Some of the Bad Features of the European Union -- A German Dictatorship?

Just what is wrong with the EU? Why is it reasonable to doubt its continued existence after the 2020s? We know that the EU is governed by a central bureaucracy, located in Brussels, which makes decisions, according to its authority deriving from the treaties that set up the EU. These decisions are subject to little democratic control, although representative bodies of the various member states meet from time to time and can theoretically oppose policies coming out of the Brussels HQ of the EU. However, what happens usually is that the representatives of the member state govts. are presented with faits accomplis, backed up, usually by Germany and the influential states of northwestern Europe.

Matteo Renzi, former prime minister of Italy, gives a glimpse into EU policy making or rather policy ratifying. He also indicates German hegemony over the EU which is reflected in the votes of the EU executive and representative bodies, the EU Commission and the EU Council (Council of Europe) respectively [the EU parliament has so little power that it's not worth dwelling on]. In a recent book Renzi writes that German prime minister, Madame Merkel, is considered by many in the Italian political world to be the "chief strategist of an anti-Italian vision." Renzi states that he respects "her and certainly does not agree in the least with those who point to her as the one responsible for Italian problems." Be that as it may, Renzi clearly shows that she so dominates EU politics that the EU Council members, governmental leaders in their own countries, fear to criticize or gainsay her:

". . . I realize that in the Council, she is so respected and involved in all the issues that few have the courage to contradict her publicly. Which is what I do on more than one occasion. The idea that nobody can allow himself to raise the least bewilderment over the German contradictions makes me angry. The exchanges with Merkel are difficult on many issues, from the flexibility of budgets [of member states] to the relationship with Russia . . . . [And] up to the regional German banks to whose questionable system of governance and control I am the only one to point explicitly and transparently --- and to the contradictions of Berlin's economic policy. . . .  Merkel does not appreciate the style with which I open --often deliberately-- debates in the Council but begins to  scrutinize me in order to understand me better. Over time, a collaborative relationship develops between us." [Corriere della Sera, 9 Luglio 2017]

Thus Merkel so dominates the Council that other leaders of government fear to contradict her. Meanwhile, problems in Germany are overlooked. Hardly a healthy situation for the EU.

Renzi goes on about Merkel. "The theme on which we are farthest apart is the economy. I believe that the policy of austerity adopted by the European Union is a tragic error." In this vein, Renzi also criticizes the EU response to the earthquake disaster in Italy in 2016:

"The earthquake shocks of the end of October 2016 did not cause any deaths only by a miracle. . . . . And what did the usually punctilious technicians of the European structure [the bureaucrats] do? While the houses are collapsing, they send you [= himself] a verbal extortion note in the form of a whisper to Italian journalists in Brussels --saying that the budget law of 2017 is good only if the deficit is subsequently reduced by 0.2%. . . . But how is it that they don't understand that, while we are all concentrating on support for the evacuees [from the earthquake], Europe should be in the basilica of the patron saint San Benedetto with its own heart, instead of choosing that moment to make a (marginal) request for settlement of the debt? This is what happens when politics abdicates to the technocrats. . . .  I want to shout to the European bureaucrats that in the face of pain, first of all  there is compassion, respect, empathy. And then, only afterwards, the technical stratagems. . . . Respecting the European rules, moreover, cannot be an ideological mantra" [Corriere della Sera, 9 Luglio 2017]

Maybe Renzi gave reasons why Guy Milliere was right when he agreed with my suggestion after a lecture here in Jerusalem that the European Union was a death pact, un pacte de mort.

Obviously, neither the European Union nor its member states can be a model for our Israel nor can we trust the EU to be wise or compassionate in its diplomacy in the Middle East and first of all we cannot trust the suggestions and proposals that the EU makes to us in order to --supposedly-- bring about peace for Israel. The EU is notoriously hypocritical and often enough self-destructive yet arrogant. We don't want to be members and the EU does not want us. And if a case in point is needed, take Greece which suffered from EU/Eurozone efforts to supposedly help them, as Luciano Fontana [chief editor of Corriere] indicated, the EU/Eurozone failed in dealing with the Greek Debt Crisis which began in 2010 and is still going on. Greece can never pay its current debt, most of which was incurred by Greece after it reported in 2010 an inability to pay interest on its debt at that time. The debt is now much greater than then after "bail-outs" by the Eurozone. And it cannot be paid off. And the Eurozone led by Madame Merkel whom Renzi describes above, does not want to forgive or even restructure the Greek debt. Maybe, it is hinted, we will do that after you have reformed as we wish, etc. More of that extortion that Renzi mentioned?

The hypocrisy is even worse when we recall that Madame Merkel's Germany did not have to pay WW2 reparations according to a postwar treaty, nor did it ever pay back more than a small part of the US Marshall Plan loans [some $15 billion in 1947 dollars], and even that small amount stayed in Germany; nor did Germany pay its full war reparations debt to France for WW One. And the EU finances a host of so-called "civil society" NGOs that work to undermine Israel's standing in the world and Israel's society.  Hence Israel must be very wary in its dealings with the European Union. It is not a friend.
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Reference on EU government -- edulcorated to be sure
Pascal Fontaine, 12 Lecons sur l'Europe (Bruxelles: Commission europeenne 2007), pp 16-21.
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Renzi's reference to San Benedetto is to the Christian Saint Benedict, the patron saint of Europe in
Christian tradition and belief.

The Eurozone Put Greece in a Debt Straitjacket - Was It Deliberate?

It's obvious to almost everybody that the Eurozone never "rescued" or "bailed out" Greece from its debt crisis in 2010. Instead, the Eurozone or Eurogroup put Greece into a debt straitjacket or debt trap in which Greece's state debt soared because it was left to borrow on the open market where the interest rates demanded by private investors/lenders were sure to rise fast. Later, but too late, it was openly realized  --about 2012-- that Greece needed to borrow on easy terms because its state debt was soaring. But Greece was already in the debt straitjacket or trap from which it cannot get out. Someone estimated that it would take 180 years for Greece to pay off the debt mountain.

Now evidence has emerged that suggests --not absolute proof to be sure, which is not likely to emerge for many years-- that putting Greece into a debt trap may have been deliberate German policy. The purpose seems to have been to use the Greek example as a whip to scare other economically weak Eurozone member states. German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is quoted as telling US secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, as reported by Peter Coy of Bloomberg Businessweek:

The upshot is that events are unfolding roughly as foreseen by the wily German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble: The disaster befalling Greece is scaring other European nations into following the straight and narrow. According to former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in his book Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, Schäuble told him in 2012 that—in Geithner’s words—some people were arguing “that letting Greece burn would make it easier to build a stronger Europe with a more credible firewall.”

