Remembering how the Second World War Began ...five lessons that apply today

70 years later


Seventy years is a long time. The span between the outbreak of World War II and today is about equal to the period between the first powered flight of the Wright brothers and NASA's Saturn V rocket launch of Skylab.

Men and women in their 20s today can't but relate to the Second World War as something that happened in their grandparents' generation. People in their 40s and 50s relate to WWII as something their parents may have experienced. Take President Barack Obama, who at 48 has only heard stories about how his great-uncle Charles Payne helped to liberate Buchenwald.

THE PASSAGE of time notwithstanding, controversy over the war remains vibrant. Revisionist historians, for example, falsely claim that there is no difference between the victims of communism and the victims of Nazism.

A more serious debate revolves around who, apart from Hitler, was most responsible for starting WWII?

Russia blames Poland for being Hitler's accomplice to the partition of Czechoslovakia in 1938, thus setting the stage for the conflict. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania along with Ukraine are marking the anniversary by spotlighting the evil committed by Josef Stalin and arguing that he and Hitler shared responsibility for the horrendous consequences of the war. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev calls this view a "flat-out lie."

Stalin, as we know, was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 20 million people within the borders of the Soviet Union until his death in 1953. His authorization of the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact provided Hitler with the breathing space needed to launch Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The pact allowed Moscow to annex Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, two-thirds of Poland and a chunk of Romania.

The Russians point out that their pact with Hitler would not have been necessary if not for the Munich agreement Britain and France signed with Germany. That September 1938 deal obliged Czechoslovakia to trade land for peace and turn over its Sudetenland region to the Nazis. Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, heralded the accord as delivering "peace for our time."

Hitler betrayed Stalin and in one of the fuhrer's greatest blunders ordered the invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941. With the Soviet Union fighting on the side of the Allies, the Nazis were decisively defeated.

Whatever the miscalculations and moral deficiencies of Chamberlain, Stalin and the other leaders of that era, the unalterable fact is that Hitler alone instigated World War II.

The war made it possible for the Nazi leader to fulfill his "prophecy" that European Jewry would be destroyed. Indeed, implementing the systematic, industrial-scale murder of the Jews was a raison d'être for launching the conflict - and a critical German war aim.

BUT AS we said, 70 years is a long time ago. Today, a quarter of Germans, according to Stern magazine, believe there were positive aspects to Nazi rule. And as The Associated Press recently reported from Gaza, a Hamas spiritual leader considers it a war crime to teach Palestinian pupils that the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews.

Despite a myriad of Holocaust films, museums and books that have made the Final Solution synonymous, in many minds, with the war itself, only 37 percent of British high school students knew that 6 million Jews were killed in the Shoah. A staggering 83% of Dutch people surveyed in 2006 thought the Allies fought WWII because of the Holocaust.

As the world marks the anniversary of the outbreak of WWII this week, and with the Iranian leader set to address the United Nations next month, those who make fateful decisions for the international community need to draw the appropriate lessons from history.

These include, we submit:

• Leaders will appease tyrants when confrontation is costly, only to pay a greater price later.

• Purely pragmatic yet amoral policies directed at a tyrant broadcast weakness.

• When a tyrant prophesies a world without Jews (or Israel), he is revealing his intentions.

• Rational decision-making models may not apply in polities where crucial choices are made by a strongman and his sycophants. Such leaders are inherently unpredictable.

• Appeasement emboldens autocrats convinced they have a special aura and messianic mission.

History does not repeat itself. But people have been known to make the same mistake twice.

Why Israelis are cynical about their elected officials

Yes to outrage

You know what's really distressing about Sunday's indictment of former prime minister Ehud Olmert on graft charges? It's that the news was anti-climatic. That Israeli society has reached the point where one mass-circulation tabloid devoted more front page coverage to Madonna's visit to the Western Wall than to the historic indictment of an ex-premier.

Israelis were not shaken. We did not feel betrayed. And therein lies the heartbreak.

Part of the blasé reaction can be explained by the fact that Olmert has been under investigation for so long. In September 1996, while in the Likud, he was indicted for illicit fund raising and for signing false statements. He was ultimately acquitted.

In the last three years, Olmert stood accused of influence-peddling at the Finance Ministry to ensure that the privatization tender of Bank Leumi was won by Australian businessman Frank Lowy. That case was dropped. As Industry, Trade and Labor minister, he was accused of handing out patronage jobs to a company associated with his former law partner. That case is still pending.

Back on March 2, 2006, The Jerusalem Post reported that then-acting prime minister Olmert had been cleared of any wrongdoing in the sale of his home on Rehov Kaf Tet B'November in Jerusalem. Further on in that story, though, we reported that Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz was looking into charges that Olmert's purchase of another Jerusalem home on Cremieux Street was shady. No wrongdoing was ever proven in connection with Olmert's real estate dealings on Cremieux St, or in Nahalot, or in Sheinkin Street in Tel Aviv.

