In a continually updated feature headed “The Israel Factor: Ranking the Presidential Candidates,” a columnist for a leading Israeli daily paper rates American presidential candidates as “Worst for Israel” (with a ranking of One) to “Best for Israel” (with a ranking of Ten).

Clinton, Giuliani Top Survey of Jewish Voters
Forward (New York)

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are the top two hopefuls among American Jews, according to a poll released this week. Clinton garnered a “favorable” rating from 53% of all respondents to the survey, which was conducted by the American Jewish Committee.

Danger in Credit Crisis
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The Telegraph (Britain)

… As the credit paralysis stretches through its fifth month, a chorus of economists has begun to warn that the world's central banks are fighting the wrong war, and perhaps risk a policy error of epochal proportions … York professor Peter Spencer, chief economist for the ITEM Club, says the global authorities have just weeks to get this right, or trigger disaster … In Europe, the ECB has its own distinct headache. Inflation is 3.1 per cent, the highest since monetary union. This is already enough to set off a political storm in Germany. A Dresdner poll found that 71 per cent of German women want the Deutschmark restored.

Remarkable Nonsense About the Holocaust
The Holocaust Historiography Project

Because the Holocaust has become in many ways a secular religion -- even for those who are not Jewish -- one is not permitted to say anything that can in any way be construed as less than fawning about the plight of the Jews in Europe. Likewise, one is permitted to say just about anything that supports the popular view of the Holocaust, no matter how erroneous or wrong-headed. Here are some passages that contain remarkable nonsense about the Holocaust.

Teach Israeli Children Value of Democracy
Dori Spivak and M. Takefman – Forward (New York)

For all the talk about Israel facing an existential threat, be it from Iran or from Gaza, perhaps the biggest danger to the country is emanating from a place far closer to home. Israelis’ commitment to democratic values is on the decline: They are losing faith in rights, diversity and equality, according to a survey by the Israel Democracy Institute. Only 54% of Israelis believe in freedom of religion, according to the report, and just 50% believe that Jewish and Arab Israelis should enjoy equal rights … Blatant prejudice and hatred are manifest in a variety of ways, from cries of “Death to the Arabs” in soccer stadiums to building separation fences between Jewish and Arab communities …

TV and the Holocaust
Jason Maoz – The Jewish Press (Brooklyn, New York)

In his compelling book While America Watches: Television and the Holocaust (Oxford University Press, 1999), Jeffrey Shandler demonstrates how television over the years brought Holocaust awareness into tens of millions of homes and, presumably, even larger numbers of hearts and minds. Shandler argues that “Since its earliest years, television has played a formative role in establishing the Holocaust as a recognizable event for American audiences.”

Bell Stole Telephone Idea, a New Book Argues
The Associated Press

A new book claims to have definitive evidence of a long-suspected technological crime — that Alexander Graham Bell stole ideas for the telephone from a rival, Elisha Gray. In "The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret," journalist Seth Shulman argues that Bell — aided by aggressive lawyers and a corrupt patent examiner — got an improper peek at patent documents Gray had filed, and that Bell was erroneously credited with filing first … Perhaps the most instructive lesson comes when Shulman explores why historical memory has favored Bell and not Gray — nor German inventor Philipp Reis, who beat them both with 1860s telephones that employed a different principle. 

Nazi Propaganda Films More Prevalent on Websites
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)

… Such incidents are at the heart of a new campaign by the German government to crack down on neo-Nazi groups that are disseminating information through the Internet. But it's an uphill struggle … Hitler rally archive footage and other Nazi propaganda films are increasingly being uploaded, translated, and disseminated through YouTube. Other networking sites, such as Facebook.Com and Myspace.Com have faced similar rises in anti-Semitism.

Rewriting History: The Madness of Myths
Edward Lucas – The Economist (Britain)

Whatever you think about the Second World War is wrong, and this book [Europe at War: 1939-1945: No Simple Victory] will prove it. That, at least, is the contention of Norman Davies, a trenchant British-born historian whose scope, ambition and knowledge about Europe are unmatched. His aim in this new history of the war is to puncture the comfortable myths created by the combination of popular culture (especially in films) plus the self-centred history taught in schools ... British and American readers may be surprised to learn (though they shouldn't be) that their countries' role in land warfare was so feeble … Stalin's death camps killed more people than Hitler's.

How Britain Didn't Win the War… But the Russians Did
Norman Davies -- The Sunday Times (Britain)

Britain and America still insist they defeated the Nazis, in the face of overwhelming evidence that they were minor partners. … The attack on the Third Reich was a joint effort. But it was not a joint effort of two equal parts. The lion’s share of victory in Europe can be awarded only to Stalin’s forces, and it is a fantasy to believe that he was fighting for justice and democracy. Separating the facts from the myths and the propaganda is not easy … Proportions, however, are crucial. Since 75%-80% of all German losses were inflicted on the eastern front it follows that the efforts of the western allies accounted for only 20%-25%.   

