The time has come to act!

With a de facto nuclear Iran promising to make Israel disappear from the map, and the US administration way too preoccupied with getting re-elected while naively still talking embargoes, it looks like Israel will have to go it alone.

To be sure, no one wants to see this happen.

Back in 2004 when I told Presidential hopeful Howard Dean about Iran posing an “existential threat” to Israel, even some Jewish leaders present in the room referred to me as “unrealistic”.

The same year during the preparation of the approaching 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz where my entire family was murdered, I repeated my prediction of an “existential threat” from a fundamentalist Iran to Slava Kantor the president of the European Jewish Congress, and he too at first dismissed my opinion.

Ironically, in later years he based his entire public career on the foundation of my theory.

Subsequently, based on my urging, Kantor became President of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe.

Later in 2004 I recall, that over a friendly lunch hosted in a private home in New York to welcome Austrian Presidential hopeful Benita Ferrero-Waldner who served as the European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, I got into a heated argument with the naïve European politician.

I made the point, that the Holocaust could happen due to the existence two basic components: an ideology (as spelled out in Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”) and Nazi Germany’s latest technology at the time-pressed into service to carry out the resulting “Final Solution”.

I pointed it out to the polite but tragically naive European leader, that Ahmadinejad’s genocidal fundamentalist threat to wipe Israel off the map, is only awaiting the second necessary component: the technology to carry it out.

At the time, I was nearly asked by my clearly embarrassed hosts to leave the table for my remarks.

On October 26, 2005 Mahmud Ahmadinejad at he infamous "World Without Zionism"conference in Asia, delivered his “Israel must be wiped off the map” speech, he finally spelled it out for the world to hear: “Our dear Imam (referring to Ayatollah Khomeini) said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world.”

Suddenly my earlier predictions took on a new meaning.

Which brings us back to today’s situation.

While busily screwing up the entire Middle East with the idiotically false promises of the “Arab Spring”, the sad fact is that Barack Hussein Obama never had the testicular fortitude to rein in the real enemies of freedom: the fundamentalist nut jobs in Iran and their cheering section in Venezuela and other places.

Even when presented with hard evidence of Iranian missiles with unconventional payloads being readied to be lobbed at the American heartland, the White House is pretending that it is not happening.

The net result of US impotence: Israel now finds itself having to face a looming existential threat alone.

Every time Israel’s leaders approach the point of decision, Barack Obama promptly dispatches his most senior military and intelligence chiefs to jerk Israel’s chain, as to not upset his seemingly singular priority: his re-election aspirations.

Over recent months I had several first hand opportunities to speak with the most senior levels of military, intelligence and political leaders in Israel and the more I spoke with them, the more concerned I grew.

Diplomatic efforts, sanctions and public pronouncements aside, something concrete needs to be done soon.

In the meantime, Israel must get ready to face the inevitable.

This weekend, the Jewish nation took an important step in that direction by appointing a very capable and charismatic leader as the new commander of the Israel Air Force.

The appointment of a new air force chief traditionally makes headlines in Israel, but this time the appointment is particularly compelling, due to the very real and imminent possibility that this commander will be ordered by the government to oversee a preventive strike on Iran’s well-protected and distant nuclear infrastructure.

A seasoned military officer, 53 year old Major General Amir Eshel is the right man to be at the controls in facing a nuclear Iran. Eshel is a capable military leader with an impressive record as a professional soldier.

If his name sounds familiar, it is; because General Eshel was the leader of the memorable Israel Air Force flyover in the gray skies over the Auschwitz concentration camp in 2003.

His words broadcast over the radio of his F-16 aircraft emblazoned with the blue Star of David - flying over the ashes of his ancestors incinerated by hatred - now take on an ominous new meaning in today’s Israel threatened by nuclear annihilation at the hands of the Islamo-Faschist madmen of Teheran.

As his plane ducked in low over the infamous Nazi death camp, Eshel, the son of Holocaust survivors, read out the following statement which was broadcast on the ground: “We pilots of the Air Force, flying in the skies above the camp of horrors, arose from the ashes of the millions of victims and shoulder their silent cries, salute their courage and promise to be the shield of the Jewish people and its nation Israel."

Powerful words.

Powerful emotions.

Powerful motivation.

You don't bring a knife to a gunfight: nuclear brinksmanship as state policy

Wisdom says it, that “it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. ”

All indications are that Iran has either reached or is within a hand's breadth of a nuclear weapon capability. Sunday, Nov. 6, Iran was reported to have carried out implosion experiments in a large steel container built as a testing capsule for this purpose at Parchin.

Such experiments would be hard to explain away for any purpose other than the development of nuclear arms.

Today, a Russian nuclear expert Vyacheslav Danilenko was named as having taught the Iranians how to build the R265 steel generator used for the implosion in the Parchin experiment.

Since Danilenko has been long back home in Russia by 2005, logically, Iran is considered to have mastered the critical nuclear detonation technology at least six years ago or even earlier.

The latest information that surfaced in media reports about the R265 is pivotal as a nuclear weapon can only be detonated, if a sphere of conventional explosives is detonated first to create a blast wave that compresses a central ball of nuclear fuel into an incredibly dense mass, triggering a nuclear chain reaction and explosion.

I am no nuclear expert, but I did maintain a long friendship with the late Professor Edward Teller the Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb”. I remember how in his heavily accented English Dr. Teller once sketched the process on a napkin, so that even I could understand the process in layman’s terms.

So if my calculations are accurate, for at least six years the US and Israeli governments have kept their own populations and the world in general in the dark about true status of Iran's nuclear program.

I recall reading media reports back in 2007 that under the administration of President George W. Bush, the US government, military and intelligence agencies published a completely false and misleading National Intelligence Estimate which declared with the echoes of Neville Chamberlain’s “Peace in our time” certainty that in 2003, Tehran had suspended intense work on the design and production of a nuclear weapon.

When the Israeli intelligence experts pointed out the completely inaccuracy of the NIE, they were unceremoniously told to back off and mind their own business.

But since the Israelis are pretty good on issues like these- especially when the potential threat is an existential one- they did not accept at face value the team of Central Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Michael V. Hayden’s assertions, they preferred to rely on their own intelligence services.

Of course, both the US and Israeli knew the truth – that Iran was getting dangerously close to a nuclear capacity, had already obtained nuclear explosives, detonators and the technology for triggering them, as well as all critical components building ICBMs.

So the Israelis were not sitting on their laurels, but were exploring the realm of the near impossible: to permanently damage Iran’s nuclear process by sheer imagination. This is how the Stuxnet malworm made its first appearance in June 2010.