Still, when Olmert was ultimately driven from office it was not for his inept handling of the Second Lebanon War, but because he became too unpopular to lead Kadima at the polls.

THE attorney-general has now filed a 61-page, three-count indictment charging Olmert with tax evasion, falsifying financial statements and failing to report income. The charges relate to the period Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem and a minister. None allege wrongdoing initiated during his premiership. Olmert is not charged with taking bribes, though that is implicit.

# Charge One: Rishon Tours. Olmert is accused of double, sometimes triple billing the government and not-for-profit organizations for reimbursement of 17 trips abroad between 2002-2006, and of directing that surplus funds, roughly $90,000, be held on account at the travel agency for personal use by him and members of his family.

# Charge Two: Morris Talansky affair. Olmert is accused of receiving $600,000 from the American businessman, some of it in cash-stuffed envelopes, between 1997 and 2005.

# Charge Three: Investment Center. As Minister of Industry and Trade, Olmert is charged with a conflict of interest in intervening on behalf of the clients of his law partner Uri Messer to obtain government grants.

No prime minister or ex-premier has ever before been indicted on criminal charges in Israel's history.

This is the place to say that we have not been impressed with the deportment of Olmert's lawyers, particularly their efforts to delay the handing down of this indictment and impugning the motivation of the prosecution. To insinuate that the indictment was driven by ulterior motives is to undermine trust in the legal system.

Olmert is innocent until proven guilty. He is expected to go on trial in Jerusalem District Court before a three judge panel probably after the High Holy Days. The trial is expected to be a drawn out affair, barring a plea bargain.

WE ARE left feeling that hubris more than ethical standards guide the behavior of too many of our politicians. Sixty years after the establishment of the state, the sense that certain things are just not done remains undeveloped.

Former president Moshe Katsav and now Olmert have been indicted. Former finance minister Avraham Hirschson and former Shas MK Shlomo Benizri both start their prison sentences today. Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak both escaped indictment - just. Police have recommended indicting Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

The charges, circumstances, and personalities may vary but the lingering impression is that those who ought to be paragons of probity too often treat the law with contempt. Their greatest offense is making the rest of us cynical about our country.

Are Europe & America starting to wake up?

Iran without the bomb

The battle raging among Sunni Muslims - between belligerent Islamists carrying the mantle of al-Qaida and comparatively more moderate adherents - is sufficiently disturbing without throwing the destabilizing impact of Iranian Shi'ite imperialism into the mix.

Over the weekend, for instance, came news that the son of the Saudi interior minister - who happens to be his father's deputy at the ministry - had been the target of a failed al-Qaida assassination attempt. Elsewhere, hundreds of Sunni Muslims have been killed this summer by fellow Sunnis in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. In Afghanistan/Pakistan, the slaughter is mostly Sunni on Sunni. Only in Iraq has much of the recent intra-Arab killing been carried out by Sunnis against Shi'ites.

On top of what the Sunnis are doing to each other, Iran does its bit to promote the bloodletting, in Afghanistan and Iraq, naturally, but also in Yemen, where the latest uptick in violence is facilitated by Iranian support of anti-government Shi'ite rebels. Iran also stokes upheaval by supporting seditious Sunni groups in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania and among the Palestinians. In Lebanon, Teheran operates openly through its Hizbullah proxy. Its agents in South America and Africa pursue their malevolent goals more surreptitiously.

Iran makes all this mischief armed with only conventional weapons. Place an atom bomb in the hands of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the world becomes exponentially more dangerous - especially now that his regime is becoming more despotic.

As Iran's June elections demonstrated, power is now concentrated among an ever-shrinking elite which feels no need to pursue consensus policies at home. Former leading revolutionaries have been subject to Stalin-like show trials, coerced into making transparently false confessions. The revolution is consuming its own, becoming more fanatical and turning crooked. The Economist reports this week that the Revolutionary Guards control most state-owned companies and may even have a stranglehold over the black market in alcohol, tobacco, and heaven knows what else.

The appointment as defense minister of Ahmad Vahidi - the man most likely responsible for the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires in which 85 people were killed and 200 wounded - supplies yet further proof that the ruling clique has become more shameless, arrogant and unpredictable.

ON FRIDAY, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei issued another one of his Kafkaesque reports, in advance of a September 7 meeting of the agency's 35-member policymaking body in Vienna. He has perfected the art of airbrushing any sense of urgency out of these reports. "There remain a number of outstanding issues," ElBaradei droned, "which give rise to concerns and which need to be clarified to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program…."

He makes no judgment about the military aspects of Iran's nuclear program; takes no position on reports that a renegade Russian scientist provided weaponization knowhow to Iran; and offers no view about reports of Iranian scientists carrying out computer modeling of above-ground nuclear detonations.

