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FASCIST MUSLIM GROUP EXPECTED TO LOOT TEL AVIV IN 1948

10 May 2008

The Mufti inspects the Muslim Unit in Bosnia, 1946. He met with
Hitler in 1941 to offer his services. 

BY SETH J. FRANTZMAN 

On a pleasant Thursday in December 1948, Emilio Traubner, a correspondent for The Palestine Post, found himself near Abu Kabir, not far from Jaffa. Trenches and expended cartridges were strewn about, reminders of the fighting between units of the Irgun and local Arab forces that had taken place there seven months previously. There was a large Arab villa from where Traubner recovered a diary. It turned out to be the daily record of Yusuf Begovic of Pale, a town near Sarajevo in modern-day Bosnia-Herzegovina. In it Begovic had described his activities as a cook for the “Arab Army of Liberation.” 

Traubner described who Begovic had been serving: “35 Yugoslav Muslims who had a good reason to expect to be among the first to occupy and loot Tel Aviv, were part of a group of some thousands who came to the Middle East to join the jihad against Israel.” 

What were Yugoslav Muslims doing in Jaffa in 1948? How had they managed to get themselves all the way to the Holy Land? What had motivated them? Who had recruited them? What was the Bosnian or Albanian connection to the Palestinians, if there was one? 

There was a Bosnian connection: Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, had been in Bosnia in the 1940s. Had he recruited these men? What had become of them? 

It turned out that in 2005 a Bosnian had given an interview in Lebanon to a Croatian newspaper and claimed to have fought in the 1948 war. The story began to crystallize. 

The Long Shadow of Haj Amin 

In October 1937, Haj Amin al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the Arab Higher Committee, was hiding from the British authorities in the Haram al-Sharif, the holy sanctuary atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. On October 13, disguised as a Beduin, he fled to Lebanon via Jaffa. In Lebanon he received sanctuary from the French mandatory authorities but he fled again with the outbreak of war in 1939. This time he made his way to Baghdad disguised as a woman. In Baghdad in 1940 and 1941 he increased his contacts with Germany, offering to aid the Nazis in return for their help in gaining independence for the Arab states. The Italians helped him enter Turkey, and then he made his way to Rome on October 11. He met with Mussolini and then with Hitler on November 28. After the failure of various schemes to create an Arab military unit he eventually settled for recruiting Muslim volunteers to aid the Nazis from the Balkans, Bosnia and eventually Kosovo. 

In speaking to potential recruits, Husseini stressed the connections they had to the Muslim nation fighting the British throughout the world: “The hearts of all Muslims must today go out to our Islamic brothers in Bosnia, who are forced to endure a tragic fate. They are being persecuted by the Serbian and communist bandits, who receive support from England and the Soviet Union… They are being murdered, their possessions are robbed and their villages are burned. England and its allies bear a great accountability before history for mishandling and murdering Europe’s Muslims, just as they have done in the Arabic lands and in India.” 

Three divisions of Muslim soldiers were recruited: The Waffen SS 13th Handschar (”Knife”) and the 23rd Kama (”Dagger”) and the 21st Skenderbeg. The Skenderbeg was an Albanian unit of around 4,000 men, and the Kama was composed of Muslims from Bosnia, containing 3,793 men at its peak. The Handschar was the largest unit, around 20,000 Bosnian Muslim volunteers. According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, “These Muslim volunteer units, called Handschar, were put in Waffen SS units, fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia and carried out police and security duties in Hungary. They participated in the massacre of civilians in Bosnia and volunteered to join in the hunt for Jews in Croatia.” Part of the division also escorted Hungarian Jews from the forced labor in mine in Bor on their way back to Hungary. The division was also employed against Serbs, who as Orthodox Christians were seen by the Bosnian Muslims as enemies. 

The Handschar division surrendered to the British army on May 8, 1945. As many as 70,000 Bosnian Muslim POWs and their families were moved by the British army to Taranto in Italy. The creation of Marshal Tito’s Yugoslavia at the end of the war meant that former Bosnian Muslim volunteers in the German SS units could not return home for fear of prosecution or internment. George Lepre, a scholar on the history of the Handschar and author of Himmler’s Bosnian Division: The Waffen-SS Handschar Division 1943-1945 describes their fate: “Those Bosnians who elected to remain in the camps eventually found asylum in countries throughout the Western and Arab worlds. Many of those who settled in the Middle East later fought in Palestine against the new Israeli state.” 

But first they had to get to the Middle East. 

The formation of the Bosnian unit in 1947 

The Bosnian Muslims, usually referred to as “Yugoslavs” in period newspaper accounts as well as in intelligence reports, remained in DP camps in Italy until 1947, when it was reported in The Palestine Post on April 18 that there was a “request from the Syrian government for the transfer of 8,000 Bosnian Moslem refugees at present in Italy. Yugoslav quarters here say that the Arab League has written to all Arab states, urging them to assist these Moslem DPs, and that some financial help has already been received. Yugoslav officials say that they too want these 8,000 Moslems back, as they are the Handschar Division of the German Wehrmacht which surrendered to the British… The Yugoslavs state that they view with the gravest concern the possibility of the transfer of this group to the Middle East.” 

By December 1947 a nucleus of former Handschar officers had made their way to Syria and were beginning to reconstitute their unit in Damascus. A report by Israel Baer in the Post noted that “the latest recruits to the Syrian army are members of the Bosnian Waffen SS… It is reported that they are directing a school for commando tactics for the Syrian Army.” 

