Shmuel Vaknin aka 'Sam' - The Liar

[Soldier of Macedon]

He does, but he also misses some. For example, if we are going to look at the lack of assistance provided by Macedonians to Jews during WWII, I would like to know what the 70,000 + Jewish community in Macedonia did to assist the Macedonian struggle for liberation during the 19th and 20th centuries. Perhaps neither were in a position to help in both cases, not that a biased fool like Vaknin can accept such possibilities. To now try and falsely paint Macedonia as an anti-Semitic society compared to other European countries is evidence of his bruised ego manifesting itself through sheer stupidity.

[Risto the Great]

That is also a very solid point in relation to the Jewish support for Macedonia's liberation.

However, it is obvious Macedonia is not connected to the holocaust in the way Jerusalem, Washington, and Berlin are. It is difficult not to accept the following statement as valid:

Indeed, the Holocaust Museum – almost fully funded with the proceeds from the sale of denationalized properties of liquidated Jews, hastily declared heirless by the Macedonian authorities – is the Macedonians’ way of bribing the Jews to help them with their economic and geopolitical dire straits.

[Onur]

SOM, Jews was quite happy with Ottoman rule, so i don't think they would support any change in administration of Macedonia.

They were controlling commerce in Salonika, Izmir and Istanbul for centuries. They were buying vegetables, fruits, clothing material, spices from Anatolia and transport all of these to the Europe by using ports in these cities. They were also controlling the central bank of Ottoman empire but because of this, especially Greeks and Armenians became very hostile to them after late 19th century. Armenians assassinated high ranked Jewish officers one by one and blew up the Jewish controlled banks in Salonika and then in Istanbul.

Jews was the only group who didn't revolt against Ottoman authorities. Even Turks revolted but Jews didn't, not even once. Greeks ended their privileged life in Salonika first and then they confiscated all Jewish properties in Izmir after they invaded it in 1919. Eventually, all Jews of Turkey supported Ataturk and creation of new republic. There was declarations of Jewish leaders and chief rabbi of that time, calling for all Jews to support Ataturk and his friends. They were basically saying that "the existence of Jews here depends on the existence of Turkey and the events after Greek occupation of Salonika and Izmir was a proof for that. If there would be no Turkish rule then Jews wont have a chance to live here anymore."

[Prolet]

The Jews lived in Macedonia for many centuries, the Macedonian Government didnt finance the development of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, they simply gave back the land to them and i think the Jews from America financed it.

Sam Vaknin just cant handle the fact that a large Jewish Delegation from all over the world came to Macedonia for the opening including many Jewish Rabbies from USA. Sam's wife is Macedonian, thats why he lives in Skopje otherwise i dont see how he would stay in our country.

[Risto the Great]

Prolet, why not simply give the land back to the rightful owners or their heirs? It still looks like a case of Macedonian trade optimism to me.

[Ljubanec]

The Jews lived in Macedonia for many centuries, the Macedonian Government didnt finance the development of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, they simply gave back the land to them and i think the Jews from America financed it.

Sam Vaknin just cant handle the fact that a large Jewish Delegation from all over the world came to Macedonia for the opening including many Jewish Rabbies from USA. Sam's wife is Macedonian, thats why he lives in Skopje otherwise i dont see how he would stay in our country.

He and is wife could go to any country they want to live in. Vaknin could go back to his birth country of Israel, if he chooses. Instead he works in Macedonia.

I don't think it is fair to judge Macedonia and all Macedonians in regards to the theft of property from Jews that were sent to death camps. I do not hold all Jews in contempt for supporting the Ottoman empire either.

[Makedonska_Kafana]

Can anyone confirm that George Soros (Mr. Wiki) funds Sam Vaknin?

[Prolet]

Risto, I think some members of the Jewish Community in Macedonia got their land back from their parents, but just so you know denationalization works with certain clauses. If your land has a road built on it or a factory,government building etc they pay you compensation for that land and they dont give it back to you.

We got a family friend who has a land title from the Ottoman Empire stating that the land where the current National Reserve Bank of Macedonia belongs to him. They offered to pay him compensation but its not even half of the real value of what the land is worth.

[Rogi]

So, Vaknin is making some sweeping generalisations about Macedonians, in which he says Macedonian views about Jewish people are based on sweeping generalisations?

Surely he too can see the irony in that.

[Risto the Great]

Not just Macedonians. He has pinpointed it to:

(from Russia to Albania)

Problem is, most of it sounds about right. He would know, he knows the guy who controls the world.

[Rogi]

So he is happy to make sweeping generalisations about hundreds of millions of people (from Russia to Albania), whilst arguing that views about Jewish people which are based on generalisations are anti-Semitic (and I agree with this argument), whilst his views based on generalisations about each ethnic group in the Balkans is perfectly fine.

