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By Gavriel Fiske / TimesOfIsrael.com (March 18, 2013)

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina made history last week by becoming the first pope from Latin America and the first from the Jesuit order. This week, Argentine Jewish leaders predicted a new era for Catholic-Jewish relations and described a man who is very close to the Jewish community, who regularly visits synagogues, and has invited Jewish friends to Christmas dinner.

“I think it is the first time a pope has been elected that the Jewish community knows previously, and has a long history [with],” said Claudio Epelman, director of the Latin American Jewish Congress.

Epelman said he was “very, very optimistic” about Catholic-Jewish relations under the new pope, who took the name Francis I and has embarked on what has already been described as a humble, hands-on papacy, eschewing the pope-mobile in favor of shaking hands and meeting children on his first Sunday in office amid the vast crowds at the Vatican.

“If you had to choose a pope by Jewish interest, you would have had to choose Bergoglio,” Epelman said.

“He is a real friend of the Jewish community,” he continued, describing Francis as “totally committed to interfaith activities.” He “loaned out” the Buenos Aires cathedral to the Jewish community to hold a memorial event honoring the victims of Kristallnacht and the Holocaust, Epelman recalled.

“I have been with him many times,” Epelman said, “not only for organized meetings and activities, but also just to discuss and learn from each other. I’ve never spoken about it, but for the last six years I have had Christmas dinner with him, just myself and a few others. It is very private, very intimate… It’s a major holiday to share with a Jew, and he is very kind to hold the dinner.”

Julio Schlosser, the other Argentine delegate in Greece, who is the president of a Buenos Aires synagogue, called Francis “my friend and a friend of the rabbis” who is “very close to the Jewish community.”

Schlosser described how for “many years,” Cardinal Bergoglio has come to his synagogue for selichot (the series of evening penitent prayers held before Rosh Hashana), where he would also give a formal talk.

“It’s very important for the world Jewish community to have somebody like this [in the papacy] because he is very open,” Schlosser added. “He works for the relationship between the Church, not only with the Jews, but with Muslims and other communities.”

Schlosser, who has also had Christmas dinner with the pope, confirmed that Francis I often prefers public transportation to his official car. After a visit to the AMIA Jewish community office building (which was bombed 19 years ago by alleged Iranian and Iranian-backed operatives, with the loss of 85 lives), Bergoglio eschewed his official vehicle in favor of the subway, he said.

Overall, “everything is fine” for the Jews in Argentina, he said, except that “Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua… are leftist-run countries who by extension have close relations with Iran.” And despite the recently announced joint Argentine-Iranian probe into the AMIA bombing, he said, “Iran will never accept responsibility for it.”

Schlosser may have an opportunity to discuss these and other issues with his friend the pope in person: He and Epelman left for Rome as the pope’s personal guests for his Tuesday inaugural mass.

By Daniel Pipes

Perhaps Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hopes that lobbing artillery shells into Syria will help bring a satellite government into power in Damascus. Maybe he thinks that sending a Turkish warplane into Syrian airspace or forcing down a Syrian passenger plane coming from Russia will win him favor in the West and bring in NATO. Conceivably, it could all be a grand diversion to distract from the imminent economic crisis.

Erdoğan’s actions fit into a context going back half a century. During the Cold War, Ankara stood with Washington as a member of NATO even as Damascus served as Moscow’s Cuba of the Middle East, an arch-reliable client state. Sour Turkish-Syrian relations also had local reasons including a border dispute, disagreement over water resources, and Syrian backing of the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group. The two states reached the brink of war in 1998, when then Syrian President Hafez al-Assad’s capitulation averted armed conflict.

A new era began in November 2002 when Erdoğan’s AKP (Justice and Development Party), a clever Islamist party that avoids terrorism and rants about a global caliphate, replaced the center-right and center-left parties that had long dominated Ankara. Governing competently and overseeing an unprecedented economic boom, the AKP’s share of the electorate grew from one-third in 2002 to one-half in 2011. It was on track to achieving Erdoğan’s presumed goal of undoing the Atatürk revolution and bringing Shariah to Turkey.

