Nazis had Einsatzgruppe Ready in 1942 to Exterminate Jews in Eretz Yisrael

A new study by two German historians, Klaus-Michael Mallman and Martin Cüppers reveals that the Nazis had a unit waiting in Athens to carry out the extermination of the Jews in Palestine with the help of local Arab collaborators (the latter is not necessarily a major part of the research - it was simply emphasized in the Ynet article). Ha'aretz has since reported on this study as well. I have also found the reference:

Klaus-Michael Mallmann und Martin Cüppers, "Beseitigung der jüdisch-nationalen Heimstätte in Palästina -Das Einsatzkommando der Panzerarmee Afrika 1942," in Deutsche, Juden, Völkermord. Der Holocaust als Geschichte und Gegenwartvon Jürgen Matthäus/Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2006.

One of the SS personalities involved in this unit was Walter Rauff, who died unmolested in Chile. The link is to a Wikipedia article which alleges that Rauff was protected by Allende!

UN Human Rights Council

The US has decided not to contest for the new UN Human Rights Council, which is replacing the Human Rights Commission (good riddance - it was a disgrace!). Apparently, the Americans were afraid that they would not be elected to the council. I have to say that with Abu Ghraib, which might just be the tip of the iceberg, and Guantanamo, the Americans don't really deserve to be on this council - though I am not sure that China, Pakistan, and Iran, all of whom are candidates, are any better. All this brings me to the following appeal - the real point of this post. How much longer are Americans going to tolerate this prison in Guantanamo? It's shameful. Let's make sure to talk about it. At this point, I simply do not trust this administration to a) protect basic human rights, or b) collect any useful intelligence from terrorism suspects. They have been such bunglers - on the ethical as well as the national security fronts!

Neo-con Idealists - "Still Right"?

Marcus McGee argues that their belief in democracy's universal validity was in some sense confirmed by Iraqis' participation in elections despite threats to their lives. Democracy has so far failed in Iraq because of insurgents and terorrists, not because the majority of Iraqis are opposed to democracy.

US War Planners Should Listen to Israel Regarding Iran

The author of the blog "The Washington Note," a Beltway insider, has this on the diffident stance, he says, the Israeli security establishment is taking to the US strategy of pronounced escalation with Iran, "leaked," in the London Sunday Telegraph.

It's nice to see Hans Blix back in action. It's Colin Powell's birthday today. Perhaps he has an opinion on the state of Iran's nuclear program.

Note that the American Jewish Committee has taken out a full page ad in today's NYT, which sports "an overlay map implying that future Iranian nuclear missiles would be able to strike deep into China, not just anywhere in Europe and the Middle East."

Hasidim go crazy on NYPD

Well, I have to say, I kind of like this. Symbolically at least - I do not mean to condone violence against the police! I'm just sick of Jews getting "beat on" in France, Russia, Crown Heights or wherever. If everyone else can wild out to protest police brutality, why shouldn't Jews (and I mean real גלות Jews, not the ones living in Israel!) be allowed to let loose once in a while?

Kadima and Labor Talking

Oh so all this nonsense was just a diversionary tactic?

"A senior Labor official said that the recent 'spins' on Peretz's moves to form an 'emergency social government' were a 'smokescreen' intended to conceal contacts between Labor and Kadima."

They sure had me fooled.

Iranian Maneuvers

This time it's surface-to-sea torpedoes. The Russians are starting to get annoyed. This thing is escalating in a hurry.

