Britain's Plan to Blow Up Refugee Ships
Carrying Jewish Survivors from the Holocaust?
by Andrew Roberts
THE DAILY BEAST
A new book uncovers secret attacks launched on ships bearing Holocaust survivors en route to Israel. Andrew Roberts on the violent lengths to which post-war Britain went to appease oil-rich Arab states.
As Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, the pitiful remnants of History’s greatest crime, tried to make their way across an often hostile Europe at the end of the Second World War, toward at least a semblance of safety in the Holy Land, they had no shortage of problems with which to contend, including disease and malnutrition, Polish anti-Semitism, Soviet indifference, Allied bureaucracy, and Arab nationalism. Now we discover that they faced yet another peril in the shape of bombs planted on their transport ships by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6.
A new book to be published next week entitled MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 , by the distinguished British historian Keith Jeffery, reveals the existence of Operation Embarrass, a plan to try to prevent Jews getting into Palestine in 1946-'48 using disinformation and propaganda but also explosive devices placed on ships. Nor is this some speculative spy story that can be denied by the authorities: Dr. Jeffrey’s book is actually, in their own words: “Published with the permission of The Secret Intelligence Service and the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.”
It's shameful that Britain blew up humanitarian flotillas after the Holocaust, but now condemns Israel for halting politically inspired flotillas to Gaza.When on June 1 this year the British government denounced as “completely unacceptable” the way that the Israelis landed troops on the Turkish flotilla to Gaza we did not know that its predecessor had done much the same, actually blowing up one ship and damaging two more vessels of a genuinely humanitarian flotilla that was trying to bring Jewish survivors of the Nazi death camps to their people’s ancient homeland.
The Secret History of MI6. By Keith Jeffery. 832 pages. Penguin Press HC. $39.95
Of course the hostility of the British establishment toward Jewish immigration into Palestine since long before the notorious 1939 White Paper on the subject is well-known—even King George VI wrote that year to say that he was “glad to think that steps are being taken to prevent these people leaving their country of origin”—nonetheless this is the first indication of the violent lengths to which post-war Britain was willing to go in order to appease the oil-rich Arab states of the region.
For it now emerges that in late 1946 the Labour government of Clement Attlee asked MI6 for “proposals for action to deter ships masters and crews from engaging in illegal Jewish immigration and traffic,” adding,“Action of the nature contemplated is, in fact, a form of intimidation and intimidation is only likely to be effective if some members of the group of people to be intimidated actually suffer unpleasant consequences.”
Among the options contemplated were “the discovery of some sabotage device, which had ‘failed’ to function after the sailing of a ship,” “tampering with a ship’s fresh water supplies or the crew’s food,” and “fire on board ship in port.” Sir Stewart Menzies, the chief of the SIS, suggested these could be blamed on an invented Arab terrorist group called The Defenders of Arab Palestine.
Operation Embarrass was therefore launched after a meeting held on February 14, 1947 between officials from MI6, the armed services, the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office, the last represented by William Hayter, the head of Foreign Office Services Liaison Department, a high-flier who later became ambassador to Moscow. I knew Sir William Hayter in later life, but needless to say he never breathed a word about this operation. In his defense, it must be said that Hayter did order MI6 to ensure that arson “must be arranged, if at all, when the ship is empty the Operation Embarrass team was told that “the primary consideration was to be that no proof could ever be established between positive action against this traffic and His Majesty’s Government [HMG].” A special communications network, codenamed Ocean, was set up with a budget of £30,000 ($47,000), a great deal of money in 1947. The operation had three aspects: direct action against refugee ships, a “black” propaganda campaign, and a deception scheme to disrupt immigration from Black Sea ports.
A team of former Special Operations Executive agents—with the cover story of a yachting trip—was sent to France and Italy with limpet bombs and timers.
If captured, “they were under no circumstances to admit their connection with HMG” but instead claim to have been recruited in New York “by an anti-Communist organization formed by a group of international industrialists, mainly in the oil and aircraft industries,” i.e. to lay the blame on rich, right-wing, unnamed Americans. They were told that this cover “was their final line of defense and, even in the event of a prison sentence, no help could be expected from HMG.”
During the summer of 1947 and early 1948, five attacks were undertaken on ships in Italian ports, of which one was rendered “a total loss” and two others were damaged. Two other British-made limpet mines were discovered before they went off, but the Italian authorities did not find their country of origin suspicious, “as the Arabs would of course be using British stores.” Operation Embarrass even considered blowing up the Baltimore steamship President Warfield when in harbor in France, which later became famous in Israeli history as the “Exodus” ship that “launched a nation.”
The country that ought to be embarrassed by Operation Embarrass—indeed shamed—is Great Britain, which used explosives to try to stop truly humanitarian flotillas after the Holocaust, but now condemns embattled Israel for halting entirely politically inspired flotillas to Gaza despite her rights of legitimate self-defense. The depth of the animosity that Establishment Britain, especially the Foreign Office, felt toward the Jews of Palestine clearly went even further than we had ever imagined, and even 70 years later is by no means extinguished.
