In our annual build-up to the anniversary of Israel's rebirth we have taken a somber reflection on some of the great calamities of the 20th century and how they have played a role in the history of the Middle East and the world at large.
Today however, we celebrate the greatest triumph of the Jewish people since the dedication of the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem. It is important to remember that in the grand scheme of history there is no precedent for what occurred in the spring of 1948. Never before had the hopes and dreams of a broken people lain dormant for nearly 2,000 years before they were finally realized. This fact was not lost on the Zionist founders of the State of Israel. Secular (even non-religious) as they were, they still had a deep respect for history and appreciated the gravity of the moment,
as reflected by headlines from that day that not only speak of the "birth" of the state of Israel
The State of Israel is Resurrected
but of a REBIRTH of the first Jewish state in 19 centuries. The Founding Charter itself makes mention of this amazing turn of events:
IN ERETZ ISRAEL [the Land of Israel] arose the Jewish people, in which was formed its spiritual, religious and national image, in which it lived official sovereign life, in which it created national and universal cultural treasures and bequeathed to the world entire the eternal Book of Books.
After the nation was exiled from its land by armed strength it remained loyal to her in all the lands to which it was spread and did not cease to pray and hope to return to its land and to renew in her its national freedom.
From this historical and traditional connection strove the Jews in every generation to return and to grasp their ancient homeland, and in the last generations they returned in their masses, and pioneers, illegal immigrants, and defenders made spirits blossom, revived their Hebrew language, built villages and cities, and established a large and burgeoning community which controls its economy and culture, promotes peace and protects itself, brings forth the blessing of progress to all inhabitants of the Land and bears its spirit towards sovereign independence.
The charter also states the following:
The Holocaust which befell the Tribe of Israel in recent times, in which were led to slaughter millions of Jews in Europe, proved anew succinctly the necessity of a solution to the problem of the Jewish people lacking homeland and independence through the renewal of the Jewish state in the Land of Israel, which will open wide the gates of the homeland to every Jew and will grant the Jewish people the stature of a nation of equal standing within the family of nations.
The remainder of the refugees which was saved from the terrible Nazi slaughter in Europe and the Jews of other lands did not waver from immigrating illegally to the Land of Israel in spite of every difficulty, obstacle and danger, and did not cease to demand their right to live in dignity, freedom and honest labor in the homeland of their people.
And further:
THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open to Jewish immigration and the ingathering of exiles; will strive to develop the land for the benefit of all her inhabitants; will be founded on the principles of freedom, justice and peace in the spirit of the visions of the Prophets of Israel; will implement equality of complete social and national rights for all her citizens without distinction between religion, race and gender; will promise freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; will protect the religious places of all the religions; and will be loyal to the principles of the declation of the United Nations.
In one of my first postings on this site I spoke of why it is important for ALL Jews to stand behind Israel...whether they live in Israel, have family there or don't even know where to find it on a map. The mere existence of the state is our only insurance policy against future atrocities and Holocausts. In addition to the charter's stated purpose of being a place of refuge, the fact that we have an independent, sovereign home, with its own military transforms 2,000 years of Jewish suffering into 61 years of Jewish triumph.
Never again will we have to hope and beg and plead to be saved by the outside world.
Never again will we have to hope that our host countries will be good to us and hope that kings, dictators and presidents will bestow upon us their good will and let us live in peace and quiet.
The triumph of the state of Israel is the triumph of the Jewish nation in rising up from the ashes of a broken, homeless people to take its rightful place in the world and have the freedom of self-determination and most importantly self-defense.
To our neighbors the Arabs and even the Persians I say, as in 1948 when we said to them the following:
WE CALL - even during the bloody attacks which have been carried out against us for months - to the members of the Arab nation residents of the State of Israel to keep the peace and partake in their share in the building of the State upon the principle of full and equal citizenship and upon the principle of appropriate representation in all institutions, temporary and permanent.
WE EXTEND a hand of peace and good neighborliness to all the neighboring nations and their peoples and call upon them to partake in cooperation and mutual assistance with the independent Hebrew nation in its land. The State of Israel is prepared to contribute her share in the joint effort to advance the Middle East entire.
The victory of 1948 need not only apply to the Jewish residents of Israel! Already today there are over a million Israeli Arabs who have partaken in the aforementioned equal citizenship. The solution to the Nightmare and the Catastrophe can also be the solution to the Nakba...if you only "partake in [your] share in the building of the State" - or at least live in peace as our neighbors in the West Bank and Gaza, you too can be a part of solution to both of our nations' problems!
It is then the our Triumph will indeed be shared by all of the residents of the Middle East. Until then, it is still just a hope. It is no coincidence that the national anthem of our country is called exactly that... As long as deep in the heart, A Jewish soul yearns And to towards the ends of the east An eye is scouting for Zion
Our hope is as yet not lost The hope that is 2000 years old To be a free nation, in our own country The land of Zion and Jerusalem
That day is not yet here and until that day comes we will celebrate the anniversary of the Triumph of the Jewish nation, in the face of impossible odds, alone.
Following our previous look at 175 years of Palestinian suffering on the anniversary of the Nakba (the Arabic word for catastrophe), it is important to remember that at the same time that the well-known and publicized Arab refugee crisis was developing, there was another catastrophe taking place all over the Middle East.
In 1945, there were approximately 1 million Jews living in various Arab countries across the Middle East, as well as Iran/Persia, Afghanistan and other Islamic, non-Arab countries. From Tehran to Baghdad to Beirut to Cairo to Tripoli to Tunis and beyond, bustling Jewish communities thrived for thousands of years. These indigenous peoples predated even the Arabs (and certainly the Muslim invaders who came in the 600's) by over a thousand years! The first Jews to arrive were forced out of Israel and Judea by the Assyrians and Babylonians after the destruction of the FIRST Temple and were later joined by additional refugees of the Roman exile as well the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition and various other atrocities committed against them.
I recently had the privilege to attend movie showing and speech on the topic that was produced by The David Project. The film, entitled The Forgotten Refugees, relates the story of these communities and the terrible conditions that forced them out.
As the Jewish state was forming, the Arabs launched pogroms all over the Middle East. With scenes reminiscent of Kristallnacht from just 10 years earlier, Jews were taken out of their homes, beaten, hanged, robbed, looted and raped. In just a few short years, centuries upon centuries of Jewish culture were erased and these communities fled their homes in terror.
