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Tag Archives: justice

FTAC: Lady Justice, Scales, and Power v Justice for the Palestinians

30 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philosophy

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Tags

21st Century Feudalism, Arab apartheid, concept of justice, justice, Palestinian, Soviet Era. intellectual poison

justice-scales-gifPrompt: the image of the Scales of Justice and the remark that the mission of the just is to “keep the balance or to seek balance when there is an imbalance”.


. . . . the scales of justice do not represent the equalization of everything or refer to “cultural relativism”: they represent blind-equal-objective weighing of evidence in matters pertaining to justice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Justice

Justice does not seek to make the wealthy poor or the poor wealthy but rather to maintain the same ethical, legal, and moral principles as societies choose desirable and good for both classes. Rich or poor, black or white, Israeli or Palestinian Arab, all should be equal under the law.

In that the the Arab hangover from the 20th Century, the PLO, and Hamas apply different standards for the managing of Palestinian Arabs in their greater population than they do for themselves, it would seem an injustice on the part of such leaders to treat the Palestinians as less than themselves.

For Israel, military oversight is only a practical matter of defense. For the wealthy Abbas, Haniyeh, and Mashaal, the enclosure, separation, and language-borne “weaponizing” of their subject populations must be something else, i.e., the idolization of power over justice.


By way of Moscow’s practically patented habits in barbarism, including the manipulation of “the masses” through disinformation and reprehensible cultural education, the Palestinians have come to represent to the world a much confined and ill-used population anchoring for their leaders a most lucrative conflict business.

That’s just how it has been for the past 70 years: the feudal leadership directs popular anger toward Israel but keeps itself flush with serious cash.

Related on the Web:

If it had been invested shrewdly and well Gaza today could be a mini-Monaco. It could have a deepwater freight port, a flourishing fishing port and a leisure harbour crammed with the yachts of wealthy visitors. It could have resort hotels on the sea and farms, ranches and orchards in the hinterland producing nutritious food.

It has nothing of these. It is a failed state of poverty, misery and violence. So what happened to all that money? Well, a lot went on guns, explosives for bombs and material to build rockets to launch at Israel. But the bulk has certainly suffered the fate of most wealth in that neck of the woods. It has simply been embezzled, not by Israelis but by Palestinians and above all by their leadership cadres.

Forsyth, Frederick.  “So exactly how did Yasser Arafat get so rich?”  Express UK, November 15, 2013.


Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is currently building a $13mn presidential palace in the West Bank, just outside Ramallah.

Reportedly scheduled to take two years to finish, the palace’s construction, including two helipads, guest quarters and administrative offices over more than six acres of land, comes just months after the PA was forced to pass an emergency budget when billions in pledged international aid failed to come through.

Middle East Eye.  “In Pictures: The $13 mn Palestinian presidential palace.”  September 9, 2015.

Related:

Menachem, Yoni Ben.  “The Businesses of Mahmoud Abbas and His Sons.”  Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, September 14, 2016.


Related:

Corre, Addam.  “Hamas Leaders Worth Millions of Dollars From Allegedly Skimming Donations and Extortion: Is Anyone Surprised?”  Inquisitr, July 18, 2014; updated July 22, 2014.

Danan, Deborah.  “Gaza’s Millionaires and Billionaires — How Hamas’s Leaders Got Rich Quick.”  The Algemeiner, July 28, 2014.

Freimann, Myer.  “Hamas Killed 160 Palestinian Children to Build Tunnels.”  Tablet Magazine, July 25, 2014.

–33–

Khamenei, in the Name of God – A Comment on the Rayhaneh Jabbari Story

10 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology, Regions

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

despotism, hangings, Iran, justice, Khamenei, malignant narcissism, Rayhaneh Jabbari, sadism

. . . Shole Pakravan, said Wednesday morning that her daughter has heard nothing about the execution and is being pressured to sign a document that denies there was any attempt at rape and that there was no third party present at the time of the alleged murder.