The cleverly created virus embarked on stealthy infections of the uranium enrichment plant’s control system in Natanz, in order to at least slow down Iran's stockpiling of large quantities of weapons-grade fuel.

But at the end of the day Iran has since still managed to scrape together enough enriched uranium for at least four nuclear explosive devices anyway.

While the cleverly planned cyber warfare briefly slowed Iran's steady progress toward a nuclear bomb but never derailed it.

The Mossad’s ‘wet affairs” department also manage to get rid of some Iranian nuclear scientists, but at the end of the day, that too proved to be having only marginal setbacks for Ahmadenijad’s nuke program.

The pending (IAEA) report will show in black and white that ineffective international sanctions, the assassinations of key scientists, the Stuxnet virus and similar covert operations to damage the equipment on its way to Iran, never diverted the Ayatollahs long from their relentless pursuit of atomic weapons.

I recall reading in the press that two leaders, Obama and Netanyahu, both promised when they were elected never to let Iran achieve a nuclear arms capability.

As soon as both settled into their chairs, Iran was allowed to reach precisely such capability.

As things stand today, all components of four or more bombs are ready to be assembled by the Iranians, with their newly tested Shahab missiles and even their crude submarines to deliver them, should Ahmadinejad give the order.

All the while the public rhetoric continues, producing various estimates as to just how far away from Iran –triggered doomsday we may be.

Obama knows that due to inaction that borders on paralysis, in practical terms time pretty much ran out, but he is so focused on getting re-elected for another four year term is that the only thing he would do, is send Leon Panetta to tell the Israelis to back off and not even think of going after the Iranian nukes.

I suspect, the Administration in Washington is not very much looking forward to the IAEA report, as it will simply pull away the veil of guessing and expose the ugly truth.

Once the facts are laid out on the table for all to see, it will be that much harder for anyone to continue to spin the ugly facts for short-term convenient political gains.

The thing that upsets me more than anything is the ugly role that the Russians are playing in this emerging drama.

It is becoming evident, that one or more Russian nuclear physicists could have played a pivotal role in helping Iran to come so perilously close to developing nuclear weapons.
According to recent press reports, a former Soviet nuclear expert Vyacheslav Danilenko “allegedly tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.”

Documents and other records provide new details on the role played by this prominent former Soviet weapons scientist who allegedly tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction, the officials and experts said.

According to the proof provided to the IAEA, key assistance in both areas was provided by Vyacheslav Danilenko, a former Soviet nuclear scientist who was contracted in the mid-1990s by Iran’s Physics Research Center, a facility linked to the country’s nuclear program.

Documents provided to the U.N. officials showed that Danilenko offered assistance to the Iranians over at least five years, giving lectures and sharing research papers on developing and testing an explosives package that the Iranians promptly incorporated into their warhead design, according to two separate officials with access to the IAEA’s confidential files.

The key breakthrough in Iran's quest for nuclear weapons was its success in obtaining design information for a device known as R265 generator.

The device is a hemispherical aluminum shell that is lined with pellets of high explosives and wired electrically so that detonations occur in split-second precision, the report said. The explosions compress a small sphere of enriched uranium or plutonium to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.
Danilenko was contracted in the mid-1990s by Iran's Physics Research Centre and knowing how things work in that part of the world- it had to be with the full knowledge of the Russian government.

Danilenko provided invaluable assistance to the Iranians over at least five years, giving lectures and sharing research papers on developing and testing an explosive package that the Iranians apparently incorporated into their warhead design.

While the theory is manageable, in actual practical terms building such a device is a formidable technical challenge and Iran needed outside assistance in designing the generator and testing its performance.

Danilenko's role was judged to be so critical that IAEA investigators devoted great and sustained efforts to obtaining his cooperation, the two officials said.

The scientist acknowledged his role, but said he was under belief that his work was limited to assisting harmless civilian engineering projects.

While the world was considering boycotts and other measures, Iran continued field tests and computer simulations aimed at developing nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles after 2003 despite previous naïve US assumptions that Tehran had completely stopped its nuclear weapons research at that time.

Latest assessment of Iran’s nuclear weapons research shows that Tehran has not yet actually completed assembling a nuclear weapon but has all the necessary technical information and components to create one in a very short time- should its political masters decide so.

Pakistani and North Korean scientists also actively helped Iranian experts in theoretical design work while consistently lying about it to the West.

Started by an over-zealous Israeli reporter, Nahum Barnea, media speculations of an impending Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities flooded the information highway in recent days. There was considerable public guessing of the U.S. and British military contingency planning in the aftermath of this potential strike.

Israel’s military planners and political policy makers also went into action. On Wednesday, Nov. 2, shortly after announcing the successful test launch from the Palmachim IAF base of a new, intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, Israel disclosed in unusual detail a joint Israeli-Italian air exercise ending last Friday, Nov. 29, at Sardinia.

Foreign sources identified the ICBM as an upgraded Jericho 3 said able to deliver a 750-kilo nuclear warhead to a distance of 7,000 kilometers - further, if fitted with a smaller warhead.

Western intelligence experts estimate that 42 such missiles with conventional warheads are enough to seriously disable Iran's main nuclear facilities in Natanz, Isfahan and Arak.

As for Iran's newest underground Fordo facility near Qom, the US very publicly supplied Israel with GBU-28 bunker busters as far back as the third week of September.
Six Israel Air Force squadrons took part in the joint one-week exercise with Italy consisting of fourteen F-16 F-16 single and twin-seaters taking off from the Ramat David air base, joined by Israeli-modified Boeing craft for in-flight refueling of war planes, the Gulfstream-built highly capable Eitam Air Control early warning aircraft and specially equipped Hercules transports taking off from the Nevatim IAF base in the Negev.

As part of the joint exercise, on Silvio Berlusconi’s direct orders, the Italian air force flew the advanced Eurofighter Typhoon, AMX, Panavia Tornado and F-16s.

Last Wednesday a large-scale exercise had begun to prepare central Israel for missile attack.

While all this activity was going on, Israeli leaders are in mid-debate over whether or not to launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear sites.

Everyone wants his and her say on the matter, including ex generals and a long retired Mossad chief with a spotty service record behind him.

All the while, in reality, it appears that Netanyahu's inner circle of eight is in fact is trying to determine the usefulness of abandoning its longstanding policy of nuclear ambiguity at this time.

From all indications, a pending attack is not on Bibi’s current agenda.

November promises to be an especially critical month.

The public exposure of the scale of this program and Iran's pending indictment by the nuclear watchdog is intended to shock world opinion, thereby helping US President Barack Obama to go all the way with non-military steps: really biting sanctions, such as effective worldwide boycotts of Iranian fuel and even the Iranian state bank.