Here is ElBaradei taking off the gloves: The IAEA does "not consider that Iran has adequately addressed the substance of the issues…." To his credit, he doesn't sweep under the rug the fact that Iran has not suspended its enrichment of uranium or halted work on heavy water, as demanded by the Security Council.

The generally well-informed Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post predicts that after much haggling, Iran will agree to stop short of building a bomb, but will insist on retaining its capability to do so. That would leave Iranian imperialism unchecked and perpetuate for generations the threat of an Iranian bomb.

On Wednesday, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in Frankfurt. Berlin and Paris have announced that stiffer economic penalties are in the offing if Iran does not end its quest for the bomb. Meanwhile, a new poll tells us that 81 percent of Americans feel Iran poses a serious threat to the United States; a survey last month found 66% feeling that President Barack Obama is not tough enough on Iran.

Iran without the bomb is a certified menace. Perhaps the nightmarish consequences for Europe and America of a nuclear-armed Iran are, belatedly, starting to register.

How Ted Kennedy's death is seen in Jerusalem

Liberals and Israel


The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, a quintessential liberal, reminds us that there was a time when liberalism and pro-Israelism were synonymous.

Kennedy-style liberalism was rooted in optimism about human nature, trust in the good that government can do, and faith in the power of negotiations to resolve seemingly intractable problems.

Kennedy made his first trip to Israel in 1962 as a prelude to his senatorial campaign. Though it was billed as a "private visit," Kennedy gave a "fervent Zionist address" before 2,000 Hebrew University students. A handful of local communists protested the appearance. In those days, liberals and communists were bitter enemies.

As a freshman senator, Kennedy became chair of the subcommittee on international refugees. When he came to suspect that UNRWA money - largely contributed by US taxpayers - was being diverted to Ahmed Shukeiry, Yasser Arafat's predecessor, and his gunmen, he protested.

After visiting Arab refugee camps in Lebanon and the Jordanian-occupied West Bank, Kennedy advocated rehabilitation and training programs to help those displaced by the 1948 war start new lives. Israeli leaders supported his efforts. But the Arabs insisted that the only just solution for the refugees was their return to their original homes and the dismantling of Israel.

KENNEDY was by no means a knee-jerk supporter of this country.

He opposed Israeli retaliatory raids against Arab fedayeen and called for third-party mediation.

In 1966, he introduced his own plan for Middle East peace which advocated respect for the territorial integrity of all states in the region. The Arabs would have none of it.

After the 1967 Six Day War, Kennedy remained a steadfast friend of Israel and said that on a personal basis, he did not object to Jerusalem remaining united under Israeli sovereignty.

During the Nixon administration, he urged the sale of Phantom fighter planes to Israel, clashing with J.W. Fulbright, the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

By the early 1970s, he had became a key champion of the Soviet Jewry movement. In 1974, he irritated the Kremlin by meeting with Jewish refuseniks in Moscow.

Throughout the Nixon and Ford years, Kennedy steadfastly championed military aid to Israel.

When Jimmy Carter pushed a major arms package for Saudi Arabia, Kennedy voted against - though he honored a White House request not to lead the opposition to the deal. He also opposed Carter's occasional flirtations with the then-quarantined PLO.

And when the Carter administration supported an Arab-inspired UN Security Council resolution calling for the removal of all Jewish settlements beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines, Kennedy called the US vote "shameful." He wanted to see the parties negotiate the issues - including settlements.

He unsuccessfully challenged Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination, while receiving strong support from Rabbi Alexander Schindler of the Reform movement and other liberal Jews. (Carter ultimately lost his bid for a second term to Ronald Reagan.)

When Reagan sought to sell F-15s to Saudi Arabia in 1981, he too ran into opposition from Kennedy. And in the face of unbridled Reagan administration outrage over the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear facility later that same year, Kennedy lambasted the administration as "profoundly wrong."

THE PRO-ISRAEL liberalism embodied by Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Henry Jackson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob Javits seems archaic nowadays.

Their generation knew first-hand that the Arabs' rejection of Israel's existence was at the root of the conflict.

Today, calls for throwing the Jews into the sea have been replaced by reasonable-sounding Arab initiatives for a two-state solution. Only the fine print - pertaining to recognition, borders, militarization and refugees - suggests something else.

Once there were no settlements, and still the Arabs sought Israel's destruction. Yet yesterday, a CNN primer of the conflict pointed to settlements as the stumbling block to peace.

Maybe the old Kennedy liberals were really centrists, and today's progressives are really leftists. Or maybe, 60 years on, liberals have just grown uncomfortable and impatient - after Lebanon wars, intifadas, checkpoints, barriers and Gaza blockades.

The liberal catechism is 1. All conflicts are soluble; 2. Israel is the stronger party; 3. And so it must take the greater risks for peace.

Liberals are exasperated by Israel's failure to embrace these principles categorically. Yet we survive in this region because we don't.

Edward Kennedy understood all this and more. Israel feels his loss acutely.
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Shabbat shalom to all