MARTIN Luther was by any standards a great man. He took on mediaeval Europe’s strongest institution, the papacy, and changed the continent’s religious map. The 95 theses he nailed on the door of a church in Wittenberg were a declaration of war on the religious establishment, ultimately heralding an era that encouraged free thinking and led to Europe’s reawakening.

However, looking for something else about him, I ran into Luther’s views about Jews and Judaism and was shocked to discover someone who should have been in Adolf Hitler’s cabinet.

The Jews survived 2,000 years of unabashed persecution, but emerged powerful in every sense of the term. They also produced some of the world’s greatest scientists and scholars — Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, James Franck, Eugene Wigner, etc.

The brutalities to which they were subjected in mediaeval as well as modern times gave the Jewish people a psyche that has steeled them. Regretfully, some among them also developed a shocking indifference to human misery.

We know, for instance, of Iraq’s fate after Saddam Hussein’s Kuwait misadventure, and the consequences of sanctions. Israel considered Iraq its principal enemy, and Saddam’s stupidity provided Iraq’s, and not just Saddam’s, enemies with an opportunity to strangle Iraq by means of sanctions.

The original purpose of the UN resolution, adopted by the Security Council in 1990, was to force Saddam to pull out of Iraq and pay compensation to those affected by the Iraqi invasion. The sanctions banned all economic dealing with the world, and forbade even food imports, something abolished later.

Despite being persecuted, the Jews emerged powerful.

However, even without the ban on food, the sanctions were harsh and covered a wide variety of chemicals used not only in the defence industry but also in purifying and filtering the water of the Euphrates used by the people of Baghdad and nearby cities. This led to serious health problems for all, especially children. Estimates of child victims of the polluted water and lack of life-saving medicines varies.

Iraq said half a million children died, but it was claimed that the Saddam regime had exaggerated the figure to gain world sympathy. Nevertheless, a key figure denouncing the sanctions was Irish diplomat Denis Halliday, once UN assistant secretary general.

He resigned as the UN humanitarian coordinator in Baghdad because the Security Council refused his demand for lifting the sanctions, saying he could not run a programme that amounted to genocide.

The children were Iraqis, so should that exclude the element of human sympathy? No less a person than Madeleine Albright was asked her opinion about the effects of the sanctions. Secular in outlook, Albright said she didn’t know what her religion was and came to know of it only after she learnt she had joined Bill Clinton’s cabinet in the Jewish quota.

To know her views, Leslie Stahl of CBS, in an interview in 1996, told Albright, “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And … is the price worth it?” Albright, who became the 46th US secretary of state a year later, replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”

Let us also take a look at Menachem Begin’s views. Founder of Likud, he was declared a terrorist by the UK government after he launched a guerrilla war against the ‘mandatory’ power and, besides attacking government installations, was responsible for the murder of Lord Moyne, the British resident minister in the Middle East. Begin’s most heinous act was the blowing up of King David Hotel in Jeru­s­alem, killing 91. This terrorist later beca­­me Israel’s prime mi­­nister and received the Nobel Peace Prize along with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for the 1979 peace treaty.

Another prime minister Yitzhak Shamir told the New York Times the Palestinians would be crushed “like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls”.

Zionist lobbies complain that many quotes attributed to Israeli leaders are fabricated. For instance, a quote by Rafael Eitan, chief of staff of the Israeli Defence Forces (1978-83), and another by Ariel Sharon are claimed by Zionist lobbies to be fakes. Eitan is claimed to have said: “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do … will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”

And “We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours”. Ariel Sharon is alleged to have said: “I don’t know something call[ed] international principles. I vow that I’ll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this area. … With one hit I’ve killed 750 Palestinians […] I wanted to encourage my soldiers by raping Arab girls, as the Palestinian woman is a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to. …”

The writer is Dawn’s External Ombudsman and an author.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2024