What happened in 1947-1948?
The battle of narratives and its impact on future peace.
It's the 64th anniversary this week of the UN partition plan of 29 November 1947. And that means that the battle over history and over narratives moves into high gear. This is a short Beyond Images Briefing highlighting our resources on that batt le of narratives. On the Beyond Images website you can find the following Briefings, which are designed to help you engage in the debates which take place at this time of year on these issues:
For your information, read the following articles at www.beyondimages.com/info
* Where's the Palestinian Arab self-criticism over 1948?.... by Shlomo Avineri
* 1948: how Arab leaders forced Arab civilians to leave their homes in Palestine
* What a real change in Palestinian attitudes would involve.... by Shlomo Avineri
* 'Ethnic cleansing' by Israel in 1948? Benny Morris refutes Arab claims
Arab assaults on the Jews of Palestine following the 1947 UN partition plan
* Inside a Palestinian refugee camp: 'returning to Israel'.... as part of daily life
www.beyondimages.com/info
Supporting balanced Israel advocacy, worldwide
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Sunday, November 27, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Lessons of Kristallnacht 1938.
Kristallnacht: 73 years ago the Holocaust Began --
Is it about to begin again?
Jeff Dunetz - Yid With Lid - November 8, 2011
Do Not Stand Idly By While Your Neighbor Bleeds ~ Vayikra (Levitucus) 19:16
Kristallnacht also known as Night of Broken Glass was an anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany on November 9th-10th 1938. Kristallnacht was the day Hitler's final solution "came out of the closet" It is viewed by many historians as the beginning of the final solution, leading to the genocide of the Holocaust.
In a coordinated attack on Jewish people and their property, 99 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps. 267 synagogues were destroyed and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked. This was done by the Hitler Youth, Gestapo,and the SS. Kristallnacht also served as a pretext and a means for the wholesale confiscation of firearms from German Jews. Kristallnacht was part of a broader Nazi policy of antisemitism and persecution of the Jews. Kristallnacht was followed by further economic political persecutions and horrible genocide.
Throughout the world we remember Kristallnach, the night the Nazi's began the Holocaust in earnest. Its amazing how little has changed in almost seven decades. In Arab countries children textbooks are filled with anti Jewish hatred while others call them Moderates. Islamic Clerics throughout the world call for the death of Jews. In Venezuela and Iran leaders are whipping the population into Anti-Semitic fervor.
At my dinner table on Friday night, a holocaust survivor admits that she is trying to persuade her son to take his family out of Europe to America, Canada, Australia, Canada, Australia, Israel...’They say they can’t leave me, but I tell them: “Go, get out. My parents left my grandparents behind in Berlin and brought me to safety in England. Now I want you to leave so that my grandchildren will be safe.”’ There is an unbearable desperation in her plea. But she has a point.
As tens of thousands of demonstrators march through the streets of Europe, the chants are modified but the message remains substantially intact: ‘Hamas, Hamas, Hamas — Jews to the Gas’. Or, more simply: ‘Death to the Jews’. Many European Jews, even well-established, affluent Jews, have been checking the suitcase they keep packed under the bed. They have been here before and many are (albeit reluctantly) reading the writing on the wall.
To some extent I thought I was inured. I grew up in postwar apartheid South Africa where a subtle undercurrent of anti-Semitism was a fact of everyday life. So while I was disturbed by manifestations of mob anti-Semitism, I was also less vulnerable to shock. That’s just how people are. Living in genteel, leafy Hampstead Garden Suburb provides an additional layer of protection from such crass outbursts.
But my sanguine state ends abruptly when I am out walking on Saturday. A hundred yards from my front door, I encounter the slogan, freshly painted in yellow, across the pavement: ‘Kill the Filthy Jews’. I am shocked. And shocked that I am shocked. The message is too close for comfort. The leafy gentility is, after all, an illusion.
Source:The terrible warning of a Holocaust survivor
Sadly Davis' tale is not unique, mainstream politicians the United States rail against the "Jewish influence on foreign policy" a meme take from Anti-Semitic texts, TV commentators complain about the number of Jews on the Supreme Court. College campus' have become a safe haven for anti-Semitic professors.
