* U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson, visiting in Gaza, blasted Israel's ''. . . excessive and disproportionate use of force'' against Palestinian protesters, while her fact-finding commission accused Israel of ''. . . widespread, systematic and gross violation of human rights."
Next thing she knew - she herself was "caught in the crossfire" - as Robert Fisk describes the Orwellian Newspeak now employed when Israelis shoot at civilians.
* The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has applied to take Adelaide Institute Director, Dr Fredrick Toben, and Associate Olga Scully, before Australian Federal Court in view of their refusal to remove "anti-Semitic" material from the Adelaide Institute website at http://www.adelaideinstitute.org Dr. Toben is one feisty fellow. We'll see what happens next.
* Germany's first rabbinical school since the "Holocaust" was inaugurated. It plans to turn out about five graduates a year to lead religious services in Europe's Jewish community.
This is the the second rabbinical seminary in continental Europe. The other is located in Budapest, Hungary.
The new seminary is said to be functioning ". . . in the tradition of liberal Judaism that flourished in Germany before the Third Reich," according to Reuters releases.
* The Austrians are in for a Holocaust Compensation Soaking. Stuart Eizenstat, who is still in charge of Holocaust issues for the Clinton administration, said an agreement on the amount Austria would pay and how it would be distributed was expected by early January.
``It will be difficult, but it is achievable,'' Eizenstat said at a news conference. Eizenstat said he had no estimate how large the final package would be.
ZGram readers might appreciate knowing that the fund has a new wrinkle. It will include ". . . compensation for discriminatory taxation of Jews."
* And speaking about reparations: A U.S. judge on Monday dismissed nearly 50 lawsuits filed against Germany and the firms for which "Nazi slave laborers were forced to work" - apparently in an attempt not to fracture the reparations racket into lots of little suits.
Germany and German industries insisted that all pending lawsuits be dropped in return for their promise to pay nearly $5 billion.
* The Associated Press reports in sundry ways that ". . . Norway has revived a plan to turn Nazi traitor Vidkun Quisling's mansion into a Holocaust study centre after finding ways to fund the project."
Quisling, still revered by many Norwegian patriots as a hero, was executed more than 50 years ago by the Allies after World War II.
* The Anti-Defamation League is reported to have tracked "conspiracy-theory chatter" on the Internet and ". . . right-wing talk radio asserting that old Jews in Florida are trying to steal the election for the Democrats."
* Vladimir Gusinsky, president of the Russian Jewish Congress and one of Russia's leading oligarchs and press barons, has been placed on the "Wanted" list by the prosecutor-general to face fraud charges when he returns to Russia. He is holed up in Israel.
* Journalists working for Moscow Jewish radio say that after every attack on the "Jewish oligarchs" - as Gusinsky and a few other Jews are known - they get lots of angry calls accusing Jews of ". . . robbing Russia and getting away with it."
* In Canada, an upcoming election is getting down and dirty because Elinor Caplan, Jewish Immigration Minister, has accused the National Alliance, an opposition party concerned about out-of-control immigration, as harboring ". . . racists, bigots and deniers of the Holocaust." (Gasp!)
"Their supporters are Holocaust deniers, prominent bigots and racists," Caplan told a mostly Jewish crowd.
Caplan based her accusation on the rumor that Zundel lead attorney, Douglas Christie, was ". . . planning to hold a rally" in support of Stockwell Day, leader of the National Alliance. This so-called "rally" was nothing more than a regular meeting held annually and had nothing to do with the National Alliance.
Said Day: "Liberal values, when they start to lose power, are about false accusations, racist slurs, (and) trying to taint by false association. They are stooping to the very lowest element."
* Rabbi Abraham Cooper, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, has asked U.N. Human Rights Commission for an international inquiry into the circumstances of anti-semitic attacks on synagogues around the world.
Cooper rejected a Human Rights Commission resolution last month that accused Israel of crimes against humanity.
* Not all Albertans are pleased with a proposed Holocaust Act, according to the November 17, 2000 Edmonton Sun. Described as the "showcase bill of the fall legislature session", it started out as the "Holocaust Memorial Day Act". However, soon the members of the legislature were forced to backtrack on the legislation by tacking on the words "Genocide Remembrance."
Premier Ralph Klein freely admitted it was because of heat he was getting from other, much larger, ethnic communities over what appears to be "special treatment". The Ukrainians, especially, are flexing their political muscle.
Sneers the Edmonton Sun: (W)hether Holocaust Memorial Day, after its one day of interest in the Alberta legislature, will ever surface again outside the Jewish community is in doubt."
* An extremely interesting item has surfaced about controversial writer, David Irving. According to newly declassified documents, as early as 1969, a former Nuremberg prosecutor "warned"the FBI that he ". . . feared Holocaust revisionist author David Irving planned to tamper with transcripts or tapes of the Nazi war crimes trial in U.S. archives."
Can't be. Irving only metamorphosed as a "Holocaust revisionist" - a label Irving, incidentally, denies - in the 1988 Great Holocaust Trial of Ernst Zundel.
See what trial records are for? :)
See why Ernst Zündel collects them? :)