No doubt the fledgling Syrian army which had been born in 1946 was in need of officers and trainers with experience. Emilio Traubner, writing on December 3, 1947, noted that the International Refugee Organization (IRO) was even convinced to fund the travel of Bosnian Muslims from Italy to the Middle East so that they could find homes since they refused to be repatriated to Yugoslavia. 

In January 1948 Arab agents were working to recruit Bosnians for the fight in Palestine. On February 2, it was reported that 25 Bosnian Muslims had arrived in Beirut and were moving to Damascus to join 40 other Bosnians already there. A report by Jon Kimche on February 4 further noted that up to 3,500 were being transferred to Syria to fight alongside Fawzi Kaukji’s Arab Liberation Army (ALA) in its invasion of Palestine. On March 14 a party of 67 Albanians, 20 Yugoslavs and 21 Croats led by an Albanian named Derwish Bashaco arrived by boat in Beirut from Italy. They were hosted by the Palestine Arab Bureau and made their way to Damascus to join the ALA. In the first week of April another 200 Bosnians arrived in Beirut. 

A lengthy report by Claire Neikind on March 2 described the procedure by which Arab agents were recruiting volunteers among the DPs in Italy. Men between 22 and 32 were sought and in return they would receive free passage to Beirut and their families would receive maintenance. According to Neikind, 300 men had already arrived and 90 Croatian Ustashi were also making there way. Fifty-seven were sent to Amman. Between December 1 and February 20 a total of 106 were sent to Syria. Neikind noted that “as soon as their families are settled, they enter Arab military service.” 

If one accepts merely the low totals from newspaper accounts it appears that there were at least 520 Bosnians, 67 Albanians and 111 Croatians in Syria or Beirut, as well as 135 Bosnians on their way to Egypt and 57 Bosnians in Jordan. Thus 890 volunteers from Yugoslavia and Albania were in the Middle East by April 1948, before Israel’s declaration of independence on May 15, 1948. 

Upon arrival the volunteers found their way to a camp at Katana, a military base west of Damascus that the Syrian army had provided for use by the Arab Liberation Army being assembled to invade Palestine. Here they met their commander, Fawzi Kaukji for the first time. Kaukji, 58, was a former Ottoman soldier who had fought in the Arab Revolt. Hagana intelligence estimated as many as 4,000 volunteers had joined his army. 

In December of 2005, Hassan Haidar Diab, a journalist in Bosnia, was able to locate Kemal Rustomovic, a Bosnian who had served with the Yugoslav volunteers. He claimed to have been a member of the Arab Salvation Army where 150 of his fellow Bosnians served under a Bosnian officer named Fuad Sefkobegovic. 

The Role of the Bosnians in the War of Independence 

Since the fall of 1947 Arab forces under Abdel Khader Husseini and other locals had harassed Jewish traffic and supplies moving from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. A mixed Bosnian-Arab unit of the ALA had been dispatched to aid in the siege of Jerusalem and this unit found itself embroiled in the battle for Castel between April 3 and 8, 1948. This battle was part of the Hagana’s Operation Nahshon which was intended to relieve the siege of Jerusalem. It is not clear what became of the Bosnians who fought at Castel. Some may have retired to Ramallah, where it was reported on April 16 that Muslim foreigners including Yugoslavs had taken over the best hotels and “molested” the local population. 

The next battle that the Bosnian units participated in was at Jaffa between April 25 and May 5. Jaffa had been allotted to the Arab state in the UN partition plan, but it was surrounded by territory allotted to the Jewish state. The battle began when the Irgun launched an attack on the city. According to the Hagana, there were 400 “Yugoslavs” and 200 Iraqis defending Jaffa. On April 28, Michel Issa, the Christian Arab commander of the Ajnadin Battalion, received orders from Kaukji to move from the Jerusalem foothills to relieve the siege of Jaffa. On the same day, Hagana intelligence noted that there were 60 “Yugoslavs” among the defenders of Jaffa. Issa arrived in Jaffa on April 29 ; the commander of Jaffa, Maj. Adil Najmuddin, deserted the city on May 1, leaving Issa and his Yugoslavs. According to Issa’s telegram to Kaukji, “Adil left [the] city by sea with all [the] Iraqis and Yugoslavs.” Prior to their departure the Yugoslavs had been billeted at local homes and their unit even included a cook. 

Kemal Rustomovic recalled in his interview that he had first been at Nablus, then Jaffa and finally at Jenin. Between the evacuation of the Yugoslavs by sea from Jaffa and their reunion with the ALA, the State of Israel was born on May 15, 1948. On the same day five Arab armies invaded Israel and the war became much wider. 

The ALA became a disorganized and largely spent force by the time it saw fighting again around Nazareth again in July. During the fighting in the North, Kaukji’s army of 2,500 men was reduced to only 800 and it was driven from Nazareth into northern Galilee. Rustomovic was one of these men according to his interview. The Post reported that the ALA still included “Yugoslavs.” On July 18 the Post reported that the British government’s intelligence had acted to “systematically sabotage [the] Palestine partition scheme” and provided as evidence the fact that England was aware of the presence of Bosnian volunteers in Syria. 

During the fighting in October the IDF conquered the entire Galilee and parts of Southern Lebanon. A report on November 1, detailing the capture of the Galilee, noted that some “Yugoslavs” had been captured during the fighting that had driven the ALA and the Lebanese army from Palestine and actually found the IDF in Lebanon. 

The Bosnians and the 1948 war, strange bedfellows? 

