""I have nothing against Israel. But I'm worried about having problems later when traveling to Iran," he told the Berlin tabloid B.Z."

....fearing Muslims?....or fearing Islam?...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at October 9, 2007 8:57 AM

the hydra, ach-mad-jihad has his tantacles reaching all over the globe threatening iranians if they don't follow his nazi agenda.

Posted by: desidude at October 9, 2007 9:18 AM

"angering Germany's Jewish lobby..."
-- from the article in Spiegel Online above

My, my. Shades of Mearsheimer and Walt. Now we have the "Jewish lobby" in Germany. It can't be very big, can it? Oh, but just now someone is already composing his little answer to that, writing in in his mind to note that such a "Jewish lobby" doesn't have to be very big because, you know, those Jews know how to exploit German "guilt" one would like to respond in turn that there is not quite enough "guilt" being felt by those Germans, judging by the opinoin polls, and the martin-walserish "the Holocaust? Get over it" attitudes of so many who think we should all by now let bygones be bygones (besides, after killing six million Jews, which at the rates of recompense routinely set for a life -- never mind the "emotional distress" that was inflicted on any and all survivors -- at American law, not the sums paid out by the Germans, but a thousand times more, should have been forthcoming (and this does not even factor in the mass looting of Jewish-owned property, all over Europe, from art collections in Paris and Amsterdam to prime real estate in Berlin, to manufacturing entreprises, such as Osram in Budapest, multiplied many times -- the greatest theft in human history, almost none of it, despite all the publicity that suggests otherwise, restored to its victims or those who naturally stand in for those victims, such as those who live in the state of, and are protected by the state of, Israel.

In a semi-decent world, the line that I discuss above would have read thus:

"angering many Germans" rather than "angering the Jewish lobby"

In a completely decent world, the line that I discuss above would have read thus:

"angering many throughout the West" rather than "angering the Jewish lobby"

At this point, I'd settle for semi-decent.

Posted by: Hugh at October 9, 2007 9:54 AM

Hugh,

you should really start your own site on German bashing. Any opportunity and you are at it again, no matter how O/T or contrived.

at American law...
how about American law show the way and recompense the American Indians for having stolen their land and Afro-American for slavery and de-humanization.

Until then your statements reflect more your own hypocrisy founded on a false belief of moral superiority.

Posted by: raven_ at October 9, 2007 10:44 AM

"Until then your statements reflect more your own hypocrisy founded on a false belief of moral superiority."

And ignorance... love the comment he posted on the article above regarding the Vatican greeting... apparently didn't know its protocol but went ahead and criticized it...

Know-it-alls are such a bore.

Posted by: atheling at October 9, 2007 11:01 AM

Why is the Jewish-German lobby angry? Do they expect this Iranian to be suicidal or put his family at risk? Why is there a "Jewish-German" lobby in the first place? Why are there still Jews in Germany? Wasn't one holocaust enough?

Posted by: US_infidel at October 9, 2007 12:39 PM

"(and this does not even factor in the mass looting of Jewish-owned property, all over Europe, from art collections in Paris and Amsterdam to prime real estate in Berlin, to manufacturing entreprises, such as Osram in Budapest, multiplied many times -- the greatest theft in human history,"

....not far behind is th mass looting of Jewish owned property in Yemen, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan, and others, not to mention the systematic elimination of those people from the face of the earth....The Jews have been robbed of their property, their wealth, and at times their daughters, and even their lives....

...and yet the Jews celebrate life....others only want to take life...

Ban Muslim Immigration

Posted by: exsgtbrown at October 9, 2007 12:50 PM

There are two comments above critical of my intervention.

The first is by a clear tu-quoque artist who drags in the American Indians and slavery to thrash me, as he sees it, for being too relentlessly harsh on those Germans who, in my opinion, ought to be taken to task. And to taks is what I grimly took and where I will grimly continue to take them, when the occasion warrants. And when -- not for all Germans, obviously, but for this or that individual or group or government representative -- will I do this? I will do this whenever I detect an example of moral and other kinds of blindness on certain matters where, given the enthusiastic participation in every sort of cruelty and viciousness, by millions of goosestepping Germans, and not merely a handful of concentration camps and a few crazies at the top who did it, some imply, all by their lonesomes.

