Professor of Psychiatry, Dr. Sidney Bloch returns to South Africa with his teenage son, full of personal guilt for not having done more to resist the racist apartheid regime. He emigrated immediately after completing his medical studies in Cape Town and lived with a guilty feeling of not having done more to resist apartheid and help even his few fellow coloured students in his year.
I saw the film at its world premiere at ACMI and want to cmpliment everyone involved for it.The film is beautifully shot and well edited. I also wanted to comment afterwards when the discussion and question time was organised but I did not get the chance to do so.
Having participated in one of the first international conventions in Johannesburg after Nelson Mandela was freed, but before the ANC was elected in 1991, I commented to one of our hosts at the time that I could not live in such an affluent environment while being surrounded by such massive poverty,- black or white! Her response was: "who are you to talk -is Australia better towards your natives? Are your Aborigines well off in the Centre while you live in comfort in the coastal cities? You live in a democracy. You can do something about it. We lived until recently under a virtual dictatorship,- you will see that we will change. Will you?"
I think that this film is a personal account of one man's conscience at work. I don't believe it can be extrapolated to a general educational viewpoint about being a 'bystander' versus an activist, which is its intention! All systems which are antidemocratic, be it communism, nazism, racism/apartheid, even theocracies, involve rule by force to make the population submit. The individual needs far more courage to desist and resist than we who live in democracies.
We need to protect each others' individual and minorities' human rights,- because we can do so without fear of reprisals,- at least in theory!So what excuse do we as Australians have for the terrible conditions still existing today in the aboriginal communities up North? The film Samson & Delilah portrays it most vividly (& was shown on SBS also tonight).
South Africans can look after themselves now,- I don't think the film really explores the connection to Australia at all and may not be the educational tool which it was intended to be.
As for comparing Sth. African apartheid with any other country,- as some would with Israel, which is so far removed from the truth as to be pure antisemitic and Arab propaganda,- it is only akin to the American segregation of a past era. Nor can it be compared with the Nazi Holocaust of us Jews,- the deliberate program of obliteration of a whole people!
I shall be returning for the next International Council of Jewish Women's Convention in Cape Town, next May, 2010. I am looking forward to see the changes which were portrayed in the film, but as one of the individuals in the film categorically stated,- racism is in all of us! Personally I don't see it as only racism,- I see it as humans tending to 'like the alike'!There is what may be called "snobbishness", e.g. in the level of personal wealth,or there is the "intellectual snobbishness" in the educational field,- every group will have the "in crowd" and those who will be outside it. Dr. Bloch rejected the Afrikaaners outright as being racists & pro-Nazis, until he met his old coleague who accused the Jewish groups at the University of "sticking to themselves",- a common accusation made towards us Jews!
The reality is that we all tend to "stick together" and label others in groups! It is human nature and nurture,- plus experiences!We tend to treat others the way they treat us,- or we avoid those whom we don't understand. Violence begets violence,- at present, violence throughout the world, be it criminal due to 3rd-world poverty,or anti-democratic or terrorist due to religious fanaticism,or sectarian rivalries, etc. this I am afraid is the greatest threat to democracy and the 'rule of law' in our Western world, (including Israel of course, as it is part of the Western democratic system). This is when governments enact more and more draconian laws which impinge on all our personal freedoms,- until we may wake up one day and find ourselves under a totalitarian regime! Then it may be too late to cry 'help'!
We Jews are usually the first to sense the dangers.
N.B. Dr.Bloch fled to Israel first.
There he met his wife to be, an Australian, so he ended up here!
(MM)
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
DANIEL PIPES ON FORT HOOD MASSACRE, JIHADISM, ME
Dr. Daniel Pipes PhD spoke to the Zionist community in Melbourne.
November 11, 2009.
Pipes is a Ph.D. in ME history, author of many books, articles and commentator on news media.
