Belgium bans Jews from sporting events like it was World War II
Belgium bans Jews from sporting events like it was World War II
August 12, 2024
All it took was a little bit of graffiti for Belgium’s third-largest city to side with hate.
A group of Israeli frisbee athletes was scheduled to play in an international competition in Ghent last week when a vandal spray-painted antisemitic graffiti near the field: “Boycott Israhell Now!”
Insanely, the town’s mayor and police force reacted by booting the Israeli team from the competition.
More, the town told the coaches and team members they couldn’t even watch the games.
In 2024, people in a major Western European city (a university town, no less!) are being banned from sporting events because they’re Jewish.
Does Belgium still consider itself a civilized nation?
Note, too, that the Europe-wide athletic association behind the tournament passively co-signed this ugliness, proving yet again that the sentiments that allowed Hitler and his cadres to succeed are still alive and well.
My question for Claudine Gay, Liz Magill, and Sally Kornbluth: Under what “context” would it be OK for someone to call for the genocide of my Jewish relatives, friends, and neighbors?
https://twitter.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1733680074224746942
I propose that this person be executed, and that her children be renamed and put into an orphanage. Given the father’s choice in romantic partners, I am certain that he is unfit to be raising children.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/woman-named-her-kids-aryan-164222987.html
Woman Who Named Her Kids ‘Aryan’ and ‘Nation’ Accused of Running Over Native American Woman
By KC Baker
October 25, 2023
For seven months, the family of indigenous woman Mika Westwolf has waited for answers about the deadly hit-and-run in Montana that stole the 22-year-old’s life
A Montana mother of two is facing charges after allegedly hitting a Native American woman and fleeing the scene in a deadly hit-and-run, say authorities.
Sunny Kathrinne White, 28, was arrested Saturday and charged with five felonies including vehicular homicide while under the influence in connection with the death of Mika Josephine Westwolf, 22, in March 2023, according to charging documents obtained by PEOPLE.
White is also charged with accidents involving another person or deceased person, two counts of criminal child endangerment, and criminal possession of dangerous drugs.
White’s two children, Aryan, 4, and Nation, 2, were in the car with her at the time of the accident, the Missoulian reports.
The fatal accident took place on March 31. Westwolf was walking home on Highway 93 near White Coyote Road outside of Arlee at 4:15 a.m. when she was struck, according to the affidavit obtained by PEOPLE. Tribal Police Officer T.J. Haynes was driving on Highway 93 north of Arlee when he saw vehicle debris in the road and a body lying next to the fog line.
The victim was later identified as Westwolf, who was a member of the Blackfeet tribe.
“Evidence from the scene indicates that Westwolf was walking in the northbound lane of travel near the fog line when she was struck by the suspect vehicle,” the affidavit states.
Westwolf was hit head-on. She died at the scene from multiple blunt force injuries.
At 5:23 a.m., a deputy with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office saw a gold 2008 Cadillac Escalade with damage on the front and a missing passenger side mirror parked outside of Polson, according to the affidavit.
The damage to the Escalade allegedly matched the description of the vehicle debris found at the scene, the affidavit alleges.
The deputy saw a woman, later identified as White, taking items out of the Escalade and putting them into another vehicle. White allegedly told the deputy that her SUV was overheating and she had called a friend to help her, the affidavit states.
White allegedly said she hit a deer but didn’t remember where it happened, according to the affidavit.
White “claimed she was passing a bottle back to her baby and didn’t see the deer,” per the affidavit.
She told the deputy that she was driving from Kalispell to Butte for the weekend with her children. She denied using alcohol and said she “hadn’t used methamphetamine or fentanyl in a week,” the affidavit states.
The deputy believed the defendant may have been under the influence of opiates, according to the affidavit, and White was allegedly “shaky on her feet” and “nodded off and fell in and out of sleep” in the back of the deputy’s vehicle when he took her to the hospital for a blood draw.
She refused to provide a blood sample, so the deputy had to obtain a search warrant for the blood, which was collected more than four hours after the crash, the affidavit states.
Police obtained a search warrant for White’s vehicle and allegedly found “a small makeup tube with methamphetamine inside,” five syringes and two unopened packages of Narcan inside, the affidavit states. White’s blood sample also allegedly tested positive for methamphetamine and fentanyl.
As police continue to investigate, Westwolf’s family and friends continue to mourn her loss. Her family started the “Mika Matters” movement to raise awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP).
