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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,    but because of the people who don't do anything about it

Occupation magazine - Commentary Home page  back Print  Send To friend Red Rag column: Kudos to Minister Sigmar Gabriel; Letter to Judge Neal Hendel; Sultan Erdogan By: Gideon Spiro 27 April 2017 (English translation posted 9 May 2017) Kudos Kudos to German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who did not submit to Netanyahu’s ultimatum, and met with representatives of Btselem and Breaking the Silence, part of the civilized Israel that is withering away, to my great sorrow. Those of us who aspire to a world without nuclear weapons now expect Mr. Gabriel to take another “small” step by withdrawing his endorsement of the sale of German-made nuclear submarines to Israel. One destruction was enough; we don’t need to add another one to it. A display of hypocrisy This year we marked Holocaust Remembrance Day in the shadow of 50 years of the Occupation. At the main ceremony, held at Yad Vashem, a squad of paratroops of the army of Occupation and apartheid stood on the stage. In the version of the prayer El Maleh Rahamim (God full of mercy) that was composed in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, it is said that the six million died “in the sanctification of the Name”. This is part of the process of religionization that Israel is undergoing. The six million did not die in sanctification of the Name, but were murdered by the racist tyrannical regime that ruled Nazi Germany. The government of Israel says “never again”, but it does not intend to eliminate racism, for today Israel is the most racist state on the globe; what it means is “never again” should there be racism against Jews. But the Goyim can destroy each other with the help of Israeli weapons. An IDF Chief of Staff who leads a destructive, cruel and racist mechanism of oppression, who stands at the gates of Auschwitz at the head of what is called the “March of the Living” is desecrating the memory of the Holocaust and its victims. Letter I sent to Supreme Court Judge Neal Hendel To Neal Hendel Judge in the Supreme Court Jerusalem 27 April 2017 You wrote the judgement, with the concurrence your colleagues on the panel, Miriam Naor and Elyakim Rubinstein, which rejected Mordechai Vanunu’s appeal (the tenth) for the lifting of the restrictions imposed on him (High Court of Justice 5113/15, 6 April 2017). You had an opportunity to act as an independent judge and lift the restrictions on Mordechai Vanunu, as a gesture of delayed justice on the Feast of Freedom – Passover 2017. To my dismay, you have failed shamefully by preferring the cowardly recourse of your predecessors who act like the Israel Security Agency’s puppets. Like a parrot you repeat the ISA’s fabrications to the effect that Mordechai Vanunu presents a security danger. Only a total idiot could believe that 30 years after he left the reactor and revealed everything he knew to the London Sunday Times, he is in possession of secret information that was not known to the general public long ago. You and your colleagues are making a mockery of the word “justice”. Instead of making a just ruling, you are acting like a bunch of mafiosi tormenting Mordechai Vanunu, in a gang led by the heads of the ISA and the Defence Ministry Security Authority. Judges who act like criminals are a well-known phenomenon in tyrannical regimes. These days, as we commemorate Holocaust Day, history would look different if judges with a humanistic conscience had sat on the German supreme court in the 1930s, and not collaborators with evil. As a citizen with a democratic consciousness, Vanunu fulfilled the civic duty to “rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.” (Leviticus 19:17) He has won international esteem and has received peace awards, including the Alternative Nobel, the Danish peace prize and the John Lennon peace prize. He is a perennial nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. The importance of his activism for a world free of nuclear weapons is particularly prominent in these days of international fear of a Third World War, with nuclear weapons in problematic hands. Instead of praising Vanunu, you torture him judicially, violate his natural right to freedom and family life with his courageous partner, for which I hope you will be called to account. With all due contempt, Gideon Spiro Referendum in Turkey Congratulations, we have a new Sultan. With a bare majority the Turkish people has decided to eschew democracy and crown a leader with dictatorial tendencies. The referendum was characterized by features familiar from other countries: a poorer and less-educated rural population chose a Sultan, whereas the residents of the big cities, Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara, where the middle-class and more educated population is concentrated, overwhelmingly rejected the new constitution that gives Erdogan dictatorial authority. This syndrome also characterized the recent elections in the US, and it is but natural that in this context US President Donald Trump should be the first leader in the Western world to congratulate Erdogan on his victory. I am guessing that Netanyahu, when he comes home from work in the evening and takes off his tie, a glass of pink champagne in his wife’s hand and clouds of cigar smoke in the air, he fantasizes into her ears about his plan to convert Israel into a monarchy. A referendum would ratify that with no problem, except for a diminishing liberal Left. One day we will arise to the sounds of the crowning of King Netanyahu the First. And since monarchies are hereditary, we’ll get a package of princes into the bargain. The authority of the king is detailed in the book The King’s Torah. [1] Translator’s note 1. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/the-king-s-torah-a-rabbinic-text-or-a-call-to-terror-1.261930 Translated from Hebrew for Occupation Magazine by George Malent gm Links to the latest articles in this section Three weeks into the Gaza War - a somber and sober assessment, with some historical perspectives Israelis, Palestinians, Gaza, Hamas - trying to preserve sanity Gush Shalom: The UN decision is a very necessary message to Israel’s extreme right-wing government