THE DIOGENES REPORT
The Wit, Wisdom & Wituperation of Emanuel L. Strunin
“a few steps ahead of the curve”
December 2005, VOL. V, #14
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(Items marked with an * were written by Diogenes.)

HIS BLOOD STILL CRIES OUT*

It says in the Torah that Abel’s blood cried out after he was murdered by his brother Cain. God didn’t have very far to look for suspects—there weren’t many people around in those days. In these days, Yitchak Rabin’s blood has been crying out for 10 years for the Israeli Government to apprehend and punish his real murderers. I came up with, what I believe, is the true scenario even before I was directed to Barry Chamish’s detailed account of the events of that day. I believe that Yigal Amir, the man who was convicted of the murder did not murder Rabin and many others in Israel believe as I do. And there is powerful evidence to support our contention. We should take Amir’s “confession” with a grain of salt. The Israeli security services, much like the KGB, have ways of making innocent people confess without using a rubber hose.

The issue of who murdered Rabin has resurfaced with the “rediscovery” of the assassination video. An article by Scott Shiloh from Arutz Sheva, The Israeli news service in November reviews and updates the issue. Diogenes’ analysis of the assassination from the January 2002, Vol. II, #1 issue of The Diogenes Report follows.

(An aside, it is now 10 years since the Israeli security service has blocked a trial of their agent who encouraged Amir to kill Rabin and supplied him with the bullets (blanks). Why?)

Rabin Assassination Video Resurfaces After 10 Year Absence

By Scott Shiloh

November 4, 2005, marks ten years since the assassination of Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin. Now, just before the ten-year anniversary of Rabin's murder, controversial footage of the event has reappeared. 

Over the years, despite continuous and intense media coverage and analysis of the assassination and its ramifications, the video of the assassination, known as the Kempler video, had virtually disappeared from public view.

Since its showing on Channel 2 Israel television two months after the assassination, the Kempler video, one of history’s most dramatic and important video clips, has been hidden, perhaps deliberately, from the eyes of the public. It was never screened again on Israel's state-regulated television, nor was it available on the Internet.

Likewise, the purported maker of the video, amateur photographer Ron Kempler, appeared on television only once when the clip was screened. Since then, he appears to have vanished without a trace.

The circumstances under which the assassination occurred provided the left with fertile ground for a decade of denouncing and delegitimizing Israel's nationalist camp and its political agenda, particularly against the national-religious camp. Yigal Amir, a law student, activist, and vehement opponent of the Oslo accords, who was identified politically with the national-religious camp, was arrested and convicted of carrying out the assassination.

For the 25 years prior to the assassination, that group, more than any other, had been identified with the drive to settle Israel’s ancient Biblical heartland, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, liberated during the 1967 Six-Day War.

On the other hand, Rabin’s main accomplishment as prime minister was the signing of the Oslo accords. Those accords were designed to relinquish Israeli control of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, and install in its place, a Palestinian state, run by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), an international terrorist organization led by Yassir Arafat.

As Israel prepared to relinquish control of cities liberated in the Six-Day War to PLO control, tension in Israel between Rabin’s supporters and detractors reached a feverish pitch. The stage was set for November 4, 1995, the assassination of a prime minister, and a ten-year vendetta against the opponents of Rabin’s policies. 

But did Yigal Amir really kill Yitzhak Rabin?

Not unlike the Kennedy assassination in 1963, Rabin’s assassination is riddled with factual inconsistencies that have given birth to conspiracy theories. Interestingly, both assassinations were filmed by amateur photographers. In both cases, examination and analysis of the filmed footage raise serious questions that conspiracy researchers use to support their contentions.

But while the Zapruder film is readily available for viewing and scrutiny by the general public, the Kempler video has only recently come out of hiding.

Click here to view the full Kempler Video if it does not appear below. (I will e-mail the connection to the video site on request. The narrative is in Hebrew.)

Private website operator David Rutstein explores on his Hebrew site glaring inconsistencies in the official assassination documents and has made available for the first time the full-length Kempler video for ongoing public scrutiny. 

As a result, anyone interested in the Rabin assassination, conspiracy buffs included, can now watch the video and decide for himself whether it supports or contradicts the Israeli government’s claim that Yigal Amir acted alone in assassinating the prime minister. The conspiracy theorists contend that the upper echelons of Israel's secret service orchestrated either an assassination attempt, which backfired, or an actual assassination.

