Coming to America

n the Netherlands, we were very concerned about being swallowed up by the gulag, the network of some 40,000 forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. Though exact numbers are not known, these camps were reputed to have held millions of people during and after Joseph Stalin's regime. Harsh conditions, including overwork and starvation, led to the deaths of an estimated thirty million people over this time.

At this time, Papa had gone to the United States to see what kind of business opportunities existed there. Because of the general American acceptance of Jews, he felt that America was a good country. My father spent two weeks in New York with the only relatives he had left there.

In America, Papa hoped to find a distributor for a line of Holland-made souvenirs: silver cufflinks in the shape of wooden shoes; a coin holder with a sliding top for nickels, dimes, and quarters; sterling silver sticks on stainless steel, spring-loaded key ring; and an exact copy of a Draaiorgels, a mechanical street organ.

This last item would have been truly impressive. Draaiorgels and other mechanical musical instruments were very popular in Holland between 1850 and 1920. The home page (Kring van Draairorgelvrienden (K.V.D.) indicates that the traditional draaiorgel has a keyboard but no human player. Instead, the device uses a moving music pattern: a barrel with small pins, a disc with these same kinds of nails, or a piece of cardboard or paper with holes in it iii—the K.V.D. notes the exciting nature of the draaiorgel player: Because a person must create these musical patterns, mechanical musical instruments do have "players"—although these players sit at the drawing board! My Papa's draaiorgel would have been 1/8 of the original size—twelve inches wide and eight inches high. However, my father did not speak English well, and he dropped the idea of an import business in the United States.

He returned disappointed about how little the Americans knew about the suffering of the Jews in Holland during the Nazi occupation. Papa's feelings were closer to the conservative viewpoints, and he had strong reservations about moving to America. However, news from Eastern Europe was also wrong. Papa was relieved to be back in Holland. It was his home, where his family was. Papa was a hero in his small town of Benningbroek, a suburb of Hoorn, and he had made a comfortable life for himself with a beautiful house and his love of gardening.

German parents had worked with prewar American industrial giants like Standard Oil and Shell Oil. These industrial connections seemed tainted with corruption when I discovered that some of these students had gotten American visas with relative ease and that others changed their names, supposedly to make them sound more like English.

I found myself growing confused about what success in America meant at that time, a state that filled my head with even more questions. With all its faults, America still seemed like a country where a young person like me could start a new life, and I wanted to learn as much as I could about it. I read some history and decided to read the biographies of prewar industrial giants and understand crucial American corporations' backgrounds. I was shocked. Although I could never prove my suspicions, I began to conclude that the long fingers of the Fascist legacy had reached into the United States.

At the time, many might have said that the American system of democracy would spread worldwide. "There are those, however, who argue that the American form of 'democracy' has little to do with genuine democratic representation but instead more closely resembles a revolving fascist dictatorship beholden to the interests of a wealthy elite and big business. This elite is often challenging to identify, although many get their starts in secret university societies.

William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Kennedy, John Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Allen Dulles, Prescott Bush, to name a few) were some of the few American magnates whose Nazi connections I discovered in my research. Similarly, I was stunned to learn that American corporate heavyweights like DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil, I.T.T., National City Bank, and General Electric contributed to the Nazi regime.

Particular examples of American-Nazi ties were still more shocking to me. For example, "in October 1938, Göring, acting on behalf of the Fuehrer, presented Charles Lindbergh with the Service Cross of the German Eagle for his contributions to aviation via." General Motors and Ford built almost all of the armored 3-ton half-trucks and most medium- and heavy-duty trucks used by the Nazis in World War II. "Graeme K. Howard, Vice President of General Motors, wrote and published America and a New World Order and argued that America should cooperate with the Nazis." The DuPonts financed the Black Legion, an American Nazi group that used violence against unions and was connected to the Ku Klux Klan. And William Randolph Hearst was a steadfast supporter of the Nazi party.

My most disheartening discovery involved Thomas J. Watson and the Hollerith number tattoos. In 1933, Watson, the head executive of I.B.M., leased to the Nazis data-sorting computers that used IBM's Hollerith punch card technology. These computers enabled the Nazis to identify, find and collect the victims of the Holocaust. The numbers tattooed on the Jewish prisoners were of the Hollerith numbering systems! Adolph Hitler awarded Watson a medal for his contribution.

