An American Jewish - German Information & Opinion Newsletter

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AN AMERICAN JEWISH – GERMAN INFORMATION & OPINION NEWSLETTER
dubowdigest@optonline.net
GERMANY EDITION
February 2015
IN THIS EDITION
WE’RE MOVING! Make sure to get our new address. See below.
ISRAEL – U.S. RELATIONS: BAD! YES! BUT TOO BIG TO FAIL – No matter what
happens; U.S. and Israel are bound together.
THE TRIVIALIZATION OF ANTI-SEMITISM – From a German institute that is supposed
to be studying the virus. Shame on them!
WRONGS & RIGHTS – How wrong was the UN Human Rights Council in hiring a PLO
consultant to assess Israel’s role in the Gaza War? My opinion. Very!
EUROPEAN JEWISH POPULATION: DECLINING – Not a good sign.
JAPAN’S HOLOCAUST MUSEUM – The big surprise is that they, indeed, have one.
THE NISMAN AFFAIR – The Argentinian President may be involved in the cover-up of
a murder of a Jewish prosecutor who was investigating a terrorist attack by Iran.
GARBLED MESSAGES – Can you try to make peace with someone you’ve accused of
murder?
THE OBERMAYER AWARDS – Awards for Germans interested in Jews and Jewish
communities. Fascinating!
Dear Friends:
Before getting to the news, please note that DuBow Digest will have new street and e-
mail addresses as of the middle of March.. See below.

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This has not been an easy or good time for the American Jewish community. The
invitation to address the joint houses of Congress by House of Representatives leader
John Boehner issued to Israeli Prime Minister bypassing President Obama has split the
community. A similar split is occurring in Israel.
It is seen by many Democrats as a “poke in the eye of the President” and, therefore, a
Republican political trick. It is also seen as if P.M. Netanyahu has strongly connected
himself to the Republicans and, because the Israeli election will be only two weeks after
the speech, an election ploy. Netanyahu, who will be speaking on the threat Iran poses
to Israel and the world, sees it is as a solemn duty to address what he sees as the #1
threat to his nation.
We will have to wait and see what sort of an impact all of this has on American – Israel
relations. Aaron David Miller, a noted authority, expresses himself on the issue in an
article below.
In addition, it looks like the President of Argentina may be involved in a cover-up of Iran
in the (perhaps) murder of a Jewish prosecutor who was investigating the 1994
bombing of the Argentina Israelite Mutual Association in Buenos Aires in which many
were killed.
Added to all of that is the run up to the Israeli election which will take place in March. So
that you may understand it all a little better, you can click on the following link for a brief
explanation provided by AJC.
http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=7oJILSPwFfJSG&b=9077509&ct=14
518027&notoc=1
As I was putting the finishing touches on this newsletter the news about the shootings
and murders in Copenhagen including one at a synagogue flashed on to my computer.
Paris and now Copenhagen. This is awful news and must raise the question of when
and where it will happen in Germany. I’m sorry to say that I don’t think there is an “if” in
the future.
Frightening!
Enough! Let’s get on to the news…
WE’RE MOVING!
On March 15th my wife and I will be moving to what is called an “Independent Living
Residence” on the other (East) side of the Hudson River in the Village of Sleepy Hollow,
NY. The Residence is called Kendal on Hudson and if you’re interested you can look it
up on the Internet at www.kohud.kendal.org
The DuBow Digest mailing address will be 4319 Kendal Way, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591

