In fact, 90% of EU citizens surveyed have little or no idea as to what articles are a part of the the EU constitution.
Interestingly enough, the Low Country hosting the EU referendum Constitutional vote, delayed bringing it to the rest of the EU with the belief that larger European considerations do not take precedent over local sentiment.
We would like to extend our congratulations to Mr. Bush, on yet another Administration failure. As we shared with Readers for some time, HAMAS was on its last legs as a terrorist group with no political aims in Gaza, until Mr. Bush and his 'brother', Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia (whose country finances terror), put an end to the Israeli reprisals against these miscreants. HAMAS was left to weak enough whereas they became dependant upon other terrorist groups, such as Arafat's Fatah -- when they wanted to blow up buses, murder children, et al.
Since the Administration ordered Israel to let up the pressure against HAMAS, the terrorist group has apparently returned from the walking wounded and recently handed Mr. Abbas and his PLO/A a trouncing in the elections. The Bush Administration said they did not "atttach significance" to this landslide against their favorite candidate, apparently still in denial mode, as usual.
We wait with baited breath for Sunday's Iraqi election when their neighbor, Iran, gains greater political influence over the Iraq region.
Do two foreign policy failures exist if the Bush Administration pretends they never occured?
Auschwitz
Our quote of the week is from a Senior White House official. When asked why Mr. Bush did not attend the Auschwitz Memorial as did other world leaders, the high ranking Bush Administration official repsonded, "He's been to Poland. He was just there last year."
We thought of better responses that might have replaced the actual statement by the Administration's mouth piece:
"He thinks about Auschwitz every time he counts the millions of dollars left to him by his Nazi Grandfather who made money off the slave camps."
"He hears enough about the 'old days' when Rove keeps repeating the same old stories about how his grandfather built the Birkenau Death Camps. Karl talks about it so much, its like Mr. Bush has already been there."
"I think Mr. Bush really believes Schwarznegger when he teases him about how Arnold's Austrian SS grandfather will throw Mr. Bush in the camp should he ever visit the area."
"What if someone asks him a question about 20th century history?"
"It would have been an inconsistent gesture on the part of the White House if Mr. Bush attended the Auschwitz Memorial, after choosing the historical revisionist, Mr. Kuropas, to attend the Ukraine inaugrial."
"He would break a long standing family tradition by honoring the dead instead of protecting the perpetrators."
"Did he ever give anyone the impression he gave a damn about massacres?" (radiorote)
No Vote
Belgium's plans to hold a referendum on the proposed new European Union (EU) constitution have been shelved. The government had originally argued that the document is important enough to merit a plebiscite. Ten of the 24 other EU countries have already scheduled referenda on the constitution over the next 18 months. But Belgium got cold feet after a horrible thought struck the government: it might lose.
More specifically, officials worried that the country's far-right party, the Vlaams Belang (now the biggest party in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking half of Belgium), might mobilise voters who don't want Turkey to join the EU. Strictly speaking, Turkish membership has nothing to do with the constitution, but Turkey will begin accession talks around the time of the referendum, and EU opponents in France and the Netherlands are successfully linking the two issues. Fear of a similar link in Belgium provoked second thoughts among key members of Belgium's coalition government. So the world has been deprived of the entertaining prospect that the country hosting the EU's institutions might reject its basic legal treaty. (Economist--UK)
A Kingly Response
Though the issue of the hijab, the veil worn by some devout Muslim women, has received the most attention in France, it is no less controversial in the rest of Europe, particularly in Belgium. The friction comes from the country's large Muslim population and its active far-right.
In November, Rik Remmery, the owner of a food-processing firm in western Belgium, discovered just how strongly his countrymen felt about the veil, to his peril. He received a death threat from a group calling itself “New Free Flanders”, because he allowed one of his employees, Naima Amzil, to wear the veil during working hours.
The group sent five letters accusing him of being “a bad Belgian who collaborates with Muslims”, and threatened both him and his family (one letter included a bullet).
In response, Ms Amzil offered to resign. Mr Remmery declined, and stood by her, though she now wears a protective hairnet (worn by all the company's employees) rather than a veil at work. Mr Remmery's steadfastness has so far have been greeted with support rather than violence: an association of employers collected 25,000 signatures on a petition backing him.