I'm not much of a movie reviewer but I will say that I myself was very affected by what I saw. Growing up, I knew a large percentage of Israel was made up of "Mizrahim" or "eastern" Jews (from Arab lands) but the fact that whole COUNTRIES were literally ethnically cleansed of Jews was not something I had really wrapped my head around before I saw the movie. The movie is filled with documentary footage as well as personal interviews with some of the survivors of these events. But perhaps the most shocking part of the movie was when they displayed a graphic that detailed the Jewish populations of these countries in the 40's and compared them to today...
And lest you think that these Jews were even allowed to take their personal belongings with them or that these people were not productive members of society, this estimate from 2007 that you never read, claims over $300 billion-worth of property lost and the deeds to over 100,000 square miles of land confiscated by the Arab governments. To give you some context - that's over FIVE TIMES the size of the entire state of Israel as it stands today. To give you a little more context, in 1948 (after the "Nakba" was over) the Palestinian population of Israel was 156,000.
Conveniently, the Arab world has seen to it that the Jewish communities that used to exist in their own lands have been stricken from the record. The Jews who fled have been turned into forgotten refugees because to admit the facts is to admit that the crocodile tears they cry over the Palestinians are exponentially MORE hypocritical when taken in the context that the accusers are actually GUILTY of the behavior they falsely pin on the victims! In reality, if Israel was really looking to "ethnically cleanse" itself of its Arab population - they would do much better to follow the example of the very neighbors who are the loudest to dump this crime on them.
So, as tonight marks the beginning of Yom HaZikaron, the Israeli Memorial Day, the RONMOSSAD blog would like to dedicate this space to those forgotten refugees and the memory of those who did not make it to a better life in Israel or elsewhere. While the hypocritical West and United Nations pass hundreds of resolutions on worldwide refugees (including over 100 on the Palestinian refugees) and create "Bureaus on committees on exercises" to deal with the problem...as usual not a word is said about the catastrophe that befell the Jews of the Middle East at the same time! Instead those victims are demonized and cast as the oppressors.
I hope you will now join me in taking every opportunity you can, to remind those who seek to eliminate the Jewish communities of the Middle East from our memories, that we will not allow them to rewrite history and to hijack the narrative for their political gains.
The world must know that Israel is NOT made up of "European invaders" - rather that these communities existed in Israel and in the Middle East for thousands of years before the first Zionists set foot in Petach Tikvah.
That the descendants of these now-destroyed Jewish communities are still very much alive and part of society and that they will not be silenced by a world that finds their existence inconvenient.
That they will be forgotten and cast aside no longer.
Skip to the next post in this series: Triumph or the previous post: Nakba
This week (April 29th to be exact) Israelis and Jews will celebrate the 61st anniversary of the reestablishment of their ancient state of Israel. Many Palestinians and Israeli Arabs however, will be commemorating 61 years since their "Nakba" or Great Catastrophe during which they lost their homeland to the Jewish/European invaders. Truly the story of the Palestinians is a sad one as ever since the beginning of their history they have been killed by outsiders.
The following as a brief summary of some of the catastrophes that have befallen the Palestinian people since the birth of their national consciousness...
1834: Hundreds of Palestinians are killed and raped, dozens of villages are destroyed and 10,000 deported to Egypt.
1938: 4,200 kilos of bombs are loaded into Jenin and detonated, destroying much of the town and causing numerous casualties. As part of the attack, Palestinians are used as "mine-sweepers" by being forced to drive through the city in advance of the attack. When questioned about these tactics, the perpetrators respond that they are confronted, "not with a chivalrous opponent playing the game according to the rules, but with gangsters and murderers."
1968-1970: Orders are given to "deal conclusively and without hesitation with the plotters who want to establish a separate Palestinian state and destroy the unity of the Jordanian and Palestinian people." As a result thousands of Palestinians are killed, thousands more are arrested. Tens of thousands are ethnically cleansed and deported out of entire cities.
1978: Laws and regulations are amended to treat Palestinians as foreigners. Their rights to free education, employment and even residency were taken away from them.
2001: Palestinian Arabs are deprived of their right to own property...laws are also passed depriving them of their ability to become citizens and work in 74 different fields.
2005: Attacks begin on Palestinians all over the country, estimates come in that over 600 have been killed.
October 1st, 2006: - 8 Palestinians are killed in various flashpoints throughout the occupied territories.
December 11-23 2006: - "At least 20 Palestinians, including children, killed in a series of tit-for-tat attacks."
2007: Over 350 Palestinians are killed and over are 550 wounded all over the West Bank and Gaza.
January 3rd, 2009: At least 35 Palestinians are killed and an additional 75 have their legs shot or hands broken.
Let us all take a moment of silence in the memory of these tragedies that have befallen the Palestinian people over the past 170+ years...
The following parties must be held to accountability for these crimes of murder, rape, theft, ethnic cleansing and apartheid: 1. Egypt (1834 - occupation of Palestine and subsequent murders and rapes) 2. Britain (1938 - destruction of Jenin) 3. Jordan (1968-1970 - actions/ethnic cleansing against Palestine Liberation Organization based in its territory) 4. Egypt (1978 - discriminatory/apartheid laws being passed against Palestinians in Egypt) 5. Lebanon (2001 - discriminatory/apartheid laws being passed against Palestinians in Lebanon) 6. Iraq (2005 - attacks on Palestinians in sectarian violence) 7. Hamas and Fatah leadership (2006-now - attacks on each other that have killed dozens of civilians)
You won't find any mention of any of these atrocities on the websites that speak of crimes against Palestinians. Mysteriously absent is any mention of Arab-on-Arab violence, British military tactics or infighting amongst Muslims. You see, it's only an issue when Jews kill Muslims...when they kill each other it's just part of their culture...or it's the growing pains of a new Middle East...or any other number of silly excuses that have been given by "peace activists" and the like.
Let's also not forget that in 1947 when the United Nations voted for the Palestine Partition Plan that it would have been the first time in the history of the world that there was an independent Palestine:
Please note that with the exception of the coastal plain that included Tel Aviv and the next-door Arab enclave of Jaffa (that would still remain under Arab control), the remaining Jewish land was primarily uninhabitable, arid, rocky desert (everything from Beersheba and south). The Jews jumped at the opportunity to re-establish their homeland for the first time in 2,000 years even though it was essentially three unconnected patches of land and no claim or even access to Jerusalem, the ancient Jewish capital of 3,000 years.
The Palestinian (and Greater Arab World's) response was to declare war on the soon-to-be founded state of Israel. This resulted in a Jewish victory during which they took a significantly larger portion of the country than what the UN allotted them and resulted in the Yom Haatzmaut/Nakba duality that we will be celebrating/mourning this week.
