Good Friday

To Dispel A Myth

Another excellent article by Caroline Glick in Monday's JP:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's speech in German before the Knesset this afternoon will be the culmination of what the Israeli media has referred to as an "historic" three-day state visit to Israel. The day before Merkel launched her "historic" visit, Der Spiegel reported on the "historic" visit of another German to Afghanistan.

That visit ended on March 3 when the visitor in question, known as Cüneyt C. from Bavaria and also known as Saad Ebu Furkan blew himself up in front of a US guard post in Khost, an hour's drive from the border with Pakistan where the German-Turk underwent terror training. Two US soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded after being trapped beneath the rubble, making C. Germany's first successful suicide bomber.

Although the first German to kill US forces, C.'s associate, Sadullah K. a young German from the state of Hesse died trying...

And of course, Germany's reputation as a home for al-Qaida-like jihadists was brandished by Saudi and Egyptian nationals who studied in Hamburg several years ago. Led by Muhammad Atta, they enjoyed German hospitality while planning the attacks they carried out in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

MERKEL, WHO presents herself and her country as Israel's greatest friend and supporter in Europe, will no doubt ignore this story in her Knesset speech. She will doubtlessly also not mention that her country is Iran's largest importer. She might mention that last year Germany did cancel a half of its loan guarantees to German firms doing business with Iran. But she won't mention that the move has had almost no impact on trade volume. In a recent report on German firms in Iran, Reuters interviewed British businessman Robert Mills, who runs DHL's operation in Teheran. DHL, the express delivery firm is a unit of the mail and logistics group Deutsche Post.

Mills gushed about the booming business his firm is doing in Iran, in spite of the international sanctions. Mills said the tonnage handled by DHL jumped by 50 per cent in the last two years and the company has doubled its turnover in Iran since 2005 on the back of rising imports of everything from telecommunications equipment to car spare parts.

Like Mills, other businessmen representing German firms reported booming businesses and expanding opportunities in spite of UN sanctions. Business managers reported that their earnings have doubled and tripled in the past two years.

Iran's faith in its German business partners is apparently unlimited. Why else would it be considering listing $92 billion in shares of its energy holding company on the Frankfurt stock exchange? As MEED, the Middle East Business Intelligence Report reported Sunday, with over 1,700 German firms operating in Iran, the fact that Germany recently broke off banking ties with Iranian banks is not viewed as an obstacle to listing the firm on the Frankfurt exchange. A spokeswoman for Deutsche Borse, the company which manages the exchange told the journal that it would have no objection to listing the Iranian firm.

GERMANY'S actions toward Iran cannot be squared with Merkel's rhetoric of support for Israel and commitment to Israel's security. Both Germany's actions and its pro-Israel rhetoric can only be understood when seen through the lens of power politics - which is the lens that informs European policymakers in their decisions relating to Israel, Iran, the Middle East, and indeed the world as a whole.

[...]

Merkel of course, knows full well that Israel's presumptive Palestinian "peace partner" the Fatah movement is a terrorist group. She also knows that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government's presumptive interlocutor for peace, Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is neither able nor interested in establishing a Palestinian state that will live at peace with Israel. She also knows that if the so-called peace process brings about a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, that state will simply be a terror state that will stand at the side of the terror state that was established in Gaza in 2005.

[...]

But of course, in the media frenzy of feel good German-Israeli friendship that has characterized Merkel's visit, none of this is likely to occur this week. And in the appeasement frenzied political climate that has gripped Israel since 1993, it is hard to imagine anyone stopping to realize that we are the only ones who take the Europeans at their word.

The article is well worth reading in its entirety. I would like, however, to add a correction concerning a not totally unimportant detail, because it might create inadvertently a myth.

Caroline Glick says that Cüneyt Ciftci (a Turk with German passport and, no doubt, brought up in a German Muslim "parallel society") was the first "German" to kill US forces. That is not the case. The first Germans to kill US forces were undoubted and undoubtedly ethnic Germans, namely members of the Baader-Meinhof gang, and the first member of the American military they killed was First Lieutenant Paul A. Bloomquist. That was on May 11, 1972 during a bomb attack on the headquarters of the 5th US Corps in Frankfurt/Main. Thirteen others were injured.

13 days later, during an assault on the European headquarters of the US Army on May 24, 1972, the GIs Ronald A. Woodward and Charles Peck were killed, five others were injured.

