The alliance between Israel and the HDZ proves that Zionist Anti-Semitism is as strong as ever
Bosnia crisis: Dodik’s separatism threatens peace in the Balkans
To
those who are unaware of the history of Zionism, it might seem strange that Israel,
a ‘Jewish state’, should support a Croatian political party that sees itself as
the political heir to the Ustaše. The Ustaše exterminated 3 out of 4 Croatian
Jews between 1941 and 1945.
In
fact there is nothing at all strange about Israel supporting anti-Semitic
regimes. It did precisely this in Argentina
between 1976-83 when up to 3,000 Jews were tortured to death. It preferred to
sell the Junta hundreds of millions of
dollars of weaponry.
Zionism
has always seen anti-Semitism as the natural and justified reaction of non-Jews
to the Jewish presence in their midst. As Jacob Klatzkin, Editor of Die Welt wrote:
If we do not admit the rightfulness of anti-Semitism we deny the
rightfulness of our own nationalism... Instead of establishing societies for
defence against the anti-Semites who want to reduce our rights, we should
establish societies for defence against our friends, who desire to defend our
rights.
The
founder of Political Zionism, Theodor Herzl wrote in his Diaries that:
‘the anti-Semites will
become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies.’
The roots of the Ustaše’s ideology were in the Croatian
nationalism of the nineteenth century as pioneered by Ante Starčević. The Ustaše emphasised
the need for a ‘racially pure’ Croatia.
Ante Pavelić
From 1941-45 the Ustaše, led by Ante Pavelić, ruled the Independent State of Croatia, (NDH) a Nazi puppet state. It had the distinction of being the only German ally to establish its own extermination camp, Jasenovac.
Between
300,000 and 750,000 Serbs, 30,000 Roma and 30,000 Jews were exterminated.
The method of killing was not with gas or shootings but by beating, drowning,
beheading and torture.
Ustase Atrocities
Things
were so bad that even the Nazis were revolted. An attaché for the Gestapo wrote to SS leader Himmler:
“The Ustaše
committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript
age, but especially against helpless old people, women, and children. The
number of the Orthodox that the Croats have massacred and sadistically tortured
to death is about three hundred thousand.”
The
official policy was popularly expressed as:
‘Kill
one-third of the Serbs, convert another third to Roman Catholicism, and expel
the remaining third from Croatia.’
In
2013 Croatia joined the European Union. As James Bissett, a former Canadian
Ambassador to Yugoslavia wrote,
Croatia should have apologised for the Croatian Holocaust before being allowed
to join. Germany however, which today has the pro-Zionist neo-Nazi
AfD in the Bundestag whilst simultaneously outlawing
BDS and pro-Palestinian
protests, forced through the accession.
Ante Pavelic giving the Hitler salute - the HDZ is its political successor - unsurprisingly Israel supports it against Bosnia's Jews
In the Spring of 1990, in the wake of the break-up of Yugoslavia elections were held in the Republics. In Croatia, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) triumphed. Following these elections several HDZ officials including President Tuđman, who founded the HDZ in 1989, began engaging in a systematic rehabilitation of the Ustaše regime. Up till the present day HDZ officials go to Bleiburg to commemorate the massacre of Ustaše members in 1945.
War criminal former President of Croatia Franjo Tudman
This resulted in representatives from the Croatian
Jewish community boycotting
the government’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies in 2016 and 2017 in
protest.
Since the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, in
December 1995, Bosnia has had a political structure divided along ethnic lines.
Jakob Finci, leader of Bosnia's Jewish community
In the landmark Sejdic and Finci case in 2009,
the European Court of Human Rights found Bosnia’s constitution to be
discriminatory towards its citizens and ordered a civic constitution to be adopted with
equal rights for all ethnicities. This has not been done.
Jakob Finci, a Bosnian Jew, and Dervo Sejdic, a
Bosnian Roma, addressed the court in Strasbourg, France after they were blocked
from running in the elections as their ethnicity did not belong to any of the
three “constituent peoples” – Bosniak, Croat or Serb.