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Its new e-mail will be dubowdigest@aol.com . All editions will continue to be posted at
www.dubowdigest.typepad.com
ISRAEL – U.S. RELATIONS: BAD! YES! BUT TOO BIG TO FAIL
It’s no secret that the relationship between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President
Obama is terrible. Somehow the personality conflicts, and now some of the foreign
policy disagreements, have reached, for them, what seems to be an all-time low. The
most recent flap over Netanyahu’s upcoming address to the joint houses of the U.S.
legislature added a new degree of frigidity.
As you may already know, the Prime Minister was invited by the Speaker of the House
of Representatives John Boehner, a Republican, to give this talk without first checking
with the White House. Netanyahu’s speech will be critical of the Obama position on the
deal that is now being worked on by the Obama administration to control Iran’s nuclear
program. For the Prime Minister to make such an address shortly before his own
election date was seen by the President as not fitting and, therefore, he decided that he
would not meet with Netanyahu. U.S. politics with Boehner vs. Obama, Republican vs.
Democrat, are also in play here.
I won’t go into all the political ramifications of the actions on both sides. There is enough
there to fill several volumes. More important as far as I’m concerned is what the long-
term implications are for Israel – U.S. relations.
For this I turned to Aaron David Miller who I have quoted at length in previous DD
editions. Writing in Politico, he notes, “…for reasons of politics, policy and shared
values, Washington will continue to accord Israel tremendous leeway in this
Administration and in the years ahead regardless of opposition to some of its policies.
And here’s why.
First, the Middle East is melting down at a rate nobody could ever have predicted. And
despite the risks this turbulence may pose to Israel’s own Israeli security interests, the
Middle East muddle is good for the U.S.-Israeli relationship. The behavior of various
Arab actors—ISIL, Assad, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, even Egypt—reinforces the value
affinity that binds Israel and the United States and to a great extent puts them together
in the same trench
Second, the Middle East meltdown has demonstrated the need for traditional friends
who are able to offer stability and continuity. The Arab monarchs have weathered the
Arab spring in surprisingly good shape. It’s no coincidence that President Obama made
his pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia to pay his respects to the new king with a bipartisan
delegation of wise men in tow. It’s no shocker the UAE has emerged as a key U.S. ally,
and it’s not much of a news flash that Qatar—at times the bad boy of the Middle East—
is viewed as useful American ally for its air base and location. Israel—the only country
in the region where we could absolutely predict that U.S. aircraft could be guaranteed
the right to land 24 hours from now—is obviously a key ally in a region where the

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United States needs such a base badly. And what’s more, because of common
threats—namely jihadi terror and Iran—Israel is now more aligned with key Arab states,
particularly Saudi Arabia, and Egypt too.
Third, if the United States wants to manage the key issues and conflicts in the region
and retain its previous influence (now much deflated) it will have to find a way to work
with the Israelis. That doesn’t mean rolling over to every Israeli policy preference or
undermining American interests. But there is no way we can address the Iranian nuclear
issue—agreement or not—let alone resolve the Palestinian issue without Israeli help
and acquiescence
Fourth, while the pro-Israeli community in America (Christian and Jewish) has never
had a veto over U.S. foreign policy, it does and will continue to have a very powerful
voice, certainly in Congress and in the public debate. This influence and at times
pressure doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It flows from many sources, the most important of
which is an affinity of values.
Fifth, the Obama-Netanyahu soap opera that has been playing almost continuously for
five years will end before long—certainly no later than Jan. 20, 2017. The president will
be gone from office in just 18 months and the prime minister could be facing a much
earlier exit if the March Israeli elections and coalition formation don’t go his way. Both
bear responsibility for the dysfunction in their personal relationship. And it may well be
that the only reset possible is to clear the decks for two new personalities to manage
U.S.-Israeli ties at the top.
Finally, we are about to enter a well-known season that’s likely to play to the strengths,
not weaknesses, of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. A staunchly pro-Israel Republican-
controlled Congress will be watching the administration carefully for any pro-Iranian or
anti-Israeli funny business. No agreement with Iran (an outcome that now seems
likelier) will only lead to a chorus of pro-Israeli “I told you sos”; and within a few months,
we’re going to watch a slew of Democratic and Republican presidential candidates try to
outbid one another in declaring their undying love for Israel.
And should the Israeli elections in March produce a government with a kinder and
gentler face (even if it can’t make big decisions on the peace process), the U.S.-Israeli
relationship will grow stronger still. The die is cast; the fix is in. And whatever the
downsides of the special bond with Israel, unlike Lehman Brothers, the U.S.-Israeli
relationship really is too big to fail.
There is more to Mr. Miller’s article which you can read by clicking on the link below.
After reading it I think you will better understand the essential strength of the U.S. –
Israel relationship. If you are as concerned as I am, you will breathe a little easier you’ve
gone through what he has to say. For the moment I’m putting away my anxiety pills.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/us-israel-relationship-too-
big-to-fail-114807.html#ixzz3QcVEyoKh

