Pat Buchanan is now blaming the Holocaust on Great Britain, indirectly at least. He says that yes, Hitler hated Jews, but no, he wasn’t going to destroy them. Britain made him do it.

That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. “Mein Kampf” is saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.

Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table.

That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll.

And why did Hitler invade Russia? This writer quotes Hitler 10 times as saying that only by knocking out Russia could he convince Britain it could not win and must end the war.

There’s a pretty big problem here for Pat. Well, there are a lot of problems with this logic. But we can start with a pretty clear indication that Hitler intended to murder the Jews. There was a group of Nazis known as the Einsatzgruppen, whose job it was to kill all of what the Nazis considered “undesirables.” They were murdering Jews before the Wannsee Conference was held.

After the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Einsatzgruppen’s main assignment was to kill Communist officers and Jews on a much larger scale than in Poland[3]. These Einsatzgruppen were under the control of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) (Reich Security Main Office); i.e., under Reinhard Heydrich and his successor Ernst Kaltenbrunner. The original mandate set by Heydrich for the four Einsatzgruppen sent into the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa was to secure the offices and papers of the Soviet state and Communist Party; to liquidate all of the higher cadres of the Soviet state; and to instigate and encourage pogroms against all local Jewish populations. The orders that Heydrich drafted on July 2, 1941 stated that the Einsatzgruppen were to execute all Soviet officials of higher and medium rank; members of the Comintern; “extremist” Communist Party members; members of the central, provincial and district committees of the Communist Party; Red Army commissars; and all Communist Party members of Jewish origin[4]. In regards to Jewish populations in general, “No steps will be taken to interfere with any purges that may be initialed by anti-Communist or anti-Jewish elements in the newly occupied territories. On the contrary, these are to be secretly encouraged”[5].

There is much more about them at the Jewish Virtual Library. Here’s a document from 1941 that lists the numbers of Jews murdered by the Nazis—before the Wannsee conference.

EK 3 detachment in Minsk from 28.9-17.10.41:

Today I can confirm that our objective, to solve the Jewish problem for Lithuania, has been achieved by EK 3. In Lithuania there are no more Jews, apart from Jewish workers and their families.

The distance between from the assembly point to the graves was on average 4 to 5 Km.

I consider the Jewish action more or less terminated as far as Einsatzkommando 3 is concerned. Those working Jews and Jewesses still available are needed urgently and I can envisage that after the winter this workforce will be required even moe urgently. I am of the view that the strelization programme of the male worker Jews should be started immediately so that reproduction is prevented. If despite sterlization a Jewess becomes pregnant she will be liquidated.

Buchanan ignores facts like the above, and massacres like Babi Yar, which also occurred before the Wannsee Conference.

Kiev … contained a Jewish population of 175,000 on the eve of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The Nazi forces captured the city in mid-September; within less than a fortnight, on the 29th and 30th, nearly 34,000 Jews of the ghetto were brought to a suburban ravine known as Babi Yar, near the Jewish Cemetary, where men, women, and children were systematically machine-gunned in a two-day orgy of execution. In subsequent months, most of the remaining population was exterminated.

And then there’s the sick, twisted logic to Buchanan’s claims. Hitler intended to rid Germany of all of its Jews. Here was his plan from the Wannsee Conference that Buchanan implies wouldn’t have happened without Britain’s entering the war in defense of Poland:

The purpose of the conference was to inform heads of German Government Departments that had responsibility for various policies relating to Jews of Reinhard Heydrich’s appointment as the sole executor of the “Final solution to the Jewish question”, and to obtain their agreement to subordinate their policies to him. In the course of the meeting, Heydrich presented a plan, approved by Hitler, for the deportation of the Jewish population of Europe to German-occupied areas of the Soviet Union, and the use of the Jews fit for labour on road-building projects; that plan was never fully implemented, owing to the failure to achieve final victory over the Soviet Union, and most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe were sent to extermination or concentration camps, or killed where they lived.

Let’s take Buchanan at his word. Let’s imagine that Britain never got into the war, that Germany fought Russia, and even beat Stalin. What do you think would have happened to the Jews of Europe, who were now in concentration camps, awaiting their fate? Slave labor camps at best, a quick execution at the worst? The Wannsee Conference was convened to discuss “The Jewish Question,” not to discuss “What Do We Do With the Jews Now That We Lost Russia?” Question. And “The Jewish Question” was a theme throughout Hitler’s reign. To pretend that he would not have murdered the six million if only Britain hadn’t started fighting him is the lowest Buchanan has gone yet.

