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Av 4, 5767, 7/19/2007
July 20 and Hitler's "Miracle"by Jack Engelhard
July 20, 1944 is another date that will live in infamy. Hitler lived. Millions died. On that date, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg attended a meeting of Hitler's senior staff at Wolfschanze - Wolf's Lair - along with 20 other members of Hitler's high command who were gathered to discuss the Russian Front. Stauffenberg had a separate agenda. Hitler had retreated to this place outside Berlin to thwart campaigns against his life from members of his inner circle. But on this date, July 20, 1944, everything was in place - literally in a suitcase - to finally bring an end to this madman. Stauffenberg was to be the lead in this real-life inside "plot against Hitler" but he was also part of a resistance movement that dated back to 1938 when he and other high ranking officers saw the light, or rather they saw the darkness that was about to doom Germany and the world. In the spring of 1943, detonating devices were placed in Hitler's airplane - but the bomb failed to go off. Days later, a similar attempt was made, and this also failed. But the operation set for July 20, 1944 was near-perfect. Stauffenberg was to place a bomb in a suitcase and secure it at Hitler's feet during the conference at Wolf's Lair. Stauffenberg was unlikely to arouse suspicion since he was a trusted and loyal member of Hitler's staff. Stauffenberg had the proper credentials. He was wounded during the campaign in North Africa, a military man from the word go, and he was also an aristocrat with a taste for poetry and philosophy. Sources describe him as having been on Hitler's side at the outset. But (according to what we read about him) he switched when saw what was being done to the Jews, to Russian prisoners of war, to Germany and to the world. Hitler must go. On that date, July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg placed himself at the forefront of this operation that included dozens, perhaps hundreds, even thousands of fellow officers. These were soldiers and intelligence personnel, professionals. These were men who knew the business of killing whether openly or surreptitiously. How could it go wrong? As the conference began at Wolf's Lair, Stauffenberg set the suitcase, with a bomb inside, directly at Hitler's feet. He then excused himself and stepped outdoors. He timed the blast to go off at 10 minutes, and that's exactly what happened. The bomb went off and the building was demolished. Stauffenberg fled, as planned, convinced that Hitler was dead. Stauffenberg's confederates were similarly convinced that the deed was done. They already had a new government prepared to take over. Hitler suffered minor injuries. Three officers were killed and others suffered assorted wounds. The Gestapo rounded up some 5,000 "conspirators" and executed 200, including Rommel, who took his own life rather than face the "People's Court," even though there is still doubt whether he played any part in the attempted coup. But Hitler lived. He was granted nearly a year, from July 20, 1944, to April, 1945 (when he died in the bunker), to murder millions more. There is some evidence that Hitler spoke of his escape from the plot of July 20 as "a miracle; divine intervention." This is a question for our theologians. Is there an answer?
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Av 3, 5767, 7/18/2007
Shimon Peres' Shoah Showby Steven Plaut
But that is hardly the ONLY reason why his serving as President is a mockery. Peres gave a Presidential speech that ranged from screaming "They killed our Yitzhak Rabin" (guess whom he meant by THEY) to mouthing fatuous Al Goreisms about the environment. Naturally, he repeatedly called for Israel to just pick up and get out of all the "territories." We reprint here a column that appeared in the Jerusalem Post on June 7, 1994 - 13 years ago when Peres was Foreign Minister: The Holocaust According to Shimon Peres by Steven Plaut Recently Foreign Minister Shimon Peres expressed a "Two-Holocaust" theory of the events transpiring during World War Two. According to Peres, the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews and the American dropping of atomic bombs on Japan constituted twin Holocausts, and presumably this means they were morally parallel or equivalent to one another. Such a comparison has by now become fashionable in certain politically-correct circles in Western countries, and it would not represent the first instance in which the thinking of the current government was motivated by a passionate desire to conform with international political fashion. But going beyond political fad, it is intriguing to attempt to reconstruct the thinking of our Foreign Minister, leading up to this remark in his "Shoah Show". If the Holocaust of the Jews is analogous to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Peres' "mind", then it follows that he views the Holocaust of the Jews as an event that must have occurred in the course of an all-out conflict deliberately launched by the Jews, in which they, like the Japanese, enslaved