No "Social Front" with the Right-Wing Parties

It looks like Peretz has suddenly disavowed trying to form a coalition government with the right-wing and ultra-orthodox parties. Shas and Meretz have recommended that Olmert form the next government. Both are being realistic. It is interesting (though hardly a surprise) that Ovadia Yosef gave his approval to this decision on Shas's part - after all, he has been railing against the disengagement plan and Kadima since the campaign began. Anyway, hopefully everyone will come to their senses soon. I think the NRP-NU will stay in the opposition. The big question is what will happen with Yisrael Beitenu. I don't know if Kadima or Israeli society can afford to alienate the Russian electorate even further. Liberman certainly wants to be in the government. But given the latter's opposition to further withdrawals, I am not sure how he can join Kadima in a coaltion. Maybe Yisrael Beitenu will be happy to form the official opposition, where the party can continue to feed the resentment of its marginalized voters and abstain from taking responsibility for the security situation as well as the economy.

Hamas and its National Liberation Rhetoric

Noah hinted at something really interesting in his April 1 post on the Isma'il Haniyye piece in the Guardian. Haniyye was using national freedom fighter rhetoric, tailored for European readers. He really stuck to the standard Palestinian narrative associated with the P.L.O. and Fatah:

"No plan will ever work without a guarantee, in exchange for an end to hostilities by both sides, of a total Israeli withdrawal from all the land occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem; the release of all our prisoners; the removal of all settlers from all settlements; and recognition of the right of all refugees to return."

[...]

"Little will change for the Palestinians under Olmert's plan. Our land will still be occupied and our people enslaved and oppressed by the occupying power. So we will remain committed to our struggle to get back our lands and our freedom."

Haniyye's piece is devoid of the Hamas rhetoric about Palestine being Islamic holy land! There are no references to jihad and or to God-sanctioned resistance. Hamas, short for harikat al-muqawama al-islamiyya (the Islamic Resistance Movement) might as well change its name to Fatah.

What makes Haniyye's editorial especially disingenuous is that Hamas is trying to play victim. Thus, we find Haniyye bitching about European and U.S.'s policy-makers' "double-standards" vis-a-vis his government. After basically killing the Oslo process, a process underwritten by EU and US financial and political support, with its bloody terrorist attacks, Hamas suddenly wants them to kiss and make-up. How different would things have looked if Hamas had adopted its new "enlightened" stance in 1993?

The one thing that I do think is worth thinking about is Hamas's past commitment to the tahadiyya (تهادية) - a kind of lull in fighting agreed upon by most of the Palestinian factions, except for the Islamic Jihad- which it really appears to have enforced for a long period last year. This agreement was reciprocated by the IDF until it began to unravel in the run-up to the Palestinian elections, I believe. In any case, it has to be looked at carefully so that potential opportunities are not missed. I am not saying pressure should be taken off of Hamas. Recognition of the Hamas government by a few governments here and there will only make things more difficult, in the same way that dissension between European governments and the US on Iraq might well have led to Saddam Hussein believing that there would not be a war. But, I do think that Israel can't afford to miss an opportunity.

Just as important is that the post-Camp David (2001) "no-partner" narrative be re-examined. The fact that Israelis now view the idea of Palestinian partners in future peace negotiations as a complete joke and as absurd is not some natural, spontaneous outcome of the events of the intifada. The terrorist attacks certainly contributed to it, but the fact that the Palestinians, including very moderate voices among them, have become irrelevant to most Israelis and the fact that any talk of negotiations is greeted with guffaws by the average Israeli, also has to do with the spin put on Camp David by Barak to cover his ass. We can't lose sight of the fact that an agreement was very close at hand at Camp David.

There's a lot more to be said on this matter. Anyone interested should read Yoram Meital's book Peace in Tatters (2006, Lynne Rienner). The Hebrew edition is called שלום שבור - "Broken Peace". Yoram is a prof at Ben-Gurion University's Middle Eastern Studies department and current head of the Chaim Herzog Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Diplomacy. They have some really good conferences and frequently get speakers from Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. Not long ago, before the Palestinian elections, we had a Fatah politician from the Gaza Strip here -a real moderate who spent a lot of time in Israeli prisons in the 1980s and came out speaking fluent Hebrew and with a very nuanced, intelligent view of Israeli society.