He is adamant that no one in history ever won against ideologues by appeasements and discussions. WW2 was fought against Fascism,- it took years and tens of millions dead and plenty of hardware to squash it. Communism was dismantled after the Cold War. Islamism needs a similar will and war-to-win.iSRAEL BNEEDS TO HAVE A TACTIC TO WIN AND CONQUER, NOT TO APPEASE. It hasn't worked for them since their unilateral withdrawals. The USA talks about winning the war against terrorism,- no one talks about Israel winning the war against those who want to annihilate it.
He is convinced that the Palestinians have no intention of being satisfied with a State alongside Israel, only one instead of Israel. Therefore he feels that the Israeli Government has lost its way in strategic-deterrence thinking and has erred in unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza. These are signs of weakness against the intransigent ideological enemy.
Israel tries too hard to appear sensitive to public opinion and the saving of enemy lives to the detriment of its own people and soldiers, but to no avail. Public opinion is now stacked against it anyway. What is the point? One may as well be blamed for something real. Let the punishment fit the crime and act as a deterrent to its enemies until it says 'enough is enough.If we can't destroy them, let's join them!'
Islamism has become very cunning and subtle,- e.g. in Turkey, while in Iran, there are positive signs that the resistance is strong enough to one day overthrow the terrible regime of the Ayatollahs. If and when this will happen, it will help the rest of the Islamic world to escape from its yoke of Jihadism.
Re the Zionist Christians of America,- Pipes feels it is only second to the IDF in the war against the Jihadists on Israel’s side. Too many Jewish groups however steer clear of them,- he feels that’s a pity.
He spoke about the enemies within the USA as happened in Texas (below). Time to call a spade a spade, by calling it what it is,- not something it isn’t. It’s Jihad and Jihadism,- whether one likes it or not. The murderer called out Al Akhbar,- what more is needed to prove what it was?
MM
Daniel Pipes November 9, 2009-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sudden Jihad or "Inordinate Stress" at Ft. Hood?
by Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com
November 9, 2009
http://www.danielpipes.org/7737/sudden-jihad-inordinate-stress-ft-hood
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Ft. Hood jihadi, in a picture from 2000.
When a Muslim in the West for no apparent reason violently attacks non-Muslims, a predictable argument ensues about motives.
The establishment – law enforcement, politicians, the media, and the academy – stands on one side of this debate, insisting that some kind of oppression caused Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, to kill 13 and wound 38 at Ft. Hood on Nov. 5. It disagrees on the specifics, however, presenting Hasan as the victim alternatively of "racism," "harassment he had received as a Muslim," a sense of not belonging," "pre-traumatic stress disorder," "mental problems," "emotional problems," "an inordinate amount of stress," or being deployed to Afghanistan as his "worst nightmare." Accordingly, a typical newspaper headline reads "Mindset of Rogue Major a Mystery.".
Instances of Muslim-on-unbeliever violence inspire the victim school to dig up new and imaginative excuses. Colorful examples (drawing on my article and weblog entry about denying Islamist terrorism) include:
• 1990: "A prescription drug for … depression" (to explain the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane)
• 1991: "A robbery gone wrong" (the murder of Makin Morcos in Sydney)
• 1994: "Road rage" (the killing of a random Jew on the Brooklyn Bridge)
• 1997: "Many, many enemies in his mind" (the shooting murder atop the Empire State Building)
• 2000: A traffic incident (the attack on a bus of Jewish schoolchildren near Paris)
• 2002: "A work dispute" (the double murder at LAX)
• 2002: A "stormy [family] relationship" (the Beltway snipers)
• 2003: An "attitude problem" (Hasan Karim Akbar's attack on fellow soldiers, killing two)
• 2003: Mental illness (the mutilation murder of Sebastian Sellam)
• 2004: "Loneliness and depression" (an explosion in Brescia, Italy outside a McDonald's restaurant)
• 2005: "A disagreement between the suspect and another staff member" (a rampage at a retirement center in Virginia)
• 2006: "An animus toward women" (a murderous rampage at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle)
• 2006: "His recent, arranged marriage may have made him stressed" (killing with an SUV in northern California)
Sgt. Hasan Karim Akbar, convicted of the 2003 murder of two fellow soldiers.
