Institute for Historical Review

Israel's War Deadline: Iran In the Crosshairs

James Petras

Never has an imminent war been so loudly and publicly advertised as Israel's forthcoming military attack against Iran. When the Israeli Military Chief of Staff, Daniel Halutz, was asked how far Israel was ready to go to stop Iran's nuclear energy program, he said "Two thousand kilometers" the distance of an air assault. More specifically Israeli military sources reveal that Israel's current and probably next Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered Israel's armed forces to prepare for air strikes on uranium enrichment sites in Iran. According to the London Times the order to prepare for attack went through the Israeli defense ministry to the Chief of Staff. During the first week in December, "sources inside the special forces command confirmed that 'G' readiness the highest state for an operation was announced" (Times, December 11, 2005). On December 9, Israeli Minister of Defense, Shaul Mofaz, affirmed that in view of Teheran's nuclear plans, Tel Aviv should "not count on diplomatic negotiations but prepare other solutions".

Time To Talk To Tehran

Patrick J. Buchanan

Does President Bush intend a preventive war, early this year, to effect the nuclear castration of Iran? Or are we rattling sabers? What makes the question urgent are German reports that CIA Director Porter Goss has been in Ankara, Turkey, negotiating for U.S. use of bases for air strikes on Iran's nuclear sites. Over the weekend, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said time is running out on diplomacy to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat. The Israelis are warning that if diplomacy fails, and we do not haul Tehran before the Security Council for sanctions, Israel will denuclearize Iran herself. The end of March is said to be the deadline for when Israel decides whether the West is serious. Turning up the heat, the Israeli lobby AIPAC has begun to rap President Bush – for wimpishness on Iran. Prediction: If Bush does not confront or attack Tehran, Israel and its Amen Corner will begin to give him the same treatment they gave his father.

Telling It Like It Isn't

Robert Fisk

I first realized the enormous pressures on American journalists in the Middle East when I went some years ago to say goodbye to a colleague from the Boston Globe. I expressed my sorrow that he was leaving a region where he had obviously enjoyed reporting. I could save my sorrows for someone else, he said. One of the joys of leaving was that he would no longer have to alter the truth to suit his paper's more vociferous readers. "I used to call the Israeli Likud Party 'right wing,' " he said. "But recently, my editors have been telling me not to use the phrase. A lot of our readers objected." And so now, I asked? "We just don't call it 'right wing' anymore." Ouch. I knew at once that these "readers" were viewed at his newspaper as Israel's friends, but I also knew that the Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu was as right wing as it had ever been. This is only the tip of the semantic iceberg that has crashed into American journalism in the Middle East.

Bush Pulls Plug On Iraq Reconstruction

In a decision that will be seen as a retreat from a promise by President George Bush to give Iraq the best infrastructure in the region, administration officials say they will not seek reconstruction funds when the budget request is presented to Congress next month, the Washington Post reported yesterday. The $18.4bn (£10.6bn) allocation is scheduled to run out in June 2007. The move will be seen by critics as further evidence of the administration's failure to plan for the aftermath of the war. A decision not to renew the reconstruction programme would leave Iraq with the burden of tens of billions of dollars in unfinished projects, and an oil industry and electrical grid that have yet to return to pre-war production levels. The decision is a tacit admission of the failure of the US rebuilding effort in the face of a relentless insurgency. Nearly half the funds earmarked for reconstruction were diverted towards fighting the insurgency and preparations to put Saddam Hussein on trial.

Britian's Chief Rabbi Warns of Growing Anti-Jewish Sentiment

Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, fears that a "tsunami of anti-Semitism" is threatening to engulf parts of the world. In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme, to be broadcast today, Dr Sacks admitted he was "very scared" by the rise in anti-Jewish feeling, which had led to Holocaust denial, attacks on synagogues and a boycott of Jewish groups on university campuses. He said: "I am very scared by [it] and I'm very scared that more protests have not been delivered against it, but this [anti-Semitism] is part of the vocabulary of politics in certain parts of the world." Figures produced by the London-based Community Security Trust and the Israeli government show that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Britain. The trust recorded 532 anti-Semitic incidents in 2004, including 83 physical assaults. Meanwhile, some groups opposed to Israeli government policy have organised boycotts of Jewish academics and student groups.

Wiesenthal Center Declares 'Whitewash' Over Estonia's Refusal To Prosecute 'Nazi Collaborator'

A Jewish organisation that tracks down Nazi war criminals overnight slammed Estonia's judiciary as inept and corrupt after the Baltic state's prosecutor dropped a case against an Estonian businessman accused of murdering Jews in World War II. "The conclusions of the Estonian investigation of suspected Nazi war criminal Harry Mannil are a pathetic political whitewash and we categorically reject the prosecutors assessments of the case," Efraim Zuroff, the Israeli director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said . "Mannil should be held accountable for his role in the fate of Estonian civilians persecuted and murdered by the Nazis and their Estonian collaborators," Zuroff said. "The Estonian investigation of Mannil is a pathetic whitewash for political reasons of an active Nazi collaborator who, thanks to the ineptitude or corruption of the Estonian prosecution, will apparently never be held accountable for his crimes," Zuroff said.