Tehran has warned that these sanctions would be deemed an act of war. The mouse is roaring.

Many believe that the Iranian leadership will not be content with statements ridiculing the IAEA report but will look for a more active response.

As the Persians are pretty good chess players, there is a fair chance that the Ayatollahs may lift her Hijab over a certain portion of its nuclear achievements, as though to say: to hell with this of this nuclear hide-and-seek game; we are about to be a nuclear power like just like Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. So there you have it.

If that scenario plays our, Ahmadinejad may even conduct a complete or partial nuclear test, or else publicly display a new ballistic multi-stage missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

These calculated steps might be designed to give President Obama pause.

Because Tehran will likely gamble that if it has already publicly crossed the nuclear threshold, what would be the point of tough sanctions?

At the same time, Tehran has made the necessary preparations for lessening the impact of drastic penalties with the help of their ever present co-conspirators, Russia, China and perhaps even India.

Nearly all current Iranian oil deals are now funneled through a Russian-Iranian sales mechanism operating in the safety of Moscow and safely out of American and Western reach.

Under the watchful eye of Putin’s Kremlin, Russian banks are happily handling most of Iran's international financial transactions in currencies other than the US dollar – mostly the Russian ruble and Chinese yuan.

While all this is happening on the Iran side, a highly unstable Syria is another complicating factor and poses hard dilemma: Assad for his own political ends, might encourage Tehran into radical action in the wake of their nuclear controversy.

Predictable counter-responses by the West and Israel could light the fuse of a regional war- potentially taking the focus off Assad’s internal troubles.

All in all a damaging IAEA report on Iran would do more than expose its nuclear misconduct; it could bring the entire region dangerously close to a violent conflict.

The Israeli media's current highly irresponsible leaks of the debate within the government in Jerusalem aim to influence the judgment of both Netanyahu and Barak.

The media hysteria in Israel is also seriously detrimental to that country’s security.

The more publicity given this non-existent debate, the edgier Damascus and Tehran will become and the closer to warlike steps.

It may also have an undesirable effect on Iran's nuclear decision-making and increase pressures in the region and also the severity of Assad's brutal campaign of suppression.

Military action against Iran, alone or with US support, should not be on Israel's current agenda, while it should be reserved as a possible future option.

The ultimate question facing Israel’s decision makers is what to do if the IAEA revelations demonstrate that Tehran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon is too far advanced to stop and a nuclear-armed Iran is therefore close to reality.

The cabinet is consequently trying to decide whether the time has come for Israel to bring up their presumed bomb from the basement, or stay silent and support Obama on the imposition of sanctions, fully knowing that their deterrent value is completely non existent.

An answer of some sort to this question was provided last Wednesday by the test launch of the Jericho 3 ballistic missile.

Israel's military censors uncharacteristically allowed their media to quote "from foreign sources" that the newly launched missile is indeed nuclear-capable, indicating that the Netanyahu government may well be approaching a crucial decision to bring the nukes up from the basement.

And that would be a pivotal game changer.

The New Normal: Capitulating to terror

While the estimated cost of fighting terror threats in the last decade cost U.S. taxpayers well over $1,300,000,000,000, fundamentalist Islamic terrorism is proving to be a highly effective way to force the further paralysis and –yet another- unconditional surrender of impotent Western Civilization.

The latest news coming out of the Middle East describes the US-brokered exchange deal with Hamas that is based on the pending release of a kidnapped French-Israeli citizen Gilead Shalit in exchange to the unconditional release into the world of 1,027 convicted Palestinian terrorists, cutting short the multiple life sentences of 280 convicted mass murderers responsible for hundreds of horrific bloodbaths.

Emboldened by the international response to the announcement, Hamas political leader and arch-terrorist Khaled Meshaal, who signed the exchange deal, vowed to continue renewed efforts to kidnap Israelis to obtain the release of even more convicted Islamists murderers.

The Shalit abduction was not the last, Meshaal said: "We got 1,027 out of jail and we'll recover the remaining 8,000 too."

He was strongly echoed by radical Palestinian leaders in the Gaza Strip as they prepared a heroes' welcome for the homecoming terrorists who are guaranteed to become the instigators of and perpetrators of even more terrorist acts for years to come.

On Thursday, Oct. 13 Cairo took two steps inimical to Israel. Egyptian Air Force Chief Gen. Reda Hafiz said to the official MENA news agency: "Sinai is our land and we do not need permission to increase our forces on our land" in direct contravention of the 1979 peace treaty signed with Israel which demilitarized Sinai by common consent. He added: "Egyptian planes conduct patrols without Israeli consent to secure Egypt's borders, including the eastern (Israeli) border."

Furthermore, without waiting for Hamas to open the prison doors for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit after five years of captivity in the Gaza Strip, Cairo let his captors cash in on the prisoner exchange deal by providing the first Damascus-based Hamas leaders with a new home in Cairo.

Wednesday, Oct. 12, Khaled Meshaal's deputy, Mousa Abu Marzuk, won permission from Egyptian intelligence director Maj. Gen. Murad Mowafi to relocate from Damascus to a permanent home in a luxury villa provided him in Cairo.

Meshaal, who arrived in the Egyptian capital Wednesday, was assured of the same privileges along with the staff of his Damascus politburo, if the new round of Palestinian unity talks launched between Hamas and Fatah in Cairo Thursday progressed satisfactorily.
Egypt’s official line is that Meshaal arrived to oversee arrangements for the handover of Gilad Shalit next week in return for the first batch of 450 jailed Palestinians. The remainder will be released at a later stage.

In reality, he came to supervise the transfer of his command center from the Syrian capital to Cairo.

Israel’s ageing President Shimon Peres caught between a rock and a hard place- having no other choice- expressed positive pronouncements regarding the purported role of power-drunk self-propelled candidate to become King of all Muslims, the shrewd Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan in the exchange.

(In reality, the proper credit should be given to an outstanding German intelligence officer Gerhard Konrad, who heads the foreign section of the intelligence service of BND, who actually jump-started the Schalit mediation process way back in 2009.)

Erdogan, whose government tacitly supported the infamous Mavi Marmara provocation, is now adding insult to injury in demanding, that the victim- Israel- must apologize and pay reparation for defending itself. He is emboldened by his newly found importance in Washington for allowing a U.S. early warning system radar on Turkish soil.

Elsewhere in the region, the rabidly anti-Israel Egyptian media in hailing the prisoner exchange is breathlessly highlighting the praise Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu heaped on their government and security services for their key role in brokering the deal.

