The following ideas, somewhat edited, are from an email I exchanged with a correspondent in Israel yesterday. He is very, very concerned, and rightly so, about the Iranians. As a result, he views Barack Obama's position on Iran as weak willed and lily-livered. I very much disagree.
_______________________
Balls are not in short supply here. Brains are. This country is in ruins, and maybe it's easier for both of us to see each others' trees for their respective forests, but the situation in 1939 was way more simple than it is today: there was no nuclear bomb until 1945. Then when the Russians got it, that was the end. Or maybe it was the end when Oppenheimer came up with the idea to weaponize crashing atoms in the first place. Regardless of anything, we do not need a doddering old man whose competence and judgment are in question, as are those of Sarah Palin who is as well qualified to run a country as she is the Cafeteria at Hewlett Packard. Carly Fiorina, a "surrogate" for the McCain campaign admitted that neither Mrs. Palin nor Mr. McCain "were qualified to run a major corporation". And this is from their own side! She has been disappeared from their campaign because she told the truth. If they couldn't run a major corporation, why on earth would we want someone like that running the entire free world? If you poke around on my blog for awhile, believe me, you will come up with enough reasons that Palin is a meshuggener whose foriegn policy outlook is "God's will". That is a quote.
The Jews (MAJO) were SO dumb to invite Palin in the first place. It was just a political move to salve the very small, but very wealthy "Republican Jewish Coalition" whose very existence is to me a joke. No-one of any substance, including now Joe Biden, would be seen with Sarah Barracuda (an insult to all self-respecting barracudas, BTW). I wouldn't have appeared, either, with her.
At the end of the day, the fault with the whole thing lies with the organizers who never should have invited the first politician, democrat or Republican, to the rally. That was the first and last bad political move by the MAJO in this affair. If they were going to have a rally, they should have had a rally and left the politics out of the thing. We can all unite, regardless of political points of view against a goofball like Ahmedinnerjacket. I would bet that if he was "disappeared" (permanently), not a few people inside Iran would be very happy. The problem isn't Iranians. It's their government that is leading them places that they themselves have to know are not in their long-term best interests. Taliban can't play in Persia forever. Or can it? Perhaps if things were made a bit inconvenient for the Iranian people, they would take their lives back, lives that have been spent fighting the ghosts of the American CIA who put the Shah in power in 1953 via a coup. Iranians need to join the 21st century and stop fighting 50 year old wars. If they don't, there should be consequences for such people.
In 1933, this country needed saving. The country picked a crippled patrician white guy to lead. He led with smarts and not a little bit of good PR. Not, mind you, that he gave a damn about the Jews of Europe. Heck, there were plenty of Jewish voices here in the US who didn't want Ostjuden here, either. He is famously quoted as saying "remind the Jews that they are but visitors here. This is a Christian country." (paraphrasing) If anything, we are fortunate that there IS a half-black guy running, because trust me, this is still a country where white Christian males run the show, and Israel and the Jews are just so much bother when things get inconvenient, as they are now. Just ask Ike in 1956. Remember the negotiations undertaken by Kissinger in 1973. Whose side is on whose? Add traditional right-wing nutjobs as exist in the Christian Right (personified in lovely fashion by Mrs. Palin), and the leftist idiots who rant on and on about Israeli "apartheid" yet say nothing about the way women are treated in nearly every Arab country, not to mention minorities and children, as you well note. It is a situation the solution for which I have no answers, but the mountains of Peru are looking very nice this time of year.
As far as Iran is concerned the US isn't going to credibly threaten anyone with anything at this point. This country is in the midst of if not a Great Depression, then a Pretty Big Depression. Focus has to be on fixing the economy first. Without a strong economy, our influence in the world is dreck. We have no moral authority - we torture prisoners, keep them locked up forever without any due process and invaded Iraq because of George Bush's desire to do better than his daddy did. This country is, in a word, f'ed up. We have no credible foreign policy - what foreign policy we did have under Bush was ideologically driven and not reality based. Lies, lies and more lies created not a foreign policy but a Ministry of Propaganda. Goebbels would be proud, believe me.
