What should be a shameful scandal involving Israel's poor treatment of Holocaust survivors and heirs of victims was at least reported on the front page of the New York Times, although the article concludes by saying, "This is only a committee report, a revelation of the scope of the problem. This is not the Knesset passing a law forcing the banks and the custodian to return the money. For that, there has to be political will."
According to the article, after Jews have demanded that European banks, especially in Switzerland and Austria, pay out assets held on behalf of Jews who were victims of the Holocaust, Jewish banks and even the Government of Israel, have failed to make equivalent payments for the moneys they hold. The article says there are about 9,000 names on the list of people owed, and 6,000 of them are listed as victims of the Holocaust. By one accounting, the Israeli Government owes $133 million, and the banks owe $73 million.
I am concerned that all the Jewish furor about the Holocaust is a marketing ploy. It's partly about the money. People like former Secretary of State Larry Eagleburger and lawyers representing the victims have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their role in pressuring banks and governments in Europe to pay up, while the average Holocaust survivor or heir has gotten only a few thousand dollars. But more than the money, it has been a campaign to make people feel sorry for Jews, to give them and the State of Israel a break by not criticizing them too strongly for things like killing Palestinian children, or making millions on Wall Street through shady deals involving Enron, WorldCom, etc. I think that once again those poor Jews who actually were sent to Auschwitz and other death camps are the victims of the "marketing" of the Holocaust. They won't get much, but powerful Israeli politicians and rich Wall Street and Hollywood Jews, most of whom escaped the Holocaust, will get plenty of benefit.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Prince Harry Should Visit British World War II Graves
Wearing a Nazi arm band won Britain's Prince Harry criticism from Jewish groups the world over, but why should he put Jewish deaths in Germany and Poland ahead of British ones closer to home? I agree with this letter to the editor in the Toronto Star that if he is going to do some kind of penace, he should visit British cemeteries first.
Secondly, he should consider what the proper response is in a Christian nation. Jews reject the New Testament with Jesus' teachings about forgiveness and loving your enemies. George Bush has been talking lately about how much he has learned from the closeness between Japan and the US, despite World War II. In fact, had George been paying closer attention, he would have seen that the US and its allies, after punishing war criminals, almost immediately embarked on a path of forgiveness in Germany and Japan. Christian principles aside, the West saw that it's lack of forgiveness after World War I led inexorably to World War II.
Along this line, it was interesting that one commentator after Bush's inaugural speech today said that he had tried to evoke Woodrow Wilson (as well as Truman, Reagan, and others). Wilson virtually killed himself campaigning unsuccessfully for the League of Nations after World War I. The failure of the League of Nations, due in large part to the failure of the US to participate, was an important contributing factor toward World War II. Bush and his Administration seem to hate the League of Nations' successor, the United Nations, just as Wilson's opponents hated the League. It appears to me that Bush has rejected the lessons learned from both World War I (when we got it wrong) and World War II (when we got it right).
Hopefully Prince Harry will be a better student of world affairs than George W. Bush.
Secondly, he should consider what the proper response is in a Christian nation. Jews reject the New Testament with Jesus' teachings about forgiveness and loving your enemies. George Bush has been talking lately about how much he has learned from the closeness between Japan and the US, despite World War II. In fact, had George been paying closer attention, he would have seen that the US and its allies, after punishing war criminals, almost immediately embarked on a path of forgiveness in Germany and Japan. Christian principles aside, the West saw that it's lack of forgiveness after World War I led inexorably to World War II.
Along this line, it was interesting that one commentator after Bush's inaugural speech today said that he had tried to evoke Woodrow Wilson (as well as Truman, Reagan, and others). Wilson virtually killed himself campaigning unsuccessfully for the League of Nations after World War I. The failure of the League of Nations, due in large part to the failure of the US to participate, was an important contributing factor toward World War II. Bush and his Administration seem to hate the League of Nations' successor, the United Nations, just as Wilson's opponents hated the League. It appears to me that Bush has rejected the lessons learned from both World War I (when we got it wrong) and World War II (when we got it right).
Hopefully Prince Harry will be a better student of world affairs than George W. Bush.
The National Guard in War
One of the reasons that I dislike George W. Bush is that he escaped service in Vietnam by joining the National Guard in Texas. Sure, lots of other people did this, but I don't approve of anybody escaping military service while others are being sent off to die. That's why I went when my draft number came up (although not before it did).
