Dear German Foreign Minister Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier,
I have recently been informed that in your role as German Foreign Minister, you have been making critical statements and sending critical tweets about Israeli democracy that even the Editor in Chief of Bild, Julian Reichelt, has characterized as astonishingly harsh. You are apparently blind to the devastatingly negative optics of a German government official referring harshly to anything regarding the world's only Jewish state, given that it has only been a few decades since your country's industrialized genocide of the Holocaust.
Your country has had very little experience with, or affinity for anything to do with democracy. Germany's first genuine foray into democracy, the Weimar Republic, was destroyed by German Nazis. Germany's current foray into democracy was militarily imposed on you at the cost of tens of millions of deaths, soldiers and civilians. Germany therefore has very little warrant to tell anyone else about democracy, and what is necessary for it to flourish.
Which brings me to your recent statement that "...a democratic Israel is only achievable through a two-state solution." I have news for you, Dr. Steinmeier. Israel is a Jewish and democratic country already, as even Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffan Siebert stated. Furthermore your own personal history of soft-pedaling statements regarding human rights violations in Russia, China, and Iran due to your pursuit of business opportunities there further impairs your credibility as an arbiter of democracy.
One of your recent tweets stated misleadingly that "Israeli settlements in occupied territories jeopardize possibility of peace process." A German official calling Jewish homes a menace evokes a great deal of concern, and awful memories. In fact Israeli towns and homes in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria have every right to be there. Nonetheless they exist on only two per cent of the land area, and Israel has a history of removing these homes in service of peace, as in Sinai in 1982 and Gaza in 2005. In return Israel has been attacked from every area it has vacated. And why, Dr. Steinmeier, have you made no reference to the real obstacle to peace, relentless Palestinian rejections of all generous Israeli peace offers because what they really want is Israel's destruction, and actually couldn't care less about a state of their own?
Unlike Germany, Israel has been a vibrant democracy by choice in the face of non stop attacks and attempts to destroy it, since its rebirth in 1948. Your proper approach to Israel should be one of remorse and support given your country's awful history. I am deeply offended by your statements of the German Foreign Ministry critical of Israel.
Daniel H. Trigoboff, Ph.D.
Williamsville, New York
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Saturday, December 24, 2016
The Top Ten Causes of the Death of the Two State Solution
Courtesy of Daniel H. Trigoboff, Ph.D.
As of December 23, there has been an addition to the top ten.
Actually killed by:
1. Multiple Palestinian refusals of generous offers of their own state.
2. Official Palestinian policy that no signed agreement will end their war against Israel.
3. Unending Palestinian terrorism.
4. Palestinian refusal to negotiate.
5. Insisting that Palestinian "refugees" will "return" to Israel, not to a nascent Palestinian state.
6. Refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
7. Clueless progressives enabling Palestinian recalcitrance and violence by providing aid and support and expecting nothing in return, with the bigotry of low expectations.
8. Financially incentivizing murders of Israeli civilians.
9. Denying Jewish historical connections to the land of Israel.
10. Ceaselessly indoctrinating their own children to hate Jews and to destroy Israel, insuring that new generations of Palestinians will never make peace.
The late addition:
11. Barack Obama.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Another Voice: Keith Ellison’s history makes him unfit to head the DNC
The following op-ed by Elinor Weiss, CAMERA's Letter Writer of the Year for 2016, was published in the Buffalo News on December 12, 2016. It may be read on the Buffalo News website at http://buffalonews.com/2016/12/09/another-voice-keith-ellisons-history-makes-unfit-head-dnc/. Comments may also be posted there.
I ran as a proud Democrat for the 142nd State Assembly District seat in 1992, when Bill Clinton campaigned for president. The Democratic Party fit my worldview: it was centrist then. How times have changed.
I don’t recognize much of the Democratic Party anymore. Today, the fringe elements of the party are as troubling as the fringes of the Republican Party. Take Sen. Charles Schumer’s support for Keith Ellison as Democratic National Committee chairman.
Schumer says he is backing the Minnesota congressman because Bernie Sanders, who isn’t even a member of the party, likes him. Schumer feels Ellison is “a very good organizer.” But what would Ellison organize the Democratic Party for?
