For Trump, an Embassy in Jerusalem Is a Political Decision, Not a Diplomatic One

By Mark Lander -  DEC. 6, 2017

When President Trump formally recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, one man who was probably smiling was the Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson.

WASHINGTON — Ten days before Donald J. Trump took office, Sheldon G. Adelson went to Trump Tower for a private meeting. Afterward, Mr. Adelson, the casino billionaire and Republican donor, called an old friend, Morton A. Klein, to report that Mr. Trump told him that moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would be a major priority.

“He was very excited, as was I,” said Mr. Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, a hard-line pro-Israel group. “This is something that’s in his heart and soul.”

The two men had to wait nearly a year, but on Wednesday, Mr. Trump stood beneath a portrait of George Washington to announce that he was formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and setting in motion a plan to move the embassy to the fiercely contested Holy City.

“While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise,” he said, “they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.”

For Mr. Trump, the status of Jerusalem was always more a political imperative than a diplomatic dilemma. Faced with disappointing evangelical and pro-Israel backers like Mr. Adelson, or alarming allies and Arab leaders while jeopardizing his own peace initiative, the president sided with his key supporters.

In doing so, Mr. Trump invited opprobrium from foreign leaders, who said the move was reckless and self-defeating. He also acted against the counsel of Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who worried about anti-American blowback, not least to diplomats and troops serving overseas.

Mr. Trump conceded the provocative nature of his decision. But as he has before, whether in pulling the United States from the Paris climate accord or disavowing the Iran nuclear deal, the president on Wednesday seemed to relish playing a familiar role: the political insurgent, defying foreign policy orthodoxy on behalf of the people who elected him.

“People are waking up to the fact that the president doesn’t see grays and doesn’t like pastels,” said Christopher Ruddy, a conservative news media executive and friend of Mr. Trump’s. “He is very proud that he’s fulfilled so many campaign promises, and the embassy decision is another notch on his belt.”

Mr. Trump’s handling of the embassy question was not unlike his handling of the nuclear deal with Iran, which he reluctantly certified the first time before disavowing it the second time the issue came up.

Under a 1995 law, the president is required to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem unless, citing national security concerns, he signs a waiver, which has to be renewed every six months. The first time he faced that decision, in June, Mr. Trump grudgingly signed it.

At the time, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is leading Mr. Trump’s peace initiative, argued that to move the embassy then might strangle the effort before the administration had established relationships in the region.

Mr. Adelson and other pro-Israel backers were deeply frustrated. He pressed Mr. Trump on the issue at a private dinner in October at the White House that included his wife, Miriam, and Mr. Kushner. Mr. Adelson also vented to Stephen K. Bannon, then the president’s chief strategist, who argued internally for moving the embassy in June.

The Adelsons have long been leading donors to pro-Israel groups and causes, and have forged a close relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They have used their casino fortune to push the Republican Party and its politicians to embrace that line.

Early in Mr. Trump’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he privately courted the Adelsons, seeking a meeting and asking for financial support, even as he publicly declared that he did not need or want backing from major donors.

In March 2016, Mr. Trump sought to burnish his credentials as a friend of Israel, telling the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, “We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.”

The Adelsons were persuaded and donated $20 million to a political action committee that supported Mr. Trump’s campaign, and another $1.5 million to the committee that organized the Republican convention.

Since Mr. Trump took office, Mr. Adelson has communicated with him regularly, talking by phone and visiting the White House, and has used his access to push the relocation of the embassy. But he was not the only influential advocate of the move.

Sheldon Anderson, the casino billionaire and a Republican donor

Representatives of evangelical Christian groups similarly pressed the issue with Mr. Trump during the campaign, making it clear that moving the embassy was a major priority.

“In the meetings I was in, it was clearly communicated that evangelicals and Bible-believing Christians see a special relationship with Israel,” said Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council.

When the six-month clock expired again this month, Mr. Trump was determined to leave himself more options. On Nov. 27, he walked into a meeting of the principals’ committee of the National Security Council, as the officials were debating what to do about the embassy. His message, according to officials, was that he wanted more creative solutions.

Mr. Trump’s advisers offered him two alternatives: Sign the waiver again, or sign it but recognize Jerusalem as the capital and set in motion a plan to move the embassy. Mr. Trump mulled the decision for several days, officials said, calling foreign leaders and lawmakers on Capitol Hill. And on Wednesday he announced he was taking the more aggressive approach, again signing the waiver but making it clear he would proceed with a move.

His decision was supported by both Mr. Kushner and the president’s special envoy, Jason D. Greenblatt, who had concluded that shaking up the status quo could actually help rather than hurt their peace efforts.

While they say they recognized that it would cause an immediate uproar — including potentially driving the Palestinians away from negotiations for some time — they believed the process was resilient enough to withstand the shock.

Publicly, Mr. Tillerson has stood by the decision, while Mr. Mattis has been circumspect. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mr. Mattis said: “We met in the room on this. It was an open discussion, went on for some time. As always, my advice to the president, I keep confidential.”

A senior adviser to Mr. Tillerson, R. C. Hammond, told reporters that he did not oppose the move, but requested more time, when Mr. Trump’s decision was clear, to contact American diplomatic missions to determine their security needs if protests broke out.

Amid all the warnings about violence, White House officials see a number of potential benefits to the move. Recognizing Jerusalem, officials said, could soothe the right flank of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition government, stabilizing the political situation there.

Also, the Saudi royal family has sharply criticized Mr. Trump’s decision, which some officials said could help the credibility of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman among his fellow Arabs. That could mitigate perceptions that the crown prince has grown too cozy with Mr. Kushner, with whom he has cultivated a close relationship.

In his remarks at the White House, Mr. Trump did not dwell on how his decision might play out in the region. Rather, he cast it as a bold break with decades of failed policy on Jerusalem, which he said brought us “no closer to a lasting peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.”

“It would be folly to assume that repeating the exact same formula would now produce a different or better result,” Mr. Trump said.

Though he did not mention it, Mr. Trump signed the same waiver as his predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to keep the embassy in Tel Aviv for now. White House officials said that was unavoidable because it would take several years to move embassy employees to a new building in Jerusalem.

In his speech, Mr. Trump pointed out that the 1995 law passed Congress with an overwhelming majority and was unanimously reaffirmed in the Senate six months ago. That may explain why the reaction to the move was comparatively muted on Capitol Hill.

For Mr. Trump, the political benefits clearly outweigh the costs. The Republican Jewish Committee bought a full-page ad in The New York Times that is to be published on Thursday, depicting Mr. Trump praying at the Western Wall.

“President Trump,” the slogan said, “You Promised. You Delivered.”

To press its case with supporters, the White House convened two calls for religious leaders, one on Tuesday night to alert them to the coming announcement and a second, more detailed call on Wednesday.

Most of the participants were from the evangelical Christian community and included Trump allies like Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition; Robert Jeffress, a Dallas pastor who spoke at Mr. Trump’s private inaugural prayer service; and Mike Evans, a Christian Zionist who writes commentary on Middle Eastern issues.

