Wanted: Secretary of state, must love Israel

[Gob]

US President Barack Obama has named Chuck Hagel to be his next defence secretary and counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan to lead the CIA, but the nominations may not go smoothly.

Former Nebraska Senator Hagel's fellow Republicans have accused him of being hostile to Israel and soft on Iran.

Mr Brennan is also under scrutiny over harsh interrogation techniques used at the CIA.

Both appointments must be confirmed by the Senate.

Mr Obama, who has just returned from a family holiday in Hawaii, said at a White House press conference that Mr Hagel was "the leader our troops deserve".

Why is US politics so entwined with Israel?

[liberty]

US President Barack Obama has named Chuck Hagel to be his next defence secretary and counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan to lead the CIA, but the nominations may not go smoothly.

Former Nebraska Senator Hagel's fellow Republicans have accused him of being hostile to Israel and soft on Iran.

Mr Brennan is also under scrutiny over harsh interrogation techniques used at the CIA.

Both appointments must be confirmed by the Senate.

Mr Obama, who has just returned from a family holiday in Hawaii, said at a White House press conference that Mr Hagel was "the leader our troops deserve".

Why is US politics so entwined with Israel?

During WWII the US did nothing while the Nazi exterminated millions of Jews making us as guilty as the Nazi’s? We owe them?

[Crackpot]

It's Secretary of defense don't you know that makes all the difference?

And liberty your history is completely jacked up... again

[Gob]

It's Secretary of defense don't you know that makes all the difference?

errr...no.

[liberty]

It's Secretary of defense don't you know that makes all the difference?

errr...no.

You didn’t see the questions marks, did you?

[liberty]

Some claim that the full extent of what was happening in German-controlled areas was not known until after the war. Since the early years of the war, the Polish government-in-exile published documents and organised meetings to spread word of the fate of the Jews (see Witold Pilecki). In an entry in the Friedrich Kellner diary, "My Opposition", dated October 28, 1941, the German justice inspector recorded a conversation he had in Laubach with a German soldier who had witnessed a massacre in Poland. Other entries in his diary clearly show the people of Germany were aware from the beginning of the atrocities. Churchill, who was privy to intelligence reports derived from decoded German transmissions, first began mentioning "mass killings" in public at the same time. In the summer of 1942, a Jewish labor organization (the Bund) got word to London that 700,000 Polish Jews had already died, and the BBC took the story seriously, though the United States State Department did not.[4] In the United States, in November 1942, a telegram from Europe which contained word about Hitler's plans was released by Stephen Wise of the World Jewish Congress, after a long wait for permission from the government.[5] This led to attempts by Jewish organizations to put Roosevelt under pressure to act on behalf of the European Jews, many of whom had tried in vain to enter either Britain or the U.S.

On December 17, 1942, however, after receiving a detailed eyewitness account from Jan Karski, the Allies issued a formal declaration confirming and condemning Nazi extermination policy toward the Jews.[6][7] The US State Department was aware of the use and the location of the gas chambers of extermination camps, but refused pleas to bomb them out of operation. On May 12, 1943, Polish government-in-exile member and Bund leader Szmul Zygielbojm committed suicide in London to protest the inaction of the world with regard to the Holocaust, stating in part in his suicide letter:

I cannot continue to live and to be silent while the remnants of Polish Jewry, whose representative I am, are being killed. My comrades in the Warsaw ghetto fell with arms in their hands in the last heroic battle. I was not permitted to fall like them, together with them, but I belong with them, to their mass grave. By my death, I wish to give expression to my most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people

[rubato]

"... The US State Department was aware of the use and the location of the gas chambers of extermination camps, but refused pleas to bomb them out of operation. On May 12, 1943, Polish government-in-exile member and Bund leader Szmul Zygielbojm committed suicide in London to protest the inaction of the world with regard to the Holocaust, stating in part in his suicide letter:

I cannot continue to live and to be silent while the remnants of Polish Jewry, whose representative I am, are being killed. My comrades in the Warsaw ghetto fell with arms in their hands in the last heroic battle. I was not permitted to fall like them, together with them, but I belong with them, to their mass grave. By my death, I wish to give expression to my most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people[/red]

Aerial bombing at that time was too inaccurate to allow this. They were more likely to hit the camps and kill the inhabitants. And the Germans proved resourceful enough to use bullets when gas was not available.


yrs,
rubato

[Andrew D]

In 1943, Jan Karski, a courier traveling on behalf of the [Polish] Home Army, came to Washington to tell the American government about the Holocaust. He met with President Roosevelt. He also arranged to see Felix Frankfurter, the great Supreme Court justice and probably the most distinguished Jewish figure in Washington.