According to an unconfirmed report, the American-Israeli citizen Ilan Grapel held in Egypt on charges of spying and incitement to burn government buildings is included in the proposed exchange package in return for the release of more than 80 Egyptians in Israeli jails, most of them convicted security offenders.

Adding to the new developments, on Wednesday, Oct. 12 the US Government published a worldwide travel advisory warning US citizens to beware of Iranian-instigated terrorist attacks following the uncovering of an Iran-directed plot to assassinate Saudi Arabian ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir and bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies.

The US holds Iran accountable for its actions, said Attorney General Eric Holder, following which Tehran turned to the UN Secretary General to accuse the US of warmongering.

US officials are deeply concerned that Teheran may not take lying down Washington's apparent charge that the Revolutionary Guards' Al Qods Brigades were complicit in the assassination plot or the success of a prisoner exchange deal releasing the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas captivity.

After being caught out, Iran is behaving hysterically as though it is under threat of war, its raging fury fueled by the US-Egyptian-Israeli-Hamas prisoner deal which threatens to cut the Islamic Republic out of Palestinian affairs and curtail its influence in the Gaza Strip, an important outpost.

A Washington statement said: "The US government assesses that this Iranian-backed plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States."

With a valuable Middle East holding about to be lost, Iran is perfectly capable of unleashing waves of terrorists for outrageous acts that would again force the hands of the United States and Israel. By drawing Hamas into such operations, Tehran could seek to torpedo the Shalit deal a moment before its consummation.

Sources in Washington automatically criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for jumping the gun by his announcing the deal Tuesday meant for domestic political gains.

"Prisoner swaps are counted successful only after or during the fact," lectured one US official.

Other Western intelligence sources commented that by letting the cat out of the bag a week in advance, Israel may have given Iran and Hizballah time to sabotage it.

Iran and Hizballah both maintain a strong presence of an army of murderers, assassins and undercover agents in the Gaza Strip.

They are still fully capable of blowing away the deal Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal struck with Israel in the framework of an accord with the United States for packing up his Hamas terrorist command centers and moving them out of Damascus- the scene of yet another colossal U.S. mess-up with the “Arab Spring” and the complete impotence and incompetence exhibited by U.S. policy makers in the failed effort to remove Assad from power.

All the while Iran is getting ever closer to permanently changing the equation: they are inches away from achieving nuclear capabilities. Ahmadinejad’s latest pronouncements signal a more aggressive and dangerous Iran, possibly one that feels its nuclear program is so far advanced it can provoke the United States and the West with complete impunity.

Food for thought: look at the consequences in our world of a handful of Islamic terrorists armed with box cutters ten years ago, or the countless fundamentalist atrocities since!

Now think of what a nuclear-capable Iran, controlled by fundamentalist zealots would do to us?

Iran’s hand in the latest murder/bombing plot is the culmination of a steady intensification of provocations in recent months that has seen the Teheran regime increase its open support for radical Shiite groups in Iraq; provide assistance and weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan; blatantly ignore international calls to end its nuclear program; back Syria's slaughter of thousands of protesters with infusions of cash and weapons; rearm Hezbollah in Lebanon; support Hamas in Gaza; test new and more accurate, extended range ballistic missiles; threaten to attack U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf; and threaten with impunity at having Iranian warships, armed with cruise missiles, patrol off the coast of the United States.

Just as the KGB served the Soviet Union in the front lines of the Cold War, Iran's Quds Force, an elite special operations unit of the Revolutionary Guards, named for the Arabic word for Jerusalem, has become Tehran's weapon of choice in its covert war with the West.

But the Quds Force, which is controlled directly by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has traditionally acted through proxies and focused on training and equipping Islamic revolutionary groups in the Middle East.

It helped create Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980s and completely underwrote, managed and equipped the group's guerrilla war with Israel in southern Lebanon. During Iran's 1980 to 1988 war with Iraq, the Quds Force helped Iraqi Kurds fight Saddam Hussein. In the early 1990s it supplied arms to Bosnian Muslims and worked with Sudan's army in southern Sudan trying to crush an African-led rebellion. In 1994, a Quds Force commander was suspected of planning and financing an attack by Hezbollah on a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in which 85 people were killed.

In 2006, when Israel attacked Lebanon, it found Iranian-designed missile and rocket command and control centers in southern Lebanon and insisted Quds Force operatives, not Hezbollah, were responsible for attacking an Israeli missile patrol boat with two Iranian-built Chinese "Silkworm" anti-ship missiles.

In 2007, then U.S. President George W. Bush accused the Quds Force of training and arming Shiite extremists in Iraq and said it gave Iraqi terrorists armor-piercing explosives that were used to kill U.S. soldiers.

In January 2007, the U.S. military in Iraq detained five Iranians with links to the Quds Force in northern Iraq, accusing them of providing funds and weapons to Iraqi insurgents.
Within nine days of their arrest, gunmen, dressed as U.S. soldiers, attacked a U.S. army depot in Karbala and killed and wounded several U.S. soldiers. The sophisticated attack was widely regarded as a cross-border revenge raid by the Quds Force.

Iran continues to use the Quds Force to provide weapons, training and funds to Hamas and other murderous Palestinian groups, including Palestine Islamic Jihad. It has also supported Islamic fundamentalists in destabilizing Arab Gulf States.

According to General David Petraeus, a former U.S. commander in Iraq, the head of the Quds Force, General Kassim Suleimani, sent him a message in 2008 in which he blatantly bragged about controlling Iranian foreign policy in the region.

"He said, 'General Petraeus, you should know that I, Kassim Suleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan,'" Gen. Petraeus told a Washington conference last year.

"That makes diplomacy difficult if you think that you're going to do the traditional means of diplomacy by dealing with another country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs," Gen. Petraeus said.

Any shift in Iranian policy that sees the Quds Force stage direct attacks on Iran's enemies could signal a new stage in its covert war with the West and that could pose as significant a terrorist threat as al-Qaeda.

Yet despite of all this, U.S. policy makers preoccupied with getting the current Administration reelected and therefore dead set against doing anything to effectively curtail Iran’s growing atomic-fueled arrogance are sweeping all this under the carpet- while repeatedly sending Robert Gates and Leon Panetta to order that the Israelis sit on their hands and do nothing about Iran.

While Israel has no desire do enter into open warfare against the Islamic Republic of Iran, things might accelerate to the point of no return in the not too distant future.

If there will be solid proof of a clear and present danger threatening Israel’s very existence, there may be only one option left: removing the Iranian thread with or with out the approval or support of any third parties. Ironically, Israel would be doing the biggest favor to the Saudi regime and to the West in general by going after Iran.