This surmise of mine explains a lot, if true. Why do Germany and the Eurozone keep on insisting that Greece pay off debts made at inflated interest rates, debts which it cannot pay off for more than a century?
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Also see here, and below --
The economist Paul Krugman pointed out that Greece was in: "a vicious circle, with fears of default threatening to become a self-fulfilling prophecy."  here. Interestingly, former Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, also pointed out that Greece was in a "vicious circle" that it should be helped to get out of. He favored mutualization of state debt within the Eurozone.
European hypocrisy about human rights according to Michael Rubin on the Commentary blog, "The Lie that Europe Cares about Human Rights"  [here]

High Eurozone Official Attacks German Policy of non-Solidarity with Euro Brethren -- Juncker Is First

Since last October, we have been criticizing the Eurozone's handling of its debt crisis, and more recently, especially the German role. The crisis started two years ago in Greece, and then spread to other eurozone countries because the Greek problem was not handled rightly. Some prominent Euros now recognize that German policy, which other Eurozone states have been acquiescing in, is the wrong way to a solution. Germany insists on austerity and rejects any debt-sharing [mutualization of debt]. Germany doesn't want to give up a single pfennig of its own money, forgetting that after all the destruction of WW2 --in Germany and the rest of Europe, in a war started by Germans-- Germany was enabled to rebuild and recover only thanks to the approx. $ 15 billion that America gave to Germany through the Marshall Plan [some of the money was given as loans but the loans were forgiven and all the money was kept in Germany]. The extreme austerity forced on Greece is ruining the Greek economy but Germany --with the acquiescence of its Eurozone partners-- insisted on more austerity, on a solution that doesn't work. The Euros are like a drunkard with a hangover who drinks more in order to relieve the discomfort of his hangover. The euro addiction to austerity is like a craving for the hair of the dog that bit ye. But most of the discomfort is being suffered in the countries with a high state debt, and is not yet felt in Germany.

Eurozone policy, dominated by Germany, that is by German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, is leading the world into a worldwide recession, if not a deep depression. That may have motivated the new criticism of Germany that hasn't been publicly heard at high levels before. Now the chairman of the Eurozone, Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, states that "there is no more time to lose" [«non c'è più tempo da perdere»] to stabilize the monetary union and adds the accusation of Germany being at fault. Juncker may foresee the possible collapse of the Euro if no major steps are taken and views Germany as an obstacle to needed measures. Collapse of the euro currency and the Eurozone states would have major world wide repercussions greater than the incoming world recession. Here is Juncker:

JUNCKER ATTACKS BERLIN IN THE SZ [suddeutsche zeitung] -- A very harsh Jean-Claude Juncker accused Berlin, meanwhile, of bending EU interests to internal political motives: "Why does Germany allow itself the luxury of constantly doing internal politics on questions that have to do with Europe [= the whole EU]? Why does it treat the Eurozone like its subsidiary?, the chairman of the Eurogroup [eurozone countries] asked in an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung. [qui]

JUNKER ATTACCA BERLINO SULLA SZ - Un durissimo Jean-Claude Juncker ha accusato intanto Berlino di piegare gli interessi dell'Ue a ragioni di politica interna: «Perchè la Germania si permette il lusso di fare continuamente politica interna su questioni che riguardano l'Europa? Perchè tratta l'eurozona come una sua filiale?», si è chiesto il presidente dell'Eurogruppo in un'intervista alla Süddeutsche Zeitung. [qui]

But maybe Juncker didn't wise up enough. In the same interview he proposes that German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble should be made finance minister for the whole Eurozone --or maybe the whole EU. "Schäuble has all the characteristics." [«Schäuble ha tutte le caratteristiche»]. But would other Euro states, other Eurozone members want their economies to be dominated even more closely than before by one the chief architects of the failures since the first mistaken Greek "rescue"? In any case, do they want to be more tightly controlled by German policy? On the other hand, maybe by proposing Schäuble as a super Eurozone finance minister, Juncker means just to throw a bone to the Germans in order to soften the blow of his criticism. Maybe. But it would be best to put Schäuble in retirement or let him criticize from a seat in the German parliament where he would not directly make policy.

Lastly, although there is little enough solidarity among Eurozone and EU member states, the EU continues to fund the PA/PLO as well as all sorts of lying, anti-Israel so-called "human rights" & "peace" NGOs, even as the EU's own funds run low, let's bear in mind that we must not allow the Euros to decide Israel's future. They are fools at best, if not consciously hostile.

[Altri servizi su Il Sole-24 Ore e Il Giornale]
[data on EU funding of fake "human rights" and "peace" NGOs can be found in abundance on the site of NGO Monitor --see link on our blog roll]
[If they're funded by the EU, can they really be considered "non-governmental organizations"?]

Begging Merkel to Save the Euro, the EU economies & maybe the world economy

UPDATINGs at bottom 6-15&7-9-2012

Some Europeans are feeling desperate. Their great project, the European Union, that was supposed to represent an advance of civilization and bring peace to Europe, and help bring peace to the rest of the world, is threatened by the tight German hand on its purse. Adriana Cerretelli begs Merkel --although Schaeuble has to be kept in mind just as much or more so-- to consider saving the euro, both the currency and the economies of the EU states and maybe most of the major world economies. But Germany doesn't seem to care --and it took most of the financial and political leadership of the EU more than two years to realize that their plan to "rescue" Greece was only making things worse for Greece [see our previous post]. Let's remember that Europe is not Israel's reliable friend and cannot be. The EU is made up --at best-- of self-righteous fools who feed their own Euro brethren to the sharks or behave as cannibals themselves. The EU does not stand for decency or morality in international affairs despite its expensive efforts to pretend. As far as Jews are concerned, Europe has on the whole been hostile to us for nearly 2000 years. Here is an Italian view on the EU and Germany:

Dear Chancellor, the House Is Burning by Adriana Cerretelli

While the euro house is burning and the fire is expanding to Greece and Spain, there aren’t any eager nor trustworthy firefighers in sight. There are, however, plenty of extremely efficient sharks ready to take advantage of someone else’s troubles. “Disperse this fog,” ECB President Mario Draghi said before the EU Parliament yesterday. Draghi warned that the structure of the EU’s monetary union has become “unbearable.” So were Draghi’s words powerful but nonetheless ignored? Certainly, since for now they are bouncing off the fog under which the markets are still attacking the countries in the most distress, while powerful governments are too busy worrying about internal politics and elections to focus on the problems of the EU. The truth is that well-respected technocrats can do very little when politics proves immature bordering on blatant irresponsibility. . .

