Hans von sponeck biography of albert einstein
Chained to its Past: A German Formula for Injustice toward the People of Palestine
[Re-posting Second Prefatory Note: To allow for prior German online publication I temporarily removed this post after two hours. The text below is identical to what was previously posted. We are eager to encourage debate, discussion, and democracy, and so encourage dissemination through social media, and whatever means you find effective. Hearing a few days ago of the Dortmund City Council’s rescinding of the Nelly Sachs Prize for Literature to the British-Pakistani writer Kamila Shamies because it discovered that was a supporter of BDS is a further confirmation of the decline of democracy in Germany, at least in relation to this subject-matter of Israel/Palestine.]
[Prefatory Note: The following article written jointly with my longtime cherished friend, Hans von Sponeck, who by family experience and moral disposition is acutely aware of the German policy dilemmas associated with its past. These issues have recently surfaced in the context of suppressing pro-Palestinian nonviolent activism, which we believe are being handled in ways that tend to reproduce rather than transcend the evils of the Nazi Era by taking a variety of steps to shield the criminality of the Israeli Government from pressures exerted by the Palestinian global solidarity movement, and the BDS Campaign in particular. We attempted to publish this opinion piece first in a series of leading German newspapers, but were turned down. Apparently, the media guardians of public opinion in Germany regard silence as preferable to discussion and debate on this crucial issue.
As a biographical aside, Hans served for 32 years in the United Nations. In his last posting with a rank of UN Assistant Secretary General, he headed the Oil for Food Program in Iraq by virtue of his role as Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (1998-2000) that followed the First Gulf War (1991) He resigned on principle be
More than half a century ago UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld said that “the United Nations was not created to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.” This past year has seen considerable soul-searching about the future of the United Nations, against the background of the 75 anniversary of the adoption of the UN Charter in 1945. Not surprisingly, the debates have not had the intensity that surrounded the creation of the UN during World War II. At the time, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill brought together the allied nations in the war effort against the Axis powers and there was a tangible sense of urgency; humanity needed to avoid in the future at all costs the calamity of global war, the utter hell associated in the end with some 60 million casualties and the destruction of entire cities and countries. The UN steered the world through the process of decolonization, saw the addition of over 100 new members in its early decades, was responsible for a significant strengthening in the international legal framework underpinning the concept of human rights and had its share of failures as well, many of them reflecting the particular flaws built in by its founding members in their efforts to protect national prerogatives and sovereignty.
“The moral authority of the United Nations would be considerably enhanced if the delegates were elected directly by the people.” — Albert Einstein
Successes and failures aside, the UN has emerged as our primary forum to address the major global catastrophic risks facing humanity in an increasingly interdependent world. For the UN to be increasingly effective and credible as a problem-solving organization, it must be perceived to have a much larger degree of democratic legitimacy. Unfortunately, the UN’s lack of direct representation of the global citizenry in its various component organs undermines its democratic legitimacy. Albert Einstein saw this clearly when in INDIGENOUS RIGHTS, TRANSCEND MEMBERS, HUMAN RIGHTS, EUROPE, PALESTINE - ISRAEL, 23 Sep 2019 Hans von Sponeck and Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service 17 Sep 2019 – The following collaborative article written jointly with my longtime cherished friend, Hans von Sponeck, who by family experience and moral disposition is acutely aware of the German policy dilemmas associated with its past. These issues have recently surfaced in the context of suppressing pro-Palestinian nonviolent activism, which we believe are being handled in ways that tend to reproduce rather than transcend the evils of the Nazi Era by taking a variety of steps to shield Israeli criminality from pressures exerted by the Palestinian global solidarity movement. We attempted to publish this opinion piece first in a series of leading German newspapers, but were turned down. Apparently, the media guardians of public opinion in Germany regard silence as preferable to discussion and debate on this crucial issue. As a biographical aside, Hans is a former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations who headed Oil for Food Program in Iraq in his role as Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq in the period following the First Gulf War (1993) until he resigned on principle because of the maintenance of punitive sanctions that were responsible for massive civilian casualties in Iraq. ******************************* Does anyone ask why a boy is being led away in daylight, handcuffed and blindfolded, by a group of soldiers? He was taking part in a protest against the Jewish settlement of Ofra, in the West Bank village of Silwad, near Ramallah. The Bundestag resolution on May 15that condemned the BDS Campaign as contributing to a rising threat of antisemitism in Europe is a grave cause of concern. It brands the BDS, a nonviolent Palestinian initiativ The Suicide Bombers The Spokesman, 87 Edited by Ken Coates Contents Joy Shall Be in Heaven... Robert S. McNamara The Final Abyss Admiral of the Fleet The Earl Mountbatten of Burma The Nuclear Future? - Zia Mian Three Poems - Kurt Vonnegut Albert Einstein - Bertrand Russell Mesopotamia 1917 - Rudyard Kipling World Tribunal on Iraq - John Berger The Age of Irony - Arundhati Roy How the UN Failed Iraq - Hans von Sponeck Unfinished Business for the Peace Movement - Ken Coates Mr Blair's Africa - Michael Barratt Brown Dossier Modernising Britain's Nuclear Arsenal Questions for President Bush U.S. Restarts Plutonium 238 Production Price: �5.00 ISBN: 978 0 85124 713 7 Spokesman 87 Paperback Chained to Its Past: A German Recipe for Injustice toward the People of Palestine
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