"We never knew, we had no idea, it was all that crazy Hitler"- that was the self-pitying whine or wail issuing from too many German throats after World War II, a whine and a wail that did not end, but continued, in modified form, long afterwards, accompanied more recently by "everybody does it" and, still more intolerable, "the Israelis do it too" and, to bring things right up to date, "the people who are responsible for Abu Ghraib have no business telling us about Auschwitz or Belzec or Treblinka" Germans, not so long ago (circa 1933-1945, with unique opportunities offered to them during that extra-special period from 1940 to 1945.

He is joined, in a would-be pile on, by someone who thinks that I, the brother-in-law of a sometime nun, and relative of Amercan Irish Catholics who made their living, at the turn of the century, as part of a wandering troupe of players who put on plays with a religious theme, have no right to question any Vatican act. Has he been reading Jihad Watch carefully? We spare no one. We do not spare George Bush, though I am sure that both Spencer and I voted for him twice. We do not spare the government of Israel, though we support Israel's right to exist, and exist not on sufferance but with intelligent recognition that it too has legal, moral, and historic rights that make demands for any further concessions completely illegitimate, and as realpolitik, futile or, still worse, necessarily leading to a whetting, not sating, of Arab Muslim appetites. We do not spare the Interfaith Feelgood Industry, of all varieties. And even if, at long last, under the current Pope, the menace of Islam, religious and civilizational, has finally sunk fully in, it was not so long ago that a certain Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald in the Vatican was prating about how splendid Islam was, how there was nothing to fear, how interfaithfully yours we should all now be.

It is good that the French cardinal is now attempting to put to good use those highly untraditional "traditional" greetings of the Vatican on Eid al-Fitr, reminding Muslims that they have got to start demonstrating a little tolerance -- a tolerance best expressed by ceasing to discriminate against, to persecute, and to murder and even to mass-murder Christians in Iraq, in Egypt, in Lebanon, in Saudi Arabia (among the foreign wage-slaves), in Pakistan, in Sudan, in Bangladesh, in Indonesia, in Malaysia.

But the custom itself, if custom it indeed is, on the face of it -- which is not the same thing as what the French Cardinal, no doubt prompted by Pope Benedict, has made of it -- hints, to me, of what, when one of the parties involved in any purporsed inter-religous communication or "dialogue" turns out to be Islam, of mere Interfaith fatuity and futility.

Posted by: Hugh at October 9, 2007 12:54 PM

Greetings:

"An Iranian-born player for Germany's under-21 national soccer team has caused controversy by asking to be excused from playing a match against Israel in Tel Aviv this Friday.

Ashkan Dejagah, 21,"

And I thought the Germans were good at math.

Posted by: 11B40 at October 9, 2007 1:00 PM

But who's counting?

Posted by: Hugh at October 9, 2007 1:29 PM

I have more Iranian than German blood in my veins. Besides, I'm doing this out of respect. After all, my parents are Iranian

______________________

Wow, the attitude of honoring your blood-line is one the rise again it seems. What is even more disgusting is that nobody in the media has addressed the issue of his fear of treatment in Iran. The German teams acceptance of his refusal to play, or even noticing the scary similitude between the German-Iranian (Hmm... why isn't he just a German if he has citizenship in Germany?) and the blood laws of Nazi Germany.

Islamic Radicalism = Nazism for the 21st century. Pearl Harbor the Sequel is going to be a lot worse than it was the first time!

Posted by: Monkeywho at October 9, 2007 1:33 PM

time top bring out anew term, JUDEOPHOBIA. fear and anger over anything connected to jews or isreal. applies to muslims, nazis,kker's, some leftists, and a few evengalists.

Posted by: desidude at October 9, 2007 1:40 PM

Throw him off the team, and do not let him come back. He can play for tehran.

