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Leave Ukraine Alone!
Ron Paul
… The usual interventionists in the US have long meddled in the internal affairs of Ukraine … A recent leaked telephone conversation between two senior government officials made it clear that not only was the US involved in the Ukrainian unrest, the US was actually seeking to determine who should make up the next Ukrainian government! … Certainly the American people want none of this intervention in Ukraine. They understand, as recent polls have shown, that our interventionist foreign policy is only creating more enemies overseas. And they also understand that we are out of money. We could not afford to be the policemen of world even if we wanted to be.
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Ukraine Commits Statue-Cide
BBC News
First it was statues of the tsars that were toppled, and replaced with Soviet demi-gods. Kiev lost four tsars and a prime minister (Pyotr Stolypin). Then, at the dawn of Ukrainian independence in 1991, most of the major Lenin statues came down, including a monolithic monument to Great October (that is, the 1917 [Bolshevik] Revolution) … So what will replace the toppled Lenins? In Lviv, the biggest city in western Ukraine, two new idols have been raised – Ukraine’s national poet, Taras Shevchenko, and the partisan leader who declared Ukrainian independence in World War Two, Stepan Bandera.
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Monument to World War II Soviet Soldiers Toppled in Ukraine
RT News (Russia)
The ‘Soviet Soldier’ – a monument commemorating the collective sacrifice of the Soviet army against Nazi forces – has been toppled in western Ukraine. This follows the country-wide fall of some two dozen Lenin statues. The taking down of the ‘Soviet Soldier’ in the town of Stryi, Lvov region, turns a new page in the chaos that gripped the nation in November, and has taken on dangerously nationalist overtones in the past fortnight.
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Jewish leaders have expressed concern over the continued violence in Ukraine and fear that Jews might be targeted … Peter Dickinson, editor-in-chief of Jewish News One (JN1), the Kiev-based 24/24 television channel, told European Jewish Press that the Jewish community are supportive of the protests, ‘’at least those whom I know and speak to.” While Jews are also concerned by the nationalist element – especially the anti-Semitic Svoboda party they overall see the pro-democracy and pro-European movement as the right direction for the country, said Dickinson. ‘’Plus they are well aware of the dangers posed by Russian chauvinism, which under Putin is becoming increasingly anti-Semitic,’’ he added.
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How Did Vermont Become America’s Heroin Capital?
Gina Tron - Politico
… Last month, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin devoted his entire annual address to the state’s heroin crisis. Two million dollars worth of heroin is pumped into Vermont each week, he said, and 80 percent of the state’s inmates are in prison for drug crimes … Heroin-related deaths nearly doubled in the last year alone, and the number of people treated for heroin addiction has increased an eye-popping 770 percent since 2000 … Heroin seems to have touched everyone I know in Vermont. Everyone has a relative, friend or neighbor who has been affected. And while the growth among people in my age group — 25 to 34 — has been nearly exponential, even younger people are using too.
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Former President George W. Bush has been honored with the Anti-Defamation League’s highest award … At a private dinner for the ADL’s national executive committee meeting at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla., Thursday night, the organization bestowed its “America’s Democratic Legacy Award” on Bush, whom the group also praised for establishing the United States’ first special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. “The best Middle Eastern policy starts with an alliance with the only democracy in the Middle East, and that is Israel,” Bush said in accepting the honor … “The cornerstone of peace begins with an unshakable US-Israel alliance.”
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Lessons of Nine Eleven
Mark Weber - Podcast
The perpetrators of the 2001 Nine Eleven attacks harmed the United States. But the response to those attacks by President George W. Bush and other American political leaders has proven to be even more damaging. The U.S. response has weakened this country’s security, undermined its economy, degraded its standing and credibility, and violated the principles it claims to uphold. The calamity of September 11 was a consequence, above all, of the Jewish-Zionist grip on American political life and the U.S. media.
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Hundreds of Anne Frank Books Vandalized in Tokyo Libraries
The Associated Press
Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl” and scores of books about the young Holocaust victim have been vandalized in Tokyo public libraries since earlier this year. The damage was mostly in the form of dozens of ripped pages in the books. Librarians have counted at least 265 damaged books at 31 municipal libraries since the end of January … The motive for damaging the Anne Frank books is unclear. Police are investigating.
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Jewish Group Criticizes German Newspaper for 'Anti-Semitic’ Cartoon of Mark Zuckerberg
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
A cartoon published by Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) last week depicting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as an octopus controlling the world with his company brought to mind a cartoon from 1938 Nazi Germany, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said Monday. The SZ cartoon depicting the Facebook founder with a long nose, triggered sharp criticism from the Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff … The SZ’s cartoonist Burkhard Mohr wrote: “Anti-Semitism and racism are ideologies which are totally foreign to me.” Mohr said he was “shocked” that his cartoon appears in this light.
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Obama's Liberal Imperialism
David Rieff - The National Interest
… When Obama campaigned on the slogan, “Change You Can Believe In,” he did not mean to mount a substantial challenge to what has been the fundamental assumption of American foreign policy since the end of the Second World War — that it is up to the U.S. to lead the world …. The surprising thing is not how far the administration has strayed from neocon orthodoxy. Rather, it is the extent to which it resembles that of the Bush administration. The consanguinity, you could even say, between the neocons and liberal hawks has rarely been more apparent … Over the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, the reality is one of far more continuity than rupture … Are we all liberal imperialists now?
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The Lethal Legacy of U.S. Foreign Intervention
Sheldon Richman
Americans seem to believe that once the U.S. military exits a foreign country, its moral accountability ends. But the deadly consequences — and culpability — continue long after the last soldier leaves … So, once again, arrogant American policymakers lumbered into a foreign country thinking they could remake it in their image — apparently without knowing anything about the cultural or social context. This is hardly the first time … Thus, 40 years after America’s war of aggression against the people of Southeast Asia, American munitions continue to kill people. Remember this the next time you hear antiwar advocates smeared as isolationists and American foreign intervention lauded as a blessing to mankind.
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Israeli Demand Sparks 'Jewish State' Debate
The Associated Press
… The U.S. usually doesn’t recognize countries by ethnicities, but Deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the U.S. does recognize Israel as a Jewish state … The whole notion of a Jewish state is a complicated one. By shining strong light on a matter that lives more comfortably in the shadows, Israel may be rekindling some awkward questions: Are the Jews a nation — or individuals who share a religion? Should a religion have a state? Should a state have a religion? And beyond that lies a bigger issue still: Is the idea of a nation-state — with members of that nation fretting over how to stay dominant numerically — not somehow unbecoming in the age of globalization?
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Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman believes education in the diaspora is “the most pressing issue on the global Jewish agenda, more pressing than any other issue, including the Palestinian negotiations or the Iranian nuclear threat.” He also said assimilation by American Jews is the biggest threat to global Jewry … Lieberman cited a study in the US showing diminishing Jewish identification, saying “these statistics demonstrate that the Jews of America are facing nothing less than a demographic catastrophe.” The study by the Pew Research Center unveiled a massive study on assimilation and intermarriage in the American Jewish community.
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For Israel, It's All About the Population Figures
The Associated Press
… In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a broader issue is in play. A race for “demographic” prominence — and the fact that Israel may be losing it — has become critical to the current peace effort led by John Kerry. The U.S. secretary of state himself has started warning Israel that it stands to become a binational state unless it ends the occupation of the lands it captured in the 1967 war. Kerry, who is expected to present a framework for a deal soon, said last month that failure “will make it impossible to preserve (Israel’s) future as a democratic Jewish state.” The idea — emphasized as never before — is being listened to in Israel.
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Ninety Years From Now
Uri Avnery (Israel)
… Will Israel exist in another 90 years? … If Israel continues on its present course, there will be disaster. The first stage will be apartheid. It already exists in the occupied territories, and it will spread to Israel proper. The descent into the abyss will not be dramatic or precipitous, It will be gradual, almost imperceptible. Slowly pressure on Israel will grow. Demographics will do their work … Wherein lies the power of nationalism? It seems that the human being needs a sense of belonging, belonging to a certain culture, tradition, historic memories (real or invented), homeland, language.
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In Poland, Szczecin City Council Votes Against Stripping Hitler of Honorary Citizenship
Szczecinian (Poland)
On Monday, February 10, a meeting of Szczecin city council voted against a proposal by the conservative Catholic PiS (Law and Justice) party to clean up its list of honorary citizens. These include … most controversially of all, Adolf Hitler … One reason for the current interest in removing honors from unworthy candidates is an action during the finals of the Tall Ships’ Races in Szczecin in 2013, when someone unveiled a banner with the words: ‘Adolf Hitler, honorary citizen of Szczecin, welcomes sailors’.
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Hitler at 50: Color Photos of the Fuehrer’s Birthday
Time & Life Pictures
A selection of 18 color pictures from Third Reich Germany on the occasion of Hitler’s 50th birthday in April 1939, including a lavish parade in Berlin that was a memorable expression of the popular mood of national confidence, vitality and strength.
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How Hitler Tackled Unemployment and Revived Germany’s Economy
Mark Weber – Podcast
To deal with the massive unemployment and economic paralysis of the Great Depression, both the Roosevelt government in the US and Hitler’s government in Germany launched innovative and ambitious programs. Although Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs helped only marginally, the Third Reich’s much more focused and comprehensive policies proved remarkably successful. Within three years unemployment was banished and Germany’s economy was booming. This remarkable achievement is little known and rarely acknowledged. Runtime: 35:38 mins.
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Do We Learn Anything From History?
W.J. Astore
… Our decision makers have no respect for the lessons of history. They think the lessons don’t apply to them … The beginning of wisdom is not the fear of God. It’s the fear of ourselves — the destruction that we as humans are capable of in the name of creating new realities. The historical record provides a bible of sorts that records our harshness as well as our extraordinary capacity for self-deception. Such knowledge is not to be reviled, nor should it be dismissed. The more we dismiss history — the more we exalt ourselves as unconstrained creators of new realities — the more we pursue policies that are unwise — perhaps even murderously so. If we learn nothing else from history, let us learn that.
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Big Media Pumps Again for Mideast Wars
Robert Parry - Consortium News
… That sort of double standard is common in the mainstream U.S. news media when reporting on Israel and its Muslim adversaries. But to let an Israeli official get away with castigating Iran for contemplating something that Israel has already done – without mentioning the hypocrisy – is a clear violation of journalistic standards. Indeed, it is evidence of bias. Meanwhile, the neocon editors of the Washington Post are continuing their new campaign to pressure President Barack Obama into issuing more military ultimatums to Syria, another Israeli “enemy” … That “theme” was quickly picked up by other U.S. news outlets, including “liberal” MSNBC.
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How Three Million Germans Died After VE Day
The Telegraph (Britain)
… MacDonogh [in his book, After the Reich] argues that the months that followed May 1945 brought no peace to the shattered skeleton of Hitler’s Reich, but suffering even worse than the destruction wrought by the war … The first 200 pages of his brave book are an almost unbearable chronicle of human suffering. His best estimate is that some three million Germans died unnecessarily after the official end of hostilities. A million soldiers vanished before they could creep back to the holes that had been their homes … The two million German civilians who died were largely the old, women and children: victims of disease, cold, hunger, suicide – and mass murder.
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Five months before the end of World War II in Europe – as enemy forces are advancing from East and West, and German cities are being bombed mercilessly – Germany’s leaders call up all remaining able-bodied men to defend the nation. In Munich, a ceremony commemorates the 1923 attempt to seize power. Home guard (“Volkssturm”) soldiers are sworn in at large gatherings in East Prussia, Danzig and Berlin. Goebbels address a mass rally of home guard men in central Berlin. From the German wartime weekly newsreel, “Die Deutsche Wochenschau,” of Nov. 16, 1944. With English subtitles (not entirely accurate). Runtime: 6:41 mins.
