Modesty Is Not Bigotry

By: Eli Verschleiser

A society should be judged by how well we treat the vulnerable and minorities in our midst.

But society must also be judged by how we balance the rights of all people to coexist together. Reasonable accommodation for some should never amount to violation of the rights of others.

When it comes to the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender Americans, change is happening quickly and, post legalization of same-sex marriage, in an almost cascade effect. We must be cautious of the road ahead to maintain that balance.

The transgender flag. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

When it comes to the accommodation of religious observance, for example, now required by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and similar legislation, a worker who wants to observe holidays or wear religious garb must be accommodated reasonably up until a point where an employer can demonstrate that such accommodation poses undue hardship to the business despite attempts to compromise.

The Americans for Disability Act also has exemptions for changing infrastructure or service provision if it poses undue hardship to a facility.

But when it comes to fully accommodating youth who identify as transgender, not only must accommodation be immediate and absolute, but it can be imposed not by carefully crafted legislation, but by the fiat of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

In ordering that an Illinois school district must not dare to interfere with a biological boy’s unfettered access to the girls’ locker room, this office of appointed officials has set a precedent for every school in the United States.

And it will have far reaching implications. Already several other similar cases have arisen.

What is most striking about these controversies, from my point of view, is the tolerance gap.

By all accounts, school officials and students have proven sympathetic to the transgender student, while seeking reasonable accommodation. The unnamed student in the Illinois case was offered a private area to change to avoid the apparently unbearable scenario of having to use the boys’ locker room, while still protecting the girls’ privacy.

That led to the civil rights complaint, with the ruling declaring that this accommodation violates the transgender student’s rights – despite the fact that no one questioned the student’s orientation or pointed the student back to the male locker room.

A similar case became more heated, in the small town of Hillsboro, Missouri, where Lila Perry, born male but now identifying as female, has insisted on using the girls’ locker room for gym class. A large number of students, male and female, staged a walk-out protest against such an accommodation.

Hillsboro also offered a private changing area, which Lila refused.

Numerous students and parents interviewed said they did not question the sincerity of Lila’s identification as a girl. They just wanted their feelings to be taken into account in the matter.

One astute Hillsboro high school senior, Sydney Dye, told CNN: “Some girls already have insecurity problems getting dressed in front of other girls as it is, much less having to get dressed in front of a boy."

But Lila wasn’t having any of it, blanket accusing every last one of the student protesters and their parent supporters as bigots: “I don’t believe for a second that they are [uncomfortable]. I think this is pure and simple bigotry. I wasn’t hurting anyone and I didn’t want to feel segregated out.”

And so we are enmeshed in a rather sudden national debate about whether one’s desire for locker rooms and bathrooms to be segregated according to biological gender is akin to hating gays, people of color, Jews or immigrants.

I suspect that even a majority of liberals won’t get caught in that trap. As many commentators pointed out, voters in Houston, a city that heavily supported Barack Obama and elected a lesbian mayor three times, recently defeated an ordinance that included allowing transgender people to use whatever public bathroom they wish.

In the absence of written laws on this subject, or a uniform definition of a transgender student, school officials are left in the unenviable position of trying to find the wisdom of Solomon in these cases and, if they’re lucky, avoid getting sued or federally de-funded.

The only solution that will satisfy everyone involved is a redefinition of the contemporary bathroom and locker room. Public men’s and women’s rooms will eventually give way to banks of private cubicles and stall showers that allow privacy for everyone, similar to what is being done in private health clubs. This is especially important in schools. Equal rights means equal privacy for those who want it.

Only in that way, in today’s cascade of political correctness and bureaucratic redefinition of discrimination, can a girl be spared the dual indignities of being forced to shower with a boy at school, and being labeled a bigot for her discomfort.

Originally Published: The Algemeiner

Israel’s Iron Dome Supporters Deserve Our Thanks

gettyimages -  Israel Iron Dome

By: Eli Verschleiser

Congress understands that stopping anti-Israel rocket attacks saves lives on both sides of the conflict.

Imagine going to bed worried that an alert will go off in the middle of the night and you’ll have to gather up your family and scramble to a shelter.

Imagine sending your kids off to school worrying about their safety from airborne threats on the way, and when they get there. Imagine living through air raid alerts on a regular basis, huddled in your sealed room, wondering if, should destruction rain down from the skies, your shelter will be strong enough to protect you from harm.

Imagine shopping for a home or apartment and, in addition to price and location, needing to ask about a panic room.

