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DuBow Digest - Newsletter on American Jewish - German Relations

GERMANY EDITION

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

Dear Friends:

Much has happened since my last newsletter and I’ve tried to touch on the major
events below. Most important, however, is that we are launched into the Jewish New
Year (5770) so I can wish you

IN THIS EDITION

THE ELECTION It’s over! What sort of impact did it make in the U.S.?

*TRIPLE HEADER Obama, Netanyahu, Abbas. And the peace process. Did anything really
happen? Yawn!

* THE GOLDSTONE REPORT Human rights violations in Gaza. Look who wrote the
report.

* NEW UNESCO CHIEF A surprise winner without a taint of anti-Semitism.

* JEWS IN JAIL Not in Europe. Not in the Near East. They’re right here in the
good old U.S.A.

* “...AND DON’T BRING THE KIDS” Who wouldn’t want the kids over for dinner? And,
why?

* AHMADINEJAD The poor Iranians! They’re stuck with this character – and he
wasn’t even fairly elected.

* A POSITIVE POLL Germany gets high grades in a poll of Israelis.

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THE ELECTION

I was in the minority! I was interested in the outcome of the German election.
However, if I had to venture a guess, as the news started coming in at about noon
Sunday New York time, I would say that 99.9% of Americans were much more concerned
with the great domestic health care debate and the American involvement in
Afghanistan. More important – they were waiting for the third week of the National
Football League (American football, not soccer) games to start on TV.

The Jewish community, in all probability, was even less concerned about Merkel and
Steinmeier as they were getting ready for the Yom Kippur holy day which started at
sundown (All Jewish holidays start at sundown and end the following sundown).

Again a guess – most Americans reading about the elections on Monday will look at
the German elections the way they see their own – namely, a winner and a loser.
The intricacies of parliamentary coalitions are something quite foreign (no pun
intended) so Chancellor Merkel is seen as the big winner (which she was) but
almost nothing has been mentioned about Guido Westerwelle who will become the
Foreign Minister and the success the FDP had in moving up to about 15% of the vote
and what will happen to the SPD now in the opposition.
Once the news gets written about and analyzed, the Jewish community will begin to
question where F.M. Westerwelle stands on Middle East issues. If he has positions
they are not well known. Of course, such FDP stalwarts as Graf Otto Lambsdorf are
considered solid friends of Israel but the FDP is now Westerwelle’s party. And,
how will FDP policies differ from those of the CDU/CSU? Time will tell the story.
American Jewish interest will grow as Israel’s most important friend in Europe
begins to put its new government in place.

In the meantime, congratulations to Chancellor Merkel, the CDU/CSU, Guido


Westerwelle and the FDP.

TRIPLE HEADER

Obama, Netanyahu & Abbas! What a team! They might even be able to beat the
Yankees. However, they couldn’t make much progress at their UN meeting on Sept.
22. Of course, nothing much was expected and there was not even a lot of
expectation expressed by American Jews or their organizations. I think everyone is
pretty realistic about what is possible in the way of peace agreements, namely,
not much at the present time.

As I said in an earlier newsletter, you have to give Pres. Obama a lot of credit
for going through with the meeting even though he knew nothing would emerge from
it. The kind of pressure he put on the Israelis regarding a settlement freeze
certainly didn’t do his popularity with the American Jewish community any good
and, perhaps, he thought that “settlements” would be the issue, with which he
could get some movement and push the peace process ahead. It wasn’t – and I think
most observers understand that what the Israelis are doing is building on land
that everyone fully expects them to keep in a peace deal. So, in many ways it was
an attempt by our President that was a “non-starter” right from the beginning. If
Netanyahu had agreed, he would have been without a coalition practically overnight
and he would have been out of a job. Abbas can only talk for half of his people.

Pres. Bush waited 6 or 7 years into his two terms to even address the Middle East
peace issue and here we have Obama taking it up seriously in his first six months.
He is sending former Senator Mitchell (his negotiator) back to the area to
continue the push to get peace talks started and has asked Secy. of State Clinton
to give him a report on progress by October. I doubt if there will be any.

I continue to believe that with the Palestinians so divided into two camps that
any sort of peace process is really impossible – at least at the moment. And who
knows if they are really serious about accepting a Jewish State as a neighbor? I
have my doubts about their ultimate willingness. Maybe Mitchell should work on a
peace process for the two Palestinian camps before taking on the Israeli –
Palestinian situation and get a fix on how ready they truly are for “a permanent
status agreement”. Seriously though, it now appears that Pres. Obama is giving up
on the settlements issue (wise) and will be pushing for a comprehensive peace
without un-doable preconditions. Will it work? I’m not terribly hopeful.
Of course, I don’t speak for all American Jews. However, I think most want Israel
to be at peace but the recent givebacks of territory in Southern Lebanon and Gaza
have only brought about Arab violence. So, there is very little hope that any sort
of a deal can be achieved anytime soon. Until the Palestinians are wiling to
accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish State there will be no peace. If that
could be achieved the whole settlements situation could be unstuck and move ahead.
So we have status quo – and that might not be such a bad thing for this day and
age. I’m not pessimistic – but others are. Read the Reuters story by clicking
here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090924/ts_nm/us_palestinians_israel_mood
And in conclusion, according to the JTA, Abbas announced after the UN meeting, “…
the Palestinians cannot renew peace talks with Israel because the two sides have
‘no common ground.’"