A number of conspiracy theorists, the most prominent among them, Barry Chamish, do not deny that Amir was involved in the assassination. Concurrently, they are not interested in exonerating Amir or granting him clemency.

Chamish claims that Amir’s weapon fired only blanks at the prime minister. The real assassin was positioned in the back seat of Rabin’s car. This unknown assassin shot and killed Rabin only after his bodyguard, Yoram Rubin, pushed him into the car, following Amir’s gunshots.

Persons who espouse this theory claim that if Rabin indeed had been hit by Amir’s bullet (according to medical reports, the first bullet shattered Rabin’s spine) he would not have been able to remain standing, turn aside, and cast his face, startled, in Amir’s direction. Yet Rabin does exactly this, as the video clearly indicates at the 7:10 minute mark and again in slow motion at 8:20 minutes. Rabin’s facial expression does not depict any pain, not something one would expect after sustaining a serious wound of any kind, particularly a spinal injury.

This point is reiterated by one of the three bodyguards closest to Rabin, agent S.N. (possibly S.G.) who delivered his testimony on November 16, 1995 to police Internal Security Unit officer Yoav Gazit:

"During the salvo I jumped towards the Prime Minister and his personal bodyguard (Yoram Rubin). I didn't hear any cry of pain from the Prime Minister or from his bodyguard and I didn't notice any traces (signs) of blood. I and the personal bodyguard put the Prime Minister into his car and Rubin jumped with him inside and the car quickly exited the area. At this stage it wasn't clear to me whether the PM or the bodyguard were hit or not."

One of the most astonishing and mysterious events in the film occurs after Amir fires his shots. Kempler’s video clearly and unmistakably shows (7:17 minutes into video and repeated at 8:40) the back rear door of Rabin’s vehicle close before Rabin’s bodyguard, Yoram Rubin, whisks the prime minister into the drivers’ side of the car. Chamish suggests that Rabin’s actual assailant may have been pre-positioned in the back seat of the car as part of a conspiracy to eliminate the prime minister. 

No one has yet to come up with another plausible explanation as to why the rear door of Rabin’s Cadillac suddenly slammed shut. The prime minister’s car was not equipped with automatic doors. One explanation claims that the Cadillac’s doors were built to close automatically if the car is suddenly shaken. But the rear door shut before the others entered the vehicle. That theory also does not explain why the front door opposite the driver remained open.

Another event depicted in the video that warrants examination is the conduct of Shimon Peres, one of the main architects of the Oslo accords, who served as Rabin’s foreign minister. 

At the conclusion of that night's mass demonstration in support of the Rabin government, held at a Tel Aviv park adjacent to city hall, Shimon Peres is filmed mingling with the crowd just meters away from Yigal Amir, who was inexplicably waiting for his target in a supposedly “sterile” area, reserved only for authorized security personnel. 

After finishing with the crowd, Peres approaches Rabin’s car (6:20 minutes), which was parked behind his own in the sterile area. Peres stops by the car, and appears to look inside, or inspect the vehicle for something. Peres then starts talking with a bodyguard who points to the car. (As this occurs before the shots are fired, both the front and rear doors opposite the driver’s side are still open). What was it about the prime minister’s car that so interested Shimon Peres?

Then, suddenly, Peres is seen talking to Rabin’s driver, Menachem Damti (6:34 minutes). Prior to this, something apparently was cut out of video. Kempler claims he stopped filming for a few seconds. 

Peres finally gets into his own car, just as Rabin walks down the stairs into the sterile area. Seconds later, he is shot at by Yigal Amir.

There are numerous other inconsistencies in the Kempler video and in the circumstances surrounding the assassination that provide powerful impetus to conspiracy theories. Citing even a small fraction of them here would be beyond the scope of this brief article. Readers are encouraged to investigate further and make their own judgments.

Aside from one television appearance on Channel 2 ten years ago, Kempler has been unavailable to answer questions regarding his video clip. His testimony as an eye witness at Amir’s trial failed to address many of these issues, some of which were raised by Amir’s defense attorneys. “I’m not a video or camera expert,” was a typical remark.