Holocaust Remarks of Iran President Reflect Official State View

Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Friday that remarks made earlier this week by the country's president that the Nazi mass murder of Jews during World War II was a "myth" was the official Iranian government's position on the issue. "The words of [president] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the Holocaust and on Israel are not personal opinions, nor isolated statements but they express the view of the [Iranian] government," Mottaki said. Ahmadinejad made the Holocaust remarks on Wednesday while it was in October he said Israel should be "wiped off the map." "The Europeans have to understand that the current Iranian government doesn't have any intention to play the role of someone who listens without having the right to reply," he said adding that if Europe wants to have relations with Iran "it has to learn to listen to our opinions and take them into account."

In Austria, Former Member of Parliament Faces Trial for 'Holocaust Denial'

Former member of parliament John Gudenus will go on trial under Austria's anti-Nazi laws, legal sources said yesterday. Gudenus, a 64-year-old retired army officer, would probably appear before court next spring following his remark that "there were gas chambers, but not in the (Nazi) Third Reich, only in Poland". Observers pointed out that the maximum penalty under the anti-Nazi "revivalism" laws is 10 years' jail. There was no official confirmation of the pending trial yesterday. The sources said that the remand judge dealing with the affair would hand over the charge sheet to Gudenus before Christmas. He would then have 14 days to study it and raise any objections. In June, Gudenus' parliamentary immunity from prosecution was lifted following the remark about gas chambers, clearing the way for possible prosecution. In November he retired as a non-party member of the second chamber of parliament. He had been a right-wing Freedom Party member before leaving his party.

Tajikistan Promotes Self-Image As Aryan Nation

The swastika may be known the world over as the symbol of Nazi Germany and it may be banned in some states for that reason, but in Tajikistan it appears on placards, banners, and billboards with the blessing of the state. For officials in Dushanbe, the swastika is above all a symbol of national identity. Most Tajik historians now maintain that Tajiks are of Aryan origin, and argue that Aryan or Indo-European civilization must therefore be studied and promoted. It is an argument now accepted by the state. Indeed, the revival of Aryan culture is now official policy of Dushanbe: 2006 will be celebrated in Tajikistan as the year of Aryan civilization. The authorities say the swastika's now widespread adoption in Tajikistan has nothing to do with Nazism and fascism. "Throughout history, interpretations of this symbol have changed," notes Abduhakim Sharipov, head of a department in the Soghd regional administration. He, like other officials, emphasizes the swastika is a symbol of Aryan culture that has existed for many centuries.

'Holocaust Survivors' Gather in FL, Including One Who 'Survived' Three Camps

One man carried a business card listing the Nazi concentration camps he survived: Majdanek, Skarzysko, Buchenwald. Another wore a sign around his neck, bearing the name Auschwitz, and the number they gave him there. "Do you want to see the real thing?" he asked, pushing his left sleeve back. "I know it like my phone number. That's how they called you. They didn't care about your name, your date of birth, where you were from. Just your number. And they worked you like a horse." A group of old men sat around one table with their wives. All the men grew up in the same town; all were prisoners in the same camp in Poland. One tells the story of how his father was kicked to death in front of him because he didn't answer fast enough when a guard called his number. His wife tells her story of hearing her husband scream in the night for the first 25 years of their marriage.

Screw Christmas: Spend 'Chanukah on Ice', Say Some Orthodox Jews in Philadelphia

Sick of spending Dec. 25 watching your WASPy-ass friends parade around in new Christmas digs and brag about the Nano that just happened to be sitting at the bottom of their stocking? Quash those green eyes, bubeleh: the Chabad Lubavitch of Chester County and the Main Line has got your back. This year, Rabbi Moshe Brennan wants you to skip the popular Chinese-and-a-movie ritual and bring the fam to his annual Chanukah on Ice party. There'll be skating and hot chocolate, Jewish music and traditional Hanukkah songs pumping on the stereo, a table where kids can make their own menorah candles and armloads of free gelt. The Festival of Lights really starts rolling when a crew of chain saw-wielding lumberjack-types carve a giant menorah out of a miniature iceberg. Eat that, Santa.

A Christmas Greeting from the IHR

Mark Weber

This is also a time when we remember friends who are deprived of freedom and contact with their families solely for expressing skepticism about the official version of a chapter of history that has become a semi-religious icon in western society – the Holocaust. These prisoners of conscience are behind bars for having violated the disgraceful “Holocaust denial” laws in several European countries that criminalize any public challenge of Holocaust dogma. For Ernst Zundel, a courageous friend of the IHR, this is his third Christmas behind bars. (For more than two years he was held in solitary confinement in Canada , without ever being convicted of any crime.) His trial in Germany began on November 8 with a dramatic clash between his stalwart attorneys and the presiding judge. If convicted, he faces many more years in prison.

Holocaust Remembrance Strengthens Jewish-Zionist Power

Mark Weber

The United Nations General Assembly has voted to designate January 27 as international Holocaust Remembrance Day. The UN resolution to commemorate Jews who lost their lives in Europe during the Second World War was introduced by Israel and approved on November 1 by most UN member states. What’s behind this resolution and the Holocaust remembrance effort? Whose interests does it serve? It is, of course, fitting and proper to remember all victims of war and genocide. But Holocaust remembrance is not, as its supporters claim, a noble effort motivated by sincere concern for humanity. It is, rather, a one-sided campaign designed to further Zionist interests. Since the late 1970s, remembrance of “the Holocaust” – usually defined as the genocidal killing of six million Jews in Europe during the Second World War – has grown tremendously. This media and political campaign, which Jewish historian Alfred Lilienthal calls “Holocaustomania,” includes a relentless stream of propagandistic motion pictures, television specials, books, education courses, museums and commemorative events.