So for the time being don’t hold your breath waiting for peace to break out.

THE GOLDSTONE REPORT

This is a painful story.

Judge Richard Goldstone is an internationally respected Jewish South African judge


who is credited with helping bring down apartheid in his native country. He also
has served as chief UN prosecutor of war crimes in Rwanda and the former
Yugoslavia. Goldstone is proud of his Jewish identity and links it firmly to his
human rights concerns. A president emeritus of World ORT, a Jewish organization
that runs several vocational schools in Israel, he also serves on the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem's board of governors.

Earlier this year he accepted the position as chief United Nations investigator of
alleged war crimes in Gaza last winter. On September 15, 2009, the UN
investigating commission known as the Goldstone Commission published its
conclusions regarding Israel's Gaza operation (December 27, 2008-January 18,
2009), accusing Israel of violating both international humanitarian law and the
Geneva Conventions, and committing war crimes.
In response, the Israel Foreign Ministry issued an official statement accusing the
commission of bias and one-sidedness, and of ignoring the thousands of Hamas
rocket attacks on Israeli civilians which, Israel claimed, made the military
operation an absolute necessity. "The one-sided mandate of the Gaza Fact-Finding
Mission, and the resolution that established it, gave serious reasons for
concern.... At the same time the report all but ignores the deliberate strategy of
Hamas of operating within and behind the civilian population and turning densely
populated areas into an arena of battle," said the ministry. (Jerusalem Post).

The fact that the report was issued under the auspices of the UN’s Human Rights
Council, the most anti-Israel division of the UN, in spite of the Goldstone’s
credentials, cast doubt on its objectivity and how it will be used in the future.
If you have any doubt about the Human Rights Council read David Harris’ piece in
the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-harris/the-goldstone-
report-thre_b_291480.html

The entire matter is sad. Here we have a UN division that seems aimed solely at
attacking Israel. As David points out, “Israel has had the dubious distinction of
being deemed so radioactive as to be in need of a separate agenda item in Council
deliberations. All other 191 UN member states, saints and sinners alike, are
grouped together elsewhere. That doesn't allow much room to consider serial human
rights abusers from Cuba to Iran to Zimbabwe.”

So, when they decide to prove Israel violated human rights in Gaza, they recruit,
what else, a highly respected Jewish jurist. To make the matter worse he convinces
himself that he can further the cause of humanity and human rights by aligning
himself with the Human Rights Council and authors a one-sided report that almost
every fellow Jew sees as terribly biased and anti-Israel.
What made him do it? Ego? Naiveté? A warped sense that the Middle East and the
world would be better off with his report? Who knows? What I think we do know is
that the winners in this episode are the Israel bashers in the Human Rights
Council that now have a report in their hands signed by a noted Jewish judge that
they can use to further their desire to de-legitimatize Israel.
NEW UNESCO CHIEF

DW_WORLD reported last week, “Irina Bokova was elected director general of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on
Tuesday. She eliminated her main rival, Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosny,
after five rounds of voting by the Paris-based agency's executive council.
Bokova, a former communist turned Europhile, has represented Bulgaria on UNESCO's
board since 2007 and is also her country's ambassador to France and Monaco.
The process of finding a successor for incumbent director general Koichira
Matsuura has been plagued by controversy from the start, primarily due to Hosny's
nomination.
The 71-year-old Hosny, who had hoped to become the first Arab to head the UN
agency, has been accused of anti-Semitism because he has publicly derided Israeli
culture. Last year, he said he would personally burn any Israeli book found in the
library of Alexandria.
He has since apologized for his statements, but has not been able to satisfy his
detractors.
The latest public personality to come out against Hosny's candidacy was former
French minister and Auschwitz survivor Simone Weil, who was quoted in Tuesday's
edition of the daily ‘Liberation' as saying that Hosny's statements "‘raise many
questions for me.’"

I don’t know Farouk Hosny and, perhaps his apologies were sincere. However, anyone
who supports the burning of books wouldn’t get my vote – and I don’t think many of
my German friends would vote for him either. While there are very few Jews left in
Egypt (read your Goethe) to burn, I wouldn’t want to take the chance with Mr.
Hosny. Jews (especially Israeli Jews) have enough trouble with the UN as is. We
certainly don’t need a questionable chief at UNESCO.

