre-Christian) vengefulness. It bamboozles the world, as cunning Jews are wont to do, extorts money from hapless victims who have been fooled into seeing the Jews as victims, exhibits capitalist greed and, of course, indulges in constant brutality toward the weak.

Israel thus becomes a sort of new Jew, a collective Jew among the world's nations." The book offers a great deal of convincing evidence for these assertions, some of it based on survey research, but most of it based on Markovits's deep familiarity with Europe's left-wing scene. Whether it is Jews being beaten up at anti-war demonstrations in Paris in 2003 or respectable left-wing publications in Europe deploying Nazi-like imagery of Israeli leaders with spindly legs and hooked noses, or the repeated superimposition of a swastika on the Star of David (itself now a European symbol for "Israeli aggression"), example after example, from the profound to the trivial, makes for painful reading. "By constantly bringing up the truly warped and ill-willed analogy of the Israelis with the Nazis," Markovits tells us, "Europeans absolve themselves from any remorse and thus experience a sense of liberation."

Uncouth Nation also raises the crucial question of whether it is possible to build a European identity without demonizing the United States. For the most part, European anti-Americanism has been an elite phenomenon. George Bush, however, has made it possible to close the gap between a "separatist" European elite that wants to break away from the tutelage of the United States and the broad masses who still see themselves as part of the "West." It is no accident that Jürgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida and other European intellectuals celebrated the anti-war demonstrations that took place on Feb. 15, 2003, in London, Rome, Paris, Madrid, Helsinki and Athens as the birthday of a united Europe. Although these same intellectuals hailed the now-50-year-old project of European integration as a "post-national" exercise, the temptation to use the traditional tools of nation-building in the service of a new pan-European nationalism -- including demonizing the "other" -- has been irresistible.

... At stake here, however, is much more than mere vanity. The Americans don't really have much else besides that for which they stand. Part of being rich and powerful is to put up with a certain amount of criticism from others. But if we wish to sustain the West into the future, it is probably best if we all construct our political identities based on our highest ideals rather than on our deepest loathing.

*Jeffrey Kopstein is director of the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies and professor of political science at the University of Toronto. His book Growing Apart? America and Europe in the 21st Century will appear this year.

Lebanon crippled by violent strike

From The Australian, January 24, 2007 , by Correspondents in Beirut ...

LEBANON'S pro-Syrian opposition paralysed the country last night in a nationwide strike aimed at ousting the Western-backed Government. Protesters fought rival supporters, barricaded roads with blazing tyres and disrupted air traffic in the latest show of force. Police said at least 25 people were wounded, some with bullets, in violent clashes between rival groups in Beirut and other areas, adding to concerns over the stability of a country still bearing the scars of the 1975-1990 civil war.

Lebanese troops and police were out in force for the one-day general strike, which has been denounced by the Government as a "coup attempt" by the Hezbollah-led opposition.

Thick clouds of smoke billowed over the capital and other cities as demonstrators blocked roads by burning tyres and old cars, and spreading sand and rubble. Some protesters even lay in streets to block traffic, while many shops and other businesses were closed and ordinary Lebanese struggled to get to work.

Militants blocked main roads across the country, cutting access to Beirut airport, in an escalation of the protest that has crippled the administration of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora for weeks.
Fifteen people were wounded by gunfire in clashes in northern Lebanon and in the mountains east of the capital, while 10 more were injured as pro- and anti-government rivals fought and hurled stones, police said.

...Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh, who survived an assassination attempt in 2004 blamed on Syria, denounced the action as an "anti-government coup".

..."This has nothing to do with democracy or freedom. This has been transformed into a coup d'etat. It is a revolt in every sense of the word," said Samir Geagea, head of the Christian Lebanese Forces.

....Former MP Fares Sahed, a main figure in the anti-Syrian camp, also urged government forces to take action against the protests and "not to participate in this blatant coup d'etat". "If the security forces continue to fail to carry out their duty, people will go down and open the roads by themselves," he said....

Terror threats in Australia

From The Australian, January 24, 2007 , by Rebecca Weisser ...

A MAN claiming to represent al-Qa'ida in Australia has left a telephone message at an Arabic Australian newspaper threatening to kill its editor-in-chief and destroy its offices in Sydney and Melbourne. Apparently reading from a script, the Arabic-speaking caller threatened to butcher every Iraqi Kurd and Shi'ite in Australia.

ASIO and NSW police are investigating the message, left for al-Furat editor-in-chief Hussein Khoshnow 10 days ago. The caller claims his "well-structured organisation" will track down the names and addresses of the newspaper's reporters. "We will destroy the newspaper's headquarters in Sydney very soon, God willing," the caller says. "We will destroy the newspaper's headquarters in Melbourne. You will be butchered. Every Iraqi Kurd and
Shi'ite in Australia will be butchered."

