No good deed goes unpunished

Robert Harris has written an interesting op-ed at the New York Times about Georges Picquart, an army officer who taught Alfred Dreyfus.

Harris writes that piquart was casually anti-Semitic. On Jan. 5, 1895, before a crowd of 20,000 shouting, “Death to the Jew!” Dreyfus had his sword broken and the insignia of his rank torn from his uniform. Observing the spectacle, Picquart remarked laconically to a fellow officer: “He’s a Jew, don’t forget that. He’s thinking of the weight of the gold braid and how much it’s worth.”

...Picquart took his discoveries to the chief of the French general staff, Gen. Raoul de Boisdeffre, and to the overall head of military intelligence, Gen. Charles-Arthur Gonse. Their reaction appalled him. He was told to avoid any avenues of inquiry that might lead to a reopening of the Dreyfus case. “What does it matter to you,” demanded Gonse, “if one Jew stays on Devil’s Island?” “Well,” replied Picquart, “because he’s innocent ...”

...It was then that Picquart, after 25 years’ army service, realized he had no alternative but to break ranks. He passed his evidence against Esterhazy to a senior politician, the vice president of the senate, Auguste Scheurer-Kestner. Then, at the end of 1897, he provided Émile Zola with the information that enabled the novelist to write his celebrated exposé of the affair, “J’Accuse ...!” Picquart’s reward was to be dismissed from the army, framed as a forger and locked up in solitary confinement for more than a year.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/opinion/the-whistle-blower-who-freed-dreyfus.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0


A man was detained and handcuffed for more than an hour by law enforcement officials in Houston moments after he gave a homeless man 75 cents.
Read more: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/17/man-gives-75-cents-to-a-homeless-man-minutes-later-he-was-in-handcuffs-in-the-back-of-a-police-cruiser/


"King of Morocco knows – Jews' prayer are accepted" Member of the Jewish community in Morocco tells of prayer for rain performed at the request of the King • "The next day it rained"
Read more: http://www.bholworld.com/Article_EN.aspx?id=63768