As history would have it, Kempler fortuitously stood on the roof of the Gan Ha-ir shopping mall overlooking the “sterile” area near the prime minister’s car where Yigal Amir was waiting to attack Yitzhak Rabin. Minutes before the assassination, Kempler, who claimed to be an amateur photographer, focused his camera on Amir for no apparent reason and followed his actions until he fired his pistol.

Conspiracy theorists explain this peculiar oddity of fate, contending that Kempler himself was a part of the conspiracy. They suggest that Israel’s secret service arranged the video and then tampered with it in various ways in order to convince a skeptical public that Yigal Amir was the lone assassin, and diffuse any attempts to prove otherwise. 

While the video served as key evidence in obtaining Amir’s conviction and to underpin the Shamgar Commission’s lone assassin conclusion, it has ironically become home base for supporting conspiracy theories, like those put forward by Barry Chamish. 

The fact that the video has been concealed from the public for the past ten years, along with Kempler’s cryptic absence from Israel’s all-penetrating media, only serves to heighten speculation regarding a potential cover-up in relation to the circumstances of the Rabin assassination.

With or without the Kempler video, the naked truth behind the administration that brought about the Oslo accords and the subsequent Oslo War will ultimately be exposed to public scrutiny and judgment.


THE DIOGENES REPORT, January 2002, Vol. ll, #1

WHO KILLED COCK RABIN?*

Since Diogenes is a firm believer in the unchangeability of mankind—particularly the propensity for doing evil—one can usually find an appropriate phrase or concept for connecting evil in the ancient past with evil in the present, in that most insightful of books—the Torah. Current news from Israel reaffirms the connection.

Our brother’s blood continues to cry out from the ground that his true murderers still go unpunished. Despite much convincing evidence that a miscarriage of justice was responsible for sending a man to prison for life, the Israeli establishment refuses to reexamine the facts of the Rabin assassination. Members of Rabin’s family, as well as a number of investigators, including physicians continue to voice questions about the events on that fateful day.

Don’t Open A Can Of Worms

In the Torah account, God knew who was responsible for murdering Abel and punished the murderer. The Israeli court and the commission which investigated Rabin’s assassination may well have known who murdered him but chose to punish a politically correct suspect. There are some who hear the cry of our brother’s blood crying out and try to get at the truth. But these truth seekers do not include members of the Israeli Government, the judiciary, the police or the security services.

Based on news reports of the assassination, I came up with a theory about the actual assassins which I shared with an Israeli journalist. He put me onto a book – Who Murdered Yitzchak Rabin? by Barry Chamish--which fleshed out my theory and created a momentary stir in Israel. But the overpowering influence of the left wing, which likely was behind the assassination, and the co-opted right wing establishment which, also, did not wish to open a can of worms, the assassination became a non-issue.

During the ensuing years, a young woman was sent to jail for a year for not informing the authorities that Yigal Amir, the supposed assassin threatened to kill the Prime Minister—a threat, which she claimed to give no credence. And the security services continue to prevent the trial of an agent provocateur who is known to be involved in the assassination.

Who Cares About Proof?

Last week, a group of physicians released the results of a forensic investigation showing that Amir’s gun did not fire the bullets that killed Rabin. Even though this evidence by itself proves that Amir was not the killer, it follows a mountain of evidence, including the original pathology report, that Amir could not have been the one who fired the bullets that murdered Rabin. The Israeli Ministry of Health did not permit the physician who carried out the forensic research to present his findings, so it had to be presented to the public by others.

So who was responsible for the murder of Rabin?

There are calculating and demented people everywhere who do not recognize that they are committing evil because what they do is “for the greater good or to serve a higher calling”. We only have to look around us to see the truth of this statement. Just a few examples, the Arab suicide bombers in Israel and America; John Walker, the American Taliban fighter, the German university professors who drove Jews out of academia; Adolf Eichman and hundreds of thousands of Germans who murdered millions of Jews; Kim Philby, the Russian spy; Vanunu, the Israeli atomic technician; and the list can go on and on. 

But we have to look no further than the assassination incident itself where Amir was driven to make an attempt on the Prime Minister’ life by a need to serve a “higher calling”. The motivation was the same for the one who tried to kill Rabin and those that succeeded in murdering him.

Many years ago Ignazio Silone edited a book titled, The God That Failed. It was a compilation of confessions by former communists who once worshipped the movement but who eventually recognized that their “god” had feet of clay.