Despite its rampant Antisemitism, Occupy Wall Street protests, supported by the major labor unions, the Democratic Party Leadership in Congress and even the President of the United States.
Today when Israel is attacked by terror, the rest of the world turns their head away just as they did during Hitler's final solution. FDR refused to allow Jews to escape to American shores, the British not only refused them entry into England but also closed down their access to the holy land, they could have saved millions but wouldn't. They were only Jews. Today the president of France calls the Israeli Prime Minister a liar and the President of the United States complains about having to deal with Binyamin Netanyahu for the same reason. They are trying to make the Israeli leader and his country a little less than human, their reason is the same as it was for FDR and Churchill, they are only Jews.
They even got help from the Jews. The Jewish-owned NY Times ignored the Holocaust while it was happening, just as today they extol a bias against the Jewish State today. The AJC discouraged open talk of the Holocaust while it was happening, fearing that activism would create an anti-Semitic backlash. This was documented in Naomi Wiener Cohen’s book Not Free to Desist: The American Jewish Committee, 1906-1966, published in 1972. Just as today they work with the ADL to prevent Jews from speaking out against an Anti-Israel President of the United States. Jewish politicians walk blindly behind their party's Anti-Israel President and damn the Jewish people with their silence just to be able to move up the political ladder will not be able to silence us either. We will speak out against your lies and appeasement .
Because as Brutus told Cassius in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar,
You have done that you should be sorry for.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,
For I am armed so strong in honesty
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not.
Sorry AJC, Sorry Abe Foxman and NY Times, sorry all of you American Jews who are willing o support a party and a President who will take your campaign donations with one hand and stab you in the back with the other. I will continue to speak out, I will not be silenced. The Jewish People will not be silenced again, Am Yisroael Chai! The Nation and People of Israel, the Children of Jacob live! And will continue to live as long as we speak out against those who will silence us within and outside our ranks.
May the memory of what started 73 years ago today be a reminder of what happens when the world is silent. And may the memories of the victims of the Shoah always be for a blessing.
Link to original article: http://bit.ly/tWBi48
Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors(CJHS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit tax exempt organization committed to the promotion of Western values against the dual threats of complacency at home and political Islam abroad. We believe that a safe and secure Israel, prospering as a Jewish State, is a prerequisite to long-term global peace. CJHS insists that the last Holocaust imposes upon all people of good will a moral and political imperative to prevent the next one.
LETTER TO THE AUSTRALIAN JEWISH NEWS (PUBLISHED 10/11/2011)
RE BDS MOVEMENT HIJACKS PROTESTS.
“Occupy Melbourne” protesters want a voice,- for what?
One can enter protest movements and/or politics with high ideals and an aim to make the world a better place, but the lure of power and the access to deals (on the internet these days) can corrupt one or make one oblivious to the fact they are being played for a fool.
That is what BDS people and their fellow travellers are doing to these movements everywhere because they are too young to remember that this is what Hitler and his minions did in democratic Germany in the early 1930s too: playing the blame-game on the eternal scapegoat,- the Jews.
Yes,- there are causes worthy of civil disobedience, protests and civil demonstrations. This is what is rightfully happening in some of the world’s dictatorships today. But our “Occupy...city ” movement by disgruntled citizens about ‘democracy’ in Australia? Disrupting the CBD’s business and law and order for the population without any aim in sight of gaining anything other than notoriety is hardly an activity worthy of respect.
To paraphrase a headline in the ‘business’ pages: ‘talk about a lucky country, and they still won’t see it!’
Even if there are 1000 “occupy Melbourne/Sydney” protesters, unless they represent the genuinely ‘homeless’,- they are only 0.002% of our populations in the “most liveable cities in the world”, not the 99% of us who they arrogantly claim have ‘no voice’.
Thankfully we do have the Australian Jewish News as well as a robust general media in our democracy with ‘a voice’.
MM (Melbourne)
.
Is it about to begin again?
Jeff Dunetz - Yid With Lid - November 8, 2011
Do Not Stand Idly By While Your Neighbor Bleeds ~ Vayikra (Levitucus) 19:16
Kristallnacht also known as Night of Broken Glass was an anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany on November 9th-10th 1938. Kristallnacht was the day Hitler's final solution "came out of the closet" It is viewed by many historians as the beginning of the final solution, leading to the genocide of the Holocaust.
