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ICJ Lands Stunning Blow on Israel Over Gaza Genocide Charge
Trita Parsi – Responsible Statecraft
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) just ruled against Israel and determined that South Africa successfully argued that Israel’s conduct plausibly could constitute genocide. The Court imposes several injunctions against Israel and reminds Israel that its rulings are binding, according to international law. In its order, the court fell short of South Africa’s request for a ceasefire, but this ruling, however, is overwhelmingly in favor of South Africa’s case and will likely increase international pressure for a ceasefire as a result … This is a devastating blow to Israel’s global standing … Just as much as Israel’s political system has been increasingly – and publicly – associated with apartheid in the past few years, Israel will now be similarly associated with the charge of genocide.
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Israel’s Day of Reckoning
John Mearsheimer
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its Order yesterday (26 January) on the South African case against Israel involving possible genocide in Gaza. Predictably, the coverage of the Order in the mainstream media in the West aims to spin the story in ways that are most favorable to Israel, which means minimizing or omitting those elements of the story that make Israel look bad, and emphasizing that the ICJ did not order Israel to cease all military operations in Gaza … What really matters in the Order is what it says about Israel committing genocide. How could it be otherwise? Genocide is the crime of all crimes … It seems clear that yesterday was a black day for Israel, as the ICJ Order will leave a deep and lasting stain on its reputation.
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More than one in three Americans believe Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, a poll published on Wednesday has found. According to the Economist/ YouGov poll, roughly equal numbers of adults believe Israel’s military campaign against Palestinians, which is estimated to have killed more than 25,000 people since 7 October, amounts to genocide: 35% say it is, 36% say it isn’t, with 29% undecided. Among younger Americans, and along political lines, divisions are more prominent. Almost half of those surveyed aged 18-29, 49%, say Israel is committing genocide, with 24% disagreeing and 27% uncertain. The figures are broadly similar for registered Democrats, who believe 49%-21% in the genocide characterization, while 30% are undecided. Republicans are far more supportive of Israel’s actions …
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Washington is Complicit in Israel’s Crimes
Paul Findley
… Who is responsible for this tragic treatment of Palestinians? If you ponder that question, bear in mind that Israel could not possibly commit this criminal behavior without automatic, unqualified, U.S. government support year after year. Pro-Israel lobby pressure controls all major news media. Congress behaves like a committee of the Israeli parliament. No president since Dwight Eisenhower has had the courage to stand up to Israeli wrongdoing. Those who know the truth are afraid to speak out for fear of paying a heavy price – maybe loss of employment. All citizens of the United States must face the truth: Our government is complicit in Israeli crimes against humanity.
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How the West Was Defeated
Pepe Escobar
Emmanuel Todd, historian, demographer, anthropologist, sociologist and political analyst, is part of a dying breed: one of the very few remaining exponents of old school French intelligentzia … His latest book, La Défaite de L’Occident (“The Defeat of the West”) is … a hand grenade of a book, by an independent thinker, based on facts and verified data … He focuses on the key reasons that have led to the West’s downfall. Among them: the end of the nation-state; de-industrialization (which explains NATO’s deficit in producing weapons for Ukraine); the “degree zero” of the West’s religious matrix, Protestantism; the sharp increase of mortality rates in the US (much higher than in Russia), along with suicides and homicides; and the supremacy of an imperial nihilism expressed by the obsession with Forever Wars.
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Europe’s Heated Debate About Immigration: `Remigration’ and the Rise of Germany’s Populist AfD
White-Papers – Podcast
In this lively, hour-long interview, Mark Weber talks with Cyan Quinn about the heated debate in Europe over immigration and identity, and the rise of Germany’s populist AfD party. Reports about a meeting of AfD leaders with Austrian Identitarian Martin Sellner, who discussed “remigration” or repatriation of non-Europeans, prompted large-scale anti-AfD protests. Weber explains why and how the German government can ban political parties to protect ‘’liberal democracy,” and reviews historical precedents for forcible mass displacement of populations, which the US government supported.
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Defame and Punish
Christopher Rufo -- City Journal
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project recently procured a cache of government documents that expose a disturbing pattern: left-wing NGOs seeking to mobilize the state against political opponents on specious accusations of “violent extremism.” … The campaign to mobilize law enforcement against critics of gender ideology or critical race theory is not a limited affair. The [Zionist] ADL [Anti-Defamation League] and a related organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), have developed it as a scalable, repeatable tactic to silence political opponents … Fortunately, the public can increasingly see through these attempts to destroy the reputations of conservative commentators and reach its own independent judgment about the merits of each case.
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Who Cares About the John Birch Society Now?