According to KRTV, the family released a statement on Friday, saying, “As we mark seven months since Mika’s tragic passing, it is essential to acknowledge that this arrest is just the beginning of the journey towards justice.
“The fight to seek accountability, raise awareness, and protect the lives of Indigenous people and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives remains an ongoing battle.
“Our hearts go out to the families who are still searching for their loved ones, and we remain deeply saddened by the fact that Native Americans continue to go missing at an alarming rate. The urgency to address this issue has never been greater.”
White was arrested on an extra-jurisdictional warrant and was held over the weekend on a $200,000 bond, according to jail records.
She bonded out of jail on Sunday.
Lake County Attorney James Lapotka told PEOPLE, “I would like to thank the Montana Highway Patrol, the Flathead Tribal Police, and the Lake County Sheriff’s Office for their hard work investigating this complex case.”
It is unclear whether White has retained an attorney who can speak on her behalf.
How are the self described “Democratic Socialists of America” behaving any differently than Nazis, when they “held up the number seven on their hands while making throat-slitting gestures” to celebrate the recent murder of 700 Jews?
Socialist rally in Times Square praising Hamas terror attack draws widespread condemnation
Speakers mocked slain civilians and called for the elimination of Israel
By Alexander Nazaryan
October 9, 2023
At a pro-Hamas rally in the heart of New York City, speaker after speaker praised the slaughter of civilians that had taken place in Israel on Saturday, after the terrorist group overwhelmed Israeli defenses in an audacious, unexpected raid.
“And as you might have seen, there was some sort of rave or desert party where they were having a great time, until the resistance came in electrified hang gliders and took at least several dozen hipsters,” one speaker joked about the Hamas assault on a desert rave, where horrific scenes of murder and rape took place.
It was a bracing spectacle that countered the grief pouring in from most civic leaders, from Brooklyn to Berlin. But it was also evidence of a split within the Democratic Party, with many younger activists, forged in the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements, viscerally identifying with the Palestinian cause. Israel’s founding story, as a quasi-socialist refuge for Holocaust survivors and other landless Jews, resonates less and less, especially as younger generations show little knowledge about the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis.
The controversial rally in Times Square was hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America, a far-left organization that includes several prominent House members in its ranks, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, both of New York, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who is the first Palestinian woman in Congress, and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, an outspoken critic of Israel.
In a widely criticized statement, Tlaib seemed to blame Israel for provoking the attack with its occupation regime in Gaza and the West Bank. “The failure to recognize the violent reality of living under siege, occupation, and apartheid makes no one safer,” ” she said.
Billed as “All Out for Palestine,” the event symbolized fractures in a Democratic establishment that was once solidly behind Israel. But as Israel’s own government has moved steadily rightward, pulled along by religious fundamentalists and West Bank settlers, the American left has embraced liberation struggles — including the fight for Palestinian statehood — with a newfound zeal, imbuing their message with the jargon of social justice.
“Palestine’s struggle is our struggle,” one Black Lives Matter activist said in 2021. Jewish activism was central to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, but more than a half-century later, the bonds between American Blacks and Jews have largely been severed.
Saturday’s appeared to conflate the terrorist group Hamas with the entire Palestinian people, who over the years have grown as exasperated with the extremists in their own midst as with the Israeli occupiers of the West Bank and Gaza, who have killed thousands of Palestinians, including many civilians throughout the years in antiterror operations. In fact, the Hamas incursions appears to have triggered a massive Israeli military reprisal that is likely to kill hundreds if not thousands of innocent Palestinians while achieving none of the “liberation” progressives tout on social media.
As the crowd marched through Midtown Manhattan on Sunday and coalesced around a stage in Times Square, attendees called for an “intifada revolution.” Others mocked the murder of Israeli civilians. Another popular chant was, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” an implicit call for the elimination of Israel.
“Among the pro-Palestinian side, the mood was celebratory and spiteful. Demonstrators chanted “700,” apparently referring to the confirmed number of Israeli fatalities in the attack so far,” reported the Times of Israel, “and held up the number seven on their hands while making throat-slitting gestures. Others flashed victory signs with their hands while shouting insults.”
Ahead of the rally, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul condemned the planned event, calling it “abhorrent and morally repugnant.” Rep. Ritchie Torres, a rising New York progressive, stood up for Israel as well.