In a coordinated attack on Jewish people and their property, 99 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps. 267 synagogues were destroyed and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked. This was done by the Hitler Youth, Gestapo,and the SS. Kristallnacht also served as a pretext and a means for the wholesale confiscation of firearms from German Jews. Kristallnacht was part of a broader Nazi policy of antisemitism and persecution of the Jews. Kristallnacht was followed by further economic political persecutions and horrible genocide.
Throughout the world we remember Kristallnach, the night the Nazi's began the Holocaust in earnest. Its amazing how little has changed in almost seven decades. In Arab countries children textbooks are filled with anti Jewish hatred while others call them Moderates. Islamic Clerics throughout the world call for the death of Jews. In Venezuela and Iran leaders are whipping the population into Anti-Semitic fervor.
At my dinner table on Friday night, a holocaust survivor admits that she is trying to persuade her son to take his family out of Europe to America, Canada, Australia, Canada, Australia, Israel...’They say they can’t leave me, but I tell them: “Go, get out. My parents left my grandparents behind in Berlin and brought me to safety in England. Now I want you to leave so that my grandchildren will be safe.”’ There is an unbearable desperation in her plea. But she has a point.
As tens of thousands of demonstrators march through the streets of Europe, the chants are modified but the message remains substantially intact: ‘Hamas, Hamas, Hamas — Jews to the Gas’. Or, more simply: ‘Death to the Jews’. Many European Jews, even well-established, affluent Jews, have been checking the suitcase they keep packed under the bed. They have been here before and many are (albeit reluctantly) reading the writing on the wall.
To some extent I thought I was inured. I grew up in postwar apartheid South Africa where a subtle undercurrent of anti-Semitism was a fact of everyday life. So while I was disturbed by manifestations of mob anti-Semitism, I was also less vulnerable to shock. That’s just how people are. Living in genteel, leafy Hampstead Garden Suburb provides an additional layer of protection from such crass outbursts.
But my sanguine state ends abruptly when I am out walking on Saturday. A hundred yards from my front door, I encounter the slogan, freshly painted in yellow, across the pavement: ‘Kill the Filthy Jews’. I am shocked. And shocked that I am shocked. The message is too close for comfort. The leafy gentility is, after all, an illusion.
Source:The terrible warning of a Holocaust survivor
Sadly Davis' tale is not unique, mainstream politicians the United States rail against the "Jewish influence on foreign policy" a meme take from Anti-Semitic texts, TV commentators complain about the number of Jews on the Supreme Court. College campus' have become a safe haven for anti-Semitic professors.
Despite its rampant Antisemitism, Occupy Wall Street protests, supported by the major labor unions, the Democratic Party Leadership in Congress and even the President of the United States.
Today when Israel is attacked by terror, the rest of the world turns their head away just as they did during Hitler's final solution. FDR refused to allow Jews to escape to American shores, the British not only refused them entry into England but also closed down their access to the holy land, they could have saved millions but wouldn't. They were only Jews. Today the president of France calls the Israeli Prime Minister a liar and the President of the United States complains about having to deal with Binyamin Netanyahu for the same reason. They are trying to make the Israeli leader and his country a little less than human, their reason is the same as it was for FDR and Churchill, they are only Jews.
They even got help from the Jews. The Jewish-owned NY Times ignored the Holocaust while it was happening, just as today they extol a bias against the Jewish State today. The AJC discouraged open talk of the Holocaust while it was happening, fearing that activism would create an anti-Semitic backlash. This was documented in Naomi Wiener Cohen’s book Not Free to Desist: The American Jewish Committee, 1906-1966, published in 1972. Just as today they work with the ADL to prevent Jews from speaking out against an Anti-Israel President of the United States. Jewish politicians walk blindly behind their party's Anti-Israel President and damn the Jewish people with their silence just to be able to move up the political ladder will not be able to silence us either. We will speak out against your lies and appeasement .
Because as Brutus told Cassius in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar,
You have done that you should be sorry for.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,
For I am armed so strong in honesty
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not.