Feeling its oats, the AKP abandoned Washington’s protective umbrella and struck out on an independent neo-Ottoman course, aiming to be a regional power as it had been in centuries past. With regard to Syria, this meant ending decades-old hostilities and winning influence through good trade and other relations, symbolized by joint military exercises, Erdoğan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vacationing together, and a bevy of their ministers literally lifting the barrier that had obstructed their mutual border.

In January 2011, these plans began to unravel as the Syrian people woke from 40 years of Assad despotism and agitated, at first peacefully, then violently, for the overthrow of their tyrant. Erdoğan initially offered constructive political advice to Assad, which the latter rebuffed in favor of violent repression. In response, the Sunni Muslim Erdoğan emotionally denounced the Alawi Muslim Assad and began assisting the largely Sunni rebel force. As the conflict became more ruthless, sectarian, and Islamist, effectively becoming a Sunni-Alawi civil war, with 30,000 dead, many times that injured, and even more displaced, Turkish refuge and aid became indispensable to the rebels.

What initially seemed like a masterstroke has turned into Erdoğan’s first major misstep. The outlandish conspiracy theories he used to jail and cow the military leadership left him with a less-than-effective fighting force. Unwelcome Syrian refugees crowded into Turkish border towns and beyond. Turks overwhelmingly oppose the war policy over Syria, with special opposition coming from Alevis, a religious community making up 15 to 20 percent of Turkey’s population, distinct from Syria’s Alawis but sharing a Shiite Muslim heritage with them.

Assad took revenge by reviving support for the PKK, whose escalating violence creates a major domestic problem for Erdoğan. Indeed, Kurds — who missed their chance when the Middle East was carved up after World War I — may be the major winners from current hostilities. For the first time, the outlines of a Kurdish state with Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi, and even Iranian components can be imagined.

Damascus still has a great power patron in Moscow, where the government of Vladimir Putin offers its assistance via armaments and U.N. vetoes. Plus, Assad benefits from unstinting, brutal Iranian aid, which continues despite the mullah regime’s deep economic problems. In contrast, Ankara may still belong, formally, to NATO and enjoy the theoretical privilege of its famous Article 5, which promises that a military attack on one member country will lead to “such action as … necessary, including the use of armed force,” but NATO heavyweights show no intention of intervening in Syria.

A decade of success went to Erdoğan’s head, tempting him into a Syrian misadventure that could undermine his popularity. He might yet learn from his mistakes and backtrack, but so far the padishah of Ankara is doubling down on his jihad against the Assad regime, driving hard for its collapse and his salvation.

To answer my opening question: Turkish bellicosity results primarily from one man’s ambition and ego. Western states should stay completely away and let him be hoisted with his own petard.

By Michael Feldstein The Star-Ledger (New Jersey)

On Sept. 27, 268 members of Congress signed a joint letter to the president and ministers of the Commission of the European Union, urging the commission to include Hezbollah on the EU’s list of terrorist organizations. New Jersey Rep. Albio Sires (D-13th Dist.) was one of five U.S. congressmen who initiated this effort after the deadly attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria in July and an attempted Hezbollah-sponsored attack in Cyprus.

The likely Hezbollah connection naturally raises the question of why the 27-nation EU continues to refuse to place the organization on its terrorist list, a move that would facilitate cooperation across national borders to investigate and stop recruitment and fundraising, and enable authorities to freeze the organization’s bank accounts.

Some EU leaders argue that Hezbollah also is a political party and a network providing social services. But any organization that engages in terrorism, as Hezbollah has done since its founding 30 years ago, to advance its mission, cannot claim to be a legitimate political party or provider of social services.

Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group based in Lebanon, was created in the early 1980s with the help of Iran, which, together with Syria, have been its primary political and financial supporters. Its 1985 manifesto calls for the elimination of American influence in Lebanon and echoes Tehran in calling for the destruction of the “Zionist entity,” meaning Israel.