Among the questions they asked was how quickly the president would move the embassy. White House officials pleaded for patience. At the end of the call, according to a person who took part, a pastor and a rabbi closed with prayers.

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem,” the pastor said. “And thank God we have a president who would take this step.”

Source:
NY Times - Trump Policy on Jerusalem

[Zionist] Jews Versus Free Speech And Jeremy Bedford-Turner ex Occidental Observer

by Andrew Joyce Ph. D.

"The judiciary itself, which has for so long been the last safeguard of our liberty and honor, seems to have forgotten the difference between ‘just’ and ‘unjust’ in the general collapse of public morality and equity.”

Alphonse Toussenel [ in ] The Jews: Kings of the Epoch
When I was younger, and first learning to play chess, the part of the game I found most difficult was learning to interpret the intentions of my opponent and anticipate his course of action. Like most novices, my focus was on moving pawns out of the way in order to bring more powerful pieces into play. It was only as time progressed that I realized the importance and inherent power of the pawns themselves, and with that realization came an appreciation for my opponent’s opening strategy.

I was very recently reminded of this learning curve by the slowly unveiling strategy of one of Britain’s Jewish ‘charities,’ the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA), which has placed free speech in check and threatens mate at any moment. In a case that will have devastating repercussions for free speech in Britain, CAA has proven itself even more influential than the government’s Crown Prosecution Service, which has now capitulated to the Jewish group and granted a judicial review into its earlier decision not to prosecute Jeremy Bedford-Turner, known among colleagues as Jez Turner, for a 2015 speech.

The Historical and Political Context

Context is crucial, and it is important to note that the Turner case is the culmination of a strategy that long precedes even the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. This strategy, which in Britain can be traced back to the 1910s, concerns repeated and consistent attempts to bring about the criminalization of ‘anti-Semitism,’ or in other words, to make criticism of Jews illegal. Although the precise nature of these attempts have fluctuated slightly over time, Jews have been remarkably prominent in the introduction of laws, or influencing the interpretation of laws, that negatively impact on free speech. Following the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, Jewish delegates attempted to pass a resolution “outlawing anti-Semitism” at that year’s annual Labour Party Conference. [1] However, the bombing immediately cost the Zionists a great many non-Jewish friends within the Labour movement, and the proposal was emphatically crushed. Following the notorious Sergeant’s Affair, in which Jewish terrorists murdered British soldiers in barbaric fashion, another explicit proposal to outlaw anti-Semitism was introduced in the House of Commons, but was rejected at its first reading in 1948. Direct and explicit efforts such as these continued to fail. In Race Politics in Britain and France: Ideas and Policy Making Since the 1960s, Erik Bleich notes that “during the late 1950s and early 1960s Jewish groups sought laws against anti-Semitic public speeches made during this era, but there is little evidence that this pressure achieved substantial results.”[2]

Further attempts to achieve such legislation were attempted through stealth, in that they concerned race more generally rather than Jews explicitly. These measures were also introduced, though unsuccessfully, with the assistance of willing White M.P.s with a track record of assisting Jews. Bleich notes that “a small number of individual Labour Party Members of Parliament repeatedly proposed antidiscrimination laws. In the early 1950s, Reginald Sorensen and Fenner Brockway each introduced ‘color bar bills’ designed to prevent discrimination against blacks on British soil.”[3] Brockway attempted no less than nine times over nine years to achieve laws against ‘discrimination’ and free speech. Although the full extent of the involvement of these politicians with Jews is unknown, a record of Parliamentary debates shows that Sorensen had been involved in assisting Jews since at least the 1930s, even participating in a 1945 symposium titled “The Future of the Jews,” where he gave a lecture to his mostly Jewish audience on “Our Common Humanity.” We have evidence that around the same time, Brockway was breaking the law by assisting Jews with forged passports and documents enabling them to enter Palestine.[4]

Since 1945, the Board of Deputies of British Jews had also been working on drafting a “group libel law” that it eventually hoped to get passed in Parliament.[5] Efforts to further tighten libel laws were made in 1952 when Jewish M.P. Harold Lever, introduced a Private Members’ Bill modifying Britain’s libel laws for the first time in over fifty years. However, Lever’s efforts were later mauled by a hostile Parliament to such an extent that by the time his Bill became an Act of Parliament, his provisions were not extended, as he and his co-ethnics had hoped, to cover groups.[6] Britain’s first legislation containing any such provision as prohibiting ‘group libel’ was introduced in Parliament by Frank Soskice, the son of David Soskice — a Russian-Jewish revolutionary exile. Scholars Mark Donnelly and Ray Honeyford state that it was Soskice who “drew up the legislation” and “piloted the first Race Relations Act, 1965, through Parliament.”[7] The Act “aimed to outlaw racial discrimination in public places,” though it was soon felt, in Jewish circles, that it hadn’t gone far enough. Crucially, the 1965 Act created the Jewish-led ‘Race Relations Board’ and equipped it with the power to sponsor research for the purposes of monitoring race relations in Britain and, if necessary, extending legislation on the basis of the ‘findings’ of such research.

In 1985, another Jew moved to criminalize expressions of White racial solidarity when M.P. Harry Cohen introduced a “Racial Harassment Bill” to Parliament. Scholar Rob Witte reports that Cohen’s attempt only failed because of “lack of parliamentary time.”[8] The following year, Cohen made a second attempt, which failed, only for Jews to return to more stealthy methods when racial elements were included with the much broader Public Order Act (1986). The Public Order Act had been introduced to Parliament by Leon Brittanisky (renamed Leon Brittan) and supported primarily by Malcolm Rifkind, a descendant of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants. It was another clever piece of work. Brittan’s team had been tasked with drafting a White Paper on Public Order to deal with a series of miners’ strikes and demonstrations. Although issues of race were not remotely related to the events provoking the White Paper, Brittan saw that the government was eager to pass legislation restricting the miners as soon as possible and, sensing that the wide-ranging bill would endure little opposition, he ensured that additional elements were included, such as the criminalization of “incitement to racial hatred.”[9] It is Brittan’s clever little addition which has posed problems for more vocal racial nationalists in Britain today, and which is being used in part in the CAA's war on Jez Turner.

The Turner Case

On July 4^th 2015 Jez Turner, along with fellow patriots, staged a static protest in Whitehall, opposite Downing Street, in protest at the development of the Shomrim, a Jewish ‘defense’ group that possessed all the trappings of an illegal religious police force. During the protest, it has been alleged that Turner gave a speech in which he stated that that “all politicians are nothing but a bunch of puppets dancing to a Jewish tune, and the ruling regimes in the West for the last one hundred years have danced to the same tune.” Turner is also reported as having stated that Jews played an influential role in the French Revolution and both World Wars, before concluding that England was a content and successful nation during the period of the expulsion (1290–1656), and adding that we should “free England from Jewish control.”