It is not known what became of the Bosnians who served with the Arab forces in the 1948 war. Rustomovic, who was born in the village of Kuti in central Bosnia in 1928, joined the Lebanese army in 1950. He served his adopted country for 30 years, married a local woman and had seven daughters and five sons with her. He was granted Lebanese citizenship, unlike the Palestine refugees who fled to Lebanon, and retired from the army in 1980. According to him, none of the Bosnians who had served in the SS ever returned to Yugoslavia. Some ended up in the US, Australia and Canada. It is assumed that some also settled in Syria or elsewhere in the Middle East. Today many would be in their 80s and 90s and it is doubtful that many of them survive. 

In the 1990s during the Balkan wars, Arabs would journey to the Balkans to participate in war between Bosnians and Serbs. In a strange twist they would be repaying the debt incurred when 900 or more Bosnian Muslims gave up their homes and past to come to the Middle East to serve the Muslim Arab cause. The involvement of these Bosnians may be seen as an early version of the linkage of Muslim conflicts throughout the world. This has gained increased exposure lately due to the involvement of foreign Muslim volunteers in the Algerian, Lebanese, Kashmiri, Sudanese and Afghani conflicts among others. 

The writer is in a doctoral program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his MA thesis was on the Christian Arabs in the 1948 war.

 http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=12613

We on 4international believe the answer to the above question is no!

Only if Israel takes independent military action against the Iranian Nuclear Bomb can it be saved. To place the safety of Israel in the hands of the US and of the Saudis is very wrong strategy.

This is how DEBKAfile sees it:

The following is the recent article by Phyllis Chesler

A secret admirer, perhaps a critic, has sent me a gift subscription to Time magazine. I leaf through its pages, stop at the two page layout of “The World” which displays Israel as one of ten world hot spots this week. Israel’s “easing of the Gaza blockade” merits 176 words and comprises a column which is 5 ½ inches by 2 ½ inches. By contrast, China’s “easing” of its financial currency restrictions (which may have major world repercussions) merits only 89 words; the refugee crisis in Kyrgyzstan which has displaced 400,000 ethnic Uzbeks merits only 82 words and a photo. Obama’s Patients’ Bill of Rights is only 65 words;   America’s additional resolutions sanctioning Iran merit only 58 words.

Am I crazy, counting words? Not really.  Propaganda works, word by word when it is repeated day after day, year after year. The aim of such propaganda is to render Israel a pariah among nations–so that proposals for its elimination will seem reasonable and will achieve as welcome a reception  as have the narratives about Israel murdering little Muhammad Al-Dura, committing a massacre in Jenin,  harvesting Palestinian organs, and attacking non-violent humanitarians on a boat.  We also understand how propaganda fulfills its mission by counting, literally, how many words are being used to focus attention on one subject, one special country. Obsessive attention versus benign neglect is also a propaganda tool.

But, some might say that Time’s editors chose Israel for praise, not blame: they viewed Israel’s “easing” of the “controversial” Gaza blockade as a positive accomplishment. On the other hand, Time ties this “easing” to “the Israeli raid on an aid flotilla which killed nine and drew international condemnation.”

In other words: Lean on the Jew. It works. The fact that the “aid flotilla” bore hired assassins, shahids; that the so-called humanitarians knew they were aiding Hamas, an organization deemed a “terrorist” group by the United States; and that Israeli soldiers killed them in self-defense, is not acknowledged here as a contending counter-narrative.

Thus, all the other areas and issues chosen by Time: Severe Brazilian floods which left thousands homeless, the rather serious Uzbek refugee crisis, the sentencing of Somali pirates in Holland, the violence which continues, unabated, in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe over the “blood diamonds,” Obama’s Patients’ Bill of Rights, the “loosening” of China’s currency restrictions, the arrest of a major drug lord, etc. deserve fewer words.

Finally, guess which country is shown first, in the #1 position, onTime’s map of the world? Tiny Israel of course.

So much for what Israel is up against in terms of the allegedly neutral Western media.

Israel is also up against Israeli Jewish critics and Jewish rabbis. There are so many examples that it is hard to pick and choose any one. Well, here’s one. J Street just published a full-page ad in the July 2^nd edition of The Forward. It is signed by too many American rabbis to even count. While acknowledging Gilad Shalit’s captivity and Hamas’ rockets, it nevertheless remains committed to a “democratic Jewish state—a nation that upholds the highest human and Jewish values.” It “hopes” that Israel will end the “counter-productive” Gaza blockade and remains proudly hopeful about “the possibility of two states, Jewish and Palestinian, living as neighbors, in peace and security.”

The J Street rabbis absolutely refuse to understand that dealing with Hamas (or with Arafat’s heirs) is a little like dealing with Hitler or with Al-Qaeda, that evil does not negotiate, nor does fascism, that Israel has tried their approach over and over again only to have “peace” and a “two-state solution” rejected by the Palestinians. What is it that they don’t understand? Or is it that they are far too frightened to face an evil which is not fathomable, not receptive to appeasement, not even to surrender?

Since many of the rabbi-signatories are women and/or feminists, I wonder if they would give a battered woman or a rape victim the same advice: Sit down with your batterer, reason, compromise with him, forgive him, act non-violently, show the world that you are more ethical than he is.

