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NATO’s Cynical, Risky Strategy of Arms Aid to Defeat Russia in Ukraine
Ted Galen Carpenter
It is increasingly evident that the top objective of the United States and its NATO allies is not to see the awful war in Ukraine come to an end through a negotiated settlement as soon as possible. Instead, the primary goal now is to inflict a humiliating geopolitical defeat on Russia by providing robust military assistance to Ukraine’s forces. That approach reflects a cynical determination to use Ukraine in a proxy war against Russia, no matter how much suffering the Ukrainian people will have to endure … Russia is no more likely to accept a definitive defeat in Ukraine than the United States would be to accept the complete failure of a military venture that it launched in Canada or Mexico to thwart a perceived threat. US leaders would do whatever it took to be victorious in such a situation, and Russia’s government will do whatever is necessary to win in Ukraine.
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Some Hard Thoughts About Post Ukraine
Graham E. Fuller
… Contrary to Washington’s triumphalist pronouncements, Russia is winning the war, Ukraine has lost the war … This is not a Ukrainian-Russian war but an American-Russian war fought by proxy to the last Ukrainian … Europe already perceives the US as a declining power with an erratic and hypocritical foreign policy “vision” premised upon the desperate need to preserve “American leadership” in the world. America’s willingness to go to war to this end is increasingly dangerous to others. Washington has also made it clear that Europe must sign on to an “ideological” struggle against China as well in some kind of protean struggle of “democracy against authoritarianism” … Europe will undergo increasing identity crisis in determining its future global role.
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The Biden administration’s pick for ambassador to Brazil was blocked by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after a party line 11-11 vote on Thursday, with Republicans on the committee uniting to oppose her. Nominated for the position in January, the ascension of longtime diplomat and Democratic donor Elizabeth Frawley Bagley appeared uncontroversial until the Washington Free Beacon reported an interview with Bagley from 1998. In the interview, she said that money was the reason American lawmakers support Israel, and the idea of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem was stupid … “There is always the influence of the Jewish lobby because there is major money involved,” Bagley said about the Clinton administration.
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The Power of The Jewish Lobby
Philip Giraldi
Anyone who has spent any time in Washington and who has been reasonably engaged in watching the fiasco playing out there might agree that the most powerful foreign lobby is that of Israel, backed up as it is by a vast domestic network that exists to protect and nourish the Jewish state. Indeed, it is the domestic element of the lobby that gives it strength, supported as it is by extravagantly well-funded think tanks and a media that is Jewish dominated when it comes to developments in the Middle East. The power of what I prefer to call the Jewish lobby is also manifest down to state and local levels … Congressional willingness to protect Israel even when it is killing Americans is remarkable, but it is symptom of the legislative body’s inclination to go to bat for Israel reflexively, even when it is damaging to US interests …
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Yes, There is a Jewish Lobby
Shai Franklin – Jewish Journal
Sorry to burst everyone’s branding bubble, but there is a “Jewish lobby.” It happens to be pro-Israel because it’s Jewish — not the other way around. Jews don’t like hearing non-Jews use the term in public, and perhaps they shouldn’t. But as an interest group, Jews as such are ably represented (most of the time) by a close-knit network of advocacy organizations. Most of these are purely or predominantly Jewish, judging by their branding, supporters and staff.
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Jewish-Zionist Power in America
Mark Weber – Podcast
A factual, reasoned 16-minute talk on the immense power and influence of the “Jewish lobby” in the US, and its harmful role, especially in directing US Middle East policy. As long as this power remains entrenched, says Weber, there will be no end to the Jewish-Zionist domination of American political life and the mass media, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the Israeli threat to peace, and the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East.
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Tactics of Organized Jewry in Suppressing Free Speech
Prof. Tony Martin – Institute for Historical Review
… I’m going to try to extract from my experience certain basic sort of tactics that I think the Jewish lobby has used over the years pertaining to my particular situation … The first and major tactic that I discovered in their attack on me was their reliance on lies — just straight-up lies. There’s no other way to describe it, just telling lies. Many of the categories that I will enumerate overlap, and many of them could also come under this general rubric of telling lies. But I think that if one had to isolate a single tactic, it was a tactic of telling lies. I think they’ve elevated telling lies to a very high artistic form.
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Citing current and former US officials, CNN reported Tuesday that Israel has ramped up its covert attacks and assassinations inside Iran, but has kept the US in the dark about its operations. Over the past month, Israel has been suspected of being behind a string of mysterious deaths inside Iran … Israel was also likely behind the death of a young Iranian engineer, who was killed in a drone attack on an Iranian military facility outside of Tehran. Israel is suspected because it has launched similar operations against Iranian facilities in the past. Iran believes Israel was also behind the killing of two Iranian scientists, who were both poisoned separately at the end of May … Other mysterious deaths have occurred inside Iran … The US still tacitly supports Israel’s covert operations by never condemning them or trying to stop them.
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A US federal appeals court upheld an Arkansas state law requiring all public contractors to promise they won’t boycott Israel in a Wednesday ruling, overturning an earlier decision that had said the contract violates the First Amendment. The ruling by the St. Louis-based US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was a major victory for pro-Israel activists who have pushed around 30 states to adopt so-called “anti-BDS” laws — intended to strike back against the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement targeting Israel — in recent years … Such laws have been heavily opposed by civil liberties groups and press freedom advocates, who say they violate free speech. Federal courts have previously ruled that similar anti-boycott state laws in Georgia, Arizona, Kansas and Texas are unconstitutional.
