rigorousintuition.ca

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We've seen a view here, promulgated by Alice, of Kissinger as a kind of Zionist infiltrator, a thesis that the actions of this most American-Imperialist of war criminals were actually designed always with Israel in mind.

How does this latest story fit in? It relates his views on the efforts led by Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson (who had Perle and Wolfowitz on his staff at the time) to impose sanctions on Moscow to allow emigration of Soviet Jews. This was the primary Zionist issue of the 1970s. In the meantime, emigration of more than a million Jews (some of them just pretending, however) from the former Soviet countries in the last 20 years has literally rescued Israel by partly counteracting the much-feared "demographic bomb."

http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_he ... ks_1485950

Henry Kissinger apologises for 1973 'gassing Jews in Soviet Union' remarks
Published: Saturday, Dec 25, 2010, 13:52 IST
Place: Washington, DC | Agency: ANI

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger has apologised for his remarks he made in 1973 during a conversation with the then US President Richard Nixon, when he had said that it would not be an American concern if the Soviet Union sent its Jews to the gas chambers.

(snip apology blah blah)

Kissinger's conversation with Nixon was recorded and he could be heard saying that the emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy.

"And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern," he had said.

(snip apology blah blah)

Referring to his conversation with Nixon, where his gas chambers remark was made, Kissinger wrote "the conversation at issue arose not as a policy statement by me but in response to a request by the president that I should appeal to Senators Javits and Jackson and explain why we thought their approach unwise."


http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_he ... ks_1485950

My remarks to Nixon, in context

By Henry A. Kissinger
Sunday, December 26, 2010

For someone who lost in the Holocaust many members of my immediate family and a large proportion of those with whom I grew up, it is hurtful to see an out-of-context remark being taken so contrary to its intentions and to my convictions, which were profoundly shaped by these events. References to gas chambers have no place in political discourse, and I am sorry I made that remark 37 years ago.

In his Dec. 21 op-ed column ["Beyond Kissinger's realism"] Michael Gerson used comments I made during a one-minute conversation with Richard Nixon to draw a contrast between the moral insensitivity of the so-called foreign policy realists and the broader humanistic view of their critics. As a general subject, this is beyond the scope of an op-ed comment. In this specific case, further reflection might counsel a limit to righteousness.

Context matters. Gerson presents the issue of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union in the 1970s as if it had been an abstract debate between those who relied on a relaxation of tensions and advocates of ideological confrontation, in which the realists were willing to sacrifice Jewish emigration on the altar of detente. The opposite is true. That emigration existed at all was due to the actions of "realists" in the White House. Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union had never been put forward by any administration as a formal American position, not because of moral insensitivity but because intense crises imposed other priorities. In 1969, we introduced it into the presidential channel as a humanitarian issue because we judged that a foreign policy confrontation would lead to rejection and an increase of tensions with the Soviets. As a result, Jewish emigration rose from 700 a year in 1969 to near 40,000 in 1972. The total in Nixon's first term was more than 100,000. We also submitted, with some success, several hundred hardship cases at regular intervals. To maintain this flow by quiet diplomacy, we never used these figures for political purposes.

The issue became public because of the success of our Middle East policy when Egypt evicted Soviet advisers. To restore its relations with Cairo, the Soviet Union put a tax on Jewish emigration. There was no Jackson-Vanik Amendment until there was a successful emigration effort.

Sen. Henry Jackson, for whom I had, and continue to have, high regard, sought to remove the tax with his amendment. We thought the continuation of our previous approach of quiet diplomacy was the wiser course. But the issue became intense only when, the tax having been removed by our previous methods of quiet diplomacy, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment was institutionalized.

The conversation at issue arose not as a policy statement by me but in response to a request by the president that I should appeal to Sens. Jacob Javits and Jackson and explain why we thought their approach unwise. My answer tried to sum up that context in a kind of shorthand that, when read 37 years later, is undoubtedly offensive. It was addressed to a president who had committed himself to that issue and had never used it for political purpose to preserve its humanitarian framework.

The comment to Nixon that emigration was not a subject of foreign policy has to be seen in that context.

The conversation should also be understood as having occurred within 15 minutes of a meeting between Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that was attended also, and only, by myself and Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin. That meeting agreed on military deliveries (especially airplanes), a peace process via the White House, a negotiating position and steps to encourage Egypt to leave its alliance with the Soviet Union. It was to preserve that strategy that Nixon asked me to call the two senators.

