Israel – Iran – and the Bombs

The recently appointed Head of Israel’s legendary Mossad warned that "Iran is working at this very moment to realize its nuclear dream under the cover of international protection, [...] with lies and concealment, Iran is in a constant state of advancing its plan to create weapons of mass destruction."

 

Israel should know and perhaps this is also why it is so worried. After all, lying and concealing to create weapons of mass destruction is exactly what Israel itself has done, from the very beginning, in 1958, when some 1500 French engineers and technicians built a nuclear reactor in Israel’s desert town of Dimona. The cover story was that it was a... textile plant. This same "textile plant", experts believe, has produced between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads, which Israel now possesses.

 

The reactor was built long before Israel became a client-state of the USA, which became suspicious of the secret goings-on in the Israeli desert, and demanded to be allowed to visit the site. Israel prevaricated, lied, and misled. For years, Israel lied and cheated the whole world as to the true purpose of its Dimona project. It still is, according to Israel, a research facility only. A super-clandestine organisation was established by Israel for the acquisition, by any means possible, including theft, of materials and equipment,including bomb-grade uranium, which it required for its bomb production.

 

Israel will still not allow supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Indeed, like India, Pakistan and North Korea, Israel has never signed the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

 

Understandably, Israel and other countries are worried about the Iranian nuclear programme. It is, however, somewhat ridiculous for the head of Israel’s Mossad to bemoan “Iran’s lies and concealment”. As far as nuclear plans and programmes go, Iran is as honest as Israel.

Irresponsible Doctors

Dr R, my paediatrician in Tel-Aviv, was a friendly man and was deemed to be competent by my parents. They did, however, not consider Dr R to be very intelligent and I would occasionally hear them making jokes to that effect. I was thus inoculated at a very young age against the notion that the physician’s white coat should bestow automatic admiration.  

 

Last week a not so young friend of mine told me that his much-admired surgeon, with whom he had had a general conversation, had in no uncertain terms told him not to get the Covid vaccination, until more research about possible risks has been published. He himself, he added, has not been vaccinated.

 

Does a surgeon have better understanding of vaccines than someone who has not studied medicine? Is he more capable of analysing the impact, efficacy, and risk information? Not really. He might be a great surgeon, however, had he also been intelligent, he would refrain from such irresponsible advice. 

 

No doctor's dilemma here. 

More from London – The Unhealthy Health Service

In the UK there is no obligation to wear masks in closed areas, such as supermarkets. Indeed, my impression is that most people don’t. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to actually get and see one’s doctor, because the doctors try to do almost EVERYTHING digitally.

 

I prefer the German system in which, wearing masks in shops is obligatory but the doctors don’t – in times of a pandemic – just opt out of seeing their patients.

 

Whilst whingeing about the NHS, I have just learned that due to a lack of glass vials for blood samples, the NHS is avoiding carrying out blood tests and postponing them if possible. Now they have also announced a two-week-delay in the delivery of flu jabs to the doctors’ practices. Boris Johnson’s England does not have enough lorry drivers...  

Retail in London – sad sights

Walking down upmarket New Bond Street, one sees one abandoned shop after another:

 

 

 

Some property owners, such as the Burlington Arcade, try to make it seem less desolate: 

 

 

Regent’s Park

Last Saturday, I spent a couple of hours walking in the delightful Regent’s Park. People were rowing in the Boating Lake, playing tennis in the many tennis courts, or listening to a wonderful band playing New Orleans type Jazz.

 

 

Hyde Park ( a few days later) isn’t bad either...

SPRACHGEWALT: 2 reviews

Aachener Nachrichten:

 

„Sprachgewalt“ ist ein spannendes, hochinteressantes Plädoyer für einen kritischen Blick auf unseren Sprachgebrauch.“   

 

„Die 28 Einzelanalysen des Buches sind durchweg von sehr hoher Qualität.“

 

Here's a link.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ):

 

„Das von Ranan herausgegebene Buch ist in diesen Zeiten [...] ein wichtiges Werk.“

 

„Ein Leitfaden für differenzierte politische Sprache.“   

 

„Hilft dabei, die Diskurse hinter der Sprache zu verstehen.“

To buy: At any bookstore and by mail-order here.

