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JERUSALEM – The 10 million Christian United for Israel (CUFI) and Jewish war veterans from the United States joined the Israeli Defense Forces by delivering an unprecedented stinging reprimand to a German official for comments on the late British Major General Orde Wingate, a hero World War II and Israeli Icon.
Michael Blume, the bureaucrat charged with fighting anti-Semitism for the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg, has repeatedly called the deeply religious Christian and decorated war hero Wingate a “war criminal” and a “British assassin”.
Asked about Blume’s attacks on Wingate, the Israeli Defense Forces spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel. Richard Hecht told Fox News Digital: “The spirit and disruptive thinking of Orde Wingate was an inspiration to the founding fathers of the IDF, and he is deeply admired to this day.”
Christians United for Israel Action Fund chair Sandra Hagee Parker told Fox News Digital: “Given his history of anti-Jewish bigotry, the fact that Blume can remain in his current role is an embarrassment to the people. German and mocks the fight against anti-Semitism. Mr. Blume is clearly an anti-Semite who should be fired immediately. “
The Chindit Memorial is a war memorial in London commemorating the Chindit Special Forces, who served in Burma under Major General Orde Wingate during World War II. The memorial was erected in Victoria Embankment Gardens in 1990 near the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense and commemorates Wingate, who died on active duty in Burma in 1944.
(Universal Historical Archive / Universal Pictures Group via Getty Images.)
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CUFI is one of the most important non-governmental allies of the Jewish state in America and the world.
Retired Colonel Nelson Mellitz, National Commander of the United States Jewish War Veterans, told Fox News Digital that his organization “celebrates Major General Orde Wingate’s extraordinary military record. As a decorated British Army officer during the 1930s and World War II, Wingate’s service is revered by Israelis, Americans and the British in creating special military units. “
Mellitz served 32 years in the U.S. Air Force and continues a family legacy of over 80 years serving the JWV.
“JWV vehemently disagrees with German commissioner Michael Blume’s characterization of Wingate as a British war criminal and assassin and urges Blume to step down or Baden-Württemberg officials to remove him from office immediately,” he said. Mellitz.
Wingate’s legacy continues with streets and squares in Israel named after him, as well as Israel’s National Center for Physical Education and Sports which also bears his name. In the United States, Wingate is honored to be buried in the National Cemetery of Arlington in Virginia. These enduring tributes to Wingate are worthy memorials. “
The JWV was founded in 1896 and is the leading organization for service members and uniformed Jewish veterans in the United States.
“I have not heard or seen Michael Blume’s comments, but I would say that anyone in Germany looking for real war criminals would do well to spend their time personally examining the more than 70,000 Stolpersteins (” Stumbling Stones “), small brass plaques embedded in them. in the sidewalk outside the last known addresses of innocent victims killed in Germany during the reign of the National Socialists, “said military historian Tony Redding, author of” War in the Wilderness: The Chindits in Burma 1943-1944 “. “There are many Stolperstein memorials in Baden-Württemberg”.
Major General Orde C. Wingate was a brilliant military strategist and his methods are still taught in military schools around the world.
(© CORBIS / Corbis via Getty Images)
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Wingate famously created and led a special unit called Chindits (officially the “Long Range Penetration Groups”) which led guerillas behind Japanese lines in the Burmese jungle. Wingate and nine other people were returning from Burma on March 24, 1944, when their USAAF B-25 bomber crashed into northeastern India, killing everyone on board.
Former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, a military historian and Wingate expert, told Fox News Digital that Blume “should step down.” Oren, a former Deputy Minister in the office of then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also served as a paratrooper during the First Lebanon War in 1982.
Leading Israeli and British military officers harshly criticized Blume’s anti-Wingate remarks.
“The late Orde Wingate was a pioneer and revolutionary military commander whose bold forays and tactics are still being studied in military schools around the world,” Brig-Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, founder and CEO of the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF), told Fox News Digital: “Wingate fought valiantly against oppressors on at least three continents and will forever be cherished in Israeli memory as a hero”.
Avivi, who commanded the IDF’s Gaza division, said that “accusing Wingate of war crimes is a reprehensible attempt to rewrite history and ruin a British officer’s exceptional legacy. This attempt should be completely rejected. IDSF will continue to support exactly the kind of military strategy that Wingate embodied: initiative, creativity and a firm belief in the rightness of our cause. “
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Israeli soldiers occupy positions in Netiv HaAsara near the site where an IDF vehicle was directly hit by a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip, wounding two and killing one on May 12, 2021.
(Gili Yaari / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Wingate had warned as early as 1937 of the need to stop the Hitler movement’s plan to exterminate European Jews and to create a Jewish state.
“Sooner or later a war awaits us, no hope now of avoiding it after the Abyssinian fiasco [Fascist Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia] – for heaven’s sake, let’s do something right and honorable before it comes. Let’s redeem our promises to the Jews and shame the devil of Nazism, fascism and our own prejudices, “he wrote.
Colonel (retired) Richard Kemp, who commanded British troops in Afghanistan, told Fox News Digital: “Wingate, a highly decorated British officer who was killed fighting for his country during World War II, bravely defended Jews in Palestine against Arab gang killings in the 1930s He was a staunch Zionist, revered as a hero and friend in Israel This is enough to incite the hatred of those who oppose Israel and Zionism.
“Germany, of all countries in the world, has a responsibility to fight hatred against Jews at all times. And for one of its public officials – whether or not he is a commissioner for anti-Semitism – supporting this disease is reason for national disgrace Herr Blume puts Germany to shame and he should resign or be fired. “
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Last year the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles classified Blume as an anti-Semite for his activities and rhetoric against Jews and Israel.
Fox News Digital sent numerous press requests to Blume and the Green Party Governor of the state of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann.