Good luck to MS. Bokova – and, besides, it was time to get a woman into that job
anyway.

JEWS IN JAIL

I would not want to be accused of not showing you all the facets of Jewish life in
the U.S. I try to be evenhanded and present the bad with the good. Recently, with
the Jewish holidays coming up, JTA ran an article on Jews in prison. While it is
not something we in the community take pride in, there are thousands of our co-
religionists “doing time” – many with long sentences for the most serious kinds of
crimes.

In the New York State prison system there are enough Jews, according to the story,
that at Green Haven Prison they are able to have a kosher kitchen and religious
services.

In the United States, as everywhere, crime is part of national life. And Jews,
being Americans like everyone else here, have their criminals. It’s American as
apple pie – or, in this case, as matzoh balls.

Read the story to see how a hidden part of our people get by -- behind bars.
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/09/14/1007849/even-behind-bars-jewish-life-
flourishes

“...AND DON’T BRING THE KIDS”

Most of us like to have the kids (and grandkids) over for dinner. If you’re Jewish
and have Shabbat (Sabbath) dinner it’s even more of a pleasure. However, if you
were Rachel Krishevsky, a 99 year-old woman who lived in Jerusalem and recently
passed away, she might have said, “ …and don’t bring the kids.” Why? Well, Ms.
Krishevsky had 11 children and 150 grandchildren. When you count up the children,
grandchildren, the great-grand children and the great-great’s the total came to
1400. That’s a lot of gefilte fish and tzimmis. She probably died in her kitchen
working over a hot stove.

AHMADINEJAD

JTA reported, “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasted Israel and the United
States and said a ‘small minority’ cannot be allowed to ‘dominate’ the world” in a
speech to the U.N. General Assembly.
“Referring to Israel only as the ‘Zionist regime,’ Ahmadinejad said that ‘inhuman
policies in Palestine’ had forced ‘the entire population of a country out of their
homeland for more than 60 years,’ while ‘much to the chagrin of the international
community, calling the occupiers as the peace lovers, and portraying the victims
as terrorists.’
“He also charged that Israel had committed ‘genocide’ and that the international
community ‘is impatiently waiting for the punishment of the aggressors and the
murderers of the defenseless people of Gaza.’
“He added, in an apparent reference to Jews, ‘It is no longer acceptable that a
small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of
the world by its complicated networks, and establish a new form of slavery, and
harm the reputation of other nations, even European nations and the U.S., to
attain its racist ambitions.’”

Since The Unshaven One came on the scene I think we all have gotten used to his
rantings and ravings about Israel. However, in his latest UN speech he really went
over the top and branched into disgusting gutter style anti-Semitism. He didn’t
have much credibility before but his latest diatribe “put the icing on the cake”
and destroyed whatever was left. There is no doubt that even his own countrymen
have caught on and he had to steal the last election in order to stay in office. I
pity the poor Iranians. They have to put up with this clown and, unhappily for
them I am sure, he is the public face of their country.
I was delighted that the German Foreign Office, before the speech, announced that
if he was going to attack Israel and spew anti-Semitism they would walk out.
Indeed they did, as did many others including the U.S. and Canada. The newspapers
reported that TUO spoke to a very sparse crowd. I hope that gets reported in the
Iranian press (It won’t).

By the way, it came out last week that the Iranians have a second nuclear plant.
They only revealed it in a letter to the IAEA because the French and Americans,
who knew about it due to good intelligence work, were about to reveal it publicly
themselves. How come the TUO didn’t mention it in his speech? His frankness rating
is dropping as fast as the number of delegates who were willing to listen to him
during his UN speech.

A POSITIVE POLL

Let me end this edition on a positive note. The Jerusalem Post reported “Seventy
years after the outbreak of World War II, an unprecedented public opinion poll
reveals a surprising picture of Germany as perceived by Israelis: Roughly two-
thirds of Jews in Israel expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the level of
accountability accepted by Germany for its role in the Holocaust, and Germany's
relationship to Israelis today.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804537176&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticl
e%2FShowFull
Since I became involved in German-Jewish relations I have felt that the Israelis
have a much clearer and better informed picture of today’s Germany than we do here
in the American Jewish community. Maybe it’s the geographical proximity or the
fact that State-to-State relations insure closer connections than do State to
community ones. However, instant communication, the Internet, increased travel and
the development of a substantial Jewish community in Germany are helping to bridge
the gap. I hope DuBow Digest helps, at least, a little.

See you October.

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DuBow Digest is written and published by Eugene DuBow who can be contacted at
edubow@optonline.net Both the American and Germany editions are also posted on
line at www.dubowdigest.typed.com as well.

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