Hezbollah was responsible for the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people, and the attack that same year on the U.S. military barracks in that city, which killed 241 soldiers, sailors and Marines and wounded more than 100 others in the bloodiest pre-9/11 act of terrorism ever launched against our country. In 1985, Hezbollah hijacked TWA Flight 847, separated the passengers with Jewish-sounding names, tortured and executed a U.S. Navy diver who was on board and eventually released the remaining captives only after its demands were met.

In 1994, Hezbollah, with Iranian help, bombed the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Eighty-five people were killed and more than 300 injured. Even though Interpol has issued red alerts for six Iranian and Hezbollah individuals who were involved, not one has been apprehended.

And, Hezbollah’s involvement in Lebanese society, cited by some European leaders as good reason to legitimize the organization, has, in fact, proved catastrophic for that country. The U.N. Special Tribunal for Lebanon has issued arrest warrants against four Hezbollah operatives for the 2005 truck-bomb murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others.

In 2008, Hezbollah initiated bloody street battles against the government in West Beirut, in which more than 100 people lost their lives. This act of intimidation forced the new government to concede veto power to Hezbollah in the Lebanese parliament. That August, the cabinet unanimously confirmed that ostensible “political party” and “social service network” as an armed organization with the right to “liberate or recover occupied lands.”

Today, Hezbollah is the strongest faction in Lebanon. In addition to the United States, Canada, Australia and Israel, two EU countries — Great Britain and the Netherlands — already list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. And Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary general, has publicly acknowledged that were the EU as a unit to follow suit, “the sources of our funding will dry up and the sources of moral, political and material support will be destroyed.”

Hezbollah’s political and social activities are the mask behind which terror seeks to hide. A place on the EU terror list would tear off the mask, proclaim the truth about its lethal agenda and begin the process of its demise.

Michael Feldstein is president of AJC New Jersey Central Region.

By Oren Dorell, USAToday.com

Israel is unlikely to provide much if any advance notice to the United States if it attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, Middle East experts say.

Advance warning is important because a surprise could hurt the United States’ ability to respond and safeguard its many assets in the Persian Gulf.

The assumption is that U.S. warning of an Israeli attack would come “significantly less than an hour” before it began, said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “How much of that would come from Israeli notification and how much would come from sensors we have in the region, I don’t know.”

In the past, Israel has given the Americans “very general notice,” said Yoram Peri, director of the Israel studies program at the University of Maryland. “They would never talk in advance.” For example, Israel unilaterally attacked nuclear facilities in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 and didn’t give the United States advance warning.

That puts the United States at a disadvantage. Getting a warning would allow the United States to reposition military and other assets to defend against a counterattack by Iran or its surrogates in the Gulf and around the world, says Michele Dunne, an analyst with the Atlantic Council.

A unilateral attack without warning could also hurt relations between Israel and the United States.

Israel and the United States agree Iran should not be allowed to build a nuclear weapon. But Israel appears to be running out of patience quicker than the United States.

The divergence of views was evident in Jerusalem earlier this month, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that the “time to resolve this issue peacefully is running out.”

Panetta said non-military pressure on Iran should be exhausted first, such as sanctions designed to squeeze Iran’s economy. “We will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Danny Danon, deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament, said an Israeli strike against multiple targets spread across Iran would likely last several days and would not be quick strikes, such as the attacks on Syria and Iraq. He said he hopes the United States joins in, but says Israel will go it alone if necessary.

“We cannot afford to make the mistake and take the chance of allowing Iran to become nuclear. It could damage the United States, but for Israel it could be deadly,” Danon said.

Martin Indyk, U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Clinton and now director of the foreign policy program of the Brookings Institution, doesn’t think Israel will strike before the U.S. presidential election in November because it would be disruptive at a time when Israel would need U.S. help.

Whether Israel needs U.S. diplomatic support, help dealing with Iranian counterattacks or to replenish U.S.-supplied weapons expended in the attack, “he surely knows he’s going to need the United States,” Indyk said.

The United States might provide assistance initially, but in the long run it could hurt diplomatic relations if the United States gets dragged into another long war in the Middle East, Alterman said.