I am not saying that Iran isn't a threat. It is. Clearly. I think Ahmedinejad is a menace. But does HE really hold the reigns of power? It is not a Hitlerite system in Iran. I do not know internal Iranian politics very well, but I have to assume from what I do know that the Mullahs are the real power there, and they do not want war. At least I HOPE they don't want war. I am sure that we can find out this information, but negotiations have to be undertaken with the threat of a big klonk on the head lurking not too far off the surface for the negotiations to accomplish everyone's goals. I predict that Iran will be allowed to keep whatever nuclear reactors that they have, but will ultimately be forced to accept meaningful IAEA oversight. Obama's approach is simply to co-opt them. And failing that, there will be consequences, inlcuding, obviously, a military one. The objection everyone has to him meeting Ahmadinejad without preconditions is unjustified. Someone has to start a conversation with him. Let it be a guy named Barack. Ahmedinejad is acting like a spoiled brat by moaning and whining, hoping that the Jews of the world will get so upset that they will completely overreact and do something stupid, like help elect John McCain president. That would be a continuation of present policies toward Iran that directly have resulted in the situation we face today. The same is true with every single other foreign policy decision made by the Bush Administration. And if anything, McCain on foreign policy is Bush on anabolic steroids.
McCain's attitude with respect to Iran is exactly what Ahmedinejad is pining for: a showdown with the US. I would frankly rather have a foreign policy in which WE are in some measure of control. That control begins by talking with our enemies. At present, the foreign policy deregulation by the Bush administration (I hesitate to call it an administration, given the level of real administration that has taken place, but "regime" seems so, well, third world.) has resulted in a meltdown of a credible position with respect to Iran. The present posture leads directly to war, without a stopover for a discussion. I think talking is a good thing. It beats people dying.
Let's assume that George W. Bush has one more disaster in him before he leaves office on January 20, 2009. From a military standpoint, how does the US or Israel attack a nuclear program that has over 2000 individual sites? Do you just call out B-52s and carpet bomb Tehran and hope you hit a target? Limited strikes such as that done to Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981 and more recently to Syria are just not possible, as far as I know. Perhaps you have some information that would help the discussion in that regard. Not negotiating when military options are limited is self-defeating, is it not? It would be a blessing in disguise if the oil got cut off. That would motivate Congress to stimulate - really stimulate - the growth and maturation of alternative energies like CNG, wind, solar, and the rest. We are all hostages to the Arabs at this point - it is a national security issue for the US that needs immediate attention not unlike that which the President and Congress are giving the investment banks and AIG.
I sense some justifiable panic in your voice. If I were an Israeli, I would be insisting on American action, too. Just know that if John McCain gets elected, this world will no longer be safe or sane in any measure, not that it is right now. He is WWIII personified, and as far as I am concerned, any Jew that votes for him will deserve what s/he gets as a result. The discussions over Israel, the Middle East and the rest have got to change. Obama is the only candidate with the intelligence and foresight to do it. There is no other choice. It's just a shondeh that there are so many Jewish bigots in the world (33% according to latest polling) who would just as soon vote for McCain than a "schvartzer". Even though he is also half-white. Even though he personifies not only an American dream, but also a very Jewish one as well.
Would the mother of any Jewish guy NOT think that their son, the President of the Harvard Law Review, and Senator shouldn't be President of the US, if that was what he wanted? Don't you think that Eliot Spitzer is thinking that even a Jew had a chance to be President if a black guy did? (only the black guy kept his schvanz in one place - his wife; WASPS can breathe easy) That doesn't seem to matter to a moronic Jewish-American electorate that is fused to idiots like Sarah Palin and John McCain like our future was some kind of very bad TV game show. God help us all. And I mean ALL.
Randy Shiner
Showing posts with label FDR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FDR. Show all posts
22 September 2008
03 September 2006
55 Scholars Protest New Book's Claim That Criticism Of FDR On Holocaust Is 'Anti-American'
55 Scholars Protest New Book's Claim That Criticism Of FDR On Holocaust Is 'Anti-American'
9/3/2006 4:50:00 PM
To: National Desk
Contact: The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, Rafaelmedoff@aol.com or 240-472-9773
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Fifty-five leading Holocaust scholars have denounced a new book which asserts that criticism of President Franklin Roosevelt's response to the Holocaust is "anti-American" and "America-bashing." The book also contains false allegations against reputable historians, severely misrepresents key historical facts, and contains at least twenty-one passages that use language from other books without appropriate attribution, according to the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
The book, "Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust," by South Carolina divorce attorney Robert N. Rosen, was published by Thunder's Mouth Press earlier this year. Rosen has been invited to address the Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, N.Y., and the Carter Presidential Library, in Atlanta, as well as other institutions.