Support from a higher source came on January 12th, when Belgium's king, Albert II, received Mr Remmery and Ms Amzil at his palace. He told them they were right not to cave in to the threats. (Economist -- UK)
Fears Hamas Win Could Influence Abbas' Policy
Final results show Hamas has swept seven out of 10 councils in the Gaza Strip's first local elections, seen as a test of strength between the Islamic militant group and new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Islamists, sworn to Israel's destruction, had boycotted the January 9 presidential election, won by Mr Abbas on a platform of ending violence to allow talks with the Jewish state on Palestinian statehood.
"Hamas's victory proves Islam is the solution," a slogan blared from loudspeakers as thousands of supporters celebrated in the streets beneath fluttering green Hamas flags.
A US White House official said Washington was concerned Hamas could use their elected posts to influence Mr Abbas's policy towards peacemaking with Israel.
Mr Abbas has been trying to win a ceasefire from Hamas and other militants spearheading a four-year-old revolt to allow the resumption of talks with Israel and to avoid chaos in Gaza ahead of an Israeli plan to abandon the occupied territory.
"Our people have a consensus on the choice of jihad and resistance and the election has underscored that concept," Hamas spokesman Muhir al-Masri said.
Hamas candidates won 75 of the 118 council seats compared to 39 for members of Mr Abbas's Fatah movement and their allies, final figures from the electoral commission showed.
Voter turnout topped 80 per cent - much higher than at the presidential election for a successor to Yasser Arafat.
But while the results were a blow to Fatah, they also raise the prospect that Hamas will join parliamentary elections in July and thereby shift closer to the political mainstream.
"The results showed that our people are insisting Hamas take part in the upcoming ballot," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.
A senior US State Department official said only Mr Abbas's government policies mattered and Hamas members were "not people we need to deal with, or have to deal with".
But another Bush administration official said the results were a worry.
"It's always a concern and disturbing that people affiliated with a group espousing violence achieves some success," the official said, who asked not to be named.
"It is now an open question how much impact these individuals will have on the general political scene." (Australian Broadcasting Corporation/Reuters)
RR Final Thoughts:
Auschwitz Adds to U.S.-EU Friction
To the long list of what separates the United States and Europe these days, add the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps, to be marked Thursday in a solemn ceremony that will bring together almost all of Europe's most important leaders, but not President George W. Bush.
For some prominent Poles, the attendance of Vice President Dick Cheney is a bitter disappointment. The Auschwitz ceremony will include President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Horst Köhler of Germany, President Jacques Chirac of France and President Moshe Katzav of Israel.
Although Auschwitz holds very different associations for each of these leaders - Putin represents the liberator, Katzav the victim and Köhler the perpetrator - the passage of time and the immense changes in Europe since communism crumbled in 1989 have allowed all three to share this anniversary.
Some believe the American president should be part of this occasion, which they see as a symbol of Europe's enlargement and its decision, after World War II, to renounce war and national sovereignties in favor of a still uncertain experiment in unity.
"I would like to see the president of the United States attend the liberation of the Auschwitz commemoration," said the distinguished Polish medieval historian Bronislaw Geremek, a former dissident, foreign minister and now member of the European Parliament.
"Auschwitz represented the end of the totalitarian regime," Geremek said in a telephone interview from New York, where he was part of the Polish delegation attending the first United Nations ceremony to commemorate the Holocaust.
"The role of the United States was enormous in ending this regime," Geremek said. "It is natural that a president of the United States should be present."
In Washington, a senior administration official was asked Tuesday about Bush's decision not to attend and replied that the president "sent one of his closest confidants to attend that very important ceremony." The official added: "He's been to Poland. He was just there last year."
Without the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after 1945, Western Europe would have been far less able to resist the Communist influence that swept across Eastern Europe in the late 1940s.
Without the foresight and persistence of Dean Acheson, then secretary of state, France, Germany and Italy might never have founded the European Coal and Steel Community, the precursor of today's European Union.