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THE TRIVIALIZATION OF ANTI-SEMITISM
(This article also appeared in this month’s American Edition of DuBow Digest))
I shiver when I hear some people say that there are those that make too much of a fuss
over anti-Semitism today. After all, they say, Jews are not being killed in any great
numbers (only a few here and there) and there are others being discriminated against in
much worse ways. Evidentially these people haven’t read their history books and do not
realize the harmfulness of this virus not only to Jews but to democracy but eventually to
non-Jews as well.
In today’s democracies it is in “bad taste” to espouse open anti-Semitism but, perhaps
just as harmful in Germany, is attempts to trivialize it and to charge “Jewish and civil
society organizations with exaggerating and exploiting anti-Semitic incidents in Berlin for
their own gain”
It is particularly upsetting when an academic institution that is focused on the study of
anti-Semitism seems to have adopted this sort of trivialization and, worse, used one of
its studies to broadcast it.
My AJC colleague in Berlin, Deidre Berger issued a press release noting, “AJC Berlin is
disputing a new study by the Technical University’s Center for Research on Anti-
Semitism (ZfA) that charges Jewish and civil society organizations with exaggerating
and exploiting anti-Semitic incidents in Berlin for their own gain.
"We need studies that clearly define the problem of anti-Semitism instead of questioning
its very existence," said AJC Berlin Director Deidre Berger. “Trivializing hatred of Jews
is dangerous.”
“At a time when the future of Jews in Germany and in Europe as a whole is being
called into question, downplaying the danger of anti-Semitism is unacceptable,” Berger
continued. “The new ZIA study displays a disturbing lack of sensitivity to the justified
fears of Berlin’s Jews, which have grown considerably in the wake of the numerous anti-
Semitic incidents last summer.”
Berger expressed surprise about charges of exaggeration, saying, “Instead of taking
seriously concerns in the Jewish community about the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism,
the study charges Jewish organizations and individuals with biased judgment. Such
sweeping generalizations defame and vilify Jews and Jewish organizations.”
The recent study, “Anti-Semitism as Problem and Symbol – Phenomena and
Interventions in Berlin,” was compiled by the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism on
behalf of the Berlin state government’s State Commission against Violence. The goal
was to obtain an overview of anti-Semitism manifestations and develop strategies for
dealing with them. Instead, the study focuses much of its attention on what it terms the
“symbolism” of anti-Semitism.
“Anti-Semitism is not a symbol,” said Berger. “It is an attack on democratic values.
Instead of providing insights into the nature and sources of contemporary anti-Semitism,

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the study delivers a political broadside against postwar German democracy, which the
authors accuse of instrumentalizing anti-Semitism, German-Israeli relations, and
Holocaust memory.”
She added: “Rather than providing an objective academic analysis, this report
promotes an anti-Israel and anti-German government political agenda.”
Berger noted that the study seems to defend anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments
within Muslim society by linking it to “direct personal painful experience, or experience
of the parents’ or grandparents’ generations, related to the conflict in the Middle East,”
and by asserting that anti-Semitic statements uttered by young Muslims are the
consequence of the widespread discrimination and racism that they experience in
Germany.
“Anti-Semitism – regardless of the circumstances in which it is expressed – can never
be justified,” said Berger. “Characterizing Muslim pupils primarily as victims of
discrimination is paternalistic and robs them of the opportunity to assume their rightful
role as responsible citizens in the fight against anti-Semitism.”
AJC Berlin has issued a commentary, “Defining Anti-Semitism: The Battle for
Interpretation,” which warns about the dangers of trivializing anti-Semitism by deeming it
a justified reaction to policies of the Israeli government.
It suggests specific measures to fight anti-Semitism, including the incorporation of
background information and counter-strategies in training programs for teachers, police,
law enforcement authorities and other government officials. Another suggestion is a
major revision of police reports on anti-Semitic incidents to provide greater detail about
the circumstances and perpetrators.
Since the opening of the AJC Berlin Lawrence and Lee Ramer Institute for German-
Jewish Relations in 1998, AJC has worked on strategies and educational programs to
combat anti-Semitism. With its bi-monthly Taskforce: Education on Anti-Semitism
meetings, AJC Berlin provides an ongoing platform for NGO representatives and
educational experts to exchange best practices on pedagogical approaches to fighting
anti-Semitism.
Copies of “Defining Anti-Semitism: The Battle for Interpretation,” can be obtained by
writing to berlin@ajc.org.
WRONGS & RIGHTS
If there is anything that sticks out about the UN Human Rights Council it is that most of
its time and energy is focused on attacking and denouncing Israel. If it was a person
rather than a UN institution, it would have been referred long ago to a psychiatrist with a
severe case of Israel phobia. This illness has not been confined to the UNHRC but
seems to have infected the entire UN as well.

