Sun editorial:

Righting a wrong

A hero who helped in the fight to create Israel receives a posthumous pardon from Bush

Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

In the wake of World War II, Charles Winters settled in Miami and ran a business exporting produce with surplus military airplanes. A Protestant, he would soon join a friend in the effort to create a Jewish homeland in the Middle East.

In 1948 Winters dispatched his planes around the world to collect and carry weapons to Jewish fighters in Palestine, flying over the British naval blockade. Because he was a Protestant, his planes could fly in and out of the region without interference.

Winters served as a government purchasing agent during World War II and drew on that experience to help acquire two surplus B-17 bombers for the Israeli Defense Forces. He personally flew one across the Atlantic Ocean to deliver it.

He was later prosecuted by the federal government for violating the Neutrality Act, which banned citizens from taking part in foreign conflicts if the U.S. was not involved. He, along with his friend Al Schwimmer and Las Vegas Sun founder Hank Greenspun, was convicted of helping arm Israeli fighters. Winters was the only one sentenced to prison.

“Rules are rules, but it’s interesting that my dad was the low man on the totem pole in the operation, but he’s the only one who had to serve time,” Winters’ son, Jim, said.

Schwimmer, Greenspun and Winters were rightly hailed as heroes in Israel, but when Winters died in 1984, he was still a felon in the United States. On Tuesday, President George W. Bush pardoned Winters, an act that was long overdue. Greenspun was pardoned in 1961, Schwimmer in 2000.

Winters’ friends and family said he didn’t profit from his work. Reginald Brown, a lawyer who represented Winters’ family on the pardon, said Winters felt the establishment of Israel was a “moral imperative.”

“He did a heroic thing and, at the time, the law didn’t reflect our values,” Brown said. “The pardon is a way of the law catching up with the history.”

It is. We are grateful for men such as Charles Winters, who did the right thing no matter the cost.

Discussion: 4 comments so far…

By Swiss

12/24/08 at 7:52 a.m.

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Unless you are an Israeli, I fail to see how this Gentleman can be described as a hero. The State of Israel was created in violation of International law and by extreme acts of brutal violence against both the British occupying forces and native Palestinians.

Mark,
Geneve, Switzerland
By JohnF

12/24/08 at 5:18 p.m.

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Mark,

Just how much money and artwork and gold stolen from Jewish victims of the Holocaust is still hidden away in those banks of yours in Geneva? And you have the nerve to talk of "extreme acts of brutal violence"?
By Swiss

12/25/08 at 12:39 p.m.

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Dear John, I am actually a Brit living and working in Switzerland. However the point remains that this man broke US law. Not in the manner of Oscar Schindler to save innocents from the gas chambers, but to help establish an illegal State on what was Palestinian land. The birth of Israel was bloody and violent (on both sides), and this gentleman no doubt contributed to that. Therefore to me at least it seemed an odd choice.
Regards,
Mark
By JohnF

12/25/08 at 1:22 p.m.

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The two things are completely different. Mr. Winters was pardoned for his violation of US law and the pardon had nothing to do with international law. The establishment of Israel was something rooted in international law and the overwhelming majority of US citizens supported and still support it. Therefore, pardoning Mr. Winters is something that meets with widespread approval here in the United States.

The United Nations established Israel, supported by your nation in an area that was under the rule of your nation at the time.

I'll agree with you and all the other European Israel bashers that the land of Israel should be given "back" to the Palestinians (who took it from the Jews by force of conquest themselves) when the governments of the European Union start working to restore the homes, savings, personal possessions, and all the other myriad things taken from the millions of murdered Jews during the Second World War. When you wipe the blood off of your hands you can start lecturing the Israelis.

For crying out loud, the governments of Europe established Israel in the first place in large part because they didn't want to deal with the Jews left alive in the wake of the war. They fully expected that the Arabs would finish the job of exterminating them. Heaven forbid the British, French, and yes, the Americans, should take steps to get them back into their own homes in Germany, France, Poland, etc. Better to wipe their hands of them and ship them off to the Middle East.

Of course, that's what makes your criticism of Israel's beginnings so galling.

Merry Christmas, by the way.