Has the UN Human Rights Council Lost Its Way?
•Feb 23, 2017
Thursday, October 1, 2020
Human Rights, Human Shields, Human Indifference Jul 28, 2014 | by Donna Rubinprint article 156 SHARES As the Jews go, so go the Christians.”
Human Rights, Human Shields, Human Indifference
156 SHARES |
“As the Jews go, so go the Christians.”
"We know that Hamas uses human shields. But why would you report this when you are sitting in the middle of the Gaza Strip, surrounded by Hamas gunmen?" – Reporter covering the war, who asked not to be identified*
The “leaders” of Hamas give interviews from hospitals and schools, because they know they have the protection they need: innocent civilians. “Human rights” demonstrations in Europe and elsewhere have become little more than an excuse for the promotion of genocide. In Seattle, a demonstration included a poster showing a Jew drinking blood and eating a Christian child. In France, they have become a pogrom.
The demonstrations have absolutely nothing to do with being human, let alone rights. They are nothing more than a stage for anti-Semitism and Israel bashing. If these concerned demonstrators cared about human rights, they would be marching in the thousands against the embassies and consulates of Russia, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and others. They would be demonstrating against the rape of women and children, child labor and the treatment of minorities in their countries. Alas they remain silent.
Using this silence, Russia and its allies shoot down a passenger jet, and are on the verge of unleashing a war on the Ukraine. Using this silence, ISIS (part of the umbrella that includes Hamas, the Muslim brotherhood, Islamic Jihad etc.) is on the verge of exterminating Christians in Iraq. Our politicians react to their demands by punishing Israel.
Jews are a soft target, and the leaders of Europe (and now the U.S.) are so adroit at appeasement, all they offer is impotent words of, “anti-Semitism, bad, bad,” and then wring their hands. The goal of ISIS and their minions is to extend their influence either through a caliphate or through the terror they deem necessary to bring the western world to its knees.
Our president should be taking every opportunity to demand that Hamas cease using human shields, and encouraging Israel to continue to destroy the tunnels terrorists use to attack it. It was recently revealed, according to Israeli security forces Hamas was planning an attack on Rosh Hashanah. The plan was to send hundreds of terrorists simultaneously through many tunnels to take over kibbutzim and towns in the area and unleash a massive, unprecedented terrorist attack.
Our leaders tell Israel to practice restraint and to negotiate, but how do you negotiate survival?
As a convert to Judaism, I have written that I joined the Jewish people because my soul was bound up with them from the time I was a child. One of the reasons I was drawn to Judaism is that Jews are as much about other people as they do about themselves (often to the detriment of the Jewish people).
Israel has been publicizing the plight of Arab Christians for years. Christians, like Jews, once flourished in the Arab world. The tolerance of the Muslims helped produce some great Jewish thinkers. All of that is gone now, and the Christian minorities are learning what we learned long ago. No one cares about them. Forced to convert, leave or die (sound familiar?) they are quickly disappearing. Our elected leaders have said little and done nothing.
On Sunday, an American priest appeared on a program to talk about the plight of the Christians of Mosul. They have been ordered to convert, leave or die. He talked as if it was something new. I admire that he is finally speaking out, but he has been silent on the treatment of Jews in Europe and until now, Christians in the Middle East. He has never mentioned the plight of an American pastor, Saeed Abdeini, as he rots in an Iranian prison. He rightfully criticized the administration and western governments for their lack of concern and action, but he should have been leading the way a long time ago. Christian leaders need to understand what Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, said, “As the Jews go, so go the Christians.” This reality might be too much for them to stomach, but it is true.
Although they were written decades ago, the words of Martin Niemöller mean as much today as when they were penned. When asked how and why the Nazi’s came to power, he wrote the following:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.
We need to remember the wise words of Edmond Burke that all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men, including men of faith to do nothing. We are all in this together.
*”How the media is helping Hamas” by Basam Tawil, The Gatestone Institute, July 27, 2014.