Christian Schmidt of the EU's OHR of Germany's far-Right CSU - he is pursuing the same policies by different means as his Nazi predecessors - excluding Jews, Roma and other minorities
The law disenfranchised at least 17 national
minority groups who are ineligible to stand for Bosnia’s tripartite presidency
or the House
of Peoples. In addition to the Jewish community, the arrangement also cut
out Bosnia’s Roma population — its largest minority, numbering nearly 60,000 —
from being able to stand for election.
“Bosnian politicians still have not
ended second-class status for Jews, Roma, and other minorities a decade after
the European Court of Human Rights found that the Bosnian constitution violates
their rights,”
Human Rights
Watch said in a 2019 statement.
“If we, the citizens of Bosnia and
Herzegovina now, are not united by Schmidt, by his imposition of a racist
Election Law, in the fight against fascism and racism, no one else will,”
Seijdic wrote on his Facebook page.
Finci, the President of Bosnia’s Jewish
community, described how he was “astonished” by a leaked Israeli memo endorsing
the proposed new law. He wrote
that:
“This was the
first time that Israel is taking a position in internal Bosnia affairs, not
helping the Jewish Community, or at the request of Jewish Community, but one
political party in the country.”
Ustase Atrocities
Noah Gendler, Israeli Ambassador to Albania and Bosnia wrote claiming that “the rights of the Jewish community in the
country are being misused to block essential internal processes in [Bosnia]”
And what were these ‘essential
internal processes’? A law which will
result in Jews, Roma and up to 400,000 other inhabitants of Bosnia being unable
to stand for election. Bosnian Foreign Minister
Bisera Turkovic, who has Jewish origins, issued
a statement that
“It is hard to
fathom how the official policy of the State of Israel could be to welcome the
discrimination of Jews in not being able to hold office in Bosnia and
Herzegovina.”
Turkovic, like many diaspora Jews, did not
understand that Israel’s only interest in them is as potential immigrants or as
pliant political pawns like the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Turkovic’s condemnation sparked anger among anti-Semites,
with Deputy Foreign Minister Josip Brkić stating:
“Today, during my phone call
with Israeli Ambassador H. E. Mr. Noah Gal Gendler, I conveyed that the
demarche sent to @IsraelinAlbania is not the official position of State of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the particular view of one political party,”
Demonstrators outside Schmidt's Office of the High Representative
The memo was issued
in response to the electoral plan promoted by Christian Schmidt, the Office of
the High Representative, an EU-supported institution created after the Balkan
wars of the 1990s. The OHR can overrule government decisions. The Times of
Israel compared
Schmidt’s powers to those of a ‘colonial governor
or a medieval viceroy.’
Schmidt is a worthy successor to the Nazi governors of occupied Europe.
The plan is supported
by Croat and Serb nationalists and opposed by the current government in Bosnia
and Herzegovina. Bosnia’s current political system is based on a power-sharing
agreement among its three major ethnic groups: Muslim Bosniaks, Bosnian
Serbs and Bosnian Croats, an arrangement that is believed to have
excluded more than 100,000 citizens from top level political representation.
The OHR’s proposed
change would simply consolidate the power of ethno-nationalist parties. The
Israeli embassy spoke of
“the
readiness and proposals of the Croat side, as demonstrated throughout
negotiations on changes to the electoral legislation, [are] welcomed.”
Well not by Bosnia’s
Jews! What Israel really means is that it welcomes the creation of a far-Right
ethno-nationalist state like itself, even if that disadvantages Jews. But why
should Israel object? Is not the purpose of Israel to ‘ingather the
exiles’? If that means helping anti-Semites
to push them out then that is a price worth paying.
In response to
Turkovic’s statement Israel’s foreign ministry issued the following Kafkaesque statement.
Israel was supporting the ‘preservation
of their rights.’ Orwellian!
“The Israeli embassy in Tirana,
which is also responsible for Bosnia and Herzegovina, issued a document [on
Monday] in which it expresses the support [for] the preservation of the rights
of the Jewish community in the country.”
The real
reason for Israel’s support for
nationalist politicians Milorad Dodik of the Serb community and Dragan Covic,
the head of the Croatian Democratic Union party was made clear in their memo –
they both support the IHRA ‘definition of anti-Semitism’ which redefines anti-Semitism
as hostility to Zionism and Israel. It has nothing to do with hatred of Jews. Dodic is described in the article as ‘a vocal supporter of Israel’ who also denies
the 1995
Srebrenica genocide in which Bosnian-Serb forces killed over 8,000 Bosnian-Muslim
men and boys.
