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RE: HSIG -The Holocaust Remembrance Day And Antisemitism In Europe and The World
1/30/2010 4:50:49 PM
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Hello Friends,
Here's an article you might find interesting written by Caroline Glick an Associate Editor of the Jerusalem Post and a fellow in different think tanks around the world.
Shalom,
Peter
By CAROLINE GLICK 29/01/2010 17:52 Netanyahuused his speech at the notorious death camp to nudge what he referredto as “the enlightened nations of the world” to recognize that“murderous evil” has to be stopped."Never again!”
Sodeclared Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as he spoke atAuschwitz-Birkenau on Wednesday, the 65th anniversary of its liberation.
Netanyahuused his speech at the notorious death camp to nudge what he referredto as “the enlightened nations of the world” to recognize that“murderous evil” has to be stopped as early as possible to prevent itfrom achieving its aims. Unfortunately, the events of the past weekshow clearly that evil is on the march, and “the enlightened nations ofthe world” are on a coffee break from enlightenment.
AsNetanyahu addressed the world from the site of the most prolificgenocide factory in human history, at the place where over a millionJews were gassed, starved, beaten, raped, frozen, shot and hanged andthen burned in ovens, Iran’s leaders were declaring loudly that theyintend to finish what the Nazis started. They will destroy the Jewishpeople.
Iran’s dictator supremo Ali Khamenei used a photo-opwith Mauritania’s President Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz – who cut his owncountry’s diplomatic ties with Israel last January – to renew hispledge to commit yet another Holocaust. As he put it, “Surely, the daywill come when the nations of the region will witness the destructionof the Zionist regime... When the destruction happens will depend onhow the Islamic nations approach the issue.”
And as he spoke,the ability of “the enlightened nations of the world” to deny that theIranian regime is building a nuclear arsenal was finally and utterlywiped away. On Monday, Germany’s Der Speigelreported that evidence gleaned from document intercepts and from thetestimony of two senior Iranian defectors who were involved in theIslamic Republic’s nuclear program, proves beyond a reasonable doubtthat Iran’s nuclear program is not a peaceful one. The Iranians aredesigning and building nuclear warheads for their Shihab-3 ballisticmissiles. According to a summary of the findings now circulatingthrough the halls of power, Teheran will have the wherewithal to buildnuclear warheads by 2012.
So the Der Spiegelreport showed that Iran is developing the capacity to carry out asecond Holocaust in under a hundred years. And yet, in the face oftheir sure knowledge that evil is on the march, as they did 70 yearsago, the “enlightened nations” of Europe are siding with evil againstits would-be victims.
On a popular level, as Sunday’s release ofthe Jewish Agency’s annual report on global anti-Semitism documented,there were more anti-Semitic attacks in Europe in 2009 than there hadbeen in any single year since the Holocaust. The report stated that theattacks were carried out by Jew-haters on both the Left and the Right.
Europe’santi-Semites wasted no time in proving the report was accurate. OnMonday, Polish Catholic Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek said that Jews have“expropriated” the Holocaust as “a propaganda weapon.” Jews, heclaimed, “enjoy good press because they have powerful financial meansbehind them, enormous power and the unconditional backing of the UnitedStates, and this favors a certain arrogance that I find unbearable.”
Thenwe have the political alliance of leftist anti-Semites with Muslimanti-Semites. Together they not only attack Jews, they providepolitical cover for expanding those attacks by rejecting Israel’s rightto exist and justifying violent attacks against Jews outside Israel asthe logical outcome of their politically correct anger at Israel forrefusing to destroy itself. Case in point is Ilmar Reepalu, the mayorof Malmo, Sweden.
Malmo is one of the most dangerous places forJews in Europe. The city’s small Jewish population is fleeing. Thesituation in Malmo was graphically demonstrated last March whenIsrael’s tennis stars Amir Haddad and Andy Ram faced off againstSwedish rivals at a Davis Cup tie in Malmo and Swedish authoritiesclosed their game to the public. Malmo’s Muslim residents and theirpost-Christian partners on the Left threatened to attack them. Malmo’sauthorities didn’t think it was their responsibility to protect theirIsraeli guests. So Haddad and Ram were forced to play in an emptystadium.
Interviewed in a local paper this week about the riseof anti-Semitic attacks in his city, Reepalu blamed Israel. In hisview, the violence against Jews in Malmo by the far Left and Muslims,“spilled over from Gaza.”
By his lights the Jewish nationalliberation movement is just as bad as the Jewish annihilation movement.As he put it, “We accept neither Zionism nor anti-Semitism. They areextremes that place themselves above other groups they think are lessimportant.”
Reepalu then blamed Malmo’s Jews for theirvictimization by his fellow leftists and his Muslim comrades. As far ashe is concerned, the Jews brought the violence on themselves last Marchwhen they responded to Haddad and Ram’s treatment by holding ademonstration supporting Israel. In his view, Malmo’s Jews need toseparate themselves away from Israel, not support it.