Afghanistan I

Photos of refugees and their misery can regularly be seen on TV. And tragically, there is nothing new about them anymore. One almost gets used to them. And yet, something about the latest photographic reports showing Afghans trying to flee their country, clambering on to the airport gates and attempting to board the remaining flights, reminds me of our own history: Jews who hopelessly tried to flee Germany, no country willing to take them in, as they were left to be killed.

Afghanistan II

Many of us were truly delighted and relieved, last year, when Biden won the elections. The hopes were high, very high. Recent days are a stark reminder that US Republicans and Democrats are not that far apart. There is indeed a great difference between Biden’s and Trump’s administrations: Decision making seems to be much more matter of fact and the language used is no longer gutter language. But when it comes to business, Biden now simply completed a process that was started by Trump.  

Back in London

I have finally made it back to London - Despite being fully vaccinated and coming from what the UK defines as a “green” country, I had to undergo a Covid Test before flying out and book (and pay!) for a further test, to be taken on the second day after my arrival in the UK. BUT no quarantine!

 

BA in Munich asked for proof of vaccination. I don’t know whether big brother is meanwhile so high-tech that Heathrow know all about arriving passengers or whether immigration authorities are simply inefficient? However, at Heathrow nobody wanted to see any proof of my Corona status.

 

Not so highly developed is the BA Terminal 5 at Heathrow. With passenger numbers still on the floor, compared to pre-Corona volumes, I would have expected a very fast turnaround. Not so. Our luggage arrived almost 1½ hours after we landed. I spent almost the same amount of time flying to London, as I did waiting for the luggage. Only a few luggage belts were in use. Most were empty. Our luggage belt served three(!) additional flights at the same time, including one from a Corona “red” country. The area was crowded.  

 

 

Salt Beef to fight off Corona?

Most of the shoppers at my London supermarket were not wearing masks. Perhaps, I should not have been surprised: Here we are only asked kindly to do so but there is no obligation.
 

The Jewish restaurant Reubens has a better idea:

 

A glowing review of SPRACHGEWALT on Deutschlandfunk Kultur. Here’s a link.

 

The reviewer’s response to the question, who he would recommend the book to:

 

"To you, to me, in fact to anyone who either tunes in to or wants to follow political and public discourse. [...] I'm going to put it relatively near the front of the shelf..." 

 

“Ihnen, mir, eigentlich jeden der sich in  der öffentlichen Diskussion, in der politischen Diskussion entweder einschaltet, oder sie verfolgen will. […] Ich werde es relativ weit vorne im Regal einsortieren…”  

 

Hier und in jeder Buchhandlung erhaltbar. 

 

Salzburg mishandling Mozart (yet again)

The city, which badly treated Mozart during his lifetime, proudly promotes and makes a lot of money of its most famous son. Why the hell, do they continue to mishandle him posthumously?

 

This year’s Salzburg Festival main new opera production was Don Giovanni. On one hand, it promised Romeo Castellucci, who directed a wonderful production of Salome, two years ago. On the other hand, the festival managers chose the ridiculous Greco-Russian swan, Teodor Currentzis, as conductor. This should have sufficed to put me off. Indeed, I long hesitated before going. I did go and have only myself to blame.

 

Currentzis has made a habit of co-opting external pieces of music and inserting them into existing compositions. Spoiling other composers’ productions must be the limit of his creativity. A few years ago, he did it with Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito. He did it again with this year’s Don Giovanni.

 

The soloists, chosen by Currentzis for Don Giovanni were a mixed bunch. Michael Spyres was a wonderful Don Ottavio and Federica Lombardi a very good Donna Elvira. Davide Luciano in the title role and Vito Priante as Leporello are names to be forgotten.

 

But even mediocre soloists get enthusiastic applause from the easy-to-please Salzburg Festival audience. Their applause gets especially jubilant after popular arias, which even the musically uneducated recognise.

