Saturday, June 18, 2001 - motzei Shabbat

1. Syria #1 - I am not at all surprised that the situation in Syria worsens daily, and nothing concrete is being done by the outside world except a lot of righteous posturing and hand wringing. Maybe this Dry Bones cartoon hits the nail on the head - and I do not doubt that in certain circles, some version of this is accepted as being acceptable:


Seems to me that there is a golden opportunity to intervene in some meaningful fashion, tear down the Assad regime once and for all, with a potentially tremendous positive impact on the region - denying international terrorism once of its major state sponsors, isolating Iran and its proxies, promoting peace between Syria and Israel, and so on. But, more likely, the situation will be treated like a famous anecdote about the weather - "everyone talks about it, but no one does anything about it".


Anyway, from people much smarter than me, here are a variety of links on the subject:


2. Syria #2 - The only country seemingly willing to do anything concrete is Turkey, which in turn is causing problems with its new friends in Iran - Syria unrest: Turkey further distances itself from Syria. Maybe in some bizarre fashion this crisis will cause the newly-elected Erdogan to cool his Islamist jets for a bit and re-consider relations with Israel.

3. Syria #3 - Is anyone surprised by this story? Honestly, does this surprise you one tiny bit?


I do not know how Hillel Neuer has the koach (the strength), to even be in the same room as these hypocritical bastards. But this courageous and talented individual deserves an enormous Kol HaKavod and Yasher Koach from all of us for his relentless dedication to speaking truth to the utterly corrupt powers that be.

And the world does nothing, and says nothing.....

4. Back To Turkey - the re-election of Erdogan and his party appears not to have been as overwhelming as first thought. Perhaps, as noted above, in conjunction with the Syrian crisis, this will chill things out a bit - The World from Berlin: 'Turkey is Facing Great Challenges' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

5. The Arab Spring....Whatever - Oh yeah, this is working out just wonderfully.


6. Lebanon - more good news from this "bastion of political stability" (uh, that's sarcasm...)

8. Human Rights, Political Correctness, Truth And So On - sometimes (most times) I wonder:

10. Facts Versus Spin #2 - and whatever, you think of Glenn Beck - tell me what problem you have with these....



11. The Falklands. The Maldives. Whatever... - Blog: Obama sides with Argentina, against Britain, in Falklands dispute - now there's a vital issue with world-wide ramifications!

No one thought much of it when in 1982, the UK sent a substantial military force to toss the Argentines off these islands that are, by my research, just short of 8,000 MILES from England. All of which never ceases to amaze me when the world (especially the Brits) scream bloody murder when Israel takes measures in self-defence, such as rooting out terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza, or building separation fences, resisting incursions by contrived aid flotillas.

Check this out......here is a map showing the distances involved in the Falklands War. Bear in mind that I am unaware that anyone from Argentina has ever threatened to wipe the UK off the map, or engaged in terrorist activities against the UK - you'd need a damn ICBM to hit the UK from Argentina.

The next map shows Tel Aviv (A) in relation to Gaza City (B). The distance is some 45 miles. (by the way, according to this article, a Grad Rocket travels at 75 mph. You do the math)

And that is typical of distances between Israel and those who openly wish it harm. (Tel Aviv to Tehran is less than 1,000 miles - to put it in Canadian terms, it's about the same as Halifax to Toronto).


12. Speaking of Flotillas - or, should I say "faux-tilla", since any allegation of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a joke. IHH will not take part in upcoming Gaza fl... JPost - Middle East - ahh, what a shame. Also see - Down and out in Gaza... JPost - Opinion - Columnists

And from Alan Baker, the former Israeli Ambassador to Canada (whom I've had the pleasure of meeting on several occasions) - Jerusalem Issue Briefs-The Gaza Flotillas to Come: Some Ground Rules before Setting Out




13. The Latest From Ivory-Tower Land - First - Yale. Then, University of Toronto.

14. Fry In Hell - another one bites the dust, and I wish him the same as I wish the rest of these miserable evil bastards - I hope you died a slow painful death, soiled your pants and cried for your mommy. On the other hand - if you were vaporized, that is OK too. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed: mastermind of 1998 embassy bombings killed in Somalia and Top al Qaeda operative killed in Somalia, officials say - CNN.com

15. Where Can I Get A "Sorry I Missed Your Promotion" Card? Gee, I do not know how I missed these events - didn't see them on TV - and I bet Seal Team 6 was available for security at the Al-Qaida event.

16. UNRWA - one of the biggest obstacles to peace in the Middle East - and the "UN" at the start of the acronym speaks volumes....

17. The Shoah - (there are very graphic images at the end of this post) I just finished reading "The Liberators: America's Witnesses to the Holocaust" and am reading "The Storm of War", a new history of World War II written by British historian Andrew Roberts.


The Storm of War is long (well it is a history of a world war) but extremely readable. Last night, I read a devastatingly painful 32 page chapter entitled "The Everlasting Shame Of Mankind" - one of the best concise histories of the Shoah that I have read. Here are some other recent Shoah links I have come across:
All of which led me to this (you are going to have to allow me this rant and my temper). I will state up front that I am not a survivor, nor the son of survivors, though my paternal grandmother's family was wiped out in Lithuania - likely by the Einsatzgruppen shortly after the German invasion of Russia in June, 1941. I do not have any right to speak for even one survivor - and many of them - with much more moral authority on the subject than I could ever have - may strongly disagree with what I am about to say - these are strictly my personal observations.