Watson's early career demonstrates criminal behavior and lack of ethics pervasive in the United States between the wars. When the Nazis seized power, like many other American entrepreneurs, Watson saw an opportunity to expand Germany. In the depths of the Great Depression, Watson increased IBM's investments in Germany by nearly a million dollars. Even more economically gratifying for him was the secret pact he concluded in October 1933, founding Dehomag, a German IBM. subsidiary, and giving it commercial powers beyond the borders of Germany. Previously, all IBM. subsidiaries had been confined to a single country. With Dehomag now established as the de facto "IBM Europe," the Nazis could conduct statistical services throughout Europei. In effect, Watson had established a cartel much like I.G. Farben's.

In an attempt to justify Watson's—and IBM's—dealings with the Nazis, many suggest that Watson was not a Fascist but simply a ruthless businessman. Evidence, however, indicates that if Watson was not a Fascist, he was, at the very least, a great admirer of Fascism. At a 1937 sales convention, Watson said, "I want to pay tribute (to the) great leader, Benito Mussolini. I have followed the details of his work very carefully since he assumed leadership. Evidence of his leadership can be seen on all sides. Mussolini is a pioneer. Italy is going to benefit greatly." That is not the only evidence of Watson's support and admiration for Fascism. He also had an autographed picture of Mussolini hanging in his living room for years. Watson was quoted as saying, "We should pay tribute to Mussolini for establishing this spirit of loyal support."

Henry Ford's ties to the Nazi party are equally well-documented. Hitler cited Ford as his inspiration in a 1933 interview he gave to a Detroit News reporter two years before becoming Chancellor of Germany. The Nazi government also awarded Ford the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal for foreigners; Ford received this award in July 1938, four months after the Germans annexed Austria. Ford was unsupportive of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, and he did not think the United States should be involved in the war. During the war, Henry Ford had almost no communication with the War Production Board. Instead, Edsel Ford and other associates worked with the Board between 1939 and 1943. Even after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Henry Ford did not want his factories used for war work. When Edsel Ford died in 1943, Henry Ford took over the control of the company again. But he refused to return the Grand Cross medal he had received from the Nazis.

In a still-more-shocking post-war gesture, Ford and IBM. demanded that the U.S. government reimburse their companies for the loaned assets destroyed in the war. And we, the American people, paid them!

American academia also made an intellectual contribution to the Nazi project. The Nazi party was incredibly impressed with American scientists' study of eugenics, which claimed that social ills resulted from genetic inferiority, not social conditions. In 1907, Indiana first legalized forced sterilization of the inferior—the poor, the imprisoned, and the mentally ill. The Rockefeller Foundation funded and endorsed eugenics programs. We cannot understate the effect that American eugenics studies had on the ultimate success of the Nazi program.

My studies filled me with questions. My faith was fractured, and America seemed filled with flaws. The Nazis were pro-Christian and anti-Communist—certainly anti-Marxist. They imprisoned atheists and labor leaders—a fact that sounded right-wing to me. Because the Nazis embraced the Catholic Church—a Church that had embraced Hitler—I wondered if I should consider Christianity itself Fascist. I asked, too, why the Nazis viewed "liberals" as their enemies.

However, America and its flaws were still preferable to be swallowed up by Stalin's gulag.

I had to make changes for myself in Holland. I had committed to Holland's army, I had a family who loved me, and I had a girlfriend as well. I wanted to live up to the very forthrightness and integrity Papa had taught me and which I so admired in him, so I had no choice but to say goodbye to my homeland. Papa so dearly wanted me to help carry on his business, but an internal voice said, "Go to America, my young man." The hardest part was knowing that I would disappoint my mother.

My mother has been my inspiration. My family in Holland was very patriotic, intensely devoted to Holland. My mother worked in the Dutch Resistance during World War II, but her other love was the Jewish people besides Holland. She dreamed that I would go to Israel, where she saw the true beginnings of our collective Jewish future.

However, I chose to disregard my mother's wishes and go directly to America. My mother would see me leave home again as a young man. Much like my father before me, I was nervous about what I would find in America. We all knew that during the Holocaust, American Jews wanted to help their European brethren. Few, however, knew the extent of the suffering European Jews had endured. American Jews were also unaware of the U.S. State Department's involvement in the obstruction and delay of supply shipments to send aid to Jewish children in Europe.

My mother wanted to understand the reason for some losses at the stores. She decided to hire a famous psychic who was highly regarded and well known for his work in international cases. The psychic's son went to my school. At the University of Utrecht in Holland, his field is called extrasensory perception (E.S.P.). It involves the reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind, so my mother asked the psychic for his help. Mama went to pick the new psychic up at the University of Utrecht and a Dutch police department detective. The detective was not allowed to question people until there was a reason. First, the psychic asked for handwriting samples from each and photographs of each employee,

While the psychic investigator tried to solve our theft problem, my mother also asked him to read about Salomon Cardozo. In his reading, the psychic used personal items, like photographs, handwriting samples, and handkerchiefs. He was able to tell us the beginning of Salomon's story, but his reading ended when Salomon jumped off the train in Poland.

