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I think the "world opinion" wasn't against the Mossad/Nazi hunters in general, it was against the tactics they used that many countries saw as an affront to their sovereignty.
Well, if those countries had actually cooperated and arrested the murderers and perpetrators of crimes against humanity, extreme actions would not have been necessary.
"After the war, Mengele escaped internment and went underground, serving for four years as a farm stableman near Rosenheim in Bavaria. Then he reportedly escaped, via Genoa, Italy, to South America in 1949. He married (for a second time) under his own name in Uruguay in 1958 and, as “José Mengele,” received citizenship in Paraguay in 1959. In 1961 he apparently moved to Brazil, reportedly becoming friends with an old-time Nazi, Wolfgang Gerhard, and living in a succession of houses owned by a Hungarian couple."
A lot of Nazi criminals escaped. Aided by the church, sympathizers who helped funnel criminals to South America. Russian and American space agencies who needed German rocket scientists.
Only a very few of the infamous Einsatzgruppen were brought to trial. France which was ravaged by the Nazis even let SS soldiers volunteer for the French Foreign Legion to fight in Indo China.
The book "Striking Back" is about Israeli counter terrorism operations post the Munich Olympics. Toward the end, it tells why they slowed down which one of the reasons was that it wasn't in favorable public opinion.
Okay, I just watched a first season Mannix which involved Nazi hunters and one of the believiability questions was why would a counter agency need to hire a PI from the outside? While I can think of a few spy story reasons, such as a suspected leak in the "agency" and wanting to avoid that, let's talk about world opinion to such strikes in the 60s.
Was it in world opinion to do such? Or was the opinion to do it but do it only for the big ones?
Finally, for now, were there splinter groups to such "agencies" then?
In all fairness by 1950's and certainly 1960's many European countries began back peddling on what prosecution of Nazis and others who committed atrocities against Jews and others during WWII did take place.
Germany, France, etc... began passing amnesty laws, letting those convicted out of confinement, etc...
Mossad knew where certain war criminals were such as Josef Mengele, but by time things were confirmed Israel and other governments had better things to do, and or costs along with logistics of carrying out any such "nabbing" proved a deterrent.
Best many war atrocity hunters could hope for is tracking someone down say in USA, exposing who they were and what had done, then hopefully said person would be deported.
In some ways Jews post WWII well into 1970's and onwards did have a legitimate beef. For all the horrors visited upon European Jews by Germany, France, and other allies of Nazis comparatively little justice was meted out. If you were to make a ratio of Jews and others murdered and other atrocities against those actually prosecuted for war crimes, collaboration, etc... the sums aren't that impressive IMHO.
The book "Striking Back" is about Israeli counter terrorism operations post the Munich Olympics. Toward the end, it tells why they slowed down which one of the reasons was that it wasn't in favorable public opinion.
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Was it in world opinion to do such? Or was the opinion to do it but do it only for the big ones?
Partially on the same subject, I just finished Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman This book is a thrilling page turner. I have difficulties with the author's finding "moral quandaries" in actions clearly vital to Israel's survival or concern about "world opinion." Bergman, who now frequently writes for the New York Times, discusses news stories including the killing of the perpetrators of the Olympic massacres. These were actions other Western nations did not have the stomach to do. Those "leaders" would rather dive into a "crisis conference" of similar leaders in Paris and Brussels than actually do something about these morally outrageous attacks on Israeli and Jewish civilians and frankly activities that endanger the world.
Incongruously, the "solution" the author proposes at the end is the two-state solution. No one has demonstrated that the attacks would stop for longer than it takes to celebrate "independence." As an informed reader, I have to assume that the risk of being killed creates "operational difficulties" in committing terror and are a large part of the reason for Israel's miraculous survival, which outweigh an crisis of confidence in hauling out human garbage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah
Okay, I just watched a first season Mannix which involved Nazi hunters and one of the believiability questions was why would a counter agency need to hire a PI from the outside? While I can think of a few spy story reasons, such as a suspected leak in the "agency" and wanting to avoid that, let's talk about world opinion to such strikes in the 60s.
