May 12




GERMANY:

TUSSAUDS TRIAL----Hitler 'Assassin' Fined 900 Euros


The original wax figure of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler at Madame Tussauds
in Berlin had a short life. Just minutes after the museum opened its
doors, a man ripped off the Fuhrer's head. Now, a Berlin court has had its
say in the case.

The attack made headlines around the world. "At last, an assassination
attempt on Hitler that succeeded," the writer and SPIEGEL columnist Henryk
M. Broder joked at the time. And on Tuesday in Berlin, the "assassin" has
had his day in court.

Last July, just minutes after a branch of wax figure museum Madame
Tussauds opened in the German capital, a 41-year-old former policeman
leapt over the table at which Hitler was sitting. He shouted "No more
war!" and beheaded the doll by twisting it's beeswax head from it's
fiberglass body. The left hand of the figure, worth around 200,000
($274,000) in total, also broke off.

Police briefly detained the man, known only as Frank L., on suspicion of
damaging property and causing injury -- he lightly wounded one of the two
security guards who tried to stop him -- and he was eventually fined
1,800.

After the attack L., who told The Times of London that he left the police
when he realized he had more affinity with the left-wing punk and squatter
scene in Berlin, was hailed by many Germans as a hero. There had already
been an intense debate about the appropriateness of a wax figure of Hitler
so close to memorials for those who died under his regime.

Additionally L. also objected to the fine, making a trial necessary. Which
is why he was in court in Berlin again today.

In explanation, the accused said he had come up with the plan to attack
the wax Hitler last year while drinking with friends. The fact that the
figure was part of a display which also included former Chancellor, Willy
Brandt, made the group particularly indignant, as did the "blatantly
positive" depiction of Hitler as an energetic, strong willed man.

"I virtually swore to my friends that I would. I didn't want to lose
face," L. said in court, news agencies reported.

The next morning the single father of an eight year old, had to queue for
some time to get into Madame Tussauds. And as German press agency, DPA,
reports, L. told the court that he almost lost his nerve several times.
But when he thought of his mother and the fact that she grew up in a
post-war wasteland he regained his focus.

But L. also showed remorse, saying he wouldn't ever do the same again. He
also apologized to the security guard because, he said, he had never meant
to hurt anyone.

In the end, the court ruled that the currently unemployed man would only
have to pay roughly half of the original fine: 900.

And after everything, L. believes he did win some sort of victory. In the
intervening months Hitler's figure has been repaired. However he now sits
apart at Madame Tussauds, a broken man trapped behind glass -- to prevent
any further attacks -- in a version of the bunker where the original spent
his last days. His hair is dishevelled, his tie askew and next to him sits
a sign that informs visitors about the millions of victims of the Nazi
regime.

(source: SPIEGEL online)






GLOBAL:

What is anti-Semitism?----A UCSB professor's controversial e-mail
underscores the need to define a sensitive subject.


William I. Robinson, a professor of sociology at UC Santa Barbara,
probably shouldn't have been surprised when he found himself in the news
earlier this month. He had, after all, forwarded an e-mail to his students
that juxtaposed images of Palestinians caught up in Israel's recent Gaza
Strip offensive with Jewish victims of the Nazis. The e-mail included
graphic photographs of dead Jewish children from the 1940s alongside
similar photos from Gaza. In a cover note, Robinson called the images
"parallel" and compared Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto.

The outcry built slowly. First, a few students complained; then, organized
groups became involved. Two national Jewish leaders accused Robinson (who
is himself Jewish) of anti-Semitism, and the university's Academic Senate
opened an investigation and is considering disciplinary proceedings.
Articles about the controversy have been published all over the world and
have given rise to fundamental questions:

Is it ever acceptable to compare Israelis to Nazis? When does criticism of
Israel become anti-Semitism? And who should make these calls? Below, The
Times asks and answers a few questions to help frame the debate.

Let's start with an easy question. What is anti-Semitism?

Actually, that's not easy at all; scholars, philosophers and policymakers
have debated the question since the 19th century. The U.S. State
Department has defined the term simply but vaguely: "Anti-Semitism is
discrimination against or hatred toward Jews."

So how do we recognize it?

That was easier in the bad old days. Who could mistake the violent attacks
on Jews across Europe during the First Crusade in 1096? Or the expulsion
of Jews from England in 1290 and from Spain in 1492? Demonization of Jews,
forced conversions, ghettoization, pogroms and the Holocaust -- all were
manifestations of classic European anti-Semitism. So were Shakespeare's
Shylock and Dickens' Fagin (described as "shriveled" and "repulsive," and
referred to simply as "the Jew" more than 200 times in "Oliver Twist").