 

Currentzis has successfully marketed himself and enjoys loads of groupies, such as the woman, who sat behind me, who had never seen or heard Don Giovanni before. She travelled especially from Hamburg only because of “wonderful” Currentzis. He is an “in” conductor, a crowd-puller and the opera houses, in all likelihood, will continue to court and fête him. If it were up to me, I would send him back to Siberia, where he started his career.  

Salzburg mishandling Mozart (part II)

Mozart’s Great Mass in C-Minor is annually performed as part of the Salzburg Festival. The venue is Salzburg’s Church of St. Peter’s Abbey, the church, for which Mozart had composed the Mass.

 

Mozart never completed this work, no Agnus Dei and parts of the Credo are missing. Over the years, various attempts were made to complete the Mass. What Salzburg did this year, however, is an outrage. As complementary pieces, they interspersed the original movements of the Great Mass with various Bruckner as well as some Schubert sequences.  

 

It was beautifully sung and played but the injection of alien material was artistically scandalous. Elated and exhilarated by Mozart, one’s attention flopped when the music moved to Bruckner or Schubert.

 

The putti, in front of my chair, however, seemed to take it in their stride. 

 

The Queen – No revolution

 

It is unrealistic to expect the privileged to voluntarily forego their privileges. They very rarely do. Occasional examples such as King Lear have proven sceptics to be right. Not even the Bill Gates and Warren Buffets of this world, who have passed astounding parts of their wealth to charitable foundations, have concluded that the system that enables them to amass such wealth is sick and requires repair, not even that it needs tweaking. And yet, revolution is not likely. The cleverly designed social-democrat structures in Western countries and the bloody experience with Communism disarm the incentive to revolt.

 

The Queen is no exception. Why should she? But amazingly, generation after generation of public servants and politicians furtively collaborate and are instrumental in the Queen’s effort at increasing her own wealth.

 

The latest revelation is that the Queen’s courtiers successfully lobbied to exempt Balmoral, her private property in Scotland, from a law that was designed to cut carbon emissions through the construction of heat pipelines. Why grant the Queen exemptions, which other property owners do not enjoy?

 

It turns out that, by convention, the Queen as well as the Prince of Wales are asked for their consent before laws that may have a bearing on their interests are discussed by parliament. The Prince of Wales for example, has successfully acted to prevent his tenants from enjoying the rights granted by law to tenants of non-royal estates.  

 

The Queen has been at it for years. She is income-tax exempt and only started paying tax “voluntarily” in 1992 and she is still exempt from inheritance tax.

 

The time is long-overdue for all these privileges to be done away with. There is no justification for them. More than that, politicians should finally learn that they are public servants and not the Queen’s.

Germans and their shoes

Some people fetishize shoes. Others just have overflowing collections of them. Former Philippines First Lady, Imelda Marcos, who denied rumours that she owned 3000 pairs of shoes, owned up to 1060 such pairs.

 

In Germany, I have come across a rather schizophrenic relationship, which some Germans have with their shoes. Having worn them all day, they leave their shoes outside their own apartments, in the common parts of the buildings, in which they live. Evidently, they find their own – lovingly and expensively purchased – shoes either too smelly or too dirty to bring into their own flat. It is often quite disgusting.

 

Here’s what I was greeted with on a recent visit to a colleague’s house in Berlin. (Not the colleague’s but an adjacent flat) 

 

SPRACHGEWALT – Review & Interviews

Inge Klöpfers Besprechung von SPRACHGEWALT im Hauptstadtbrief.

 

Kurzes Interview im „Scala“ Programm vom WDR

 

Nächstes Interview: Freitag, 23.7 im „Sozusagen!“ Programm des Bayerischen Rundfunks.

Military Industrial Complex

Israel recruits some of its brightest kids into the military cyber, signal and electronic intelligence and warfare units. There, these 18-year-olds are given the most sought after toys any geek might wish for: sophisticated computer systems, which only states have at their disposal with almost limitless computing power and a license to break in and enter whatever seems interesting. Some are encouraged to investigate the unknown. Illegal is no hindrance.