Forget the despicable deniers of the Shoah. They are beyond redemption, in my opinion. But even for people who acknowledge that the Shoah actually occurred (mighty big of them.....), it is common to say that Jews and the State of Israel should somehow get over the Shoah. I suspect that the overwhelming majority of such people have never studied the Shoah in any way - they view the Shoah as some sort of one-time monolithic event that resulted in the deaths of at least 6 million Jews and forget that it was the culmination of two thousand years of often violent and bloody persecution. Maybe they saw Schindler's List, The Pianist, Life Is Beautiful, Defiance, or other topical movies. I doubt that they have spoken with a survivor, or studied the many detailed histories of the Shoah which often relate very painful particulars of Nazi sadism (and that of their many collaborators). They almost certainly have never gone to any of the various Nazi concentration, work or death camps. So it can be easy to simply tell someone to forget about something that you don't really know much about - like telling American blacks to ignore the sordid history of racism and slavery.

I am not saying that Jews or Israel should let themselves be completely defined by the Shoah (or for that matter, the two thousand years of persecution that preceded it). If they did, the Jewish people and the modern State of Israel never would have achieved their many remarkable achievements. But at the same time, we must remain vigilant and mindful of the recent past - and how in particular, the most educated and cultured country in Europe (as is often said - the home of Schiller and Beethoven) could have deliberately perpetrated a crime on the magnitude of the Shoah - let alone their crimes against political dissenters, homosexuals, the disabled, the insane, the Poles, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Romanies (the Gypsies), the Russians and the other peoples of the East, and let alone their enormous economic war crimes.

But every time I read about the enormity and complexity of the Shoah, whether a short concise chapter like last evening or the fuller, more complete histories - I get angrier and angrier. I am no theologian, and will certainly stand corrected on this next little bit - I know that in the famous line in the Torah (Parsha Shoftim (Judges) of Devarim (Deuteronomy) chapter 16, verse 18), Jews are commanded to pursue justice. I believe that entails leaving the vengeance business to G-d (Parsha Haazinu (Listen) of Devarim chapter 32, verse 35.

So while I do not want to (and am powerless in any event) to interfere with G-d's business, I must say that when I read of the "suffering" of those who perpetrated the Shoah (and don't thing for a moment it was only the fanatics of the SS who were responsible) or stood by and allowed it to happen or benefited by it, I certainly do not feel even the slightest tinge of sadness:
Personally, I do not care how old, how feeble, how whatever some old Nazi war criminal might be - a very large part of me says to roust them out of their beds in the middle of the night (preferably at gunpoint with lots of noise and yelling), deny them food and water, cuff them around a bit, and make them truly answer for what they did - which is more than they ever gave to the Jews they massacred - the only thing the Jews ever "did" was being Jewish. Oh, and if the bastards are guilty of war crimes - say that's OK, we're just going to move you to a more comfortable retirement home somewhere with the rest of your types where you can all be together - then deal with them as they dealt with their victims. Life's a bitch, and what goes around comes around. Here's as good a time as any to start - Nazi war criminal exposed in UK - Israel Jewish Scene, Ynetnews

And for people who do the same things today, whether in Darfur, the Balkans, or wherever - the same thing applies. Oh, and in closing - don't even try to suggest to me that a holocaust is being perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians - it's total crap, and if anyone really believes it, they need some serious help.


CAUTION - GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW.....

















(this last picture is very "famous" - but here is the same picture taken from a wider angle - which I find even more chilling - I had never seen this until today)



18. Nothing Funny To End On Today - but at least this is inspirational



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2 comments:

  1. AnitaJune 20, 2011 at 3:31 PM

    You asked how Hillel Neuer has the strength to deal with those insidious liars in the U.N.? He is Montrealer,a Concordia graduate, and a proud Jew who grew up knowing his roots. The tradition of our people is to do what is right not what is popular, so we are genetically programmed to tell it like it is once we are sure of the facts. He (like I) got his basic training as the child of Holocaust survivors.

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  2. CLJune 20, 2011 at 5:07 PM

    I have a question for you, why did you find the need to post a caution about the graphic nature of the holocaust photographs? Why would you give anyone a way out? This is what happened and since the Jews did not have an escape hatch, why should they? My parents had nightmares every night till their deaths so as a seven year old child I wanted to understand why. Just before my Dad donated the album to the Holocaust Museum,that he took from a Nazi, he allowed me to look at the contents. The album was filled with photographs of children who were used in medical experiments. Sure the result was my loss of innocence, but it was sobering. The perennial question remained why any human being could dehumanize another in such a manner. Years later the answer came from the widow of the Nazi portrayed in Schindler's list, the one who shot at Jews like they were ducks in a shooting gallery. She answered simply, "we were raised to believe that Jews were human vermin. Cats and dogs are loveable animals but rats, who are also small animals are neverthelless vermin so they had to be destroyed. " The Arabs have been brainwashed with the same mindset. My point here is that giving people permission to avoid reality, allows them to dehumanize us and to dettach themselves. I say let your viewers look without warning so that hoepfully they will understand our legitimate and valid pain. The Arabs understand how this works and use the emotive factor as a strategy making sure that the world sees them suffering in association with the Jews, this is how they garner they garner world sympathy.

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