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A war may be brewing within the United States, almost a third of voters say in a poll released Wednesday. Amid widespread political polarization on issues like immigration and recent public confrontations of Trump administration officials, 31 percent of probable U.S. voters surveyed said they think “it’s likely that the United States will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years.” Democrats at 37 percent were slightly more fearful of a second civil war than Republicans at 32 percent, the poll from Rasmussen Reports found. While more than half thought it was unlikely the USA would see a second civil war soon, 59 percent of voters were still concerned that opponents of President Donald Trump’s policies would resort to violence.
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Half of Americans Think the US is in 'Real Danger of Becoming a Non-Democratic, Authoritarian Country'
The Washington Post
Half of Americans think the United States is in “real danger of becoming a nondemocratic, authoritarian country.” A majority, 55 percent, see democracy as “weak” – and 68 percent believe it is “getting weaker.” Eight in ten Americans say they are either “very” or “somewhat” concerned about the condition of democracy here. These are among the sobering results of a major bipartisan poll published Tuesday that was commissioned by the George W. Bush Institute, the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center and Freedom House, which tracks the vitality of democracies around the world. The three groups have partnered to create the Democracy Project, with the goal of monitoring the health of the American system.
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Why Socrates Hated Democracy
Video - The School of Life
We are used to thinking very highly of democracy – and by extension, of Ancient Athens, the civilisation that gave rise to it. But interestingly, Socrates – the outstanding Athenian philosopher, and one of the wisest men who ever lived – was deeply suspicious of democracy. Runtime: 4:21 mins.
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When Poland made it a criminal offence this year to accuse it of complicity in Nazi war crimes, there was an outcry in Europe, Israel and the US. Anyone found guilty could face up to three years in jail. Five months later, the right-wing prime minister has moved to change the law to decriminalise the offence, describing it as a “correction” … Israeli President Reuven Rivlin publicly challenged the legislation in April, telling his counterpart it was undeniable that while many Poles had fought the Nazis in World War Two, “Poland and Poles had a hand in the extermination” of Jews during the Holocaust … But it’s the harm the dispute has done to Poland’s relations with the US and Israel that has caused the government to take this step.
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An Israeli-American teenager was found guilty in Israel on Thursday of making about 2,000 hoax bomb threats against Jewish and other institutions in the United States and elsewhere during Donald Trump’s rise to the U.S. presidency in 2016 and 2017. The incidents stoked allegations by some American critics at the time that the Republican contender was encouraging anti-Semitism and other forms of racism … Kadar was found guilty of counts including extortion, disseminating hoaxes in order to spread panic, money laundering and computer hacking over bomb and shooting threats against community centers, schools, shopping malls, police stations, airlines and airports in North America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Denmark.
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The US Has Given Up On The Overthrow Of Assad In Syria
Robert Fisk - The Independent (Britain)
It will be called the great betrayal. And it was a long time coming. But the grim message from Washington to the anti-Assad fighters of southern Syria – that they could expect no help from the West in their further struggle against Assad’s regime or the Russians – will one day figure in the history books. It’s a turning point in the Syria war, a shameful betrayal if you happen to belong to the wreckage of the “Free Syrian Army” and its acolytes around the city of Deraa, and a further victory for the Assad regime in its ambition to retake all of rebel Syria … When Washington “understands the difficult conditions” its militia allies are facing and says it “advises” the Russians and Syrians not to violate a ceasefire – which was Moscow’s idea in the first place – you know that the Americans are pulling the carpet from beneath another set of allies.
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Scapegoating Iran
Chris Hedges
Seventeen years of war in the Middle East and what do we have to show for it? Iraq after our 2003 invasion and occupation is no longer a unified country. Its once modern infrastructure is largely destroyed, and the nation has fractured into warring enclaves. We have lost the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban is resurgent and has a presence in over 70 percent of the country. Libya is a failed state … The 500 “moderate” rebels we funded and armed in Syria at a cost of $500 million are in retreat after instigating a lawless reign of terror. The military adventurism has cost a staggering $5.6 trillion as our infrastructure crumbles, austerity guts basic services and half the population of the United States lives at or near poverty levels. The endless wars in the Middle East are the biggest strategic blunder in American history, and herald the death of the empire.
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How Israel’s Leaders Use Targeted Killings to Try to 'Stop History'
D. Horovitz - The Times of Israel
Ronen Bergman’s “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations” is a chronicle, he writes, “of a long string of impressive tactical successes, but also disastrous strategic failures.” Tiny Israel, beset by Arab attempts at destruction and the “perpetual menace” of terrorism, developed a highly effective military, arguably the world’s best intelligence agencies, and, in turn, “the most robust, streamlined assassination machine in history.” … But at the same time, Bergman said in an interview to coincide with the book’s publication, the very success and potency of what are calculated as over 2,700 assassination operations in Israel’s 70-year modern history has sometimes led Israeli politicians to eschew true leadership and diplomacy.
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Israel’s Secret Assassinations
Rod Such
Israeli television recently aired a video of two Israeli soldiers filming themselves in the act of shooting a Palestinian protester at the Gaza boundary while cheering. Filming one’s own crimes against humanity – shooting Palestinians for sport – suggests a sense of security in never being held accountable. Even more evidence of this impunity is apparent in Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations by veteran Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court might want to consider this book Exhibit A if Israeli government and military officials are ever indicted for war crimes … “Since World War II, Israel has assassinated more people than any other country in the Western world,” Bergman writes.
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U.S. Heading Toward Record-Breaking Debt
S. Ferris - Politico
The nation’s fiscal outlook looks ever bleaker, thanks in part to deficit spending during President Donald Trump’s first term, Congress’ nonpartisan budget scorekeeper projected Tuesday. Within 16 years, the federal deficit is expected to be the largest in history, outpacing even the fiscal shortfalls that followed World War II, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. Congress’ recent tax and spending laws — along with ballooning costs of programs like Social Security and Medicare — also are driving up the amount the government pays in interest on money borrowed to make up for the gap in cash coming in and going out … Debt is projected to reach 78 percent of gross domestic product by the end of this year — the highest level since about 1950.
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A Brief (Fascist) History of 'I Don't Care'
Giovanni Tiso – Overland (Australia)
This article was sparked by the jacket that Melania Trump wore as she travelled to a detention camp for migrant children … ‘Me ne frego’ was the title of one of the most famous songs of the Fascist era. Its original version, dating around 1920, hails D’Annunzio and Mussolini as the fathers of the fascist movement, recycling the old war song of the arditi as the third stanza … Mussolini made the slogan his own, and explicitly elevated it to the philosophy of the regime … This is the form in which the slogan has survived until the present day … We readily find those words appearing not just on seemingly ubiquitous Fascist-era memorabilia but also on posters, t-shirts, or this line of stickers … The international neo-fascist movement is of course well aware of this lineage.
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Pres. Trump Reportedly Signed Secret Pledge to Safeguard Israeli Nukes
The Times of Israel
US President Donald Trump has reportedly signed a secret letter pledging not to strong-arm the Jewish state into relinquishing its nuclear weapons. The US president’s backing came after Israel’s ambassador to the United States reportedly pressured the administration last year, raising the ire of American officials. The rare moment of tension between the Israeli government and Trump White House in February 2017 came a month after Trump entered office and was said to devolve into yelling and profanity, according to a report by The New Yorker …
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How Trump and Three Other U.S. Presidents Protected Israel’s Worst-Kept Secret: Its Nuclear Arsenal
Adam Entous - The New Yorker
When a delegation of senior Israeli officials visited the Trump White House on February 13, 2017, they wanted to discuss several issues with their new American counterparts. Topping the list was a secret letter concerning a subject the Israelis had promised the Americans never to discuss publicly — Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal … There had been a similar moment of surprise eight years earlier, when Barack Obama became President and received a similar request. The very existence of the letters had been a closely held secret. Only a select group of senior American officials, in three previous Administrations, knew of the letters … Cohen said that the issue is central for Netanyahu because the nuclear arsenal fuels his “sense of impunity, sense of Israel being so powerful, that it can dictate its own terms in the region and beyond.”
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Iran Calls on U.S. to Support Nuclear Disarmament of Israel
Associated Press / The Times of Israel
Iran has announced a list of 15 demands for improving relations with the United States, including a US return to the 2015 nuclear accord, in response to a similar list of demands made by Washington last month. In an article in a state-owned newspaper Thursday, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called on the US to stop providing arms to the “invaders of Yemen,” referring to Saudi Arabia, and to drop its opposition to the nuclear disarmament of Israel. Israel is believed by foreign governments and media to be the Middle East’s sole nuclear power, but has long refused to confirm or deny that it has nuclear weapons.
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Iran Will Not Hold Negotiations With US as 'Rogue' State, Says Iran Foreign Minister
Press TV (Iran)
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the US is turning into a “rogue state” by repeatedly violating international law, adding that Iran will not negotiate with a country that fails to keep its word and moves to sabotage one multilateral agreement after another. In an article titled “US Foreign Policy in Crisis,” published on the Foreign Ministry’s Website on Wednesday, Zarif responded to a 12-point list of steep demands recently put forward by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a “new” deal with Iran after Washington’s withdrawal from the existing multilateral nuclear agreement.
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Stonehenge Builders Used Pythagoras' Theorem 2,000 Years Before Greek Philosopher Was Born, Say Experts
S. Knapton – The Telegraph (Britain)
The builders of Britain’s ancient stone circles like Stonehenge were using Pythagoras’ theorem 2,000 years before the Greek philosopher was born, experts have claimed. A new book, Megalith, has re-examined the ancient geometry of Neolithic monuments and concluded they were constructed by sophisticated astronomers who understood lengthy lunar, solar and eclipse cycles and built huge stone calendars using complex geometry … Pythagorean triangles have also been found at Avebury, the inner ring of the Druid Temple in Inverness, Castlerigg in Keswick, Cumbria, Barbrook, in Derbyshire, Borrowston Rig, on the Scottish borders, and Daviot ‘B’, in Aberdeenshire.
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While Trump Trashes US Allies, China Seizes the Future
Federico Rampini - La Repubblica (Italy)
… The American Century had its doctrine, which proclaimed the superiority of a system that combined a market economy with liberal democracy, and promised shared benefits to all participants. But today the West is pervaded by doubts and disappointments: globalization has brought growing inequality; the middle class is collapsing; young people have lesser prospects than their elders did. China, though, sees the world the other way around: Globalization has reduced the economic distance between China and the West, and created a new middle class of more than half a billion people. Xi openly asserts the superiority of his model of authoritarianism over the chaos of Western democracy.