Millions of Israelis don’t have to imagine this scenario. Whether Jewish, Arab or Christian – rockets can’t discriminate- this is their reality day to day: In the south, rocket attacks from Hamas in Gaza; In the North, from Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the center of Israel, a country no bigger than New Jersey, safety is relative as rockets with increasing sophistication and power project terror at longer and longer ranges.

So far in 2015, there have been 23 rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza, most recently on Oct. 21, when a projectile landed in Sh’ar Hanegev. Last year, which included the summer conflict that started Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, the number was 4,005, resulting in 8 deaths, 60 injuries and 1,663 Palestinians killed in counterstrikes.

Striking back at the launch sites doesn’t solve the problem. Had Gazans applied the same devotion to productive endeavors like agriculture and tourism as they do toward bloodthirsty rocketry, the area would be thriving today, rather than the blockaded ruin.

The situation would be far worse for both sides if not for the technology of Iron Dome, shared by Israelis and the United States. The ability to track rockets as they launch, calculate their trajectory and eliminate the most dangerous projectiles saves lives, likely many thousands of them. When rockets do not reach their intended targets, Israelis are the obvious beneficiaries, but innocent Palestinians are spared the threat of collateral damage from a counter strike that would be tactically necessary after any lethal attack.

Members of the United States Congress understand this and since 2009 have consistently voted to increase funding for this technology. It should be a political no-brainer. No matter where you stand on Israel’s politics and policies, decent people and particularly leaders should agree that everyone has a right not to blown up by a rocket.

Moreover, it serves the higher purpose of the Israeli Palestinian peace process (such as it is) to decrease the incentive and effectiveness of this senseless violence. Whether Hamas and Hezbollah will one day realize the futility of this strategy is anyone’s guess, but it’s our sacred obligation to send that message.

That is why I am proud to be a part of the Congressional Tribute honoring standout members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who have supported Iron Dome – with up to $371.2 million in this year’s Defense Authorization bill. The honorees are Ed Royce (R-CA) , Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Middle East and North Africa; Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces; Nita Lowey (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee; Ted Deutch (D-FL), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa; Hal Rogers (R-KY), Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee; Peter Roskam (R-IL), Co-chair of the House Republican Israel Caucus; Eliot Engel (D-NY) Ranking Member of Foreign Affairs Committee; Mike Rogers (R-AL), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.

Investment in Iron Dome has never been more important, given our lack of leadership in the Middle East that has created a dangerous void easily filled by Isis on one side and the Russians on the other. With billions of post-sanction dollars flowing into Iran courtesy of the nuclear deal, Iran may well increase their own investment in Hezbollah in the form of upgraded weapons.

Those same weapons could easily make their way south to Gaza. With anti-Jewish bloodlust on the rise in Israel, missiles may, God forbid, soon become the new knives. And how long before they get their hands on biological or radioactive payloads?

All the more reason to keep close tabs on your representatives and senators. Thank them if they have already boosted Iron Dome. If not, ask them to close their eyes and picture themselves dashing to one of those sealed rooms in the middle of the night as a piercing siren sounds.

Originally Published: The Observer

All Lives Matter

By: Eli Verschleiser

It’s heartbreaking to see a movement in 2015 based on the slogan Black Lives Matter. It seems a throwback to the days of the civil rights struggle in the 60s. Fundamental truths should never have to be asserted through slogans.

It’s equally alarming when the president of the United States feels compelled to say, as Barack Obama did last week, that “Targeting police officers is completely unacceptable — an affront to civilized society.” Does any rational person believe otherwise?

Modern America is an overwhelmingly tolerant and sensitive society, with better rights and protections for all than any other country, but we still somehow manage to seem like a balkanized, deeply divided place.

The most disturbing phenomenon of all is what seems like a back-and-forth between Black Lives Matter and Police Lives Matter camps. This takes on a more volatile tone after a white cop in Texas was shot by a black suspect, possibly having been targeted just because of his uniform. He leaves behind a wife and two small children. A similar incident happened in New York City late last year, leaving two victims.

There have, of course, been numerous incidents in the past year or so involving black suspects or detainees who have died at the hands of police, some resulting in charges against the officers, others bringing no action and some still under investigation. I will not delve into any of these highly emotionally charged cases, several involving video extensively aired before the public.

I will only say that it’s important to study each case individually – the circumstances, the people involved on both sides of the altercation, the timing and every conceivable detail. They should not automatically fall into a narrative that cops view any life as less precious because of race.