To make it even clearer...if the Arabs had accepted the UN plan in 1947 we would be celebrating the 61st anniversary of Palestine on Wednesday as well as Israel. There would be no refugee problem, no issue of borders, no dead women and children, no conflict, no stupid excuses for Bin-Laden and the Palestinians would have a significantly larger country than even the one Ehud Barak was willing to give them in 2000 (which they again, rejected).
Instead they chose to follow the advice of their leader of the time (and inspiration for Palestinian nationalism still today) Haj Amin al-Husseini:
this was and will remain an Arab land. We do not mind you natives of the country, but those alien invaders, the Zionists, will be massacred to the last man. We want no progress, no prosperity. Nothing but the sword will decide the fate of this country.
Therefore, it is on the eve of the 61st anniversary of the Nakba of Palestinian people that the RONMOSSAD BLOG calls for the indictment of those parties responsible for the suffering of the oppressed Palestinian people that continues well into its 175th year:
-The Arab kings, sultans, dictators and autocrats of the 1800's, 1900's and 2000's -The Palestinian leadership of the 1920's, 30's and 40's -The Fatah/Hamas "leadership" that continues from 1948 into today
The RONMOSSAD BLOG also calls for true justice, solidarity and hope for the Palestinian people. The parties responsible must rectify this problem once and for all and those that continue to perpetuate these vile and intolerant laws against Palestinians in their own countries must be taken out of power immediately.
Furthermore, the RONMOSSAD BLOG asserts that the living conditions for Palestinians who chose to remain in Israel proper (referred to today as "Israeli Arabs") are significantly better than those of their neighbors in the refugee camps of their adoptive countries. Israeli Arabs have full voting rights, access to education and serve in the Israeli Parliament.
Therefore, the RONMOSSAD BLOG calls on the host countries of the Palestinian refugees to IMMEDIATELY grant them equal rights as they receive in Israel.
Finally, the RONMOSSAD BLOG declares that there will be no peace in the Middle East, no justice or hope for Muslims, Christians and Jews in Israel and Palestine until the Arab "leadership's" crimes of the Nakba are rectified. The conflict will continue until the world recognizes the FACTS that have been presented here.
Justice, solidarity and hope for the innocent victims of the Nakba. In 2009...and forever.
Skip to the next post in this series: Catastrophe or the previous post: Nightmare
This past weekend the Yankees opened up their new ballpark in the Bronx. Fans have been gushing about the improved sight-lines, the beautiful new architecture, fancy, shwanky new restaurants, the food court and yes, it's true EVERY seat now has a cupholder. Fans have complained about higher ticket prices ($2,500 for a one-time experience of watching your team lose 22-4? Really?), reduced number of "cheap seats" and a bizarre tendency for pop fly outs to turn into grand slams. Some have even claimed the new Stadium is cursed by the ghosts and memories of the old Stadium...which still sits across the street. Crumbling. Full of gaping holes. Just living out its last days. Waiting for the inevitable nano-thermite demolition...
Still it is a beautiful new stadium. Able to support 50,000 fans with all the luxury a modern baseball Temple should offer.
50,000 fans.
I tell you this, not just because I have been to the Stadium twice now and have seen it full of these screaming fans...but also because I want you to have the mental image of these fans...in this full stadium of 50,000 because I want you to imagine them all being loaded into a massive gas chamber, gassed, murdered and then their remains shoveled into several crematoriums where they'd be burned...incinerated, their ashes rising up into the sky in clouds of black smoke.
Pretty terrible image isn't it? Now imagine that instead of baseball fans these are Jews in Poland, Greece, Russia, Germany, Italy, France, Romania, Hungary, Denmark, Holland and all over the rest of Europe. And those 50,000 Jews? Imagine that after they cleared out the stadium they filled it up again and repeated the process. And then they did it again. And again. And again. AND AGAIN. 120 times.
Do you understand what that means? 120 times? And that's just talking about the 6 million Jewish victims. Let's not forget either the gypsies, homosexuals, mentally handicapped and all the rest of Hitler's "undesirable" peoples.
Today commemorated the event you know as the Holocaust. But for the people who lived through it they just knew it as a nightmare. A nightmare that began in 1933 and steadily got worse until it finally ended in 1945. A nightmare they were unable to wake up from until their liberation at the end of the war. A nightmare that some have been unable to wake up from until this day - or until the day they die.
You think the imagery is terrible? Using something so wholesome...a symbol of American freedom, a nice day enjoying the great American pastime to talk about something so terrible - it's pretty awful isn't it?
Guess what - that's how it was in 1939. And if you don't like it you have the freedom to go elsewhere and continue arguing about ticket prices and cup holders.
The Jews of Europe on the other hand, did not have that luxury.
In memory of those that didn't make it out of the German nightmare.
So - I felt the need (after another brave Anonymous "truther" kept me up until 3 am reading a psuedo-scientific paper) to put a final stamp on this topic before moving on. Last night, I was forced to actually delve into Niels Harrit's magical mystery tour and actually address the "facts" that were presented within it once and for all. It unfortunately turns out that despite the hopes of the conspiracy people that the more I "search for the truth" the more I will turn to their side...the more I read about this the LESS convinced I am that there is any merit whatsoever to this study.
Here's the abstract from the report if you don't feel like downloading/reading the entire thing (which I could hardly blame you for):
We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples we have studied of the dust produced by the destruction of the World Trade Center. Examination of four of these samples, collected from separate sites, is reported in this paper. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. One sample was collected by a Manhattan resident about ten minutes after the collapse of the second WTC Tower, two the next day, and a fourth about a week later. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red material contains grains approximately 100 nm across which are largely iron oxide, while aluminum is contained in tiny plate-like structures. Separation of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum are intimately mixed in the red material. When ignited in a DSC device the chips exhibit large but narrow exotherms occurring at approximately 430 °C, far below the normal ignition temperature for conventional thermite. Numerous iron-rich spheres are clearly observed in the residue following the ignition of these peculiar red/gray chips. The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.
It's hard for me...or anyone with a modicum of common sense to take this report seriously when the items they based this report on were given to them by residents of Lower Manhattan almost SIX YEARS after the Towers fell. These samples were not kept in sterile environments by any stretch of the imagination and were handled by ordinary, non-scientist New Yorkers.
Referring to these samples, the report itself states the following:
The resulting spectrum, shown in Fig. (14), produced the expected peaks for Fe, Si, Al, O, and C. Other peaks included calcium, sul-fur, zinc, chromium and potassium. The occurrence of these elements could be attributed to surface contamination due to the fact that the analysis was performed on the as-collected surface of the red layer. The large Ca and S peaks may be due to contamination with gypsum from the pulverized wall- board material in the buildings.