The scholars' petition, organized by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, criticizes Rosen for "impugning the patriotism of scholars, including Prof. David S. Wyman, who have taken issue with the Roosevelt administration's response to the Holocaust...As scholars who have written about the Holocaust, we protest Mr. Rosen's attempt to demean the motives of reputable historians who have documented important facts about how America responded to the Nazi genocide. Does your publishing house really mean to suggest that questioning the policies of a particular administration is grounds for branding a scholar 'anti-American'? Such name-calling and invective are deplorable, false, and have no place in serious discussion of the Roosevelt administration's response to one of the greatest moral crises of the Twentieth Century."
The signatories include Rabbi Dr. Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, former chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council; Prof. Hubert G. Locke, dean emeritus at the University of Washington; Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, president of Genocide Watch; Dr. Michael Berenbaum, professor & director at the University of Judaism's Ziering Institute on the Holocaust; Prof. Blanche Cook of the City University of New York, author of the acclaimed multi-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt; Prof. Israel W. Charny, editor of the Encyclopedia of Genocide; Prof. Susannah Heschel of Dartmouth College; and Thane Rosenbaum, novelist and professor of human rights law at Fordham University.
For the full text of the petition and the list of signatories, call the Wyman Institute at 202-434-8994 or visit http://www.WymanInstitute.org
At the same time, the Wyman Institue has issued a 33-page report analyzing "Saving the Jews." The report, titled "Whitewashing FDR's Holocaust Record," was co-authored by Wyman Institute director Dr. Rafael Medoff; Dr. Racelle Weiman, director of the Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion; and Dr. Bat-Ami Zucker of Bar Ilan University, author of In Search of Refuge: Jews and U.S. Consulates in Nazi Germany 1933-1941.
For the full text of the report, call the Wyman Institute at 202-434-8994 or visit http://www.WymanInstitute.org
------
Highlights of the Wyman Institute's report:
Rosen Makes False Allegations against Reputable Historians:
Rosen makes false allegations against prominent Holocaust scholars such as Deborah Lipstadt, Henry Feingold, David Wyman, and Laurel Leff. For example, Rosen falsely accuses Prof. Feingold of calling President Roosevelt "a coward," and calling the U.S.and British governments "unspeakable antisemites." He also alleges that Feingold essentially manufactured evidence to make a State Department official appear antisemitic. Rosen falsely alleges that Prof. Leff described Jewish activist Peter Bergson as the leader of the Palestine Jewish community.
Rosen Severely Misrepresents Key Historical Facts:
-- Rosen misquotes historians Richard Breitman and Alan Kraut to make it seem as if they praised FDR's response to Kristallnacht, when in fact they were critical of FDR's response. (p.78)
-- Rosen manipulates immigration statistics to claim the U.S. accepted twice as many refugees from Hitler as the rest of the world combined (p.442), when in fact the rest of the world took in nearly twice as many the United States.
-- Rosen falsely claims that FDR was so "incensed" by the 1939 British White Paper (which closed off Palestine to almost all Jewish immigrants), that he began pushing for the removal of Arabs from Palestine to make room for the Jews. (p.485) In fact, FDR's discussions about Arab emigration took place more than six months before the White Paper, and his response to the White Paper was very weak.
-- Rosen defends FDR's failure to speak out about the persecution of Europe Jews, on the baseless grounds that verbal protests would have led to increased persecution. (pp.455-456) Rosen also defends the British White Paper, claiming that Jewish immigration to Palestine would have caused Arabs to become pro-Nazi and possibly kill Jews in the Middle East. (pp.274, 116-117)
-- Rosen falsely claims that not a single prominent U.S. Jewish leader asked the Roosevelt administration to bomb the Auschwitz death camp. (pp. 404, 475) In fact, Nahum Goldmann, co-chairman of the World Jewish Congress and U.S. representative of the Jewish Agency, did ask the administration to do so, and his request is mentioned even in a document from 1944 that Rosen himself lists in one of his footnotes. Other Jewish leaders, organizations, and publications also called for bombing the death camps.