J. Palmer - Jewish Standard
… The John Birch Society had as many as 100,000 members at its peak, and although it did have a centralized leadership whose members represented a range of right-wing views, ranging from the polite to the rabid … It was also a home for conspiracy theories and the people who believe in and embroider and embellish them … His argument, Dr. Dallek said, is that although the Birch Society at times tried to expel members for excessive antisemitism and racism, “they still drew a lot of energy from bigots of all kinds.” As for the explicitly Jewish part, “I have a whole chapter about the ADL, which launched what basically were both overt and covert operations to discredit the Birch Society. It was an extensive operation.” … The ADL ran “a really sophisticated counterintelligence operation” …
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There’s No Place in Our Schools for ADL’s ‘No Place For Hate’
Kathryn Shihadah - If Americans Knew
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a self-proclaimed “worldwide leader in anti-bias education” and “a relentless advocate for vulnerable communities of all kinds.” The organization claims that it is “viewed as having unquestioned credibility.” As a self-identified watchdog for the world, this private institution has worked its way into schools, communities, and various levels of government … Does the Anti-Defamation League practice what it preaches? … In its efforts to protect Israel from criticism – despite that country’s long record of human rights violations and racism (more below) – the ADL has worked against various movements whose efforts actually lined up with the ADL’s own (non-Israel) proclaimed mission of bringing justice and equality to all … The ADL’s self-contradiction and duplicity are most visible when it is held to its own standards.
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Biden Must Choose Between a Ceasefire in Gaza and a Regional War
Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
… People throughout the Middle East are horrified by Israel’s slaughter and plans for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, but most of their governments will only condemn Israel verbally. The Houthi government in Yemen is different. Unable to directly send forces to fight for Gaza, they began enforcing a blockade of the Red Sea against Israeli-owned ships and other ships carrying goods to or from Israel … Biden can continue to give Israel carte-blanche to wipe out the people of Gaza, and watch as the region becomes further engulfed in flames, or he can listen to his own campaign staff, who warn that it’s a “moral and electoral imperative” to insist on a ceasefire. The choice could not be more stark.
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Watch Those Houthis – They Are Pretty Tough
Eric Margolis
… Central casting in Washington, ever in search for new ‘terrorists,’ hit on a barely known Shia religious movement known as Houthis as our new villain de jour. It seems that the Houthis actually had the chutzpah to fire missiles at Red Sea maritime traffic to protest Israel’s savage attacks on the woebegone Gaza Strip … Israel always knows it can get away with extreme violence before US presidential elections. American mega donors are ensuring that the White House gets the message not to mess with Israel and give it carte blanche … Of course it’s genocide. The goal of Israel’s far right settler’s movement and its extreme right wing Zionist allies is to depopulate, or at least thin out, the Palestinian population so that Jews will remain the permanent majority between the Jordan River and the sea.
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The UN’s top court has ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, but stopped short of telling it to halt the war. The highly anticipated hearing was part of a controversial case brought by South Africa. South Africa had asked the court to order Israel to stop military action straight away pending a decision on whether Israel has committed genocide. Israel has vehemently rejected the accusation as “wholly unfounded”. Friday’s hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague was the first time the judges have issued a ruling as part of the case which began two weeks ago … Although the court did not call for a halt to Israel’s military action, as South Africa had asked it to do, it is being interpreted as a victory for those who support South Africa’s case.
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The United Nations’ top court on Friday ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering Jerusalem to end the military offensive that has laid waste to the Palestinian enclave. In a ruling that will keep Israel under the legal lens for years to come, the court offered little other comfort to Israeli leaders in a genocide case brought by South Africa that goes to the core of one of the world’s most intractable conflicts … The ruling amounted to an overwhelming rebuke of Israel’s wartime conduct and added to mounting international pressure to halt the nearly 4-month-old offensive that has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, decimated vast swaths of Gaza, and driven nearly 85% of its 2.3 million people from their homes.
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Renaud Camus: Philosopher of the Great Replacement
Jared Taylor - American Renaissance
… Camus has reflected more deeply and expressed himself more eloquently than anyone else on the awful fate Europe is preparing for itself … Until about 1970, no one doubted that to be French meant something — it was different from being Spanish or British — but today, anyone can be French … Camus is appalled that so few people recognize the Great Replacement as “the most important event in the history of our country since its inception, for, with another people, its history, if it continues, will no longer be that of France.” … Racism is “the queen of all mortal sins,” but as antiracism banishes racism, it also banishes “ethnic groups, people’s cultures, religions as groups or masses of individuals, civilizations as hereditary collectivities, origins, and even nationalities.”
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… They found that 62% of Americans have no idea what Zionism is. Zionism is, of course, a form of Jewish nationalism born in Central Europe in the late 19th century, which seeks to turn the Jewish religion into a platform for a state, and which excludes non-Jews from sovereignty over territory claimed by this Jewish state … This ideology has produced the statelessness of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and has made citizens of Israel of Palestinian heritage into second-class citizens … Joe Biden says he is a Zionist, and given his behavior during the past three months, I think we have to conclude that he is an extreme sort of Zionist. It is baffling that the overwhelming majority of Americans doesn’t even know what he means when he says this, or what the ideology is of the country that receives more US aid than any other in the world.
