German Bishops rock the Israeli boat

FRANKFURT: A pilgrimage to Israel last week by 27 Roman Catholic bishops from Germany was meant to be a historic symbol of reconciliation between Jews and German Catholics.

Instead, after two bishops drew a link between the plight of Palestinians in the West Bank and that of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, it has become a fresh source of recrimination.

Nothing new there then. Those who dare to criticise the barbaric behaviour of the Israeli state can expect to be subject to megaphoned "recriminations" as a matter of course.

German-Jewish groups and the Israeli ambassador to Germany condemned their comments, which were reported in newspapers here, saying they were demagogic and "verging on anti-Semitism."

For crying out loud, think up a new slur! The 'anti semite' slur is, like the protests of the boy who cried wolf, rapidly losing its power. Nobody takes it seriously anymore, because it has become a byword not for those who hate Jewish people, but for those whom the Jewish people hate.

"If one uses terms like Warsaw ghetto or racism in connection with Israeli or Palestinian politics, then one has forgotten everything, or learned nothing," the Israeli ambassador to Germany, Shimon Stein, said in a statement.

What precisely is it that we have failed to learn? That Jewish suffering trumps all others? That anti-Jewish prejudice is the only true racism? What you and others like you have failed to learn, Mr Stein, is that you do not engage in a genocide in order to right perceived wrongs. What you have also failed to learn is that the world is rapidly growing wise to your two-faced admonishments.

The Warsaw ghetto, established by the Nazi regime in 1940 as a holding pen for Polish Jews before they were deported to concentration camps, has come to epitomize the barbarity of the Holocaust.

And seems to blind some to the barbarity of the open concentration camp into which a large percentage of the Palestinian population has been literally shoe-horned. The concentration camp is known as Gaza.

The top Catholic official in Germany, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, disavowed the bishop's remarks in a letter made public Wednesday to the director of Yad Vashem, the holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. But the outrage among Jews living in Germany has not yet subsided.

Why is it that those at the top lack the moral courage to stand up to the bullies? The outrage is just going to have to subside, and if those who doth protest too much don't like being called on their prejudice and barbarism then it is up to them to change.

"I made my point. Cardinal Lehmann made his point, unfortunately a bit late," Stein said in an interview. "Now we have to find other ways to deal with this. It tells us we have a problem."

Of course we have a problem. We have Israeli insensitivity to the plight of the Palestinian people. The people who had their land stolen from under their noses in order to facilitate the creation of the supremacist and hate-filled state of Israel.

The trouble started back in Germany when newspapers published more blunt remarks by two southern German bishops: Gregor Maria Hanke of Eichstätte and Walter Mixa of Augsburg.

"In the morning, we see the photos of the inhuman Warsaw ghetto, and this evening we travel to the ghetto in Ramallah," Hanke was quoted as saying by Suddeutsche Zeitung, the German newspaper. "That makes you angry."

That's your chance of making Pope blown, boys!

Mixa described the situation in Ramallah as "ghetto-like" and said the situation was "almost racism."

It is not "ghetto-like". It is a ghetto and much more besides. The West Bank is a concentration camp in everything but name, as is Gaza. It is not "almost racism" but undisguised, unrepentant and belligerent supremacism.

A third member of the delegation, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the archbishop of Cologne, was quoted by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as likening the separation barrier in the West Bank to the Berlin Wall. "I never thought I would have to see something like this ever again in my life," said Meisner, who is from the former East Germany.

Well, you did, although I am sure your hosts tried to persuade you that what you were seeing was not a wall, or a barrier, but a mere fence, of the sort most people have separating their gardens.

German-Jewish leaders said the bishops either had a shaky grasp of history or were trying to draw a comparison between the genocide of the Nazis and the policies of the current Israeli government.

I think it was probably the latter, and they were absolutely on-target in doing so. The fact that outspoken representatives of the Jewish community are upset by such comparison is neither here nor there.

Hanke said in a statement that he had not intended such a comparison. In his letter, Lehmann wrote, "It is inappropriate to connect contemporary problems or situations of injustice, in any way, with the National Socialists' mass murder of the Jews."

I don't get this. Why not? It is as plain as the nose on your face what the ultimate objective of the Israeli state is, and that objective is genocide. It is also blindingly obvious that those who feel themselves chosen by the great real-estate agent in the sky regard the rightful owners of the land as being a sub-species not worthy of humane treatment. Such obsequiousness in the face of obviously irrational, prejudiced and emotional complaints is tantamount to condoning the denial of justice, freedom and basic human rights to a people who are being severely oppressed right now, not over half a century ago.

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Top US Spy points finger at Putin

Relations between the US and Russia appeared to sink to a new low yesterday after Moscow angrily dismissed accusations that democracy in Russia had taken a "back step".

Too damn right. At least democracy exists in Russia, even if it isn't perfect in every way. The United States, on the other hand, having abandoned what semblance of democracy it had, is busy projecting its flaws onto others.

Russia's foreign ministry called the accusation by Mike McConnell, Washington's national intelligence director, in a speech to the US Senate's armed services committee on Tuesday, "outmoded" and "totally groundless".

Such silly and petty accusations were never in mode and have lways been totally groundless. It still doesn't stop Uncle Sam's megaphone merchants from trying to paint Russia as a demon though.