On August 7, 1985, the GI Edward Pimental was shot dead in Wiesbaden by members of the Baader-Meinhof gang. One of the girls had lured him out of a discotheque and into a situation that rendered him helpless. The sole purpose of the murder of this 20 year old boy was to get hold of his ID-card, which they later proudly showed-off to the world. It was used to get access to the Rhein-Main-Airbase in Frankfurt/Main the next day, where they detonated a car bomb. GI Frank Scarton and the civilian employee Becky Jo Bristol, the wife of an enlisted man, were killed, 23 others were injured.

The victims of the Baader-Meinhof gang are listed at the website of the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung.

Most of the murderers are free, whereas the families of the victims serve a life sentence without pardon or parole in their own private hell.

As examples may serve Irmgard Möller, who drove a car full of explosives into United States Military Intelligence Headquarters at Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg in 1972, who was arrested in July of the same year and given a lengthy prison sentence, but was released in the Nineties and Eva Haule, who was involved in the murder of Edward Pimental as well as in the following Rhein-Main Air Base bombing. The latter was granted parole in August 2007 after a "life sentence" of 21 years because, so the court, "she can't be considered a danger to the public" any longer. With her release date set for August 21, "the heirs of Freisler, Inc." released her on the 17th already, in order to protect her from the media. Everything to accomodate! Calling to account the murderers of Americans has never had a high priority in Germany anyway.

What shouldn't be forgotten either is the fact that the Baader-Meinhof terrorists received training at PLO camps, thus reviving a long tradition of excellent cooperation between Arabs and Germans, which had passed its acid test during the holocaust of the European Jews already.

And here, the matter reaches its full circle and we are back at Caroline Glick's article.

The Eternal Ugly German

Angela Merkel's visit to Israel predictably triggered off one of those unsavoury discussions about the German-Israeli relationships and two days ago, Liza posted 'Brief Guidelines for "Israel Critics"'. That reminded me of another case of this specific anencephalitis that only affects the German race and which had led an undisturbed life for several years on my harddisk.

Almost five years ago I got, among others, an email from an old American gentleman of German-Jewish origin. He had, in turn, gotten an email from a German girl, whom he had some time ago helped to get a place at an American college where she had studied for I have forgotten how long and I have forgotten as well what her subject was. The old gentleman was disturbed by the girl's views on the Middle East conflict and had asked some friends, whose knowledge of the matter he trusted, to send a reply with helpful information to "Dear B.".

The email of the girl was so utterly full of shit that I didn't send my reply to her directly -- I was too angry -- but to the old gentleman for some editing, which he failed to perform -- I have a hunch deliberately. The following is her text in the original, angrily interspersed with my reply in red. I have edited some of my own typos and eliminated one specific expletive for publication here, otherwise, my reply is the one "Dear B." got.

Alright, here it goes:

What is wrong with being with the underdogs?
The Pals are not the underdogs, they are the aggressor.


The UN partitioned Palestine in 1947 and gave 55% of Palestine's land to the Jewish people.
Wrong. They gave 55% of the remaining 20% of "Palestine" (the British Mandate territory) to the Jews. 80% were given to Arabs already: Jordania. Jordania was intended as the Palestinian state before the Hashemites grabbed it, Jordania OUGHT TO BE the Palestinian state.


Within a year they had captured 78%.
They did indeed, but not exactly out of the blue. The Arabs rejected the partition, the Arabs declared war on the Jews, the Arabs lost. The Arabs paid with land. Not totally unusual after a lost war. Tough shit!


In 1948 the state of Israel was declared.
At least THAT is right.


Later Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Yes, they did that, 1967, and AGAIN not out of the blue, but after the Arabs had started a war AGAIN (the third time since 1947) and lost. AGAIN. Lose wars, pay with land, specifically when you've started the war in the first place. Probably difficult to understand for a German. We too had to learn it the hard way, so will the Arabs. One day. Hopefully.

By the way, it was ONLY THEN, after 1967, that the Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a "Palestinian people", two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.


Settlers were offered money to move into the occupied territories.
Well, so what? It was their land, wasn't it? Israel had won it after the Six Day War. Numerous legal authorities dispute the charge that settlements are "illegal." International law scholar Stephen Schwebel notes that a country acting in self-defense may seize and occupy territory when necessary to protect itself. Schwebel also observes that a state may require, as a condition for its withdrawal, security measures designed to ensure its citizens are not menaced again from that territory. Arabs are neither willing nor able to provide those.