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Israel, Poland Resolve Dispute Over Polish Holocaust Law
The Times of Israel
Israel and Poland on Thursday ended a bitter dispute over the Polish Holocaust law, with Warsaw dropping penalties for blaming Nazi crimes on the country, and Israel acknowledging some of Poland’s concerns. Reading out a joint statement crafted between the two governments, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the Polish decision to amend the law, and credited it to Israel’s standing up for the truth. In a speech at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu spoke of the anger caused in Israel and elsewhere by the law, which raised fears it could squelch free speech on the Holocaust. But he also highlighted the importance of ties between the two countries. These ties, he said, include a “joint responsibility for preserving the memory of the Holocaust.”
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YouTube Censors 'Restrict' IHR Videos
Institute for Historical Review
In line with a recent crackdown policy, YouTube has “restricted” a number of independently produced videos of IHR talks and presentations. To watch a “restricted” video, the viewer must first click through a warning screen. Also, comments on the video are not allowed, and the number of views is not given. Even worse, YouTube will never “suggest” a “restricted” video to viewers, which is how many people find our videos. While YouTube claims that its “restriction” policy is aimed at videos with “inflammatory religious or supremacist content,” applying it to IHR videos is absurd … YouTube restricts our voice not because we have violated any objective standards, or because we have done anything wrong or illegal — but because it doesn’t like what we say.
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'Little House on the Prairie' Author Removed From Book Award Title Over 'Racism' Concerns
Associated Press
A division of the American Library Association has voted to remove Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from a major children’s book award over concerns with how the early-to-mid 20th century author portrayed blacks and Native Americans. The Association for Library Service to Children’s board made the unanimous decision Saturday at a meeting in New Orleans. The name has been changed to the Children’s Literature Legacy Award. The association says the work of Wilder — best known for her “Little House on the Prairie” novels — “includes expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with ALSC’s core values.” The first award was given to Wilder in 1954. The ALSC says Wilder’s work continues to be published and read but her “legacy is complex” and “not universally embraced.”
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The US has told its allies to cut all oil purchases from Iran to zero by November as it prepares to reinstate sanctions against the country. The State Department said it does not plan to offer waivers or allow countries to wind down imports from Iran. Oil prices jumped following the announcement. The US has said firms that continue to do business with Iran risk punishment once sanctions are reintroduced … A State Department official said on Tuesday that the sanctions were one of the administration’s “top national security priorities”.
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Sheldon Adelson donated thousands of dollars to five Republican candidates who opposed the Iran nuclear deal. The donations came last month, a week after US President Donald Trump announced that he would withdraw the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear agreement, CNBC reported. … In May, Adelson donated $30 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee aligned with the Republicans in the House of Representatives, in order to help the House keep its GOP majority. The donation is three times as large as the amount he gave in 2016. Adelson, a major giver to Jewish and pro-Israel causes, was among the biggest givers to Trump’s campaign and his inauguration.
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A Fascist Right – Or a Hysterical Left?
Patrick J. Buchanan
If Trump supporters are truly “a basket of deplorables … racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic” and “irredeemable,” as Hillary Clinton described them to an LGBT crowd, is not shunning and shaming the proper way to deal with them? So a growing slice of the American left has come to believe … The left, to the point of irrationality, despises a triumphant Trumpian right and believes that to equate it with fascists is not only legitimate, but a sign that the accusers are the real moral, righteous and courageous dissenters in these terrible times … If you have been told and believe your opponents are fascists, then their gatherings are deserving not of respect but of disruption. And, as was true in the 1960s, if you manifest your contempt, you will receive the indulgence of a media that will celebrate your superior morality.
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Kim 10, Trump 0
Eric Margolis
Last week’s Economist Magazine won the day with the best-ever headline about the Trump-Kim Jong-un summit: ‘Kim Jong Won!’ That said it all … Beyond gestures, North Korea’s leader certainly came out ahead. His objective – and those of his family predecessors for the past 60 years – was to normalize relations with the US, start trade, and end US efforts to overthrow the Marxist government in Pyongyang … So Trump’s solution was more show-biz. A much ballyhooed flight to Singapore, backslapping a delighted Kim, and a love-fest between the two chunky leaders was sold to Americans as the dawn of peace … The United States and North Korea are now on a more civilized level of behavior. But nothing basic has been resolved.
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Cuba Denuclearized in 1962. Why Continue the Embargo?
Jacob Hornberger - The Future for Freedom Foundation
In a time in which President Trump is saying that the U.S. government will lift economic sanctions against North Korea if it “denuclearizes,” why not lift the decades-old U.S. economic embargo against Cuba? After all, Cuba “denuclearized” back in 1962. Why is the U.S. government still punishing the people of Cuba with its brutal economic embargo? In fact, the continued existence of the Cuban embargo might well cause North Korea to ask: If we really do denuclearize, how can we be assured that U.S. officials will really lift their sanctions on North Korea given the continuation of their brutal embargo against Cuba after it denuclearized more than 50 years ago? … Why is there an embargo against Cuba, whose regime has never attacked and invaded the United States, or even threatened to do so?
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Referencing the Inquisition, Israel implied that a Spanish city’s anti-Israel resolution was rooted in the country’s history of anti-Semitism from the 15th century. A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Madrid suggested this on the embassy’s official Twitter account this week. “Navarre 1498: Jews out. Pamplona 2018: They’re forbidden to enter,” the spokesman wrote. On Tuesday, the municipality of Pamplona passed a motion calling for a “military embargo” on Israel. Jews were expelled from what is today the Spanish state of Navarre as part of the Spanish Inquisition … Emmanuel Nahshon, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, added on Twitter: “Expelling Israelis and promoting in Pamplona BDS racism. 1492 in its 2018 version.”
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International Votes Condemn Israeli Occupation
Juan Cole - TruthDig
In a blow to the Trump administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the United Nations General Assembly [on June 13] overwhelmingly adopted, by 120 votes in favor, a resolution introduced by Algeria and Turkey condemning Israel for deploying excessive force against Palestinians at rallies near the border of Gaza … Although the US and Israeli ambassadors to the UN attempted to deride the vote as mere anti-Semitism, in fact world leaders have been deeply disturbed by the naked Israeli violation of basic international legal norms in Tel Aviv’s response to the Gaza protests.
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U.S. News Media Can’t Talk About Adelson Foreign Policy
Eli Clifton - LobeLog
Over the past month, two mainstream news outlets have done in-depth reporting on the grip that Sheldon Adelson, President Donald Trump’s and the GOP’s biggest donor, holds over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. LobeLog has closely followed this important story, so it’s heartening to see The Guardian [UK] and CBC [Canada] highlighting the apparent capture of U.S. foreign-policy decision-making by a billionaire donor. But there’s a noticeable gap in the coverage of this topic. U.S. news outlets, which routinely “follow the money” when it comes to domestic issues, are almost completely avoiding any reporting on the clear link between Adelson’s campaign contributions and the administration’s pursuit of policies that hew closely to positions espoused by the billionaire casino magnate.
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Sheldon Adelson: The Casino Mogul Driving Trump’s Middle East Policy
The Guardian (Britain)
… [Sheldon] Adelson’s influence has never been greater. The imprint of the 84-year-old’s political passions is seen in an array of Donald Trump’s more controversial decisions, including violating the Iran nuclear deal, moving the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and appointing the ultra-hawkish John Bolton as national security adviser … Adelson’s considerable support for Republicans is in no small part motivated by what he regards as their more reliable support for the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu … Adelson gave $82 million toward Trump’s and other Republican campaigns during the 2016 election cycle … Right now, Adelson is concentrated on ensuring the Republicans remain in control of Congress, and is pouring $30 million into funding the GOP’s midterm elections campaign.
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Dozens of Organizations Are Reportedly Considering Lawsuits Against SPLC Following $3 Million Nawaz Settlement
T. O’Neil - PJ Media
No fewer than 60 organizations branded “hate groups” or otherwise attacked by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are considering legal action against the left-wing smear factory, a Christian legal nonprofit leader confirmed to PJ Media on Tuesday. He suggested that the $3 million settlement and apology the SPLC gave to Maajid Nawaz and his Quilliam Foundation on Monday would encourage further legal action. “We haven’t filed anything against the SPLC, but I think a number of organizations have been considering filing lawsuits against the SPLC, because they have been doing to a lot of organizations exactly what they did to Maajid Nawaz,” Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, told PJ Media on Tuesday.
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Conservatives Call for Corporate America to Cut Ties With 'Discredited' SPLC
The Washington Times
A coalition of 45 prominent conservative groups and figures called Wednesday on those partnering with the Southern Poverty Law Center to sever their ties, saying the center’s credibility has been further eroded by this week’s defamation settlement. In a joint statement, organizations targeted by the SPLC as “extremists” or “hate groups” cited the center’s apology and $3.375 million payment to the Quilliam Foundation and founder Maajid Nawaz for including them in a 2016 guide to “anti-Muslim extremists.” The settlement announced Monday comes as “tangible proof that the SPLC, which amounts to little more than a leftist instrument of political warfare against those with whom it disagrees, fully deserves the infamy which it has lately earned,” said the statement.
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'The Last Secret' of World War II
Gary Potter - Catholicism.org
… In what was known as Operation Keelhaul by the British who were its architects, the men captured in Normandy would be among 1.5 million Russian POWs forcibly turned over during 1945-47 to Russia’s Soviet Communist rulers to face summary execution or life in Soviet slave labor camps. The number included 500,000 captured ROA [RLA] troops who hoped to free their country from Soviet Communist rule. The remaining one million were Russians held in German POW camps, and who came into British custody when Germany surrendered … Russians weren’t the only victims of Operation Keelhaul. For instance, at the end of World War II the British held 40,000 Croatian POWs … When Croatian independence was crushed at the end of the war, the British turned over all of them to the new Yugoslav Communist regime of Josip Broz Tito for liquidation.
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A look at the “Russian Liberation Army,” a little-known World War II military force made up of Russian soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Germans and then volunteered to fight the Soviet regime. This ten-minute Russian-language video, with English subtitles, includes wartime footage of a swearing-in ceremony of RLA soldiers. The RLA was commanded by former Soviet General Andrei Vlasov, who also headed the German-backed anti-Stalinist “Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia,” a provisional “government-in-exile.”
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General Andrei Vlasov addresses the founding conference of the anti-Stalinist “Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia,” a German- backed, anti-Soviet Russian “government-in-exile.” At the historic meeting in Prague, Nov. 14, 1944, he reads, in Russian, the stirring Committee’s stirring proclamation to the Russian people, and the world. Video in Russian, with English subtitles. Runtime: 1:17 mins. Vlasov, a former Soviet General, was also commander of the German-supported “Russian Liberation Army.” At the end of the war US authorities turned him over to the Soviets, who hanged him in Moscow.