Additionally, when a Osama bin Laden-admiring Arab-American crashed a plane into a Tampa high-rise, blame fell on the acne drug Accutane.
As a charter member of the jihad school of interpretation, I reject these explanations as weak, obfuscatory, and apologetic. The jihadi school, still in the minority, perceives Hasan's attack as one of many Muslim efforts to vanquish infidels and impose Islamic law. We recall a prior episode of sudden jihad syndrome in the U.S. military, as well as the numerous cases of non-lethal Pentagon jihadi plots and the history of Muslim violence on American soil.
Far from being mystified by Hasan, we see overwhelming evidence of his jihadi intentions. He handed out Korans to neighbors just before going on his rampage and yelled "Allahu Akbar," the jihadi's cry, as he fired off over 100 rounds from two pistols. His superiors reportedly put him on probation for inappropriately proselytizing about Islam.
We note what former associates say about him: one, Val Finnell, quotes Hasan saying, "I'm a Muslim first and an American second" and recalls Hasan justifying suicide terrorism; another, Col Terry Lee, recalls that Hasan "claimed Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans"; the third, a psychiatrist who worked very closely with Hasan, described him as "almost belligerent about being Muslim."
Finally, the jihad school of thought attributes importance to the Islamic authorities' urging American Muslim soldiers to refuse to fight their co-religionists, thereby providing a basis for sudden jihad. In 2001, for example, responding to the U.S. attack on the Taliban, the mufti of Egypt, Ali Gum'a, issued a fatwa stating that "The Muslim soldier in the American army must refrain [from participating] in this war." Hasan himself, echoing that message, advised a young Muslim disciple, Duane Reasoner Jr., not to join the U.S. army because "Muslims shouldn't kill Muslims."
If the jihad explanation is overwhelmingly more persuasive than the victim one, it's also far more awkward to articulate. Everyone finds blaming road rage, Accutane, or an arranged marriage easier than discussing Islamic doctrines. And so, a prediction: what Ralph Peters calls the army's "unforgivable political correctness" will officially ascribe Hasan's assault to his victimization and will leave jihad unmentioned.
And thus will the army blind itself and not prepare for its next jihadi attack.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
Related Topics: Muslims in the United States, Radical Islam, Terrorism To subscribe to this list, go to http://www.danielpipes.org/list_subscribe.php
(Daniel Pipes sends out a mailing of his writings 1-2 times a week.)
Sign up for related (but non-duplicating) e-mail services:
Middle East Forum (media alerts, event reports, MEQ articles)
Campus Watch (research, news items, press releases)
at http://www.danielpipes.org/list_subscribe.phpYou may post or forward this text, but on condition that you send it as an integral whole, along with complete information about its author, date, publication, and original URL.
DanielPipes.org
November 11, 2009.
Pipes is a Ph.D. in ME history, author of many books, articles and commentator on news media.
He is adamant that no one in history ever won against ideologues by appeasements and discussions. WW2 was fought against Fascism,- it took years and tens of millions dead and plenty of hardware to squash it. Communism was dismantled after the Cold War. Islamism needs a similar will and war-to-win.iSRAEL BNEEDS TO HAVE A TACTIC TO WIN AND CONQUER, NOT TO APPEASE. It hasn't worked for them since their unilateral withdrawals. The USA talks about winning the war against terrorism,- no one talks about Israel winning the war against those who want to annihilate it.
He is convinced that the Palestinians have no intention of being satisfied with a State alongside Israel, only one instead of Israel. Therefore he feels that the Israeli Government has lost its way in strategic-deterrence thinking and has erred in unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza. These are signs of weakness against the intransigent ideological enemy.