Since theHolocaust, old-style right-wing anti-Semites in Europe have had a hardtime getting political traction for their desire to see Jews suffer.But by conflating Jews with Israel, their colleagues on the Left havemade sticking it to the Jews, our state and our supporters the easiestway to score political points. So it was that in her first speech asthe EU’s new foreign policy chief, Britain’s Catherine Ashton went outof her way to condemn Israel for building in Jerusalem, closing itsborder with Hamas-controlled Gaza and defending itself from Palestinianterrorists in Judea and Samaria.
AS FOR Israel’s friends, theyare hounded, driven out of Europe and where possible placed on trial.Dutch MP Geert Wilders, the head of the Netherland’s Freedom Party, isone of Israel’s greatest supporters in Europe. Today Wilders is ontrial for publicly criticizing what he views as the endemicanti-Semitism of the Koran.
Against the backdrop of thepersistence of right-wing Jew hatred, and the politically ascendantRed-Green alliance of anti-Semites, it makes sense that Europe will notraise a finger to prevent another Holocaust.
And so, notsurprisingly, in the wake of the Der Spiegel report, the EU’s foreignministers got together and decided not to support any new sanctionsagainst Iran – unless they are passed by the UN Security Council. SinceEurope’s foreign ministers all know full well the Security Council willnot pass sanctions against Iran because China has announced that itwill veto any sanctions against Iran, this week the EU’s foreignministers got together and essentially said they’re okay with anotherHolocaust.
With Europe out, and with “enlightened” Asian,African and South American countries never really in the game, the only“enlightened” country that might be expected to stop murderous evilbefore it can carry out its aims is the United States. Butunfortunately, like the Europeans, the Americans don’t feel like beingresponsible. President Barack Obama, his administration and many of hisfellow Democrats would rather take on Israel.
This week 54Democratic members of Congress wrote Obama a letter asking him to applypressure on Israel to remove its restrictions on the import of goods –including dual use goods like construction materials – toHamas-controlled Gaza. Never mind that under US law it is legallyproblematic to provide any aid, (including the $300 million Obama haspledged) to Gaza in light of the fact that it is controlled by aterrorist organization.
For its part, the administrationapparently believes that there is no reason to seek the overthrow ofHamas simply because the US is required by US law and binding UNSecurity Council resolutions to do so. The US Treasury Department hasreportedly just removed all but one Hamas official from its list ofknown terrorists and so paved the way for Hamas to receive funding fromEurope.
As for Israel, during his trip here this week, Obama’sMiddle East envoy George Mitchell came up with a revolutionary newidea. In the face of Palestinian intransigence, Mitchell introduced theearthshaking concept of pressuring Israel to make concessions to thePalestinians.
This week Mitchell asked Israel to stop all of itscounterterror operations in Judea and Samaria, and allow Palestinianforces to operate not only in the Palestinian areas, but inpredominantly Israeli areas as well. Specifically, Mitchell askedIsrael to allow Palestinian forces to deploy in what the arguablydefunct Oslo agreements refer to as Area C, where the PalestinianAuthority has no security authority whatsoever.
When it comes toIran, the Obama administration behaves as though the jury is still outon whether the mullahs are even seeking nuclear weapons. Secretary ofState Hillary Clinton said last Thursday that Iran might face sometough statements from the world if it continues to refuse to beappeased by the Obama White House, although she couldn’t say whetherany actual steps would be taken to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclearweapons, which she wouldn’t acknowledge the mullahs are developing.
Andin his State of the Union address on Wednesday, Obama himself madeclear that the US will do nothing to prevent Iran from developingnuclear weapons. As far as Obama is concerned, the nuclear arsenal inmost urgent need of evisceration is the US’s nuclear arsenal.
ALLOF this just goes to show that at the end of the day, now when thechips are down, there is only one “enlightened” nation in the worldthat may actually do something to prevent the advance of murderousevil. And Israel unfortunately is of two minds on the issue.
Onthe one hand, we have Netanyahu, who is clearly focused on preventinganother Holocaust of Jewry. But on the other hand, we have DefenseMinister Ehud Barak, who on Tuesday claimed that the absence of peacewith the Palestinians – not Iran – is the greatest threat that Israelfaces today. As he put it, “The lack of defined boundaries withinIsrael, and not an Iranian bomb, is the greatest threat to our future.”
Barak’soutrageous pronouncement is a succinct encapsulation of the greataspiration of the Israeli Left. If he could only be right, then Israelwould be able to singlehandedly solve all the problems of the regionand be immediately adored by the likes of the EU and the Obamaadministration just by making itself smaller.
So with thescourge of moral and strategic blindness rampant not only in Europe andAmerica, but within his own government, Netanyahu rapidly approacheshis moment of truth.
In what will undoubtedly be the mostfateful decision of his life, he will have to decide whether Iran willbecome a nuclear power, or whether Israel, standing alone, will preventit from becoming a nuclear power. Was his declaration of “Never Again,”at Auschwitz just the bloviating of yet another “enlightened” leaderwho lacks the courage of his convictions? Or was it a solemn vow thatZionism’s promise will be kept?
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