It’s important to consider that police officers simply do not inhabit the same world and think the same as civilians who are never called upon to risk their lives. It’s easy to expect them to always calmly and rationally make decisions in a split second as if they had hours to contemplate their response and consult with others, as most of us generally have the luxury of doing in matters of far less consequence. People in dangerous situations can sometimes act in ways completely inconsistent with their usual character, including cops when they perceive their lives to be in danger.

What may not appear to be a life threatening situation in the calm viewing of a video appears completely different to the officer who carries a photo of his family, or a prayer, inside his hat and leaves the house every day fearful that he or she will not make it back.

This, of course, is not a blanket excuse for the behavior of all cops. Stress and danger come with the territory. But just as it would be wrong to assume all cops involved violent encounters with black suspects, detainees or innocent bystanders are inherently racist, it would be just as foolish to assume that this is never the case.

There are people who become cops for the wrong reason – drawn to power and authority for its own sake, not as a means to an altruistic end. There are good cops influenced by bad superiors or peers. And there are cops who grow up with bad perceptions of minorities -- influenced to some extent by selective news coverage, pop culture and lack of personal experience -- who never shake off their biases. It’s also important to recognize that bad cops aren’t inherently white, as black officers have recently been charged in violence against black suspects, notably in the Baltimore Freddy Gray case.

Better training and increasingly diverse police forces may, in the long term, address some of the biases and public scrutiny will inevitably force cops to be more conscious of street confrontations, how they respond to them and which ones may be unnecessary in the first place. (Do untaxed cigarettes really warrant an armed task force?)

Body cameras, already being phased in in Dallas and Los Angeles, will likely one day be standard issue along with the gun and badge. I worry that this technology, while it stands to benefit cops by vindicating their actions in some situations, can have a detrimental effect in causing hesitation to get involved in avoidable situations for fear of making a bad call and having it immortalized.

Technology can make a better contribution: Non-lethal weapons -- which can range from Tasers (already widely in use) to blunt-force projectile guns, chemical agents and even flashing, disorienting light -- have the power to immobilize a civilian and put a quick end to a confrontation without the mortal consequences.

Cops should still carry conventional guns to match force with force when needed, but the non-lethal option could greatly reduce the number of police-related fatalities while still getting criminals off the street and into custody. And, there’s a margin of error that can result in lawsuits, but not funerals.

At the end of the day, it’s important for us all to avoid being dragged into opposing camps, but instead stand behind the single most timely slogan: All Lives Matter.

Lewd Awakening: Clean Up Times Square by Taxing Naked Nuisances

By: Eli Verschleiser

When I was growing up, Times Square was a seedy place full of adult movie theaters, greasy fast food joints, video game arcades and souvenir shops that – open secret -- also made and sold fake IDs.

In the early 90s, started under Mayor David Dinkins and continued under his successor Rudy Giuliani, the makeover began and all those mom and pop businesses were swept away, replaced by big chain stores and restaurants and media headquarters for Reuters, MTV, ABC and Conde Nast.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg took the beautification a step further in his reign, sealing off a large section of Broadway to traffic and creating a place for tourists to dine, hang out between shopping and matinees and take in the view and excitement from the Crossroads of the World.

Now, the Square is once again in danger of becoming the kind of place you can’t take your kids. It started with the aggressive panhandlers in Elmo costumes, some of whom have displayed unstable and even violent behavior. But even when they behave it’s a nuisance to traverse the area when every four feet a costumed character wants to snap a picture with you for a buck. Mayor Bloomberg wisely recognized the legal reality that you can’t stop people from free commerce or dressing any way they please, and pretty much left the situation alone.

Now comes the scantily clad women who make Vegas showgirls look overdressed. Perhaps inspired by the novelty of the Naked Cowboy, who has been raking in the dough for years (not in fact fully naked), an influx of entrepreneurial women are taking advantage of a 1992 state court decision that there is no fundamental difference between a man or women going shirtless in public. Parents of small children who feel otherwise may enter the area at their own risk.

It’s not just a matter of protecting young eyes. One of the women was reportedly arrested on Sept. 2 on drug and prostitution charges hours after a man accused two others of stealing his wallet. With complaints pouring into City Hall, Mayor Bill de Blasio has decried the situation and even put together a task force to address the problem.

Good luck. Since they are breaking no law, any effort to remove or restrict the women or their overdressed Muppet or superhero counterparts will land the city in court, bringing us back to the days when Mayor Giuliani frequently fought losing battles with civil liberties groups. The women can easily declare themselves performance artists and invoke their Constitutional right to free speech, commerce and assembly.