“It creates the potential to change the way the American public starts to think about the alignment between the United States and Israel,” Alterman said.

Rather than declaring the merits of gold (or the lack thereof), we post this article to stimulate awareness of some key arguments. Please remember Proverbs 16:16 — “How much better to get wisdom than gold, and good judgment than silver!” Since gold isn’t edible, most ZLMers would be better served to maintain three days’ (or weeks’) worth of water and canned food than a stack of coins.–Mark Levitt

By Will Deener Dallas Morning News 01 July 2012

About a year ago, as gold prices were hitting record highs, gold bugs were brimming with I-told-you-so bravado.

Not so much now.

After topping out at about $1,900 an ounce in August 2011, gold prices currently hover around $1,600 an ounce — a 15 percent slide. I mention this because in past columns, I incurred the wrath of gold investors by suggesting that gold was priced as if Armageddon were at hand.

Buying gold as a hedge against the end of the world is fine by me, but to paraphrase one Wall Street sage: The world will end only once, so you better time that trade just right.

Truthfully, my position on investing in gold has been consistently inconsistent. I was for it until I was against it; but now I think I want to own some of it except for the times when I don’t. As you can see, I’m a tad conflicted when it comes to gold.

I fully recognize that gold bugs have been on the right side of this trade for the better part of 10 years as gold prices soared from about $300 an ounce to $1,900.

The recent slide in gold prices notwithstanding, I admit that the gold bugs have a point. Let’s just say my position on gold is evolving.

But before I kneel in deference to their investing prowess, I have three observations to make, or what I like to call “facts.”

First, when I ask people why they own gold, they often tell me it is because it is a hedge against a falling stock market. In other words, if the market falls, gold prices will rise and vice versa.

Hmmm. That’s interesting, but it’s not true. The correlation between stock returns and gold prices is essentially nil, according to Eric Weigel, senior research analyst at the Leuthold Group, a Minneapolis investment research firm.

There have been many times over the years when gold prices dropped in tandem with the market. The yellow metal provided no downside protection.

“There doesn’t seem to be any sort of consistent relationship between gold and stocks,” Weigel said. “There are long periods, such as from 2001 to 2006 when there is simply no relationship at all.”

Investors who want to hedge against a falling or volatile stock market would be better served by buying bonds rather than gold, Weigel said. There are even exchange-traded-funds (ETFs) that move in the opposite direction to the stock market, and would probably offer a better hedge against a sagging market.

Sophisticated investors sometimes will buy the ProShares Ultra VIX Short-Term Futures ETF as downside protection. These types of ETFs are not for the faint of heart because they are volatile, but then so is gold.

My second observation involves another common reason investors cite for their love of gold: They buy it for protection against inflation.

It is true that gold prices tend to track inflation, but the correlation is not as strong as the gold bugs would have us believe. In fact, in late 2005 and 2006 as inflation dropped, gold prices rose.

The point is that there are better and more direct inflation hedges than gold. For example, Weigel advises anyone concerned about inflation to invest in Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS).

“There are even some other hard assets, such as timber, that offer a steady stream of cash flow in addition to inflation protection,” he said.

By the way, Weigel seriously doubts that inflation is even an issue any time soon, with such a lethargic economy, low wages and falling fuel prices. Those who want to buy gold as an inflation hedge may consider waiting until there is actually the prospect of some inflation.

My final observation puts me back on the side of the gold bugs. They believe gold is a hedge against currency devaluation. I don’t disagree with that, and this is by far the best rationale to buy it.

Gold prices really soared over the last two years as the value of the dollar declined — meaning the correlation was strong. The U.S. central bank and central banks in many other countries have flooded their financial systems with money — essentially just printing their currencies — to bolster economic growth.

Printing money, when taken to such extremes, will ultimately undermine the value of currencies. Weigel said the correlation between the value of the U.S. dollar and gold has been particularly strong over the past two years.

“Before that, gold prices and the U.S. dollar had a weak association, but I think going forward, gold will be a good hedge against eroding currencies,” he said.

