Elie Weisel puts Obama in his place
Benny Weinthal reports that on Monday, at Washington's Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel - knowingly or unknowingly -
put President Obama in his place.
For the Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who also spoke at the Washington event, the meaning of remembrance is not to remain stuck in the past. He said, “So in this place we may ask: Have we learned anything from it? If so, how is it that Assad is still in power? How is it that the number one Holocaust denier [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is still a president? He who threatens to use nuclear weapons to destroy the Jewish state.”
To date, the U.S. and its allies have taken no meaningful action against the Syrian regime for killing as many as 11,000 of its people. A handwritten sign plastered on a U.N. car in the city of Arbeen captured the painful frustration of international inaction: “The butcher keeps killing, the observers keep observing and the people keep up the revolution.”
“Remembrance without resolve is a hollow gesture,” Obama noted. “Awareness without action changes nothing.” Yet it took military power to stop Slobodan Milošević in Serbia, and it could take the same to stop Assad in Syria.
I wonder whether President Obama even noticed the juxtaposition of his words with Wiesel's.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Museum
President Obama speaks at the Holocaust Memorial Museum
President Obama spoke at the Holocaust Memorial Museum on Monday. As part of his remarks, he announced new
sanctions against Iran and Syria, "for using technologies to monitor and track and target citizens for violence. " The rest of Obama's speech was the usual prattle about how the Obama administration has always supported Israel and Jews. Right....
Rafael Medoff wrote a
much better speech than the one Obama delivered (Hat Tip:
Lance K).
“An American ally, Israel, is today threatened with genocide. Iran’s rulers have vowed to wipe Israel off the map, and they seem determined to build the weapons of mass destruction needed to achieve that goal. I have urged the Israelis to refrain from taking military action against Iranian nuclear facilities so long is there is a chance of stopping Iran’s nuclear development through pressure, sanctions, and negotiations. Israel is concerned about the sanctions process dragging on so long that it enables the Iranians to complete construction of atomic weapons. Israel’s concerns are valid.
“And so today, I want to make it clear to Tehran that the round of talks which is now under way will be the last round. These talks must succeed within 30 days, or we will conclude that Iran was never is not serious about a negotiated solution. And we and our allies will act accordingly.
“I want to conclude my remarks by announcing a symbolic step that I will be taking, today, to reaffirm America’s commitment to preventing genocide. Jonathan Pollard has been incarcerated for the past 27 years for providing Israel with classified data that, among other things, revealed attempts by certain extremist regimes to develop weapons with which to destroy Israel. I am in no way condoning Mr. Pollard’s actions when I acknowledge that he was motivated by a desire to prevent a second Holocaust. As a small symbol of my administration’s own commitment to preventing another genocidal assault on the Jewish people, I have today granted clemency to Mr. Pollard.
“Speaking out against genocide, interrupting mass murder, apprehending the perpetrators, preventing the development of weapons of genocide – these must be the hallmarks of American policy around the world in the 21st century.”
Read the whole thing.
Not only did Obama not give that speech, but on Monday afternoon there is a live webcast symposium at the White House called
Preventing and Responding to Atrocities, an interactive discussion. One of those participating is President Obama's new Atrocities Prevention Board chairwoman,
Samantha Power. You know,
THAT Samantha
Power.
If nothing else, that appointment is in poor taste.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Holocaust Museum, Samantha Power
Take Gaza students to Holocaust Museum? Why not?
It sounds like a shockingly good idea, and from a surprising source. UNRWA wants to take the top students in Gaza on a field trip all the way to Washington DC to see the United States Holocaust Museum (pictured). There's one small problem:
Hamas doesn't want them to go.
Hamas condemned on Saturday the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees for its intention to take excelling Gazan students on a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.
The terror group called the plan "suspicious", and demanded that the initiative be dropped. It also called on the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to "take a national stand for halting the moral corruption of superior Palestinian youth".
"The tours on human rights which UNRWA is organizing abroad, especially in New York, include visits to the Holocaust Museum and the site on which the twin towers stood," says a statement issued by Hamas.
"UNRWA clerks have offered explanations of the Holocaust, and expressed in them empathy for the Jewish people for what it underwent. UNRWA must focus on materials regarding the rights of the Palestinian refugees without dealing with persecution in other areas of the world," the statement adds.
"The memory of the children of Gaza cannot withstand the suffering of all of the persecuted people around the world. The suffering caused by the Jewish occupiers is enough. Besides, the United States has no claim to human rights, as it violates them every day around the world and in its own territory."
I guess Hamas wants to make the United States its next target after Israel. Maybe take the kids to Yad VaShem instead? No, they won't do that either. It would get in the way of their teaching Holocaust denial.
Labels: Hamas, Holocaust denial, Holocaust Museum, UNRWA
Benny Weinthal reports that on Monday, at Washington's Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel - knowingly or unknowingly - put President Obama in his place.