So by their own admission the scientists are saying that in SIX YEARS that the samples, which were hanging out in lay peoples' homes they MAY have been contaminated. Wow, really?
The paper also never actually says that material in question is nanothermite or even regular thermite...rather that...
These observations reminded us of nano-thermite fabricated at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and elsewhere
So it REMINDED them of a substance that no one aside for 9/11 conspiracy people apparently knows anything about. Can they conclusively say exactly what it is? Well...
We would like to make detailed comparisons of the red chips with known super-thermite composites, along with comparisons of the products following ignition, but there are many forms of this high-tech thermite, and this comparison must wait for a future study.
...not really. You see they can't really get their hands on this nano stuff because we're not sure it really exists. Ok. And further...
All these data suggest that the thermitic material found in the WTC dust is a form of nano-thermite
How incredibly conclusive! I have some suggestions of my own. Well at least they're not jumping to any conclusions right?
We make no at-tempt to specify the particular form of nano-thermite present until more is learned about the red material and especially about the nature of the organic material it contains.
Why bother making an attempt to actually identify this substance, right?
Well that's ok, at least we know for sure it's not paint chips right? Well of course not! Because...
we have shown that the red material contains both elemental aluminum and iron oxide
Oh. I see. There's iron oxide (rust) and aluminum in this mixture. There's no WAY that rust or aluminum could possibly have gotten into the Twin Towers. Except of course that the Twin Towers had tons upon tons of aluminum and every building in history that had iron it also had oxidized iron (rust) in it.
How totally convincing. It's stunning even! How could anyone ignore this incredibly conclusive evidence!
The material they found, that had been contaminated over six years, reminded them of nanothermite or regular thermite but probably nanothermite no really it's almost definitely the nano kind. Or it might be just regular paint. Except that it also has rust and aluminum in it. Which may be a result of the contamination or it may just be because those two substances are present in just about every structure in the history of construction.
What's even better though, is that the inconclusiveness of this paper (and it's really stunningly inconclusive) aside...it doesn't answer any of the following issues I've raised in my previous entries:
-How did they got 10 to 100 tons of this highly dangerous substance into three buildings right under the noses of the very people they were going to kill?
-How did they detonate this substance? Was it a timer? Remote control? Telepathy?
-How did they know exactly where the planes were going to hit in order to plant the explosives in a way that would make it seem that the structure of the building gave way right around the point of impact? Because that's what it looked like to me. Also that's what it looked like to the rest of the world.
-Perhaps most importantly...if this material is as highly explosive and reactive as everyone says it is, why didn't it explode as soon as it came in contact with the burning hot flaming jet fuel that exploded all around it? Why didn't the buildings collapse immediately after the planes hit? Did this substance just decide to wait to react to the fire?
-100 other issues I've brought up about this conspiracy.
Now it's not surprising that this paper doesn't deal with any of this...aside from the fact that the writers all live in a parallel universe where plutonium is available at every corner drugstore
and addressing these issues would force them to come back to reality, this is a scientific study that is meant to address one simple question:
IS THERE NANOTHERMITE IN THE DUST/RUBBLE THAT USED TO BE THE WORLD TRADE CENTER?
And the answer...is a resounding "MAYBE? UHHH AT LEAST WE THINK IT COULD BE."
Like I've said previously, I'm not a scientist. I'm not a structural engineer. I may be completely off-base with my analysis of their methods but the one thing I AM good with is common sense. If you want to ignore the fact that this scam would be impossible to pull off in reality (especially in the reality of a world with internet and a 24/7 TV news cycle) without someone finding out that's one thing. But if you're really going to jump just because some Danish physicist and a bunch of sociologists and psychologists told you they MAY have found something that they still have no proof could actually knock down a building and would be entirely unqualified to comment on even if they did...then God bless you but I can't be bothered to show you why you're wasting your time.
I've already spent enough time on this and while it was kind of fun living in the Wonderland for a week or so,
Israel Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzmaut) is coming up and I should have my hands full with the real issues. I'll still respond to comments when they come up as I'm sure fans of this topic will continue to haunt me the same way that Ben Wedeman and Jon Stewart fans continue to pop up on occasion and send me fun little emails. It's interesting by the way what topics continue to generate traffic months and even years after I post them, but that's a whole different topic entirely.
Anyway, to the 9/11 conspiracy people I say it's been real, it's been nice...but it hasn't been real nice.
I want the last week of my life back...
UPDATE: Two major new developments concerning this topic can be found clicking here. Apparently the editor of the journal this paper was published in, has resigned in protest and the methodology for these experiments was botched in several ways.
This is by no means intended to be a comprehensive "debunk" because a) I'm not in that business and b) even if Harrit is right it doesn't change anything but a quick google search turned up the following:
Thermite Welding
Thermite welding (TW) (sometimes called thermit welding) is a process which joins metals by heating them with super heated liquid metal from a chemical reaction between a metal oxide and aluminum or other reducing agent, with or without the application of pressure. Filler metal is obtained from the liquid metal.
The most common thermite is aluminium-iron(III) oxide.
The aluminium reduces the oxide of another metal, most commonly iron oxide, because aluminium is highly combustible:
Fe2O3 + 2Al -> 2Fe + Al2O3 + Heat
The products are aluminium oxide, free elemental iron, and a large amount of heat. The reactants are commonly powdered and mixed with a binder to keep the material solid and prevent separation.
The reaction is used for thermite welding, often used to join rail tracks. Other metal oxides can be used, such as chromium oxide, to generate elementary metal. Copper thermite, using copper oxide, is used for creating electric joints in a process called cadwelding:
Thermite was also used in both German and Allied incendiary bombs during World War II. Incendiary bombs usually consisted of dozens of thin thermite-filled canisters (bomblets) ignited by a magnesium fuse. Incendiary bombs destroyed entire cities due to the raging fires that resulted from their use. Cities that primarily consisted of wooden buildings were especially susceptible. These incendiary bombs were utilized primarily during night time air raids. Bomb sights could not be used at night, creating the need to use munitions that could destroy targets without the need for precision placement.
And this:
Quick explanation of thermite:
A mixture of iron oxide Fe2O3 (rust) and aluminum powder. When it is ignited the aluminum powder reacts with the O3 part of the rust in a highly exothermic reaction, the resulting product is molten iron.
Thermite is commonly used in welding, because the molten iron has the ability to seep into cracks in metal. It cal also be used to melt through things as shown in an episode of Brainiac and the movie The Sixth Day.