Israel tries too hard to appear sensitive to public opinion and the saving of enemy lives to the detriment of its own people and soldiers, but to no avail. Public opinion is now stacked against it anyway. What is the point? One may as well be blamed for something real. Let the punishment fit the crime and act as a deterrent to its enemies until it says 'enough is enough.If we can't destroy them, let's join them!'
Islamism has become very cunning and subtle,- e.g. in Turkey, while in Iran, there are positive signs that the resistance is strong enough to one day overthrow the terrible regime of the Ayatollahs. If and when this will happen, it will help the rest of the Islamic world to escape from its yoke of Jihadism.
Re the Zionist Christians of America,- Pipes feels it is only second to the IDF in the war against the Jihadists on Israel’s side. Too many Jewish groups however steer clear of them,- he feels that’s a pity.
He spoke about the enemies within the USA as happened in Texas (below). Time to call a spade a spade, by calling it what it is,- not something it isn’t. It’s Jihad and Jihadism,- whether one likes it or not. The murderer called out Al Akhbar,- what more is needed to prove what it was?
MM
Daniel Pipes November 9, 2009-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sudden Jihad or "Inordinate Stress" at Ft. Hood?
by Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com
November 9, 2009
http://www.danielpipes.org/7737/sudden-jihad-inordinate-stress-ft-hood
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Ft. Hood jihadi, in a picture from 2000.
When a Muslim in the West for no apparent reason violently attacks non-Muslims, a predictable argument ensues about motives.
The establishment – law enforcement, politicians, the media, and the academy – stands on one side of this debate, insisting that some kind of oppression caused Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, to kill 13 and wound 38 at Ft. Hood on Nov. 5. It disagrees on the specifics, however, presenting Hasan as the victim alternatively of "racism," "harassment he had received as a Muslim," a sense of not belonging," "pre-traumatic stress disorder," "mental problems," "emotional problems," "an inordinate amount of stress," or being deployed to Afghanistan as his "worst nightmare." Accordingly, a typical newspaper headline reads "Mindset of Rogue Major a Mystery.".
Instances of Muslim-on-unbeliever violence inspire the victim school to dig up new and imaginative excuses. Colorful examples (drawing on my article and weblog entry about denying Islamist terrorism) include:
• 1990: "A prescription drug for … depression" (to explain the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane)
• 1991: "A robbery gone wrong" (the murder of Makin Morcos in Sydney)
• 1994: "Road rage" (the killing of a random Jew on the Brooklyn Bridge)
• 1997: "Many, many enemies in his mind" (the shooting murder atop the Empire State Building)
• 2000: A traffic incident (the attack on a bus of Jewish schoolchildren near Paris)
• 2002: "A work dispute" (the double murder at LAX)
• 2002: A "stormy [family] relationship" (the Beltway snipers)
• 2003: An "attitude problem" (Hasan Karim Akbar's attack on fellow soldiers, killing two)
• 2003: Mental illness (the mutilation murder of Sebastian Sellam)
• 2004: "Loneliness and depression" (an explosion in Brescia, Italy outside a McDonald's restaurant)
• 2005: "A disagreement between the suspect and another staff member" (a rampage at a retirement center in Virginia)
• 2006: "An animus toward women" (a murderous rampage at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle)
• 2006: "His recent, arranged marriage may have made him stressed" (killing with an SUV in northern California)
Sgt. Hasan Karim Akbar, convicted of the 2003 murder of two fellow soldiers.
Additionally, when a Osama bin Laden-admiring Arab-American crashed a plane into a Tampa high-rise, blame fell on the acne drug Accutane.
As a charter member of the jihad school of interpretation, I reject these explanations as weak, obfuscatory, and apologetic. The jihadi school, still in the minority, perceives Hasan's attack as one of many Muslim efforts to vanquish infidels and impose Islamic law. We recall a prior episode of sudden jihad syndrome in the U.S. military, as well as the numerous cases of non-lethal Pentagon jihadi plots and the history of Muslim violence on American soil.