Stalin’s Gift: The Overlooked German-Soviet War
Benjamin Schwarz (Review) – The Atlantic

… He [Norman Davies] recognizes [in his new book, Europe at War: 1939-1945: No Simple Victory] that the Eastern Front was without question the pivotal theater of the war: For four years, more than 400 Red Army and German divisions clashed in an unrelenting series of military operations over a front extending more than 1,000 miles. (At its most intense, the war in the West was fought between 15 Allied and 15 Wehrmacht divisions.) Eighty-eight percent of the German military dead fell there … The Soviet war effort was so overwhelming that impartial historians of the future are unlikely to rate the British and American contribution to the European theatre as much more than a sound supporting role. 

Bush's Twilight Year Looks Grim
Jim Lobe – Inter Press Service

If the last days of 2007 are any indication, U.S. President George W. Bush's last year in office is shaping up as grim and lonely. Grim, because Bush's signature "war on terror" is nowhere near the kind of "victory" on which he had placed so much hope. Hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury have been spent, but the democratic transformation of the Middle East and the wider Islamic world has not materialized … Grim, because the economic news – which has generally remained upbeat over Bush's tenure – has turned decidedly negative in recent months. 

Israel Upholds Use of Cluster Bombs
The Associated Press  

Israeli military prosecutors have decided not to take any legal action over Israel's use of cluster bombs during last year's war in Lebanon, the army said Monday, closing an investigation into a practice that has drawn heavy criticism from the UN and international human rights groups. The investigation determined that Israel's use of the weapons, which open in flight and scatter dozens of bomblets, was a "concrete military necessity'' and did not violate international humanitarian law. The United Nations and human rights groups have accused Israel of dropping about 4 million cluster bomblets during its 34-day war against the Hezbollah guerrilla group.

Annus Horribilis Ahead?
Patrick J. Buchanan

… Though we boast about our diversity, it appears that the more diverse we become as a nation, the less united we are as a people. Imus, Jena and the Duke rape case testify to it. As one wag puts it, the only thing melting now is the pot. Two-thirds of the nation think America is headed in the wrong direction. The America the next president will lead is no longer able to win or end her wars, defend her borders, enforce her immigration laws, balance her budget, eliminate a chronic trade deficit that now runs to six percent of GDP, or maintain the value of the dollar. We save nothing.

Art Show Includes Third Reich Paintings
The Art Newspaper

The new Grohmann Museum, which is dedicated to art showing “the evolution of human work”, has been called to account for failing to display any information about the art’s association with the Nazi regime. The institution opened in October at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) … The most heavily represented artist, with 81 works, is Erich Mercker (1891-1973) whose images of German industry were endorsed by the Third Reich and exhibited in the annual Nazi-sanctioned “Great German Art Exhibition” in 1937.

No Peace on Earth
Charley Reese

… We are overextended, both militarily and financially. That's just a sad truth. Our economy is teetering on the edge of a recession or worse. Our so-called diplomacy in the Middle East is getting less than zero results. We are crazy to try to stay there. The age of colonialism is over. We should go to war only in self-defense. I don't believe the American people wish to adopt Iraq and Afghanistan as permanent wards of the taxpayers. I don't believe they want to keep burying sons and daughters whose deaths don't make America safer. That's not pacifism. It's common sense.

Israel Will Attack Iran on Its Own, Says Ex-CIA Official
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)

"I came back from a trip to Israel in November convinced that Israel would attack Iran," Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and senior adviser to three US presidents, George W. Bush among them, told the American Newsweek magazine … Citing conversations he had in Israel with officials in Mossad and the Israeli defense establishment, Riedel concluded that "Israel is not going to allow its nuclear monopoly to be threatened."

The Most Dreaded Enemy of Liberty
James Madison

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few … The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war … the power of raising armies … The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.

The Nazi Relative Who Was Disowned by Britain’s Royal Family
Daily Mail (Britain)

Behind the Queen's diamond wedding is the extraordinary untold story of how her marriage was almost scuppered by Philip's links to one of Hitler's closest henchmen … They were Philip's nieces and nephews, the children of his sisters, all three of whom were excluded from receiving invitations to the royal wedding in 1947, owing to the fact that their husbands were German officers, in some cases with strong Nazi connections. Philip's youngest sister, Princess Sophie of Hanover, had married Prince Christopher of Hesse-Cassel, who was an SS Colonel attached to Heinrich Himmler's personal staff …

Why the Council on Foreign Relations Hates Putin
Mike Whitney

… Vladamir Putin is arguably the most popular leader in Russian history, although you'd never know it by reading the western media. According to a recent survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal, Putin's personal approval rating in November 2007 was 85 per cent, making him the most popular head of state in the world today. Putin's popularity derives from many factors. He is personally clever and charismatic. He is fiercely nationalistic and has worked tirelessly to improve the lives of ordinary Russians and restore the country to its former greatness. He has raised over 20 million Russians out of grinding poverty, improved education …

American Jews on War and Peace
James Petras

 … Given these issues, a serious analyst clearly must distinguish between ‘opinions’ and ‘commitment’.  While a majority of American Jews may voice private progressive opinions, their commitments based on their identity as Jews rests with the State of Israel and its principal mouthpieces in the US. This probably explains the unwillingness of progressive Jews to criticize the principal reactionary Jewish leaders and their mass organizations, even worse to attack and slander any critics of the pro-Israel power configuration.  Progressive Jews have subordinated their progressive opinions to their loyalty and identity with Israel.

