FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

A couple of things that don’t fit anywhere else:

1) Yesterday, I attended an “Israel@60″ celebration here in Fresno. Lots of good feelings, vendors selling kippot, food, music, food, dancing, food, etc. Two Chabad rabbis did a land-office business getting people to put on tefillin.

I was in charge of an “Israel Advocacy” table. It was not exactly the the most popular thing at the event, but that’s not surprising.

A few people came over, took my literature, and talked a bit. One man looked at a pamphlet and shook his head. “Why are you shaking your head?”, I asked. He pointed to a photograph. “Arafat,” he muttered. “We love Israel, said his wife. We’ve been there several times.”

Like everyone who expressed similar sentiments, these people were Christians. Yet so many Jews reject their friendship. We shouldn’t.

2) Bloggers love to see their posts linked on other sites. It’s proof that someone other than the author reads them. Jewish bloggers actually go to the extreme of posting a collection of links to each other’s posts from time to time! Such vanity. It’s called Haveil Havalim (vanity of vanities), and you can find this week’s edition here.

Technorati Tags: Christian Zionism, Haveil Havalim

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Fresno State’s Middle East Studies program is planning an “International Conference” on “Teaching about the Middle East in the 21st Century” this October.

Why do I care? Because, given the politicization of academia in general and Middle East Studies in particular — and the individuals running the conference — I expect that it will not be a quiet exercise in arcane scholarship.

Instead, I expect another attempt to bring the politics of hatred to our local university, just as the same people turned a benign “International Days” event into a vicious anti-Israel “Palestine Day” in 2003.

Papers apparently can be about absolutely anything Mideast-related. Some of the ‘disciplines’ listed are

• Culture, Gender & Ethnography
• Diaspora & Migration Culture
• Middle East Politics & Representations
• U.S. Foreign Policy

It’s easy to guess the kind of material that is likely to be presented in those ‘disciplines’, especially since the postmodernist revolution in academia has made it possible to claim that anything politically congenial to the writer is true (see Nadia Abu El-Haj and CSUF’s own Mary Husain).

The conference chair is Dr. Sasan Fayazmanesh, by trade an economist, but known for popularizing the term “USrael”, in support of his view that US and Israeli policy is closely coordinated (if only it were so), and dominated by a “neo-con” (Jewish) cabal.

The Middle East Studies program has been in existence for a year, funded by a grant from the US Department of Education. Judging by the course offerings and programs, my feeling is that it should have been called “Arab and Persian” studies, since there is no indication that there are or ever have been Christians or Jews in the region! The program is chaired by Dr. Vida Samiian, Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, “Palestine Day” organizer, and an activist who has been responsible for bringing numerous anti-Israel speakers and films to the area.

Let’s hope this will not turn into Fresno’s Durban Conference.

Technorati Tags: CSU Fresno, Sasan Fayazmanesh, Vida Samiian, Middle East Studies

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Palestinians talk about ‘humiliation’ a lot. Humiliation at checkpoints (carefully ignoring the reason for the checkpoints), humiliation by airport security, and above all, humiliation caused by the very presence of the hated Zionists on soil which they believe to be theirs. Today an op-ed in our local newspaper, written by two people prominent in our Muslim and Jewish communities, mentioned the “daily humiliation” of the Palestinians. The very carefully written op-ed — the subject of creative ambiguity is something I’ll discuss another time — reminded me that I wanted to talk about humiliation, and who is humiliating whom.

News item:

Gaza’s only power plant will be shut down in two to three days unless Israel resumes fuel shipments, power plant director Rafik Maliha said Saturday.

Maliha warned that half a million Gazans would be left without electricity.

Israel halted supplies last week after Gaza terrorists attacked the Nahal Oz fuel depot on the Gaza-Israel border and killed two workers.

The power plant’s fuel reserves have been low in recent months, after Israel restricted fuel supplies in hopes of forcing terrorists to halt rocket attacks from Gaza.

First of all, the ‘crisis’ that would occur if the power plant shut down is exaggerated. Gaza gets fully 70% of its power from the Israeli electrical grid and another 5% from Egypt. The Gaza strip has about 500,000 residents in toto, so the statement is sheer nonsense.

Now here is what happened at Nahal Oz: a carefully planned, sophisticated attack was executed as a cooperative effort between Hamas and several other terrorist groups.