I have made thermite a few times, but never in large enough batches to burn through anything significant. Aluminum powder is hard to come by and I never had a good enough reason to use what little powder I had.
Some basic conclusions based on 15 minutes of searching...
1. Thermite is commonly used in welding especially in railroad tracks - aside from the likelihood that they probably used thermite (and thermite machines) to cut the steel that became part of the World Trade Center...they almost certainly used it to work on and build the subway and train tracks that are located all over Manhattan. If you watch the video I embedded...I've actually SEEN this process take place and I'm pretty sure I've seen it take place in construction areas on the subway.
2. Thermite particles generally consist of iron oxide or aluminum oxide of some type. Iron oxide is red (like the "chips" Niels Harrit found) and is also commonly known as "rust." Could there be some other explanation for RUST to be found in the wreckage of a building that was partially built out of iron, steel and aluminum???
3. Thermite does not just explode by itself. Unless there was actually a guy running around between all three buildings on 9/11 as there were fires raging all around with the machine you saw in the video...it would necessitate the usage of military-grade thermite which...
4. ...if you read the Wikipedia article is terribly imprecise. There's no "thermite timer" that can set a time for explosion. The way thermite burns is that it has to be heated to a certain point and then it combusts and it's game-time. If there actually WAS military-grade thermite planted throughout the buildings, the jet fuel would have ignited it IMMEDIATELY and the buildings would have collapsed on themselves within minutes if not seconds if not instantly after the planes hit them. As any of us who were alive and awake and watching the Manhattan skyline on that terrible day know - that's just not what happened.
Finally there's this article on controlled demolitions. Please note the fact that the word "thermite" never comes up...please also note on the first page that it took them THREE YEARS to destroy a three-building complex in Newark that was about 1/10 the size of the WTC. Please finally also note how much work goes into preparing the buildings for demolition.
I am not a physicist or scientist nor am I an explosives expert by any stretch of the imagination. But if you spend just 20 minutes of your life reading up on this stuff you will see just how implausible this argument is and how many mundane and simple explanations there are for this thermite nonsense.
Then if you do a little bit of digging on Dr. Harrit you'll find that he's been ranting and raving about 9/11 conspiracy theories for a very long time. You'll also find that he's a CHEMISTRY professor...not a structural engineer. He is most decidedly NOT an expert in controlled demolitions. Also the other scientists (Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen) who collaborated on this study are all either devoted 9/11 "truthers" who have been desperately trying to prove their case for years, or relative unknowns with no other work to speak of.
In some cases these guys have degrees in sociology and psychology as opposed to chemistry or engineering which qualifies them to comment on the effects of the paranoia their work causes...NOT on the work itself.
It will take a while most likely for a scientific debunking of this "theory" - in the meantime the conspiracy people will be hooting and hollering about how they FINALLY have the scientific proof that's eluded them for years. Well hooray for them!
UPDATE: There is now a final update to this topic that specifically deals with the points that the report that sparked all of this brought up. I highly recommend reading it as it really should close the lid on this issue once and for all.
So a friend of mine recently posted this video on his Facebook page:
Apparently a Very Important Scientist (capitalized to illustrate the IMPORTANCE) has just published an article stating that unexploded nanothermite particles have been found within the dust particles at Ground Zero. This is just further proof that it wasn't big bad Islamic terrorists that brought down the towers...but rather the even bigger, badder United States government! You know the same government that guarantees these guys the freedom of speech to yell and scream about how it is a fascist dictatorship that destroys freedom everywhere it goes.
So what does this mean? Well it's apparently proof positive that there was a controlled demolition that brought down the Twin Towers. And just how much material would be needed for a job like this? More than 10 tons, maybe as much as 100. So...200,000 pounds of this stuff would have to be spread across three buildings, some of it on every floor...with no one noticing giant trucks unloading pallets of highly explosive items which were then coated onto the beams of the buildings themselves so that if someday a plane decided to hit it - the whole thing would collapse.
Just to give you a taste of the sheer magnitude - here's a brief summary of SOME of the groups that would need to be involved to perpetrate what the good Doctor is claiming.
1. The inner circle of conspirators. Depending on who you're talking to this may include President Bush and his cabinet, Cheney, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, the Bilderburg group, Jewish bankers, the Illuminati, Freemasons, space aliens or some combination of all of the above. (5-10 people)
2. The military scientists who worked on and researched the technology necessary to create the nanothermites themselves. The engineers who were either trained on the building's blueprints or recruited from the original crew that designed the building. The military brass who coordinated the actual plane crashes and who ordered the Air Force to not to respond to the hijackings. (30-60 people)
3. The actual hijackers. The evil media told us there were 19 of them (and a 20th who never made it onto his plane) but let's even assume that was fabricated and maybe only the pilots themselves had to be in on it. Nevermind the fact that we clearly hear an Arab on Flight 93 yelling Allah-u Akbar as the passengers attempt to retake the plane and it crashes into the Pennsylvanian countryside. (4-20 people)
4. The people who delivered, unloaded and then set the explosives on 220 floors of the Twin Towers and 47 floors of Seven World Trade Center. If you figure it takes an hour per floor for a team of 10 people (an incredibly liberal, benefit-of-the-doubt, impossible number), that's over 11 days of working around the clock. Sleep deprivation would take its toll, not to mention confused office workers during business hours asking questions, plus it would take multiple shipments of the actual item...so figure you have to spread this out during nights and weekends over a few months. (20-60 people)
5. The security apparatuses at all three towers. In order for these demolition crews to wire the buildings they would need access to every floor in every tower. This could not be accomplished without the complicity of the security organizations for all three towers. These towers also housed the NY/NJ Port Authority mind you, which includes its own police and security force. According this article there are about 60,000 security guards throughout NYC. Let's assume anywhere between 100-200 (also incredibly liberal, benefit-of-the-doubt and impossible) of them were involved in securing the WTC buildings in 2001. Then there are cleaning crews who would have noticed this strange work at all hours of the night along with anyone else who happened along these crews. (150-1,000 people)
6. The people who trained the demolition crews, hijackers and structural engineers to commit an act of mass murder aimed at destroying thousands if not tens of of thousands of innocent civilians. (10-30 people)
So in all let's say even at its most conservative we have 300+ people in this scenario. And this is probably the tamest of all the 9/11 scenarios I've ever heard. Many if not most of the "9/11 truthers" believe there were no passengers on the planes, no pilots, there was no Flight 93 uprising, no phone calls, nothing. That no plane hit the Pentagon, rather it was a missile. And on and on. This expands the conspiracy to thousands of if not 10's of thousands of people. But don't take my word for it, check out this excellent site on all the people that would need to be involved in this crime for it to work. In any case, we're talking about all these people sitting around day after day with the blood of 3,000 people on their souls. Day after day.