Historian Andrew Roberts ' latest book, Masters and Commanders , was published in the U.K. in September. His previous books include Napoleon and Wellington , Hitler and Churchill , and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 . Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Illinois' new Senator Mark Kirk
Kirk on Israel. Many did not vote for him for a variety of reasons. He is our new Senator. Here is a perspective about his record on Israel.
This article is by Dr. Richard Benkin.
Kirk is arguably Israel’s best friend in Congress. He was personally responsible for convincing the Bush Administration to give Israel enhanced missile defense after he saw the danger on a trip to a forward military base in Israel. (Kirk has been a Naval Intelligence Office since 1989, has combat experience, and was once named Naval Intelligence Officer of the Year.) He and Congressman Steven Rothman (D-NJ) have led efforts to end US funding for UNWRA-the UN agency devoted solely to promoting the system of Palestinian Arab refugees, a designation he challenges. With regard to Hezbollah, Kirk told Gordon “despite the UN peacekeeping force and $500 million of US taxpayers’ money that we simply reset the stage for another tragedy.” He has characterized attempts to force negotiations with the Palestinian Authority as trying to “chase down every terrorist group on the West Bank and Gaza... there are times when you have to hang tough.” An effective human rights advocate, Kirk (together with me), won the freedom of Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury after he was arrested and tortured for exposing the rise of Islamists and urging relations with Israel. As a Congressional aide, Kirk helped free several Soviet refusniks. With much of official Washington trying to find “nuanced” positions, Kirk remains undaunted. In April, after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the House Appropriations Committee that Israel would have to comply with the Administration’s demands, he replied that the committee would then have to cut appropriations to the Palestinian Authority.. In announcing for the Senate, Kirk pledged to fight those efforts, “And to supporters of America’s strongest friend in the Middle East - Israel’s greatest ally in Washington will be Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois.”
This article is by Dr. Richard Benkin.
Kirk is arguably Israel’s best friend in Congress. He was personally responsible for convincing the Bush Administration to give Israel enhanced missile defense after he saw the danger on a trip to a forward military base in Israel. (Kirk has been a Naval Intelligence Office since 1989, has combat experience, and was once named Naval Intelligence Officer of the Year.) He and Congressman Steven Rothman (D-NJ) have led efforts to end US funding for UNWRA-the UN agency devoted solely to promoting the system of Palestinian Arab refugees, a designation he challenges. With regard to Hezbollah, Kirk told Gordon “despite the UN peacekeeping force and $500 million of US taxpayers’ money that we simply reset the stage for another tragedy.” He has characterized attempts to force negotiations with the Palestinian Authority as trying to “chase down every terrorist group on the West Bank and Gaza... there are times when you have to hang tough.” An effective human rights advocate, Kirk (together with me), won the freedom of Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury after he was arrested and tortured for exposing the rise of Islamists and urging relations with Israel. As a Congressional aide, Kirk helped free several Soviet refusniks. With much of official Washington trying to find “nuanced” positions, Kirk remains undaunted. In April, after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the House Appropriations Committee that Israel would have to comply with the Administration’s demands, he replied that the committee would then have to cut appropriations to the Palestinian Authority.. In announcing for the Senate, Kirk pledged to fight those efforts, “And to supporters of America’s strongest friend in the Middle East - Israel’s greatest ally in Washington will be Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a military threat was the only way to influence Iran's nuclear policies
Netanyahu: "Containment Will Not Work Against Iran"
Prime Minister Netanyahu told the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in New Orleans on Monday: "The greatest danger facing Israel and the world is the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. Iran threatens to annihilate Israel. It denies the Holocaust. It sponsors terror. It confronts America in Afghanistan and Iraq. It dominates Lebanon and Gaza. It establishes beachheads in Arabia and in Africa. It even spreads its influence into this hemisphere, into South America. Now, this is what Iran is doing without nuclear weapons. Imagine what it would do with them."
"If the international community, led by the United States, hopes to stop Iran's nuclear program without resorting to military action, it will have to convince Iran that it is prepared to take such action. Containment will not work against Iran."
Prime Minister Netanyahu told the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in New Orleans on Monday: "The greatest danger facing Israel and the world is the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. Iran threatens to annihilate Israel. It denies the Holocaust. It sponsors terror. It confronts America in Afghanistan and Iraq. It dominates Lebanon and Gaza. It establishes beachheads in Arabia and in Africa. It even spreads its influence into this hemisphere, into South America. Now, this is what Iran is doing without nuclear weapons. Imagine what it would do with them."
"If the international community, led by the United States, hopes to stop Iran's nuclear program without resorting to military action, it will have to convince Iran that it is prepared to take such action. Containment will not work against Iran."