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Anti-Israel BDS Campaign Does Not Violate Germany’s Ban on Anti-Semitism, Court Rules
Jewish News Syndicate
The Stuttgart Administrative Court recently ruled that calls to single out the Jewish state for boycott, divestment and sanctions do not violate Germany’s laws against hate speech and are protected, sparking outrage from critics that the decision turns anti-Semitism into a socially and politically correct view. “It is probably the first time in the history of the Federal Republic that a court has expressly declared ‘anti-Semitic views’ to be a legally protected area of ‘freedom of opinion,’” Henryk M. Broder, a leading expert on German Jew-hatred, wrote in his popular column for the “Die Welt” broadsheet … Prominent German Jews are urging Stuttgart Mayor Frank Nopper to swiftly appeal the April court decision in favor of Palestine Committee Stuttgart.
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A 101-year-old man was convicted in Germany of more than 3,500 counts of accessory to murder on Tuesday for serving at the Nazis’ Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II. The Neuruppin Regional Court sentenced him to five years in prison. The man, who was identified by local media as Josef S., had denied working as an SS guard at the camp and aiding and abetting the murder of thousands of prisoners. In the trial, which opened in October, the centenarian said that he had worked as a farm laborer near Pasewalk in northeastern Germany during the period in question. However, the court considered it proven that he worked at the camp on the outskirts of Berlin between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing …
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Washington’s Failed Push for Anti-Russian Global Consensus
Ted Galen Carpenter
Biden administration officials treat Russia as an international pariah and push the global community to unite behind Washington’s leadership to compel the Kremlin to withdraw its forces from Ukraine. The administration’s strategy has been just partially successful. Criticisms of Russia’s actions are relatively easy to find among foreign leaders, but when it comes to outright condemnations — much less endorsements of NATO’s position that the war was unprovoked and entirely Moscow’s fault — governments around the world demur. They are even less inclined to sign on to the U.S.-led campaign to impose extraordinarily severe sanctions on Russia … The Biden administration clearly overestimated the extent of international outrage at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine War
Video - John J. Mearsheimer
In this brilliant two-hour lecture, with Q&A session, Prof. Mearsheimer takes a well-informed look at the origins, development and consequences of the Ukraine war. His dissident “realist” critique of US foreign policy has already proven both valid and prophetic. This conflict, he explains, is due largely to the misguided efforts of the US to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russian bulwark of the US-dominated “West” on Russia’s border. Russians have understandably viewed that effort as an existential threat to their country, and one that had to be thwarted. The war has already inflicted enormous devastation on Ukraine, and brought death and misery to its people. But the greatest danger is that it might go on for months, if not years, with terrible consequences for Europe and the world.
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France Reshaped: Election Emboldens Le Pen, Undercuts Macron
Associated Press
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen says that her party’s extraordinary surge in the country’s parliamentary election is a “historic victory” and a “seismic event” in French politics. Many voters in Sunday’s poll opted for far-right or far-left candidates, denying President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance a straight majority in the National Assembly. Le Pen’s National Rally got 89 seats in the 577-member parliament, up from a previous total of eight. On the other side of the political spectrum, the leftist Nupes coalition, led by hardliner Jean-Luc Melenchon, won 131 seats to become the main opposition force. Macron’s centrist alliance Together! won the most seats — 245 — but fell 44 seats short of a straight majority in the National Assembly, France’s most powerful house of parliament.
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Ukraine to Ban Music by Some Russians in Media and Public Spaces, With Similar Ban on Books
BBC News
Ukraine’s parliament has voted in favour of banning some Russian music in media and public spaces. The ban will not apply to all Russian music, but rather relates to music created or performed by those who are or were Russian citizens after 1991 … The import of books from Russia and Belarus will also be prohibited under the legislation … The document also includes laws to increase the share of Ukrainian songs played on the radio to 40% … Books imported from Russia, Belarus and occupied Ukrainian territories will also banned, as well as material in Russian imported from other countries. This law will ban the publishing and distributing of books written by Russian citizens (with similar exemptions to those for music) … In addition, translations of books will only be published in Ukrainian, official EU languages or indigenous Ukrainian languages.
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Time to Face the Truth About World War II
Eric Margolis
… Stalin knew that Germany’s invasion of Poland would cause Britain and France to declare war on Germany. Stalin expected to pick up the pieces after Germany, Britain and France had exhausted themselves and were ripe for invasion and Communist revolution … Soviet propaganda later tried to cover up Stalin’s plan to attack Europe, claiming his forces were outmoded and unprepared, and generals incompetent … But, contends Suvorov, had Hitler not attacked first in 1941, Stalin’s 30-million man army, backed by mammoth industrial production, would have overwhelmed all of Europe in a 1941 surprise blitz. Suvorov’s unstated conclusion: Hitler saved Western Europe from Stalin … Hitler, in his own warped thinking, believed he was actually doing good for mankind. Stalin had no such illusions. His only interest was raw power.
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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 in late 2017.
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Who Started World War II?