the better part of an entire continent, pillaging and tormenting the populations while systematically murdering millions. German actions must have also been taken to prevent much greater suffering and far larger numbers of victims, like the American actions. If the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews is analogous to the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Peres. "mind", then the former must have been a moral imperative and absolutely justifiable. The bombing of Hiroshima brought an end to the War in the Pacific without necessitating the ground invasion of Japan. In such an invasion, hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - of Allied soldiers would have died. Millions of Japanese would also have died. Shortly before the atomic bombings, 7,000 US soldiers were killed and 18,000 wounded taking a desolate island called Iwo Jima. Then 12,000 US soldiers were killed and 35,000 wounded taking Okinawa, making that a battle on a par with Gettysburg. On Okinawa 100,000 Japanese were killed. (Okinawa was then held by the US as a militarily-governed "occupied territory" for four decades with never a hint of an intifada.) All this is indisputable proof of how severe the carnage would have been on the Japanese main islands from an Allied invasion and conquest. It is estimated that 55 million people died in World War Two. If the atomic bombs shortened that war by merely a week, the carnage they wrought was one of the greatest "bargains" of human history. The atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki rank as one of the most moral, high-minded, humane, and unambiguously justifiable acts in the history of mankind. It is true that tens of thousands of Japanese died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that many of these were also "innocents". It is also true that the number killed in both cities dwarfs in comparison with those killed by the Allies with conventional weapons in the bombings of Tokyo and Dresden, to name only the two most notorious examples in World War Two. In Dresden alone tens of thousands of Germans were killed, doubtless many of these "innocents". If the 70-100 thousand killed in Hiroshima justify ranking that event as a "Holocaust", morally equivalent to the destruction of European Jewry in Peres. "thinking", then I suggest that Peres should have the courage of his convictions and speak out about the "Triplet-Holocausts", adding Dresden to the cohort. He would just be repeating what certain circles of Europeans have already been suggesting. Better yet, why not add the 200,000 Republican Guards of Saddam Hussein, mercilessly butchered by Allied weapons in the first Gulf War, many of whom were doubtless innocents, and raise the size of the cohort to quadruplets? Let us have some consistency here. What is much harder to explain is how it could be that the Number Two politician in the Israeli government could voice such a position, 50 years after the real Holocaust. (PS. Or someone serving as President of Israel 63 years after the Holocaust)
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Tammuz 26, 5767, 7/12/2007
Norman Finkelstein Defender Shilled for Naziby Steven Plaut
Peter Kirstein - academic cheerleader for David Irving. The leading defender of Hatemonger Norman Finkelstein in his battle to get tenure at DePaul University, a battle lost, has been one Peter Kirstein, an anti-Semitic leftist professor of history at St. Xavier University in Chicago. Not exactly a surpise, it seems that Kirstein has in the past lobbied, shilled for, and praised Neo-Nazi David Irving. See this. Note these quotes from Kirstein there: 'I accepted a speaking invitation from a historian who has been castigated as anti-Semitic.a charge that Mr. Irving has consistently denied.and denounced for a falsified revisionism of Nazi Germany and the destruction of European Jewry. My mission, since my egregious suspension on Veterans Day, November 11, 2002, for an act of conscience through a harshly worded antiwar e-mail, is to demand academic freedom for university historians and no censorship of any historian for antiwar or historiographical incorrectness 'As an outspoken peace activist, pacifist and war resister, which were the underlying reasons for my suspension in the twelfth week of a semester, I commend Mr. Irving's courageous and febrile opposition to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. I was not unmindful of this when I agreed to speak at his conference. If antiwar advocates can build coalitions across the ideological divide, then future degradations of the Palestinians, future Holocausts, future illegal walls of separation, future attacks on Jewish interests and future neoconservative crusades against nonthreatening Islamic nations may be averted....' Want to tell the heads of St. Xavier University what you think of them having such a person on its faculty? The President of the university is: Judith A. Dwyer, Ph.D., President Phone: (773) 298-3309 Fax: (773) 779-4763 E-mail: jadwyer@sxu.edu The list of their other officers is here. |
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