Palestinians clearly uninterested in peace
Is the Palestinian Authority Preparing Its People for Peace? - Itamar Marcus, Nan Jacques Zilberdik and Barbara Crook
The four-month period of May-August 2010 brought no changes in the quality of the messages being transmitted from the Palestinian Authority and Fatah to Palestinians. An examination of the Palestinian leaders' statements, official media, children's programs and PA and Fatah-controlled events reveals that, contrary to the PA's moderate statements to the West, its statements to its people in Arabic continue to deny Israel's right to exist, define the conflict with Israel in religious terms, promote hatred through demonization and libels, and glorify terror and violence. (Palestinian Media Watch)
The four-month period of May-August 2010 brought no changes in the quality of the messages being transmitted from the Palestinian Authority and Fatah to Palestinians. An examination of the Palestinian leaders' statements, official media, children's programs and PA and Fatah-controlled events reveals that, contrary to the PA's moderate statements to the West, its statements to its people in Arabic continue to deny Israel's right to exist, define the conflict with Israel in religious terms, promote hatred through demonization and libels, and glorify terror and violence. (Palestinian Media Watch)
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Obama letting in tens of thousands of Muslims
America Now Swarming with Somali Muslims – Thousands More to Come
Posted by jewishindy on Thursday, November 04 @ 10:10:10 EDT
(53 reads)
By Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.
The Last Crusade
October 29th, 2010
In a determination letter to Congress, President Barack Obama has announced that he will allow an additional 80,000 immigrants – – mostly from Islamic countries – – to resettle in the United States during fiscal year 2011.
Over 15,000 will come from Africa – – most from Somalia.
The increase in Somali immigrants, according to Mr. Obama, “is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”
The actual number of Somalis have been resettled in the United States during the past two decades remains a matter of conjecture, since reports to Congress from the Office of Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) were not filed before 1993.
These official reports display the following figures:
Posted by jewishindy on Thursday, November 04 @ 10:10:10 EDT
(53 reads)
By Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.
The Last Crusade
October 29th, 2010
In a determination letter to Congress, President Barack Obama has announced that he will allow an additional 80,000 immigrants – – mostly from Islamic countries – – to resettle in the United States during fiscal year 2011.
Over 15,000 will come from Africa – – most from Somalia.
The increase in Somali immigrants, according to Mr. Obama, “is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”
The actual number of Somalis have been resettled in the United States during the past two decades remains a matter of conjecture, since reports to Congress from the Office of Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) were not filed before 1993.
These official reports display the following figures:
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Voters to Obama Don't mess with Israel
ZOA: ELECTION INDICATES – DON’T PRESSURE ISRAEL, PRESIDENT OBAMA
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has stated that yesterday’s Congressional election result indicates a sweeping rejection of President Obama’s domestic, economic and foreign policy. Many polls indicate Americans’ dissatisfaction with President Obama’s handling of the Arab/Israeli situation. This election further validates that part of the message sent yesterday to President Obama to cease pressuring Israel to make further, unreciprocated, one-sided concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Mahmoud Abbas and Salaam Fayyad, which promotes violence and hatred towards Jews. In results so far, the Democratic Party has lost at least six Senate seats, but appear likely to retain a small Senate majority, while in the House of Representatives, the Democratic Party has lost its majority to the Republican Party, by an astonishing loss of over 60 seats.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “By common consent, the strong swing against the Democratic Party in these Congressional elections reflect the unease and disapproval of the American public for the policies and performance of the Obama Administration in both domestic and foreign policy.
“In foreign affairs, the American public has certainly been upset and unnerved by such things as President Obama bowing before foreign despots, like the King of Saudi Arabia; his return of the gift of a famous bust of Winston Churchill to Britain, a long-standing ally, after refusing to display it anywhere in the White House; offering open-ended negotiations and lots of carrots but no sticks to Iran over its nuclear weapons program, only to be ridiculed; the wasting of two years before allowing largely ineffective anti-Iran sanctions to pass, during which time Iran has moved even closer to acquiring nuclear weapons; letting down of our Czech and Polish allies by discontinuing plans to install missile defense systems on their territory; the bullying pressures exerted on small, democratic Honduras to reinstate a lawless president favored by Latin American despots like Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega; the humiliation of his repeatedly apologizing abroad for U.S. actions; his erasure of the terms ‘radical Islam’ and ‘Islamism’ from government use; the renaming of ‘terrorism’ as ‘man-made disasters’; his support for civilian, rather than military tribunals to deal with foreign terrorists; and, last but not least, his policy towards Israel.
“This policy has consisted of the recurrent, harsh criticism, including public condemnation, of the U.S.’ best ally in the Middle East, Israel; pressure exerted upon it to make more one-sided concessions to the Palestinians, including a 10-month freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria; a refusal to state that the U.S. will veto any U.N. Security Council action to support establishing a Palestinian state; support for the so-called Arab Peace initiative, which demands Israeli withdrawal to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines; the flooding of Israel with Palestinian refugees of the 1948-9 war and their millions of descendants, and the leaving of 600,000 Jews in limbo in what would become Palestinian territory; as well as Obama’s failure to visit Israel since becoming president, despite two visits to the Middle East; and his not taking up Prime Minister Netanyahu’s invitation to visit Israel before the end of the year, to which President Obama responded that his schedule did not permit it. Moreover, President Obama publicly condemned Israel building in eastern Jerusalem, something that violated no existing U.S.-Israeli agreement and which in fact Israel had stated would continue. Now, he is exerting pressure on Israel to reinstitute the freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria.
