30 June 2008

Israel's Nazi Style Assault & Humiliation of Mohammed Omer



A vicious and unprovoked assault on an award winning Gazan journalist bears comparison with the Nazi humiliation of Viennese Jews who were forced to clean the road with toothbrushes. The Zionists promise an 'inquiry' whose purpose will be to cover up rather than to expose and punish those responsible, because of course such incidents are an integral part of the Occupation.


GAZA CITY, Jun 28 (IPS) - Mohammed Omer, the Gaza correspondent of IPS, and joint winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, was strip-searched at gunpoint, assaulted and abused by Israeli security officials at the Allenby border crossing between Jordan and the West Bank on Thursday as he tried to return home to Gaza.

Omer, a resident of Rafah in the south of Gaza, and previous recipient of the New America Media's Best Youth Voice award several years ago, was returning from London where he had just collected his Gellhorn Prize, and from several European capitals where he had speaking engagements, including a meeting with Greek parliamentarians.


Omer's trip was sponsored by The Washington Report, and the Dutch embassy in Tel Aviv was responsible for coordinating Omer's travel plans and his security permit to leave Gaza with Israeli officials. Israel controls the borders of Gaza and severely restricts the entrance and exit of Gazans allegedly on grounds of security. Human rights organisations accuse the Israelis of using security as a pretext to apply collective punishment indiscriminately. While waiting in Amman on his way back, Omer eventually received the requisite coordination and security clearance from the Israelis to return to Gaza after this had initially been delayed by several days, he told IPS.


Accompanied by Dutch diplomats, Omer passed through the Jordanian side of the border without incident. However, after arrival on the Israeli side, trouble began. He informed a female soldier that he was returning home to Gaza. He was repeatedly asked where Gaza was, and
told that he had neither a permit nor any coordination to cross. Omer explained that he did indeed have permission and coordination but was nevertheless taken to a room by Israel's domestic intelligence agency the Shin Bet, where he was isolated for an hour and a half without explanation. "Eventually I was asked whether I had a knife or gun on me even though I had already passed through the x-ray machine, had my luggage searched, and was in the company of Dutch diplomats," Omer said.

His luggage was again searched, and security then proceeded to go through every document and paper he had on him, taking down the names and numbers of the European parliamentary officials he had met. The Shin Bet officials then started to make fun of the European
parliamentarians, and mocked Omer for being "the prize-winning journalist". The Gazan journalist was repeatedly asked why he was returning to "the hell of Gaza after we allowed you to leave." To this he responded that he wanted to be a voice for the voiceless. He was told he was a "trouble-maker".

The security men also demanded he show all the money he had on him, and particular attention was paid to the British pounds he was carrying. His Gellhorn prize money had been awarded in British pounds but he was not carrying the entire sum on him bodily, something he investigators refused to believe. After being unable to produce the prize money, he was ordered to strip naked. "At first I refused but then I had an M16 (gun) pointed in my face and my clothes were forcibly removed, even my underwear," Omer said. At this point Omer broke down and pleaded for an end to such treatment. He said he was told, "you haven't seen anything yet."
Every cavity of his body was searched as one of the investigators pinned him down on the floor, placing his boot on Omer's neck. Omer began vomiting, and fainted. When he came round his eyelids were being forcibly opened and his eardrums probed by an Israeli military doctor, who was also armed. He was then dragged along the floor by his feet by the Shin Bet officials, with his head repeatedly banging on the floor, to a Palestinian ambulance which had been called.

"I eventually woke up in a Palestinian hospital with the doctors trying to reassure me," Omer told IPS. The Dutch Foreign Ministry at the Hague told IPS that Foreign Minister Maxime Zerhagen spoke to the Israeli ambassador to The Netherlands and demanded an explanation.
The Dutch embassy in Tel Aviv has also raised the issue with the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which in turn has promised to investigate the incident and get back to the Dutch officials. Ahmed Dadou, spokesman from the Dutch Foreign Ministry at the Hague told IPS, "We are taking this whole incident very seriously as we don't believe the behaviour of the Israeli officials is in accordance with a modern democracy.

"We are further concerned about the mistreatment of an internationally renowned journalist trying to go about his daily business," added Dadou. A spokeswoman at the Israeli Foreign Press Association said she was unaware of the incident. Lisa Dvir from the Israeli Airport Authority (IAA), the body responsible for controlling Israel's borders, told IPS that the IAA
was neither aware of Omer's journalist credentials nor of his coordination.


"We would like to know who Omer spoke to in regard to receiving coordination to pass through Allenby. We offer journalists a special service when passing through our border crossings, and had we known about his arrival this would not have happened. "I'm not aware of the events that followed his detention, and we are not responsible for the behaviour of the Shin Bet."


In the meantime, Omer is still traumatised and in pain. "I'm struggling to breathe and have pain in my head and stomach and will be going back to hospital for further medical examinations," he said.

22 June 2008

Death to the Arabs - ‘Mavet La Aravim’




In scenes reminiscent of what a Russian or Romanian pogrom must have been like, Israeli demonstrators in the Old City of Jerusalem marched through, chanting 'Death to the Arabs' and 'Arabs Out'.

The video at YouTube was filmed on June 2nd, 2008, the anniversary of the 1967 ‘reunification’ of Jerusalem`. It is to celebrate ‘Jerusalem Day’. And what better way to celebrate than to hold a demonstration in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem (or what is left of it).

The video shows how right-wing religious Zionists, such as the ones at Yeshiva Mercaz Harav, which was recently bombed in retaliation for their role in the settlement of the West Bank, celebrate this anniversary in the narrow streets of the Old City. Among the slogans they are chanting, in the presence of police who look on without a care in the world, is `Mavet La`Aravim` which means `Death to Arabs`. For readers who do not know, people of this ilk are heavily subsidized by the State of Israel and are one of the tools of the ethnic cleansing policy in the West Bank.
This is sourced from Occupation Magazine.