Yet veteran intellectuals such as Geremek say that with the passing of time, Auschwitz has come to play an increasingly important role in forging a kind of European identity almost separate from the United States. Geremek is among those who go so far as to see the liberation of this Nazi death camp as one foundation of the European Union.
"I do believe that we should consider Auschwitz as one of the founding events of the international community and the European Union in the sense that the United Nations, 60 years ago, was a response to the experiences of the Holocaust," said Geremek. "And it should be said that the Holocaust helped to create the European Union. It was the answer to the totalitarian ideology created on European soil, such as Auschwitz."
Even 10 years ago, at the 50th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation, the idea that the death camp would become part of Europe's collective memory was hardly conceivable.
Michael Melchior, chief rabbi of Norway, a member of the Israeli Knesset, or Parliament, and recently appointed Israeli deputy minister for education and culture, said he has been surprised by the big changes that have taken place in Europe.
"Something has happened in the past few years where the leaders of Europe have understood that they can't avoid looking towards Auschwitz," Melchior said by telephone from his office in Jerusalem. "It is becoming part of the European reference and no decent leader can avoid this."
Melchior, prominent in Jewish and ecumenical movements throughout Europe to promote understanding of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and crimes against humanity, said several factors helped to change European attitudes toward the Holocaust.
The first was the collapse of the Berlin Wall, which ended the cold war and the division of Europe. Until 1989, the former countries of Eastern and Central Europe had little idea about the legacy and role played by the large Jewish communities that had perished during the Holocaust.
Poland and other former Communist countries had no opportunity during the cold war years to embrace the Holocaust as part of their collective memory.
During that time, the Kremlin supported Arab states and cultivated a climate of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, while the United States forged an ever closer alliance with Israel. As late as the 1960s, the Communists in Poland started a vicious campaign against the Jewish community, which numbered less than 30,000, in a bid to stamp out dissent.
In many cases, it was not until the 1980s that survivors in these countries started speaking about their experiences to their grandchildren, who had, if at all, only the vaguest idea about Jewish culture or identity. Only after 1989 could Moscow's former satellites openly address their own past.
"You must remember that during the 1990s, there was a new generation that knew nothing about the Holocaust," said Melchior.
During the 1990s, restitution of Jewish property showed this generation that Jews were not only killed, but also robbed. Then, said Melchior, there was the gradual "upgrading of anti-Semitism," with leaders in Europe taking Holocaust education and anti-Semitism more seriously.
George Schoepflin, a Hungarian political scientist who was elected to the European Parliament last year, agrees that the recent changes across Eastern Europe have influenced how Auschwitz is now viewed.
"It took the Poles some time after 1991 to decide whether Auschwitz should be a universal site, or one the Poles would appropriate," said Schoepflin.
"There has been an enormous contest for its symbolic value. Is it to be a European symbol of repentance or primarily a Jewish symbol of identity? The Poles now understand they cannot appropriate the site. The site, in ways, belongs to everybody in Europe."
In part, this is because of the slow but persistent enlargement of Europe, which went from 15 to 25 countries last May, bringing in the Baltic states and five other former Communist countries.
"Europe is becoming more inclusive, where the role of historical memory is being shared," said Klaus Becher, a German-born European security expert and founder of the London-based Knowledge and Analysis think tank.
The EU, Becher said, is not embarking on "some kind of general mission about how to deal with the past or how to impose the past. But it is very important to foster memory. In that sense, Europe, or the EU, is becoming more inclusive. Auschwitz is about the extermination of the weak and racial hatred."
Melchior said the enlargement of the EU is helping to "Europeanize the memory of the Holocaust." Schoepflin called this a very slow process, but noted that "you can sense some of the changes. If you are going to have some kind of European identity, you need some kind of European memory." (International Herald Tribune/Judy Dempsey)
Radio Rote: The Wrong Horse
Radio Rote sends out periodic emails. Although it is on the right they are constantly attacking Bush as a pawn for the Saudis. They keep us guys on the right cautious.
Shortness of Breadth:
We noted on several occassions that one of Europe's largest obstacles to EU integration will be due to a rise in Right Wing sentiment in the upcoming years.
