Holocaust Reparations--A Growing Scandal : from Commentary of all places
Roger Alexander
I apologize for the sappy special pleading which laces through this
article. The magazine Commentary is not my cup of tea.
This makes the underlying message, that the Holocaust Industry
has gone too far, even more explosive.
Thanks to Derek Copold for the heads up.
RLA
Holocaust Reparations--A Growing Scandal
Gabriel Schoenfeld
GIVEN THE depth of the scars inflicted by the Nazis in World War
II, it is no
surprise that issues of restitution and reparations have refused
to go away.* The only
surprise is that they should now, at this late date, be
occupying center stage, where
they have also become a subject of increasing contention.
The sheer scope of devastation in World War II is impossible to
compass. By the
time the last shot was fired some five-and-a-half decades ago, a
mind-numbing 53
million lives had been extinguished in the concentration camps,
in the cities, and on
the battlefields of half the world. And no less huge than the
toll in human life was the
destruction and theft of property; everywhere the Nazis turned,
they not only killed
but plundered.
The Jews of Europe, singled out for a special fate, were victims
on both counts. In
most places, they were first forced by the SS to provide a
precise inventory of all
their property, from silverware to real estate, from stamp
collections to
stock-exchange holdings, from furniture to insurance policies
and bank accounts. All
this they were compelled to surrender, after which they were
gathered together in
ghettos and deprived of sustenance, and then, after a time,
taken away to be shot,
gassed, or worked to death as slaves.
The bill for this death, destruction, and robbery came due in
1945 with Germany's
surrender. But the prostrate country was hardly in a position to
pay. Only by 1951
did the Federal Republic, which constituted one half of the
by-now divided country,
voluntarily undertake to compensate the few pitiful survivors or
the families of the
slaughtered and to provide restitution to the holders of the
property it had seized. In
the 50 years that have elapsed since this historic step, some 4
million claims have
been paid and a total of $55 billion has been disbursed both to
the state of Israel and
to individual victims around the world.
Today, over 100,000 Holocaust survivors, primarily residents of
Israel and the
United States, continue to receive monthly pensions from the
German government.
Yet these numbers, significant as they are, by no means indicate
that a final reckoning
has been made. Indeed, a huge tangle of claims still appears to
remain unsettled, and
dealing with them has lately become a major enterprise.
Here in the United States, the organs of the federal government,
coordinated by the
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Stuart Eizenstat, are engaged
in an intense
diplomatic thrust to negotiate a resolution to the outstanding
issues. They have been
propelled forward by the World Jewish Congress (WJC), an
umbrella body led by
the billionaire tycoon, Edgar M. Bronfman, as well as by two
organizations with
which the WJC is closely affiliated and that share some of the
same key personnel:
the World Jewish Restitution Organization and the Conference on
Jewish Material
Claims Against Germany (known as the Claims Conference). At the
same time, a
small army of lawyers has filed class-action suits against
European corporations said
to have profited from the war at the expense of Holocaust
victims. Revelations of
misdeeds and complicity, and demands for huge sums in
recompense, have become
daily fare.
Politicians have not been shy about climbing on board. Former
Senator Alfonse
D'Amato of New York made Holocaust restitution into one of his
signature issues,
holding widely publicized hearings on the conduct of Swiss banks
during and after
World War II. Insurance commissioners in California, Florida,
and Washington, all
with aspirations to higher office, have been generating
favorable coverage as they
pursue European firms attempting to conduct business in their
states. On September
11, at the height of this year's election season, many of these
politicians will come
together at a banquet at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York;
there, under the
sponsorship of Bronfman, they will be draped in the mantle of
their good deeds.
Among others being honored are D'Amato, Hillary Clinton (now
running for the
Senate in New York), and Alan Hevesi, the New York City
comptroller.
Leaving aside the issues raised by the very idea of a
reparations banquet, let alone a
number of names of dubious relevance (like Mrs. Clinton's) on
the roster of
honorees, the continually expanding list of Holocaust
restitution projects begs to be
examined on its merits--not least because it has begun to come
under fire from a
number of different directions.
PERHAPS THE first question to be addressed is the one with which
I began: why
is all this happening only now, after so many decades have
passed? The obvious
answer has to do with the dissolution of the USSR and its East
European empire.
By 1990, almost all the victims of Nazi persecution living in
Western Europe and the
United States had received a measure of compensation from the
German
government; but this was hardly true of denizens of the East who
fell under
Communist rule after the war. The East German authorities, for
one, insisted all along
that they had no special obligations to the Jews who suffered
under Hitler--victims,
they asserted, not of Germany per se but of a Nazism that had
been eradicated in
their own country even as it remained (so they claimed) very
much alive in the
Western zone. Elsewhere in Eastern Europe and the USSR, postwar
regimes
vigorously pursued anti-Semitic policies of their own, up to and
including judicial
murder. And in countries that were busy nationalizing all
private property, assets
seized by the Nazis were, with rare exception, never returned to
private hands.
With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, and largely as a
result of pressure by both
the U.S. government and Jewish organizations, a variety of new
initiatives were set in
motion. Reunified Germany moved to establish a fund for
impoverished Holocaust
survivors from Eastern Europe who had hitherto received minimal
or no
compensation. Another German fund, officially opened this past
July, will provide
money to the forced and slave laborers conscripted into German
firms. Elsewhere,
arrangements have been made to restore confiscated property to
its rightful owners
or their heirs or, where heirs cannot be found, to designate any
proceeds from the
sale of such property to Holocaust education or to social
services for Holocaust
survivors around the world. And so forth, in virtually every
country of Eastern
Europe.
Not entirely by coincidence, shortly after the question of
restitution became unfrozen
in the East, two issues involving Switzerland came dramatically
to the fore. The first
was that country's role as a neutral power in the war. In this
role it not only enforced
an exclusionary policy against Jews seeking refuge behind its
borders but also
provided assistance to Nazi Germany in laundering gold,
consisting of some $4
billion (in today's dollars) looted from the treasuries of
conquered Europe and an
additional $1.2 billion taken from victims of the Holocaust;
this last included not only
wedding rings but dental crowns extracted from corpses in the
various death camps
and melted down into ingots. Secondly, attention focused on the
Swiss bank
accounts established by many European Jews in the 1920's and
30's, thought by
those who opened them to be exceedingly secure. Indeed, so
secure were they--and
so wrapped in the secrecy that is the selling point of the Swiss
banking system--that
in the years following the war they became for all practical
purposes another windfall
for Swiss bankers on top of the one offered by Nazi gold.
This state of affairs was hardly unknown or even forgotten in
the West in the postwar
era, but it took until the 1990's before the World Jewish
Congress and the U.S.
government embarked on a concerted effort to resolve it. Coming
under great
pressure, the Swiss government and major Swiss banks rushed to
create a "Fund for
Needy Victims of the Holocaust" along with a "Solidarity Fund"
for other victims of
oppression. In the face of a slew of American-based lawsuits,
Swiss banks also
agreed last year to a $1.25-billion settlement aimed at
resolving all outstanding claims
and averting sanctions on their U.S. operations.
While the Swiss banking controversy has not been fully defused,
a different set of
claims has also been making headlines around the world. These
involve the various
kinds of insurance policies issued to Jews and others in the
1920's and 30's, which,
for one reason or another--including the death of the purchaser
in the Holocaust and
the destruction of documents in the war--were never paid. To
deal with this
exceedingly complex matter, still another commission was
established in the late
1990's, this one headed by the veteran diplomat Lawrence
Eagleburger and
comprising German and Italian insurance companies,
representatives of the state of
Israel and of world Jewry, and European and American insurance
regulators.
In the wake of a series of tempestuous meetings, some progress
has been made
toward a settlement in this area as well. At the same time,
however, a number of
multibillion-dollar suits have been filed against the companies.
Several states in the
U.S. have also passed laws forcing European insurance companies
doing business
within their borders to disclose Holocaust-era records, and have
commenced actions
to recover unpaid insurance proceeds. The issue remains highly
charged, with
allegations of bad faith and betrayal on all sides.
THE VARIOUS disputes now unfolding are not entirely
unprecedented, with
respect either to the basic issues they raise or to the
intensity with which they are
being fought. Indeed, in the early 1950's, the debate in Israel
over whether to accept
money from Germany was, if anything, far more acrimonious than
the debate in
Germany about whether to pay it. Menachem Begin, then the young
leader of the
right-wing Herut party, held street demonstrations to denounce
the government for
accepting German "blood money." It was only as the 50's wore on
and the funds
began to flow that the debate in Israel over this subject
essentially died out.
In the United States, by contrast, a rather different pattern
has prevailed. Though in
the past decades the Holocaust has emerged as the central
preoccupation of
American Jewry, until virtually yesterday there has been
remarkably little discussion,
let alone disputation, over the proliferating initiatives,
commissions, negotiations,
funds, and lawsuits designed, ostensibly, to aid the surviving
victims of the Holocaust
and to return to the Jewish community that which was stolen from
it.
In large part, this silence undoubtedly indicates concurrence
with the idea that, in the
face of a crime so immense, every last ounce of justice must be
done; history's
greatest villains must be punished and punished again while
those who suffered
deserve every last measure of recompense. But other factors are
at work as well.
