News Brief

A planned Nazi memorabilia auction in New Zealand has riled Jewish leaders.

Among the items to go under the hammer at Dunbar Sloane’s military auction in Wellington Wednesday and Thursday are a signed photograph of Hitler and his deputy, Rudolf Hess.

The photo is estimated to be worth between $2,500 and $5,000. Auctioneer Bettina Frith said it was bought at a British auction by an Auckland collector.

Also up for sale are an officer’s peaked cap, a Luftwaffe helmet and two brooches – all emblazoned with the Nazi Germany eagle and swastika emblems.

The auction drew sharp criticism from David Zwartz, Israel’s honorary consul and a former president of the New Zealand Jewish Council.

“It promotes a view that gives prominence and support for people who were immensely evil and caused a lot of harm to the Jewish people and to the world at large,” Zwartz told the Dominion Post on Friday.

“We would prefer it if auctioneers and dealers had nothing to do with that sort of material, but we know that we can’t prevent it.”

But Frith said she didn’t have a problem selling Nazi paraphernalia.

“It’s part of history now,” she told the newspaper. “You could say anything about any of the wars.”

Anti-Zionist and pro-Arab groups are opposing an Australian plan to congratulate Israel on its 60th anniversary.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s motion saluting the Jewish state is expected to be seconded Wednesday by opposition leader Brendan Nelson. Some 400 Jewish dignitaries have been invited to parliament for the proceedings by the Israeli Embassy, which initiated the idea.

But opposition to the motion, the text of which has yet to be released, is mounting with a coalition of anti-Zionist and pro-Arab groups planning a media campaign and demonstrations.

In a letter to be published in newspapers Wednesday, opponents to the motion say it is “an affront to our nation’s dignity and self-respect. It is most offensive to the Palestinian community in Australia.”

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by JTA, says the “unprecedented” motion “honors a foreign country’s independence while it is violating the rights of the indigenous people, occupying their land and breaching international law.

“It completely ignores the now well-documented historical record of Israel’s ethnic cleansing that began with the 1948 al-Nakba – the Palestinian catastrophe of dispossession and displacement – and which is continuing to this day.”

Leading the campaign against the motion is the Independent Australian Jewish Voices, Australian Friends of Palestine, Women for Palestine, Australians for Justice and Peace in Palestine and the Palestinian Community Association of Victoria.

Israel’s defense minister visited the Mercaz Harav yeshiva to learn firsthand how last week’s massacre unfolded.

Ehud Barak made an unannounced trip late Monday to the Jerusalem yeshiva, where witnesses to the attack by a Palestinian terrorist explained to him where and how each of his eight victims died.

The gunman’s spree March 6 was cut short when an off-duty Israeli army officer and an armed student both shot him dead.

Barak was quoted as consoling the yeshiva on its losses but saying there was no guarantee such an attack would not recur. There is no choice but to continue fighting Palestinian terror, the defense minister said.

Barak’s polite reception at Mercaz Harav was in marked contrast to the heckling of Israeli Education Minister Yuli Tamir, a noted left-wing activist, when she tried to visit the yeshiva. Tamir left after being called “murderer.”

Mercaz Harav’s staff has also been quoted as saying that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is persona non grata due to his pursuit of peace talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.