Like Salomon, Jews who found themselves behind the Iron Curtain, especially in Russia, found themselves under a completely different type of oppression. Stalin had decided that anyone who had contact with the virus called "the West" had to be sent to Siberia. In Stalin's eyes, these people were contaminated and had no place in Russian society. The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn describes Siberia at this time.

I learned more about the gulag from Rabbi Avraham Greenwald, who had also been imprisoned in Russia. The commander of Rabbi Avraham Greenwald's camp was a Jew. One day, he called Rabbi Avraham Greenwald and told him that he could tell that he was innocent; he did not belong there. But there was only one possible way to get out, he told him. "Write a note and address it to Lazar Kaganovich, telling him how you were forced into the labor battalion, etc." Kaganovich was Stalin's brother-in-law, a member of the politburo—and he was Jewish, too. (He was also a kohen or priest!) The commander told Rabbi Avraham Greenwald that he would make sure the note got to Kaganovich.

The penalty for writing such a note was instant execution. Often, guards convinced prisoners to write a message—and then shot them for writing the letter. Despite the danger, Rabbi Avraham Greenwald wrote the note. About four months later, an official car drove into the camp with a high-ranking officer. They lined up all the prisoners and then announced that prisoner Greenwald was there by mistake. However, the official said he would not free Rabbi Avraham Greenwald until he had told him who had smuggled the note out of the camp.

For an entire week, Rabbi Avraham Greenwald made believe that he didn't know how the note had gotten out. Finally, the officials put him on a train headed for the Romanian border, where they pushed him off as the train moved. But he survived and made it to Canada.

I wondered about Salomon Cardozo and Rabbi Avraham Greenwald, who had escaped from moving trains during the war. My wife Lenore told me that she only remembered seeing padlocks on the Nazi trains, and it was interesting that some people had managed to escape these death camp trains. Recently, I read about another young woman, Eva Galler, who survived the Holocaust by jumping off a death camp train. She was on the train with her brother, sister, and best friend, but there were also many others. Eva Galler and her group planned to escape the train by jumping out of the small windows and running. They all knew that the S.S. officers would shoot at them, but that was a risk they were willing to take. Eva survived, and so did her best friend, but her brother and sister were shot dead.

Estimates vary, but there were approximately 250,000 Jews in the concentration camps when World War II ended. Many liberated survivors had no choice but to remain in the very camps where they were imprisoned. Instead of concentration camps, they were now Displaced Persons (DP) camps, and they were displaced persons.

Before the war, Salomon and Else had owned a menswear shop, S.A.S. (Strong as Steel), in Roermond Limburg. After the war, Else and a partner reopened the store. Else's daughter, Emmy, had also been in hiding during the war. She had been with a family in Brabant, and she had the same difficulty as my cousin Ernest did in going back to her mother, my Aunt Else. Emmy came to live with us in Benningbroek during the next school season.

The psychic found three persons he thought should be questioned, and he selected the lowest-paid worker of the three: a gardener/delivery man. The psychic called this person of interest into his presence and started a conversation with him. After a few minutes of talking, the psychic called in the detective but did not tell the person of interest that he was a detective. The psychic told the detective not to say anything until he shifted his notebook from one hand to the other. That gesture meant that the detective could start reading the man his rights.

The psychic began to question the man of interest, and the man of interest began to sing. He had only stolen two pairs of pants. Now the police could ask him for up to twenty-four hours. The man broke down and told the police that he was stealing from the accountant; he would deliver the stolen money after paying for two. The copy of the sales slip had no carbon and was always made out by the accountant. So now, the accountant was called in. He had no way to deny he had stolen several hundred thousand guilders over the years. Papa did not want to charge either man, but he knew that they had spent everything on luxury items and entertainment, So Mama and Papa took the police reports to the tax department to get a write-off.

Friction was setting in among the members of the Cardozo clan. There had been friction between Papa and Ido since 1953, but now, Ido changed his name to Ido Fortuin. Papa had opened a store for him in Alkmaar and built him an apartment behind the store. Ido had moved into the apartment with his new wife, Dora, and then taken a honeymoon for two weeks. Friction set in when Ido's wife locked all of the cabinets throughout their living room. Mama did not like this but said nothing.