More About Gruesome British Torture of German Prisoners Revealed

Despite the six years of bitter fighting which lay behind him, James Morgan-Jones, a major in the Royal Artillery, could not have been more specific about the spectacle in front of him. "It was," he reported, "one of the most disgusting sights of my life." Curled up on a bed in a hospital in Rotenburg, near Bremen, was a cadaverous shadow of a human being. "The man literally had no flesh on him, his state of emaciation was incredible," wrote Morgan-Jones. This man had weighed a little over six stones (38kg) on admission five weeks earlier, and "was still a figure which may well have been one of the Belsen inmates". At the base of his spine "was a huge festering sore", and he was clearly terrified of returning to the prison where he had been brought so close to death. "If ever a man showed fear - he did," Morgan-Jones declared. Adolf Galla, 36, a dental technician, was not alone.

British History Teaching 'Obsessed' With World War II

History teaching in schools has become obsessed with the Second World War, at the expense of understanding other events that shaped Britain's national identity, an expert report warns. Pupils are getting a 'Yo! Sushi experience of historical understanding', sampling a series of short, unconnected modules on detailed issues but unable to connect them into a broader picture, according to the Labour MP Gordon Marsden, who heads an informal advisory group on history teaching for the Department for Education and Skills. That leaves pupils with only a piecemeal understanding of Britain's past, failing to foster the greater sense of belonging that politicians have been calling for in the wake of the 7 July bombings. Marsden, a former history teacher, argues in an essay to be published by think tank the Fabian Society this week, that the over-emphasis on the Third Reich risks a 'Hitlerisation of history', with some pupils covering the same period two or three times if they go on to A-level.

Holocaust A 'Myth,' Says Iran President

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday the Holocaust is a "myth" in another sharp attack on Israel's right to exist that drew immediate harsh criticism from both the Jewish state and from Germany and the European Commission. Germany's foreign minister blasted the comments as "shocking and unacceptable" and warned that they will influence crucial upcoming nuclear talks between Europe and Iran. Speaking to thousands of people in the southeastern city of Zahedan, Ahmadinejad said: "Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets." Ahmadinejad first provoked an international outcry in October when he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." Previously he expressed doubt about the Nazi destruction of European Jewry during the World War II. But Wednesday was the first time when he said in public that it was a myth.

Israel Readies Forces For Strike On Nuclear Iran

Israel's armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed. The order came after Israeli intelligence warned the government that Iran was operating enrichment facilities, believed to be small and concealed in civilian locations. Iran’s stand-off with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over nuclear inspections and aggressive rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who said last week that Israel should be moved to Europe, are causing mounting concern. The crisis is set to come to a head in early March, when Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, will present his next report on Iran. El-Baradei, who received the Nobel peace prize yesterday, warned that the world was “losing patience” with Iran. A senior White House source said the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda and the issue now was: “What next?”

The Long March To Mass Murder - A Review of Mao: The Unknown Story

Max Hastings

Of all the follies of the 20th century's "useful idiots", popular enthusiasm for Mao Tse-tung was among the most foolish. It reached its zenith in western Left-wing circles in the 1960s and was compounded a decade later by tourists who flocked into China after the Cultural Revolution, headed by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. They professed to see virtues in a Chinese leader who surpassed Hitler and Stalin as a mass murderer. Kissinger made the preposterous assertion that Mao and his coterie were ''a group of monks… who have… kept their revolutionary purity''. Nixon's staff asserted that under Mao's rule, ''the lives of the Chinese masses have been greatly improved.'' Mao is thought to have been responsible for some 70 million deaths in purges and authorised famines. Since the victims were anonymous Chinese without friends in the West, it seemed churlish for outsiders to make much of the matter, except when the Great Helmsman ventured outside his own borders and began to massacre Tibetans, as he did in 1960.

US Plans New Large-Scale Covert Propaganda Campaign

A $300 million Pentagon psychological warfare operation includes plans for placing pro-American messages in foreign media outlets without disclosing the U.S. government as the source, one of the military officials in charge of the program says. Run by psychological warfare experts at the U.S. Special Operations Command, the media campaign is being designed to counter terrorist ideology and sway foreign audiences to support American policies. The military wants to fight the information war against al-Qaeda through newspapers, websites, radio, television and "novelty items" such as T-shirts and bumper stickers. The program will operate throughout the world, including in allied nations and in countries where the United States is not involved in armed conflict. The description of the program by Mike Furlong, deputy director of the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element, provides the most detailed look to date at the Pentagon's global campaign.

Bush Says Iraq War Is Good For Israel

In sharp contrast to the growing consensus of Jerusalem's security and political establishment, President Bush argued this week that Israel's safety depends on democratization of the Arab world. "If you're a supporter of Israel, I would strongly urge you to help other countries become democracies," President Bush declared Monday, in a major address defending American policy in Iraq and his wider vision for the region. "Israel's long-term survival depends upon the spread of democracy in the Middle East." Israeli security officials argued the opposite view at this month's American-Israeli strategic dialogue, warning that regime change and democratization threatened to destabilize the Middle East. Israel sees its security tied to regimes such as Egypt and Jordan, and fears that democratization could turn those countries against Israel.