It was not a random action. One of the participants, the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), named the operation “Breaking Zionist Arrogance.” The Zionist arrogance in question, of course, constitutes supplying fuel to Hamas-ruled Gaza, and the strategic purpose of the attack was to interrupt it so that there will be another pretext for more actions, such as breaking down border fences — either into Egypt, Israel or both. It will be another cause for the massive ‘frustration’ building up in Gaza.

On the same day of the attack on the terminal, about 50 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza fell in Israel.

So what Hamas and friends are saying is the following:

“We will kill you as much as we like and you will supply fuel and electricity with which we will build rockets to kill you more. We will only stop when you agree to open up your borders to us, so that we can go among you and kill even more.”

This is what is truly humiliating.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Nahal Oz, Gaza, Hamas

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Sami al-Arian is a former faculty member at the University of South Florida. He pled guilty in 2006 of raising funds for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization, after being charged in 2003 with numerous terrorism-related offenses.

The case dragged on for almost three years, and the jury was unable to decide on a verdict on most of the charges. As a result of his plea he was sentenced to a little more than time served, and was ordered to be deported.

He has been called the “North American head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad“, a group responsible for literally hundreds of terrorist attacks against Israel. The FBI claimed that he “had connections to the blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the first World Trade Center attack in 1993; to Hamas official Mohammed Sakr; to the high-ranking Sudanese terrorist Hassan Turbai [sic]; and to Islamic Jihad co-founder Abdel Aziz-Odeh.”

Just to give you an idea of the kind of guy he is, here is a 12-second video in which al-Arian calls for “Victory to Islam, Death to Israel“; and here is another in which he calls upon his listeners to “Damn America and Israel to Death“.

His supporters insisted that the prosecution was ‘political’ and an attack on his right of free speech. But the government insisted that al-Arian gave material support to an organization that he knew was committing terrorist acts (and among whose hundreds of victims were two Americans, killed in Islamic Jihad suicide bombings in Israel).

Al-Arian was also sentenced to 14 months for civil contempt, because he refused to testify against former associates. This sentence was canceled by another judge — but he has been subpoenaed again to testify in front of a grand jury, presumably to be asked again about individuals thought to be involved in terrorism, here and overseas. He has refused to comply and is presently on a hunger strike.

Now, why am I bringing this up?

Because the College Community Congregational Church here in Fresno will shortly be presenting a film and discussion about al-Arian. The film, “USA vs. Al-Arian” is entirely one-sided, focusing on the “heart-wrenching traumas” suffered by al-Arian’s family, and claims that it is his “fight for Palestinian recognition that garners the attention of the authorities” and not the fact that he raised hundreds of thousands millions of dollars to pay for the murder of Jewish Israelis and Americans whom he likens to the sons of monkeys and pigs.

The discussion will be led by Melva Underbakke, a former co-worker of al-Arian, who organized a group called “Friends of Human Rights” in response to his prosecution.

Palestinian apologists, as always, are doing their best to recast their genocidal attempt to reverse history as a struggle for human rights. But leaving aside the complex questions about the constitutionality of the Patriot Act, whether the government is subjecting al-Arian to double jeopardy by subpoenaing him, etc., one simple question remains:

Did Sami al-Arian know that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad for which he was raising funds was actually a terrorist organization which has killed hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians by suicide bombings, shootings, and rockets?

Technorati Tags: Sami al-Arian

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I’ve been suspecting this for a long time, but now someone has come along and proven it:

The New York Times, LA Times (may its name be erased), and Washington Post’s op-ed sections are heavily biased against Israel:

A 19-month CAMERA study, from January 2006 through July 2007, of guest Op-Eds about the Arab-Israeli conflict found that in these three papers pro-Arab Op-Eds and/or those critical of Israel overwhelmingly outnumbered pro-Israel Op-Eds and/or those critical of Arabs. Even more telling is the striking fact that during the 19-month period, none of the newspapers ran even a single Op-Ed by an Israeli official. In contrast, each of the three papers ran four Op-Eds by Arab officials, including multiple pieces by Hamas leaders…

It should be noted that many of the Op-Eds generally supportive of Israel also contained criticism of the Jewish state. In contrast, virtually none of the Op-Eds expressing a pro-Arab point of view contained criticism of the Arab side.

While CAMERA inexplicably left our local paper, the McClatchy-owned Fresno Bee, out of the study, I have no doubt that it falls into the same category. Notable are periodic unsigned editorials which supposedly represent the opinion of the editorial board, although they are not written locally. And from time to time there is a particularly objectionable reader submission. Two weeks ago the Bee gave a prominent place to a poorly-written 700-word piece by a local pastor, a rehash of every libel and slander made against Israel, including accusations of murder, atrocities, ethnic cleansing, racism, apartheid, persecution (of Christians yet), etc.

