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Open letter to Fareed Zakaria concerning the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’
Isaac Yetiv
Dear Mr Zakaria:
The case in point is your position on the controversial decision to build a mosque on Ground Zero in New York (your program of Sunday 8 Aug. 2010.) I believe that your support for building the mosque was a knee-jerk reaction to ADL’s strong opposition to it, and that if you dig deeper, you might revise your opinion. ( Already, in your interview with Anderson Cooper a few days later, you seemed less sanguine; I even detected some regretful tone) . The following analysis will hopefully help:
Rauf refused to say where the money (100 millions !!) will come from. A foreign country? a sponsor of terrorism? the terrorists themselves? It is clear that those who will finance the project will dictate its content and its programs. Recent events clearly demonstrate that an “investment” of such magnitude can only come from a few oil-rich theocracies that have produced nine-eleven and other terrorist calamities. Is that scenario not plausible? Do you want to take that risk?
It is a case of what I would call ” zoning for reasons of security, sensitivity to the feelings of the victims of 9/11, common decency,and domestic peace.” The onus of proof is on the proponents of building the mosque precisely at that point and not a few miles away.
The 9/11 atrocities were seen by the perpetrators and their sponsors (to be sure, a minority, to be distinguished from real moderate Muslims, and certainly from Islam as a respectable religion no less than the others)
I dare to go farther: as an avowed foe of political correctness of any kind– I believe it is our collective enemy number one because it obscures the truth, and afflicts us with willful blindness, and the truth, for me, remains the supreme criterion for any judgment– I say with sadness that the Jewish leaders on the Left, in general, suffer from the Jewish disease of what I call “universalitis.” They can’t take their own side in a dispute, the others are always right. They speak in the abstract, on what should be rather than what is. To parody a popular adage, they don’t see the log in the eye of the others but they see the straw in their eye.
They indulge in self-deluding pieties on liberty, rights, constitution, and they defend those who reject them violently. In the words of Lenin in another context (speaking of the Communists in the West) they are “useful idiots.” To the point that they even brave the 69 % and growing opponents among their constituents. I believe they will not be re-elected.
I also believe the mosque will not be built on ground zero. As for Obama, safely protected by those Jewish politicians, he has an uncanny ability to do things against the majority of the people’s wishes. And he, too, will pay politically.
Maybe we should prohibit all religions, for the sake of fairness, to limit their houses of worship to no more than 2-3 floors. We should “respect and suspect” everyone,and not endanger the security of all because of political correctness. And if it is difficult to decide, I suggest to use “Le Pari” (the Wager) of Blaise Pascal. He wrote :” Let us wager that God exists. If we are right, we gain eternity; if we are wrong, what did we lose, a few pleasures or sacrifices, nothing.”
Applied here, it will be: ” If we build such a mosque, we expose ourselves to a potential huge danger but if we don’t, we avoid such catastrophe even if we will annoy some group by limiting their “rights.” For me, the choice is clear.
La Jolla, CA
Book details how Allies fooled Hitler about invasion
Operation Mincemeat, by Ben Macintyre. Bloomsbury, 2010, 402 pages.
By David Strom
David Strom
SAN DIEGO — Two young British brothers fought against the Nazis during WWII. Both, Ewen and Ivor, worked for intelligence agencies. One served in the British secret service while the other, it was reported, may have been a spy for the Soviet Union. Ivor had two main passions. One was his strong belief in the values of Soviet Communism. His other major attraction was table tennis, a new “sport/hobby” that he worked hard at promoting. Ewen worked to defeat the Nazis through his British intelligence work. His courageous work as a spy was instrumental in shortening the European war.
On January 26, 1943 Glyndwr Michael was found dead. He presumably died from drinking rat poison. No one seemed to notice or care about his death. There were no inquiries made about the cause or circumstances of his dying. No one in his family came forward to claim his body. He was a forgotten human being-until the British intelligence learned of his death.
Two British spy agents, Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu, had been hatching a plan to foil the Nazi war machine. The game plan, which was initially conceived by Cholmondeley, was unique and highly ingenious. It was put into operation mainly through the office of Ewen and the M16-British Intelligence. The two men worked closely together to get the plan approved by the spy agency and the British government. Prime Minister Churchill even gave the plan his blessing.