The simple answer I can think of is passports. While the Mossad has access to phony passports from other democracies with diplomatic relations with hostile countries it is best to use those sparingly. PI's have their own sources, so that Mossad's inventory can await acute need.
[font="]Partially on the same subject, I just finished Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations [color=#181818]by Ronen Bergman This book is a thrilling page turner. I have difficulties with the author's finding "moral quandaries" in actions clearly vital to Israel's survival or concern about "world opinion." Bergman, who now frequently writes for the New York Times, discusses news stories including the killing of the perpetrators of the Olympic massacres. These were actions other Western nations did not have the stomach to do. Those "leaders" would rather dive into a "crisis conference" of similar leaders in Paris and Brussels than actually do something about these morally outrageous attacks on Israeli and Jewish civilians and frankly activities that endanger the world.
The movie Munich should have raised many moral questions that go beyond the actual incident. Here are a few:
1. Proportionality. Are there any limits to what a country that is the victim of a terrorist attack can do in response? If I go to extremes, the nazis dealt with resistance in occupied countries typically by doing things like killing 100 hostages in response to the killing of one of their soldiers. Is something like this morally acceptable?
2. Is targeted killing acceptable in countries that you have diplomatic relations and an extradition treaty with? How should these countries respond--in turn--when a country chooses to engage in targeted killings of its residents. I don't disagree that targeted killing is acceptable in places that are hostile to you, but it is a different question when the country is a friendly or neutral one.
3. What happens when your assassination squads make mistakes? A big one happened in Lillehammer, Norway when the wrong person was killed. How should the rest of the world respond to that?
4. How do you deal with "blowback"? In the Movie, Munich, blowback consisted of further terrorist actions including sending letter bombs to the people that inflicted deaths and casualties.
I personally know that the idea as an American of a foreign country sending some kind of assassination squad here to kill someone in America literally makes me enraged. I think such an act should have severe consequences for any country that does something like that. In the 1970's, the Pinochet Regime in Chile sent someone to the United States to murder a former Chilean journalist, Orlando Letelier who was living here at the time. Letelier was murdered with a car bomb. I know my response was literally that we should "shut Chile down" when I heard that. I would have favored ending trade, removing our diplomatic mission, confiscating Chilean assets.....I could go on. The point is that any self-respecting nation should be repelled by another country choosing to act in an extra-judicial fashion as opposed to working within the system. Any country who tries such a thing in the USA should pay a heavy price for doing so.
The movie Munich should have raised many moral questions that go beyond the actual incident. Here are a few:
1. Proportionality. Are there any limits to what a country that is the victim of a terrorist attack can do in response? If I go to extremes, the nazis dealt with resistance in occupied countries typically by doing things like killing 100 hostages in response to the killing of one of their soldiers. Is something like this morally acceptable?
Actually Nazi Germany's excuse for invading Poland and starting WW II was retaliation for an attack on a German radio station and the excuse for Kristallnacht was the murder by a deranged Jew of an ambassador in France.
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Originally Posted by markg91359
2. Is targeted killing acceptable in countries that you have diplomatic relations and an extradition treaty with? How should these countries respond--in turn--when a country chooses to engage in targeted killings of its residents. I don't disagree that targeted killing is acceptable in places that are hostile to you, but it is a different question when the country is a friendly or neutral one.... I personally know that the idea as an American of a foreign country sending some kind of assassination squad here to kill someone in America literally makes me enraged. I think such an act should have severe consequences for any country that does something like that. In the 1970's, the Pinochet Regime in Chile sent someone to the United States to murder a former Chilean journalist, Orlando Letelier who was living here at the time. Letelier was murdered with a car bomb. I know my response was literally that we should "shut Chile down" when I heard that. I would have favored ending trade, removing our diplomatic mission, confiscating Chilean assets.....I could go on. The point is that any self-respecting nation should be repelled by another country choosing to act in an extra-judicial fashion as opposed to working within the system. Any country who tries such a thing in the USA should pay a heavy price for doing so.