. . . the euro zone countries grew further apart due to 11 percent unemployment (the highest rate since 1999), a 10-month-long drop in manufacturing production and decreasing economic confidence. The reason is that the markets seem to be betting against the survival of the euro, doubting that the common currency will survive this unending storm. How are Europe—and Germany, in particular, with its oversized role in EU politics—reacting to the increasing widening of government-bond yields? They talk idly and don’t do too much as German bond yields fell to a record low and their Italian and Spanish equivalents rose to 5.9 percent and 6.5 percent, respectively—dangerously close to the 7 percent mark that forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to ask for bailouts from the EU and the IMF. The game is becoming extremely unstable for several reasons.

First, if the euro fails, no one would be safe from a disaster of incalculable proportions: according to some estimates, the cost would be at least 1 trillion euros; others say it would twice as much. Another point to keep in mind is that the failure of the euro would not only hit Europe in a time of recession but would also negatively affect the U.S. and several emerging economies, a clear indication that globalization is an all-encompassing phenomenon in today’s world. If Europe cries, nobody can really afford to laugh. In short, it would be a global disaster. It’s therefore no surprise that Barack Obama is extremely concerned about the events unfolding in Europe.

Germany, though not completely calm, is controlling its anxiety and pondering its reaction. For Berlin, it’s business as usual. In a way, that’s understandable, given that Germany is profiting from the crisis by funding itself at record low interest rates and shopping around for cheap resources and investments in countries in distress. Until when? “Berlin must reflect about the fact that if bond yields keep widening, Europeans won’t have enough resources to buy German products,” warned Martin Schultz, German president of the European Parliament, at the last EU meeting.

While the house is burning and the roof is about to collapse, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany’s minister of finance don’t seem to care: yesterday they rejected a Draghi-backed EU proposal [Mario Draghi is the ECB (european central bank) governor] for the creation of a banking union that would include a common bank-resolution framework, a joint-deposit guarantee and direct access to ESM loans. “This isn’t the right short-term solution for the crisis,” they said. Other proposals, such as euro bonds and the mutualization of euro-zone sovereign debt were also rejected by Germany because they similarly implied the Europeanization of risk among EU partners. Not a surprise, since Berlin seems to be better off the less it has to do with southern European countries. While that’s perfectly understandable, we should then tell the Irish, who yesterday passed the EU fiscal compact, that their sacrifices won’t be enough to keep them in the euro zone. Once that’s clear, they would at least be free to decide what they want to give up, instead of being forced to adopt austerity measures imposed by other countries. We should also explain that to the Greeks, who will vote on June 17 whether to stay or not in the euro zone (and perhaps they will decide not to leave), and to all those unemployment-ridden countries trapped in the grip of austerity with no growth. “We must find a European solution, if we want to prevent the Greek crisis from spiraling into the crisis of the euro.” It wasn't Draghi nor José Barroso who said that but Alexis Tsipras. How come even the leader of Greece’s far-left Syriza party understands that, while Angela Merkel doesn’t? More troubling for Europe, perhaps she doesn’t want to.[here in English, Il Sole-24 Ore, 2 June 2012]

After reading what an Italian explains about Germany, we learn some lessons. Adriana Cerretelli's article implies that for more than two years the other Euro states and political leaders have been going along with Germany, whether happily/willingly or acquiescing reluctantly, in their wrong-headed Greek "rescue" policy. This teaches us Israelis, us Jews, that the EU is unfit to give any advice to Israel about "peace." their advice is either hostile or stupid and that could include disingenuous. Meanwhile, despite its own shortage of money, the EU keeps on showering funds on genocidal terrorists in the palestinian authority, on Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies in Fatah. Shame on those in Israel who take EU funds for ostensibly humanitarian, pro-peace, pro-human rights purposes, whereas the funds are meant to use these useful Israeli idiots to undermine our state, Israel, and our very lives.

- - - More by Adriana Cerretelli on the European financial crisis- - -
Merkel ignores the growth emergency [here in English]

Saving Greece is worth the cost [here in English]

La UE tecnocratica soffoca la Grecia [qui in Italiano]

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Iwan Morgan says that the Euro currency was a "mistake"| from the start [here]. And I agree. This implies that the EU doesn't know what's good for itself, let alone for Israel [or does not want Israel's well-being].

The EU scolds and disciplines Greece while showering funds on the "palestinian authority" [here]
Schaeuble's punitive attitude towards the Greeks, his fellow Europeans [here]

Caroline Glick sees the EU as fundamentally anti-Israel as personified by the ugly & evil Catherine Ashton [here]. She points out that the EU is not the only problematic power for Israel. There is the US Obama administration. She adds that "Turkey's bellicosity towards Israel as well as Greece and Cyprus has caused it no harm in Washington." Of course, the EU too does little for its European brethren, Greece & Cyprus. Maybe if the military alliance joining the US and most of western & southern Europe, NATO, warned Turkey not to interfere with Greek development of its offshore oil and gas resources, Greece might be in better economic shape and would also help its fellow Euros with a dependable oil & gas supply. But they don't for whatever reason. They don't stand up for Greece & Cyprus' rights to develop resources in their own maritime economic zones. To be sure, Turkey belongs to NATO but then both Cyprus & Greece are in the EU.
7-9-2012 Paul Taylor, writing for Reuters, sees the eurozone breaking up into creditor and debtor blocs of states. All of the eurozone measures so far to end the crisis, to solve the sovereign debt & related problems, have either failed to achieve their goal or have made things worse [Exhibit A is Greece]. Eurozone finance are meeting today but will surely fail again. The Germans & their closest allies in the eurozone are still calling for greater economic-cum-financial integration for the eurozone with greater centralized control. But agreement on a treaty for that purpose would take months at least. Meanwhile, Greece is sinking, while Spanish borrowing rates are rising. And the immediate problems are not taken care of.
CAN WE JEWS TRUST THESE EURO FOOLS & MANIACS?

