As soon as this pub closes...

According to the New Statesman Norman Geras and Nick Cohen have been down the pub. Whilst there they decided that the left needs to move away from its silly opposition to western wars on third world countries and start supporting Israel whilst pretending to support the Palestinian cause. Are they drunk?

If Israelis knew........

Here's a rather belated obituary in the Guardian for Auschwitz escapee, Rudolph Vrba, about whom I posted a couple of weeks ago. It's by the Israeli academic, Ruth Linn.

Although I am a native Israeli, who graduated from the prestigious Reali private high school, I had never heard about the escape from Auschwitz at the numerous Holocaust ceremonies I attended. Nor had I ever read about it in any detail in any of the Hebrew Holocaust textbooks at school in my own time or in those given to my three children, although Vrba's memoirs, I Cannot Forgive, written with Alan Bestic, were first published in London in 1963.

I became acquainted with Vrba's escape from Auschwitz during my adult life, through the non-Israeli Paris-based film-maker Claude Lanzmann, who considered Vrba's testimony central to the understanding of the Holocaust in his 1987 movie Shoah. The "presence" of the "absence" of the escape from Auschwitz in Israeli historiography on the one hand, and the moral visibility and sanctity of Auschwitz in the country's hegemonic narrative on the other, remained a puzzle for me, and my desire to gain firsthand knowledge of the escape stayed with me for many years.

Purely coincidentally, while lecturing at UBC I mentioned Vrba to a friend and was told that he taught there. Thus did we first meet. In June 1998, I succeeded in convincing my university, Haifa, to award Vrba an honorary doctorate in recognition of his heroic escape from Auschwitz and his contribution to Holocaust education. The award ceremony was planned to coincide with the first publication of the book in Hebrew by the Haifa University Press.

To my surprise, even at this undeniably historic moment, some Israeli scholars made a desperate last-minute attempt to belittle the hero and his memoirs. No less interesting was the position, as intellectual bystanders, taken up by the Holocaust historians' establishment in Israel. Not one of them publicly protested about the campaign against Vrba. It was here that the profound question posed by the American political thinker Michael Walzer crept into my mind: "What is the use, after all, of a silent intellectual?" In my book, Escaping Auschwitz, a Culture of Forgetting (2004) I try to delve into the mystery of Vrba's disappearance not only from the Auschwitz camp, but also from the Israeli Holocaust narrative.

Vrba was the only academic of the five escapees, and it is perhaps unsurprising that he chose biochemistry for his life's work, after that life was saved by the mixture of tobacco and gasoline. After the war he read biology and chemistry at Charles University, Prague, took a doctorate and then defected from a scientific delegation to the west. He worked in Israel from 1958 to 1960 at the biological research institute in Beit Dagan.

Then from 1960 to 1967 he worked in Britain, first at the neuropsychiatric research unit in Carshalton, then at the Medical Research Council. Then came the move to UBC, and after a two year sabbatical at Harvard University, a UBC professorship.

It was not just tobacco and gasoline that saved Vrba's life. It was also saved because Vrba admired knowledge, he was a scholar who knew its power, and believed that the deportees should have been given that power too. He felt that if they had known the fate that awaited them in Auschwitz, many lives would have been saved. He promised himself to bring them that knowledge, and he kept his promise. Meanwhile, I Cannot Forgive has recently been republished as I Escaped from Auschwitz.

When I posted about this before, less than a thousand sites appeared for the search, "Rudolph Vrba." Now it's 33,400. Fame at last.

EU and US: Israel's appeasers or collaborators

According to yesterday's Guardian the EU is to follow the US in suspending aid to the Palestinian Authority. This seems to be pursuant to Israel's policy of making the Palestinians "get a lot thinner." Does this make the EU and US appeasers or collaborators?

UPDATE - I got a couple of complaints about my misuse of the word "Quislings" in my headline - so apologies and I've corrected it to "collaborators." I must point out that it was people of goodwill who noticed and not zionists. So, many thanks to the former.

Extradition from Israel?

A rare link from the Daily Telegraph:

Economic sanctions should be considered against Israel if it refuses to hand over soldiers accused of murdering two Britons, Sir Gerald Kaufman said yesterday.

The Labour MP said the Israeli government should be forced to deal with that element of its armed forces "which goes around killing people wantonly".

Sir Gerald was speaking about Tom Hurndall, 22, shot dead by an Israeli sniper in April 2003, and James Miller, 34, a documentary maker killed by a single shot to the neck a month later.