While chaos reigns around the region, Europe is wrapped up in their economic misery, and Washington pre-occupied with partisan politicking, Ahmadinejad’s atom factory at Quom is steadily humming towards weapons-grade nuclear materials.

So who is minding the store?

A U.S. intelligence official asked me the other day: “What do Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Teheran have in common?”

With a dry smile he added: “Nothing ….yet!”

Lessons in leadership and of moral clarity

Each year for many decades now together with many New Yorkers, I look upon “UN week” in Manhattan with certain dread.

For most New Yorkers UN Week means a week of crippling traffic congestion in the city, making cross-streets impassable and life in general complicated.

Many times I wonder how many Manhattan fire and medical emergencies end in tragedy from emergency vehicles stuck in impossible traffic as the result of various self-important third world delegations being escorted by a dizzying array of “secret” and diplomatic security services who constantly interrupt the flow of already difficult traffic by creating impassable congestion –especially around the East side of the city.

Inevitably each year I notice the advent of siren technology, by being constantly exposed to yet newer and newer generation of noise making technology.

This year’s UN week was even more bizarre than usual, by the introduction into the traffic chaos yet a new weapon of assault on the eardrums - a whooping air-concussion air horn system that has been installed in Secret Service vehicles and Presidential “chase cars”- blaring a deeply disturbing and haunting sound that with annoying resonation penetrates ones bones.

As repulsive as that annoying sound was, at least all New Yorkers knew with pinpoint accuracy where exactly the “Beast” (as the behemoth Presidential Cadillac monstrosity is called)was located in Manhattan at all times during the presidential visit.

One could argue that moving the president around should take priority over getting mere mortal heart attack victims to emergency rooms of fire trucks to the scene of raging blazes, but I get really upset seeing how parts of the city are routinely and disturbingly crippled by police-escorted screaming siren motorcades for minor ministers from Seychelles or similar Lilliputian Caliphates.

While the cash registers of five star hotels and luxury shops are happily ringing by wives and concubines of fat cats representing hopelessly impoverished third world entities, the business of the United Nations, the ultimate impotent theater of the absurd is taking place uninterrupted and with predictable dismal results.

In the chamber of the macabre members of the UN Security Council routinely churn out edicts that no one really cares about nor acts upon, committees, like the one representing the rights of women around the world these days are headed by countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, where the only rights women have is to be stoned to death after being raped, not to mention the humiliation of mandatory mutilation of a sexual nature in the name of religious “law”.

This past week had its own drama; the hysterical circus surrounding the Palestinian application for UN membership.

While the photo op of Muhammad Abbas looking for a personal legacy UN appearance was almost overshadowed by the repetition Ahmadinejad’s annual tirade from the soapbox of the UN podium, I saw myself caught up in background diplomacy aimed at thwarting the Palestinian statehood aspirations that want a state without peace in the neighborhood.

First, on Sunday evening, September 18th I found myself chatting with the President of Hungary Pal Schmitt at his country’s ornate consulate, during the art exhibit by an American friend in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

It was somewhat reassuring to hear from the president of the economically and ethnically challenged Hungarian Republic, that his country well understood its historic responsibility towards the Jewish people of whom his people successfully helped butcher over 600,000 souls just six short decades ago.

It was sobering to hear, that Hungary’s vote on the issue of Palestinian statehood might nevertheless be influenced by his country’s desire for a pending seat on the UN Security Council.

The ever vigilant descendants of Attila the Hun apparently still remember Canada’s recent UN fate when- on a previous occasion the fine North American country was deprived from participating on an important UN committee due to the support of the State of Israel.

As it was often alluded to at the Hungarian Consulate reception: “In diplomacy there are no friends- only interests”.

It was interesting to witness former Bush White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer and his delightful parents (his Mom Martha who is Hungarian-born) attending the cocktail reception from Westchester- merrily chatting with the Hungarian president Schmitt (who is of German ancestry).

Next evening it was heartwarming to see the outpouring of admiration and gratitude from the Conference of Presidents at a private reception hosted in a Manhattan mansion of a leading philanthropist in the honor of the Prime Minister of Canada, the truly Honorable Stephen Harper.

Harper’s Conservative government has admirably been a steadfast supporter of the State Israel - even at the above mentioned loss of a seat on the UN Security Council, following their conscience, a shining example of superior intelligence and good judgment and demonstrating the highest standards of moral clarity.

It was deeply gratifying to see Canada, walking erect among the hordes of spineless and politically corrupt governments of all persuasions whose ethical and moral standards as well as their positions on international issues of consequence change daily in synch with their need of alternately oil or blood soaked petrodollars.

While in his remarks Canadian Prime Minister Harper did say that he disagrees with many things regarding the conduct of the Netanyahu government, he did reassure his appreciative audience, that under his leadership his country will continue on its balanced and level-headed approach in the tumult that results in the orchestrated Israel-bashing from many quarters.

It was a nice contrast to the generally hostile atmosphere at UN headquarters to see the Canadian Prime Minister casually chatting with Israel’s colorful Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon.

On Tuesday I participated in a ceremony sponsored by of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation where President Lee of South Korea has been given the “Statesman award”. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon also attended the tribute paid to the leader of his homeland.

Wednesday evening I dropped in on a slimmed-down and visibly ageing former President Bill Clinton at his Global Initiative gathering at the MOMA, where I politely but respectfully disagreed with him on the issue of Netanyahu’s perceived stubbornness being the sole reason for the current Middle Eastern mess.

The CGI evening was not a total write-off though- In the throngs of a merry gathering of noisy CGI activists I did have an interesting chat with Muhammad Yunus the Bangladeshi banker who has been frequently in the news lately- and not always in the best light.

The most dramatic moment of the week for me came during an unexpected encounter with a nearly seven foot tall silk-suited giant named M. Maixent Niani Accrombessi who is the Chief of Cabinet for President the President of the Republic of Gabon.

Walking by the beautifully lit up Plaza Hotel on my was home, it was interesting to see a gigantic Turkish flag flown on the New York landmark owned by a joint venture of an Israeli industrialist Isaac Tshuvah and a Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal of the famed and fabulously successful Kingdom Holdings empire.

In view of Turkish President Erdogan’s most recent rabid effort to become the latest self-anointed king and savior of the Muslim world, it was somewhat ironic to see him taking up his headquarters in a jointly owned and managed Jewish-Arab real estate partnership.

In the macabre circus surrounding the Palestinian Statehood application, somehow finally it came down to a handful of Third World countries to cast the deciding votes on an issue that has been the diplomatic hot potato of recent times.