Six Inconvenient Truths About the US and Slavery
Michael Medved

Those who want to discredit the United States and to deny our role as history’s most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity invariably focus on America’s bloody past as a slave-holding nation … An honest and balanced understanding of the position of slavery in the American experience requires a serious attempt to place the institution in historical context and to clear-away some of the common myths and distortions … In short, politically correct assumptions about America’s entanglement with slavery lack any sense of depth, perspective or context.

Bomb After Bomb
Howard Zinn

… It was not until after the war, when I read John Hersey's interviews with Japanese survivors of Hiroshima, who described what they had endured, that I became aware, in excruciating detail, of what my bombs had done … I learned of the firebombing of Tokyo in March of 1945, in which perhaps a hundred thousand people died. I learned about the bombing of Dresden, and the creation of a firestorm which cost the lives of 80,000 to 100,000 residents of that city. I learned of the bombing of Hamburg and Frankfurt and other cities in Europe. We know now that perhaps 600,000 civilians – men, women, and children – died in the bombings of Europe. And an equal number died in the bombings of Japan. 

Lakota Indians Break Away From US
Agence France Presse

The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday. "We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy … A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States …

A Straight Look at the Jewish Lobby
Mark Weber

… For decades the US has provided Israel with crucial military, diplomatic and financial backing, including more than $3 billion each year in aid. Why is the US such a staunch bastion of support for Israel? ... Although Jews make up only two or three percent of the US population, they wield immense power and influence – much more than any other ethnic or religious group … The “Jewish lobby” is a decisive factor in US support for Israel. Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to American interests. In fact, they often conflict.

Howl Hitler: German is Jailed for Nazi Saluting Dog
Daily Mail (Britain)

… The German Shepherd crossbreed, called Adolf, lifted its paw up high on command in imitation of the infamous raised-arm greeting used by Hitler and his cohorts. The nine-year-old dog's owner, known as Roland T, boasted brazenly in front of police about the animal's trick - even though the Nazi salute is banned in Germany … Judges were previously lenient because of a brain injury he suffered in 1995. But they jailed him for five months over the dog salute. Adolf has now been taken to an animal shelter, where staff have renamed him Adi.

Remembering the Imposed Ukrainian Famine of 1930s
The New York Times

… It is widely recognized that the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33, which killed three million to six million people, resulted from the Soviet government's policies, said Alexander Motyl, a political science professor at Rutgers University who has written extensively on 20th-century Ukraine … This is also a pressing mission of the Ukrainian government, which is dedicating 2008 to compiling testimonies, supporting scholarly research, restoring burial places and planning a national museum. President Viktor Yushchenko has spoken of the importance of recovering memories of an event that had long been denied by the Soviet Union. Yushchenko’s government is also leading a drive to have the United Nations declare the famine an act of genocide …

Nationalism and Genocide: Origin of the Ukraine Famine, 1932-1933
Valentyn Moroz

These elementary analogies are enough to show that the murder of seven million Ukrainians in 1933 could not have been motivated by socio-economic or "class" reasons alone. Conflicts claim millions of victims only in struggles between nations, as in wars, colonial struggles, and so forth, when the national question is paramount. Moscow needed a holocaust. The imposed famine of 1933 and the whole range of repressive mass killings during the 1930s were an expression of the empire's struggle for self-preservation. It was this instinct, and not the economic doctrine of collectivization, that impelled the Kremlin to carry out the horrors of the 1930s. 

Two Strikes
Charley Reese

…The future grows dark for the United States. We have a bad administration that is corrupt, secretive, incompetent and disdainful of liberty. We have a press that for the most part cannot distinguish news from celebrity gossip. We have an education system that is manufacturing functional illiterates. We have a public that seemingly believes the only things worthwhile in life are entertainment and consumption. The public debt is $9.1 trillion, and interest increases that debt by $1.4 billion per day. That alone will do us in if we fail to confront it. As for war, we can't even afford the two we are in.

Israel and Top Zionist Leaders Attack Intelligence
James Petras

… Surprisingly it is not liberal or leftist opinion leaders who have raised the relevant issues pertaining to the questions of war and peace in the Middle East, the Israeli-White House threats of starting World War III. It is the spy agencies in the US and their allies in the US military, the paragons of past wars and present destabilization campaigns (read – Venezuela ). It is an irony of history. But just the same, this is the real world in which we live, where Western intellectuals and cultural heroes have abdicated their responsibility to challenge the Zionist Power Configuration operating on behalf of an aspiring Middle East colonial power.

