Do Europy jeszcze nic nie dotarło

Ben-Dror Yemini
Tłumaczenie: Małgorzata Koraszewska

Stan najwyższego pogotowia w centrum Brukseli. Terror nie otwiera
oczu elit, ale zamiast tego popycha je coraz  bardziej ku
samooszukiwaniu się (Zdjęcie: Reuters)

Lata oskarżania Izraela o traktowanie Palestyńczyków tak jak naziści traktowali Żydów, lata całkowitego zamykania oczu na odrzucanie przez Palestyńczyków wszystkich propozycji pokojowych, doprowadziły do ułomności intelektualnej elit europejskich ogólnie, a niemieckich w szczególności.

W zeszłym tygodniu Europa była rozgorączkowana po zamachach terrorystycznych w Paryżu i informacji od wywiadu, że członkowie Państwa Islamskiego planują przeprowadzenie dalszych zamachówprzeciwko Francji, Niemcom, Belgii i Szwecji.

Ale ta sama Europa, która jest w kompletnym chaosie, zajęta jest realizacją posunięć przygotowanych przez antyizraelską kampanię bojkotu, która zamieniła się w skrzydło propagandowe Hamasu. A mówimy o tym samym Hamasie, który nawołuje do okupowania Rzymu, dokładnie tak samo jak przywódca Państwa Islamskiego.

Ale Europa odmawia słuchania. Tygodnik niemiecki „Der Spiegel” nigdy nie poinformował, że dr Junis Al-Astal, jeden z pasterzy duchowych Hamasu i członek parlamentu z ramienia tego ruchu, wezwał do „okupowania Rzymu i obu Ameryk”. Tygodnik ten nie poinformował też, że stacja telewizyjna Hamasu wzywa do zabicia nie tylko Żydów, ale także „chrześcijan, do ostatniego z nich”.

Ten oświecony tygodnik nigdy nie zwrócił się do rządu niemieckiego lub do Unii Europejskiej z pytaniem, dlaczego nadal finansują Autonomię Palestyńską, chociaż Autonomia Palestyńska finansuje terrorystów, którzy mordują Żydów. A mówimy tutaj o terrorystach, którzy – gdyby tylko mogli – przeprowadziliby także zamach na redakcję tego tygodnika. Ten szacowny tygodnik troszczy się jednak tylko o inicjatywę popleczników terrorystów, którzy propagują bojkot Izraela.

Jeśli ktokolwiek myślał, że do Europy „coś dotarło”, niech się lepiej pozbędzie złudzeń. Terror nie powoduje otrzeźwienia tych, którzy są w szponach nałogu iluzji. Lata powtarzania: “jeśli tylko będziemy dla nich mili, wszystko będzie w porządku”, lata fałszywego oskarżania Żydów – innymi słowy, Izraela – o traktowanie Palestyńczyków tak jak naziści traktowali Żydów, lata całkowitego zamykania oczu na odrzucanie przez Palestyńczyków wszystkich propozycji pokojowych, lata prania własnych mózgów, doprowadziły do ułomności intelektualnej elit europejskich ogólnie, a niemieckich w szczególności.

Powinniśmy mieć nadzieję i modlić się, by Europie udało się rozprawić z terrorem lepiej niż z konfliktem izraelsko-palestyńskim. Powinniśmy mieć nadzieję, że terror nie uderzy w Europę raz jeszcze. Terror nie otwiera oczu elit, ale zamiast tego popycha je coraz bardziej ku samooszukiwaniu się.

Problemem nie jest zamęt stworzony przez edykt oznakowywania produktów*. Problem jest znacznie gorszy, ponieważ to, co dzieje się w Europie, dzieje się także z niektórymi elitami w Stanach Zjednoczonych. A nie powinniśmy lekceważyć ułomności intelektualnej, bo wpływa to na opinię publiczną, a później także na elity polityczne. Nie umniejszajmy tego.

*Unia Europejska właśnie postanowiła, że produkty Żydów z terenów spornych mają mieć specjalne nalepki. Produkty Arabów z tych terenów takich nalepek mieć nie muszą [przyp. tłum.]

Ben-Dror Jemini

(ur. 1954 w Tel Awiwie) jest prawnikiem, historykiem i publicystą wielu izraelskich dzienników (m.in. Maariw, Jediot Achronot), a także wykładowcą, który zajmuje się m.in. wpływem antyizraelskiej propagandy.

Pochodzi z rodziny Żydów wypędzonych z Jemenu.

Ben-Dror Yemini jest zwolennikiem pogłębiania dialogu z Palestyńczykami. Od wielu lat opowiada się za niepodległym państwem palestyńskim.

PLO terrorists castrated Israeli hostage in 1972 Munich Olympic attack

JTA

Other athletes were beaten, had bones broken
Widows of victims say weightlifter Yossef Romano was shot, dismembered and left to die in front of other hostages
The 11 Israeli Munich Olympics victims. Yossef Romano (third from left, top row) was castrated, his wife revealed to The New York Times.

Family members of the victims of the massacre of 11 Israeli Olympians during the 1972 Games in Munich only learned the horrifying details of how they were treated 20 years later, including physical abuse and a castration, according to a Tuesday report.

The Israelis — athletes and coaches — were beaten during the 20 hours that they were held by members of the Palestinian terror group Black September, The New York Times reported.