I am just noting the irony, or the self-contradiction in his entire premise.

I didn't say I, unfortunately*, disagree with many of his points however.

* I say unfortunately not because I am agreeing with Vaknin, but rather because some of the points he raises are unfortunate realities.

[Risto the Great]

Oh look, the guy who wrote the music to Zorba the Greek fits in with the stereotype:

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2011/02/10/%E2%80%98zorba%E2%80%99-composer-declares-himself-an-anti-semite/

Mikis Theodorakis, the Greek composer who wrote the music for the film “Zorba the Greek,” said in a television interview that he is an “anti-Semite and anti-Zionist.”
Theodorakis, 86, a hero in Greece, also said in the interview on Greece’s High channel that “everything that happens today in the world has to do with the Zionists.” He added that “American Jews are behind the world economic crisis that has hit Greece also.”
The composer, a member of the Greek Communist Party for 60 years, once was a supporter of Israel but gradually became a major critic. He has gone from criticizing Israel to making anti-Semitic remarks and holding anti-Semitic positions.
Theodorakis criticized Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou for meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, who the composer says is a persona non-grata in Greece due to his “war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza.”

[Pelister]

Vaknin is a moron, who probably doesn't have a clue about the history of anti-semitism among the New Greeks, and he is looking for 'signs' of anti-semitism among the Macedonians, even though his accusations are very vague.

[EgejskaMakedonia]

A post in the Alexander thread brought me to this discussion on Vaknin. I was watching a video on his account of the novel 'Alexander the Great: Murder in Babylon,' but closed the window half-way through, mainly because he was boring and difficult to understand.

I did a quick google scan on this individual and found a website, where he is apparently the 'editor-in-chief,' known as 'Global Politician.' He recently posted an article titled 'Alexander the Great: Murdered in Babylon, Resurrected in Skopje,' which was identical to that of the youtube video, so perhaps that is what he was attempting to convey on the 12 minute clip.

Alexander the Great: Murdered in Babylon, Resurrected in Skopje

Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 8/13/2011

Was Alexander the Great murdered in Babylon? In a historical mystery which combines Dan Brown's narrative panache (but with far superior writing skills), Agatha Christie's sense of drama and mis-en-scene, and Paul Johnson's synoptic view, Graham Phillips makes a convincing case that, indeed he was. "Alexander the Great: Murder in Babylon" (Virgin Books, 2004) is as thorough as any scholarly study, footnotes and all and, yet, it is compulsively and breathtakingly readable.

The book opens with the events of the fateful banquet in 323 BC: 32-year old conqueror of the known world, Alexander III, fell ill with the most unusual symptoms and then died. For some reason, his hideous expiry has been attributed to malaria, typhoid, or alcohol poisoning. But Phillips demonstrates irrefutably that the King was assassinated, his drinks laced with fatal herbs.

Having considered the means, Phillips then proceeds to review the motives and opportunity each of the suspects had. And what a list it makes! By the end of his ego-driven life, Alexander had converted his entire entourage into a gaggle of bitter, vengeful, scheming courtiers and spurned wives. Phillips shines the proverbial spotlight on each suspect in turn, analyzing his or her relationship with the young potent, the promise and the inevitable disappointment and disillusionment, love turned to virulent, seething, pernicious hatred or to cold, calculated, merciless self-interest.

Antipater, the long-suffering soldier who feared that he is about to be executed by an increasingly more paranoid Alexander; Arridaeus, the King's older brother, intermittently mentally incompetent, but sufficiently coherent to envy and resent his sibling; Barsine, the gorgeous captive-turned-wife, jilted for a younger woman, saddled with Alexander's first child; Seleucus, the able officer whose meteoric rise via the military ranks may have tempted him to seize even more power; Roxanne, Alexander's first wife and queen, driven insane by her jealousy of Alexander's Persian second wife, Statira, daughter of the defeated Darius III; Meleager who frowned upon Alexander's self-deification and who survived the purge of the loyal Macedonian cohorts in favor of Persian recruits; Statira, who openly threatened to kill Alexander to avenge her father's death; and Perdiccas, Alexander's second-in-command and instant beneficiary from his untimely demise.

Phillips then proceeds to place the whole event in intricate, rich, and panoramic historical and cultural context and to suggest a plausible solution to the enigma of Alexander's murder, culprit, method, and aftermath included. This, in itself, renders the book the ultimate intelligent whodunit. But Phillips' main (possibly inadvertent) contribution may be the emergence of another profile of Alexander: querulous, paranoid, delusionally megalomaniac, hostile, treacherous, and flippant. In other word: a narcissistic psychopath.