It was a belief we held since 1998. We further forecasted that these nativist movements will first form with more success in the Low Countries and expand from there.
Their popularity is based on local citizen fears of losing their cultural and national identity, benefits and control of their own economy based on the rise of immigration into their countries and the perceived uncaring disposition of the EU.
In fact, 90% of EU citizens surveyed have little or no idea as to what articles are a part of the the EU constitution.
Interestingly enough, the Low Country hosting the EU referendum Constitutional vote, delayed bringing it to the rest of the EU with the belief that larger European considerations do not take precedent over local sentiment.
We would like to extend our congratulations to Mr. Bush, on yet another Administration failure. As we shared with Readers for some time, HAMAS was on its last legs as a terrorist group with no political aims in Gaza, until Mr. Bush and his 'brother', Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia (whose country finances terror), put an end to the Israeli reprisals against these miscreants. HAMAS was left to weak enough whereas they became dependant upon other terrorist groups, such as Arafat's Fatah -- when they wanted to blow up buses, murder children, et al.
Since the Administration ordered Israel to let up the pressure against HAMAS, the terrorist group has apparently returned from the walking wounded and recently handed Mr. Abbas and his PLO/A a trouncing in the elections. The Bush Administration said they did not "atttach significance" to this landslide against their favorite candidate, apparently still in denial mode, as usual.
We wait with baited breath for Sunday's Iraqi election when their neighbor, Iran, gains greater political influence over the Iraq region.
Do two foreign policy failures exist if the Bush Administration pretends they never occured?
Auschwitz
Our quote of the week is from a Senior White House official. When asked why Mr. Bush did not attend the Auschwitz Memorial as did other world leaders, the high ranking Bush Administration official repsonded, "He's been to Poland. He was just there last year."
We thought of better responses that might have replaced the actual statement by the Administration's mouth piece:
"He thinks about Auschwitz every time he counts the millions of dollars left to him by his Nazi Grandfather who made money off the slave camps."
"He hears enough about the 'old days' when Rove keeps repeating the same old stories about how his grandfather built the Birkenau Death Camps. Karl talks about it so much, its like Mr. Bush has already been there."
"I think Mr. Bush really believes Schwarznegger when he teases him about how Arnold's Austrian SS grandfather will throw Mr. Bush in the camp should he ever visit the area."
"What if someone asks him a question about 20th century history?"
"It would have been an inconsistent gesture on the part of the White House if Mr. Bush attended the Auschwitz Memorial, after choosing the historical revisionist, Mr. Kuropas, to attend the Ukraine inaugrial."
"He would break a long standing family tradition by honoring the dead instead of protecting the perpetrators."
"Did he ever give anyone the impression he gave a damn about massacres?" (radiorote)
No Vote
Belgium's plans to hold a referendum on the proposed new European Union (EU) constitution have been shelved. The government had originally argued that the document is important enough to merit a plebiscite. Ten of the 24 other EU countries have already scheduled referenda on the constitution over the next 18 months. But Belgium got cold feet after a horrible thought struck the government: it might lose.
More specifically, officials worried that the country's far-right party, the Vlaams Belang (now the biggest party in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking half of Belgium), might mobilise voters who don't want Turkey to join the EU. Strictly speaking, Turkish membership has nothing to do with the constitution, but Turkey will begin accession talks around the time of the referendum, and EU opponents in France and the Netherlands are successfully linking the two issues. Fear of a similar link in Belgium provoked second thoughts among key members of Belgium's coalition government. So the world has been deprived of the entertaining prospect that the country hosting the EU's institutions might reject its basic legal treaty. (Economist--UK)
A Kingly Response
Though the issue of the hijab, the veil worn by some devout Muslim women, has received the most attention in France, it is no less controversial in the rest of Europe, particularly in Belgium. The friction comes from the country's large Muslim population and its active far-right.
In November, Rik Remmery, the owner of a food-processing firm in western Belgium, discovered just how strongly his countrymen felt about the veil, to his peril. He received a death threat from a group calling itself “New Free Flanders”, because he allowed one of his employees, Naima Amzil, to wear the veil during working hours.