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Malaysia’s New Prime Minister is a Proud Anti-Semite
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Mahathir Mohamad, an avowed anti-Semite, was sworn in as Malaysia’s prime minister, nearly two decades after he last held office. Mohamad led his opposition Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) coalition to a surprise victory in national elections on Wednesday. On Thursday [May 10] he took his oath of office before the king, Sultan Muhammad V. Mohamad is known for his anti-Semitic rhetoric. He wrote on his personal blog in 2012 that “Jews rule this world by proxy,” The Associated Press reported. “1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews,” he said at the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit in 2003 in Kuala Lumpur.
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Trump, North Korea, and Iran
Sheldon Richman
… Anyone who longs for peace and an end to the big-power nuclear threat can only welcome what Trump and Kim did in Singapore this week. It’s just the beginning, of course, and things could go south at any time, but – and this shouldn’t have to be said – it’s preferable to other available alternatives. Trump’s earlier threats were insanely reckless and risky, and I stand by that judgment … In fact, Trump’s threat did not get Kim to the table; on the contrary, Kim’s nuclear tests and South Korean President Moon got Trump to the table … So, yes, nice work, Mr. Trump. But don’t rest on your laurels. Let’s move on to Iran. There is absolutely no good reason for his anti-Iran position. Iran was not making nuclear weapons, and American and Israeli intelligence knew it.
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Trump and the Invasion of the West
Patrick J. Buchanan
“It is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart,” says former first lady Laura Bush of the Trump administration policy of “zero tolerance,” under which the children of illegal migrants are being detained apart from their parents … The existential question, however, thus remains: How does the West, America included, stop the flood tide of migrants before it alters forever the political and demographic character of our nations and our civilization? … Progressives adamantly refuse to act, apparently paralyzed by a belief that restricting the free movement of peoples from foreign lands violates one of the great commandments of liberal democracy. We are truly dealing here with an ideology of Western suicide. If Europe does not act, its future is predictable.
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At dawn on June 22, 1941, Germany and allied countries launched the greatest military attack in history. Ground and air forces struck along a broad front of some 1,800 miles stretching from the Arctic Circle in the north to the Black sea in the south. The terrible struggle that raged for four years was the decisive clash of the Second World War. It ended in May 1945 with Soviet troops storming Berlin, Hitler’s suicide, and the surrender of Germany’s armed forces. This 15-minute presentation, apparently British-produced, includes dramatic color footage.
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Why Hitler Struck Against Soviet Russia
Mark Weber – Podcast
Important evidence has come to light in recent decades that shatters the official, endlessly repeated view that Hitler, bent on world conquest, launched a treacherous surprise attack against a peaceful Soviet Union. In 1941 Soviet dictator Stalin deployed an enormous strike force on the western Soviet frontier in readiness for a massive attack against Germany that would roll on to overwhelm central and western Europe. Hitler’s “Barbarossa” attack, say a growing number of historians in Russia, Germany and other countries, was actually a preventive war to forestall an imminent Soviet strike.
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Stalin: 'Chief Culprit' of World War II
Victor Suvorov - C-Span - Video
Viktor Suvorov, a Russian historian and former Soviet military intelligence officer, explains why Stalin should be considered the “chief culprit” of World War II. In this lecture, based on research for several books including The Chief Culprit, he presents evidence to show that the German attack against the Soviet Union in June 1941 was a preventive strike to counter an imminent Soviet assault against Germany and Europe. This two-hour talk was given at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, Feb. 3, 2009. Suvorov also responds to questions from the audience.
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US Quits UN Human Rights Council, Cites 'Bias' Against Israel
Middle East Eye
The United States withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday accusing it of “chronic bias against Israel,” a move that activists warned would make advancing human rights globally even more difficult. US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley slammed Russia, China, Cuba and Egypt for thwarting US efforts to alter the council. She also criticised countries which she said shared US values and encouraged Washington to remain but “were unwilling to seriously challenge the status quo” … Standing with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Haley said the “disproportionate focus and unending hostility toward Israel is clear proof that the council is motivated by political bias, not by human rights”.
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English University Apologises After Nazi General Quote Used to Motivate Staff and Students
The Telegraph (Britain)
A university has apologised after a quote from a Nazi general was used to motivate staff and students. The University of Exeter’s careers service sent out an email which included a quote from Erwin Rommel, the World War Two Nazi general also known as the Desert Fox. Rommel was one of the most senior members of the Nazi war machine. The email included the quote: “One cannot permit unique opportunities to slip by for the sake of trifles.” … The spokesman said the University of Exeter staff member who selected the quote did not know who Rommel was, and the information was taken from a free-to-use website.
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Model of German WWII 'UFO Aircraft' Withdrawn Following Criticisms
DPA/ The Local (Germany)
Toys and models manufacturer Revell based in North Rhine-Westphalia has announced that one of their products, an aircraft described as a war machine during the Nazi period, will no longer be produced. A spokesperson from Revell said on Monday that the company will stop manufacturing and distributing the product, adding that criticism of it is “absolutely justified.” … In its product description, the toy is called a “round aircraft” and “the first object in the world capable of flying in space.” The description goes on to say that the aircraft can fly “up to speeds of 6,000 km/ hr” and it was not produced after its test phase in 1943 due to the Second World War.
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Southern Poverty Law Center’s Settlement With 'Extremist' Organization Dings Credibility
The Washington Times
The Southern Poverty Law Center took a devastating hit to its credibility and reinforced its reputation for unfairly wielding the “hate” label Monday by agreeing to pay millions of dollars to an organization previously included on a list of “extremists.” In a stunning settlement, SPLC President Richard Cohen issued an apology and agreed to pay $3.375 million to the British-based Quilliam Foundation and founder Maajid Nawaz after they appeared in a since-deleted 2016 journalists’ guide to “anti-Muslim extremists.” The agreement, reached after Mr. Nawaz threatened to sue, prompted the center’s many critics on the right to reissue calls for media outlets and companies, which include Google and Amazon, to stop relying on the center for neutral “hate group” assessments.
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Renowned 'Anti-Semitic' British Writer Being Considered for Sainthood
The Times of Israel
A renowned British novelist with virulently anti-Semitic views may soon be on the path to sainthood. G. K. Chesterton, a journalist, author and dramatist whose works remain popular in the UK more than 80 years after his death, is the subject of an initial investigation by the Catholic church which will be published next month. Commissioned in 2013 by the Bishop of Northampton, Peter Doyle, the report is the first step in the process of canonization … Chesterton, who wrote more than 80 books, several hundred poems, 200 short stories, and several plays, would become the first English saint since the 17th century. His novels include “The Napoleon of Notting Hill” and “The Man Who Was Thursday.” He is best known for the fictional crime-solving priest, Father Brown, who features in 53 of his short stories.
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Iran Deal As a Question of European Sovereignty
Eldar Mamedov
… EU [European Union] foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was addressing the European Parliament on the consequences of the US withdrawal from a real working nuclear agreement: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran … Aiming at a broader audience, she drove home the point that the JCPOA is enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution (UNSCR), and thus is part of international law, and the US unilateral withdrawal from the agreement amounts to a violation of a resolution that it itself endorsed … The battle to preserve the JCPOA far transcends the non-proliferation agreement with Iran. It is about the re-assertion of Europe´s sovereignty, defined as its ability to stand up for its interests and values, and uphold an open, multilateral, rules-based international system.
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Why Americans and Koreans Can Sleep Better After the Summit
Jonathan Marshall - Consortium News
Scads of analysts and pundits have weighed in on the Trump-Kim summit talks in Singapore, parsing the brief agreement and presidential tweets for signs of just how strongly it actually commits North Korea to total, verifiable “denuclearization.” … Even if the spectacle in Singapore was more theater than substance, even if the president’s effusive praise for a totalitarian leader was hard to swallow, we should applaud Trump for belatedly making good on his 2016 campaign promise to sit down with Kim Jong-un over a hamburger in search of peace. Throughout most of 2017, the Trump administration instead issued a steady stream of pronouncements warning that it was ready to go to war to stop Pyongyang from perfecting long-range missiles capable of hitting the United States with nuclear weapons.
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Trump’s Bold Historic Gamble
Patrick J. Buchanan
… To Trump’s credit, we are surely at a better place than we were a year ago when Kim was testing hydrogen bombs and ICBMs, and he and Trump were trading threats and insults in what seemed the prelude to a new Korean War. Whatever one may think of his diplomacy, Trump has, for now, lifted the specter of nuclear war from the Korean peninsula and begun a negotiating process that could lead to tolerable coexistence. The central questions to emerge from the summit are these: What does Kim want, and what is he willing to pay for it? … Should Kim give up his nukes, what U.S. president would fly halfway around the world to meet him one-to-one? Hence the crucial question: Will he ever really give them up?
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North Korea and Iran represent significantly different nuclear-related challenges. The biggest difference is that North Korea has nuclear weapons while Iran doesn’t and never has … So far, the comparison between the nuclear diplomacy with Iran and the current version with North Korea puts the former in a good light and makes the latter look disappointing. Those with an interest in curbing the dangers of proliferating nuclear weapons should hope that the North Korea picture will improve with time. But whether it does or not, the process has put into perspective how badly mistaken was the current administration’s trashing of the JCPOA.
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“Philip Cross” has made hundreds of thousands of edits to Wikipedia pages. But in the process he’s angered anti-war activists and critics of British and Western foreign policy, who claim he’s been biased against them …The subject of [George] Galloway’s ire is a prolific Wikipedia editor who goes by the name “Philip Cross”. He’s been the subject of a huge debate on the internet encyclopaedia – one of the world’s most popular websites – and also on Twitter. And he’s been accused of bias for interacting, sometimes negatively, with some of the people whose Wikipedia pages he’s edited … “His edits are remorselessly targeted at people who oppose the Iraq war, who’ve opposed the subsequent intervention wars … in Libya and Syria, and people who criticise Israel,” Galloway says.
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Meet Philip Cross – Rupert Murdoch’s Right-Hand Wikipedian
Rory Wood - Amity Underground
Philip Cross edits Wikipedia, all day every day. Over 130,000 edits: Christmas Day, Eid and the Champions League Final no less productive for him. His targets are extremely narrow: critics of the Iraq War, critics of Israel, basically everyone who couldn’t nod along to The Sunday Times opinion section. Most notably, he is completely obsessed with the Scottish politician and radio host George Galloway, having edited, reedited and cut information from Galloway’s page over 1,800 times … Cross is an avid Zionist with a special interest in safeguarding the extremely conservative Board of Deputies of British Jews …
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Wikipedia Editing Courses Launched by Zionist Groups
The Guardian (Britain)
Since the earliest days of the worldwide web, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has seen its rhetorical counterpart fought out on the talkboards and chatrooms of the internet. Now [August 2010] two Israeli groups seeking to gain the upper hand in the online debate have launched a course in “Zionist editing” for Wikipedia, the online reference site. Yesha Council, representing the Jewish settler movement, and the rightwing Israel Sheli (My Israel) movement, ran their first workshop this week in Jerusalem, teaching participants how to rewrite and revise some of the most hotly disputed pages of the online reference site.