Video - Viktor Suvorov
A Russian historian and former Soviet military intelligence 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. Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir Rezun) explains why Soviet dictator Stalin should be considered the “chief culprit” of World War II. This 50-minute lecture, given at the U.S. Naval Academy in October 2009, is based on years of research for several books. Stalin aligned the Soviet Union with Third Reich Germany from August 1939 to June 1941 because he planned and expected that Germany and other European countries would soon exhaust themselves in destructive war, thereby enabling Soviet forces to then overwhelm and sweep across a weakened continent.
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Poland Wants Formal Rules for Israeli Holocaust Study Trips
Associated Press
The Polish government wants formal rules to regulate the terms under which Israeli schoolchildren pay Holocaust study visits to the country, including on the presence of armed Israeli guards, an official in Warsaw said Monday. Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz said the armed guards accompanying the youth groups, the visits’ focus on the Holocaust only, and a lack of contact with Polish youth were giving young Israelis a “negative image” of Poland. “There are also threads appearing (to suggest) that Poland is an anti-Semitic country and for that reason it’s dangerous here,” Przydacz told Radio RMF24. He said a new intergovernmental agreement should state in what cases guards with loaded weapons can be present. Warsaw has been seeking such a deal for months, Przydacz said.
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Russia Conducted ‘Series of Operations’ in Syria Against US Occupation Forces, US Media Claim
Sputnik News
The US military has a contingent of about 900 troops in Syria at any one time, with these forces deployed near major oil and gas fields, cities and logistical hubs in the country’s south and northeast, and serving as a kind of insurance policy aimed at preventing Damascus from restoring control over its territories. Russia is behind a “series” of recent operations against US forces in Syria this month, including Wednesday’s attack on the al-Tanf garrison in the country’s southeast, the Wall Street Journal has reported [June 17], citing Pentagon officials familiar with the matter. A source told the newspaper that Russian jets hit “a combat outpost at the garrison” …, responding to an attack by CIA-trained militants against Syrian troops which destroyed a vehicle and may have caused injuries.
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More than half of self-identified Democrats and Republicans believe the US will no longer be a “democracy” at some point in the future, according to a new poll. The striking findings were reported in a Yahoo News/ YouGov survey which found 55% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans said it was “likely” the US will “cease to be a democracy in the future.” It was unclear how the poll defined “democracy.” … When independents and the non-affiliated were factored in, the depressing notion was shared by 49% of all respondents … In addition, 60% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans believe America is becoming a “less democratic country.” Both political sides also believe they were treated more fairly “in the past” than now – 71% of Republicans and 50% of Democrats agreed with that statement.
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When the Lies Come Home
Douglas Macgregor - The American Conservative
… Having lied prolifically for months to the American public about the origins and conduct of the war in Ukraine, the media are now preparing the American, British, and other Western publics for Ukraine’s military collapse. It is long overdue. The Western media did everything in its power to give the Ukrainian defense the appearance of far greater strength than it really possessed … Russian losses and the true extent of Ukraine’s own losses were distorted, fabricated, or simply ignored … Kiev’s war with Moscow is lost. Ukrainian forces are being bled white. Trained replacements do not exist in sufficient numbers to influence the battle … No amount of U.S. and allied military aid or assistance short of direct military intervention by U.S. and NATO ground forces can change this harsh reality.
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A growing number of people are selectively avoiding important news stories such as the coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the cost-of-living crisis, according to a report released on Tuesday. While the majority of people surveyed consume news regularly, 38% said they often or sometimes avoid the news – up from 29% in 2017 – the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism said in its annual Digital News Report. Around 36% – particularly those under 35 – say that the news lowers their mood. Trust in news is also declining, and is lowest in the United States. On average, 42% of people said they trust most news most of the time; that figure has fallen in almost half the countries in the report, and risen in seven.
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USA Today said Thursday it has deleted 23 articles from its website after concluding that the reporter who wrote them fabricated sources. The widely circulated US daily said that after receiving external requests for corrections, it investigated the work of journalist Gabriela Miranda and found that some of the people she quoted were not affiliated with the organizations she said they represented, and appeared to be fabricated. Other quotes she used could not be independently verified, USA Today said … Journalism in the US and elsewhere is rocked periodically by cases of reporters who are caught making up stories or quotes … Jason Blair, a young reporter for The New York Times, resigned in 2003 when the paper found “widespread fabrication and plagiarism” in his work purportedly covering such major events as the US-led war in Iraq.
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Consolidated Appropriations Bill Includes Nearly $5 Billion for Israel
S. McArthur – WRMEA
On March 9 and 10, Congress passed the consolidated “omnibus” appropriations bill funding the government through the end of FY ’22. President Joe Biden signed it March 15 … As usual, the largest earmarked amounts are for Israel, $4.805 billion! This includes $3.3 billion in military aid, which can be disbursed immediately (so Israel can earn interest on it until it’s spent), of which $785,300,000 can be spent in Israel with no strings attached, $500 million for so-called “Israeli Cooperative Programs,” and $5 million for “refugees” resettling in Israel. After many failed legislative attempts to pass H.R. 5323, giving Israel an additional $1 billion, supposedly to replenish the short-range Iron Dome missile defense system used during the May 2021 fighting between Israel and Hamas, congressional Zionists managed to get it included in the omnibus bill.
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Citing rising levels of global antisemitism, 28 US Senators joined a new letter calling for a 50% increase in the budget for the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism as part of the 2023 appropriations process. The lawmakers … signed a letter, led by Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), to leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on state, foreign operations and related programs — last month, calling for $1.5 million in funding for the office, up from the $1 million it currently receives. The letter, obtained by Jewish Insider, highlights spiking rates of antisemitism globally … “By increasing funding for this critical position, newly confirmed Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt can have all of the resources her office needs to succeed in the mission to protect Jewish communities around the world.”