The group sent five letters accusing him of being “a bad Belgian who collaborates with Muslims”, and threatened both him and his family (one letter included a bullet).
In response, Ms Amzil offered to resign. Mr Remmery declined, and stood by her, though she now wears a protective hairnet (worn by all the company's employees) rather than a veil at work. Mr Remmery's steadfastness has so far have been greeted with support rather than violence: an association of employers collected 25,000 signatures on a petition backing him.
Support from a higher source came on January 12th, when Belgium's king, Albert II, received Mr Remmery and Ms Amzil at his palace. He told them they were right not to cave in to the threats. (Economist -- UK)
Fears Hamas Win Could Influence Abbas' Policy
Final results show Hamas has swept seven out of 10 councils in the Gaza Strip's first local elections, seen as a test of strength between the Islamic militant group and new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Islamists, sworn to Israel's destruction, had boycotted the January 9 presidential election, won by Mr Abbas on a platform of ending violence to allow talks with the Jewish state on Palestinian statehood.
"Hamas's victory proves Islam is the solution," a slogan blared from loudspeakers as thousands of supporters celebrated in the streets beneath fluttering green Hamas flags.
A US White House official said Washington was concerned Hamas could use their elected posts to influence Mr Abbas's policy towards peacemaking with Israel.
Mr Abbas has been trying to win a ceasefire from Hamas and other militants spearheading a four-year-old revolt to allow the resumption of talks with Israel and to avoid chaos in Gaza ahead of an Israeli plan to abandon the occupied territory.
"Our people have a consensus on the choice of jihad and resistance and the election has underscored that concept," Hamas spokesman Muhir al-Masri said.
Hamas candidates won 75 of the 118 council seats compared to 39 for members of Mr Abbas's Fatah movement and their allies, final figures from the electoral commission showed.
Voter turnout topped 80 per cent - much higher than at the presidential election for a successor to Yasser Arafat.
But while the results were a blow to Fatah, they also raise the prospect that Hamas will join parliamentary elections in July and thereby shift closer to the political mainstream.
"The results showed that our people are insisting Hamas take part in the upcoming ballot," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.
A senior US State Department official said only Mr Abbas's government policies mattered and Hamas members were "not people we need to deal with, or have to deal with".
But another Bush administration official said the results were a worry.
"It's always a concern and disturbing that people affiliated with a group espousing violence achieves some success," the official said, who asked not to be named.
"It is now an open question how much impact these individuals will have on the general political scene." (Australian Broadcasting Corporation/Reuters)
RR Final Thoughts:
Auschwitz Adds to U.S.-EU Friction
To the long list of what separates the United States and Europe these days, add the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps, to be marked Thursday in a solemn ceremony that will bring together almost all of Europe's most important leaders, but not President George W. Bush.
For some prominent Poles, the attendance of Vice President Dick Cheney is a bitter disappointment. The Auschwitz ceremony will include President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Horst Köhler of Germany, President Jacques Chirac of France and President Moshe Katzav of Israel.
Although Auschwitz holds very different associations for each of these leaders - Putin represents the liberator, Katzav the victim and Köhler the perpetrator - the passage of time and the immense changes in Europe since communism crumbled in 1989 have allowed all three to share this anniversary.
Some believe the American president should be part of this occasion, which they see as a symbol of Europe's enlargement and its decision, after World War II, to renounce war and national sovereignties in favor of a still uncertain experiment in unity.
"I would like to see the president of the United States attend the liberation of the Auschwitz commemoration," said the distinguished Polish medieval historian Bronislaw Geremek, a former dissident, foreign minister and now member of the European Parliament.
"Auschwitz represented the end of the totalitarian regime," Geremek said in a telephone interview from New York, where he was part of the Polish delegation attending the first United Nations ceremony to commemorate the Holocaust.
"The role of the United States was enormous in ending this regime," Geremek said. "It is natural that a president of the United States should be present."
In Washington, a senior administration official was asked Tuesday about Bush's decision not to attend and replied that the president "sent one of his closest confidants to attend that very important ceremony." The official added: "He's been to Poland. He was just there last year."