Karski and Frankfurter met at the Polish embassy on 16th Street. They sat on a hard-backed sofa that is still in the embassy today. Karski described what he, [Captain Witold] Pilecki, and others had seen at Auschwitz, in the Warsaw ghetto, and at other Nazi death camps across occupied Poland. He described the systematic elimination of the Jews of Europe by starvation, mass execution, and poison gas.

Frankfurter listened to him in silence. Then he got up from the sofa, walked around the room, turned to Karski, and said: "I am unable to believe you." The Polish ambassador, who was present, protested, and said he could vouch for Karski's honesty. Frankfurter replied: "I do not say that this young man is lying. I say that I am unable to believe him."

(Anne Applebaum, "Evil After Evil." The New Republic 31 December 2012 (one paragraph in original).)

[Crackpot]

"... The US State Department was aware of the use and the location of the gas chambers of extermination camps, but refused pleas to bomb them out of operation. On May 12, 1943, Polish government-in-exile member and Bund leader Szmul Zygielbojm committed suicide in London to protest the inaction of the world with regard to the Holocaust, stating in part in his suicide letter:

I cannot continue to live and to be silent while the remnants of Polish Jewry, whose representative I am, are being killed. My comrades in the Warsaw ghetto fell with arms in their hands in the last heroic battle. I was not permitted to fall like them, together with them, but I belong with them, to their mass grave. By my death, I wish to give expression to my most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people[/red]

Aerial bombing at that time was too inaccurate to allow this. They were more likely to hit the camps and kill the inhabitants. And the Germans proved resourceful enough to use bullets when gas was not available.


yrs,
rubato

Rubato is right. it's a poor solution to the problem to bomb the people you're tying to save.

[Long Run]

In any event, the Holocaust is a tangent to the question Gob posed. The Holocaust, and our response to it, is not a principal reason that we are so supportive of Israel. The fact that Israel is the only democracy in an important economic region of dictatorships is more relevant. Israel, was a key ally during the Cold War, and continues to be our key ally against the worst of the Middle East regimes (e.g., Iran and Syria). That we have strong cultural ties to Israel is another more relevant reason. The biblical cord to the Holy Land is another. And, of course, no matter the principled reason, if there is not the political clout to push for and implement a policy, it won't happen, and the "Israel lobby" does a good job of pressing its interests.

[rubato]

In any event, the Holocaust is a tangent to the question Gob posed. The Holocaust, and our response to it, is not a principal reason that we are so supportive of Israel. The fact that Israel is the only democracy in an important economic region of dictatorships is more relevant. Israel, was a key ally during the Cold War, and continues to be our key ally against the worst of the Middle East regimes (e.g., Iran and Syria). That we have strong cultural ties to Israel is another more relevant reason. The biblical cord to the Holy Land is another. And, of course, no matter the principled reason, if there is not the political clout to push for and implement a policy, it won't happen, and the "Israel lobby" does a good job of pressing its interests.

By "Key Ally" you must mean a constant drain on US resources who steals US secrets and sells them to our enemy (The Soviet Union) and then whines that we should release their agent who did this (Pollard).

We should stop all payments to Israel until they give up the settlements.

yrs,
rubato

[Sue U]

As I have previously pointed out, Israel no longer receives any economic aid from the US, except for a refugee resettlement program. (When it did, the amount was minuscule compared to military aid.) Of the military "aid," three-fourths of it goes directly to American defense contractors (supporting 60,000 to 70,000 American workers) who use Israel as a laboratory for developing their products. I read somewhere that something like 600 modificatons to the F-15 were introduced as a result of Israeli suggestions for improvement. Of the aid spent on Israeli defense industries, a significant amount goes to R&D programs whose developments are shared with the US military, as well as to joint ventures in developing new sytems such as missile defense. Israel also acts as a forward base and munitions stockpile for the US military's activities in the region, to say nothing of its intelligence services to the US.

There are a lot of reasons to bash Israel and the US-Israel relationship, but this probably isn't one of them.