One of these is easily enough comprehended. The anti-Semitic
pseudohistorians who
deny that the Holocaust happened have battened on the issue of
reparations and
pressed it into the service of their "counternarrative," as an
example of how
predacious Jews are profiting from their invented tale of
suffering. One finds this kind
of thing, for instance, in the Journal of Historical Review, the
principal publication
of Holocaust deniers in the United States, in articles with
titles like "Jewish Blackmail
Against Switzerland" and "No End in Sight: Germany Has Paid Out
More Than
$61.8 Billion in Third Reich Reparations." Meanwhile, on the far
Left, a version of
this same thesis has been put into play by some of the
anti-Zionist followers of Noam
Chomsky, as in a recent tract purporting to demonstrate that
Jewish organizations
have engaged in a ruthless campaign to maximize their own wealth
and influence by
manufacturing non-existent Holocaust survivors.**
In the face of this portrait of avaricious Jews exploiting the
Holocaust for pecuniary
gain--a portrait that draws upon time-honored anti-Semitic
images--it is hardly
unnatural that a general (if silent) consensus should reign
within the Jewish community
on the rightness of pressing restitution claims. But there have
also been one or two
notable dissenters. The syndicated columnist Charles
Krauthammer, for example,
has worried aloud about what he terms a "grotesque scramble for
money," a
scramble whose only certain result is the "revival of Shylockian
stereotypes."
Abraham Foxman, chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, has
voiced a related
concern: thanks to the continuing demands for reparations, he
has said, people
around the world may be led to believe "that the Jews died [not]
because they were
Jews, but because they had bank accounts, gold, art, and
property."
In Europe, what Krauthammer and Foxman fear has in fact
happened, at least to
some extent. Among the Swiss, the controversy surrounding Nazi
gold and dormant
bank accounts unleashed, at its height, a tide of anti-Semitic
feeling unseen since the
pre-World War II era, complete with hate mail and death threats
directed at officials
of Jewish organizations and physical harassment of Orthodox Jews
on city streets. In
Austria, the ascension of Jörg Haider's Freedom party rested in
part on widespread
indignation at the bills being presented for that country's
complicity in crimes against
the Jews. In Germany, the New York Times reports, there has been
"a nationalist and
right-wing intellectual awakening" that reflects "weariness,
even anger, at what is seen
as Germany's eternal victimization" for the Holocaust. A vivid
sign of this was on
display in June when Germany's most prestigious literary award
was bestowed on
the revisionist historian Ernest Nolte: tellingly, Nolte used
his acceptance speech to
denounce the "collective accusation" continuously leveled at
Germany since the war.
UNSETTLING THOUGH this European mood may be, it is by no means
clear
that it should have a decisive bearing on the pursuit of
Holocaust claims. If such
claims are legitimate, it would be a double injustice to forgo
them out of fear of
arousing anti-Semitism. Besides, as the Washington Post
columnist Richard Cohen
has pointed out, if the demands of Jewish organizations have
exacerbated
anti-Semitism in places like Switzerland, then perhaps it is the
Swiss who "ought to
look to their own values and not the Jews to theirs." But are
the claims legitimate?
And are they being pursued in a legitimate manner? In attempting
to answer these
questions, we unavoidably enter upon treacherous terrain.
Within the broad categories of restitution--slave labor, stolen
artwork, confiscated
personal property and real estate, dormant accounts,
stock-exchange holdings,
insurance polices--there are, of course, countless individual
cases, each of which
must inevitably stand or fall on its own merits. But after the
passage of so many
years, assessing the merits of any one case can itself be highly
problematic.
The 1920's and 30's, the period in which many of the insurance
policies and bank
accounts now under dispute came into being, were decades of
unremitting
turbulence, with hyperinflation and depression roiling economies
worldwide and the
governments of Western and Eastern Europe responding with
currency controls,
devaluations, and other forms of intervention that left few
instruments of worth
untouched. This highly unstable era was followed by a war that
created displacement
on a global scale, with monetary, border, and regime changes,
and widespread
destruction of documents. After the war, Communism came to a
great swath of
Europe and the state assumed custody of all private assets and
records. Even if
private corporations were today consistently proceeding with the
best will in the
world, many claims would remain exceedingly difficult to sort
out.
Consider a single case. Jack Brauns, formerly Jakob Braunsas, is
currently suing the
Italian insurance company, Assicurazioni Generali, in California
courts for failing to
make payment on a life-insurance policy on which he is a named
beneficiary.
According to the set of facts presented by Generali, in 1930
Moisejus Braunsas, a
resident of Lithuania, purchased a U.S.-dollar-denominated
policy in the amount of
$2,000 from Rigaer Union, a Latvian company in which Generali
had an ownership
interest and for which it was providing reinsurance, i.e.,
acting as a backer of last
resort if Rigaer Union for some reason could not pay. In 1936,
well before the Nazis
appeared on the scene in Latvia, the policy's value was reduced
to $800 for
nonpayment of premiums, which also, under Latvian law, voided
Generali's
reinsurance guarantee. At approximately the same time that the
premiums ceased
being paid, the Latvian government enacted a monetary reform
that forcibly
converted all dollar-denominated insurance policies into
lats-denominated ones,
greatly reducing whatever residual value Braunsas's policy may
have had. In January
1939, not long before the war came to Latvia, Rigaer Union was
forcibly liquidated
for failing to comply with a new law governing capital
requirements for joint-stock
companies; its policies were taken over by Drosiba, a far larger
Latvian insurer with
which Generali had no reinsurance tie.
Then came the war. First, Drosiba fell under Soviet rule when
Latvia was annexed
by the USSR in 1940. Then it was administered by the Nazis after
they conquered
Latvia in 1941. Finally, it fell once again under Soviet rule
after Latvia was
reconquered in late 1944. At that point, all private firms were
absorbed by the state.
Some 50 years later, after the USSR dissolved and Latvia again
achieved
independence, Drosiba resurfaced as a private firm.
Under the circumstances, Generali contends that it has no
contractual obligations to
Jack Brauns, and that if indeed he has a valid claim at all, he
should apply in the first
place to Drosiba. For his own part, needless to say, Jack Brauns
adheres to a very
different and highly compelling version of this same murky
history.
Nor is this an atypical example of the ambiguities and
difficulties inherent to the
process of sorting things out--ambiguities and difficulties that
perforce raise a
question about the tactics that have been employed to compel
settlements. If the
issues were all cut and dried, not only would most claims have
been settled long ago,
but it would be entirely justifiable to employ the heaviest
legal and political artillery to
resolve the outstanding ones. But the issues, in many if not
most instances, are not
cut and dried. And yet, some inside and outside the organized
Jewish community
have unrestrainedly availed themselves of any method, however
unseemly or even
disreputable, to go after every last franc, lira, guilder, and
mark, owed or not owed.
A GROWING number of attorneys practice the new specialty of
Holocaust law.
Although they like to wrap themselves in the rhetoric of a
sacred cause, a New York
Times story suggests an admixture that is at least 99 parts
profane. In the free-for-all
to obtain Holocaust victims as clients, the paper reports,
"competing lawyers from
the United States have barnstormed across Europe soliciting
clients, publicly
castigating each other and privately maneuvering to oust their
adversaries." In the first
50 years after World War II, the number of Holocaust-related
class-action law suits
could be counted on two hands; in the last four years alone, the
number has more
than tripled.
Active players range from Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, an
eminently
respectable Washington, D.C. law firm that has humbled such
corporate giants as
Texaco, to small-time lawyers like Diane Leigh Davison, a solo
practitioner who
conducts her primary specialty in "entertainment" law out of an
office in Baltimore.
Cohen, Milstein boasts that it has assumed "the struggle for
justice" for Holocaust
victims on a pro-bono basis. Davison, for her part, expects
remuneration: "You don't
say to a surgeon, 'don't take your fee.'" And then there is
Edward Fagan, an obscure
personal-injury lawyer from San Antonio, Texas who claims to
have signed up
31,000 clients in record time. For his role in the Swiss
settlement, he submitted to
the court a bill for $4 million, or $640 an hour. The average
pension that Holocaust
survivors today receive from the German government is $640 a
year.
Elan Steinberg, the executive director of the World Jewish
Congress, has warned
that "Holocaust survivors are being exploited by a feeding
frenzy of fee-grabbing
lawyers." But his organization, too, has not shied away from
eyebrow-raising tactics
of its own--for example, against a Dutch insurance company named
Aegon that
during the war was forced by the SS to surrender all policies
owned by Jews to a
Nazi-controlled firm. Already at the time, the Dutch
government-in-exile declared
such compulsory transactions null and void, and, beginning in
the 1950's, Aegon,
acting under Dutch law, moved to provide restitution to those
who had been robbed.
The firm, moreover, participated in successful negotiations with
the Dutch Jewish
community to establish a fund to cover any additional claims
that might come to light.
Despite this eminently defensible record, last year the WJC
launched an aggressive
campaign against Aegon, insisting that it join the Eagleburger
commission or face a
boycott of its American-based subsidiaries. Aegon balked at this
demand,
maintaining that, as a company that had itself been a victim of
the Nazis, it would not
participate in an enterprise in which it would share equal
culpability with Italian and
German firms. "Our country suffered," Kees Storm, Aegon's
chairman, told the
Financial Times. "We are in a totally different position from
other insurers."
Nevertheless, the World Jewish Congress imposed its sanctions,
with Steinberg
promising to bring the company to its knees: "the insurance
companies," he warned,
"will be even easier" to target than the Swiss banks.
No less troubling than this ungrounded effort to bludgeon a
company into
submission--the WJC has never publicly referred to a single
Holocaust-era insurance
claim against Aegon that has gone unpaid--is the organization's
attempt to wield
Dutch wartime history as a club in its public-relations war
against the insurer.
Holland, according to the congressional testimony of Israel
Singer, the secretary
general of the WJC,
had the worst record in Western Europe during the
Holocaust--some
80 percent of its Jewish population was murdered. They were
handed
over by Dutch police. . . . The perception of Holland has
been colored
by the tragic Anne Frank story. But Anne Frank, who was
betrayed
and died in a Nazi concentration camp, had her furniture in
the hidden
annex removed by a Dutch moving company. So the failure of
Aegon
and the Dutch insurance companies is clearly bound up in
the
unwillingness to face the past--a failure of moral
restitution.