I’m not the first one to note that journalists at media outlets great and not-so-great all do their best to get people to read their papers. And the op-ed page is, after all, the place where opinions are expressed, and strong opinions are interesting.

Nevertheless we know that the Timeses, the Post, or the Fresno Bee would not print an article which defames a racial or ethnic group. The editors would rightly judge this to be irresponsible.

So why is it acceptable to print hateful material that defames a nation?

Technorati Tags: Newspapers, Israel, NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Fresno Bee

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Recently I wrote about CSU Fresno’s developing Middle East Studies program. I suggested that it might — like many programs and academic departments of Middle East studies — have an uncomfortable slant, tending towards radical Islam and including tendentious anti-American and anti-Israel content.

One of the faculty members teaching several courses and proposed courses is Mary Husain. She has taught courses in the departments of Women’s Studies and Communications in the areas of “cultural studies, gender studies, and media persuasion”. She is listed to teach proposed courses in Middle Eastern Film Criticism, Middle Eastern News Analysis, and Intercultural Communication.

Ms. Husain has recently published an article with Kevin Ayotte, called “Securing Afghan Women: Neocolonialism, Epistemic Violence, and the Rhetoric of the Veil” (NWSA Journal, Vol. 17 No. 3). Although the article is not available on the web, I have obtained a copy from the library.

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Another anniversary approaches. The day has become part of most Americans’ internal photo albums. What were you doing when? For some reason, I remember the phone calls. My son, serving in the IDF: “What the f—?” I didn’t know. My sister-in-law, a naval doctor in Washington: she wasn’t in the Pentagon that day.

Personally, I had never liked the WTC, built on the site of the beloved Radio Row where I spent so much time as a kid. But of course afterwards it broke my heart every time I saw the New York skyline without it.

I worked my way through college as a transmitter engineer at a local broadcast station; radio and electronics have been my hobby since I learned Morse code as a boy scout. So I was particularly affected by the death of another transmitter guy and radio ‘ham’, Steve Jacobson. Here he is with the antenna structure on the roof of 1 WTC :

I also remember the President speaking from an undisclosed location, looking like a rabbit in the headlights before he and his people got their tough guy act together, and Mayor Giuliani striding through the rubble looking presidential.

The usual suspects started blaming US support of Israel for the attack, and soon the rumors started that the Jews had stayed home from work that day, that the Mossad and the Bush Administration had cooperated to carry out the attack and blame Arabs (The look on Bush’s face from the undisclosed location was enough to refute that one), and so forth.

Here in Central California, in a remarkable combination of hateful racism and abysmal ignorance, several Sikhs were attacked for wearing turbans, and in Arizona one was shot to death.

Six years after, the controversy about the motives of the 9/11 attackers continues. It is impossible, however, to understand the attackers without taking into consideration their radical Islamism, which sees the West as an enemy which must be crushed or fundamentally changed.

On Tuesday (this year, as in 2001, September 11 is a Tuesday), the local Islamic Cultural Center has organized a “Unity walk” to a local church. There will be speakers and refreshments, and I presume that the point will be made that there is a difference between moderate Islam and the radical Islamism of the terrorists, which of course is correct.

I’ll have details on the rest.

Technorati Tags: 9/11

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On September 9, Fresno will host a ‘Night to Honor Israel’, an event put on by Dr. John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel (see my previous articles, ‘Rabbi Yoffie and Pastor Hagee‘, and ‘Should Jews support Christian Zionists?‘). The event will raise money, all of which will go to Israel and none to CUFI or even to pay for the event (the cost of the event has been paid by a Christian donor).

I expected that there would be differences of opinion in the Jewish community about this, but I wasn’t prepared for the strength of feelings expressed by those who opposed it (I should know better).

The local Jewish Federation has endorsed the event. The (by far) largest congregation in the region has pointedly not endorsed it, although their rabbi will be giving the invocation.

The reasons that I’ve heard for oppostion are the following:

• They only support Israel because they believe that there will be a massive battle of Armageddon in which the Jews will take part, and then be converted to Christianity with the Second Coming; and they are trying to bring this about.

• They think Israel should keep the territories and therefore are anti-peace.

• They want something from us in return — although they say that they don’t, they will call in their markers later.