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A brief look at its history points out: (by A. Bayefsky)
In 2014, the General Assembly adopted 20 times more resolutions condemning Israel
for human rights violations than any other country, and only seven such resolutions on
all of the other 192 UN member states combined.
Five of all the ten emergency sessions of the General Assembly in its history attack
Israel.
The Assembly did not hold one emergency session about genocide in Rwanda or
Sudan.
One-third of all the resolutions and decisions ever adopted by the UN’s top human
rights body, the UN Human Rights Council, condemn only Israel.
In advance of every regular session, regardless of the facts, the Council sets aside time
specifically to condemn only one state – Israel.
38 percent of the special sessions and urgent debates ever held by the Council have
been convened to condemn Israel. Not a single such session has been held on
countries violating the rights of millions – like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Russia.
There’s more but I think you get the idea. You think it can’t get worse? Wrong!
The Jerusalem Post reports, “In August 2014, William Schabas was appointed to head
the latest UN Human Rights Council “investigation” into alleged Israeli war crimes. This
was supposed to be the culmination of his career – for many years, the Canadian
academic and legal consultant had been obsessing over Israel. In October 2012, he told
the audience at the pseudo-legal event known as the “Russell Tribunal on Palestine” in
New York of his goal of putting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “in the dock” of the
International Criminal Court (ICC) over war crimes in Gaza. The context was the
January 2009 conflict, when Ehud Olmert, and not Netanyahu, was prime minister, but
for Schabas, the details were irrelevant.
However, Schabas has now suddenly resigned after the exposure of his consulting job
with the PLO. The failure to disclose this obvious conflict of interest violates one of the
basic principles that lawyers are supposed to follow, and highlights the lack of due
diligence by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which selected
Schabas. As in many similar cases, the revelation also raises the question of other
skeletons that might be hiding in his closet.
While Schabas has stated that the “investigation” of Israeli war crimes and the writing of
his “report” is almost complete, it is clear that if this document is published, it will be
morally stained and lack any legitimacy from the beginning. This stain is not only from
the secret PLO consultation relationship, but goes much deeper.

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The original UNHRC mandate reflects the inherent bias of a body whose agenda,
appointments and sessions are controlled by the 56-nation Islamic bloc in the United
Nations. The same was true for the infamous 2009 Goldstone investigation of
allegations from the previous Gaza war, which even Judge Richard Goldstone
denounced belatedly as lacking legitimacy and credibility.
The UN and the UNHRC should be ashamed of themselves. To hire a PLO paid
consultant to judge Israel on the Gaza War and war crimes stretches the imagination.
Is there a psychiatrist in the house?
EUROPEAN JEWISH POPULATION: DECLINING
The recent rise of anti-Semitism in Europe has focused a great deal of attention on the
Jewish communities of the various countries on the continent. Much of the recent focus
has been on France with the murders at the kosher market in Paris. That was followed
by a spate of media articles about French Jews immigrating to Israel and elsewhere.
All this publicity has led to the questioning of whether there is a real future for Jews in
Europe. In order to partially answer the question about the number of Jews throughout
Europe, Adam Taylor writing in The Washington Post reported, “If French Jews end
up leaving France, they may be forming a new part of a broader and older trend. A new
report from Pew Research points out that the Jewish population in Europe has dropped
"significantly" in Europe over the last few decades, while the global Jewish population
has risen.
As Pew notes, estimating Jewish populations in Europe can be difficult – in part due to
the small nature of these populations, their levels of assimilation, and legal problems (in
France, the census is legally forbidden from asking about religion). However, the group
has used data from Sergio Della Pergola of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that
paints a picture of continually falling numbers.
Breaking down the numbers by region is revealing. In Eastern Europe the decline is
most stark, with Jewish populations a tiny fraction of what they once were. These
countries were hit hard by the Holocaust, and in the following decades many of the
remaining Jews left for Israel or the United States.
A graph in the Taylor article notes that Germany had 195,000 Jews in 1939, 45,000 in
1945 and in 2010, 230,000. I’m not sure about these numbers. The 1945 numbers
seem too large as do the 2010 numbers. Of course, the 45,000 in 1945, I am sure,
include many Jews is a transit state waiting to go elsewhere, certainly not staying
Germany.
The most revealing and, I guess, not surprising numbers deal with the overall Jewish
population of Europe. According to a Pew report the number of Jews in Europe in 1960,

