On Sunday, I wrote that the outpouring of ordinary Austrians for the funeral of neo-Nazi Jorg Haider shows that the country is unrepentant regarding its Nazi past. It's actually worse than that. Monday's JPost reports on 'mainstream' Austrian politicians (not from the 'extreme right') praising Haider and that his party has accused the Mossad of assassinating the drunken anti-Semite. "He was a remarkable person" and one should "pay tribute to him," was how Social Democratic Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer described right-wing extremist politician Joerg Haider at Haider's funeral ceremony in Klagenfurt, Austria on Saturday.Read the whole thing.
While local Austrian authorities declared an inebriated Haider to have died as the result a high-speed car crash last week, Karlheinz Klement, a former member of Haider's ex-party, the Freedom Party, asserted that the Mossad had assassinated him. Klement's conspiracy thesis is circulating among Austrian neo-Nazi and right-wing internet forums.
In the mid 1990s, Haider proclaimed the Freedom Party "to be the PLO of Austria" at a party event. He split from the Freedom Party in 2005 and formed the Alliance for the Future of Austria, a hard-line, reactionary and anti-foreigner party based in the Federal State of Carinthia, where he served as governor.
Haider was notorious for his praise of Nazi employment policies and the Waffen SS, an organization devoted to exterminating European Jewry.
The Waffen SS are "decent individuals with character, who stick to their beliefs despite strong opposition and remain true to them today as well. That is a good basis, my dear friends, for us younger people to inherit," said Haider at meeting of the Veterans of the Waffen SS in Carinthia, Austria.
Haider's funeral turned into a day of national mourning and 30,000 Austrians flocked to the Carinthian capital of Klagenfurt to attend the service, which was covered live by Austria's national broadcaster, ORF.
Given Haider's anti-Semitic and xenophobic views, and taking into account that he represents a rallying point for Europe's radical right, it was an astonishing show of political solidarity as Austria's heads of state and political parties paid tribute to him. Chancellor Gusenbauer said Haider had had "an excellent feeling for what needs to be changed" in Austrian politics. [Actually, it wasn't so astonishing to anyone who is aware of how the Austrians managed to turn themselves from persecutors into victims immediately after the Second World War. CiJ].
Heinz Fischer, the Social Democratic president, said Haider's death was a "human tragedy," and that he had been a "politician with great talents."
The ex-head of the Austrian Green Party, Alexander Van der Bellen, said Haider had been "an exceptional politician, highly qualified to inspire people and win [them] over."
The conservative People's Party vice chancellor Wilhelm Molterer said Haider hadn't minced his words, and therefore "deserves great respect."
The Social Democratic president of the Austrian parliament, Barbara Prammer, recognized the great political and life achievements of Haider, who helped shaped Austria's political landscape over the decades.
...
Haider and his party epitomized an aggressive anti-Israeli agenda, with a foreign policy supporting alliances with the Iranian Mullah regime, Iraq under the rule of former tyrant Saddam Hussein, who Haider visited several times in Baghdad, and the Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi.
Haider had welcomed an Iranian economic delegation to Carinthia in July 2007 at a time when both the European Union and the US sought to discourage trade with Iran due to its uranium enrichment program, which could be used to make nuclear weapons.
He demanded that the "responsible warmongers" in Israel during the Second Lebanon War in 2006 be summoned before a war crimes tribunal, and that Austria evict the Israeli Ambassador in Vienna. Israel's right to self-defense against Hamas rocket attacks and Hizbullah terror activity played no role in Haider's foreign policy views.
He fanned the flames of Austrian anti-Semitism, blasting the head of the Austrian Jewish Community, Ariel Muzicant, as a "Zionist provocateur in the West" who wanted to silence criticism of Israel with the "club of Anti-Semitism."
Haider also criticized Muzicant for seeking to end flight connections with the Iran.
While Austria may be the worst of the Nazi sympathizers in Europe, it is by no means the only European country that is crawling with Nazi sympathizers (France and Belgium come immediately to mind). If you're still wondering why the US is having such an impossible time putting together effective sanctions against Iran, go back and read this post again.
Cross-posted to Israel Matzav.