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East Asia's Dangerous History Wars
Rajan Menon - The National Interest
At the annual Davos World Economic Forum, which convened last month, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe disrupted the conviviality by offering an historical analogy that jarred his listeners. Abe likened the polemics and gunboat diplomacy (he did not characterize it thus) that China and Japan have been using against each other of late to the rivalry between Germany and Great Britain in the run-up to World War I … His aim was political: to sound the tocsin so as to draw attention to the displays of Chinese power in East Asia … In Abe’s mind, these actions amount to an ominous bellwether — not merely for Japan, but for East Asia more generally.
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The Syrian Opposition, Explained
R. Makhoul, L. Stack - The New York Times – Video
In Syria, the anti-government opposition is divided into four main groups: the “Free Syrian Army,” which is increasingly fragmented; “rebel groups inspired by Al Qaeda,” of which there are two main factions; Islamist brigades; and, Kurdish fighters. These four main groups are made up of hundreds, if not thousands of armed groups. Although these opposition forces fight against the central government of President Assad, they also fight against each other with growing ferocity. Runtime: 3:21 mins.
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Defense Secretary Hagel Confirms Unprecedented US Arms Transfers to Israel
The Times of Israel
The US will provide Israel with a long list of advanced weapons, guaranteeing it a technological edge and superiority over any enemy, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said Monday during a Tel Aviv press conference with his Israeli counterpart. The Israeli Air Force will receive advanced radar systems, missiles, refueling planes and V-22 planes, Hagel told reporters after a meeting with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. The V-22 planes, which can take off vertically, are something no country outside the US has, Hagel noted …
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The Folly of Arming Israel
Chase Madar - Toms Dispatch
… In general, the American media tends to treat our arming of Israel as part of the natural order of the universe … Even the “quality” media shies away from any discussion of Washington’s real role in fueling the Israel-Palestine conflict … Washington’s politically invisible military aid to Israel is not just an impediment to lasting peace, but also a strategic and security liability … The arming and bankrolling of a wealthy nation committing ethnic cleansing has something to offend conservatives, progressives, and just about every other political grouping in America … It is hard to imagine what kind of progress can ever be made toward a just and lasting settlement between Israel and Palestine until Washington quits arming one side to the teeth.
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… Israel has a minimum of 80 and a maximum of 400 nuclear weapons, those limits being based on calculations of the amount of fissile material that it has enriched to weapons grade. The best guess is that the total is around 200 warheads, most of them two-stage thermonuclear devices (hydrogen bombs) … And Israel maintains a full “triad” of delivery systems: land-based missiles, sea-launched missiles, and aircraft … The U.S. Congress will ensure that Israel goes on getting all the money and arms it wants no matter what it says about its nukes, and it is high time to end this ridiculous dance around the truth.
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More Americans now believe that the war in Afghanistan was a mistake than those who believe it was a good idea, according to a new poll. The Gallup survey found for the first time since the war began in 2001 that more people were against the war than in favor by a margin of 49 percent to 48 percent. Following the attacks in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, Americans sent troops to Afghanistan to oust the Taliban who were sheltering al-Qaida terrorists and their leader Osama bin Laden. When Gallup first surveyed Americans shortly after the fighting began, less than ten percent thought that sending in troops was wrong.
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The Opening of the American Foreign-Policy Mind
Robert W. Merry - The National Interest
… In today’s America, matters of war and peace have undergone a political transformation. The country wants peace and, based on events of the last decade, has erected a higher barrier of justification for its acceptance of more military action around the world based on wispy expressions of America’s need to protect itself from international bad guys … These developments would have seemed impossible just a few years ago, as America still stirring visions of American beneficence assuaging the hurts and wants of humanity around the world. Fewer and fewer Americans believe that stuff now …
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A French court on Wednesday [Feb. 12] ordered controversial comic Dieudonne to remove two sections of a video he has posted on YouTube which has been widely condemned as anti-Semitic … In the passage deemed to constitute Holocaust denial, Dieudonne claims to “know nothing about the gas chambers” but says he can organise a meeting for anyone interested with “Robert” — which the court accepted was a reference to Robert Faurisson, a notorious former academic who claims the systematic massacres of Jews in World War II never happened.
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A judge in Paris [Feb. 12] has ordered French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala to remove two parts of a YouTube video deemed insulting to Jews. The judge said the two segments, which were specifically related to the Holocaust, could incite racial hatred. Dieudonne, who already has convictions for hate speech, was also given a 1,500 euro ($2,045) fine … The video in question is called “2014, year of the Quenelle”. In one of the clips that the judge ruled as insulting to Jews, Dieudonne referred his audience to the French academic and Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson when asked about whether the gas chambers existed.
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A Revisionist Chronicle: Impact and Future of Holocaust Revisionism
Robert Faurisson
… Around the world, our adversaries’ tactic is the same: use courts to paralyze the work of the revisionists, if not to sentence them to prison terms or to order them to pay fines or damages. For those convicted, imprisonment means a halt to all revisionist activity, while those ordered to pay large sums are compelled to set off on a feverish pursuit of money, goaded by threats of bailiffs, “writs of seizure,” “notices to third parties,” and freezing of bank accounts. For this reason alone, my life over the past quarter of a century has been difficult. It still is and, in all probability, will remain so.
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Distorting Russia
Stephen F. Cohen - The Nation
The degradation of mainstream American press coverage of Russia, a country still vital to US national security, has been under way for many years. If the recent tsunami of shamefully unprofessional and politically inflammatory articles in leading newspapers and magazines — particularly about the Sochi Olympics, Ukraine and, unfailingly, President Vladimir Putin — is an indication, this media malpractice is now pervasive and the new norm. There are notable exceptions, but a general pattern has developed … As a result, American media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War.
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More US Soldiers Forced Out For Misconduct and Criminal Behavior
The Associated Press
The number of U.S. soldiers forced out of the Army because of crimes or misconduct has soared in the past several years as the military emerges from a decade of war that put a greater focus on battle competence than on character. Data obtained by The Associated Press shows that the number of officers who left the Army due to misconduct more than tripled in the past three years. The number of enlisted soldiers forced out for drugs, alcohol, crimes and other misconduct shot up from about 5,600 in 2007, as the Iraq war peaked, to more than 11,000 last year.
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Diplomacy Is a Four Letter Word: The Neocon Triumph
Philip Giraldi
Why is the United States so reluctant to negotiate with other countries and so prone to leap immediately to the option of using force or chicanery in lieu of a more deliberative foreign policy? … National Security statists also require a powerful adversary to validate their assumptions about the need to reorganize and lead the world to deal with transnational threats … Ideologues like Victoria Nuland, who might serve as a poster child for what is wrong with the US government, constitute only one element in the dysfunctional White House view of the world and how to interact with it.
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Obama Ambassador Nominees Prompt an Uproar With Bungled Answers, Lack of Ties
J. Eilperin - The Washington Post
A century-old debate over whether presidents should reward political donors and allies by making them ambassadors has flared again after a string of embarrassing gaffes by President Obama’s picks … The stumbles have highlighted the perils of rewarding well-heeled donors and well-connected politicos with plum overseas assignments and have provided political fodder for Republicans eager to attack the White House. The cases also underscore how a president who once infuriated donors by denying them perks has now come into line with his predecessors, doling out prominent diplomatic jobs by the dozens to supporters.
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Obama's Inept Ambassadors
Jacob Heilbrunn - The National Interest
… Political appointees account for 37 percent of the ambassadorships filled so far during Obama’s tenure … Why does it matter? Three reasons. First, it sows further cynicism in the ranks of the State Department about advancement for professionals. The message is clear: ambassadorial appointments are, by and large, for sale to the highest bidder. The second reason is that it signals to the host country that the U.S. doesn’t really take it very seriously. It’s a further indication of the insouciance, if not contempt, that the U.S. has about dealing with the rest of the world … The third is that it provides further testimony to the erosion of Obama’s own standards.
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Vienna Tops Global Listing of Cities With Highest Quality of Living
Relaxnews – Euronews
Vienna has emerged as the city with the highest quality of living in a ranking that looks at everything from political stability, social and economic environments, housing and public transportation. According to Mercer’s annual Quality of Living report, the Austrian capital boasts the best living conditions in the world for expats, in a list that’s dominated by other European cities. Vienna outranked 223 cities, and is followed by Zurich, Auckland, Munich and Vancouver. The survey is released as a barometer to help multinational companies come up with fair compensation grids for employees who are placed on international assignments.
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Europe’s Holocaust Amnesia
Michael Freund - The Jewish Press (Brooklyn)
… Barely seven decades after murdering its Jews, Europe is emerging out from under its sense of guilt and historical responsibility … Can you imagine issuing a statement about the Holocaust yet failing to mention the holy six million Jewish souls who perished in the inferno? This isn’t Holocaust denial – it is Holocaust amnesia … And that is what makes it so important that we take steps to remind Europe that their debt to our people is perpetual. Hence, they have no right to preach to us about morality or decency … They owe – yes, owe! – it to us to stand firmly with Israel in its struggle against those who seek our elimination.
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Israel Complains of Allegedly Growing Anti-Jewish Sentiment in Hungary
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
The Foreign Ministry summoned the Hungarian ambassador to Jerusalem on Thursday, in a rare move to voice Israel’s “deep concern” over growing anti-Semitic incidents in the country. Rafi Schutz, the ministry’s deputy director-general for Europe, told Ambassador Andor Nagy that Israel was also worried about anti-Semitic statements in the political arena … He said there were worrying trends toward re-writing the history of the Holocaust and the role that Hungary’s anti-Semitic wartime leader Miklos Horthy played in it, as well as a forgiving attitude by some government officials toward anti-Semitic trends.
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… What is emerging is a new bi-polar world, with the United States and Israel on one side, and the rest of the world on the other. This new alignment of forces, this shift in power relationships in the world, is strikingly reflected in the United Nations, where, time and time again, votes on issues in both the General Assembly and the Security Council pit the United States and Israel on one side, and virtually the entire rest of the world on the other … The US-Israel alliance is, rather, a consequence, a result, of the Jewish-Zionist grip on American political and cultural life. Awareness of this fact is growing everywhere.
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Denmark Outlaws Jewish and Muslim Ritual Slaughter
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter will be illegal in Denmark starting on Monday, by order of Agriculture and Food Minister Dan Jørgensen. Ritual slaughter, known in Hebrew as shechita, is already banned in Poland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The Netherlands attempted to ban shechita, but a deal was brokered, legalizing the practice in 2012. On Monday, all slaughter that is not preceded by stunning will be forbidden in Denmark, rendering it impossible for ritual slaughter to be carried out according to Shar’ia or Halacha … “Animal rights come before religion,” the minister was quoted as saying.
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… The likeliest outcome is that the president will be forced out without a civil war … What is happening in Ukraine is no longer a non-violent protest against a particular government policy. It is a revolution in which both sides are starting to see violence as legitimate, and Yanukovych’s problem is that most people in the capital, though they don’t approve of the violence, support the other side … The opposition is probably going to win. Then they’ll have to figure out what they want, apart from an end to Yanukovych.
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The Firebombing of Dresden: An Unpunished War Crime
R. Martin and M. Weber - Podcast
In this quick-paced hour-long presentation, historian Mark Weber and host Rodney Martin provide informed perspective on the horrific World War II firebombing of the German city of Dresden. In mid-February 1945, British and American bombers destroyed this virtually undefended city, which was packed with refugees fleeing the advancing Soviet forces. The incendiary destruction of one Europe’s most beautiful cities remains an exceptionally shameful episode of the Second World War. The killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Dresden, Weber points out, was in keeping with the British-American wartime policy to kill as many men, women and children in unoccupied Germany as possible.