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after the post WW II stabilization (though there were many destabilizing factors even
after 1960), is listed as 3.8 million. In 2010 it had dropped to 1.4 million.
While the article doesn’t say much about Germany and its Jewish population, it seems
obvious to me that eventually it will decline as well. With that, as I’ve said before, the
smaller Jewish communities will, more or less, go out of business and the larger ones
will stay viable. In my opinion Germany is better served by having a vibrant Jewish
community and so the government will have to do all it can to see to it that they are
properly supported and that any outbreaks of anti-Semitism are swiftly and thoroughly
dealt with.
To read the entire Taylor article click on the link below.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/02/09/chart-the-decline-of-
europes-jewish-population/?tid=hpModule_04941f10-8a79-11e2-98d9-
3012c1cd8d1e&hpid=z10
JAPAN’S HOLOCAUST MUSEUM
I think it will come as a surprise to many (it was to me) that Japan has a Holocaust
Museum. While Japan was an ally of Nazi Germany in World War II they were
thousands of miles away from each other and, by and large, each fought its own war.
In fact, Shanghai in China served as a safe haven for many European Jews escaping
Nazism and death. It was taken over by the Japanese and while the community was not
treated royally they were not exterminated either.
It’s not surprising though that the matter of the Holocaust has begun to be thought about
more seriously these days. Nationalism is rising in Japan and its troubled relationship
with China has caused the Japanese to think about their own behavior in WW II.
Cnaan Liphshiz writing for JTA reported, “Since it opened in 1995, the Fukuyama
Holocaust Education Center — situated just outside Fukuyama and about 60 miles from
Hiroshima, the site of an atomic bomb in 1945 — has welcomed tens of thousands of
Japanese schoolchildren. Founded by Beit Shalom, a Kyoto-based Christian pro-Israel
organization, the center relocated in 2007 to a larger, donor-funded 20,000-square-foot
facility.
(Beit Shalom’s theater troupe’s is now preparing for its first international tour in nine
years. The group, which will perform in the United States this spring, is composed of 20
Japanese girls who sing in Yiddish and Hebrew about such themes as life in wartime
Jewish ghettos.)
At the heart of the building is a Holocaust museum with a display about the buildup of
hate against Jews in Germany and replicas of the infamous Arbeit Macht Frei sign at
the Auschwitz gate. The center also features a replica of the Amsterdam room inside
the annex where Anne Frank hid from the Nazis, as well as objects that belonged to her
family. The garden is home to a statue of the teenage diarist and a sapling that is