After Niger’s planned vote in favor of the Palestinians was changed in a last minute reversal by Ehud Barak of Israel, the only thing was certain, that the pending measure possibly opening the gates of opportunity for a Palestinian state without any peace deal with Israel would be automatically vetoed by President Barack Obama’s UN delegation.

The US President - in a stunning- but in the mirror of an election year reality- clearly understandable – reversal - delivered one of the most balanced political speeches ever given regarding by a US President from the podium of the UN on the subject of Israel as a Jewish State.

It was interesting to watch on the world’s TV screens including the Arab Al-Jazzeira network the desperate shaking of the heads of the Palestinian Mukhtars seated in the rows of the UN during Obama’s speech.

This brings me back to my memorable chance encounter of the Gabonese delegation, who together with a bunch of unusually nervous Saudis has taken over the exorbitantly priced luxury suites of The St. Regis, one of Manhattan’s venerable luxury hotels.

When word got around, that President Ali Bongo’s vote would be pivotal, the question of the price for their potentially changed vote was the hottest topic around town.

The current leader of Gabon, President Bongo understood, that casting a vote against the Palestinian UN bid- or even abstaining from it- would be a huge gift to Barack Obama- as it would look much better that a largely Muslim African country cast the deciding Security Council vote, rather the an American veto that would surely result on more fundamentalist attacks on American interests around the globe.

I approached President Ali Bongo’s towering M. Maixent Niani Accrombessi, Chief of Cabinet as he has known me from before when I had a friendly personal relationship with his current bosses’ father President El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba.


(It so happens that one of my closest friends was the late Bongo’s physician for many decades, and that unique but important connection always gave me access to an otherwise difficult to get to Omar Bongo for years.)

This time around I soon learned, that I was barking up the wrong tree with my well-intentioned personal attempt to influence the approaching vote by the Gabonese, as the current President was not his late father’s pick for succession after 38 years of undisputed rule, but it was his sister Pascaline who was successfully pushed out after a palace coup.

While the deeply dark-skinned giant was listening to my personal appeal very politely, he mad it abundantly clear, that the price for his bosses’ vote had not been established yet.

As of today, the Quartet is proposing yet another round of talks regarding peace between Palestinians and Israelis as it was outlined to me by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

While at the time of this writing it is still unclear where Monday’s Palestine vote will be going, but personally speaking for me it was still interesting to get a front row view of the issues and players that will surely shape our world for years to come.

A STORY OF FATE AND PHILANTHROPY

An interesting bit of history - gives great meaning to "Fate" and "Destiny", "Macy's" and "Israel".

At the turn of the twentieth century, two of the wealthiest and most famous men in America were a pair of brothers named Nathan and Isidor Straus.

Nathan Straus was born in Otterberg, Germany, to a Jewish family, the third child of Lazarus Straus (1809–1898) and his wife Sara (1823–1876). His siblings were Hermine Straus Kohns (1846–1922), Isidor Straus (1845–1912) and Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926). The family moved to the U.S. state of Georgia in 1854. After the American Civil War the family moved to New York City where his father formed L. Straus & Sons, a crockery and glassware firm.

Isidor Straus (February 6, 1845 – April 15, 1912)—a German Jewish American—was co-owner of the Macy's department store with his brother Nathan. He also served briefly as a member of the United States House of Representatives.

Straus and his brothers sold crockery to R.H. Macy & Company department store. The brothers became partners in Macy's in 1888 and co-owners in 1896.

In 1893, he and Isidor bought out Joseph Wechsler from the Abraham and Wechsler dry goods store in Brooklyn, New York, which they renamed Abraham & Straus

On April 28, 1875, Straus married Lina Gutherz (1854–1930) with whom he had six children, among them Sissie Straus who was married to Irving Lehman, later Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals.

In the late 1880s, Straus began a period of philanthropy and public service in New York City. He served as New York City Park Commissioner from 1889–1893, president of the New York City Board of Health, 1898,[2] and in 1894 he was selected by Tammany Hall to run for Mayor on the Democratic ticket, but withdrew from the race when his friends in society threatened to shun him if he did.

In 1892, he and his wife privately funded the Nathan Straus Pasteurized Milk Laboratory to provide pasteurized milk to children to combat infant mortality and tuberculosis. In his battles with the disease he opened the Tuberculosis Preventorium for Children at Lakewood Township, New Jersey (later it was moved to Farmingdale, New Jersey in 1909. Their book, Disease in Milk: The Remedy Pasteurization : the Life Work of Nathan Straus records that unclean, unpasteurized milk fed to infants was the chief cause of tuberculosis, typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria and other diseases that were the main cause of, e.g. a 25% infant mortality rate in the US in 1890, 15% in 1903 (but 7% in New York in 1900, where pasteurized milk had already become the norm) (it is now below 1% in the US). Straus is credited as the leading proponent of the pasteurization movement that eliminated the hundreds of thousands of deaths per year then due to disease-bearing milk.

During the panic of 1893 Straus used his milk stations to sell coal at the very low price of 5 cents for 25 pounds to those who could pay. Those who could not received coal for free. He also opened lodging houses for 64,000 persons, who could get a bed and breakfast for 5 cents, and he funded 50,000 meals for one cent each. He also gave away thousands of turkeys anonymously. At Abraham & Straus, he noticed that two of his employees were starving themselves to save their wages to feed their families, so he established what may have been the first subsidized company cafeteria.

In 1916, as American entry into World War I loomed, Straus sold his yacht Sisilina to the Coast Guard and used the proceeds to feed war orphans. Later, he fed returning American servicemen at Battery Park.

From left to right: Nathan Straus, co-owner of Macy's; Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court justice; Stephen Samuel Wise, leading Reform rabbi and founding secretary of the American Federation of Zionists

Straus donated money to the New York Public Library, specifically targeting young people. The Young People's Collection at the Donnell Library Center is named for him. He also helped the city's poorer inhabitants by building a recreational pier, the first of many on the city's waterfront.
Nathan Straus

Owners of R.H. Macy's Department Store and founders of the A&S (Abraham & Straus) chain, the brothers were multimillionaires, renowned for their philanthropy and social activism.

Macy's in 1900

In 1912, the brothers and their wives were touring Europe, when Nathan , the more ardent Zionist of the two, impulsively said one day: "Hey, why don't we hop over to the Promised Land?"

Israel wasn't the tourist hotspot then that it is today. Its population was ravaged by disease, famine, and poverty; but the two had a strong sense of solidarity with their less fortunate brethren, and they also wanted to see the health and welfare centers they had endowed with their millions.