Far from being mystified by Hasan, we see overwhelming evidence of his jihadi intentions. He handed out Korans to neighbors just before going on his rampage and yelled "Allahu Akbar," the jihadi's cry, as he fired off over 100 rounds from two pistols. His superiors reportedly put him on probation for inappropriately proselytizing about Islam.
We note what former associates say about him: one, Val Finnell, quotes Hasan saying, "I'm a Muslim first and an American second" and recalls Hasan justifying suicide terrorism; another, Col Terry Lee, recalls that Hasan "claimed Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans"; the third, a psychiatrist who worked very closely with Hasan, described him as "almost belligerent about being Muslim."
Finally, the jihad school of thought attributes importance to the Islamic authorities' urging American Muslim soldiers to refuse to fight their co-religionists, thereby providing a basis for sudden jihad. In 2001, for example, responding to the U.S. attack on the Taliban, the mufti of Egypt, Ali Gum'a, issued a fatwa stating that "The Muslim soldier in the American army must refrain [from participating] in this war." Hasan himself, echoing that message, advised a young Muslim disciple, Duane Reasoner Jr., not to join the U.S. army because "Muslims shouldn't kill Muslims."
If the jihad explanation is overwhelmingly more persuasive than the victim one, it's also far more awkward to articulate. Everyone finds blaming road rage, Accutane, or an arranged marriage easier than discussing Islamic doctrines. And so, a prediction: what Ralph Peters calls the army's "unforgivable political correctness" will officially ascribe Hasan's assault to his victimization and will leave jihad unmentioned.
And thus will the army blind itself and not prepare for its next jihadi attack.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
Related Topics: Muslims in the United States, Radical Islam, Terrorism To subscribe to this list, go to http://www.danielpipes.org/list_subscribe.php
(Daniel Pipes sends out a mailing of his writings 1-2 times a week.)
Sign up for related (but non-duplicating) e-mail services:
Middle East Forum (media alerts, event reports, MEQ articles)
Campus Watch (research, news items, press releases)
at http://www.danielpipes.org/list_subscribe.phpYou may post or forward this text, but on condition that you send it as an integral whole, along with complete information about its author, date, publication, and original URL.
DanielPipes.org
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
DR. FELIX ZANDMAN- Bio.: AN INSPIRATION
Felix Zandman Biography
[N.B.I WAS FORTUNATE TO SEE A DVD DEPICTING THE LIFE STORY OF THIS REMARKABLE MAN.
The following is extracted from thousands of references about him available on the internet.]
Survivor Triumphant: Felix Zandman's life story is a saga of success in the face of some of this century's greatest evil. Jew. Survivor. Physicist. Entrepreneur. Industrial magnate.
Felix Zandman's life story grows like a blossoming tree from gnarled roots in Grodno, Poland.
There he was raised in a comfortable home, and from an early age given Jewish, Zionist and secular educations.
At 15, with the Nazi extermination campaign in full swing, he had the good fortune to be able to hide for 17 months in a tiny pit dug under the floorboards of a house of righteous Gentiles in the Polish countryside, along with four other Jews.(This is reproduced in a Holocaust Museum in Florida).
Whilst hidden, his engineer uncle continually educated him in higher maths and physics and as he describes it in his DVD-life story, his brain absorbed it all like a sponge. After their harrowing escape from the grave-like hiding place, they eventually made their way to Paris after liberation where he was immediately able to continue his education at The Sorbonne, to Ph.D. level.
His ability to think ‘outside the square’ he attributes to his amazing problem-solving skills, such as inventing the tiny resistors and other scientific innovations now used in the aircraft industries, in every electronic device in the world.