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Russian president Vladimir Putin Friday said the era of a United States-led unipolar world had come to an end despite the West’s attempts to preserve it “by all means.” “When they won the Cold War, the US declared themselves God’s own representatives on earth, people who have no responsibilities – only interests,” Putin said in his speech at the plenary meeting of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum … “The West is trying to stop the flow of history,” he said, adding that it was ignoring changes in the world. “The US is ostensibly unaware that over the past decades new powerful centers have emerged around the globe and their voice is heard ever louder,” he added. Putin, 69, claimed Western sanctions against Moscow over its war in Ukraine had failed to crush the Russian economy, and … inflicted damage on the West’s own economy.
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Economic mistakes are creating the conditions in the EU for deepening inequality, a surge of radicalism, and, eventually, a “change of elites,” Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Friday … “The European Union has completely lost its political sovereignty, and its bureaucratic elites are dancing to someone else’s tune, accepting whatever they are told from above, causing harm to their own population and their own economy,” Putin said. In the Russian leader’s opinion, the policy of EU authorities will deepen the split in the West not only on economic matters but also on its values system. “Such a detachment from reality, from the demands of society, will inevitably lead to a surge of populism and the growth of radical movements, to serious social and economic changes, to degradation, and in the near future, to a change of elites” …
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Why Russian Intellectuals are Hardening Support for War in Ukraine
Anatol Lieven - Responsible Statecraft
… The significance of Trenin’s article lies in the evidence it gives of a consolidation of the Russian intellectual elites in support of the war effort in Ukraine. It is not in many cases out of a desire to conquer Ukraine (many of the figures joining this new consensus were strongly opposed to the invasion and loathe Putin), but out of an increasingly strong feeling that the United States is trying to use the war in Ukraine to cripple or even destroy the Russian state, and that it is now the duty of every patriotic Russian citizen to support the Russian government … There seems to be a growing belief in the Russian elites — including many who were horrified by the invasion itself — that the vital interests, and even perhaps the survival, of the Russian state are now at stake in Ukraine.
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How Russia’s `Right-Wing’ Views the Ukraine War
K. Bluhm, M. Varga - PONARS Eurasia
Russia’s right-wing realm consists of two segments: the mainstream right and the far right. The first is a faction of the ruling elite, while the second leads a largely oppositional existence. They overlap in both pursuing the goal of restoration of past greatness but differ in how they understand restoration … Now both segments stand in support of Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine. Examined here are both right-wing segments’ reactions to the war. We show where they differ and where they overlap in their perceptions. Our argument is that the right’s various segments have merged into one pro-war camp but have contrasting expectations vis-à-vis the scope of the war.
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Americans increasingly wonder where US involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian war is heading. Although this nation is not officially in the fight, it is a belligerent in all but name. US officials have essentially declared war on the Russian Federation and its president, Vladimir Putin … What considerations should motivate the Biden administration? First is to keep the US at peace. War with Russia, a nuclear-armed power, would be terrible and could be disastrous. For much the same reason Washington should seek to prevent the conflict from spreading to nearby countries … The Putin regime’s behavior has been atrocious, but Washington is no Vestal Virgin, which is one reason so many Asian, African, and Latin American nations went their own way. The US routinely flouts the so-called rules-based order …
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Israel Becomes a Safe Haven for Russian-Jewish Oligarchs
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Leonid Nevzlin … says from his vast villa-like office in Herzliya, a wealthy enclave, popular with wealthy Russians, on the Mediterranean coast just north of Tel Aviv. Mr. Nevzlin is a Russian Jewish oligarch who was born in Moscow. He made much of his fortune with fellow oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky … Mr. Nevzlin was luckier. As the political and legal heat reached inferno levels, he fled for Israel, where, as a Jew (and a passionate Zionist), he was granted Israeli citizenship … Since the war began, Israel has welcomed tens of thousands of Russian and other former Soviet Union Jews, many of them wealthy, some exceedingly so … Two other high-profile, sanctioned Russian oligarchs have also obtained Israeli citizenship: Alfa Bank co-founders German Khan and Mikhail Fridman.
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Biden Says Saudi Visit About Israel, Not Gas Prices
K. Anzalone – Antiwar. com
President Joe Biden answered questions about his potential visit to Saudi Arabia. Biden said that a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) would be about Israeli security, not energy … Speaking with reporters outside of Air Force One on Sunday, Biden said, “It happens to be a larger meeting taking place in Saudi Arabia. That’s the reason I’m going. And it has to do with national security for them – for Israelis.” He continued, “I have a program, anyway. It has to do with much larger issues than having to do with the energy price.” … Axios reported speaking with three Israeli officials who said Biden would be in Israel on July 14 and 15 before traveling to Saudi Arabia. Biden has met heavy criticism for his planned meeting with MbS. As a candidate, Biden pledged to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state …
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A Medal of Freedom awarded to a notorious mobster by then-US President Harry S. Truman is set to go under the hammer in California. The honor — a forerunner to the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom — was bestowed by Truman on Meyer “The Little Man” Lansky in a secret 1945 ceremony. Meyer was a leader of the National Crime Syndicate, a confederation of organized crime groups that was responsible for hundreds of murders in the 1930s and 1940s.It was for his role in “Operation Husky” during World War II that Lanksy and his fellow gangster Charles “Lucky” Luciano were awarded one of the highest civilian honors in the United States. The two mobsters passed information and contacts to Allied Forces during the 1943 invasion of Sicily, connecting advancing soldiers with high-ranking members of the Sicilian Mafia.