EuroFools Betray Greek Brethren, Undermine Their Own Creation -- Prove that Their "Peace" Advice to Israel Is Either Hostile or Stupid

UPDATING 5-19 & 6-2-2012

As an Israeli, I am tremendously amused to see how the EU, more specifically the Eurozone, plus the IMF, cannot solve the debt crisis. It should warn us against taking any advice from the EU about our conflict with the Arabs. The Greek debt-cum-economic crisis at present is due not only to the failure of Greek governments prior to Papandreou secretively building up debts with the advice of US financial firms. It is also due --and even more so-- to the utterly stupid and counterproductive "remedy" demanded by the eurozone and IMF. And the German role here is especially thick-headed and outrageous.

I consider Wolfgang Schaeuble, German finance minister, a weapon of European self-destruction. It should have been obvious 2 years ago that without either the Eurozone [EMU = european monetary union] and/or IMF guaranteeing loans to Greece [as Krugman recommended] or/and the provision of an easy loan facility for Greece at a reasonable, low interest rate [maybe something like eurobonds], that interest rates for Greece would balloon and swell up on the open market and Greece could never pay back the loans at --let's say-- 33% interest. Especially without growth. So the original Greek "bailout" was stupid and unworkable, which some foresaw. Now, the Germans --led by Schaeuble are insisting on punishing Greece [watch films of the German finance minister seething with rage over Greeks "breaking" promises]. This is outrageous because the Germans all too easily forget that Germany did not come out of its WW2 ruin & wreckage on sheer austerity & hard work but got Marshall Plan billions from America in the form of cheap, low interest loans as well as grants. Actually in the end, most of the loans were forgiven & Germany paid back only about 15% of its Marshall Plan aid!!! The Americans could have left the Germans to grope for food in their post-war ruins, after a war that they had started [also see here & here & here]. Of course, some German economists are more sensible than Schaeuble.

Yes, Greece needed structural reforms but easy loans too were indispensable. Without them Greece got into a vicious circle that the Euro fools still don't understand. As an Israeli I see that EU "peace" prescriptions are as reliable as their economic stupidities. Doctor EU, heal thyself.

UPDATING 5-19-2012
Solidarity is a two-way street, Greece must keep its promises.
Guido Westerwelle, German Foreign Minister, FDP party
[Israel TV, channel 1, Ro'im `Olam 5-19-2012]Solidarity is a two-way street. . . the European Community
must stand firm and demand the necessary structural reforms. . .
Only when the Greeks also provide evidence that they
are serious [must we provide help]
Rainer Bruderle, FDP party leader in Bundestag.

We called Schaeuble a European weapon of self-destruction. This implies that he has been the brains and the force behind Germany's policy on the Greek debt crisis [now a crisis in several eurozone states since the Greek "rescue" plan of 2010]. Indeed. Angela Merkel, German chancellor [PM] does not seem very bright and takes her economic directives from Schaeuble, supported by most Germans. Since Germany is the largest successful economy in the eurozone and has the most money reserves, it can force its will on the rest of the EMU, which is what has happened. Yet the first austerity plan for Greece of 2010 has obviously failed. But no change in EMU policy is likely. Nor any admission of fault in the "rescue" plan itself. Schaeuble blames the Greeks. Now Greece may leave the eurozone, the EMU, which could lead to higher interest rates for other eurozone states and to eventual break up of the EMU. This would harmfully affect EU states like the UK that are outside the eurozone as well as the whole world economy. Hence Schaeuble is a European weapon of self-destruction.

Could a different rescue plan in Greece in 2010 have saved Greece? Maybe, but as said above, it would have had to provide an easy borrowing facility for Greece --not even necessarily as generous as the Marshall Plan was to Germany [see addendum below] but with reasonably low interest rates-- plus provisions for growth. Now it is probably too late to save Greece and/or keep it in the eurozone. Maybe the EMU itself can no longer be saved. News out of the G8 summit [5-19-2012] reports that Merkel resisted the calls by other G8 members for a focus on growth & stimulus over austerity. The eurozone which the Germans love so much may be on the way to "break up," as David Cameron, UK prime minister, wondered about the other day. The Germans have shown appalling harshness and stinginess in this affair. The German urge to punish may end up punishing the Germans too. Schaeuble himself seems at times to be playing a Gestapo officer in one of those old WW2 movies.

Nevertheless, the other eurozone [EMU] states and the IMF --mainly run by Europeans-- went along with this sad comedy, this farce of greed, harshness, stinginess and historical amnesia --which especially characterizes Germany. Doctor EU, heal thyself. And don't come to Israel with barely disguised proposals for having the Arabs do your dirty work, finishing Hitler's job in the name of "palestinian self-determination."

- - - - - - - - - - -ADDENDUM- - - - - -
More on the Marshall Plan & Germany from Committee for the Abolition of Third World DebtThe 1953 London Debt Agreement, or the German debt
If West Germany could redeem its debt and rebuild its economy so soon after WWII it was thanks to the political will of its creditors, i.e. the United States and their main Western allies (United Kingdom and France). In October 1950 these three countries drafted a project in which the German federal government acknowledged debts incurred before and during the war. They joined a declaration to the effect that “the three countries agree that the plan include an appropriate satisfaction of demands towards Germany so that its implementation does not jeopardize the financial situation of the German economy through unwanted repercussions nor has an excessive effect on its potential currency reserves. The first three countries are convinced that the German federal government shares their view and that the restoration of German solvability includes an adequate solution for the German debt which takes Germany’s economic problems into account and makes sure that negotiations are fair to all participants.” |5|
. . . . .
The agreement set up the possibility to suspend payments and renegotiate conditions in the event that a substantial change limiting the availability of resources should occur. |7|
To make sure that the West German economy was effectively doing well and represented a stable key element in the Atlantic bloc against the Eastern bloc, allied creditors granted the indebted German authorities and companies major concessions that far exceeded debt relief. The starting point was that Germany had to be able to pay everything back while maintaining a high level of growth and improving the living standards of its population. They had to pay back without getting poorer. To achieve this creditors accepted first, that Germany pay its debt in its national currency, second, that Germany reduce importations (it could manufacture at home those goods that were formerly imported), |8| third, that it sell its manufactured goods abroad so as to achieve a positive trade balance. These various concessions were set down in the above-mentioned declaration. |9|
Another significant aspect was that the debt service depended on how much the German economy could afford to pay, taking the country’s reconstruction and the export revenues into account. The debt service/export revenue ratio was not to exceed 5%. This meant that West Germany was not to use more than one twentieth of its export revenues to pay its debt. In fact it never used more than 4.2% (except once in 1959).
Another exceptional measure was that interest rates were substantially reduced (between 0 and 5%).
Finally we have to consider the dollars the United States gave to West Germany: USD 1,173.7 million as part of the Marshall Plan from 3 April 1948 to 30 June 1952 with at least 200 million added from 1954 to 1961, mainly via USAID. [here Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt]
UPDATING George Soros, billionaire money manager, far from our favorite person, warns that the eurozone has only 3 months to solve or alleviate its financial crisis otherwise the crisis may lead to the break up of the EU altogether. Soros, surprisingly, blames Germany for profiting from the single currency while harming the peripheral countries.
Germany benefitted from debt relief after WW2 but not willing to help Greece by granting debt relief. How they forget!! [here]

