Genocide
This is the seventieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night when the Nazis unleashed a wave of physical violence against German Jews and their enterprises. The name comes from the shattered glass that filled the streets of Jewish neighborhoods, and it made it crystal clear that Hitler fully intended to annihilate the Jews of Germany, and, eventually, everywhere else that he could reach. Even the New York Times, which had a very mixed record on reporting the events of the Holocaust, described it on their front page in terms that left no doubt what was going on:
A wave of destruction, looting and incendiarism unparalleled in Germany since the Thirty Years War and in Europe generally since the Bolshevist Revolution swept over Great Germany today as National Socialist cohorts took vengeance on Jewish shops, offices…
Thus began the destruction of the European Jews, and the Second World War. Nobody did much of anything to challenge the Nazis until their time came, with the exception, paradoxically, of Mussolini, who deployed the Italian Army to block Hitler’s first attempt at Anschluss with Austria. Thereafter, the whole nightmare played out as we know.
After the war, the “international community” vowed it would not permit such things to happen again, and passed all manner of resolutions that seemed to promise forceful action against anyone who attempted to destroy an entire people. “Genocide” –a word invented to describe Nazi actions against the Jews– in particular would not be tolerated.
And yet, genocide has been repeatedly tolerated. Take the by now well known case of Rwanda in the mid-nineties. Everybody knew that the Hutus were planning to massacre the Tutsis. The title of Philip Gourevitch’s fine book, taken from a letter written by seven Rwandan bishops to their spiritual leader tells it all: “We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families.” Yet nobody did anything to prevent it, and when the genocide got going, nobody did anything to stop it. The UN Security Council couldn’t even bring itself to pass a resolution containing the word “genocide,” and the American Government danced all around the issue in order to avoid using the word. Under the guidance of UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright (from a Czech Jewish refugee family), the Clinton Administration did nothing. Later on, Albright and Clinton himself apologized, but a million Tutsis had been slaughtered.
So feeble was the “International community” that they didn’t even protect their own troops.
On the morning of April 7, 1994, ten Belgian Blue Berets were taken prisoner by members of the presidential guard and then beaten and murdered. The UN forces made no attempt to free them. The Belgian contingent was recalled by its government. Before leaving, several Belgian soldiers tore up their United Nations badges and spat on the blue flag. (From Gil Courtemanche, a sunday at the pool in kigali New York: Random House, 2003, pg 224)
As Gourevitch bitterly remarks, “If Rwanda’s experience could be said to carry any lessons for the world, it was that endangered peoples who depend on the international community for physical protection stand defenseless.”
Which is why the anniversary of Kristallnacht is so important for us; in many ways it defined the modern world. Genocide is tolerated, victims are not defended (ask the million and a half victims in Darfur today), nobody does anything unless he is directly attacked. Somehow I think that the “rule of law” has not helped at all, because the lawyers are forever telling governments why they cannot intervene, or, as in very many cases, why they cannot offer asylum to criminal dictators, thereby leaving the governments with a Hobson’s Choice: do nothing, or attack.
In Africa recently I was told a story that rings true to me: a rebel leader who is currently in the crosshairs of the World Court was offered a deal if he would stop fighting. He agreed, with one proviso: the World Court had to promise not to prosecute. The World Court refused. And the fighting continues. Phil Howard wrote a masterpiece a few years back called The Death of Common Sense, and he was so right. These are not, it seems to me, the sorts of issues that would challenge Solomon. But we can’t seem to think our way out of the complicated webs we’ve woven for ourselves.
Your last paragraph is especially telling. The court would not promise not to prosecute the warlord so what is the warlord to do? Keep killing obviously…
All these mechanisms just seem to prolong the suffering and killing.
As I read your post today and also in the Time magazine (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1857754,00.html) about the same event, I must say, what is happening in Germany in remembering this event, frankly, all Jews around the world should thank Ahmadinejad this time around.
It was Ahmadinejad that by creating a total denial of such real event that made Germany to crank up in remembering this historical and shameful part of Germany, so possibly the suppress racist gene in the country that might want one day to flare up again.
If it wasn’t for Ahmadinejad, NO ONE else would have been this dumb to question such a clear past.
On the other hand, I’m still puzzled as to why the events in Germany ends up so much Arab people being removed from their lands, and then after all these years NO DEALS and NOTHING could resolve this tragedy in that part of the world. I agree Jews must have their own land, but I’m sick of this foot dragging and all BS negotiation for decades and decades with no results, and STILL nothing happen. And when some people like Rabin was trying to do, their own people assassinate them.
Yes, I agree, Jews were in Israel 2000 years ago, and there are many of them who lived there for centuries, but what happened AFTER WWII that has caused so many Palestinians that had their homes there must leave? This is no rocket science.
WHY after all these years no REAL peace deal could be signed between these two nations? Is that all Arabs fault? All Israelis are sent from heaven and Arabs are all from hell? Then how the hell this conflicts just itches to last and last and last and last and each side consider itself the “chosen one” and just want to rip the other side apart?
I wonder if Israel is now considering to give the Golan back to Syria, then WHY the hell they could not get something done sooner—assuming this is the path they plan to take.
I’m just sick of it. I know Arabs are to be blame too, but hell, it’s not all their fault and yet this damn thing is dragging and dragging and draggin.
I hope you people have something new to add to my questions, besides rightfully blaming Iran in this mess.
Yes, I agree, Jews were in Israel 2000 years ago, and there are many of them who lived there for centuries, but what happened AFTER WWII that has caused so many Palestinians that had their homes there must leave? This is no rocket science.