“Demonizing Israel — to the point of denying the humanity of Israeli victims and the inhumanity of their perpetrators — is moral confusion masquerading as moral clarity,” Torres said.
But none of the DSA-affiliated members of Congress, including the two from New York, appeared to express a similar concern. They are likely to face pressure from peers, journalists and constituents as they return to Capitol Hill for what was already expected to be a chaotic week in Washington. Saturday’s violence puts progressives in a bind: They want to show their solidarity with the Palestinian cause without endorsing the murder of innocents. So far, they have not found a way to do so.
Standing ovation for a Ukrainian who fought with the Nazis sparks anger and an apology in Canada
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/canada-speaker-apologizes-ukraine-nazi-veteran-honored-rcna117125
Standing ovation for a Ukrainian who fought with the Nazis sparks anger and an apology in Canada
Lawmakers recognized Yaroslav Hunka, 98, shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Canadian Parliament.
By Alexander Smith
September 25, 2023
Lawmakers recognized Yaroslav Hunka, 98, shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Canadian Parliament.
It seemed like a touching and timely tribute by Canadian lawmakers to a 98-year-old war “hero” who fought for Ukraine’s independence during World War II. But it soon emerged that the man was in fact part of a notorious Nazi unit, leading to fury at the standing ovation he was given in the presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Yaroslav Hunka wiped away tears on receiving the rousing recognition from the Canadian House of Commons on Friday. He was singled out by Speaker Anthony Rota, who called him a “hero” following a speech by the visiting Ukrainian leader, who in turn raised a fist during the applause.
But Rota apologized Sunday after he said he “subsequently became aware of more information” about Hunka’s past.
The Ukrainian nonagenarian did fight the Soviet Union, but as part of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, “a Nazi military unit whose crimes against humanity during the Holocaust are well-documented,” according to the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Canadian human rights group promoting awareness about the Holocaust and fighting antisemitism.
The center said in a statement Sunday it was “deeply disturbed” by Hunka’s recognition in Parliament and “further outraged” that he received a standing ovation.
“The fact that a veteran who served in a Nazi military unit was invited to and given a standing ovation in Parliament is shocking,” it said. Hunka’s unit, also known as the First Ukrainian Division, was “responsible for the mass murder of innocent civilians with a level of brutality and malice that is unimaginable.”
Another Canada-based advocacy group, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said it was “deeply troubled & disturbed.” Michael Mostyn, CEO of Jewish human rights organization B’nai Brith Canada, called the invitation and ovation “beyond outrageous.”
Rota, the Commons speaker, said that he alone was responsible for inviting Hunka, who lives in the area he represents, implying that neither Zelenskyy nor Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knew about it.
“I particularly want to extend my apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world,” the speaker said in a statement. “I accept full responsibility for my actions.”
Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, has said members of his family were killed during the Holocaust. NBC News has contacted his office for comment.
Trudeau’s office said in a statement that Rota had apologized and accepted full responsibility.
“This was the right thing to do,” the statement said. “No advance notice was provided to the Prime Minister’s Office, nor the Ukrainian delegation, about the invitation or the recognition.”
Members of Parliament from all parties, not just Trudeau’s Liberal Party, rose to applaud Hunka. A spokesperson for the Conservative party said the party was not aware of his history at the time, The Associated Press reported.
Hunka could not be immediately reached for comment, the AP said.
In 1985, the Canadian government launched an inquiry into the number of former soldiers who had fought under the Nazis during World War II and then taken up residence in Canada.
The Deschênes Commission, as it was known, found two years later that claims of war crimes against the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, also known as the 1st Galician, “have never been substantiated” — a contention that scholars have contested.
Russia seizes on ‘revolting’ recognition
The issue of Nazis and far-right ideology is an especially touchy one for Ukraine.
One of the nebulous justifications given by Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading his former Soviet neighbor is that he wants to “denazify” Ukraine, which he says is being run by neo-Nazis enabled by the West.
There is little evidence for this claim. But Russian officials were quick to seize on Hunka’s ovation as proof of the far-right leanings of Ukraine and its backers.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, called the spectacle “revolting” and accused the Canadians of having “such an uncareful attitude to memory,” during his daily briefing to journalists Monday.
“A whole new generation has grown up in Canada unaware of fascism and Nazi crimes,” he said, “and we can see Nazism resurrect here and there, like for example in Ukraine.”