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/us-news/item/759116-life-or-death-family-of-capitve-iranian-woman-left-in-the-dark – 10/9/2014; primary: http://www.lisadaftari.com/family-rayhaneh-jabbari-iranian-woman-death-row-dark-despite-report-spared/

As if more proof were needed of Ayatollah Khamenei’s ______ (you fill it it in — the writer’s tired), the entire world has now the spectacle of this smiley old white haired fella torturing a young woman not only by denying her an inherent right to an authoritative, honest, fair, just, and open — and openly audited — trial before the Iranian public but by degrading and humiliating her all the way to the gallows — or freedom, God willing.

Reyhaneh Jabbari’s first lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, had apparently made it clear that Jabbari’s death sentence was signed by the courts even after the evidence had been destroyed or went “missing.” Possibly those who signed her death sentence in the Islamic Republic of Iran are not even sure of Jabbari’s guilt themselves, or could be just trying to blame her for the murder, regardless.

 http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4283/iran-rayhaneh-jabbari-stay-of-execution – 4/23/2014.


The government announced that the execution will be postponed but did not give any indication the sentence had been overturned. It also did not disclose if any future execution date had been set.

Jabbari, who has already served seven years in prison, claims Sarbandi drugged her and attempted to have physical contact with her.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/04/15/tehran-government-postpones-execution-woman-charged-with-killing-her-accused/ – 4/15/2014.


Modafe website 31 Aug 2010 News Report- (Human right Lawyer Mr Mostafaei’s Official site)

Reyhaneh Jabbari is a girl from Iran. She is now 22 years old and has been in Tehran’s Evin prison where the last Wednesday of every month a number of prisoners are hanging. She has spent the best years of her life in the prison and she will. Maybe some other days of her life have left.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-reyhaneh-jabbari.html – 8/31/2010.


Here is an interesting trio based on the web search “Iran, executions, last Wednesdays”:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/08/07/iran.executions/index.html – “Human rights group notes ‘alarming spike’ in Iran executions” – 8/7/2009.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/02/us-iran-executions-idUSTRE71161O20110202 – “Iran executions three times last year’s rate: U.N.”- 2/2/2011.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/04/us-iran-idUSBREA330VH20140404 “Spike in Iran executions seen politically motivated” – 4/4/2014.

Proposed film title: “Iranimania II: Death Cult Hanging Orgy!”

Each of the above reports, published in  2009, 2011, and 2014, comments on the acceleration of the rate of hangings by the Iranian regime: more arrests, more “trials”, more hangings, never fewer, often if not predominantly similarly unjust — and when a hanging is “unjust” it is only a common act of murder.

Into this atmosphere of the Islamic Devilution in Iran comes Rayhaneh Jabbari who presents as a young miss who handily fended off a known regime _______ (again, you fill it in) “—a former intelligence officer and, at the time, a high-ranking member of Iran’s government—,” says an April 2014 Vice article of the deceased Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, who had attempted to sexually assault her.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch declared in a most polite header with subheading, “Iran: Stop Woman’s Execution: Legal Process Plagued With Irregularities” (October 1, 2014).  The tone was matched by an equally circumspect recounting of the horror.


”The grotesque spectacle of bound, blindfold figures being hauled into the air by cranes in public hangings is a common sight in Rouhani’s Iran.”

Many of these executions were carried out after trials lasting “only minutes,” added Mr Hogarth.

“Iran is a serial human rights offender and Britain needs to confront this fact in any dealings with the country,” he said.

Since Hassan Rouhani has become president over 1000 prisoners have been executed including women and juvenile offenders.

http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/17329-iran-a-prisoner-hanged-in-zahedan-prison3 – 10/8/2014.

Update – October 26, 2014

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/breaking-iran-executes-reyhaneh-jabbari-26-year-old-woman-who-killed-her-rapist-1471698 – 10/25/2014

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/25/iran-woman-hanged-for-killing-rapist_n_6046350.html – 10/25/2014.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/10/amnesty-iran-set-hang-woman-at-dawn-2014102422855125759.html – 10/26/2014.