Iraq: A War For Israel
Mark Weber

So if the official reasons given for the war were untrue, why did the United States attack? Whatever the secondary reasons for the Iraq war, the crucial factor in President Bush’s decision to attack was to help Israel. With support from Israel and America’s Jewish-Zionist lobby, and prodded by Jewish "neo-conservatives" holding high-level positions in his administration, President Bush — who was already fervently committed to Israel — resolved to invade and subdue one of Israel’s chief regional enemies. This is so widely understood in Washington that US Senator Ernest Hollings was moved in May 2004 to acknowledge that the US invaded Iraq "to secure Israel," and "everybody" knows it.

French Politician Faces Court For 'Holocaust' Skepticism

The European Parliament lifted the immunity of Bruno Gollnisch, deputy leader of France's extreme right National Front party, paving the way for his trial on charges of Holocaust revisionism. Gollnisch, a member of the European parliament and right-hand man of France's far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, is now set to face trial before a French court from May next year, on charges of denying crimes against humanity. The accusations surround comments he made before reporters in October 2004 saying that the existence of Nazi gas chambers during World War II was "up to historians to decide". He later reiterated the comments. European deputies decided not to defend their colleague's immunity, in line with the recommendations of a report from the parliament's legal affairs committee debated in the assembly on Monday. The lawmakers decided that Gollnisch had not made the comments while exercising his parliamentary functions, but in his capacity as professor at Lyon university in eastern France.

Paper Reveals Britain's Nuclear Aid To Israel

David Leigh

Fresh and apparently incriminating documents have come to light under the Freedom of Information Act on the way Britain helped Israel obtain its nuclear bomb 40 years ago, by selling it 20 tonnes of heavy water. The Whitehall files not only confirm that Britain was a knowing party to the deal, but also contain subsequent intelligence assessments confirming that the sale of heavy water, which is used to produce plutonium, was crucial to Israel's nuclear weapons programme. It was first revealed earlier this year by BBC Newsnight that sales of heavy water to Israel had secretly taken place in 1958. But Kim Howells, a Foreign Office minister, subsequently claimed that "the UK was not in fact a party to the sale of heavy water to Israel". He sought to blame Norway, saying Britain had merely negotiated "the sale back to Norway of surplus heavy water". But Mr Howells' claims were undermined last night when Newsnight produced documents from the National Archives.

Himmler's Ring Among 'Nazi' Memorabilia Stolen From Museum

Allan Hall

The silver death's head ring that once belonged to the SS leader, Heinrich Himmler, has been stolen from a museum in Adolf Hitler's holiday town of Berchtesgaden in Germany. Also seized was a 1938 medallion commemorating Hitler's visit to the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini. The two items are worth thousands to Nazi memorabilia collectors and police warn that such paraphernalia in museums and collections around Europe are at risk. Last month Hitler's gold Nazi party badge was stolen from a Moscow archive, understood to be destined for a wealthy private collector. The ring that was taken from the Documentation Centre in Berchtesgaden, where Hitler had a luxury villa perched high on a mountainside, was signed inside by Himmler, one of the architects of the Holocaust that wiped out six million Jews.

Debating the Undebatable: The Weber-Shermer Clash

For several years now, Jewish organizations have said that to debate those who dispute the Six Million story gives legitimacy to a view that is beyond the bounds of decent public discourse, and provides a forum for "hate." Deborah Lipstadt, author of Denying the Holocaust, insists that there is not and cannot be a debate on the Holocaust. In a few countries, including France and Germany, those who express dissident views on this issue are treated as criminals. ... Contrary to the popular propaganda image, the wartime German authorities were concerned about the high death rate in the concentration camps due to disease, and took measures to prevent deaths among the inmates. In this regard, Weber quoted from a directive dated December 28, 1942, from the head of the SS camp administration office to all the German concentration camps, including Auschwitz. It sharply criticized the high death rate of inmates due to disease, and ordered that "camp physicians must use all means at their disposal to significantly reduce the death rate in the various camps."

The Weber-Shermer Holocaust Debate is available on DVD here

Jewish Filmmaker Thinks 'Holocaust' Doll Story Will Appeal To Children

Lona O'Connor

When he heard about the little girl who refused to be separated from her doll, even through three years in a Nazi concentration camp, Giora Gerzon knew he had the story he needed. Gerzon, an Israeli-born filmmaker, was looking for a documentary subject that would appeal to young children and teach them the lesson of tolerance. Every child has a beloved toy, he reasoned. Gerzon's documentary, The Olympic Doll, tells the story of Inge Auerbacher, who took her doll Marlene to the Czech concentration camp Terezin during the Nazi occupation of Europe during World War II. As Auerbacher and her parents stood in line at the entrance of the concentration camp, a guard pulled a small decorative pin off her clothing. "You won't need this where you're going," he told her. He then began examining her doll for hidden jewelry. "They took my pin, and now my doll?" Auerbacher recalled in a phone interview. "I screamed, 'No, no, no!' " Inexplicably, the guard let her keep the doll.

Iran President Expresses Doubt About Holocaust

Paul Hughes

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday expressed doubt the Holocaust took place and suggested the Jewish state of Israel be moved to Europe. His comments, reported by Iran's official IRNA news agency from a news conference he gave in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, follow his call in October for Israel to be "wiped off the map", which sparked widespread international outrage. The latest comments also provoked quick condemnation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called them "totally unacceptable" and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said "I condemn them unreservedly. They have no place in civilized political debate." Ahmadinejad was quoted by IRNA as saying: "Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that they condemn that person and throw them in jail."