Palestinian families were forced off their lands and driven into refugee camps.
In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. 68% left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.

The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries is estimated to be the same.

Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel.


Huge fences are built around the palestenian territories.
What fences (plural)? A (singular) fence is built now to keep out the terrorists. Israel has the right -- no, the OBLIGATION -- to defend herself and her citizens.

Just a couple of only too gladly overlooked facts about life in the territories:

During 20 years of Arab rule, Palestinian male life expectancy grew from 42 to 44. During the next 20 years of Israeli rule Palestinian male life expectancy grew from 44 to 63.

During 20 years of Arab rule, Palestinian female life expectancy grew from 45 to 46. During the next 20 years of Israeli rule Palestinian female life expectancy grew from 46 to 67.

During 20 years of Arab rule, Palestinian infant mortality rate decreased from 200 per thousand to 170 per thousand. During the next 20 years of Israeli rule Palestinian infant mortality rate decreased from 170 per thousand to 60 per thousand.

During 20 years of Arab rule, Palestinian death rate decreased from 21 per thousand to 19 per thousand. During next 20 years of Israeli rule Palestinian infant mortality rate decreased from 19 per thousand to 6 per thousand.

Before 1967, when Israel's "occupation" started, only 113 hospitals had been built in the territories. In 1989 Israel had helped establish more than three times that number to 387.

Before 1967, only 23 Mother & Child Centers had been established, after 1989 about six times as many (135) .

Malaria, which had existed in the territories before 1967, was finally eliminated during the Israeli occupation.

Israel also more than tripled the number of Palestinian teachers and boosted the Palestinian educational system by establishing a number of universities. Among those universities were the College of Scientists (Abu Dis) - est. 1982, the College of Social Welfare (El Bira) - est. 1979, the College of Religion (Beit Hanina) - est. 1978 and the Islamic College in Hebron 1971.

This was not the only effect Israeli occupation had on the Palestinian education system and the Palestinian people. Before 1967 the percentage of illiterates on average had been 27.8% among men and among women even higher at 65.1%. By 1983 Israel had helped reduce illiteracy to only 13.5% among men and 38.9% among women.


Palestinians who continue to live in Israel do not have the same rights as Israelis and live as second-class citizens in their former homeland.
That is utter bullshit. Arabs have the full citizenship, the right to vote, they can become, and are, member of the Knesset.

And as far as the "homeland" myth is concerned, Arabs are not indigenous to "Palestine", they come from the Arab peninsula. But there was a constant presence of Jews in Palestine since time immemorial.

Mark Twain's account of his travel to the Holy Land is a fascinating read.

It is another only too gladly overlooked fact that Arab immigration occured together with Jewish immigration in the 19th and early 20th century and in even greater numbers. Neither the Ottoman census nor the Brits kept an exact account of the Arabs immigrants, whereas Jewish immigration was documented in detail.


I also think that the palestinian terrorism must be destroyed, but you must admit that many mistakes have been made beforehand.
And that were WHAT mistakes exactly? Apart from existing in the first place, that is.


After 9/11 Germany has shown its solidarity. Like Kennedy who said "Ich bin ein Berliner.", Schröder said "Heute sind wir alle Amerikaner."
Well he WOULD say that, wouldn't he? He could hardly dance in the streets and hand out candy like the Arabs did. He had to say SOMETHING and it didn't cost him much.


However, showing solidarity does not mean to give up one's own opinion.
No it doesn't. So?


Maybe Germans have sympathy for the palestinian because they know how it is to be on the "wrong" side.
"To be on the wrong side", that sounds like making a wrong choice of ally like, say, Italy did in WWII. Germans were not "on the wrong side" Germans WERE the wrong side, they CREATED the conflict, just as the Pals are the wrong side and created the ME conflict. They declared openly and unambiguously that their goal is not a "Palestinian state" but the extermination of Israel.


The US has always been on the "right" side - so they think at least.
And WHERE have they NOT been "on the right side"? (Just curious!)


Searching (unsuccessfully) for nuclear and chemical weapons in some parts of the world.
In WHICH parts of the world (plural) save Iraq?


However, there is no confusion over the extent and range of America's arsenal of nuclear and chemical weapons.
No. So???


Would the US government welcome weapons inspectors? Or Israel?
Is that girl out of her mind??? Israel and The United States are Western DEMOCRACIES, not some hellhole totalitarian states with a lunatic dictator at the wheel!