Finally, over the weekend, an acquaintance sent me an article and implored me to read it with an open mind and open heart. She is an educated and religious woman who wrestles with the narrowness of Judaism. Like many writers and intellectuals, I usually first go to the footnotes and bibliography. I need to know whose shoulders a particular work is standing upon. Idly, I glanced at the recommended reading list at the end of the article. It consisted of Jimmy Carter, Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe, Tanya Reinhart, Baruch Kimmerling, the early Benny Morris. This told me all I needed to know without reading the article which, indeed, turned out to be a trite one-sided critique of Israel but one launched in a soft and “healing” voice.

Hark! A new kind of propaganda.

I wish I were part of a Ministry to Combat Propaganda in the age of post-Orwellian Newspeak. Well, maybe I already am.

Here is another piece that Chesler wrote, in 2008, carried on the Julia Gorin Blog, who I will say something about later. The piece is totally self explanatory

On my way to Penn Station on Friday afternoon, (on West 29th St. to be precise), there seemed to be some kind of demonstration going on. When we got closer we saw that it was a large Islamic prayer service which had spilled out onto the sidewalk and into the gutter. It was mainly a mass of prostrated men but women in hijab walked nearby. The driver, a silver-haired man of Greek and Bulgarian background, launched into a non-stop monologue.

“I wouldn’t mind it if they came here to become Americans like I did. But no, they hate America. They want to stay the way they are but they want to take over America. You ought to see it in Astoria, Queens! Far bigger than this. You know why they’re on the sidewalk and in the street? Because they are really protesting not having larger and larger mosques.”

Well, their prayer service, (and it was that), did somehow seem like a protest. There was an aggressive rather than a humbled feeling in the air, more anger than love, a separatism but one right in-your-face.

Upon my return, several brave members of the LiberalHawks listserv group, including Pamela Hall, Tom Dolan, (of Gathering Eagles), Pamela Gellar of Atlas Shrugs, and others from the United American Committee were discussing the Muslim Day Parade. I watched a very disturbing Video and read personal accounts of what happened at yesterday’s parade. Unlike the Hispanic Day Parade, which also took place yesterday, the Muslim Day parade was aggressive, angry, confrontational, and did not seem very happy or joyful. No one was celebrating Islam’s many cultures and ethnicities. One sign read “Home of the Free Shari’a Movement.”

A number of super-angry bearded men tried to charge a small group of women who were holding signs which read “We Will Not Submit.” The men called one woman: “A fu–ing bitch,” “You whore,” “Your Talmud says you can rape a three year old,” “You baby murderer,” “The Jews kill little children,” “Rothschild was a Zionist,” (!). The background was a continuous roar of “Allahu-Akbar.”

One woman, (who prefers to remain anonymous), a member of the LiberalHawks listserv group, was threatened by a Muslim man. He threatened to “rape her fifty times.” He, and several other men, walked right through the barrier that had been erected to separate the two groups. Muslim parade marchers also photographed the protesters — a method of intimidation, a threat that they are being watched and might be stalked or worse. The police ended up having to protect the small band of protesters. In my time, it was the police who photographed the demonstrators, the demonstrators and counter-demonstrators did not photograph each other (unless they were FBI or CIA agents disguised as demonstrators or protesters).

Perhaps perfectly peaceful Muslims are paranoid about not being allowed to pray in the public square and are therefore aggressive about it. Perhaps their leaders want to claim public, secular space as Islamist religious space — just as they’ve enjoyed it in the Old Country. Perhaps Muslims who really want to pray have only seen Muslims marching in anger or even rioting in public and believe that this is what Muslims “do.”

This is an ill wind and it’s blowin’ right here in Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens. The March for McCain on Manhattan’s upper west side elicited a solid, ugly wall of hoots, jeers, boos and rage. (Kudos to Pamela Hall who took the footage). When I asked some liberal friends of mine to view it, they were non-plussed. Indeed, they said that the hoots and jeers were proof of a flourishing First Amendment. “The marchers can march and we can express our views of their views.”

When I and others had to be protected by police officers when we spoke on campus about Islamic gender and religious apartheid and about Islamic imperialism and pro-slavery views, many of the students looked and acted a lot like the upper westsiders — but that too was defended as the First Amendment in action. I have been a radical feminist for most of my life and have always voted Democratic. I voted for Bush once and reaped the whirlwind. However, I have not seen conservative students boo, jeer, and move menacingly against speakers who opposed the military, the War, etc. Have you? They just seem to wear their bow-ties and behave in civilized ways. Why? (Needless to say, I do not agree with many items on the conservative and Republican agenda but I do appreciate their civility in these times).

The Muslim Day parade in Manhattan seems to be another example of the First Amendment and freedom of religion being used to censor other views in an ugly and threatening way.

I am afraid for our country. There seems to be an escalation, an acceleration of Islamist aggression in many of our cities, and not just via prayer-protest but also via lawsuit. Even now, the United Nations is preparing a truly racist document against the Jews, (Durban II), and yet it’s being promoted as an “anti-racist’ document. Why is the mainstream media so silent about all this? Why are the intelligentsia silent, why do they once again make common cause with totalitarians and fascists? What will it take to connect the dots?

Julia Gorin had introduced this as “an account of the day by fair feminist Phyllis Chesler — an increasingly conservative-friendly Democrat who is increasingly freaked out by jihad and her liberal friends’ non-response to it”

At the end of that piece by Chesler above Gorin went on to write this:

Chesler deserves credit for the honest intellectual road she has traveled, including recognizing the lack of civility that her fellow Democrats show conservatives. She also deserves credit for trying to find her way through the Balkan morass after initially penning — like everyone else — a piece repeating the ubiquitous Bosnian propaganda upon Radovan Karadzic’s arrest (I couldn’t stomach the read, but here is the link).