The Jewish Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Burt Perlutsky

I never thought I'd live to see the day that Christmas would become a dirty word. You think it hasn't? Then why is it that people are being prevented from saying it in polite society for fear it will offend? Schools are being forced to replace "Christmas vacation" with "winter break" in their printed schedules. At Macy's, the word is verboten even though they've made untold millions of dollars from their sympathetic portrayal in the Christmas classic, "Miracle on 34th Street." Carols, even instrumental versions, are banned in certain places. A major postal delivery service has not only made their drivers doff their Santa caps, but ordered them not to decorate their trucks with Christmas wreaths. How is it, one well might ask, that in a Christian nation this is happening? ...when the overwhelming majority of a country's population is of one religion, and roughly 90 percent of Americans happen to be one sort of Christian or another, only a damn fool would deny the obvious.

Christian Zionism: Terror in Jesus' Name

Yoginder Sikand

War, conquest and imperialist domination, based on a fanatic insistence on the absolute truth of Christianity and the racial superiority of the Jews lie at the very heart of Christian Zionism. Christian Zionists believe that the Jews are God's 'Chosen People' and that God has given the Jews the absolute right to complete control over not just Palestine but, indeed, a vast stretch of territory, extending from present-day Egypt to Iraq, the so-called 'Greater Israel'. God, they claim, has selected the Jews above all other people. Hence, they insist, those who oppose the imperialist project of the advocates of 'Greater Israel' or the Zionist occupation of Palestine are 'God's enemies', deserving to be crushed by every available means, including outright war and decimation. Advocating Israel does not mean, however, that Christian Zionists accept Judaism as a legitimate means of salvation after Jesus.

NP: American Christians, Israel and Zionism (DVD Video)
Charles Carlson

Why do so many American Christians support Israel and its anti-Christian policies? The director of the “We Hold These Truths” center tackles this important issue in an eloquent and informative address to the Sacramento IHR Conference, April 2004. He begins with a report on his visit to the Zionist-occupied Gaza region of Palestine, and vividly portrays the grim reality of day-to-day life in the densely-populated region, including a description of murderous raids by Israeli helicopter gun ships. Carlson strongly criticizes the pro-Zionist attitude of many evangelical Christian leaders in the US – a view, he says, that is contrary to traditional Christian teachings. He describes his visit to a Baptist church in Gaza, pointing out that by supporting Israel, pro-Zionist Christians contribute to the brutal oppression of fellow Christians in occupied Palestine.

US Gives Israel A Large New Camp

The United States Tuesday delivered a sprawling storage base it has built for the Israeli army. The base, Nachshonim, will store equipment for an Israeli armored division. Nachshonim, which covers almost 400 acres, is the third base the United States has built for Israel under an agreement reached during the 1998 Wye River talks with the Palestinian Authority. Israel then undertook to turn West Bank areas to the Palestinian Authority and the Clinton administration undertook to provide $1.2 billion to implement the agreement. That included several camps to replace facilities Israel would be vacating in the West Bank. The United States has since delivered a training base for Israel's paratroop brigade opposite the southern West Bank, another for the Golani infantry brigade opposite the northwestern West Bank, and Tuesday it delivered the storage facility for the Idan reserve division east of Tel Aviv. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers managed the $127 million project.

Findley Calls For US Exit From Iraq

Former Congressman Paul Findley (R-IL) added his authoritative voice to the chorus of prominent politicians who have come out for a definitive timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq. Joining him was Syrian ambassador to the United States Imad Moustapha, who expressed his grave concern that the failure of President Bush's policy in Iraq is posing a peril to his own country. Both speakers appeared at a CNI public hearing yesterday, Thursday, December 1st, entitled "Common Sense And Clashing Civilizations: Exiting Iraq, Engaging Iran and Syria," featuring several distinguished speakers. The other panelists included Lawrence Davidson, Professor of Middle East History at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, and his wife and fellow professor, Janet Amighi, expert and author of books on Iran. Congressman Findley stated, "I believe that the invasion of Iraq is the worst U.S. blunder in a century, certainly the most menacing to the well-being of the America that we have known and cherished in years past."

Liberating America From Israel
Paul Findley

Nine-eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe the catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president during the past 35 years had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful and intimidating, but any determined president — even President Bush this very day — could prevail and win overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by laying these facts before the American people: Israel’s present government, like its predecessors, is determined to annex the West Bank — biblical Judea and Sumaria — so Israel will become Greater Israel. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who maintain a powerful role in Israeli politics, believe the Jewish Messiah will not come until Greater Israel is a reality.

Holocaust Fundamentalism - You WILL Believe

Mark Green

You've seen the films. You've read the books. You've taken the courses. You've heard the news. Soon, your children will be visiting the museums. Everybody knows it's true. The era of mandatory belief in The Holocaust has arrived. Articles central to The Faith include unwavering commitment to Jewish casualty numbers with a full and complete understanding of the manner in which innocent Jews were gassed, murdered and executed in Nazi Germany. Recalcitrant non-believers are now being rounded up. The typical rhetoric goes: "these bigots deny the facts and lessons garnered from humankind's experience during WWII. Their unique kind of poison will not be tolerated. This is a democracy. You are under arrest." Only this is not a movie. This is real. In Europe and North America, Holocaust skeptics are being apprehended, arrested and are now facing lengthy prison terms.