Former Bosnian Energy
Minister Reuf Bajrovic described
Israel as ‘siding with people who want
Bosnia gone, far-right genocide deniers.” Israel is in effect allying with holocaust
deniers.
Catholic Priests Officiating at a Ustase Ceremony
With the support of the Christian Schmidt, who is trying to
finish what the Nazis began, Israel is actively helping the heirs to the Ustaše who all but wiped out Croatia’s Jews. This is Zionism.
Below is an article by Jena Delich who is a Bosnian
pro-democracy and anti-fascist activist and also a retired British lecturer..
Tony Greenstein
For
further reading about the topic of this blog go to:
Ustaše-
The fascists that made the Nazi’s look like boyscouts
Croatia
Has a Problem with Historical Revisionism, and HDZ Is to Blame
Meet The Ustaše, The Brutal
Nazi Allies Even Hitler Couldn’t Control
‘This
Is Crazy’: Israeli Embassy Memo Stirs Political Storm in the Balkans
Legislating
‘apartheid’: Critics slam Bosnia’s election law plan
‘New
law may cement de facto ban on Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Jews holding high office
Head
of Bosnian Jewish Community 'Astonished' by Israeli Memo on Election Reform
backed by Israel
Al Jazeera interview with Christian Schmidt, the Croatian High Representative
Croatian High representative, Christian Schmidt, intends on imposing discriminatory and anti-Semitic election laws in Bosnia, backed by Israel
High
Representative, Christian Schmidt, whose role is to oversee the implementation
of the civic part of the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is
planning on imposing new election laws on the Bosnian entity, which is an administrative
part of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the request of Croatia.
The new election laws are seen by the vast majority of Bosnian citizens to be
discriminatory, anti-Semitic and even fascist.
After the
1992-95 war in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (i.e. the aggression by
Serbia and Croatia) was brought to an end by the Dayton Peace Accords, the
country was internally organised into two administrative units. The role of the
High Representative was established in Annex 10 of Dayton Peace Accords.
Since the
war ended, there has been a succession of High Representatives appointed from
the EU by the Peace Implementation Council (PIC).
The present
High Representative is Christian Schmidt, a German politician and former
Minister of Agriculture in Germany. He is also a member of the Christian
Social Union, a deeply conservative party in Bavaria which is allied to the
Christian Democrats. It was a party that many ex-Nazis joined after defeat in
the second world war.
While there was a heavy ‘push’ by Germany to
have him appointed as High Representative, the Bosnian diaspora in the U.S.
firmly opposed it, expressing their grave concerns to the U.S. administration
in their letter of 22nd February 2021 to the US Secretary of State, Anthony
Blinken.(1)
In their
letter they stated that
by seeking to appease the forces of segregation and
secessionists in BiH – and their benefactors in Zagreb, Belgrade, and Moscow –
Schmidt will only distance the country from its rightful place within the
community of Western democracies.
They went on
to say that
It is also alarming that Schmidt’s political party
– the Christian Social Union (CSU) – is a very vocal supporter of the Croatian
HDZ, a far right party with a large anti-Semitic base in Croatia and BiH. In
fact, Schmidt received the Order of Ante Starcevic by the HDZ, an award that
was also given to individuals that were accused and convicted of war crimes. (1)
Christian
Schmidt was awarded the Order of Ante Starcevic in 2020, by the Prime Minister
of Croatia, Andrej Plenković. (2) The same order of Ante Starcevic was also
awarded to the convicted war criminals Dario Kordic and Jadranko Prlic.(2a)
Ante
Starcevic was a Croatian nationalist politician whose ideology included the creation
of Greater Croatia. “Most right-wing
parties in Croatia claim his politics as their legacy.”(3)
Ustase atrocities
It was Croatian
right-wing politics in WWII that led to the Ustasha movement being founded
which saw 30,000 Jews imprisoned and massacred by the Ustashas in
Croatia, in concentration camps like Jasenovac, Stara Gradiška, Lepoglava, to
mention just a few.