It is, of course, indisputable that, in percentage terms, more
Jews perished in Holland
than anywhere else in Western Europe. In his outstanding Victims
and Survivors:
The Nazi Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, 1940-1945,
the British
historian Bob Moore emphasizes the interplay of elements that
helped to account for
this disparity, among them the deeply ingrained deference to
authority that
characterized both the Dutch people and the Dutch Jews
themselves; the fact that it
was civilian Nazi officials who ruled Holland in the war years
and not, as elsewhere
in Western Europe, the Wehrmacht, thus giving a freer hand to
the SS, the key
instrument of Nazi genocide; and the continuation, during a
temporary pause in
deportations to Auschwitz from locations across Western Europe,
of transports from
Holland alone to the death factory of Sobibor. Indeed, Moore
records in one highly
relevant passage, "the Dutch victims of Sobibor more or less
account for the
percentage difference in mortality between the Netherlands and
its nearest
neighbors."
It is also true, as the WJC's Israel Singer observes, that there
was extensive
collaboration in the roundups and deportations of the Jews to
the death camps,
particularly by the Dutch police and the civil service, and in
this respect the fate of
Anne Frank was typical. But one cannot speak of Dutch
collaborators without also
taking note of the other side of the coin: the Dutch men and
women who gave shelter
to those forced to wear the yellow star, many of whom paid a
terrible price for their
pains. Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum and research
institute, has kept a
meticulously researched record, broken down by country, of the
men and women
who came to the aid of persecuted Jews in occupied Europe. In
absolute numbers of
such "righteous gentiles," tiny Holland outstrips all the
countries of Western and
Central Europe combined. Holland, moreover, was the only country
in Nazi
occupied Europe to witness a general strike in response to Nazi
depredations against
the Jews, a heroic and costly move that tragically failed to
affect the Nazi resolve to
hunt down and murder every last Jew in the land.
One can hardly say that the Dutch had an unblemished record
during World War II;
far from it. And in the aftermath they were often as callous as
they could be to the
relative handful of Jews who returned alive. Still, the image we
have of the "good
Dutchman" is not simply a myth to be torn away. To assert
without qualification that
the Netherlands had "the worst record in Western Europe during
the Holocaust" is
wickedly to blacken the name of a country that, from the bombing
of Rotterdam in
1940 to the hunger winter of 1944-45, itself suffered grievously
in the war. One
would expect an organization attempting to right a historical
wrong to acknowledge,
and honor, its special obligation to historical truth.
AS CLOUDED as are the issues presented by the claims against
insurance
companies, an even more complex case is presented by
Switzerland. In pursuing the
Swiss banks, major Jewish organizations have loosed the most
forceful weapons in
their arsenal, including class-action lawsuits, boycott threats,
and barrages of adverse
publicity. The World Jewish Congress has again taken the lead,
lambasting the Swiss
in forum after forum for sins ranging from gold laundering to
the failure to admit
refugees. It has also published a series of hard-hitting
pamphlets, with titles like The
Sinister Face of "Neutrality": The Role of Swiss Financial
Institutions in the
Plunder of European Jewry, that detail instances of misconduct
during and after the
war.
Summing up the overall charge, Edgar Bronfman testified before
Congress that,
contrary to received wisdom, the Swiss were "far from neutral"
in the war:
Their assistance to the Nazi war machine, through the
clandestine
conversion of looted gold into Swiss francs, enabled the
Germans to
buy fuel and other raw materials they needed to prolong the
war. Some
estimates in testimony before the U.S. Senate hearings
following the
war suggest the cost may have been staggering in the lives
of American
soldiers, Allied soldiers, Jews, and other civilians across
that continent.
What are we to make of this indictment?
Clearly, the picture of wartime Switzerland as a kind of happy
haven, encapsulated
in the Broadway show The Sound of Music, has long been in need
of adjustment.
But in its place has come a mirror-image caricature that does no
greater justice to
historical reality. As with the Dutch, the actual record of the
Swiss is very checkered.
Thus, a case can be made--and has been made by, among others,
Angelo Codevilla
in a new book*--that, surrounded on all sides by the Nazis and
their allies and
vulnerable to invasion, Switzerland acted from necessity when it
served as a banker
for the Third Reich. It is also reasonably clear that
Switzerland did not violate
international law merely by trading with Nazi Germany, which was
in any event again
not a matter of choice. On this point international law is
fairly straightforward: neutral
countries are permitted to engage in commercial relations with
belligerents so long as
the government itself does not participate in such trade and so
long as none of the
belligerents is given special favor. For the most part,
Switzerland complied with these
two conditions.
The Swiss did violate international law in another way--by
trading in Nazi gold,
which they had reason to know had been looted from the
treasuries of Germany's
victims (although there is no evidence suggesting they knew that
some of the gold
had been taken from death-camp inmates). This violation,
however, was in effect
cured, legally if not morally, by the Washington Accord of 1946,
in which the Swiss
agreed to settle Allied claims in exchange for a contribution of
$58 million ($500
million in today's dollars) to the reconstruction of Europe.
This sum was paid only after much kicking and screaming; but it
was not a
particularly large amount, and from our present vantage point
the Swiss would seem
to have gotten off far too easily. Even so, however, some
additional considerations
are relevant. Washington was hardly in the dark about the true
nature of
Switzerland's gold transactions, having obtained through
decryption of diplomatic
communications and other means a generally comprehensive picture
of Bern's
activities. In signing a binding accord, then, the U.S.
government was not snookered.
And the Truman administration had solid reasons of its own for
avoiding a major
breach with Switzerland, the one wholly intact country in the
heart of Europe in the
chaotic year 1946.
But international law aside, was Swiss neutrality itself not an
ethical disgrace? This,
as it happens, is the gravamen of a 1997 U.S. government report
prepared by the
office of Stuart Eizenstat, which also points out that Nazi
Germany "was a mortal
threat to Western civilization itself, and had it been
victorious, to the survival of even
the neutral countries themselves."
That the Swiss were free riders on the Allied war effort is
indisputably the case, but it
is difficult to imagine what kind of useful contribution a
belligerent Switzerland--a
nation of 5 million--could have made to the defeat of Nazi
Germany; in all likelihood,
a major portion of the country would have been conquered within
days and, among
other consequences, the Jews of Switzerland would have been
rounded up and
shipped away, never to return. As things stood, moreover--and as
no lesser an
authority than Winston Churchill would later attest--neutral
Switzerland was not
without considerable value to the Allies, too: as a trading
partner (in gold, as with the
Germans), an espionage porthole, and a "protecting power" for
German-held Allied
prisoners of war. To reprove Swiss neutrality from an office in
Washington five
decades after the fact, without considering the alternative and
what it would have
entailed, is to indulge in the worst kind of armchair
moralizing.
As for Switzerland's exclusionary immigration policy, it was
arguably no worse than
that of many other countries during the war. (The United States
itself hardly has a
glorious record in this department.) But there can also be no
blinking some of the
terrible things done by the Swiss, like the encouragement given
to the German
authorities in 1938 to stamp the passports of Jews with a "J" in
order to help the
Swiss border control keep out terrified refugees fleeing for
their lives. Although some
have denied anti-Semitism was prevalent in Switzerland in this
period, and Codevilla
goes so far as to say that no Swiss officials wanted to put
their names on "a policy of
exclusion of Jews per se," a profusion of easily obtainable
documents belies such
apologetics. Nor was it just low-level bureaucrats who
instructed, as in one crucial
circular, that the passports of those "who are Jewish or
probably Jewish" should be
stamped "turned back." Such policies flowed from the very top,
and were approved
unanimously by the Federal Council, the highest decisionmaking
body in the land.
GOLD LAUNDERING and a pinched or anti-Semitic refugee policy
undoubtedly
constitute the blackest mark on Switzerland's wartime history.
But the irresistible lure
both to class-action lawyers and to Jewish organizations has
been not these but the
dormant bank accounts belonging to Holocaust victims. Thanks in
large measure to
an Independent Committee of Eminent Persons, set up in response
to the growing
clamor about these unrestituted funds and headed by Paul
Volcker, the former
chairman of the Federal Reserve, our understanding of this
matter is much more
complete than it was before the shouting began--and strikingly
at variance with the
picture we have been given.
The Volcker committee examined the records of some 254 Swiss
banks that
operated during the period 1933 to 1945, covering every
institution likely to have
had foreign depositors. It scrutinized some 4.1 million
accounts, or 60 percent of the
total from those years (the records for the other 40 percent no
longer exist). From
these, the commission attempted to cull accounts matching the
names on lists of Nazi
victims provided by Yad Vashem. In all, the auditors found some
53,886 accounts
bearing what they cautiously describe as "a probable or possible
relationship to
victims of Nazi persecution."
This number is dramatically higher than all previous estimates
given by the Swiss
banks themselves--a 1962 survey turned up only 739 accounts,
while in 1956 Swiss
bankers had been able to find a paltry total of 86. The
disparity is overwhelmingly
the result of sheer bad faith on the part of the Swiss--but it
is also a testament to the
technical and legal problems wrapped up in this issue. For, even
after the
expenditure of almost a quarter of a billion dollars in what
became the most
expensive audit of all time (not even counting the sizable
internal costs imposed on
the banks themselves) and with the aid of a "fuzzy logic"
algorithm and other
advanced computational techniques, the Volcker audit itself
encountered enormous
difficulties in tying particular accounts to particular
Holocaust victims with any
certainty.