Posted by: MP at October 9, 2007 3:28 PM

I don't understand why these jews in Germany are so angry. They really should get a life and stop whining about each an every micro-issue involving Israel. Israelis (me included) don't welcome all this noise.

This guy is obviously worried about his own safety. I understand him.
I also see nothing wrong with this Iranian-born guy identifying himself with his native culture and his family.

Posted by: Syndic Nuruodo at October 9, 2007 4:48 PM

From "Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly" by Margaret Bourke-White, published 1946:

An American major expressed the bewilderment of all of us at the general disclaimers of connection with Nazism when he commented, "The Germans act as though the Nazis were a strange race of Eskimos who came down from the North Pole and somehow invaded Germany."

[...]

Chapter Nine: April in Germany

"We didn't know! We didn't know!"

I first heard these words on a sunny afternoon in mid-April, 1945. They were repeated so often during the weeks to come, and all of us heard them with such monotonous frequency, that we came to regard them as a kind of national chant for Germany...

...The several hundred other spectators who filed through the Buchenwald courtyard on that sunny April afternoon were equally unwilling to admit association with the human beings who had perpetrated these horrors. But their reluctance had a certain tinge of self-interest; for these were the citizens of Weimar, eager to plead their ignorance of the outrages.

When 3rd Army troops had occupied Buchenwald two days before, that tough old soldier, General Patton, had been so incensed at what he saw that he ordered his police to go through Weimar, of which Buchenwald is a suburb, and bring back one thousand civilians to make them see with their own eyes what their leaders had done. The MPs were so enraged that they brought back two thousand.

The newly freed inmates of the camp, dressed in their blue and white striped prison suits, scrambled to the top of the fences around the courtyard. From here these slave laborers and political prisoners waited to see German people forced to view the heap of their dead comrades. Women fainted or wept. Men covered their faces and turned their heads away. It was when the civilians began repeating, "We didn't know! We didn't know!" that the ex-prisoners were carried away with wrath.

"You did know," they shouted. "Side by side we worked with you in the factories. At the risk of our lives we told you. But you did nothing."

Of course they knew, as did most Germans...

...Neither of us knew at the time how quickly people at home, and even some returned soldiers who had not seen these things, would begin to say that perhaps accounts had been exaggerated, that maybe the Germans were not so bad after all. But even though I did not realize how soon some people would disbelieve or forget, I had a deep conviction that an atrocity like this demanded to be recorded. So I forced myself to map the place with negatives.

Posted by: Josephine at October 9, 2007 4:53 PM

Re: Germans who ought to be taken to task.

Who are they in this case? Could it be that they might be the editors of the periodical in which the article appeared? Of course that could never happen here. But I note later on in the article it states:

"Friedbert Pflüger, head of the parliamentary group of the conservative Christian Democrats in the Berlin city assembly, said: 'This is impossible and totally unacceptable. If Dejagah has political qualms he mustn't play for the German national team again.'"

Herr Pflüger, I am shocked and appalled! Back to goosestepping school with you! And some remedial courses in whining and whinging! Otherwise, how will we know that you're a German? Didn't you get the memo?

Posted by: Chatillon at October 9, 2007 4:56 PM

anti-Semitism and always been a problem in Germany and this just proves nothing has changed it if this turkey does not want to play a Jewish team he should quit

Posted by: mowasaperv at October 9, 2007 5:23 PM

raven said:

"how about American law show the way and recompense the American Indians for having stolen their land and Afro-American for slavery and de-humanization."

FYI, Here it the US of A, Native Americans have their own "Nations." Us "evil white devils" can't arrest a Native American if he is within the bourders of a "Nation." If a Native American chooses, he/she can go to college for FREE. They have HUGE holdings of land that they do very little with except place corrupt casinos on. In fact, Native Americans enjoy more rights than the average whitey that pays his taxes. They are given free homes and they get healthcare for free too. Then they get food stamps so that they can buy their food. In fact, there is no real reason for them to leave the Reservation and most of them don't. I used to live adjacent to a "Nation" for years and I know what goes on there.