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actually a cutting from the tree that once grew outside the building where the Frank
family hid.
While Anne Frank is well known in Japan, the strong alliance and similarities that
connected the island nation to Nazi Germany — during World War II, Japan, Germany
and Italy made up the Axis alliance — are rarely taught in schools here. Similarly,
speaking about Japanese war crimes of the 1930s and ’40s — including mass murder
in Nanking, China, and the forced sexual slavery of tens of thousands of Korean women
— is largely taboo in a country whose right-wing prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has
repeatedly visited a shrine that was built for some of the perpetrators.
“We have not given much attention to educating children to think about why the war
happened and how to prevent a reoccurrence,” said Makoto Otsuka, a reverend at Beit
Shalom and the center’s director. “More than anything else, this is what the Holocaust
Education Center tries to do.”
Japanese educators, he added, typically teach about the use by the United States of
atomic weapons in Japan to “show how much Japan suffered as the victim,” but have
failed to follow the example of Germany, where “it is now required to look back
objectively at the facts of history.”
Neither the Holocaust nor Japan’s wartime occupation of Asian countries and human
rights abuses against prisoners of war are mandatory subjects in the national history
curriculum of schools.
And the Holocaust Education Center here does not deal directly with Japan’s war
crimes either, said Akio Yoshida, the museum’s deputy director, citing the “need to
focus on that uniqueness of the Holocaust to prevent it from blurring with other events
that were war-related, including the actions of Japanese troops in Korea and China, or
the atomic bomb.”
Instead, Yoshida said he hopes that teaching the Holocaust in Japan “will expose
children to the process of indoctrination that preceded the murders, and leave it to them
to make the final conclusion about which path they want their society to take.”
To read the entire article click here. http://www.jta.org/2015/02/10/news-
opinion/world/in-japan-the-holocaust-provides-a-lesson-in-dangers-of-nationalism
THE NISMAN AFFAIR
The worldwide Jewish community was horrified when in1994 there was a bombing of
the Argentina Israelite Mutual Association in Buenos Aires, Argentina , commonly called
AMIA, which left 85 people dead and hundreds injured.
According to Wikipedia, “Over the years, the case has been marked by incompetence
and accusations of cover-ups. All suspects in the "local connection" (among them, many
members of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police) were found to be "not guilty" in

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September 2004. In August 2005, federal judge Juan José Galeano, in charge of the
case, was impeached and removed from his post on a charge of "serious" irregularities
due to mishandling of the investigation. In 2005, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who
would later become Pope Francis, was the first public personality to sign a petition for
justice in the AMIA bombing case. He was one of the signatories on a document called
“85 victims, 85 signatures” as part of the bombing’s 11th anniversary.
On October 25, 2006, Argentine prosecutors Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Martínez
Burgos formally accused the government of Iran of directing the bombing, and the
Hezbollah militia of carrying it out. According to the prosecution's claims in 2006,
Argentina had been targeted by Iran after Buenos Aires' decision to suspend a nuclear
technology transfer contract to Tehran This has been disputed because the contract
was never terminated, and Iran and Argentina were negotiating on restoration of full
cooperation on all agreements from early 1992 until 1994, when the bombing occurred.
In recent months it was reported that prosecutor Alberto Nisman was about to file an
arrest warrant for the Pres. of Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, accusing her
of trying to shield Iranian officials from responsibility in the 1994 bombing.
Nisman never got the chance. He was found in his apartment in what first looked like a
suicide. There are many unanswered questions about Nisman’s death. Was it a suicide
or a murder?
According to The New York Times, “[The arrest report]…was found in the garbage at
Mr. Nisman’s apartment, [which] also sought the arrest of Héctor Timerman, Argentina’s
foreign minister. Both Mrs. Kirchner and Mr. Timerman have repeatedly denied Mr.
Nisman’s accusation that they tried to reach a secret deal with Iran to lift international
arrest warrants for Iranian officials wanted in connection with the bombing.
Nisman’s death, whether a murder or a suicide may never be solved. In addition,
whether Pres. Kirchner and Foreign Minister Timerman were in some way involved in
trying to cover up for the Iranian government will also probably never be subjected to
the kind of scrutiny it deserves.
The original bombing and now the death of Nisman and all the questions it has raised
has left a feeling of great unease in the Argentinian Jewish community and for Jews
elsewhere. The NY Times concluded, “Underscoring the tensions surrounding the death
of Mr. Nisman, who was buried at a Jewish cemetery last week, anti-Semitic posters
began appearing in central Buenos Aires this week.
“The good Jew is the dead Jew,” the posters read. “The good Jew is Nisman.”
Julio Schlosser, the president of the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations, said,
“These posters represent a current of anti-Semitism seeking to insult the prosecutor
Nisman, who worked and dedicated his life to the AMIA case.” He added, “It is also a
provocation to the Jewish community.”