Rosen Falsely Portrays Jewish Activists as Draft-Dodgers: Rosen portrays the 1940s Jewish activists known as the Bergson Group as draft-dodgers. He claims that their leaders "sat out the war in America, preferring to agitate for the overthrow of the British in Palestine rather than enlist and fight Nazis themselves." (p. 303) In fact, two of the group's five leaders, Yitshaq Ben-Ami and Dr. Alexander Rafaeli, enlisted and fought in the U.S. Army (in the Battle of the Bulge and the Normandy invasion, respectively), and the other three were classified 4-F.
Rosen Uses Other Authors' Language without Appropriate Attribution:
"Saving the Jews" contains at least twenty-one passages that have language identical to, or virtually identical to, language used in books by other authors. In these twenty-one passages, Rosen does not use quotation marks to indicate that the words were composed by a different author. The American Historical Association's official Standards on Professional Conduct and Statement on Plagiarism define plagiarism as "the use of another's language without quotation marks and citation." The Statement also notes: "Plagiarism includes more subtle and perhaps pernicious abuses than simply expropriating the exact wording of another author without attribution...a historian... should never simply borrow and rephrase the findings of other scholars."
The Wyman Institute has alerted the American Historical Association's Professional Division concerning Rosen's book and the twenty-one passages in question.
------
ABOUT THE WYMAN INSTITUTE: The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, based in Washington, D.C., is a research and education institute focusing on America's response to the Holocaust. It is named in honor of the eminent historian and author of the 1984 best-seller The Abandonment of the Jews, the most important and influential book concerning the U.S. response to the Nazi genocide.
The Institute's Advisory Committee includes Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, Members of Congress, and other luminaries. Its Academic Council includes more than 50 leading professors of the Holocaust, American history, and Jewish history. The Institute's Arts & Letters Council, chaired by Cynthia Ozick, includes prominent artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers. (For a complete list, please visit http://www.WymanInstitute.org )
--
http://www.usnewswire.com/
-0-
/© 2006 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/
9/3/2006 4:50:00 PM
To: National Desk
Contact: The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, Rafaelmedoff@aol.com or 240-472-9773
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Fifty-five leading Holocaust scholars have denounced a new book which asserts that criticism of President Franklin Roosevelt's response to the Holocaust is "anti-American" and "America-bashing." The book also contains false allegations against reputable historians, severely misrepresents key historical facts, and contains at least twenty-one passages that use language from other books without appropriate attribution, according to the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
The book, "Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust," by South Carolina divorce attorney Robert N. Rosen, was published by Thunder's Mouth Press earlier this year. Rosen has been invited to address the Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, N.Y., and the Carter Presidential Library, in Atlanta, as well as other institutions.
The scholars' petition, organized by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, criticizes Rosen for "impugning the patriotism of scholars, including Prof. David S. Wyman, who have taken issue with the Roosevelt administration's response to the Holocaust...As scholars who have written about the Holocaust, we protest Mr. Rosen's attempt to demean the motives of reputable historians who have documented important facts about how America responded to the Nazi genocide. Does your publishing house really mean to suggest that questioning the policies of a particular administration is grounds for branding a scholar 'anti-American'? Such name-calling and invective are deplorable, false, and have no place in serious discussion of the Roosevelt administration's response to one of the greatest moral crises of the Twentieth Century."
The signatories include Rabbi Dr. Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, former chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council; Prof. Hubert G. Locke, dean emeritus at the University of Washington; Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, president of Genocide Watch; Dr. Michael Berenbaum, professor & director at the University of Judaism's Ziering Institute on the Holocaust; Prof. Blanche Cook of the City University of New York, author of the acclaimed multi-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt; Prof. Israel W. Charny, editor of the Encyclopedia of Genocide; Prof. Susannah Heschel of Dartmouth College; and Thane Rosenbaum, novelist and professor of human rights law at Fordham University.
For the full text of the petition and the list of signatories, call the Wyman Institute at 202-434-8994 or visit http://www.WymanInstitute.org
At the same time, the Wyman Institue has issued a 33-page report analyzing "Saving the Jews." The report, titled "Whitewashing FDR's Holocaust Record," was co-authored by Wyman Institute director Dr. Rafael Medoff; Dr. Racelle Weiman, director of the Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion; and Dr. Bat-Ami Zucker of Bar Ilan University, author of In Search of Refuge: Jews and U.S. Consulates in Nazi Germany 1933-1941.