As for African Americans, many have gotten that chip off their shoulder and have decided to work hard and achieve their dreams like the rest of us. Heck, they could be back in Liberia or Rawanda living in a mud hut hoping that someone is not going to hack them to death. For all the others that STILL have that chip on their shoulder, there's this thing called Welfare. They can piss and moan about how bad they have it as they are cashing their welfare checks.

So don't give me one bit of crap about how bad the Native Americans and the African Americans have it here. It's just Western Bashing Bullshit and I am sick to death of it.

Where I live, nobody gives a rat's ass what you are. It's what you make of yourself that counts. That's the differance between cultures that will prevail and cultures that are dying. My guess is that raven is from the latter.

Posted by: never_submit at October 9, 2007 6:21 PM

reply to mowasaperv:

This incident has nothing to do with antisemitism.
I speak german and have many friends in Germany.
The overwhelming majority of germans are good, honest and decent people. Antisemitism is not so popular in Germany anymore. Leftists and decadent nihilists are a much bigger problem in the german society today (at least in my opinion).

And I really want germans to stop hating themselves, their culture and their military. It's enough that they remember the dark period in their history and the atrocities of hitlerism. Nazi evil is gone forever. It's over.
Germany must once again become a strong, noble, creative, joyful and free western nation.
German culture is a great treasure that must be protected.

Posted by: Syndic Nuruodo at October 9, 2007 6:27 PM

Josephine...Years ago I worked with an Army veteran who had been one of the first American soldiers through the gates of that camp. If you told him you believed none of it, you would have to fight him on the spot. What he saw there changed him forever...

Posted by: duh_swami at October 9, 2007 6:33 PM

duh_swami -- Thank you for sharing that. It's too bad that gentleman can't settle the argument with the president of Iran.

Several months ago, I had a long conversation (at the bus stop and on the bus) with a woman who had been imprisoned at Buchenwald as a child. She survived medical experiments, starvation, etc. She was about six years old when taken there by train and about 10 when the camp was liberated.

This woman was fair-skinned and blue-eyed. She told me she probably survived initially because the Germans didn't think she was Jewish. A rabbi quietly took her under his wing; she also credits her survival to him.

She told me that, when the camp was liberated, many of the children hid because some of the American soldiers were Black men and the children had never seen any Black people before. The children eventually showed themselves.

She described how one Black soldier picked her up and held her; she felt safe with him and lost any fear she had of his skin colour.

Later, when brought to a room to be cleaned up and fed, she fainted from fear. The same Black soldier was brought to the room and he helped her to eat a couple spoonfuls of soup, which was all that her stomach could hold.

The now-elderly woman and I started talking while waiting for the bus. She spoke with a British accent and looked much like my British great-grandmother in complexion, so I asked where she was from originally. I had no idea what I was about to hear.

Posted by: Josephine at October 9, 2007 7:06 PM

A few months ago, I chatted with another woman in the line-up at the bank. She was originally from Germany.

She told me that, during the Second World War, she wanted to get a job in a bank. Before they would hire her, she had to go to the church and get written proof that her parents and grandparents were not Jewish.

Posted by: Josephine at October 9, 2007 7:11 PM

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Posted by: atheling at October 9, 2007 8:57 PM

Syndic Nuruodo: And I really want germans to stop hating themselves, their culture and their military. It's enough that they remember the dark period in their history and the atrocities of hitlerism. Nazi evil is gone forever. It's over.

+100, Syndic.

The war generation has nearly all died off, the good along with the bad. There is no justice now in bashing Germany. It's time to get on with the real business of our lives.