“This is not merely a matter of conjecture. An April 2010 Quinnipiac University survey, for example, found that 44% of the American public disapproved of the Obama policy towards Israel and the Palestinians, whereas only 35% approved. Moreover, two-thirds of people questioned in the survey said that President Obama should be a strong supporter of Israel but, by a 42% to 34% margin, said he is not. Also, last year, when President Obama was strongly pressuring Israel to bar Jews, and only Jews, from building and moving into homes in Judea and Samaria and parts of eastern Jerusalem, a September 2009 Israel Project poll found that Americans supported by 72% to 23% Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that ‘Israel must be allowed to accommodate natural growth of existing settlements.’ Clearly, the American public overwhelmingly disapproves of President Obama’s policy to stop Jews living and building in these areas.
“Indeed, even American Jews, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic, oppose Obama’s policies towards Israel – a July 2009 Global Marketing Research Services poll of American Jewish Democratic supporters found that they backed growth and construction in existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria by 52% to 37%; that a plurality of 44% believed that ‘Obama is naive in thinking he can make peace with the Arabs’; and that only 27% believed he is right that a Palestinian state’s establishment would bring peace, whereas 55% disagreed, believing the Palestinians would use such a state to attack Israel.
“The conclusion is obvious: any continuation of President Obama’s policy of pressure on Israel to make further one-sided concessions to the Palestinians is contrary to views of the majority Americans and American Jews, including the overwhelming part of American Jewry that supports the Democratic Party. President Obama lacks support for any such policy.”
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has stated that yesterday’s Congressional election result indicates a sweeping rejection of President Obama’s domestic, economic and foreign policy. Many polls indicate Americans’ dissatisfaction with President Obama’s handling of the Arab/Israeli situation. This election further validates that part of the message sent yesterday to President Obama to cease pressuring Israel to make further, unreciprocated, one-sided concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Mahmoud Abbas and Salaam Fayyad, which promotes violence and hatred towards Jews. In results so far, the Democratic Party has lost at least six Senate seats, but appear likely to retain a small Senate majority, while in the House of Representatives, the Democratic Party has lost its majority to the Republican Party, by an astonishing loss of over 60 seats.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “By common consent, the strong swing against the Democratic Party in these Congressional elections reflect the unease and disapproval of the American public for the policies and performance of the Obama Administration in both domestic and foreign policy.
“In foreign affairs, the American public has certainly been upset and unnerved by such things as President Obama bowing before foreign despots, like the King of Saudi Arabia; his return of the gift of a famous bust of Winston Churchill to Britain, a long-standing ally, after refusing to display it anywhere in the White House; offering open-ended negotiations and lots of carrots but no sticks to Iran over its nuclear weapons program, only to be ridiculed; the wasting of two years before allowing largely ineffective anti-Iran sanctions to pass, during which time Iran has moved even closer to acquiring nuclear weapons; letting down of our Czech and Polish allies by discontinuing plans to install missile defense systems on their territory; the bullying pressures exerted on small, democratic Honduras to reinstate a lawless president favored by Latin American despots like Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega; the humiliation of his repeatedly apologizing abroad for U.S. actions; his erasure of the terms ‘radical Islam’ and ‘Islamism’ from government use; the renaming of ‘terrorism’ as ‘man-made disasters’; his support for civilian, rather than military tribunals to deal with foreign terrorists; and, last but not least, his policy towards Israel.
“This policy has consisted of the recurrent, harsh criticism, including public condemnation, of the U.S.’ best ally in the Middle East, Israel; pressure exerted upon it to make more one-sided concessions to the Palestinians, including a 10-month freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria; a refusal to state that the U.S. will veto any U.N. Security Council action to support establishing a Palestinian state; support for the so-called Arab Peace initiative, which demands Israeli withdrawal to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines; the flooding of Israel with Palestinian refugees of the 1948-9 war and their millions of descendants, and the leaving of 600,000 Jews in limbo in what would become Palestinian territory; as well as Obama’s failure to visit Israel since becoming president, despite two visits to the Middle East; and his not taking up Prime Minister Netanyahu’s invitation to visit Israel before the end of the year, to which President Obama responded that his schedule did not permit it. Moreover, President Obama publicly condemned Israel building in eastern Jerusalem, something that violated no existing U.S.-Israeli agreement and which in fact Israel had stated would continue. Now, he is exerting pressure on Israel to reinstitute the freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria.
“This is not merely a matter of conjecture. An April 2010 Quinnipiac University survey, for example, found that 44% of the American public disapproved of the Obama policy towards Israel and the Palestinians, whereas only 35% approved. Moreover, two-thirds of people questioned in the survey said that President Obama should be a strong supporter of Israel but, by a 42% to 34% margin, said he is not. Also, last year, when President Obama was strongly pressuring Israel to bar Jews, and only Jews, from building and moving into homes in Judea and Samaria and parts of eastern Jerusalem, a September 2009 Israel Project poll found that Americans supported by 72% to 23% Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that ‘Israel must be allowed to accommodate natural growth of existing settlements.’ Clearly, the American public overwhelmingly disapproves of President Obama’s policy to stop Jews living and building in these areas.