Now, George says that nobody can escape service as he did back then. The National Guard is bearing a heavy burden of the fighting in Iraq. How hypocritical of him to send the National Guard to fight because he is afraid to increase the numbers of troops in the regular Army and other services! The National Guard was his hiding place, but he has made sure that it is no longer a hiding place for anyone else.
Another gripe is that Bush was trained as a fighter pilot. I have read that today it costs about a million dollars to train someone as a fighter pilot; presumably it cost the equivalent back when he trained. After the US invested all this money in him, he said, "I'm going to Harvard Business School. I'm outta here. A million taxpayer dollars? I spit on them. The government is here to serve me!" And so it is. It's here to serve George and all his rich friends, who just love spending on themselves all the tax money from those stupid, hard-working regular folks who ignorantly pay their fair share of taxes, and who are now about to lose their Social Security.
Now, George says that nobody can escape service as he did back then. The National Guard is bearing a heavy burden of the fighting in Iraq. How hypocritical of him to send the National Guard to fight because he is afraid to increase the numbers of troops in the regular Army and other services! The National Guard was his hiding place, but he has made sure that it is no longer a hiding place for anyone else.
Another gripe is that Bush was trained as a fighter pilot. I have read that today it costs about a million dollars to train someone as a fighter pilot; presumably it cost the equivalent back when he trained. After the US invested all this money in him, he said, "I'm going to Harvard Business School. I'm outta here. A million taxpayer dollars? I spit on them. The government is here to serve me!" And so it is. It's here to serve George and all his rich friends, who just love spending on themselves all the tax money from those stupid, hard-working regular folks who ignorantly pay their fair share of taxes, and who are now about to lose their Social Security.
Do We Need a War on Terrorism?
The fact that today's inaugural ceremonies were carried off without any terrorist incident raises the question whether a "war on terrorism" is justified. The original airplane highjackings and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon could probably have been avoided if there had been regulations that were strictly enforced barring the carrying of box cutters on to planes. It is very possible that our reaction to those attacks was overkill. In any case, our response in Afghanistan was certainly more appropriate than our response in Iraq.
Bush's inaugural address today tried to evoke the same response that our long rivalry with the Soviet Union evoked during the Cold War, especially as described by President Reagan. Bush said, "We have seen our vulnerability - and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny - prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder - violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat." Scary words, but is there a "mortal threat"? During the Cold War the Soviet Union had millions of armed soldiers stationed across the border from Western Europe and many nuclear armed ICBMs targeted on the US. The terrorists have nothing like this. They can disrupt life in Iraq, where much of the population sympathizes with them, but they have been unable to do so in the US since 9/11. It's possible that Bush's national security team was just asleep at the switch on 9/11 and let a fairly amateurish attempt succeed because our guard was down.
If that's the case, then Bush's speech was much sound and fury, signifying nothing. We do need protection, but not at the cost that Bush demands. America wants the perfect safety that used to be guaranteed by our oceans' borders and the homogeneity of our population. Today, that guarantee is more difficult because we can rely on neither of those two old defenses. The war on terrorism and the Department of Homeland Security do little or nothing to make up that gap and add to our security. That's why it turns out to be relatively unimportant that the Department of Homeland Security is hopelessly incompetent.
Bush's inaugural address today tried to evoke the same response that our long rivalry with the Soviet Union evoked during the Cold War, especially as described by President Reagan. Bush said, "We have seen our vulnerability - and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny - prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder - violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat." Scary words, but is there a "mortal threat"? During the Cold War the Soviet Union had millions of armed soldiers stationed across the border from Western Europe and many nuclear armed ICBMs targeted on the US. The terrorists have nothing like this. They can disrupt life in Iraq, where much of the population sympathizes with them, but they have been unable to do so in the US since 9/11. It's possible that Bush's national security team was just asleep at the switch on 9/11 and let a fairly amateurish attempt succeed because our guard was down.
If that's the case, then Bush's speech was much sound and fury, signifying nothing. We do need protection, but not at the cost that Bush demands. America wants the perfect safety that used to be guaranteed by our oceans' borders and the homogeneity of our population. Today, that guarantee is more difficult because we can rely on neither of those two old defenses. The war on terrorism and the Department of Homeland Security do little or nothing to make up that gap and add to our security. That's why it turns out to be relatively unimportant that the Department of Homeland Security is hopelessly incompetent.
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