Russia’s ambassador to Canada, Oleg Stepanov, said that inviting the former Nazi into Parliament was no accident, calling the Canadian government “essentially the personification of neoliberal fascism,” according to Russian news agency RIA.
And Russia’s permanent representative in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, called it a “shameful day for Canada,” the news agency reported.
Like in many other countries, including Russia, Ukraine does have some far-right elements. Notably the Azov Battalion, which has been incorporated into the Ukraine National Guard, has a history of far-right and white supremacist insignia and beliefs.
Support for prominent World War II-era nationalist figures like Stepan Bandera also persists, with many revering him as a freedom fighter against the Soviets despite the fact he was also a Nazi collaborator.
Just before World War II, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, and millions of Ukrainians fought for the Red Army against Nazi Germany. At this time, the country also had one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe — a population long subject to persecution and pogroms.
When the country was invaded by German forces in 1941, many Ukrainian nationalists welcomed them as liberators from the Soviet yoke, according to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. “Many Ukrainians and some of the prisoners of war willingly joined German auxiliary units,” it said.
This collaboration also extended to the “Holocaust of bullets”: the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews who were shot to death near their homes — rather than deported to camps — by Germans alongside willing Ukrainians and Russians, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Why the Alliance between Stalin and Hitler Must Never Be Forgotten
Also see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarete_Buber-Neumann
https://fee.org/articles/why-the-alliance-between-stalin-and-hitler-must-never-be-forgotten/
Why the Alliance between Stalin and Hitler Must Never Be Forgotten
Stalin’s intentional silence and inaction during World War II allowed the Holocaust to unfold without any meaningful resistance or counteraction.
By Benjamin Williams
July 23, 2023
World War II was one of the most catastrophic periods in human history, marked by unprecedented violence, genocide, and destruction. Yet, while the war’s narrative is dominated by the Axis and western Allied powers, the role of the Soviet Union, particularly under Joseph Stalin, in indirectly supporting Nazi Germany’s campaign of terror and conquest, often goes underreported. Drawing on several historical excerpts, this article will unpack the Soviet Union’s involvement in Nazi war efforts and their failure to protect or inform their Jewish population of impending atrocities.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed in the early hours of August 24, 1939, in a surreal ceremony where swastikas fluttered alongside the hammer and sickle. The swastika flags purportedly came from a movie studio, where they had been used for anti-Nazi propaganda films. The ten-year non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany was accompanied by a secret protocol outlining the spheres of influence for each power in Eastern Europe, including the partition of Poland and the granting of the Baltic States and Bessarabia to the Soviets.
Stalin made a closing toast, stating, “I know how much the German nation loves its Führer; I should therefore like to drink to his health.” The toast was ironic considering the hostile stance the USSR had previously maintained towards Nazi Germany. Stalin’s first gift after the pact was awarding Germany around 600 German Communists, most of whom were Jews. He had them extradited to the Gestapo in Brest-Litovsk, a symbolic location steeped in historical implications. Among the extradited was Hans David, a gifted composer, who later perished in the gas chambers of Majdanek, a fate shared by many others. This process of handing over Jewish and/or communist prisoners to the Nazis persisted beyond 1939.
Margarete Buber-Neumann, a former communist turned staunch anti-communist, was one such individual transferred from Soviet imprisonment to the hands of the Gestapo in 1940. Surviving the brutal conditions of both a Soviet prison and a Nazi concentration camp, Buber-Neumann later penned the memoir “Under Two Dictators,” detailing the harsh realities of life under the totalitarian regimes of Stalin and Hitler.
In the initial stages of World War II, after signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany embarked on a diplomatic relationship that allowed for territorial expansion and political maneuvering. The two totalitarian socialist regimes formed an uneasy partnership characterized by economic cooperation, information withholding, and non-aggression. This alliance’s impact on the Jewish population, particularly in the Soviet-occupied zone of Poland, was severe and catastrophic.
The ideological calculus of Stalin’s foreign policy became apparent in his anticipation of the imminent German attack on Poland. Recognizing the inevitability of British and French intervention, Stalin saw a unique opportunity to advance the cause of communism. From his perspective, a protracted conflict between capitalist powers presented an ideal scenario, sowing discord and creating opportunities for the spread of Soviet influence.