Dorothy Naor, an Israeli anti-Zionist, writes that:
‘The video won’t mean much to you if you are unfamiliar with the Old City in Jerusalem and if you don’t understand Hebrew. In both cases you will miss what the action is all about. So, let me explain. What you will see in the video is a crowd of gung-ho happy young religious idealists marching through the Arab quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Let me repeat, the Arab quarter. From time to time you also see Israeli police and barricades, neither of which stop the young men from progressing in their march and chanting. And what are they chanting at the beginning? "Arabs go home," meaning, Arabs get out (sound familiar? like ‘Juden raus,’ i.e., the Nazi’s ‘Jews out’? These young men indeed fit that much of the Nazi image well, except appear to be less disciplined). Following that, these nice sweet young bullies start chanting loudly in the Arab quarter (let me repeat: in the Arab quarter) of the Old City, "Death to the Arabs."
Ah yes. Brave New World. To whom will you belong?'

Contrast this with the annual demonstration of Israeli Palestinians on 'Land Day'. Then squads of Border Police, without fail attack the demonstration with gas, dogs and in the past live ammunition. Yet here we see Police nonchalantly fraternising with these racist maniacs. And that should tell you everything you need to know about the Israeli State and why it bears comparisons with the most anti-Semitic regimes of the past.

Tony Greenstein

14 June 2008

GESTAPO TACTICS - The Israeli army attacks a village near Bethlehem and kidnaps a man and his Jewish wife










Figure 1: Rosenstrasse in 1943 Figure 2: Rosenstrasse today

by Najeep Farajj, Bethlehem

An article on the International Middle East Media Centre, The Israeli army attacks a village near Bethlehem and kidnaps a man and his Jewish wife describes how the Israeli army invaded the village of Hussan located near Bethlehem city in the southern part of the West Bank.


During the invasion on Thursday morning the soldiers kidnapped a Palestinian man and his wife, who is Jewish origin. Hamamerh, 25, met his wife Melissa, 23, several months ago when he used to work at the settlement of Bitar Illit, an Israeli settlement built illegally on the land of Hussan village. When the young couple decided to get married, they came to Bethlehem city were Melissa converted to Islam. They were married last month during a large wedding at Hussan village, Hamamerh's family reported.


The settlers of Bitar Illit attacked the village of Hussan, demanding that Melissa was kidnapped and forced to get married, which the family of Hamamerh denies.The village told media sources in Bethlehem that the settlers threatened to send the Israeli army to get Melissa out using force, which was done today. Witnesses said that the army surrounded the couple's home and then kidnapped the two, and took them to an unknown location.The Hamamerh family said that the settlers are using the army forces as a tool to force their son to divorce his wife.

Translated by: Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC News© 2001-2008 IMEMC NEWS.


This is absolutely unbelievable. For those who have any sense of historical perspective, then one and only one analogy comes to mind. The repeated attempts of the Gestapo to 'persuade' the 'Aryan' partners of Jews to divorce them in Nazi Germany post the 1935 Nuremburg Laws.

In Germany, post-Nuremburg it was impossible for Jews and Germans to marry, but although subject to much villification it was legal prior to September 1935 if you could find a willing marriage registrar.

Post Nuremburg there were 2 classes of intermarriage between Jews and Germans. One where the husband was German and the woman was Jewish and the other where the husband was Jewish and the women 'Aryan' . With some exceptions, including being part of the Jewish community or having children brought up as Jewish, the former were considered Privileged mixed marriages and the partners were left alone. This is because women were considered simple things who would naturally be under the domination of the man.


But in the case of the latter, where the husband was Jewish, it was assumed that he was the dominant partner and that the family would hence be Jewish. Hence considerable wiles and threats were used to effect a divorce. Contrary to Zionist fiction writers like Daniel Goldhagen, the vast majority of German women marriage partners, who underwent very considerable pressure, including horrendous personal attacks, loss of job, house etc. refused to buckle. The stakes were of course high. Where a woman did buckle and agree to divorce, within 24 hours the man was arrested and deported to the death camps.

But underlying this pressure was the assumption that the wily, lecherous, predatory Jew had ensnared the poor innocent German frau into marriage. The task of the Gestapo was to 'liberate' her and help her regain her position in Aryan society.

This is documented at length by Prof. Nathan Stoltzfus in 'Resistance of the Heart - Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany'. After many years of unsuccessful 'persuasion' the Gestapo simply rounded up, on 27 February 1943 the Jewish partners of mixed marriages and held them pending deportation.

What took place was the most remarkable of demonstrations during the entire Nazi era, in the centre of Berlin when first a few and finally thousands of women and relatives howled, screamed and shrieked for the return of their men. And for a whole week they kept this up. The street was crammed with people and the RSHA (SS Main Office) was thrown into a panic. 'We want our husbands back' was the chant. The top leadership of the Nazis, Goebbels in particular as Gauleiter of Berlin, ordered that the men should be released because what was taking place threatened to expose the Final Solution and the deportation of Jews from Berlin, which reached its apex in 1943.

All this is documented in 'Resistance of the Heart - Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany' by Nathan Stoltzfus, 1996.

To see that the Israeli state is now also interfering in mixed marriages, between Palestinians and Israeli Jews, should remind people just what the political antecedents of Zionism and Israel are.

Tony Greenstein

13 June 2008

Raytheon 9 Are Acquitted








Thursday June 12, 2008 02:09 by Goretti Horgan - Derry Anti War Coalition
In a statement issued by the DAWC, after their, they called for Raytheon to be prosecuted. The six anti-war activists who occupied arms manufacturer Raytheon's offices in Derry and destroyed its computers have been acquitted by a jury in Belfast.



Derry Anti War Coalition calls on the office of the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecution Service, in light of the jury's verdict of 'not guilty' to criminal damage charges, to institute an investigation into the activities of Raytheon at its various plants across the UK, with a view to determining whether Raytheon is a criminal enterprise.