An inquest jury found on Monday that Mr Hurndall had been unlawfully and intentionally killed. Last week, an inquest jury considering Mr Miller's death returned a verdict of unlawful killing.

"Israeli troops have murdered two British subjects and they must not be allowed to believe they can away with it," Sir Gerald said.

Being a little naive aren't we Gerald?

Hurndall murder: Coroner urges action against Israel

From the Independent

:"April 6 2003. I have been shot at, gassed, chased by soldiers, had sound grenades thrown within metres of me, been hit by falling debris and been in the way of a 10-tonne D-9 that didn't stop. As we approached, I kept expecting a part of my body to be hit by an 'invisible' force and shot of pain. It took a huge amoung of will to continue. I wondered what it would be like to be shot, and strangely I wasn't too scared. It is strange to know that each night people are shot and killed for breaking military curfew, and in the darkness on the north west side there is an Israeli settlement and a few hundred metres away with military snipers in between and any one of the four of us could be being watched through a sniper's sights at this moment. The certainty is that they are watching, and it is in the decision of any one Israeli soldier or settler that my life depends. I know that I'd probably never know what hit me, but it's part of the job to be as visible as possible." Five days after he wrote these words, Tom Hurndall was shot by Israeli forces and later died.

And here's where the coroner comes in:

In a rare move, the coroner, Andrew Reid, concluded the inquest into Tom Hurndall's death by revealing that he would write to Lord Goldsmith to explore further legal action relating to the 22-year-old's death.

He'll be lucky.

It's antisemitic to say that Israel has a policy of killing children

So let's just point out that Israel has today killed yet another child - an 8 year-old girl - bringing the total of children killed this year by the most powerful army in the Middle East to....oh never mind. It'll only go up again tomorrow.

Here are some score cards from the Israeli human rights group B'tselem but don't quote the figures, they're barely keeping up.

Israel boycotts yet another UK inquest

From the Guardian, Israel is going to boycott the inquest into the death of Tom Hurndall.

Israel will boycott an inquest opening today in London which will investigate the death of a British peace activist shot dead in broad daylight by an Israeli soldier.

Tom Hurndall, 22, died after being shot in Rafah, Gaza, while trying to lead Palestinian children to safety after the soldier opened fire from a nearby observation tower in April 2003.

His mother, Jocelyn, told the Guardian she is angry Israel is not cooperating as she still has many questions about how her son came to be shot: "We are hoping the coroner will address the culture of impunity in which the soldier was functioning and the enormous lack of cooperation we have experienced from the Israelis."

Mrs Hurndall said that only when the family went to Israel and for seven weeks pressured the authorities and raised the case in the media did any sort of investigation begin.

Her solicitor, Imran Khan, said Israel's boycott of the inquest is disrespectful: "It shows their disdain for the whole process."

Mr Hurndall was one of three British civilians killed, allegedly deliberately, within seven months by Israeli forces. In all three cases Israel claimed the Britons were killed after their troops came under fire. In two cases the claims were not accepted at inquests.

Ian Hook was killed in November 2002 and in December last year an inquest jury ruled that he had been unlawfully killed and the victim of a "deliberate killing". The UN said that Hook, 50, who led a house reconstruction programme in Jenin camp, was sitting in his office when he was hit by several bullets.

But what's the UK government doing about this?

Hamas renounces suicide bombings

According to Conal Urquhart in the Observer, Hamas is renouncing suicide bombing but not the armed struggle. In spite of Israel's presistent killings of Palestinians, Hamas has been on ceasefire for some time now. Unusually for Conal Urquhart the article is well balanced and informative, even discussing the origin of suicide bombing as a tactic.

Hamas is to abandon its use of suicide bombers, who have killed almost 300 Israelis, in any future confrontations with Israel, its activists have told The Observer.

The Islamic group, which leads the Palestinian Authority, says, however, that it may resort to other forms of violence if there is no progress towards Palestinian statehood.

Yihiyeh Musa, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said Hamas had moved into a 'new era' which did not require suicide attacks.

'The suicide bombings happened in an exceptional period and they have now stopped,' he said. 'They came to an end as a change of belief.'

As Hamas toned down its rhetoric, Israel increased pressure on the Palestinians, particularly in Gaza. Two militants were killed in an airstrike near Gaza City yesterday and five men and a five-year-old boy were killed on Friday night.