Stalin was explicit in his machinations, expressing that the USSR, the Land of the Toilers, would stand to gain from a drawn-out war that would weaken both the Reich and the Anglo-French bloc. Fearing a swift conclusion to the war, Stalin stressed the importance of aiding Germany to ensure a long and costly conflict. Despite the ongoing tensions with Japan in the Far East, Stalin envisioned the USSR’s eventual entry into the European theater at a time most advantageous to Soviet interests. The Soviet leader’s strategic vision underlined a ruthless pragmatism and an uncompromising commitment to the communist cause.
The mass deportation of approximately one million Polish refugees initiated by Lavrentiy Beria’s NKVD in February 1940, half of whom were Jews, highlights the first disturbing aspect of the Soviet-Nazi collaboration. The deportees, categorized under various labels such as ‘The Jewish National Counterrevolution’ were sent to Siberia under horrendous conditions that led to many deaths en route. Notably, many Jewish leaders and activists were among the arrested, including Menachem Begin, a young Zionist leader, and Henryk Ehrlich and Viktor Alter, founders of the Polish Bund, Poland’s largest Jewish party. This mass deportation represented the “chief administrative method of Sovietization.”
At the same time, the Soviet authorities kept the Jewish population uninformed about the ongoing Nazi atrocities just across the border, maintaining a deliberate silence that enabled the Holocaust. As part of the non-aggression pact, Soviet organs did not report the genocidal massacres conducted by the Nazis between 1939 and 1941. Those aforementioned anti-Nazi films were no longer being produced. Soviet newspapers like Pravda scarcely even used the word “fascist” from 1939 to 1941. This silence continued even after the Nazis broke the pact and invaded the USSR, a move that precipitated the extermination of 1.5 million Jews in White Russia and Ukraine. In essence, Stalin’s silence and inaction allowed the Holocaust to unfold without any meaningful resistance or counteraction.
Moreover, Soviet complicity contributed to the normalization of Nazi violence. Jewish victims of mass executions were routinely referred to as “Poles” or “Ukrainians” in Soviet media, obscuring the specific anti-Semitic nature of the Nazi pogroms. The Soviet population, despite constant indoctrination, was not educated about Nazi anti-Semitism or their genocide plan, fostering ignorance that ultimately led to widespread collaboration against Jewish populations.
In tandem with these policies, the Soviet Union also provided economic support to Nazi Germany, which was instrumental in facilitating Hitler’s war of conquest. The importance of this assistance cannot be underestimated as the USSR supplied significant quantities of food and raw materials to the Nazis. For instance, during the invasion of France and the Low Countries, the USSR supplied the Reich with 163,000 tons of petroleum and 243,000 tons of Ukrainian wheat in May and June of 1940 alone. As German demand increased during critical battles, such as at Dunkirk, Soviet oil deliveries surged to meet the needs, effectively fueling Hitler’s conquest of Western Europe.
Publicly, the Soviet Union even supported the German invasion of France and the Low Countries. The French Communist Party was instructed not to resist the Germans, leading to a wave of defections and further weakening France’s ability to withstand the German onslaught. Despite internal dissension and resistance, the Soviets continued to propagate defeatist slogans, actively undermining the war effort against the Nazis.
In today’s discourse, there is a tendency among Soviet apologists to laud the USSR as the singular force that ultimately toppled the Nazi regime in 1945. This, of course, ignores the critical support that came from the US via Lend-Lease. Even Stalin admitted “Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war.” While the sacrifices made by millions of Soviet soldiers should not be forgotten or swept under the rug, it is vital for us to simultaneously illuminate the darker corners of this past.
We should resist the call to ignore the sobering reality of the Soviet Union’s complicity. One cannot forget that the initial alliance forged between Stalin and Hitler was rooted not in necessity but sprouted from the soil of Stalin’s socialist ideology. Such was the poison entwined within this political tapestry that, had Hitler not invaded the USSR in 1941, or had he chosen to altogether forgo this path, the Soviet Union might have continued to stand in silence and support. Their eyes turned away, they could have remained an observer and accomplice as the monstrous Nazi regime crept across Europe.
As we peer into the past, a shadow of sorrow is cast, an echo of lament for the once voiceless victims, resonating with a plea that history might not repeat its darkest hours. Our duty to memory requires us to hold these bitter truths close and learn from them if we are to honor the legacies of those who suffered and died under the shadow of totalitarian regimes.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 