The report is properly severe in its judgments. Some banks, it
concludes, did engage
in "questionable and deceitful actions." These included
"withholding of information
from Holocaust victims or their heirs about their accounts,
inappropriate closing of
accounts, failure to keep adequate records." Then there were
"many cases of
insensitivity to the efforts of victims to claim dormant or
closed accounts, and a
general lack of diligence--even active resistance--in response
to earlier private and
official inquiries." Some of the more egregious instances of
dissimulation and
stonewalling involved the charging of extraordinary fees to
those seeking information,
or closing accounts in such a way as to complicate or rule out
any future tracing of
ownership.
On the other hand, the offending behavior was evidently limited
to a relatively small
number of banks and is not of recent vintage. Rather, it "took
place years ago in a
particularly difficult period with different banking standards."
Significantly, the
Volcker commission uncovered no evidence of "organized
discrimination against the
accounts of victims of Nazi persecution" or "concerted efforts
to divert the funds of
victims of Nazi persecution to improper purposes." Although many
records could not
be located, this could not be attributed "to systematic or
widespread and deliberate
alteration or destruction of bank-account records for the
purpose of obliterating the
history of the accounts of these victims." Indeed, in a stunning
conclusion completely
contrary to the picture drawn by the World Jewish Congress and
the Western
media, the commission reports "many cases" in which banks
"actively sought out
missing account holders or their heirs, including Holocaust
victims, and paid the
account balances of dormant accounts to the proper parties."
No less remarkable than this conclusion is the committee's
analysis of the root cause
of the problem, which, it avers, lay less in cupidity (though
there was that, too) than
in the underlying legal framework of the Swiss banking system.
One pillar of that
framework was, and remains, the secrecy rules that were adopted
in the 1930's,
ironically enough in large measure to protect the assets of
persecuted German Jews.
These secrecy laws then helped underpin the decision (later to
become the subject of
much criticism) "not to publish the names of the dormant account
holders after World
War II."
A second and no less important pillar was the absence of an
escheat provision that
would, as in most other countries, mandate the transfer of
unclaimed banking assets
to the state after a specified period of inactivity. This
continuing anomaly in Swiss law
has given rise to what the Volcker report calls "large numbers
of dormant accounts
even in settled times" and also, for the period in question,
"very large amounts of
dormant accounts completely unrelated to victims"--a
circumstance from which the
report concludes that "the banks, for the most part, treated
foreign and domestic
customers alike."
This lapidary finding puts paid to the notion that Swiss bankers
deliberately sought to
profit from the Holocaust. Although they clearly harbored their
share of miscreants,
for the most part their dereliction, characteristic of bankers,
lay in applying the
ordinary rules of procedure to an extraordinary situation. Thus,
what can be said of
them as a whole is that they failed to rise to the occasion, and
that they made no
systematic effort, until challenged, to resolve a glaring
scandal.
Although one hesitates to compare, something similar can be said
of other banks,
including, as the Jerusalem Post and other news outlets have
reported in great detail,
local banks in Israel that have been found to be sitting on
dormant accounts
belonging to Holocaust victims. (Once again, avarice is not the
cause; it is merely the
intrinsic difficulties of determining who owns what.) And as the
Jerusalem Report
has recounted in a series of scathing articles, even the Claims
Conference, whose
vice president is Israel Singer and on whose board of directors
sits Edgar Bronfman,
has faced its share of unsightly entanglements in carrying out
its fiduciary
responsibilities--principally by failing adequately to inform
actual property owners or
their heirs of their rights to unclaimed property that then fell
to the Conference to
dispose of as it wished. In short, in managing large sums of
money belonging to the
dead, even the best-intentioned bodies can fall prey to
procedures and incentives
that can make them appear as self-serving and heartless as the
Swiss banks.
IN BRINGING this inquiry to a close, let us leave aside the
"fee-grabbing" lawyers,
who are doing what such lawyers, for better or worse, are
nowadays wont to do.
But has the organized Jewish community itself been pursuing
Holocaust claims in a
legitimate manner?
It is indisputable that without the aggressive campaign waged by
the World Jewish
Congress and its affiliates, many of the restitution efforts in
train today would never
have been set in motion. Although much of the money promised in
the 1990's
remains tied up in litigation and bureaucratic wrangling, if and
when it begins to flow
freely it might yet benefit the dwindling group of Holocaust
survivors dispersed
around the world, many of whom, particularly in Eastern Europe
and the USSR, are
said to be destitute and forsaken.
But consider what else has been set in motion. There is, to
begin with, the
questionable nature of at least some of the claims themselves,
especially those that
have been settled en bloc and under duress by banks or
corporations anxious to
avoid an unceasing notoriety and/or to continue doing business
in the United States.
As we have seen in the case of the insurance companies, the
issues are so tangled as
inescapably to inject uncertainty into the validity of any given
claim, with questions
arising about the timely payment of premiums, the existence of
reinsurance
guarantees, the effect of currency devaluations, and so forth.
And as we have seen
with the dormant bank accounts, the Volcker committee's
authoritative report clearly
refutes the accusation that the Swiss bankers engaged in
widespread and systematic
larceny.
If anything, indeed, the Volcker report highlights the suspect
nature of a good
number of the claims for compensation that have been streaming
in ever since this
issue was highlighted in the 1990's. Through a campaign of
public statements and
paid advertisements, Jews around the world have been actively
solicited to locate
their names on lists of dormant bank-account holders and unpaid
insurance policies.
More, they have been given the impression that filing a claim is
a moral imperative, a
way of seeing justice done.
The Volcker report itself expresses serious reservations about
publishing lists of
accounts, which carries a "greater implication of widespread
insensitive and even
unethical behavior than is warranted by the facts," and invites
"frivolous claims" that
can "clog the claims-resolution process [and] delay justice
rather than serving the
legitimate claimants." An independent tribunal of distinguished
jurists has been at
work evaluating claims against the Swiss banks, and has already
denied some 80
percent of them. But the organizations are pursuing an agenda of
their own, and have
been deterred not at all by the undifferentiated scramble for
compensation they have
unleashed.
QUITE APART from the merits or demerits of individual claims,
that agenda may
be inflicting injuries ever more costly to Jewish interests.
When, in the early 1950's,
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion asked the Israeli people to come
along with him in
accepting reparations from Germany, he did so reluctantly and
for the weightiest of
reasons: namely, to obey the "final injunction of the
inarticulate six million, whose
very murder was a ringing cry for Israel to rise, to be strong
and prosperous, to
safeguard her peace and security, and so prevent such a disaster
from ever again
overwhelming the Jewish people." Does even a shadow of such a
vital imperative
exist today?
Assuredly, the restitution effort now being pushed forward by
U.S.-based Jewish
organizations contributes nothing to Israel's security.
Conceivably, it may even harm
it. For many years now, Germany, Holland, and Switzerland have
been staunch
supporters of Israel in a Europe that has been less than
friendly to the Jewish state.
The arm-twisting, the threats of boycott, the bad press--some of
it undeserved, and
some of it undertaken for the naked aim of extracting
money--cannot but leave a
distinct impression on European minds.
Stoking the fires of anti-Semitism on the far Right is only one
and by no means the
most significant danger. The real peril comes not from the
fringe but from the damage
done in the European political center. Countries that fail to
fall into line, Israel Singer
has warned, will be "publicly attacked and humiliated," and on
more than a few
occasions his organization has made good on this threat. When
moments of strain
come along, as when Israel's Arab adversaries come shopping for
advanced
weapons systems, will the nations that have been "publicly
attacked and humiliated"
be ready to do the right thing? It is impossible to say for
sure, but one senses that
moral and political capital has been heedlessly squandered.
An injury of another sort may be done to relations between Jews
and non-Jews.
With the exception of the forced laborers and some other
currently favored groups
like Gypsies, homosexuals, and the mentally ill, both European
corporations and
Jewish organizations have said embarrassingly little about the
great numbers of
non-Jews who were deprived of life, limb, and property at the
hands of the Nazis.
But if banks and insurance companies, in particular, have unpaid
obligations, they
have them to all of their murdered customers with whom they had
valid contracts.
Obviously, the firms do not wish to widen their exposure to
thousands upon
thousands of more claims, and Jewish organizations are fighting
first and foremost for
Jewish interests.
So they should; that is their job, and besides, the fate of the
Jews, it hardly needs
emphasizing, was singularly terrible. Nevertheless, to lead or
participate in a process
through which some are given restitution while others in similar
circumstances, but on
the wrong set of lists, are not, is to sow the seeds of needless
acrimony and to court
censure on grounds to which Jews of all people should be
especially sensitive.
PRUDENTIAL CONSIDERATIONS of this sort are by no means the end
of it;
at stake also is Jewish honor, violated in several ways. For one
thing, we have been
witnessing the spectacle of American Jewish organizations
teaming up with politicians
whose tears for the six million are exquisitely synchronized
with their need for
campaign contributions and applauding headlines. A bipartisan
complement of this
breed will attend the black-tie reparations banquet at the
Waldorf-Astoria, an
exercise in self-congratulation that promises to drag the mass
murder of European
Jewry into ethnic politics at its crassest.
For another and much graver thing, there are those indigent
survivors languishing in
isolation while their claims are laboriously processed. The
Jewish community has a
proud history, extending across millennia, of taking care of its
own, buttressed by a
voluminous legal and moral literature on the sacred obligation
to feed the hungry,
clothe the naked, and ransom the captive. Can it really be that,
at the very moment
when American Jewry has been investing millions of dollars in
the construction of
Holocaust museums and memorials in every city and suburb of the
United States,
and when hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent digging
through European
banking archives, these suffering souls have been kept waiting
for Swiss and German
money to materialize? Yet so we have been solemnly assured by
those spearheading
the press for Holocaust restitution. If what they say is false,
merely a public-relations
ploy, then the pursuit of "blood money," in Menachem Begin's
withering phrase, will
have ended by casting into disrepute Jewish integrity; if what
they say is true, it will
have ended by casting into disrepute Jewish self-respect as
well.