“Indeed, even American Jews, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic, oppose Obama’s policies towards Israel – a July 2009 Global Marketing Research Services poll of American Jewish Democratic supporters found that they backed growth and construction in existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria by 52% to 37%; that a plurality of 44% believed that ‘Obama is naive in thinking he can make peace with the Arabs’; and that only 27% believed he is right that a Palestinian state’s establishment would bring peace, whereas 55% disagreed, believing the Palestinians would use such a state to attack Israel.
“The conclusion is obvious: any continuation of President Obama’s policy of pressure on Israel to make further one-sided concessions to the Palestinians is contrary to views of the majority Americans and American Jews, including the overwhelming part of American Jewry that supports the Democratic Party. President Obama lacks support for any such policy.”
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
why west denies islamic terror problem
Why west denies islamic terror problem
JPost.com opinioncolumnists
Photo by: Ariel Jerozolimski Our World: The Age of Dissimulation
By CAROLINE B. GLICK
11/02/2010 00:12
Rather than discuss the nature and threat of Islamic supremacism, the Western media, Western political leaders and academics deny it.
Talkbacks (49)
Years from now, when historians seek an overarching concept to define our times, they could do worse than refer to it as the Age of Dissimulation. Today our leading minds devote their energies and cognitive powers to figuring out new ways to hide reality from themselves and the general public.
Take US President Barack Obama’s senior counterterrorism advisor for example. On Sunday, John Brennan spoke on Fox News about the latest attempted Islamic terrorist attack on American soil.
Since the Obama administration has barred US officials from referring to terrorists as terrorists and effectively barred US officials from acknowledging that Islamic terrorists are Muslims, Brennan simply referred to the Islamic terrorists in Yemen who tried to send bombs to synagogues in Chicago as “individuals.”
Today, practically, the only individuals willing to speak honestly about who Islamic supremacists are and what they want are the Islamic supremacists themselves.
For instance, in an interview last week with Reuters, the Islamic supremacist Hamas movement’s “foreign minister” Mahmoud al- Zahar told the Christian West, “You do not live like human beings. You do not [even] live like animals. You accept homosexuality. And now you criticize us?”
Al-Zahar also made the case for Islamic feminism. As he put it, “We are the ones who respect women and honor women ... not you. You use women as an animal. She has one husband and hundreds of thousands of boyfriends. You don’t know who is the father of your sons, because of the way you respect women.”
Finally, al-Zahar claimed that Westerners have no right to question Islam or criticize it. In his words, “Is it a crime to Islamize the people? I am a Muslim living here according to our tradition. Why should I live under your tradition? We understand you very well. You are poor people. Morally poor. Don’t criticize us because of what we are.”
Al-Zahar can sleep easy. The citizens of the West have rarely heard anyone in any positions of power and influence criticize Islamic supremacists “because of what they are.”
In fact, the most remarkable thing about al- Zahar’s interview was not what he said but that Reuters decided to publish what he said. By letting its readers learn what al-Zahar thinks of them, Reuters inadvertently gave Westerners a glimpse at the simple truth its editors and their counterparts throughout the Western media routinely purge from coverage of current events.
Rather than discuss the nature and threat of Islamic supremacism, the Western media along with nearly all Western political leaders and academics deny and dissimulate. Rather than address the threat, they accept the Islamic line and blame Israel for everything bad that happens in the world.
THE ONE group of people that can almost be forgiven for this crime against reality is the non-Muslims who live under Islamic rule. On Sunday, we received a grim reminder of the plight of such minorities with the Islamic terror attack on Baghdad’s largest church, the Our Lady of Salvation Catholic church.
As some one hundred worshipers celebrated evening mass, Islamic terrorists stormed the church. According to an eyewitness account, they walked straight up to the priest administering the mass and executed him. The Muslim terrorists then took the Christian worshipers hostage.
As Iraqi military forces stormed the church under US military supervision, the Islamic terrorists threw grenades at the worshipers and detonated their bomb belts. By Monday, the death toll had reached 52.
It will be interesting to see how Catholic officials in Iraq and throughout the world respond to this attack. At the Vatican’s Synod on the status of Christians in the Middle East last month, Emmanuel III Delly, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq proclaimed, “The population of [Iraq] …is 24 million, all Muslims, with whom we live peacefully and freely…Christians are good with their fellow Muslims and in Iraq there is mutual respect among them.”
As the noted Islamic expert Robert Spencer wrote last week in Frontpage Magazine, Emmanuel has not always been so outspoken in his praise of Muslim Iraqis. In 2008, when US forces were still in charge in Iraq, Emmanuel made a statement that more accurately reflected the plight of his co-religionists.
Then he said, “Christians are killed, chased out of their homes before the very eyes of those who are supposed to be responsible for their safety…The situation in some parts of Iraq is disastrous and tragic. Life is a Calvary: there is no peace or security… Everyone is afraid of kidnapping.”