Dr. Felix Zandman is Chairman and CEO of Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE: VSH). In 1962, Dr. Zandman, with the financial help of the late Alfred P. Slaner, founded Vishay to develop and manufacture Bulk Metal foil resistors. The Company was named after Dr. Zandman's and Mr. Slaner's ancestral village in Lithuania, in memory of family members who perished in the Holocaust.
Dr. Zandman holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Paris, Sorbonne. He has received numerous honors throughout his life, including the Musser Award for Excellence in Leadership, the Order of Merit for Research and Invention (France), the Distinguished Contribution Award from the American Society of Stress Analysis, the Franklin Institute Medal for Science, and the Legion of Honor (France).
Dr. Zandman speaks Russian, Polish, Yiddish, German, Hebrew, French, and English. He has also published three textbooks and holds 39 patents.
Dr. Zandman´s autobiography, Never the Last Journey, recounts his story from Holocaust victim to head of Vishay.
EXECUTIVE PROFILE*
Felix Zandman
Founder, Executive Chairman, Chief Technical & Business Development Officer and Chairman of Executive Committee, Vishay Intertechnology Inc.
Age 80.
This person is connected to 14 board members in 4 different organizations across 1 different industries.
BACKGROUND*
Felix Zandman founded Vishay Intertechnology Inc. and has been its Chief Technology Officer and Chief Business Development Officer since January 1, 2005. Dr. Zandman serves as Chief Technical and Business Development Officer of Vishay Israel Ltd. Dr. Zandman founded Vishay Semiconductor Gmbh and serves as its Chief Technical Officer. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Vishay Intertechnology Inc. since 1962 until January 1, 2005. He served as President of Vishay .
HONORARY DOCTORATE CITATION TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY>
At its session on the 2nd day of March, 2005
the Senate of Tel Aviv University resolved to honor
Felix Zandman
in recognition of his indomitable spirit and resourcefulness in transforming himself from Holocaust refugee tosuccessful industrialist, physicist, inventor and philanthropist; his remarkable entrepreneurial and leadership ability in building up his company, Vishay, into one of the world’s largest electronic
manufacturers; his creative scientific vision and numerous patents
and publications, for which he has won accolades worldwide; and
in special recognition of his pioneering contribution to the Israeli high-tech industry, which has also helped to advance the
absorption of immigrants and the strengthening of development towns in the country; his steadfast support of Tel Aviv University; and his establishment at the University of projects in Holocaust studies
as well as the Zandman Graduate School of Engineering,
by conferring upon him the degree of
Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa
• of Tel Aviv University.
[N.B.I WAS FORTUNATE TO SEE A DVD DEPICTING THE LIFE STORY OF THIS REMARKABLE MAN.
The following is extracted from thousands of references about him available on the internet.]
Survivor Triumphant: Felix Zandman's life story is a saga of success in the face of some of this century's greatest evil. Jew. Survivor. Physicist. Entrepreneur. Industrial magnate.
Felix Zandman's life story grows like a blossoming tree from gnarled roots in Grodno, Poland.
There he was raised in a comfortable home, and from an early age given Jewish, Zionist and secular educations.
At 15, with the Nazi extermination campaign in full swing, he had the good fortune to be able to hide for 17 months in a tiny pit dug under the floorboards of a house of righteous Gentiles in the Polish countryside, along with four other Jews.(This is reproduced in a Holocaust Museum in Florida).
Whilst hidden, his engineer uncle continually educated him in higher maths and physics and as he describes it in his DVD-life story, his brain absorbed it all like a sponge. After their harrowing escape from the grave-like hiding place, they eventually made their way to Paris after liberation where he was immediately able to continue his education at The Sorbonne, to Ph.D. level.
His ability to think ‘outside the square’ he attributes to his amazing problem-solving skills, such as inventing the tiny resistors and other scientific innovations now used in the aircraft industries, in every electronic device in the world.