Propaganda War in Cinemas Over Nanking Massacre
The Independent (Britain)

… The world will soon get a chance to assess his claims when Mizushima's movie, The Truth of Nanking, reaches the cinemas. Arguments over what occurred in Nanking [China] began almost as soon as Imperial [Japanese] soldiers marched into the city on 13 December 1937 and have only grown in ferocity since. These smouldering disputes are set to cross over into mass entertainment on the 70th anniversary of the massacre, with nearly a dozen movies, backed by US, European and Chinese money, set to pick again at Nanking 's scabs. Whatever the end result, one thing is certain: Japanese neo-nationalists have little hope of winning the propaganda war second time around.

The US Must Reevaluate Its Relationship With Israel
Scott Ritter

… Israel at present can have no friends, because Israel does not know how to be a friend. Driven by xenophobic paranoia and historical grievances, Israel is embarked on a path that can only lead to death and destruction. This is a path the United States should not tread … In the greater interest of what will best benefit the security interests of the United States, and indeed the Middle East and the entire world, the grip Israel has on American policymaking must come to an end.

David Irving’s Oxford Union Address
Focal Point 

… I started writing books in 1963. My very first book was a best seller. I've written thirty books since then … But I still refuse to be bowed, and am not going to write what they want me to write … My enemies will continue to try and stop me … I was born in 1938 into a great world empire. We saw that empire frittered away in a useless war, and I am convinced as a historian, from the records that I have read in Germany , and in Britain , that Britain was never at risk. We could have got out of the war cheaply in 1940 … Other historians hate me, because I have done the work that they haven't. I must be free to publish and print, and research, and write, and distribute the truth, as I find it to be.

Oy - My People Are Too Rich!
Philip Weiss

… I sense that Jewish entrepreneurialism is the engine of the American economy … The Washington Post reported some years ago that more than half of Democratic presidential giving is coming from Jews, while Steve Rabinowitz, Clinton friend, told me this year that if anyone did a study of how much Dem money comes from Jews, it would fuel conspiracy theories... The WASPs resigned. Mutilated by the Vietnam War and sensitive to the criticism of their caste as exclusive and snobbish and racist, they calmly decamped and left the scene.Joseph Epstein wrote that there has never been a sociological surrender like that one, without a shot being fired, in history.

Finns Snap Up Swastika Rings for Christmas
Der Spiegel (Germany)

A Finnish charity is selling silver rings emblazoned with a swastika to raise money for World War II veterans. The group selling the rings say they bear no relation to the Nazi emblem and that they are just a way for Finland to honor those who fought for the country's independence. … The rings are replicas of the 1940 "Air Defence" ring, which was part of a wartime effort to raise money for the Finnish air force … The swastika is a traditional symbol in Finnish culture, and a blue swastika was used as the symbol of the Finnish Air Force between 1918 and 1945.

Andrew Jackson: Hero or American Hitler?
Carl Byker – Los Angeles Times

… It's worth remembering that Americans have elected more than a few presidents through the years who have been celebrated by some even as they have been deeply detested by others. Among the most instructive examples for our own times is Andrew Jackson … But many other Americans intensely despised President Jackson for his advocacy of Indian removal -- the forcing of tribes east of the Mississippi to resettle west of the river -- and his ownership of slaves … Jackson scholar Dan Feller of the University of Tennessee says many of the young people he talks to today view Jackson as almost an American Adolf Hitler.

Iran War: American Military Versus Israel Firsters
James Petras

… The deepening and all-important conflict between the pro-Israel warmongers and the anti-war American senior officers is reaching a bitter climax.  As the US military disintegrates under prolonged colonial warfare, the ZPC [Zionist Power Configuration] intensifies its campaign for a third war for Israel and against Iran, a war which will totally shatter the US military forces … So far the only effective resistance to colonization has comes from the US military. The military is a non-democratic, hierarchical institution but an institution representative of the public’s opposition to colonial encroachments.

Losing and Restoring the Republic
Jacob G. Hornberger

It is impossible to overstate the fundamental differences between the foreign-policy philosophy of our American ancestors and the foreign-policy mindset that guides our country today. The philosophy of our ancestors was nicely summed up in the Fourth of July address to Congress in 1821 by John Quincy Adams.  In essence Adams said, There are lots of bad things all over the world — dictatorships, tyranny, oppression, famine, and starvation. Nevertheless, he said, the U.S. government did not go abroad “in search of monsters to destroy.” Instead, the American people devoted their time and energies to developing the freest and most prosperous nation in history, which the world could then emulate.

In Britain, ‘Jewish Conspiracy’ Claims in Funding Scandal
Haaretz (Israel)

What began as another scandal concerning illegal campaign contributions to the British Labour Party has become in recent days a tangled matter that is arousing conspiracy theories regarding a "Jewish plot" in the United Kingdom, and the role of the pro-Israel lobby there. David Abrahams, a Jewish millionaire who has admitted he made secret donations to the ruling British party, said in an interview that appeared in The Jewish Chronicle this past Friday that he concealed his activity because, "I didn't want Jewish money and the Labour Party being put together." 