Gideon Falter: Head of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism
Although the initial report to the police was made by the more senior Jewish organization, the Community Security Trust (CST), Gideon Falter, head of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism,[10] was the most vocal and ardent pursuer of the case. The police, in accordance with established process for ‘hate crimes,’ passed footage of the speech to the Crown Prosecution Service's counterterrorism division. It was here that Falter began to encounter difficulties, and why a further Jewish campaign to hinder free speech in Britain has acquired momentum in the last twelve months. While [ the Jew ] Leon Brittan’s inclusion of an ‘incitement to racial hatred’ clause in the 1986 Public Order Act was an important hit on free speech, it was not all-encompassing, and it did not come close to making ‘anti-Semitism’ illegal. The Crown Prosecution Service’s policy guidelines on cases involving ‘incitement’ under the 1986 Act clearly state that the language employed by a defendant must have been “threatening, abusive or insulting. These words are given their normal meaning but the courts have ruled that behavior can be annoying, rude or even offensive without necessarily being insulting.”
Moreover, further comment from the CPS has made it clear that the language employed by the defendant must have been “grossly abusive or insulting” or moved beyond reasonable “criticism” of a group, for a prosecution to be valid, since “it is essential in a free, democratic and tolerant society that people are able robustly to exchange views, even when these may cause offence.” At some point in the aftermath of Falter’s report to the authorities, the CPS made the decision that Jez Turner hadn’t said anything illegal and ceased legal action against him.

Five months after the speech, Gideon Falter approached the Chief Crown Prosecutor for London with a view to discovering the charging decision in the case. He was informed by the CPS that Turner was entitled to free speech and hadn’t broken any laws. Falter then attempted to request a Victim’s Right to Review, a request that was declined on the basis that Turner hadn’t mentioned Falter and therefore Falter couldn’t claim victim status. Falter then used his influence to obtain meetings with both the Chief Executive of the CPS and the Director of Public Prosecutions, both of whom informed Falter that Turner simply hadn’t broken the law. At that point Falter, who has previously boasted of “holding the government’s feet to the fire,” issued legal proceedings against the CPS in his effort to make ‘anti-Semitism’ illegal, with or without legislation.

It is with all of this in mind that we need to reconsider some other recent developments, because other pawns have been put in place just prior to the latest twist in the Turner case — the ‘test case’ for the criminalization of criticism of Jewish influence in Britain. These pawns have consisted of two major propaganda drives, both of which have been largely led or orchestrated by Falter. The first drive has been a constant media droning about a putative, but somehow mysteriously invisible, “rise in anti-Semitism” in Britain. Falter has been the chief author of this myth, writing in January 2015 of “Britain’s tsunami of anti-Semitism.” Falter’s ‘tsunami’ apparently consisted of a polling result in which 25% of British respondents replied positively to the statement: “Jews chase money more than other British people.” Falter, who evidences almost psychopathic levels of paranoia, claimed that even though this much-feared anti-Semitism was ‘invisible,’ “the Jewish population must be protected by the state. … British people must remind their Jewish countrymen that they stand with us. Anti-Semitism in Britain is not a Jewish problem, it’s a British problem.” In a masterfully Jewish false syllogism, Falter added that: “Jews are the litmus test of freedom – our fate is the fate of society.”
It is an unfortunate fact that the media and government have indulged the wanton paranoia of this individual and the group of fanatics that he leads. Falter has not only been given meetings with those at the highest levels of government and law enforcement, but has even been allowed to put forward proposals that Jews be allowed to ‘educate’ police and prosecution lawyers on who, and for what comments, they should charge. We may consider it a paradox indeed, for an allegedly poor, downtrodden, and persecuted group to “hold the feet of the government to the fire.”

It was on the back of this ‘fake news’ of a rise in anti-Semitism that Falter produced another masterstroke in pushing the British government to adopt a ludicrously vague ‘official definition’ of anti-Semitism:

Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

The significance of the adoption of this nonsensical statement had less to do with the definition itself, than it had to its part in the larger effort to criminalize criticism of Jews. The adoption of the definition, in tandem with Jewish-orchestrated media propaganda about a non-existent rise in anti-Semitism, has been part of an attempt to weaken interpretations of the 1986 Public Order Act that lean towards protecting free speech. Falter has complained that “our criminal justice system is failing badly,” by which he means that the criminal justice system is not fully serving Jewish interests. The new ‘pawns’ pushed forward by Falter and his ilk are intended to convince the public, government, and the legal system that Jews, and not free speech, should be protected, and that they should be protected from criticism — because, after all, criticism is based on “a certain perception of Jews,” and is therefore anti-Semitic. The implication of this phrasing, of course, is that actual data on Jewish influence on the media or the political process (including enacting laws against free speech!) are removed from honest public discussion and debate.

With the media-invented frenzy about the ‘rise’ in anti-Semitism, and the introduction of a new definition of anti-Semitism, all that was needed for a final assault on the deficiencies of the 1986 Public Order Act was a test case in which a defendant had previously escaped prosecution under it. Jez Turner was just such a defendant, and he has been selected by Jewish activists as the fulcrum on which the fate of free speech in Britain will turn. Just days ago, in an unprecedented eventuality, the CAAs legal team forced the CPS to reconsider its decision not to prosecute Turner. Falter gloated immediately that “their surrender was unequivocal.”
The question remains for all freedom-loving Britons and for all men of the West where this warning sounds: Will you surrender? One person who won’t is Jez Turner himself. I met Jez in person a little over a year ago in Stockport, England, and found him to be an intelligent and affable gentleman. He is not given to extremes, and is often considered in his choice of words and actions. We discussed history and politics over fish and chips, and literature during one (very windy) walk along the coast. A very talented speaker and organizer, Jez has given a lot to the cause in England, and has done so during periods where others have taken a back seat. In particular, his London Forum has been the lifeblood of the movement in Britain during the last several years. All of this, of course, makes him a valuable ‘scalp’ to our opponents, and the ideal target upon which to base the broader assault on free speech.

Despite the fact that a courtroom beckons, Jez remains in good spirits. In my last correspondence with him he had this to say — clearly anticipating a courtroom battle over the extent of Jewish influence in Britain. I can think of no better way to finish:
“Our job is to get the truth out there in whatever way possible and a court room is a good a place as any.”

Source: 
http://www.sunray22b.net/jeremy_bedfordturner.html

Isolating Trump: Merkel's G-20 Climate Alliance Is Crumbling

   

By Christiane Hoffmann, Peter Müller and Gerald Traufetter - 09 June 2017

The German chancellor had been hoping to isolate Donald Trump on climate issues at the upcoming G-20 summit in Hamburg. But Merkel's hoped-for alliance is crumbling, underscoring Germany's relative political weakness globally. Many countries are wary of angering the United States.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had actually thought that Canada's young, charismatic prime minister, Justin Trudeau, could be counted among her reliable partners. Particularly when it came to climate policy. Just two weeks ago, at the G-7 summit in Sicily, he had thrown his support behind Germany. When Merkel took a confrontational approach to U.S. President Donald Trump, Trudeau was at her side.

But by Tuesday evening, things had changed. At 8 p.m., Merkel called Trudeau to talk about how to proceed following Trump's announced withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. To her surprise, the Canadian prime minister was no longer on the attack. He had switched to appeasement instead.