Each day hundreds of artillery shells are fired by Israel at northern Gaza. Palestinian factional tension is also high and the price of commodities such as flour and sugar has more than doubled as a result of Israel closing border crossings.

Hamas is keen to gain acceptance from the international community. On Friday the European Union announced it was stopping direct funding of the PA, while the United States has halted aid projects. Hamas needs outside funding of $150m each month to pay PA wages or else the Palestinian economy will collapse.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, warned in an interview published yesterday that any attempt by Israel unilaterally to impose unjust borders on the Palestinians would lead to another war within 10 years.

Hamas was the first Palestinian group to use suicide bombers and its tactics provided inspiration for Islamic insurgents and terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, the US and Europe. Hamas declared a ceasefire last year and in January was elected to lead the Palestinian Authority. However, despite the ceasefire, Hamas still carries the legacy of its suicide attacks on Israeli civilians.

Musa said Hamas only embarked on suicide bombing campaigns as a response to extreme provocations by Israel, such as the killing of 29 Palestinians in Hebron in 1993. It had been a policy of desperation.

According to the Israeli army, since October 2000, Hamas carried out 51 suicide attacks, killing 272 Israelis. Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade carried out 34 each, killing 98 and 80 Israelis respectively. Almost 5,000 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed over that period.

Many Palestinians believe that suicide bombing damaged their cause, portraying them, not Israel, as the aggressors.

'The occupation government with its outside allies succeeded in labelling all Palestinians as terrorists as a result of the suicide bombings,' said Musa.

Ghazi Hamed, the spokesman for the government, said in future any military action would be restricted to the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.

Israel and the international community have demanded that Hamas recognise Israel and renounce violence as a precondition to normalising relations but it has so far refused.

The ascent of Hamas to political power has led its leaders to modify its positions but opinion is divided as to whether this is a fundamental change or a tactical expedient. Israel says Hamas remains true to its original aims, as stated in its charter, of destroying the state of Israel.

Mordechai Kedar, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, said Hamas's rejection of violence was tactical. 'If they succeed in stabilising their state then they will take out their different agenda and start where they left off. For months they have been smuggling long-range missiles. They are preparing for the next phase but for the time being they have more urgent problems,' he said.

Other commentators say Hamas has always had a moderate wing. Khaled Hroub, director of the Cambridge Arab Media Project and the author of Hamas: Political Thought and Practice, said that even among members of Hamas, suicide bombing was controversial.

'If one looks at the conduct of Hamas in 1996 there was huge controversy even in the ranks of Hamas over its bombing campaign. Hroub says Hamas has the potential to make the transition to a purely political organisation. 'The concept of the two-state solution is now the cornerstone of their thinking. I doubt we will see the old Hamas again,' he said.

Hamas now finds itself turning from poacher to gamekeeper. Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade have said they will continue to attack Israel. But Hamas fears that if armed groups are carrying out attacks and firing missiles, it will make its government look weak. Hamas hopes to persuade other groups to stop their attacks but insists it will not be prepared to use force.

So now while Israel continues killing Palestinians zionists will still yabber on about how Hamas must be judged by its actions.

Kick Israel out of football!

According to Ha'aretz, the world football governing body FIFA is considering action against Israel after the Israeli airforce bombed a Gaza football pitch.

Jerome Champagne, FIFA deputy general secretary in charge of political issues, said it was a direct strike "without any reason" and that the soccer field was not being used by Palestinians as a missile launching pad, as Israel's ambassador to Switzerland had originally claimed.

"We have just asked for explanations," Champagne said in a telephone interview. "FIFA has been fighting for more than a century to make this game universal. To hit a football field is really the wrong signal."

Champagne said he had already discussed the matter with FIFA president Sepp Blatter and that a decision would likely be announced early next week. He declined to elaborate on what possible action FIFA could take against Israel.

"Football should remain outside of politics," Champagne added.

No casualties were reported in the air strike, which reportedly left a large crater in the field. The Israel Defense Forces said there had not been any rocket fire from the soccer field, but that the air strike was part of an effort to deter possible attacks after an increase in rocket launches from Gaza.

Given the campaign to kick racism out of football it's remarkable that Israel comes under the umbrella of FIFA. And if FIFA is anything like the UN we can expect Israel to carry on business as usual on and off the pitch.

UK inquest jury says James Miller was murdered

A Brtish inquest jury found that the Channel 4 cameraman, James Miller, was murdered in Gaza in 2003. The story focuses on the family's complaints of Israel's official obstructiveness. This is from the BBC.

