August 4, 2021

 

Gideon Levy – Haaretz (Israel)

Israeli terror is at it again. The Israel Defense Forces’ death squads chalked up another successful week: four bodies of innocent Palestinians piled up between the two Fridays. There doesn’t seem to be a connection between the four incidents in which four sons were killed, but the link cannot be broken. In all these cases, soldiers chose shooting to kill as the preferred option. In all four cases another way could have been chosen … They kill because they can. They kill because they’re convinced that this is how they’re expected to act. They kill because they know that nothing is cheaper than the life of a Palestinian. They kill because they know that the Israeli media will yawn and not report a thing. They kill because they know that no harm will come to them, so why not?

Philip Giraldi

… Israel always features prominently in the annual FBI report called Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage. The 2005 report states: “Israel has an active program to gather proprietary information within the United States, these collection activities are primarily directed at obtaining information on military systems and advanced computing applications that can be used in Israel’s sizeable armaments industry.” It adds that: “Israel recruits spies, uses electronic methods, and carries out computer intrusion to gain the information.” … The GAO [General Accounting Office] concluded that: “Israel conducts,” and this is a quote, “conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any U.S. ally.” … So Israel gets yet another pass on its spying against the United States.

A. Paul - FAIR

Ben & Jerry’s decision to halt its operations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Jerusalem has pro-Israel editors working overtime … What’s striking about the editorial reaction to the Ben & Jerry’s news isn’t that it supports Israel, but that it insinuates that the tactic of boycotting Israel is extreme and illegitimate when, in fact, boycotts have long been considered one of the most effective nonviolent ways people and groups can have political agency beyond the ballot box … Israeli government supporters in the press fear that if Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company don’t suffer economically for their decision on the Occupied Territories, then support for this kind of political pressure will become less taboo, and other groups could follow suit. And those editorialists have reason to worry.

Colour in History Group – DYT

World War Two black-and-white photos were researched and colorized in detail by Doug and other artists of the “Colourisehistory Group.” These 50 colorized photos look like they were taken yesterday.

Colin Heaton

… The greatest difference between former Allied veterans and the Germans was that many of the Americans and British were rather well known in their own countries. The Germans were virtually unheard of, as if the German people wanted to simply forget the Third Reich and the men who fought for it … Another mission I have embarked upon is to dispel the myths and rumors regarding the total sainthood of all of the Allied soldiers and the complete evil of every German or Japanese serviceman. Good and evil exist everywhere. Recognizing the truth behind the post war propaganda and assigning blame where warranted preserves the truth.

Video - Institute for Historical Review Video

A fascinating, insightful and inspiring talk by a great American historian. Among John Toland’s outstanding works was The Rising Sun, which earned a Pulitzer Prize, and a best-selling biography, Adolf Hitler. In this lecture at an IHR conference, he looks back at the experiences that made him an acclaimed author. He recalls, for example, his youthful travels across the country on rail freight cars, and his life-long love of the theater. Throughout his decades-long quest for objectivity and non-partisanship in writing real, “living” history, Toland says, he tried to present the past as a dramatic saga of human nobility, defect, triumph, foible, suffering and joy. He humorously relates how he was denounced as a “Nazi” for his efforts to write objectivity, and with understanding, about Hitler and Third Reich Germany.

P. Cramer - JTA

Jackie Mason, who died Saturday at 93, did not always set out to be a comedian. In fact, it wasn’t until he was 30 that he left behind the Orthodox rabbinate for irreverent open-mic nights. Mason, born Yacov Moshe Maza to Orthodox parents, was one of the last survivors of the Borscht Belt comedy circuit … His comedy, delivered in a distinctive cadence inflected with the Yiddish of his childhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, offered a window into the American Jewish psyche for non-Jews and, for Jews, held up a mirror that reflected their complicated relationship with their Americanness … For many years, he supported Meir Kahane, who, as the founder of the Jewish Defense League organized violent efforts to combat antisemitism and lobbied to expel Arabs from Israel.

Institute for Historical Review

In the early morning hours of July 4, 1984, the offices of the Institute for Historical Review in Torrance, southern California, were destroyed in a devastating arson attack ... For a long time the perpetrators’ identity remained a mystery. It was only 18 years later that responsibility for the attack was publicly and authoritatively established ... Based on its investigation of the crime, the report notes, in December 1984 the Torrance Police Department submitted the case to the District Attorney’s office for criminal complaints against Irv Rubin, Earl Krugel, Michael Canale and Danny Nichols on arson and conspiracy charges. But no arrest was ever made.

J. Ditz - Antiwar. com

It wasn’t so long ago that the US was reportedly close to rejoining the Iran nuclear deal, and diplomats were saying many of the terms had been worked out. Now, the US is growing pessimistic, suggesting that the return may be politically impossible. Biden Administration spin is heavily on the incoming Iranian government, and predictions that they’ll be hard to deal with. The real issue, however, is very much on the American side, and restoring US trustworthiness in the deal after the Trump era. The real issue is that the US never implemented its sanctions relief requirements under the deal, then unilaterally withdrew from the deal, then continued to undermine its implementation for the rest of the P5+1 for years … Iran wants specific assurances that if the US returns to the deal, they promise not to just unilaterally leave it again.