However, shortly after their honeymoon, Mama became very upset with Ido's wife. She had blamed Mama for not getting Ido part of his natural father's assets. Mama said, "We got you an apartment, and later on, the store will be yours," but Dora did not like those terms. Dora asked her father to help them get a new house away from the store. Their first baby was born, and more friction came to light; a cash shortage and merchandise started to make Ido's firm the first family business with a loss. Nobody could explain this loss.

Now, two of Papa's sons were active, and my mother wanted to understand the reason for the loss at Ido's store. She decided to hire a famous psychic who was highly regarded and well-known for his work in international cases. The psychic's son went to my school. At the University of Utrecht in Holland, his field is called extrasensory perception (E.S.P.). It involves the reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. When my mother asked the psychic for his help, he said that he was working on some cases for the University of Utrecht and could recommend another person as good as he was. Mama went to pick the new psychic up at the University of Utrecht and a Dutch police department detective. The detective was not allowed to question people until there was a reason. First, the psychic asked for handwriting samples from each and photographs of each employee, so Mama got that information.

My brother and I were not informed, but Mama thought that we might as well be investigated for the sake of the business. My brother and I never knew anything about what she was doing, but the psychic started his work. It was with the help of the local police department and the documents. I later learned the psychic report about me: honest but sloppy in handling paperwork.

The psychic found three persons who he thought should be questioned, and he selected the lowest-paid worker of the three: a gardener/delivery man. The psychic called this person of interest into his presence and started a conversation with him. After a few minutes of talking, the psychic called in the detective but did not tell the person of interest that he was a detective. The psychic told the detective not to say anything until he shifted his notebook from one hand to the other. That gesture meant that the detective could start reading the man his rights.

The psychic began to question the man of interest, and the man of interest began to sing. He had only stolen two pairs of pants. Now the police could interview him for up to twenty-four hours. The man broke down and told the police that he was stealing from the accountant; he would deliver the stolen money after paying for two. The copy of the sales slip had no carbon and was always made out by the accountant. So now, the accountant was called in. He had no way to deny he had stolen several hundred thousand guilders over the years. Papa did not want to charge either man, but he knew that they had spent everything on luxury items and entertainment, So Mama and Papa took the police reports to the tax department to get a write-off. Then, Papa and Mama hired professional managers for each store, with the proper textile licenses and university graduate papers.

Papa went back to selling his trade on the road. His new staff helped set up a complete line of ladies and men's leisure clothing. Papa's suits were replaced by rayon and nylon clothing, as fashion had taken a 180-degree turn. Things changed very fast among this new generation, making their own money and buying their clothes. Papa and I no longer interfered with Ido and did not create any friction with him. I was ready to leave the Cardozo business soon, and Ido went away to work with his father-in-law.

So I was happy to leave Holland. I was also excited to go because most young people my age had become somewhat wild, with long hair and broken-down jeans. A whole new generation was born, and it was not my taste.

The solution to my dilemma came in the form of an offer from the United States Army. My language studies qualified me for a terrific job as a French and English interpreter. I already had good feelings toward the U.S. Army; like many people of my time, I felt they had helped save my life. So I jumped at their offer.

I was drafted into the Dutch army on September 6, 1955. My army number was 37 01 11 062. When I received authorization to serve in the U.S. Army, my mother and I made arrangements to buy an airline ticket from Amsterdam to New York. She kept saying, "Max, I have seen you so little, and now you are going to fly away like a bird. We are going to miss you."

The day of my departure arrived, and whatever family we had left after the war came to the airport and said goodbye. Like a big boy, I got on Board the Lockheed Super Constellation Triton. Our first stop was for refueling at Shannon. At the Shannon airport, hundreds of adults sent their children off to other countries to protect them from the struggle between the Protestants and the Catholics in Ireland. The Protestants believed they were the majority and that the Catholic minority did not exist. The two sides were battling it out, and the children were suffering. I could not understand. We had just ended a war with Germany, and now, I could see hatred in yet another country. Watching these young ones holding onto their parents was a sad sight.

Hours later, I arrived at the Idyllwild airport in New York. It was very noisy. Bull horns and loudspeakers blared from all directions, announcing taxis, buses, and pages. It was so loud that I felt like an animal ready for the slaughterhouse,

Before leaving Holland, I received authorization to leave the Dutch army as long as I received army training in the United States. However, before I made this move, I wanted to spend some time with Americans, the people I would later live with and for whom I would soon work. First, I had to finish my schooling.

