FRANCE: 4 DEAD IN SHOOTING OUTSIDE JEWISH SCHOOL
Editorial
Ynet News, March 19, 2012
An unknown assailant opened fire on a Jewish school in Toulouse Monday, killing at least four people and injuring five. According to initial details, a man riding on a motorcycle opened fire on the Ozar Hatorah School at around 8:10 am, as the students were arriving for the school day, and then fled the scene. The shooter reportedly used two weapons, one of which was automatic.
The incident claimed the lives of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, his 3-year-old and 6-year-old sons Gabriel and Arieh and 8-year-old Miriam Monsonego, daughter of school headmaster Rabbi Yaacov Monsonego.… “The gunman shot everything in front of him, children and adults,” French Prosecutor Michel Valet said.…
French Interior Minister Claude Gueant and French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Toulouse at noon.… Sarkozy said that the shootings was an “abominable, frightening tragedy.” Paris has ordered to increase surveillance and protection of Jewish institutions across France. French anti-terrorism prosecutors announced that they will investigate the shooting.
The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem issued a statement saying that Israel was “horrified” by the attack. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor expressed outrage at the killings: “We are following with great shock reports coming from Toulouse and we trust the French authorities will solve this crime and bring those responsible to justice,” he said.
Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger denounced the attack as well: “This was the brutal slaying of innocent people whose only crime was being Jews,” he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added that “it is too early to determine what the background of the murderous act was, but it is impossible to reject the possibility that this act was driven by violent and murderous anti-Semitism.…”
The shooting happened in the same region where a gunman on a motorbike opened fire on three uniformed paratroopers at a bank machine last Thursday, killing two and critically wounding the other.… Four days earlier, a gunman on a motorbike shot and killed another paratrooper in Toulouse, about 30 miles away. Authorities said at the time that forensic analysis showed that the same weapon was used in the shootings in Montauban and Toulouse.
French Ambassador to Israel Christophe Bigot said he was “shocked and horrified to learn of this barbaric act in Toulouse. We all want to express our solidarity with the Jewish community in Toulouse. This issues is taken to heart at the gravest levels. We of course want to express our empathy to the victims and assure our commitment to the safety of the Jewish community in France. We will find the man behind this barbaric act.…”
The Jewish Federations of North America released a statement as well, expressing outrage at the incident. “Words cannot describe the shock and outrage—and deep mourning—that result from a terror attack that is specifically directed at children,” the group’s CEO and President Jerry Silverman said. “We have long known that Jews can be targets of vicious attacks wherever they are in the world. And it is clear, that even today, in 2012, that statement remains true.”
France has Europe’s largest Jewish community, estimated at up to 700,000 people.
JUSTICE FAILED IN THE DEMJANJUK CASE
Jonathan S. Tobin
Contentions, March 17, 2012
Last Friday, John Demjanjuk died in a German nursing home. Though twice convicted of participation in one of history’s great atrocities, with the assistance of clever lawyers, liberal judges and owing to his age and infirmity, Demjanjuk didn’t pass away in jail. Upon his death, his family once again declared his innocence and, due to a technicality in German law that says sentences are not final until the last appeal is ruled on, could even claim that his death voided his conviction. The New York Times obituary, though providing voluminous detail about his case, insisted on describing his case as one of “questions” and “mysteries.”
But any objective examination of his story reveals little that could be fairly termed a “mystery.” Demjanjuk was a soldier in the Red Army who was captured by the Germans. Like many other Ukrainians he fought for Hitler’s army. But he was no ordinary turncoat solider hoping to evade the grim fate that befell most Soviet prisoners of the Nazis. He volunteered to be a death camp guard. Even if one accepts the doubts that were raised as to whether he was the infamous “Ivan the Terrible” of the Treblinka extermination facility, there is no doubt that he was a terrible Ivan who served at the equally horrific Sobibor, Majdanek and Flossenbürg camps. But though enough proof of his complicity in these crimes was brought forward to secure two convictions many years later, like many another Holocaust criminal, Demjanjuk didn’t die inside prison walls.…
The Cold War allowed many Eastern Europeans who took part in Nazi-era crimes to pretend to be victims. Demjanjuk was one such person and like many others who took part in these crimes, Demjanjuk evaded the long arm of the law after World War II ended and entered the United States where he took the name John and eventually became a citizen and raised a family. But unfortunately for him, evidence of his ties to the SS was uncovered, including an identity card with his picture. Survivors also identified him. His lies were eventually exposed and after many years of litigation the Justice Department was able to revoke his citizenship and deport him to Israel where he was put on trial.
After exhaustive arguments and extensive testimony from survivors who identified him as the man who brutally assaulted victims and killed many with his bare hands at Treblinka, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death. But five years later, the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the verdict and set him free.