US Economic Fall Now Seems Unstoppable
Paul Craig Roberts

Hubris and arrogance are too ensconced in Washington for policymakers to be aware of the economic policy trap in which they have placed the US economy … By focusing America on war in the Middle East, the purpose of which is to guarantee Israel’s territorial expansion, the executive and legislative branches, along with the media, have let slip the last opportunities the US had to put its financial house in order.  We have arrived at the point where it is no longer bold to say that nothing now can be done.  Unless the rest of the world decides to underwrite our economic rescue, the chips will fall where they may.

Strangling Free Speech in Germany and Austria
David Irving

… The German government has quietly admitted that over the last twelve months it prosecuted over 18,000 Germans for offences of "right-wing extremism," of which only a few hundred involved actual violence: i.e. they prosecuted over seventeen thousand thought-crimes -- people unwitting displaying the old swastika emblem, or even worse, National Socialist ideas, and perhaps even "denying the H."  

Zionism and the Third Reich
Mark Weber

… This is but one vignette from a little-known chapter of history: The wide-ranging collaboration between Zionism and Hitler's Third Reich … In spite of the basic hostility between the Hitler regime and international Jewry, for several years Jewish Zionist and German National Socialist interests coincided. In collaborating with the Zionists for a mutually desirable and humane solution to a complex problem, the Third Reich was willing to make foreign exchange sacrifices, impair relations with Britain and anger the Arabs. Indeed, during the 1930s no nation did more to substantively further Jewish-Zionist goals than Hitler's Germany.

US Minority Groups Don’t Trust Each Other, Survey Finds
Agence France Presse

The three main minorities in the United States — blacks, Hispanics and Asians — have little trust for each other and hold prejudiced views about Americans of different ethnic origins to their own, a poll showed Wednesday.

Greek Historian Convicted for Anti-Jewish Book
The Associated Press

A far-right Greek historian was sentenced to 14 months in prison Thursday for inciting racial hatred with a book that denies the Holocaust took place, court officials said. Historian Costas Plevris appealed his sentence and was not taken into custody. A three-member panel of judges voted 2-1 to find Plevris guilty of inciting violence and racial hatred. The court cleared three other defendants of similar charges: the publisher, the editor and a journalist at a small right-wing magazine that published extracts from the book.  Greek Jewish community leaders had testified that Plevris' book The Jews: The whole truth has led to an increase in attacks on Jewish monuments in the country.

In France, Le Pen on Trial Over World War II Remarks
Reuters

Prosecutors told a court on Friday French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen should receive a suspended prison sentence and a fine for saying that the Nazi occupation of France was "not particularly inhumane".  Le Pen's trial for "justification of war crimes" and "contesting crimes against humanity" opened on Friday. It centers around a comment Le Pen made in a 2005 interview with right-wing weekly magazine Rivarol, which angered the government, anti-racism organisations and Jewish groups. The prosecution asked that Le Pen be handed a five-month suspended sentence and fined 10,000 euros ($14,530).

The Naked Emperor
Kevin MacDonald

… The Achilles’ heel of the new establishment is Israel and the influence of its supporters in America, particularly the organized Jewish community. Some of the very same organizations, such as the ADL, that have been at the forefront of enforcing and extending the cultural revolution of the 1960s — the revolution that views the eclipse of white America as a moral imperative — have also been at the forefront of promoting Israel and defending it against criticism. But it’s becoming apparent to quite a few observers that the emperor has no clothes.

Did Unity Mitford Have Hitler’s Love Child?
The Times (Britain)

She was the English aristocrat who became so enamoured with Hitler that she shot herself in the head at the outbreak of war. Unity Mitford, the daughter of Lord Redesdale, had been so entwined in the Führer’s inner circle that British secret services described her as “more Nazi than the Nazis”. But could this cousin of Winston Churchill have been closer to Hitler than anyone suspected? An article published today raises the possibility that Mitford, who survived her suicide attempt, may have given birth to his child. If the theory that this baby was born in a tiny Cotswolds village and rapidly adopted were true, Hitler’s child could be living somewhere in Britain today.

Revenge of the Spooks: A Final Disgrace for Bush & Co.
Eric Margolis (Canada)

… U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell made public a bombshell National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report that concluded "with high confidence" Tehran had halted its rudimentary nuclear weapons program in 2003 … The new NIE is a devastating, humiliating blow to Bush, Dick Cheney and the neocons who have been fulminating for war against Iran. Only two months ago, Bush warned Americans that Iran's secret nuclear program threatened to ignite World War III … Ironically, Iran's leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was telling the truth all along when he said Iran was not working on nuclear arms, while Bush & Company were lying through their teeth, just as they have over Iraq and Afghanistan.