Alireza: Your history is a tad spotty. Before Israel declared its independance, it literally begged the indigenous Arab/Palestinian population to stay and become part of the state, with full rights as citizens. They had lived side by side with the Jews for the most part peacefully. The vast majority wanted to stay and had every intention of doing so. But they were forced out by Arabs, not by the Jews as has been the big lie that has been perpetrated for over 60 years.
Palestinians have been treated like dirt by the Arab world and their own leadership. Keeping them immiserated and blaming Israel for their suffering is what keeps them (other Arab states) in power.
Then there are the 2 million or so Jews forced to flee Arab lands post 1948. Where is the hue and cry for them. Right. Thought so. (crickets chriping)
The mechanisms for modern justice, the UN, World court all have in common the inability to become greater as a whole than their parts. So long as aggressor nations are given a prominent role in the development of policy and procedure the outcomes will remain as a twisted and distorted semblance of the organizations intent.
To that end, Senator McCain’s notion of a league of Democracies is not a bad idea, and may be the way to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Europe has been a scary place for minorities. That’s why America was founded.
Yes,but what about the KISHINEV Pogrom in 1903,that uleashed both a trade war and an immigration of the U.S.A from and with the TZarist Russia,of ancestors of now prominent pursuers of legitim Jewish-American Interests in the World of Today.The day of the Kristallnach,1938,was only 22 Years before my own birth,and on the SAME weekday-wednesday-on top of that!
Theodore Roosevelt handed over a letter to the Russian Tzar,that refused to receive it.As thereafter,not long,-1917-the overthrow of the same Tzar and his family,who got shot on top of it,together with the rest of his close family,was done to the same as Saddam Hussein and His close Family;You see,hate extends counter hate;it never closes the wounds connected to that;so fast and so please,that the propaganda concerned becomes so disconected, that it ruins itself by forgetting the main reason for one’s own self-interest.There is only so much interest in the world,that any pretention furthering the warlobby
has become its own financial ruin,by the lack of substance to the same!
The SS St Louis in 1939 proved the case,and other things both before and after has proven the same;but still,making propaganda against ones own system and citizenry,that was ultimately made up by friends in thought has led to an ALL-American-Vote-Out of the present Government of The United States of America.
Do not turn the tales of Your country,dear Michael,against Your self-interest, by continuing the wound;The US needs to heal before any winnings of any more wars,as this is the lesson,that only God,according to my opinion,could have provided the Jews and the Americans with,that God prefers a real PEACE before a false one in the Lands of Palestine and in Israel itself.I do Salute and RESPECT the vote of The American People,even if I know that the wounds are still up for grabs…!
Sincerely
William Sharp
If it were Americans wearing that blue headgear, would our president have the stones to back them up with all the warmaking power this country can muster? I fear not.
Only when attacking a peacekeeper is treated like an assault on a cop will they have any credibility.
Alireza: “Arab people being removed from their lands, and then after all these years NO DEALS and NOTHING could resolve this tragedy in that part of the world”
To which “lands” are you referring? Is 99.999% of the middle east not enough ‘lands’ for the Arabs?
Alireza: “I agree Jews must have their own land, but I’m sick of this foot dragging and all BS negotiation for decades and decades with no results, and STILL nothing happen”
What would you have us do then, evacuate the 0.0001% of Jewish controlled land in the middle east to quell the Arabs inability to absorb their own people?
There is no peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, Syria, and many other Muslim countries because the Muslims do no want it. The Arabs have been making terrorist attacks on the Jews, first of Mandatory Palesine then of Israel, since 1921 or earlier. There were many times when the Arabs could have had a state but they always turned it down. Most recently was in 2000, when Arafat turned down the most generaous offer an Israel PM could give. He did not even make a counteroffer, just began the current Oslo War of Terrorism a few months later. I believe the Palestinian Arabs do not want a state. They want to kill the Jews. Whatever tyrant rules them, in whatever squalor, poverty, and oppression, is irrelevant to them if they can first kill Jews.
As for the Arab refugees, their “Brother Arabs” should have resettled them fifty-five years ago, as Israel resettled the Jews run out of the Arab countries. If you start a war intended to destroy a neighboring state and commit genocide on its people, as the Arabs did, and lose, as the Arabs did, you may expect to lose some land as a result. Anyone in any doubt about this should travel to Poland and look for signs of German habitation in what were once East Prussia and Silesia.
IN August 1967, just two months after the Six Day War, Israel offered to hand back all the land it captured in that war except East Jerusalem, in exchange for a real peace based on a negotiated treaty and recognized borders. The Arab answer was the Three No’s of Khartoum: no negotiations, no recognition, no peace. So it remained until Sadat negotiated peace with Begin, then Jordan made peace, but no others. What was Israel supposed to do? We see today in Gaza what happens if Israel withdraws unilaterally.
There is no action Israel can take to bring about peace or even forward the “peace process”. The initiative is in the hands of Israel’s enemies. If they want peace there will be peace. If they want war there will be war. Even Egypt (the source of immense quantitites of antisemitic propaganda) and Jordan are just biding their time. They too will pounce on any Israel weakness. The Muslim response to peace with Israel is “Kill the Jews.” Until that changes there will be no peace.
The short answer then, Alireza, is that the Arabs started a genocidal war and lost, so they should resettle the losers and make peace. If they hadn’t started the war there would not have been the Arab refugees. They should take care of their own, but the Arabs have no compassion for the Palestinian Arabs, but only wish to use them as cannon fodder against Israel.