Christian clergy in Muslim countries are so terrified of Islamic aggression that they systematically hide the truth of their oppression and often distort their own theology to win the tolerance of supremacist Islamic authorities. Spencer noted that the head of that Vatican Synod, Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros, who presently heads the Eastern Catholic church in the US, and in the past served as archbishop of Baalbek in his native Lebanon follows a similar pattern of dissimulation.
In Bustros’s case, his prevaricating goes beyond false depictions of the plight of Christians. In his bid to win the favor of his Islamic supremacist overlords in Hizbullah, Bustros has regularly engaged in theological revisionism.
At last month’s synod, Bustros repudiated the teachings of the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council and embraced the discredited supersessionist theology that Vatican II denounced. Bustros claimed that God’s covenant with the Jewish people and his promise to give us the Land of Israel “were nullified by Christ.”
In his view, “There is no longer a chosen people.”
Bustros did not simply assert a theological view at odds with the doctrine of the Catholic Church. He used his replacement theology to politically delegitimize Israel. Bustros said, “The theme of the Promised Land cannot be used as a basis to justify the return of the Jews to Israel and the expatriation of the Palestinians.” Bustros is set to return to Lebanon soon to serve as the archbishop of Beirut. The fact that he used his position as the head of the Vatican’s synod on the plight of Christians in the Middle East to earn him the protection of Hizbullah when he returns is made clear when his statements at the conference are compared to a speech he made in 2006, when he was still comfortably ensconced in the US.
As Spencer notes, in a speech Bustros made at St. Thomas University in Florida in 2006, Bustros minced no words about the plight of Christians in the Middle East. Addressing the Islamic precepts on relations with non-Muslims, Bustros said, “The doctrines of Islam dictate war against unbelievers….[T]he concept of nonviolence is absent from Muslim doctrine and practice….Peace in Islam is based on the surrender of all people to Islam and to God’s power based on Islamic law. They have to defend this peace of God even by force.”
FEAR OF Islamic massacres of Christians – like the one in Baghdad on Sunday – goes a long way towards explaining anti-Jewish and pro-Islamic pronouncements by Christian clergy in the Islamic world. But what can explain the West’s embrace of lies about Islam?
Why would people who do not live under the jackboot of the likes of Hizbullah, Hamas or their sister groups in places like Iraq obsequiously parrot untruths about Islamic history and theology and deny the very existence of Islamic supremacism?
The most notable case of such behavior in recent weeks came with the UN Educational, Science and Cultural Organization’s Executive Board’s declarations about Israel and Jewish history. At its October 21 meeting, the governing board of the UN agency charged with naming and preserving world heritage sites engaged in a shocking episode of historic revisionism in the service of Islamic supremacism.
UNESCO’s board issued five declarations regarding Israel. In addition to its routine condemnations of the security fence, Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem and Israel’s refusal to give Hamas control over its border with Israel, UNESCO’s board asserted that the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are all buried, is a mosque. Rachel’s Tomb, where Rachel is buried, is also a mosque, according to UNESCO’s governing body.
It is not surprising that UNESCO’s Muslim members pushed for these declarations. Islam is a supersessionist religion. It claims that all the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs as well as all the Jewish prophets, kings and judges were Muslim. It similarly claims that Jesus, Mary and the apostles were Muslims. It is standard Islamic practice to transform Jewish and Christian holy sites in lands conquered by Islam into mosques.
It is this Islamic practice that led Yasser Arafat to shock and disgust Yitzhak Rabin in July 1995 when he proclaimed that, “Rachel was my grandmother.”
Arafat’s statement was the first time that a Muslim leader in modern times claimed Rachel’s grave is a mosque. Arafat made his preposterous claim in the course of negotiations about the disposition of Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. Due to its significance to Jews, Israel demanded full security control over the tomb. Arafat based his counter-claim on standard Islamic historical revisionism.
While Rabin rejected Arafat’s baseless assertion, last month UNESCO’s executive committee, whose membership includes France, Belgium, Spain, Japan, Poland, Germany, Greece, Haiti, Italy, the US and India accepted Arafat’s wholly false rendition of the historical record. In so doing, they collaborated with an Islamic attempt to eradicate Jewish history.
Why would they do this? They are not bishops who have to worry that their communities will be annihilated if they step out of line.
No doubt, fear of Islamic terrorism fuels some of their behavior. But fear can’t be the full explanation. Most Westerners have no contact with Muslims. And Islamic terrorist attacks in the West are not a daily occurrence.
The West’s newfound obsession with Islamophobia probably also has something to do with it. Western elites are terrified of being accused of racism. This is particularly true when – as is the case with Islamophobia – the charge is leveled on behalf of people who were oppressed in the past by Westerners.
But while fear of the charge of Islamophobia does play a role in Western kowtowing to Islamic supremacists, the West’s aversion to the perception that it is oppressing those it once oppressed fails to provide an adequate explanation for its willingness to collaborate with Islamic supremacist attempts to blot out Jewish history. The West’s history of oppressing Jews is far bloodier and longer than its record of oppressing Muslims.