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Celebrity Photographer Slams ‘Extremist’ Jewish Lobby
The Times of Israel
Leading UK photographer Rankin had harsh words Thursday for both Scarlett Johansson and the “zealots” in the “US Jewish lobby,” who he said control the entertainment business. In a lengthy, wide-ranging interview with London’s The Independent, John Rankin Waddell heavily criticized Johansson’s role as spokeswoman for Israeli company SodaStream, and implied she couldn’t leave the deal because of the powerful influence of extremist Jews in Hollywood. Rankin, who has worked with Johansson on several occasions … opined that the star hadn’t backed out of her contract as spokeswoman “because, in America the Jewish zealots are so powerful. Especially in the entertainment industry, what they could do to her career.”
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Israel's Netanyahu Calls Boycotters 'Anti-Semites'
The Associated Press
It is time Israel fought back against those who boycott the Jewish state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, dubbing them “anti-Semites.” The comments come as concerns grow in Israel over a Palestinian-led movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions — knows by its acronym, BDS. The boycott has been growing recently, mainly in Europe, where some businesses and pension funds have cut investments or trade with Israeli firms they say are connected to West Bank settlements … “I think that it is important that the boycotters be exposed for what they are, they are classical anti-Semites in modern garb,” Netanyahu said.
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Israel Starts New Propaganda War To Beat Boycott
The Times (Britain)
Israeli spies have been ordered to dig up intelligence showing that supporters of an economic boycott are linked to terrorists and enemy states. The strategy was presented at a ministerial meeting called to discuss how to respond to the growing number of foreign companies refusing to do business with Israeli entities operating in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. They are considered illegal under international law. At the meeting Yuval Steinitz, the Minister for Intelligence and Strategy, outlined a plan for a media blitz against organisations advocating boycotts. His strategy includes intelligence agencies working to expose “their connection to terror organisations and enemy states” …
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European Boycotts Begin to Bite, Catching Israel's Attention
The Christian Science Monitor
… These fruits and vegetables are grown on land that Israel has occupied since 1967. For a growing number of European consumers, that’s a problem. They say that buying such produce is supporting the illegal confiscation and control of land and water resources that should be in Palestinian hands. The campaign is starting to bite … In the past six months, a flurry of European banks, pension funds, engineering firms, and lawmakers have driven home their displeasure with Israeli settlements, and Israeli leaders are taking the threat more seriously.
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Ten Brands You'll Have to Give Up If You're Boycotting Israel
The Christian Science Monitor
Since 2005, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) has called on the international community to pressure Israel economically as “a form of civil resistance to Israeli occupation, colonialism, and apartheid.” That would mean significant lifestyle changes for some consumers. Here are ten brands that BDS supporters have urged others to boycott … Pampers, Victoria’s Secret, Volvo, Intel, Hummus, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Ahava, McDonald’s, SodaStream.
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The Swiss Vote to Limit Immigration: What It Means
Eric Margolis
… Last week, Swiss voters decided by a razor-thin 50.3% to begin limiting immigration from the European Union within three years, perhaps much sooner … Behind all the uproar is the fear in Brussels that the Swiss clampdown will embolden increasingly influential rightwing, anti-EU parties in Britain, France, Holland, Austria, Greece, and Spain … Swiss voters were right. There’s no more room in their Alpine paradise. More immigration threatens Switzerland’s democracy and admirable traditions. Still, it’s likely some sort of compromise on this issue will be worked out. Europe made a huge mistake opening its doors to the street people of Eastern Europe. Many Europeans envy the Swiss.
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Europe's Right Flank Rises
Patrick J. Buchanan
… The Swiss vote was not just a shocker for the champions of “one Europe.” It has given a tremendous boost to the populist parties on the continent. Hailing the Swiss vote, many are demanding similar referendums in their own countries … The ethnonationalism roiling Europe is not unique to Europe. It is roiling the world. And it is not absent from the hearts of Americans. If the May elections for the European Parliament turn into a sweeping rejection of the EU, what is happening there will find an echo here. How would Americans vote on a timeout on all immigration? How would Americans vote, if given a chance, to repudiate our entire political elite?
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John Kerry’s brother has responded to charges of anti-Semitism against the U.S. Secretary of State by some conservative Israelis — including a prominent minister — by writing publicly about the family’s Jewish roots. Cameron Kerry wrote a column in Israel’s largest circulation daily newspaper, Yediot, saying the accusations “would be ridiculous if they were not so vile.” … John Kerry said it was a “revelation” when he learned in 2003 from a Boston Globe report, shortly before he ran for president, that his grandfather had changed his family name from Kohn and converted to Catholicism before coming to the U.S. in 1905. Cameron Kerry married a Jewish woman and the family are practicing Jews.
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The American Dream is Dead
Mike Whitney
… Pessimism, pessimism, and more pessimism. It’s like the whole country is on the brink of despair … What’s really going on can be summed up in one word: Frustration … And you wonder why people are so glum about the future? It’s because America has changed, and not for the better … For a growing number of people, the American dream is dead. This is already having an effect on personal consumption, household spending and economic growth. It’s also effecting the way people view the government, and what we think of ourselves as a nation.
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An Interview With Britain’s Influential 'Prophet of Doom’
The Telegraph (Britain)
… Human progress, declared Gray, was a myth. If we thought we were steadily becoming more civilised, then we were delusional … “The normal course of history is ethnic and religious conflicts, conflicts over resources, secret treaties and great power politics.” … All the advances in human rights that we’ve seen – religious freedom, racial equality, equality for gays and so on – are reversible, he believes. “We like to think that we can’t go backwards, but we can. We do it all the time. And the best recent example of that is torture.” … “To adopt happiness as a goal actually makes people less adventurous,” he says. “Far better just to try to live your life in an interesting and fulfilling way.”
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America Remembers Lincoln: An Unsettled Legacy
Henri Astier -- BBC News
In 2009 the US not only inaugurated its first black president – it also honoured the president who paved Barack Obama’s way to the country’s highest post. Events across the nation marked the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, celebrating a man widely seen as the greatest US president – the secular saint who redeemed America’s original sin of slavery … Despite his visceral hatred of slavery, Mr Yacovone says, Lincoln – like the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries – never believed in the equality of races. “He supported enactment of the anti-fugitive slave law, he supported exclusion of black jurors and all basic civil rights,” Mr Yacovone says.
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The Humanities and Us
Heather MacDonald - City Journal
… The UCLA English department — like so many others — is more concerned that its students encounter race, gender, and disability studies than that they plunge headlong into the overflowing riches of actual English literature … The UCLA coup represents the characteristic academic traits of our time: narcissism, an obsession with victimhood, and a relentless determination to reduce the stunning complexity of the past to the shallow categories of identity and class politics. Sitting atop an entire civilization of aesthetic wonders, the contemporary academic wants only to study oppression, preferably his own, defined reductively according to gonads and melanin. Course catalogs today babble monotonously of group identity.
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International Historians' Meeting Reflects 'Politically Correct' Academic Agenda
M. Weber -- Institute for Historical Review
How a society views the past not only reflects its current prevailing values and outlook, but also profoundly influences the way its people will shape the future … The Montreal Congress reflects the currently fashionable “victimization” mania in which blacks, homosexuals, Jews, feminists and others vie for preferential “victim status.” Behind this vogue is the notion that this coveted status confers a kind of nobility or moral stature on the members of the oppressed group. Furthermore, a hierarchy of victimization attributes the greatest measure of moral authority to those who have been most “victimized.”
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The Washington Post has published a moving article, “Russian Jews remember Israeli athletes murdered at 1972 Munich Olympic Games.” Unfortunately, it gets a few things wrong and provides a one-sided context for the tragedy. Allow me to correct the report and fill in a few of the missing facts … While Washington Post reporter Kathy Laly gives a great deal of information about the position of Russian Jews, going back over 100 years, it would have been valuable for her to tell a little about what the Munich incident was about – and about all the tragic victims of violence connected to the event, not just the eleven preferred ones.
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An Alienated Finkelstein Discusses His Writing, Being Unemployable, And Noam Chomsky
Norman Finkelstein (Interview) - Urban Times
… My books don’t sell anymore. There are many reasons why they don’t sell but one of the reasons is because people don’t read anymore … I no longer say I’m unemployed. I say I’m unemployable, it’s different. An unemployed suggests at a certain point in the future, you might be employed. That’s not the case with me. I’m unemployable … When I was younger, you applied for a job they typically asked for three references. Nowadays people don’t ask for references. They just Google your name. And if you Google my name, all sorts of horrifying things come up: Holocaust denier, Nazi apologist, supporter of terrorism.
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A Short History of Jews and Obscenity
Joshua Furst - Forward (New York)
… In these pages, obscenity is first and foremost presented as a tool by which Jews were able to assimilate and gain acceptance by the American cultural elite as well as monetary and societal success, and to enter the “prestige culture” as Lambert calls it … The angry refusal of Jewish figures like Lenny Bruce, Abbie Hoffman and even Al Goldstein to accept the terms the over-culture demanded was as Jewish in character as Henry Roth’s yiddishisms and Liveright’s entrepreneurship through scandal. To many of them obscenity was a political tactic …
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Spain Citizenship Offer to Sephardic Jews Attracts Many in Israel
EuroNews (France)
Israelis are showing great interest in Madrid’s moves to grant dual nationality status to the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. So-called Sephardic Jews make up around a quarter of Israel’s population … Around 300,000 Jews lived in Spain before the Catholic monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand, ordered Jews and Muslims to convert to the Catholic faith or leave the country. Amending an existing offer of citizenship, this bill would allow Sephardic Jews to keep their current passports as well as becoming Spanish.
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John Kerry and his Foredoomed Middle East Quest
Gwynne Dyer
… And yet there is almost no hope of a real peace deal. If persistence in the face of all the odds were enough, Kerry would be the man who finally made it happen … But Kerry has no leverage: he has to rely on the desire of the two leaders to make the “peace process” work, and it just isn’t there; not, at least, on any terms that both would find acceptable … Kerry’s foredoomed quest for a final peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians is magnificent too, in its own peculiar way, but it’s not diplomacy. It’s hubris.
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Another Pipe Dream: Israel as a 'Jewish Nation’ State
Uri Avnery (Israel)
What’s wrong about the demand that the Palestinian leadership recognize Israel as the “Nation State of the Jewish People”? Well, practically everything. States recognize each other. They don’t have to recognize each other’s ideological character. A state is a reality. Ideologies belong to the abstract realm. When the United States recognized the Soviet Union in 1933, it recognized the state. It did not recognize its communist nature … Recognizing the “National State of the Jewish People” means accepting the entire Zionist narrative, lock, stock and barrel, starting from the divine promise to Abraham to this very day.
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… Generally speaking, Jewish draft-evasion during World War II is an open secret. Writing in GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation (2006), Deborah Moore states that “regular military duty dismayed Jews.” Jews in Brooklyn were seen as “quintessential draft-dodgers” by other citizens, and one Professor at City College famously quipped that “The battle hymn of the Jews is ‘Onward Christian Soldiers, We’ll make the uniforms.” Moore further states that there were “elaborate efforts to avoid a uniform … studying medicine was an attractive alternate path to wartime if one had the aptitude.”
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Jews Ruined Russia, Says Politician From Putin’s Party
The Times of Israel
A local politician from the party of Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Jews of destroying Russia. The accusation by Oleg Bolychev, a legislator from the ruling United Russia party at the regional parliament in Kaliningrad, was made in the parliament on February 6, according to the Regnum news agency, which reported on it on Thursday. During a debate, Bolychev called his detractors “Jews, mired in opposition,” adding: “You destroyed our country in 1917 and you destroyed our country in 1991.” The Russian Jewish Congress condemned the lawmaker, saying it was indignant over the statement and calling on authorities to investigate it.