And finally there is the damage done to our understanding of
history, to which I have
already alluded. In testimony before Congress earlier this year,
Israel Singer
declared that "the importance of financial restitution must not
overshadow the priority
of moral restitution--the honest confrontation and accounting of
the past."
Unfortunately, he and his associates have rendered any such
"honest confrontation"
all the more difficult. History is not clay to be molded this
way or that in the service
of a cause, no matter how worthy, and treating it as such only
eases the way for
extremists of Left and Right to reshape the past toward their
own, entirely different
ends, including the end of proclaiming that the Holocaust, like
everything else
touching upon the Jews, was just about money after all.
Some of these extremists have accused the organized Jewish world
of engaging in
gangster tactics. One can only hope that the venom of such
attacks will not deter
other, more responsible voices from issuing criticism when and
in whatever measure
it is due. Thus far, alas, only a few such voices have been
heard. "The pursuit of
billions in Holocaust guilt money," warns Charles Krauthammer
with characteristic
directness, "has gone from the unseemly to the disgraceful." To
Abraham Foxman,
the reduction of the Holocaust to a matter of dollars and cents
amounts to a
"desecration" and "too high a price to pay for a justice we will
never achieve."
They are right. It is past time to reconsider.
* In what follows I use the words "restitution" and
"reparations" interchangeably,
though the former, strictly speaking, refers to the return of
property to its rightful
owner and the latter to compensatory payments for wartime or
occupation losses
agreed to, usually in a treaty, by a vanquished belligerent
state.
** The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of
Jewish Suffering,
by Norman Finkelstein. Verso, 150 pp., $23.00.
*** Between the Alps and a Hard Place. Regnery, 288 pp., $27.95.
GABRIEL SCHOENFELD is senior editor of COMMENTARY.
Roger Alexander
David Gehrig wrote:
> Roger Alexander wrote:
> >
> > I apologize for the sappy special pleading which laces through this
> > article. The magazine Commentary is not my cup of tea.
>
> ... but because it gives me another chance to bash the Jews, I'll
> cross-post it from here to Mars.
>
> @%<
I post each article where it appears to belong, certainly no more.
The article heavily involved israel, it involved the Holocaust Industry
so alt.revisionism was indicated, and it involved American efforts
to coerce European countries, so soc.culture.usa was indicated.
My home board is talk.politics.mideast, so I posted it there to catch
responses.
Commentary is one weird publication, its writing is objectively heavily
biased, and characterizing much of the article as sappy special pleading
can be supported should you but say the word.
I don't bash Jews. I don't hate Jews. I think Jews who support Israel
while living in and maintaining citizenship in this country should
reexamine
their thinking. Indeed the Commentary article stands as an excellent
point of departure to expound upon that thesis. Israel benefits from
moral condemnation (and legal condemnation) of German war crimes.
Israel is guilty of much the same stuff. I have to give the author
credit,
he did mention one parallel, the Israeli banks which have done worse
than the Swiss banks. Again the article appears to have been motivated
by fear of a backlash. So it almost had to take some of the factual
background of that backlash into account.
RLA
Norma Blankenfeld
provided some comic relief on a Saturday evening. Roger, you have to step
back once in awhile and take stock!!!
Your reasoning for posting things *where they seem to belong* is--well, I
have no words to express the feelings (and the smirks at your ignoring the
previous posting.)
Those who maintain citizenship and residence in Israel are much the same as
most of us (meaning outside of Israel and good Americans like you.) They
have jobs, go to work, take care of their families and homes, do all the
things it takes to get through the day, and many are fearful for their
family's lives and futures. Just who what do you think they are doing?
Cooking up plans to do *anything TERRIBLE* to the Palestinians, Christians,
Bahai's, etc.? They do not have your energy or passion for the *stuff* you
accuse them of. But I digress, it is the Palestinians that you are
championing here (and everywhere else possible. Maybe "all the way to
Mars":).
There are tired, have illnesses, concerns for finances (and your exquisite
prejudice about Jewish banks did not get unnoticed.....) Don't you
understand that when TERRIBLE things that you paint so well are done to the
Palestinians, they are also happening to them and their families? Think
about it !!! You did seem to recognize there would be backlash and maybe
that is "(MY) cup of tea"??? You are an enigma. Norma
Roger Alexander wrote in message <39CD7AD7...@bellsouth.net>...
>
>
>David Gehrig wrote:
>
>> Roger Alexander wrote:
>> >
>> > I apologize for the sappy special pleading which laces through this
>> > article. The magazine Commentary is not my cup of tea.
>>
David Gehrig
>
> I apologize for the sappy special pleading which laces through this
> article. The magazine Commentary is not my cup of tea.
... but because it gives me another chance to bash the Jews, I'll
Roger Alexander
Indeed the demise of ideology as a driving force for change is one of the few
hopes i have for the future. Meantime, those folk support a government which
continues to oppress the native people of Palestine, those folk live in houses
their parents robbed from the owners, those folk acquiesce at least in refusing
to allow the people who have a right to be there to return home. Those folk
acquiesce in allowing non Jews from Russia to immigrate, the reasons
being obvious, but terribly unjust to the Palestinians and at odds with the
notion of the state being jewish. only recently, Israel left Lebanon, with
the prison at khiam, the legacy of deaths. Those folk served in the army
of occupation and repression there. Some of them flew the planes which
blew up the power plants and the other infrastructure of Lebanon. Those
folk want a normal life, but at the expense of a whole other people.
i find nothing funny in that, nothing admirable about such a people, indeed
you are describing the Germans of another day.
RLA
Norma Blankenfeld wrote:
Norma Blankenfeld
the way you callously label their lives as "mundane". They support their
government in the same way you and I support the government of the USA. (Do
you REALLY feel you have a lot of control in the workings of the gov.?) You
make it sound like the Israeli government is putting people in office by how
successful they would be at doing all that could be done to *do in* the
Palestinian. You say (yesterday, I think) that you are an active lawyer, so
you know how complicated it is to run the government. The Kenesset has many
more agenda items than how to do TERRIBLE things to the Palestinians.
Where did the "demise of ideology" get into this? Most Israelis, a group
who also include Arabs who have chosen to become citizens, really do WANT
peace. Get with it, man!! They do not continuously sit around thinking up
big and little terroristic activities to kill, loot, stifle, attack, etc.the
Palestinians. It is only you who thinks their lives, homes, and families
are mundane concerns.
Do you not support a government that requires lots of dollars and
regulations on the American society and the world? Honestly now, does the
US Government focus efforts so intensively one any one group? The possible
exception is the travesty of the activities around the *questionable*
activities of our elected officials. Most of the homes were NOT stolen.
from the Palestinians. Try to imagine, if you can, what the homes of the
*native Palestinians* (they would resent you big time for that one) were
like? The construction has been done by everyone else who has been there.
The Palestinians/Arabs lived in tent compound and structures that you would
probably call a hovel. They did not and do not aspire to the way of life
that American take for granted. The structures that were built for the
Palestinians was/is the Mosques, and that is done primarily by Saudi Arabia.
Let's look at the Russians who are moving in--The current "native"Israelis
(I'll use your term) are having difficulty maintaining jobs or getting jobs,
because the Russians have moved in and have caused social havoc. It is a
strain on the economy and there is lots of unemployment. So the government
has to deal with that. Also many of them ARE Jews, but due to the
suppression of the Russian Government, they were not allowed to practice
their religion or teach Judaism to their children. Many of those Russian
Jews are like very young children with regard to Judaism who need everything
taught to them so they can practice their religion.
The Russian neighborhoods also in less than our standard American housing,
but by their own choice to form a supportive community. ( Outside of the USA
and Western Europe, people spend more of their income on establishing a
lifestyle and that does not include a high priority for elaborate housing.)
Even in Europe people who are the Middle and Low class in the social goops,
devote more of their resources to travel, entertainment, and things that
support their lifestyle.
How do you envision other societies? Their is absolutely no driving force
(Hitlerian) or agreement on suppression of any group. Your comments
really do demonstrate your *anal-retentiveness* about the politics and
people of Israel or the Middle East . The Palestinians are not being
courted anywhere, The government of Israel also includes a number of
Arab/Palestinian origin (or "Native" as you put it.) These members vote
with full rights and responsibilities as all other members. In fact, the
meetings are infamous for the chaos among the groups found at the table.
You've got things scrambled and molded in your mind and it goes
*round-and-round* and comes out wrong. The plots and schemes do not exist
on the part of all, and certainly not to the degree of the evil intent that
you imagine. You need some new and different sources for your reading and
a new *song* to restructure your thinking. Norma
Roger Alexander wrote in message <39CD8ECF...@bellsouth.net>...
dltjxx
>I am well aware that the ordinary person in Israel has mundane
>concerns.
So says Roggie, who has never met ANY person from Israel, or even
been in the ME.
>Meantime, those folk support a government which continues to oppress
>the native people of Palestine,
WHICH "native people of Palestine"? The Neandertals?
>those folk acquiesce at least in refusing to allow the people who
>have a right to be there to return home.
Roggie should also have the right to return home -- to Europe --
and return the land he stole from the native peoples.
>Those folk acquiesce in allowing non Jews from Russia to immigrate,
>the reasons being obvious, but terribly unjust to the Palestinians
>and at odds with the notion of the state being jewish.
LOL! Like Roggie has a clue as to "being Jewish"!
>Some of them flew the planes which blew up the power plants and the
>other infrastructure of Lebanon.
As did the Syrian army, from the time of its invasion in 1975.