If you followed the link above supplied by Gorin you will have found out that Chesler engaged in Serb hating, comparing Serbs to Nazis, attacks on Serb leaders, glorification of the Muslim Jihad against the Serb Christians.

Where Gorin refers to Chesler “trying” we have this from Chesler

Who can understand Balkan history–that cursed region whose fiery nationalisms led to World War One? Not I. East Europeans remember how especially brutal Muslim Nazi- and Arab-empowered soldiers were during World War Two. Yes, there once were some pockets of European-style assimilation and sophistication among Caucasus-based Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the region. Has anyone read the incomparably charming and popular novel, Ali and Nino: A Love Story written by the very Jewish Lev Nuissimbaum whose pen name was Khurbain Said? The romance captured everyone’s longing for operatic harmony between Christians and Muslims. (For the Jews, it was always more complicated). Tom Reiss has written a must-read biography of Nuissembaum titled The Orientalist: Solving The Mystery of A Strange and Dangerous Life.

But fiction and exceptions aside, ethnic and religious feuds have simmered and boiled over between the Christians of different nationalities in the Caucasus and between Christians and Muslims in the former Yugoslavia.

I have now received and posted the most challenging comments in response to my piece about the capture of Radovan Karadzic.

What I do know about the recent warfare in the former Yugoslavia is that many girls and women were brutally and repeatedly gang-raped. I know this because I spoke with their lawyers and with feminist counselors and I read everything about their plight that I could find. Had there been funding enough to protect the raped women witnesses, I might have testified to the Court in The Hague about Rape Trauma Syndrome.

Other than this, and like everyone else, I believed that, although atrocities were committed by all sides, that the Bosnian Serbs were the ones who mainly committed genocide, “ethnic cleansing” and the gang-rapes. Now, Mr. John Peter Maher writes here that the massacre in Srbrenica was a Big Lie propagated by masterful Muslim deceivers. Several other commentators, including Felix Quigley here compare this lie to the lie about a massacre in Jenin which never really took place. They claim that in fact, most of the allegedly dead Muslim boys and men made their way to Tuzla where they joined or were protected by Muslim jihadists.

I have begun to ask my sources whether any of this is true or whether none of this is true. So far, I have been told that “some” of this might be true; that “none” or “little” of it can be true; that this might be the beginning of a masterful disinformation campaign to support Karadzic’s testimony at trial; and that the disinformation campaign was begun long ago by Islamists who are covetously eying Europe.

Friends: This is not my area. Do I have any Balkan experts out there? If so, please weigh in.

So under “trying” Gorin has Chesler now stating that “this is not my area”. The problem is that it was late, because she had already as we have seen made it very much her area. Her attacks on Karadzic and the Serbs, her identification with the Muslim Jihad was total in both cases.

Under the link “find”, that is Chesler finding her way, Chesler asked around and came up with material published by John Bostom and Srdja Trifkovic and before she took herself “off fishing”, and  I have not heard from her since on the issue, she penned these lines:

Folks: I am getting many articles on the Balkan Mess. I am still no expert but what must be admitted is this: The West, including America, has been “had” in terms of signing on to only one acceptable narrative: The Christian Serbs are the evil aggressors and the Muslim separatists and imperialists are the innocent victims. (Where have we heard this before?)

The truth: That all sides committed war crimes but not genocide is apparently too complicated to bear. Anyway, I am reposting an entire article that has just appeared. Once again, dear reader, tell me what you know and what you think about this.

READERS PLEASE NOTE: I will post no comments that insult other commentators or that insult me. Good will must be assumed or I must assume an absence of civility on the insulter’s part. Also please note: This is not a legal tribunal. And calls for “evidence” must bear this in mind.

What are the lessons we must learn from the article? Please read the Comments posted at the Trifkovic article below.

Source http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=673

So after much reflection by Chesler she comes up with these conclusions:

1. One side is as bad as another

2. It is a mess, and as we know if it is a mess then it is very dificult to understand, maybe even impossible to understand, hence her remark about “going fishing”.

3. Chesler´s formula “That all sides committed war crimes but not genocide is apparently too complicated to bear” well that is really too difficult indeed for anybody to bear, because how would Chesler address the truth, that it was ONE side which was creating and carrying out the war crimes

4. And that one side, Phyllis Chesler, was your beloved “West”, that is US Imperialism, and their agents and “babies”, why that is Tudjman, Izetbegovic and Thaci, just as Hajj Amin el Husseini had been the baby of the British Imperialists in the Mandate, just as Bin Laden had been the baby of the US imperialists post 1945 (see John Loftus and see also Christopher Simpson explanation in “Blowback” of how the US foreign policy became that foreign policy of Hitlerian Nazis)

5. Then having done that Phyllis Chesler you might consider what the US ruling class is really doing to Israel at the moment. Having created a continuation of the Holocaust as far as the Serb people was concerned from 1990 to the present, especially the Holocaust Continuation in the Krajina in August 2005, they are now preparing with Iran, Hamas and Hizbullah, plus Syria and Turkey, with the US elite ruling class in the lead, the same continuation of the Holocaust as far as the Jewish people are concerned.

by Jim Stephens

May 31, 2010

The Israeli Government and the IDF has made another cardinal error. The way that Netanyahu and the IDF approached this job shows that they are unable to win any real fight against reaction.