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Internet Anti-Semitism a ‘Mortal Danger,’ Say Israeli Parliament Members
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
Anti-Semitism on the net is “like a tsunami wave,” Knesset Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Committee chairman MK Yoel Razbozov said during a Sunday hearing on online hate speech. Razbozov called for countries to enact legislation restricting online hate, and warned that if Jews will not act to combat the spread of anti-Semitism online, they will eventually “find themselves in mortal danger.” Representatives of the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, the Israeli Internet Association and the Anti-Defamation League, among other bodies, testified regarding the dangers of online hate and discussed methods of combating disinformation about Jews and Israel.
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Hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets Tuesday [Feb. 11] to mark the 35th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, buoyed by progress in nuclear talks with world powers and a modest easing of sanctions. In Tehran, huge crowds thronged central Azadi square ahead of a speech by President Hassan Rouhani, the relative moderate who has reached out to the West since taking office in August. Many of them railed against the United States, still regarded by the Iranians as the “Great Satan.” “We don’t trust America. All they want is to plunder our wealth,” a 20-year-old Bassij (Islamic militia) member told AFP.
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The Iranian Revolution at 35
Nasser Hadian
On the 35th anniversary of its revolution, Iran has found often novel compromises in blending Islam and modernity — politically, economically and socially. The government and most Iranians today share three goals: honoring the great Persian past and retaining an Islamic identity while also integrating more deeply into a globalizing world. The revolution today is all about synthesis. The struggle is finding the right balance.
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Armed forces chief of staff General Hassan Firouzabadi has warned the Islamic republic’s arch-foes that Iran is prepared for a “decisive battle” if attacked, Fars news agency reported on Wednesday. “We are ready for the decisive battle with America and the Zionist regime (Israel),” Fars quoted Firouzabadi as saying … US Secretary of State John Kerry said late last month that if diplomacy with Iran fails, “the military option of the United States is ready and prepared to do what it would have to do”. But Firouzabadi accused the US of bluffing.
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Iran: Some Angles on the Islamic Revolution
Ivor Benson – Institute for Historical Review
… An exploration of the Islamic Revolution in Iran conveys two great truths with vast implications: religion can still be a more potent mobilizer of mass political action than can secular ideologies, and the longtime hegemony of Western social models has ended. The Iranian Revolution thus emerges as one of the most important events in modern history, on a par with the watershed French and Russian revolutions … About the broad outlines of the history of Iran during the last 150 years there can be no doubt. Foreign powers have heavily influenced the country’s international affairs to suit their own economic and strategic interests, with scant regard for the opinions and interests of the citizenry.
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Zionism is the Problem, Says Presbyterian Church Group
The Times of Israel
For years, scholars have debated the complex causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but for the Israel Palestine Mission Network of Presbyterian Church (USA), the problem stems from a single cause: Zionism. In “Zionism Unsettled,” a new study guide on Israel released in January for the PC(USA)’s 2.4 million members, the IPMN states its case clearly: Zionism is the problem, destroying both indigenous Palestinian lives and rich Jewish communities across the globe in a supremacist misinterpretation of God’s word … Moreover, IPMN’s book argues, the American Jewish community actively stifles dissent against the Zionist narrative, taking advantage of the “ignorance and passivity of many liberal American Jews.”
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The Tide Turns Against Israel
Jonathan Cook
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rarely been so politically embattled. His travails indicate the Israeli right’s inability to respond to a shifting political landscape, both in the region and globally … With these interest groups at his back, a defiant Netanyahu can probably face off the US diplomatic assault this time. But Kerry is not wrong to warn that in the long term yet another victory for Israeli intransigence will prove pyhrrhic. These negotiations may not lead to an agreement, but they will mark a historic turning-point nonetheless. The delegitimisation of Israel is truly under way, and the party doing most of the damage is the Israeli leadership itself.
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The Israel Lobby: Nowhere to Hide
Kevin MacDonald
… More immediately, there is the push for war with Iran which, as everyone who is not living under a rock knows, is a project of Israel and its fifth column in the U.S … It’s common knowledge that the push for war is entirely a project of the Jewish community. Which makes at least some thoughtful Jews a bit concerned that the Iran situation could blow up in their faces … This time around, it’s in-your-face, brazen partisanship on behalf of a foreign country, and that’s a tough sell to the American people when something as important as war is at stake. It’s a great object lesson on the power of the presidency, even when the Lobby still retains great power over Congress.
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Scarlett Johansson, SodaStream and Oxfam
Weekly Wipe – Video
A sharp-edged look at Scarlett Johansson and her support of an Israeli company that operates in occupied Palestine, in violation of international law. Runtime: 2:34 mins.
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Israeli MPs from a pro-settler party have walked out of Israel’s Knesset during a speech by the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz. Members of Jewish Home heckled Mr Schulz after he made comments about Palestinians’ access to water resources in the occupied West Bank. They accused the German politician of spreading lies and anti-Israel propaganda before storming out. Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett demanded an apology from Mr Schulz. “I will not accept a false moralising narrative against Israel in our parliament, in our Knesset. Certainly not in German,” he wrote in his Facebook page.
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Israeli newspapers bristled Thursday after the European Parliament president criticised the Gaza Strip blockade and suggested that Israelis received four times more water than Palestinians. The spat erupted Wednesday after the far-right Jewish Home party stormed out of parliament in protest during a speech by Martin Schulz, and it made the front pages of Israel’s main newspapers … The headline in the Israel HaYom freesheet, which is close to Netanyahu, read: “Shock in parliament over slander of Israel.”
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New Plans for Large Hitler-Era Vacation Resort
K. O’Mara - Compass
On the picturesque beaches of the northern German island of Rügen, along the Baltic Sea, sits an empty 20,000-person resort. The buildings stretch nearly three miles down the coast, with all 10,000 rooms facing the beautiful bay just 500 feet from the water’s edge … Prora, known by locals as The Colossus, was built from 1936-1939 as part of the Nazi program of “Strength Through Joy.” … It was also one of the largest architectural projects of the time, with 9,000 workers. The design, done in a Bauhaus style, won a Grand Prix award at the 1937 Paris World Exposition. But the Nazi resort plans never came to fruition … Finally, some plans are moving forward to turn some of the buildings into luxury apartments and vacation rentals.
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Graphic Designer Suspended From Nazi Concentration Camp Museum for Using Printers to Make Anti-Jewish Posters
Daily Mail (Britain)
A graphic designer has been suspended by the concentration camp museum where he worked for using their printers to produce anti-Semitic propaganda – including posters reading: ‘Jews go home’ Staff at Majdanek in Poland … called in the police after discovering the cache of offensive material produced on site. A man named as Krzysztof K, who worked at the museum for 20 years, is accused of being part of a group which distributed offensive Nazi material around the town … The racist posters with messages like ‘Zionists Leave Lublin’ were posted up at bus stops around the region.
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Secretly Recorded Conversation Confirms US Role in Ukraine Politics
Daniel McAdams - Ron Paul Institute
In the latest debacle for the US State Department and the Obama Administration, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was caught on tape micro-managing Ukraine opposition party strategies with US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. That the Ukraine regime-change operation is to some degree being directed from Washington can no longer be denied … The taped conversation demonstrates in clear detail that while Secretary of State John Kerry decries any foreign meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs, his State Department is virtually managing the entire process. The “F**k the EU” part is her expressing anger that the EU is not moving fast enough with regime change in Ukraine and her plan is to get the UN involved in the process.
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… The Obama claque is just as eager to try their hand at regime change as their predecessors, the Bushies. This time the bullseye is on Ukraine … The US still clings to the idea that it can dominate the world with its ham-fisted military (that hasn’t won a war in 60 years) its scandalized Intel agencies, its comical Rambo-style “Special Ops” teams, and its oh-so-brilliant global strategists who think the days of the nation-state will soon be over hastening the onset of the glorious New World Order … All the blabber about “democracy” is just public relations crappola. It means nothing.
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Nuland Phone Leak: When Ukraine Divides Old Allies
G. Hewitt – BBC News
The stand-off in Ukraine is creating new tensions. The country of 46 million people finds itself in the middle, with Russia pulling from one side and the European Union from the other. Some of the language being tossed between Moscow and Washington echoes the Cold War and a leaked tape reveals discord between the European Union and the US. Firstly European officials and leaders are furious that America’s new top diplomat for Europe, Victoria Nuland, was captured on tape using the f-word about the EU.
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Leaked Phone Call on Ukraine Lays Bare Washington’s Gangsterism
Bill Van Auken - WSWS
… The call provides a devastating exposure of the criminal and imperialist character of US policy in Ukraine and debunks the phony “democratic” pretensions of the Obama administration … Nuland, the grand-daughter of Jewish immigrants who fled to America to escape pogroms in Tsarist Russia, provided a uniquely repellant spectacle … She served as a chief foreign policy advisor to Dick Cheney when the then-vice-president was spearheading the policies of aggressive war … Her husband is Robert Kagan, the right-wing foreign policy pundit who served as the founding chairman of the Project for a New American Century, the neo-conservative Washington think tank …
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'F....Europe' : The US, Europe, Ukraine and Russia
Eric Margolis
… Nuland perfectly captured Washington’s sneering view of Europe as a collection of feeble and irrelevant banana republics. Nuland is a prominent American neoconservative. Like her fellow neocons, she disdains Europe for being unwarlike, mildly critical of Israel, and often insufficiently responsive to Washington’s demands … Europe is rightfully fearful that the Ukraine crisis could cause a head-on clash by Washington and Moscow – just as the little Russia-Georgia War over Ossetia almost did in 2008.
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Apocalypse at Dresden
R. H. S. Crossman -- Esquire magazine (1963)
The long suppressed story of the worst massacre in the history of the world [the February 1945 destruction of Dresden] / If the British Commonwealth and the United States last a thousand years, men may say that this was their darkest hour. Were all the crimes against humanity committed during World War II the work of Hitler’s underlings? That was certainly the impression created by the fact that only Germans were brought to trial at Nuremburg … What is less widely recognized … is that the Western democracies were responsible for the most senseless single act of mass murder committed in the whole course of World War II.
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Dresden: Death from Above
Tomislav Sunic - The Occidental Observer
… Dresden is not only a German city, or the symbol of a German destiny. Dresden is also the universal symbol of countless German and countless European, Croatian, Hungarian, Italian, Belgian and French cities that were bombed by the Western Allies, or for that matter that were fully bombed out … We are often criticized for playing up the Dresden victims in order to trivialize the fascist crimes. This is nonsense. This thesis can be easily reversed. The establishment historians and opinion-makers, 70 years after the war, are in need of forever renewing the fascist danger in order to cover up their own catastrophic economic failures and their own war crimes.
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The Blood of Dresden
Kurt Vonnegut
… In February 1945, American bombers reduced this treasure to crushed stone and embers; disembowelled her with high explosives and cremated her with incendiaries … It is with some regret that I here besmirch the nobility of our airmen, but, boys, you killed an appalling lot of women and children. The shelter I have described and innumerable others like it were filled with them. We had to exhume their bodies and carry them to mass funeral pyres in the parks, so I know … The “Get Tough America” policy, the spirit of revenge, the approbation of all destruction and killing, have earned us a name for obscene brutality.
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… In a nail-biting vote, 50.3 percent backed the “Stop mass immigration” initiative, which also won the required majority approval in more than half of Swiss cantons or regions, Swiss television said. The outcome obliges the government to turn the initiative, spearheaded by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), into law within three years. It reflects growing concern among the Swiss population that immigrants are eroding the nation’s distinctive Alpine culture and contributing to rising rents, crowded transport and more crime.