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Tough Jews, Las Vegas, and the Legacy of Meyer Lansky
L. Greenfield - Jewish Journal (Los Angeles)
In his autobiography “Being Oscar: From Mob Lawyer to Mayor of Las Vegas,” Oscar Goodman recounts his 35 years as famed criminal defense lawyer for Jewish gangsters Meyer Lansky, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal … Prof. Rockaway tells the stories of Arnold Rothstein, the New York based organized crime mastermind known as the key figure behind the infamous 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” World Series baseball scandal; the “Cleveland Four,” including “Moe” Dalitz, Morris Kleinman, Sam Tucker and Louis Rothkopf; Al Capone’s financial adviser Jack “Greasy Thumb” Guzlik; and the “Purple Gang,” the Detroit mob formed by Sammie Cohen and led by the Bernstein brothers … Further, both Meyer Lansky and his partner Bugsy Siegel helped the nascent Jewish state of Israel.
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`What is a Woman?’: A New Film
Video – Trailer
Trailer of “What is a Woman?,” a new movie that takes a punch at the “woke” worldview. Journalist and social critic Matt Taibbi calls this film by Matt Walsh “simultaneously the most talked-about and most ignored documentary in the world. The movie, which tries and fails to get trans activists, academics, and medical professionals to offer a definition of womanhood, is both trending and more or less totally un-reviewed.” Runtime: 2:50 mins.
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Beijing will “not hesitate to start a war” if Taiwan declares independence, China’s defence minister warned his US counterpart Friday, the latest salvo between the superpowers over the island. The warning from Wei Fenghe came as he held his first face-to-face meeting with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore. Beijing views democratic, self-ruled Taiwan as its territory, and has vowed to one day seize the island, by force if necessary. US-China tensions over the issue have soared in recent months. Wei warned Austin that “if anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese army will definitely not hesitate to start a war no matter the cost”, defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian quoted the minister as saying during the meeting.
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Weeks after the US president warned China over Taiwan, Beijing has delivered its sternest rebuttal yet, saying it would “resolutely crush any attempt” at Taiwan’s independence. On Sunday, China’s Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe essentially accused the US of supporting the island’s independence, saying it was “violating its promise on Taiwan” and “interfering” in China’s affairs. “Let me make this clear: if anyone dares to secede Taiwan from China, we will not hesitate to fight. We will fight at all costs and we will fight to the very end. This is the only choice for China,” he said … Taiwan, which considers itself a sovereign nation, has long been claimed by China. But Taiwan also counts the US as its biggest ally, and Washington has a law which requires it to help the island defend itself.
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Investigators commissioned by the U.N.’s top human rights body say tensions between Palestinians and Israelis are underpinned by Israel’s “perpetual occupation” of Palestinian areas with no apparent intention of ending it. The findings came Tuesday in the first report by a Commission of Inquiry, headed by a three-person team of human rights experts … What has become a situation of perpetual occupation was cited by Palestinian and Israeli stakeholders to the commission as the one common issue” that amounts to the “underlying root cause” of recurrent tensions, instability and protracted conflict, the authors wrote. They said “impunity” for perpetrators of violence was feeding resentment among Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.
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Interest Costs on the National Debt Set to Reach Historic Highs in the Next Decade
Peter G. Peterson Foundation
Interest payments on the national debt are on the rise. Driven by rising interest rates and the accumulation of federal debt, interest will nearly triple in the next 10 years and reach a historic high relative to the size of the economy by 2032. That rapid growth is outlined in the latest report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and is a clear sign of the threat that America’s fiscal imbalance poses to the country’s economic future. Rising debt, fueled by mounting interest costs, can restrain the economy by crowding out private investment, enhancing the risk of a fiscal crisis, and contributing to other potential economic effects. Rapid growth in interest payments on debt can crowd out important priorities within the budget and lead to a vicious circle of even more debt, deficits, and interest payments in the future.
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Can You Name a Country?
Video - Jimmy Kimmel Live
A random on-the-street survey of Americans shows remarkable ignorance about the world. Randomly chosen Americans on the street of a major US city are asked to identify a country, any country, on a large map of the world. It didn’t go well. Most Americans, it seems, cannot even find their own country on a world map. One exception is a well-informed boy. Runtime: 3:44 mins.
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The Dangers of Regime Change: After Putin
Ted Snider
The comparison between the crisis in Ukraine and the Cuban missile crisis has occasionally been made. With an honest look at that crisis, history has two lessons to offer for the crisis of today. The first is that the Cuban missile crisis demonstrates clearly how the US would respond to Russia encroaching on its sphere of influence and how it would respond to Russian weapons on its borders. The response is enshrined in the two-century old Monroe Doctrine … Given its own commitment to the Monroe Doctrine, the US might have anticipated and understood Russian concerns and warnings not to encroach on its borders by moving weapons into Ukraine and Ukraine into NATO. The second lesson is that the Cuban missile crisis demonstrates how such a crisis can be solved and war avoided.