The Hoped For End Justifies The Means

It appears that Israeli left wing leaders were worried that Yitzchak Rabin was “going soft” on the Oslo agreement. As we can still see today, this “agreement” is so important to some members of the left wing that it clouds their judgment about reality. In several cases, you could honestly say that it has led to dementia.

Oslo is like a god that they worship because of the good it will bring to all mankind despite of the evil it has brought to Israel. If they feel this way today, is it difficult to understand how they felt in the earlier days about someone who might kill their god? 

To the true believers on the left, ideology is their god and there are ample records among Jews and others who enthusiastically killed for this god. And in every conspiracy there are some who just carry out orders. 

How do you save Oslo? Get rid of the key non-believer. And blame it on the right.Then turn a nation in mourning into believers A tried and true ploy of the Israel left. They did it in the early thirties with the murder of the popular labor leader Arlosoroff. They blamed it on the right and riots broke out against the Revisionists, the opponents of the left. Some sixty years after the murder some of the participants recounted the true story.


FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A reader of The Diogenes Report wrote the following letter. It brings up some interesting issues when some of today’s loudest voices claim that the Holocaust never happened. Do the Swiss ever consider that they were forced to disgorge this money for no reason?

Steven D. Levitt
c/o HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
10 E 53Rd St Fl Cellar1
New York NY 10022-5076

Dear Mr. Levitt,

I am enjoying “Freakonomics” immensely. You teach important lessons on using probabilities to discover hidden causes which then seem obvious. However, you might use your methods to examine a far greater crime than the fixing of Sumo matches or scholastic achievement tests.

Enclosed is an article from today’s New York Times, one of many which have been written about Swiss banks which seized assets from Jewish secret accounts without trying to find rightful heirs. Europe not only murdered almost every Jew, but also had a huge incentive to do so with all the Jewish property available for confiscation, especially when the rightful owners were conveniently disappearing without a trace.

We already know that these bankers were criminal, but they also had an incentive to see that their account holders died sooner rather than later. The Nazis kept excellent records. Wouldn’t it be interesting if holders of Swiss accounts died faster or were even selected for slaughter at the entrance to Auschwitz and other factories of death?

And then there is the International Red Cross, based in Switzerland, one of the many infamous recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to them for their assistance to refugees during the War. They allowed themselves to be fooled by the model camp in the middle of the stench of death at Auschwitz. Wouldn’t it be interesting if they had been conduits of information about account holders to the Nazis? Wouldn’t it be interesting if it were possible to correlate the dates of their visits with the deaths of prisoners with Swiss accounts?

I am suggesting a gruesome analysis, but this possibility has bothered me for a long time, and it would be wonderful if someone with your background and influence could be interested in looking at these data.

Thank you.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A federal judge has approved a $21.9 million award to heirs of two wealthy families victimized by the Holocaust, more than 65 years after a Swiss bank passed their fortune to the Nazis.

The award was by far the largest single claim paid thus far in a case against Swiss banks accused of betraying their Holocaust-era clients to gain favor with the Nazis. Lawyers said the previous high for an award was about $4 million.

U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman in New York City approved the payment based on the recommendation of a court-appointed tribunal that disburses funds set aside under a settlement between Holocaust survivors and the banks.

In a report dated Wednesday, the tribunal called the award ''unique in its size'' and ''a striking example of the widespread betrayal of Jewish clients by the Swiss banks.''

Holocaust survivors and their families sued Credit Suisse Group, UBS AG and other Swiss banks, accusing them of stealing, concealing or sending to the Nazis hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Jewish holdings and destroying bank records to cover the paper trail. In 1998, Korman approved a $1.25 billion settlement and appointed the tribunal to process thousands of claims.

The $21.9 million award stems from a claim by Holocaust survivor Maria Altmann, 89, of Los Angeles, and about two dozen unnamed heirs of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and Otto Pick, both major shareholders in a large sugar refinery in Austria before World War II.

Altmann -- Bloch-Bauer's niece -- ''is very gratified,'' said her attorney, E. Randol Schoenberg. ''It's a very generous award.''

In 1938, with Austria on the brink of a Nazi takeover, Bloch-Bauer, Pick and their families sought to protect their interest in the refinery by transferring their shares to a bank in Zurich.

