http://www.juliagorin.com/wordpress/?p=2895
Out of nowhere, on Aug. 1st appeared a seemingly out-of-place news item in the UK Jewish Chronicle, delivering a stale and inaccurate bit of information concerning Alex Cvetkovic, the subject of my Algemeiner article this week:
Israel Approves Extradition of Serb Wanted for Srebrenica Massacre
An Israeli court has ruled that a Bosnian Serb should be extradited to face trial for war crimes during the Srebrenica massacre.
Aleksandar Cvetkovic is wanted for his involvement in the 1995 atrocity, which saw more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys killed by the Serbian Republic Army.
…
Cvetkovic has a Jewish wife and gained Israeli citizenship after he moved to the country five years ago.
But in January the 42-year-old was arrested following an extradition request from the Bosnia and Herzegovina government. He has until the end of the month to appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court.
Small things first: Serbian Republic Army? It’s actually the Bosnian-Serb Army. And it’s “Serb Republic,” not Serbian Republic, which would imply that something is of or within Serbia.
Stranger, though, was this outdated update suddenly appearing at this time. Observe the last line: “But in January the 42-year-old was arrested…He has until the end of the month to appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court.”
The January that Cvetkovic was arrested in was January 2011. And it was after his August 2011 hearing that he had “until the end of the month to appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court.” As we know, his appeal is already in progress, and the Supreme Court is poised to rule on it.
Knowing now that whoever is behind this Jewish Chronicle lacks basic journalistic skills, I was intrigued and looked found and found the following Aug. 2nd article:
The Muslims Who Admire Israel
There are not many Muslim politicians in the world who openly admire Israel. In fact, Emir Suljagic, an author and former member of the Bosnian Social Democratic party, may just be in a minority of one.
To understand why, one word helps above all others: survival. Mr Suljagic evaded death during the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in July 1992 thanks to a piece of good fortune that echoes many near-miss tales from the Holocaust.
Well the first reason he may have evaded it in 1992 is that the supposed massacre didn’t happen until 1995. So again, these people can’t even get the year right. And notice that no editor or reader caught the error. One merely had to go back to the previous inaccurate article — from just the day before — and compare years, as that one did have “1995.”
When he was 17, he fled the ethnic cleansing taking place in the Drina Valley and took refuge in Srebrenica. As the town fell to Serb forces and the round-up of Bosniaks began, Mr Suljagic encountered none other than the Serb general, Ratko Mladic.
Mladic asked Mr Suljagic who he was, upon which he produced his identity card. The general looked at the card and let him go, only because was a UN-employed translator.
Yes, let’s take Mr. Suljagic at his assumption that this was the “only” reason Mladic didn’t just snuff him out right there. (Though one wonders what the reasons are for the thousands of other Muslims Mladic didn’t kill. They couldn’t all have been 17-year-old translators.)