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Swiss Voters Back Limit on Immigration
The Associated Press
Voters in Switzerland narrowly backed a proposal to limit immigration Sunday, in a blow for the government after it had warned that the measure could harm the Swiss economy and relations with the European Union. The decision follows a successful last-minute campaign by nationalist groups that stoked fears of overpopulation and rising numbers of Muslims in the Alpine nation … Sunday’s outcome is another success for the nationalist Swiss People’s Party, which has more than a quarter of seats in the lower house of Parliament. The party has won a series of referendums in recent years, including a surprise victory in 2009 when voters approved a plan to ban the construction of new minarets.
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A loss of trust in Switzerland’s business and political elite may be one of the reasons the alpine nation voted in favour of putting strict limits on immigration, Swiss Economy Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann said on Wednesday. Pointing to a “culture of excess”, Schneider-Ammann said pursuit of profit sometimes at the expense of the common good had turned off ordinary people from political and business leaders. Swiss voters on Sunday narrowly backed an initiative “against mass immigration,” following a successful campaign by the populist right-wing Swiss People’s Party …
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Ordinary Citizens Need Not Apply: Money and Power Access
Philip Giraldi
… It is all part and parcel of the enormous cash flow from the US to Israel, much of it invisible, that occurs every year, but in this case the money frequently comes from state and city pension funds … What is particularly disturbing about Obama, Indyk, Klein and de Blasio is the implicit recognition that all American citizens should not be accorded the same respect, that there is a secret, more important government that operates side by side with all the publicly visible nonsense that otherwise goes on inside the beltway, in Albany and at Gracie Mansion … We the people are surrounded by charlatans like Indyk, Klein, and de Blasio, all of whom do a good job in serving the interests of powerful organizations whose heedless antics will inevitably compel the rest of us to pay the piper.
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The 'Israel First’ Industry and CEO Profiteering
James Petras
… Over the past fifty years a far-reaching transformation has taken place within Jewish organizations, among its leaders and their practices and policies … The rise to prominence – centrality – of billionaire/ millionaire Zionist donors have put in place leaders who mirror their Israel First outlook and who have similarly enriched themselves. Secondly, the Great Transformation of Jewish charitable organizations has resulted from the ascendancy of an ethnic supremacist ideology which views others as inferior subjects to be ruled by the Higher Intelligence of Jewish political and business leaders; and which orders that the “disobedient” be castigated as “anti-Semites” and punished by jail. media ostracism, overt threats and most commonly denied employment.
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The Un-Controlled Opposition
Gilad Atzmon
… In the real world there are no ‘Holocaust deniers’: what we have instead are history revisionists – people who understand that the making of history, is a continuous attempt to narrate the past as we move along. The so-called revisionists re-visit, re-write and revise the past. Those whom Zionists and progressives often tag as ‘Holocaust deniers’ are often enough the last True Historians … It is not a secret that the Zionists and Left are in a state of panic, and for a good reason … Dieudonné’s ‘quenelle’ is already a monumental development in the history of the Jews and their stooges within the Left and the media.
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Nothing New Under the Sun
Uri Avnery (Israel)
… Israel is re-Judaizing itself at a rapid pace. The Jewish religion is making a huge comeback. Very soon, religious children of various communities will be the majority in Israeli Jewish schools … One of the basic convictions of Diaspora Jewry was that “the whole world is against us”. Jews have been persecuted throughout the ages in many countries, up to the Holocaust. In the Seder ceremony on Passover eve, which unites all the Jews around the world, the holy text says that “in every generation they arise to annihilate us”. The official aim of Zionism was to turn us into “a people like all peoples”. Does a normal people believe that everybody is out to annihilate it at all times? It is a basic conviction of almost every Jewish Israeli that “the whole world is against us” …
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World War II German Fortification of the British Channel Islands
Michael Ginns, M.B.E.
As soon as Hitler’s forces occupied the Channel Islands he ordered a series of fortifications to defend the only British territory he ever conquered. / … The fortification of the Channel Islands became an obsession with Hitler. In May 1941, he ordered that the 319 Infantry Division be allocated to their defence … This formidable array of weaponry was housed in more than 250 concrete bunkers, this figure including subterranean command posts, coastal observation towers and communications centres. To the foregoing should be added 7,397 metres of anti-tank walls on the beaches, 67,000 land mines, and 23,495 square metres of floor storage space created in the many tunnels that were excavated.
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Myths About Britain’s ‘Finest Hour’
Alexander Cockburn
There’s a myth now about the British hanging together in those dark days [of 1939-1941]. “London can take it,” Ed Murrow told America in his CBS broadcasts. Actually, morale was appalling. Most people correctly had little confidence in the competence of their government and thought Germany was going to win. In the Channel Islands, which the Nazis did take over, the people greeted them hospitably and turned in Jews with zest. The British Ministry of Information employed 10,000 people to read people’s mail surreptitiously, intercepting about 200,000 letters a week, and discovered that people were deeply pessimistic and thought Churchill was “played out.”
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Lasers and Robots Explore Rome’s Ancient Hidden Aqueducts
The Telegraph (Britain)
With the help of precision 21-century technology, archaeologists are mapping a dozen tunnels that were carved by Roman engineers into the mountains east of Rome in order to supply the ancient city with water / … Two thousand years after they were hacked out of solid rock by Roman engineers, the aqueducts that brought fresh water to Rome are being explored anew with 21st century technology.
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Volunteers Map Rome’s Ancient Aqueduct Network
Los Angeles Times
… Slaking the thirst of the fast-growing imperial capital meant linking it to springs many miles from the city. The ancient Roman engineers were equal to the task, supplying a quantity of water that modern engineers didn’t manage to match until the 1930s … The structures are unusually solid, with cement and crushed pottery used as building material. One of the aqueducts, the Aqua Virgo, is still in use today, keeping Rome parks and even the Trevi fountain supplied.
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The SPLC Marginalizes Itself
Michael S. Rozeff
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) hugely exaggerates the number of independent groups it terms “conspiracy-minded antigovernment ‘Patriot’ groups” … Reporters sometimes take an SPLC report at face value, which is misleading … The SPLC is filled with hypocrisy. Its byline or slogan is “Fighting Hate • Teaching Tolerance • Seeking Justice”. However, it does none of these. For example, in an article titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism”, it spreads hate, teaches intolerance, and unfairly smears people and groups with views it dislikes.
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Why Does America Send So Many Stupid, Unqualified Hacks Overseas?
James Bruno – Politico
… The United States is the only industrialized country to award diplomatic posts as political spoils, often to wealthy campaign contributors in an outmoded system that rivals the patronage practices of banana republics, dictatorships and two-bit monarchies … President Obama — who entered office promising to limit the practice and instead appoint more Foreign Service professionals to ambassadorial positions — has arguably done more to exacerbate the problem than his recent predecessors. His second-term appointments have gone to political allies more than half of the time.
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The Hour of Decision: Spengler’s Last Great Book
Jon Harrison Sims
… The Hour of Decision is a great book that few even know about. That is a shame, because this is a prophetic book that has much to teach us … Spengler’s critique of America as rootless, uncultured, and devoted to pleasure and money-making was part of his critique of liberal economics as one of the prime causes of Western decline. In his view, economics should always be subordinated to politics, by which he meant, made to serve the welfare of the people, not the profits of the plutocracy. Economics should be about ordering the economic life of the nation so as to augment its inner strength and organic unity.
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Little as we know about the events of the future, one thing is certain: the moving forces of the future will be none other than those of the past — the will of the stronger, healthy instincts, race, will to property, and power. / This is our task: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us, this reality with which fate has surrounded us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.
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Oswald Spengler: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas
Keith Stimley – Institute for Historical Review
… Predicting a second world war, Spengler warned in Hour of Decision that the National Socialists were not sufficiently watchful of the powerful hostile forces outside the country that would mobilize to destroy them, and Germany … Oswald Spengler, shortly after predicting that in a decade there would no longer be a German Reich, died of a heart attack on May 8, 1936, in his Munich apartment. He went to his death convinced that he had been right, and that events were unfolding in fulfillment of what he had written in The Decline of the West.
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The Racially Fraught History of the American Beard
Sean Trainor - The Atlantic
… Mid-19th-century facial hair was big and robust, reflecting a near-total independence from scissors and razor … But by the late antebellum period, they were more widely accepted, thanks partly to a strenuous public relations campaign that reimagined the beard as a symbol of white, masculine supremacy … These appeals were especially persuasive at a time when America was in an active period of exploration and invasion, ranging from the U.S.-Mexican War to the ongoing Indian relocation and genocide. These projects were aimed primarily at peoples whom white Americans believed to be incapable of growing facial hair.
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Staying Out of Other People’s Wars
Patrick J. Buchanan
… Any of these five situations could bring about a war, a war involving us. For we are obligated by treaty to defend South Korea, Japan and the Philippines. And the Obama “pivot” to Asia is seen by Beijing as a U.S. strategic move to contain China’s rise to superpower status. The possibility of America being dragged into a new war is growing. For not only is Beijing bullying its coastal neighbors, the Middle East is descending into a maelstrom … It’s time for antiwar conservatism – staying out of other people’s quarrels and other nations’ wars – one of the oldest and proudest traditions of the republic, to regain its rightful place in the Grand Old Party.
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AIPAC’s 'Horrible Year’?
Jim Lobe
… The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the premier organization of this country’s Israel lobby [has] … been clearly and increasingly decisively defeated – at least for now and the immediate future – in its bid to persuade a filibuster-proof, let alone a veto-proof, super-majority of senators to approve the Kirk-Menendez “Wag the Dog” Act … Of course, none of this means that the battle over Iran policy is won … Nor does it necessarily mean that we have finally reached a “tipping point” regarding the lobby’s hold over Congress and U.S. Middle East policy. But this is unquestionably a significant moment.
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Iran: The Week Obama Took Down the Lobby
M. J. Rosenberg - Huffington Post
… AIPAC’s entire campaign to destroy America’s chance to reach an agreement with Iran crumbled … No, this does not mean that AIPAC and Netanyahu are giving up. At every critical junction during the process of reaching a deal with Iran they will be there working hard to subvert Obama’s effort … They still might succeed, particularly if the Iranians give them any ammunition. But it is less likely now …
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Etymology, or the study of the origin of words, is dry, dusty stuff that will give you allergies if you play with it too long. It also happens to be one of our favorite topics — because sometimes a word travels through such a twisted path to get to its modern meaning that all you can do is scratch your head and wonder how civilization manages to keep itself going. Read on to find out what word got its start with people biting the heads off chickens, how a peaceful word became an international symbol of hate, and how wooden shoes changed the world.
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Stalin's Crimes Haunt The Sochi Games
Eric Margolis
… The Sochi games are being held in close to where Soviet leader Josef Stalin had 2.5 million Caucasian and Crimean Muslims murdered or deported. This terrible crime still haunts the region … In 1937, Stalin, surnamed the “Breaker of Nations,” ordered his NKVD secret police to shoot 14,000 Chechen. Stalin, a Georgian, hated the neighboring Chechen. Seven years later, Stalin had the entire Chechen nation rounded up, stuffed into unheated rail cars in the dead of winter and then dumped onto the frozen wastes of Kazakhstan. Half died of exposure or disease. Other Muslim peoples followed into the gulag: Tatars from Crimea, Ingush, Karachai, Balkars, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Dagestanis.
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Hitler, Owens and the 1936 Olympics Myth
Rick Shenkman
Everyone knows that at the 1936 Olympics Hitler snubbed Jesse Owens. As the story goes, after Owens won one gold medal, Hitler, incensed, stormed out of Olympic Stadium so he wouldn’t have to congratulate Owens on his victory … Several other misconceptions about the 1936 Olympics are prevalent. Not only was Owens not rebuffed by Hitler, Owens wasn’t shunned by the German audience at the Berlin stadium either … It is forgotten that Germany managed to pick up more medals than all the other countries combined.