Fast forward 2300 years.
The government of the Republic of Macedonia has recently changed the name of its puny airport to "Alexander the Great". This was only the latest symptom of a growing cult of personality. Modern-day Macedonians, desperately looking for their ancient roots in a region hostile to their nationhood, have latched onto their putative predecessor with a zeal that defies both historical research and the howls of protest from their neighbor, Greece.

In a typical Balkan tit-for-tat, Greece blocked Macedonia's long-sought entry into NATO, citing, among a litany of reasons, the "irredentist provocation" that was the renaming of the airport. Macedonia has designs on a part of Greece, Greek politicians claim with a straight face, and the denizens of this tiny polity have no right to the heritage of Greece of which Alexander the Great is an integral part (which would have surprised him no end: Alexander belonged to the Hellenic culture, but not to any of the Greek polities, his lineage's avowed enemies.)

Newspapers and weeklies in a current-day impoverished and failed Macedonia are flooded with articles and essays written by "archeologists" and "historians" about how current-day Macedonians have nothing to do with the thoroughly documented Slav invasion of the Balkans in the 5th and 6th centuries and are actually the direct and only descendents of Alexander the Great and other illustrious historical figures. If reality lets you down, why not resort to historical , self-aggrandizing, fantasy?

Alexander the Great would have greatly disliked contemporary Macedonians: they are peace-loving, overly-cautious, consensual, and compromise-seeking. It seems that their own government finds these laudable qualities equally offensive.

It is beyond me why both Macedonia and Greece wish to make a deranged mass murderer their emblem and progenitor. There is little that is commendable in both Alexander's personality or his exploits. Having shed the blood of countless thousands to fulfill his grandiose fantasies of global conquest, he declared himself a god, suppressed other religions bloodily, massacred the bulk of his loyal staff, and betrayed his countrymen by hiring the former enemy, the Persians, to supplant his Macedonian infantry.

Alexander the Great was clearly insane, even by the cultural standards of his time. According to Diodorus, a month before he mercifully died (or, more likely, was assassinated) his own generals invited Babylonian priests to exorcise the demons that may have possessed him. Plutarch calls him "disturbed". He describes extreme mood swings that today would require medication to quell and control. The authoritative Encyclopedia Britannica attributes to him "megalomania and emotional instability". It says:

"He was swift in anger, and under the strain of his long campaigns this side of his character grew more pronounced. Ruthless and self-willed, he had increasing recourse to terror, showing no hesitation in eliminating men whom he had ceased to trust, either with or without the pretense of a fair trial. Years after his death, Cassander, son of Antipater, a regent of the Macedonian Empire under Alexander, could not pass his statue at Delphi without shuddering."

Alexander was paranoid and brooked no criticism, or disagreement. When Cleitus, his deputy, had a petty argument with him in 328 BC, Alexander simply ran a lance through his trusted general and had the army declare him a traitor and, thus, justify the slaying. The same fate befell Cleitus's unfortunate successors as second in command.

From his early youth, Alexander has been reckless (though fortunate) and unusually bloodthirsty. He used the fortuitous occasion of his father's murder to liquidate anyone who opposed him, even implicitly. He then went on a rampage that alienated and united all the Greeks against him. Even his famed campaign against the Persians owed its success to the latter's precipitous decline rather than merely to Alexander's military genius. Long before he came on the scene, other Greeks (the Ten Thousand, Agesilaus of Sparta) have defeated the Persians decisively. His bloodlust never abated: when his army mutinied in India and forced him to return to Babylon, once there, he executed scores of his satraps, military commanders, and other functionaries.

Alexander was known for his hubris and unmitigated narcissism. Using humiliating language, he twice rejected offers of peace from Darius the Great King of Persia, whose family he held captive. When Parmenio advised him to accept the second offer by saying: "I would accept, if I were Alexander", he retorted: "So would I, were I Parmenio". Parmenio paid for his independence of mind with his life: Alexander later ordered him assassinated and his son executed. He also murdered anyone who had anything to do with the two.

When he tried to impose on his free-spirited troupes the obligation to prostrate themselves in his presence, he was subjected to such ridicule that he reversed his decision. But, he kept on wearing the Persian royal garb and he did execute Calisthenes, an hitherto obsequious historian (and nephew of Aristotle) who wouldn't bow to him. The Spartans held Alexander in derision. They published a decree that read: "Since he (Alexander) wishes to be a god, let him be a god".

Wherever he went, Alexander was escorted by scribes whose job it was to embellish history and manufacture legends about their employer. Consequently, most of what is commonly "known" about Alexander is false. But, even so, numerous accounts of his drunken and violent reveries remain, in which he habitually murdered people and tore down cultural treasures (such as the palace of Xerxes). That Alexander was a prodigious imbiber of wine cannot be denied. Virtually all the eyewitnesses concur: Ptolemy, Alexander's bodyguard; Nearchus, his admiral; Eumenes the scribe, his secretary; Chares, his chamberlain; Aristobulus, his military engineer. So do historians who relied on such accounts: Diodorus, Plutarch, Arrian, and the anonymous author of "Historia Alexandri Magni" (History of Alexander the Great").