What would be wrong with simply striking all mentions of the Paris Agreement from the planned G-20 statement on climate, Trudeau asked. He suggested simply limiting the statement to energy issues, something that Trump would likely support as well. Trudeau had apparently changed his approach to Trump and seemed concerned about further provoking his powerful neighbor to the south.

The telephone call made it clear to Merkel that her strategy for the G-20 summit in early July might fail. The chancellor had intended to clearly isolate the United States. at the Hamburg meeting, hoping that 19 G-20 countries would underline their commitment to the Paris Agreement and make Trump a bogeyman of world history. A score of 19:1.

If even Trudeau is having doubts, though, then unity among those 19 is looking increasingly unlikely. Since then, the new formula has been to bring as many countries as possible together against one.

The first cracks began appearing on the Thursday before last. After returning from the G-7 summit in the Sicilian town of Taormina, Merkel had sent a clear signal to her team: "We have to stay together, we have to close ranks."

From the G-6 to the G-3

But even before Trump announced the American withdrawal from the Paris Agreement that evening in the White House Rose Garden, it had become clear in Berlin that they would miss their first target. Led by the Italian G-7 presidency, the plan had been for a joint reaction to Trump's withdrawal, an affirmation from the remaining six leading industrial nations: We remain loyal to Paris.

Suddenly, though, Britain and Japan no longer wanted to be part of it. British Prime Minister Theresa May didn't want to damage relations with Trump, since she would need him in the event of a hard Brexit, the Chancellery surmised last week. And given the tensions with North Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe couldn't put his country's alliance with the U.S. at risk. In other words: Climate policy is great, but when it comes to national interests, it is secondary.

In the end, the Germans, French and Italians were on their own. The G-6 had become the G-3.

It is a defeat for Merkel, and not just when it comes to climate policy. It is also a setback for her claim to leadership on the global stage. Germany's geopolitical influence, the incident shows, remains limited. When it comes to power, security and interests, Germany is a not a global player, but a mid-sized power that isn't even able to keep Europe together.

The German chancellor may have become the hero of liberals and democrats around the globe, but she is unable to fulfill the expectations placed on her as the putative "leader of the free world," at least not when it comes to power politics. Even Merkel's psychological deftness in dealing with the posturing potentates of the world isn't enough to make up for the fact that Germany is not a global power when it comes to foreign and security policy.

America, it seems, will remain the world's power broker for the time being.

Unpredictable Variables

When the most powerful heads of state and government gather in Hamburg in less than a month, that fact could make things difficult for the event's German hosts, and not just when it comes to climate policy. The international situation hasn't been this unclear in a very long time and it is impossible to predict how the meeting participants will act and how the summit will unfold. There are "so many fault lines," says a source in the Chancellery: The battle for free trade and protectionism, the war in Syria, the Qatar crisis and the ongoing fighting in Ukraine all pose a threat to summit bonhomie.

In internal discussions, a list of unpredictable variables has been drawn up. At the very top is Donald Trump.

Indeed, the U.S. president's first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin threatens to overshadow the entire summit. Merkel had hoped that the two would organize a meeting prior to the Hamburg summit so that their encounter would not become a central issue. But now, all eyes are likely to be on the face-to-face meeting between the leaders of America and Russia, particularly given that the investigation into the Trump campaign's possible ties to Moscow is gaining steam in Washington.

In Berlin, preparations for the summit are continuing full speed ahead, with the Chancellery focusing primarily on the preparation of two documents. One is the summit's official closing communiqué, which all 20 heads of state and government are to sign. The document is to reflect Merkel's stamp on the summit, and it focuses on a broad array of issues from trade to Africa to women's rights.

Several drafts have circulated among the G-20 members in recent weeks. Of particular note: There isn't a single mention of the climate in the document. There is a decent possibility that, if the U.S. is to sign it, the closing document will remain completely silent on climate issues.

Hope Fades

In parallel, though, Merkel's advisers are working on an "Action Plan on Climate, Energy and Growth," a document that had initially been planned for the 19 in Merkel's original 19:1 calculation. But hope is fading that enough heads of state and government can be found to sign the document. Thirteen pages long, the paper asks signatories to commit themselves to "the restructuring of energy systems consistent with Paris" and to their "nationally determined contributions" to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

For the Americans, the document is an imposition. It includes a number of items in which the Paris Agreement is expressly affirmed and substantiated - the pact that Trump has just withdrawn from. "Our actions are guided by the Paris Agreement," the document states, the goal of which is that of "holding global temperature increases to well below 2 degrees." The paper also discusses the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and the $50 billion that industrialized nations have pledged to make available to help developing nations reach their targets. An array of items that, as has recently become apparent, Trump has little use for.

Officials in Brussels are cautiously optimistic. "We expect that the document will be signed by the 19 countries," says one diplomat involved in G-20 preparations. Nobody at EU headquarters, though, has any hope that the U.S. will join them.

In Berlin, the mood is less confident. There are widespread concerns that a whole list of countries might pull back out of fear of the consequences for their relations with Trump - something they aren't willing to risk over the question as to how hot it might be on the planet in 100 years. Indeed, the Chancellery has begun recalibrating its view of success, now content to settle for a situation in which no other country joins the U.S. in withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.

German officials believe there are several countries whose signatures to the document are by no means certain. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for instance, could be on the search for revenge following the dispute over German parliamentarians' rights to visit German troops stationed in Incirlik. The Saudis, meanwhile, might jump ship because of the multibillion-dollar defense deal they just signed with Trump.

A Lesson from China

Moscow, meanwhile, has signaled to the Chancellery that Russian President Vladimir Putin stands behind Paris and would sign the document. But can he really be trusted? Merkel has spent a lot of time on the phone in recent days and has also been traveling. This week, she visited Argentina and Mexico, both of which are allies when it comes to climate issues.

Just how difficult it is to keep partners together on climate protection issues was on full display to Merkel last Friday in Brussels. Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang was in the EU capital and was eating dinner with European Council President Donald Tusk and Commission President Juncker just as Trump announced his withdrawal from Paris. The trio didn't bother to turn on the television since they already knew what the U.S. president was going to announce.

Indeed, they had planned to issue a joint response the next day at the EU-China summit. They had negotiated a summit declaration in which both sides would call for a significant intensification of the fight against climate change. High-ranking EU officials had already begun crowing that the statement was the response from China and Europe to Trump's effrontery.

But it never happened. It wasn't because the two sides disagreed on climate issues, but there was discord surrounding a different part of the statement dealing with trade policy. Ultimately, the disagreement could not be resolved and Juncker, Tusk and Li appeared before the press after a three-hour delay - and without a joint statement on the climate.

Indeed, trade policy is likely to be another significant sticking point at the G-20 summit in Hamburg. The Europeans got an indication of what is likely in store for them on Wednesday and Thursday of this week at the ministerial meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The U.S. declined even to support sentences that merely repeated the minimal compromise that Trump had grudgingly agreed to in Sicily. The G-7 had only been able to find common ground on a few thin statements criticizing predatory pricing or condemning overcapacity in steel production. In the closing document of the OECD meeting on globalization, there is now no mention at all of trade or climate.