After their acquittal on three charges of criminal damage to the computer equipment and office of Raytheon, the world's largest supplier of Guided Bomb Units, Colm Bryce and Eamonn McCann spoke to supporters and press outside the court. Colm Bryce began:

The Raytheon 9 have been acquitted today in Belfast for their action in decommissioning the Raytheon offices in Derry in August 2006. The prosecution could produce not a shred of evidence to counter our case that we had acted to prevent the commission of war crimes during the Lebanon war by the Israeli armed forces using weapons supplied by Raytheon.

We remain proud of the action we took and only wish that we could have done more to disrupt the ‘kill chain’ that Raytheon controls.
This victory is welcome, for ourselves and our families, but we wish to dedicate it to the Shaloub and Hasheem families of Qana in Lebanon, who lost 28 of their closest relatives on the 30 July 2006 due to a Raytheon ‘bunker buster’ bomb.
Their unimaginable loss was foremost in our minds when we took the action we did on 9 August, and the injustice that they and the many thousands of victims of war crimes in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered, will spur us on to continue to campaign against war and the arms trade that profits from it.
We said from the beginning that we came to this court not as the accused but as the accusers of Raytheon. This court case proved that Raytheon in Derry is an integral part of the global Raytheon company and its military production. This is no longer a secret or in doubt. Raytheon have treated the truth, peaceful protest, local democracy and this court with complete contempt. The most senior executive who appeared said that the charge that Raytheon had ‘aided and abetted’ the commission of crimes against humanity was "not an issue" for him. Raytheon should have that contempt repaid in full and be driven out of Derry and every other place they have settled. They are war criminals, plain and simple. They have no place in our society and shame on all those in positions of power or influence who would hand them public funds, turn a blind eye to their crimes, cover their tracks or make excuses for them.
These crimes continue daily and hourly in the Middle East. It is up to those of us who oppose those wars of domination and occupation to build a movement that matches the enormity of what is being done by Western governments. We hope that this victory gives courage and heart to all those involved in that movement and the many more who need to be for us to achieve our aim of stopping these wars. Until then, the very least we can do, to show solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the Middle East is to dissociate ourselves from the corrupt governments of the US and Britain. That means opposing the visit to Belfast of the world’s biggest war criminal, George W Bush on 16 June.
We feel totally vindicated by this decision and wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to all of those who gave us support, especially to our families and friends, to the members of the Derry Anti War Coalition and the Irish Anti-War Movement , to our excellent legal teams. Of course, we particularly want to thank the jury who listened intently through three weeks of evidence before ensuring that justice was done today.
Eamonn McCann then addressed supporters and press saying:
The outcome of this case has profound implications.
The jury has accepted that we were reasonable in our belief that: the Israel Defence Forces were guilty of war crimes in Lebanon in the summer of 2006; that the Raytheon company, including its facility in Derry, was aiding and abetting the commission of these crimes; and that the action we took was intended to have, and did have, the effect of hampering or delaying the commission of war crimes.
We have been vindicated.
We reject entirely and with contempt the statement by Raytheon this evening suggesting that the result of the trial gives them concern about the safety of their employees. This is an abject attempt to divert attention from the significance of the outcome. Not a shed of evidence was produced that we presented the slightest danger to Raytheon workers. The charge of affray was thrown out by the court without waiting to hear defence evidence.
Our target has always been Raytheon as a corporate entity and its shareholders and directors who profit from misery and death.
There is now no hiding place for those who have said that they support the presence of Raytheon in Derry on the basis that the company is not involved in Derry in arms-related production. We have established that not only is the Derry plant involved in arms-related production, it is also, through its integration into Raytheon as a whole, involved in war crimes.
We call on all elected representatives in Derry, and on the citizens of Derry, to say now in unequivocal terms that the war criminal Raytheon is not welcome in our city.
We call on the office of the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecution Service, in light of this verdict, to institute an investigation into the activities of Raytheon at its various plants across the UK, with a view to determining whether Raytheon is, as we say it is, a criminal enterprise.
We believe that one day the world will look back on the arms trade as we look back today on the slave trade, and wonder how it came about that such evil could abound in respectable society. If we have advanced by a mere moment the day when the arms trade is put beyond the law, what we have done will have been worthwhile.
We took the action we did in the immediate aftermath of the slaughter of innocents in Qana on July 30th 2006. The people of Qana are our neighbours. Their children are the children of our neighbours. We trashed Raytheon to help protect our neighbours. The court has found that that was not a crime. This what the Raytheon case has been about.
We have not denied or apologised for what we did at the Raytheon plant in the summer of 2006. All of us believe that it was the best thing we ever did in our lives.

12 June 2008

Zionist Collaboration in Hungary - Mike Ezra attempts to Defend the Indefensible

An interesting debate has, of all places, been taking place on the Alliance for Worker's Liberty site. A particularly fervent Zionist, 'mad' Mike Ezra, has attempted to defend the indefensible, viz. the collaboration of the Zionist movement and its representatives in Hungary, notably Rudolph Kasztner, with the Nazis.

I post the last two contributions, starting with Mr Ezra's. The debate was begun with a 'defence' of me vs Indymedia because of the latter having banned me. The story was taken up and equally quickly dropped by Engage when I pointed out that their 'support' was akin to the rope that supports the hanging man (Lenin on the British Labour Party!). A couple of the nuttier Zionists, the frothing Paul Bogdanor and Mad Mikey Ezra objected to the AWL, which is a pro-Zionist grouping on the left, supporting me. After all anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism therefore... In fact, as the debate shows and is documented here and elsewhere, Mike Ezra is good friends with and has collaborated with Atzmon.