However, after a week spent touring, Isidor Straus had had enough. "How many camels, hovels, and yeshivas can you see? It's time to go," Isidor decreed with edgy impatience in his voice. But Nathan refused to heed his brother's imperious command. It wasn't that he was oblivious to the hardships around him; it was precisely because of them that he wanted to stay.

As he absorbed firsthand the vastness of the challenges his fellow Jews were coping with, he felt the burden of responsibility. - "We can't leave now," he protested. "Look how much work has to be done here. We have to help. We have the means to help. We can't turn our backs on our people." "So we'll send more money," his brother snapped back. "I just want to get out of here."

But Nathan felt that money simply wasn't enough. He felt that the Jews who lived under such dire circumstances in Palestine needed the brothers' very presence among them: their initiative, their leadership, and their ideas. Isidor disagreed. The two argued back and forth, and finally Isidor said, - "If you insist, stay here. Ida and I are going back to America where we belong."

The two separated. Isidor and his wife returned to Europe, while Nathan and his spouse stayed in Palestine , traveling the country and contributing huge sums of money to the establishment of education, health, and social welfare programs to benefit the needy.

Nathan also financed the creation of a brand-new city on the shores of the Mediterranean . And since his name in Hebrew was Natan, and he was the city's chief donor, the founders named it after him and called it: Natanya.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, Isidor Straus was preparing to sail home to America aboard an ocean liner for which he had also made reservations for his brother, Nathan , and his wife. - "You must leave Palestine NOW!" he cabled his brother in an urgent telegram. "I have made reservations for you and if you don't get here soon, you'll miss the boat."

But Nathan delayed.

There was so much work to be done that he waited until the last possible moment to make the connection. By the time he reached London , it was April 12 and the liner had already left port in Southampton with Isidor and Ida Straus aboard.

Nathan felt disconsolate that he had, as his brother had warned, "missed the boat." For this was no ordinary expedition, no common, everyday cruise that he had forfeited, but the much ballyhooed maiden voyage of the most famous ship of the century. This was the Titanic.

On April 14, 1912, it hit an iceberg. Ida reportedly would not leave Isidor and refused to get in a lifeboat. The officer filling up the boat told Isidor that he could get into the boat with his wife, but he refused to before younger men but instead sent his wife's maid, Ellen Bird, into the boat. Ida refused to board the half-full boat, saying "I will not be separated from my husband. As we have lived, so will we die together".Isidor and Ida were last seen on deck sitting in deck chairs holding hands when a huge wave washed them into the sea. Both died on April 15 when the ship sank.

Isidor Straus's body was recovered by the cable ship Mackay-Bennett and brought to Halifax, Nova Scotia where it was identified before being shipped to New York. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Ida's body was not recovered.

The couple are portrayed in the 1958 film A Night to Remember, in scenes that are faithful to the accounts just cited. In the 1997 film Titanic, the Strauses are briefly depicted comforting each other as their stateroom floods with water, along with a deleted scene showing Isidor (played by Lew Palter) attempting to persuade Ida (Elsa Raven) to enter the lifeboat.

When the Titanic sunk, Nathan Straus believed that it was a sign from above, and he remained in the Land of Israel. He opened a school, a health clinic and other charity institutions, something for which he was also known in America.

Nathan Straus, grief-stricken and deeply mourning his brother and sister-in-law could not shake off his sense that he had had a rendezvous with history. The knowledge that he had avoided death permeated his consciousness for the rest of his life, and until his his last days, he pursued his philanthropic activities with an intensity that was unrivaled in his time. The city of Netanya was named Nathan Straus in 1927 as well as Straus Street in Jerusalem. He was also honored for his work by President William Howard Taft.

Nathan Straus died on January 11, 1931, in New York City. Twenty years before, at a dinner in his honor, he had given what could have been his own eulogy.

"I often think of the old saying, "The world is my country, to do good is my religion. ... This has often been an inspiration to me. I might say, "Humanity is my kin, to save babies is my religion." It is a religion I hope will have thousands of followers."

Today, Natanya is a scenic resort city of 200,000 and headquarters to Israel 's thriving diamond trade - one of the most important industries in the country. And in almost every part of the city, there is some small reminder of Nathan Straus's largesse, his humanity, and love for his people.

His legacy lives on.

The Isidor and Ida Straus Memorial, Upper West Side, New York City.

Nathan's son ( Nathan Jr., 1889–1961) attended Princeton University and arrived in Heidelberg University in 1908 where he met a young art history scholar named Otto Frank. Otto accepted a job in Macy's with Nathan Straus, Jr., where he fell in love with New York and its brashness. But in 1909, Otto's father died and he returned to Germany where he fought in World War I and lived to see the time when he and his family would have to leave Germany because of anti-Semitism.

One of Otto Frank's daughters was Anne Frank.
We all know her story.

Anne Frank with her family

This column was written in memory of my Mother, Bluma Frank a survivor of Auschwitz.

A NIGHT OF GREAT ART IN MANHATTAN

Chaim Soutine, Portrait of a Man with a Felt Hat, c. 1921–22


Last night in Manhattan Helly Nahmad Gallery New York opened a fantastic SOUTINE/BACON exhibit the first comparative exhibition of Chaim Soutine and Francis Bacon.

SOUTINE/BACON is organized by the Helly Nahmad Gallery and curated by Maurice Tuchman and Esti Dunow, co-authors of the Chaim Soutine Catalogue Raisonné.

The Helly Nahmad Gallery—located in the Carlyle Hotel—and founded in 2000 is internationally prominent with a rich history of museum-quality exhibitions of such Impressionist and twentieth century masters as Monet, Picasso, Modigliani, Kandinsky, Léger, Ernst, and Dubuffet.

The wonderful exhibition shows Chaim Soutine and Francis Bacon alongside one another, demonstrating the influence that the former had on the latter. There are distinct links between the two painters: direct painting and general studio practice, the equation of oil pigment with flesh, and a certain aggressive re-invention of Old Master paintings. Indeed, the connections between Bacon’s art and that of Soutine are immediately striking as well as less overt: both artists share a nuanced passion and energy toward paint, brushstroke, and the necessity of subject matter.

Chaim Soutine’s paintings have not only had a crucial impact on the development of modern art in the twentieth century, but also a sustained critical influence on contemporary practice. The artists most often associated and identified with his influence are the post-war Abstract Expressionists in the United States, best exemplified by Willem de Kooning, who referred to Soutine as his “favorite artist.”
Francis Bacon, who went to live in Paris in 1927 as a young man, with a future not yet determined, became aware of Soutine’s already legendary paintings of beef carcasses. The images and the legends about their making resonated with him, as he had always since his boyhood in Ireland been fascinated to the point of obsession with slaughtered beef carcasses in local abattoirs.