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The Vinnytsia massacre was a mass execution of people in the Ukrainian town of Vinnytsia by the Soviet secret police NKVD during Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge in 1937–1938. Mass graves in Vinnytsia were discovered during the German occupation of Ukraine in 1943 … The first examinations of the exhumed bodies were made by German, Ukrainian and Russian doctors … Altogether, 91 mass graves were discovered at the three different locations, and 9,432 bodies were exhumed; 149 of them were women. The excavations at the People’s Park were not finished, though many more bodies were thought to be buried there … Photos and results of the investigation were published in many countries in Europe … Later the Soviet authorities rededicated the monument to the “Victims of Nazi Terror” …
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How Stalin Starved Ukraine
Video – Vox
It was a genocide that Russia continues to cover up to this day. In Ukraine, it’s become known as “the Holodomor,” meaning “death by starvation.” In the early 1930s, Joseph Stalin and other Soviet officials imposed forced collectivization of agriculture, which meant forcing farmers and peasants to give up their private holdings and join “collectives.” Millions resisted, and Soviet police and officials seized grain, cattle, horses and so forth. The result was massive starvation. It’s estimated that at least four million died. Soviet officials suppressed the truth about what was happening. Soviet authorities also clamped down on burgeoning Ukrainian separatist and anti-Soviet national identity. Runtime: 15 mins.
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Nationalism and Genocide: Origin of the Artificial Famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine
Valentyn Moroz -- Institute for Historical Review
… These elementary analogies are enough to show that the murder of seven million Ukrainians in 1933 could not have been motivated by socio-economic or “class” reasons alone. Conflicts claim millions of victims only in struggles between nations, as in wars, colonial struggles, and so forth, when the national question is paramount. Moscow needed a holocaust. The imposed famine of 1933 and the whole range of repressive mass killings during the 1930s were an expression of the empire’s struggle for self-preservation. It was this instinct, and not the economic doctrine of collectivization, that impelled the Kremlin to carry out the horrors of the 1930s.
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What Were Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Like as Kids? Early Years of 6 Dictators … Plus Putin
Rich Tenorio - The Times of Israel
Young Adolf Hitler was more dorky than despotic. He shunned physical activity except for walks and the occasional swim, read Wild West novels, and was so shy in love that he never told a young woman named Stefanie about his crush on her. Does this portrait of a dictator as a young man sound disturbingly normal? A new book by historian Brandon Gauthier asks this question about six of history’s most infamous figures – “Before Evil: Young Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, and Kim.” … The biggest influence on their early lives was “ideas born of good education, exposure to books, exposure to the influence of intellectuals from a young age.” … Similarly, the teenage Hitler cared for his mother when she was dying of breast cancer and appreciated her Jewish doctor, Eduard Bloch.
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My Patient, Hitler: A Memoir of Hitler’s Jewish Physician
Dr. Eduard Bloch
… What kind of boy was Adolf Hitler? Many biographers have put him down as harsh-voiced, defiant, untidy; as a young ruffian who personified all that is unattractive. This simply is not true. As a youth he was quiet, well-mannered and neatly dressed … In the practice of my profession it is natural that I should have witnessed many scenes such as this one, yet none of them left me with quite the same impression. In all my career I have never seen anyone so prostrate with grief as Adolf Hitler.
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Orderly and Humane?: World War II as the `Good War’
Peter Hitchens - Daily Mail (Britain)
… The 1939-45 conflict is still wreathed in delusions, delusions often employed to try to justify modern wars which are alleged to have comparably ‘good’ aims. The belief in its goodness is in fact ludicrous. Our main ally (rejected at the beginning with lofty scorn, embraced later with desperate, insincere enthusiasm) was one of the most murderous tyrants in human history … During and immediately after the war, as I have discussed here, we employed methods which would have disgusted our forebears and which ought to disgust us, but which were so frightful that we still lie to ourselves about them, or hide them from our consciousness.
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With midterm primaries helping set the direction for the Democratic and Republican parties, most Americans, including many of the parties’ own voters, aren’t terribly happy with the parties or what they’re talking about. Given that Sunday’s CBS News poll finds most aren’t happy with the direction of the country either, the major political parties aren’t providing much solace. For starters, the Democratic Party — which controls Congress and the presidency — is not seen by a majority as either “effective” or “in touch,” which are, no doubt, important measures for a party in power. The Democratic Party is more apt to be described as “weak,” a label applied by a slight majority of Americans, than it is “strong.”
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Is America the Real Victim of Anti-Russia Sanctions?
Arnaud Bertrand – Tablet
Remember the claims that Russia’s economy was more or less irrelevant, merely the equivalent of a small, not very impressive European country? … Seldom has the West so grossly misjudged an economy’s global significance … When you measure Russia’s GDP based on PPP, it’s clear that Russia’s economy is actually more like the size of Germany’s … In terms of PPP, in fact, China’s economy overtook America’s back as much as six years ago … A tally of the countries participating in current sanctions on Russia, in fact, makes it hard to say whether a new Iron Curtain is being drawn around our adversaries or around the West itself. Countries and nominal U.S. allies as significant as India and Saudi Arabia have been particularly vocal in their refusal to take sides in the conflict in Ukraine.
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Do We Really Know Who Is Winning in Ukraine?