For investors, the point of all this, is to know why they own gold. If it is to protect against a volatile stock market or inflation, there are probably some better hedges.

If it is to protect their portfolio against eroding currencies, that’s not a bad idea, and at least that strategy is based in fact.

By Giulio Meotti www.IsraelNationalNews.com

Under pressure from the Vatican, Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem is expected to unveil a new wall text describing the actions of Pope Pius XII during World War II, softening a previous message stating that the Vatican had not protested verbally or in writing to the mass murder of Jews.

Let’s try to explain why during the war Pope Pius sat on the throne of St. Peter in stony silence and the question still urgently matters in our time. Pius XII was not “Hitler’s Pope” of British historian John Cornwell, nor the “Righteous Gentile” ridiculously evoked by Rabbi David Dallin.

More simply, the gassing of Jews was not on the Vatican’s list of priorities.

During the war the Pope always spoke and wrote in generic phrases, in allusions, with judgments marked by indirectness, naming no names and no country. Not once did Pope Pius mention the Jews publicly during the war or in his dealings with Hitler. It is true that in late 1943 and early 1944, he undertook private initiatives to aid Jews, but by that time 4.5 million Jews had been murdered and Germany was clearly on the road to defeat.

We also know that hundreds of Jews found refuge in Rome’s convents and the in Vatican itself. We are also familiar with individual acts of heroism by a very few Catholics who saved Jews.

The apologists, including some Jewish historians, exonerate Pius XII by saying that he did not understand the meaning of the Holocaust. They are wrong. The Pope knew everything about the Holocaust.

As brave historian Daniel Goldhagen wrote, “It is not that Pius XII did not understand but that he understood only too well.” Pius was given daily briefings of Nazi atrocities by the British envoy to the Vatican.

The pontiff resisted calls from Roosevelt’s representative to the Holy See, the president of the Polish government in exile, the bishop of Berlin, and the chief rabbi of Palestine to speak out specifically and forcefully on behalf of the Jews.

The Pope could have done much to stop the Zyklon B gas (a cyanide-based pesticide). He did little or nothing.

The gas was purchased by Obersturmfuehrer Kurt Gerstein, the “chief disinfection officer” in the hygiene department of the Waffen SS. Gerstein’s connection with Zyklon B is fascinating and enigmatic. Born in 1904, he joined the Nazi Party in 1933 but was expelled for his activities on behalf of the dissident Professing Church. As an engineer, Gerstein became an expert in Zyklon B. He was sent to the Treblinka and Belzec camps in order to substitute Zyklon B for the gasoline exhaust fumes in use until then.

On his return to Berlin, Gerstein tried to stop the murders. He told the Vatican what he had seen, but encountered only disbelief and indifference. (In 1963, the German playwright Rolf Hochhuth cast Gerstein as one of the central figures in his play The Deputy which attacked Pope Pius XII for his failure to condemn Hitler’s persecution of the Jews).

How many Roman Catholic SS men and Nazi functionaries would have had second thoughts about their work had the Pope spoken out—for example, ordering Vatican Radio to broadcast round-the-clock denunciation of the Shoah, condemning it ex cathedra (from his position of infallibility), and excommunicating the perpetrators? And how many Jews hearing such broadcasts from the voice of the Vatican would have learned that “resettlement” was a euphemism for death by gas, like insects?

In a landmark 1950 essay, historian Leon Poliakov wrote: “It is painful to have to state that at the time when gas chambers and crematoria were operating day and night, the high spiritual authority did not find it necessary to make a clear and solemn protest that would have echoed through the world.”

In a letter to Bishop von Preysing of Berlin on April 30, 1943 referring to the extermination of the Jews, the Pope said, “Unhappily in the present state of affairs, we can bring no help other than our prayers.”

The help the Jews needed was heroic resistance from the Christian bystanders.

The Pope also refused to publish what has now become known as the “hidden encyclical.” In June 1938, more than a year before the outbreak of World War II, Pius XI commissioned a draft papal statement attacking anti-Semitism called “Humani Generis Unitas” (“The Unity of the Human Race”). He died before it was completed. Pius XII buried it until it was published in France in 1995. Had Pius XII published the document, it might have saved hundreds of thousands, or millions, of Jews.