Tony Greenstein



Submitted by MikeyMikey on 11 June, 2008 - 17:14.
Greenstein is out of ideas and keeps repeating the same point about Atzmon. I have already answered him. Anyone who can be bothered will see who is lying. I shall ignore Greenstein's personal insults and his hysterical fabrications about my personal life.
What I will do is comment on Greenstein's disgusting scholarship, not that it deserves to be called scholarship.
Readers will have noted that Greenstein has continually referred to Hilberg and in his recent message has suggested that I consult Hilberg. I have read Hilberg on Kasztner. To show how disgraceful Greenstein's posts are, I copy from the third edition of Hilberg's The Destruction of European Jews (Yale University Press, 2003) p. 903:
"There are two versions of the ensuing discussions.
"According to Kastner, the SS man promised that, for 6.5 million peng̦ (ca. RM 4,000,000 or $1,600,000 at the official rate of exchange), 600 Jews would be permitted to leave for Palestine. The committee immediately turned to the Central Council for financial help, and after weeks of canvassing, the Council managed to collect five million peng̦ from the rich Jews. The committee itself added the missing million and a half. The Germans then raised the number of prospective emigrants by a thousand. [166] Eichmann stated in his memoirs that Kastner "agreed to keep the Jews from resisting deportation Рand even keep order in the camps Рif I would close my eyes and let a few hundred or a few thousand young Jews emigrate illegally to Palestine. It was a good bargain." [167]
The relevant footnotes are:
166. Kasztner, "Bericht," pp. 24-27, 58, 63167. Life, December 5, 1960, p. 146
Hilberg provides two alternate accounts. This is perfectly reasonable. Greenstein uncritically accepts Eichmann's account ("invaluable") while dismissing Kasztner's ("self-serving"). When his own source mentions two alternative witnesses – a mass murdering Nazi or a Jewish leader - Greenstein believes the Nazi and not the Jew.
A further example is his description of all the passengers as "prominents." I pointed out that they were not all prominent and quoted Lob's breakdown. Greenstein dismisses Lob as a "Zionist historian." One wonders how Greenstein can tell if Lob is or is not a Zionist. His book does not discuss the State of Israel, but such is Greenstein's modus operandi: if he doesn't like the evidence, he denounces the source as a Zionist or a "rabid dog" in true Stalinist fashion.
Greenstein then backs away from his claim that they were all prominent: "Hilberg's description of the passengers on the train, and I suggest Mikey tries looking it up, makes it clear that those who were saved were in a number of categories, primarily Zionist but including rabbis." I have looked it up. It is on the same page:
"[The Zionists'] first reaction was to select only children. [Eichmann's deputy] Wisliceny, however, vetoed this plan on the ground that the Hungarians would notice a children's transport. The Jews thereupon proceeded to compile a list of ten categories: Orthodox Jews, Zionists, prominent Jews (Prominente), orphans, refugees, Revisionists, and so on."
Another Greenstein fabrication.
Bogdanor, above, summarised Hilberg's conclusion that the Zionists had helped save the 200,000 Jews of Budapest. Greenstein replied that he'd "be interested to see the source for the Hilberg quote that the Zionists saved 200,000 in Hungary." If he had checked Bogdanor's page references he would have seen this:
"The Hungarians in their eagerness had intercepted the messages [transmitted by the Jewish relief committee in Budapest] and had thereupon managed to frighten themselves. On July 6 Veesenmayer was informed by Sztojay that the Regent had ordered the deportations to stop."
So much for Greenstein's methods.»
reply

Mad Mikey Ezra fails to explain his Collaboration & much else
Yes, it is true. Mikey has already answered me, by evasion, regarding his relationship with Gilad Atzmon. What he hasn't explained is how come he came to work with him in the first place. So please tell us Mikey. What was it, when I and others were attacking Atzmon for trying to gain an audience for anti-Semitism amongst a fringe element of Palestine solidarity activists, that led you to lend him a helping hand? Was it the enemy of my enemy principle? After all it makes sense. If the main enemy for Zionists like you is anti-Zionism then an alliance with anti-Semites makes sense. Indeed given Atzmon’s increasingly pro-Zionist sentiments it makes even more sense: Because there is no other way to interpret lines such as:

'Mikey, can you provide us with the criminal record of this Bugger-Rance. Is he on spent conviction like greenie l or is he just an ordinary liar?'

To which you could of course have told him to get lost, that you wouldn't be seen dead with anti-Semites and people who subscribe to Jewish conspiracy theories. Instead the response is:


'I have been very busy digging up stuff on Tony Greenstein - Roland Rance will have to wait for another day.'


Roland is a long-standing anti-Zionist comrade, who has been equally active in combatting people like Atzmon. But your only response was to say that Atzmon will ‘have to wait for another day’. You really are condemned out of your own mouth.


Mikey complains that 'Greenstein objects to quotations from Kasztner but he is happy to rely on Eichmann!' until I pointed out to him that I am merely citing Hilberg's quotation of Eichmann in his Destruction of European Jews! Now he complains I didn't cite everything. But that is the job of any historian, to make selections. In fact Hilberg's whole treatment of the Kasztner affair, and he doesn't give it much treatment at all, is second hand at best. But clearly he gives credence to Eichmann's version, which as I say was unforced and for which he had no discernible motive to lie. On the contrary he bragged about his role in the Final Solution and wished he could have completed it. I would say this is pretty powerful evidence that he was speaking the truth. And the question of keeping order in the camp was raised in the Kastner trial in Israel by those who didn't perish. And it is also pretty convincing evidence with which to dismiss those other flat earthers – the Holocaust Deniers – since it comes from one of the main architects of the final solution.


But at least Mad Mikey Ezra (MME) cites the professions and political attachments of those who left on the train, though other accounts state that some 300 or so Jews leapt on the train at the last moment. In other words it was not only class but political attachment that was decisive. Anti-Zionists, socialists or communists were not considered. But even now MME can't resist the temptation to quote selectively. After admitting that the categories included Orthodox Jews, Zionists, Prominents, Revisionists among others he omits the following from Hilberg:


'One category consisted of "paying persons. The geographic distribution was a bit lopsided: 388 persons, including Kastner's father-in-law came from the Transylvaia city of Cluj.' In other words mainly Zionists and the Orthodox, but also large numbers of friends and family, for which news about Auschwitz and reassurance about being transported for labour in the Reich was the deal.’


