The Murder of Nicholas Berg

Nick Berg (1978-2004)

If there is any doubt in the mind of any American concerning our reasons for going to war against Iraq and the other Arab terrorists, the brutal murder of Nick Berg serves as a reminder of the nature of our enemy. Only a barbarian without a conscience and without any human emotions is capable of cutting off the head of another human and taping this for video consumption. Nothing can excuse this cruelty, nothing, including the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by some of our soldiers. From the Jewish point of view the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners is of course inexcusable as the Talmud teaches us: “One who shames his neighbor in public has no share in the world to come.” (Baba Metziah 59a) and “…all who descend to Gehinnom (hell) reascend with the exception of …one who shames his neighbor in public.” (Baba Metziah 59b).

It is nevertheless disgusting that if we try to find any comment in the media concerning Nick Berg and the horrible way in which he died, we find the media no longer mention Berg at all as they spend all their space and time denouncing our armed forces and ranting incessantly about the insults delivered to the Iraqi killers in our custody.

Let us unequivocally say that no one should ever be mistreated within or without the so-called Geneva Conventions. Let us agree that it is beneath the dignity of the U.S.A. to treat prisoners in so cruel a manner as has occurred in our prisons in Iraq.

Significant is that the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners gets endless coverage in all the media while the murder of Berg is already forgotten or is remembered only on some back page.

The self flagellation which encourages our enemies to further aggression and murder of Americans and especially Jews has now taken on political overtones. Evidently some Democrats seek to gain political advantage by blaming Israel and “the Jews” for the Iraq situation, which does indeed look disastrous now.

Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, the senior Democrat senator from South Carolina, repeated on the Senate floor on May 20, 2004 what he had already told a South Carolina newspaper at an earlier occasion. Hollings claims that we invaded Iraq to please “the Jews” and Israel and that Ariel Sharon is “behind” our Iraq policy. He further claimed that President Bush sent our army into Iraq to get the Jewish vote. Hollings also likened Ariel Sharon to Saddam Hussein and to “Bull” Connors, the infamous Alabama police commissioner who unleashed police dogs on demonstrators during the 1960’s voter registration drives.

It is evident that Hollings doesn’t know the Jewish community very well, since over 65% of Jewish voters have indicated they prefer to vote for the party of Sen. Hollings, even as that party contains such well known Jew haters as Jimmy Carter, Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson and Hollings and friends.

Which brings us back to Nick Berg. We have reason to ask why Nick Berg came to Iraq in the first place as he was a civilian telecommunications contractor. Nick Berg was a typical “liberal” who had gone to Ghana in Africa to teach the natives to make bricks. He also visited Kenya and Uganda, both in Africa, to rebuild communications antennas. No doubt these were commendable enterprises. We ask, however, why Berg did not lend his talents to Israel and his Jewish brethren. The answer stares us in the face every day. There are innumerable “so called” Jews who would do anything to help the whole world, including the party of the anti-Israel propagandists, except other Jews.

Of course, Nick Berg is not the only Jew murdered on tape and now forgotten. The other victim of Arab murder was Daniel Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, who was killed by Arab terrorists in Pakistan in February of 2002.

Pearl was slaughtered because he was a Jew. His murderers said so. He, too, was a reminder of the reasons for the war unleashed on us by the 19 killers who murdered 3,000 Americans on 9/11.

In view of all this we should hope that the Jewish community will at least remember Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg and support those who want to defend both the U.S. and Israel before the terrorists kill us here once again as they did on that memorable day, September 11, 2001.

Shalom u’vracha.

Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including Man's Ascent to Reason (2003) & the forthcoming Football & American Identity.

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