In both situations (Letelier is a bit dubious and I need to know more) sometimes it is politically difficult for the host country to take action that needs to be taken. Israel has diplomatic relations (sort of) with most European countries. Those countries (including West Germany during the Munich Massacre) were unwilling to shut down the Palestinian terror cells, yet understood that Israel had to defend itself. Thus France's, Malta's, Italy's, Greece's and even Tunisia's (no direct diplomatic relations) "wink" at targeted assassinations on their soil. As far as Letelier goes what I would be interested in knowing was what Letelier was doing in the U.S. that was offensive. I really need to know more on that but I suspect the truth is that he was engaging in seditious activities from the cover of U.S. soil. I too was appalled at the killing, by the way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markg91359
3. What happens when your assassination squads make mistakes? A big one happened in Lillehammer, Norway when the wrong person was killed. How should the rest of the world respond to that?
I read about this in Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman. It was appalling. The question is whether or not this was collateral damage in Israel's effort to defend itself in an asymetrical war. The question arises though as to whether governments, both of civilized countries such as Norway and other countries don't do more to shut down the use of neutral countries as safe havens for terror. I think the West's willingness to host, as frequent visitors people such as Yasir Arafat is begging for trouble and tragedies. Maybe there was be less of that if those people, who often are very wealthy, were forced to live in their desert paradises and were unable to travel to, shelter their money in or even live in desirable places.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markg91359
4. How do you deal with "blowback"? In the Movie, Munich, blowback consisted of further terrorist actions including sending letter bombs to the people that inflicted deaths and casualties.
Unfortunately fight fire with fire. Some people are impervious to reason, terrorists among them.
The movie Munich should have raised many moral questions that go beyond the actual incident. Here are a few:
1. Proportionality. Are there any limits to what a country that is the victim of a terrorist attack can do in response? If I go to extremes, the nazis dealt with resistance in occupied countries typically by doing things like killing 100 hostages in response to the killing of one of their soldiers. Is something like this morally acceptable?
2. Is targeted killing acceptable in countries that you have diplomatic relations and an extradition treaty with? How should these countries respond--in turn--when a country chooses to engage in targeted killings of its residents. I don't disagree that targeted killing is acceptable in places that are hostile to you, but it is a different question when the country is a friendly or neutral one.
3. What happens when your assassination squads make mistakes? A big one happened in Lillehammer, Norway when the wrong person was killed. How should the rest of the world respond to that?
4. How do you deal with "blowback"? In the Movie, Munich, blowback consisted of further terrorist actions including sending letter bombs to the people that inflicted deaths and casualties.
I personally know that the idea as an American of a foreign country sending some kind of assassination squad here to kill someone in America literally makes me enraged. I think such an act should have severe consequences for any country that does something like that. In the 1970's, the Pinochet Regime in Chile sent someone to the United States to murder a former Chilean journalist, Orlando Letelier who was living here at the time. Letelier was murdered with a car bomb. I know my response was literally that we should "shut Chile down" when I heard that. I would have favored ending trade, removing our diplomatic mission, confiscating Chilean assets.....I could go on. The point is that any self-respecting nation should be repelled by another country choosing to act in an extra-judicial fashion as opposed to working within the system. Any country who tries such a thing in the USA should pay a heavy price for doing so.
"Munich" was the movie I was think about in a prior post. Based on the book "Vengeance" - based on true events (Israelis did send out assassination squads) but the movie itself was fiction. The book was ambiguous on the moral quandary, Speilberg's movie was more direct on that issue.
At the risk of turning this into a debate: To understand how Israel justifies this is to understand the Israeli/Jewish psyche. The Israeli Defense Force has one guiding principle - the cannot afford to lose one war, not one. To do so would mean the massacre of every man, woman, and child. This is due to the small size of the country, the aggression by it's enemies who have dedicated themselves to wiping Israel off the map (literally, these statements are documented in country charters, or stated by country leaders), and obviously the history of Jewish persecution, most recently obviously the Nazi holocaust. They have been invaded 3 times between the late 1940s and 1970s and now it's enemies have moved to other strategies - terrorism, usually funded by state actors. Geographically - they are right in the hornets list, logistically - the don't have the land or population to absorb these attacks. They fight back in the only way they can now - occasionally "mowing the grass" in Gaza and Lebanon, and specific targeting it's enemies (i.e targeting Iranian nuclear scientists).
