27-Sep-08: Racism - getting to basics

The sickening applause that greeted the unvarnished anti-Jewish racism of the Iranian president's speech at the United Nations this week has a background.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iranians chanted “Death to Israel” on Friday as Islamist students unveiled a book mocking the Holocaust in an Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day annual parade to show solidarity with the Palestinians.

The book “Holocaust,” published by members of Iran’s Islamist Basij militia, features dozens of cartoons and sarcastic commentary. Education Minister Alireza Ali-Ahmadi attended the official launch of the book in Tehran’s Palestine Square. The cover shows a Jew with a crooked nose and dressed in traditional garb drawing outlines of dead bodies on the ground. Inside, bearded Jews are shown leaving and re-entering a gas chamber with a counter that reads the number 5,999,999.

Another illustration depicts Jewish prisoners entering a furnace in a Nazi extermination camp and leaving from the other side as gun-wielding “terrorists.”

Yet another shows a patient draped in an Israeli flag and on life support breathing Zyklon-B, the poisonous gas used in the extermination chambers.

Given the nature of this blog, we receive more than the usual quantities of vile rubbish from apologists for the haters... statements along the lines of "The Iranians have never said they want to hurt the Jews - they're just sticking up for the Palestinians" and so on.

The reality is that Ahmadinijad and those in his circle are as fully engaged in primitive racism as Hitler and the Nazis were in the thirties. We know where that led. And they're far from being alone in this.

For their own murky reasons, the official organs of Palestinian Arab society have openly embraced denial of the destruction of Europe's Jews as an article of their political agenda. Click on "Hamas Holocaust perversion: Jews planned Holocaust to kill handicapped Jews" for one more in a long series of dispassionate descriptions of the sickening racism that infects all levels of Palestinian Arab society and its apologists. (Thanks to Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook for their indispensable contribution to finding and disclosing this material that was created for and broadcast by the official Hamas television station in Gaza.)

Back to this week's Iranian performance in New York. David Horowitz, writing in Friday's Jerusalem Post, presents the facts of Ahmadinijad's UN rant in his customary dispassionate and clear way:

Ahmadinejad's address, delivered from what ought to be one of the most prestigious platforms on the planet, was cloaked in professions of obeisance to God, justice and human freedoms, but, as in years past, was dishonest, malevolent and threatening. The Iranian president - who, in accordance with the UN's own conventions, should be prosecuted for inciting genocide rather than afforded this annual opportunity to restate his toxic agenda - misrepresented his regime's nuclear program as peaceful and transparent. He gloated at the ostensible imminent demises of the Zionist regime ("on a definite slope to collapse") and the American empire ("reaching the end of its road"). And he dredged up the classic anti-Semitic libel in asserting that a pernicious, secretive act of global puppetry is being perpetrated by a shadowy Zionist cabal, manipulating the finances and the politics of the innocent, trusting masses: "The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists," he proclaimed. "Although they are a minuscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers, as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner."

There's an edited video here from the UN's webcast; somehow seeing the vile outpourings in video form make them more real than simply reading the written words. But there's another reason to click: note the very public actions of the new president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann (Nicaraguan diplomat, politician, Catholic priest, former official with the World Council of Churches, and a Sandinista). This man sees so much to respect and admire in Ahmadinijad's hate speech that he stops the proceedings, asks delegates to remain seated and patient, and walks to the rostrum where the Iranian has finished his speech - and embraces and congratulates him.

The president of the UN General Assembly was not alone in his embrace. Among the religious groups honoring Ahmadinejad at a glitzy reception at New York's Grand Hyatt Hotel were the Americans Friends Service Committee, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches.

Winston Churchill famously described the appeasement of Hitler and the Nazis that characterized public life in Europe and North America in the days before World War II as "feeding a crocodile, hoping it will eat one last". Sadly, we're seeing public figures, media outlets and governments not only feeding but enthusiastically stroking and petting this Persian crocodile.

The Washington Post, in a lead editorial this past Tuesday entitled "Iran Slips Away," points out the real bottom line: "Even as its nuclear program accelerates, the impetus to stop it loses steam." Like the Nazis and Churchill's crocodile, the Iranians have a large appetite and their pots are already boiling.