"The IDF investigations, at field level, have not actually been investigations, but debriefing between soldiers, very often the perpetrators of the crime are reporting on that crime. They are not investigations."

The inquest has heard that Mr Miller approached an armoured personnel carrier, carrying a white flag which he shone a torch on, calling out that he was a British journalist and wearing a helmet marked TV. He was shot in the neck, unprotected by his body armour.

He had been attempting to ask for permission to leave the area.....

Non-existent lobbyists lobby against Iran

The American Jewish Committee took out a full page advetisement in the Financial Times yesterday. It shows a world map with Iran at the centre and concentric rings, the outermost of which passes through the UK. Above the map it says

Can anyone within range of Iran’s missiles feel safe?.

And beneath it says

Suppose Iran one day gives nuclear devices to terrorists
Could anyone anywhere feel safe?.

So soon after the furore caused by Wearsheimer and Walt's article, The Israel Lobby, when so many zionists are denying the existence of an Israel Lobby, here's one lobby group flaunting their presence. And remember they call themselves, not the American Israel Committee, not the American Israel Committee, but the American Jewish Committee. Beyond chutzpah, as someone once said.

Israel remembers the millions

From Ha'aretz, Israel is supporting a lawyer's claim for $4,100,000 for work on holocaust compensation.

Lawyers on behalf of Israel have spoken in a New York court in defense of a U.S. jurist's demand for a fee for handling claims submitted by Holocaust survivors. The lawyers refrained from commenting on the sum being demanded by Prof. Burt Neuborne, who is seeking payment of $4.1 million, at a rate of $700 per hour.

Neuborne has represented Holocaust survivors seeking humanitarian aid, and claims to have put in some 8,000 hours of work on the cases. His demand for $4.1 million, he says, constitutes just 75 percent of the sum owed to him.

Neuborne's demand for payment has sparked much anger among Holocaust survivors in the United States who say that the man had said on several occasions that he was working free of charge. The survivors are also enraged by the fact that Neuborne is demanding payment from a fund serving Holocaust survivors worldwide.

"I find it very disappointing that the State of Israel is choosing to work against Holocaust survivors rather than help them," Leo Rechter, president of NAHOS (National Association of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors), said to Haaretz.

Rechter claims that the fee Neuborne is demanding surpasses the sum received by Holocaust survivors in the United States out of the total amount of money distributed as aid to needy survivors around the world.

The article doesn't actually explain why the State of Israel has a role in this.

Israelis can't watch Machsom Watch

From Ha'aretz: An Israeli mayor has banned an exhibition by the Israeli human rights group, Machsom Watch. So the group took the mayor to the High Court. Of course this being the only democracy in the Middle East and a society ruled by law, the judge upheld the ban.

The High Court of Justice has decided not to interfere with Be'er Sheva Mayor Ya'akov Turner's decision last week to ban a Machsom Watch photo exhibit at the Teacher's Center in the city.

Machsom Watch is a women's group that monitors the behavior of soldiers toward Palestinians at checkpoints. The pictures in question depict interactions at the Qalandiyah and Hawara checkpoints in the West Bank.

Turner announced the ban last Thursday, claiming that the contents of the exhibit are harmful to the sensitivities of the public.

The Israeli public is well known for its sensitivity, sorry, sensitivities. Anyway,

The exhibit's organizers protested what they called, "The mayor's assault on freedom of expression and the use of his authority to prevent political activity that is not compatible with his own world view."

The organizers added that they are appalled by the notion that a mayor in a democratic state can prevent residents from seeing pictures of what goes on in the Palestinian territories.

How can a mayor in a democratic state do that?

UPDATE - I've been asked to point out that the mayor has only banned the exhibition from municipal buildings, not all buildings in the area.

Writing from the Wall

Here's a letter from an Israeli Palestinian (who speaks Hebrew) to her friends in the UK. The little boy in the letter, Rani, is my friend's stepson.

I have no words to explain the situation we are facing starting last night. AlRam, Bir Nabala (where I live), Aldahiya and other neighborhoods are totally blocked. They actually closed the gates in the Wall. Although we knew it was coming, still the reality is overwhelming, and the idea that they have actually done so in the midst of scholastic year is beyond comprehension. There is no exit for us now except to go all the way to Ramallah through driving about 30km in the mountains, and stand in a queue for a long time at Qalandya Terminal (new fancy name for Qalandya checkpoint). This morning I had to send Rani (my 6 years old son) to school by taxi that waited for him on the other side of the checkpoint. He had to actually cross the checkpoint walking, in the rain, by himself. It was a devastating experience for a child waiving good bye to me and feeling so insecure surrounded by soldiers. I watched with tears on my face. The soldiers were looking at him, and I could tell they were embarrased.