Auschwitz Escapee Rudolf Vrba Dies

Haaretz reports that Vrba died at the age of 82. In 1944, Vrba and another prisoner, Alfred Wetzler escaped from Auschwitz and circulated a report warning of the immiment destruction of Hungarian Jewry. The Allies ignored the escapees' calls to bomb Auschwitz. After the war, Vrba, lived in Czechoslovakia until 1958, when he immigrated to Israel. However, Vrba left Israel for London after only 2 years. He eventually ended up as a professor at the University of British Columbia. Until the end of his life, he was convinced that the Hungarian Jewish elite had not done enough to prevent the community's destruction. I think this is chronicled in his memoir, I Cannot Forgive.

Coalition Shenanigans

NRP-National Union recommend Peretz as PM. It looks like the Labor Party is mounting a serious challenge to Kadima. A number of parties might be recommending that Katsav appoint Peretz as the person to form the next government, rather than Olmert. The Labor Party had previously declared its opposition to sitting in the same government as Yisrael Beitenu, but apparently the NRP-NU is okay. Rather sophistic. Well, are they serious? The right-wing parties have suddenly discovered social policy, and are in favor of supporting the "social bloc" advocated by Labor. To me, this seems like a rather opportunistic attempt to block an Olmert government which is more likely to deliver a 2nd disengagement (or as Olmert calls it, "convergence") than a weak Labor-led coalition. Also, I really wonder if Meretz would join a coalition consisting of Labor, the NRP-NU, United Torah Judaism, and Shas among others. Maybe Peretz is simply trying to increase his bargaining position. I read an interesting column by Gideon Levy that Peretz should embrace the Defense portfolio, instead of fighting to get the finance ministry:

If Amir Peretz really wants to generate change, he must demand one portfolio for himself: the defense portfolio. If there is one appointment in the new government that could fire the imagination and herald a societal turning point, it would be this. If the chairman of the Labor Party wants to become a statesman and perhaps also the next leader of Israel, his path must now take him to the Defense Ministry.

Are we headed for war with Iran?

The Iranians have tested a new underwater missile:

"Iran announced its second major new missile test within days, saying Sunday it has successfully fired a high-speed underwater missile capable of destroying huge warships and submarines."

In addition to this, DebkaFile reports that the British military recently concluded that war with Iran is "inevitable."

Palestinian FM Zahar: No place for Israel in Palestine

This sounds more like the Hamas we know:

Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar was quoted in a weekend interview to a Chinese news agency defending Hamas' declared goal of eventually destroying Israel.

Zahar, a prominent Hamas leader sworn into the Palestinian Authority cabinet last week, told the Xinhua news agency that he is certain the goal will be realized, because "There is no place for Israel on this land."

According to the interview, Zahar maintained that Palestinians have no problem with the Jewish religion, only with the Israeli occupation, and said he does not rule out the possibility of Jews, Muslims and Christians living together in one Islamic state.

Ismail Haniyeh Sounds Off in Guardian

So Hamas seems to have been widely credited with a classic, western-style election campaign, of successfully imitating the rhetoric and the messaging of western reformers. Yet when you actually hear these guys on television or radio or read their manifestos in English language newspapers, they come off sounding rather unprofessional and even histrionic. PM Haniyeh's piece in the Guardian is a good example.

Is this read by the Guardian's readership as "authentic" freedom fighter-speak? Do opinion surveys of Palestinians really support the claim: "No plan will ever work without a guarantee, in exchange for an end to hostilities by both sides, a total Israeli withdrawal from all the land occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem; the release of all our prisoners; the removal of all settlers from all settlements; and recognition of the right of all refugees to return. On this, all Palestinian factions and people agree." Of course not. So will part of the Hamas government's predicted meltdown involve not only incompetence in collecting garbage and operating sewage systems, but the alienation of sympathizers abroad through such statements?

One more question: would an American newspaper print this? Have they?