The Catholic Church and relief organizations like the Red Cross were suffering from the moral blindness induced by centuries of Christian “teaching of contempt.” That’s why Pius XII intervened only on behalf of baptized Jews, as they were considered Catholics by the Church.

The Pope chose cowardice in the face of overwhelming evil. That’s why our moral judgment about the most important modern event concerning Jews in the history of the Catholic Church should remain that of culpability.

While millions were cannibalized and devoured in crematorium IV of Birkenau and their skin was used for lampshades, the Pope turned a blind eye to the Israelite cataclysm.

That’s why Pius’ behavior during the war has a very deep resonance in our day: Did the Church learn that the road to the hell is paved with silence? And next time, will Christians be brave or cowardly in face of evil, should it be rockets on Sderot, suicide bombers in Hadera, slitting throats in Itamar, atomic bombs on Tel Aviv, Islamic genocide, or the old anti-Semitism raising again its head in Europe?

Exactly as during Pius XII’s time, there will be just two possible reactions: being concerned and resisting or being complacent and collaborating.

Giulio Meotti is an Italian Catholic.

By Ryan Jones www.IsraelToday.co.il

Jordan’s King Abduallah on Tuesday warned that the escalating civil war in Syria could result in a break-up along sectarian lines, a result that Iran and others say would engulf Israel in fresh cross-border violence.

While calling it a “worst case scenario,” Abdullah nevertheless urged the West to take seriously the possibility that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad may entrench himself in an Alawite enclave in Western Syria, safe among his ethnic minority.

Abdullah told CBS’s This Morning program that should Assad go that route, it would lead to “the break-up of greater Syria” and a land-grab by the various ethnic and religious sects that make up Syria’s population of 22 million.

Such a scenario is far from being far-fetched. Today, Syria is ruled by an Alawite minority that has allowed Syria’s other minorities (including Christians, Shiite Muslims, and Kurds) a considerable degree of freedom. Should the rebels, who are mostly Sunni Muslims, win the war, Syria’s minorities fear their days may be numbered.

And the fall of a unified Syria would be a nightmare for Israel. The situation would likely resemble that in Lebanon, where heavily-armed militias like Hezbollah are free to antagonize the “Zionist enemy” with little concern for state and international politics. However, with Syria we are talking about a much larger population than Lebanon, and one that has direct access to weapons of mass destruction.

That may have been what Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani was referring to when he told reporters on Sunday that “the fire that has been ignited in Syria will take the fearful [Israelis] with it.”

Iran and Hezbollah are said to already have considerable assets on the ground in Syria, and would be certain to establish their own local base of power should Assad fall or retreat to the Alawite ancestral stronghold.

Other players on the ground, in addition to the Free Syria Army (FSA), include the now-familiar Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda.

The Muslim Brotherhood is reportedly establishing its own rebel force that is both battling Assad and trying to take the lead from the FSA as it strives to create another Islamist regime like that recently secured in Egypt.

The benefits of a chaos-ruled Syrian territory to al-Qaeda should be obvious, and the movement’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, recently released a video statement urging Muslim forces from neighboring countries to get involved in Syria’s civil war.

What’s the real reason the Olympic Committee refused to commemorate the Israeli athletes murdered in Munich?
By Deborah E. Lipstadt www.TabletMag.com

For the past few months there was a concerted effort to get the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to set aside one minute of silence at the opening ceremony at this year’s games to commemorate the Israeli athletes who were murdered — not killed, murdered — at the Munich games in 1972.

The games, held this year in London, are 17 days long. That’s 24,480 minutes. Despite the fact that petitioners were asking for only one of those minutes, their efforts failed. Before speculating on why the IOC was so steadfast in its refusal, it is worthwhile to reflect on what precisely happened in Munich 40 years ago.