Doug Bandow
… The appeal of supporting Ukraine is obvious: it is the victim of brutal aggression. But distorting reality does the country no favors. Dubious claims of success risk inflating expectations and causing future failures … Pouring money and arms into an extended conflict in Ukraine is dangerous as well as costly. Using Ukraine to fight a proxy war against Moscow risks Russian retaliation, especially when allied support is deadly and overt, even ostentatious … A Ukrainian victory is not certain. It probably isn’t likely. It might not even be possible. Given the uncertainty, the U.S. should push for negotiations, offering support to Kiev to make peace, and providing sanctions relief to Moscow if it does the same. People in Ukraine and Russia, and many beyond their borders, desperately need this war to end.
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Anniversary of the USS Liberty Attack: 55 Years Ago Israel Admitted To Killing 34 US Sailors, But ‘By Mistake’
Ray McGovern
The murder of journalist Shereen Abu Akleh on May 11, 2022, is, sadly, not the first time Israeli forces have killed American citizens and gotten away with it. The Israeli bulldozer that ran over – and then backed up over – 23 year-old Rachel Corrie to ensure her back was broken on March 16, 2003, is another sad example. Today, we call to mind the most egregious example, 55 years ago (June 8, 1967), when Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty in international waters, killing 34 and wounding more than 170 (total crew was 294) … Israel claimed the attack was a mistake. Intercepted Israeli communications and copious other evidence – like the pieces of evidence listed above – tell a very different story.
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Blood in the Water: How the US and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty
Joan Mellen - Book Available from IHR
In this startling work, an eminent author presents evidence of collusion between US and Israeli intelligence in the murderous 1967 attack against the USS Liberty, a US naval surveillance vessel, and in maintaining a cover-up that has endured for more than 50 years. So intense and sustained was the attack – it lasted for nearly an hour and a half – and so specific was the aiming for the antennae and satellite dish on deck, that it was scarcely credible that Israel’s aggression was not deliberate. Based on interviews with more than 40 survivors, knowledgeable political insiders, and Soviet archives of the period, investigative writer Joan Mellen presents disturbing evidence of complicity between US and Israeli intelligence in the attack, and in maintaining the decades-old cover-up.
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Most Israeli Jews Back Segregation From Palestinians, Study Reveals
N. McAlpin – New Arab
Most Israeli Jews support segregation from Palestinians in Israel, research on inter-communal relations has revealed. Around 60 percent of Jews felt it best the two groups live apart, a March survey by the Israel Democracy Institute found – a jump from 45 percent in April of last year, Haaretz reported on Monday. It comes amid an increasing international consensus that Israel practises a system of apartheid against Palestinians – including Palestinian citizens of Israel – with Amnesty International reaching this conclusion in February … Almost 70 percent of self-described right-wing Israeli Jews believed it preferable they live apart from Palestinians, with nearly one in two centrists and about one in three left-wingers feeling similarly … Women and young Jews were more likely to be pro-segregation.
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Did Stalin Have a Jewish Wife and Stepdaughter
Jewish News of N. California
The communist tyrant Joseph Stalin was known as an anti-Semite who planned wide-scale purges against the Jews in his latter days. But that may not have prevented him from having an affair with a Jewish woman and of taking care of her daughter until her mother died. According to some evidence, Stalin may have even married the woman … It’s still not clear if this was just an affair or whether the couple actually married because all documents pertaining to Stalin’s personal life were confiscated in the 1920s, and Stalin personally destroyed “incriminating” documents. The official version of his biography, published in the U.S.S.R., mentions two women: Yekaterina Svanidze, who died of tuberculosis, and Nadezhda Alliluyeva, who committed suicide. Indirect evidence shows that [Ana] Rubinstein may also have been a legal wife.
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The Forgiven Holocaust
Joseph Sobran
… Liberals, Zionists, and “responsible” conservatives now occupy a rhetorically Hitlercentric universe, in which Nazism is the measure of all evil and Roosevelt is redeemed by his determination to crush Germany. The stain of guilt for Nazism constantly spreads – to ordinary Germans, allies of Germany, neutrals, isolationists, Swiss bankers, and Pius XII himself … Everyone and everything is measured on a single scale, which might be called the Hitler Continuum. But there is not corresponding Stalin Continuum. Those who aided and defended and celebrated Stalin at the height of his crimes incur no guilt or obloquy. To have dreamed the Communist dream is evidence of idealism, not guilt or even irresponsibility.
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No More Turkey: Country Wants to Be Known as ‘Türkiye’
Associated Press
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has sent a letter to the United Nations formally requesting that his country be referred to as “Türkiye,” the state-run news agency reported. The move is seen as part of a push by Ankara to rebrand the country and dissociate its name from the bird, turkey, and some negative connotations that are associated with it … President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has been pressing for the internationally recognized name Turkey to be changed to “Türkiye” (tur-key-YAY) as it is spelled and pronounced in Turkish … In December, Erdogan ordered the use of “Türkiye” to better represent Turkish culture and values, including demanding that “Made in Türkiye” be used instead of “Made in Turkey” on exported products. Turkish ministries began using “Türkiye” in official documents.
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America’s middle class has been shrinking over the past 50 years as rising inequality pushes more households into the upper- and lower-income brackets. The share of aggregate household income held by the middle class has plunged since 1970, according to recent research by Pew Research Center, squeezing the mass of the population in the middle. The middle class “has been barely keeping up,” Isabel Sawhill, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, told Yahoo Finance.