I have now been back seven years, and I have even found America changed. It is as though after the baby boomers came of age as individuals and became scholars with widely varying opinions, both technically and culturally, they rejected or redefined the traditional values of older and younger generations. The baby boomers were among the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time; they tended to think of themselves as a unique generation, very different from those that had come before.

The baby boomers had started a generation built on easy credit, and the Clinton days reminded me of the Roaring Twenties. The 1990s was the decade when Internet and e-commerce technologies emerged. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Wall Street's successes and the Dotcom boom symbolized the period, and the baby boomers became revolutionaries like those we had seen during the Roaring Twenties. The phrase "Roaring Twenties" emphasized the period's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism.

The Clinton years were followed up by the administration of the weak President George Bush, whose two terms began in 2001 and ended in 2009. During his time in office, he was seriously damaged because of the al-Qaeda bombings of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and by the plane that crashed in rural Pennsylvania. These events were too much for one man to handle. Things go out of hand. I trusted Bush's White House team to take some of the pressure away after these terrible events. They made tons of companies to invest in, and many investors thought they could make a considerable profit by putting lots of money into them. At this time, there was also a housing bubble—an enhanced demand for real estate, especially housing, that is often created through artificial means, such as a lowering of interest rates. The housing bubble started an economic boom, but it ended in times of hardship.

Because Bush did not have the military experience his father did, these were hard times to make decisions. They executed the Iraq war brilliantly, but it dragged on for too long. The military did not have the proper intel on hand to make the right decisions. On top of all of these problems, Katrina happened, and they ruined it as well.

We now have a new generation of presidents in Biden. He would like to bring the Americans a step down as the world's leaders, and he plans to follow this step-down with the new world order. However, coming from a nation that needed Americans in a leadership role, I realize that a world without America as a world power will not work. But the American voters wanted to vote for a change in leadership. They got it, so life in America is about to change.

I hope I'm wrong and that we are not all in for a time of turmoil, but I am not sure how we will all come out.

Thinking back to my days as a child and as a youth, I wonder what it was that made the world tumble into destruction. The German Jews, brilliant, cultured, and cosmopolitan as they were, were too complacent. They had been in Germany so long and were so well-established, they simply couldn't believe there was going to be a crisis that would endanger them. They were too comfortable. They thought that the Nazis' anti-Semitism was an episodic event and that Hitler's bark was worse than his bite. This complacency caused them to react sluggishly to Hitler's rise for entirely understandable but tragically erroneous reasons. Events moved much faster than they could imagine. That is one of the most tragic examples of the devastating effects of the "normalcy bias" the world has ever seen.

Just think about what was going on at the time. Jews were arrested, beaten, taxed, robbed, and jailed for no reason other than that they practiced a particular religion. As a result, they were shipped off to concentration camps. They seized their houses and businesses.

Yet, most Jews still did not leave Nazi Germany because they couldn't believe that things would get as bad as they did. That's the normalcy bias and with devastating results.

We saw the same thing happen during Hurricane Katrina. Even as it became clear that the levee system was not going to work, tens of thousands of people stayed in their homes, directly in the line of the oncoming waves of water. People had never seen things get this bad before. So they didn't believe it could happen. As a result, nearly 2,000 residents died.

Again. it's the "normalcy bias." We simply refuse to see the evidence right in front of our faces because it is unlike anything we have experienced before. As normalcy bias kicks in, we continue to go about our lives as if nothing is out of the ordinary.

Well, we see the same thing happen in the United States right now. We have been the world's most powerful country for nearly 100 years. The U.S. dollar has reigned supreme as the world's reserve currency for more than fifty years. Most of us in America cannot fathom these things are changing. But I promise you this: Things are changing - and faster than most people realize.

For a moment, look at a tiny fraction of the evidence around us.

Did you know that there are now nearly 38 million Americans on food stamps? That's almost 13% of the entire population. Those numbers are up 17.5% from last year - and the number of Americans on food stamps has gone up every month for 19 months. Can a country be in good shape when 13% of the population can't even afford to buy food?

Or how about our country's unique ability to simply print more money?

You see, the U.S. government has one essential weapon to use in this crisis: It is the only debtor in the world who can legally print U.S. dollars. And the U.S. dollar is what's known as "the world's reserve currency."

The dollar forms the basis of the world's financial system. It is what banks around the world hold in reserve against their loans.

That's a secret that most politicians don't understand: As things stand now, the U.S. government can't go broke in any ordinary sense of the word because it can simply print dollars to pay for its bad debts. (It's been doing so since March of 2009.) Printing money might sound pretty good at first. Since we can always print more money, why should we worry?

Well, let me show you.