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As US President Donald Trump returns from a successful photo-op in Singapore with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, his focus will soon return to Iran … The pursuit of regime change may in reality be an avenue to achieve a far more sinister objective: a civil war in Iran that could either lead to Iran’s dismemberment or at a minimum, a prolonged state of debilitating instability … Senior Israeli Mossad official Haim Tomer recently told the Jerusalem Post that Israel can and should promote regime change in Iran because “even if regime change does not succeed… it is better to have the Iranians fighting among themselves”. This would not be the first time Iran’s regional rivals would seek instability in Iran or the dismemberment of the country.
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… Israel’s fingerprints are all over American interventionism, reflecting Jewish power in the United States and the presence of a plethora of well-funded Israel-centric lobbies, think tanks and media outlets … Israel is not at all shy about what it wants to happen, namely a war in Syria targeting both Damascus and Tehran, leading to a much bigger war with the Iranians. Fought by Uncle Sam, to be sure, as Jewish lives are far too precious to waste … Syria is only part of a much larger problem. It is remarkable the extent to which Israeli concerns dominate those of the United States, which now has a foreign policy that often is not even remotely connected to actual U.S. interests.
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Land Grabs and the Rules-Based Order: Russia and Israel
Paul R. Pillar
… Any Israeli claim to the Golan Heights is weaker than the Russian claim to Crimea. The latter at least has a history of being part of the Russian Republic before Nikita Khrushchev gifted Crimea to Ukraine in the 1950s — back when Russia and Ukraine were both part of the USSR and few people elsewhere noticed or cared. Most Crimean residents are ethnic Russians, and the takeover by Russia was generally popular with them. By contrast, the story of the Israeli seizure of the Golan Heights is a simple one of brute force. The territory was never part of Israel or of Palestine. The residents (before Israel started colonizing the territory) are Syrian Druze, most of whom have refused an Israeli offer of citizenship.
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Warren Buffett Helps Israel Sell $80 Million in Bonds at Omaha Dinner
World-Herald (Omaha)
Warren Buffett hosted a dinner in Omaha [Nebraska] this week for investors who bought $80 million worth of Israel Bonds, a source of revenue for a country where Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has a major investment. The dinner at the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center was the second time Buffett has helped the Israeli group, the Development Corporation for Israel, formed in 1951 to raise money to build Israel’s economy … In 2016, Buffett hosted a dinner in Omaha with about 50 investors who bought $60 million in bonds. This year, about 70 investors from the U.S. and Canada attended the dinner, with each buying at least $1 million in bonds. Also attending were Shai Babad, director of Israel’s Finance Ministry; Danny Danon, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations …
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The Truth About Oil and the Iraq War, 15 Years Later
Gary Vogler – University Press of Kansas Blog
… The more I learned the more I realized that there was an oil agenda and I was just an unknowing participant. The oil agenda I discovered and experienced was to supply Iraq oil to Israel. The players were the neoconservatives in the Bush Administration, their favorite Iraqi – Dr Ahmed Chalabi and the Israeli government. One of the motives was because Israel was paying a huge premium for its oil imports and this premium had just started in the late1990s. The agenda called for the reopening of the old Kirkuk to Haifa pipeline and its significant expansion. When this pipeline plan became unattainable in the second half of 2003 then Chalabi took other actions to get inexpensive Iraqi oil to Israel.
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The Iraq War: In the Beginning Was the Lie
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
… What we do know for sure is that the rationale for going to war was based on lies … US Secretary of State Colin Powell giving his speech to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003. Six weeks before the war began, Powell spent 76 minutes influencing international public opinion in favor of war. The core of his speech was that Saddam Hussein possessed biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, that his regime was supporting international terrorism, and that it aimed to build nuclear weapons … We remember Powell’s speech primarily because all of these claims turned out to be false. In 2005 Powell himself described the speech as a lasting “blot” on his career.
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Why the U.S. Will Never Say Sorry for Destroying Iraq
C. J. Werleman - Middle East Eye
… A new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center has found that 43 percent of Americans still believe that invading Iraq was the right decision. Let that sink in for a minute: almost half of Americans still believe that an illegal war, based on doctored intelligence and entirely debunked claims, which resulted in almost immeasurable death and destruction, was the right thing to do, morally, politically, or otherwise … Back to Iraq. A survey conducted for the National Geographic Society in 2006 found that 63 percent of Americans aged 18-24 could not locate Iraq on a map. This is astonishing, given that the US has fought two wars there since 1990 and occupied the country for close to a decade.
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German Latin Americans Interned During Second World War
The Guardian (Britain)
… Jurgen and his family were among thousands of Latin Americans of German origin who were rounded up by their respective governments on orders from the US following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. They were detained in accordance with a little-known US state department program. The Special War Problems Division would orchestrate the detention of more than 4,000 Latin Americans from Germany, Japan and Italy in internment camps in Texas and elsewhere, as well as localized detention centers in Latin America. In all, 15 Latin American countries would deport residents and citizens of German ancestry to detention centers in the United States, often without legal recourse, according to a statement from the National Archives.
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Erosion of the American Middle Class
Simon Black
We’ve all seen the headlines: the middle class in the United States (and much of Europe for that matter) has been in decline for years. … Even when you adjust for the fact that people are earning more, housing became 33 percent more expensive in just six years – and that doesn’t account for increases in property taxes, home owners association dues, insurance premiums, etc … So even though people are technically earning more money, their money buys them less and less house. Medical care costs show the same trend … Back in 1980, the average amount of debt per worker in the US was 1.96 times his/her monthly salary. Today the average American worker’s debt is five times his/her monthly salary. Same theme – yes, people are earning more. But the amount of debt that they owe relative to their wages is more than 2.5 times greater.
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Rewarding Failure Has Become an American Epidemic
New York Post
… Lowering standards has become a nationwide — and even global — phenomenon. When schools were unable to pass the basic proficiency tests of the No Child Left Behind law in 2002, educators simply made the tests easier over the years, allowing more kids to pass while keeping the schools’ federal funding intact. And, as of last year, teachers in New York no longer have to take a literacy test that many found too difficult … All this mollycoddling comes at an emotional and developmental cost … We’re not doing anyone any favors by opening the floodgates to the FDNY or even a cheerleading squad. Those given an easy way in end up having lower feelings of self-worth, because they know they didn’t earn their spot and have to face those who did every day. It’s humiliation — not charity.
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… With Trump installed, liberal, progressive Americans see Nazis everywhere, by which they mean all those who oppose having an open border, or who might identify as, God forbid, a nationalist, but a nation, by definition, can’t exist without borders or nationalists … Nations that stress linguistic, cultural and/or ethnic unity will outlast those that don’t. Further, nations that shun their own heritage are as good as dead. For years, I have also stressed that the United States is ruled by a rootless, criminal cabal, and for pointing out something so obvious, I have had countless slurs hurled at me … As a toxic model, this criminal, decadent and deeply-confused nation can’t collapse soon enough. Americans, too, need a fresh start, though they may have to cease calling themselves American. It won’t matter much. It already doesn’t.
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Einstein’s Travel Diaries Reveal 'Shocking' Xenophobia
A. Flood - The Guardian (Britain)
Private journals kept by [Albert Einstein] the scientist and humanitarian icon show prejudiced attitudes towards the people he met while travelling in Asia / Written between October 1922 and March 1923, the diaries see the scientist musing on his travels, science, philosophy and art. In China, the man who famously once described racism as “a disease of white people” describes the “industrious, filthy, obtuse people” he observes … After earlier writing of the “abundance of offspring” and the “fecundity” of the Chinese, he goes on to say: “It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races. For the likes of us the mere thought is unspeakably dreary.”
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Israeli Lawmaker Proclaims Supremacy of 'Jewish Race'
The Times of Israel
A lawmaker from the ruling Likud party said Wednesday that the “Jewish race” is the smartest in the world and possessing of the “highest human capital,” which is why, he said, the Israeli public did not buy into the allegations of wrongdoing by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. MK Miki Zohar made the comments during a radio debate with veteran political journalist Dan Margalit about the corruption investigations in which Netanyahu is either a suspect or has given testimony.
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Who Are The Jews?
T. Jackson - American Renaissance
Shelves of books have been written about Jewish history and identity, but many ancient accounts have been impossible to verify independently. Now, advances in DNA analysis have added much greater precision to our understanding of Jewish origins, and can be used to test many of the oral traditions Jews have passed on for millennia. Jon Entine’s Abraham’s Children is a good summary of recent work in this field, and covers several other areas of genetic research, most notably Jewish diseases and Jewish intelligence … Defects aside, the strongest impression Abraham’s Children leaves is one common to books about Jews: that they have clung to their identity with astonishing tenacity. Military defeat, exile, persecution, and forced conversion have not quenched a fierce loyalty to the ways of their ancestors.
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The Raw Truth About the UK's Special Relationship With Israel
Mark Curtis - MEE
Britain has a special relationship with Israel that is little recognised in the mainstream media but unmissable in light of the killings in Gaza … That Britain is supporting Israel over the Gaza killings is true to form. The UK’s relationship with Israel is special in at least nine areas, including arms sales, air force, nuclear deployment, navy, intelligence and trade, to name but a few … Britain has a long history of helping Israel to develop nuclear weapons. In the 1950s and 1960s Conservative and Labour governments made hundreds of sales of nuclear materials to Israel, including plutonium and uranium. … Britain has a long history of supporting Israeli aggression. As the mandatory power in Palestine from 1920 to 1948, Britain enabled the gradual takeover of Palestine by the Zionist movement.
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Germany Was Defeated on the Eastern Front, Not Normandy
Eric Margolis
… Most Americans, British and Canadians believe that D-Day was the decisive stroke that ended WWII in Europe. But this is not true. Germany’s mighty Wehrmacht, which included the Luftwaffe, was destroyed by Stalin’s Soviet Union … The most important point of the great invasion is that without it, the Red Army would have reached Paris and the Channel Ports by the end of 1944, making Stalin the master of all Europe except Spain. Of course, the Allies could have reached a peace agreement with Germany in 1944, which Hitler was seeking and Gen. George Patton was rumored to be advocating. But the German-hating Churchill and left-leaning Roosevelt were too bloody-minded to consider a peace that would have kept Stalin out of at least some of Eastern Europe.
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When Spielberg Did D-Day
Chris Welzenbach - CounterPunch
Twenty years ago Saving Private Ryan arrived on movie screens to great acclaim … Janet Maslin in The New York Times hailed it as “Steven Spielberg’s soberly magnificent new war film” … In the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan Spielberg shows GIs gunning down defenseless Germans with their hands raised, but he also has the Wehrmacht soldier whose life Miller spared at the radar array returning to drive a bayonet through Mellish’s heart, as if to suggest such acts of mercy have no place on the battlefield and that all Germans are evil, period … Saving Private Ryan is history re-imagined through a Zionist prism. Alterations to the historical record in Spielberg’s film might seem slight or “nuanced” and therefore benign, but there is no harmless way to rewrite history.