This morning, feeling so frustrated being imprisoned for no reason, the sense of humiliation of a collective punishment, the feeling of helplessness, I walked to the checkpoint to just speak to the soldiers. Just to have some dialogue with them. I did not intend to exit, thus I did not try to 'gain' their mercy to let me out. I just needed to talk. Just wanted to understand how they implement a strategy that does not make sense even to them. There are hundreds of children who must go to schools on the other side every single morning. There are workers, families, hospitals etc... communities where more than 80 thousand people live are totally blocked. They all woke up one morning to be told: "I am sorry you cannot exit".

While my heart was crying over the situation of Palestinians, I felt so devastated listening to the frustration of the soldiers. They were so glad someone was there to listen to them in their own language. Not having to find broken words of English and Arabic, and some vocabulary to just explain to people what is going on. Hundreds of people were gathering there to negotiate with them to let them out. Listening to one story after another, for a whole day, must be difficult. Having to actually execute orders which they have received from 'above', (as they told me) from someone who has probably never been here, must be frustrating. The orders of course did not take into consideration that it is not only about punishing the Palestinians for no reason, but it is also about young soldiers who will have to cope with actual human suffering, dilemmas, moral conflicts, when facing children and workers every moment. It is such an absurd situation, the suffering on both sides, for simply POLITICAL power struggles.

One soldier informed me that the whole area will be closed within days...He said; "do you think I enjoy what I am doing??? Do you think I do not have better things to do in life other than executing the orders of Olmert???" , and he added: "You don't get it!!! It is Olmert's policy, from now on, the Palestinians will have to speak to the Wall"... and he continues: "What are you doing here anyway??? Why don't you move to the right side of the Wall?”

The tiny consolation is probably that the soldiers are embarrassed at what they are being made to do; but still that is nothing compared to the humiliation and repression of basic human rights.

What a heartbreaking world we live in where we can't find room for two peoples to live in peace. My heart aches, especially as my Jewish friends are on the eve of celebrating their own ancient story of freedom from slavery, The Pessah Holiday. I am invited this week to so many dinners on tables of my Israeli Jewish friends. I suppose that my joy will have to be postponed this year, knowing that the freedom of one nation is coming at the expense of my own.

On a personal level, we are not sure how to proceed as a family. We do have many practical options, but human life is not only about being practical. Our warm flat, the spirit in the house, the memories where we united with family and friends from different races and nationalities is giving me a sense of loss already. Now I can understand what becoming a refugee is like. Being forced to leave is painful, even if we have solutions. Not to mention the financial aspects. It seems that we will have to look for another place on the 'right side' of the Wall... Where??? I have not answers yet, but we are working on it.

I am sorry I appear so overwhelmed and confused. Please find the time to come visit... You will see actually what the Final Status Solution is all about!

With best wishes

Samar

Solution to what?

ADL denounces Hebrew University's "antisemitism"

Apparently that really happened. According to Columbia University's Mark Mazower in yesterday's Financial Times the allegation flowed from the excessive vigilance of the Anti-Defamation League in monioring for antisemitism.

Vigilance can be carried too far. Having denounced American academics for supposedly making anti-semitic statements, the Anti-Defamation League last year levelled a similar charge at faculty in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. There is something peculiarly Kafkaesque about the idea of an American Jewish watchdog monitoring Israel for anti-semitism, yet once the mechanism and mindset exist, this is where the logic of vigilance leads: anti-semitism may be found anywhere. In fact, the intellectual climate in Israel is tougher-minded than in the US and the authorities at the Hebrew University simply took no notice. But brandishing the big stick of anti-semitism against all and sundry helps no one: it lumps together serious critique with crackpot ravings, does a signal disservice to those who really suffered from it in the past and stifles a badly needed debate within the US. There is no reason why the partnership between the US and Israel should not be susceptible to the same kind of cost-benefit analysis as any other area of policy. After all, no special relationship lasts forever: ask the Brits.

The whole article is on the Mearsheimer and Walt piece in the LRB and the grotesque way in which it has been dealt with in the mainstream. It's welcome change from the deliberate lies we have been treated to in certain "academic" circles.