Buchanan is a liar and a dissembler, who ignores inconvenient facts when they get in the way of his Hitler adoration. The fact is that with or without Britain, Germany would have run rampant over Europe, and murdered Europe’s Jews. The Nazis were already setting the plan in motion. Jews were being gassed in 1941, before the Wannsee Conference took place.

At another, later gassing — also in autumn 1941 — Grabner* ordered me to pour Zyklon B into the opening because only one medical orderly had shown up. During a gassing Zyklon B had to be poured through both openings of the gas-chamber room at the same time. This gassing was also a transport of 200-250 Jews, once again men, women and children. As the Zyklon B — as already mentioned — was in granular form, it trickled down over the people as it was being poured in.

The facts are there. Buchanan ignores them.

Buchanan is a liar, a purveyor of Jew-hatred and an admirer of Adolph Hitler. The man disgusts me more now than he has ever done before. That NBC continues to employ him is reprehensible. That Fox News brings him on as a commentator is reprehensible. That anyone pays this man a salary for anything repulses me. I used to say he was a more subtle David Duke. But he has brought himself down to Duke’s level with this latest book.

With the truce going on, the AP has to find some reason to blame Israel for the “cycle of violence.” Because they can’t report incidents like this:

Three settlers were injured Friday afternoon in a shooting attack at a wadi near the West Bank settlement of Neve Tzuf, northwest of Ramallah.

The incident took place as five people toured the area and encountered two terrorists who they said opened fire at them.

Magen David Adom rescue services reported that all the injured were fully conscious. One of the settlers was injured in the leg, one in the stomach and the third in the back. One sustained serious wounds, one was moderately injured and the third was lightly hurt.

Sorry, I should say “won’t” report incidents like this. They can do it. They just choose not to, because it makes the Palestinians look like the terror-embracing society that it is.

Instead, the AP found a rocket fired by Israelis at Palestinians.

A crude rocket has been fired by an Israeli student at a Palestinian village in the West Bank, Israeli security officials have said.

No-one was injured by the rocket, which was fired from a Jewish theological seminary in Yitzhar settlement.

The incident is being investigated by the Shin Bet security agency. No arrests have so far been made.

The use of home-made rockets is more usually associated with Palestinian groups firing into Israel from Gaza.

The incident is reported to have happened about two weeks ago but details have only just emerged.

Note the emphasis on settlers and religious Jews. So, what happened to the rocketeer?

He has now been expelled from the seminary, known as a yeshiva, Maariv said.

Hm. He’s been punished for breaking Israeli law, not feted for being a hero. But still, the media have another weapon with which to bash Israel. Gee. ONE rocket is fired from ONE area towards Palestinians, but it’s news—because now the media can say that Israelis are just like Palestinians.

Except they’re not. This incident is evidence of the difference.

Nice to see that even after prodding Israel to accept Hezbollah’s claim that Shebaa Farms is part of Lebanon, Sec. Rice acknowledges the nature of Hezbollah.

Rice said also during the lightning visit that Washington still considers Hezbollah a terrorist organisation, despite the group taking part in Lebanon’s new government of national unity.

It’s nice for her to acknowledge that, because there are fears that Hezbollah is looking for targets in the Western Hemisphere (via memeorandum).

Intelligence agencies in the United States and Canada are warning of mounting signs that Hezbollah, backed by Iran, is poised to mount a terror attack against “Jewish targets” somewhere outside the Middle East.

Intelligence officials tell ABC News the group has activated suspected “sleeper cells” in Canada and key operatives have been tracked moving outside the group’s Lebanon base to Canada, Europe and Africa.

. . .

There is no credible information on a specific target, according to the officials.

Suspected Hezbollah operatives have conducted recent surveillance on the Israeli embassy in Ottawa, Canada and on several synagogues in Toronto, according to the officials.

Latin American is also considered a possible target by officials following Hezbollah’s planning.