But today, determining what is or is not anti-Semitism is generally a more
nuanced business, at least in the West. Is it anti-Semitic or merely
factual to say that Hollywood is controlled largely by Jews? (Remember:
Most of the big studio chiefs are Jewish.) Or to note (as some critics of
the Iraq war did) that many of the neoconservatives who helped devise the
war's intellectual rationale were Jewish -- and possibly harbored a dual
loyalty to Israel? Or to point to the existence of a powerful "Israel
lobby" that wields substantial influence on Capitol Hill?

So it's a minefield, right?

In 2004, the European Union Monitoring Centre Centre on Racism and
Xenophobia tried to bring some rationality to the debate by drawing up a
"working definition" of anti-Semitism. Here are some of the examples of
anti-Semitic behavior it singled out: Calling for the killing or harming
of Jews in the name of an extremist ideology; making dehumanizing or
demonizing stereotypical allegations about Jews; accusing the Jews as a
people of being responsible for wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish
person or group; trafficking in Jewish conspiracy theories; denying the
Holocaust; and accusing Jews of being more loyal to Israel than to their
own nations.

The organization also noted that anti-Semitism "could also target the
state of Israel."

Does that mean it is anti-Semitic to criticize Israel?

To criticize Israeli policies? Of course not. Even Abraham Foxman, the
outspoken national director of the Anti-Defamation League, acknowledges
that there's nothing wrong with criticizing, say, Israel's recent
offensive in Gaza. Alan Dershowitz, the vehemently pro-Israel Harvard Law
School professor, agrees that it would be "absurd" to equate criticism of
Israel with anti-Semitism.

So if it's OK to criticize Israel's policies, what's the big deal?
Professor Robinson objected to the Gaza offensive, and he made that clear.

Yes, he made it clear, but it's how he did so that got him in trouble,
according to his critics. There are acceptable ways to criticize Israel,
while others cross the line into anti-Semitism, says Daniel Goldhagen,
author of "Hitler's Willing Executioners." For instance, if a person
repeatedly singles out Israel for attack without subjecting other
countries to similar scrutiny, that's questionable, Goldhagen says. Or if
he opposes Zionism -- and therefore, Israel's right to exist as an
explicitly Jewish state -- altogether.

Another way to cross the line, according to the EUMC, Foxman, Dershowitz,
the State Department and others, is to compare Israelis to Nazis. "Any
comparison between Israeli efforts to defend its citizens from terrorism
on the one hand, and the Nazi Holocaust on the other hand, is obscene and
ignorant," Dershowitz wrote in December.

The Anti-Defamation League's website notes that comparing the victims of
Nazi crimes to those who carried them out "serves to diminish the
significance and uniqueness of the Holocaust" and is "an act of blatant
hostility toward Jews and Jewish history." As Foxman puts it: "The moment
you compare the Jews to those who consciously and systematically
determined to wipe them off the face of the Earth -- that's
anti-Semitism."

Is that a reasonable line to draw?

Robinson certainly doesn't think so. He says that the charge of
anti-Semitism is a smoke screen designed to intimidate Israel's critics.
"Israel and its supporters intentionally use it to quash debate about the
country's policies," he says. "It's a political ploy."

How does Robinson defend forwarding the offending e-mail?

He doesn't think it needs defending. He says he's teaching a
controversial, provocative subject, and that it's his job to challenge
students to examine their assumptions as he puts contemporary events into
historical context.

And does he meet the Goldhagen test? Does he criticize other nations for
their transgressions?

He says he tells his students that there can be no double standard when it
comes to human rights, and that the targeting of one Iranian or
Palestinian or Jew or Rwandan is equally condemnable. "But at the same
time," he adds, "it's unreasonable to suggest that each time I critique
one state for a human rights violation that I must also, in the name of
balance, run off a litany of all the other human rights violations in the
world."

Where does Robinson draw the line between what's acceptable and what's
not?

It's fine, he says, to criticize Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe for driving his
country to the brink of collapse, but it would be unacceptable to say that
he has done so because he is a biologically inferior black African.
Similarly, it is acceptable to argue that Israel's offensive in Gaza was
wrong -- but it would be anti-Semitic to criticize Israel on the grounds
that Jews are dirty, greedy or sinister.

What does Robinson say to the idea that comparing Israelis to Nazis is
simply out of bounds?

First, he defends the comparison of Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto. He says
that, like the ghetto, Gaza is sealed off. As in the ghetto, the delivery
of food and medical supplies is controlled by the hostile power outside,
so that poverty and malnutrition are building. As in the ghetto, he says,
rebellions are put down with disproportionate force. According to
Robinson, it may not be an exact comparison, but it's hardly ridiculous.