The court’s justification for this action was the claim that other guards claimed that another Ivan, named Marchenko was the “terrible” guard of Treblinka. The court’s ruling was not so much a conclusive ruling about his innocence as a meditation on the role of Israel justice. The majority seemed to feel that so long as even a shadow of a doubt existed as to his guilt it would be better that Israel should not take his life or deprive him of his liberty. This was meant and was actually perceived in many quarters as tribute to the quality of Jewish mercy as well as Israeli justice but it may well have been very bad law. As even the Times noted, Demjanjuk had listed his mother’s maiden name as Marchenko on his U.S. entry papers. The preponderance of evidence still must be said to show that Demjanjuk really was Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka.
Instead of the execution that he merited, he was sent back to America in 1993. But there again, intrepid prosecutors set to work to try and convict him again, this time, for being a guard at the camps that his lawyers said he was at rather than Treblinka. Again long delays put off his second deportation and trial (this time in Germany) and his conviction on those awful charges did not come until 2011.
We may take some solace in that the extended legal process for Demjanjuk helped educate the world about the Holocaust. We may also take pride in the efforts of those who labored for so many years to try and bring him to account for his part in these crimes. But there is much about this case that ought to be regarded with disgust.
Among the most shameful aspects of this story is the way some…used Cold War enmity to obfuscate the guilt of Demjanjuk and other Eastern Europeans who were Hitler’s collaborators. Also shameful was the criticism aimed at the many Holocaust survivors who stepped forward to identify Demjanjuk as one of their torturers.… Most of all, the unwillingness of the Israeli Supreme Court to take responsibility for the case and to rule with fairness as well as mercy did little honor to that institution.
The plain fact of the matter is that John Demjanjuk never got the sentence his crimes warranted. In that he was not alone since many such criminals evaded prosecution, let alone prison time or execution. And for that we may all hang our heads in shame.
IRAN: THE LEADING STATE SPONSOR OF INT’L TERRORISM
Irwin Cotler
Jerusalem Post, March 18, 2012
There is increasing—and compelling—evidence of Iranian footprints in a series of recent aborted terrorist attacks in India, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Thailand.
The Indian police have just reported that the Iranian connection to the bombing of the Israeli Embassy car has been “conclusively established” and that the bombing was connected to a botched attack targeting Israeli consular staff in Bangkok.
Thai officials have now detained three Iranian nationals in connection with the plots, while a fourth has been detained in Malaysia. Similarly, an Indian journalist with close ties to Iran’s notorious Quds Force was also arrested last week for facilitating the New Delhi attack. An Indian court has now issued arrest warrants for three other Iranian nationals in connection with the bombing. Two other Iranian nationals suspected of involvement in the Thai attack, including the alleged mastermind who is presently in Iran, remain fugitives.
Moreover, Thai investigators have released photos of unexploded bombs found in the home of one of the suspects, which are strikingly similar to those used in the Georgian and Indian attacks. And in what is perhaps the most shocking—albeit least reported—development yet, Azerbaijani police are reporting that they are detaining nearly two dozen people for allegedly plotting attacks on the country’s U.S. and Israeli Embassies and other Jewish and Western targets. According to initial reports, a number of the operatives were trained in Iranian military camps and armed by its intelligence agency.
Given the evolving evidence of Iranian involvement, these attacks constitute a major Iranian escalation in its state sponsorship of international terrorism and in the systematic targeting of diplomatic missions in defiance of preemptory norms of international law. Such an escalation dovetails with the converging Iranian fourfold threat—nuclear, incitement, terrorism, massive domestic repression—and its corresponding incendiary rhetoric which finds increasing expression in the regime’s serial use of terrorist violence as a central tenet of its foreign policy.
Indeed, the recent web of attacks comes in the aftermath of ominous warnings by Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the spokesman for Iran’s Joint Armed Forces Staff that “the enemies of the Iranian nation, especially the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime have to be held responsible for their activities.” Senior Iranian officials have also recently warned of their intention to strike Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide.
In particular, since the fraudulent election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, Iran’s escalating rhetoric has been accompanied by increasingly brazen terrorist acts and attempts. In what has become an annual tradition, Iran was once again designated by the US State Department’s Country Report on Terrorism as “the most active state sponsor of terrorism.”
The United States’ recent indictment of senior Iranian officials, accused of orchestrating an elaborate plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in Washington is but the latest example. Indeed, as part of the same plot—though this has gone largely unremarked—the indicted Iranian officials also conspired to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Saudi Embassy in Argentina. By striking at diplomatic targets—indeed, all four of the February attacks targeted Israeli Embassy and consular officials—Iran demonstrates not only its hatred and rejectionism of Israel but its violent rejection of the principle of diplomatic immunity, a foundational principle of international law.