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For Israelis, the Future is Impossible to See
Gideon Levy - Middle East Eye
If there is one thing completely missing from the public agenda in Israel, it is the long-term view. Israel does not look ahead, not even by half a generation … One question that does arise about the long term: will Israel still exist in another 20 or 50 years? That is all you will hear queried in Israel about the future … Yet consider the fact that so many Israelis continue to ask this question, more often lately than ever. Note the incredible efforts Israelis expend to obtain a second passport for themselves and their children … as if an Israeli passport is some kind of temporary permit … Israelis are afraid of the future of their country … Just try asking Israelis what it is going to be like here one day with a Palestinian majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and in the best case you’ll get nothing but a shrug.
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What’s Biden’s End Game in Ukraine?
Ron Paul
… The Biden Administration claims that Ukraine is winning the war with Russia and that such an expenditure to protect Ukraine’s borders is critical to our national interests and worth risking a nuclear war over. But protecting Ukraine’s democracy is no longer the stated goal of the Administration. Defense Secretary Austin outlined the Administration’s new intention not long ago when he said that the real goal is to weaken Russia. Biden’s neocons are fighting a war with Russia, but once again Congress has no interest in voting on a war declaration or even in debating whether war with Russia 30 years after the end of the Cold War is a good idea.
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A Foolish War, Poorly Waged
Eric Margolis
… We have so far been very lucky that a full-scale clash has not yet occurred between the US and Russia over Ukraine, a land of no importance at all to the United States, but of fundamental importance to Russia … The massed western media has been acting as an amen chorus for the Kiev regime … US, British and Canadian TV are accusing Russia of massive war crimes in Ukraine. There was little such reporting when the US invaded and destroyed important parts of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen or Somalia. Afghanistan was ravaged for nearly 20 years, with B-52 heavy bombers used to raze villages and towns. All wars are a crime against mankind. There are no ‘good’ wars.
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Russia is Winning the Economic War - and Putin is No Closer to Withdrawing Troops
Larry Elliott - The Guardian
It is now three months since the west launched its economic war against Russia, and it is not going according to plan. On the contrary, things are going very badly indeed. … There is, though, no immediate sign of Russia pulling out of Ukraine and that’s hardly surprising, because the sanctions have had the perverse effect of driving up the cost of Russia’s oil and gas exports, massively boosting its trade balance and financing its war effort. In the first four months of 2022, Putin could boast a current account surplus of $96 billion – more than treble the figure for the same period of 2021 … From the start, the Russian president has been playing a long game, waiting for the international coalition against him to fragment. The Kremlin thinks Russia’s threshold for economic pain is higher than the west’s, and it is probably right about that.
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In Stunning Shift, Washington Post Admits Catastrophic Conditions, Collapsing-Morale of Ukraine Front-Line Forces
Tyler Durden
With Russia’s war in Ukraine now in its fourth month, mainstream media consumers have been treated to seemingly endless headlines and analysis of Russia’s extensive military losses … But for the first time The Washington Post is out with a surprisingly dire and negative assessment of how US-backed and equipped Ukrainian forces are actually fairing. Gone is the rosy idealizing lens … The Washington Post report belatedly admits the avalanche of propaganda based in a pro-Kiev, pro-West narrative from the outset … The report then pivots to the reality of an undertrained, poorly commanded and equipped, rag-tag force of mostly volunteers in the East who find themselves increasingly surrounded by the numerically superior Russian military which has penetrated almost the entire Donbas region.
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School Board in Canada Removes Agatha Christie Book for Alleged `Anti-Semitism’
J. Mundie - National Post
The Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) has asked principals to review their teachers’ text selections to ensure they are no longer assigning Agatha Christie’s mystery novel And Then There Were None due to anti-Semitic references … While the memo does not explain what anti-Semitic references the board is concerned about, it is known that a character in the novel, titled Mr. Morris, is referred to as “little Jew,” “Jewboy,” and as having “thick Semitic lips.” The mystery novel is also criticized for its racist former titles … Christie is known around the world as one of the best-selling novelists of all time … And Then There Were None is the best-selling crime novel of all time. Christie’s other mystery novels Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile have both been accused of perpetuating racism and xenophobia.
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New legislation that ensures compliance with Holocaust education requirements in New York secondary schools passed the state legislature with unanimous support last week after a long-delayed process. The legislation — sponsored by state Sen. Anna Kaplan from Great Neck and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic from Queens, both of whom are Jewish … Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to sign the bill in the near future … New York is one of 23 states requiring public schools to teach the Holocaust. Congress passed in 2020 the Never Again Education Act, which provides $10 million over five years to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to bolster its educational programming to give teachers the resources and training to teach about the Holocaust.
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A Palestinian American journalist reporting on an Israeli military raid on a West Bank refugee camp was likely killed by fire from the Israeli military, according to the findings of two different investigations released Tuesday from the Associated Press and CNN. The unresolved May 11 death of Shireen Abu Akleh, a venerated Al Jazeera journalist, has turned into a major international firestorm, as Israeli authorities have insisted it was possible she was killed by a Palestinian militant, while the Palestinian government has refused to cooperate on a joint investigation. Last week, 57 House Democrats called for a U.S. probe into Abu Akleh’s killing, angering Israel’s ambassador to the United States; Israeli police also rushed mourners at her funeral after they claimed funeral goers were throwing stones … CNN further suggested that Abu Akleh died in a “targeted attack” …