After noting that Hezbollah struck in Argentina in 1994 and that apparently Hezbollah’s scared to strike at America lest it earn a retaliation from President Bush, Allahpundit asks:

Why leak this? According to ABC, there’s evidence of four cells — one is even named — backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, supposedly corroborated by the CIA, NSA, and British and Canadian intel. A Hezbo weapons expert has, allegedly, even been tracked from Lebanon to Toronto. With the publication of this article the jig is up, but it doesn’t sound like a surreptitious leak: ABC cites a “senior counterterrorism official” as a source and three U.S. law enforcement agencies confirm that they’d been briefed on some of the details. Maybe they’re worried that they’ve lost track of the plotters and are putting this out in desperation, to try to spook them into aborting an attack?

Dust my Broom has more on the history of Hezbollah’s activities in Canada.(h/t the Jawa Report)

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

In response to a question from Lally Weymouth, King Abdullah of Jordan says that he’s not afraid of Iran.

Do you view Iran as the No. 1 threat in this region?

I think the lack of peace [between Israel and the Palestinians] is the major threat. I don’t see the ability of creating a two-state solution beyond 2008, 2009. [And] I think this is really the last chance. If this fails, I think this is going to be the major threat for the Middle East: Are we going to go for another 60 years of “fortress Israel” or are we going to have a neighborhood where Israel is actually incorporated? That is our major challenge, and I am very concerned that the clock is ticking and that the door is closing on all of us.

But aren’t you concerned that Iran is a threat both to your country and to other countries in the region?

Iran poses issues to certain countries, although I have noticed over the past month or so that the dynamics have changed quite dramatically and for the first time, I think maybe I can say that Iran is less of a threat. But if the peace process doesn’t move forward, then I think that extremism will continue to advance over the moderate stands that a lot of countries take. We’ve reached a crossroads and I’m not too sure what direction we’re heading in.

Iran is a concern to “certain countries” but apparently not to Jordan.

But then later, even while still spouting the same pieties about the peace process, he allows that he is indeed concerned with Iran.

I remember a couple of years ago, you warned against the danger posed by Iran to moderate Arab regimes. Aren’t Iran and Syria the big winners today in this region?

If we look at what happened in Lebanon two months ago [when Hezbollah routed government forces in street fighting to win major political concessions], I think the perception here is that that round was won by Iran and her proxies. We just have to be careful as to what happens in Round Two. Again, this is why I am so concerned about the peace process.

Why didn’t anyone help the government of Lebanon?

I’m just as shocked and surprised as you. The sad part is we have to be very careful. The lack of a peace process affects America’s credibility in this part of the world. If we don’t really show some wins on the ground, American influence and prestige will be dramatically diminished.

(emphases mine)

What does he have to be careful about? That he might find himself the next Arab leader under the thumb or Iran?

There is a lot of extremism in the Arab/Muslim world. That’s what accounts for tensions in the Middle East. Until moderates like Abdullah face up to this there won’t be peace. Pushing the United States to push Israel to make dangerous concessions will just strengthen the extremists. It won’t bring peace.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Jonathan D. Halevi on what Hamas accomplished.

Hamas’ motives have nothing to do with “distress,” but rather with “opportunities” - that is, the objectives it seeks to attain in the international arena and especially in its own internal political arena. First, the lull in the fighting is meaningless for Hamas; it is not a cease-fire or a truce, but a “temporary” cessation of hostilities with Israel. Next, Hamas is not committed to continuing the lull when the six months run out, and it can use any excuse it chooses to continue its terrorist campaign: Israeli building in the settlements, Israeli measures taken in Jerusalem, or IDF anti-terror measures in the West Bank. Hamas can also send other Palestinian organizations to do its dirty work.

The tahdiya agreement for a lull is an important achievement for Hamas. Hamas will gain the recognition it wants as the legitimate ruler of the Gaza Strip. Despite the fact that the Israeli government has defined Hamas-ruled Gaza as a hostile entity, Israel agreed to the continuation of trade with it, and even recognized the hostile entity’s authority to operate the Rafah crossing. Hamas regards that as immensely important and wants to exploit it as a lever to open the door to official relations with Europe, and to have itself removed from the various lists of terrorist organizations.