The fact that no one spoke up before this happened would be shocking but not impossible as it's likely the masterminds would keep the worker bees in the dark. However, in the 7.5 years since 9/11/01 not even ONE of them has gone public with this information? No one has leaked a word of this to the media? No one confessed/gloated to their wife, husband, girlfriend, mistress that they were part of the biggest scam in the history of the world?!?! When Bill Clinton can't even have an affair or Richard Nixon can't record the opposing campaign without it being on television every day for YEARS???? Impossible!
But what's the harm with questioning reality, you'll ask me. Isn't that what makes this country, and humanity in general great? Searching for the truth is never bad! So they say at least...
What "they" don't tell you though is that an HONEST search for knowledge is good. When there is an agenda, it ceases to be a search for knowledge - rather it becomes a witch hunt. And where does this path inevitably, inexorably and yet entirely unsurprisingly lead?
Excellent! The Jews! OF COURSE. And if you think those sites are bad, you should see some of the posts on their forums and on YouTube. Some colorful examples:
Jeffrey Says: February 19th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Are any of us actually surprised to discover yet another “coincidental” 9/11 connection having to do with Israel? For one, I know that I’m not one bit surprised and to think that anyone continues to feel sorry for Israel’s plight. They learned well from the Nazi’s didn’t they, and in reality might even be worse! History will bear witness to the crimes of Israel…but in the mean time, they continue to hold hands and skip along with the U.S., each playing a similar role in the developing NWO.
No Jeffery, we're not surprised at all! Those sneaky Zio-Nazis and their Jew-pig cousins all over the world have been plotting against good American skinheads like yourself for generations!
Popeye Says: February 19th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Wow! There’s a shocker. He’s an Israeli asset. Well, shut my mouth. I’ll be damned. Who would have thought? Let’s face it. It was Israel and their Eastern Establishment ‘goyim’ lackeys that pulled off 9/11. We all know it. You know it,too. The evidence is overwhelming. Only fools refuse to see the truth. But, there are no heros in Washington DC. Nobody will dare risk their careers to bring the 9/11 scum to justice, except, WE THE PEOPLE! You know who they are. Bush(s), Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, Powell, Joint Chiefs of Staff, FBI, CIA, BATF, NSA, MSM,CFR and of course the lovable Jew murderers of the Israel Mossad.
You'd better watch it Popeye - we've already locked in on your IP address. The Murdering Jew Squad will be knocking on your door any minute now! Oh wait I forgot, we don't knock...we fly remote controlled planes into buildings. Your "goyim lackey" neighbors are already in the process of giving us your address, we'll be over shortly...
Gregory Says: February 19th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
The official spokesman for “Al-Qaeda” is the grandson of a high ranking board member of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League for California. GOOGLE : ADAM PEARLMAN ADL The entire “war on terror” is an ISRAELI deception to bring about their New World Order. Israeli Americans inside our government orchestrated 9/11 and murdered 3,000 innocent people and then BLAMED it on the Muslims. Can you imagine a more cowardly act ??? Millions of Muslims have suffered, been tortured and or died due to Jewish lies about 9/11. Every Israeli knows they pulled off 9/11 and they all help muddy the waters so the masses never learn the truth. They are ALL EQUALLY GUILTY.
Yes of COURSE every Israeli knows that the Mossad was behind 9/11! It's taught in the schools to every man, woman and child! "You see Yossi, zis is how ve planted ze bombas and look Avi zis is how ve re-monte cone-trolled ze planes right into zose seelly Tvin Towers! Wawaweewa! Zis operation vas great success!" The entire COUNTRY is in on it! Yet somehow no one talks about it...and it's not as if Israelis are exactly known for holding their tongues. Just so that you don't think that Mr. "Gregory" is some kook that is looked down upon in the 1337 "Truthing" online community, we have the following response to his post: Adam O Reply: February 20th, 2009 at 6:28 am
True and wise words….anyone who believes the Al Quueda and OBL hoax is part of the consipracy or thick as shite !
And finally:
Mel Says: February 19th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Israel, NWO, illuminati, freemasons, skull n bones, and all the zionists can lick my hairy balls
How eloquent. Thanks for that image Mel although I'm sure the competition for that distinct honor is fierce and I doubt I'd be able to perform as well as the average freemason. So I'll pass on this one.
You should know by the way that all of these quotes are from the very first page of the sites I linked to, there was absolutely no heavy digging here. Honorable mention goes to some guy calling himself "Judgement Day" for tearing up these clowns and calling them out as the neo-Nazi jerkheads that they are.
So. I'm not going to sit here and debate the validity of the claims of these lunatics. Or of the presence or lack thereof of thermite or nanothermite or bombs or tactical nukes or whatever else these people say brought down my two favorite buildings in NYC. If you want the rebuttals then be my guest, I'll post them as a comment in response to this entry.
These professionals say it much better than I ever could. But honestly...why bother? If a person comes up to you at 9:47 am and screams at you that it's night-time because it's cloudy and he can't see the sun - are you going to take the time to argue his point with him or are you going to go on with your life? It's the same way I know a bunch of Middle-Eastern savages took it upon themselves to crash four planes into four buildings on September 11th, 2001.
I don't want to hear about the government reaction or the oil pipeline through Afghanistan or the Israeli puppet masters behind the throne. I don't care about the New World Order or the Illuminati or the Freemasons or the Jewish bankers. I don't want to have to argue with my own co-workers that no, I assure you 4,000 Jews did NOT mysteriously take a sick day on 9/11. There was no Zionist conspiracy email that went out warning everyone to stay home! I don't care, I just want all of these people to shut up.
I've done my due diligence. I was awake on 9/11. I saw Lower Manhattan covered in smoke with my own eyes. And I saw the rubble still burning WEEKS LATER with my OWN EYES. I heard the phone calls the passengers made to their loved ones. I heard the frantic air controllers panicking and having no idea what to do. I saw the planes hit the towers. But most importantly I SAW THIS COMING. We ALL did.
Growing up in an Israeli household and having taken numerous trips there we always remarked through the years at the unbelievably LAX American security at malls, airports, train stations, stadiums, amusement parks...EVERYWHERE! We couldn't understand how nothing had ever happened in America where STILL TO THIS DAY IN 2009 you can walk onto a train with a giant suitcase which nobody checks, sit down, leave it and get off at the next stop.