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D-Day: The Climactic Battle of World War II
David Frum
… As dramatic as D-Day was, on any measure of scale, it does not rank among the ten biggest battles of World War II. (All of the top ten were fought on the eastern front.) Yet it has to be regarded as among the very most decisive battles of the war — and certainly one of the most stupendous accomplishment of American arms in particular … Hastings points out that, except for artillery, Allied equipment was consistently inferior to its German counterpart: Despite the huge Allied investment in technology, the Germans produced better rifles, better grenades, better machineguns, better antitank weapons, better tanks, and better aircraft. Most serious of all: the Germans consistently outmaneuvered and outfought the Allies in Normandy, especially the British.
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Did Hitler Try to Make Peace With Churchill Several Times?
Chris Crookes - Quora
Yes he did. The details of his final peace offer to Churchill are still protected under the British Official Secrets act, which was due to become public in 2017, but which has been extended for another unprecedented twenty years. The Foreign Office has never revealed why these British files remain sealed. Usually, under the UK Official Secrets Act, documents considered to be sensitive ‘secret’ files can be kept from the public for either 30 years, 50 years or for the lifetime of persons mentioned in them. None of which apply in this case. So another pertinent question would be: ‘Why haven’t any of these peace proposals from Hitler ever been made public, and why are they still not available to historians?’
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High school history teachers are in revolt over the alteration of a widely taught Advanced Placement course that they say threatens to present a skewed, Eurocentric history of the world to thousands of students. The plan is so incendiary that outraged history teachers protested against it this week at an open forum in Salt Lake City, Utah, with Trevor Packer, senior vice president of Advanced Placement and instruction at the College Board. A video of a testy exchange between Packer and the teachers has been shared hundreds of times online. The standoff touches on issues of culture, color and history with which schools — and society — have been wrangling … “I’ve been teaching AP for a decade and I’ve never seen a hornet’s nest stirred up like this,” Tom Richey, who teaches an AP European History course in Seneca, S.C., told Politico.
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The Organization of American Historians: Faithfully Reflecting Prevailing Standards
Mark Weber – Institute for Historical Review
… The Organization of American Historians – the foremost association of scholars devoted to US history – and the OAH’s scholarly Journal of American History, faithfully reflect the prevailing standards and ideological slant of America’s historical “establishment.” … As this review shows (once again), the normal standards of historical evidence and criticism are simply tossed aside when it comes to the secular pseudo-religion of our era. In light of such “scholarship,” any OAH criticism of the IHR is not only ludicrous, but serves to underscore a clear double standard.
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Protecting Israel Is Their Full-Time Job
Philip Giraldi
… The idea that Iran was somehow involved in 9/11 is in reality a ridiculous Israel Lobby contrivance that was first floated in 2015 by ex-CIA Director James Woolsey, a renowned Zionist stooge and conspiracy theorist who is viewed by many as not completely in possession of all his marbles. Indeed, it is far more plausible that Israel was involved in 9/11 than was Iran. Israel operated a massive spying operation directed against Arabs in the U.S. and several of its intelligence officers were seen in Jersey City to be filming themselves while dancing and cavorting in delight as the twin towers went down, suggesting some prior knowledge.
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California Once Targeted Latinas for Forced Sterilization
N. L. Novak, N. Lira - The Conversation
In the first half of the 20th century, approximately 60,000 people were sterilized under U.S. eugenics programs. Eugenic laws in 32 states empowered government officials in public health, social work and state institutions to render people they deemed “unfit” infertile. California led the nation in this effort at social engineering. Between the early 1920s and the 1950s, Iris and approximately 20,000 other people — one-third of the national total — were sterilized in California state institutions for the mentally ill and disabled.
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Narcissus on the World Stage
Diana Ohlbaum - LobeLog
… Most Americans perceive their country as a benevolent leader in an increasingly dangerous world, the only power willing and able to keep the forces of evil and chaos at bay, justified in the use of force by what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called “the righteous knowledge that our cause is just, special, and built upon America’s core principles.” It’s an identity that is not only widely held, but deeply deceptive and exceedingly dangerous … These misperceptions are not limited to Republicans or neoconservatives. To a significant degree mainstream Democrats and humanitarian interventionists also believe that the United States is “the indispensable nation” in a world of ever-expanding threats.
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Facebook, Amazon, Google And Twitter All Work With Left-Wing SPLC
Peter Hasson – Daily Caller
Four of the world’s biggest tech platforms have working partnerships with a left-wing nonprofit that has a track record of inaccuracies and routinely labels conservative organizations as “hate groups.” Facebook, Amazon, Google and Twitter all work with or consult the Southern Poverty Law Center in policing their platforms for “hate speech” or “hate groups,” a Daily Caller News Foundation [DCNF] investigation found. The SPLC is on a list of “external experts and organizations” that Facebook works with “to inform our hate speech policies,” Facebook spokeswoman Ruchika Budhraja told The DCNF in an interview. Facebook consults the outside organizations when developing changes to hate speech policies, Budhraja said.
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The SPLC State ... And the Unprecedented Threat to Civil Liberties
James Kirkpatrick - The Social Contract
… The SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center] is so effective because it exercises power through multiple levels, each building on the other … The SPLC’s influence within law enforcement is magnified by how the organization’s reports of “hate groups” are dutifully reprinted by national outlets every year, despite the fact that many of these groups are either innocuous (such as the Family Research Council) or practically nonexistent. Many local papers also easily generate copy by simply referring to what “hate groups” exist in their area, thus inspiring local watchdog groups and Antifa to begin organizing against a threat which may not even exist. … The SPLC serves not just as an activist group, but as an authority determining who is and who is not permitted to operate a group or business.
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In a Victory for BDS, Argentina’s National Soccer Team Cancels a Game in Israel
D. Zirin - The Nation
The group Jewish Voice for Peace called it “a watershed moment“ and “the biggest victory for BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement].” Israeli defense minister Avignor Lieberman seethed that this week has seen a win for “Israeli-hating inciters.” What spurred such an impassioned reaction on both sides? … This time it is the Argentina National Soccer Team saying no to the Israeli state. With three days’ notice, the renowned squad has canceled a friendly World Cup warm-up match in Jerusalem, a game that sold out last month within 20 minutes of tickets’ going on sale … Argentina canceled the match amid increasing international pressure for the team to boycott the game after last month’s massacre of more than 60 Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces … The significance of this BDS victory cannot be overstated.
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Following a major Spanish city’s vote to boycott Israel, the leader of Spain’s third-largest party called the Jewish state a “criminal country” during an interview aired by a public television broadcaster. Pablo Iglesias Turrión, leader of the Podemos far-left party, made the comment in an interview earlier this week on RTVE. “We need to act more firmly on an illegal country like Israel,” said Iglesias Turrión, whose party in 2015 won 20 percent of the vote in the general election just one year after its creation. Last week, a motion promoted by a local faction of Podemos on the City Council of Valencia, Spain’s third-largest city, was passed declaring a boycott of Israel, and Valencia an “Israeli apartheid-free zone.”
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Israel has been branded an “illegal state” by the leader of Spain’s third-largest party, Podemos, for conducting an apartheid-like massacre at the Gaza fence bordering Palestine. “We need to act more firmly on an illegal country like Israel,” Iglesias Turrion told Spanish RTVE channel. Accusing the country of violating international law and resorting to what he called apartheid-like policies, the leader of the left-wing party questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel. “Israel’s actions are illegal. The apartheid policies of the state of Israel are illegal,” the politician said, adding that when it comes to international politics he and his party would continue to “defend international rights.”
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Poland Says US Ambassador Nominee’s Remarks Are Not Acceptable
Associated Press
The Polish government has called unacceptable a remark made by the U.S. nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to Poland. Georgette Mosbacher, a businesswoman nominated by President Donald Trump, attributed the rise of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe to a law passed in Poland earlier this year that criminalizes blaming Poland for the Holocaust crimes of Nazi Germany on its soil. The law angered Israel, which then triggered a wave of anti-Semitic rhetoric in Poland. Mosbacher made the comment Tuesday during a nomination hearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Deputy Foreign Minister Bartosz Cichocki said Poland does not accept the accusation that problems of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe result from decisions taken in Poland.
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Tens of thousands of Muslims took to the streets in the capitals of Iran and Iraq Friday in recognition of “Jerusalem Day.” The mass demonstration, which started following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, marks the annual protest against Israel’s ongoing occupation of Jerusalem and serves as a show of “unwavering support for the Palestinian people, the capital of their homeland and sovereignty.” Israeli flags were set alight in Baghdad and Tehran. Effigies of United States President Donald Trump were also burnt, according to ABC news. A large turnout of Palestinian demonstrators was also seen along the Israeli border fence in the Gaza Strip. Protesters have highlighted the blockade of Palestinian territory by Israel and Egypt …
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Iran’s ambassador to the UN nuclear watchdog said Thursday that Israel’s nuclear program poses threat to international peace and security. Reza Najafi said Israel’s nuclear capabilities should be put on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision as a real threat to the regional and international peace and security, according to Press TV. The supervision should continue until Tel Aviv joins the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) unconditionally and all the regime’s clandestine nuclear facilities are placed under the UN agency’s Safeguards, he said at a IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna on Thursday. He called for a complete ban on any nuclear cooperation with Israel and transferring of nuclear material and equipment to the country.
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Medicare Finances Worsening, Trustees Report Warns
Associated Press
Medicare will run out of money sooner than expected, and Social Security’s financial problems can’t be ignored either, the government said Tuesday in a sobering checkup on programs vital to the middle class. The report from program trustees says Medicare will become insolvent in 2026 — three years earlier than previously forecast. Its giant trust fund for inpatient care won’t be able to fully cover projected medical bills starting at that point. The report says Social Security will become insolvent in 2034 — no change from the projection last year. The warning serves as a reminder of major issues still languishing while Washington plunges deeper into partisan strife.
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The suicide rate across the United States has risen 30 percent since 1999, and nearly 45,000 people took their lives in 2016, officials said Thursday. Suicide presents a “growing public health problem,” with significant increases in 44 of the 50 states, said the report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Earlier this week, American handbag designer Kate Spade, 55, took her own life, sparking renewed calls for mental health awareness and suicide prevention. .. Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, and is rarely caused by a single factor, experts say.