One could only fervently hope that the government of Macedonia fails in its campaign to transform its citizens into mini-versions of this monster.

I probably shouldn't be giving this moron any undeserved attention, but he is a complete fool and this cannot go unnoticed. He does make a few valid points in relation to Gruevski's plastic patriotism, however I'm not sure if that is what he is trying to contend, or whether he is simply a genuine air head. His Ph.D is no excuse for an article that is full of historical flaws.
That said, I have no idea why this tool is in Macedonia, a part from insulting the history of an ethnic group he is clearly lacking knowledge of. I highly doubt I'd be taken so kindly if I were to travel to his country of Israel and inform the Israelis of my views towards their country.

Another vote for 'yes.'

[mklion]

http://www.analyst-network.com/article.php?art_id=2959

http://www.analyst-network.com/article.php?art_id=2959

Quote:
03 Jun 2009

On August 26, 2008, I published an article titled Greek-American Plan to Resolve Macedonia's Name Issue?. In it, I described an American plan to resolve the name dispute between Macedonia and Greece (see note at the bottom of the first section of this article).

The Plan included five elements: (1) Macedonia will change its constitutional name to Northern Macedonia ("The Republic of North Macedonia"); (2) Macedonia will be granted a transition period to amend its constitution and to alter its registered name with various international and multilateral institutions; (3) Macedonia will be issued an invitation to join NATO; (4) Both countries will be allowed to use the adjective "Macedonian" (both commercially and non-commercially); (5) The parties will renounce any and all claims to each other's territory.

Sure enough, weeks later, Matthew Nimetz, the UN mediator in the name issue published essentially the very same plan. It was promptly rejected by both parties.

Macedonia has hitherto been literally invisible on the Obama's Administration's list of priorities. But this is fast changing. Obama and Clinton still regard the Balkans as essentially a European problem. But, as they tackle the Middle-East head-on, the last thing they need is a "second front" with restive minorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, or Macedonia. Additionally, countries like Macedonia and Israel are now bound to pay the price for having been staunch supporters of Republican administrations in general, and George Bush in particular.

The Obama Administration will shortly appoint a Balkans Envoy, a person well-known and little-liked in Macedonia for his coarse interference in its internal affairs. His job will be twofold: to calm passions down in Bosnia, if necessary through well-timed and much-publicized arrests and to force both Macedonia and Greece to accept the above-mentioned five-points plan. The USA will not take "no" for an answer and will set a strict timetable for the resolution of the name issue and a NATO invitation by yearend.

Macedonia doesn't stand a chance of resisting such an onslaught. It will be forced into a humiliating retreat. Prime Minister Gruevski can use the country's new President, Gjorge Ivanov, as a scapegoat and "blame" him for any painful compromises Macedonia may be forced to make. But this gimmick won't work: Macedonian s widely (and wrongly) perceive Ivanov to be Gruevski's puppet.

Gruevski will go to a referendum on any compromise struck with Greece. It would be an unwise move, though: If the citizenry rejects the suggested deal, Gruevski will be faced with two stark alternatives: (1) To be the Prime Minister of a disintegrating country (as the Albanians will surely seek to secede from Macedonia or to federalize it, one way or the other); or (2) To lose his job altogether (as the Americans will surely seek to change the regime and depose him, as it has done in 2001-2 when it actively and successfully sought to unseat Ljupco Georgievski).

Following the country's ill-advised early elections in June, 2008, the right-wing VMRO-DPMNE was coerced by the international community (read: the EU and the USA) into joining forces with DUI, the political incarnation of erstwhile Albanian insurgents in the northwest of Macedonia, hitherto an anathema as far as Gruevski was concerned.

Hopping to bed with DUI will likely restrain the government's freedom of action. Every concession to Greece will be portrayed by jingoistic nationalists in Macedonia as capitulation and the consequence of blackmail by the Albanian parties. To the great consternation of the Macedonians, Albania, Macedonia's neighbor, has been invited to join NATO and its economy is growing even in the face of the global crisis. The restive Albanians of Macedonia would like to accede to the Alliance as soon as practicable and at all costs. Understandably, they are less attached to the country's constitutional name than the non-Albanian (Macedonian) majority.

Sorry to bump an old thread but what does everyone think of this new interview with Sam Vaknin? He pretty much called the events almost 10 years before the plan was set into motion with even the name change to North Macedonia.

See the link below for new interview with him. What this does for me is it simply confirms what was already suspected that the removal of the Gruevski government was a coordinated event by outside powers to ram the new name through and incorporate Macedonia into Nato.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeuVTTWl-04