Keffiyeh-Clad Heirs of Streicher

VOLUME 2 No. 9 SEPTEMBER 2002 Keffiyeh-clad heirs of Streicher Ihe atrocities of September 11 drew less slaughter gentile children to make matzos '^nan a unanimous reaction from across the for Passover. Cairo, the intellectual capital *orld. The West was divided between a of the entire Muslim cosmos, boasts Ein horror-struck majority and a minority who Shams University. Here Dr Adel Sadeq, deplored the deed but felt they could President of the Arab Psychiatrists 'understand' the perpetrators. The East Association, recently intoned this paean of •displayed a different sort of division. Some praise to suicide bombers: "As a Muslims, exemplified by the ululating professional psychiatrist, I say that the Women caught on camera in the West height of bliss comes with the end of the "3nk, rejoiced, while others professed to countdown: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, "^tect the hand of the Israeli intelligence September 11 Ground Zero five, four, three, two, one. When the service Mossad behind the atrocity. As martyr reaches 'one' and he explodes, he June 28. The article, permed by ex-editor P''oof, they cited the Saudi-manufactured has a sense of himself flying, because he Harold Evans, talked of a "dehumanisation °êga-lie that 4,000 Jewish employees of knows for certain that he is not dead. It is a of all Jews manufactured and propagated the World Trade Center were absent from transition to another, more beautiful, throughout the Middle East and south *ork on September 11 because they had world. None in the Western world Asia on a scale and intensity that is utterly •êen tipped off. sacrifices his life for his homeland. If his unprecedented." In the West there were, and are, those homeland is drowning, he is the first to Evans echoes our comments on the jump ship. In our culture it is different... Who argue that the 3,000 victims mobilisation of Muslim opinion expressed this is the only Arab weapon there is and ntombed beneath Ground Zero are in pro-al-Qa'eda demonstrations from anyone who says otherwise is a outnumbered by Afghan civilians killed in Palestine to Pakistan in the wake of the conspirator." ^^ air raids - and quite dwarfed by the New York and Washington bombings. number of Third World citizens dying daily But there is still worse to come. We wrote that it was not despair - as the •"om malnutrition and disease. Palestinian intellectuals, who must be as let's-drop-food parcels-on-them lobby, familiar with Yad Vashem as Londoners ^^sterners with that mindset coined the and, latterly, Cherie Blair hypothesise - are with the British Museum, actually ^'ogan 'Drop food parcels instead of but sheer unadulterated hatred that deny that the Holocaust took place. ^mbs!' at the start of Allied air operations fuelled the grisly manifestations of Outdoing even the unspeakable Jean- ^^r Afghanistan last autumn. In fact, both resurgent Islam. Marie Le Pen, the official Palestinian *'ngs happened: US bombs paved the - Evans's copiously researched article newspaper dismissed the Shoah as "a ^'Iniittedly bloody - path for the arrival of proves beyond doubt that the Muslim Jewish hoax to promote their international ^ food supplies. world stands ready to re-enact the mind- marketing operations." ôw that the most urgent problems of boggling absurdities of Jew-hatred What, one is led to wonder, hipty stomachs in Afghanistan have been pioneered in the Third Reich. Thanks to differentiates Arab Jew-haters from Hitler, *^kled, a more widespread problem what they read in their newspapers, see on Goebbels and Streicher? Precious little, "^^cting a billion Arabs and Muslims from TV, and hear in their mosques, the except that the latter would never have ^ Atlantic to the Pacific forces itself upon residents of 22 Arab countries (and of called Jews Nazis - a term Palestinian "^ World's attention. It is the problem of Muslim states from Iran to Indonesia) spokesmen routinely apply to the Israeli ^Pty minds - i.e. minds bereft of the perceive Jews as "dirty, hooknosed, Defence Forces. The more pertinent ^cr of informed independent reasoning money-grubbing vindictive and scheming question is what do Al-Ahram and Al- into which Keffiyeh-clad heirs of parasites. Israelis poison water, inject Mayal have in common with the Volkische ^'cher have been pouring antisemitic Palestinian children with Hiy and feed Beobachter and Der Stiirmer? The answer '^'son for decades. drug-laced chocolate to women to make is everything! Both the German and Millions of Muslims believe that them sexually corrupt." According to the Arabic perverters of truth focus(ed) on J^Ptember 11 was a Jewish plot," The Cairo-based Al-Ahram, the leading Jewry as the bell-wether to be slaughtered *^^ stated in heavy type in its issue of newspaper of the Arab world, Jews in the assault on Western civilisation. AJRJOURNAL SEPTEMBER 2002 An inexplicable void Claims Conference ready to pull Richard