Członek zespołu Zaka Rescue and Recovery pracuje na miejscu strzelaniny w pobliżu miasta Hebron na Zachodnim Brzegu, 21 sierpnia 2023 r.

ONZ: Przemoc na Bliskim Wschodzie największa od lat

Marta Urzędowska

Wennesland tłumaczył członkom Rady Bezpieczeństwa, że trwająca od miesięcy eskalacja przemocy w regionie wynika z rosnącej frustracji Palestyńczyków, którzy tracą nadzieję na pokój i własne państwo.

Żałobnicy niosą ciało 17-letniego Palestyńczyka Othmana Abu Kharja; jego pogrzeb odbył się w mieście Dżenin na Zachodnim Brzegu Jordanu. Bliski Wschód, 22 sierpnia 2023 r. Fot. Nasser Nasser / AP Photo

– Palestyńczycy i Izraelczycy są zabijani i ranieni w aktach przemocy, do których dochodzi niemal każdego dnia, nawet kilka godzin przed naszym spotkaniem – przekonywał. – Brak postępów w kwestii politycznego rozwiązania pozostawił niebezpieczną próżnię, którą wypełniają ekstremiści ze wszystkich stron.

Choć przyznał, że zarówno izraelskie, jak i palestyńskie władze podejmują działania, by ustabilizować obecną niespokojną sytuację, liczba aktów przemocy nie spada z powodu „jednostronnych akcji” prowadzących do eskalacji. Wśród takich działań wymienił m.in. „aktywność bojową” Palestyńczyków, „kruchość” sytuacji finansowej palestyńskich władz, rozbudowę izraelskich osiedli na terenach okupowanych, operacje izraelskiej armii na Zachodnim Brzegu i ataki izraelskich osadników na Palestyńczyków.

Przypomniał też o coraz trudniejszej sytuacji finansowej UNRWA, czyli agendy ONZ pomagającej palestyńskim uchodźcom.

– Choć dziś musimy skupić się głównie na deeskalacji, nie możemy jednocześnie ignorować potrzeby przywrócenia procesu politycznego – tłumaczył Wennesland, po czym wezwał do „natychmiastowego wstrzymania przemocy i uspokojenia sytuacji”. „Ta spirala prowadzi nas wyłącznie do dalszego rozlewu krwi” – napisał na Twitterze.**************************************************

UK to launch investigation into two concentration camps on British soil

DANIELLE GREYMAN-KENNARD

To date, there has never been a formal investigation into the number of deaths that occurred on Alderney during the Holocaust.

A red flower is seen on a wall during a commemoration of the liberation of the former concentration camp KZ Mauthausen, at the memorial site in Mauthausen, Austria, May 7, 2023. /  (photo credit: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters)

Britain will begin investigating the number of deaths that occurred in two concentration camps that existed on British soil eighty years ago, according to media reports from July 22.

The camps had existed on the Channel Island Alderney, which was occupied during the war by German forces.

While the camp has been known about for some time, there has never been an investigation into the exact number of deaths that occurred at the camp or the size and magnitude of the SS-run operations there.

Some historians have estimated that anywhere between 700 and thousands of Jews, and other groups that were deemed undesirable by the Nazis, were killed in the camps and the bodies are buried in mass graves on the island. Officially, only eight Jews were recorded to have been murdered on the island.

“I would be surprised if the numbers killed by the Nazis either in Alderney or transported from Alderney on to extermination camps in Europe did not run into thousands,” Professor Anthony Glees told The Observer.

“It is evident from the wide range of testimonies available and from the surveys we did of the camps in which Jews were housed that they were treated appallingly, and more Jews likely died than we know of,” Caroline Sturdy Colls, professor of conflict archaeology at Staffordshire University, told the magazine Index on Censorship. The conditions in which Jews were housed were an extension of those that they were kept in elsewhere in Europe. The camps on Alderney were part of a network of sites that housed Jews and harsh punishments, terrible working and living conditions, and torture characterised their lives on Alderney.”

As part of the Atlantic Wall, between 1940 and 1945 the occupying German forces and the Organisation Todt constructed fortifications around the coasts of the Channel Islands such as this observation tower at Battery Moltke, Jersey (credit: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/MAN VYI)

The investigation will be formally announced this summer by Lord Pickles, the United Kingdom’s Holocaust Envoy.

“The difference between the estimates is so large, I thought it sensible for everyone to put the facts on the table, for it all to be transparent and for the deliberations to be in the open. It seemed pointless people shouting across at each other. It would be better to have a proper discussion and to bring together a panel of international experts,” Pickles told The Observer. 

“It is time for the British government and Alderney authorities to finally face up to the horror of what happened on British soil. There can be no more lies and no more cover-up,” Dame Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP whose father fled Nazi persecution in Germany, told The Guardian.

The decision to investigate the camps has been applauded by international experts

“This inquiry is a significant step toward telling this important history. Dealing openly and accurately with the Holocaust and the history of the Nazi persecution of other groups in all its dimensions is crucial and we expect the results to go a long way in protecting the facts, no matter how uncomfortable they may be,” Dr. Kathrin Meyer, secretary general of the IHRA, said to The Guardian.

Gary Mond, chairman of the National Jewish Assembly (NJA) in the UK, told The Jerusalem Post that “Lord Pickles is right. It is important, as far as is possible, to obtain as much accurate information as we can about Nazi atrocities in Alderney during the war and publicise it. If by doing so we can increase knowledge about the Holocaust for future generations, then this is helpful.”

Mond continued “It is important that incidents of Jew hatred in our country are always publicised and never covered up. I do think that, in recent years, there has been a greater tendency to do this, with good recent examples ranging from acknowledgement of Roald Dahl’s antisemitism to the condemnation of the sadly all-too-frequent inappropriate comparisons of modern events to the Nazis and the Holocaust. “

It is important that incidents of Jew hatred in our country are always publicised and never covered up.

Gary Mond, chairman of the National Jewish Assembly

Nazi occupation of the island of Channel Islands

In 1940, the British prime minister at the time, Winston Churchill, decided that the islands could no longer be defended against the Nazis. The residents were evacuated and the Nazis used the island to house imprisoned slaves. 

The Guardian reported that many of the imprisoned were killed by “Vernichtung durch Arbeit” or “extermination through labour,” although it is known that others had been shot, given a lethal injection, or shipped to an extermination camp in Europe.

To date, it has been confirmed that at least one transit of hundreds of French Jews to the island had taken place. 

The rough seas surrounding the island meant that prisoners on the island suffered from greater shortages than at other camps, National Geographic reported in 2020. In one witness testimony, it was said that a man’s body had been left hung for 4 days with a sign attached that read “for stealing bread”.

Leonard Bernstein’s Children Defend Hollywood Star Bradley Cooper Over ‘Antisemitic’ Prosthetic Nose in Biopic

Algemeiner Staff

Bradley Cooper / AFP

The children of the American Jewish composer Leonard Bernstein have risen to the defense of Bradley Cooper, the actor and director whose portrait of the late Bernstein in his new biopic has been criticized in some quarters as antisemitic.

The charge emerged after the trailer for the film — titled “Maestro” — was released showing Cooper, who directs and stars in the movie, wearing a prosthetic nose.

Critics on social media charged that the nose enhancement played with the antisemitic stereotype that Jews have noticeably larger noses. One user posted photographs of Bernstein next to Cooper, commenting, “This feels especially sinister because Bradley Cooper’s nose is already the same shape and size, if not slightly larger, than Leonard Bernstein’s was.”

Nevertheless, Bernstein’s offspring issued a statement defending Cooper, who is not Jewish.