One wonders why Roggie doesn't get his knickers in a knot over
that.
>i find nothing funny in that, nothing admirable about such a people,
>indeed you are describing the Germans of another day.
>RLA
Boolsheet, bwana. The "Germans of another day" took the precedent for
their concentration camps not from Israel, but from US reservations
for Indians.
One wonders why Roggie doesn't get his knickers in a knot over the
plight of American Indians/Native Americans. Possibly because he's
living on land stolen from them.
Deborah
Susie
<rlalex...@bellsouth.net> writes
>I don't bash Jews. I don't hate Jews. I think Jews who support Israel
>while living in and maintaining citizenship in this country should
>reexamine their thinking.
I have to agree - but that's with all folk in general.
Take the Yanks over in in Britland. Though they could be anyone from any
country, I'm not attacking Yanks. (I don't believe I just wrote that. I
should *never* have gone there and seen for myself. Guess there's
something in what you wrote back there, eh, Blackie...?)
Anyway... take the Yanks (alright, not all Yanks)... they live in the
UK. And every cut and turn its: "Well it ain't like it is back home...
Ya see, America so good... We wouldn't do it like that over there..."
Or..." Well get the fuck back there then!
And with religion? When a country is in turmoil... I'll use Ireland as
the example here, so it's kinda evens things up in the example stakes...
Aye with Northeren Ireland, it's like... "I think those bloody Catholics
should be hung. There's another bomb gone off in Belfast... The Orange
Order shouldn't stand for it..." Well... get the fuck out of here you
Proddy dog and go live with the bombs then. With any luck, one of your
own Loyalist devices may get ya..."
Oooh, contraversial there, suse...
--
Susie *Rev - don't rev. The choice is yours.
http://pages.zoom.co.uk/imacnab - lair of the foxes.
See Donnie donkey eating outta my hand...
Susie
l...@vax2.winona.msus.edu> writes
>Those who maintain citizenship and residence in Israel are much the same as
>most of us (meaning outside of Israel and good Americans like you.) They
>have jobs, go to work, take care of their families and homes, do all the
>things it takes to get through the day, and many are fearful for their
>family's lives and futures.
Are the Arabs afforded the same kind of accomodation ie housing, jobs,
education etc, as those who are Israeli nationals in Israel?
And if you wouldn't mind clearing up something for me, Norma... Did the
allied forces, forcably turf the Arab families out of their homes when
land was err... "divided" in readiness for the formation of Israel?
I ask because... a relative spent time in the glass house rather than do
just that. And if that seems a little extreme, it wasn't. He was an
Irish Catholic and the British did something like that in Ireland many
many years ago. It's something England is good at. We've done it all
over the world.
Do you know our Queen (or any future king) is not allowed to marry a
Catholic without surrendering the throne? And we are trying to talk
*peace* with the catholics over there???
dltjxx
>>I don't bash Jews.
Roggie uses the expedient of replacing "Jew" with "Zionist".
This enables him to write that Jews (Zionists) are:
"Bastards." RLA, 23/4/99
"Bastards!" RLA, 24/4/99
"Bastards! RLA, 5/5/98
"you bastards." RLA,13/5/99
"sons of bitches" RLA, 13/5/99
"a bunch of SOBs" RLA, 24/4/99
"Bastards!" - RLA 14/5/99
"Borg" RLA, 13/5/99
"Borg" RLA, 01/04/99
"Borg" 27/01/00
>>I don't hate Jews.
Roggie, who has stated that he "wouldn't post stuff if I didn't think
it was true" simply believes what he has posted over the past year and
a half, to-wit:
"Jewish control of the media is well documented."
"The media are controlled by Jews, by and large."
"The pilpul ridicules the notion of Jewish control of the White House.
If not control, it approaches such. The number of Jewish high officials
next to clinton is quite high. The placement of zionist activists in
positions of public trust is scary. "
"American jews are in command of foreign policy."
"Wealthy Jews in this country have effectively bought the Congress and
the administration. Other welathy Jews own most of the news media."
"It is high time for Jews in Israel to make peace with their Arab
neighbors and atone for their sins, which should take only seven
generations."
"Israel wants to be a homogeneous culture, with one religion, one
culture, and that religion/culture is Jewish. America doesn't."
"Communists included many Jews among their founders, Marx and Engels,
among their leaders in Russia, Lenin and Trotsky, and a host of other
functionaries,"
"The sole interest of Jews in remembering the holocaust is extort
money. "
"Jews in the US have power and influence far beyond their numbers. They
are able to mold public opinion, elect and unseat politicians, prevent
books from being published, make movies and television series which
affect the mindset of Americans, and generally affect our lives in ways
we generally think of as only American values. To the extent that Jews
use their influence in ways that vary from the set of common values
we think of as our own, and at the same time conceal these actions from
the common run of us, they are acting inimically to those values."
"According to Jewish religious law, a Jew should not seek to save the
life of a non-Jew unless there be benefit in doing so."
<su...@millersfield.demon.co.uk> writes:
>Take the Yanks over in in Britland. Though they could be anyone from
>any country, I'm not attacking Yanks. (I don't believe I just wrote
>that. I should *never* have gone there and seen for myself. Guess
>there's something in what you wrote back there, eh, Blackie...?)
>Anyway... take the Yanks (alright, not all Yanks)... they live in the
>UK. And every cut and turn its: "Well it ain't like it is back home...
>Ya see, America so good... We wouldn't do it like that over there..."
What a coincidence. Over here, Brits opine that: "In England, people
have MUCH better manners", and "In England, we would NEVER serve such
as dish except as a dessert", and "In England, we do it like this..."
etc etc etc.
>Well get the fuck back there then!
I might say the same.
Deborah
dltjxx
>Are the Arabs afforded the same kind of accomodation ie housing,
>jobs, education etc, as those who are Israeli nationals in Israel?
If they can afford it.
>Did the allied forces, forcably turf the Arab families out of their
>homes when land was err... "divided" in readiness for the formation
>of Israel?
The land was "err... divided" per UNR 181 for the formation of a Jewish
state AND an Arab state. The Arab state was not formed for the reasons
that: 1) No Arab political body could be found to proclaim an Arab
state, other than the pro-Nazi Arab Higher Committee headed by the
Nazi war criminal Amin al-Husseini; and Britain's ally, Jordan,
according to King Abdullah, believed that: 2) "Were an Arab state to be
created in Palestine, we would find ourselves surrounded by enemies."
Some comments from Arabs on the so-called "forcible turfing" of Arabs
from their homes:
"The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long,
and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had
promised them that the Arab armies would crash the 'Zionist gangs' very
quickly and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile."
George Hakim, bishop of the Galilee, Sada al Janub (Beirut) 16 Aug 48.
"The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of
the action of the Arab states in opposing the Jewish entity. The Arab
states agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the
solution of the problem they created." Emil Ghouri, Secretary of the
Arab Higher Committee, Daily Telegraph 6 Sept 48.
"Various factors influenced [the Arabs'] decision to seek flight. There
is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the
announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging
the Arabs to quit." London Economist 2 Oct 48.
"This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs,
encouraged by the boasting of an un-realistic Arab press and the
irresponsible utterances of some arab leaders that it could only be a
matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab
states and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake
possession of their country." Edward Atiyah, secretary of the Arab
League (London), The Arabs p 183.
"The Arab states encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes
temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies."
Falastin (Jordan), editorial 19 Feb 49.
"[Arab League Secretary General Azzam Pasha] pointed out that they were
already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent
on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a
simple matter to throw the Jews into the Mediterranean. Brotherly
advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes
and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal
states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down." Habib
Issa, Al-Hada (New York) 8 Jun 51.
"Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their
homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only
a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal
to the United Nations to resolve on their return." Khalid al-Azzam,
Syrian prime minister 1948-9, Memoirs, pp 386-87.
"The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians, but
instead they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and leave their
homeland." Abu Mazen, PLO Executive Committee, Falastin al-Thawra, Mar
76.
>Do you know our Queen (or any future king) is not allowed to marry a
>Catholic without surrendering the throne?
Do we care?
Deborah
$kr1p7...@salmahayeksknockers.edu
> I am well aware that the ordinary person in Israel has mundane concerns.
> Indeed the demise of ideology as a driving force for change is one of the few
> hopes i have for the future.
Roger, I commend you. This is something I have believed for some time, but
no one seems to share.
Whether right wing assholes in power, or left wing assholes are in power,
it's really no diff... I think it's important to get people to stop being
assholes, and concentrate on their behavior, not their beliefs.
--
............................................................................
"The real meaning of the official U.S./Israel 'peace process' is a process
of entrapment in an apartheid system that encloses Palestinians in their
ghettos, denying them the possibility of real autonomous development."
-Rosemary Ruether, Catholic feminist theologian
............................................................................
www.geocities.com/pentagon/bunker/1022 swan_...@my-dejanews.com
$kr1p7...@salmahayeksknockers.edu
> Where did the "demise of ideology" get into this? Most Israelis, a group
> who also include Arabs who have chosen to become citizens, really do WANT
> peace.
Peace, to Israel, equals surrender to the displaced palestinian people.
That would be like me breaking into my neighbor's house, stealing his stereo
and punching him in the nose. Then, when he comes over to my house to
get his stereo back, I say 'hey man, lets just get along'.
Drastically oversimplified, nonetheless relevant.
Susie
<dlt...@ix.netcom.com> writes
>>>I don't bash Jews.
>
>Roggie uses the expedient of replacing "Jew" with "Zionist".
