Trump has no credibility to pledge "Never again"

It has been reported that President Trump will address Tuesday's "Yom Hashoah" Holocaust commemoration at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. In addition to Holocaust exhibits and documentation, the Museum very consciously houses the Committee on Conscience and the Center for the Prevention of Genocide.

Today, addressing the World Jewish Congress via video, he pledged, "We must stamp out prejudice and anti-Semitism everywhere it is found." And finally, months after his White House denied the need to mention Jews in connection with the Holocaust, he did mention Hitler's six million Jewish targeted victims. But his rhetoric is very thin on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and ignores his administration's consistent refusal to act in support of contemporary victims of mass killings and of racial and religious persecution, even while he and his aides routinely appeal to Islamophobia and other forms of xenophobia here in the United States.

Unless he announces that he's abandoning the border wall, dropping the arbitrary ban on refugees and certain Muslim states, and firing the "Alt-Right" white supremacists and the second-generation card-carrying Nazi working inside his own West Wing, anything he says there can be nothing more than a desecration and betrayal of the memory and lessons of the Holocaust. Singling out Jews for special recognition and protection, while actively sowing fear and hostility toward so many other minorities, does us no favors.

Turkey, the crazy old man of Europe

Not so long ago, at Davos, seated beside United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan picked a very personal and undiplomatic argument with Israeli President Shimon Peres before storming off the stage (The video is astounding). Shortly after that, he headlined a hate-filled anti-Israel rally back at home. He also appeared at a rally in Ankara where at some point a giant banner was unfurled depicting Peres bowing before Erdogan.

It didn't help matters that some senior Israeli diplomats who definitely knew better set up Turkey's ambassador for a calculated, unprofessional, televised hazing over some minor pretext for what was still a very valuable account.

In March 2010, Turkey's new Ambassador to the United States was temporarily recalled following a non-binding (but taboo) "Armenian Genocide" resolution that was approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but never even made it to the full House of Representatives, let alone inform U.S. policy.

The May 2010 Gaza Flotilla incident is well known, if disputed. Despite a United Nations finding that Israel deserves only partial blame for the deaths of nine violent, mostly Turkish blockade runners, Erdogan continues to demand a formal and unambiguous apology from the Israeli government.

Curiously, Erdogan expelled Israel's ambassador only AFTER the UN inquiry issued its report. Now he demands Israel end its embargo of Gaza, even though the UN findings supported Israel's right to enforce the weapons blockade.

Provocative settlements, provocative UN resolutions, and no peace

The Palestinian delegates to the United Nations are within their rights to push a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank (or any resolution at all), and the United States is within its rights to veto such a resolution.

The United States may no longer be the indispensable nation in every corner of the globe, but in the Middle East it still is. If there is one nation that can influence Israel more effectively through direct engagement, it is the United States. This has been a major consideration behind countless U.S. vetoes against Security Council resolutions that were one-sided and/or politically motivated. What will be gained by changing course at this sensitive juncture?

The United States and Israel are strategic allies, and the UN is certainly no stranger to friends standing up for friends... and far worse. Violators of international law -- even outright genocide -- are routinely exempted from UN condemnation, despite often strong efforts by the United States and others. If the UN were known for acting on principle in every instance and nations voted on the basis of international law rather than specific relationships and strategies, the world would be a safer and better place. But that's just not the case.

Genocide, Another Name For Murder (originally published Dec. 15, 2008)

The recent horrific events in Mumbai are still too raw for me to react with fairness and reason, but I cannot wait any longer. The Jewish center that was viciously attacked did not exist when I was living uptown by Byculla Bridge many years ago, but I have known the Chabad-Lubavitch movement for much longer than that. I also learned so much from the people of Mumbai and from its ancient Jewish community. Byculla is a crossroads of minority faiths, central to Jews, Catholics and Muslims, and no small number of Hindus.

The absence of inidigenous anti-Semitism is partly the result of the minuscule Jewish existence there compared to hundreds of millions of Hindus and nearly 100 million Muslims. The deep hatred and mistrust of Muslims was exacerbated by the creation of a separate Pakistani state from the remnants of India's Raj borders, and perhaps this (reciprocated) enmity fills the psychological and political void filled by anti-Semitism in many other societies, with or without the presence of actual Jews. The saltwater pool at Breach Candy Swim Trust is still shaped in the outline of oldtime Greater India, as a constant reminder of the power of a pencil and the limits of an idea. Truth be told, most Indians and Pakistanis do not come near Gandhi's pacifist and universalist tendencies. In other words, this attack could have happened in any real-world city.

The Chabad movement follows a strict code of religious practice, and its followers wear black hats and coats. Yet it is a paragon of informed faith and intellectual enlightenment, or openness to the outside world. The Chabad emissaries engage the outside world and are critical participants in general society, without losing their religious identity or their principles of faith. Their love and commitment for fellow Jews do not come at the expense of their responsibility to all humanity in the image of God. One American Jewish friend related to me that her shock was compounded by the notion that any Chabad emissary could be killed, because their pure and holy mission has always seemed to inoculate against physical harm.

Having just heard a speech from Francis Deng, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General for the Prevention of Genocide, I have a few additional reflections. Genocide as a legal principle offers an elusive threshold. While we may not wish to see an entire people or nation disappear (or be the target of such an effort), I also have a hidden agenda in fighting genocide, and not just as a Jew whose family arrived in the United States decades before the Holocaust plunged Europe into a human hell. My hidden agenda is to prevent murder or individuals, and to preserve the hope of our place here on Earth. If criminalizing genocide can motivate nations and leaders to take action, then the Genocide Convention is a step forward. But even if mass murder is being perpetrated NOT on the basis of ethnicity or religion, we need to speak out against it.

Human rights begin with individual humans, and worthy arguments about fighting genocide do not preclude us from condemning and halting mass murder. The attacks in Mumbai were criminal. Despite the "global war on terrorism," they may not constitute war crimes, but they are no less criminal and outrageous. Our hearts still ache and the blood of the innocent still cries out. All of us, including my colleagues in the UN Secretariat, must continue doing what we can. And we must continue asking what more we can do. And we must continue to call evil by its name.