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Opening ceremonies of the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. The large, enthusiastic crowd welcomes the various national teams as they enter the stadium. Hitler formally announces the opening of the games. Excerpts from the Leni Riefenstahl film, “Olympia.” Runtime: 6:09 mins.
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… You would have to be drunk on Bud not to notice that the three decades since the United States first meddled in Afghanistan have been an unequivocal disaster and that those who did not survive – NATO combatants and far larger number of Afghan natives – died in vain.”
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Hamid Karzai: 'I Saw No Good' With US Presence In Afghanistan
Harriet Alexander – The Telegraph (Britain)
The president of Afghanistan has not spoken to his American counterpart since June, he said, in an interview which showed the increasing gulf between Kabul and Washington. Hamid Karzai, 56, has grown increasingly hostile towards Barack Obama as Afghanistan prepares to elect a new president in April. Mr Karzai will not stand again, but he is determined to emphasise his disagreements with the United States before he steps down. “This whole 12 years was one of constant pleading with America to treat the lives of our civilians as lives of people,” he said, adding that he had not spoken to Mr Obama since June … Mr Karzai said that he “saw no good” in the American presence in his country.
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Canada’s Internet Hate Speech Law Section 13 is Constitutional, Court Finds
J. Brean – National Post (Canada)
Though it is slated for official repeal in June, Canada’s defunct and much maligned hate speech law, Section 13, is not going gently. The latest twist in the long running legal saga of the human rights law that governs hate on the Internet in Canada is a Federal Court of Appeal ruling, issued Friday [Jan. 31], that finds Section 13 is constitutionally valid, and does not violate freedom of expression … The 2009 ruling that first ruled Section 13 unconstitutional came in the case against Marc Lemire, a far-right activist who has long experience running websites, including his Freedomsite.org.
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Canada’s Pro-Israel Government
Philip Giraldi
… Canada, multicultural to a fault and home to more than a million Muslims, ironically has possibly the world’s most pro-Israel government, its Prime Minister Stephen Harper having described Israel as a light that “…burns bright, upheld by the universal principles of all civilized nations – freedom, democracy justice.” He has also said “I will defend Israel whatever the cost” to Canada, an interesting proposition for those who might have believed that his duty was to protect his own country and advance its interests … Harper is less concerned with actual voting than he is with the Jewish community’s political and media support.
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Will Mobocracy Triumph in Ukraine?
Patrick J. Buchanan
Despite our endless blather about democracy, we Americans seem to be able to put our devotion to democratic principles on the shelf, when they get in the way of our New World Order … Kerry is putting us on the side of mobs that want to bring down the president, force elections, and take power. Yet, Americans would never sit still should similar elements, with similar objectives, occupy our capital.
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U.S. Issues Penalties Over Violations of Iran Sanctions
The New York Times
The Obama administration penalized nearly three dozen companies and individuals in eight countries on Thursday, accusing them of evading Iranian sanctions. It was the administration’s most extensive enforcement action to target Iran since a temporary international agreement on that country’s disputed nuclear program was completed in November and put into effect last month. Announced by the Treasury Department office that oversees sanctions enforcement, the punishments were at least partly devised to send a message that the United States is not relaxing economic pressures on Iran … This week, Secretary of State John Kerry criticized France after it sent a large trade delegation to Iran.
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Belgian MP Does 'Nazi-Style’ Salute, Says Zionists Funded Holocaust
The Jewish Chronicle (Britain)
It has emerged that far-right Belgian politician Laurent Louis gave three Nazi-style salutes in parliament. A supporter of Dieudonné’s Anti-Zionist Party, he was filmed performing the quenelles — made famous by the French comedian — in succession in January. Returning the compliment, Dieudonné called on Belgians to vote for Louis’s party, Debout les Belges (Down with Belgians), in May’s federal elections. Louis performed the quenelles after a speech in which he claimed that “the Holocaust was set up and financed by the pioneers of Zionism”.
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Criminal investigators suspect hundreds of US Army soldiers exploited a recruitment program to receive illegal kickbacks worth more than $29 million, lawmakers and officials said. The scale of the potential fraud was “astounding” and ranks as one of the largest criminal probes in the Army’s history, said Senator Claire McCaskill, who held a hearing on the scandal. An Army audit has found that more than 1,200 recruiters had received payments that were potentially fraudulent, defense officials said.
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Fraud in Army Recruiting Bonus Program May Cost Nearly $100 Million
The New York Times
An Army program meant to increase the number of recruits during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars devolved into an illegal free-for-all that could cost taxpayers close to $100 million, military investigators say. Testimony describes new details of what investigators called a long-running scheme among National Guard recruiters that went undetected for years. Army officials appeared before a Senate hearing on Tuesday and sketched out a far-reaching criminal endeavor that has implicated more than 1,200 people — 200 of them officers — including two generals and dozens of colonels.
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Rabbis Threaten Secretary of State Kerry Over Mediation Efforts
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
A group of rabbis, including the founder of the far-right Our Land of Israel party, wrote in an open to letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that he had declared war against God through his current mediation efforts between Israel and Palestinian negotiators, and said he must cease such activities to avoid divine punishment .. “Your incessant efforts to expropriate integral parts of our Holy Land and hand them over to Abbas’s terrorist gang, amount to a declaration of war against the Creator and Ruler of the universe! For G-d awarded the entire Land of Israel to our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in order that they bequeath it, as an everlasting inheritance, to their descendants, the Jewish people, until the end of all time,” the letter reads.
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Rabbis Threaten Kerry With 'Divine Wrath'
Israel National News (Israel)
A group called Rabbis from the Committee to Save the Land and People of Israel sent a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry this Sunday, warning him to end his “antagonism” towards Israel … “By the power of our Holy Torah, we admonish you to cease immediately all efforts to achieve these disastrous agreements – in order to avoid severe Heavenly punishment for everyone involved,” warned the rabbis. The letter closed with a reference to the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim, in which the Book of Esther records Haman’s genocidal plots against the Jewish people were turned against him and he was “hung on the very same gallows he had prepared for Mordechai, the Jew.”
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From Esther to AIPAC
Gilad Atzmon
… The moral of the story is rather clear. If Jews want to survive, they better find infiltrates into the corridors of power. With Esther, Mordechai and Purim in mind, AIPAC and the notion of ‘Jewish power’ looks like an embodiment of a deep Biblical and cultural ideology … To be a Jew is to see the ‘other’ as a threat rather than as a brother. To be a Jew is to be on a constant alert. To be a Jew is to internalise the message of the Book of Esther. It is to aim towards the most influential junctions of hegemony. To be a Jew is to collaborate with power … Jewishness is the materialisation of politics of fear into a pragmatic agenda. This is what Holocaust religion is all about and it is indeed as old as the Jews.
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A Taste of Danish Integrity
The Christian Science Monitor
… Denmark stands out because it is also the world’s least-corrupt country, based on last year’s perception survey by the Berlin-based Transparency International. It is the happiest country, according to the 2013 World Happiness Report, which tracks corruption as one of its factors … For a nation to lessen corruption, honesty must be internalized by a majority of its citizens. They can be influenced by changes in laws, wealth, democracy, economic freedom, appreciation of diversity, and stability. Dishonesty, in other words, need not be a permanent fixture in a society. Rottenness in a nation is best avoided if enough individuals see themselves as incorruptible.
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'Where the Negroes are Masters’: Book Review
Jonathan Yardley - The Washington Post
… It has long been known that some African tribal chieftains and their underlings collaborated with the slave traders, who were chiefly English, French, Dutch and North American, but the assumption has been that they did so for what might be called essentially negative reasons, such as punishing rival tribes or currying favor with whites. With his detailed account of the evolution and eventual dominance of Annamaboe, Sparks turns that assumption on its head. He leaves no doubt that, at least at certain locations on the Gold Coast, native Africans were not merely complicit in the trade, but were active, enthusiastic and decidedly voluntary participants.
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Why Israel Fears the Boycott
Omar Barghoutijan – The New York Times
If Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempts to revive talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority fail because of Israel’s continuing construction of illegal settlements, the Israeli government is likely to face an international boycott “on steroids,” as Mr. Kerry warned last August. These days, Israel seems as terrified by the “exponential” growth of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (or B.D.S.) movement as it is by Iran’s rising clout in the region. Last June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu effectively declared B.D.S. a strategic threat.
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Losing the Propaganda War
Hirsh Goodman - The New York Times
… Instead of focusing on peace talks, Israel continuously signals its intention to build more settlement housing … It’s all in the label. And the apartheid label is beginning to stick — fair or not. It carries with it huge consequences for Israel, which the country’s inward-looking leaders seem impervious to. They have yet to understand that on this new battlefield, tanks don’t count and the use of force, sure to be televised, plays into the hands of the enemy. It’s a war Israel cannot win unless it makes peace.
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Nearly 50 years after an anti-communist purge that left at least 500-thousand Indonesians dead, anti-communist fervor is still heated … Such violent hatred toward communism remains not just tolerated but sometimes celebrated. The anti-communist fervor persists, in part, because Indonesia never officially came to terms with this dark period in its history. The government has never apologized to survivors of the massacres, nor prosecuted the perpetrators, including those shown in the documentary. That could be changing now … In Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, many believe that showing any communist leanings would mean betraying their religion.
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As two of the nation’s longest wars finally end, most Americans have concluded that neither achieved its goals. Those grim assessments in a USA Today/ Pew Research Center poll underscore the erosion in support for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the loss of faith in the outcome of the wars, both launched in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks … When it comes to Iraq, support for the decision to go to war has crashed. The invasion was launched in March 2003 … At the beginning, Americans by 3-1 called it the right decision. Now, by 50%-38%, they call it the wrong one.
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An interview-debate on the motives and forces behind the US invasion of Iraq. Opposing views are presented by Mark Weber, director of the IHR, and by Stephen Zunes, professor at the University of San Francisco. Brother Nathanael Kapner arranged the exchange.
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The Transparent Cabal
Karen Kwiatkowski -- The Independent Review
… Sniegoski [in The Transparent Cabal] relies on publicly accessible material to introduce and support his thesis, which is that a close relationship exists between U.S. neoconservatives and the Israeli Likudnik right and that neoconservatives view U.S. foreign-policy interests through the lens of Israeli interests as perceived by the right-wing parties influential in Israel’s own democracy … Sniegoski specifically examines the rationale for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq; the sustaining philosophies of American neoconservatives; their role in “selling” the war to the American people, Congress, and the administration; and the degree of linkage between the neoconservatives themselves and the Likud Party and political Zionism.
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The Golden Age of Journalism?
Tom Engelhardt
… For readers, can there be any doubt that now, not the 1840s or the 1930s or the 1960s, is the golden age of journalism? … You, the reader, have in remarkable profusion the finest writing on the planet at your fingertips … These days, in a way that was never previously imaginable, it’s possible to drown in provocative and illuminating writing and reporting, framing and opining … Today, after all, if I care to, I can read online every word of the Guardian, the Washington Post, and Le Monde … Most of the major dailies and magazines of the globe, trade publications, propaganda outfits, Pentagon handouts, the voiciest of blogs, specialist websites …
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The Meaning Of Dieudonné
Gilad Atzmon
Since the 1968 Student Revolution, the European and American Left, together with a herd of Jewish progressive intellectuals, have invested enormous effort in attempting to break society down into multiple segments of identities … The Jewish intellectuals, who led the campaign, realized that fragmented and divided nations are far less dangerous for Jews. As we know, Jews are threatened by cohesive, patriotic nationalism, and for a good reason. After all, they were amongst the prime victims of such an ideology … Dieudonné has reminded us what the Left stood for in the first place, before it was conquered by Marcuse and his Frankfurt Yeshiva’s pals.