# # #

“Come Hang ‘Em High” Khamenei – Another Alert

01 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Middle East, Politics, Regions

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Boroujerdi, despotism, Iran, justice, Khamenei, politics

” . . . agents of Iranian security guard have transferred Mr. Kazemeini Boroujerdi to an unknown place in order to execute him soon.”

http://www.bamazadi.org/2014/10/mrboroujerdi-was-transferred-to-unknown.html#more – 10/1/2014


He reportedly first expressed his opposition to the theocratic nature of the Islamic government of Iran under which Islamic jurists rule or provide “guardianship” in 1994. He has been quoted as saying Iranians “are loyal to the fundamentals of the true religion and the Prophet’s mission”, but are “tired of the religion of politics and political slogans.”[1]

Boroujerdi and many of his followers were arrested in Tehran on October 8, 2006, following a clash between police and hundreds of his followers. Iranian officials charged him with having claimed to be a representative of Muhammad al-Mahdi, a venerated figure in Shi’i Islam, a charge he denies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossein_Kazemeyni_Boroujerdi – as viewed 10/1/2014.


I have been told there are others today in similar danger to Boroujerdi and Jabbari.

One may recall here that the (malignant) narcissist is never wrong — or so sensitive to criticism as to suppress as much of that as possible.  In the medieval mode in which Ayatollah Khamenei exists, this sort of thing, a combination of rivalry accompanied by excoriating observations, may have been what compelled the Grand Ayatollah to push another ayatollah off stage:

Of course, you were correct when you said that international sanctions could not accomplish a damn thing! Not only because you and your cronies and support system in general, suffered no setback; your provinces of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain also weren’t bothered, because they blatantly looted and pillaged the God given wealth and natural resources of our defenseless nation and laughed their way to the bank, while stripping them of their economic independence and their will to think freely.

You have filled these thirty five years of contemporary history with your disgrace and deceit; and the names and memories of the sons of Iran have been written in blood which is the legacy of an antiquated dictatorship that operates in the dark ages.

http://www.bamazadi.org/2014/05/kazemeini-boroujerdi-to-khamenei-it-is.html – 5/19/2014.

Words are eternal in several ways.

Installed in books, they have shelf lives.

Installed in minds, they have a life in memory.

Uttered in politics, even if not remembered, they may develop influence, which may prove more powerful than mere encrustation in ink as thoughts take on lives of their own, passing from mouth to ear to mind to heart, one from the other, again and again, across the world and possibly out into the universe to God’s own ears.

That’s influence.

Related Reference

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/iran/#article/part1 – 11/11/2013

# # #

 

 

FTAC – The Gift of Good Conscience – Rayhaneh Jabbari

29 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

barbarism, justice, Khamanei, Reyhaneh Jabbari

“Stand Up – Step Forward” might be my personal, intercultural, and political slogan this Autumn.

So what if the numbers are small?

So what if the cries fall on deaf ears?

Keep shouting.

Keep pinging on the radars of the piratical.

Annoy them.

Pester them.

Remind them that while they have lost theirs, others more human retain the gift of good conscience.

Let that sweet looking old white haired fella look in the mirror and feel the blood of innocents welling up around his ankles.


Inspiration:

http://www.lisadaftari.com/iran-set-execute-rayhaneh-jabbari-woman-charged-killing-attempted-rapist/ – 9/29/2014.

Does talk make a difference?

I’m a Jew.

I believe in the pebble in a pond.

I believe in the goodness and the rightness of Rayhaneh Jabbari and the result of her self defense.

Update – October 1, 2014

“An Iranian woman due to be put to death for killing a man she said was trying to sexually abuse her is reported to have had her execution postponed.

Officials said on Monday that Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, had been transferred to a prison west of Tehran to be hanged.

But activists claimed on Tuesday that an online campaign had persuaded the state to give her a 10-day reprieve.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29429942


The only thing I want … from God, from people around the world … in any way, in any form, is I just want to bring Rayhaneh back home,” Pakravan said in Farsi, which was translated by FoxNews.com. “I wish they would come tie a rope around my neck and kill me instead, but to allow Rayhaneh to come back home.”

http://www.lisadaftari.com/mother-rayhaneh-jabbari-iranian-woman-sentenced-death-makes-plea-daughters-life/ – 10/1/2014.