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The Argentinian government has a lot of cleaning up to do to regain the confidence not
only of its Jewish community but of others who look to it for honesty and democracy.
However, just as I was going to press the following piece appeared in The Daily Beast,
“Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector
Timerman have been charged with allegedly trying to cover up Iran’s involvement in the
1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
You can read the story by clicking here.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/02/13/argentine-president-charged-in-cover-
up.html
The plot thickens. We’ll be following it in the future.
GARBLED MESSAGES
There is nothing simple or direct in the entire mess that is the Israeli – Palestinian peace
process. If nothing else, it is very much on the back-burner today as ISIS and Ukraine
hog most of the international troubles headlines. Constant calls for renewed peace talks
are practically a daily occurrence from all sides.
One matter that has edged its way into the news pages is the Palestinian move to bring
Israel to the International Criminal Court for its role in the Gaza War. Somehow calling
for peace negotiations and asserting that your peace partners are international criminals
do not mix well.
Canadian Alan Baker writing in The Jerusalem Post noted, “Clearly the question here,
taking into consideration these two news items, is how can the Palestinians push for
bringing Israeli leaders before the ICC on the one hand while on the other intimating to
the world their desire to resume negotiations with those same leaders? That the person
heading their ICC preparation committee is the chief Palestinian negotiator to both the
US and the EU would alone seem to render this whole picture rather absurd. It begs the
question: which Israelis does Erekat intend to negotiate with, if his aim is to have them
all arrested for war crimes? It is perhaps high time that the international community
faced the reality that the Palestinian leadership, in attempting to stem the rise of popular
support for Hamas among its population, is resorting to this ICC gambit as a public
relations exercise, blatantly deceiving themselves, their constituency and the
international community.
Having issued their Quartet statement calling for the resumption of negotiations, and in
light of their express intention to “remain engaged” in preparing for a resumption of such
negotiations, one would expect that if they had an iota of genuine concern for the future
of the peace process the senior Quartet representatives issuing the statement –
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, US Secretary of State John Kerry, EU High
Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Federica Mogherini and UN
Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson (representing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-

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moon) – would have made it very clear to the Palestinian leaders that “they can’t have
their cake and eat it, too.”
Perhaps even more apt is the classic quotation from the 1966 spaghetti Western film
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: “When you have to shoot, shoot; don’t talk,” which,
transposed into colloquial Middle East realpolitik terms would be: “If you’re gonna
negotiate, negotiate; don’t prosecute.”
If the Quartet and the international community genuinely intend to encourage the
resumption of the negotiating process, they cannot at the same time sit idly by and give
even an indirect green light to Abbas and Erekat in their attempts to delegitimize Israel
and its leadership. Clearly, by any accepted international and moral standard and code
of negotiating conduct, the two just can’t go together.
It is therefore urgent, in light of these recent news items, that the Middle East Quartet
act in a responsible and realistic manner to put a halt to the Palestinian abuse and
manipulation of the naiveté and misplaced good will of the international community and
its international juridical institutions, before the Palestinians go too far and cross the
point of no return, preventing any possible resumption of negotiations.
I think the request that Mr. Baker makes of the Quartet is more than reasonable.
However, I continue to believe that Pres. Abbas and Fatah are not serious about a
peace deal so nothing will happen. On & on & on it goes.
THE OBERMAYER AWARDS
Before closing I want to mention that the German Jewish Community History Council
set up some years ago by Arthur S. Obermayer of Boston has recently given out its
annual awards “to individuals who have made outstanding voluntary contributions
toward preserving and recording the Jewish history, heritage, culture and/or remnants of
local German communities.”
The work that the awardees have done is really quite amazing.
In order to read about it click on the link below.
http://www.obermayer.us/award
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See you again in March
DuBow Digest is written and published by Eugene DuBow who can be reached at
dubowdigest@optonline.net
Both the American and Germany editions are posted at www.dubowdigest.typepad.com