Of course the big news of the week is that Ariel "The Butcher of Beirut" Sharon has been indicted to be tried as a war criminal in Brussels, an action triggered by the BBC Special, "Panorama - The Accused," focusing on the well-known Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982.
Additionally, in 1982 some 800 Palestinians were massacred by what was called "Lebanese Christian Phalangist militias" during the time of the Israeli invasion into Lebanon when Sharon was Israel's defense minister.
This will have far-reaching repercussions. The Brussels charge has emboldened other political individuals and organizations. Tony Blair of Britain begged off meeting Sharon during a refueling stop of his aircraft, and the widely listened to prestigious Human Rights Watch has come out Saturday with the following:
"Human Rights Watch recognizes that Sharon, in his capacity as prime minister, enjoys temporary immunity. However, that should not preclude an active criminal investigation into his conduct whether in Israel, Belgium, or elsewhere," a statement by the group delivered to Western news agencies in Beirut said.
Of course Israel is seething - not used to turns of events that put the blame for horrific recent massacres on one of their own. An online poll conducted by the mass circulation Israeli daily "Maariv" showed that voters thought "that Israel should boycott the BBC following the broadcasting of the documentary."
Of interest are the various comments and heated discussions in various Internet newsgroups. The one below is representative:
"The BBC *did not* cave in to extremely powerful Jewish lobbies who wanted it canceled...The damage to the ugly Butcher could finish him off and expose the ugliness of zion's goals. In a break with the past, the current prime minister rarely appears on controlled TV expounding propaganda. This falls to an expensive team of "special advisers" like Ranaan Gissen and Dore Gold - professional twisters."
Or this one:
"Next Saturday and Sunday they will broadcast it around the world - and the Lobbies won't be able to stop them....Will the forces of good prevail at other public broadcasters like the CBC? Will any of the big American networks permit their audiences to see it?"
The Planck Society, described as Germany's "elite scientific club", has crawled onto the Grand Apology Bandwagon. The organization unctuously invited so-called former victims - including for good measure, "Mengele Victims" - to a reconciliation ceremony.
An Associated Press release published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of June 17, 2001, quotes Hubert Markl, the society's current president, as having said:
"I am shocked at how leading scientists of their time gave support to this criminal ideology of a master race...As a biologist myself, I find that impossible to grasp, again and again."
Police in Poland report that "vandals" stuck axes in a picture of Jesus Christ and sprayed anti-semitic slogans on the walls of a building near Auschwitz, according to an Associated Press report of June 18. The building formerly housed a convent of Roman Catholic nuns.
The building served as a convent from 1984-1993, but the nuns were ordered by the Vatican to move - after Jewish groups staged protests around the world because they didn't like a Christian convent so close to what they advertise as a "former death camp".
A London-based charity called "German Welfare Council" used to rake in royalties since 1976 from the sale of Hitler's book, Mein Kampf. Their services included "social worker visits, bilingual advice on compensation claims and personal counseling."
The money was used, or so it is claimed, "to cover the charity's annual deficit." However, now their special account has been frozen.
Abnews # 57 brought an interesting little abstract this week titled "Some CIA Impressions of Nazi Leaders: Disclosures Yesterday In 10000 Pages of Unclassified Files: Wilhelm Hoettl", in Seattle Times, April 28, 2001. p. A10."
[Hoettl, a mid-level Nazi official, was the old Nazi official who confirmed the mass murder of Jews in an affidavit ("the Holocaust"). During the war, and when he gave the affidavit, Hoettl was secretly an OSS agent.]
Hoettl was threatened by the OSS with arrest as a nazi war criminal unless he returned every document that could prove his service for the OSS:
"Subject has extensive records of his correspondence with Central Intelligence Command during the period when he was employed by them. These records could constitute a source of embarrassment, and should be retrieved. It is extermely unlikely that Subject will volunteer their return unless some slight show of pressure is made."
(Zundelsite comment: Hoettl stated in press articles that after he had made Eichmann drunk on cheap Hungarian wine, Eichmann made the infamous "6 million" claim!)
[Note: The 10000 pages of documents declassified by the CIA appear to include no evidence of the Holocaust.]
In the same Abnews # 57 issue, we learn that Gypsy organizations are planning to file "billions of dollars" worth of lawsuits against IBM Corp. for its alleged complicity in the mass murder of Gypsies.
The current number of Gypsis claimed to have died in the Holocaust is 0.6 -1.5 million - down from the 5 million estimate made at the Holocaust Conference in Sweden in 2000. The lawsuit is based on claims from the [already discredited] book by Edwin Black, alleging IBM complicity in the Holocaust.
(Williams, Frances. "Gypsy Groups To File Nazi-Era Lawsuit Against IBM Corp.", in Financial Times, June 7, 2001. p. 6.
An AFP report of June 19 tells us that a German policeman to go on trial for making the Nazi salute at a private party in a restaurant.
The policeman is charged with illegal propaganda. German law is fanatical about such offenses, particularly ones that are believed to inspire "racial hatred".
More than 1 million people claiming to have been "slave laborers" have filed for compensation, according to Tony Czuczka, AP reporter in Berlin. Fund trustee Hans Otto Braeutigam expects that figure to rise beyond initial estimates of 1.2 million before the Aug. 11 application deadline, which is likely to be extended.
Compensation was originally set at a maximum of $6,550 - but will have to be reduced in light of the swelling numbers of survivors. Meanwhile, the fund's board approved paying nearly $55 million in attorney fees to lawyers whose compensation lawsuits in the United States prompted German industry to agree to the settlement in the first place.
"It's a little too late," wailed Ellen Krosch, 70, who claims that she served as an office worker in Auschwitz. "It's a scandal, but what can you do?"
Use your fingers to find out how old this "office worker" might have been when she was "drafted" for the Third Reich as a "slave". (About 12 years old...?)
Now it turns out, according to an Associated Press release posted from Drohobych, Ukraine, that
"...(i)n a secret operation, Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial has smuggled out of Ukraine fragments of murals by Polish-Jewish artist Bruno Schulz, sparking an international controversy.
"Yad Vashem maintains it was merely exercising its right to preserve the works of a prominent Jewish writer, artist and Holocaust victim, but Ukrainian and Polish officials say their removal was a crime."