Another important objective for Hamas is winning the Palestinian presidential election, which will be held when Mahmoud Abbas finishes his term of office in December. Hamas wants to present itself in the contest as a legitimate ruling body worthy of inheriting the presidency. High-ranking Hamas figures have already stated that the organization will not recognize Abbas’ authority as president after December 2008

Just as Israel is about to strengthen an Iranian proxy to its north, it has just done so to its south. While I don’t have access to the same information as Col. Halevi, I do think that to some degree that Hamas sought relief from Israeli military pressure. Of course, as Halevi notes, Hamas will not observe the terms of the agreement with Israel and use the time to re-arm.

Nicholas Kristoff thinks this is a good thing, he writes in Strengthening Extremists:

Of all the bad choices, Israel chose perhaps the worst. Punishing everyone in Gaza radicalized the population, cast Hamas as a victim, gave its officials an excuse for economic failures and undermined the moderates who are the best hope of both Israel and the Arab world.

If the U.S. and Israel had formed a Joint Commission to Support Hamas Extremists and Bolster Iranian Influence, they could hardly have done a better job. The episode is the latest evidence that hard-liners in Israel, Palestine and America all reinforce each other. Arab terrorism led to the rise of Israeli hawks and to two invasions of Lebanon. The first Israeli invasion helped give birth to Hezbollah, and then the Israeli assaults on Palestinian police helped nurture Hamas.

Israel was not punishing everyone in Gaza. In making that charge he is the one who is strengthening extremists. He is justifying Hamas.

Hezbollah and Hamas exist because ignorant “experts” like Kristoff don’t grasp that these terrorists groups don’t want exist Israel to exist. Israel talked to Fatah and strengthened Fatah and Fatah continued to commit terror, because its never changed its outlook towards Israel.

By Kristoff’s resasoning, Hezbollah should have disarmed once Israel withdrew from Lebanon. It didn’t of course. Talking to and strengthening terror groups make them more potent. Fighting them is the only to defeat them. Waiting longer to fight them means that the costs of defeating will increase.

The temporary truce will only serve to allow Hamas to re-arm and threaten even more of Israel. That’s what happened between 2000 - 2006 in the north and that’s what will happen now in Israel’s south.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Back in February, 2002, Thomas Friedman trumpeted the Saudi “peace plan” as proposed by then-Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah:

Earlier this month, I wrote a column suggesting that the 22 members of the Arab League, at their summit in Beirut on March 27 and 28, make a simple, clear-cut proposal to Israel to break the Israeli-Palestinian impasse: In return for a total withdrawal by Israel to the June 4, 1967, lines, and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the 22 members of the Arab League would offer Israel full diplomatic relations, normalized trade and security guarantees. Full withdrawal, in accord with U.N. Resolution 242, for full peace between Israel and the entire Arab world. Why not?

I am currently in Saudi Arabia on a visit — part of the Saudi opening to try to explain themselves better to the world in light of the fact that 15 Saudis were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. So I took the opportunity of a dinner with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, and de facto ruler, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, to try out the idea of this Arab League proposal. I knew that Jordan, Morocco and some key Arab League officials had been talking about this idea in private but had not dared to broach it publicly until one of the ”big boys” — Saudi Arabia or Egypt — took the lead.

After I laid out this idea, the crown prince looked at me with mock astonishment and said, ”Have you broken into my desk?”

”No,” I said, wondering what he was talking about.

”The reason I ask is that this is exactly the idea I had in mind — full withdrawal from all the occupied territories, in accord with U.N. resolutions, including in Jerusalem, for full normalization of relations,” he said. ”I have drafted a speech along those lines. My thinking was to deliver it before the Arab summit and try to mobilize the entire Arab world behind it. The speech is written, and it is in my desk. But I changed my mind about delivering it when Sharon took the violence, and the oppression, to an unprecedented level.

After this free publicity, Abdullah went around the Arab world to garner support for his initiative. On one of his stops he visited Syria and as the NY Times reports, President Bashar Assad gave his crucial support to the initiative.

Syria expressed its support today for a Saudi peace effort for the Middle East, while a bomb planted in an Arab schoolyard and crude rockets fired at an Israeli town fed the rapidly expanding blood feud between Israelis and Palestinians.

In its first statement on the plan proposed last month by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, which pledges Arab countries to a full normalization of relations with Israel in return for full Israeli withdrawal from land occupied in the 1967 war, Syria expressed its ‘’satisfaction with the position of Saudi Arabia.”