When the Olympics returned to Germany in 1972, the German government was intent that nothing evoke the memory of the 1936 Berlin games, held under the heavy hand of Nazi militarism. The Germans wanted these to be “the Happy Games.” Security would not be in evidence: Athletes freely climbed over the chain link fence surrounding the Olympic Village when they forgot their identification badges. Everything had to be relaxed. Germany had a new face to show the world.

That all changed on the morning of Sept. 5, when Palestinian terrorists from Fatah’s Black September organization scaled the fence around the Olympic Village. Armed with machine guns and grenades, they immediately killed two Israeli athletes and took nine others hostage. They demanded that Israel release 234 Palestinian prisoners and that Germany release the two founding members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

When the release did not materialize by the late afternoon, the terrorists demanded a plane to take them to Egypt. German officials agreed but planned an ambush at the airport. The ambush was completely botched: A team of German police assigned to entrap the terrorists walked off the job as the terrorists were on their way to the airport. There were more terrorists than German snipers—and the snipers could not communicate with each other or with the officials in charge. Armored cars, ordered for backup, got caught in an hour-long traffic jam around the airport.

A gun battle erupted between the German forces and the terrorists on the tarmac, and the athletes — bound to each other in the helicopters that had brought them to the airport — were caught in the middle. When the terrorists realized that they could not escape, they shot the hostages and threw a grenade into the helicopters to ensure that they were dead.

Competition at the games had continued until mid-afternoon that Tuesday. Only after a barrage of criticism did IOC president Avery Brundage suspend activities. Brundage, who served as president of American Olympic Committee in the 1930s, had been a great admirer of Hitler and, as late as 1971, had insisted that the Berlin games were one of the best ever. In 1936, when some Americans tried to organize a boycott of the games, Brundage fought the effort vigorously until he decided to use it as a fundraising tool. He assumed that Jews who were embarrassed by the threat of a boycott would give to the AOC and help decrease anti-Semitism in the United States. Brundage’s plan apparently came to naught.

At the Munich memorial service, held on Wednesday, Sept. 6, the day after the massacre, Brundage defiantly declared: “The games must go on.” His cry was met with cheers by the crowd. (Red Smith of the New York Times described it as more pep rally than memorial.) The games did go on, but the Los Angeles Times reporter Jim Murray described it as “like having a dance at Dachau.”

In the years since, the families of the victims have repeatedly told the IOC that all they want is a chance to mark the murder of athletes who had traveled to the games to do precisely what athletes do: compete at their very best. These victims deserved to be remembered by the very organization that had brought them to Munich.

Why the IOC refusal? The Olympic Committee’s official explanation is that the games are apolitical. The families were repeatedly told by longtime IOC president Juan Samaranch that the Olympic movement avoided political issues. He seemed to have forgotten that at the 1996 opening ceremony he spoke about the Bosnian war. Politics were also present at the 2002 games, which opened with a minute of silence for the victims of 9/11.

The families have also been told that a commemoration of this sort is inappropriate at the opening of such a celebratory event. However, the IOC has memorialized other athletes who died “in the line of duty.” At the 2010 winter games, for example, there was a moment of silence to commemorate an athlete who died in a training accident.

The IOC’s explanation is a pathetic excuse. The athletes who were murdered were from Israel and were Jews — that is why they aren’t being remembered. The only conclusion one can draw is that Jewish blood is cheap, too cheap to risk upsetting a bloc of Arab nations and other countries that oppose Israel and its policies.

I have long inveighed against the tendency of some Jews to see anti-Semitism behind every action that is critical of Israel or of Jews. In recent years, some Jews have been inclined to hurl accusations of anti-Semitism even when they are entirely inappropriate. By repeatedly crying out, they risk making others stop listening — especially when the cry is true.

Here the charge is absolutely accurate. This was the greatest tragedy to ever occur during an Olympic Games. Yet the IOC has made it quite clear that these victims are not worth 60 seconds. Imagine for a moment that these athletes had been from the United States, Canada, Australia, or even Germany. No one would think twice about commemorating them. But these athletes came from a country and a people who somehow deserve to be victims. Their lost lives are apparently not worth a minute.

Forty years after Munich, we are wrong to block the country most affected by atrocities.