Holy Land Monastery Closes its Gates After Jewish Assault
Toronto Times (Canada)

One of the most serene holy places in the vicinity of Jerusalem was recently compelled to restrict visits as a result of vandalism, bigotry and theft. The Franciscan-run St. John in the Desert Monastery, which includes a convent, now only permits Christian pilgrims and secular groups led by a licensed tour guide. Reservations are required to visit the six-hectare Judean Hills shrine, which enjoys a spectacular location amidst heavily forested ancient agricultural terraces. The change in policy follows an altercation there last month involving a group of some 30 Jews described as "settlers" who assaulted the monastery's Father Superior Sergio Olmedo and then trashed the pilgrimage destination.

Annapolis: ‘The Tumult And The Shouting Dies...’
Uri Avnery (Israel)

… Even if Bush wanted to, could he do anything? Is he capable of putting pressure on Israel, in the face of vigorous opposition from the pro-Israel lobby, and especially from the Christian-Evangelist public, to which he himself belongs? … The Hamas leaders were very worried indeed. Not because they were afraid that peace would be concluded at the meeting. They were apprehensive of another danger: that the only real aim of the meeting was to prepare the ground for an Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.

German ‘Neo-Nazi’ Party Chief Disputes Auschwitz Estimates
The Telegraph (Britain)

The leader of a far-Right party in Germany was facing a parliamentary inquiry last night after he questioned the number of Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis. Udo Voigt, the head of the 'neo-Nazi’ National Democratic Party (NPD), also demanded the return of land lost after the Second World War. "Six million cannot be right. At most, 340,000 people could have died in Auschwitz ," he said in an interview with Iranian journalists. "The Jews always say: 'Even if one Jew died that is a crime.' But of course it makes a difference whether one has to pay for six million people or for 340,000." 

The Lobby Strikes Back
Scott McConnell -- The American Conservative

… The Israel Lobby [by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt] is an extraordinary accomplishment, completed with great speed -- a dense, factually based brief of an argument that is often made but rarely made well … To say that neoconservatives "overlap" with the Israel lobby hardly does them justice: the faction might more properly be described as, to borrow the well-known phrase, the highest stage of the Israel lobby … Walt and Mearsheimer haven't written the last word on American-Israeli relations. Other books, more psychologically probing and more discursive, are in the works or waiting to be written. But in clearing the first path since the pivotal date of 9/11, these two authors have done their country a great service.

Anarchy and Outrage at the Pacifica Forum
Oregon Commentator
(Eugene, Oregon)

A group of about 50 local peace activists protested outside of the Pacifica Forum's lecture on Nov. 2. It was an odd sight -- peace activists protesting a forum ostensibly dedicated to peace and non-violence. But the Pacifica Forum had brought Mark Weber, a noted "revisionist historian," to speak in a lecture titled "The Israel Lobby: How Powerful is it?" The organizer of the lecture and its speaker both claim the speech was merely about the influence of Israel in U.S. politics, but many Eugene residents, including some former members of the Pacifica Forum, say the forum and its content are hateful and anti-Semitic.

None Dare Call it Genocide
Andrew E. Mathis

… So, in the sick moral calculus to which all of us in Holocaust studies must resort to at one time or another, I rank the American genocide as a greater crime against humanity than the Nazi Holocaust … In the end, Foxman tipped his hand on both prongs of the ADL's campaign to sanctify the Holocaust as the sine qua non of Jewish existence. There was a time when the work of the ADL was useful and productive. Those days, sadly, are gone, as the ADL has sunk to the level of spying on private citizens, blindly supporting Israel in whatever endeavor she undertakes, however wrongheaded, and "expressing outrage" at the slightest provocation.

Austrian Court Upholds Prison Sentence for 'Denier' Honsik
The Associated Press 

A right-wing Austrian writer who fled to Spain after being convicted on Holocaust denial charges 15 years ago must serve his 18-month sentence, Vienna 's highest court said Monday. Gerd Honsik, 67, must serve out the sentence handed down in 1992, the court said, rejecting his plea for leniency because of his age and a kidney ailment. However, the court also turned down a prosecution request to make the former fugitive serve even more time. Vienna's public prosecutor's office said Honsik still faced possible charges for alleged neo-Nazi activities carried out during his exile in Spain, which could boost his time behind bars.

Innovating Our Way to Financial Crisis
Paul Krugman -- The New York Times

The financial crisis that began late last summer, then took a brief vacation in September and October, is back with a vengeance. How bad is it? Well, I’ve never seen financial insiders this spooked — not even during the Asian crisis of 1997-98, when economic dominoes seemed to be falling all around the world. This time, market players seem truly horrified — because they’ve suddenly realized that they don’t understand the complex financial system they created. Before I get to that, however, let’s talk about what’s happening right now.

Political Consequences of Falling Dollar
Liam Halligan -- The Telegraph (Britain)

The weak dollar used to be an economic issue. But the greenback has now dropped so far, and has so much further to fall, that its decline is of profound political importance. The dollar isn't any old currency. And it isn't just the currency of the biggest economy on earth. The dollar is the world's "reserve currency" - which means central banks everywhere use it to stockpile wealth. No less than two-thirds of all sovereign foreign exchange holdings are denominated in dollars.