Bill de Blasio may also see fit to reopen the Square to traffic and let cabs and buses do his dirty work.

But there’s a better way to address the problem: Let them work. But make it expensive. After all, the main appeal of this kind of work is the low overhead.

As we know all too well, the city can tax and regulate almost anything it wants. It already taxes hotels, taxis and street vendors. What if the performers had to get on waiting list for a limited number of permits, with a fee and taxes? Every street vendor in NYC does.

Right now the performance artists are only subject to personal income tax on their earnings. To get their permit renewed, they’d have to show they met their tax obligations.

Bill de Blasio and City Council should earmark the proceeds for specific and related purposes. How about paying for the increased sanitation and police service necessitated by the upswing in tourist activity thanks to these performance artists.

My City Council sources tell me there is no reason this scenario can’t happen. All it would take is appropriate legislation, required registration of the vendors/artists/panhandlers or whatever you want to call them, and then collection. So instead of cops chasing them away or sticking them in penned off areas, the city could just send a team of tax collectors to make sure everyone is paying their share.

Shave 20 percent off the day’s cash earnings, and I can almost guarantee you this pesky population of performers will trickle down in no time. Here’s a chance for bureaucracy to improve quality of life, for a change.

This won’t happen any time soon, since nothing gets passed in City Hall without vigorous debate (as it should be), a bunch of partisan bickering and obstruction and perhaps a lawsuit or two. (Remember, Bloomberg couldn’t quite get his soda ban passed.)

But in the interim there is one unstoppable force waiting in the wings in the coming months that is guaranteed, at least for the short term, to remove the naked nuisance from Times Square and bring some modesty back.

Its called winter.

Originally Published: The Huffington Post

Israel and its Sunni Partners - Should Israel and its Arab neighbors form an alliance ?

By: Eli Verschleiser

Could a nuclear deal with Iran accomplish more than decades of diplomacy in the Middle East and, rather ironically, create new alliances between Israel and Arab neighbors?

That’s a key question as we gear up for the battle on Capitol Hill over President Barack Obama’s controversial pact with Tehran to limit uranium enrichment in return for lifting of sanctions. Critics say the agreement paves the way for a double reward of Tehran— a huge influx of cash and an eventual, unfettered path toward nuclear arms.

Neither the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, nor the United Arab Emirates or for that matter any of the other Persian Gulf states are too excited about the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. The role of Iran in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, and the rise of Islamic State terror and the Muslim Brotherhood, have become a much bigger problem for Arab leaders than the tired conflict with Israel. Those countries have a Sunni majority, while Persian Iran is led by rival Shia Muslims.

Iran, of course, is also a major oil rival for the Gulf States and became more powerful following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

The Saudis have been publicly moderate on the deal but said to be privately angry over it. Epitomizing the old Middle East adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the Saudis were reported to have offered Israel the ability to use their airspace to strike at Iran. This is a crucial step in keeping a military option on the table as it would save time and fuel if such a strike were necessary. “The Saudi authorities are completely coordinated with Israel on all matters related to Iran,” a European official was quoted as saying in an Israeli TV report.

Clearly momentum for alignment with Israel in some form is building.

“To all those who think the Persian state, and the regime of the Rule of the Imprudent… the dictatorial fascist Persian regime which controls it, is a friendly country, whereas Israel is an enemy country, I say that a prudent enemy is better than an imprudent one.”

Those words were written by Abdallah Al-Hadlaq in the official newspaper of Kuwait, Al-Watan.

It is not the first time the author has expressed support for ties with Israel. As far back as 2009 he called on his government and other Gulf states to put aside their differences with Jerusalem and forge an alliance against Iran.

But the fact that his column was published in a government daily in a country without full press freedom speaks volumes.

“The state of Israel and its various governments have waged more than five wars with the Arabs, yet never in the course of these wars did Israel think to use its nuclear weapons against its Arab enemies,” Al-Hadlaq wrote. “Conversely, if the Persian state, with its stupid, rash and fascist regime that hides behind a religious guise, ever develops nuclear weapons, it will not hesitate to use nuclear bombs against the Arab Gulf states in the first conflict that arises.”

Were the Saudis to show leadership in rallying other Sunni-led states against Iran it could have a significant impact on a new order in the Middle East.

Furthermore the new coalition could collectively work wonders to get rid of ISIS, as Jordan’s King Abdullah recently declared in a CNN interview that the war against ISIS ‘is our war’. The Iranian nuclear threat and the ISIS threat can top the agenda in this new coalition.