I think that Germany has the right to judge another government's politics even if its Israel or the US.
Who said it hasn't? In fact, Israel and the US are criticised here all the time, extensively and intensively by the vast majority of the media and damn unfairly to boot. So what a sort of statement is that? She's breaking down open doors!


The German government is not indifferent about the palestenian terrorism, but Sharon's politics are also not considered as right.
You don't say so!


Every German knows about German history. How could we forget! But I strongly believe that this burdens us even more responsibility to struggle for peace and humanity!
Here is what the Sociologist Wolfgang Pohrt said about German mentality, the "Michel Syndrome".

He coined the famous phrase that the Germans, as former perpetrators, feel that it is their duty to "stand with praise and censure at Israel's side as ethical probation officer to keep the victim from committing a second offence." He wrote, too, that the Germans with their obsession with responsibility (Verantwortungsfimmel) resemble a convicted child molester who thinks he is specifically qualified for a job as kindergarden teacher.

"Gerade wir als Deutsche", "Specifically we as Germans" refers to the obnoxious way to deal with their past as if it had entitled the Germans to some specific qualification to lecture all the world about all things humane.

If their past qualifies Germans for anything in particular it's to shut the fuck up!

This came from, mind you, a young woman qualified to teach at a German "Gymnasium", a grammar school, a teacher who is supposed to educate the future elite of our country.

My point is, of course, to expose the dogged, brainless antiamericanism and antisemitism (excuse me, anti-Zionism!) of a person who had, after all, spent some formative time in the U.S, to expose how somebody with a university education isn't better informed about something she allegedly feels so strongly about, but if it fits her agenda and is detrimental to Israel, knows her figures, so to say, down to the second decimal place behind the comma. Of course, the moronic reasoning without any attempt at a stringent argument is as embarrassing as telling as well.

But what REALLY got my goat was the clumsy English, the prolific use of the hackneyed of clichès and the appalling sloppy spelling not even bothering with a spell checker or a thesaurus to look for a better choice of words, which shows that, when stupidity and rudeness meet head-on, something awful will come out.

Well, at least I had the final gratification of seeing "Dear B." being miffed mightily after reception of my (unedited) reply.

Happy Birthday, Israel!

Jan Ziniewicz' Longest Night

Last night, 62 years ago, the glorious city of Dresden was turned into a heap of rubble.

I would like to post a little memorial beyond any "We poor Germans who have all been hijacked by some evil Nazi aliens didn't know why the nasty Allies hit us and who cares who started the war anyway"-whining (an art form with which only Palestinian Arabs can keep up) and "No Tears for Krauts" or "Bomber Harris Do It Again" self-hatred.

This is about a survivor of the bombing, a young Polish man named Jan Ziniewicz, and about hope.

To appropriately explain who Jan Ziniewicz was (or is, he may well be still alive) I have to digress.

Breeding pure Arab horses had a 400-year tradition in Poland already, when Germany raided Poland in 1939. In 1817, after the Congress of Vienna on the initiative of Administrative Council of the Congressional Kingdom of Poland, Janów Podlaski, the first and most important Polish state-stud was founded and it was mainly from here that the Arabian horse, gentrified by Polish breeding genius, went to pass on its beauty, toughness, athletic ability and kind disposition to the indigenous breeds of Europe.

More than 80 percent of Janów's horses had perished in the war campaign of 1939. In 1944, as the Sovjet army was approaching the River Bug, the German Command ordered an evacuation of the horses. The farm, including its staff, was relocated to Sohland in Saxony where it remained until February 1945. With them were the stars among the stallions, the half-brothers Witraz and Wielki Szlem – and Jan Ziniewicz, their groom.

The evacuation continued westward when the Russian army crossed the River Oder. Arriving in Dresden on the night of February 13th, 1945, the entire group of 80 stallions were swallowed by the firebrand that destroyed the city. More than half of the stallions were lost in this pandemonium, a fate that certainly would have befallen Witraz and Wielki Szlem too, had it not been for the courage and determination of Jan Ziniewicz. With Witraz' reins in one hand and Wielki Szlem's in the other, the slip of a lad (as he was described) hold tight to his treasured charges throughout the entire horrific ordeal. He didn't let it go, the pride and the future of the Polish Arabian breed, not among fire, bombs and dying people, not even when Witraz's tail caught fire, not when his hands were chafed to raw meat and not when he must have realized that he was very probably going to die.