Today Iraq, Tomorrow the World

Laurence M. Vance

According to the latest edition of the "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country," published by the Defense Department’s Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (DIOR), the U.S. has troops in 142 countries. This is up from the figure of 136 countries that the government was reporting the last time I addressed the subject of the number of countries under the shadow of the U.S. Global Empire. Only 49 countries to go and the United States will have hegemony over the whole world. But it is worse than it appears. Counting the U.S. troops in territories, the officially reported number of countries or territories that the United States has troops in is now 158. It is not without cause that the twentieth century’s greatest proponent of liberty, and the greatest opponent of the state, Murray Rothbard (1926–1995), said that "empirically, taking the twentieth century as a whole, the single most warlike, most interventionist, most imperialist government has been the United States."

Tonkin Gulf Intelligence 'Skewed' According to Official History an Interecepts

The largest U.S. intelligence agency, the National Security Agency, today declassified over 140 formerly top secret documents -- histories, chronologies, signals intelligence [SIGINT] reports, and oral history interviews -- on the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident. Included in the release is a controversial article by Agency historian Robert J. Hanyok on SIGINT and the Tonkin Gulf which confirms what historians have long argued: that there was no second attack on U.S. ships in Tonkin on August 4, 1964. According to National Security Archive research fellow John Prados, "the American people have long deserved to know the full truth about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The National Security Agency is to be commended for releasing this piece of the puzzle. The parallels between the faulty intelligence on Tonkin Gulf and the manipulated intelligence used to justify the Iraq War make it all the more worthwhile to re-examine the events of August 1964 in light of new evidence."

Anti-Defamation League Declares Sermon To Be 'Anti-Semitic'

Dana Yates

The Anti-Defamation League found out about the sermon shortly after and its repeated attempts to meet with Sheley were ignored, said Jonathan Bernstein, director of the Central Pacific Region of the Anti-Defamation League. Sheley’s sermon references the Bible’s depiction of Jesus’ death as a Jewish crime. He claims that the troubles “the nation of Israel” faced since the time of Jesus’ death is a result of its rejection of Jesus. “And ladies and gentleman, that’s the tragic story of the nation of Israel. For 2,000 years, they’ve been driven and chased into every corner of this world, hated, killed, murdered because of their rejection,” he said in his sermon, which is available on the church’s Web site. Painting Jews as the responsible party for Jesus’ death is an outdated theory that the Vatican, theologians and clergy from many denominations have rejected since the 1960s, Bernstein said in a Nov. 16 letter to Sheley.

Wikipedia Contains Many False Entries

John Siegenthaler

I have no idea whose sick mind conceived the false, malicious "biography" that appeared under my name for 132 days on Wikipedia, the popular, online, free encyclopedia whose authors are unknown and virtually untraceable. At age 78, I thought I was beyond surprise or hurt at anything negative said about me. I was wrong. One sentence in the biography was true. I was Robert Kennedy's administrative assistant in the early 1960s. I also was his pallbearer. It was mind-boggling when my son, John Seigenthaler, journalist with NBC News, phoned later to say he found the same scurrilous text on Reference.com and Answers.com. I had heard for weeks from teachers, journalists and historians about "the wonderful world of Wikipedia," where millions of people worldwide visit daily for quick reference "facts," composed and posted by people with no special expertise or knowledge -- and sometimes by people with malice.

Le Pen To Be Sued Over Gas Chamber Remark

David Dahan

French anti-racist organizations are planning to sue Jean-Marie Le Pen, the French extreme-right party leader after he again dismissed the Nazi gas chambers as “a detail”. Le Pen made the renewed comments during an interview on the BBC’s Hardtalk show which focused on the recent riots in France’s suburbs. He had originally caused anger amongst Jews and anti-racism campaigners alike when he first made a similar comment in 1987. During the one-on-one interview Stephen Sackur, the show’s host, recalled that less than a year ago Le Pen “described the Nazi occupation of France as ’not particularly inhuman’" and “the holocaust as a mere detail of history,” Le Pen jumped to his own defence. "That’s not the same thing. No, I didn’t say that. I shall tell you exactly what I said. I said the gas chambers were a detail of the history of the World War," he replied.

The Detail
Robert Faurisson

On the subject of the Nazi gas chambers, Jean-Marie Le Pen recently stated: "If you take a thousand-page book on the Second World War, the concentration camps occupy two pages and the gas chambers ten or fifteen lines, and that's called a detail." He might have brought up some even harder hitting and more precise arguments, and referred to Eisenhower, Churchill, de Gaulle, Elie Wiesel, René Rémond, Daniel Goldhagen, and even the text of the Nuremberg Tribunal judgment. Three of the best known works on the Second World War are General Eisenhower's Crusade in Europe (New York: Doubleday [Country Life Press], 1948), Winston Churchill's The Second World War (London: Cassell, 6 vols., 1948-1954), and the Mémoires de guerre of General de Gaulle (Paris: Plon, 3 vols., 1954-1959). In these three works not the least mention of Nazi gas chambers is to be found.