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Hating Russia Is a Full-Time Job
Philip Giraldi
… The fact is that much of Bolshevik state atheism was driven by the large overrepresentation of Jews in the party in its formative days … Dutch Ambassador William Oudendyke echoed that sentiment, writing that “Unless Bolshevism is nipped in the bud immediately, it is bound to spread in one form or another over Europe and the whole world as it is organized and worked by Jews who have no nationality, and whose one object is to destroy for their own ends the existing order of things.” … Jews notably played a particularly disproportionate role in the Soviet secret police … The Communist diaspora in Europe and America was also largely Jewish, including the cabal of founders of neoconservativism in New York City. The United States Communist Party was from the start predominantly Jewish.
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Communism’s Death Toll, and the Jewish Role in Bolshevism
Mark Weber – Video
We’re relentlessly told that we must “never forget” the “Six Million.” But we hear far less about the vastly greater number of victims of Lenin and Stalin, and the grim legacy of Soviet Communism. Some 20 million people perished as victims of the Soviet regime, historians acknowledge. Jews played a decisive role in founding and promoting the egalitarian-universalist ideology of Marxism, in developing the worldwide Marxist political movement, and in brutally imposing Bolshevik rule in Russia. With the notable exception of Lenin, who was one-quarter Jewish, most of the leading Marxists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews, including Trotsky, Sverdlov, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Radek.
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It may be said without hesitation that Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together. The Jews in the Soviet Union is one of the most important books on the Russian Revolution and the early Bolshevik period ever to appear. After publication of this work with its many revelations about the role of the Jews during the Leninist period, the history of the Bolshevik October putsch will have to be rewritten, if not completely, then with substantial additions. The book title might have been even more appropriately called “The End of the Legends.”
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The Lies Behind America’s Interventions
Jon Basil Utley - The American Conservative
Official Washington and those associated with it have misrepresented the facts numerous times in the service of military actions that might not otherwise have taken place. In the Middle East, these interventions have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Arab civilians, brought chaos to Iraq and Libya, and led to the expulsion of a million Christians from communities where they have lived since biblical times. The most famous of these episodes, of course, was the U.S. government’s assurance to the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, which formed the basis for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. The government also insisted Saddam had ties to al-Qaeda, bolstering the call to war. Of course neither was true.
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New Book Says 1967 Israeli Attack on USS Liberty Was Ordered by President Johnson
New Hampshire Union-Leader
… A book to be released this fall will argue that then-President Lyndon Johnson ordered the Israeli Defense Forces to attack and sink, with no survivors, the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967 in an effort to promote regime change in Egypt. “Blood in the Water: How the US and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty” by Joan Mellen, a professor of English and creative writing at Temple University in Philadelphia, explores this tragic episode of an attack by one of America’s allies that resulted in dozen of American deaths and nearly 200 injuries … When Geis challenged the second recall, Johnson came on the phone himself, the admiral told Lewis, who remembered Geis quoting the President saying that “I don’t give a damn if the ship sinks and all the Americans are killed. I will not embarrass my ally.”
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'But Sir, It’s An American Ship.' 'Never Mind, Hit Her!' : When Israel Attacked USS Liberty
Haaretz (Israel)
Amid the jubilee celebrations for the Six-Day War, the tragic story of the American spy ship USS Liberty – which was bombed by an Israeli fighter jet and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967 in the eastern Mediterranean – was somewhat overlooked. Thirty-four American sailors were killed in the Israeli attack and many others were wounded … A new book published in May … The 302 pages of “Remember the Liberty!: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas” include quite a number of documents, testimonies, arguments and information that were gathered in the subsequent 50 years. The authors’ bottom line is that then-U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the attack, in an attempt to blame then-Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser – an excuse that would then enable the United States to join the Six-Day War.
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… The attack on the U.S.S. Liberty by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967, has almost faded from memory, with a younger generation completely unaware that a United States naval vessel was once deliberately attacked and nearly sunk by America’s “greatest friend and ally” Israel … So the treatment of the U.S.S. Liberty should surprise no one in a country whose governing class has been for decades doing the bidding of the powerful lobby of a tiny client state that has been nothing but trouble and expense for the United States of America. Will it ever end? As the Israel Lobby currently controls the relevant parts of the federal government and much of the media change is not likely to happen overnight, but there are some positive signs.
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Israel’s Attack on the USS Liberty: An Overview
The Council for the National Interest
On June 8, 1967, 34 American servicemen were killed and 174 were wounded during an Israeli attack on the USS Liberty. According to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer, “Those men were then betrayed and left to die by our own government.” The survivors are still awaiting justice … Israel claimed the attack was “a case of mistaken identity”; that they didn’t know it was an American ship … The Navy’s chief attorney to the original 1967 military Court of Inquiry has issued a statement that orders to cover-up the incident were issued by President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
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USS Liberty: Cover Up
James Bamford
… Geis was shocked by what he heard next.” President Lyndon Johnson came on with a comment that he didn’t care if the ship sunk, he would not embarrass his allies.” Geis told Lieutenant Commander David Lewis, head of the NSA group on the Liberty, about the comment but asked him to keep it secret until after Geis died. It was a promise that Lewis kept … Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel had attacked the ship and killed the American servicemen deliberately, the Johnson administration and Congress covered up the entire incident. Johnson was planning to run for president the following year and needed the support of pro-Israel voters.
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The USS Liberty: America’s Most Shameful Secret
Eric Margolis
… Far more shocking was Washington’s response. Writes Bamford: ‘Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel attacked the ship and killed American servicemen deliberately, the Johnson Administration and Congress covered up the entire incident.’ Why? Domestic politics. Johnson, a man never noted for high moral values, preferred to cover up the attack rather than anger a key constituency and major financial backer of the Democratic Party. Congress was even less eager to touch this ‘third rail’ issue.
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Remember The Liberty
James Perloff
… Now the paramount question: Why attack the Liberty? This was, in all probability, to be another Maine, another Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, Tonkin Gulf. The plan was to sink the Liberty with no survivors. That’s why the Israelis even machine-gunned the lifeboats. They flew in unmarked planes because, if successful, the attack would have been blamed on the Arabs … Seen in historical context, the attempted sinking of the Liberty fits a long-term pattern of Israeli strategy: deceive Americans into thinking they have been attacked by Arabs so that America will fight Israel’s enemies. Let us remember that the next time an “Islamic terror attack” occurs on our soil. To the Zionists, Americans lives are as cheap as those of the Palestinians they are killing in Gaza.
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Israel Planned to Attack Iran and Start a War, Former Spy Chief Says
T. O'Connor - Newsweek
Israel planned to bomb Iran and initiate an all-out conflict in the Middle East, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former head of intelligence, who said he believed the move may have been illegal. Tamir Pardo, who served as head of Israeli spy agency Mossad from 2011 to 2016, told local investigative program Uvda in an interview set to air Thursday that Netanyahu instructed his military command in 2011 to prepare for a strike against longtime foe Iran, which Israel has accused of developing nuclear weapons and supporting militant groups abroad. Pardo said then-Israeli chief of staff Benny Gantz informed the prime minister that the armed forces would be ready within 15 days.
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An acrimonious battle over a waterfront statue commemorating the 1940 massacre of Poles moved into court on Tuesday, as local Polish groups asked a judge for a temporary restraining order to stop the city from moving the monument for a renovation, and possibly permanently. The controversy over the Katyn memorial, a bronze statue that depicts a Polish soldier gagged, bound and impaled in the back with a bayonet, has sparked strong emotions in Poland, where Katyn is remembered as one of the worst tragedies to befall the nation in a long tragedy-filled history. In recent days, plans to remove the statue have been a top news story in Poland, where many feel that it is revenge for the passage earlier this year of a new Polish law that makes it a crime to blame Poland for any of the Holocaust crimes committed by Nazi Germany.
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Trailer of “The Last Witness,” a recently released feature film based on actual events. Director: Piotr Szkopiak. The film is set in 1947 in England. An ambitious young journalist, Stephen Underwood (Alex Pettyfer) takes great risks to uncover the true identity of a Polish refugee and his connection to the British government’s collusion in the cover up of one of Stalin’s most notorious crimes – the slaughter of 22,000 Polish officers during World War II. The mystery of the disappearance of the officers was revealed in April 1943 when German authorities announced the discovery of mass graves of executed Polish officers in the Katyn forest near Smolensk, in Russia. Even after the end of World War II, British authorities tried to keep secret Soviet responsibility for the mass killings.
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Katyn: The Massacre Stalin Tried to Blame on the Nazis
RFE / RL - Video
In April 1943, Nazi Germany announced the discovery of a series of mass graves containing the bodies of thousands of Polish officers who had been arrested and then executed by the Soviet Army. Seventy-five years later, the Katyn massacre is still a sensitive issue between Poland and Russia. Runtime: 2:31 mins.
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Poland Under the Jewish Messiah
Israel Shamir
… The conflict between the Jews and Poland began with anti-Polish publications in the US media a few years ago. The Jews began to goad Poland. They reminisced about Polish clashes with Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, not exactly a unique Polish story. Many nations have clashed with Jews, lately the people of Gaza … By putting pressure on the Poles, the Jewish organisations followed the blueprint they had utilised against the Swiss with great success. Although known Jewish assets in Swiss banks were quite small, the Swiss gave in under pressure and paid billions of dollars to the Jewish organisations. Now a similar extortion racket has been planned against Poland.
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Ukraine Opens Criminal Probe Against Elderly Jewish Officer of WWII
Ynet News (Israel)
Ukrainian authorities have decided to open a criminal investigation into a 94-year-old Jewish World War II hero who is being accused of killing a Nazi collaborator. Col. Boris Steckler was warned that he is expected to stand trial for killing a Ukrainian nationalist in 1952. Steckler was a senior officer in the Soviet Army, and after the war was appointed as an officer in the KGB and was responsible for capturing Nazis and collaborators in western Ukraine. During a battle in the Rivne Oblast in western Ukraine, Steckler was involved in a confrontation with nationalists who cooperated with the Nazis … Local nationalist groups recently filed a complaint against Steckler, accusing him of responsibility for the assassination of Hasiewicz — a fact that Steckler does not deny.
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Strong as Death
Uri Avnery (Israel)
… So how did we succeed – we, the State of Israel – in turning Gaza into what it is today? … It is doubly astonishing that the demonstrators on the Gaza border are now finding this power in their hearts. The events of Black Monday, May 14, surprised the world. Masses of unarmed human beings, men, women and children, braved the Israeli sharpshooters. They did not draw weapons. They did not “storm the fence”, a lie spread by the huge Israeli propaganda apparatus. They stood exposed to the sharpshooters and were killed. The Israeli army is convinced that the inhabitants of Gaza will not stand the test, that they will return to useless violence.