We couldn't FATHOM how the Islamic radicals, who have been targeting Americans since 1979 had not managed to figure out a way to blow up a bus in the States when they were doing it with regularity in Israel despite all the additional security there. And then the first WTC bombing happened in 1993 and we realized...it wasn't that they were stupid or afraid.
It's that they were planning something that would take a while.
So when 9/11 happened, after the initial hysteria of "OHMYGODSOMETHINGHITTHETWINTOWERS!" faded a bit we all realized very quickly that the savages had finally managed to pull off their ultimate American attack. It was so obvious to us long before they released the names of the hijackers that they were all Arabs. The first thing we said was "it's Arabs, but not Palestinians." And wouldn't you know it, of all the countries the hijackers came from, not a single one came from Israel or the Palestinian territories. And why not?
Because the Palestinians were too busy shooting rockets at Israeli schools to lend any volunteers to the war effort. Because in 2001 while the rest of the world was still living in the dreamworld of the 1990's, post-Cold War euphoria, Israel was in the midst of a 2nd intifada. Which was a direct result of the failed Camp David meetings in 2000 which was a result of the failed Wye Agreements in 1998 which was a result of the breakdown of the failed Oslo Accords in 1996 which were signed in 1993 as a result of the 1st intifada which was a result of the stick beating the dog which ate the cat which ate the goat that my father bought for twooooo zuzim, Chad Gadya, chad gadya.
(Happy Passover to all!)
Oh but wait you say...what on Earth does al Qaeda have to do with Hizballah, Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, the al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade? Not a whole lot except that that these groups all watch the successes and failures of each other and take notes. Because as all this chaos was going on during the 90's along with the bombing of the USS Cole, the Kenyan and Saudi Arabian attacks, etc. - the world sat around and did nothing. And the Arabs noticed they could keep escalating the fight with no major reprisals.
You see while America hypnotized itself under Bush 1, Clinton and the first 8 months of Bush 2 into thinking that because the Soviet Union was dead that the world was FINALLY safe for democracy...Jews in Israel were always fighting the Next Big Thing. For the uninformed, 9/11/01 was the beginning. For me, for Israelis, 9/11 had been going on our entire lives. For my family 9/11 had been going on since they emigrated to Israel in the 1800's. For the Jews 9/11 has been going on since Muhammad tried to forcibly convert our ancestors in Arabia and when they refused he had them murdered.
That's the difference between the informed and the uninformed. There's no question for me because this is nothing new to me. I knew all about Islamic terrorism on 9/10/2001 - these people did not. To them, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria, these places didn't even EXIST before 9/11. To me, they've been my backyard ever since I took my first trip to Israel when I was less than a year old.
It doesn't surprise me that Palestinians were dancing in the streets in Gaza and the West Bank on 9/11. It doesn't surprise me that the biggest supporters of the 9/11 conspiracy theories outside of the "Truthers" are Islamic radicals and their supporters in the Middle East. This is all normal to me. I've done all the research. I grew up on the research. I AM THE RESEARCH for God's sake. So don't preach to me.
At the end of the day - what it all comes down to is fear. It's much easier to blame a democratically elected government that you can understand and communicate with in English, hell even vote out of office. It's much easier to paint an enemy as a weak, big-nosed Jew, fresh out of yeshiva with poor eyesight and giant glasses that you probably chased around the schoolyard in 7th grade and beat up for his lunch money. It's much less scary to pin the blame on white, American guys in suits that you understand and can have a conversation with than to face the reality.
And the reality is that the real enemy does not speak English. He cannot be voted out of office. He does not make cute little mistakifications when talking. He (or she for that matter) is well-trained in the use of guns, knives and bombs. He has no mercy. He has no hope. He has no change. He has no money at all to speak of. He has nothing but faith and unbridled hatred of you and everyone like you. He cannot be negotiated with. He cannot be bought off. He only wants to kill you and everyone like you. We warned you before - we are warning you again.
IT WAS ARABS - that's all there is to it! And no amount of denial will keep them from getting to you again.
Finally for my Jewish readers, when you hear people talking about "what really happened" and questioning the "role" of the Mossad, or why "no Jews died on 9/11" - what they're really saying is that you personally somehow had some kind of connection to the attacks. DO NOT allow this simply to pass because they use the word "Zionist" or "Israeli" instead of "Jew"! Get offended and make it a point to call them out on it...EVERY TIME.
Now if you'll please excuse me, I see that my ron@protocolsofzion.co.il email is blinking again - I must go check it at once for further instructions from the Elders!
Flipping through the channels aimlessly after another insane episode of Lost, I stumble across a Charlie Rose interview with Avrum Burg. They are discussing Burg's somewhat-new book, The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise from Its Ashes. Intrigued I stop to watch the exchange...and am somewhat less-than-shocked to see that Burg was arguing that Jews (and Israelis) today are still plagued by an obsession with the Holocaust that colors our everyday lives. His original title for the book was "Hitler Won" because in his opinion we are consuming ourselves still with hatred and paranoia...that we over-inflate every threat to Jews and Israel and that every enemy of Jews is elevated to Hitler status.
I'm transcribing what was said in this interview so I may be off on the exact quote but I think he just said that "everyday the Jews kill Hitler again and everyday Hitler kills us again." This basically sums up the gist of his book apparently, as he feels it's time we "got over it" and moved on with our lives.
Just get over it...
Right.
His main complaint is that Israelis (and Jews) use the Holocaust as an excuse to commit "atrocities" in places like Gaza and the West Bank. He relates a conversation he had with a friend about the recent act of Jewish self-defense better known as Cast Lead. Burg argued with his friend that Israel was acting in similar fashion to the Germans during WWII. The Jews, claims Burg, have been targeted for annihilation so many times over the years that we must be sensitive to ALL attempts to extinguish a race. Like our old friends Vera and Peter, Burg believes that "Never Again" applies to all races...not just Jews.
To which his mythical friend...portrayed as a voice for all chicken-hawk Israelis...responds, "but Avrum, there are no gas chambers in Gaza..." Burg and Charlie Rose chuckle at this obvious silliness. To think, that a people could be so wrapped up in semantics that they cannot even see the similarities between Nazi Germany and Zionist Israel JUST because the methods of destruction are different! Oh the hilarity!
The conversation then turns to Iran and the nuclear threat it will soon pose to Israel Burg states that in order for Israel to get what it wants RE: an American attack on Iran, Obama should require Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. And why do we need to sell out the Jews of Judea and Samaria? Well you see there can be no attack on Iran without peace in Iraq. There can be no peace in Iraq without Syrian cooperation. There can be no Syrian cooperation without Israel conceding the Golan Heights which of course can't happen (for some unexplained leap of faith)
without ALSO creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank. We can go in to a discussion of the flawed logic in this leap...how wrong he is, but even if he were right, the fact that this former highly decorated Israeli paratrooper subscribes to the notion that the Jews are at the root of all of the Middle East's problems which by extension is the root of the world's problems speaks to the very root of the Jewish condition.