David Irving Should Be Protected By Free Speech Laws

Charles Glass

'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.' Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations General Assembly Resolution, 10 December 1948. One of my first stories as a reporter for The Observer was a student strike in 1977 at the London School of Economics. Whenever a fellow student spoke against the strikers, they chanted, 'No free speech for fascists'. It had never occurred to me that free speech should be denied to anyone " fascist, communist or vegetarian. That was 1977, and I have since witnessed free speech denied to both those with whom I agree and those whose views repel me. But my belief in freedom of expression requires me to defend the right of both to speak. Otherwise, what is this free speech I believe in? The freedom to agree?

Israel 'Security Wall' Is Political Border, Says Israeli Official

Yuval Yoaz

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni has stated publicly that the separation fence will serve as "the future border of the state of Israel" and that, "the High Court of Justice, in its rulings over the fence, is drawing the country's borders." Livni's remarks are in contradiction to the position of the state prosecution, which she oversees as justice minister. The prosecution has many times stated in court, when petitions against the separation fence were being heard, that the barrier is a "security" rather than a "political" fence, and that it is a temporary measure. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Livni's comments confirmed that the barrier was a pretext for taking lands the Palestinians want for their state. "This is a very dangerous development and undermines the chances of permanent state negotiations," Erekat said. "This just proves that Israel wants to dictate and not negotiate."

Oil From Iraq: An Israeli Pipedream?

Israel stands to benefit greatly from the US led war on Iraq, primarily by getting rid of an implacable foe in President Saddam Hussein... An intriguing pointer to one potentially significant benefit was a report by Haaretz on 31 March that minister for national infrastructures Joseph Paritzky was considering the possibility of reopening the long-defunct oil pipeline from Mosul to the Mediterranean port of Haifa. With Israel lacking energy resources of its own and depending on highly expensive oil from Russia, reopening the pipeline would transform its economy. US efforts to get Iraqi oil to Israel are not surprising. Under a 1975 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the US guaranteed all Israel 's oil needs in the event of a crisis. The MoU, which has been quietly renewed every five years, also committed the USA to construct and stock a supplementary strategic reserve for Israel , equivalent to some US$3bn in 2002. Special legislation was enacted to exempt Israel from restrictions on oil exports from the USA .

Putin Vs. The Neo-Comintern

Patrick J. Buchanan

The Comintern, or Communist International, also known as the Third International, was the 1919 creation of Vladimir Lenin. Its declared purpose: Fight "by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic." Fomenting the communist revolution worldwide was, in brief, the Comintern's mission. At its Seventh World Congress in 1935, however, on Stalin's orders, the Comintern repudiated the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism as its mission and called for formation of Popular Fronts in Western nations to combat fascism – a Moscow First policy. For this act of heresy, Trotsky, the champion of permanent revolution, excommunicated Stalin as a "reformist". But Trotskyism did not die with Leon Trotsky. It mutated and is today the taproot of that neoconservatism that calls for permanent revolution to advance not global communism, but global democracy.

NJ Musuem To Host 'Holocaust' Exhibit Created By 8th And 9th Grade Students

Amy L. Kovac

The Paterson Museum will soon open an exhibit unlike any other it has hosted - one created and installed completely by high school students. Called "Justice for All," the exhibit on the Holocaust is expected to debut the second week of December. The display was originally part of an eighth-grade class project from the spring at School 18. Sandra and Edmary Serrano, also 14 and a ninth-grader at Tech, are the exhibit's coordinators. The two girls have spent more than 30 hours organizing and mounting posters of survivors' stories, explanations of the killing centers and concentration camps, and the long, snaking timeline that begins in 1914 and ends in 1945. The students agree that their favorite piece is the Kristallnacht case, which commemorates the "night of broken glass" in 1938, when Nazis carried out a massive pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria.

Behind Bars, But Some Liberals Defend Irving

Ian Traynor

Irving, the controversial British historian and Nazi apologist, stands accused of denying the Holocaust happened, a criminal offence in Austria. He was barred from the country but, an inveterate risk-taker, he flew from London to Basle in Switzerland this month, rented a car and drove to Vienna. The idea was to meet up with a bunch of student radicals from an extreme right fraternity. Their hobbies include dressing up in funny clothes and little pillbox caps, then drawing blood by slashing one another's cheeks in fencing duels. They've been at it since Bismarck's day. According to Mr Kresbach, Irving smelt a rat in the shape of Austrian plainclothes police after a chat with the student leaders in a Vienna coffee house. He headed south to Graz and was stopped by motorway police on the return journey to Vienna. As a result, this morning he is sitting in Josefstadt.

'Holocaust Denial' Laws Are Disgraceful
Mark Weber

David Irving, the controversial British historian, was arrested in Austria on November 11 for a 16-year-old violation of that country’s “Holocaust denial” statute. He has now been formally charged, and if found guilty could face years in prison. His case is by no means unique. In Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and several other European countries, as well as in Israel, it is a crime publicly to dispute the official version of Holocaust history. The list of those who have been fined, imprisoned, or forced into exile for “denying the Holocaust” includes Robert Faurisson and Roger Garaudy in France, Siegfried Verbeke in Belgium, Juergen Graf and Gaston-Armand Amaudruz in Switzerland, and Guenter Deckert, Hans Schmidt and Fredrick Toben in Germany. On November 8 the trial in Germany of “Holocaust denier” Ernst Zundel began with a dramatic clash between his attorneys and the presiding judge.