Cash Short EU Gives Greece Ultimatum, While Donating Liberally to the PLO/PA

REVISED, LINKs ADDED 2-20&3-19&20-2012

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

On February 7, this year, the EU announced a grant of funds to the Palestinian Authority, as reported by the PLO/PA's press agency, WAFA:

The European Union and Sweden Tuesday contributed €24.7 million to the payment of the January salaries and pensions of around 84,300 Palestinian civil servants and pensioners in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, according to an EU press release.

The European Commission made €22.5 million contribution and Sweden made €2.2 million. [here]

The next day Luxembourg, an EU member state, announced a donation of 15 million euros to the UNRWA, also for the benefit of Palestinian Arabs:

". . . in order to bring aid to the Palestinian people. . . The UNRWA which carries out remarkable and still indispensable work on behalf of 5 million [sic!] Palestinian refugees, is Luxembourg's principal partner in matters of aid to the Palestinian people,"

quoth the Luxembourg development minister.

A significant point about this aid was made by UNRWA's commissioner-general, Filippo Grandi:

In these times of political and economic uncertainty, both in this region [the ME] and worldwide, Luxembourg's increasing commitment in favor of our work is welcome. [original below]

Le Luxembourg donne 15 millions d'euros à l'UNRWA pour "porter assistance au peuple palestinien" Le Luxembourg a annoncé mercredi qu'il faisait un don de 15 millions d'euros à l'Office de secours et de travaux des Nations Unies pour les "réfugiés de Palestine" au Proche-Orient (UNRWA). L'accord a été signé par la ministre luxembourgeoise du Développement Marie-Josée Jacobs et le commissaire général de l'UNRWA, Filippo Grandi. "En ces temps d'incertitude politique et économique tant dans cette région que globalement, l'engagement croissant du Luxembourg en faveur de notre travail est le bienvenu", a déclaré Grandi. "L'UNRWA, qui poursuit son travail remarquable et encore indispensable au service de 5 millions de Palestiniens réfugiés, est le principal partenaire du Luxembourg lorsqu'il s'agit deporter assistance au peuple palestinien", a affirmé la ministre Jacobs. [Guysen News, 2-8-2012]

These are times of political and economic uncertainty indeed. Greece, a fellow member of the EU, is on the verge of bankruptcy, partly of its own doing and partly due to very mistaken policies of the EU [led by Germany] since 2010 and of the International Monetary Fund [since Christine Lagarde took over] to force a severe austerity program on Greece as a supposed remedy for its economic ills, while not providing Greece with a facility for borrowing funds at reasonable rates of interest, particularly without implementing the eurobonds idea, and thereby ensuring that Greece would not be able to pay off its ever increasing sovereign debt. That is, without growth and without a way to borrow at reasonable rates Greece could neither grow economically nor pay its debts. Failure of the "rescue plan" was foreseen by some economists back in 2010.

Nevertheless, all the while, economic experts from the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF [since Lagarde's takeover] have been making all sorts of demands on Greece. Among them Greece must cut the minimum wage by 22% [according to Natalie Savaricas, France24], cut 150,000 public sector jobs by 2015 [in a country of ca. 9 million pop.], accept a commissioner from abroad for the tax administration, and reduce public health service reimbursements for purchases of medicine, etc. Germany moreover, wanted an outside commissioner to veto Greek government policies, which the EU Commission has not yet agreed to.

Meanwhile, the PA is faring much differently.

The European Commission's contribution comes from the €155 million package of financial assistance to the recurrent expenditures of the Palestinian Authority committed for 2012, said the release.

The European Commission agreed to a request by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to frontload €116.2 million of this package in the first five months of 2012 in order to help the Palestinian Authority meet its urgent financial needs.

The €2.2 million contribution by the Swedish Government is part of its continuous support to the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people.

Most of the European Union's assistance to the Palestinian Authority is channeled through PEGASE, the financial mechanism launched in 2008 to support the PA Reform and Development Plan (2008-2010) and the subsequent PA Palestinian National Plan (2011-2013).

Since February 2008, €1.23 billion have been disbursed through the PEGASE Direct Financial Support programs. [here]

No mention here of austerity. No demands to reduce expenditures, let's say, on the PA's print & broadcast media which regularly spread genocidal hatred of Jews. No talk of a special commissioner to oversee tax collection. No demand by Germany for a commissioner with power to veto Palestinian Authority policies. If there is accountability to the EU for funds spent or if there is EU supervision of fund disbursement, then why are there Nazi-like propaganda and genocide incitement in Palestinian Authority institutions: TV, radio, official PA newspapers, schools, mosques, etc.?? Yet, the Greeks are held to standards and demands are made of them. But no ultimatums for Arabs. It doesn't bother anybody at the EU that many if not most of the PA's civil servants are superfluous and indeed some of them are involved in creating and spreading hate propaganda against Jews or in terrorism now or in the past. Yet Greece is to fire 150,000 civil servants.

Furthermore, after the Greek parliament followed the government in accepting the demands of the EU, ECB, and IMF, new obstacles were raised to Greece getting the needed and promised funds. And one of those holding up the funds was very conspicuously Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the Euro Zone, the EuroGroup, who also just so happens to be prime minister of Luxembourg, which was so happy to be helpful and accommodating with the Palestinian Authority by supplying additional funds to UNRWA.