 

Without going into the ethics of some of the “work” these soldiers carry out “for their country”, the next stage is much more troublesome. After several years of military service, some take their expertise to the market, setting up companies, in which the digital breaking and entering software is offered by them to those who are willing to pay.

 

Much money is involved, very much money. Dictators will pay as much as is required to get rid of their opponents. According to Amnesty International, one Israeli company alone has sold its systems to a long list of dictatorships. Under the mantle of combatting crime and terrorism, critics and opponents of the regime are targeted with these powerful digital tools.

 

Sadly, Israel, one of the biggest players in the world’s arms trade, finds it useful to agree arms, weapon systems, and electronic weaponry deals with some of the darkest regimes worldwide.

 

The term “military-industrial-complex”, I always thought, was a slogan conceived by American socialists. Not so: It was no less than a Republican, the retired General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in his final speech (1961) as 34^th President of the USA, had warned:

 

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

 

We have not heeded Eisenhower’s warning and the military-industrial-complex is growing daily. It has gotten out of hand and democracies should start winding this down. A good start would be to cut the mercenary lure of killing and instruments of subjugation.  

Palestine’s right to exist

Netanyahu, Israel’s former prime minister, is a master propaganda artist. One of the ideas that he successfully managed to instil is that anti-Zionism is tantamount to Antisemitism. This, of course, is total nonsense and yet, like parrots, Jewish organisations world-wide as well as many Western politicians repeat the demand that “Israel’s right to exist” be recognized, even by Palestinians, who were made homeless refugees because of Zionism.

 

Here’s a link to a short text of mine IN GERMAN on the subject of Palestine’s right to exist. It was broadcast on German radio a few days ago.

 

And here’s an English translation:

 

Palestine's Right to Exist is Non-Negotiable

 

"Israel's right to exist is non-negotiable" is a principle of German foreign policy. But what about Palestine's right to exist on the other side?  The question is less far-fetched than it might at first seem. In 1947, the United Nations decided not only that a Jewish state should be established in the British Mandate territory of Palestine, but also that an Arab state should be founded. Likewise, the holy city of Jerusalem was to be administered neutrally under international control. 

However, only the Jewish side accepted the UN proposal. The Arab side rejected it, not least because it would not accept that a people who lived in Palestine over 2,000 years ago should, based on a religious text, now claim rights to land on which Arabs have been living for over 1,000 years. 

In practice, the only thing that came of the UN plan was the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Moreover, war with its Arab neighbours enabled Israel to expand the territories allotted to it in the partition plan. Jerusalem ended up as a city divided between Jordan and Israel. Much of the non-Jewish population was displaced from their ancestral lands. 

Israel's conquest and systematic settlement of the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War have resulted in a continuing meltdown of the potential Palestinian territory. What the UN resolution originally called for never came to pass: the establishment of an independent Palestine. 

At least on paper, however, this state does exist. The Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO, had proclaimed it in 1988. In the UN, 138 countries now recognize this Palestine. Significant exceptions, however, are the United States and a large part of the European Union. Chancellor Merkel has even confirmed that Germany would not recognize Palestine without Israel's consent.

What should have become Palestine remains under the control of the Israeli military and intelligence services to this day. The declaration of the Palestinian state remained only a symbolic act.

Israel, on the other hand, is recognized by almost all members of the UN. Although its right to exist is not questioned by any serious party, Germany insists on the mantra that Israel's right to exist is not negotiable. 

In practical terms, Germany's unconditional pro-Israel position means that it repeatedly acts against Palestinian interests. The bottom line is that Germany remains an enabler of Israel's occupation and illegal settlement of the West Bank, with its unfortunate serious consequences for the people in the Israeli-occupied territories: Palestinians are subjugated and dispossessed by means of Israel's military power. 

Does Germany have the moral right to act this way? Is it not high time that we remember the historic decision of the United Nations and add a second mantra to that of Israel's right to exist? Namely, one that reads, "Palestine's right to exist is non-negotiable."