“Iran does have enough politico-military and economic potential to counter-balance Saudi led “Sunni” states in the Middle East and beyond,” wrote Salman Rafi Sheikh in an essay for the magazine Eastern Outlook last March. “It is precisely for this very reason that Saudi Arabia’s anxiety about an agreement has fueled a flurry of intense diplomacy in recent days to bolster unity among “Sunni” states in the Middle East in the face of “shared threats”, especially those emanating from Iran.”

Rafi Sheikh, a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, noted that “this deal is most likely to send political jolts across the entire Middle Eastern political landscape, with Saudi Arabia and Israel standing as the most sensitive areas to bear its shocks; and as such, are most likely to clutch their hands into an alliance against Iran, and by default, against the US ambitions as well.”

There is great potential for Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to rally Gulf states as well as Turkey, Egypt and Jordan to stand up to an Iran that will only become more emboldened with the huge influx of post-sanctions billions and new political bona-fides that will make Tehran bolder.

Increased security cooperation as Iran bides its time for an eventual bomb --after the agreement period, or in the worst-case scenario, in violation of the agreement -- may eventually lead to more nuclear proliferation in the region.

Will that mean a nuclear pact between Israel and its former enemies? That will be a fascinating development that could never have been imagined even a decade ago.

And it will truly be a sad irony if, after nearly 70 years of a solid relationship between the United States and Israel, the Jewish state had to turn to despotic regimes with little or no human rights to solidify its security position, feeling far less than confident that Washington has its back than it has in the past.

However this may simply be the beginning of an Arabic Israeli accord where both groups can begin to understand and accept each other.

Originally Published: The Hill

The Public Figures We Think We Know

By: Eli Verschleiser

“Baby I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream,” sings Taylor Swift in one of her pop songs.

Don’t believe it. The chart-topping Swift is widely known as one of the world’s nicest celebrities and regularly nurtures that image. When a couple tweeted that they became engaged at one of her concerts, she invited them backstage. After an encounter with some fans in a New York Park, she handed them $80 for lunch. And in perhaps her most touching moment, Swift recently donated $50,000 to a preteen fan fighting cancer after seeing her crowd-funding video.

While that donation surely was a smart business move as an investment in her wholesome brand, it shows she indisputably has heart and cares about being viewed that way. She was also branded as a champion of fellow musicians, including thousands far less successful, when she demanded last month that Apple pay royalties during a trial period for its new music subscription service, effectively forcing the world’s richest corporation to open its wallet.

This conflicts with so many other stars who are nightmares in real life and package themselves as wholesome.

For decades Bill Cosby pulled the wool over our eyes, portraying a wise and noble dad on TV, doling out sage advice to his son and daughters, and speaking out on moral issues, when apparently all that time he was a relentless sexual predator who abused women by drugging them.

Accusations against him are now bolstered by the revelation of a deposition in a civil trial, sealed but recently leaked, in which he seems to have admitted drugging women. He faces a civil trail in California, sued by a woman who says he abused her as a teenager.

Cosby’s career is finished, as well it should be. OJ Simpson may get an endorsement deal or TV work sooner than Cosby will.

It leaves me pondering the enigma of the people we think we know, and obsess over, watching their reality shows, poring over gossip magazines and tabloids that feature them, buying their products.

In this post-Howard Stern, social media world that seems constantly at war with boredom, it’s shock value that drives the discourse.

Which brings us to another “Trainwreck.” That’s the name of Amy Schumer’s hit movie, which has propelled her from obscure comedian to a queen of the summer box office with a respectable opening of over $30 million.

It has also cast a spotlight on her early act’s irreverent segments on race and earned some criticism. In one bit she suggested being raped by Hispanic men, and in another she ridiculed African American names and mannerisms.

But was that really a glimpse, as her Comedy Central show is called, “Inside Amy Schumer?”

The key to success for any comedian is to push the envelope, which gets much increasingly harder now that off-color, lewd or bawdy jokes have become de rigueur. The last frontier for shock value is race. But that’s a minefield.

Every comic plays a character on stage and, news flash, very little of what they say actually happened to them or reflects on what they actually believe. It’s clear from the routines that Schumer was trying to inhabit the character of a ditsy, privileged white girl with a blind spot on race and ethnicity, rather than parade the fact that she is one.

The bottom line is that people in general are complex, showing good and bad sides in various occasions. Add in the element of being a public figure and the narcissism that comes with it, and the picture of who they are and what’s in their hearts and souls gets even more murky and complicated. It may well be that living in the public spotlight actually drives people nuts.

