by Oui
Fri Jan 24th, 2020 at 08:16:47 PM EST
Coming week Israel and the occupied territory of Palestine will receive word from the White House how the West Bank will be carved up to the advantage and "security" of the Jewish settlers. Trampling on the historic rights of the Palestinian people living in the Middle East as refugees. With the signature of the man in the White House, the UN Security Council Resolution will be dropped in the trash bin of US History, including the Rights for Independence and Freedom of all people. The Third Intifada just ahead with all the bloodshed of innocents?
○ Trump's peace plan may polarize the Middle East it seeks to calm | Ynet News |
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German journalist accuses Israel, Russia of hijacking Holocaust memorial ceremony | DW |
A German journalist has come under fire for writing that Russia and Israel exploited a Holocaust remembrance ceremony for their own agendas. She said the memorial missed an opportunity to stand against anti-Semitism.
A commentator for German public broadcaster HR has come under fire after accusing Russia and Israel of "seizing" control a ceremony held Thursday at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Army.
While praising German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier's speech as "moving and empathic," Sabine Müller said Russia and Israel used the ceremony for their own political and memorial "private party."
Ja, vieles war würdig und überzeugend, und dazu hat der deutsche Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier beigetragen. Er wurde den Erwartungen an den ersten Redeauftritt eines deutschen Staatsoberhaupts in Yad Vashem gerecht und hielt als Vertreter des Landes der Täter eine beeindruckend einfühlsame und klare Rede - und das auf Englisch, wohlgemerkt. Eine Rede über deutsche Schuld und deutsche Verantwortung, darüber, dass es keinen Schlussstrich unter das Erinnern geben darf und über die traurige Erkenntnis, dass Deutsche 75 Jahre nach Auschwitz nicht immun sind gegen das Böse. Wie sagte Steinmeier richtig: Der Antisemitismus von heute habe zwar andere Täter und benutze andere Worte, es sei aber trotzdem "dasselbe Böse". Das war würdig.
Unwürdiges Verhalten von Israel und Russland
Unwürdig war dagegen, wie Israel und Russland diesen Gedenktag teilweise kaperten. Wie sie vor der offiziellen Veranstaltung sozusagen ihre eigene politische und erinnerungspolitische Privatparty feierten - mit neuen Verbalattacken gegen Polen und demonstrativ überlangen bilateralen Gesprächen zwischen Ministerpräsident Benjamin Netanyahu und Präsident Wladimir Putin.
Wie sie die Einweihung eines Denkmals zur Erinnerung an die Belagerung Leningrads gnadenlos überzogen, wie sie 90-jährige, 100-jährige Holocaust-Überlebende eine Dreiviertelstunde lang in Yad Vashem warten ließen wie bestellt und nicht abgeholt - und dazu noch mehr als 40 Staats- und Regierungschefs.
Holocaust survivors struggle while world leaders attend lavish memorials | Ynet News |
Galina Perevozkina is an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor living in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv who observed with frustration the arrival of world leaders in Israel to attend an event marking 75 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp.
What survivors need, she said, are "increased stipends and not glamorous receptions."
There are 192,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel today, of whom 48,000 live below the poverty line. According to official data released by the Finance Ministry's department for Holocaust survivors' rights, 67% live on a monthly stipend of just a few hundred shekels, and 33% have a monthly income of several thousand.
In 2019, 14,800 survivors died, constituting an average of 41 deaths a day and 1,233 each month.
Of Holocaust survivors in Israel, 39% are over the age of 85, 16% over 90 and 0.4% are over 100 years of age.
"Our physical and financial situation is very difficult," says 79-year-old Boris Verbovetsky, a blind Holocaust survivor from Beit Shemesh who immigrated from Russia 30 years ago.
"We live off the national insurance stipend because I have no pension from Russia and it is not easy to survive on that," Boris says, adding that he and his wife live on just NIS 5,000 a month. "It is not only the money that is a problem, it is being alone and wanting some warmth."
ICEJ Charity: Haifa hone for Holocaust survivors
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World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem: Hijacking the Shoah, Whitewashing Nakba | Tikun Olam |
This week, thirty world leaders are converging on Jerusalem to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I wrote about it in my new piece for Middle East Eye. All appearances to the contrary, this is not an official “Israeli” commemoration. Despite the fact that the country’s president is welcoming the dignitaries and Yad VaShem is serving as the host of some of the events, it is a “wholly-owned” production of the Russian Jewish oligarch, Moshe Kantor. He made his fortune stealing government companies which made fertilizer and turning them into a huge conglomerate called Acron Group. He is now worth $2.7-billion according to Forbes.
In order to protect his investment and fortune, Kantor has become a member of Putin’s mafia “crew.” In the process, he used his wealth to essentially “buy” the loyalty of a number of European Jewish communities on whom he showered gifts through his personal vehicle, the European Jewish Congress. If you’re wondering how a body that was established to be a liaison between EU officialdom and European Jewish communities was hijacked by someone who is not a citizen of a EU nation, the short answer is–bribes disguised as gifts.
Kantor has bestowed yet another “gift” on Israel by, in effect renting the country to produce an international extravaganza he’s calling World Holocaust Forum. It is, in reality, a one-man vanity project wholly to boost the vanity of Kantor’s patron, Vladimir Putin.
Yad Vashem, Facebook partner to commemorate Holocaust victims | JPost |