But what’s MME’s explanation for the end to the deportations. I asked for the location of the claim by Bogdanor that Hilberg had said that the Zionists had saved the 200,000 Jews of Budapest and he quotes what is really a throwaway line from Hilberg, viz. that
"The Hungarians in their eagerness had intercepted the messages [transmitted by the Jewish relief committee in Budapest] and had thereupon managed to frighten themselves. On July 6 Veesenmayer was informed by Sztojay that the Regent had ordered the deportations to stop."


"The Hungarians in their eagerness had intercepted the messages [transmitted by the Jewish relief committee in Budapest] and had thereupon managed to frighten themselves. On July 6 Veesenmayer was informed by Sztojay that the Regent had ordered the deportations to stop."


Even Mikey should possibly see what is wrong with this except that he is such a hack Zionist propagandist that he can’t. Hilberg is a brilliant historian concerning the mechanics of the Final Solution, but he is not so brilliant when it comes to political speculation about an area in which, by his own admission, he would have had little information that was original.

Instead Mikey distorts even when it is not necessary. For example when I said that Kastner’s Report to the Jewish Agency was ‘self-serving’ this is not to be contrasted with Eichmann, as if it is a choice between the mass murderer and the collaborator. Both can be wrong, or Eichmann alone can be right. In fact Eichmann’s testimony is backed up by other sources. Of course one wouldn’t condemn Kastner simply because Eichmann says he collaborated but there is pretty good evidence. And the reference to ‘self-serving’ is not mine anyway, but is quoted from Randolf Braham’s Politics of Genocide and is made specifically about the complete absence of or mention of the Auschwitz Protocols of Vrba from Kastner’s tediously long-winded Report to the Jewish Agency on his war-time activities.


MME fails to tell us how and why Kastner went to Nuremburg to testify for 4 Nazi war criminals (at least). Col. Becher of the Waffen SS, Wisliceny and Krumey of Eichmann’s 4 B IV SS Jewish Department and SS Lt. Gen. Hans Juttner. This in itself was, as even the Israeli Supreme Court, anxious to exonerate him was forced to admit, collaboration.

But yes I disagree with Hilberg and accept the main thrust of the account of Eugene Levai in his Black Book of Hungarian Jewry, which both Braham and Hilberg accept as authoritative. Let me cite excerpts from Levai:

229 on June 26th through Swiss Legation, Roosevelt ‘threatened the Hungarian Government with grave reprisals and a relentless bombing of Hungarian towns.’ On June 27th Secretary of State Hull protested against the ‘massacre of the majority of the Hungarian Jews.’ The first news regarding the fate of the Hungarian Jews appeared in the Swiss papers towards the end of June and the beginning of July. [so much for the nonsense about the Zionists publicising the Report they undoubtedly had - TG]. … On July 8th the ‘Gazette de Lausanne’ published on its front page a very effective leader by its editor, Mr Georges Rigassi ‘les Juifs persecutes’. Talked of the deaths of 400,000 in Auschwitz and the ‘stain on the honour of the Hungarian nation, which could never be removed.’

230 Article presented to Regent Horthy by his son.231 On June 25th Pope sent personal message to Horthy. General message of hope that ‘Your Serene Highness will do everything in your power to save many unfortunate people from further pain and sorrow.’

235 On June 21st Baky and Endre attended Cabinet meeting where they read their reports ‘especially the more detailed one of Endre… gave an extraordinarily reassuring description of the position the Jews found themselves in.’240 In response Minister Jugerth-Arnothy remarked sarcastically: ‘One almost regrets not having been born a Jew and thus not to be able to join these pleasure trips.’…

243 Following day Field Marshall Faragho was summoned before Horthy, who declared that he would not permit further deportations.’ On 26th June Crown Council. Horthy stipulated that ‘I won’t stand it any longer. I won’t allow the deportations to bring more shame upon Hungary! The Government shall take measures to remove Endre and Baky from their positions. The deportation of the Budapest Jews shall be stopped.

244 Cabinet meeting of 27th ‘consented in part to the proposals of the Deputy Foreign Minister but actually did nothing to put an end to the deportations. They dared not even inform the Germans of the Regent’s point of view.’ 4th and 5th ‘cleaning up operations’ were in full progress.

247 Attempted coup….Baky turned out 1,600 gendarmerie on streets. Purpose deportation of Jews.

249 Middle of July finally brought a turning point in the fate of the Jews of Budapest. Great Soviet summer offensive of 1944 in the Tarnopol-Luck area had just begun. Horthy and advisors at last realised that Germany stood on the brink of collapse. ‘This enlightenment as well as the easy victory gained over Baky acted as a stimulant to the Regent and his entourage. They even dared challenge the Germans in matters relating to the Jewish question.’

253 ‘Horthy no longer accepted the explanations given by Sztojay and Jaross… Finally the Regent ‘issued the plain order: the deportation of the Jews has to be stopped.’ A number of reasons for which included the Allied invasion was proceeding to plan, the victory gained over the ‘Baky attempt’ by the vigorous action of the Christian churches, the ‘menacing attitude of the enemy countries’ the protests of the neutral countries and ‘last not least by the insistence of members of his family, summoned Prime Minister Sztojay.’ The last deportation train left Bekasmegyer Hev station on Saturday night, July 8th.

254 New deportation train to leave Kirstaczy on July 14th. Horthy ordered Jarossy to have it stopped. It was recalled and back the same evening. ‘Every one of the 1,500 occupants were safe, even those who had previously been detained at Rokk Szilard Street and Horthy-Liget. (This is an indisputable proof of the ability of the Regent and his Government to enforce their orders as far as the Jewish question was concerned, provided they wanted, or chiefly, if they dared to do so…)

267 Towards the beginning of May the reports arriving from Slovakia contained the first authentic account of the horrors of Auschwitz…. It seems clear therefore that Eichmann suggested the idea of the consignments at precisely the same moment in which 300,000 Jews had to face the catastrophe of deportation….’ Of Kasztner, As member of the Zionist Federation, he judged nearly every question from that point of view.'