...The caller appeared to assume, incorrectly, that Mr Khoshnow was a Shi'ite and said: "You Shi'ites are dogs. You are scum, to be trodden underfoot. From Moqtada al-Sadr to Hassan Nasrallah, all your leaders are dogs and scum. Do not think that the death of Saddam will save you. We will deter you with terrorism here inside Australia. "Has the death of the president, the martyr, the living leader and hero who will never die, Saddam Hussein, a lesson for you? Do you want to savage the Sunnis, you dogs? I say to you, and repeat and reiterate, do not forget that one day we will take revenge, God willing, by liquidating the dog, Moqtada al-Sadr, who visited America and gave up Saddam."

....Mr Khoshnow said he had also been threatened by men claiming to be representatives in Australia of Moqtadr al-Sadr.

Who is Gabi Ashkenazi?

From Ynet ....








(Photo: Shalom Bar Tal)


Man who headed Golani brigade between 1986-1988 expected to be appointed to top post in IDF; Ashkenazi, 53, of Khagour, fought in Yom Kippur War



The frontrunner in the race to replace Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz as the Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff was born six years after the establishment of the State of Israel, in Khagour in the Sharon area, north of Rosh Ayin.
The man he is set to replace, also calls Khagour home.

....Beyond being renowned for his extensive experience as a ground commander, Ashkenazi is a graduate of both the Tel Aviv Junior Command Preparatory School and the US Marines Training Command School.

The 53-year-old holds a BA in Political Science and is a father of two.
Ashkenazi served most of his military career in the Northern Command but he fought with Southern Command soldiers in his early days.

In 1972, he joined the Golani Brigade and fought in the Yom Kippur war a year later.
He also took part in Entebbe operation and was injured in the Litani operation in Lebanon.

By 1980, he was commanding a Golani battalion and during the first Lebanon war he was the Deputy Commander of the Golani Brigade.

He became popular among combat soldiers during his tenure as Golani commander between 1986 and 1988, after which he served as Northern Command Intelligence Chief.

In the early nineties he was appointed as commander of the northern command armored brigade. From 1992 to 1994 he headed civil the IDF's administration operations in southern Lebanon and worked closely with South Lebanon Army officers.

He then served for four years as the Head of Operations at the General Staff. In the summer of 1998 he was appointed as Northern Command Chief.

....In 2002 he was appointed as Deputy Chief of Staff and resigned two years later when he lost to Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz who was former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon 's choice for chief of staff.

He officially retired from the IDF in May 2005, and was appointed as the Director-General of the Ministry of Defense.

Ashkenazi was not directly involved in the recent war in Lebanon. He earned the reputation of being an experience general, “Mr. Lebanon,” one who knows the area where the IDF fights.

He progressed within the army ranks, and finally served as Defense Minister Amir Peretz’s right hand man, in the position of director-general of the Defense Ministry – where he was much more proficient than his boss.....

...and also from Ynet 23/1/07, by Ron Ben-Yishai...

Ashkenazi's real test - Patience, perseverance pay off, but new army chief now has to deliver

... Ashkenazi holds a clear advantage over the other candidates not only because he was not directly involved in the flawed management of the fighting in Lebanon, but rather, because he already proved that he can plan and command large-scale combat. This is something no other candidate can boast. Another advantage: He already proved that he knows how to restrain himself in the face of frustration and act cooly in any situation.

Ashkenazi displayed those qualities as the northern command chief in 2000. At the time he thought, and even said so to Prime Minister Barak, that declaring a date for a unilateral withdrawal from the South Lebanon Security Zone was a mistake. He even predicted the South Lebanon Army's collapse before the planned date.

However, when his doubts were rejected by the politicians, he led the northern command and other IDF branches into an intensive, detailed, and rapid process of planning and preparation for withdrawal completed months before the target date.

Ashkenazi also made the utmost efforts in a bid to prevent the South Lebanon Army's early collapse and while doing so displayed significant emotional intelligence. Yet once the SLA did collapse and the withdrawal battle had to be managed under difficult circumstances and under fire, the command units in the Security Zone were well prepared and under Ashkenazi's cool guidance departed from Lebanon without sustaining any losses.

Following the Lebanon withdrawal, Ashkenazi was able to redeploy on the border, exactly in accordance with the instructions handed down by Army Chief Mofaz and Prime Minister Barak.

The only stain that tainted his tenure as the northern command chief was the failure that allowed Hizbullah to kidnap three IDF soldiers in the Mount Dov area several months after the withdrawal. However, a commission of inquiry headed by Major General (Res.) Yossi Peled cleared him of direct responsibility for this failure.

Notably, at the time these events were taking place, Ashkenazi maintained his silence. He concentrated on doing and allowed others to talk – even though he had much criticism and disagreed with Barak's decisions and his strategic perceptions.

Even when Sharon decided to pick Dan Halutz over him as chief of staff, Ashkenazi did not publicly express his frustration and also did not head into the private sector. The military and Israel's security were always, and remained, his first love. The patience and perseverance he showed paid off.