Sorry AJC, Sorry Abe Foxman and NY Times, sorry all of you American Jews who are willing o support a party and a President who will take your campaign donations with one hand and stab you in the back with the other. I will continue to speak out, I will not be silenced. The Jewish People will not be silenced again, Am Yisroael Chai! The Nation and People of Israel, the Children of Jacob live! And will continue to live as long as we speak out against those who will silence us within and outside our ranks.
May the memory of what started 73 years ago today be a reminder of what happens when the world is silent. And may the memories of the victims of the Shoah always be for a blessing.
Link to original article: http://bit.ly/tWBi48
Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors(CJHS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit tax exempt organization committed to the promotion of Western values against the dual threats of complacency at home and political Islam abroad. We believe that a safe and secure Israel, prospering as a Jewish State, is a prerequisite to long-term global peace. CJHS insists that the last Holocaust imposes upon all people of good will a moral and political imperative to prevent the next one.
LETTER TO THE AUSTRALIAN JEWISH NEWS (PUBLISHED 10/11/2011)
RE BDS MOVEMENT HIJACKS PROTESTS.
“Occupy Melbourne” protesters want a voice,- for what?
One can enter protest movements and/or politics with high ideals and an aim to make the world a better place, but the lure of power and the access to deals (on the internet these days) can corrupt one or make one oblivious to the fact they are being played for a fool.
That is what BDS people and their fellow travellers are doing to these movements everywhere because they are too young to remember that this is what Hitler and his minions did in democratic Germany in the early 1930s too: playing the blame-game on the eternal scapegoat,- the Jews.
Yes,- there are causes worthy of civil disobedience, protests and civil demonstrations. This is what is rightfully happening in some of the world’s dictatorships today. But our “Occupy...city ” movement by disgruntled citizens about ‘democracy’ in Australia? Disrupting the CBD’s business and law and order for the population without any aim in sight of gaining anything other than notoriety is hardly an activity worthy of respect.
To paraphrase a headline in the ‘business’ pages: ‘talk about a lucky country, and they still won’t see it!’
Even if there are 1000 “occupy Melbourne/Sydney” protesters, unless they represent the genuinely ‘homeless’,- they are only 0.002% of our populations in the “most liveable cities in the world”, not the 99% of us who they arrogantly claim have ‘no voice’.
Thankfully we do have the Australian Jewish News as well as a robust general media in our democracy with ‘a voice’.
MM (Melbourne)
.
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Letter to UNESCO Director General by ICJW President. November 2011.
TO: Mme. Irina Bokova
Director General
U.N.E.S.C.O.
7 Place de Fontenoy
75352 Paris 07 SP
FRANCE
Dear Mme. Bokova:
As President of the International Council of Jewish Women, I am writing to express our dismay and disappointment at the recent action taken by UNESCO in granting member state status to the Palestinian Authority.
While we fully acknowledge and applaud UNESCO’s work in overseeing numerous projects or programs which address the educational, scientific,
cultural and educational needs of people around the world, we also fully
acknowledge the fact that UNESCO is a political reality in today’s world.
It is, in our opinion, that political reality which resulted in the regrettable action by 107 member states who voted to accept the Palestinian Authority’s petition and 52 member states who simply chose to “abstain” and remain silent.
Several weeks earlier the Palestinian Authority had failed in its attempt to be admitted as a member state to the full body of the United Nations in New York.
In presenting the same case to UNESCO, the Palestinian Authority has, in
effect, chosen to maneuver around the United Nation’s official position and
seek legitimacy through what might be called the “back door”. Sadly, they
have succeeded and in doing so the face of UNESCO’s “political reality” rather than its humanitarian face has been exposed. At a time when the humanitarian needs of disenfranchised and victimized peoples around the world are greater than ever, more’s the shame that UNESCO has chosen a course which seems to serve only its own political ends.