In the end, there is only one credible explanation for the West’s willingness to lie about the nature and goals of Islamic supremacism. There is only one credible explanation for the West’s willingness to collaborate with Islamic supremacists as they purge the historical record of the Jewish roots of Western civilization. There is only one explanation for the West’s willingness to accept the Islamic supremacist assertion that Israel is to blame for Islamic aggression against Jews and Christians alike.
But if I mention anti-Semitism, I will be attacked as a paranoid Jew.
JPost.com opinioncolumnists
Photo by: Ariel Jerozolimski Our World: The Age of Dissimulation
By CAROLINE B. GLICK
11/02/2010 00:12
Rather than discuss the nature and threat of Islamic supremacism, the Western media, Western political leaders and academics deny it.
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Years from now, when historians seek an overarching concept to define our times, they could do worse than refer to it as the Age of Dissimulation. Today our leading minds devote their energies and cognitive powers to figuring out new ways to hide reality from themselves and the general public.
Take US President Barack Obama’s senior counterterrorism advisor for example. On Sunday, John Brennan spoke on Fox News about the latest attempted Islamic terrorist attack on American soil.
Since the Obama administration has barred US officials from referring to terrorists as terrorists and effectively barred US officials from acknowledging that Islamic terrorists are Muslims, Brennan simply referred to the Islamic terrorists in Yemen who tried to send bombs to synagogues in Chicago as “individuals.”
Today, practically, the only individuals willing to speak honestly about who Islamic supremacists are and what they want are the Islamic supremacists themselves.
For instance, in an interview last week with Reuters, the Islamic supremacist Hamas movement’s “foreign minister” Mahmoud al- Zahar told the Christian West, “You do not live like human beings. You do not [even] live like animals. You accept homosexuality. And now you criticize us?”
Al-Zahar also made the case for Islamic feminism. As he put it, “We are the ones who respect women and honor women ... not you. You use women as an animal. She has one husband and hundreds of thousands of boyfriends. You don’t know who is the father of your sons, because of the way you respect women.”
Finally, al-Zahar claimed that Westerners have no right to question Islam or criticize it. In his words, “Is it a crime to Islamize the people? I am a Muslim living here according to our tradition. Why should I live under your tradition? We understand you very well. You are poor people. Morally poor. Don’t criticize us because of what we are.”
Al-Zahar can sleep easy. The citizens of the West have rarely heard anyone in any positions of power and influence criticize Islamic supremacists “because of what they are.”
In fact, the most remarkable thing about al- Zahar’s interview was not what he said but that Reuters decided to publish what he said. By letting its readers learn what al-Zahar thinks of them, Reuters inadvertently gave Westerners a glimpse at the simple truth its editors and their counterparts throughout the Western media routinely purge from coverage of current events.
Rather than discuss the nature and threat of Islamic supremacism, the Western media along with nearly all Western political leaders and academics deny and dissimulate. Rather than address the threat, they accept the Islamic line and blame Israel for everything bad that happens in the world.
THE ONE group of people that can almost be forgiven for this crime against reality is the non-Muslims who live under Islamic rule. On Sunday, we received a grim reminder of the plight of such minorities with the Islamic terror attack on Baghdad’s largest church, the Our Lady of Salvation Catholic church.
As some one hundred worshipers celebrated evening mass, Islamic terrorists stormed the church. According to an eyewitness account, they walked straight up to the priest administering the mass and executed him. The Muslim terrorists then took the Christian worshipers hostage.
As Iraqi military forces stormed the church under US military supervision, the Islamic terrorists threw grenades at the worshipers and detonated their bomb belts. By Monday, the death toll had reached 52.
It will be interesting to see how Catholic officials in Iraq and throughout the world respond to this attack. At the Vatican’s Synod on the status of Christians in the Middle East last month, Emmanuel III Delly, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq proclaimed, “The population of [Iraq] …is 24 million, all Muslims, with whom we live peacefully and freely…Christians are good with their fellow Muslims and in Iraq there is mutual respect among them.”
As the noted Islamic expert Robert Spencer wrote last week in Frontpage Magazine, Emmanuel has not always been so outspoken in his praise of Muslim Iraqis. In 2008, when US forces were still in charge in Iraq, Emmanuel made a statement that more accurately reflected the plight of his co-religionists.
Then he said, “Christians are killed, chased out of their homes before the very eyes of those who are supposed to be responsible for their safety…The situation in some parts of Iraq is disastrous and tragic. Life is a Calvary: there is no peace or security… Everyone is afraid of kidnapping.”
Christian clergy in Muslim countries are so terrified of Islamic aggression that they systematically hide the truth of their oppression and often distort their own theology to win the tolerance of supremacist Islamic authorities. Spencer noted that the head of that Vatican Synod, Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros, who presently heads the Eastern Catholic church in the US, and in the past served as archbishop of Baalbek in his native Lebanon follows a similar pattern of dissimulation.