But he didn't.

Stud manager young Dr. Andrzej Krzysztalowicz (1915 – 1998), later to become Janów's Director from 1958 to 1991, arrived early the next morning, riding another one of the stud's priceless stars, Amurath Sahib, to find his two precious stallions deeply upset, but basically unharmed. Of 80 stallions 38 survived, 22 were found dead and 20 were never found at all. When he rode along the 22 dead bodies of his stallions, it can be safely assumed that he wept.

Mares and foals had remained unharmed. They had arrived only after the firebrand because of the slow travelling speed imposed by the presence of very young foals.

The horses, including Witraz and Wielki Szlem, were repatriated to Poland in 1946. They were to establish historic legacies of unmatched importance to their breed, not just in Poland but all over the world.

On October 30, 2005, the Frauenkirche, Dresden's landmark and most glorious architectural gem, was consecrated anew after more than a decade of rebuilding, helped by donations from Britain and the United States.



Jan Ziniewicz with Almifar (Witraz' grandson) and Czort (Wielki Szlem's son). Judging from the birthdates of the stallions, the picture must have been taken in the early Sixties.

My thanks for this picture go to Betty Finke, one of the greatest experts on Arabian horses alive.

My New Blog

I have a new blog, The Evil Style Queen, motto: "I have a crown and a headscarf and no hangups about wearing either", but one would expect some level of bitchiness anyway, wouldn't one?

I was always amazed that my posts about personal things triggered off so many more reactions than my political commentaries. (Gosh, that sounds pompous, but what else could I possibly say?) So why not put that to good use at a blog of its own?

Right now, it's still in its very early fledgling stage. I intend to "recycle" a lot of posts from here, but there are countless topics in the pipeline, really.

It seems that working on my German blog revived my interest in Roncesvalles, so maybe a blog about style (read: everything that comes to mind) may well be increasing my interest in both.

What else can I say? Enjoy or be irritated, whatever suits you better.

The Eternal Ugly Face of The German Petty Bourgeois

The German nationwide weekly newspaper ZEIT is is highly respected for its quality journalism. With a circulation of roughly 490,000 copies and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly. It is considered to be intellectually upmarket. Its political stance is described as centrist to liberal (in the European meaning of "social liberal"), but has shifted several times between slightly left-leaning and slightly right-leaning. It is known for its broadsheet size and its long and in-depth articles. Their most remarkable feature (but maybe that is just me) is their "personal" column, which is full of advertisements of those who consider themselves bright, beautiful and blameless seeking the likeminded, and of great entertainment value.

Now the German blog Politically Incorrect makes us aware of a video with the comment of Jens Jessen, editor-in-chief of the "feuilleton" (the part of a European newspaper devoted to fiction, reviews, general interest articles or showbiz and society matters) of the ZEIT, obviously taken at his workplace. (I can only recommend to watch the video even if you don't understand German because of the facial expression, body language and the ambience of the office.)

It is about the frighteningly increasing violence of youths with a "migration background" (read: almost always Muslims) against Germans and specifically against those Germans who are specifically helpless, the elderly. Jessen is refering here to an incident in the Munich subway, where a 76-year-old retired headmaster was beaten to a pulp by a Turkish and a Greek youth because he had asked them to stop smoking in a non-smoking car.

By the way, when it happened, the German media took some time until they released the ethnic background of the two youths and refered to them as "young smokers" at first.

Yeah! We have a smoker-problem in Germany!

Thanks to the transcript with the essential bits PI offers, and which I here translate, my English-speaking readers can share this amazing experience:

…One DOES ask oneself whether this pensioner, who refused to tolerate the smoking in the Munich subway and thus triggered off that without doubt unexcusable deed, must be seen within a chain of patronising, reproachs and silly chattings-up, which the foreigner, and namely the young one, has to suffer incessantly. And not just the foreigner. At the end of the day, the old German petty bourgeois*, to use such a negative word, shows his ugly face everywhere. (…)

That is the atmosphere of intolerance against which one has to judge such spontaneous violent acts. (…)

I would like to ask, on the other hand, whether there aren't too many know-it-all German pensioners who make life hell for the foreigners here. And for other Germans as well. To put it like that: I don't think that German society has a problem with criminal foreigners but with home-made intolerance.