Dr. Felix Zandman is Chairman and CEO of Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE: VSH). In 1962, Dr. Zandman, with the financial help of the late Alfred P. Slaner, founded Vishay to develop and manufacture Bulk Metal foil resistors. The Company was named after Dr. Zandman's and Mr. Slaner's ancestral village in Lithuania, in memory of family members who perished in the Holocaust.
Dr. Zandman holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Paris, Sorbonne. He has received numerous honors throughout his life, including the Musser Award for Excellence in Leadership, the Order of Merit for Research and Invention (France), the Distinguished Contribution Award from the American Society of Stress Analysis, the Franklin Institute Medal for Science, and the Legion of Honor (France).
Dr. Zandman speaks Russian, Polish, Yiddish, German, Hebrew, French, and English. He has also published three textbooks and holds 39 patents.
Dr. Zandman´s autobiography, Never the Last Journey, recounts his story from Holocaust victim to head of Vishay.
EXECUTIVE PROFILE*
Felix Zandman
Founder, Executive Chairman, Chief Technical & Business Development Officer and Chairman of Executive Committee, Vishay Intertechnology Inc.
Age 80.
This person is connected to 14 board members in 4 different organizations across 1 different industries.
BACKGROUND*
Felix Zandman founded Vishay Intertechnology Inc. and has been its Chief Technology Officer and Chief Business Development Officer since January 1, 2005. Dr. Zandman serves as Chief Technical and Business Development Officer of Vishay Israel Ltd. Dr. Zandman founded Vishay Semiconductor Gmbh and serves as its Chief Technical Officer. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Vishay Intertechnology Inc. since 1962 until January 1, 2005. He served as President of Vishay .
HONORARY DOCTORATE CITATION TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY>
At its session on the 2nd day of March, 2005
the Senate of Tel Aviv University resolved to honor
Felix Zandman
in recognition of his indomitable spirit and resourcefulness in transforming himself from Holocaust refugee tosuccessful industrialist, physicist, inventor and philanthropist; his remarkable entrepreneurial and leadership ability in building up his company, Vishay, into one of the world’s largest electronic
manufacturers; his creative scientific vision and numerous patents
and publications, for which he has won accolades worldwide; and
in special recognition of his pioneering contribution to the Israeli high-tech industry, which has also helped to advance the
absorption of immigrants and the strengthening of development towns in the country; his steadfast support of Tel Aviv University; and his establishment at the University of projects in Holocaust studies
as well as the Zandman Graduate School of Engineering,
by conferring upon him the degree of
Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa
• of Tel Aviv University.
The new boat-people invasion.
There are some 40 million people in the world who are classed as UNHCR refugees, asylum seekers, displaced persons or illegals of one kind or another. How many of those should or can Australia take in? The more Australia is seen as being a 'soft touch', the more will try to risk making their way directly to our shores, one way or another.
A country is supposed to grant refugee status to people coming across from their neighbouring borders. Australia is usually reached by people fleeing over many borders across continents like Asia. if genuine asylum seekers, why were they not granted asylum in any of those other countries? Did they even seek it anywhere else?
Comparing the current situation with our Jewish experience, the proportion of those who are actually fleeing persecution and extermination as when we European Jews tried to escape the Holocaust in the 30s, or other Europeans escaping from Communism after the war, is relatively small. Western European nations as well as the Anglo-world closed their doors in our faces before the war, while survivors after the war fared little better. There were also Jewish 'boat people' trying to reach pre-Israel Palestine, most ending in the British detention camps in Cyprus.Everyone knew who we were and why we were there,- unlike today.
Nowadays, all of us fair-minded Australians would like to help those who make the dangerous trek to our shores by sea, especially families with women and children. But most are single males looking for a better life, hoping to bring their families later while paying a lot of money to the traffickers in the meantime. If the latter would at least put them on to safe boats, one could even forgive them,- but they don't.