Incidentally - while getting the link for the ADL I noticed that they have a headline FT Blames Israel, Rationalizes Palestinians. How dare anyone "rationalise" the Palestinians?

New map of Israel but where is Palestine?

I was sent this link to the BBC website where I found this map of the new Israel. It reminded of when I first went to college and I met an Arab. I remember it was Christmas time and I asked the guy where he was from. He said that he was from Palestine. I had never heard of it. I asked him which town he was from and he told me that he was from Jerusalem. I was horrified. I went home and looked at a map of the Middle East hoping to find Palestine near Israel. I couldn't find it. And looking at the map on the left, I still can't find it.

Anyway, here's what the Beeb has to say:

Kadima was founded on the premise that Israel's long-term survival depends on safeguarding its Jewish majority and preventing Palestinian Arabs becoming the majority at any time in the future.

Demography was the motivation for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's withdrawal of troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip last year and Kadima's election pledge to make future "territorial compromises" in the West Bank.

Demography? Now there's a word to cover a multitude of sins, but only Israel's sins. It used to mean the study of the characteristics of human populations, such as size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics. Now it's a coded expression for colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing and racist laws.

Jewish abolitionist

Here's a story of a guy I'd never heard of before. We've all heard of John Brown. Well August Bondi isn't so well known. He was a Hungarian Jew who went to live and fight for freedom in Kansas. This story is from the Wichita Eagle, online as Kansas Online:

"The Ballad of August Bondi" is about a Jewish freedom fighter who became an abolitionist and then fought alongside John Brown during Kansas' territorial years.

The song was commissioned by the magazine Jewish Life and the Jewish Young Folksingers in 1954 to commemorate 300 years of Jewish life in America. Bondi is a folk hero -- but he was a real man, too.

Bondi came to Kansas in 1855 and soon became involved in the border fighting between Kansas and Missouri. At that time, partisans were fighting each other over whether the state would enter the Union as a free or a slave state.

Bondi would write of his experiences as an anti-slavery Free Stater fighting with Brown:

"We were united as a band of brothers by the love and affection toward the man who, with tender words and wise counsel... prepared a handful of young men for the work of laying the foundation of a free Commonwealth.... He expressed himself to us that we should never allow ourselves to be tempted by any consideration, to acknowledge laws and institutions to exist as of right, if our conscience and reason condemn them."

Bondi was born July 21, 1833, in Vienna, Austria. He received his education in the Academic Gymnasium of Vienna, which was run by Catholic monks. When he was 15, he joined the Academic Student Legion, a Hungarian revolutionary group that worked to free Hungary from Austrian control. The revolt failed and Bondi was expelled from his school. Some of the students were imprisoned. Bondi and his family fled for the United States.

His family settled in St. Louis. Bondi worked on a Mississippi freighter that traveled the river and into the Gulf of Mexico. When the boat stopped in Galveston, he would write in May of 1850:

"The screams of slaves, who were whipped with leather straps every morning, woke me up before dawn at four in the morning."

According to an article on Bondi from the March 2004 issue of Jewish Currents, Bondi read an editorial in the New York Tribune encouraging Americans to go to Kansas to help save it from becoming a slave state.

Bondi responded.

It was May 1855 when he came to Kansas and homesteaded in Franklin County. When Missouri ruffians burned his cabin and stole livestock, Bondi joined the "Kansas Regulars." He was with Brown on several raids along the Missouri-Kansas line.

In 1857, Bondi helped start the town of Greeley in Anderson County and ran a stop on the Underground Railroad.

When the Civil War began in 1861, Bondi joined Company K of the Fifth Kansas Cavalry. For the next three years, he fought in several battles before becoming seriously wounded. He was taken prisoner and left for dead near Pine Bluff, Ark. He recovered and was discharged from the Union Army on Nov. 10, 1864.

For two years after that, Bondi ran a grocery store in Leavenworth. He then moved to Salina, where he operated several stores and was postmaster. He became a lawyer when he was 63 years old.

Bondi died in 1907, at age 74.

In his autobiography, Bondi wrote:

"Even as a child, I decided to dedicate my life to the ideals of progress and freedom. I never deviated from this decision during the course of my long life.... I have remained faithful to the principles that I swore to uphold during the stormy days of the 1848 revolution."

A more in-depth treatment is here and Lenni Brenner gives it some here.

