I can clearly remember the scenes from the trial of Adoplph Eichmann back in April, 1961, but I don't remember the outrage that Israel's capture and subsequent trial of Eichmann produced - even here in the US.

Saddam on trial
By RAFAEL MEDOFF

As the United States prepares to put Saddam Hussein on trial, it may find it useful to examine Israel's experience in bringing a notorious war criminal to court.

In May 1960, Israeli agents captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and flew him to Israel to face trial for his senior role in the genocide of six million European Jews. Israel immediately faced a torrent of international criticism.

The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously – with US support – to condemn Israel for "endanger[ing] international peace and security." The Washington Post asserted that Israel's capture and planned prosecution of Eichmann were "tainted by lawlessness," and that Israel had no right to act in the name of Holocaust victims or the Jewish people as a whole, which the Post called an "imaginary Jewish ethnic entity." Time magazine accused Israel's leaders of "inverse racism" for their position that Israel could speak for the Jewish people.

The New York Times rejected the Israeli claims that Eichmann's role in the Nazi genocide justified Israel's intrusion into Argentina, on the grounds that "no immoral or illegal act justifies another." The Times also denounced the idea of trying Eichmann in Israel. It preferred that he be brought before an international tribunal since "it was not against Israel but against humanity that his crimes were committed."

This position echoed the Times' policy during the Holocaust of deliberately obscuring the Jewish identity of Hitler's victims. Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger believed that American Jews should keep their Jewishness as hidden as possible, and made it clear to Times editors that their coverage of Nazi atrocities should likewise play down the Jewish angle. They faithfully complied.

SOME US church publications were particularly bitter in their attacks on Israel's prosecution of Eichmann. An article in The Unitarian Register compared "the Jew-pursuing Nazi and the Nazi-pursuing Jew." The Catholic newspaper The Tablet said the Eichmann trial was a reminder "that there are still some influential people around who – like Shylock of old – demand their pound of flesh."

Some leaders might have wavered under such withering attacks. President George W. Bush may start to have second thoughts if he faces strong criticism for his handling of Saddam. But Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion was unbending.

"American journalists, who have not suffered from the Nazi atrocities, may be 'objective' and deny Israel's right to try one of the greatest of the Nazi murderers," Ben-Gurion rebuffed his challengers. "But the calamity that the Nazis inflicted on the Jewish people is a specific and unparalleled act – an act designed for the utter extermination of the entire Jewish people... Historic justice and the honor of the Jewish people demand that this should be done only by an Israeli court in the sovereign Jewish State."

As the opening of the Eichmann trial approached, the critics took aim again. State Department officials "deplored" the prosecution of Eichmann because, they claimed, the trial was making some Western democracies "less responsive to the Berlin crisis than desired."

An editorial in the Times of London warned that while the trial might be fair, it was tainted because it "springs from an admittedly illegal act–the abduction of Eichmann from Argentina." The paper warned ominously that the trial would have "profound effects [on Israel's] relations with the rest of the world [and they] will not necessarily be good."

Yet another round of criticism erupted after Eichmann was convicted and sentenced to death.

The New York Times asserted that "Eichmann's crimes are so enormous" that "hanging becomes meaningless." Novelist Pearl Buck urged that Eichmann be kept alive so that he might be studied. The Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis declared its opposition to all capital punishment as a matter of principle. Martin Buber and a group of fellow Hebrew University professors argued that some young Germans had recently shown humanistic tendencies, and executing Eichmann would "retard" the flowering of their humanism.

The New York Times' final editorial on the subject, published following Eichmann's execution, went so far as to argue that while Eichmann was guilty, others were also guilty of "murderous hatred" – citing the Soviet Union, Franco's Spain, and even "our own country, where the power of the Federal Government has had to be invoked to secure equal justice for a racial minority."

Not many pundits today will compare the United States to Saddam Hussein as the N.Y. Times compared the US to the Nazis in 1962. But President Bush will surely find himself challenged for having Saddam prosecuted and punished.

What remains to be seen is whether he will follow Ben-Gurion's example and stand fast, or bend to the pressure of his critics.

The writer is director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies near Philadelphia

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1071469777108

Eric The(Stunned)Hun

Perhaps the most moving image in Steven Spielberg's epic film [b]Schindler's List[/b] is [b]the little girl in the red coat[/b], the only color image in the three-hour black and white film.

However, most people do not know that this image is based upon a true story, a story told at the trial of Adolf Eichmann.

In the PBS documentary, [b]The Trial of Adolf Eichmann,[/b] this image lost none of its impact when the actual story was told by Assistant Prosecutor (now Supreme Court Judge) Gavriel Bach in an interview which appeared in the program.

When asked if there was any moment in the trial that affected him more than any other, this is the moment he described:

Bach was questioning Dr. Martin Földi, a survivor of Auschwitz, about the selection process at the train station in the shadows of the famous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign at Auschwitz. Földi described how he and a son went to the right while a daughter and his wife went to the left. [b]His little daughter wore a red coat.[/b]

When an SS officer sent the son to join the mother and daughter, Földi describes his panic. 'How would the boy, only twelve, find them among the thousands of people there?'

But then he realized [b]the red coat[/b] would be like a beacon for the boy to join his mother and sister.

He then ended his testimony with the chilling phrase, [b]"I never saw them again."[/b]

In the program, while telling the story, thirty-five years after the incident, Judge Bach welled up with emotion.

As Dr. Földi recounted the incident, Bach became frozen and unable to continue. All he could do was think about his own daughter who he had by chance just bought a red coat.

He then added that to this day he can be at the theater or a restaurant and he will feel his heart beating faster when he sees [b]a little girl in a red coat.[/b]

Eric The(NieVergessen)Hun[>]:)]

That's precisely what [b]feedingcannibal[/b] is saying if he is being honest about it!

It's not [u]what[/u] was done that upsets most folks, it's simply [u]who[/u] was doing it!

I'm sure that nowadays there would be a 'Free Eichmann Movement' by some folks!

Eric The(Realistic)Hun[>]:)]

Sure, there is a very easy answer to all of these questions!

You do what is right. Simple as that!

The Israelis had petitioned Argentina and many other South American countries for extradition of several Nazi war criminals and received no adequate responses to their pleas.

When it was discovered that Adolph Eichmann was living in a suburb of Buenos Aires, the Israelis took matters into their own hands and, boom, the deed was done!

Even though there was an International outcry over the methods that Israel used in obtaining Eichmann, the Argintine government was sufficiently embarrassed to formally 'waive' any claim for the return of its 'citizen' on August 3, 1960.

There is no need to 'kidnap' any US citizen for trial on criminal charges in a foreign country.

We are a nation of laws and, if presented with proper legal evidence of identity and probable criminal conduct, will permit [u]any[/u] of our citizens to face criminal prosecutions in foreign forums!

The only condition that we have is that the conduct must, in fact, be deemed criminal in nature.

Ask Mr. John Demjanjuk if Aemrican citizens can't get extradited to face charges in a foreign country.

Had the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, as it was named by the Taliban, simply extradited Osama Bin Laden to the US for trial for the attack of Sept 11th, the Taliban could be still be in power and happily killing women and severing the hands off pickpockets to this very day!

Eric The(SimpleEnough)Hun[>]:)]