RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/05/the-elusive-pursuit-of-world-peace/

The preservation of international peace and the problem of negotiated disarmament among nations have been a problem for humanity from biblical times at least. Turning spears into pruning hooks and swords into ploughshares was urged by ancient Jewish prophets in the Old Testament and echoed in the New Testament by Jesus of Nazareth in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) by calling peace-makers “blessed”. That was an aspiration which the course of history has mocked. Wars and rumours of wars have plagued human history from time immemorial. Wars to end war have been fought and have succeeded only in the sowing of dragons’ teeth. The First World War led almost inexorably to the Second.

The great irony is that these most destructive wars in human history have been fought among avowedly Christian nations. The Florentine Machiavelli has triumphed over Jesus of Nazareth, the Prince of Peace. It is noted, however, that Machiavelli in his work The Prince of 1513 was only describing the behaviour of rulers at that time and what they did to stay in power. They all simply acted in their dynastic or national interest whenever they took up arms against a neighbouring state.

Nothing, it would seem, has really changed throughout history, despite the well-intentioned efforts of pacifists, who continue to recommend unilateral disarmament as if that were the magic formula to create a knock-on effect inspiring all other powers to risk doing the same. Peace, and hopefully justice on earth, would then prevail. Pacifists also accuse statesmen of duplicity and deceptive actions against their own people while in reality they are furthering their class interests.

During the great naval race between Britain and Germany, the English journalist and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Norman Angell published a book called The Great Illusion (1909). He had hoped to illustrate that modern warfare between great industrial powers would be so costly regardless of who actually won, that decision-makers would shy back from the risk. The naval build-up went on anyway and hostilities eventually broke out in August 1914 and lasted four horrifically ruinous years for all concerned.

The most reliable research on all this was carried out by the Hamburg-based Professor Fritz Fischer and more recently confirmed by his doctoral student Bernd Schulte in a number of detailed publications based on hitherto unexplored sources. The assertions made by Cambridge Professor Christopher Clark in his 2013 book The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 have created a furore, especially in Germany where liberals and social democrats have been outraged by Clark’s downplaying of the “guilt” of the imperial German power elite who were bent on war. Not a few Australasian historians have welcomed Clark’s assertions because it allows them to denigrate the imperial connection by arguing that the dominion contribution to that conflict was the result of a deception perpetrated by British decision-makers in Whitehall. In reality, so it is agued, the First World War had nothing to do with the Pacific dominions. Our leaders were simply duped into supplying cannon fodder for wicked British capitalists.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-the-mob-came-for-the-jews-of-baghdad-11622237901?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

I was 10 when mobs attacked the Jewish community of Baghdad, my community, with cruel and unimaginable violence. Rioters maimed, raped, killed and robbed the unsuspecting Jews. This massacre, which began June 1, 1941, was called the Farhud, Arabic for “violent dispossession” or pogrom.

The seeds of the Farhud had been sown two months earlier. On April 1, a pro-Nazi coup d’état overthrew the pro-British Iraqi government and seized power. The coup was staged by Rashid Ali al Gaylani, an Arab nationalist and former Iraqi prime minister, supported by four army generals, and aided by Fritz Grobba, a former German ambassador to Iraq. This dangerous group was further stoked by the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini, who deeply hated the Jews. Anti-Semitic propaganda began to appear in the daily newspapers and in broadcasts on Radio Baghdad. It was intended to inflame the Muslim population and rally support for the new regime.

The Jewish community bore the brunt of this explosive combination of Arab nationalism, Nazi propaganda and anti-Semitism. In the weeks after the coup my family stayed home most of the time, huddled around the large console radio. We listened with disbelief to reports of Jews being arrested and accused of anti-Iraqi sentiment and of spying for the British. I shook just thinking of the torture being carried out to extract false confessions.

On May 31, 1941, the British army arrived at the outskirts of Baghdad. The pro-Nazi government collapsed quickly, but al Gaylani and his co-conspirators escaped to Iran. The Jewish community in Baghdad felt a sense of relief, especially as it coincided with the eve of the Shavuot festival, commemorating the time when God gave us the Ten Commandments. We had good reason to rejoice.

But that high spirit didn’t last long, and joy reverted to pain and sorrow. The absence of a functioning government created a power vacuum. Across the country, chaos and lawlessness followed.

The Farhud erupted early Monday morning, June 1. Soldiers in civilian clothes, policemen and large crowds of Iraqi men, including Bedouins brandishing swords and daggers, joined in the pillage, helping themselves to loot as they plundered more than 1,500 Jewish homes and stores. For two days, the rioters murdered between 150 and 780 Jews—exact counts aren’t known—injured 600 to 2,000 others, and raped an indeterminable number of women. Some say 600 unidentified victims were buried in a mass grave. All through the night we heard their screams. We heard gunshots too, then sudden quiet. Unarmed and unprepared to defend themselves, Jews were vulnerable and helpless. I was shaken, desperate and angry.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/05/the-elusive-pursuit-of-world-peace/

The preservation of international peace and the problem of negotiated disarmament among nations have been a problem for humanity from biblical times at least. Turning spears into pruning hooks and swords into ploughshares was urged by ancient Jewish prophets in the Old Testament and echoed in the New Testament by Jesus of Nazareth in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) by calling peace-makers “blessed”. That was an aspiration which the course of history has mocked. Wars and rumours of wars have plagued human history from time immemorial. Wars to end war have been fought and have succeeded only in the sowing of dragons’ teeth. The First World War led almost inexorably to the Second.

The great irony is that these most destructive wars in human history have been fought among avowedly Christian nations. The Florentine Machiavelli has triumphed over Jesus of Nazareth, the Prince of Peace. It is noted, however, that Machiavelli in his work The Prince of 1513 was only describing the behaviour of rulers at that time and what they did to stay in power. They all simply acted in their dynastic or national interest whenever they took up arms against a neighbouring state.

Nothing, it would seem, has really changed throughout history, despite the well-intentioned efforts of pacifists, who continue to recommend unilateral disarmament as if that were the magic formula to create a knock-on effect inspiring all other powers to risk doing the same. Peace, and hopefully justice on earth, would then prevail. Pacifists also accuse statesmen of duplicity and deceptive actions against their own people while in reality they are furthering their class interests.

During the great naval race between Britain and Germany, the English journalist and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Norman Angell published a book called The Great Illusion (1909). He had hoped to illustrate that modern warfare between great industrial powers would be so costly regardless of who actually won, that decision-makers would shy back from the risk. The naval build-up went on anyway and hostilities eventually broke out in August 1914 and lasted four horrifically ruinous years for all concerned.