How Pre-War Iraq Intel Was Cooked

Jason Leopold

Democrats leading the charge into the second phase of a bipartisan investigation into pre-war Iraq intelligence have said this week that they will spend the next month or so working with Pentagon officials who last week agreed to probe a top secret spy shop once headed by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith that many longtime CIA and FBI officials and other intelligence analysts believe was responsible for providing the Bush administration with bogus intelligence used to justify war with Iraq. Based on the way the probe is starting to shape up, it's clear the administration, particularly Feith, who resigned earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and possibly Cheney will bear the brunt of the blame, because the three of them sidestepped the usual intelligence gathering process that historically was handled by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency in favor of their own clandestine intelligence gathering operations...

History Matters: Few Know of the Massacre of German POWs in Utah

Pat Bagley

In July 1945, 250 German POWs were in Salina to help with the harvest. They were housed in wooden floored tents watched over by three guard towers. Beyond the occasional hard-core Nazis who carved swastikas into peaches, the Germans were mostly well behaved. On July 7, after a full day of work in Salina's beet fields, the Germans were marched back to their compound. Following the evening meal, they went to their tents to sleep. At midnight, the guard changed. Pvt. Clarence V. Bertucci climbed into the tower nearest the camp commander's office. Bertucci, a native of New Orleans, had a record of minor infractions of military discipline, but nothing serious. Bertucci waited a few minutes for the previous watch to find their beds. Then he opened an ammunition box containing a belt of 250 bullets, slapped the belt securely into the tower's machine gun, and swung the loaded weapon toward the tents of sleeping POWs. Thirty seconds after pulling the trigger the belt was exhausted. Nine POWs were killed.

Mass Killings And Mistreatment Of German Prisoners And Ethnic German Civilians In Postwar Yugoslavia (CD Audio)
Tom Sunic

Author and one-time US professor of political science, Sunic provides a detailed look at the little-known mistreatment and mass killings of German prisoners of war and ethnic German civilians in the former Yugoslavia, 1945-1953. Dr. Sunic refers to the network of prison camps in Communist-ruled postwar Yugoslavia, in which many thousands perished. From the 14th IHR Conference, 2002.

21 Year Old Czech Taken To Court Over Showing Support For Zundel

A 21-year-old man who demonstrated in support of imprisoned German Holocaust denier Ernst Zuendel on October 28, a Czech national holiday, will be tried in court for the denial of Holocaust, state attorney Zdenka Galkova said. Galkova said she sent the man's file to the court today. If found guilty, he faces up to three years in prison. Zuendel, 66, was charged with spreading hatred against Jews via internet and the statement that Holocaust - or the extermination of six million Jews during World War Two - never happened. A demonstration in support of Zuendel was held outside the German Embassy in Prague where some 70 neo-Nazis handed a petition. Police detained two of the demonstrators. The second man was released because the charges were not proved. Police recorded the actions of the charged man during the demonstration.

North Carolina High School Students 'Study' Holocaust Through Art

Nathan Brown

Macabre images of Jewish victims of the Holocaust hung alongside recreated Nazi propaganda posters at East Burke High School. A model of a concentration camp displayed maps representing Europe before World War I. These are two examples of art projects teachers Anna Moose, 25 and Elaine Abernathy, 39, assigned to help their 10th grade English students better understand war and how it affects society. Moose and Abernathy's students took their projects and made a walk through gallery for parents and other students. Moose said on Monday evening that she wants her students to understand the experience of war. "All of the projects represent what different people went through during the Holocaust and why some people acted the way they did," Moose said. "The propaganda of WWI and WWII is important. I tried to show them how easily we can buy into propaganda of war."

War On Iraq: Not Oil But Israel

Stephen J. Sniegoski

The most popular argument of the critics of the Iraq war has been that the United States went to war for oil — that is, that the war had nothing to do with combating terrorism. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor before the war, Brendan O'Neill reported that "for many in the antiwar movement, the idea that the Bushies' plan to invade the Gulf to get their greasy hands on more oil has become an article of faith, an unquestionable truth repeated like a mantra." That goes against what I regard as the fundamental reason for the war: the war was led by neoconservatives and fought in the interests of Israel, at least as Likudniks envision Israel's interests. It is all well-documented, though the neocons imply that Israeli interests coincide with those of the United States. But as I point out in my article on the subject — and this fact is on the public record, too — the original idea for the war was conceived in Israel. Moreover, the war achieved the goal hoped for by the Likudniks — destabilization of the Middle East.

Secret European Union Report Strongly Criticizes Israel

Donald Macintyre

European governments should consider direct intervention in an attempt to curb the systematic measures being undertaken by Israel to increase its control and population in the historically - and legally - Arab eastern sector of Jerusalem, a highly sensitive EU report concludes. The confidential report, prepared by top diplomats representing the 25 EU governments in the city, warns that the chances of a two-state solution are being eroded by Israel's "deliberate policy" - in breach of international of law - of "completing the annexation of East Jerusalem". European Foreign Ministers this week vetoed planned publication of the report - which also warns that rapid expansion of Jewish settlements in and around East Jerusalem, along with use of the separation barrier to isolate East Jerusalem from the West Bank, "risk radicalising the hitherto relatively quiescent Palestinian population of East Jerusalem".

...recent stories