268 ‘It must be borne in mind that Kasztner was never willing to inform the Jewish leaders as to the progress of the negotiations without being pressed to do so, although he was acting with the authorisation of the Jewish Council…. It was obvious that he intended to be the only one to have a grasp on the situation, fearing that possibly somebody might contest his leadership.’

270 ‘the Jewish Council – by virtue of a concession obtained from Eichmann through Freudiger and Wyslizeni – managed to rescue several prominent Jews from the provincial ghettos and to have these brought to Budapest. Kasztner himself, with the assistance of Eichmann, rescued 350 Zionists from his home town, Kolozsvsar. In Budapest these people were held in a so-called ‘Vorzugslager’ in the Deaf-Mute Institute in Columbus Street, which had been equipped by the ‘Sonderswtab’ and was guarded by SS-men in order to protect the inmates against the gendarmerie and the Hungarian Gestapo.’

So when Mikey insists, not only on defending the collaboration of Kastner and the Jewish Agency but that of the Zionist movement as a whole re Hungary and even has the audacity to suggest that the Zionists ‘saved’ 200,000 Jews in Hungary, when it was they, under the leadership of Stephen Wise who bitterly opposed doing anything in the USA which might jeopardise the establishment of the Israeli state, then one is entitled to kick a little sand in his face.
Rudolph Vrba, one of only 5 Jewish escapees from Auschwitz, wrote to the Observer on 22.9.63. after Hanna Arendt had come under attack by the Zionist professor, Jacob Talmon, for daring to raise the question of collaboration. He described how:
‘In April 1944 we handed to a high representrative of the Zionist movement, Dr Oskar Neumann, a 60 page detailed report on the fact that extermination of 1,760,000 Jews had taken place in Auschwitz…. Did the Judenrat (or the Judenverrat) in Hungary tell their Jews what was awaiting them? No, they remained silent and for this silence some of their leaders – for example Dr. R. Kasztner – bartered their own lives and the lives of 1684 other ‘prominent’ Jews directly from Eichmann…’.


Yehuda Bauer, the main Zionist historian at Yad Vashem, writes in his ‘Jews for Sale’ that the Auschwitz Protocols, which Vrba and his fellow Wetzler had written in Slovakia for the Judenrat, arrived in Hungary ‘perhaps through Kasztner at the end of April and have been handed over to the leading members of the Judenrat.’ pp. 156/7.

As Ruth Linn explains in, ‘Escaping Auschwitz – a Culture of Forgetting’

‘Like Freudiger, Kasztner was convinced from reading the Vrba-Wetzler report that the entire Jewish community in Hungary was doomed to be liquidated. In his mind the only hope was to try to save the few.’ And that is the real story. The Zionist strategy throughout the holocaust of saving the few, the elect, the prominents, call them what you will as opposed to rescuing or saving the poor, the working class, the socialists. Linn, who is a Professor at Haifa University, no she is no anti-Zionist, goes on to describe how ‘during his intense negotiation with the SS, Kasztner kept the Vrba-Wetzler report secret in order not to create panic among the potential deportees to Auschwitz.’ p.27.

And therein lies the real crime.

And as for the fable that the Zionists were responsible for saving 200,000 Hungarian Jews, we learn that not only were the Auschwitz Protocols sent to the Pope but

‘they also sent the Vrba-Wetzler’ report to the Zionist liaison committee in Istanbul and to the Zionist representative in Switzerland, Nathan Schwalb.’ Schwalb was the representative of Hehalutz, the Zionist young pioneers, in Europe. However

‘Schwalb’s primary interest in this instance was to prevent the Vrba-Wetzler report from being published so as not to disrupt Kasztner’s negotiations with Eichmann.’

Maybe this is an instance of ‘saving Jews’?!! p.28 Linn.

And citing Braham’s Politics of Genocide, Linn describes how:

‘On July 5, Eden stated that the BBC would be employed to warn the Hungarian leaders. On July 7 1944, Admiral Miklos Horthy ordered a halt to the deportations from Hungary, which became effective only on July 9. Almost 200,000 Jews in Budapest were thus saved from deportation.’

And what was the reaction of those Jews who hadn’t been informed of Auschwitz, bearing in mind that many Jews in Hungary were but a short distance away from safety in Rumania? Linn again describes an incident in the Eichmann trial when ‘during Freudiger’s testimony [Zionist Chief Rabbi of Hungary] at Eichmann’s trial, a Hungarian survivor screamed at him from the gallery,

‘You duped us so you could save yourselves and your families. But our families were killed.’ This man was apparently attacking Freudiger as a representative of the Jewish Council, for he added, referring to another Judenrat member, ‘He gave us injections to numb our minds. But he took his own parents out… and left mine there to die.’ citing Pearlman ‘The Capture and Trial of Adolf Eichmann’. p. 38 Linn.

The holocaust survivor was then ejected from the Eichmann trial.

And just in case Mikey has still not got it then Andrea Biss, who helped compile the lists of the Prominents, ‘further provides the moral rationale for the Judenrat’s decision to conceal the Vrba-Wetzler report:

‘It was part of Klages’ job… to keep an eye on Eichmann and to see that everything was done to ensure that the secret behind the ‘final solution’ should be completely guarded. It was therefore necessary that the object of the deportations should remain unknown.’

Linn p.80. And just in case Mikey still doesn’t get the message, let us cite a few more opinions:
‘Here [in Hungary] the protocol acquired some kind of publication. It was taken to heads of churches and leaders but it was not distributed to the Jewish communities generally….‘It is beyond question: The Auschwitz Protocols did reach the Jewish Council and Zionist activists, including the Halutz Underground. Yet they did not transmit this information to the Jewish public when the deportation began.‘The report remained unknown to the Jewish population inside Hungary itself.’

[Linn p.81 citing reports such as Cohen’s ‘Holocaust Hungarian Jews in Light of the Research of Randolph Braham’ 381.

And even in Bauer’s Rethinking the Holocaust ‘Bauer admits that ‘the protocols were an important factor in stopping the deportations.’