The present exhibition demonstrates that Soutine’s paintings of carcasses were a trigger for Bacon’s essential vision, possibly even the reason he was to become a painter. He intuited from Soutine’s carcasses the basis for his art and art making. “If I go to the National Gallery and I look at one of the great paintings that excite me there,” Bacon explained, “it’s not so much the painting that excites me as that the painting unlocks all kinds of valves of sensation within me.” It is no great leap to believe that Soutine’s were among the works that had a decisive effect on him—that unlocked his valves of sensation.

There are distinct links between the two painters: direct painting and general studio practice, the equation of oil pigment with flesh, and a certain aggressive re-invention of Old Master paintings.

This groundbreaking SOUTINE/BACON exhibition is the very first to explicitly pair, compare, and historically situate these two magnificent painters. Museums and institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum and Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern and Bacon Foundation in London, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Albertina in Vienna, the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, the Kunsthaus Zurich, and the Pearlman Foundation with the Art Museum of Princeton University have generously agreed to lend works.

A beautifully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition. This publication features an introduction and an innovative illustrated and annotated chronology by the curators demonstrating the dramatic links between the artists, and an afterword by Martin Hammer, contextualizing Soutine’s reception in post-war London.


Moises Safra, Gabriel Erem and Davide Nahmad.
Photo: Joe Schildhorn/BFANyc.com

Last night's opening was one of the best attended art events in recent times. The guests included Pablo Picasso's granddaughter Diana Picasso, Leonardo diCaprio, LVMH CEO Renaud Durteil and his lovely wife Christine, Marielle and Moises Safra of Brasil, Gisele Bundschen, Katerina Ellingsen, Judith Hess, Leonid Friedland, Maurice Tuchman, Miranda Kerr, Orlando Bloom, Tony Shafrazi, Armand Hammer's grandson, Michael Armand Hammer and Xin Li.

I highly recommend a visit to this extraordinary exhibition.

Soutine/Bacon runs through June 18 at Helly Nahmad Gallery, 975 Madison Avenue, on the corner of 76th Street, 212-879-2075, hellynahmadgallery.com.

LUFTWAFFE OVER MANHATTAN

Recently I came across an interesting piece of trivia emailed to me by an Israeli fighter ace: a German Luftwaffe plane co-piloted by a woman flew a successful photo recon mission over Manhattan 1n 1943.

On August 27th 1943, a German Luftwaffe long-range photo reconnaissance bomber, a Junkers Ju-390 took off from its base in Norway and flew out across the Atlantic Ocean. Among its four men crew was a brave and daring woman Anna Kreisling, the ‘White Wolf of the Luftwaffe’.

She had the nickname because of her frost blonde hair and icy blue eyes. Anna was one of the top pilots in Germany and even though she was only the co-pilot on this mission, her flying ability was crucial to its success.

Israeli Intelligence later learned that Hannah Kreisling, Anna's mother was a Baltic German from Estonia.

They lived on the coast right across from Finland. In 1916 she went to Germany and cared for the wounded as a nurse. In October of 1918 she cared for a German soldier who had been blinded by gas. His name was Adolf Hitler. Hannah saw Hitler through to a full recovery and she twice prevented him from taking his life because of despair and emotional trauma.

Hitler and Hannah both became members of the Thule organization.

On January 10, 1920 Hannah gave birth to ANNA Kreisling in Berlin.

Reportedly, Hitler and Rudolf Hess were present when Anna was born.

Anna Kreisling’s Ju-390 airplane was twice the size of the B-29 Superfortress. It was powered by six 1,500 hp BMW radial engines and it had a range of 18,000 miles without refueling.

This was to be the longest photo-recon mission flown by an enemy airplane in World War II. Nine hours later, the Junkers was over Canada and swinging south at an altitude of 22,000 feet. In the next few hours, it would photograph the heavy industrial plants in Michigan that were vital to the United States.

By noon on August 28th, 1943 the gigantic six-engined bomber was over New York City, where it finally was spotted by the US Army Air Corp. but by then it was too late. The Junkers disappeared into the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, fourteen hours later, Anna would bring the huge bomber in to land at a Luftwaffe base outside of Paris.

Thoughts of this mission came to mind of an American pilot familiar with the story, as he reportedly sat across the table from Anna Kreisling at an Octoberfest in Los Angeles.

The US pilot reported, that Anna was still acttractive with her icy blonde hair tied-back in a pony-tail and her radiant blue eyes, which have seen events in human history only a few of us could ever imagine.

Anna had flown Ju-52 Trimotors into the streets of besieged Stalingrad when it had been surrounded by the Red Army. Many times her plane had been riddled with bullets so badly that she landed with only one engine running while the other two were on fire.

In 1945 she was assigned to fly the jet fighters that Germany was producing.

One of these jet fighters was the Horten V9 flying wing. It was powered by two Jumo turbo-jet engines, which enabled it to fly at 600 mph. It was armed with two 30mm cannon and air to air missiles.

Anna never scored any victories in the Horten. While taxiing in the snow an American Sherman tank crew captured her after she had turned off the engine and pulling off her flight helmet they thought she was a movie star!! For the next six months she poured coffee for the US Army and did not spend one night in a POW camp. Everyone thought she was part of Bob Hope’s USO show!!

Intrigued, I did some more research and found the following items: on August 28th, 1943 a Junkers JU-390 did approach New York City from the west. At Noon the JU-390 flew over the Empire State Building where it was photographed by the New York Times. The film was confiscated, labeled TOP SECRET and the New York Times cooperated.

A Junkers JU-290 Tanker aircraft operating from the Portuguese Azores may have conducted air to air refueling with the Junkers JU-390. Both Hans Joachim Pancherz and Flugakapitan Anna Kreisling had both become proficient in air to air refueling techniques.

The Nazi's usually kept the JU-290 Tanker operations Top Secret and claimed instead the JU-390 RANGE on its Recon Version at 12,000 plus miles.

On January 18th 1944 another JU-390 flown by Hans Joachim Pancherz and SS Flugakapitan Anna Kreisling flew from its base in France to within 20 kilometers of New York and then returned to its base. Hans Pancherz has confirmed this was to test the New York defenses.

According to reports, Hitler had ordered that if Berlin were hit by an Atomic Bomb, the two pilots to bomb New York would be Anna Kreisling and Hannah Reitsch. These orders were apparently cancelled on April 28th 1945.