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By Barbara Olsen:

The Final Days [Regnery Publishing: Washington DC, 2001]

On Bill Clinton's last-minute pardon of fugitive Jewish billionaire Marc Rich

pp. 202-203:

Walter Reich, a psychiatrist and professor of international affairs, ethics and human behavior at George Washington University, was director of the Holocaust Memorial Museum from 1995 to 1998. Reich saw the Rich pardon through his own lens. He thought the pardon touched "directly on some of the most incendiary stereotypes about Jews."

Reich was alarmed that Ehud Barak had lobbied Bill Clinton to pardon one of the Justice Department's most-wanted fugitives. Rabbi Irving Greenburg, whom Clinton appointed to chair the board of the Holocaust Museum, had urged the president to "perform one of the most God-like actions that anyone can ever do."

It was, Reich wrote, "in a way, as if the 6 million murdered Jews were beseeching the president, through their official spokesman, Greenburg, to pardon Rich.... This exploitation of the Holocaust in support of a billionaire on the lam is a grave cheapening of Holocaust memory and a devaluation of its moral force."

Website note: Abraham Foxman, wealthy and controversial chief of the Anti Defamation League, likes to refer to himself as a "Holocaust survivor." As a biography on this website shows, he was not even born when Hitler invaded his native Poland, and he was looked after by Polish Catholics throughout the war; his parents also "survived".


Author, "Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism," foreword by Elie Wiesel ($24.95, 304 pages).

Reich was alarmed because all of this "plays into the oldest and most damaging stereotypes and canards, and it is likely to give aid and comfort to the worst varieties of anti-Semitism... the canard of the Jewish connection with money and power that's easily evoked in the public imagination." Reich found it ironic that one of those writing on behalf of Rich was Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, "which is supposed to fight anti-Semitism, not provide fodder for it." 13 In late March [2001], Abe Foxman [see box on left] admitted he had erred in writing a letter of support for Marc Rich.

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer condemned the Clinton pardons precisely because the power he had abused was so unique and absolute. "The pardon power is special," he wrote. "The American people feel it. Bill Clinton, oblivious as he was to the reverence due every other power of his office, from the Lincoln bedroom to the Oval Office, was supremely oblivious to the sacredness of this one." Because the pardon power is God-like, Krauthammer concluded. "It was not bad judgment. It was sacrilege." 14


Notes:

13. Walter Reich, "Pardons Jeopardize Good Name of Jewish People," Houston Chronicle, March 1, 2001, p. A27.

14. Charles Krauthammer, "The Unpardonable Offense," Washington Post, March 2, 2001, p. A25.

European prosecutors say that documents identifying Marc Rich - the American fugitive who won an 11th-hour pardon from President Clinton - have turned up during a crackdown on money laundering and the Russian mafia.
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ADLs Abe Foxman described as a Disgrace to the Jewish Religion
Abraham Foxman in bed with Assicurazioni Generali and takes $100,000 to stay mum
Bowing to pressure from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), NBC Television has agreed never again to air portions of a Dec. 4 1999 satirical sketch
ADL chief Foxman makes statement on Marc Rich affair.
Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman admitted he sought a presidential pardon for Marc Rich a month after his group accepted a $100,000 donation from the billionaire financier
Fugitive Jewish financier Marc Rich claimed he deserved a pardon by the U.S., whose citizenship he had renounced, and whose taxes he evaded, because he had given many millions to Israeli charities
Foxman ... wrote an official ADL letter to Clinton, asking him to pardon Rich | and other
Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman admitted he sought a presidential pardon for Marc Rich a month after his group accepted a $100,000 donation from the billionaire financier
Barak could face U.S. arrest in Marc Rich affair: Rich pressures President Bill Clinton into unzipping the United States frontiers for him
Andrew Sullivan writes: journalists praise Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman.
Fugitive Jewish financier Marc Rich claimed he deserved a pardon by the U.S., whose citizenship he had renounced, and whose taxes he evaded, because he had given many millions to Israeli charities.
Rabbi calls ADL leader Foxman the Jews worst enemy
Shoah Museum in Turmoil Over Bid To Oust Chief -- Rabbi Greenberg Foes Say Its About Rich Tiff; Allies See Politics, Power

 

© Focal Point 2001 David Irving