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'Jews, Out Of France!': Anti-Semites On The March In Paris,
A. Soffer - Arutz Sheva (Israel)
… A video, taken on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, shows masses of French protesters marching down a Paris thoroughfare chanting openly anti-Semitic slogans and calling on Jews to get out of France … It was part of a “Day of Anger” called by anti-government activists in protest of a variety of “anti-establishment” causes. French police estimated that around 17,000 people had attended the march, and said that 250 had been arrested … The footage provides the most alarming evidence yet that the popularization of anti-Semitism by the bigoted French comic is reaching terrifying heights, and raises serious concerns for the country’s Jewish community.
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US ‘Dismantling’ Rhetoric Ignores Iran’s Nuclear Proposals
Gareth Porter - IPS
Iran’s pushback against statements by Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House that Tehran must “dismantle” some of its nuclear program, and the resulting political uproar over it, indicates that tough U.S. rhetoric may be adding new obstacles to the search for a comprehensive nuclear agreement … Iran was not required by the interim agreement to “dismantle” anything … The use of the word “dismantle” in those [US] statements appears to be largely rhetorical and aimed at fending off attacks by pro-Israel political figures characterizing the administration’s negotiating posture as soft.
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Pollard Imprisonment 'On the Verge of Anti-Semitism,’ Says ADL Chief
The Times of Israel
The Anti-Defamation League’s national director, Abraham Foxman, criticized the continued imprisonment of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, calling it “on the verge of anti-Semitism.” Foxman was quoted on the Pollard case in several Israeli news outlets on Tuesday, and echoed a statement he issued on the case earlier this month … The fact that Pollard remains in prison despite having spied for an ally shows that there is an “ongoing vendetta” against him. Foxman adds: “If it were only a vendetta against one individual it would be bad enough. But it has now become one against the American Jewish community.”
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Raising Asian Awareness of the Holocaust
The New York Times
… The Holocaust, however, is not a topic that students at local Chinese schools are likely to encounter in class … A Hong Kong-based nonprofit organization is trying to offer what is lacking. In 2011, a group of largely Jewish residents founded the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Center to raise awareness and promote education about the Holocaust, both locally and, eventually, more widely. The center has organized activities in about two dozen schools, including screening of films and talks by Holocaust survivors.
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Did Iran’s Supreme Leader 'Deny the Holocaust’?
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI )
… Despite Zarif’s claim that Khamenei’s statements had been mistranslated from the Persian, MEMRI found that not only does Khamenei’s original Persian statement appear on his Persian-language website, but that the English version on his English-language website is indeed an accurate translation – he did indeed refer to the “myth of the Jewish slaughter known as the Holocaust” …
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Maryland Bill Targets Purple Line Bidder’s Ties to Holocaust
The Washington Post
A bill introduced in the Maryland General Assembly would prohibit one of the firms bidding on the light-rail Purple Line project from winning the contract unless its parent company pays reparations to Holocaust victims transported on its trains. The bill … would affect Keolis, a rail company whose majority owner is SNCF, the government-owned French railway. Historians say SNCF trains carried nearly 76,000 Jews and other Nazi prisoners to the French-German border on their way to extermination camps during World War II.
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Most Americans Foresee US Downhill Slide to 2050
The Associated Press
Ask people to imagine American life in 2050, and you’ll get some dreary visions. Whether they foresee runaway technology or runaway government, rampant poverty or vanishing morality, a majority of Americans predict a future worse than today. Whites are particularly gloomy … Even groups with comparatively sunny outlooks — racial and ethnic minorities, the young and the nonreligious — are much more likely to say things will be the same or get worse than to predict a brighter future … Overall, 54 percent of those surveyed expect American life to go downhill, while 23 percent think it will improve, according to a December survey from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
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Israel 'Soda Stream’ Firm at Center of Settlement Boycott Row
K. Connolly -- BBC News
… SodaStream – and Ms. Johansson – find themselves caught up in the bitter politics of the Middle East, and in particular the calls for a boycott of Israeli businesses that trade on the lands that Israel captured in the war of 1967. The fizzy drinks machine-maker has a factory in the industrial zone of Maale Adumim – a Jewish settlement built on occupied land to the east of Jerusalem. Under most interpretations of international law – although not Israel’s – building homes and businesses on such territory is illegal.
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European Union Envoy Warns Israel of Isolation
The Associated Press
The European Union’s ambassador to Israel has warned the Jewish State that it would likely endure “increasing isolation” if peace talks with the Palestinians collapse. Lars Faaborg-Andersen told Israel’s channel 2 TV Monday that such a scenario wouldn’t necessarily be a result of European policy, but rather the actions of private companies. His comments echo those made by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is brokering the talks and who warned last week that the boycott would expand if talks fail. The warnings caused uproar in Israel …
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Britain’s 'Financial Times’ Blasts Israeli Settlement Policy
J. North and P. Weiss - Mondoweiss
An editorial in this weekend’s Financial Times, the salmon-colored tribune of London’s City, the financial district, is certainly striking terror into Hasbara [propaganda] Central in Israel … In forceful language that looks like it could have been lifted from a Palestine solidarity publication, the FT says … “The status of the settlements is clear in international law even if Israel chooses to ignore this and expand its colonisation of Palestinian land, while ostensibly negotiating on the creation of a Palestinian state … It is disingenuous to romanticise settlement enterprises. The occupation imprisons thousands of the Palestinians’ young men, gives their land and water to settlers, demolishes their houses and partitions the remaining territory with scores of checkpoints and segregated roads.”
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Israeli Officials, Businessmen to Meet Over Global Boycott Threat
RT News (Russia)
Amid faltering peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Israeli politicians and business leaders are forced to consider a host of international boycotts that threaten to damage the economy of the Jewish state, local media reveal. Israeli Cabinet ministers are set to meet next week to address a growing international campaign to boycott trade over ongoing Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli daily Haaretz reported … Amid this wave of boycotts and condemnation, a group of influential Israeli businesspeople has launched a publicity campaign calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to forge a peace agreement with the Palestinians for the sake of Israel’s economy, which is heavily dependent on exports.
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Myth of Foreign Nazi Volunteers ‘Debunked’
BBC History
Swiss, Swedish and Danish men who volunteered for the Nazi Waffen-SS combat formation during the Second World War were not, as was previously believed, lower-class naive outsiders, but highly intelligent and ambitious individuals who fought willingly for the regime, a new study suggests. In an article published in the journal Contemporary European History, [by] Dr Martin Gutmann … Most were well-travelled, well-educated, and of a middle or upper-class upbringing … Gutmann also found that volunteers were, with very few exceptions, convinced nationalists, who had a “sense of impending demographic and racial degradation”, and were fearful of both Bolshevism and liberal capitalism.
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Right after the June 1941 attack against the Soviet Union, young men across Europe volunteer to join in the World War II struggle against Soviet Bolshevism. The first battalion of the Danish volunteer corps ”Danmark” departs for training. Spanish volunteers of the famed “Blue Division” depart from Madrid. Italian troops prepare for combat on the eastern front. From the German weekly newsreel “Deutsche Wochenschau” of July 30, 1941. With English subtitles (not entirely accurate). Runtime: 1:11 mins.
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China has overtaken France and Italy to become the world’s number one consumer of red wine, although the United States remains the world’s biggest tippler of all types of wines, the wine and spirits trade association Vinexpo has said. China drank 1.865 billion bottles of red wine last year, or in trade terms 155 million nine-litre cases, contributing to a 136 per cent increase in consumption over five years. That beat France into second place for red wine and Italy into third, Vinexpo said … The reason for the massive surge in red wine drinking in China, apart from growing affluence, is the Chinese preference for red over white on cultural grounds based on the colour …
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Two Men Flee to Israel Amid $33M Bank Fraud Charges
The Associated Press
Two Los Angeles men who fled to Israel have been indicted in connection with a $33 million bank fraud. A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted 53-year-old Aviv Mizrahi and 58-year-old Aryeh Greenes on 34 counts including bank fraud and making false statements in loan applications. According to the indictment, the men doctored financial records to receive lines of credit, resulting in more than $33 million in losses for banks. Authorities say Mizrahi was previously charged with bank fraud in 2012 and changed his name to Aviv Shoham Schwartz after fleeing to Israel. Arrest warrants have been issued for both men.
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Russian TV Channel Takes Flak For Asking Question About World War II
The Washington Post
A lesson for Russian media: Be careful what you ask for. Someone at Dozhd TV, a popular, independent television channel, thought that the 70th anniversary this week of the lifting of the siege of Leningrad would be a good time to get its viewers’ opinions on a simple question. “Should Leningrad have been surrendered to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people?” Wrong question. World War II is a sacred subject in Russia, where it is known as the Great Patriotic War. It’s not a topic that invites examination, skepticism or counterfactuals.
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As President Barack Obama enters his sixth year in the White House, 68 percent of Americans say the country is either stagnant or worse off since he took office, according to the latest NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll. Just 31 percent say the country is better off, and a deep pessimism continues to fuel the public’s mood. Most respondents used words like “divided,” “troubled,” and “deteriorating” to describe the current state of the nation. On the eve of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, more than six-in-ten Americans believe that the nation is headed in the wrong direction and 70 percent are dissatisfied with the economy.
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Few Americans Think US Federal Government Has 'Consent of Governed’
Rasmussen Reports
Just 21 percent of likely U.S. voters believe the federal government today has the consent of the governed, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. That’s up four points from the all-time low of 17 percent last reached in August but is generally in keeping with regular surveying for the past four years. Sixty-three percent (63%) do not believe the federal government has the consent of the governed today, Sixteen percent (16%) are not sure.
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It’s Always World War II: If You’re a Warmonger
Justin Raimondo
They call it the “Good War,” one supposes, in order to differentiate it from all the really bad wars we’ve been fighting – and losing – lately: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the future wars our political class has up its collective sleeve … It was the biggest mistake in our history as a nation, and yet it is glorified as our greatest moment, the singular achievement of the Greatest Generation – and warmongers inevitably refer to it in order to marginalize anti-interventionists, no matter what the context, conjuring up all the old smears of long-dead character assassins. Until and unless we debunk this tired yet persistent narrative, we shall never rid ourselves of the albatross of empire.
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Is World War II Still ‘The Good War’?
Adam Kirsch - The New York Times
… Even as the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made Americans less confident about the ways we use our military power, the struggle with the Axis remains the classic example of American might deployed for virtuous ends … Even today, World War II helps underwrite our claim to that moral difference … After all, the present is always lived in ambiguity. To those who fought World War II, it was plain enough that Allied bombs were killing huge numbers of German civilians, that Churchill was fighting to preserve imperialism as well as democracy, and that the bulk of the dying in Europe was being done by the Red Army at the service of Stalin.
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How accurate is this hallowed portrayal of America’s role in World War II? As we shall see, it does not hold up under close examination … The three Allied leaders accomplished what they accused the Axis leaders of Germany, Italy and Japan of conspiring to achieve: world domination … Presidential deception to justify war did not start with George W. Bush. Americans who express admiration for the US role in World War II, and for Franklin Roosevelt’s presidential leadership, have little moral right to complain when presidents follow his example and lead the country into war by breaking the law, subverting the Constitution, and lying to the people.
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Orderly and Humane?: World War II as the 'Good War’
Peter Hitchens - Daily Mail (Britain)
… We shall soon be marking the 70 th anniversary of the end of the supposedly ‘Good’ Second World War … The 1939-45 conflict is still wreathed in delusions, delusions often employed to try to justify modern wars which are alleged to have comparably ‘good’ aims. The belief in its goodness is in fact ludicrous. Our main ally (rejected at the beginning with lofty scorn, embraced later with desperate, insincere enthusiasm) was one of the most murderous tyrants in human history … During and immediately after the war, as I have discussed here, we employed methods which would have disgusted our forebears and which ought to disgust us, but which were so frightful that we still lie to ourselves about them, or hide them from our consciousness.