Mr McConnell, an expert on the former Soviet Union,

An expert, along the lines of the Russian expert Condi "Lizard" Rice, who can barely speak a few lines of basic Russian without making fundamental mistakes?

said Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, was preparing to fix next year's presidential elections so that the Kremlin's preferred candidate would win.

The fixing of elections is far more likely to happen in Washington than it would in Moscow. Sorry, McConnell, but the evidence paints a different picture. As they say, don't point the finger, as there are four more pointing back at you.

"The march to democracy has taken a back step. And now there are more arrangements to control the process and the populace and the parties and so on, to the point of picking the next leader of Russia," Mr McConnell said, at a hearing to discuss global threats to the US.

All your bad-mouthing of Russia simply won't wash, McConnell. The truth of the matter is that Russia is regaining her power after the US-inspired/aided rape and pillage of the country during the presidency of the idiot Yeltsin. Russia is doggedly independent and won't bow to the snakes in Washington. That bothers the likes of you, doesn't it, McConnell?

"That's my worry, is the march toward democracy, the way we understand it ... now being controlled in a way that it is less of a democratic process."

Unless this statement was put in context, I would have no choice but to assume that it was written about the United States. As it is in the context of an attack on Russia, it comes across as yet another instance of the projecting of the flaws of the United States onto others.

Mr Putin had surrounded himself with "extremely conservative" advisers suspicious of America, he said.

Would you blame him? Would you blame any country for being suspicious of a belligerent, sociopathic bully? Would you blame the Russians for being extremely suspicious when the self-appointed spreader of "freedumb and demonocracy" has established bases in practically every country bordering Russia?

Yesterday the Kremlin accused Mr McConnell of harbouring obsolete and outmoded notions about Russia. The intelligence chief's assessments were "totally unfounded", the foreign ministry's spokesman, Andrei Krivtsov, said. The exchange came amid a sharp deterioration in US-Russian relations to what analysts said yesterday was probably their worst level since the US-led Nato bombing of Serbia in 1999.

Relations between Russia and United States certainly have become much frostier. However, anyone with two eyes in their head and a brain to match can see who the instigator of this "new cold war" is.

Moscow has been angered by the US administration's plans to site two anti-missile interceptor and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Mr Putin has ridiculed America's claim that the sites are meant to deter a possible rogue attack by North Korea or Iran and has said they are clearly aimed at Russia and its vast nuclear arsenal.
Last month he delivered his most scathing attack yet on US power. Speaking in Munich, he accused the US of acting unilaterally and seeking to become the world's sole decision-making "master".
Analysts said yesterday that public opinion on both sides was hardening.

Public opinion around the world is hardening and is shifting rapidly against the United States. As much as it might irritate the likes of McConnell, Vladimir Putin is winning this little war of words being played out on the world stage.

"In Russia, Putin's speech has produced a tremendous effect among those who want Russian primacy and think in terms of Russia's empire," said Victor Kremenyuk, deputy director of Moscow's US-Canada Institute.

It is important to those who are thinking in terms of Russian independence and ability to defend itself. If Kremenyuk wants to call that primacy, he is welcome to use the terminology of his choosing.

"In the US, a growing number of people think that Russia has outwitted them.

Duh, gee, really? Dag Nabbit!

Instead of becoming a normal democratic state it has become an energy superpower.

What the freakin' hell constitutes a normal democratic state to these poisonous neocon types? One where elections are routinely stolen and rights abrogated on a daily basis?

They see it both as a threat to the US and its allies in Europe."

McConnell, Kremenyuk and their ilk can speak on behalf of their own. Any sensible European knows where the real threat comes from.

Other observers said they expected the chill in US-Russian relations to go on beyond the Bush-Putin era. "I think we are very close to an arms race," Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow bureau of the World Security Institute, a US thinktank, told the Guardian. "Neither side trusts the other. Russia reacts to the missile defence sites. The US reacts to Russia's reaction."

I would be naturally suspicious of any US think tank, and in particular one that calls itself "The World Security Institute", given Uncle Sam's demonstrated penchant for double-speak.

The government-owned newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta said on Wednesday that Russian scientists were alarmed by the US's High-frequency Active Auroral Research Programme, or Haarp. They believed US scientists were close to developing a system that would allow them to disrupt an enemy's entire nuclear capability using ionic rays. Russia was determined to develop a similar technology, the paper reported.

This is not unexpected. That's how it works. The US builds some nasty new weapon and others feel compelled (by their own need for security) to play catch-up.

With increasing talk of a new cold war, Russia's political parties, including the Communists, agreed this week to suspend their differences on foreign policy.

That's good. It is nice that the United States can have a positive influence in the world and even bringing some Единство to the Duma.

"Russia has become stronger and America doesn't like it," Konstantin Kosachev, the head of parliament's foreign affairs committee, told Moskovsky Komsomolets, a mass-circulation daily. "They still have the same notions from the 1990s, when American became the only political power centre on the planet."

Kosachev is right on the money there. The United States wants to be the world power and does not take kindly to any challenges to that power. All empires come to an end, all brutal regimes fall. The end is coming for the ruling junta in the US, and with it will go any future hope of American primacy. Now if only the United States would wake up and smell the coffee before they remain without a friend in the world.

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