Montagu and Cholmondeley were the principal leaders in the plot to drop a body, supposed that of an ill-fated spy, near the coast of southern Spain in April of 1943. These two worked in cramped quarters with nine or ten others, both men and women. All of them played a role in outwitting the Nazis. Getting a body to drop into the coastal waters off Spain was no easy task. What family would donate a loved one to be used as a decoy and floated into enemy or neutral territory without a proper burial? The dead man had relatives and yet, no one in the government tried to locate them or inform the family of the death of Glyndwr Michael. The use of the body and taking it out of the country was illegal according to British law. With the help of an undertaker, with the intelligence agency skirting the intent of the law pertaining to transportation of a corpse out of the country, M16 was able to carry out this very risky war-time adventure.
With corpse “in hand,” Cholmondeley and Montagu’s plan moved forward. They created a fictitious person. They gave that person a name-William Martin as well as a made-up family, including a fiancé-Pam. They created a backdrop of an historically grounded human being born into royalty and wealth which gave credibility to their fictional spy.
Montagu delighted in his creation of William Martin of the Royal Marines. In Montagu’s small cramped space, the war office assigned a very beautiful and single Jean Leslie. She became the poster child for Pam, William Martin’s fiancé. Jean, single and beautiful, and Ewen, a lonely married man whose wife and family were in the United States at the time, became “involved.” The two took on the created personalities of their fictionalized spy and his lover in their real life adventure to deceive the Nazis. (When the body of William Martin was placed in the cold water off of Spain, the real life adventures of Ewen and Jean came to an end.)
Early in April 30, 1943, a young American Navy captain took the frozen corpse from its container and dropped it into the water about 1600 yards off the city of Huelva on the Atlantic coast of southern Spain. Not long afterwards a fisherman retrieved the body, took it ashore and called the local Spanish authorities.
Attached to the badly decomposed British-uniformed body were love letters from Pam, a locked briefcase, and important messages to high-ranking personnel about the pending Allied invasion of Europe. All of this material was surveyed and inspected by Spanish authorities and then quickly given over to the Abwehr (Nazi military intelligence) in Madrid. The Abwehr examined the letters and learned that the allied forces that were massing in North Africa were preparing to attack Sardinia and the Greek Peloponnesus. According to the letter found on the corpse, Sicily was to be used as a decoy for the planned landing area. Finally, after the Nazi secret service was done copying the information, the material was handed over to the British consulate. The British hoped the Nazis took seriously what was in the notes taken from the corpse of William Martin. They needed to divert the attention of the Nazi military from the intended landing in Sicily;
The British consul quickly arranged a proper burial service & buried William Martin’s body, even placing a headstone to deter anyone from digging up and examining the body, yet again.
Of course, the Abwehr sent all of the made-up espionage and battle strategies information to Berlin, believing it to be important to the outcome of the war. There, the German general staff discussed the plausibility of the information. Some accepted it as legitimate while others were more skeptical. But the key actor in this drama and the most important in the decision-making equation was Hitler. He believed the doctored information discovered on the dead British officer that washed upon the Spanish coastal waters. That was enough.
Hitler quickly gave the order to dispatch a military division. General Rommel and the Nazi troops were dispatched to reinforce the Greek peninsula against an attack that never materialized. At the time that Hitler ordered the troops to Greece, his armies had suffered major defeats in North Africa and Stalingrad. They were currently fighting a major battle with the Soviets and might have won an important victory against Soviets, but the diverted division to Greece, against his generals’ recommendations, may have cost the Nazis an important victory that could have, possibly, stopped the Soviet Armies advances into western Europe.
The allies invaded Sicily and opened a second front against the Nazis in Europe. The ingenious plan of Cholmondeley and Montagu had worked. They saved thousands of lives and, possibly, shortened the war. All of this is refreshingly told by Ben Macintyre in Operation Mincemeat: The True Story That Changed the Course of World War II. This spy story was made into the monetarily successful movie The Man Who Never Was.