You see, as things stand today, America is the only country in the world that doesn't have to pay for its imports in a foreign currency.

Let's say you're a German. and you want to buy oil from Saudi Arabia. You can't just pay for your oil in German marks (or Euros) because the oil is priced in dollars.

So you have to buy dollars first, then buy your oil.

And that means the value of the German currency is of great importance to the German Government. To maintain the value of its currency, Germans must produce at least as much as they consume from around the world; otherwise, the value of the German currency will begin to fall, causing prices to rise and its standard of living to decline.

But in America...?

We can consume as much as we want without worrying about acquiring the money to pay because our dollars are accepted worldwide. In short, for decades now, we haven't had to produce anything or export anything to get all the dollars we needed to buy all the oil (and other goods) our country required.

All we had to do was borrow the money.

And boy, did we.

Even as late as the 1970s, America was the world's largest creditor. But by the mid-1980s, we'd become a debtor to the world. And since the late 1990s, we've been the world's largest debtor.

Today, our government owes more money to more people than anyone else in the world.

I believe that foreign countries will either completely stop accepting dollars in repayment or significantly discount the value of these new dollars. I'm sure you think that sounds crazy, but as I'll show you, it is already happening.

One of the largest banks in Mexico no longer allows you to deposit U.S. dollars into their banks. They've done this on the heels of money-laundering allegations, but we suspect they also don't want to be stuck with tons of U.S. dollars as the currency continues to decline.

This move would have been unfathomable ten years ago that a big bank in Mexico would no longer accept U.S. dollars for deposit. But today, it is a harsh reality.

And Mexico is not the only place this is occurring.

Reuters reports that the same thing happened in 2008 in one of Europe's most popular tourist spots. In Amsterdam, currency exchange outlets have reportedly turned away customers who want to exchange their U.S. dollars for Euros.

One traveling American said as much to the Reuters news agency. "Our dollar is worth maybe zero over here," said Mary Kelly, an American tourist from Indianapolis, Indiana, in front of the Anne Frank house. "It's hard to find a place to exchange. We have to go downtown, to the central station or post office."

In India, the country's tourism minister said in 2008 that U.S. dollars would no longer be accepted at the country's heritage tourist sites, like the Taj Mahal. And the U.S. dollar is no longer good anywhere in Cuba.

The New York Times reports that "Now, many shops in China no longer accept dollar-based credit cards issued by foreign banks... and foreigners cannot convert American dollars into renminbi beyond a given quota."

Iran, of course, has already moved all of its reserves out of U.S. dollars, and Kuwait de-pegged its currency from the dollar a few years ago.

Bloomberg News recently reported that China and Russia plan to start trading in each other's currencies to diminish the dollar's role in global trade. "Given the risk to the dollar and U.S. assets from their fiscal position, they want to reduce their dependence on the dollar. It's not a matter of "if" the U.S. dollar will lose its status as the world's reserve currency. It's simply a matter of "when."

Why does the Middle East have so many problems? Why are they all manifesting themselves at the same time? Why now all of a sudden?

All our leaders are corrupt in the most corrupted way you can imagine. However, Tunisia was the first country to take action against this corruption, and its people succeeded in removing their dictator. That made its neighbors, specifically Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, the first to mark this question as attractive!

If you're talking about the many countries undergoing civil unrest, consider that many of these countries have cultural values that date back to the 14th century, even as modern as they are. Think of a society that has so little industry that very few people can work. Consider also that being in the Western world and holding its values is not valued by everyone in the world.

I think the Middle East was regarded as a stepping stone for foreign affairs for a very long time. The area famously enjoys many riches, its landscapes, oil, and several other minerals.

As you read in the Bible, Ezekiel 38 and 39, it isn't just the creation of the nation of Israel that makes this prophecy seem likely to be fulfilled shortly. The countries that God tells us will form this coalition against Israel seem more likely now than perhaps ever before to develop just such an alliance. To better understand the prophecies of Ezekiel about this future invasion, it's essential to understand who the players will be.

Dr. Jacques Gautier, a Canadian international lawyer, has done twenty years of research on the legal status of Jerusalem. He has written a dissertation of some 1,300 pages with 3,000 footnotes. The entire document is in a binder fourteen inches long, twelve inches wide, and four inches thick. Every page is supported by legal research. I asked Dr. Jacques Gautier how people can make decisions without having sufficient legal information and, specifically, why the United Nations and international courts are in the hands of fools and politicos. I wondered what feeds the writing of these fools and politicians.