The Role of Mediator

As such, the G-20 could result in something that hosts of the event normally do all they can to avoid: open discord. On the issue of climate, the decisive question will be whether the Germans are willing to seek conflict with Trump. But it currently doesn't look as though they are, with government officials eager to avoid turning the climate statement into an instrument of power politics. Instead, Merkel is likely to retreat to a role that suits her better anyway: that of mediator. As the host, officials say, Germany will focus on playing intermediary at the summit.

On the other hand, though, Merkel also isn't interested in the type of compromise proposed by Trudeau. After the G-7, she said that climate protection was too important to her to engage in compromise.

Ultimately, the end result could be that the issue is largely ignored. The G-20 isn't a climate conference, officials are saying, and the conflicts might be better suited for the next global climate summit, scheduled to take place in Bonn at the end of the year.

The German population, of course, would almost certainly prefer to see the chancellor stand up to Trump. If Merkel, who has staked a significant portion of her political legacy on climate change, were to exclude climate from the G-20 summit, she could face accusations of caving in to the U.S. president. And in a campaign year, that's not a good look. Indeed, the center-left Social Democrats are already positioning themselves to benefit. "It would of course be good if as many participants of the G-20 summit as possible were to reconfirm their adherence to the Paris climate deal," says Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the SPD. "Silent consent in opposition to the climate deal cannot be the message sent by the G-20."

Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/angela-merkel-s-anti-trump-alliance-crumbling-ahead-of-g-20-a-1151439.html

Why Horst Mahler is not Voluntarily Returning to Prison

19 APRIL 2017

Are you going voluntarily to prison? No!

The devil's disciples, who are doing their satanic work in the Federal Republic in very many high places, now want to strike a final blow against Horst Mahler, to accelerate his death so he dies in prison.

Mr. Mahler has therefore made the right decision - he has sort political asylum abroad.

What does it mean for us? [Should we] stop the protest against this scandal? No!

Mr. Mahler has sacrificed many years of his life for our people and is not to be allowed to live his own life in his homeland? Shall we, pay the price for seeking truth and freedom for our people in exile?

We must now increase the scale [of this struggle] and continue the fight for the freedom of our people. We must show the decent people in our country who are the agents of the devil in the judiciary, politics and the economy in order to enable them to recognize the truth and to resist.

Freedom for Horst Mahler - freedom for Germany!

Horst Mahler on April 19, 2017 - Declaration




Source:- Enderluege Blog

Germany threatens to fine social media companies €50m for hate speech and fake news

Wednesday 15th March 2017
by  Cara McGoogan 

Germany has threatened severe penalties for companies that fail to crack down on hate speech, illegal content and fake news.

In a crack down on social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter, Germany has proposed levying fines of up to €50 million (£44m) for the failure to remove such posts.

As part of the measures, sites will have to delete offending material within a week and run 24-hour helplines for concerned users. Illegal material, such as racist language, will have have to be removed within 24 hours. 

The proposals from Heiko Maas, German justice minister, are significantly greater than previous suggestions to impose €500,000 fines on the companies. They will be part of a bill that will be put to the German Parliament in an effort to combat malicious activity and disinformation campaigns online.

At the moment Facebook removes 39 per cent of flagged content, while Twitter deletes just 1 per cent, according to research released alongside the proposals. It also showed Facebook removes 33 per cent of offending material within 24 hours, and Twitter none.  

"It is now clear that we must further increase the pressure on social networks," said Maas. "We need legal regulations to make companies even more obligated to eradicate criminal offences." 

The severe measures come amid fears that online hoaxes could influence the German federal elections later this year. 

Facebook has already introduced a tool in Germany that lets users flag suspicious content in response to claims that "fake news" on the network influenced the outcome of the US presidential election. It has also said it plans to employ 700 people in Berlin to monitor flagged material by the end of the year.

If the measures pass into law it will require social media companies to employ staff that monitor content around the clock. Individual members of staff responsible for handling complaints could also be fined up to €5 million for failing to comply with the regulations. 

Bitkom, the German digital trade association, told the Financial Times the proposals would be "utterly impossible to implement in operational terms". 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/03/14/germany-threatens-fine-social-media-companies-50m-hate-speech/

[Ed: Zionists attempt to deliver the coup de grâce - they know all about fake news as they are the original and Chief Offenders]

Europe Must Defend Itself Against A Dangerous President

Trump as Nero
Der Spiegel Editorial By Klaus Brinkbäumer

The United States president is becoming a danger to the world. It is time for Germany and Europe to prepare their political and economic defenses.

There are times in life that really do count. Times when a person's character is revealed, when the important is separated from the unimportant. Soon decisions are taken that will determine the further path a person takes. With some, this can be tragic, and the moment comes too soon in their youth at a time when they aren't mature enough yet to foresee all the potential consequences. They make the decisions cheerfully and they lead to either luck or bad luck. But countries and governments are seldom as innocent when it comes to their decisions.

That's the kind of situation now approaching. The people who will soon have to decide are already grown up. They now have to start preparing, even if it will be painful.

Germany must stand up in opposition to the 45th president of the United States and his government. That's difficult enough already for two reasons: Because it is from the Americans that we obtained our liberal democracy in the first place; and because it is unclear how the brute and choleric man on the other side will react to diplomatic pressure. The fact that opposition to the American government can only succeed when mounted together with Asian and African partners -- and no doubt with our partners in Europe, with the EU -- doesn't make the situation any easier.

o far, Germany has viewed its leadership role -- at least the leadership understanding of Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble -- as one that is by all means in opposition to the interests of other European countries. Whether Schäuble's austerity policies or Merkel's migration policies, it all happened without much co-coordination and with considerable force. It is thus somewhat ironical that it is Germany, the country that is politically and economically dominant in Europe, that will now have to fill in many of the gaps created by America's withdrawal from the old world order, the one referred to by former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer as "Pax Americana." At the same time, Germany must build an alliance against Donald Trump, because it otherwise won't take shape. It is, however, absolutely necessary.

It is literally painful to write this sentence, but the president of the United States is a pathological liar. The president of the U.S. is a racist (it also hurts to write this). He is attempting a coup from the top; he wants to establish an illiberal democracy, or worse; he wants to undermine the balance of power. He fired an acting attorney general who held a differing opinion from his own and accused her of "betrayal." This is the vocabulary used by Nero, the emperor and destroyer of Rome. It is the way tyrants think.

A Serious Threat

Donald Trump and his fire-starter Stephen Bannon discriminate against certain people by decree, but not against those from countries in which Trump does business. The contempt the president of the United States and his most important adviser have for science and education is so blatant that it's almost difficult to write. But their disdain for climate and environmental policies has to be stated, because four or eight years of it could become a serious threat.

Among the things that counted as true progress during the 20th century were multilateralism and free trade. The world has become so complex that no single country can solve the major problems on its own -- that was our recognition. Organizations like the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, NATO and the EU were all created for this reason. None of these organizations is perfect, but they are what we launched -- and we do need them. Bannon now wants to wipe them away, and either Trump is executing Bannon's intentions or he shares them.