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Sixty Killed In Gaza And The End Of Israeli Conscience
Gideon Levy – Haaretz (Israel)
When will the moment come in which the mass killing of Palestinians matters anything to the right? When will the moment come in which the massacre of civilians shocks at least the left-center? If 60 people slain don’t do it, perhaps 600? Will 6,000 jolt them? … Will Israel find all the excuses and justifications then also? Will the blame be laid on the slain people and their “dispatchers” even then, and not a word of criticism, mea culpa, sorrow, pity or guilt will be heard? … If 60 stray dogs were shot to death in one day by IDF soldiers, the whole country would raise an outcry … On the night of the Palestinians’ slaughter, Zion rejoiced and was jubilant: We have an embassy and a Eurovision. It’s difficult to think of a more atrocious moral eclipse … The truth is that Israel is well prepared to massacre hundreds and thousands, and to expel tens of thousands.
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… The truth is that Americans have forgotten about the War Between the States and, protected by two broad oceans, have no idea whatsoever about the horrible reality that war represents. They have become addicted to war pari passu without any perception of what that might mean if an adversary were to develop the capability to strike the homeland. For most Americans war is little more than a video game, seen in snippets on the nightly news. It is a peculiar form of cultural blindness, an exercise that involves foreign people in faraway places and is not to be taken seriously. The rest of the world, which has experienced far too much of war’s devastation first hand has quite a different viewpoint, however.
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Trump’s 'Israel First' Middle East Policy: Bad for America and the World
Mark Weber and Mike Hallimore - Podcast
Mark Weber takes a brisk, informed look at America’s dangerously bellicose role in the Middle East, especially as it’s developed during the Trump presidency. In this hour-long “Herald of Truth” broadcast of June 3, 2018, Weber is the guest of Mike Hallimore, who runs “Kingdom Identity Ministries.” Weber highlights the crucial role of Jewish-Zionist power in setting US policy, with harmful consequences for the American people, and the world. Despite lots of “America First” campaign rhetoric, Donald Trump as President has been pushing an “Israel First” policy in the Middle East. In line with the Zionist agenda, he and his “neo-con” colleagues now threaten war against Iran. With contempt for the US Constitution and international law, Trump has ordered US military attacks against numerous sites in Syria, where he also illegally deploys US troops.
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Will Iran and North Korea Capitulate to Trump?
Steve Chapman – Reason
American presidents have spent countless hours negotiating with adversaries to reach mutually bearable compromises on matters of security. The Trump administration, however, doesn’t believe in negotiating or compromise. It believes in making demands and issuing threats to force the other side to capitulate … Trump and his advisers, however, think they have made both regimes [Iran and North Korea] an offer they can’t refuse: Capitulate or die, either by economic strangulation or by a barrage of U.S. missiles. There is no reason to think either will comply … When the Bush administration invaded Iraq, it promised a quick and easy triumph, only to find itself in an endless bloody slog. If Trump fails to get his way and opts for war, the consequences could be disastrous in the case of Iran and apocalyptic in the case of North Korea.
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The Mass Slaughter of World War One
Eric Margolis
A full century after World War I we still cannot understand how generals sent so many soldiers to be slaughtered. Ten million soldiers died on all sides; millions more were left maimed or shell shocked. Seven million civilians died. 20 million horses died … Trench warfare in the West quickly became siege warfare in which decisive victories became almost impossible … On the Western Front, generals on all sides kept sending their men on suicidal bayonet charges across dense wire in the face of interlocking machine gun fire and shrapnel. How could they have been so foolish?
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Britain Tried To Kill Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918 With Secret RAF Bombing Raid, Reveals Archives
The Independent (Britain)
Remarkable unpublished evidence has revealed that in the final year of the First World War Britain attempted to kill Germany’s leader, Kaiser Wilhelm II. The secret mission failed – but only just. The evidence – largely unpublished documentation in the RAF Museum’s archives and documents in a private archive in France – show that exactly 100 years ago this Saturday, a squadron of 12 bombers took off from an airfield near Boulogne to bomb a French chateau which, intelligence work had revealed, was being used by the Kaiser as his secret Western Front operational residence … Trying to assassinate your enemy’s head of state, especially a royal one who was the British king’s first cousin, was to put it mildly, a very serious, sensitive and potentially controversial matter.
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Memories of Futility: The Passchendaele Method of War
Binoy Kampmark
… Passchendaele became the code for blood needlessly spilt; for decisions that should have, in any other context, demanded the trial and execution of its initiators. A century ago, wave upon wave of men were shredded, pulverised and drowned according to misplaced notions, killed by obsolete ideas in what was the [First World War] Third Battle of Ypres … Lasting three months and a gain for the Allies of a mere five miles, the Victoria Cross, deemed the highest of Commonwealth military honours, was awarded 61 times. Haig had lost a sixth of the British army … For this sliver of a country, some 2800 troops were killed wounded, or went missing within a matter of two hours.
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The United States vetoed Friday an Arab-backed UN draft resolution calling for measures to protect the Palestinians, but failed to win backing for its own text condemning Hamas for the violence in Gaza. The two failed votes at the Security Council came on the same day that a young Palestinian woman was shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the Gaza border fence, bringing the death toll of Gazans killed by Israeli fire since the end of March to 123. US Ambassador Nikki Haley declared that “it is now completely clear that the UN is hopelessly biased against Israel,” saying council members were “willing to blame Israel, but unwilling to blame Hamas.” … Ten countries including China, France and Russia voted in favour of the draft put forward by Kuwait on behalf of Arab countries.
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India's Hidden Message to UN on Iran
Kaveh L. Afrasiabi - LobeLog
In a remarkable and somewhat unprecedented rebuke of the US administration, India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has announced that India will not respect unilateral U.S. sanctions on Iran and will recognize “only the UN sanctions.” Bound to raise tensions with Washington, India’s brave decision reflects both India’s political evolution and the primacy of her own national interests. It’s also another setback for the White House’s hawkish anti-Iran policy, which has already alienated key European allies … Together, India and China make up nearly 40 percent of Iran’s oil exports, and this might jump even higher in the near future.
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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the United States cannot make decisions for Iran and other independent countries, after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded broad changes in the course of the Islamic Republic’s foreign and domestic policy. “All world countries want independence in their decisions, and perhaps Americans are able to advance their agenda in some places through pressure, but logic does not accept them making decisions for the world,” Rouhani said on Monday. “Today, we must help each other more” because the current US administration has regressed to 15 years ago and is repeating the same remarks made by former US president, George W. Bush, in 2003, he added.
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… The “Suvorov Hypothesis” claimed that during the summer of 1941 Stalin was on the very verge of mounting a massive invasion and conquest of Europe, while Hitler’s sudden attack on June 22nd of that year was intended to forestall that looming blow. Moreover, the author also argued that Stalin’s planned attack constituted merely the final act in a much longer geopolitical strategy that he had been developing since at least the early 1930s … Can we say whether Suvorov is right? … Based on the available evidence, I believe it is far more likely than not that Suvorov’s theories are at least substantially correct. And if so, our current understanding of World War II — the central formative event of our modern world — is entirely transformed.
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Russian and German Historians Debate 'Barbarossa'
Daniel Michaels – Institute for Historical Review
Revising the history of the Second World War’s crucial Russo-German campaign is very much a work in progress, nowhere more so than in Russia and Germany. Ever since Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir Rezun) broke the ice a decade ago with his sensational Ledokol (published in English as Icebreaker… Russian historians have been reexamining the many myths, legends, and fantasies associated with the outbreak of the death duel between Communism and National Socialism. The role of Joseph Stalin, in particular, has aroused the most heated controversy. In Russia, the debate has involved two major groups.
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Was Stalin To Blame For World War II?
Tom Segev - Haaretz (Israel)
… A few years ago Shauli read “Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War” … From out of the sea of details, a coherent thesis emerges: Stalin dragged Hitler into war to force Europe into chaos and facilitate a communist revolution on the continent. According to Shauli, there is [additional] evidence to back up this theory, including a speech by Stalin himself as well as a report obtained by the U.S. Consulate in Prague … The document is in his possession, and now the history of World War II may have to be rewritten: It was Stalin’s fault.
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Why Hitler Struck Against Soviet Russia
Mark Weber – Video
Important evidence has come to light in recent decades that shatters the familiar, endlessly repeated view that Hitler, bent on world conquest, launched a treacherous surprise attack against a peaceful Soviet Union. By June 1941 Soviet dictator Stalin had built the world’s largest military machine, and had deployed an enormous strike force in readiness for a massive attack against Germany that would roll on to overwhelm central and western Europe. Hitler’s “Barbarossa” attack, say a growing number of historians in Russia, Germany and other countries, was actually a preventive war to forestall an imminent Soviet strike. This 50-minute video received more than 220,000 “views” before it was “restricted” by YouTube.
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Syria's President Assad: Improving Air Defenses to Stop Israeli Strikes, Ready to Confront U.S.
RT News
Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview on Thursday that the only way to stop Israeli air strikes is by improving the country’s air defenses. “We are doing that,” he said. In a televised interview to RT in Damascus, Assad denied Iranian troops are in Syria, saying there are only Iranian officers who are working with the Syrian army. Assad, echoing Russia from earlier in the week, said the United States must exit the war-torn country. “The Americans should leave, somehow they are going to leave,” he said. Responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s description of him as “Animal Assad,” the Syrian leader said: “What you say is what you are.” Assad said he would recover areas of Syria held by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and that U.S. forces should learn the lesson of Iraq and leave the country.
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said the United States has “lost its cards” in Syria, calling on America to leave the country in an interview with Russia Today. “The Americans should leave. Somehow, they’re going to leave. They came to Iraq with no legal basis, and look what happened to them. They have to learn their lesson. Iraq is no exception. Syria is no exception. People will not accept foreigners in this region any more,” Assad said. The Syrian president said his government had “opened doors to negotiation” with US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a predominantly Kurdish group that controls parts of northern Syria. The SDF, which Assad dubbed the “only problem left in Syria,” would be confronted with force if negotiations fail, the president said.
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US Criticizes Croatia for Ustasha Glorification and Holocaust Denial
HINA / Total Croatia News
Glorifying the World War II Ustasha regime, downplaying and denying of the Holocaust, as well as problems with the restitution of Jewish property are the main objections to Croatia in the latest US State Department report on religious freedoms in 2017, released on Wednesday … The part referring to Croatia cites a number of cases of the glorification of the Ustasha regime and denial of the Holocaust in 2017 … The report also notes that in February the far-right extra-parliamentary Autochthonous Croatian Party of Rights (A-HSP) staged a march in Zagreb during which party members waved flags bearing an unofficial coat of arms associated with the fascist Ustasha movement. The procession of approximately 30 participants also flew an A-HSP party flag emblazoned with the ZDS Ustasha salute.
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Putting America’s Enormous Economy Into Perspective by Comparing US State GDPs to Entire Countries
M. J. Perry - American Enterprise Institute
The map above was created by matching the economic output (Gross Domestic Product) for each US state (and the District of Columbia) in 2017 to a foreign country with a comparable nominal GDP last year … For each US state (and the District of Columbia), we identified the country closest in economic size in 2017 (measured by nominal GDP) and those matching countries are displayed in the map above and in the table below … California as a separate country would have been the fifth largest economy in the world last year, ahead of the UK ($2.62 trillion), India ($2.61 trillion) and France ($2.58 trillion) … Three of America’s states (California, Texas and New York) – as separate countries – would have ranked in the world’s top eleven largest economies last year.