The legacy
of the same politics was pursued by Croatia and its ruling (far right)
nationalist party HDZ during its war on the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina which
has been ruled as ‘joint criminal enterprise’ by the International Crimes
Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, also confirming that the President of Croatia,
Franjo Tudjman was leading the ‘joint criminal enterprise’.
Ustase atrocities
The ICTY’s
ruling of 29th November 2017 also read:
“The Appeals Chamber upheld the Trial Chamber’s
findings that key members of Croatia’s then-leadership, including President
Franjo Tuđman, Defence Minister Gojko Šušak, and Janko Bobetko, a senior
General in the Croatian Army, shared the criminal purpose to ethnically cleanse
Bosnian Muslims and contributed to realizing that goal.” (3a)
A number of
Bosnian Croat politicians and military leaders have been sentenced for war
crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, running of concentration
camps such as Dretelj, Gabela, Heliodrom, to name just a few, where they
imprisoned Bosniak civilians, torturing, and killing many of them.(4)(5)(6)
Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo
The legacy
of that politics is alive and present in the official politics of present day
Croatia which is trying to impose election laws on part of Bosnia and
Herzegovina via High Representative, Christian Schmidt. The election laws can
easily be seen as being both fascist and antisemitic in that they discriminate
against Jews, Romas and others who do not fall within one of the three ethnic
groups (Croats, Serbs or Bosniaks), by depriving them of any rights to run for
High office!
The final
and ultimate aim of such an election law is for Croatia to carve up Bosnia and
Herzegovina and create ‘Greater Croatia’ by joining the part of Bosnia they
occupied by force between 1993 and 1995.
The election
law that Christian Schmidt wants to impose is also contrary to four verdicts of
the European Court of Human Rights, one of which is the verdict on Mr. Jakob
Finci, a Bosnian Jew, and Mr. Dervo Sejdic, a Bosnian Roma.(6a)(6b)
All the
rulings found the existing election law to be discriminatory as explained in an
article by Baroness Arminka Helic of 01.08.22. (7)
None of the
verdicts have been implemented up till now. (8)(9)
the Independent State of Croatia, (NDH) a Nazi Puppet State
Implementing
those verdicts would mean equality in the law for all. Sadly, High
Representative Christian Schmidt doesn’t seem concerned with implementing those
ECHR verdicts. Nor does he seem to be concerned with changing the election laws
in Bosnia’s entity of ‘Relublika srpska’ either where only a Serb can run and
be elected as a member of the Bosnian Presidency, where apartheid is the best
way to describe the place where the remaining non-Serbs (including Jews, Romas
and others) live, where all children are taught in schools that war criminals
are heroes and the history that is based on lies and fabrications, where the
maternal tongue of others is banned - the dark list of similar horrors could go
on and on!
The new
election laws Christian Schmidt seems to want to impose on the Bosnian entity
of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is seeking to further widen and
cement the ethnic divide, and ‘may cement
a de facto ban on Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Jews holding high office’. (8)
Such
election laws would weigh local demographics in elections, which would benefit
only ethno-nationalists in further consolidating their power. (9)
Ustase atrocities
Such an
election law is being backed by the US and UK!(7) Knowingly or not, they seem
to have chosen to be on the wrong side of history. But, I’d say we definitely
must be concerned with such a choice and the consequences it would have on
people affected by such discriminatory and anti-Semitic election laws.
Apart from
the US and UK, Israel has given its support to election laws that would
discriminate Jews! The Israeli embassy in Tirana, covering Bosnia and
Herzegovina as well, issued a Memo ‘welcoming’
such discriminatory (and anti-Semitic) election laws, as reported in all
Bosnian media on 8th August 2022.The Israeli embassy Memo was also reported in
the Israel’s media such as Haaretz of
10th August 2022, and the Times of Israel
on 13th August 2022. (10)(11)
Ustase atrocities
The Memo of
support to the introduction of such election laws issued by the Israeli embassy
in Tirana was met with official reactions in Bosnia and Herzegovina condemning
such an action on part of Israel.