Indeed, helping the PA/PLO seems to be a paramount, supreme policy of the EU. It may also be EU policy to make propaganda against Israel, considering the many millions in subsidies by the EU and member states to Arab and pro-Arab/pro-PLO/anti-Israel NGOs that carry out propaganda and agitate against Israel. We don't hear of reductions in funds for the PA and the pro-PA NGOs despite the Euro debt crisis.

Meanwhile, Greece is treated differently. Moreover, it is not the only EU country in financial trouble. Ireland and Portugal too have received EU bail out funds, while Spain and Italy are under watch for fear of financial collapse, while Belgium, France and even Germany are seen as not entirely healthy financially, as under potential threat. The EU & its member states need money. Lots of it. But there is room for funding for the Palestinian Authority --cheerfully and helpfully with few or no questions asked.

So what explains the differential treatment of the Palestinian Authority and of Greece by the EU? The PA produces little, its economy is mainly based on donations from the EU, USA, wealthy Arab states and Japan. Much of its employed work force works for the PA administration and "security" services. Its corruption is notorious. It spreads hatred and incites war and genocide through its press, TV, radio, schools, and govt-supervised mosques. Meanwhile, Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign affairs commissioner, is eager to see a PLO/PA state created, whether or not it makes peace with Israel. Why are the PA and Greece treated differently?

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Bernard-Henri Levy BHL on the Greek debt crisis.
Executive of the German firm Bosch wants Greece out of the EU [or only out of the eurozone?]
Paul Krugman thinks the EU failed to solve the crisis, partly due to their arrogance.
Charles Wyplosz points out six mistakes of Germany's finance minister.
Sarkozy & Merkel make demands on Greece [here--see video]

Qui links are in Italian, Ici links in French:
Wolfgang Schaeuble, German finance minister, speaks out against Athens [qui]
Jacques Attali on the Eurocrisis & Germany's role [ici]
The Troika's demands on Greece as of 30 January 2012 [qui]
Athens accepts cuts [qui]
Krugman's solution, print money, among other things [qui]
Economist Charles Wyplosz criticizes German dictates to the EU & Greece [qui]
The EU wants guarantees from Greece[qui]
Economist Jose Antonio Ocampo finds fault with Schaeuble and German policy [qui]
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3-19-2012 Catherine Ashton, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission, displays --in her shallow & pedestrian manner-- her warm sympathies for the Arab cause and for the notion of an Arab state in the Land of Israel, while drawing an absurd parallel between youth in Gaza and the Jewish victims of the massacre today in Toulouse, France.
The EU & Catherine Ashton unblock another 35 million euros for the palestinian authority in an agreement with PA prime minister Salem Fayyad.
3-20-2012 Jonathan Tobin comments on Catherine Ashton's fatuous comparison of children deliberately murdered in Toulouse & Norway [by Breivik last year] with Belgian children killed in a bus accident and with Gazan children who may have died as a byproduct of wars and battles started by the Islamists in Gaza in their endeavors to murder Israeli civilians, including children.
Jonathan Neumann sees Ashton's fatuousness as allowing us a peek at the EU's real anti-Israel agenda and proving once again that the EU cannot be an "honest broker" between Jews and Arabs.
Elliott Abrams points out that despite Ashton's claim to have been misunderstood, "her remarks quite obviously drew a parallel." She did not explicitly deny --in her response to criticism-- that she sees a parallel between the accidental deaths of the Belgian children, unquestionably tragic, with the deliberate murder of Jewish children in Toulouse and Arab children in Gaza who are often used as human shields. For Abrams, this failure to explicitly deny a parallel confirms that she indeed wanted to draw a parallel, however false it may have been. She may be too stupid to understand this.
Walter Z Laqueur demonstrates the foolish illusions of the admirers of the EU and the "Arab Spring."

Semi-Official German Spokesman Wants to Promote the Nazi-like Hamas; His Office Is Near the Nazi Mufti's Former Property

UPDATING 8-21-2009 PHOTOS ADDED&8-2-2011

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

The Shimon haTsadiq area of Jerusalem has been much in the news lately. Here is a German connection to the neighborhood besides the link to Hitler's Arab helper, Haj Amin el-Husseini.

Very close to the Tomb of Simon the Just, an ancient Jewish sage, and the former Shepherd's Hotel, a plot of real estate formerly owned by Haj Amin el-Husseini, who belonged to a wealthy Jerusalem Arab family that enjoyed a privileged status in the Ottoman imperial governing class, we can find, if we go off Mt Scopus Road downhill towards the Nahal Qidron [the Qidron seasonal watercourse], theJerusalem offices of the German-government-linked Friedrich Ebert Stiftung [foundation]. The Germans conduct business in a large mansion, not noticed from the road, which is on about the same level as the tiny homes in the old Jewish quarter of Shimon haTsadiq, named after Simon the Just, above and adjacent to his presumed tomb, which is in a cave below a cliff further down the hillside towards the Qidron. While Transjordan, later called Jordan, ruled this part of Jerusalem, Jews could not pray at Simon's Tomb which had for centuries been a focus of Jewish pilgrimage, especially on the holiday of Lag b'Omer in the spring. According to the 1949 Rhodes armistice agreement, Jews were supposed to have access to Jewish holy places under Jordanian [in 1949, this was still Transjordanian] control. In fact, Jews did not have access to any of the Jewish holy places under Jordanian control, neither in Hebron, nor in Bethlehem, nor in Jerusalem. However, as far as Arabs and Western powers are concerned, agreements with Jews do not have to be honored. As President Obama has demonstrated by arrogantly denying even the existence of the agreement on settlement building between the United States, represented by President Bush, and Israel, represented by PM Sharon.

The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, named after a German socialist leader of the 1920s, is German-government connected and partly funded by it. It takes a very pro-Arab line in the conflict with Israel. Meanwhile, the Germans deploy another foundation, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, which is more or less pro-Israel and cooperates with such Israeli bodies as the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs which publishes studies of current issues in and relating to Israel, usually quite reliable. So the Germans quite cleverly play on both sides of the street, both sides of the conflict. The Ebert Stiftung is very pro-Arab while the Adenauer Stiftung, named after the first non-Nazi leader of West Germany [the Federal Republic] after WW2 and the Holocaust, is somewhat pro-Israel. Perhaps the Adenauer operatives would be more pro-Israel if good manners and bon ton in the EU allowed that.