From what I have seen on television today of the boarding of the boats by the IDF this is clear

1. Boarding from helicopters is totally wrong. The terrorists and terrorist supporters (supporters of Hamas and Fatah) were ready, waiting and expecting

2. No stun grenades or smoke blankets were used. This threw the valuable IDF Jewish life into considerable danger and placed them at a disadvantage

The whole episode reminds me of the way,half-hearted and naive, that the past Israeli Governments have fought against Hamas and Hizbullah

4international is a Trotskyist, revolutionary socialist movement. We standin thesame traditions as the man who built the Red Army and fought the Civil War against reactionary “Whites”.

We have no time for pacifism or for not taking the war to our enemies.

Hamas has declared war on Israel. Hizbullah threatens Jews with death. Iran is building the nuclear bomb to obliterate Zionism.

Obama is doing everything to strip Israel of its defences, especially of its nuclear weapons, and to strip Israel of its strategic land.

Turkey is mobilizing openly with Syria and Iran.

The Lebanon Government is allowing Hizbullah take over the country to join in with Syria in war from the North.

Obama pulls out of Iraq giving an Iranian Iraqi alliance clear path from the East.

Egypt is ready to join with Hamas through the Philadelphia Corridor at anyu strategic point.

At this point Mairead Maguire and her motley flotilla, all great friends of Hamas, hove into sight over the med waves.

Loaded with hundreds of Israel haters from Ireland and every other disgraceful antisemitic country in Europe.

All as part of this war against Israel because there is no division in war between propaganda and action.

Yes indeed, the IDF did chose the wrong action.

They once again as in Jenin should have stood off, for the umpteenth time given their warnings no further.

Then the IDF navy should have simply torpedoed Maguire and co and allowed them to swim to the waiting Turkish ships.

And if Turkey wants a war then let them have it right there and then.

The Netanyahu Government is showing by actions such as this that it is unable to make a sober analysis of the enemy, whether it be these people like Maguire so full of hatred for little Israel, or whether it be the official paymasters in the White House of Maguire et al.

the Netanyahu  Ministers and the IDF seriously underestimated this situation. they placed the IDF youth in jeopardy when they had no need to do slo.ful of well placed shells would have sunk the whole of the rotting antisemitic lot to the bottom of the sea. let these wierdos of the fake left try out their swimming strokes as they make their way to their true home, the navy of Islam religious freak, Erdogan of Turkey.

Israel is NOW in full scale war, first of all against the Obama regime, second against Britain and Ireland, third against the rest of Europe, fourth against Stalinist Russia and China, and only last against the Arabs and Islam wierdos of this world.

Furthermore it is very clear that this politically correct IDF leadership is unable to make one correct move.

There has to NOW be a total breaking down between these IDF leaders, the IDF as a separate body, and the whole of the Israeli population.

Israel now no longer needs a separate and professional army. It needs to keep that, keep those gains, but it needs to train every single Israeli man and woman,and above all all youth, in how to shoot with rifle and how to man the tank crews.

Israel has correctly positioned its nuclear armed submarine off the side of Iran, a wise move indeed. inadequate.

Israel must come clear now with he existence of its some 300 nuclear weapons, and insist that other countries are being judged by the actions of their leaders.

This means that the American people must be told tha their President Obama has made America a target. Similarly with all countries of Europe especially with Spain which protects Hizbullah in South of Lebanon. And so on.

This is the time for the brave, and for not waiting. Take the initiative.

Obama must be told to butt out, remove Mitchell, remove all aid to Fatah, remove the American troops from the Negev etc.

4international insist that a nuclear war in the world is ion no way inevitable. That is the programme of the bankrupt.

But if Israel is not decisive, if it does not act decisively NOW, then Nuclear War will indeed be inevitable.

Remember the military training of every single one of Israel´s Jews must begin right now, WITHOUT ANY DELAY

Furthermore you cannot train at making war while engaging in the mouthing off at Israel engaged in by Israeli professors, by the Israeli supreme court, by labourists, by stalinists in the communist party, by peaceniks like Olmert´sfamilhy and so on

This means a dictatorship, meaning that the dictates of Israeli survival must be placed at the top.

the Israeli Media must be closed down with the exception of Debkafile and Israel National News. All the rest closed down and taken over by the youthful journalists.

And as regards the Arabs in Israel. Let them stay only if they will fight against Hamas and Fatah. In a war you cannot have enemies in your rear.

The demands of the situation make all of these measures no more than common sense.

The Trotskyist Party must and will be built. But note, we will join with any Israeli and religious Jewish patriots, without conditions, to face the common enemy

The danger to Israel comes from many fronts

1. There is the antisemitism in the Arab and Islamic world, which as a reading of Jihadwatch and indeed many writers today (especially John Bostom) show goes right back to the latter part of Mohammed´s life, and to his followers who came after him. (The Islamic idea of “abrocation” must be understood). The basis and basics of Islam are not understood at all except by a very few people, and I know at least one very right wing Jewish person who does not wish to know.

2.The antisemitism in the Christian world, which is not so openly obvious as that of the Muslims, but is a kind of latent antisemitism which breaks out like a volcano at times of stress. No less dangerous!

Then there are the forces of Stalinism and revisionism. Stalinism itself was a revisionism of the principles of revolutionary socialism. Modern day revisionism is contained in what is called the Left, but obviously cannot be true socialists.

But above all there are the forces of American capitalism or Imperialism, and with that equally though not quite so forward is the  capitalism of Europe.

How many know that palestinianism as we experience it today had a beginning sometime around 1968? How many understand well, or even half well, the conditions that brought this forward.