For the full text of the report, call the Wyman Institute at 202-434-8994 or visit http://www.WymanInstitute.org
------
Highlights of the Wyman Institute's report:
Rosen Makes False Allegations against Reputable Historians:
Rosen makes false allegations against prominent Holocaust scholars such as Deborah Lipstadt, Henry Feingold, David Wyman, and Laurel Leff. For example, Rosen falsely accuses Prof. Feingold of calling President Roosevelt "a coward," and calling the U.S.and British governments "unspeakable antisemites." He also alleges that Feingold essentially manufactured evidence to make a State Department official appear antisemitic. Rosen falsely alleges that Prof. Leff described Jewish activist Peter Bergson as the leader of the Palestine Jewish community.
Rosen Severely Misrepresents Key Historical Facts:
-- Rosen misquotes historians Richard Breitman and Alan Kraut to make it seem as if they praised FDR's response to Kristallnacht, when in fact they were critical of FDR's response. (p.78)
-- Rosen manipulates immigration statistics to claim the U.S. accepted twice as many refugees from Hitler as the rest of the world combined (p.442), when in fact the rest of the world took in nearly twice as many the United States.
-- Rosen falsely claims that FDR was so "incensed" by the 1939 British White Paper (which closed off Palestine to almost all Jewish immigrants), that he began pushing for the removal of Arabs from Palestine to make room for the Jews. (p.485) In fact, FDR's discussions about Arab emigration took place more than six months before the White Paper, and his response to the White Paper was very weak.
-- Rosen defends FDR's failure to speak out about the persecution of Europe Jews, on the baseless grounds that verbal protests would have led to increased persecution. (pp.455-456) Rosen also defends the British White Paper, claiming that Jewish immigration to Palestine would have caused Arabs to become pro-Nazi and possibly kill Jews in the Middle East. (pp.274, 116-117)
-- Rosen falsely claims that not a single prominent U.S. Jewish leader asked the Roosevelt administration to bomb the Auschwitz death camp. (pp. 404, 475) In fact, Nahum Goldmann, co-chairman of the World Jewish Congress and U.S. representative of the Jewish Agency, did ask the administration to do so, and his request is mentioned even in a document from 1944 that Rosen himself lists in one of his footnotes. Other Jewish leaders, organizations, and publications also called for bombing the death camps.
Rosen Falsely Portrays Jewish Activists as Draft-Dodgers: Rosen portrays the 1940s Jewish activists known as the Bergson Group as draft-dodgers. He claims that their leaders "sat out the war in America, preferring to agitate for the overthrow of the British in Palestine rather than enlist and fight Nazis themselves." (p. 303) In fact, two of the group's five leaders, Yitshaq Ben-Ami and Dr. Alexander Rafaeli, enlisted and fought in the U.S. Army (in the Battle of the Bulge and the Normandy invasion, respectively), and the other three were classified 4-F.
Rosen Uses Other Authors' Language without Appropriate Attribution:
"Saving the Jews" contains at least twenty-one passages that have language identical to, or virtually identical to, language used in books by other authors. In these twenty-one passages, Rosen does not use quotation marks to indicate that the words were composed by a different author. The American Historical Association's official Standards on Professional Conduct and Statement on Plagiarism define plagiarism as "the use of another's language without quotation marks and citation." The Statement also notes: "Plagiarism includes more subtle and perhaps pernicious abuses than simply expropriating the exact wording of another author without attribution...a historian... should never simply borrow and rephrase the findings of other scholars."
The Wyman Institute has alerted the American Historical Association's Professional Division concerning Rosen's book and the twenty-one passages in question.
------
ABOUT THE WYMAN INSTITUTE: The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, based in Washington, D.C., is a research and education institute focusing on America's response to the Holocaust. It is named in honor of the eminent historian and author of the 1984 best-seller The Abandonment of the Jews, the most important and influential book concerning the U.S. response to the Nazi genocide.
The Institute's Advisory Committee includes Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, Members of Congress, and other luminaries. Its Academic Council includes more than 50 leading professors of the Holocaust, American history, and Jewish history. The Institute's Arts & Letters Council, chaired by Cynthia Ozick, includes prominent artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers. (For a complete list, please visit http://www.WymanInstitute.org )
--
http://www.usnewswire.com/
-0-
/© 2006 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/
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