Dr. Jacques Gautier is not Jewish, but he should be honored for his efforts and should be recognized as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations," just like my saviors after my time of hiding during World War II. I find it shameful that Jewish law professors worldwide sit back and let the Israeli situation fester while letting the world go by without notice. I wonder what they are waiting for.

Dr. Jacques Gautier explains that he has been practicing law for thirty years, twenty-five of which he has worked as an international human rights lawyer. He has made it his life's work to set this right.

Part of setting things right has been to correct the misinformation in a report spearheaded by South African judge Richard Goldstone. This report charges both Israel and Hamas with committing war crimes during the three-week operation launched by Israeli Defense Forces after Gaza sent over thousands of rockets from Gaza and the southern communities of Israel. Israel has rejected the Goldstone report.

Palestinian sources say they believed that the Consul General had passed on an unequivocal request from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ensure that the document remains on the table at the Human Rights Council. Palestinian officials say that there was "heavy and ongoing pressure" from the U.S., which warned that adopting the findings in the commission's report would impede the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

The comments on the Goldstone report by scholars like Dr. Jacques indicated that they had misrepresented the data and that it was not an honest report. Why did Dr. Jacques Gauther spend twenty-five years researching? He answered that so many people before him had given so many contradictory and confusing answers—the Muslims said one thing and the Christians another. Dr. Jacques Gautier concluded that someone must be wrong. He wanted to find out who originally owned Jerusalem, and after twenty-five years of work, he concluded that the Jews were the owners. His explanation follows.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 started the whole process, but it didn't create international legal rights. Dr. Jacques Gautier showed us a photograph from the San Remo Villa, deciding on April 25, 1920. This document incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant. It was the immediate decision upon which the Mandate for Palestine was constructed. While the decision made at San Remo created the Palestine Mandate de-facto, the mandate document signed by Great Britain as the Mandatory and the League of Nations made it de-jure. It thus became a binding treaty in international law. During the "Council of Four'' meetings in 1919, British Prime Minister Lloyd George stated that the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence was a treaty obligation. He also explained that the agreement with Hussein had been the basis for the Sykes-Picot Agreement. He told the French Foreign Minister that the proposed League of Nations Mandate System could not be used as an excuse to break the terms of the Hussein Agreement. Under the terms of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the British and French had agreed to an independent Arab state, or confederation of conditions, and had consultations with the Sharif of Mecca. The French had also decided that their military would not occupy Damascus, Homs, Homa, and Aleppo. As early as July 1919, the parliament of Greater Syria had refused to acknowledge any right claimed by the French Government to any part of Syrian territory.

On September 30 September 30, 1918, supporters of the Arab Revolt in Damascus declared a government loyal to the Sharif of Mecca. He had been declared "King of the Arabs" by religious leaders and other notables in Mecca. On January 6 January 6, 1920, Prince Faisal initiated an agreement with French Prime Minister Clemenceau, which acknowledged "the right of the Syrians to unite to govern themselves as an independent nation." A Pan-Syrian Congress meeting in Damascus had declared Syria an independent state on March 8, 1920. The new state included Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and northern Mesopotamia, set aside under the Sykes-Picot Agreement for an independent Arab state or confederation. King Faisal was declared the head of state. At the same time, Prince Zeid, Faisal's brother, was announced regent of Mesopotamia.

Those attending the hastily convened San Remo conference; both Great Britain and France agreed to recognize the provisional independence of Syria and Mesopotamia while "reluctantly" claiming mandates for their administration. Palestine was composed of the Ottoman administrative districts of southern Syria. Under customary international law, early recognition of its independence would be a gross insult to the Government of the newly declared parent state. It could have been construed as a belligerent act of intervention without any League of Nations sanction.

The High Contracting Parties agreed to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory, to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting the declaration made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government and adopted by the other Allied Powers. That would favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. It is clearly understood that nothing will prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. Nor on their rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The Arabs weren't even mentioned, but civil and religious rights only were accorded to other inhabitants. That thereby excluded political rights.

Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations provided for the creation of mandates:

Those colonies and territories have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States that formerly governed them and inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world. There should be the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization. Securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this Covenant.

The legal significance here is that "the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization." The Mandatory Power was the trustee of that trust.

The Palestine Mandate of the League of Nations included the following significant recital:

Recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine. That leads to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.

That had never happened before in history. Palestine was to be held for the Jewish people wherever they lived. No such recognition had ever been accorded to anyone else, anywhere, ever.

The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative, and economic conditions to secure establishing the Jewish national home. That was laid down in the preamble, the development of self-governing institutions, and safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine.