The statement followed a meeting between Prince Abdullah and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in Riyadh. It said a comprehensive peace ”cannot be achieved except with Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab land, including the Syrian Golan.” The statement also called for the right of return for Palestinian refugees, a matter critical to Lebanon, where many of them live.

This report leaves out a critical point. Syria insisted that Abdullah include language demanding an Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. The communique from the Arab summit reflects this change:

Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

What’s remarkable about this demand is that Israel had already withdrawn beyond the accepted international border of Lebanon two years earlier!

The United Nations has confirmed that Israeli troops have completely withdrawn from south Lebanon. But the Lebanese Government rejected the UN verification, saying Israeli forces were still in control of some part of Lebanese territory.

The point of the dispute was the area known as the Shebaa farms.

A group of farms close to the poorly-defined border of Lebanon and Syria has emerged as a potential new flashpoint for conflict between Israel and Lebanese Muslim guerrillas.

The Syrian-backed guerrilla group, Hezbollah, says Israel must withdraw from the area of the Shebaa farms - which it says lies on Lebanese territory - or face continued attacks.

Israel says most of the area lies on the Syrian side of the Lebanon/Syria border and that it will only withdraw from the part marked as Lebanese territory on United Nations maps.

I suspect that the vagueness of the BBC’s reporting here is due to its pro-Arab bias, adding uncertainty to Israel’s claim, but later on it gets to the key point:

Syria agrees with Lebanon that the Shebaa farms area is part of Lebanon.

However, Israel points out that it seized the territory from Syria, during the 1967 Middle East War.

This isn’t a small matter. After everyone claimed that Hezbollah would lay down arms or if they didn’t would be exposed as terrorists worthy of destruction. Here’s Thomas Friedman from his fantasy “How Bibi got re-elected”

Now that Israeli troops are out of Lebanon, noted Mr. Netanyahu, everything is reversed: Politically, if the Iranian-directed Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas try to come across the border, they will be invading Israel, and Israel will be justified in massively retaliating against Lebanese, Syrian and Iranian troops that abet such an invasion. And if Israel does retaliate, it won’t be with guerrilla warfare, but with the Israeli Air Force massively striking Lebanese, Iranian and Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and maybe inside Syria.

But of course Hezbollah regularly violated the border between 2000 and 2006. In 2004 Friedman wrote:

Israel’s withdrawal is not a cure-all for this. Israel will still be despised. But if it withdraws to an internationally recognized border, it will have the moral high ground, the strategic high ground and the demographic high ground to protect itself. After Israel withdrew from Lebanon, the Hezbollah militia, on the other side, went on hating Israel and harassing the border — but it never tried to launch an invasion. Why? Hezbollah knew it would have no legitimacy — in the world or in Lebanon — for breaching that U.N.-approved border. And if it tried, Israel would be able to use its full military weight to retaliate.

Friedman having been proved wrong that Hezbollah would at least respect the border and would devote its energies to building itself politically in Lebanon. So he comforted himself by raising the threshold: Hezbollah would never invade Israel. It was a standard that would be proven wrong in 2006.

And of course behind Hezbollah’s continued war against Israel was the false pretext that Israel still “occupied” Lebanese territory, Shebaa Farms. That is the reason that Syria actively promoted the idea that Shebaa Farms was Lebanese. It needed a justification for allowing Hezbollah to continue attacking Israel with impunity. Alan Makovsky put it like this:

Support for Hizballah and the Lebanese claim to Shebaa Farms
Syria not only endorsed an Arab League summit statement supporting Lebanon’s claim to Shebaa farms, but Syrian U.N. ambassador Mikha�il Wahbi also wrote in an October 24 letter, “Israel . . . has not completed the withdrawal from south Lebanon to the internationally recognized borders, including the Shebaa farms.” This stance, in effect, justifies ongoing Hizballah attacks on Israel, retaining for Syria a source of pressure on Israel, despite the “loss” of southern Lebanon. Syria has supported and has no doubt directed Lebanon�s refusal to deploy its troops to the border following the Israeli withdrawal.

And the more pernicious implication of the claim that Shebaa Farms is Lebanese territory, is that it shows that the Arab world will continually change the terms to which Israel must comply in order to earn an ill-defined “peace.” So it’s a mistake for Israel to accede to this demand. It’s also a mistake for the West - especially the United States - to promote this fiction. All it does is strengthen Iran and its proxies at the expense of Israel and the West.