I think that the Government does have a responsibility to assess fairly whom to help first, whom and how many to give priority for the right to become Australians eventually, in order to ensure that we can sustain the fragile Australian environment and maintain the quality of life which is so eagerly sought by all these others.
There were few of these concerns necessary when we Jews were in that situation, but we know that they were still considered by the Governments of the day.America had a quota system for immigrants from each European country. Our turn arrived some 10years after we applied while in a DP camp in Italy. We had resettled in Australia by then of course and were no longer interested.
It is important to thoroughly vet who is allowed in these days given the variety of reasons for those leaving their native countries.Some are genuinely fleeing fot their lives and if they pay the people-smugglers, so be it. But then they should have their papers, showing who they are and from where they come,- not throw away their IDs as they are told to do by the traffickers! At least those who arrive by air and overstay their visas,do come with valid passports, visas and all kinds of IDs to support their claims when they are caught and have to be assessed.
How do we know who these boat people are then? After WW2, plenty of Nazis escaped even to Australia, while I heard a victim of Cambodian atrocities complaining that the torturers are living in their vicinity right here in Australia.How can the government assess whether among the arrivals there aren't straightforward criminals, let alone various war criminals and fanatics of all kinds trying to escape their own justice systems? Do we really want to attract them to Australia?
That is the dilemma PM Rudd is facing,- he knows that we, the people do worry about being flooded by too many extremists, as well as by many others who may not integrate easily into our Western way of life.
A country is supposed to grant refugee status to people coming across from their neighbouring borders. Australia is usually reached by people fleeing over many borders across continents like Asia. if genuine asylum seekers, why were they not granted asylum in any of those other countries? Did they even seek it anywhere else?
Comparing the current situation with our Jewish experience, the proportion of those who are actually fleeing persecution and extermination as when we European Jews tried to escape the Holocaust in the 30s, or other Europeans escaping from Communism after the war, is relatively small. Western European nations as well as the Anglo-world closed their doors in our faces before the war, while survivors after the war fared little better. There were also Jewish 'boat people' trying to reach pre-Israel Palestine, most ending in the British detention camps in Cyprus.Everyone knew who we were and why we were there,- unlike today.
Nowadays, all of us fair-minded Australians would like to help those who make the dangerous trek to our shores by sea, especially families with women and children. But most are single males looking for a better life, hoping to bring their families later while paying a lot of money to the traffickers in the meantime. If the latter would at least put them on to safe boats, one could even forgive them,- but they don't.
I think that the Government does have a responsibility to assess fairly whom to help first, whom and how many to give priority for the right to become Australians eventually, in order to ensure that we can sustain the fragile Australian environment and maintain the quality of life which is so eagerly sought by all these others.
There were few of these concerns necessary when we Jews were in that situation, but we know that they were still considered by the Governments of the day.America had a quota system for immigrants from each European country. Our turn arrived some 10years after we applied while in a DP camp in Italy. We had resettled in Australia by then of course and were no longer interested.
It is important to thoroughly vet who is allowed in these days given the variety of reasons for those leaving their native countries.Some are genuinely fleeing fot their lives and if they pay the people-smugglers, so be it. But then they should have their papers, showing who they are and from where they come,- not throw away their IDs as they are told to do by the traffickers! At least those who arrive by air and overstay their visas,do come with valid passports, visas and all kinds of IDs to support their claims when they are caught and have to be assessed.
How do we know who these boat people are then? After WW2, plenty of Nazis escaped even to Australia, while I heard a victim of Cambodian atrocities complaining that the torturers are living in their vicinity right here in Australia.How can the government assess whether among the arrivals there aren't straightforward criminals, let alone various war criminals and fanatics of all kinds trying to escape their own justice systems? Do we really want to attract them to Australia?
That is the dilemma PM Rudd is facing,- he knows that we, the people do worry about being flooded by too many extremists, as well as by many others who may not integrate easily into our Western way of life.
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