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Visit the Museum of Human Nature: the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Apr 29, 2018 | by George F. Willprint article 38 SHARES A vital glimpse into the darkest of suns.
Visit the Museum of Human Nature: the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
38 SHARES |
A vital glimpse into the darkest of suns.
As the museum of human nature, a k a the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, marks its 25th anniversary, it continues to receive artifacts, such as a letter handwritten on a yellow scrap of paper. It was donated to the museum by Frank Grunwald, 85, who lives in Indianapolis.
He was the younger of two Czechoslovakian boys who sit smiling on their mother’s lap in a photograph the museum has. It was taken before this Jewish family was swept into the Nazi murder machinery.
Frank, then 11 and known as Misa, is alive because unlike his brother John, then 16, Frank did not limp. In July 1944, their father was segregated with male prisoners working in an Auschwitz factory. The boys were with their mother in the Czech family section of the camp when a Nazi noticed John’s limp and selected him for gassing.
Unwilling to have John face death alone, on July 11, Vilma went with him, leaving behind this letter to her husband:
“You, my only one, dearest, in isolation we are waiting for darkness. We considered the possibility of hiding but decided not to do it since we felt it would be hopeless. The famous trucks are already here and we are waiting for it to begin. I am completely calm. You – my only and dearest one, do not blame yourself for what happened, it was our destiny. We did what we could. Stay healthy and remember my words that time will heal – if not completely – then – at least partially. Take care of the little golden boy and don’t spoil him too much with your love. Both of you – stay healthy, my dear ones. I will be thinking of you and Misa. Have a fabulous life, we must board the trucks.
“Into eternity, Vilma.”
So, the museum presents human nature’s noblest as well as vilest manifestations. It has received 43 million visitors, 90 percent non-Jewish, many of whom have had opportunities to talk to survivors, such as Fanny Aizenberg, who in her 102nd year still comes most Sundays.
Located just off the Mall, one of the world’s most pleasant urban spaces and the epicenter of American politics, the museum inflicts an assaultive, excruciating knowing: Nothing – nothing – is unthinkable, and political institutions by themselves provide no permanent safety from barbarism, which permanently lurks beneath civilization’s thin, brittle crust.
This is why the Holocaust is the dark sun into which this democracy should peer. Calling the Holocaust unfathomable is a moral flinch from facts that demand scholarship, which the museum enables.
It has, for example, more than 900 video interviews with witnesses and collaborators. And perpetrators, such as Juozas Aleksynas, a member of a Lithuanian police battalion that committed genocide in Belarus in 1941:
“We were issued Russian guns and bullets . . . some were exploding bullets. . . . A person’s skull opens up so fast . . . They would carry children – the little ones – they’d take the others by the hand. They lie down, lay the child next to them. . . . First you shoot the father . . . How would the father feel if the child was shot by his side?”
An album found long ago in an abandoned SS barracks contains photos of Auschwitz guards and administrators at leisure – singing, picnicking.
In his mind-opening 2017 book “Why? Explaining the Holocaust,” Peter Hayes says the subject “continues to resist comprehension.” Resist, but not defy. His many conclusions include the awesome – for better or worse – power of individual agency: No Hitler, no Holocaust. But Hitler began tentatively, with small measures. Hayes concludes his book with a German proverb: Wehret den Anfangen – beware the beginnings.
Today, there is an essentially fascist government in Hungary. Anti-Semitism is coming out of the closet: The Labor Party, which might form Britain’s next government, is riddled with it, from the top down. Blood-and-soil tribalism – degenerate successor to throne-and-altar conservatism – is fermenting across Europe. And there is a name for what is happening to the Rohingya in Myanmar: genocide.
The museum of human nature remains what it would prefer not to be: pertinent to understanding not only the past but the present.
How do those who work at the museum, immersed in the task of making us remember the unspeakable, maintain their emotional equilibrium? By also remembering Vilma.
This article originally appeared in the NY Post.