Ashkenazi's missions
Now comes the test. The first mission, in order of priority, faced by Ashkenazi is to restore the IDF's, and particularly the ground forces', ability to function effectively in any combat type or scenario. To that end, he will have to annul some of the organizational changes introduced by Halutz.

Ashkenazi will have to ensure the general staff is given back the functions that would allow it to directly-manage combat and to again institutionalize a clear and hierarchical chain of command that enables the chief of staff and deputy army chief to decide, every day, the strategic and tactical combat objectives and earmark resources and forces, while command chiefs and regiment commanders execute the plans.

Ashkenazi will likely also have to make some personnel changes in the general staff in a manner that would improve the overall functioning of the intelligence, logistics, and Navy arms in their role of supporting the ground and air forces.

The second mission in order of priority is the implementation of the work plan prepared by the general staff under the direction of Halutz and Kaplinsky based on the Lebanon War's lessons.

This 2007 work plan is a masterpiece considering the budgetary limitations. If it is implemented properly, it would restore the regular and reserve ground forces' basic combat capabilities under scenarios that have been neglected, while also reviving some forgotten combat values.

The third mission is to prepare the IDF to cope with the Iranian nuclear threat and with a guerilla strategy that makes use of rockets and sophisticated anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

The fourth mission is to convince Israeli politicians, media, and society to allow the IDF to quietly work on fixing itself. Ashkenazi must make it clear to Israeli society that the sensitivity it shows to military casualties leads to mistakes on the battlefield that exact a heavy human toll.

He must make clear to the parents of soldiers, reserve soldiers' groups, and bereaved families that their deep involvement in what goes on in the military and the pressures they exert on commanders damage their sons and friends more than they benefit them.

All of the above constitutes an immense mission. If Ashkenazi delivers, only then would we be able to confidently say that the failure to appoint him as chief of staff about a year and a half ago was a historic injustice done to him, and also to us.

Bring down Hamas and Iranian Regimes

From Ynet News, 21/1/07, by Yaakov Lappin ...

Opposition leader says Israel should aim to bring down Hamas government, urges Jewish community to promote awareness of Iranian threat

Opposition leader MK Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) on Sunday told the Herzliya Conference that Israel should aim for the overthrow of the Hamas government, which he described as a part of the axis of radical Islamic forces threatening the country's security.

Only by toppling the Hamas government can Israel and the Palestinians hope to achieve peace and good neighborly relations, Netanyahu added.....

‘Expose Iranian regime’s ugliness’
....Netanyahu said ...that it was time to launch an international campaign "to isolate and delegitimize Iran."

He said that the "extremist regime" in Tehran "is sowing the seeds for its own destruction."

"Iran is vulnerable, it doesn't allow economic growth," said Netanyahu. He cited growing voices within Iran opposing Ahmadinejad's regime.

"Most doors can be closed in the face of Ahmadinejad… The key is the delegitimizing of the regime, with economic and political pressure," Netanyahu said.

"I want to call on the world that didn't stop the Holocaust last time to stop the Holocaust this time," he added.

Comparing modern day Iran to Nazi Germany, Netanyahu said, "In 1937, we didn't have a state. Today, we have a state and can defend ourselves against Iran's anti-Semitism, not only militarily, but also through public opinion. Iran can be stopped."

He also urged the Jewish community to do its share in recruiting international support. “No one will stand behind the Jews if they do not stand up for themselves,” Netanyahu said.

According to Netanyahu, it was a small but significant effort that would expose the Iranian regime in “all its ugliness” and convince people to expel it.

He said that the initiative was already picking up speed, and announced that he would visit the British Parliament next week in order to promote further awareness of the Iranian threat.

'Prepare backup military solution'
Speaking to Ynetnews, Knesset Member Effie Eitam (National Union-National Religious Party) was less shy than Netanyahu when it came to discussing Israel's military options.

"I think its now beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iran is accelerating a project for a nuclear bomb, planned at aimed at the State of Israel, and to bring the whole democratic free world on its knees," he said.

"If we can stop Iran by a focused international effort, everyone will bless that. But parallel to that, Israel must make sure a military solution is clearly prepared, and must be affected if the point of no return is passed, as a last resort."

"Israel is capable of dealing with this problem militarily," Eitam said, adding that the ideal scenario would involve a US-led military coalition. "But if that effort will fail, Israel can, and has to defend itself (alone)."

Raanan Gissin, a senior advisor to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and currently a Strategic Consultant at the Interdisciplinary Center, told Ynetnews he was optimistic over the chances of dealing with the Iranian threat through an international coalition of "potential victims" of Iran's destructive policies.

"Iran is very sensitive over its international stance. A coalition of potential victims who want to stop and isolate Iran can come together," Gissin said. He added that such a coalition could see Israel take the lead of a coalition which included Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States, united against the Iranian threat.

Gissin expressed skepticism over reports that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was pushing Ahmadinejad to soften the country's nuclear stance, saying it was an "illusion" designed to play for time.

Attila Somfalvi contributed to the report