Moreover, Robinson insists that such analogies are essential to
understanding history. Would it be wrong, he asked, to compare the
apartheid regime in South Africa to the Jim Crow laws in the American
South, even if the situations were not identical? As for whether it's OK
to compare contemporary figures to the Nazis, he notes that President
George H.W. Bush once likened Saddam Hussein to Hitler and that Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has compared Iran to Nazi Germany.

But those are not cases where victims are compared to their persecutors.

Robinson says that comparing victims to their persecutors shouldn't be
off-limits. In fact, that's the very irony that makes the analogy so
important. "I'm saying that the people who suffered the most nightmarish
crime of the 20th century are now using tactics and practices that are
eerily similar to what was done to them," he says. But he acknowledges
that the analogy has its limits: "Extermination," he says. "Obviously
that's the key difference."

So what's the bottom line?

The Foxmans and Dershowitzes say that comparing Israelis to Nazis is, in
the final analysis, anti-Semitic because it is so demonstrably untrue and
so patently disingenuous. Even Israel's fiercest critics, they argue,
ought to concede that the country's actions have been taken in its own
defense -- even if one believes that defense was misguided or
disproportionately violent or even criminal. Further, they say that the
number of Palestinian deaths during the 60-year conflict can't begin to
compare to the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust. To suggest a
moral equivalency is anti-Semitic because it's so absurd.

Robinson's bottom line is this: Whether you accept the analogy or find it
"absurd," the real principle at stake is that of open debate and academic
freedom. A professor engaging in a controversial conversation with his
students may not be shut down by the defenders of a particular ideology.
Deeply held beliefs are there to be challenged; that's how critical
thinking is developed.

You be the judge.

(source: Editorial, Los Angeles Times; Nicholas Goldberg is deputy editor
of The Times' editorial pages)






ISRAEL:

In Holocaust memorial visitors book, Benedict quotes passage reminding
hope arises from misery


Pope Benedict XVI signed the visitors book at the Yad Vashem Holocaust
memorial Monday with a passage from the Book of Lamentations, the Biblical
poems traditionally read to commemorate the fall of the temple in
Jerusalem.

"His mercies are not spent," Benedict wrote.

The pope was at Yad Vashem to honor the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazi
regime and he said the Scriptures are a reminder that "this God lives,
even though we sometimes find it difficult to grasp his mysterious and
inscrutable ways."

The pope noted that the Book of Lamentations is full of significance to
both Jews and Christians.

The passage he chose to quote from reminds that even from deep misery,
hope arises.

The full passage reads: "The favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his
mercies are not spent. They are renewed each morning, so great is his
faithfulness."

(source: Associated Press)

***************



BENEDICT DISAPPOINTS----The Double Silence of the Pope


In the past, Pope Benedict XVI's speeches have gotten him in trouble.
Visiting the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem on Monday, it was what he
didn't say that irked his audience. Israel is disappointed, as are Jews in
Germany.

In the Nazi extermination camps, prisoners scratched their names onto
stones and scribbled them on pieces of paper or wood, and then buried
them. They knew that they would not survive. But they wanted their names
to live on.

It is for the same reason that the names of those murdered in the
Holocaust are preserved at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
Pope Benedict XVI, who visited the Hall of Remembrance there on Monday,
added his own words of remembrance. "I have come to stand in silence
before this monument, erected to honor the memory of the millions of Jews
killed in the horrific tragedy of the Shoah. They lost their lives, but
they will never lose their names."

The pope's speech, though, fell flat. Immediately following his visit, the
Yad Vashem Council released a statement expressing disappointment with the
pope's comments at the monument. "He did not mention that it was the Nazis
who did the murdering, nor a word of his personal participation in the
feelings of pain and sorrow," said Yad Vashem Council Chairman Rabbi
Yisrael Meir Lau immediately after the speech. "Even the phrase '6
million' wasn't there. Not to mention that he didn't say 'I apologize.'"

Criticism didn't just come from Israel, either. In Germany, the Central
Council of Jews in Germany blasted the pope for failing to more clearly
distance himself from the Society of St. Pius X and the Holocaust denial
of SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson. "What should one think of a public call
to fight against anti-Semitism when he himself doesn't act and doesn't
take consequences," said Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Central
Council. Council President Charlotte Knobloch said "I expected clearer
words from the pope at Yad Vashem."

No Mention of Williamson

The pope was taken to the Hall of Remembrance shortly after 5 p.m. It is a
dark room, with a low, concrete ceiling. The "Ankor" girls' choir sang the
Song of a Martyr, and a rabbi chanted El Maleh Rahamim, the traditional
Jewish prayer of mourning. A letter written by Elchanan Elkes, the head of
the Kovno (Lithuania) Ghetto's Jewish Council, to his children was read
out loud. Then Benedict XVI was led to six Holocaust survivors. He took
their hands and listened to their stories. He did so in the same friendly
and benevolent manner in which he has conducted every meeting during his
trip to Israel. Then he was asked to step up to the podium, where he
joined Israeli President Simon Peres, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, and
Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the chairman of the Yad Vashem Council.