How many know that the very patriotic Jews called themselves Palestinian inhabitants in the period of the Mandate, from 1922 to 1948, and some time before that and after it too.

How many people know today that antisemitism has been used as a tool by the ruling classes in every epoch, under slavery, under feudalism, under capitalism.

Read the Communist Manifesto by Marx, that little poetry type work, and you will understand that capitalism is different. Capitalism has been revolutionary, its methods are revolutionary, and thus is all encompassing.

There is some work done recently on the thousands of world languages and how they are disappearing. Not by magic there is a reason and the real reason is the power of capitalism and imperialism, and their demands to make a profit in every situation, especially in periods of deep crisis in their system.

capital must find a profit.

That is the essence of the work of Marx not only in that little treatise, poetic in nature, but in his vast accounting of capital.

Antisemitism as i said has always been used by ruling groups throughout history. In 1939 to 45 this took on a condition of industrial killing of Jews. Who said that would be the pinnacle of this killing? 60 more years and 60 more years of capitalism ageing, why would the next not surpass in brutality even that nazi episode, the world having had a foretaste in the past 20 years of suppression of Serbs through lies and foul murder.

I finish with one question:

How are the Jews through their leaderships prepared this time? Are the leaders of Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora prepared?

That IS the question. How can the Jewish people be prepared for what is happening now, is rapidly developing, and in the near future?

We on 4international received in our email this plea which we fully support because it is true that Obama (Bush and all the others also) is betraying the concepts of the great American “bourgeois” revolution on which such great gains as the First Amendment etc were based, and this betrayal is very much concentrated on the Obama alliance with Muslim countries (as shown in the Cairo speech) against Israel, and indeed the great danger to Israel from a whole combination of forces.

It is addressed to fellow defenders of Israel and there is an urgency about it which we like, even though we do have serious differences because the author tends to lump together the American ruling Imperialists along with the ordinary people, who include the American working class, and this leads to terrible confusion and in the end a blind alley for Israel and Jews.

[Begin letter sent to 4international here]

Israel is in peril – and with it America’s security.

For the first time in Israel’s existence, we have a president who is determinedly working against Israel and our indispensible alliance. Barack Obama has pressured Israel to surrender to the demands of her enemies (and ours), and turns a blind eye toward the real threat of Iranian nukes. He has shown bald-faced contempt for Israel’s democratically elected prime minister, while bowing and scraping to her thuggish enemies.

We must act now to stop the Obama administration’s betrayal of one of our most loyal and valuable allies. Make no mistake: when Israel falls to Islamic enemies, we are not far behind. To our enemies, Israel is the Little Satan and America is the Great Satan, and both of us must be destroyed.

The Freedom Center has been fighting on Israel’s side for over 20 years. And now, as the crisis deepens with Obama’s intensifying hostility, we are stepping up our response by publishing a new pamphlet – “Barack Obama’s War Against the Jews” – to focus attention on the critical position in which the Obama administration has put Israel.

We need to raise $150,000 in order to get this pamphlet to press and distribute half a million of them into the hands of Congress, the media, community groups, college students around the country through our campus network, public officials, activists, and ordinary citizens. Will you help us meet this goal?

Please follow this link right away to make a contribution if $25, $50, $100, $250 or more to support this campaign. With your contribution of $25 or more, I will send you a copy of “Barack Obama’s War Against the Jews” when it is released.

Publishing this hard-hitting pamphlet will show how wrong headed the White House is in its scorn for Israel’s security needs. “Barack Obama’s War Against the Jews” documents the way in which the President has methodically undercut Israeli security and used American power not to defend this fellow democracy but to weaken it. I guarantee that you will be surprised and appalled by how determined the White House campaign against Israel has been.

We will not sit idly by and allow history to repeat itself with another genocide, this one masterminded by the mullahs of Iran. Please support our campaign today with your contribution of $25, $50 or more. Any amount you can give will help.

Israel needs our help. But America also needs Israel’s help. If Israel can no longer trust us, we will lose perhaps our most important partner in the war that Islamo-Fascists are waging against both of us – one whose intelligence resources have enabled us to prevent carnage within our own borders. We must act now to preserve this alliance that has served both countries so well over so many years.

Please stand beside me once again in this important battle.

Sincerely,

David Horowitz
President & Founder

P.S. For your contribution of $25 or more, I will send a copy of “Barack Obama’s War Against the Jews,” a new pamphlet to be published, and I will keep you up to date on where the pamphlet has been distributed and its impact.

By Jim Stephens

May 18, 2009

This is a vital issue, report is by Ed Katz

90^th ANNIVERSARY OF THE SAN REMO CONFERENCE

Granting the right under international law for Jews to settle anywhere in western Palestine – the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea

Villa Devanche, San Remo, Italy	Villa Devanche, San Remo, Italy
April 25, 1920	April 25, 2010

On the 24-25 of April 2010, the European Coalition for Israel conducted a number of educational seminars delivered by Eli Hertz from the United States and Solomon Benzimra from Canada . It was followed by a ceremony held in San Remo at the same house (Villa Devanche) where the signing of the San Remo declaration took place in 1920.

The event attracted politicians as well as grassroots activists from around Europe, the U.S., and Canada. Member of Knesset and Deputy Speaker Danny Danon also attended and delivered greetings from Jerusalem.

At the conclusion of the commemoration, the following statement was released:

“Reaffirming the importance of the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920 – which included the Balfour Declaration in its entirety – in shaping the map of the modern Middle East, as agreed upon by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers (Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States acting as an observer), and later approved unanimously by the League of Nations; the Resolution remains irrevocable, legally binding and valid to this day.