Times misrepresents the Israel Lobby article

Here's The Times report on Harvard withholding its imprimatur from the Israel Lobby article. Under the headline Exposé on Jewish role in US policy is disowned. Here's a piece:

HARVARD UNIVERSITY is distancing itself from a report by one of its senior academics that accuses the Jewish lobby in America of subverting US foreign policy in Israel’s interest.

After a furious outcry from prominent American Jews, Harvard has removed its logo from the study and disowned any responsibility for the views put forward in the working paper, released two weeks ago.

Yesterday it confirmed that Stephen Walt, the co-author of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, will be stepping down in June as academic dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government to become an ordinary professor.

Professor Walt and John Mearsheimer, of the University of Chicago, caused a storm of protest when they published their report, which argued that America’s interests were being manipulated by the pro-Israel lobby, using a network of politicians, journalists and academics. It said that the Jewish lobby was a key factor behind President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and cautioned that the US could be drawn into conflicts against Israel’s other enemies in the region.

No one disputes that the Jewish lobby is an influential force in US politics and that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) is one of the most powerful organisations in Washington. Aipac is described in the report as “a de facto agent of a foreign government (that) has a stranglehold on the US Congress”. It also challenges the need for America to give Israel $3 billon (£1.73 billion) in aid every year, worth about $500 for every Israeli citizen. It argues that Israel’s critics are routinely branded anti-Semites.

"No one disputes that the Jewish lobby is an influential force in US politics?" Huh? Actually Mearsheimer and Walt dispute that it is a Jewish lobby. The basic thesis of Mearsheimer and Walt is that lobby activism for Israel is tilting US support for Israel beyond what could be described as America's national interest and that further, the same lobby activism is stifling debate on the subject. Now, to show that it doesn't exist, the lobby has pressured Harvard to withdraw its support for the article and has got the Times misrepresenting the same article. The article has also prompted the "anti-occupation" "non-zionists" at Engage, abandoning any pretence of seriousness or honesty with the "academics" they are choosing to run with lately.

The Times is part of the same Murdoch stable as Fox News, with, no doubt, the same principles of balance and accuracy.

FT comments on MW

Hey look at this. The Financial Times has run an editorial comment on the Mearsheimer and Walt article that appeared in the London Review of Books. Here's the whole thing:

Freedom of academic debate, political polemic, populist prejudice, outlandish exaggeration and even mildly slanderous innuendo about anything from Britney Spears to the president is axiomatic in the United States of America, is it not? Well, perhaps not altogether.

Reflexes that ordinarily spring automatically to the defence of open debate and free enquiry shut down - at least among much of America's political elite - once the subject turns to Israel, and above all the pro-Israel lobby's role in shaping US foreign policy.

Even though policy towards the Middle East is arguably the single biggest determinant of America's reputation in the world, any attempt to rethink this from first principles is politically risky.

Examining the specific role of organisations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, commonly considered to be the most effective lobby group in the US apart from the National Rifle Association, is something to be undertaken with caution.

Doctrinal orthodoxy was flouted last month in a paper on the Israel lobby by two of America's leading political scientists, Stephen Walt from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago. They argue powerfully that extraordinarily effective lobbying in Washington has led to a political consensus that American and Israeli interests are inseparable and identical.

Only a UK publication, the London Review of Books, was prepared to carry their critique, in the same way that it was Prospect, a British monthly journal, that four years ago published a path-breaking study of the Israel lobby by the American analyst, Michael Lind.

Moral blackmail - the fear that any criticism of Israeli policy and US support for it will lead to charges of anti-Semitism - is a powerful disincentive to publish dissenting views. It is also leading to the silencing of policy debate on American university campuses, partly as the result of targeted campaigns against the dissenters.

Judgment of the precise value of the Walt-Mearscheimer paper has been swept aside by a wave of condemnation. Their scholarship has been derided and their motives impugned, while Harvard has energetically disassociated itself from their views. Mr Walt's position as academic dean of the Kennedy School is in doubt.

On various counts, this is a shame and a self-inflicted wound no society built on freedom should allow.

Honest and informed debate is the foundation of freedom and progress and a precondition of sound policy. It is, to say the least, odd when dissent in such a central area of policy is forced offshore or reduced to the status of samizdat. Some of Israel's loudest cheerleaders, moreover, are often divorced by their extremism from the mainstream of American Jewish opinion and the vigorous debate that takes place inside Israel. As Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, remarked in Haaretz about the Walt-Mearsheimer controversy: "It would in fact serve Israel if the open and critical debate that takes place over here were exported over there [the US]."