It wasn’t until 1997 that the British government finally changed the cemetery tombstone in Huelva, Spain and added this sentence to its base: “Glyndwr Michael, served as Major William Martin, RM.”
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Strom is professor emeritus of education at San Diego State University
Netanyahu, Lieberman jockey as direct talks with Palestinians loom
JERUSALEM (WJC)–Israel has no plans to extend the ten-month building freeze in Israeli settlements in the West Bank after September, the country’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Wednesday.
He rejected any link between the moratorium and the start of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Lieberman told a joint news conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos that there was no room for linkage between such talks and a settlement construction freeze. “We must start direct talks, but there is no place for a moratorium after September 25,” he said.
Foreign ministers of Arab League member states are to meet on Thursday and will consider whether to back direct talks between the Palestinians and Israel. The Palestinian Authority usually follows the advice of the Arab League.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Amman with Jordan’s King Abdullah II to advance peace, security and prosperity in the region, according to the Prime Minister’s Office. There had been no prior announcement that the meeting would take place.
“The two leaders discussed the need to ensure direct, serious and effective negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians that would address all final-status issues and create a solution of two states for two peoples in which Israelis and Palestinians will live in lasting and secure peace,” said a statement issued by Netanyahu’s office.
“The prime minister said that King Abdullah’s leadership was important for advancing peace and stability in the region, and that he looked forward to strengthening the relations between Israel and Jordan,” the statement added.
Jordan’s Islamist-led labor unions strongly condemned Netanyahu’s visit to Amman, describing him as a “criminal.” The head of the Unions’ Council Ahmad Armuti said in a statement: “At a time when the Zionist enemy is killing our people in Palestine and destroying their homes, as well as planning schemes against Jordan’s security, officials receive Netanyahu the criminal in Amman. The trade unions completely reject this visit and hold the government responsible for its political and public responsibilities, in line with the constitution.”
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress
Gaza Flotilla sailors file suit against Israel in Spanish court
MADRID (WJC)–Three Spanish activists – two of which were aboard the controversial Gaza-bound aid flotilla raided by the Israeli Navy at the end of May – have filed a lawsuit in a Madrid court against Israel for alleged crimes against humanity.
The 83-page document takes aim at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, six senior Cabinet ministers and the chief of the Israel Navy, whose commandos stormed the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara on 31 May. Nine activists were killed when they attacked Israeli soldiers with knives and clubs.
The Spanish activists told a newspaper that Israel had arrested them illegally and deported them by force, after subjecting them to hardships during the raid. In their suit, they allege that “the entire operation was well planned by the Israeli army in order to kill as many activists as possible, while they were only trying to help Gaza’s residents.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in response that the lawsuit was “a continuation of the provocation in other means.” In a statement, it declared: “Israel’s actions are legal and in accordance with international law. Just like the flotilla organizers did not have humanitarian aid in mind, but only used it as an excuse for provocation and violence, the people filing the lawsuit are not really interested in law and justice, but are using them as a tool against Israel.”
IDF Major-General Giora Eiland, who headed a military commission charged with conducting an internal investigation of the flotilla raid, said it would have been possible to prevent the deaths by political means. In an interview, he said: “Three months before the flotilla there were many courses of action which could have prevented it.” Eiland suggested that Israel “could have opened the Gaza crossings in advance, before the Turkish flotilla.
Meanwhile, Israel has urged Lebanon and the international community to prevent two ships from sailing to the Gaza Strip from a Lebanese port, warning that efforts to break the sea blockade of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory would be stopped. Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, accused organizers of the aid ships Junia and Julia of “seeking to incite a confrontation and raise tensions in our region.”
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress
Justice sought for victims of AMIA bombing
BUENOS AIRES (WJC)–several hundred people have commemorated the 16th anniversary of the bombing of the AMIA Jewish center, in which 85 people died and hundreds were injured. Speakers at the ceremony, which was organized by the group ‘Memoria Activa’ and attended by former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner, called for justice and highlighted the fact that nobody has yet been brought to trial over the worst terrorist attack in the history of South America.
Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón laid a wreath in honor of the victims and addressed the gathering outside the reconstructed AMIA building, which on 18 July 1994 was hit by a massive blast from a car bomb. According to the prosecutor in the case, Alberto Nisman, the attack was masterminded by senior figures in the Iranian regime and carried out by Hezbollah operatives. Garzón criticized the slowness of the Argentine justice system and said: “Belated justice is no justice”. He added: “When will we finally understand that the fight against impunity is the responsibility of all of us?” Garzón, who as a Spanish judge investigated former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, called on the United States to provide “real support” so Iranian officials accused of involvement in the AMIA bombing stand trial.
On the occasion of the anniversary of the attack, the president of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald S. Lauder, in a statement urged the international community to do more to bring about justice for the victims. Lauder said it was “blatantly obvious” that Iranian and Hezbollah officials had masterminded the bombing. He said: “On this sad anniversary, we express our solidarity with the survivors, the families of the victims, and with the Argentine people. We applaud the remarkable efforts undertaken by the Argentine authorities and Prosecutor Alberto Nisman in recent years, to determine who committed this atrocity. However, yet another year has passed, and justice still hasn’t been done. This is because the regime in Iran – a sponsor of terrorism world-wide – is refusing to cooperate. No wonder: one of the main suspects, wanted by Interpol, is none other than Ahmadinejad’s current defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi…!”
The WJC president urged the United Nations and other international bodies to do more against state-sponsored terrorism. “It is not just Jewish communities world-wide that are affected by terrorism, but Jews are often the first to suffer attacks. Governments that aid, finance or protect terrorists must be named and shamed,” Lauder declared.
Meanwhile, the Latin American Jewish Congress, the regional branch of the WJC, held a conference on fighting terrorism which was attended by parliamentarians, officials and Jewish leaders from across Latin America.
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Preceding provided by the World Jewish Congress
Israel is not the only country with its pecularities
Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM –Israel is a normal country, but is strained to preserve that status against the rest of the world that is even less normal.
Countries of the Third World, where rates of HIV/AIDS range to 260 times those in Western Europe and North America?
Mexico, where the rate of killings over drug smuggling to the US has reached 13,000 per year?
NATO and other countries that have sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq for tasks able to produce nothing beside the slow drain of outsiders’ lives and the more rapid drain of Afghan and Iraqi lives?
In several places, a posture against Israel is part of anti-Americanism. Political fashion helps to spread a simple assumption that Israel is evil, while Palestinians are innocent victims. Pictures of deaths and destruction due to Israeli concerns for its security are currently more powerful than pictures showing more deaths and destruction due to the personnel of countries not on the current hit list.
What to do? There is no magic button.
There is no shortage of non-Jews who identify with the downtrodden. Among them is former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, who is promoting the theme that Israel’s failure will condemn western civilization. A Christian network in Canada is distributing an hour long discussion of international law that claims a firm basis for Israel’s maintenance of control over Jerusalem, against counter claims from Muslims and Christians. Subscribers of MEMRI see that there are Muslim and Christian Arab intellectuals who ridicule anti-Israel diatribes.
Efforts at explanation generally reinforce those already committed, add to the animosity of those opposed, and otherwise fall on deaf ears. Singing to the choir is useful, but it is important to know the limitations.
Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University
Spanish court dissolves neo-Nazi group, imposes prison sentences on members
(WJC)–A Spanish court on Monday ordered the dissolution of the neo-Nazi group ‘Blood & Honor’ and sentenced 14 of the 18 members of the group who were on trial for illicit association and weapons possession to prison terms.
According to the sentences handed down, the main accused – Roberto L. U. and Francisco Jose L. P., each sentenced to between three and four years – were the founders of Blood & Honor Spain, and held leadership posts within the group. In the homes of both, examples of the statutes of the association and other documents were found, along with magazines linked to the neo-Nazi ideology, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, as well as items praising Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Hess. Among the rest of the accused, one received a prison term of two years and 11 were sentenced to a year in prison each, all of them for illicit association. The court absolved four of the accused for lack of evidence. In addition, the court ordered that Blood & Honor be dissolved in accord with the Penal Code, which deems to be illegal groups that promote discrimination, hate or violence against people or associations on the basis of their ideology, religion, race, nationality, sex or sexual orientation.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.