By Jose Maria Aznar The Times of London

When we are about to mark the 40th anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the Olympic Village in Munich, in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists, it is a real paradox to see Israel excluded from the first meeting of the Global Counter-terrorism Forum.

This initiative, led by the United States and attended by 29 countries and the European Union, took place last month in an effort to improve the co-ordination of counter-terrorism policies at global level. Why wasn’t Israel invited? The meeting was held in Istanbul and no one wanted to “provoke” the host, the Islamist Government of the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Worse still, in July, the forum organized its first victims-of-terrorism meeting. Not only was Israel excluded, but Israeli victims had no place in its official speeches. When we see deadly terrorist attacks, such as the recent one in Bulgaria, targeting tourists simply because they were Israeli, the marginalization of Israel is totally unacceptable.

As a terrorism victim myself, who was fortunate to survive a car-bomb attack, I cannot understand or justify the marginalization of other terrorist victims just for political reasons. If we extrapolate Israel’s experience of slaughter to Britain, it would mean that in the past 12 years about 11,000 British citizens would have died and 60,000 would have been injured in terrorist attacks. In the case of the United States, the figures would he 65,000 dead and 300,000 injured. Israel’s ordeal is far from insignificant.

It is even more poignant if one considers Israel’s willingness to face up to terrorism and the practical experience that it has acquired to defeat it. Israel has much to contribute in this area and everyone else has a lot to learn if we really want to defeat the terrorists.

Fiamma Nirenstein, the vice-president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies (and a member of the Friends of Israel Initiative) has made a proposal that is as fair as it is attractive — to hold a moment of silence at the London Olympics in memory of the 1972 massacre. Remembering is important — first, because of the victims, but also because many Europeans adopted the wrong attitude towards Palestinian terrorism after the Munich attack. The culprits who were arrested were later quietly released for fear of further attacks. And because of that initial fear the terrorists knew how to take advantage of the situation and to press for more rewards.

I have experienced terrorism at firsthand. Many of my friends and some political colleagues have been killed by terrorists whose only merit was to have a hood, a gun, or a bomb. Nonetheless, even in the most difficult times, I have always believed that weakness and appeasement are the wrong choices. Terrorism is not a natural phenomenon; it doesn’t happen spontaneously; it’s not something ethereal. It can and must be fought using all the tools provided by the law and democracy — and most importantly, it can be defeated if there is the will to defeat it. Israel has provided ample proof that it possesses that will, since its own existence is at stake.

To marginalize or isolate Israel to avoid irritating Turkey is a big mistake. All of the Middle East, from Morocco to the Gulf, is undergoing profound, although not always peaceful, change that is yielding very disturbing results. Although the elections in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt are something new and promising for the region, Syria is immersed in civil war, and there is a danger that the region’s largest arsenal of chemical weapons will spin out of control and become available to anyone — as happened with Libya’s portable anti-aircraft missiles, which disappeared after the fall of of Colonel Kaddafi. In Egypt, the rise of Islamism threatens economic and political stability. Hezbollah is still in Lebanon keeping alive its goal of eliminating Israel — just as members of Hamas do in Gaza. Despite sanctions, Iran is moving forward with the development of a nuclear bomb in its effort to become the regional leader and to export its Islamist and revolutionary ideology as widely as possible. There are also other areas in turmoil that directly affect Europe, such as the Sahel region of Africa, south of the Sahara, which is now becoming dominated by al-Qaeda.

Isolation not only renders Israel weaker against its enemies, but also makes all Westerners weaker. And the practitioners of terrorism know all too well how to exploit our differences.

Remembering Munich 40 years on should be a useful reminder of our successes and failures. It should help us to enhance our collective abilities to fight terrorism. Israel is key in this fight. Israel is a part of the West. Israel is not the problem; it is part of the solution. We will become the problem if we continue to cold-shoulder Israel, the country most affected by terrorism and, possibly, the one that knows best how to defeat it.

Jose Maria Aznar was prime minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004 and is chairman of the Friends of Israel Initiative.