Nothing, moreover, is more damaging to US interests than the inability to have a proper debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how Washington should use its influence to resolve it, and how best America can advance freedom and stability in the region as a whole. Bullying Americans into a consensus on Israeli policy is bad for Israel and makes it impossible for America to articulate its own national interest.

It's funny the way these "critics" of Israel have to say they are thinking mostly of Israel. Why can't they think outside the box and consider the rights of the Palestinians and then consider what's left of Israel?

Remembering the holocaust?

Well bits of it anyway. Auschwitz escapee, Dr Rudolph Vrba died last week aged 82. See this from the Canadian Globe and Mail:

When Rudolph Vrba fled Auschwitz in the spring of 1944, he made what may have been the most monumental escape of all time, slipping past Nazi guards and attack dogs that were trained to rip prisoners to pieces.

Although his life ended quietly this week in Vancouver, where he succumbed to cancer at age 82, his escape shook the world 62 years ago because of the secret he and a fellow prisoner revealed.

They told the world about Auschwitz.

Dr. Vrba's feat was remarkable not merely because of what he did -- managing, with prisoner Alfred Wetzler, to confound a Nazi security system that killed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Jewish prisoners -- but because of why he did it.

He did not flee to save his own life. He made the suicidal escape bid, which succeeded against all odds, to warn Hungarian Jews that they were about to be rounded up by the SS and sent to the gas chambers.

He and Mr. Wetzler, who died in Slovakia in 1988, brought the first eyewitness accounts of Auschwitz-Birkenau, writing a shocking and detailed report about what was taking place in the death camp.

Although their warning, which became known as the Auschwitz Protocols, was delayed in its release until after mass transports of Hungarian Jews had started, Dr. Vrba and Mr. Wetzler are widely credited with sounding an alarm that saved 100,000 lives.

Google the name Rudolph Vrba and less than a thousand sites appear. Now try Elie Wiesel. Over two million. After the holocaust, Elie Wiesel joined the Irgun. You see Vrba sought to alert Hungarian Jews to the holocaust but the zionists had other ideas.

When Rudolf Vrba escaped from Auschwitz in April 1944, he did so not only to save his and co-escapee Alfred Wetzler's life, but also to warn the more than half of a million Hungarian Jews of their impending fate.

As Nazi Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, the SS staff at Auschwitz began making intensive preparations for the arrival of Hungarian Jews. Knowing perfectly well that it was the secrecy surrounding their actions that allowed the Nazis to herd unsuspecting Jews and transport them like sheep to slaughter, Vrba and Wetzler - as soon as they got in touch with Jewish community representatives in their native Slovakia - compiled a detailed report. They wrote about Auschwitz and what awaited Hungarian Jews once they arrived: immediate death by gassing.

This was the first reliable eyewitness account, and it was delivered with haste to the Vatican, as well as to the US and British authorities and the International Red Cross. On Vrba and Wetzler's insistence, it was also delivered to the Hungarian Jewish leadership. The idea, as Vrba would later explain, was that once informed about the Nazis' plan, Hungarian Jews would resist. If each and every one of them cast a stone, there would be a hail of stones, Vrba said.

Unfortunately, this never happened. Just as they were reading the Auschwitz Protocol - as the Vrba-Wetzler report would become known - the Hungarian Jewish leaders were involved in delicate negotiations with Mr. Final Solution himself - Adolf Eichmann.

On the surface, they were trying to get a deal that would allow them, their families and their friends to leave Hungary unscathed, with most of their worldly possessions, and in exchange the Nazis would get trucks and other such non-lethal material from the Allies.

Some of the Hungarian Jewish leaders would later acknowledge that the talks were described by both sides as "blood for trucks." This in itself indicates that Eichmann knew he was letting Hungary's Jewish leaders leave in exchange for their silence.

As Eichmann himself would say later, he tried to avoid irritants that would delay the Final Solution.

In any case, the result was that about 1,700 Hungarian Jewish leaders, with their families and friends, ended up in Switzerland, while almost half a million unsuspecting Hungarian Jews ended up dead in Auschwitz.

This story has been widely documented throughout Europe and North America. But it was completely unknown to the Hebrew-speaking citizens of Israel until the end of the last millennium.

Widely documented maybe, but widely publicised? Not just yet.

Even now Rudolph Kasztner has his defenders.

Also post to Lenin's Tomb