Thus,
Bosnian Foreign Minister, Mrs. Bisera Turkovic, a Bosniak of Jewish descent,
expressed her disbelief in her interview given to the Haaretz and reported in
the JTA:
“It is hard to fathom how the official policy of
the State of Israel could be to welcome the discrimination of Jews in not being
able to hold office in Bosnia and Herzegovina,”
According to
Haaretz. “The proposed electoral
legislation would cement the current discriminatory system towards minorities
in Bosnia.”(11)
The Head of the
Bosnian Jewish community, Mr. Jakob Finci, also expressed his disbelief at the
support given by Israel to the election laws that High representative Schmidt
intends on imposing on Bosnia at the request of Croatia, stating that those
would ‘minimise the political influence
of Jews and other minorities’. (9)
Criticising
Israel, Mr. Finci accused the Israeli embassy in Tirana of ‘acting in support of a local ethnic Croat political party’. Finci
stated that
‘this was the first time that Israel is taking a
position in internal Bosnia affairs, not helping the Jewish community, or at
the request of Jewish community, but one political party in the country’.(9)
The
‘political party’ that Jakob Finci referred to in his statement is the Croatian
HDZ in Bosnia - ‘a far right party with a large anti-Semitic base in Croatia
and BiH’ as per the letter of the Bosnian diaspora of 22nd February 2021. (1)
In their
response to Mr. Finci the Foreign Ministry of Israel stated they had ‘no interest in responding to his words’!(9)
Putting it
politely, ‘we heard you but we shall
still continue to do as we please’!
Should we
too, be left in disbelief at the State of Israel welcoming election laws that
discriminate against Jews, which High Representative Christian Schmidt, a
former German diplomat and politician, seems to want to impose on Bosnia at the
request of Croatia?
Shouldn’t
they instead be screaming ‘anti-Semitism’
at the very mention of a possibility of imposing such election laws in Bosnia?
Shouldn’t they be protesting to the US and UK for supporting Christian Schmidt
in his intention to impose such laws?!
I shall
leave it to the readers to ponder over those questions, and would finish by quoting
a tweet from Jews Sans Frontiers of 11th August 2022 commenting on the
interview given by Jakob Finci:
“Bosnian
Jewish community leader protests Israel's support for ethnonationalism in
Bosnia and Herzegovina. New electoral law excludes Jews and Roma with Israel's
support. I don't know why a knowledgeable Jewish leader would be surprised at
this.” (12)
What can we
do? Write to our governments and MPs or members of Congress in the UK, US
and Israel, to protest and demand that they stop supporting High
Representative, Christian Schmidt in his intention to impose such
discriminatory and anti-Semitic election laws in Bosnia and Herzegovina. If you
can, please do.
Jenna
Delich
——-
(1) Bosnian
American Diaspora Opposes German Push for New High Representative – Advisory
Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina
(2) Berlinski
Magazin - Premijer Plenković U Berlinu uručio odličje Red Ante Starčevića,
Christianu Schmidtu njemačkom zastupniku.
(3) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ante_Star%C4%8Devi%C4%87
(4) https://balkaninsight.com/2012/09/14/the-untold-story-of-the-dretelj-horrors/
(5) https://hyperleap.com/topic/Dretelj_camp/Heliodrom_camp
(6) What
do Heliodrom camp, Milivoj Petković and Dretelj...
(13) https://twitter.com/jewssf/status/1558154206900625410?s=30&t=LaX6uDt2Q-6dAYJ2W7nGCw
Very informative blog, thank you. Joins a lot of the dots and covers stuff that MSM ignore/bury.
ReplyDeleteMore top-notch work from Tony -- thank you. When is your book due out? Very much looking forward to it.
ReplyDeleteOn the point of Israel encouraging and allying with anti-Semitism -- well, the IDF are so aggressive, they seem so akin to a fascist , racist identity, so, just like those Israeli mercenaries fighting with the Azov Battalions against the 'orc untermenschen', maybe they feel at home together -- and secondly, the more anti-Semitism they can encourage in the ( so called ) diaspora, the more Jews will migrate to Israel, which is what Zionists want -- human psychology on one level seems so contradictory and complex, hard to make out, but in other ways, so very , very basic, intuitive and visceral.
Thanks again for your very humane and perceptive writing Tony.