One could go on but the idea that the Zionists, having suppressed all news of Auschwitz as long as they dare, can then claim to have ‘saved’ the 200,000 Jews of Hungary is plain sick. It was Chaim Cohen, the Attorney General who defended Kastner in the Jerusalem District Court trial, who explained that saving the few from the many was a Zionist principle, even if as in Hungary it meant sacrificing close to half a million Jews for the sake of ‘The Prominents’.

I hate to be so dismissive of Mikey’s zionised version of history but one has to be hard – be it on Holocaust Deniers or Holocaust Falsifiers (and of course Nakba Deniers). It is little wonder that in their attacks on Vrba, for not following the Zionist line on the Holocaust, that the Zionist historians – Bauer, Porat, Kulka et al. have simply provided ammunition for the Holocaust Deniers who use their attacks as a way of casting doubt on the Auschwitz Protocols. Therein lies their real crime.

Tony Greenstein

10 June 2008

Heating Up: The Battle for the Jewish voice and the Jewish soul







The article below is taken from the Culture Magazine site
Written by David Mandelzys, Photographs by Ryan Davies

Dear Mom, Dad, your Zionist friends, and Bob Dylan too,

I’ve got news for you all: The times they are a changin’! Remember last Passover? Remember when we sat around the Seder table and listened to you rant about Israel`s victimhood? About how ethnic cleansing really isn’t that bad? And about how if they try to kill the Jews this time, we will at least take them all with us? Remember the rolled eyes of my cousins and the looks we exchanged thinking you were all nuts?
These are the four questions we were thinking of:

1) Why, on this night we dedicate to remembering our own history as an oppressed people, do we justify Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians?
2) Why, on this night when Israelis are free to celebrate, are the Palestinians locked down under curfew – as is done on most Jewish holidays?
3) Why, here in Canada, where we are a minority amongst a Christian majority, do we advocate for and support a ‘Jewish State’ in the Middle East, where the non-Jewish minority are treated as second class citizens?
4) Why should anyone think that just because we say ‘next year in Jerusalem’ at the end of our Seder, that we had a right to kick others out of their homes so that we could live there?

You see, our generation is different. We are not blind Zionist ideologues. We did not take the lesson of kill or be killed from the stories our grandparents told us about the Holocaust or the anti-Semitism they faced. Alongside our lessons about Zionism and about why the Holocaust meant that Jews need a Jewish state for themselves, we couldn't help but absorb the need to oppose racism, to fight oppression and to not justify the subjugation of one ‘people’ for the benefit of another.

At first, we may have believed your myths about ‘Israel the good’, about the Israel Defense Forces being the world’s only ‘moral’ army, and about how it’s not Israel but ‘the Arabs’ who don’t want peace. But we have grown up now, and like our Christian peers who come to understand Santa Claus is not real, the growing majority of us have come to see myth of Israel the good as a relic of our childhood Chanukahs.

For those of us who have followed developments in the mainstream Jewish community, we see more to your ranting, too. We see a sick hierarchically organized Jewish community that is not only serving as a smokescreen to allow the ongoing genocide of a people; we also see the twisted irony that you, our parents who claim we need Israel as a safeguard from anti-Semitism, are actually putting us and the rest of World Jewry in danger. By tying our fate (and our children’s) to that of the leadership of the dying American empire, you are setting us up as a scapegoat.
Israel is an offshore American army base and the Israeli leadership and its North American lobby are so in bed with the neo-cons that our community will be suffering consequences for years. Even worse, in Canada and the United States, the lobby has deluded itself into actually thinking it controls the hand that feeds it. The lobby happily plays the role of the dirty cop on the beat using underhanded (but not so secret) ways to try and eliminate what it sees as threats to Israel’s support, or the lobby`s own domestic power. I’m sure that Harper, Bush, and their corporate masters are not disappointed that the targets the Israel lobby chooses for career or character assassination (in the media, academia, public life, etc.) typically line up with their own. But, what will happen if: Oil prices keep rising? The war in Iraq and Afghanistan keeps failing? Housing foreclosures keep increasing? And world anger at the West keeps growing? The Jewish community’s leadership certainly makes it easy enough to paint a picture that the Jews are behind it; sometimes they even gloat. Will it really be a surprise if, when shit hits the fan, our supposed allies in the US/Canadian elite cut Israel’s strings and point the blame at home towards Jews? Hypotheticals aside, luckily this too is changing! From the disenchanted, once isolated Jews, a new community is rising. Remember the article I wrote on “The Fall of Zionism” last October? Remember how you thought I was a dreamer and that there was no way a threat to the Zionist control of our community could ever take hold? Well, a lot has happened in the past eight months. The kids are coming home! All those ‘self-hating’ Jews who isolated themselves from the community not because of a dislike for our culture, heritage, or religion, but because they were told to leave after speaking their mind on the oppression of the Palestinian people, are finding each other, organizing, and coming back. In Canada, for example, there is a new national umbrella organization called the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians (ACJC), which represents Jews who are opposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The ACJC was launched in March when internationally renowned author, journalist, keynote speaker and Canadian Jew Naomi Klein kicked off a national conference that brought together over 100 activist Jews representing 23 different Canadian Jewish groups. The purpose of the ACJC is to provide a counterweight to Jewish organizations that serve as apologists for Israel’s crimes, such as the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC). The ACJC has since put action to words. Recently, for example, it lent support to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers when it became the first national Union in North America to courageously pass a resolution supporting the Palestinian campaign for a Boycott of Israel, and recognizing that Israel has become an apartheid state.
Likewise, in May the ACJC, along with other anti-occupation Jewish groups across North America and the world, heeded the call of the Palestinian people to declare the 60th anniversary of the Naqba (disaster) as No Time to Celebrate (this is a common slogan being used in protest of Israel’s celebrations). Protests were organized worldwide, and in Canada and the United States Jews protested alongside Palestinians and other concerned citizens. In San Francisco, twenty Jews were (unjustly) arrested trying to make themselves heard as Jews opposed to Israel`s crimes. In Britain, over one hundred Jews signed an open letter published in The Guardian, one of the United Kingdom’s leading newspapers, declaring they would not celebrate Israel’s birthday. In Paris, French Jews hung the Palestinian flag on the Eiffel Tower in protest. Here in Canada’s capital of Ottawa, Jews, Palestinians, and other concerned individuals formed a one hundred person-strong silent protest outside the official Israel celebrations at the Convention Center on May 8th, and then repeated it a few weeks later at another event at the National Arts Center on May 20th. Despite the money and glamour being thrown into making 60 years of Israeli oppression a propaganda campaign to whitewash Israel’s crimes, Jews around the world are promising not to celebrate (one US-based online pledge not to celebrate has over 500 Jewish signatures). The actions I am describing did not have millions of dollars for publicity like the official events organized by the Jewish community’s elites. Instead, they grew through grassroot networks and traveled by word-of-mouth from committed activist Jew to committed activist Jew. The Jews taking part in these events are the ones who are informed and willing to put themselves on the line to oppose the mainstream Jewish community’s official position, and I am growing increasingly confident that their support runs deep.