Which makes it even more refreshing to see a celebrity use her fame and fortune and pulpit to set examples of kindness and gratitude. Hopefully Taylor swift can send the message that you can thrive in the limelight and be a huge success without losing your soul in the process.

Originally Published: The Huffington Post

Unlikely ally in war against deniers: The Nazis

By: Eli Verschleiser

A trial that may well be the last case against a living Nazi for crimes against humanity will be full of haunting images. But none so much as the one that went viral last week of 81-year-old survivor Eva Kor seeming to embrace 93-year-old ex-SS officer Oskar Groening.

Oskar Groning as a young Auschwitz guard (left) and as an elderly man

Most of us cannot imagine being in the same room with a Nazi war criminal, let alone having a conversation with him. This incredible human being who lost her parents and sisters has decided to publicly forgive the Nazis as a way of empowering herself.

But it’s not just personal. In 1995 Kor, who lives in Terre Haute, Ind., convinced an infamous Nazi doctor, Hans Munch, to accompany her to Auschwitz, where he reportedly signed a letter affirming that the gas chambers there were used to exterminate Jews.

Groening, for his part, does not deny that he was in the SS and participated in Hitler’s final solution, not by directly murdering anyone, but as a pencil-pusher who channeled stolen money for the benefit of the Third Reich. That is, of course, not insignificant. It took a massive bureaucratic operation for the killing machine to run smoothly, and money was at the heart of it. That is, forcing the Jews to essentially finance their own genocide.

At any time, Groening could have refused to participate, albeit likely at the expense of his life, or simply tried to escape to the Allies, as we hope any moral person would do. But like so many others, most infamously the top facilitator Adolf Eichmann, Groening just followed orders. He says he requested a transfer from Auschwitz, but was denied.

New German laws intended to punish the last surviving Nazis now allow those who did not directly commit violence to be prosecuted along with those who pulled triggers, operated the gas chambers, or committed other acts of murder.

Groening has spoken out in great detail about what he remembers from those dark days more than 70 years ago, atrocities he witnessed that I will not recount here. He does not proclaim innocence or even ask for mercy.

“It is beyond question that I am morally complicit,” he said at the trial opening, attended by more than 60 plaintiffs, according to media reports. “This moral guilt I acknowledge here, before the victims, with regret and humility. I ask for forgiveness. You have to decide my legal culpability.”

Holocaust researchers say it is unprecedented to have an SS witness so willing to testify to his own crimes and those of the German people and the Nazis. No doubt, he is trying to avoid dying in prison. But whatever sentence is meted out by the German court, part of it should require that he spend the rest of his days testifying in painstaking detail for the historical record not only what he did and what he saw, but what went through his mind at the time.

It could be of great historical value to have some small insight into the enduring mystery of how so many people were caught up in the storm of relentless hatred and scapegoating that ignited the Holocaust in the 1930s and kept it burning until the Allies’ victory.

That testimony should be added to archives, along with the Nazis’ own meticulous documents, as many as 50 million pages, many of which are now publicly available. Convinced, of course, that the war would end differently, they were deeply proud of their evil work and wanted to preserve it for history, and individual ambitious Nazi officers most likely produced records -- of deportations, mass killings and confiscated property – they felt would benefit their miserable careers.

It never seemed to worry these arrogant psychopaths that the documents could one day be used against them in war crimes trials.

Of course, all the survivor and perpetrator testimony in the world, all the photos and film footage, even the remains of Auschwitz and other camps won’t convince Holocaust deniers here and in the Middle East. Their hatred of Jews and Israel create willful ignorance immune to objective research and logic.

The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has a long history of negating history, claiming that the Jews pulled one over on the world to manipulate their way into Palestine.

The leaders of Iran, as they threaten Israel with a nuclear version of the Holocaust, have been all over the map on the German genocide, with some saying it’s a myth, others calling for more study. Holocaust denial was a core belief of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who left office in 2013. His successor is more moderate on the topic. But in March of 2014, “supreme leader” Ayatollah Ali Khameni was quoted as saying ““The Holocaust is an event whose reality is uncertain and if it has happened, it’s uncertain how it has happened.”

Maybe instead of throwing Oskar Groening in jail, President Obama could bring him along on his next nuclear negotiation session to teach the Iranians a thing or two about how and what happened.

If he fails to do so, kind souls like Eva Kor may forgive. But the rest of us ought to demand much more accountability.

Originally Published: The Hill