And finally, what I think is the most important part:

• They are members of the ‘Christian Right’ who want to destroy the separation of church and state in the US and change the US into an explicitly Christian nation, who want to destroy public schools, prohibit gay marriage and abortion, etc.

‘Christian Zionism’ is a term that can be applied to many completely different theological points of view. To be fair to Dr. Hagee we should look at his own words:

The support of Israel is a biblically based mandate for every Christian. All other nations were created by an act of men, but God Himself established the boundaries of the nation of Israel. God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob a covenant of land that was eternally binding, and it’s recorded in the book of Genesis. God also told Abraham that He would make Abraham’s descendants into a great nation and through them He would bless all the families of the earth. In the same passage, God said He would “bless those who bless you” (Abraham), and “curse him who curses you” (Gen. 12:3). That gets my attention. I want to be blessed, not cursed, by God.

The Bible shows God as the protector and defender of Israel. Psalm 121:4 says that He never slumbers or sleeps in His watching over the nation of Israel. The prophet Zechariah said that the Jewish people are “the apple of God’s eye” (2:8). Any nation that comes against Israel is, in effect, poking God in the eye-not a very wise thing to do! If God created Israel, if God defends Israel, if God considers Israel the apple of His eye, then it is logical to say that those who stand with Israel are standing with God.

Every Christian should remember the debt of gratitude the Christian community owes to the Jewish community. The Jewish people do not need Christianity to explain their existence or their origin. But Christians cannot explain their existence without Judaism. It was the Jewish people who gave us the written Scripture. They gave us the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They gave us the disciples and the apostle Paul. The Jewish people gave to Christianity the first Christian family, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus-our Savior! If you take away the Jewish contribution to Christianity, there is nothing left.

I don’t see anything about starting a war there, do you? Opponents of CUFI insist, in the most insulting way possible, on not believing Hagee’s words and attributing the most extreme view possible to him.

I agree that Christian Zionists tend to align themselves with those who want Israel to keep the territories, and they are not especially sympathetic to the Palestinians. But differences of opinion about these issues are rife among Zionists in Israel and in the US, and shouldn’t disqualify a group from helping Israel. The money that has been raised by CUFI in the past has not gone to build settlements, but rather toward such things as mitigating the effects of the Hezbollah rocket attacks on Northern Israel, building shelters, etc.

As far as ‘wanting something’, yes, they do want something: they want legitimacy for their fundraising efforts (which they will not have if Jews reject them) and they want to extend their hand in friendship to make up, in part, for years of antisemitism by Christians. Should we slap it away?

Finally — they are members of the dreaded Christian Right, who helped elect George Bush and oppose everything that is modern and just. It’s true that these are the same people — they belong to the group of 50 to 150 million Americans who identify as Evangelical Christians. I think that although most liberal Jews are not going to find common ground with them on the issue of abortion, for example, it might be worthwhile for us to try to understand the source of their concerns.

And I think that just as they are prepared to agree to disagree with us on these issues, we can do the same so as to support one cause — the survival of the State of Israel — that we all agree upon.

Technorati Tags: Fresno, CUFI, Hagee, Christian Zionism

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California State University, Fresno (CSUF) has been known until now primarily for its excellent business school and its scandal-prone Athletic Department.

Now it is developing a program in Middle East Studies. Today it is only an interdisciplinary collection of courses, but in a year or so it will be possible for an undergraduate to minor in the program, and some day it may become a department in its own right.

The project is being spearheaded by Dean of the College of Humanities Dr. Vida Samiian; one of the co-directors is her husband, Dr. Sasan Fayazmanesh.

In November 2003, Dr. Samiian organized ‘Palestine Day’ at CSUF. Speakers included the renegade Israeli academic Ilan Pappé on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Dr. Saleh Abdul Jawad on “The End of the Two State Solution: Apartheid, Bi-national State, or the Final Stage of Socioside”, the film “Jenin, Jenin” which falsely depicted a ‘massacre’ that never occurred, the film “Gaza strip”, and more. Jewish students who attended said that the atmosphere was not only anti-Israel, but also antisemitic.

And Dr. Fayazmanesh? In a recent interview, he says

the Middle East Policy of the current administration has been determined by the “neoconservatives,” individuals who virtually see no distinction between the “interest” of the US and Israel and might even put the “interest” of the latter above the former. — (The US, Israel and Iran: An Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh)

He names seven “neo-cons”, six of whom are Jewish, and then goes on to talk about the power of the Israeli lobby in the US. Indeed, he likes to use the expression “USrael” to express the idea that US policy is identical to that of Israel.

