פרסומים אחרונים במדור "פוליטיקה"

By Rudolf Augstein

Ariel Sharon wants to wage war; he has no longer left any doubt about it. He wiped out two decades of endeavors for peace. In his eyes, Yasser Arafat is the person mainly to blame for his having to withdraw from Lebanon in 1982. Sharon wanted to make Lebanon an Israeli protectorate. He would still fix a protectorate over Palestine today if he were only allowed to do so.

While this can be said [openly] in France, in Germany it obviously cannot. The French daily "Le Monde" said last Friday: "Sharon wants to leave Arafat no other choice but to acknowledge an actual protectorate in which the Palestinian security forces would be transformed into assistants of the Israeli army and police."

Prime Minister Sharon makes Yasser Arafat personally responsible for the terror. Now he keeps him a prisoner and waits for his political end.

Similar things happened in history, under different conditions. After Hitler had made his devil's pact with Stalin, he waited with extreme patience the fall of the Chamberlain government. The Foreign Office took great pains to explain to him that Chamberlain's place would only be taken by a worse enemy, Winston Churchill.

Similarly, if Arafat fell, his followers at the top of the Palestinian Authority would certainly be more radical.

Before the Six-Day War in 1967, the whole Western world was decidedly friendly to Israel. At that time, a Der Spiegel reporter was a guest of the Israeli General Staff under General Yitzhak Rabin.

He reported a war was expected which would not be too long, but short, so that the great powers no longer attack like in 1956 during the Suez adventure. What it came down to from today's perspective was a war – short enough – waged in order to negotiate the only real chance for peace.

Ever since, the Palestinians have been constantly humiliated, until today's hopeless situation: Arafat has been locked in Ramallah and deprived of the right of decision through the deployment of tanks. The majority of the Israelis seem to stand on Prime Minister Sharon's side on that score.

Now it looks as if Israel wanted to force the Palestinian President Arafat to go to a different country. Tunis he knows already.

Arafat was constantly under duress and hardly had the opportunity to make serious mistakes, but in this respect most German newspapers beg to differ.

The French "Liberation" writes that Sharon does an extremely bad service to his country when he tries to convince the Palestinians by force of arms that they could also feel fine in a protectorate under Israel's leadership.

This wipes out all the unconventional procedures attempted so far. Negotiations are no longer possible under Sharon. The Americans are still paying lip service to the Palestinian President, but for internal reasons they are incapable of confronting Sharon.

According to Foreign Minister Balfour's Declaration from 1917, which wasn't an unselfish act either, a homeland for the Jews was supposed to be arranged in Palestine. Now the attempt is made to arrange a secure homeland state for the Palestinians who have been partly expelled from it.

But take it easy: According to "Die Welt" [one of the most important German daily newspapers, known for its pro-Israeli bent], the bridges between Israel and the Palestinians are not completely broken yet, as long as Israel delivers electricity and water to the Palestinians. Exhilarating prospects.

In 1917 Jerusalem had a population of 20,000. The Turks wanted to expel them out of the city according to the model of the Armenians they had "transferred." The German general Erich von Falkenhayn, who was the commander of the area at that time, prevented this, not necessarily out of philo-Semitism. He just hated any kind of disorder in his area of command.

That is how the victorious General Rabin, later murdered by a Jewish terrorist as the first leading Israeli, could say the simple truth 30 days before his death: "We did not come into an empty country."

Column in LE MONDE, February 1, 2001 by Roger Cukierman, President, CRIF

The leaders of the country like to play down anti-Jewish acts.

They prefer to see these as ordinary violence. We are deluged with statistics designed to show that an attack against a synagogue is an act of violence and not anti-Semitism.

Some Jews who have lost touch with reality like to buttress their personal status by turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to danger, in order to curry favor with the public consensus.

The media like to give the widest exposure to voices critical of Israel and Jews, all the more so when these voices are Jewish. This way, media can't be charged with anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism.

Judicial authorities don't like to mete out strong punishment for acts of anti-Jewish violence, even when the perpetrators are caught red-handed: a three-month suspended sentence or nothing for an attack on a Jewish place of worship, compared to a year in jail for burning a straw cottage in Corsica.

Why this laxness?

Because this violence, perpetrated by only one side, is linked to the conflict in the Middle East.

Because too often Jew and Israeli mean the same thing.

Because this violence does not come from the extreme right.

Because it originates in the suburbs where North Africans live.

Because democratic France is reluctant to acknowledge its failure to integrate young North Africans in schools and society.

Because one forgives those toward whom one feels guilty.

Because the Moslem population is all-important.

I don't like to be silent, to act as if I did not see the graffiti. Who does not hear the anti-Jewish insults, who does not fear for the children who go to school or those who visit synagogues.

I don't like to have to fear a serious incident every day.

I don't like to forget the lessons of the past.

It is not important that the immediate threat does not come from the traditional extreme right, but instead from some Islamic fanatics, or from some individuals whom one all-too-gently refers to as hooligans from the suburbs. Once again, we are the scapegoat. It's a part that we no longer are prepared to play.

How much I would like to hear the announcement that a policy of firmness has been ordered, of uncompromising justice toward all perpetrators! And, at the same time, the initiation of a genuine dialogue with the large majority of moderate Moslems. With the Moslems who fight for integration of all-- men and women equally in French society – who reject all forms of violence and who, like us, want at any price to avoid the outbreak of civil disorder.

I would like to believe that these aspirations reflect the image of a France that is synonymous with tolerance and freedom. For the issue in this debate is respect for and the lasting prevalence of the Republic's values.

Great stuff. Systematic study. I laughed my brains out
Smart and subtle.
Can't believe the butler did it.

You must admit that's highly creative power in setting up the figures, especially Ofer and the offended teacher
Which may highlight today's Internet tragedy:
Rather than composing these figures into a novel and setting up their moves in accordance with their characters interacting with one another,
people are tempted to launch immediately their creations
Hence, the figures emerge and fade out
rather than engraving their presence on our minds towards immortality.
Yet, who reads novels anymore?

well said.

if I didn't know better I would have thought that Alex is schysophrenic.