How do we differentiate this between what Chile used to do, or North Korea does, or Putin does to kill his enemies in other countries? These were all political enemies. They posed no threat to these countries, they caused no deaths or acts of terror. Often they were done to silence them, or they simply pissed off the leader of the country. A huge difference.
"Munich" was the movie I was think about in a prior post. Based on the book "Vengeance" - based on true events (Israelis did send out assassination squads) but the movie itself was fiction. The book was ambiguous on the moral quandary, Speilberg's movie was more direct on that issue.
At the risk of turning this into a debate: To understand how Israel justifies this is to understand the Israeli/Jewish psyche. The Israeli Defense Force has one guiding principle - the cannot afford to lose one war, not one. To do so would mean the massacre of every man, woman, and child. This is due to the small size of the country, the aggression by it's enemies who have dedicated themselves to wiping Israel off the map (literally, these statements are documented in country charters, or stated by country leaders), and obviously the history of Jewish persecution, most recently obviously the Nazi holocaust. They have been invaded 3 times between the late 1940s and 1970s and now it's enemies have moved to other strategies - terrorism, usually funded by state actors. Geographically - they are right in the hornets list, logistically - the don't have the land or population to absorb these attacks. They fight back in the only way they can now - occasionally "mowing the grass" in Gaza and Lebanon, and specific targeting it's enemies (i.e targeting Iranian nuclear scientists).
How do we differentiate this between what Chile used to do, or North Korea does, or Putin does to kill his enemies in other countries? These were all political enemies. They posed no threat to these countries, they caused no deaths or acts of terror. Often they were done to silence them, or they simply pissed off the leader of the country. A huge difference.
The way you differentiate it is that the overseas enemies of Chile, NK and Russia pose no existential threat and are not at war with the targeting countries. The enemies of Israel who are killed are usually a serious threat to Israel. The ones that weren't usually were, by then, persuaded to work with Mossad.
Okay, I just watched a first season Mannix which involved Nazi hunters and one of the believiability questions was why would a counter agency need to hire a PI from the outside? While I can think of a few spy story reasons, such as a suspected leak in the "agency" and wanting to avoid that, let's talk about world opinion to such strikes in the 60s.
Was it in world opinion to do such? Or was the opinion to do it but do it only for the big ones?
Finally, for now, were there splinter groups to such "agencies" then?
Two thoughts:
1. Hasn't "covertness" always been part of the ancillary story around the holocaust? (people hiding in attics, etc) So, the idea of having a covert ally in the war on Anti-Semitism doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me.
2. The show's writers Richard Levinson, William Link, and Bruce Geller were all Jewish, and their character in this show Mannix was sort of an action figure hero. So, it's really no surprise that they might aspire to put their hero into the eternal struggle. Holocaust rememberance sells, especially among Jews. So, this particular episode might have been an attempt to grow market share in that demographic.
So, it could be as simple as it was the story the writers wanted to tell. They had the means, methods, and motive....etc
World opinion? Well I was alive back then, I remember the events. I think it perilous at best to try and claim there was any single "world opinion". There certainly was a lot of sympathy. And there certainly was counterpoint.... which in itself might justify covert "secret soldier" type action.
Personally, I believe the aspect that the show's writing staff was predominantly Jewish explains quite a bit here. An opportunity for them to give something back to the community, so to speak. Such that the world be made to remember, etc.
World opinion? Well I was alive back then, I remember the events. I think it perilous at best to try and claim there was any single "world opinion". There certainly was a lot of sympathy. And there certainly was counterpoint.... which in itself might justify covert "secret soldier" type action.
"World opinion" is usually what passes for political correctness and is rarely accompanied by action, even as far as letting Jewish refugees in. Basically we were and are "the other" and people don't care very much if we are here or gone, unless they perceive themselves to be inconvenienced. That would include reduced opportunities for college admission because of "Jewish over-representation" or waiting on gas lines that are perceived to be Israel's fault.
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