It is hard to believe that a program led by these two will present an unbiased view of the Middle East.

We can possibly get an idea of what they have planned by reading between the lines of some of the course descriptions. For example, in a course given by Dr. Sameh El Kharbawy on “Islamic Art and Architecture”, students will learn about

…the historical tensions between Islam and modernity, and explore Islam’s engagement with radical social and political theory; its flirtation with utopianism and mass culture; its encounters with colonialism and war; its flirtation with technology, as well as its changing conceptions of mind and human nature. Contemporary critical issues of post-colonial identity, exile, cultural hybridity will also be studied through art and architecture. The goal is to re-orient the historiographic project of modernity within Islam’s regional, pan-Islamic, and cross-cultural contexts, exposing the course participants, in the process, to their role in the construction of modern identities.

It isn’t hard to imagine the discussion sessions.

Technorati Tags: Fresno, CSUF, Samiian, Fayazmanesh

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Today Dr. Alfred Evans, CSUF Professor of Political Science, had a piece in the Fresno Bee called “More misconceptions about terrorism“. One of them was described thus:

A sixth misconception is that the actions of terrorist organizations that target the U.S. are motivated directly and primarily by their hostility to our values. Some have said that terrorists attack us because they hate our freedom.

That explanation is rejected by the consensus of experts on anti-American terrorism. The late Gen. Wayne Downing of the U.S. Army (who served as Commander of Special Operations and later as the president’s chief adviser on terrorism) summarized the results of opinion surveys in several Middle Eastern countries by saying, “It is U.S. regional policies — not a clash of values, religion or the ‘Al Jazeera factor’ — that influence anti-American attitudes in the Middle East.” The Defense Science Board report of November 2004 underlined the same point.

Michael Scheuer, who formerly headed the unit in the CIA that tracked Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida and whose books have been praised highly by experts on terrorism, says flatly that none of the reasons for which bin Laden is waging war on us “have anything to do with our freedom, liberty and democracy, but have everything to do with U.S. policies and actions in the Muslim world.”

But the ‘experts’ and Evans are missing an important point. The terrorists of al-Qaeda, have a radical Islamist philosophy. What does this mean and what does it imply?

(more…)

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I’ve written about Dr. John Hagee and Christians United for Israel (CUFI) before. There is no question that this man and his organization are tremendously controversial among American Jews today. Jewish objections to CUFI come from those who disagree with their belief that Israel should maintain control over the territories, from those who are bothered by Hagee’s socially conservative positions on other issues, and those who believe that CUFI has an ulterior motive — that they actually wish to exacerbate conflict in the Middle East in order to bring about the second coming (Christian Zionists strongly deny this, saying that it doesn’t make theological sense).

On the other hand, many Jews accept the Christian Zionists’ explanation that they are following biblical injunctions to bless the Jewish People, and that they believe God wants the Jews to possess the Land of Israel — and are very happy to accept their help in the unequal struggle between Israel and her enemies.

In the very near future (September 9), CUFI and a new local organization called the “Judeo-Christian Alliance for Israel” (JCAI) will be holding a “Night to Honor Israel” here in Fresno. The object of the event is to generate interest in helping Israel among the Christian community and to raise funds.

One of the founders of the JCAI is John Somerville, a long-time Christian Zionist. Somerville told me that he expects most of the attendees to be Christians, and that

We will ask them to financially contribute to an as yet un-named project in Israel, which will be solely selected by the Jewish Federation. All the money will go directly to Israel, none of it will go to CUFI or JCAI. Nor will any of it go towards the cost of putting on the event. All of the money that has been spent so far, rent of the amphitheater, insurance, printing, travel and lodging for speakers, lights, sound, etc., came from one individual who went to Israel with me last year.

Somerville listed the goals of JCAI as follows:

• To encourage meaningful and supportive relationships between Christians and Jews.
• To educate and equip Christians to identify with Israel, the Jewish people, and the biblical/Hebraic foundations of the Christian faith.
• To bless Israel and the Jewish people in Israel and worldwide, through practical assistance, volunteer service, and prayer.
• To communicate Christian perspectives to the attention of US and Israeli leaders.
• To demonstrate to the US Jewish community through action and information that Christian Zionism is a reflection of God’s love in the heart of Christians for the Jewish people and the Jewish state and not a veiled attempt to convert or subvert their Jewishness or their beliefs.
• To counter Anti-Semitism and media misinformation while promoting Israel’s God-given right to exist in her God-given land.