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… So the question is whether the United States wishes to remain the dominant military power in the world and to bring China down. Unfortunately, such anti-China strategies have already been put in place by the U.S. and they will be intensified … If the United States insists on its status as the dominant and unchallengeable military power, then we are on the road to conflict, certainly a new Cold War the beginning of which the “pivot” represents, and quite possibly we are on the road to WWIII … The answer is to abandon Empire, dismantle our overseas bases, end our occupation of foreign nations, including South Korea, Japan and Germany, adopt a defensive strategy to protect our land and come home. Trade and talk, yes. Military intervention, no.
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Germany Weighs Stronger Military Role
Der Spiegel (Germany)
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen want Germany to assume a greater role in world affairs, including military missions abroad. Their stance marks a break with Angela Merkel’s policy of restraint. / … The French now want to follow the German example in economic policy, after two years of resisting it. Berlin in turn wants to provide Paris with stronger support in military missions in Africa in future … That’s a big step not just for France, but for Germany as well. The new German government, inaugurated just a month ago, is charting a new course in foreign policy.
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A wealthy American venture capitalist has come under fire for comparing criticism of the “successful one percent” to the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany. Thomas Perkins, a founder of leading venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who reportedly has a net worth of $8 billion, penned a letter to the Wall Street Journal that was published Friday. “Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its ‘one percent,’ namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the ‘rich,’” Perkins wrote.
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Rich American Compares Poor People to Nazis
The Huffington Post
Maybe you thought rich maniac Thomas Perkins was kidding or drunk when he wrote that the Poors were basically Nazis preparing to Holocaust him to death. But no: He has doubled down on this claim in a new email to Bloomberg. “In the Nazi area it was racial demonization, now it is class demonization,” typed Perkins …
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'Economist' Magazine Cartoon Sparks Anti-Semitism Row
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
… The offending illustration, of US President Barack Obama reaching out to Iran shackled to a congress emblem embossed with Stars of David … first appeared in the magazine’s January 18 print edition … Critics blasted the cartoon for suggesting that the US is controlled by Jews and Israel … Middle East media expert Tom Gross told The Jerusalem Post … “It is not the first time the Economist has employed anti-Semitism as part of what it pretends to be straightforward political commentary.” …
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President Obama urged the nation and world Monday to remember the victims on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. “Each year on this day the world comes together to commemorate a barbaric crime unique in human history,” Obama said in a statement … Obama also said people should condemn “any attempts to deny the occurrence of the Holocaust” … “On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Michelle and I join the American people and our friends in the State of Israel and around the world as we reaffirm our obligation not just to bear witness, but to act.”
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Blasphemy in Secular France: The Shoah as State Religion?
Diana Johnstone - CounterPunch
… The most significant result of the Dieudonné uproar so far is probably the dawning realization, among more and more people, that the “Shoah”, or Holocaust, functions as the semi-official State Religion of France … Constantly recalling the Shoah, in articles, movies, news items, as well as at school, far from preventing anything, can create a morbid fascination with “identities”. It fosters “victim rivalries” … The Holocaust became the religion of the West at a time when the generation after World War II was in the mood to blame their parents. Now we are with the grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, of those who lived through that period, and they want to look ahead.
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Holocaust Day: The Time Is Ripe For A Jewish Apology
Gilad Atzmon
… Seemingly, Jewish organisations around the world are scared by the recent developments in France. Once again, they clearly failed to appreciate the growing mass fatigue of Shoah indoctrination and belligerent lobby politics … Instead of whining about the “rise of anti-Semitism”, Jews better, once and for all, learn to ask why? Why the Jews again? Why are they hated? What is it in Jewish politics that evokes so much resentment? Why does it happen time after time? … Jewish suffering is actually embedded in Jewish culture. In other words, Jews are actually destined to bring disasters on themselves.
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A 'Gimmicky’ Single-Word Holocaust Book
The New York Times
There is no plot to speak of, and the characters are woefully undeveloped. On the upside, it can be a quick read — especially considering its 1,250 pages. The book, more art than literature, consists of the single word, “Jew,” in tiny type, printed six million times to signify the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust. It is meant as a kind of coffee-table monument of memory, a conversation starter and thought provoker … While many Jewish leaders in the United States have embraced the book, some Holocaust educators consider it a gimmick … The book’s backers do not deny its gimmickry — Chernofsky used the Yiddish word “shtick” — but see it as a powerful one.
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More than a dozen European Union nations have failed to fully criminalise the denial of crimes against humanity and war crimes, the EU’s executive said on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Though the bloc agreed in 2008 to outlaw the denial, condonement or gross trivialisation of such crimes, around half of its 28 members have failed to write these rules into their domestic legislation, the European Commission said.
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The Weight of Tradition: Ancient Roots of Modern Conflict
Mark Weber – Podcast
Israel’s inhumane treatment of non-Jews, as well as the often arrogant outlook of the organized Jewish community, reflect a centuries-old mindset that has roots in the Hebrew scriptures (the “Old Testament”). As Weber explains in this hard-hitting broadcast, Judaism is not just “another religion.” Its character and core values are markedly unlike those of Christianity and the other great world religions. Jews are encouraged to regard themselves as separate from the rest of humanity, and as members of a community with interests distinct from those of everyone else.
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Is Kerry in Denial?
Patrick J. Buchanan
… Yet Kerry’s own undiplomatic conduct may be imperiling two of his initiatives, and naivete and hubris may be blinding him to the coming collapse of the third … Can Kerry explain why America’s goal remains the ouster of Assad, when the offensive coordinator for the rebels who would take power is the successor to Osama bin Laden? … As for an Israeli-Palestinian deal in which Kerry has invested 10 trips, Israeli economics minister Naftali Bennett calls it “a joke.” Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon says that Kerry “is acting out of misplaced obsession and messianic fervor,” that his peace plan “is not worth the paper it is written on” … Kerry is heading into a minefield. And so are we.
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As Russia prepared to mark the 70th anniversary of the lifting of the Leningrad Blockade this week, Dozhd TV asked its viewers a provocative query: Would more lives have been saved if Russia had surrendered the city to Germany? The poll question proved distasteful to many Russians, for whom the nearly 900-day Leningrad siege — in which an estimated one million people died of starvation — remains one of the grimmest chapters of the country’s World War II history. Dozhd quickly removed the question and apologized for causing offense. But it was not enough to prevent a number of broadcasters in Russia — including the Akado and NTV-Plus cable providers — from taking Dozhd off the air.
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Actress Scarlett Johansson has quit her role as an ambassador for Oxfam, the charity said on Thursday, after she fell out with the group for endorsing an Israeli firm operating in the occupied West Bank. The Hollywood star has become the public face for soda-maker SodaStream, and is due to appear in an advert for the company that is set to air during the Super Bowl on Sunday. However, the multi-million dollar deal has caused a backlash amongst activists and humanitarian groups because SodaStream’s largest factory is based in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank … Settlements are deemed illegal under international law and are condemned by Oxfam, which has a large operation in the region.
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Actress Johansson’s Break With Oxfam Charity Highlights Israel Occupation Issue
The Associated Press
Scarlett Johansson has parted ways with the international charity Oxfam because of a dispute over her work for SodaStream, a company operating in a West Bank settlement that features the Hollywood star in an ad that will air during the Super Bowl. Johansson became the latest casualty of a widening campaign to boycott the settlements, drawing attention to a larger debate about whether Israel will become an international pariah, at a steep economic price, if it fails to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians … European officials have warned that Israel could face deepening economic isolation if it presses forward with the construction of settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, war-won lands the Palestinians want for their state.
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Israel Needs to Learn Some Manners
Avi Shlaim - The New York Times
… The simple truth is that Israel wouldn’t be able to survive for very long without American support. Since 1949, America’s economic aid to Israel amounts to a staggering $118 billion and America continues to subsidize the Jewish state to the tune of $3 billion annually. America is also Israel’s main arms supplier and the official guarantor of its “quantitative military edge” over all its Arab neighbors. In the diplomatic arena, Israel relies on America to shield it from the consequences of its habitual violations of international law … America is going nowhere in the Middle East until it makes the provision of money and arms conditional on good manners and, more importantly, on Israeli respect for its advice.
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Understanding the Boycott of Israel’s Universities
Vijay Prashad - The Washington Post
… U.S. academics are not in the lead here. Matters are far more developed in Europe, where faculties have fought to divest and boycott Israel and where the European Union is moving toward labeling products from illegal Israeli settlements. But U.S. academics recognize a special mission: Israeli institutions that benefit from the occupation do so with impunity granted by U.S. financial, military and diplomatic support. If the United States underwrites the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lives, then U.S. scholars have a responsibility to call that support to account. That is why the ASA acted. I, for one, am glad it did.
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The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a bill that would enhance the already close U.S.-Israel defense relationship … It names Israel a “major strategic ally” of the United States — no other nation has the status — and includes measures that would encourage enhanced cooperation such as missile development, energy and homeland security. The measure also calls for expanding the reserve of U.S. weapons stockpiled in Israel and recommends that Israel join the U.S. visa waiver program, allowing for unfettered travel between the countries once Israel meets its requirements.
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The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict
Jews for Justice in the Middle East
As the periodic bloodshed continues in the Middle East, the search for an equitable solution must come to grips with the root cause of the conflict. The conventional wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational “terrorists” who have no point of view worth listening to. Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance … This paper outlines the history of Palestine to show how this process occurred and what a moral solution to the region’s problems should consist of. If you care about the people of the Middle East, Jewish and Arab, you owe it to yourself to read this account of the other side of the historical record.
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The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff: Deadliest Sea Disaster
Unsolved Mysteries – Video
The sinking of the ‘Wilhelm Gustloff’ is not well known, but this was one of the worst naval disasters in history. This 44-minute documentary tells the story of how this German vessel, packed with women and children refugees, was sunk by a Soviet submarine on Jan. 30, 1945. Estimates of the number of drowning victims run as high as 9,000 — that is, more than the number of those who died in the Titanic and Lusitania sinkings combined.
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History’s Little Known Naval Disasters
Institute for Historical Review
Many of those who view “Titanic,” the blockbuster motion picture, may leave the movie theater believing that the 1912 sinking of the great British liner, with the loss of 1,523 men, women and children, was history’s greatest maritime disaster … But these disasters are dwarfed by the sinkings of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the General Steuben and the Goya, three German ships crowded with evacuated refugees and wounded soldiers that were struck by Soviet submarines during the final months of the Second World War.
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How Free Trade Is Killing Middle America
Patrick J. Buchanan
… The average U.S. family has not seen a rise in real wages in 40 years. This is directly traceable to the loss of more than one-third of all U.S. manufacturing jobs. And that loss, that deindustrialization of America, is directly tied to the $10 trillion in trade deficits since Bush I … The United States has not run a trade surplus in four decades, whereas, in the first 70 years of the 20th century, we never ran a trade deficit. Trade surpluses add to GDP; trade deficits subtract from GDP. And when in a company town the company closes the factory, the town often dies.
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New Sanctions on Iran Could Torpedo Negotiations
Bob Dreyfuss - The Nation
The November 24 interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 world powers, which moved into its implementation phase in January, could be blown apart if Congress, backed by hawks and the Israel lobby, enacts yet another Iran sanctions bill, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act. Like a scene from The Walking Dead, 77 neoconservative pundits, analysts and former officials — almost all of them the same people who, as members of various committees and ad hoc think tanks, pushed for war against Iraq from the late 1990s to 2003 — sent a letter to congressional leaders backing the reckless scheme.