Events proved our judgment correct. Jewish emigration fell to about a third of its previous high, not to be resumed at substantial levels for 20 years, as Gerson admits. That was during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Gerson ascribes the collapse of the Soviet Union in part to the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. The amendment played no significant role in what resulted from imperial overstretch, incompetent economic management and the determined resistance of a succession of presidents from both parties, culminating in the Reagan period.

Gerson sneers at detente as if it were a kind of moral abdication. Memories are short. The conversation under discussion occurred on March 1, 1973. The Vietnam War had just ended; prisoners had not yet returned.

An effective global strategy was in place with the opening to China, a broad dialogue with the Soviet Union, and major progress in Egypt and on emigration. It was to preserve that policy that the conversation in the Oval Office took place, and it is in that context that it must be viewed.

The writer was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. Link

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Which policy was better for emigration clearly wasn't on his mind back then. The carrot may have caused the Soviets to allow more emigration and the Jackson-Vanik stick may have caused them to block it, but the point is emigration was no issue to Kissinger, who would even make such a joke about it. He didn't care about what Zionists considered one of the most important life-or-death issues for Israel.

But perhaps we can settle it and wrap up this thread with a readers' poll:

Which Kissinger do you believe?

The Secretary of State and National Security Adviser speaking in a meeting with Nixon in the White House about a policy they were setting at the time?

Or the retired official, rich consultant and fugitive from universal justice, 37 years later -- about 20 years since the policy question became moot -- who has been forced to publish an apology, because the tapes of what he said back then caused embarrassment?

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I believe what the figures he cites for emigration from the USSR to Israel say, if they are indeed accurate.

So, Jack, is this thread actually to enlighten us in some way, or does it exist merely to start a pissing match between you and Alice?

I admire you both and don't understand why you have to bicker so much.

Sadly, there is not much light to be found on RI lately. Lots of vicious personal attacks and defamation though, especially by some very dim bulbs.

On Edit: and no, I wasn't referring to Jack. He's just got this bee in his bonnet where I'm concerned, gets all itchy and twitchy. I have that effect on some people.

Nordic wrote:So, Jack, is this thread actually to enlighten us in some way, or does it exist merely to start a pissing match between you and Alice?

I admire you both and don't understand why you have to bicker so much.

It is an interesting story. (Not covered here AFAIK, except in a thread with an incomprehensible title that got zero replies, but that's irrelevant.) Alice complained in the Wikileaks thread that I haven't done much lately to back my observation that she has a master thesis that guides and distorts most of what she posts here about politics (vizh., Everything Is Israel). Whereupon this story occurred to me, as she's argued vociferously that Kissinger's true status in history is as an agent of Zionism, first and foremost, and not as a criminal architect and murderous servant of US imperialism. But it was off-topic there. Combine, and voila.

JackRiddler wrote:

Nordic wrote:So, Jack, is this thread actually to enlighten us in some way, or does it exist merely to start a pissing match between you and Alice?

I admire you both and don't understand why you have to bicker so much.

Alice complained in the Wikileaks thread that I haven't done much lately to back my observation that she has a master thesis that guides and distorts most of what she posts here about politics (vizh., Everything Is Israel). Whereupon this story occurred to me, as she's argued vociferously that Kissinger's true status in history is as an agent of Zionism, first and foremost, and not as a criminal architect and murderous servant of US imperialism. But it was off-topic there. Combine, and voila.

Stop with the ridiculous misrepresentation, please. Not "everything is Israel", but some things are, and I provide a great deal of evidence and sound arguments to support this conclusion. Of course Kissinger is a criminal architect and servant of US imperialism, but as I've demonstrated rather exhaustively in previous posts, only to the extent that American imperialism served Israeli objectives. Where the two conflicted, he has invariably chosen to serve Israeli objectives at the expense of American imperialism. We can do a whole new Kissinger thread if you like, or continue the old one, which you rather obviously, pointedly, ignored, leaving the trolling duties to AD, as can be seen in his responses.

AlicetheKurious wrote:leaving the trolling duties to AD, as can be seen in his responses.

Yes, Mossad demoted your status to only single-troll at the time, so I dispatched AD to do that.