obituaries

Obituaries from page 81

Obama At Holocaust Museum:

'I'll Be There For Israel'

Ammunition Hill Memorial
To Fallen Soldiers Vandalized

JERUSALEM (JTA)

Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON (JTA)

p

resident Obama, in an address at
a Holocaust remembrance event
April 23, said he would "always be
there for Israel" and defended his admin-
istration's record on preventing atrocities.
Obama spoke at the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum a few days after
Holocaust Remembrance Day. Prior to his
address, he took a tour of the museum
guided by Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust
memoirist and Nobel Peace laureate.
He recounted meeting with a woman at
Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial,
when he was a presidential candidate in
2008, who told him that the Jews only had
one state.
In his remarks, Obama said, "I say this
as a president, and I say it as a father.
We must tell our children about a crime
unique in human history. The one and
only Holocaust — 6 million innocent peo-
ple — men, women, children, babies —

sent to their deaths just for being different,
just for being Jewish... We must tell our
children about how this evil was allowed
to happen — because so many people
succumbed to their darkest instincts and
because so many others stood silent."
Obama also said, "I said I would always
be there for Israel," and he cited the steps
he has taken to isolate Iran because of its
suspected nuclear weapons program.
Obama also recounted steps taken by
his administration through military and
diplomatic action to prevent atrocities in
Sudan, Libya, Uganda and Ivory Coast.
The president has come under pressure
in recent months for not doing more to oust
Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose crack-
down on opponents has killed thousands.
Obama pledged to keep working with allies
to bring about "the end of the Assad regime."
Elsewhere in his address, however, he
said that his commitment to preventing
atrocities "does not mean we intervene
militarily every time there is an injustice
in the world."

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82

Obituaries

T

he iconic memorial to Israel's
fallen soldiers at Ammunition
Hill was vandalized days before
the national Memorial Day observance.
Unknown vandals spray-painted anti-
Semitic and anti-Israel epithets on the
memorial at the site of a major battle for
Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War
that nearly closed earlier this year due to
lack of funds.
Among the slogans discovered on
Sunday to have been spray-painted on
the walls of the memorial were "Zionism
is the original sin;' "Miserable Zionists
braving over poor Arabs?" and "Gunter
Grass was right:' referring to the Nobel
Prize-winning German poet who earlier
this month published a poem claiming
that Israel is endangering world peace by
threatening Iran.
The vandals also cut down a large
Israeli flag and set it alight.
The attack came several days after two
monuments in the Jordan Valley dedi-

A worker cleans graffiti sprayed at
Ammunition Hill on April 23.

cated to dead Israeli soldiers and victims
of terror were spray-painted with epi-
thets including "Stop Zionism" and "End
the Occupation." Another slogan read,
"The fallen were killed for their treason."
Palestinian flags also were painted on
the monuments and the names of the
soldiers were blacked out with paint.
The country observed Fallen Soldiers
and Victims of Terrorism Remembrance
Day, Israel's official Memorial Day, April
24. ❑