Further, in seeking to blunt this reality by suggesting that it will be because of the United States’ decision to withhold funding for other UNESCO programs as a consequence of this action, it appears the agency is offering a faintly disguised effort to hold the United States responsible for any reduced humanitarian and educational efforts in the future. Mme. Bokova, we believe this position is patently untrue. It is our understanding that the United States has long affirmed its position that admission of the Palestinian Authority as a member state in UNESCO as a result of bypassing the UN-approved processes, would result in funding consequences. Thus the decision by the 159 member states who voted in the affirmative or chose to simply abstain was taken with full knowledge of the probable consequences of their action. We believe that the responsibility for any untoward results with regard to humanitarian programs and projects fall clearly at the feet of those member states who chose to accept the Palestinian Authority’s application.
The International Council of Jewish Women has long supported the safe existence of the State of Israel and the search for an enduring peace agreement. Consistent with this policy we cannot stand silent when a prominent UN agency allows the peace process to be sidestepped. In permitting the Palestinian Authority to shortcut the acknowledged peace process, UNESCO has done just this. ICJW’s consultative status as an NGO at the United Nations and at UNESCO requires us to speak out when it appears that they are flouting their own rules and procedures.
Mme. Bokova, it is with deep regret that I am sending you this letter. The International Council of Jewish Women values our consultative NGO status at UNESCO and we have no wish to jeopardize our standing with the agency by virtue of speaking out. But the matter is of such significance to our organization that I believe I have had no choice but to state our position clearly and without malice.
Thank you for your kind attention to our statement.
Cordially,
Sharon Gustafson, President
International Council of Jewish Women
Director General
U.N.E.S.C.O.
7 Place de Fontenoy
75352 Paris 07 SP
FRANCE
Dear Mme. Bokova:
As President of the International Council of Jewish Women, I am writing to express our dismay and disappointment at the recent action taken by UNESCO in granting member state status to the Palestinian Authority.
While we fully acknowledge and applaud UNESCO’s work in overseeing numerous projects or programs which address the educational, scientific,
cultural and educational needs of people around the world, we also fully
acknowledge the fact that UNESCO is a political reality in today’s world.
It is, in our opinion, that political reality which resulted in the regrettable action by 107 member states who voted to accept the Palestinian Authority’s petition and 52 member states who simply chose to “abstain” and remain silent.
Several weeks earlier the Palestinian Authority had failed in its attempt to be admitted as a member state to the full body of the United Nations in New York.
In presenting the same case to UNESCO, the Palestinian Authority has, in
effect, chosen to maneuver around the United Nation’s official position and
seek legitimacy through what might be called the “back door”. Sadly, they
have succeeded and in doing so the face of UNESCO’s “political reality” rather than its humanitarian face has been exposed. At a time when the humanitarian needs of disenfranchised and victimized peoples around the world are greater than ever, more’s the shame that UNESCO has chosen a course which seems to serve only its own political ends.
Further, in seeking to blunt this reality by suggesting that it will be because of the United States’ decision to withhold funding for other UNESCO programs as a consequence of this action, it appears the agency is offering a faintly disguised effort to hold the United States responsible for any reduced humanitarian and educational efforts in the future. Mme. Bokova, we believe this position is patently untrue. It is our understanding that the United States has long affirmed its position that admission of the Palestinian Authority as a member state in UNESCO as a result of bypassing the UN-approved processes, would result in funding consequences. Thus the decision by the 159 member states who voted in the affirmative or chose to simply abstain was taken with full knowledge of the probable consequences of their action. We believe that the responsibility for any untoward results with regard to humanitarian programs and projects fall clearly at the feet of those member states who chose to accept the Palestinian Authority’s application.
The International Council of Jewish Women has long supported the safe existence of the State of Israel and the search for an enduring peace agreement. Consistent with this policy we cannot stand silent when a prominent UN agency allows the peace process to be sidestepped. In permitting the Palestinian Authority to shortcut the acknowledged peace process, UNESCO has done just this. ICJW’s consultative status as an NGO at the United Nations and at UNESCO requires us to speak out when it appears that they are flouting their own rules and procedures.
Mme. Bokova, it is with deep regret that I am sending you this letter. The International Council of Jewish Women values our consultative NGO status at UNESCO and we have no wish to jeopardize our standing with the agency by virtue of speaking out. But the matter is of such significance to our organization that I believe I have had no choice but to state our position clearly and without malice.
Thank you for your kind attention to our statement.
Cordially,
Sharon Gustafson, President
International Council of Jewish Women
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