In Bustros’s case, his prevaricating goes beyond false depictions of the plight of Christians. In his bid to win the favor of his Islamic supremacist overlords in Hizbullah, Bustros has regularly engaged in theological revisionism.
At last month’s synod, Bustros repudiated the teachings of the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council and embraced the discredited supersessionist theology that Vatican II denounced. Bustros claimed that God’s covenant with the Jewish people and his promise to give us the Land of Israel “were nullified by Christ.”
In his view, “There is no longer a chosen people.”
Bustros did not simply assert a theological view at odds with the doctrine of the Catholic Church. He used his replacement theology to politically delegitimize Israel. Bustros said, “The theme of the Promised Land cannot be used as a basis to justify the return of the Jews to Israel and the expatriation of the Palestinians.” Bustros is set to return to Lebanon soon to serve as the archbishop of Beirut. The fact that he used his position as the head of the Vatican’s synod on the plight of Christians in the Middle East to earn him the protection of Hizbullah when he returns is made clear when his statements at the conference are compared to a speech he made in 2006, when he was still comfortably ensconced in the US.
As Spencer notes, in a speech Bustros made at St. Thomas University in Florida in 2006, Bustros minced no words about the plight of Christians in the Middle East. Addressing the Islamic precepts on relations with non-Muslims, Bustros said, “The doctrines of Islam dictate war against unbelievers….[T]he concept of nonviolence is absent from Muslim doctrine and practice….Peace in Islam is based on the surrender of all people to Islam and to God’s power based on Islamic law. They have to defend this peace of God even by force.”
FEAR OF Islamic massacres of Christians – like the one in Baghdad on Sunday – goes a long way towards explaining anti-Jewish and pro-Islamic pronouncements by Christian clergy in the Islamic world. But what can explain the West’s embrace of lies about Islam?
Why would people who do not live under the jackboot of the likes of Hizbullah, Hamas or their sister groups in places like Iraq obsequiously parrot untruths about Islamic history and theology and deny the very existence of Islamic supremacism?
The most notable case of such behavior in recent weeks came with the UN Educational, Science and Cultural Organization’s Executive Board’s declarations about Israel and Jewish history. At its October 21 meeting, the governing board of the UN agency charged with naming and preserving world heritage sites engaged in a shocking episode of historic revisionism in the service of Islamic supremacism.
UNESCO’s board issued five declarations regarding Israel. In addition to its routine condemnations of the security fence, Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem and Israel’s refusal to give Hamas control over its border with Israel, UNESCO’s board asserted that the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are all buried, is a mosque. Rachel’s Tomb, where Rachel is buried, is also a mosque, according to UNESCO’s governing body.
It is not surprising that UNESCO’s Muslim members pushed for these declarations. Islam is a supersessionist religion. It claims that all the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs as well as all the Jewish prophets, kings and judges were Muslim. It similarly claims that Jesus, Mary and the apostles were Muslims. It is standard Islamic practice to transform Jewish and Christian holy sites in lands conquered by Islam into mosques.
It is this Islamic practice that led Yasser Arafat to shock and disgust Yitzhak Rabin in July 1995 when he proclaimed that, “Rachel was my grandmother.”
Arafat’s statement was the first time that a Muslim leader in modern times claimed Rachel’s grave is a mosque. Arafat made his preposterous claim in the course of negotiations about the disposition of Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. Due to its significance to Jews, Israel demanded full security control over the tomb. Arafat based his counter-claim on standard Islamic historical revisionism.
While Rabin rejected Arafat’s baseless assertion, last month UNESCO’s executive committee, whose membership includes France, Belgium, Spain, Japan, Poland, Germany, Greece, Haiti, Italy, the US and India accepted Arafat’s wholly false rendition of the historical record. In so doing, they collaborated with an Islamic attempt to eradicate Jewish history.
Why would they do this? They are not bishops who have to worry that their communities will be annihilated if they step out of line.
No doubt, fear of Islamic terrorism fuels some of their behavior. But fear can’t be the full explanation. Most Westerners have no contact with Muslims. And Islamic terrorist attacks in the West are not a daily occurrence.
The West’s newfound obsession with Islamophobia probably also has something to do with it. Western elites are terrified of being accused of racism. This is particularly true when – as is the case with Islamophobia – the charge is leveled on behalf of people who were oppressed in the past by Westerners.
But while fear of the charge of Islamophobia does play a role in Western kowtowing to Islamic supremacists, the West’s aversion to the perception that it is oppressing those it once oppressed fails to provide an adequate explanation for its willingness to collaborate with Islamic supremacist attempts to blot out Jewish history. The West’s history of oppressing Jews is far bloodier and longer than its record of oppressing Muslims.
In the end, there is only one credible explanation for the West’s willingness to lie about the nature and goals of Islamic supremacism. There is only one credible explanation for the West’s willingness to collaborate with Islamic supremacists as they purge the historical record of the Jewish roots of Western civilization. There is only one explanation for the West’s willingness to accept the Islamic supremacist assertion that Israel is to blame for Islamic aggression against Jews and Christians alike.
But if I mention anti-Semitism, I will be attacked as a paranoid Jew.
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