Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel » Shimon Samuels

Letter to Kofi Annan the Elder

Shimon Samuels — Fri, 17 May 2013 07:25:11 +0000

Mr Kofi Annan, Chairman The Elders Foundation, London, UK Mr Annan, We have noted your election last week in Dublin as Chairman of The Elders, a group billed as “independent global leaders working together for peace and human rights.” In fact, its members are a self-selected number of former politicians and UN civil servants, sharing [...]

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Holocaust memory as a fig leaf for modern hate

Shimon Samuels — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 05:57:51 +0000

The fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1989 aroused a euphoric debate about the city’s post-Communist future. In a Die Zeit op-ed entitled “Berlin as Federal Capital of Germany, Yes or No,” I argued that political functions should remain anchored in the western city of Bonn, thereby decentralizing any resurgent phantom German ambitions; that [...]

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At the Olympics, silence is golden

Shimon Samuels — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 21:25:01 +0000

On the 40th anniversary of the Munich atrocity, we were outraged at the callous refusal by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to mark a moment of silence — in memory of the 11 murdered Israeli athletes — at the opening of the London games. This betrayal of the Olympic values of peace and fraternity in sports [...]

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French Jews, between the right and the hard left

Shimon Samuels — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:09:47 +0000

In May 1981, Valery Giscard d’Estaing’s long reign as president of France ended with the election of François Mitterand. Giscard later claimed that he had lost his presidency eight months earlier, with the bombing of the Paris Copernic Synagogue. Giscard had arrogantly refused to cut short a hunting weekend to show sympathy with the casualties, leaving [...]

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The people of Saturday and the French elections

Shimon Samuels — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:02:58 +0000

Eighty years ago, a series of elections in the inter-war democratic Weimar Republic empowered extremist factions of right and left. Economic disaster, shattered national identity and racial scapegoating were to set the scene for dictatorship, war and genocide. France is certainly no Weimar. Yet, at last week’s Presidential first round, some 11,000,000 French voters — almost [...]

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A letter to Catherine Ashton

Shimon Samuels — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:37:58 +0000

Lady Ashton, On behalf of the over 400,000 members of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, we express indignation at your utterly insensitive statement to a Palestinian youth group on Monday, immediately following the terrorist atrocity perpetrated at a Jewish school in Toulouse. The death of any and every child is a tragedy. Nevertheless, you have clustered [...]

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‘The Death of Klinghoffer’ — an apology for terrorism

Shimon Samuels — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 09:39:22 +0000

On Saturday night, a controversial work premiered at the English National Opera in London. One hundred and ninety seven members of the press packed the seats — the entire playhouse was sold out. This was surprising, since — based on the 1985 Palestine Liberation Front hijacking of the Mediterranean cruise liner Achille Lauro — the [...]

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