It should be noted that the notorious Quds Force has been at the forefront of Iranian state terror, and has been implicated in the planning, arming or carrying out of attacks against civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Europe, the United States and Asia. Indeed, the IRGC remains the epicenter of threats to international peace and security—to regional and Middle East stability –and is now involved also in the brutal Syrian crackdown on its people, in the beatings, killings and torture, constitutive of crimes against humanity.…
What is more, the Revolutionary Guard Corps has been at the forefront of a long-standing global campaign of terror against perceived opponents of the regime. The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center has linked senior regime officials to the extrajudicial murder of at least 162 political activists in 18 countries from East Asia through Western Europe to the United States. In a particularly brazen incident, Iranian agents assassinated four Kurdish activists at a Berlin restaurant in 1992. A Berlin court concluded that “Iran’s political leadership ordered the crime.”
By its ongoing and escalating state-sponsored terror on foreign soil, Iran is in standing violation of every cannon of domestic and international law. Iran also continues to act as chief patron of Hamas and Hezbollah. These groups are not just terrorist entities, though this would be bad enough. But they have an objective which is genocidal—an ideology which is anti-Jewish—not because I say so but because their charters proclaim it—and where terrorism is an instrument for the implementation of their objectives. The recent attacks—all of which targeted Israeli and Jewish institutions—also bore the hallmark of Hezbollah, and follow the January arrest of one of the Hezbollah operatives suspected of planning the attacks in Bangkok.…
The spate of violence is particularly worrying given the recent and incendiary pronouncements by Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to the effect that Israel is a “cancerous tumor” that must be eradicated, and will be eradicated. Lest there be any ambiguity as to the genocidal intent of Iran’s clerical and political leadership, the supreme leader explained in a subsequent interview that there is a “jurisprudential justification to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel and that Iran must take the helm.”
By training, arming, financing and instigating groups like Hezbollah, the Iranian regime gives violent expression to the genocidal narrative of its leadership.
The convergence of Iranian state-sanctioned incitement to genocide and its state-sponsored terrorism has not suddenly emerged in the context of the current standoff with the West.… The regime’s anti-Jewish brutality was witnessed most vividly on 18 July 1994, when a bomb tore through Argentina’s Jewish Community Center (AMIA) in Buenos Aires. The Argentinean minister of justice advised me that “this was the worst terrorist atrocity in Argentina since the Second World War.”
The Argentine Judiciary concluded that the attack, which killed 85 people and wounded 300 others, was planned, orchestrated and implemented at the highest echelons of the Iranian leadership, including both the office of the president and the Iranian Embassy in Argentina—yet no Iranian official has been brought to justice for the attack.
On the contrary—and reflective of the culture of impunity that reigns in Iran—Ahmed Vahidi, wanted by Interpol for his role as an organizer of the Argentinean bombing, currently serves as Iran’s Defense Minister, and was appointed in 2009—Ahmadinejad’s defiant response to Obama’s “outstretched hand” during his year of engagement with Iran.
In a chilling reminder of Iran’s no-holds-barred capacity to engage in state-sponsored terrorism in association with the most deadly of terrorist groups, a New York Federal District Court ruled in December that Tehran materially and directly supported al-Qaida’s devastating September 11 attacks on the United States.
The court’s findings included: Proof that a Revolutionary Guard contingency plan for unconventional warfare against the US included a plan to crash hijacked airlines into the World Trade Centres and the Pentagon; Proof of coded messages from an Iranian government official during the weeks before 9/11 to the effect that the aforementioned plan had been activated; Evidence that Iran facilitated the escape of al-Qaida leadership from Afghanistan during the US invasion; Evidence that Ali Khamenei was aware of the 9/11 attacks as early as May 2001; Evidence that senior Hezbollah operatives met with the 9/11 hijackers in the months leading up to the attacks.
Given the evidence of the escalating Iranian state sponsorship of international terrorism—and the increasing targeting of diplomats—all states have the responsibility to invoke the legal, diplomatic, economic and political instruments at their disposal to confront Iranian terrorist aggression.…
Specifically, State Parties to the Genocide Convention should initiate interstate complaints before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Iran—also a state party to the Genocide Convention—for its incitement to genocide, a violation of the Convention. Similarly, states may bring Iran before the ICJ for its attacks against diplomats, pursuant to the Islamic Republic’s obligations under Article 13 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents, which it ratified in 1978.
States should also list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, an organization that has been at the vanguard of the Islamic Republic’s campaign of state terrorism, as a terrorist entity. The Argentinean Judiciary’s decision—and resulting Interpol arrest warrants—should be enforced. Civil suits should be instituted where appropriate against Iran and its terrorist agents for its perpetration of acts of terror; and the principle of universal jurisdiction should be invoked to hold Iran’s leaders—under indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity—accountable. Ahmed Vahidi, such an indicted criminal, should not be able to travel freely with impunity.
Simply put, the recent wave of terrorist attacks must serve as a wake-up call for the necessary action to be taken by the international community.… We must act now to hold Iran’s state-sanctioned terror to account, lest more lives be lost. Such Iranian state-sanctioned terror is a chilling warning of what dangers await the international community should Iran become a nuclear power.
(Irwin Cotler is a member of the Canadian Parliament
and a former minister of justice and attorney-general of Canada.)