“Emphasizing that the San Remo Resolution of 1920 recognized the exclusive national Jewish rights to the Land of Israel under international law, on the strength of the historical connection of the Jewish people to the territory previously known as Palestine.

“Recalling that such a seminal event as the San Remo Conference of 1920 has been forgotten or ignored by the community of nations, and that the rights it conferred upon the Jewish people have been unlawfully dismissed, curtailed and denied.

“Asserting that a just and lasting peace, leading to the acceptance of secure and recognized borders between all States in the region, can only be achieved by recognizing the long established rights of the Jewish people under international law.”

The outcome of the declaration gave birth to the “Mandate for Palestine,” an historical League of Nations document that laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in western Palestine, a 10,000 square-miles the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Fifty-one member countries - the entire League of Nations - unanimously declared on July 24, 1922:

“Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”

Jews are in the Land of Israel as of right and not on sufferance.

It is important to point out that political right to self-determination as a polity for Arabs, was guaranteed by the same League of Nations in four other mandates – in Lebanon and Syria [The French Mandate], Iraq, and later Trans-Jordan [The British Mandate].

Any attempt to negate the Jewish people’s right to Palestine-Eretz-Israel, and to deny them access and control over the area designated for the Jewish people by the League of Nations is a serious infringement of international law.

The European Coalition for Israel was founded in Brussels in 2003. It is the only European non-Jewish grass roots organisation with an EU-liaison office in Brussels and with partners in most EU member states. Its main objective is to promote positive relations between Europe and Israel, to commemorate the Holocaust and to fight anti-Semitism.

www.MythsAndFacts.org

by James Stephens

March 11, 2010

We have been held up by a debate on Israpundit in which we had to defend both the serbs and Trotskyism, and perhaps above all the historical method.

See

http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=21251&cpage=1#comment-73913

It is clear that the issues facing Israel from the Obama Government are becoming extremely sharp and extremely dangerous for Israel. But also for Obama!

The big thing that is missing is the revolutionary Trotskyist Party.

In America; In Israel; In Europe:

All those people and they know who I am talking about who just disappeared and opted out have a huge responsibility

I reprint this analysis from DEBKAfile for our readers to follow, but this only gives a small indication of the speed of movement of events, tied in with the world crisis, with events in Iceland, Britain, Ireland, Greece above all

It does seem that there are many Jews who do not wish the Trotskyist viewpoint to be heard and they hate us even more than they hate the Nazis. See above link.

[Begin Debka analysis here]

Tuesday night, March 9, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told visiting US Vice President Joe Biden that the Interior Ministry district building commission’s announcement clearing the addition of 1,600 homes to the existing East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo had been made without his knowledge. It would take another two years of paperwork for building to begin.

The announcement drew sharp condemnation from the White House in Washington and from Biden, who arrived late for dinner with the prime minister, after condemning  the “substance and timing” of the announcement with the launching of proximity talks. This, he said “undermined the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions I’ve had here in Israel.” The announcement was roundly condemned by the UN Secretary, Egypt and Jordan, as well as Israeli opposition leaders.
Israeli officials later assured Washington there had been no intention to undermine the Biden visit, but Netanyahu took no steps to reverse the decision made by ultra-Orthodox, hard-line Shas interior minister Ellie Yishai.
According to debkafile’s sources, the sweetness and light conveyed by public statements was hardly present in the US vice president’s private talks with Israeli leaders. Netanyahu may well have approved the Jerusalem announcement as an indirect comeback for the way the American visitor laid down the law on a number of issues of Israeli concern, chiefly the matter of Iran’s rapid progress toward a nuclear weapon. 
The peremptory note was first noted when Biden called on president Shimon Peres, his first meeting with an Israel leader. He then explicitly warned Israel against venturing to attack Iran without prior American permission.

Even the oft-repeated American commitment to Israel’s security was delivered with a notable reservation: I can promise the people of Israel that we will confront every security challenge that we will face, said Biden. This statement ruled out unilateral Israel operations in its defense. Forget unilateral, he was saying: From now “we” make the decisions about the levels of “security challenge” facing Israel and how to “confront it.” And there was no false modestly about who the senior decision-maker was to be in this “alliance.”

Jerusalem was also taken aback by the US vice president’s assertion that Iran was isolated as never before. A distorting prism appeared to be held up by the Obama administration to justify its backtracking on painful sanctions for Iran. These sanctions were explicitly promised by the White House to Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak in return for Israel’s consent to hold back from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. 

The Biden visit to Israel, therefore, far from meeting its avowed goal of smoothing over the differences between the Obama administration and Israel, has left Jerusalem more distrustful than ever.
The climate was not improved Monday, March 8, by Yukiya Amano, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, announcing that the IAEA board would get back to discussing Iran’s nuclear program and making decisions only in five months’ time. In other words, the UN Security Council would not have the nuclear watchdog’s recommendations for supporting a sanctions resolution before July.

Israel attributed this delay to Washington’s intervention as another gambit for shunting Israel and its demands for harsh sanctions aside, while also holding its hand against exercising any military options.
Approval for the expansion of Ramat Shlomo came on the heels of a tough new statement by defense minister Barak Tuesday. In a talk to students, he warned that when it came to Iran, Israel must keep its finger on the trigger at all times. And upon arrival in the United States this week, chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi was instructed from Jerusalem to talk tough on the Iranian question when he meets Pentagon officials in the coming days.

http://www.debka.com/article/8638/