reply to
post by seagull
Whether or not Iran has a weapons program, Israel views them as a threat. When Israel views someone as a threat, you've got a problem. The Israeli's
take the "never again" very seriously. This saber rattling has been going both ways...
The Obama administration [will] come to the same conclusion that all the previous administrations since the founding of Israel have come to. The
Israeli's are going to do what they feel is in their best interests, not ours, not Europe’s, no one but Israel. All we can really hope to
accomplish is to mitigate the damage.
Oer the last 4 months I have read 3 books that gave me a new vision on what you have said so succinctly above, “Never Again!” See abbreviated
reviews below. Every country in which the Jews have lived - maybe excluding the era under the Moors on the Iberian peninsula from 711 AD t0 1492 AD -
has betrayed the Jews. Including America. See Note 1.
Let’s admit there is
just cause for this seemingly inflexible position. We - the West and America - compounded this problem by giving the
Jews surviving from World War 2, a place where no one - no one of us - thought was worth the argument over. The old League of Nations Palestine
Mandate entrusted to Great Britain. Because we are white and Arabs are dark we thought not to ask them about it. The UN managed to obtain an Armistice
in 1949, and from that time until this time we have let the issue fester. Perhaps once, under Yitzhak Rabin, in 1995, there could have been a “Land
for Peace” deal. But even Rabin’s Labor Party never had a majority in the Knesset.
Today the Labor Party has shrunk to the #4 party in Israeli politics with 13 seats. Largely made up of old socialists. Kadima, said to be a center
party, 28 seats. Likud, the right wing party of Netanyahu, 27 seats. A far right wing religious party Shas polled 11 seats. Avigdor Liberman a 51 year
old Russian born Jew leads the right wing party Yisrael Beiteinu that polled 15 seats. He has called for expelling Arab citizens from Israel. Ethnic
cleansing.
I see two things that have been out there since 1967 but which we did not want to see. Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and
East Jerusalem. They care not a whit about Gaza. Israel stalls whenever the US pushes them to Camp David or to Oslo, but then it’s business as
usual.
The United States ought to pay all the Arabs $1 million per family to compensate them in lieu of their
Right of Return and resettle them in the
US. End of Middle East in turmoil. End of OPEC. We would save enough money in 6 months on the price of oil to make it all back. Plus Palestinians are
a survivor people who would add to our mix.
Note 1. The MS St. Louis sailed from Hamburg in May 1939, carrying one non-Jewish and 936 (mainly German) Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi
persecution. On June 4, 1939, the St. Louis was also refused permission to land her passengers in Florida under
orders from President
Roosevelt. The St. Louis then tried to enter Canada but was denied permission to land there as well. On its return to Europe, 288 passengers were
accepted by the UK. By using the survival rates for Jews in the various countries, Thomas and Morgan-Witts estimated three hundred sixty-five of the
620 passengers who returned to continental Europe survived the war. The St. Louis’ Captain Gustav Schroeder himself was later awarded the Order of
Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany and was named as one of the Righteous Among the Nations at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel in
recognition of his heroism in attempting to rescue his passengers.
en.wikipedia.org...
BEST BOOK. A History of the Jews in the Modern World published by Vintage Books written by Howard M. Sachar. 2005. Mr. Sachar has a
good story to tell. The history of Jews in modern times - from the 18th century to the present - is an epic saga and the author attempts to hit all
the high points. He deals with the six continents on which Jews have lived. (Only Antarctica does not come into play). He concludes with an
assessment of Jewish prospects in the 21st century.
The result is a rich and balanced account of the emergence of Jews as major players in the worlds of commerce, culture and politics - and also as
victims of vicious and at times murderous anti-Semitism. Sachar, an emeritus professor at George Washington University, is the author of 15 previous
books. In this he focuses on political history to trace the fortunes of Jews as the countries in which they lived.
There is no other book that attempts as this one does to recount the history of Jews in modern times in all its geographical variations. This is a
wide-ranging comparative study that provides a comprehensive - and readable - overview of modern Jewish history. Reviewed by Paula E. Hyman Copyright
2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.
SECOND CHOICE.
The First World War by Penguin, written by Hew Strachan. 2003. Although the title does not reveal, this books includes the fate
of many Jewish communities in the Russian Empire, in Poland, and in other Central European and Eastern European countries as well as in France and
Greta Brittan during the War and immediately thereafter. DW
CONFIRMATION.
15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: by NAL Trade Books Written by Stanley Weintraub, 2007. Review from Booklist.
Weintraub, who has written many World War II histories, here inspects the interrelationship of the U.S. Army's three highest-ranking generals of the
war: Douglas MacArthur, George Marshall, and Dwight Eisenhower.
Ike's story bounces between those of the other two for he served directly under them before Marshall selected him in mid-1942 to command American
forces in Europe. MacArthur, by then already a military celebrity, was commander in the Southwest Pacific; Marshall managed the two from the newly
built Pentagon. After the war, as the three assumed posts in the developing cold war, each took on an aura of presidential possibility. Culminating
with the Korean War's ramifications for the trio, Weintraub's densely detailed chronicle can prime readers for future reading, whether individual
biographies or battle histories. By Gilbert Taylor. END
This book deals particularly with the Holocaust and the Warsaw Uprising and the response by the US, UK and USSR. DW
