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Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
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JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
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JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Jan. 13, 2006 / 13 Teves, 5766

An open letter to Germany's chancellor

By Diana West


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Good morning, Madame Chancellor.


Here you are, Germany's Angela Merkel, on your first trip to Washington, D.C., preparing for your meeting with President Bush. As you look out of your Blair House window over Lafayette Square toward the White House, consider the historicity of the era: the beginning of Mr. Bush's fifth year leading his country, and the beginning of your first year leading your country in the so-called War on Terror. Or is that the War on Guantanamo Bay? I get them confused.


That's because in just about every account of your American trip — biggish news in Europe — it is prominently mentioned that Guantanamo Bay is prominently high on your list of, well, prominent concerns. Trouble spots. Global things you lose sleep over.


This is, with due respect, bizarre. Iran is going nuclear, Europe is going Islamic, Russia is going off the reservation, China is a fearsome thing, and your big concern is sending what is called a "clear message" to Mr. Bush about Guantanamo Bay, the tropical jail where the United States keeps jihadis on ice — and keeps the rest of the world safer as a result. But that's not what you say. "An institution like Guantanamo can and should not exist in the longer term," you told the German news magazine Der Spiegel this week. "Different ways and means must be found for dealing with these prisoners."


I have a suggestion: How about if we ship all these guys — unflushed Korans and all — to Germany? Maybe "72 Virgins" Airlines would cut us a deal. Then you — Germany — can parole them to Lebanon.


That, of course, is just what you did just before Christmas with Muhammad Ali Hammadi, the convicted Hezbollah killer of Petty Officer Robert Dean Stethem. In case you didn't know, Mr. Stethem is one of our American heroes, a courageous young Navy diver who became an early casualty of the war on Islamic terror. In 1985, at age 23, he was beaten to an unrecognizable pulp by Hammadi and his gang, shot through the head and dumped onto a Beirut runway during the Hezbollah hijacking of TWA Flight 847.


But, as his brother Kenneth reminded President Bush in a letter this week posted by Michael Ledeen at National Review Online, "He wouldn't give in to the demands of the terrorists," who wanted him to scream into a transmitter for airplane fuel. "He would not allow the honor and dignity of America to be intimidated by the fear and pain that Hammadi and terrorists everywhere represent."


Such is the Hezbollah terrorist that you, Madame Chancellor, set free. And funny thing: Shortly after, your own German hostage in Iraq, Suzanne Osthoff, was released from captivity. Which is quite a coincidence. But so was the fact that after the hostage-takers said Ms. Osthoff would be killed unless Germany stopped training Iraqi security forces, the Iraqi government announced, according to the news Web site Deutsche Welle, that Iraq would be seeking security training elsewhere. And there was more. Osthoff says Germany paid a ransom to secure her freedom, maybe as much as $5 million, according to a German wire service report translated online by Transatlantic Intelligencer. In other words, despite your refusal to be "blackmailed" over Ms. Osthoff's release, Germany seems to be a country terrorists can do business with — including, very possibly, Robert Stethem's killer, and his Hezbollah masters with Iraqi terror connections.


But doing business with terrorists doesn't buy peace. It just buys more business. I'm guessing that publicly confronting President Bush over Guantanamo is, along these same lines, business as usual — doing jihadists' bidding in a craven bid to spare Germany a 9/11, a 3/11 or a 7/7. It's just a hunch; but it fits a dispiriting pattern of surrender.


Such a pattern never marked Robert Stethem, as his brother's letter reminded the president: "You have truly said that 'We are in a fight for our principles, and our responsibility is to live by them,'" Kenneth Stethem wrote. "Robert lived by them. Robert also died by them. ... I hope that his example, and the example of the other heroes like him, can inspire you to understand why allowing Germany to release Hammadi was a wrong. Justice was not done. Robert was not honored and Americans are not safer by allowing Hammadi to return to Lebanon and Hezbollah."


Of course, Germany isn't safer either, nor is any other Western nation. This is the "clear message" I certainly hope you hear from President Bush.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

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