I would like to ask, on the other hand, whether there aren't too many late middle-aged German petty bourgeois* schmocks, to use such a negative word, who show their ugly faces everywhere and who have just swapped the portrait of Hitler at their fathers' office walls for one of Lenin.

--------------------------

*The German word "Spießer" Jessen used is virtually non-translatable. "Fuddy-duddy", "square", " stuffy " or "boringly (lower) middle class" all cover a part, but not all, of its meaning.

Suit and Tie Are Not Enough

Today, BILD, the German tabloid shitrag did what in these days and times only shitrags do because serious papers are too busy being good and published the entire sad "German Rathergate" affair.

The following howler is too good to be missed: Oezcan Mutlu, the Berlin lawmaker of whom I wrote in my previous entry:

The fact that Mutlu, a naturalized German and member of a German state parliament, still speaks a sort of semi-"Kanaksprak" shows how seriously he takes his own assimilation

has now the temerity to explain his gaffe away by stating that

Alaattin Kaymak is obviously no professional when it comes to politics and not very eloquent. All I wanted to ask was whether nobody talked to him prior to the programme.

That is the same Alaattin Kaymak, mind you, of whom I wrote yesterday:

...he was, in fact, a picture of competence, literacy and self-assurance and spoke German without any foreign accent. Compared to Mutlu, who came to Germany when he was five years young and who is an electrical engineer by profession (and, incidentally, the speaker for educational policy of his parliamentary group), he almost appeared as a gentleman and that means SOMETHING.

That said, I wonder what talking to a tongue-tied chat-show guest prior to the programme should achieve.

Sad as it may be, but wearing suit and tie is not enough to pass yourself off as a German, Oezcan.

In Germany, only German citizens can vote or be elected to a parliament. Note that the German citizen Mutlu ("More Education -- More Respect") addresses his potential electorate and all the fully-assimilated Germans "with an ethnic Turkish background" in German AND and Turkish on the election placard (left). No doubt they all speak German just as well as he does.

The German "Rathergate"

The following was reported by the blog Transatlantic Conservative today.

The German blog Politically Incorrect (PI) has published a video and an audio tape of a political chat show broadcast by the public (state owned) ARD TV station. Here, the German Secretary of Justice, Brigitte Zypries and a Green member of the parliament of the city and state of Berlin, the ethnic Turk Oezcan Mutlu, share a whispered conversation that was evidently not meant to be overheard by the public and which PI noticed (my guess is that they were tipped off) and made public.

The debate was about the frightening increase of violent crimes by "youths with a migration background" (read: Muslims). A former member of such a violent youth gang was interviewed by the host and the question: "What could Germany have done to offer you a better existence?" was met by an unexpected reply: "Well, I can't think of anything specific really. All the opportunities have been there, you just have to look for them a little bit and take them up." Frantic whispering in the background, which could clearly be identified as the question: "Has he not been briefed?" by Mutlu, followed by Zypries' irritated, even angry, reply: "He HAS!"

The take of PI and Transatlantic Conservative, which I share, is that here a German state controlled TV channel is offering biased and doctored content to the tax paying audience who, as the Transatlantic Conservative puts it, "pays for their own media indoctrination". Obviously, the boy had been briefed to make statements along the politically correct line of the German mainstream politics and -media.

Of course, the frantic backpedalling was only to be expected. The comment section of the PI-entry is a psychogram of angry leftists. According to their interpretation, Alaattin Kaymak (the young ex-gang member) had had a hang-up, thus the question about the "briefing", when he was, in fact, a picture of competence, literacy and self-assurance and spoke German without any foreign accent. Compared to Mutlu, who came to Germany when he was five years young and who is an electrical engineer by profession (and, incidentally, the speaker for educational policy of his parliamentary group), he almost appeared as a gentleman and that means SOMETHING.

The fact that Mutlu, a naturalized German and member of a German state parliament, still speaks a sort of semi-"Kanaksprak" shows how seriously he takes his own assimilation.

Read about the sad affair in German at PI or see a video at YouTube.

Postscriptum: It should be mentioned that a public prosecutor (state attorney) from Berlin, who can claim considerable success with his tough handling of young criminals, was invited to join the panel but didn't get the permission from his senior. Why? Because he, so the senior public prosecutor, "doesn't comply with my policy". That means, in effect, that this was not about the experience of an expert, but about POLITICS and that the senior public prosecutor is acting according to political standards and pressure and not according to the necessities of his job.