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Zionism is a Jewish conspiracy meant to manipulate Western societies to benefit Jews. That’s the belief of a majority of 1,007 French respondents to a poll about the Jewish nationalist movement. Some 53 percent of the respondents to the survey conducted this year by the Ifop polling company agreed with the statement that “Zionism is an international organization that seeks to influence the world and societies to the Jews’ benefit,” the Union of Jewish Students in France, or UEJF, said in a report this week about the poll that it commissioned Ifop to perform. Of those, eleven percent said they “strongly agree.” Half of the respondents said Zionism was a “racist ideology.” … Israel was described as a “threat to regional stability” by 57 percent of respondents and as a “theocracy” by 51 percent.
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One Important Difference Between Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour and the Real Prime Minister
Giles Milton – Time
… Darkest Hour is a heady cocktail of history and drama, casting the real-life Churchill in the mold of a Shakespearean protagonist — a whisky-fuelled belligerent whose strengths are equally matched by flaws … But when a more grievous historical fault occurs in one of the most striking moments in the film, when Churchill leaps from his chauffeur-driven car and descends into the London Underground, it’s worth paying attention … Equally preposterous is the idea of Churchill canvassing Londoners on their views about British foreign policy toward Hitler … However, much we might like to view Winston Churchill as a man of the people, he was no such thing. This uncomfortable fact is a reminder that life is often more complex than Hollywood would have us believe.
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Bitter Lessons: The Allies’ Disastrous Norway Campaign of 1940
John Kiszely - Military History Now
… In the spring of 1940, the British, with French support, dispatched an expedition force to oust the Germans immediately following Berlin’s coup-de-main seizure of the country on April 9. In just eight weeks of fighting, the Allies had committed a series of catastrophic blunders and suffered a string of defeats. Humiliated, the British and French promptly evacuated … Much of the failure in Norway occurred at the tactical level. In almost every battle and engagement on land, British troops, many of whom were semi-trained Territorials, retreated or were utterly routed … As chairman of the Military Coordinating Committee at the outset of the campaign, Churchill made a number of serious errors of judgment and pressurised the chiefs of staff, often during late-night, alcohol-fuelled meetings, into unwise decisions.
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Do Brighter Minds Incline to Honesty?
James Thompson
… The paper argues that there is a causal link between intellectual development and moral awareness: the individual process of development represents an advance from cognitive egocentrism to de-centered thinking, from ethical egocentrism to the consideration of the interests and rights of others. Cognitive ability seems to have the strongest causal effect on the honesty of a society: The same pattern holds true if you assume that social levels of honesty intermediate individual levels of honesty as shown by rule violation. Either way, it seems that intelligence explains whether some societies cheat at games and cheat in real life.
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The Luck of the Gambler
Uri Avnery (Israel)
… Even without war, Bibi’s [Israeli leader Netanyahu’s] course is leading towards an apartheid state. There is just no other possibility. The “Jewish Nation-State” from the Mediterranean Sea to the desert, with an Arab majority that will inexorably grow, until the balance of power within the state turns, the international situation changes, and the willpower of the herrenvolk weakens. That has happened in history again and again, and that will happen to us. The Jewish State will turn into a bi-national state, with a shrinking Jewish minority, since Jews will not want to live in such a country. When? In fifty years? In a hundred years? At the end of the glorious Zionist chapter, the Jews will again disperse throughout the world. I don’t like to be a prophet of doom. My heart aches when I see the masses captivated by his charisma and following him to perdition.
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Does The State of Israel Have The Guts?
Batya Medad – Arutz Sheva (Israel)
To be a real “light unto all nations,” a very nebulous subjective phrase, we the Jewish People and today’s reborn State of Israel must be willing to do things other countries many not dare and even things that some Jews don’t think are truly Jewish. That’s because so-called “Jewish Morality,” sic, has been hijacked by concepts and ideologies far removed from Judaism and which claim them as Jewish. Liberalism and Democracy are not Jewish Values. They are modern, western, and European. Judaism forbids us to “turn the other cheek” … For the State of Israel to be a truly moral country, a “light unto all nations,” according to Jewish Tradition we must separate from the ideology of the international Left, Gd willing.
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Debunking 18 Claims Justifying The Gaza Massacre
R. Darwish - Mondoweiss
…. That is why I have decided to spare others the time, effort, and emotion, by writing out the most common claims I have seen regarding the events of the Great March of Return, followed by my responses. Those interested in fact-checking these common falsehoods, can find them in one place … Claim 1: Israel acted with “restraint” towards protesters in Gaza … First thing I can think of is, what border? Israel is the only country in the world with no defined borders, as they keep expanding into others’ land. The line between Gaza and Israel is an armistice line from 1949 and 1967, not an internationally recognized border … Claim 2: Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years ago. Moving the embassy is just a recognition of that reality … Claim 3: This Great March of Return is totally organized by Hamas, a terrorist group.
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… Russia and China were named as our prime enemies in the latest National Security Strategy for the United States, but both countries stand to benefit from the unilateral US withdrawal from the Iran deal. When the French oil company Total got spooked by Washington threats and pulled out of Iran, a Chinese firm eagerly took its place. It seems the world has grown tired of neocon threats from Washington. Ironically the “communist” Chinese seem to understand better than the US that in capitalism you do not threaten your customers. While the US is threatening and sanctioning and forbidding economic relations, its adversaries overseas are busy reaping the benefits of America’s real isolationism.
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What Is America's Cause In The World Today?
Patrick J. Buchanan
… And, so, what do we Americans stand for now? … In the Cold War, we believed America was on God’s side against the evil ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which declared the Communist state supreme and that there was no such thing as God-given rights … What cause now unites Americans? … Democracy crusading is out of style as the free elections we have demanded have produced Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, and nationalists, populists and autocrats from Asia to the Middle East to Europe. Perhaps our mission is to defend and protect what is vital to us, to stay out of foreign wars where our critical interests are not imperiled, and to reunite our divided and disputatious republic — if we are not too far beyond that.
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The Pompeo Plan: Present Iran With Hurdles It Won't Jump
Doug Bandow - The National Interest
Washington’s fixation on Iran, exhibited by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Monday speech, has prevented U.S. policymakers from developing a less toxic relationship with Tehran. The current Iranian regime will never be a friend of America, but neither nation benefits from a state of permanent hostility. And contrary to administration claims, Tehran poses little threat to the United States … The administration’s objective, it seems, remains the same as in 1953 … Since then the United States has often been the aggressor, backing Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran, shooting down an Iranian airliner, seeking to overthrow Iran’s Syrian ally, threatening Tehran with war, and arming aggressive, totalitarian Saudi Arabia. Overall, America has had a much more destabilizing impact on the Middle East than has Tehran.
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“The European Union can go to a thousand hells,” said Israel’s National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Minister Yuval Steinitz in response to a statement criticizing Israel for an incident involving a human rights activist. In a statement, European Union spokesperson Maja Kocijancic called on Israel to investigate the incident in which Jafar Farah, director of the NGO Mossawa, the Advocacy Centre for Arab Citizens in Israel, claimed he had his leg broken by police during a demonstration against the deaths of dozens of Palestinians in events on the Gaza border on May 14. The spokesperson called on Israel to investigate the incident that is expected to add fuel to the fire of the growing tension between the European Union and Israel.
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Palestinians: 70 Years of Suffering
Eric Margolis
To date, 62 Palestinians have been shot dead in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army and over 5,500 wounded by gunfire. Their crime: protesting the loss of their ancestral homes in the West Bank. Here was an example of Gandhi-style passive resistance that failed. Israeli sniper teams just fired at will at the protesters, some of who were throwing rocks or firing sling shots. High concentration tear gas was dumped by drones on the demonstrators. Israel claimed it was killing ‘terrorists.’ The United States, Israel’s patron and financier, reveled in the move of its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem … When Israel was created by the US and UN (with Soviet support) in 1948, from 750,000 to one million native Palestinians were driven from their ancestral home at gunpoint or panicked to flight by massacres and ethnic cleansing. Their villages were bulldozed.
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Hitler's Forgotten Library
Timothy W. Ryback -- The Atlantic Monthly
… By the late 1930s Hitler had three separate libraries for his ever-expanding collection. At his apartment he removed a wall between two rooms and installed bookshelves. For the Berghof, his Alpine retreat near Berchtesgaden, Hitler built a second-floor study with handmade bookcases; color photographs of the finished space show an elegant setting with Oriental carpets, two globes, and bookcases fitted with glass doors and brass locks … By his own admission, Hitler was not a big fan of novels, though he once ranked Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Don Quixote (he had a special affection for the edition illustrated by Gustave Doré) among the world’s greatest works of literature.
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Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, the owner of Britain’s Chelsea soccer team, has become an Israeli citizen, just a month after Britain delayed the renewal of his British visa in the midst of diplomatic tensions between London and Moscow. Abramovich, who is Jewish, was able to exercise his right under Israel’s Law of Return to obtain Israeli citizenship. That law states that Jews from anywhere in the world can become Israeli citizens. With an estimated worth of about $11.5 billion, Abramovich became Israel’s wealthiest person when he received his citizenship on May 28 after arriving at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport in a private jet. Israel’s Interior Ministry said Abramovich applied at the Israeli Embassy in Moscow and was found eligible for citizenship after proving his Jewish heritage.
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Among The Persians
Philip Giraldi
I have just spent a week in Mashad and Tehran Iran, speaking at an international conference on the future of Jerusalem as well as other related issues while also meeting with a broad range of Iranians, including journalists, students and government officials. The conference was organized by a non-government organization called New Horizon. It was the sixth such conference, intended to bring together speakers from a number of countries to discuss issues involving Middle Eastern security and identity issues … Indeed, there was clear criticism of the nature of the Iranian government openly expressed at the conference as well as very heated exchanges on a number of issues …
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I Just Visited Iran. Here’s What I Heard About The U.S.
Peter Van Buren - Reuters
… I went to Iran this month to attend a conference on the Palestinians, Jerusalem, and the greater Middle East sponsored by an Iran-based nongovernment organization. On the sidelines of the meeting, I met with students at Mashhad University, Ferdowsi University, and at a woman’s educational institute, as well as with visiting scholars from Tehran … It was not hard to learn students’ opinions. “What does America want from us? To force us to negotiate? We did, we agreed, already, in 2015,” said one student in a reference to the year to nuclear agreement was signed. “Regime change – do Americans even know we vote for our government here?” said another … The students expressed an ongoing concern the United States wants to destroy them.