>This enables him to write that Jews (Zionists) are:
>
>"Bastards." RLA, 23/4/99
>"Bastards!" RLA, 24/4/99
>"Bastards! RLA, 5/5/98
There are bastard Jews just like there are bastard proddies or bastard
catholics. As long as folk bear in mind that not *all* Jews are
bastards, or *all* proddies or *all* catholics... there's nowt
dangerous.
There's bad folk in all walks of life.
Susie
mahayeksknockers.edu writes
>Whether right wing assholes in power, or left wing assholes are in power,
>it's really no diff... I think it's important to get people to stop being
>assholes, and concentrate on their behavior, not their beliefs.
Ohhhhhh, fucking well said that man. Top post.
Norma Blankenfeld
I would just encourage you to stick around awhile and read the
*authoritative* postings from the bowels of ignorance and racism (AKA
anti-Semitism on the NG) espoused by Mr. Alexander. Being new to this
particular NG (soc.cultur. Israel), at least I haven't seen your name here
before, I would simply advise that you read and reflect on the nebulous,
empty statements for yourself before you commit yourself to *his* cause.
Your statements at this time are too general and trite with regard to his
recent postings. Do not be fooled by his confabulations using intelligent
sounding words strung together in the context of how the TERRIBLE
ISRAELIS( caps his own) wreak havoc on the almost ethereally innocent
Palestinians make little to no sense at all! No political situation in any
country is that simplistic. The "there are nasty people everywhere" is not
even in the ballpark of this discussion.
I think Deborah addressed your question to me about the Palestinians being
given an opportunity. They were very boastful and overestimated their
assessment that fellow Palestinians who decided to leave would gather
support and strength to victoriously return and save the day. What
happened? Why didn't they move back, because the door was left open no
matter what some (like RLA) will stamp their feet and insist on. They had
more numbers and more at stake, but left....as Roger would say, "I wonder
why?"
And as far as the fact that your Queen and potential King marrying a Roman
Catholic--well, Henry the Eighth set the precedent a long time ago and the
struggle between Queens Elizabeth I and Mary of Scots made that even more of
a political consideration in Great Britain. I am not British and I know
nothing about living in a system headed by Royalty, I can't even think of
that as an issue remotely like the Palestinian-Israeli chaos.
At least take an intelligent look at all facets of the issues. Don't you
have the remotest question about why Great Britain pulled out and left the
mess? Don't you wonder why all the Arab states treat the Palestinians worse
than the Israelis? Why did the other Arabs not encourage and support the
"return" of the Palestinians? (That is a very huge paradox, except to those
who have lived in the Middle East and know about Arabic politics. Your just
have to BE there sometimes to even attempt to understand.) The Jordanians
gave away land (the West Bank) to get them in a place away from the
"native"Jordanians (I'll again be consistent with Rogers language)--why is
that true? And why do the Saudi Arabians and Egyptians treat them worse
than the white Americans treated their slaves? (I have observed this up
close and personal.) Good luck. Norma
Susie wrote in message ...
>In article <8ql1bi$hcv$1...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net>, dltjxx
><dlt...@ix.netcom.com> writes
>
>There's bad folk in all walks of life.
>
Norma Blankenfeld
newsgroup......
Roger not bashing or hating Jews-hahahahahahah!!! That is crap.. Norma
Susie wrote in message ...
>In article <39CD7AD7...@bellsouth.net>, Roger Alexander
><rlalex...@bellsouth.net> writes
>
>>I don't bash Jews. I don't hate Jews. I think Jews who support Israel
>>while living in and maintaining citizenship in this country should
>>reexamine their thinking.
>
>I have to agree - but that's with all folk in general.
>
>Take the Yanks over in in Britland. Though they could be anyone from any
>country, I'm not attacking Yanks. (I don't believe I just wrote that. I
>should *never* have gone there and seen for myself. Guess there's
>something in what you wrote back there, eh, Blackie...?)
>
>Anyway... take the Yanks (alright, not all Yanks)... they live in the
>UK. And every cut and turn its: "Well it ain't like it is back home...
>Ya see, America so good... We wouldn't do it like that over there..."
>Or..." Well get the fuck back there then!
>
>And with religion? When a country is in turmoil... I'll use Ireland as
>the example here, so it's kinda evens things up in the example stakes...
>Aye with Northeren Ireland, it's like... "I think those bloody Catholics
>should be hung. There's another bomb gone off in Belfast... The Orange
>Order shouldn't stand for it..." Well... get the fuck out of here you
>Proddy dog and go live with the bombs then. With any luck, one of your
>own Loyalist devices may get ya..."
>
>Oooh, contraversial there, suse...
>
Roger Alexander
dltjxx wrote:
> >Roger Alexander writes:
> >>I don't bash Jews.
>
Israel is objectively a terrible state. The poster leaves out the
monstrous
actions which occasioned the comments. Believe me they were mild
in comparison to what the israelis deserved. Remember, it was only in
September 1999 that the Supreme Court of Israel outlawed torture,
after having been asked to do so many times before. Torture
continued in Khiam prison in Lebanon, operated by the SLA for
israel. bombing raids against Lebanon continued. Israel only left
Lebanon in the spring of the year 2000.
Israel continues to put illegal settlements into occup0ied palestine
and is in the process of putting a road around jerusalem right now.
When I point out that Israel is doing these things, there is an
entity, Jewish all right, which is doing them, but it is the fact that
the entity and individuals on behalf of that entity are doing them that
is important. It remains important for Jews around the world to
realize that when they support israel they are supporting an
apartheid regime.
RLA
> Roggie uses the expedient of replacing "Jew" with "Zionist".
> This enables him to write that Jews (Zionists) are:
>
> "Bastards." RLA, 23/4/99
> "Bastards!" RLA, 24/4/99
> "Bastards! RLA, 5/5/98
> "you bastards." RLA,13/5/99
> "sons of bitches" RLA, 13/5/99
> "a bunch of SOBs" RLA, 24/4/99
> "Bastards!" - RLA 14/5/99
> "Borg" RLA, 13/5/99
> "Borg" RLA, 01/04/99
> "Borg" 27/01/00
>
> >>I don't hate Jews.
>
> Roggie, who has stated that he "wouldn't post stuff if I didn't think
> it was true" simply believes what he has posted over the past year and
> a half, to-wit:
>
> "Jewish control of the media is well documented."
>
> "The media are controlled by Jews, by and large."
>
> "The pilpul ridicules the notion of Jewish control of the White House.
> If not control, it approaches such. The number of Jewish high officials
> next to clinton is quite high. The placement of zionist activists in
> positions of public trust is scary. "
>
> "American jews are in command of foreign policy."
>
> "Wealthy Jews in this country have effectively bought the Congress and
> the administration. Other welathy Jews own most of the news media."
>
> "It is high time for Jews in Israel to make peace with their Arab
> neighbors and atone for their sins, which should take only seven
> generations."
>
> "Israel wants to be a homogeneous culture, with one religion, one
> culture, and that religion/culture is Jewish. America doesn't."
>
> "Communists included many Jews among their founders, Marx and Engels,
> among their leaders in Russia, Lenin and Trotsky, and a host of other
> functionaries,"
>
None of this is hate for jews. jews have been busy in many countries doing
many political acts. In this country, they do control most of the media,
print, TV and movies and they do use that control to favor israel. this
is the case, and it is indisputable.
RLA
> "The sole interest of Jews in remembering the holocaust is extort
> money. "
>
This poster likes to sneak in so-called quotes of her own invention.
The above is one of them.
RLA
>
> "Jews in the US have power and influence far beyond their numbers. They
> are able to mold public opinion, elect and unseat politicians, prevent
> books from being published, make movies and television series which
> affect the mindset of Americans, and generally affect our lives in ways
> we generally think of as only American values. To the extent that Jews
> use their influence in ways that vary from the set of common values
> we think of as our own, and at the same time conceal these actions from
> the common run of us, they are acting inimically to those values."
>
Well said, if I did say it. this again is true. If the poster think it
isn't it is open
to him/her to dispute it. It is telling that battle is never joined on
these issues.
RLA
>
> "According to Jewish religious law, a Jew should not seek to save the
> life of a non-Jew unless there be benefit in doing so."
>
Not my statement, may have been in some post I copied and put up.
One might ask whether it is true or not. I don't know, and I doubt
most jews in this country would act in accord with it. i would expect
they would act in accord with secualr western morality, which would
call for the saving without respect to the religion of the person.
I note here that there is generally, even in the US, no legal duty to
save the life of another. Yanya vs.????? or similar in my torts book.
So the duty would be a moral one, not legal.
RLA
>
> <su...@millersfield.demon.co.uk> writes:
> >Take the Yanks over in in Britland. Though they could be anyone from
> >any country, I'm not attacking Yanks. (I don't believe I just wrote
> >that. I should *never* have gone there and seen for myself. Guess
> >there's something in what you wrote back there, eh, Blackie...?)
> >Anyway... take the Yanks (alright, not all Yanks)... they live in the
> >UK. And every cut and turn its: "Well it ain't like it is back home...
> >Ya see, America so good... We wouldn't do it like that over there..."
>
> What a coincidence. Over here, Brits opine that: "In England, people
> have MUCH better manners", and "In England, we would NEVER serve such
> as dish except as a dessert", and "In England, we do it like this..."
> etc etc etc.
>
> >Well get the fuck back there then!
>
Susie
l...@vax2.winona.msus.edu> writes
>Susie-
>
>I would just encourage you to stick around awhile and read the
>*authoritative* postings from the bowels of ignorance and racism (AKA
>anti-Semitism on the NG) espoused by Mr. Alexander. Being new to this
>particular NG (soc.cultur. Israel), at least I haven't seen your name here
>before, I would simply advise that you read and reflect on the nebulous,
>empty statements for yourself before you commit yourself to *his* cause.
I commit myself to no man's cause.