Central California is an interesting place, with an extremely diverse population. Among the Armenians, Hispanics, Hmong, Japanese, Mennonites, Sikhs, and many others there is a large group that traces its origins to the dustbowl of the 1930’s. They brought a strong evangelical tradition with them, which took root and flourished and now finds its expression in several massive megachurches and numerous smaller ones. If you can say there is a ‘dominant culture’ here, this is it.

I think the tiny Jewish community — and especially those who strongly support Israel — can’t afford to ignore this phenomenon, which could represent part of a major historic change in the relationship between Christians and Jews.

From my point of view, I welcome it.

Technorati Tags: Fresno, CUFI, Israel, Christian Zionism, Hagee

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By Vic Rosenthal

Some time ago I wrote about Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel (see The Church of Antisemitisim). Last night I had the opportunity to meet his wife.

Ingrid Rimland Zündel is of German Mennonite extraction; so it wasn’t surprising that she has been in our valley — home to many Mennonites — more than once. Last night she spoke at a local Mennonite church.

I went with some trepidation, imagining the place packed with skinheads and Jew-hating survivalists from the mountains. I invited retired newsman Murray Farber (known on the streets of New York as “fearless Farber” some 60-odd years ago) to accompany me. Both Murray and I had family members in Europe murdered by the Nazis.

I needn’t have worried. The only skinheads present were involuntary ones, older church members. There was a total of 13 people in the audience, including Murray and me. One of the reasons for this became clear in the parking lot, where we met the pastor of the church handing out flyers saying that the event was not sponsored by the church, and that the content did not reflect its (or his) views. He told us that he had done his best to discourage members from attending. One of the members of the congregation, an immigration lawyer who had represented Ernst Zündel when he was deported from the US, had been very persistent in promoting the event.

Mrs. Zündel appeared to be a pleasant woman in her sixties, and spoke about her husband’s difficulties with the authorities in Canada, the US, and Germany. He was persecuted unfairly and terribly, she said, because of his tireless work to spread the truth. This is not allowed because the Holocaust “myth” is a huge “cash cow”, used to extort reparations from Germany and sympathy for Jews and Israel in the US. It is a fraud and a hoax, she said.

“There is an enormous amount of money flowing to Israel because of the Holocaust; that’s why the US, Canada, and Germany spent so much money prosecuting my husband”, she explained.

She insisted that nobody was gassed at Auschwitz — Zyklon B was only used for delousing. Of course the Germans were very angry at the Jews (!), and many of them were shot because they were “collaborating with the enemy and sabotaging us”. Anyway, bullets were cheaper than gas. But only 278,000 died in Auschwitz, mostly from disease. “There was never a Fuehrer order” to kill the Jews. “It was not in Hitler’s interest” for PR reasons to have a genocide.

As she spoke and warmed to her subject, she stopped seeming like a pleasant woman to me. I began to feel the chill of the 1940’s, when my parents and grandparents gathered around the radio, listening to the news reports from Europe and wondering about their siblings and cousins (none of whom, we later determined, survived the war). I began to feel the presence of something very old and very bad.

Americans need to wake up, said Mrs. Zündel, before they lose their freedom as Ernst has. The Palestinians understand “this criminal racket” but most of the rest of the world is “brainwashed”. The judicial system has been “co-opted”. We have been lied to about the Kennedy assassinations, 9/11, Vince Foster, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Holocaust. “The truth can free the world if it comes out”.

“There will be no peace in the US until this weapon [the Holocaust] can be taken away from what is plaguing this country”. She didn’t specify exactly “what is plaguing this country”, but she didn’t need to at this point.

Murray asked her about the evidence presented at the Nuremberg trials. “Nuremberg was a tool that allowed Israel to be created”. What about the testimony of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss? “He made his confessions under torture”. What about the Wannasee conference? “All lies”.

The local lawyer who had organized the event spoke a bit afterwards. He said that one of the problems he had in getting attention paid to Ernst Zündel’s allegedly illegal treatment by the US authorities was that “immigration lawyers are predominately Jewish”, so they wouldn’t take the issue seriously. He added that there is a “high level of control of a certain segment of the community over the media”, which prevents the truth from being known.

Murray and I didn’t stay for the refreshments after the talk.

Technorati Tags: Fresno, Holocaust denial, Zundel, antisemitism, anti-Semitism

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