In an article he wrote, Ellison called for a black separatist country. For 10 years he was associated with the Nation of Islam and its leader, Louis Farrakhan, a racist who slanders white people and Jews. Ellison even defended organizations with ties to the terrorist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as defending convicted cop killer Assata Shakur.
In 2008, Ellison went on a trip sponsored by Saudi Arabia. As a sitting congressman, he met with a cleric who supported the killing of American soldiers and with a bank president who gave financial rewards to suicide bombers.
Congressman Ellison told the House Ethics Committee that the Muslim American Society (which even the United Arab Emirates labeled a terrorist organization), prepared his itinerary. The Muslim American Society’s website encourages Muslims to take up arms to help form Islamic governments worldwide.
I fear that Ellison, as the leader of the Democratic Party, would support candidates who deny the existence of radical Islam. Based on his history, he might support far left fringe candidates who blame America and not the terrorists for terrorism. That’s what Ellison did after 9/11 until he walked his words back after getting much criticism.
There’s more. Ellison has worked with organizations seeking Israel’s demise. He has made extremely disturbing statements about Israel. In 2014, he didn’t vote for additional funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system. Without Iron Dome, Israel would have been devastated by Gaza’s thousands of rocket attacks, with countless civilians blown to smithereens.
Schumer has said that he wasn’t worried about Ellison’s anti-Israel “stuff.” Why not? Why do statements from over 30 years ago, denied by Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Trump’s pick for attorney general, bother Schumer but not Ellison’s far more recent and far more voluminous anti-American rhetoric and activities?
When Democratic Party leaders dismiss fringe behavior within their ranks, they not only do a disservice to their party. They hurt America, as well. It’s not too late for the Democratic Party to reclaim its soul and choose a leader who is moderate and centrist. Democrats like me are yearning to come home.
Elinor Weiss of East Amherst was a member of the Amherst Democratic Committee.
Another Voice: Keith Ellison’s history makes him unfit to head the DNC
By Elinor Weiss
I ran as a proud Democrat for the 142nd State Assembly District seat in 1992, when Bill Clinton campaigned for president. The Democratic Party fit my worldview: it was centrist then. How times have changed.
I don’t recognize much of the Democratic Party anymore. Today, the fringe elements of the party are as troubling as the fringes of the Republican Party. Take Sen. Charles Schumer’s support for Keith Ellison as Democratic National Committee chairman.
Schumer says he is backing the Minnesota congressman because Bernie Sanders, who isn’t even a member of the party, likes him. Schumer feels Ellison is “a very good organizer.” But what would Ellison organize the Democratic Party for?
In an article he wrote, Ellison called for a black separatist country. For 10 years he was associated with the Nation of Islam and its leader, Louis Farrakhan, a racist who slanders white people and Jews. Ellison even defended organizations with ties to the terrorist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as defending convicted cop killer Assata Shakur.
In 2008, Ellison went on a trip sponsored by Saudi Arabia. As a sitting congressman, he met with a cleric who supported the killing of American soldiers and with a bank president who gave financial rewards to suicide bombers.
Congressman Ellison told the House Ethics Committee that the Muslim American Society (which even the United Arab Emirates labeled a terrorist organization), prepared his itinerary. The Muslim American Society’s website encourages Muslims to take up arms to help form Islamic governments worldwide.
I fear that Ellison, as the leader of the Democratic Party, would support candidates who deny the existence of radical Islam. Based on his history, he might support far left fringe candidates who blame America and not the terrorists for terrorism. That’s what Ellison did after 9/11 until he walked his words back after getting much criticism.
There’s more. Ellison has worked with organizations seeking Israel’s demise. He has made extremely disturbing statements about Israel. In 2014, he didn’t vote for additional funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system. Without Iron Dome, Israel would have been devastated by Gaza’s thousands of rocket attacks, with countless civilians blown to smithereens.
Schumer has said that he wasn’t worried about Ellison’s anti-Israel “stuff.” Why not? Why do statements from over 30 years ago, denied by Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Trump’s pick for attorney general, bother Schumer but not Ellison’s far more recent and far more voluminous anti-American rhetoric and activities?
When Democratic Party leaders dismiss fringe behavior within their ranks, they not only do a disservice to their party. They hurt America, as well. It’s not too late for the Democratic Party to reclaim its soul and choose a leader who is moderate and centrist. Democrats like me are yearning to come home.
Elinor Weiss of East Amherst was a member of the Amherst Democratic Committee.
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