This letter may sound angry, and at some points it is. It upsets me to hear our Passover conversations, and I won’t just quietly roll my eyes anymore. But the reason for that is love and respect. We are forming a new community, with a humanist core that ties us together strongly. Seders are being held that tell the story of the Palestinian enslavement along with that of our own. Events are being held where Jews celebrate Jewish culture from a place that recognizes how our history gives us a responsibility to speak out against oppression. I will continue to celebrate my heritage as part of our family, just like all those supposed ‘self-hating’ Jews will celebrate with me, as Jews and as part of the Jewish community. We are committed to justice, and through this we are finding our Jewish souls. And when you are ready to join the multitudes of other Jews opposing Israeli oppression, our door will be wide open.

Love, your Young Non-Zionist Kids

5 June 2008

Can they Sink Any Lower - PHR-Israel issues public protest after its employee is unfairly interrogated and intimidated by the General Security Service


Physicians for Human Rights-Israel update 3.6.08

On Monday, May 26, Physicians for Human Rights sent a letter to the head of the GSS, Yuval Diskin, in which the heads of the organization protest the attempt by the General Security Service to harm the organization's work and warn against the attempt to influence its policy and methods and intimidate a human rights organization. The letter was sent following the interrogation last week of Salah Haj Yehya, the organisation’s Clinics Director, by the GSS.

Haj Yehya, who has worked for PHR for 20 years, was summoned for an interrogation following PHR-Israel's request to issue a doctors delegation to Gaza for the third time in the last six months to give medical aid and ascertain the health impact of ongoing Israeli policies in the Gaza Strip. Whereas all other members of the doctors’ delegation received permission to enter, the Clinics Director was told he was "denied entry on security grounds". It should be noted that it was Haj Yehya who had organized and led the previous delegations to Gaza. In response to enquiries regarding the prohibition on his entry, the GSS claimed that PHR-Israel had exceeded its ‘mandate’ by engaging in ‘political’ affairs in the Gaza Strip besides its humanitarian activities.

On the evening of May 14 a police patrol car came to the home of the Clinics Director in Taybeh, Israel to summon him for investigation. The next day, he came to the Taybeh police station, assuming it was merely a mistake that could be clarified in the course of a conversation, because he was engaged in transparent and legal activities of the organization. However, during the interrogation, which took place on two levels -- the personal and the organizational -- it became clear that it was a matter of inappropriate interference by the GSS in a human rights organization's activity.

The GSS investigated PHR-Israel’s Clinics Director about the organization's activity, its budget, its donors, the rates of its salaries and asked for information about other workers in the organization. It also asked how the members of the organization enter the occupied territories, how the safety of participants is ensured and how they transfer patients from Gaza to Israel. Emphasis was placed on the question of whether representatives of the organization had met Ismail Haniya and why they had talked (during their last visit to Gaza) with the Palestinian Minister of Health and head of the parliament. "When the Clinics Director asked his interrogators whether, according to the definitions of the GSS, we were allowed to converse with the Minister of Health, who is both a political and a professional figure, the interrogator failed to answer, whether because he knew the demand to avoid political activity was not valid or because he preferred to maintain vagueness in order to create embarrassment in the organization," said the letter.

On a personal level Haj Yehya was asked about his statements to the media and whether he was a member of the Islamic movement. Apart from the questioning, Haj Yehya was intimidated: he was presented with photographs of his house, and the GSS interrogator "Danny" reminded him that details of his personal life are known to them, including where each of the members of his family sleeps in his house, and where his children go to school.

The personal summons of an employee of PHR-Israel, who works according to the guidelines of the Board of the organization, the sending of a police vehicle to his home, the segregation of this worker, an Arab Israeli who is not a doctor, from more protected members of the organization who are both Jewish Israelis and doctors, and the threatening insinuations made in the course of the interrogation, all constitute an unprecedented attack on PHR-Israel in particular and on the principles of human rights in general, and there is no place for such practices in a law-abiding state and a democratic society,” said the letter.

Since the only reason given for the summonsing of our employee was his activity within the framework of our organization, we can only see the singling out and intimidation of one of our employees as completely unacceptable and illegal, since both this employee and the other doctors in the delegation to Gaza are engaged in identical activities, and act in accordance with the guidelines of the organization’s Board.

Since PHR-Israel’s letter, several other human rights organizations have expressed support and/or sent similar letters to the GSS, including Adva Center, Yesh Din, ACRI, B’Tselem, PCATI, Gisha and Adalah, as well as other international organizations.


On Thursday, 5.6.08, the Staff and Board of PHR-Israel will publish a signed declaration against this act of intimidation in Israeli daily newspaper “Haaretz”. (See PHR-Israel’s website for further details and a full translation of the letter:

For related article in Haaretz:

For further information: Libby Friedlander 00972 54-245-768