First of all, neither of Burg's parents were exactly in the Holocaust. His mother was already living in Hebron and his father left Germany in 1939. While his father suffered great discrimination and went through the awful experience of Kristalnacht - he was never face-to-face with the aforementioned gas chamber that Burg and Rose were chuckling over. With all due respect to Yosef Burg who I'm sure went through a significant amount of trauma - he at least had the courage, ability and foresight to leave the Nazi hell behind before it was too late. Others, like my grandmother, grandfather and millions upon millions of other Jews and "undesirables" were not so fortunate.
You have a lot of nerve Mr. Burg, to tell people who are still alive today, still have flashbacks to the screams from the gas chambers that they should just "get over it". My grandfather died over a decade ago but until the day he died he was tormented with flashbacks that he was back in the camps and that the Nazis were after him. He would jump out of bed in the middle of the night from nightmares about his brothers, parents and the wife and daughter he had before the war that disappeared into the fire of Auschwitz.
Tell that to my grandmother, also a Holocaust survivor. A woman who lost her ENTIRE family and can barely even remember her life before the camps. A woman who used to jump at the sound of barking dogs because it reminded her of the german shepherds that the Nazis would torment her with. A woman who never even leaves her apartment anymore because she is so consumed with sadness and pain. Should she just "get over it" as well Avrum?
But he's not talking to my grandparents is he? He's talking to my parents and me and other Jews and Israelis that cling to these painful memories and simply cannot move on. Well excuse me if I have a hard time just forgetting the fact that had I been in my grandfather's shoes I too would have been beaten within an inch of my life, starved, taken from my land, etc etc. If I have a hard time just forgetting that had they succeeded in killing him or my grandmother I would not be alive today. If I have a hard time viewing an attack on my grandparents as an attack on me as well.
But even so - maybe it is time I myself, personally, stopped holding on to this. Maybe the world really has moved beyond this "genetic Judaism" and we can finally put this racism behind us.
Sure Avrum...just like after the Inquisition, the Crusades, the exiles and all that. Luckily, after the enlightened, progressive communists deposed the backward Czars and their Cossack friends the pogroms in Russia stopped and there was never anymore discrimination or action against Jews in the Soviet Union. Right Avrum????
And SURELY the poor innocent Palestinians of Gaza do not deserve the war against them just like the Jews of Europe didn't deserve the war against them. Right? Because unlike the Jews of Europe, it's not like the Palestinians were blowing up school buses, committing axe attacks against children, firing rockets at civilian population centers, declaring death on anyone who sells land to the infidels or keeping each other from getting medical attention due to political disputes like the Jews of Germany were, those vile instigators. Right Avrum???!?!?!
SURELY the evil Zionist oppressors would NEVER allow innocent Palestinians (who by the way voted overwhelmingly for a faction that was founded on the premise that it would destroy Israel and the Jews, called the Nazis oops I mean Hamas) into Israel to receive equal medical treatment that Israeli citizens receive, train Palestinian doctors, or allow Israel-hating, terrorist sympathizing Palestinians to serve in the Parliament...the same way the Nazis had lots of Jews in the Reichstag right before those sneaky weasels burned it down...................
Maybe it's more than just the lack of gas chambers in Gaza that separates this situation from the genocide committed against us...maybe it's a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SITUATION where one has NOTHING to do with the other!
Which finally brings us to the root of the issue here. And it's the same problem that plagues every "progressive" Jew today. Denial of the past is the surest way to move ahead into the future. If we burn our connections, our bridges to the past we can stop remembering our oppression at the hands of others and finally take our place as a "normal" nation. We can be just like everyone else, oblivious of the dark ages the world is desperately trying to plunge itself into again if we just STOP THINKING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO US. Just sit around drinking wine and eating cheese and wait for it all to come crashing down around us.
Unfortunately though it's not about the Jewish state of mind. You see the greatest lesson of the Holocaust was that this attempt to "move on" does absolutely NOTHING for us when a group of animals is determined to ruin our day. It was precisely the progressive intellectuals of Germany who wanted to put the exiles and catastrophes behind them that were among the first to be turned to ash. Hitler's victims weren't just the Jews who sat around on Tisha B'Av mourning the destruction of the Temple - he went after the secular Jews just the same as those who lived in shtetls! And it's the same today and it will always be the same.
Today there are people that are right now plotting new ways to kill you and me. Right now as you are reading this, there is some insane person, most likely in the Middle East sitting with his buddies and trying to come up with the best way to put an end to your life. And it won't matter if you're progressive, liberal, conservative, moderate, secular, Israeli, American, Orthodox, Conservative, Ashkenaz, Sephard or WHATEVER. It won't matter if you send your children on March of the Living or if Israel knocks down Yad Vashem as Burg suggests. The Holocaust lives on because the attempted PERPETRATORS of the NEXT Holocaust live on!
So while it's bad enough to burn a bridge to your past, your heritage and your culture (no matter how checkered or painful it may be, it is still a part of who you are) once you've crossed the river...how much worse is it to burn the bridge while you are still on it! This is a true ostrich mentality that it seems the entire world around me has adopted as its accepted policy.
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” --Sir Winston Churchill
It's a cliche yes, but for good reason.
What makes it even MORE brazen is that in a society like which Mr. Burg describes he would be excommunicated...lynched even for the absolutely INCENDIARY suggestions he is making. And yet as this surprising New York Times article from December of last year points out...
what is perhaps most interesting of all is that Mr. Burg continues to play a public role in Israel. He is invited to speak to young people, he writes occasional opinion columns, and he is greeted warmly, even embraced, in this city’s cafes.
And why is this? Why ISN'T Burg treated like the traitor he sounds like, in the very country he has taken to thrashing on a regular basis? Because Jews need to stick together, precisely because of events like the Holocaust and the other horrors that have befallen our people before and after it. As the article continues:
This may be because, despite it all, Avrum Burg is family. And whether he likes it or not, Israelis look out for family.
The most ironic part of it all is that the very thing that Burg is denouncing, this obsession with the past that binds us all together is PRECISELY the thing that allows him to keep preaching without fear or reprisal.
Our past is what binds us together. Our past is what has held us together through it all. And no matter what we say or how we act, our past, if ignored will also be our future.
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