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Auschwitz Museum Director Offers to Trade Places with Imprisoned Child Sep 30, 2020 | by Dr. Yvette Alt Miller Piotr Cywinski is offering to serve time in prison in Nigeria so a child imprisoned for blasphemy can go free.
Auschwitz Museum Director Offers to Trade Places with Imprisoned Child
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Piotr Cywinski is offering to serve time in prison in Nigeria so a child imprisoned for blasphemy can go free.
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, a new promise was made: “Never Again”. Never again would the world stand idly by while Jews or anyone else was persecuted because of who they are or what they believe. Never again would the world watch in silence as a Jews or any other group was denied their rights and put in danger. Never again would we remain indifferent while people were tortured and killed as they were during the horrible dark years of the Holocaust.
From 1939 to 1945, the Nazi killing machine murdered six million Jews, along with hundreds of thousands of Roma, Communists, minority groups and disabled people. In the horrified aftermath of the Holocaust, as these crimes came to light, people around the world announced never again would such crimes go unnoticed and unremarked upon, the world’s grim silence aiding the killers and pouring bitter scorn of indifference on the victims.
“Never Again” echoes the key commandment in the Torah “You shall not stand idly by while your fellow’s blood is shed – I am God” (Leviticus 19:16). When we see a person in grave danger, being persecuted, we have an obligation to go and help them. The reminder “I am God” adds gravity to this key command: it’s a reminder that every single person on earth was created in the image of God – every human being is infinitely precious and important.
Dr. Piotr Cywinski, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum in Poland, which preserves the memory of the 1.1 million men, women and children who were murdered there during the Holocaust, is today showing the world what “Never Again” truly means: he’s offering to give up his freedom to help a boy he’s never met, who is facing horrible persecution in Nigeria.
Dr. Piotr Cywinski
A few months ago, 13-year-old Omar Farouq, who lives in Kano State in northwestern Nigeria, got into a fight with another boy, and apparently uttered a curse word “toward Allah”. That was enough to get him hauled in front of a local Muslim court and charged with blasphemy. Incredibly, the court found him guilty and sentenced Omar to ten years hard labor in prison. His case received little attention at the time, despite its outrageous excessiveness and cruelty. A local human rights attorney found out about the sentence in August, and is trying to free the boy from ten years of torturous labor – so far with no success.
Dr. Cywinski read about Omar Farouq’s case and like many others was outraged. But unlike most of us, Dr. Cywinski decided he had to do something about it. Running the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, he’s accustomed to telling people that we must learn real lessons from the Holocaust, that “Never Again” means nothing if it’s not a true call to action.
Omar Farouq reminded him of the many Jewish children who were persecuted and tortured in Auschwitz-Birkenau. “I cannot remain indifferent to this disgraceful sentence for humanity,” he wrote in a letter to Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari. Pres. Buhari had even visited Auschwitz-Birkenau himself, in 2018. Had he learned nothing from his visit?
Dr. Cywinski’s letter fell on deaf ears, so he decided to do something more. In a letter that’s recently become public, Dr. Cywinski offered to serve one month of Omar’s 120 month prison sentence and to recruit 119 other adults to each serve one of the other months. “Many times we are asked to like, unlike, to share, to retweet and sign a petition online,” Dr. Cywinski explained; “I wanted to do something more.”
Dr. Cywinski’s offer to serve part of Omar Farouq’s sentence echoes the words of Elie Wiesel, who was imprisoned in Auschwitz. “Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil,” he warned. “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”
Turning away from another’s pain is never an option. Instead, we all can learn from Piotr Cywinski and refuse to stand by while we watch our fellow human beings in torment. Dr. Cywinski has yet to hear a response to his offer to help Omar Farouq, but his gesture illustrates the true meaning of “Never Again.” We are all responsible for standing up when we see people who are persecuted, tortured, in danger and in pain. Remaining indifferent isn’t benign, it’s evil. We must stand up and help.
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Today's Quote (However, why are you letting it begin in your country once Again)
Today's Quote
(However, why are you letting it begin in your country once Again)
14 SHARES |
“The responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own.”
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