Without the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after 1945, Western Europe would have been far less able to resist the Communist influence that swept across Eastern Europe in the late 1940s.
Without the foresight and persistence of Dean Acheson, then secretary of state, France, Germany and Italy might never have founded the European Coal and Steel Community, the precursor of today's European Union.
Yet veteran intellectuals such as Geremek say that with the passing of time, Auschwitz has come to play an increasingly important role in forging a kind of European identity almost separate from the United States. Geremek is among those who go so far as to see the liberation of this Nazi death camp as one foundation of the European Union.
"I do believe that we should consider Auschwitz as one of the founding events of the international community and the European Union in the sense that the United Nations, 60 years ago, was a response to the experiences of the Holocaust," said Geremek. "And it should be said that the Holocaust helped to create the European Union. It was the answer to the totalitarian ideology created on European soil, such as Auschwitz."
Even 10 years ago, at the 50th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation, the idea that the death camp would become part of Europe's collective memory was hardly conceivable.
Michael Melchior, chief rabbi of Norway, a member of the Israeli Knesset, or Parliament, and recently appointed Israeli deputy minister for education and culture, said he has been surprised by the big changes that have taken place in Europe.
"Something has happened in the past few years where the leaders of Europe have understood that they can't avoid looking towards Auschwitz," Melchior said by telephone from his office in Jerusalem. "It is becoming part of the European reference and no decent leader can avoid this."
Melchior, prominent in Jewish and ecumenical movements throughout Europe to promote understanding of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and crimes against humanity, said several factors helped to change European attitudes toward the Holocaust.
The first was the collapse of the Berlin Wall, which ended the cold war and the division of Europe. Until 1989, the former countries of Eastern and Central Europe had little idea about the legacy and role played by the large Jewish communities that had perished during the Holocaust.
Poland and other former Communist countries had no opportunity during the cold war years to embrace the Holocaust as part of their collective memory.
During that time, the Kremlin supported Arab states and cultivated a climate of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, while the United States forged an ever closer alliance with Israel. As late as the 1960s, the Communists in Poland started a vicious campaign against the Jewish community, which numbered less than 30,000, in a bid to stamp out dissent.
In many cases, it was not until the 1980s that survivors in these countries started speaking about their experiences to their grandchildren, who had, if at all, only the vaguest idea about Jewish culture or identity. Only after 1989 could Moscow's former satellites openly address their own past.
"You must remember that during the 1990s, there was a new generation that knew nothing about the Holocaust," said Melchior.
During the 1990s, restitution of Jewish property showed this generation that Jews were not only killed, but also robbed. Then, said Melchior, there was the gradual "upgrading of anti-Semitism," with leaders in Europe taking Holocaust education and anti-Semitism more seriously.
George Schoepflin, a Hungarian political scientist who was elected to the European Parliament last year, agrees that the recent changes across Eastern Europe have influenced how Auschwitz is now viewed.
"It took the Poles some time after 1991 to decide whether Auschwitz should be a universal site, or one the Poles would appropriate," said Schoepflin.
"There has been an enormous contest for its symbolic value. Is it to be a European symbol of repentance or primarily a Jewish symbol of identity? The Poles now understand they cannot appropriate the site. The site, in ways, belongs to everybody in Europe."
In part, this is because of the slow but persistent enlargement of Europe, which went from 15 to 25 countries last May, bringing in the Baltic states and five other former Communist countries.
"Europe is becoming more inclusive, where the role of historical memory is being shared," said Klaus Becher, a German-born European security expert and founder of the London-based Knowledge and Analysis think tank.
The EU, Becher said, is not embarking on "some kind of general mission about how to deal with the past or how to impose the past. But it is very important to foster memory. In that sense, Europe, or the EU, is becoming more inclusive. Auschwitz is about the extermination of the weak and racial hatred."
Melchior said the enlargement of the EU is helping to "Europeanize the memory of the Holocaust." Schoepflin called this a very slow process, but noted that "you can sense some of the changes. If you are going to have some kind of European identity, you need some kind of European memory." (International Herald Tribune/Judy Dempsey)
Posted by Ted Belman at January 29, 2005 11:59 AM