Posted by: ElderlyZionist at October 9, 2007 10:01 PM

The loaded phrase "bashing Germany" -- most uses of that word "bashing" turn out to be loaded -- should not be invoked to bludgeon into silence legitimate criticism of thoughts, words, and deeds by those now living in present-day Germany who have a permanent duty to take extra care in making sure that anything that smacks of, reflects, or is likely to encourage in any way, the mental pathology, individual and also, in a sense, civilizational, of antisemitism is carefully scrutinized, before that word is uttered, that deed done, those thoughts allowed to be thought without countervailing considerations given their due. It is depressing to see the kind of outrageous reporting on Israel, for example, all over Western Europe, but naturally one has a right to be more outraged when it happens in Germany, just as one has more of a right to demand of German representatives at the U.N. that they not vote -- never, period -- against Israel at the U.N. Too tall an order? I don't think so. I consider it part of the absolute minimum, and so do many Germans I know, but who, I suspect, because they have chosen to live in this country, may not be representative.

Posted by: Hugh at October 9, 2007 11:18 PM

"raven said:

"how about American law show the way and recompense the American Indians for having stolen their land and Afro-American for slavery and de-humanization."

...uh oh, another don quixote attacking windmills....and the sun never sets...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at October 10, 2007 8:36 AM

Having served as a soldier in Germany in the sixties for six years and getting to know the Greman people pretty well my comment is they would do it all again tomorrow it's in the psyche of the people. In fact now you will find most average Germans hate Americans with all the vitriol they once reserved for the Jews.
By the way did you hear during re-unification a group of Germans tracked Adolph down in his South America hideaway they told him Adolph come back country needs you at such a critical time and Adolph replied 'OK on one condition this time no more Mr Nice Guy'.

Posted by: Realist at October 10, 2007 9:36 AM

"they (the Germans) would do it all again tomorrow it's in the psyche of the people," etc.

Perhaps then we are to conclude that the German race is congentially corrupt, incapable of grasping the rudiments of civilized behavior or contributing anything of value to world culture, that in fact a Final Solution is required for the German Problem?

The enormity of the Holocaust has yet to be fully understood, by the victims, the perpetrators and the bystanders alike. It perhaps can never be fully understood. But one lesson is possible: humanity's hold on civilization is tenuous and easily shaken off by fear and uncertainty.

The Germans have a duty to Never Forget, but it's not so the rest of us can feel superior. If anything, German history shows how the politics of fear can be used to stampede ordinary people into accommodating abominations, culminating in the observation that evil wears a banal, prosaic face. It CAN happen here. And damned near did, if it weren't for the integrity of Smedley Butler. And the forces at work then may still be at play today. Never forget that either.

The Germans have a duty, as the rest of the civilized world has, to support the state of Israel, but to state that German support of Israel must be absolutely unquestioning is offensive to the concept of informed discourse and debate that must sometime come to rule the world if we are to survive as a civilization. You can, you must, on the basis of the ideals you both share, tell a friend when they have erred.

Posted by: Chatillon at October 10, 2007 11:30 AM

Exactly, Chatillon.
And let me assure you that most israelis also agree with you. I'm not an exception.

Posted by: Syndic Nuruodo at October 10, 2007 2:44 PM

This is a very dangerous precedent to set.

The guy has been excused from playing according to his contract, against an Israeli team.

What happens when if and when he demands his team must be off-limits to Jews? Regardless of pretext, he shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.

No-one should be allowed to accept a job, and then change the job to eliminate anything they choose to avoid.

Posted by: Monty at October 10, 2007 3:59 PM

The Germans have an Iranian-German on their team? That's quite unusual. In spite of all the cries of "racists" that they throw in our direction, their national teams (both men's and women's) have been remarkably free of anyone who wasn't Aryan.

I say let him do it. He's only hurting himself by not playing. And it allows someone else to be called up to take his place on the team. I'm sure they'll be grateful and maybe they'll supplant him permanently.

Posted by: JFP at October 10, 2007 8:16 PM

"I have nothing against Israel. But I'm worried about having problems later when traveling to Iran," he told the Berlin tabloid B.Z."....from headline.

This man just revealed the fact that he's a coward. Lets just hope that his son/daughter are not taking note of his cowardice.

Posted by: champ at October 11, 2007 3:07 AM

...the Germans have suspended him...and now he has announced he wants to play for the Iranian team....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at October 11, 2007 3:35 PM