In the wake of the Shoah, it is the duty of future generations not to
forget the names and to repeat them again and again. This is a core
concept of Jewish theology, which the pope embraced when he said: "May
their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten!" In contrast to
the Central Council in Germany, many read the words as a radical rejection
of Holocaust denier Williamson and his SSPX, as well as a benevolent
exhortation to be vigilant so that tragedies like the Holocaust will not
be repeated. The pope did not, however, mention Williamson by name.

Sacred scripture, he continued, "teaches us the importance of names in
conferring upon someone a unique mission or a special gift." Then he
mentioned the pool in the memorial, which reflects the faces of the
murdered children. "One cannot help but recall how each of them bears a
name," he said. "I can only imagine the joyful expectation of their
parents as they anxiously awaited the birth of their children. What name
shall we give this child? Who could have imagined that they would be
condemned to such a deplorable fate! As we stand here in silence, their
cry still echoes in our hearts. It is a cry raised against every act of
injustice and violence. It is a perpetual reproach against the spilling of
innocent blood. It is the cry of Abel rising from the earth to the
Almighty."

No Sparks

They were powerful sentences, appearing in a manuscript that had been
released in advance. Benedict remained true to his manuscript, reading it,
word for word, in a quiet voice. But at the same time, he rattled off the
sentences as if unaware of the impact of his words, swallowing and
mumbling important words, as if he were reading a manuscript meant for
someone else or, even more distressingly, as if he were unaware of what he
was reading. It was not a powerful moment. There were no sparks.

It was the first and last time that a pope from Germany who had
consciously experienced the war and the Nazi years would speak at Yad
Vashem. And it was a pope who has said that he became a priest because he
wanted to do something against injustice and untruth. Many had expected
Benedict to speak as a German, as he did at the Auschwitz memorial. But
instead he confined himself to an abstract invocation of the dead, in the
tradition of Biblical elegies.

He came as a pilgrim and, at the same time, as the leader of a global
church, believing that there was no room for Joseph Ratzinger the man, for
his life and his memories. The German pope chose silence where some,
especially in Israel, would have preferred more discourse. The criticism
on Monday evening was sharp.

The pope never mentioned the culprits, or the German words engraved into
the floor of the Hall of Remembrance at his feet: Buchenwald, Auschwitz,
Majdanek, Theresienstadt. He said nothing about the church's position on
the Holocaust, or about its history of anti-Semitism, which made the Shoah
possible in the first place. Instead, he confined himself to mentioning
the "deep compassion" of the Catholic Church for the victims. His next
sentence could be interpreted by the malicious -- who are not in short
supply -- as a qualification of the uniqueness of the Shoah: "Similarly,
she draws close to all those who today are subjected to persecution on
account of race, color, condition of life or religion."

Preferring to Remain Silent

When Pope John Paul II spoke at Yad Vashem in 2000, he promised that
"never again" would the church permit the persecution of Jews. His
successor has renewed the promise, but in a far more generalized form: "As
Bishop of Rome and Successor of the Apostle Peter, I reaffirm -- like my
predecessors -- that the Church is committed to praying and working
tirelessly to ensure that hatred will never reign in the hearts of men
again."

At the end of his address, Benedict said that he was grateful to God for
the opportunity "to stand here in silence: a silence to remember, a
silence to pray, a silence to hope." His speech ended with a sentence from
one of the Lamentations of Jeremiah in the Old Testament: "It is good to
hope in silence for the saving help of the Lord" (Lam 3:22-26).

After the ceremony, the pope walked over to the girls' choir for a group
photo. As everyone smiled for the camera, a few old people sat in their
chairs on the other side of the room, looking forlorn: Avraham Ashkenazi,
Ruth Bondy, Israela Hargil, Gita Kalderon, Dan Landsberg and Ed Mosberg --
the six survivors. There was no group photo for them.

The pope had already left Yad Vashem for his next appointment, as an
elderly woman stood in the Hall of Remembrance. Her name is Lea Schnapp, a
journalist from Jerusalem who watched her 12-year-old sister walk into a
gas chamber. "Entire family was burned," she says in her broken German.
She was one of about 1,000 children, between the ages of 12 and 16, being
held in Block 8 at Auschwitz. "Twenty-five survived," she says. She is
unwilling to pass judgment on the pope's speech. She says: "I am
one-sided. This is a festival. But no one can understand."

She prefers to remain silent.

(source: SPIEGEL online)