I’ve provided you with this background so we can evaluate a few paragraphs from yesterday’s New York Times on the current effort to push Israel to negotiate with Lebanon over Shebaa farms:

When Israel withdrew from the occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, the United Nations Security Council stated that the withdrawal was complete even though Israel held onto the disputed area because Shebaa, the United Nations said, was part of the Syrian Golan Heights occupied by Israel.

But Lebanon and Hezbollah say the land is Lebanese, and Syria has not contradicted them. Moreover, Hezbollah has used Israel’s hold over Shebaa as a reason for keeping its men under arms despite United Nations resolutions calling for the disarming of all Lebanese militias.

Hezbollah says that as long as part of the Lebanese homeland is occupied, it needs its weapons because the national army is weak.

But the West, especially the United States and France, wants to reduce the power of Hezbollah, a client of both Syria and Iran, and has been looking for ways to strengthen the pro-Western government of Lebanon.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah officials made clear that they viewed Israel’s offer as part of an effort to disarm the group. “If they really want to give us back our land, they can withdraw and implement the Security Council resolutions,” said Nawar Sahili, a Hezbollah member of Lebanon’s Parliament, referring to a United Nations resolution that calls for the Shebaa issue to be resolved.

Saying that Syria “has not contradicted” Hezbollah on Shebaa farms is a vast understatement. Syria has promoted this idea for its client Hezbollah.

The assertion that Israel negotiating with Lebanon will somehow strengthen the “pro-Western government of Lebanon” is outright nonsense. It will strengthen Hezbollah at the expense of the nominally pro-Western government of Fuad Siniora.

Finally, quoting a member of Hezbollah mentioning Security Council resolutions without mentioning the various resolutions that Hezbollah is violating serves to give cover to the terrorist organization.

Resolution 425 which Israel fulfilled when it withdrew from Southern Lebanon, also called for the disarming of militias and the Lebanese army establishing control over southern Lebanon. Hezbollah’s continued control over Southern Lebanon prior to 2006 stood in direct violation of that resolution. And its re-arming now - which the article notes - violates Resolution 1701 - which the article doesn’t note.

For Israel, the main concern in Lebanon is Hezbollah’s increasing power. Israeli military officials say that Hezbollah has many more rockets and much deadlier ones today than it had two years ago when the two fought a monthlong war after Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border to capture and kill Israeli soldiers.

Acceding to Syria’s and Hezbollah’s demands will only serve to strengthen them. If Israel gives in here, Hezbollah will make new demands. Better that Israel should be (unfairly) portrayed as unreasonable than that Iran’s proxies should be strengthened even further.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

It is Fox News turn now to come down as a ton of bricks on my favorite frui professor Richard Falk.

Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, investigates alleged Israeli violations of human rights law for the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. But the former Princeton professor would also like to investigate whether “some sort of controlled explosion from within” destroyed the Twin Towers, he told FOXNews.com.

And of course, many people consider him to be, how to say it gently - a bit balmy. A few tacos short of a whole enchilada. Unhinged, in short.

“I think [his beliefs are] fruitcake city, but among many delegations to the U.N. it’s probably the conventional wisdom,” said John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. known for his straight talk on U.N. hypocrisy.

But so what, I want to ask you? Even if Mr Bolton is right (and he is, I assure you) when he says:

“It’s just an example of the inmates running the asylum. It’s a particularly graphic example for Americans, but this is not an aberration — this is, unfortunately, typical of much of what goes on at the U.N.”

I still claim lots of sympathy to the man, as I have stated before. Just look at that schnozzle, I beg you! Could a man with such a prominent beak of a drink connoisseur be all bad? So what if:

Falk — prior to his appointment as an unbiased human rights investigator — compared Israeli actions in Gaza to the Nazi treatment of Jews. This may have led to his appointment as the rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Bolton said.

So what, I ask again? This is UN, the asylum, and in an asylum you expect just that kind of people and that kind of decision making. Following the same logic, I expect - no, I demand - that professor be immediately assigned for another task - a UN rapporteur on controlled explosion of WTC. Nothing less will do for my man. And from here - the road to a thorough investigation of that Lunar landing should be clear.

And my invitation for him to have a few when on the job in Israel still stands. We still have a lot of fat to chew together…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.