Grunberger out of insurance company deal Risking the charge of Jewish The Claims Conference is prepared to mediating in the dispute that "we reject megalomania yet again, I assert that withdraw from a deal that protects the granting of [legal] closure." Britain's greatest figurative painter German insurance companies from Mr Gibowski said there was no reason to lawsuits by survivors of the Holocaust in and her greatest playwright - i.e. take such action: "We are doing everything return for the pledge of reparation funds. on the German side. The foundation is Lucian Freud and Tom Stoppard - are Israel Singer, elected the Conference's there, the money is there." The companies both Jews as well as refugees. Not that new president in May this year following stood to gain nothing by postponing one would have guessed as much from the death of Rabbi Israel Miller, has said payments, he asserted. their work, however! that his members are "fiiistrated" by the The 150-odd paintings and etchings slow pace at which Holocaust-linked Insurance claims process nnay on display in Tate Britain's Lucian restitution payments are being made. be extended Freud exhibition present the fruit of six According to a report in the Jewish The fiftieth anniversary of the signing of Chronicle, Wolfgang Gibowski, a the Luxembourg Agreement on decades' work. The painter's skill is spokesperson for Remembrance, reparations - by the West German hugely impressive, though I found his Responsibility and the Future, a foundation government, Israel and the Claims unvaryingly sombre, not to say joyless, set up by the German govemment and Conference - occurred recently. Over $50 cast of mind discomfiting. major industrial companies to make swift billion in reparations has been secured for But that is neither here nor there. payments to forced labourers and other more than 500,000 survivors in the My point is that a visitor from Mars Nazi victims, denied that the insurance half-century since the agreement came could not possibly have deduced from companies were to blame. Gibowski into effect. placed the blame squarely on the the oeuvre where Freud - in the current Two years ago German insurance firms International Commission of Holocaust catchphrase - was coming from. Here is agreed to pay some $225 million as part of Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC). ICHEIC a $5 billion German government and someone who at eleven experienced was set up in Washington in October 1998 industry fund once legal immunity had traumatic uprooting and displacement by the National Association of Insurance been settled. But a Claims Conference into an alien environment - and who Commissioners and several European spokesperson said that most of the still (as journalists have pointed out) insurance companies, European companies were not following ICHEIC retains a German accent. How, I ask, regulators, representatives of various guidelines. Jewish organizations, and the State of can all this, not to mention the An independent report commissioned Israel to address the matter of unpaid encompassing Jewish drama ofthe last by ICHEIC released earlier this year insurance policies issued to victims ofthe century, the echoes of which still found that many firms were too quick to Holocaust. deny claims and criticised ICHEIC for resonate in this, fail to find an echo in a Dale Franklin, an ICHEIC spokesman, high expenses and insufficient oversight single one of Freud's painting? responded: "There has been a lot of of agencies hired to handle enquiries an" By the same token, I fail to criticism about how much time it has process claims. "It identified areas where taken, but those not involved in the understand why no single line in Tom we could help claimants more and improve negotiations cannot understand the Stoppard's prodigious output of plays our procedures," said Mr Franklin. He complexity of the challenge. There is good hints at the author's Jewish origins. Of added that the insurance claims process faith on both sides, but we would like to course, a childhood spent in the India of would probably be extended beyond the 30 conclude the negotiations so we can move September deadline. "Once claims are pal" the Raj must have obscured his forward with payment of claims." and everyone has accepted or rejected emerging sense of identity - but half a Rabbi Singer said the Claims their offers, ICHEIC should be able to century has elapsed in the interim. Conference might "reject the funds" and close down," he said. jjg Interestingly enough, the theme of inform the US federal judge who has been exile permeates Stoppard's latest trio of plays - currently being staged at the AJR Journal National Theatre - which focus on Richard Grunberger Editor-in-Chief JACKMAN • prominent Russians who fled Tsarist Ronald Channing Executive Editor Howard Spier Editorial and Production SILVERMAN rule for political reasons.

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