Thus, the operative clause expressly referred to the preamble and reiterated that other inhabitants had no political rights.

The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.

The United Nations took over from the failed League of Nations in 1945, and its Charter included

80. nothing in this Charter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.

Thus, the Palestine Mandate continued without change.

In 1947, the General Assembly of the U.N. passed Resolution 181, which became known as the Partition Plan, according to which both Jews and Arabs could announce their states.

First, one must note that the Charter of the U.N. specifically gave no power to the General Assembly because that would infringe on the sovereign power of individual members. So the General Assembly could only recommend it. Secondly, this recommendation violated the terms of the Mandate.

This resolution also provided for a Special Regime for Jerusalem, which had the following defined boundaries,

A. SPECIAL REGIME, The City of Jerusalem, shall be established as corpus separatism under a special international regime administered by the United Nations. The Trusteeship Council shall be designated to discharge the responsibilities of the Administering Authority on behalf of the United Nations.

B. BOUNDARIES OF THE CITY The City of Jerusalem shall include the present municipality of Jerusalem plus the surrounding villages and towns, the most eastern of which shall be Abu Dis; the most southern, Bethlehem; the most western, 'Ein Karim (including also the built-up area of Motsa); and the most northern Shu'fat, as indicated on the attached sketch-map (annex B).

But this regime was to be limited in time. Jerusalem was not an "international city" for all time, as we have been led to believe.

In the Statute elaborated by the Trusteeship Council, the

The principles as mentioned above shall come into force not later than October 1, 1948. It shall remain in detail in the first instance for ten years unless the Trusteeship Council finds it necessary to undertake a re-examination of these provisions at an earlier date. After the expiration of this period, the whole scheme shall be subject to examination by the Trusteeship Council in the light of experience acquired with its functioning. The residents of the City shall then be free to express utilizing a referendum their wishes as to possible modifications of the City's regime.

​This provision for a referendum was of critical importance to the acceptance of Resolution 181 by Ben Gurion. He knew that the Jews were in the majority within these boundaries and would hold a referendum in ten years. Thus, he was confident that Jerusalem would return to Jewish hands.

Keep in mind that the disposition of this area was to be determined, not by Israel, but by the residents of Jerusalem. Currently, the Jews have a 2:1 majority there.

Needless to say, after the Armistice Agreement of 1949, the Jordanians, who were in control of Jerusalem, violated every provision of this resolution calling for, among other things, respect for holy places. The referendum never took place.

After the '67 war, Israel regained the land to Jordan, including Jerusalem; Resolution 242 of the Security Council was passed authorizing Israel to remain in possession of all the ground until they had "secure and recognized boundaries." It did not require Israel to withdraw from all territories, and it was silent on Jerusalem.

The resolution also "Affirms further the necessity for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem." There was no reference to Resolution 181, nor was there a distinction between Jewish and Arab refugees.

Based on this, I suggest that not only should Israel demand that the referendum be held now, but Jerusalem should be the first order of business. Israel should demand that the referendum take place before the balance of the land is negotiated. If the Arabs won't agree to the referendum, there is nothing to discuss.

In closing, I would like to stress one more thing.

By this preamble,

Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country; in the Mandate, the United Nations, the League's successor, has recognized the Jewish historical rights to reconstitute their national home in Palestine.

That's Zionism. "Zion" is.

They were succeeded by the post-Cold War dream of a united Europe with its single currency. Today, as the European Union suffers one blow after another from within and without, history is reversing course. It is heading toward a debilitating complexity as if the past half-century were just an interregnum before returning to fear and conflict.

For the U.S., the reality of this new situation is only just now coming into view. Europe, whose economy rivals that of the U.S. as the largest globally, remains an asset and an ally, but it is also a profound problem. The pressing question is how to manage it.

Europe's divisions were visible for decades as the E.U. worked to expand its boundaries and practical reach. There were those countries inside the E.U. and those outside. Those inside the borderless zone of free travel (the Schengen Area) and that outside. It was also against those who could manage the financial rigors of the eurozone and those unable to do so.

What is less appreciated is the deep roots of these divisions in the continent's history and geography. The sturdy core of modern Europe approximates in considerable measure the Carolingian Empire founded by Charlemagne in the ninth century. The first Holy Roman Emperor ruled the lands from the North Sea down through the Low Countries and radiating outward to Frankfurt, Paris, Milan, and so on. The weaker cousins of this Europe extend along the Mediterranean, from the Iberian peninsula to southern Italy and the historically less-developed Balkans, heirs to the Byzantine and Ottoman traditions.