That's why under President Trump, both the justified and the contemptible will be melded. Injustice is a major issue of our times, as are fears of digitalization and globalization -- and rightfully so given that the division of society and the speed of modern life is, in fact, extreme. Trump fuses these worries of his voters with nationalism and xenophobia. That's how demagogues work and it is how they become effective. The fact that the United States, a nuclear superpower that has dominated the world economically, militarily and culturally for decades, is now presenting itself as the victim, calling in all seriousness for "America first" and trying to force the rest of the world into humiliating concessions is absurd. But precisely because this nonsense is coming from the world's most powerful man, it is getting trapped by him.

This is not a threat that will somehow resolve itself. The German economy has become the target of American trade policy and German democracy is ideologically antithetical to Trump's vision. But even here, in the middle of Germany, right-wing extremists are trying to give him a helping hand. It is high time that we stand up for what is important: democracy, freedom, the West and its alliances.

This does not mean escalation or that we must abandon our contacts with America and all the working groups between our governments. What is does mean, though, is that Europe must grow stronger and start planning its political and economic defenses. Against America's dangerous president.

Source:-
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-1133177.html
February 05, 2017

Ed - a totally deranged article. The EU has inverted natural law. At least Trump is trying to reverse 70 years of globalism, foreign wars and multi racialism.

The Trump Administration's Flirtation With Holocaust Denial

The White House statement on Holocaust Remembrance day did not mention Jews or antisemitism.
Deborah Lipstadt - Jan 30, 2017

Holocaust denial is alive and well in the highest offices of the United States. It is being spread by those in President Trump’s innermost circle. It may have all started as a mistake by a new administration that is loath to admit it’s wrong. Conversely, it may be a conscious attempt by people with anti-Semitic sympathies to rewrite history. Either way it is deeply disturbing.

For me these developments are intensely personal—not because I have immediate family members who died in the Holocaust. I don’t. But I have spent a good number of years fighting something which the White House now seems to be fostering.

Last Friday, I was in Amsterdam attending a screening of the movie Denial. It’s a film about the libel suit David Irving, once arguably the world’s most influential Holocaust denier, brought against me for having called him a denier. The trial, held in 2000, lasted 10 weeks. Because of the nature of British libel laws which placed the burden of proof on me, I had no choice but to fight. Had I not fought he would have won by default and his denial version of the Holocaust—no gas chambers, no mass killings, no Hitler involvement, and that this is all a myth concocted by Jews—would have been enshrined in British law.

After an intense day of press interviews and screenings, I had gone for a short walk. Intent on enjoying my surroundings, I ignored the pinging of my phone. Ironically, I had just reached the Anne Frank House, the place where Anne wrote her diary, when the pinging became so incessant that I checked to see what was happening.

I quickly learned that the White House had released a statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day that did not mention Jews or anti-Semitism. Instead it bemoaned the “innocent victims.” The internet was buzzing and many people were fuming. Though no fan of Trump, I chalked it up as a rookie mistake by a new administration busy issuing a slew of executive orders. Someone had screwed up. I refused to get agitated, and counseled my growing number of correspondents to hold their fire. A clarification would certainly soon follow. I was wrong.

In a clumsy defense Hope Hicks, the White House director of strategic communications, insisted that, the White House, by not referring to Jews, was acting in an “inclusive” manner. It deserved praise not condemnation. Hicks pointed those who inquired to an article which bemoaned the fact that, too often the “other” victims of the Holocaust were forgotten. Underlying this claim is the contention that the Jews are “stealing” the Holocaust for themselves. It is a calumny founded in anti-Semitism.

There were indeed millions of innocent people whom the Nazis killed in many horrific ways, some in the course of the war and some because the Germans perceived them—however deluded their perception—to pose a threat to their rule. They suffered terribly. But that was not the Holocaust.

The Holocaust was something entirely different. It was an organized program with the goal of wiping out a specific people. Jews did not have to do anything to be perceived as worthy of being murdered. Old people who had to be wheeled to the deportation trains and babies who had to be carried were all to be killed. The point was not, as in occupied countries, to get rid of people because they might mount a resistance to Nazism, but to get rid of Jews because they were Jews. Roma (Gypsies) were also targeted. Many were murdered. But the Nazi anti-Roma policy was inconsistent. Some could live in peace and even serve in the German army.

German homosexuals were horribly abused by the Third Reich. Some were given the chance of “reforming” themselves and then going to serve on the eastern front, where many of them became cannon fodder. Would I have wanted to be a homosexual in the Reich, or in the rest of Nazi occupied Europe? Absolutely not. But they were not systematically wiped out.

This is a matter of historical accuracy and not of comparative pain. If my family members had been killed by the Germans for resisting or for some other perceived wrong I would not be—nor should I be—comforted by the fact that they were not killed as part of the Holocaust.
Had the Germans won, they probably would have eliminated millions of other peoples, including the Roma, homosexuals, dissidents of any kind, and other “useless eaters.” But it was only the Jews whose destruction could not wait until after the war. Only in the case of the Jews could war priorities be overridden. Germany was fighting two wars in tandem, a conventional war and a war against the Jews. It lost the first and, for all intents and purposes, nearly won the second.

The de-Judaization of the Holocaust, as exemplified by the White House statement, is what I term softcore Holocaust denial. Hardcore denial is the kind of thing I encountered in the courtroom. In an outright and forceful fashion, Irving denied the facts of the Holocaust. In his decision, Judge Charles Grey called Irving a liar and a manipulator of history. He did so, the judge ruled, deliberately and not as the result of mistakes.

Softcore denial uses different tactics but has the same end-goal. (I use hardcore and softcore deliberately because I see denial as a form of historiographic pornography.) It does not deny the facts, but it minimizes them, arguing that Jews use the Holocaust to draw attention away from criticism of Israel. Softcore denial also makes all sorts of false comparisons to the Holocaust. In certain Eastern European countries today, those who fought the Nazis may be lauded, but if they did so with a communist resistance group they may be prosecuted. Softcore denial also includes Holocaust minimization, as when someone suggests it was not so bad. “Why are we hearing about that again?”

What we saw from the White House was classic softcore denial. The Holocaust was de-Judaized. It is possible that it all began with a mistake. Someone simply did not realize what they were doing. It is also possible that someone did this deliberately. The White House’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, boasted that while at Breitbart he created a platform for alt-right. Richard Spencer, the self-proclaimed leader of the alt-right, has invited overt Holocaust deniers to alt-right conferences, and his followers have engaged in outright denial. During the campaign, he was reportedly responsible for speeches and ads that many observers concluded trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes.

After Hicks’s defense of the statement, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus doubled down, insisting that they made no mistake. On Meet the Press Chuck Todd gave Priebus repeated chances to retract or rephrase the statement. Priebus refused and dug in deeper, declaring “everyone’s suffering in the Holocaust, including obviously, all of the Jewish people… [was] extraordinarily sad.”