This is not a good time for tolerating the continuing distorted, dishonest and ill-informed apologetics of public figures with agendas. We're running out of time.

15-Sep-08: On prisons and prisoner releases

In today's Jerusalem Post, an op-ed piece by one of this blog's authors criticizes Yossi Alpher's support for the release from Israeli prisons of Palestinians convicted of terrorist actions.

Right of Reply: Who needs prisons anyway?
Sep. 16, 2008
FRIMET ROTH , THE JERUSALEM POST

Readers acquainted with Yossi Alpher's Web site Bitterlemons.org must have been puzzled by his op-ed "In praise of prisoner releases" (reprinted from that Web site in the Jerusalem Post of September 9). Alpher's glee over the recent release of 198 Palestinian prisoners collides with the views espoused by his own virtual magazine.

Over the last few years, Bitterlemons has published several articles by Orit Adato, a former head of the Israel Prisons Service and first international vice president of the International Correction and Prison Association. In her writings, and in a July 2008 interview, she presents her considered position on prisoner releases.

Like Alpher she advocates the tactical use of prisoner releases to bolster Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. She is convinced the matter can be resolved more easily than the other core issues.

However, unlike Alpher, Adato recommends that releases be made only after a series of preparatory steps by Israelis, Palestinians and the international community. She disapproves of capricious releases made in the context of stalled and aimless negotiations between Abbas and Olmert - the very sort they are now engaged in.

The first change Adato advocates is the classification of the 11,000 Palestinians currently imprisoned into three sub-groups: hard-core terrorists; petty criminals and those who assisted terrorists in minor ways for financial reward; and those involved in terrorism but who are not as extremist as the first group.

The second step is segregation of the above groups. Currently, members of the various groups share cells and mingle often. This situation enables the indoctrination of previous moderates. Adato maintains that segregation "would reduce the influence of the extremist elements in the prisons and lower the PA's commitment to minor offenders, whose proximity to the serious security prisoners has turned them into heroes and turned the prisons into universities for terror." The extremists who "are truly committed to the destruction of Israel should be neutralized. They should be placed in two prisons in the south of Israel, in isolation from other prisoners with minimal rights according to Israeli and international law."

Adato assigns the PA a crucial role in this overhaul. "The PA should have a functioning body - a committee or organization - dedicated to rehabilitation of prisoners and monitoring their progress after their release. Moreover, there will be international monitoring of the process."

REGARDING THE recent prisoner release to retrieve the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, as well the possibly imminent one to free Gilad Schalit, Adato says: "[With] those deals... Israel de facto is only responding to terrorists. This not only undermines our partner for peace but also makes future kidnappings, God forbid, more likely... Beyond the creation of incentive to kidnap more soldiers - clearly it pays off - it bodes ill for the negotiations with Abbas."

Alpher accuses families of terror victims of constituting "a permanent and strong lobby" that hampers the release of hard-core terrorists. The fact is that we victims are as impotent in this arena as we are in most others. For decades victims have been petitioning the High Court immediately upon publication of the list of prisoners to be released. So far they have not succeeded in blocking even one release.

A central argument of Alpher's is that the masterminds of terror activities "often receive lighter sentences [than the perpetrators] simply because they themselves didn't pull the trigger‚ their weapon jammed, the explosives failed to detonate, etc." He assures us that the hit men are "no less worthy of eventual release than their accomplices or the masterminds of terrorist cells."

With utter preschool logic, Alpher posits that two wrongs do make a right. But even his premise is erroneous. The truth is, the government does prosecute terror masterminds with the full force of its judiciary. Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti and the Sbarro massacre perpetrator Ahlam Tamimi - my own child's murderer - are just two of numerous terrorists who were convicted and sentenced to multiple life sentences for "merely" planning and enabling bloody attacks.

Yet Alpher is so "release-happy" he is eager to throw open the prison gates even wider. To appease his opponents, he urges balancing releases of Palestinian prisoners with "measured steps to release Israelis jailed for many years for murdering Arabs." Court proceedings, judges‚ deliberations, it seems, are irrelevant. The judiciary plays no role in Alpher's utopia.

The dangers posed by this sort of meddling with the judicial branch of government somehow are not on Alpher's radar.