Hating Jews is wrong. As is the hate of anything, really. There is wrong
in Israel and there is wrong in Palestine. By the extremes of both
belief systems. And there's wrong in every country of the world.
The guy who tagged somewhere else, put it very well indeed. If folk
concerned themselves with behaviour first and religion second, maybe so
many people wouldn't have to be on the recieving end of mindless murder.
Susie
l...@vax2.winona.msus.edu> writes
>"Proddy" and "Catholic" are not well received as terms of discussion in this
>newsgroup......
Secular exclusion, eh? S'okay. I'm used to it...
Roberta Hatch
>"Proddy" and "Catholic" are not well received as terms of discussion in this
>newsgroup......
Since you're posting to four newsgroups, maybe you could
be a little more specific.
Bobbi
---
Roberta Hatch '65 Panhead
Dykes on Bikes, San Francisco, CA (This space for rent)
Norma Blankenfeld
I will not snip here, because others may need the original posting to
discover the context for my comments.
Please, would you define the term including such things as "objectively
terrible". (BTW, have you read Terry Anderson's autobiography of his
imprisonment in Lebanon? It is an excellent testimony of treatment by the
Lebanese and the Hezbollah. It is a good read, Roger.)
It seems to be that you, Roger, are acting not so much the lawyer in the
comments below (and in lots of other postings that appear daily in the NGs)
but as the judge and jury in the "prosecution of Jews everywhere". Let's
just get down to the nitty gritty of *sins* of any country everywhere. They
are all perpetrated by the Jewish portion of the population, right? Or am I
*misunderstanding again? Surely you will discover similar treatment of
prisoners during the Viet Nam war, Chinese prisons, and on-and-on. There
are not many Jews in those places. This includes the United States (look to
the treatment of the Japanese during WW2 ( the Jews were focusing on the
treatment of the European Jews at the time) and then there is the history of
how the "Native Americans"were displaced way before that.) And I would
refer you to the happenings in Eastern Europe and Africa in current times.
The conditions, merciless treatment, and inhumanitarian incidents are at the
most basic level of TERRIBLE.
I am amazed at the audacity of the statements of the KING of "sneaking in
quotes of the writer's own invention" ! Again the 'pot is calling the
kettle black'. Unbelievable....... The *fixation* of overgeneralization
with regard to the actions of Jews everywhere has slipped into the realm of
the ridculous.
Believe me, the "Jews" you see controlling the media via movies,
productions, etc.implying that *they* have untold power over the cognitive
processes of everybody is below the level of intelligence that could be
expected of the poster in blatant ways. The consumers are voting with their
money and feet, a fact that cannot be ignored. C'mon, even the Jews are not
that successful in their "inherently evil intent". and in the perceived
talents for making money (often implied in former remarks.) Business is
business no matter the race and religion of the business people. Norma
RLA responses to the postings of others..
Norma Blankenfeld
my postings if they annoy you so. Norma
Roberta Hatch wrote in message <8qnhpf$aln$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>...
dltjxx
>>>>I don't hate Jews.
>>Roggie, who has stated that he "wouldn't post stuff if I didn't think
>>it was true" simply believes what he has posted over the past year
>>and a half, to-wit:
>>"Jewish control of the media is well documented."
>>"The media are controlled by Jews, by and large."
>>"The pilpul ridicules the notion of Jewish control of the White
>>House. If not control, it approaches such. The number of Jewish high
>>officials next to clinton is quite high. The placement of zionist
>>activists in positions of public trust is scary. "
>>"American jews are in command of foreign policy."
>>"Wealthy Jews in this country have effectively bought the Congress
>>and the administration. Other welathy Jews own most of the news
>>media."
>>"It is high time for Jews in Israel to make peace with their Arab
>>neighbors and atone for their sins, which should take only seven
>>generations."
>>"Israel wants to be a homogeneous culture, with one religion, one
>>culture, and that religion/culture is Jewish. America doesn't."
>>"Communists included many Jews among their founders, Marx and Engels,
>>among their leaders in Russia, Lenin and Trotsky, and a host of other
>>functionaries,"
>None of this is hate for jews.
Neither, perhaps, is the following, at least in Roggie's world view:
"Bear in mind the devastations which Jewish bastardization visits
on our nation each day, and consider that this blood poisoning can be
removed from our national body only after centuries, if at all."
"A folkish state must begin by raising marriage from the level of a
continuous defilement of the race and give it the consecration of an
institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not
monstrosities halfway between man and ape...This contamination of our
blood, blindly ignored by hundreds of thousands of our people, is
carried on systematically by the Jew today." Mein Kampf
>jews have been busy in many countries doing many political acts. In
>this country, they do control most of the media, print, TV and movies
>and they do use that control to favor israel. this is the case, and it
>is indisputable.
>RLA
Of course its disputable.
It was also Hitler's view of Russian Jews.
>>"The sole interest of Jews in remembering the holocaust is extort
>>money. "
>This poster likes to sneak in so-called quotes of her own invention.
>The above is one of them.
>RLA
Uh, it was what YOU posted 18 Dec 1997, Roggie. Also in that same post
were your statements:
"Nazis never intended to anihilate Europe's Jews." RLA, 18/12/97
"Nazis were open and truthful." RLA, 26/05/99
>>"Jews in the US have power and influence far beyond their numbers.
>>They are able to mold public opinion, elect and unseat politicians,
>>prevent books from being published, make movies and television series
>>which affect the mindset of Americans, and generally affect our lives
>>in ways we generally think of as only American values. To the extent
>>that Jews use their influence in ways that vary from the set of
>>common values we think of as our own, and at the same time conceal
>>these actions from the common run of us, they are acting inimically
>>to those values."
>Well said, if I did say it.
21 Dec 1999
>this again is true. If the poster think it isn't it is open
>to him/her to dispute it.
Not at all. I think it's rather cool we're doing so well, as opposed to
non-Jewish assholes like you.
>It is telling that battle is never joined on these issues.
>RLA
It's telling that Roggie NEVER joins battle on ANY issue.
>>"According to Jewish religious law, a Jew should not seek to save the
>>life of a non-Jew unless there be benefit in doing so."
>Not my statement, may have been in some post I copied and put up.
Bullshit. You appended it to one of your cut and paste jobs.
>I note here that there is generally, even in the US, no legal duty to
>save the life of another.
But there is under Jewish law - about which you know even less than you
know about history.
Deborah
Roberta Hatch
>Indeed that will be considered in the future. Ya' know you can just delete
>my postings if they annoy you so. Norma
Oh the articles from newbies, such as yourself, don't annoy me.
But it would be nice if you'd learn to operate your newsreader properly
and not try and tell people what is, and what is not, "well received"
when you don't know.
dltjxx
>>I would just encourage you to stick around awhile and read the
>>*authoritative* postings from the bowels of ignorance and racism (AKA
>>anti-Semitism on the NG) espoused by Mr. Alexander.
<su...@millersfield.demon.co.uk> writes:
>Hating Jews is wrong. As is the hate of anything, really.
Not only is it wrong, if you want to get pragmatic, it's unprofitable.
>There is wrong in Israel and there is wrong in Palestine. By the
>extremes of both belief systems. And there's wrong in every country of
>the world.
Agreed.
>If folk concerned themselves with behaviour first and religion
>second, maybe so many people wouldn't have to be on the recieving
>end of mindless murder.
Actually, in such cases, religion is only a front.
Deborah
zzto...@my-deja.com
$kr1p7...@salmahayeksknockers.edu wrote:
> In soc.culture.usa Norma Blankenfeld
<nblank...@vax2.winona.msus.edu> wrote:
>
group
> > who also include Arabs who have chosen to become citizens, really
do WANT
> > peace.
>
people.
As long as the Palestinians contine to view *any* compromise offered to
them as "surrender", they will keep on living in thier current state of
misery, with each compromise being offered being less attractive than
the previous one.
They rejected the Peel partition plan in '36, the UN partition plan in
47, did not establish a state in the lands they held from 48-67, and
are now rejecting an end to the dispute based on Oslo. It's time to
compromise.
>
> That would be like me breaking into my neighbor's house, stealing his
stereo
> and punching him in the nose. Then, when he comes over to my house to
> get his stereo back, I say 'hey man, lets just get along'.
>
> Drastically oversimplified, nonetheless relevant.
When it's that oversimplified, it becomes not only irrelevant, but
simply wrong. Here's a more accurate analogy:
You & your neighbor are living in the same house (which, btw, belonged
to your grand-parents). You keep on inviting your buddies over, which
your neighbor doesn't like. You constantly argue and fight over this,
and finally the authorities intervene, and decide that for the sake of
peace in the community, you split the house - you take the east wing,
your neighbor the west wing. You say fine, but your neighbor defies the
law, gets his extended family to break into *your* half of the house,
try to take not only your stereo but everything in it, and attempt to
kill you in the process. However, it turns out he grossly underestimted
your strengths, and in the ensuing fight, his stereo gets broken, and
you even take an additional room that was supposed to be his. rather
than agreeing to settle the situation there and then, your neighbor has
his family constantly harass you for more than 50 years, and in the
process loses all the rest of the house to you. finaly he tires of it.
In the talks to put the matter to rest, you suggest that the situation
that existed 50 years ago be put into place, but he agian says "no,
that would be like me surrendering"
>
> --
> ......................................................................
......
>
> "The real meaning of the official U.S./Israel 'peace process' is a
process
> of entrapment in an apartheid system that encloses Palestinians in
their
> ghettos, denying them the possibility of real autonomous development."
>
> -Rosemary Ruether, Catholic feminist
theologian
> ......................................................................
......
> www.geocities.com/pentagon/bunker/1022 swan_daniel@my-
dejanews.com
>
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