Nixon Papers Show White House Concerns About Israeli Nukes
Fox News

President Nixon's top national security adviser worried that Israel might produce nuclear warheads "clandestinely" and that Israel's ambassador to the United States at the time, Yitzhak Rabin — later Israel's prime minister — might "stonewall" the White House in its efforts to ascertain the Israel's true intentions, according to newly declassified documents. The papers also show the Nixon administration possessed "circumstantial evidence" that Israel built its nuclear arsenal with "some fissionable material … illegally obtained from the United States " at an unspecified time prior to 1965.

America’s Days of Reckoning
Paul Craig Roberts

Pat Buchanan is too patriotic to come right out and say it, but the message of his new book, Day of Reckoning, is that America as we have known her is finished. Moreover, Naomi Wolf agrees with him. These two writers of different political persuasions arrive at America's demise from different directions.

America in the Time of Empire
Chris Hedges

All great empires and nations decay from within. By the time they hobble off the world stage, overrun by the hordes at the gates or vanishing quietly into the pages of history books, what made them successful and powerful no longer has relevance. This rot takes place over decades, as with the Soviet Union, or, even longer, as with the Roman, Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian empires. It is often imperceptible. Dying empires cling until the very end to the outward trappings of power. They mask their weakness behind a costly and technologically advanced military. They pursue increasingly unrealistic imperial ambitions.

Irving at the Oxford Union: An Eyewitness Account
Jonny Wright

… Irving was up next. I have to say that I was very surprised by him. I expected an angry diatribe from a stern-looking hatemonger. Irving comes across far more like an academic, with a clipped and slightly soft accent, very English. He spoke quite calmly … He began his argument with the words "I'm not a Holocaust denier -- but you've never had the chance to find that out." He insisted time and time again that he published what he believed to be the truth, and that he was being victimised because his view didn't correspond to the orthodox one .. Irving then went on a bit of a general rant about free speech.

Debate Rages in US on Academic Freedom
The Jewish Chronicle (Britain)

American universities are engaged in a furious debate over whether anti-Zionist academics should be allowed to teach Middle East courses. In the most recent case, Nadia Abu El-Haj, professor of anthropology at Barnard University, a subsidiary of New York's Columbia University, won a battle for tenure in the face of fierce lobbying from several pro-Israel groups. They had argued that Prof Abu El-Haj's 2002 book Facts on the Ground – which claimed that Palestinian history had been destroyed by Jewish archaeologists -- was academically flawed and disqualified her from a senior position.

One in Ten Americans Went Hungry Last Year
Inter Press Service

More than one in ten people in the United States go hungry, according to new official figures that suggest government food programs are falling short in the world's wealthiest country. More than 35 million people in a country of some 294 million went hungry last year, 390,000 more than in 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest Household Food Security report. Of the total, 12.63 million were children. Put another way, nearly one in five U.S. children either went without enough food during the course of the year or had food but could never take future meals for granted.

Moscow is Forging a New History for Russia
The Economist (Britain)

The Kremlin uses its version of the past to forge a new ideology for the present … “The attitude towards the past is the central element of any ideology,” Yury Afanasyev, a Russian liberal historian, has written in Novaya Gazeta. Indeed, in Russia arguments about history often stir greater passions than do debates about the present or future. What kind of country Russia becomes will depend in large part on what kind of history it chooses … Mr Surkov argues that Russia needs a political system to suit its national character and that it should disregard international norms of behaviour as “foreign pressure”.

US Storm Over Walt-Mearsheimer Book on Israel Lobby
BBC News 

The power of America's "Jewish lobby" is said to be legendary. Commentators the world over refer to it, as though it were a well-established fact that US Jews wield far more influence than their numbers (2% of the population) would suggest. But this presumed influence is also a delicate issue in the US, and is rarely analysed. How does the lobby work? Is its power truly legendary, or just a legend? Two US academics, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, have set out to answer those questions, and triggered a firestorm of controversy as a result. Their book [is] The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy …

Democrats the Party of the Rich, New Study Shows
The Washington Times

Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional districts. In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats.

Mahler Sentenced to Six Months Prison for Hitler Salute
Agence France Presse

A German neo-Nazi was sentenced to six months in jail on Friday for giving the Hitler salute when reporting to prison to serve an earlier sentence. The court in Cottbus, eastern Germany, gave Horst Mahler, a 71-year-old lawyer with a record of crimes linked to both the far-left and far-right movements, one week to appeal to the sentence. Mahler admitted to giving the Hitler salute in November 2006 when he arrived at a jail in Cottbus to serve another sentence. He has six previous convictions for political crimes, including denying the Holocaust and giving the Hitler salute.