The bank guaranteed the shares would not be sold without the families' consent. But after family members were arrested or fled the country, the banks bowed to pressure to transfer the shares to a German investor in a Nazi campaign to ''Aryanize'' Jewish-owned businesses, the tribunal report said.

The case demonstrated that ''having marketed themselves to the Jews of Europe as a safe haven for their property, Swiss banks repeatedly turned Jewish-owned property over to the Nazis in order to curry favor with them,'' the tribunal wrote.

No records of the Jewish shareholders' deal with the bank were found in its files. Instead, the tribunal relied solely on documents provided by the heirs and independent archives.

''There was no record of this, which is significant because we've been suspicious all along that the banks destroyed an enormous amount of information,'' said attorney Burt Neuborne, a court-appointed representative for survivors worldwide.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Altmann could sue the Austrian government to retrieve $150 million worth of family paintings stolen by the Nazis. The parties were in mediation this week in California over the six Gustav Klimt paintings now hanging in the Austrian Gallery, including a portrait of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer.

In the Swiss bank case, Holocaust survivors and their heirs so far have received more than $254 million in awards. The average award has amounted to about $130,000.

GOD VS. THE MOTORCYCLE MAN

The inventor of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle, Arthur Davidson, died and went to heaven.

At the gates, St. Peter told Arthur, "Since you've been such a good man and your motorcycles have changed the world, your reward is, you can hang out with anyone you want in Heaven."

Arthur thought about it for a minute and then said, "I want to hang out with God."

St. Peter took Arthur to the Throne Room, and introduced him to God. 

God recognized Arthur and commented, "Okay, so you were the one who invented motorcycles, eh?"

Arthur said, "Yeah, that's me..."

God commented: "Well, what's the big deal in inventing something that's pretty unstable, makes noise and pollution, and can't run without a road?"

Arthur was apparently embarrassed, but finally spoke, "Excuse me, but aren't you the inventor of woman?"

God said, "Ah, yes."

"Well," said Arthur, "professional to professional, you have some major design flaws in your invention:

1. There's too much inconsistency in the front-end protrusion;
2. It chatters constantly at high speeds;
3. Most of the rear ends are too soft and wobble too much;
4. The intake is placed way too close to the exhaust;
5. And the maintenance costs are outrageous!!"

"Hmmmm, you may have some good points there," replied God, "hold on."

God went to his Celestial super-computer, typed in a few words and waited for the results. The computer printed out a slip of paper and God read it.

Well, it may be true that my invention is flawed," God said to Arthur, "but according to these numbers, more men are riding my invention than yours.


HEADLINES AND COMMENTS*
Headlines from the world’s press. Comments by Diogenes.

Human Brain Cells Are Grown In Mice
In the past you could insult a man by calling him a rat, now you can insult a rat by calling it a man.

Palestinian Chief Threatens To Quit Over Rival Fatah Slate
He is just another Arab democrat that the Cheney administration loves. 

White House To Double Spending On New Orleans Flood Protection
At this rate it will only take 25 years to bring the spending up to what we’re spending to rebuild Iraq.

Literacy Falls For Graduates From College, Testing Finds
Not to worry, we can outsource educating college graduates to India and China.

2005 Continues The Warming Trend
So why am I freezing my ass off?

U.S. Set To Loosen Rules On Objects Allowed On Airliners
Bombs will be OK as long as they are sewn into a vest.

Bishop Says Edict Allows Some Gay Priests
Does it also allow some pedophile priests?

U.S. Debate On Pullout Resonates As Troops Engage Sunnis In Talks 
Typical engagement talk: “Hey, towelhead drop that gun or you’re a dead man.”

France Weighs Immigration Controls After Riots
Vee will keep zee Americans out because their invasion of Iraq cause zee Mooslems to riot.



QUOTES I LIKE
Diogenes considers them clever and/or informative, 
not that he necessarily agrees with them.

Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils, but present evils triumph over it.
- LaRochefoucauld

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
- Grouch Marx

I’d rather be black than gay because when you’re black you don’t have to tell your mother.
- Charles Pierce

What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history.
- Georg F. Hegel

Yield to all and you will soon have nothing to yield.
- Aesop

I detest insurance agents. They always argue that I shall someday die, which is not so.
- Stephen Leacock

No one can have peace longer than his neighbor pleases.
- Dutch proverb 


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