Moreover, his conviction that "serving many years in prison" is a sufficient punishment and deterrent for terrorist mass murder leaves one wondering whether he appreciates the gravity of those barbaric acts. Life imprisonment without parole is a fair and widely imposed punishment in jurisdictions that abolished the death sentence.

Adato concluded her blueprint for change with this advice: "In an expedited process Israel should now announce an organized plan to release prisoners as part of the diplomatic track with Abbas. The announcement alone and a real move toward implementing such a plan would immediately boost Abbas's popularity."

Unfortunately Alpher wasn't listening.

The writer's daughter Malki was murdered at the age of 15 in the Sbarro restaurant massacre. She and her husband founded the Malki Foundation (www.kerenmalki.org ), which provides support for Israeli families of all faiths who care at home for a special-needs child, in her memory.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1221489042245&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

11-Sep-08: Remembering the victims of terror

One of this blog's two authors addressed the United Nations on Tuesday of this week.

Speech of Arnold Roth to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Symposium on Supporting Victims of Terrorism, New York - 9th September 2008

Mr Chairman,

Until the Secretary-General's invitation reached me, I never imagined having the extraordinary privilege to speak from this place and to invoke international solidarity while raising my voice in condemnation of terrorism and in support of the campaign against it.

I don't know a more fitting way to reflect (using the words of your invitation) on the human face of the consequences of terrorism than to speak about my daughter.

Malki, my child. Your life ended in a crowded pizza restaurant filled with mothers and children in the center of Jerusalem - the capital city of our country.

Your school holidays were nearly over. You spent them by helping children with special needs, children with disabilities, to enjoy their summer. The pleasure you gained from simple, practical, concrete actions to help others was reflected in the way you looked. The loveliest aspect of your pretty, optimistic face was the smile that almost always adorned it.

And then a young man, not very different in his external appearance from other young men but burning with an inner religious passion to maim and hurt and kill, walked into that restaurant. Unlike today, there was no security guard on duty at the entrance. In those simpler times, we still had not realized the depths to which hatred and intolerance can take a man or a woman.

As a talented musician yourself, you might have noticed him walk alone into the pizza restaurant with a guitar case on his back. Perhaps you were thinking that here was a person capable of bringing pleasure to others, as you yourself so often did. But he was not that sort of person.

Acting in the name of a cause in which he had been instructed to believe, the terrorist faithfully exploded the package on his back. He had no intention of taking strategic control of the pizza restaurant. He did not ask for political concessions from our family, and not even from our government. You and the 130 others who were maimed and murdered by his exploding guitar case were not collateral damage. You were not caught in any cross-fire. You and the other children and mothers were precisely the target of that man and of those who sent him. You were 15 years old.

Malki, your mother and brothers and sisters and I, your community and your nation can never comprehend hatred and intolerance as vicious and powerful as those that ended your life.

We learned from your smile. We were inspired by your love of helping children with disabilities. We established the Malki Foundation in your memory. It gives practical, concrete support to families from every part of Israel's social spectrum - Christians, Jews, Moslems, Druze and others. The more than 2,000 families we have helped in these past few years have in common one thing only: the passion to help their special-needs child.

Like you, the Malki Foundation has no politics. Like you, it optimistically celebrates life, tolerance, the human spirit.

Dozens, hundreds, of other Israeli families who have suffered like us have responded by following the ancient tradition of the Jewish people: when something truly awful enters our lives, we undertake actions that we intend to be constructive and life-affirming.

This does not stop the terrorists. They keep coming. And we know that we absolutely must remain constantly vigilant against them by every possible means.

These personal, positive, humanitarian actions give us a moral basis for continuing our lives. For getting out of bed each morning. For going on after the most unthinkable, man-inflicted tragedy.

Your death, Malki, and our pain were not the end of the struggle to stop the terrorists. They are not even the beginning of the end. Today, terrorism infects nearly every corner of the world. It belongs no less to the present and to the future than to the past.

The challenge to the nations is to find and adopt policies that will end it.

The challenge to individuals, to the victims who endure terrorism, is to find and adopt ways to survive the evil of the perpetrators of terrorism. To reaffirm our humanity, our dignity, our generosity, and our optimism.

The entire proceedings were webcast. Arnold Roth's speech can be viewed by clicking the link below.