# # #

Cynically Scripted? East Jerusalem Riots

04 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by commart in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Politics, Regions

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

anti-Semitism, East Jerusalem, Israel, justice, Khdeir, law, lawless, rioting

Hate, mindless hate, manipulated, ignorant, pointless would seem to course through East Jerusalem at the moment.

While police continue to investigate the murder of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, rioting crowds have erupted in East Jerusalem on the assumption — no evidence — that the crime must relate directly to revenge associated with the murder of three Israeli teens.

Posted to YouTube yesterday:


By AFP yesterday:


Posted to YouTube about an hour ago.

The basis: martyrdom, for the sake of martyrdom.


Without investigation, without process in the courts, the explanations for the murder are many, including a Palestinian false-flag operation to provoke and condone today’s rioting.

Prove it’s not so.

Prove the Palestinians now rioting are not being played into doing just that by their own handlers.

No investigation?

No proof of anything.

Additional Reference

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-braces-as-palestinians-bury-mohammed-abu-khdeir-jerusalem/ 7/4/7014.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/07/02/benjamin-netanyahu-warns-vigilantes-against-trying-to-avenge-slain-israeli-teens-after-abducted-arab-boy-reportedly-found-dead-in-jerusalem-forest/ – 7/3/3014.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.602736 – 7/3/2014.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-braces-as-palestinians-bury-mohammed-abu-khdeir-jerusalem/ – 7/3/2014.

http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Comment-After-the-horror-361106 – 7/1/2014.

Egypt – “All They Understand is Force” – Wrong!

27 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Egypt, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

death sentences, Egypt, foreign affairs, justice, Muslim Brotherhood, politics

Five-hundred-and-twenty-nine death sentences.

All at once.

That’s the guillotine, 18th Century.

That’s not America, not Egypt (God willing), not democracy, not compassion, not justice.

* * *

The mass sentencing underscored the severity of an ongoing campaign by Egypt’s military-backed leaders to silence opposition, eight months after a military coup ousted Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected leader.

Hauslohner, Abigail and Lara El Gibaly.  “Egyptian court sentences 529 people to death.”  The Washington Post, March 24, 2014.

______

This blog is not about to promote the Muslim Brotherhood.

Moreover, given the violence attending Egypt’s post-Mubarak turmoil and the Brotherhood designs that have necessitated the initiation of military intervention in Egyptian politics on behalf of tens of millions of brotherhood-disappointed Egyptians, this is not to rail against strong measures.

However, the mass sentencing signals a backwardness similar to the Brotherhood’s, albeit one more suited to the Napoleonic Era than the Dark Ages, but still merciless and barbaric in concept.

Come forward, Egypt.

Arrest, charge, and try; perhaps imprison in the Guantanamo way until I / you / we know a little more than we do today about psycholinguistics, belief, self-concept, and both political and social pathology.

______

Yesterday in Israel’s Arutz Sheva, a headline ran, “U.S. Warns Egypt Against Executing Brotherhood Supporters” and went on to quote State Department official Marie Hart as saying, “The imposition of the death penalty for 529 defendants after a two-day summary proceeding cannot be reconciled with Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law, and its implementation of these sentences, as I said, would be unconscionable.”

True.

It is understood here that criminality lives in the heart before it expresses itself in the streets, and that the political criminality promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood, which cloaked in religion deals itself such levers and sticks as it believes provided to them for acquiring wealth and sadistic power over others, calls for preventive measures (a Jew does not have to make such a case where modern Egyptians have so well stated their own position disfavoring the Brotherhood’s ugly agenda for all but itself).

As long as the United States maintains Guantanamo, it hasn’t much call for demanding Egypt afford decisive trials for all suspects; however, again, the same makes a case for long-term political detention involving those who indeed have been strongly associated with the harboring of murderous ambitions.