This is a directional sign pointing to the Ebert Stiftung offices up the street and to the right side of the street [on the downhill slope]. The building in the background behind the trees was once the residence of the wealthy Nashashibi Arab family. Opposite, that is behind the back of the photographer, is the Jewish quarter named after Simon the Just, Shim`on haTsadiq שמעון הצדיק. Photos of that quarter will appear in another blogpost. This street location is where the convoy of doctors and nurses going to Hadassah Hospital was ambushed in April 1948. More than 70 Jewish medical staff were massacred here on that occasion. British troops at the scene refused to intervene to stop the slaughter.

The Ebert Stiftung not only supports the PLO and its Palestinian Authority offshoot but has now come out for Hamas. Hamas openly calls for the mass murder of Jews, which Hitler never did. Hitler only supplied reasons for mass murdering Jews, leaving it to his listeners' imaginations to take the next logical step, although Hitler did warn/threaten on a couple of occasions that another world war in Europe would lead to the extermination of the Jews. He was of course also blaming the future war on the Jews, the main victims of that war, while exculpating Germany and himself. Just as the New York Times and other mouthpieces for American policy do today. As to Friedrich Ebert, he, like Hitler, called himself a socialist. Hitler's party was the National Socialist German Workers Party [National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei], while Ebert was a social democrat. Ebert's party's name was not quite as impressive as was Hitler's party name. Hitler's party was not only socialist but a party of the workers, maybe like those British and Canadian trade unions that have called for boycotting Israel. Anyhow, what was wrong with the German National Socialists? They were socialists, weren't they?

This is the entrance gate to the Ebert foundation offices. Steps going down to the building where the offices are located. The photo faces south.

Michael Bröning (director of the East Jerusalem office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) is eager to bring the Hamas, Arab National Socialists from the point of view of their chosen enemy, the Jews, and their blood thirst regarding the Jews, into the "peace process." Like peace of course, the word socialist can have many meanings, one thing and its opposite. Bröning

cites the group’s [Hamas'] recent downplaying of the relevance of its own charter as a telltale sign that Hamas is turning around or even “growing up.” To be sure, the rhetoric of Hamas leaders has visibly changed in public statements. But in focusing on these statements alone, Bröning misses the real point: Hamas’s words have changed, but their actions have not. Hamas cannot be judged on the basis of its choice of vocabulary alone. Neither the relevance of each and every part of the Hamas charter (which Hamas leaders have expressly refused to revoke or update) nor the public statements of its leaders deserve as much weight as what the group actually does in judging whether or not it has truly evolved. The approach of solely examining what the group says, rather than what the group does—the approach upon which Bröning has relied—dangerously disregards Hamas’s actions on the ground.
[Matthew Levitt, in a critique of Bröning here]

This makes sense, especially since Bröning does not quote the bloodthirsty passages from the Hamas Charter in his own article on the website of the old tribune of the US foreign policy establishment, Foreign Affairs. He talks about the charter but does not quote it. Rather coy of Bröning, n'est-ce pas? Does he feel he must hide something

The Charter blames the Jews and Israel for various 20th century wars and other ills, much in the spirit of the Judeophobic forgery/plagiarism, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Indeed, the charter refers explicitly and approvingly to the Protocols. This alone places Hamas in the Judeophobic camp of the German National Socialists whose rhetoric was similar. Hamas goes further however. Article 7 of the Charter quotes a medieval Muslim hadith to the effect that, at Judgement Day, the Muslims will kill the Jews, who will hide behind rocks and trees. The rocks and trees in turn will call out. O Muslim, a Jew is hiding behind me. Come kill him.

This is clear incitement to murder Jews en masse. The German Nazis never were so explicit in public. Here we have a group that is more explicit, franker, more candid than the Nazis. They say it openly and they practice the principle when they can, as often as they can. And they express disappointment when they do not succeed. Of course, some may say that the mass murder of Jews is only for Judgement Day. But as Matthew Levitt says, this approach "disregards Hamas’s actions on the ground." They have murdered Jews en masse in the past, albeit in relatively small numbers compared to the Sunni Muslim slaughter of Shi`i Muslims in Iraq. But the small numbers were due to military conditions on the ground in Israel that have limited Hamas' numerical success. Nevertheless, the slaughter of hundreds at a time, as in Iraq, of thousands in a day as in Nazi German death camps, remains the Hamas' gold standard, as it were, its true avowed and unabashed goal.

May we compare Hamas to another Sunni Muslim ally of Germany? The Ottoman Empire massacred an estimated 1 1/2 million Armenians during WW One [1914-1918] and probably about one-half million from 1880 up to WW One [1914]. This is the most fitting comparison or benchmark for measuring Hamas' true aims, immoral capacities, and proclivities. During the Armenian Genocide [1914-1918], the Ottoman state, in which Palestinian Arabs held high posts, was supported --in the genocide too-- by the German Empire [the Second Reich] and by the Germanic Austrian Habsburg Empire. Even if the history were not as it is, should the Jews have to "coexist" [even if possible] with a body that openly declares that mass murder of Jews is its religious and political objective, in accord with medieval Muslim prejudices, passions and hates???

To be sure, Bröning makes light of the Charter. Well, then there is the constant hate agitation and indoctrination performed by Hamas in Gaza's Hamas-run schools, mosques, "university," TV, radio, press, etc. As to the Charter, Bröning pretends that it no longer has meaning for Hamas. Perhaps just as German politicians in 1933 argued that Mein Kampf and all the National Socialist prejudices, hates, and passions, no longer had meaning for Hitler and his followers. Avoiding mention of the Charter's call to genocide, Bröning writes that those who reject Hamas participation in the "peace process":

bolster their argument by referring to the Hamas charter, the group's 1988 founding manifesto, which outlines a militant doctrine aimed at "liberating the land of Palestine" by force and invokes such anti-Semitic tracts as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
However, such critics fail to grasp the transformation currently taking place within Hamas. Today, the charter has ceased to play a significant role in the group's ideology. As early as 1990, Hamas began to distance itself from the document, which has since fallen into neglect. Although Hamas has not officially renounced the charter, no references to it can be found in any of the group's recent statements. Moreover, Hamas leaders, such as Mahmoud Ahmad al-Ramahi, the secretary-general of the Palestinian Legislative Council, have recently begun downplaying the charter's relevance by clarifying that "it should not be confused with the Holy Koran."