In the penultimate sentence of the president’s statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the White House promised to ensure that “the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good.” But the statement was issued on the same day as the order banning refugees. It is hard not to conclude that this is precisely what happened at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/the-trump-administrations-softcore-holocaust-denial/514974/

Ed - It looks like the beginning of the end for 'holocaustianity'. David Irving failed in his legal action because he denied he was a 'denier'. That was not a logical position and the British legal system is rigged in any legal action concerning race and 'anti-Semitism'. How can 3 million Jews be lost from the death total at Auschwitz and then exactly the same figure be immediately substituted in the form of deaths by shootings at other locations? The alleged deaths of additional 5 million Romas, 'gays', Communists etc. is now denied by the likes of Lipstadt. With so many inconsistencies already acknowledged no wonder they have persecuted revisionists.

Israeli Defense Forces general Likens Israel to 1930's Germany

[Statement] on Holocaust Remembrance Day

‘[I]f there is anything that frightens me in remembrance of the Holocaust, it is noticing horrific processes which developed … in Germany – 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and finding evidence of them here among us in the year 2016,’ Maj. Gen. Yair Golan told an audience earlier this month. by Richard Silverstein

SEATTLE - Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, was commemorated in Israel and throughout the Jewish world earlier this month with solemn ceremonies of remembrance. But one speech rocked Israel with its moral criticism of Israeli society.

Speaking to an audience gathered at Tel Yitzhak, a kibbutz in central Israel, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, the Israeli Defense Forces deputy chief of staff, warned Israel that the Jewish state threatened to fall into a moral chasm like the one that befell Nazi Germany for its treatment of “foreigners” — read: Palestinians and African refugees.

Here are some of his remarks [author’s translation]:

“The Holocaust should bring us to ponder our public lives and, furthermore, it must lead anyone who is capable of taking public responsibility to do so. … Because if there is anything that frightens me in remembrance of the Holocaust, it is noticing horrific processes which developed … in Germany – 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and finding evidence of them here among us in the year 2016.”

“The Holocaust … must bring us to … deep soul-searching regarding the responsibility of [our national] leadership and the quality of our society. It must lead us to fundamentally rethink how we, here and now, behave towards the other: the foreigner, the widow and the orphan [these are traditional Jewish social justice concepts].”

“There is nothing easier and simpler than hating the foreigner … There is nothing easier and simpler than fear-mongering and making threats. There is nothing easier and simpler than behaving brutishly, being indifferent [to the plight of the Other], and self-righteous.”

“On Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is worthwhile to consider our capacity to uproot the first buds of intolerance, violence, and self-destruction that lie on the path toward moral decay.”

In his speech, Golan refers in particular to the extraordinary level of incitement, hate and violence in Israeli society toward “foreigners.” Since the current round of violence began in the fall, 200 Palestinians have been killed. The majority have been Palestinians who attacked Israeli soldiers and police to protest Israeli encroachment on Jerusalem’s Muslim holy sites. But close to one-quarter of the Palestinian dead have been civilians murdered by Israeli forces in incidents like this and this.

Window-dressing a deadly, pervasive problem

The IDF’s deputy chief of staff also referenced the murder of a young Palestinian man at a Hebron checkpoint in March, which was filmed by a Palestinian videographer. The graphic evidence offered by the video raised a storm of controversy within Israel, with most excusing the shooting or even lionizing the IDF shooter, whose name I first identified when it was under Israeli gag order.

Feeling compelled to act to protect its international image, the army medic who turned his gun on the incapacitated Palestinian lying on the street was charged with negligent homicide by the IDF. He is being tried in military court.

Golan’s speech highlighted the supposedly high moral standards of the IDF in prosecuting its own soldier. The legal proceedings pointed, he maintained, to a standard he urged Israel itself to emulate in its relations with Palestinians. The problem is that much of this is window-dressing. Scores of unarmed Palestinians have been killed in very similar circumstances, but only when there is a camera on hand in possession of a Palestinian or peace activist is there any accountability.

Proof of this may be seen in a tragic incident on April 27. Private Israeli security guards at Qalandiya West Bank checkpoint murdered a 23-year-old Palestinian mother who was five months pregnant and her teenage brother. The latter had secured a permit to attend a medical appointment in Israel, and they were navigating the Qalandiya checkpoint for the first time. They inadvertently entered the vehicle lane and misunderstood Hebrew language commands to retreat.

Israeli forces claimed the two “threw knives” at the guards, but Palestinian eyewitnesses say the shooter was 60 feet from the brother and sister and seemingly not in any danger. They also claim the pair did not have knives, and the weapons were planted on their bodies afterward. Though there are security cameras monitoring the spot, the IDF refuses to make the footage available.

To add insult to injury, the Guardian’s Peter Beaumont reported that the young mother had committed “suicide by IDF,” as if a woman who was five months pregnant and with three young children would do such a thing. This is likely an idea planted in the journalist’s mind by official Israeli spin doctors who have launched false rumors blaming victims for their own murders in similar cases.

Evidence of collaboration between early Zionist leaders and the Nazis

Returning to Golan’s Yom HaShoah speech, considering the sensitivity with which Israel treats the Holocaust, it’s extraordinary for an active duty member of the senior military command to warn Israel that it threatened to fall into a moral chasm like the one that befell Nazi Germany. It must be seen as a clarion call from the nation’s most significant institution, urging a drawback from the abyss.

Characteristically, Golan was savaged for his outspokenness by far-right government ministers who harbor some of the same racist attitudes the major general was attacking.

In this context, it’s worth examining a political controversy inflaming the British chattering and political classes. This one has inundated the Labour Party’s left-wing leadership with controversial attacks by the British pro-Israel lobby and the largely pro-Tory press.

The debate has spilled over into the American media as well. Raw Story published a piece by Prof. Rainer Schulze which largely supports the notion that London’s former left-wing mayor, Ken Livingstone, has crossed a bright red line by claiming that Adolf Hitler “supported Zionism.”

The facts are far more complicated than Schulze makes them out to be. First, Livingstone’s claim, while overstated, is by no means a “historical error.” In fact, there is ample historical evidence that the Zionist leaders of the 1930s Yishuv and senior Nazi leaders collaborated in significant ways. Their collaboration was not based on shared values or principles, but on mutual self-interest. But that, of course, does not make the partnership less significant.

In 1933, German Zionist organizations, with the support of the Yishuv, signed the historic Transfer (“Haavara”) Agreement with Nazi authorities. It stayed in effect for nearly a decade and saved some 20,000 German Jews. But it is the method by which they were saved that is the most troubling: The Nazis liquidated the property of the emigrants and shipped Nazi goods of equal value to Israel where they were sold. Some of the proceeds of the sale were then returned to the emigrants when they resettled in Palestine.

For the Nazis, the deal solved critical needs. Germany faced an increasingly effective international boycott organized by American Zionists, led by Rabbi Stephen Wise. While the boycott had begun among the Jewish community here, it was beginning to resonate far beyond U.S. borders. Hitler had just begun to contemplate the military buildup that would eventually lead to World War II, and he knew an international boycott would destroy his rearmament effort.

Part of the deal meant that Wise and the American Zionists would call off the boycott. Thus ended one of the most promising attempts to strangle the Nazi infant in its cradle before it could grow up to wreak havoc on the world.