Ilana Romano and Ankie Spitzer, widows of two of the Olympians, discussed the details of the cruelty of the treatment in interviews with the Times that were published Tuesday.

They first viewed photos taken during the hostage siege in September 1992, at the home of their lawyer. At the time, they said, they agreed never to discuss them publicly.
Yossef (Joseph) Romano (Wikipedia)

Prior to that viewing, German authorities had denied the existence of photos and hundreds of pages of reports on the attack and the failed rescue attempt.

The women say they are coming forward with the information now in order to gain public and official acknowledgement for their murdered husbands and all the members of the team.

According to the German documents and photos, weightlifter Yossef Romano was shot trying to overpower the terrorists early in the attack. He was then left to die in front of the other hostages and castrated, the Times reported. It is not known if he was castrated before or after he died.

Other hostages were beaten and sustained serious injuries, including broken bones, Spitzer told the newspaper.

A member of the terrorist group Black September, which seized members of the Israeli Olympic team at their quarters during the 1972 Munich Olympics (photo credit: AP/Kurt Strumpf)

Her husband, fencing coach Andre Spitzer, and another hostage died during the siege in the Olympic Village; the rest were killed during a rescue attempt at the airport.

After decades of failed attempts to have the murdered Israeli athletes recognized during the games, the new International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, has agreed to a moment of remembrance during the 2016 Olympics in Rio for all athletes who have died at the Olympics.

Ilana Romano, the widow of slain Olympian Yossef Romano in the 1972 Munich massacre (YouTube screenshot)

Spitzer and Romano are lobbying to have the Munich athletes remembered separately, since their deaths were as a result of a terror attack.

The IOC reportedly has also agreed to help finance a permanent memorial to the murdered athletes in Munich.

The Swedish Tiger Roars as Synagogues Close

Eric Fusfield

The Great Synagogue of Stockholm. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

It was a familiar slogan throughout war-time Sweden: en Svensk tiger, which can be translated as “a Swedish tiger” — or, more to the point: “a Swede keeps secrets.”

The so-called Swedish Vigilance Campaign made this expression the focus of its effort to prevent Swedes from spilling secrets that could harm its national defense during World War II.

But the World War II silence campaign is best understood in the context of Sweden’s complicated relationship with Nazi Germany. Despite its neutrality, Sweden sold iron ore to Germany and allowed Hitler’s regime to use its railways when Germany invaded Norway. In 1943 the Swedish government instructed its central bank to ignore evidence that the Germans were paying Sweden with looted gold. Swedish silence, it seems, applied to more than just national security secrets.

Whether Sweden’s actions during the war were a product of weakness or indifference to German aggression — or both — the country’s history makes its role today as self-appointed moral arbiter in the Middle East all the more puzzling. The Swedish tiger has awakened, but is using its voice to lash out at the Jewish state.

In 2012 a group of Swedish politicians with extreme anti-Israel views formed an organization called the Jerusalem Committee. Its supporters include current Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist.

In 2014 Sweden recognized a Palestinian state, saying that the criteria for statehood had been fulfilled, even though the Palestinians had not negotiated an agreement with Israel.

Swedish Housing Minister Mehmet Kaplan participated in an anti-Israel flotilla from Turkey to Gaza in 2010. This past summer, a similar fleet left Sweden before being intercepted by the Israeli navy en route to Gaza.

Following the ISIS attacks in Paris, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom bizarrely responded by linking the atrocities to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “Here again, you come back to situations like that in the Middle East where not least the Palestinians see that there isn’t any future (for them),” she said. “(The Palestinians) either have to accept a desperate situation or resort to violence.”

Such actions follow a longstanding tradition of anti-Israel bias in Sweden, whose government has yet to condemn the ongoing terrorist onslaught against Israeli civilians, even as it rationalizes the attacks in Paris by citing the situation of the Palestinians. Unfortunately for Sweden’s beleaguered 20,000-member Jewish community, the government’s anti-Israel rhetoric is feeding a climate that has severely compromised Jewish security.

On November 19, synagogues in Sweden temporarily shut down in response to the Paris attacks, as Jewish institutions in that country were seen as highly vulnerable targets. Sweden has seen a pronounced increase in antisemitism over the past decade, caused largely by a highly radicalized Arab and Muslim community, a neo-Nazi political party called the Sweden Democrats, and a steady drumbeat of anti-Israel criticism in the media. A 2013 European Union survey indicated that one third of Swedish Jews had experienced antisemitic harassment in the previous five years.

This is a form of linkage that Swedish politicians should better understand: the demonization of Israel and the double standard consistently applied to the Jewish state have consequences for the security of Jewish communities around the world, with Sweden as a notable example.

And as they contemplate that very real contemporary dynamic, Swedish officials should further consider: How does a country that remained neutral during World War II, cooperated with the Nazi regime, and allows antisemitism to thrive, still feel it has the moral authority to lecture the Jewish State on how to defend itself?

Eric Fusfield, Esq. has been B’nai B’rith International’s director of legislative affairs since 2003 and deputy director of the B’nai B’rith International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy since 2007. He holds a B.A. from Columbia University in history; an M.St. in modern Jewish studies from Oxford University; and a J.D./M.A. from American University in law and international affairs.