Washington, DC, Has Highest US AIDS Rate
Reuters

Washington, D.C. has the highest rate of AIDS in the United States, and more babies are born with the AIDS virus in Washington than in other US cities, according to a report released on Monday. People living in Washington also are not getting tested for HIV and show up with advanced infections that progress quickly to AIDS, the report by city health officials found. The report found that Washington, with a population of around 600,000 people, has a rate of 128 AIDS cases per 100,000 people in 2006, compared with a national rate of 14 cases per 100,000. The city accounted for 9 percent of all pediatric AIDS cases in the United States during 2005.

Demjanjuk Case Spans Three Decades
Associated Press

U.S. Justice Department began trying to deport former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk more than three decades ago, claiming that he was an armed guard at a Nazi death camp and helped murder Jewish prisoners in World War II. Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel in 1986 and was under a death sentence until Israel's Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that Demjanjuk was not the sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp in German-occupied Poland whom prisoners called "Ivan the Terrible." … His U.S. citizenship was revoked in 1981, restored in 1998 and revoked again in 2002. Now 87, Demjanjuk is facing what his lawyer says may be his last chance to stay in the U.S.

Land of Broken Dreams
Eugene Robinson

The American self-image is suffused with the golden glow of opportunity. We think of the United States as a land of unlimited possibility, not so much a classless society, but as a place where class is mutable – a place where brains, energy and ambition are what counts, not the circumstances of one's birth. But three important new studies suggest that Horatio Alger doesn't live here anymore … The personal income of American men — including white men — has been almost perfectly flat for the past three decades.

Court Orders Paul Fromm to Pay $30,000 in Libel Case
The Ottawa Citizen (Canada)

Ottawa anti-racism campaigner Richard Warman has won a $30,000 libel judgment against a persistent antagonist for defamatory Internet postings he characterizes as "an oil spill on my reputation." In a ruling yesterday, Ontario Superior Court Justice Monique Métivier ordered Paul Fromm, director of the Canadian Association for Free Expression, to pay $20,000 in general damages and a further $10,000 in aggravated damages for nine defamatory postings about Mr. Warman.

Ideology of ‘Democratism’ Was Bush's Undoing
Patrick J. Buchanan

… Democratism is a belief that all men are equally endowed with a desire for freedom and an aptitude for democracy. All can be uplifted, and all brought to see that democracy is the one true path to peace in our world. In democracy lies our salvation. This conviction lay behind the invasion of Iraq , Bush’s crusade to democratize the Middle East and his “global democratic revolution” to “end tyranny in our world.” And, as Woodrow Wilson’s crusade “to make the world safe for democracy” gave us Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, Bush’s crusade for democracy is leaving us with ashes in our mouths.

Iran Has Ended Atomic Arms Work, Says US Intelligence
The New York Times

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb. The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be a major factor in the tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program. 

Oxford Union Debate with David Irving Disrupted by Protestors
The Telegraph (Britain)

Protesters broke through a security cordon and forced their way into the Oxford Union where Nick Griffin, leader of the far-Right BNP party, and David Irving, the controversial historian, were due to debate the limits of free speech. After pushing and shoving their way through the doors into the hall, around 20 demonstrators staged a sit down protest and began chanting at the debating table. The debate eventually began one-and-a-half hours late, with Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris and journalist Anne Atkins speaking against Mr Irving in one room whilst two Oxford University post-graduate students took on Mr Griffin in another.

Ukraine Commemorates Anniversary of Great Famine 1932-33
Agence France Presse

Ukraine mourned Saturday the millions who died in the Soviet-era famine of 1932-1933 which remains a bone of contention between Kiev and Moscow, with flags at half-mast and a solemn religious service. "It was a genocide, an attempt to subjugate the nation, deliberately planned and put into effect," charged pro-Western President Viktor Yuschenko in a speech to thousands gathered in the centre of the capital … Some four to 10 million people are estimated to have starved to death as a result of a Soviet program of forced collectivisation launched by dictator Josef Stalin in 1932.

IHR Employment Opportunity
Institute for Historical Review

The Institute for Historical Review needs another full-time staff member to join our team here in southern California. As office manager and website specialist, he or she should have good computer skills, a demonstrated ability to produce quality work on a timely basis, reliability, self-initiative, a commitment to the ideals and goals of the IHR, and be able to work together well with others. Preference will be given to applicants who already live in southern California.

The US Dollar: The Long Farewell?
Gwynne Dyer

… The main reason for the collapse of the US dollar is President George W. Bush’s attempt to fight expensive foreign wars while cutting taxes at home. This involved deficit financing on a very large scale, and inevitably the value of the dollar began to fall -- slowly at first, but with increasing speed as it became clear that the White House did not care … The last time the world went through a change like this, it took over forty years to complete … In any case the long farewell of the US dollar has begun. 

'For Fear of the Jews'
Joseph Sobran

The news that I would be addressing the Institute of Historical Review came to some people as, well, news … The IHR's mission can't be fairly summed up as "Holocaust denial." Its real mission is criticism of the suffocating progressive ideology that has infected and distorted the telling of history in our time … In short, the Holocaust has become a device for exempting Jews from normal human obligations. It