Nix the plus-500 death sentences, maintain the warrants, and perhaps as Jacob wrestled with God, wrestle with Islam until common decency, goodness, and conscience prevail — and if that fails, let’s just move on but have greater faith, greater investment, in ideals and virtues attending the better humanity of humanity.

# # #

FTAC – The Idea of Justice – Not On A Whim

10 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by commart in A Little Wisdom, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philosophy, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

conflict, cultural evolution, culture, justice, law, politics

That contemptuous phrase “the whims of man” applies well to autocratic societies in which, indeed, the whims of one man control a great swath of humanity, but with those, one knows the methods: to those who humiliate themselves before their regimes: bribery, nepotism, and patronage: i.e., those get fed like dogs; to those who threaten such regimes: blackmail, intimidation, murder.

In contemporary realpolitik, the path ends with the suffocation of the constituent humanity or the overthrow of the regime.

Syria’s a good case in point today: I cannot figure out on whose side God has appeared. From the survey of that unfolding tragedy, He would seem altogether absent.

One more thing: the struggle for truly just systems of law beneficial, invested in, and trusted by all has not come about through whim.

The struggle for decency in human relationships by way of ethical and moral argument that finds expression through the law has a millennial existence, one that would seem to have its roots in the depths of tragedies, small and large, attending the human experience across oceanic time.

 # # #

Holocaust Reparations – The Cost of Genocidal Hate – The Price of A Just and Lasting Peace

17 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ethics, history, Holocaust, justice, reparations

Published in 1999:

Well, what do you expect, reply the claimants, when so many of these cases refer to stolen assets? “We are not talking about putting a price on those who died, but on what was stolen from them,” declares Elan Steinberg, the executive director of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in New York.

The Economist.  “Putting a price on the Holocaust.”  November 25, 1999.

Published today, July 17, 2013:

Holocaust survivors and victims’ heirs have received $1.24 billion from a Swiss fund set up after a scandal over dormant accounts of Jews killed in World War II, a magazine said Monday . . . The banks were accused of keeping money owned by Jews who had hidden funds in secret accounts in neutral Switzerland but then perished in the Holocaust, and of having given heirs the cold shoulder when they tried to track down the money.

AFP.  “Swiss Banks ‘Shoah fund’ paid out $1.24B'”.  YNet News, July 17, 2013.

I often repeat Hillel the Elder‘s “prime directive” — if I may borrow from Star Trek’s language — as he distilled it from the study of the Torah: “That which is distasteful to thee, do not do to another.”

That one thought, among other of Rabbi Hillel’s many judgments and observations, has provided not only Jews but a vast portion of the modern world with an outlook expressed in contemporary legal philosophy and liberalism.  However, there seems to me also a more roughly spoken basis for justice and peace between often adversarial and contentious humans: “Because it could happen to you!”

“Because it could happen to you,” the best law that we may develop between us must serve us both.

There are corollaries, including that ages old punch-the-shoulder game between brothers (“If you hit me, I’ll hit you back twice as hard”).

That one leads to equal bruising and a very doubtful “winner”.

As a language string, “It could happen to you” has a small life online as the title of a movie, also a domestic abuse blog, and a gay rights video produced in relation to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) recently savaged by the U.S. Supreme Court, and as a line in a song sung by Frank Sinatra.

“Because it could happen to you” barely exists at all.

And yet what is our sense of fairness, of justice, if not wrapped around “because it could happen to you” integrated with “because it could happen to me”?

If not immediately involved in a crime as either criminal or victim, we are continuously engaged with the ethical and moral choices available to both.  )As an aside, I would note the best storytellers find the twisting moral core of their stories right fast).

Back on beam, Hillel the Elder also observed by way of a question, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  If I am not for others, who am I?”

Again, “because it could happen to you” and you / I / we could wake to a world absent of compassion, empathy, measure, and reason.

“Because it could happen to you,” don’t make me wake up in that world, and because it could happen to me, it’s incumbent upon me to see that you not wake up in such a world either.