10 comments:
if you had any knowledge about intelligence services, you wouldn't write such non-sense. "the mossad" isn't "a jew" but known for it's black ops (ex. Uwe Barschel). So stop discriminating mostly young austrian who votet for the just right parties - because THEY have to face the chaos people created who still live in the 30ies instead the 21th century ...
Meanwhile, GoV publishes eulogies as to what great guy he was.
Why don't we just have euros who believe individual rights and equal opportunity without regard to culture and race trumps all come here, and the ein volk crew can then cleanly just pogrom their way to a better europe in the old way without a word from us. It's THEIR back yard, after all.
Then it will be 1348 and we can reset the clock to all this for almost a millenium
Europe is no place for jews anyway. Hardly anywhere, AS WE CAN SEE, and AS IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN, - IS.
i was born, raised and lived here and my grandfathers fought against the nazis. i've a family with a record of fightign antisemtism. that said, it includes a vigilant and patient fight for our country. you have to combine that, knowone knows that better than the people of israel itself. You can't blandish a holocaust, but that doesn't means you can't try to prevent another one. i'm surprised that despite all the writing about islam you havn't come to the conclusion that WE, especially the people in europe, are the victims and not the offender ... Haider fought for us, for our countries, our culture, our religions ... he was a modern hybrid of our history. And he paraded the double standards of our goverments who do business whit terrorist and dictators on one hand but deny it in front of the public, or criticice the USA for removing a Dictator like Hussein meanwhile our goverments trained his secret armies... It's not that simple as you'd like to categorise him. maybe you will understand whit a politically correct president ... by the way: israel would have true friends here in europe whit honesty, if there were more people like Haider or Wilders. Not that well articulated but so and so acting classe politique who's in power right no here in europe.
This is an interesting discussion.
I don't understand Die Realitat. Haider supported ME countries. So, how is it that you claim that he was pro-Israel. The policy of ME countries is that Israel should not exist.
Haider may have been anti-Jihadi, but, it seems, he was also pro-ME and sympathetic to Nazism.
You and many of your pro-Haider friends may not have a problem with Jews. That doesn't mean that Haider didn't. Or that, at the very least, that Haider;s expressed ideas did not run along the same grooves as those of the great anti-Semites of history.
Your family fought against anti-Semitism. Great. Remember though that most Europeans did not. Jews were not able to find any countries in all of Europe who would take them in as they were being killed.
Therefore,many Jews today (most of whom now live in America) think of Europe as lost. We who are friends with such Jews become very well-versed in the history of European anti-Semitism. It is one thing for you to learn about pogroms in Europe. And, then you might think to yourself, "Wow, we sure were pretty hard on those Jews."
But, it is another thing altogether to talk to a person who had half their family wiped out in the Holocaust.
I have several friends like that.
I have friends who wound up in places like Mexico because they had to go somewhere during the Holocaust.
Try to think about this Haider thing from a Jewish perspective.
By the way, to be clear, I am not Jewish. But, that doesn't mean that I don't try to consider these political events from the perspective of Jews.
The Jews have proven themselves worthy of such consideration.
Not only do they contribute an enormous amount to the world, but they also, in my opinion, are not the reason for the ME conflict. I lay that all on ME anti-Semitism.
So, I would say the things Jews are commonly blamed for as simply not true.
"Haider fought for us, for our countries, our culture, our religions ."
Haider honored the SS
People who honor the SS are fighting for you
Earth is a hopeless pit of stupidity
It would be interesting to know in which context Haider said those things.
HERE
Time Mag from 2000, and that's just until then
The gathering of war veterans he was addressing included the SS.
More he went on to praise Der Fuhrer's employment plans.
This is an embarrassment for anyone who despises islamofascism.
Haider simply CANNOT be defended.
What he praised is the enemy of ALL AMERICA STANDS FOR. That's all there is too it.
Here
Have some more fun.
This is ABSURD
The more that the conspiracy theories develop the more I begin to wonder if the real Nazis killed him. If Petzer's confessions of working with the Mossad are to be believed, then there was no benefit for Israel in killing a proven asset during his ascendancy. And certainly no benefit in getting a self-confessed operative removed from his place in the party.
The Nazis have made themselves a martyr, removed a Jewish protege from power, and do spin a tale of Mossad assassination that is designed for recruitment to anti-Semitism.
We may come to miss Haider, when and if, it proves that he was a moderating influence.
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