This week, Irving Roth, a Holocaust survivor and educator featured in CUFI’s new documentary film Never Again?, penned an op-ed for Newsweek where he discusses his experiences in 1940’s Europe to make the point that hatred, which begins with words, ends in horrific action. Despite the efforts to educate about the horrors of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism continues to find minds to infect. And in Europe, they are forgetting the lessons of their own history. No, this isn’t a missive about a couple of bigots beating up a Jew in Paris (though that did happen recently and warrants being aware of). Rather, the point of today’s Update comes from Irving’s piece: we can no more ignore the words or actions of evil today, than Europe could 80 years ago. The EU and Hezbollah Despite the fact that Hezbollah has stockpiled ammonium nitrate in the United Kingdom, and EU member states Cyprus and
Germany, and despite the fact that the Arab league, Israel, the UK, the US, and other western nations have proscribed Hezbollah in its entirety, the European Union continues its fanciful distinction between Hezbollah’s military and political wings – which the terror group itself denies exists. Hezbollah is a terrorist-army. Yes, they use all of the tools at their disposal, including that of the Lebanese government, to further their violent imperialist aims. No, that doesn’t mean that governments should close their eyes to an Iranian armed and funded cancer that continues to take the
lives of innocent Lebanese citizens and in addition threatens the lives of millions of Israelis. The EU leads the western world in wrongheaded policy in Lebanon. But the US is not blameless either. We continue to fund Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces despite their being infected by Hezbollah. The EU and Iran Speaking of the EU screwing up foreign policy, Europe continues to compete with Russia and China in the race to see who will best serve as Iran’s enabler. Right now, the race is too close to call, and we have to acknowledge Russia’s recent pledge to sell weapons to the Islamic Republic. However, had France, Britain and Germany not gone along with Russia and China in seeing the UN arms embargo against Iran expire this month, it’s likely the world’s totalitarians and kleptocrats would have a more challenging time selling weapons to Tehran’s totalitarian and kleptocratic regime. Again, the US is not blameless here. The Iran nuclear accord was the greatest failure of President Barack Obama’s administration. It put billions of dollars in the hands of the Islamic Republic and paved the way for Tehran to – by President Obama’s own admission – develop a nuclear weapons capability over the course of a little over a decade. President Obama hoped the Iranians would change their behavior during that time period, but even before President Trump pulled the US out of that deal, all evidence pointed to the contrary. The Iran nuclear accord enabled, rather moderated, Tehran.
Here's hoping that whoever wins in November will not repeat the mistakes of the not so distant past. Turkey’s Tentacles The cartoon below was recently featured in a newspaper allied with Turkey’s strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It portrays the former Ottoman state as having its tentacles spread throughout the region. It also presents the country’s moderate Republican People’s Party (CHP) as stabbing the heart of the Turkish nation.On the first issue, the cartoon is,
well, accurate.
Credit: Erdogan’s lackies in the Turkish “press”
Turkey is playing a game of international chicken with Cyprus and Greece, backing Azerbaijan against Armenia (because apparently slaughtering a million Armenian Christians wasn’t enough), supporting Hamas, conducting operations in Libya, and waging an under the radar war in northern Iraq. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by Congress. Several letters from a host of Senators from both sides of the aisle have drawn attention to Turkey’s malicious activities and called on the Trump administration to treat Ankara according to its actions, not words – which aren’t particularly nice either. Through his rhetoric and actions, President Erdogan is showing himself to be reminiscent of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And in Iran the violent spread of the Islamic Revolution remains priority one. We’re going to continue to be
focused on these issues in the months to come and are very grateful for your continued support of our efforts. Sincerely, CUFI Action Fund
Team