Maybe al-Ramahi is a true moderate. Or maybe he and other Hamas leaders are downplaying or concealing their bloody goals of conquest and mass murder, like Hitler. Maybe Comrade Bröning --we can call him Comrade since he is a social democrat-- is being coy. He calls Hamas' doctrine "militant," not terrorist, mass murderous, genocidal. Is Bröning being naive? Is he ignorant? Did Article 7 escape his attention? Hence, Bröning misrepresents even what the Charter says and stands for. This is aside from the issue of whether the Charter no longer guides Hamas' action.
Maybe Bröning does not know that the Nazis did not merely look on passively as the French fought over policy towards Hitler's territorial demands. They actively cultivated the French public in order to lull it into complacency, just as the Hamas in the future might issue a reassuring declaration to the Jews of Israel. For the purpose of lulling the French, Nazi Germany initiated the Franco-German Declaration of Friendship of 6 December 1938, two months after the disastrous Munich Conference. The war began less than a year later at the culmination of the pre-World War 2 "peace process."

The Hamas is more frankly genocidal than Hitler and his Nazis ever were. And now, Western politicians and policymakers and diplomats, like Bröning, want to wash up the Hamas' filthy face and make it presentable in decent Western company. But there is no reason for Jews to believe in the decency of "decent Western company" given the EU record of succoring Arab genocidists, even those who murder their Christian brothers in the Arab domain. We ought to also bear in mind Western behavior in the pre-WW2, pre-Holocaust period. Can we now deny or refuse to believe that Western Europe is coming back to its old self as far as Jews are concerned?
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Michael Bröning's article here.
Hamas Charter here.
Analysis of the Hamas Charter here.
Matthew Levitt's analysis of Bröning's piece here.

On the Franco-German Friendship Declaration of 6 December 1938, see:Wolfgang Geiger, "La Declaration Franco-Allemande du 6 decembre 1938; Un Evenement sous estime," Les Temps Modernes (Aout-Octobre 1999).
8-2-2011 NGO Monitor on German govt funding for the Ebert Stiftung [here]

The Armenian Genocide: The German Role in It as Seen by Eitan Belkind & Aaron Aaronsohn

Writing from neutral Denmark in 1916 during WW I to Judge Julian Mack, a prominent American Zionist, Aaron Aaronsohn stated:

Did I not in private talks and public lectures [in the USA before WW I], warn against the German danger?
[Shmuel Katz, The Aaronsohn Saga (Jerusalem: Gefen 2007), p 73]

Aaronsohn understood that Germany [and Austria-Hungary] were making possible the Armenian massacres, which he feared would eventually be extended to the Jews. Indeed, recent research has shown how deeply involved German forces were in the massacres. But Aaronsohn was aware of German collaboration in the Ottoman Empire's genocide of the Armenians as it was happening. He submitted a report to the British entitled Pro-Armenia. Here he referred to Sarah Aaronsohn's eyewitness experiences of the massacres. His report or memorandum was distributed by the British among their officials who were involved in the war with the Ottoman Empire and with the Middle East. But curiously, the British left out two passages:
1-- Aaronsohn's criticism of the Germans for not pressuring the Ottoman government to stop the massacres; and
2-- his forecasts that the Ottoman state might do the same to other Christian subject peoples in the empire as well as to the Jews. [S Katz, p119]
Ronald Florence's account, Lawrence and Aaronsohn (New York: Viking 2007), agrees with Katz's account of Aaronsohn's attitude towards the Germans and German collaboration with the Ottoman state in the genocide. Katz is well known for his excellent, extensive biography of Ze'ev Jabotinsky. However, before writing about stirring events Katz was active in the Jewish nationalist Zionist movement led by Jabotinsky up until 1940, when he died, and later by Menahem Begin. Katz was part of the high command of the Irgun Tsva'i Le'umi, National Military Organization, an underground body that fought the British and drove them out of Israel, at least out of that part of the Land of Israel that became the State of Israel in the 1947-1949 War of Independence.

It is not clear why those two passages were omitted from the distributed version of Aaronsohn's report by British officials. But Aaronsohn clearly feared the extension of the Armenian genocide to the Jews. The expulsion of 9,000 Jews from homes in Jaffa and Tel Aviv in 1917 only confirmed this fear. Both Katz' and Florence's books make clear that the Jews in the Land of Israel at the time lived in fear. It was a fear shared by Eitan Belkind, whose eyewitness account of the genocide we have been quoting in instalments on Emet m'Tsiyon. This fear was the prime reason for formation of the NILI underground.

We now go on to the last instalment of passages from Belkind's book about the Armenian genocide. This passage shows how Belkind too saw the German attitude towards the genocide.

I sent a letter to my niece, Tsilya,who was a student in Berlin. . . . my letter [was] sent by German military mail, where I described everything that had happened to the Armenians.I got my letter back with a request never to write to her about such things again, to beware of the German military mail, because my letters might get opened by censors. , , ,
In Deir ez-Zor, I stayed with the pharmacist Arto, who now had five Armenian wives whom he married so as to save their lives. He told me that about 30 Armenian women were working in the military hospital. This had been Doctor Bekhor's way of rescuing them.
I must mention that all the time I was in Aram-Naharayim, I was unable to eat the splendid fish from the Euphrates, which I liked very much, remembering that those fish had fed off the corpses of murdered Armenians, including young children. . . .
While still in Damascus. . . I gave my records about the Armenian massacres to Yosef Lishansky.
When we returned [to the agricultural] testing station [in Atlit, Israel, near Zikhron Ya`aqov], I stayed with Sarah [Aaronsohn, sister of Aaron]. She told me that my records of Armenian massacres, which she had sent to Egypt [to the British], had made a great impression.
In my trips in the south of Syria and Iraq I saw with my own eyes the extermination of the Armenian nation. I watched the atrocious murders and saw children's heads cut off and watched the burning of innocent people whose only wrongdoing was to be Armenian. . . .
On the advice of the Germans, the Turks perpetrated brutal massacres of the Armenians by the hands of the Circassian Muslim fanatics.
Eitan Belkind's book, That's How It Was, the Story of a Member of Nili (Tel Aviv: 1977),
[ כך זה היה : סיפורו של איש ניל''י [תל אביב: משרד הבטחון 1977]

Aaronsohn seems to have been prophetic about the coming Holocaust in his remarks about the Germans.
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Coming: More on Obama the war candidate -- his mask drops with a loud bang, More on the anti-Jewish racism of the "Peace Process," Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, the Land of Israel, archeological updates, peace follies, propaganda, etc.