What Hitler’s poison did to Germans and then what the Nazis did to the Jews and others by way of theft of labor, property, and life has found some justice in reparations, and, however reluctant, Swiss cooperation in the restoration of funds left abandoned by way of Nazi murder has also contributed to justice.

I could end this post with this from The New York Times:

On Thursday, Mr. Kent opened his speech with a quotation from a German poet, Heinrich Heine, who converted to Christianity from Judaism. Mr. Kent drew a parallel, reflecting how the process of working with the former enemy toward a common goal has altered his perception.

“We survivors and the Germans of today are together united,” Mr. Kent said. “Both of us do not want our past to be our children’s future.”

Eddy, Melissa.  “For 60th Year, Germany Honors Duty to Pay Holocaust Victims.” The New York Times, November 17, 2012.

As sweet as sentiment may be and whatever good has come from a necessary and responsible reconciliation, one may wish not to set aside the Roma, who today with the Jews are again in the cross-hairs of a resurgent Hungarian nationalism, nor the Poles who got caught in the Nazi vice — with those in addition to losses, one wonders at the memories left in the forests and carried into the present by the now elderly remnant of World War II.

We have a long way to go, and not necessarily with reparations but with one another and a sturdy enough central concept of justice to serve the coming ages.

Additional Reference

With basic Wikipedia references in the area of justice, mention of Lassa Oppenheim (no relation to me, so far as I know), Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, I’ve included a little more in this section that I would usually; however, through the Holocaust story, from its 1930s prelude to its now 2010s epilogue, one may see also a window into a future with an international law and legal structure that better ensures fairness and justice for thee and me — perhaps because we should regard what we do to one another as part and parcel of what we do to ourselves — across the broadest cultural, ethnic, national, religious, and tribal global campus.

Ghosh, Palash.  “Germany to Pay Out $1 Billion in Reparations for Care of Aging Holocaust Survivors.”  International Business Times, May 29, 2013.

Jewish Virtual Library.  “Holocaust Restitution: German Reparations”:

On Sept. 20, 1945, three months after the end of World War II, Chaim Weizmann, on behalf of the Jewish Agency, submitted to the governments of the US, USSR, UK, and France, a memorandum demanding reparations, restitution, and indemnification due to the Jewish people from Germany for its involvement in the Holocaust. He appealed to the Allied Powers to include this claim in their own negotiations for reparations with Germany, in view of the “mass murder, the human suffering, the annihilation of spiritual, intellectual, and creative forces, which are without parallel in the history of mankind.”

Powers, Charles.  In the Memory of the Forest.  Penguin Books, 1998.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin

Spiegel Online International.  “Holocaust Reparations: Germany to Pay 722 Million Euros to Survivors.”  May 29, 2013.

Telushkin, Joseph.  “On One Foot: A new Nextbook Press biography of Hillel makes clear that the rabbi’s words and thoughts–though millennia old–resonate today.” Tablet, September 8, 2010.

Telushkin, Joseph.  Hillel: If Not Now, When?  Schocken, 2010.

Tzvi, Rina.  “Hungary Signs New Holocaust Survivor Reparation Deal.”  Arutz Sheva, July 7, 2013.

Wikipedia.  “Distributive Justice”.

Wikipedia.  “Hillel the Elder”.

Wikipedia.  “L. F. L. Oppenheim”: “Lassa Francis Lawrence Oppenheim (March 30, 1858 – October 7, 1919) was a renowned German jurist. He is regarded by many as the father of the modern discipline ofinternational law, especially the hard legal positivist school of thought. He inspired Joseph Raz and Prosper Weil.”

Wikipedia.  “Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany”:

The Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany(German: Luxemburger Abkommen, Hebrew: הסכם השילומים Heskem HaShillumim) was signed on September 10, 1952,[1] and entered in force on March 27, 1953.[2] According to the Agreement, West Germany was to payIsrael for the slave labor and persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, and to compensate for Jewish property that was stolen by the Nazis.

Wikipedia.  “Restorative justice”.

Wikipedia.  “Retributive justice”.

Wikipedia.  “Restorative justice”.

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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