Further, in 1933 the German economy remained mired in the Great Depression and was also saddled with the onerous financial penalties of World War I reparations. The funds the Nazis looted from German Jews played a role in pumping needed cash into the economy.

Schulze minimizes and misconstrues both the history of the Nazi approach to the “Jewish Question” and the Transfer Agreement’s role in its evolution:

“While this implicitly always suggested murder and extermination, it took time until it became clear how this extermination could be effectively executed and until the Nazi authorities felt that such a radical ‘final solution’ could be pushed through.”

As the following sources show, it wasn’t until the early 1940s that it was clear that the Nazis had embraced the “Final Solution” of mass extermination. Prior to that, they had displayed a certain flexibility in their notions of how to deal with European Jewry.

‘Blood for Goods’

There is an even later and more obscure episode in the history of that era that involved negotiations between the Nazis and the Yishuv, in the form of the Jewish Agency. In 1944, a small group of Hungarian Jews established a rescue committee to try to save as many Jews from the Nazis as they could. Among them were Joel Brand and Rudolf Kastner, who would be assassinated in Israel in 1957.

They contacted the Nazis to offer bribes in return for stopping the deportations to Auschwitz. Not only were the Germans amenable, none other than Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust, met repeatedly with Brand and came up with a far more ambitious scheme. He appointed Brand to present it to the Jewish Agency, the foreign office of the Yishuv.

The plan would offer Jewish lives in return for supplies the Nazis desperately needed on the Russian front. Notably, 100,000 Jews would be freed (and permitted to emigrate to Palestine) for every 1,000 trucks the Jews or the Allies shipped to the Nazis. The plan was nicknamed “Blood for Goods.” A total of 1 million Jews were offered in return for up to 10,000 trucks.

When Brand traveled to the Middle East to present the plan to the Jewish Agency, the latter appeared not to understand the gravity of the situation in Europe or the seriousness of Brand’s proposal. The agency had sent a lower level official to meet Brand. After Brand protested, the agency sent the far more senior Moshe Sharett, a future prime minister.

When Brand told Sharett that 6 million Jews had already perished and that another 2 million would meet that fate unless the agency acted, Sharett reportedly looked at him as if he were a mad man.

But another factor proved even more decisive in arresting the plan: The British arrested Brand and imprisoned him in Egypt. They didn’t trust him or the plan. Brand never returned to Budapest to report to Eichmann, who in return began the mass deportations which led to the murder of 400,000 Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz.

The irony is that it was the British government which had an opportunity to negotiate to save the largest remaining intact Jewish community in Europe, but it refused to do so. If Britain wishes to debate anything, it might review the choices its leaders made in this decisive moment.

A red herring

In his recent report, Schulze seems fixated on the false notion that Livingstone is claiming the Nazis not only supported Zionists, but that they were Zionists. He writes:

“The Haavara Agreement does not mean the Nazis were ever Zionists. … These policies do not in any way resemble Zionism.”

At no point has Livingstone ever suggested they were, and Schulze sets up a red herring argument by claiming that he does. Schulze appears to be unaware of this little known, but critical source praising the affinity of Zionism and Nazism. It is this glowing encomium penned by Reinhard Heydrich, the SS chief, in 1935, which was published in a leading SS publication. Francis Nicosia quotes it in his 1985 book, “The Third Reich and the Palestine Question”:

“‘National Socialism has no intention of attacking the Jewish people in any way. On the contrary, the recognition of Jewry as a racial community based on blood, and not as a religious one, leads the German government to guarantee the racial separateness of this community without any limitations. The government finds itself in complete agreement with the great spiritual movement within Jewry itself, the so-called Zionism, with its recognition of the solidarity of Jewry throughout the world and the rejection of all assimilationist ideas. On this basis, Germany undertakes measures that will surely play a significant role in the future in the handling of the Jewish problem around the world.’

“Göring’s January 24, 1939, note to the Interior Ministry gave Heydrich the authority to determine which parts of the world were the most suitable destinations for Jewish emigrants. The SS had consistently favored Jewish emigration to Palestine and would continue to do so with its enhanced authority in emigration policy.”

It’s important to note that in 1935, the Nazis had yet to formulate their plan to exterminate European Jewry. That came in 1942, after the war terminated the opportunity to rid Europe of Jews via emigration. But regardless of this fact, it indicates that there was an affinity between senior Nazi leaders and Zionism.

Hitler, himself, may have viewed these matters differently, and so Livingstone’s claim is somewhat imprecise. But whatever reluctance the Nazi leader may have felt toward such arrangements was overwhelmed by the practical needs the Nazis had for material support the German Jewish plunder could provide.

Expressing genuine concern or exploiting a trope?

There were also significant elements in the Yishuv Zionist movement which returned the admiration Heydrich expressed above.

The Irgun, the militant rightist movement founded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, was eager not only to do business with the Nazis, as the Yishuv did, but to forge an alliance based on ideological affinity. The Irgun envisioned a Jewish state that would not be a democracy, but rather one based on the totalitarian ideals espoused by the Nazis:

“The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East.

“Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognized on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war on Germany’s side.”

It’s important to note that the Irgun was considered the opposition to the majority Yishuv leadership. It was in the minority and would not take control of the state until 1977, under the leadership of Menachem Begin and later Yitzhak Shamir.

But the Irgun was a powerful force in pre-1948 Palestine. It conducted dramatic assassinations of British leaders and international negotiators like Count Bernadotte. The ruling Yishuv leadership often looked the other way at such mass violence. Some rightist violence was directed against indigenous Palestinians as well. The infamous 1948 attack on Deir Yassin was the work of Irgun “freedom fighters” under Begin’s leadership.

It is absolutely false to label criticism like Livingstone’s as unfounded or anti-Semitic. It is, in fact, historically accurate. The real question is how one deals with the historical record. It would be far better for Israel’s supporters to accept the truth and critique the decisions made by the leaders of the Yishuv than it would be to smear those who summon history to criticize Israel.

The Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, an Israeli academic institute which studies world anti-Semitism, recorded a dramatic decrease in anti-Jewish acts around the world. There was a 50 percent drop from 2014 to 2015.

Given these statistics, one wonders what exactly pro-Israel forces in Britain are worried about. Are they genuinely concerned about anti-Semitism, or are they exploiting a trope which they know will resonate among Jews and non-Jews alike, in order to sabotage the Labour Party’s left-wing leadership under Jeremy Corbyn?

There is an enormous danger in playing the anti-Semitism card in such a fashion. Like the boy who cried wolf, if you cry discrimination when there is none, there will come a time when you really need to warn the world of mortal danger to Jews, and no one won’t believe you because you abused their trust in the past. This would be a truly unfortunate development for Jews, Israel and the world.

http://www.mintpressnews.com/israeli-defense-forces-general-likens-israel-1930s-germany-holocaust-remembrance-day/216436/

Source - Mint Press News - Monday 16th May 2016 - Richard Silverstein

Editor's note - According to the Eichmann Memoirs Argentinian Edition, some Jews were paid £1,000 to settle in Palestine pre war - a very considerable sum of money. Some extracts were published in Life magazine 1960 by Walter Sassen, a Dutch journalist and former member of the SS.