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Straight Talk About Zionism
Mark Weber – Podcast
A critical look at Zionism as an ideology and as a social-political movement. The IHR director reviews its origins and history, including the little-known story of Zionist collaboration with Third Reich Germany during the 1930s. Citing statements by Jewish and Israeli leaders, Weber notes that the essence of Zionism is its view of Jews as a distinct people or nationality, with interests separate from those of non-Jews. Zionists, he explains, insist that Jews everywhere owe a primary loyalty to Israel and the world Jewish community.
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Germany’s constitutional court has ruled that a right-wing extremist party should be barred from receiving further state funding and tax breaks that German parties legally receive. The court’s ruling on excluding Die Heimat, formerly known as the NPD, comes after days of German protests against the rise of the far right. A million Germans have taken part. The ruling also marks the first time that Germany has cut state financial support for a party without banning it. Many now see this as a model for dealing with increasing support for the far-right Alternative for Germany party. Nationally the AfD polls typically above 20% at the moment, and above 30% in eastern Germany, where key regional elections will be held later this year.
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Most Israeli’s Believe Netanyahu’s Wartime Decision-Making Mainly Motivated by Personal Interest
The Times of Israel
If elections were held today, some three and a half months into the war against Hamas in Gaza, Minister Benny Gantz’s National Unity would be well-placed to form a coalition, ousting Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a poll published Sunday. When asked what values motivate Netanyahu in his wartime decision-making, 53% in the Channel 13 survey said they believe he is primarily motivated by personal interest, and only 33% said he is acting for the good of the country. The survey found that Gantz’s National Unity would be the largest party in the Knesset with 37 seats, up from its current 12. It gave the Likud party under the leadership of Netanyahu 16 seats, half its current 32 …
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Netanyahu Is Turning Against Biden
Thomas L. Friedman – The New York Times
… Although Israel has been at war with Hamas for over 100 days and still has over 100 hostages to recover, Netanyahu’s No. 1 focus is Netanyahu. He’s searching for the most emotive political message to get him just enough votes from the far right to remain prime minister and stay out of prison, should he lose any of the three corruption cases against him … It feels as if Israel is losing on three key fronts and why Israel could turn things around on those fronts if it had a legitimate, effective Palestinian partner.
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Israel Detonates Last University in Gaza
IMEMC News
Israa University, along with its under-construction medical center, has become the latest casualty of the 103-day long Israeli genocide in Gaza after every other university has already been bombed and destroyed by Israeli forces during this ongoing onslaught of every part of the Gaza Strip. This includes many historical, cultural, and educational institutions – from the oldest church in Gaza, to the oldest mosque, to the National Archives, museums, galleries and libraries. All of these have been targeted by Israeli bombardment – despite having zero connections to the Hamas political party, which Israel continues to claim is the target of its massive and ongoing bombardment. The Israa University was detonated with 315 mines places by the Israeli military – clearly undermining any claim that there was any military threat or reason for detonating it.
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Israel Blows Up Gaza University
J. Conley – Common Dreams
The Israel Defense Forces’ detonation of more than 300 mines planted at Israa University in Gaza on Wednesday provided the latest evidence that Israel’s objective in its bombardment of the enclave is not self-defense, rights advocates said. “This is not self-defense,” said Chris Hazzard, an Irish member of the United Kingdom’s Parliament. “This is not counter-insurgency. This is ethnic-cleansing.” The International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) called the destruction of Israa University Israel’s latest attempt to carry out a “cultural genocide” … The wiping out of cultural landmarks was included in South Africa’s International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of genocidal acts in Gaza last week … Eight universities in Gaza have now been targeted since the IDF began its bombardment on October 7, according to the IMEMC.
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White Men No Longer Want to Fight for a Nation That Scorns Them
Robert Clark – The Telegraph
… The US Army has seen a dramatic fall in the number of white recruits, as the Military.com website found that the army fell 10,000 short of its 65,000 enlistment target. Underpinning this drop was a dramatic decrease in white recruits from 44,042 in 2018, to just 25,070 in 2023, leading to the proportion of white recruits falling from 56.4 per cent of all recruits in 2018, to just 44 per cent … For a long time now, the disciples of affirmative action and critical race theory have been at work. All groups have been prioritised except one, to the point where it is often a serious disadvantage to be a white male, particularly when it comes to getting a promotion or a job … It’s not really a surprise, then, that young white men have apparently become less willing to defend at risk of their lives a society which discriminates against them …
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Almost half of Russians have a high opinion of Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin, according to a poll released on Friday by the country’s Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM). The survey, conducted ahead of the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s death, found that Russians remain sharply divided over the Communist leader’s historical legacy. Some see him as a wise ‘vozhd’ (leader) who paved the way for the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution which made society fairer, while others consider him a blood-stained tyrant whose actions led to the deaths of millions … Some 47% of respondents have a “rather positive” view of Lenin while another 30% are ambivalent, according to the VCIOM poll. A further 15% have a negative opinion of the Bolshevik leader.
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Jews played a highly disproportionate and probably decisive role in the infant Bolshevik regime, effectively dominating the Soviet government during its early years … With the notable exception of Lenin, most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews … The US ambassador in Russia warned in a dispatch to Washington: “The Bolshevik leaders here, most of whom are Jews and 90 percent of whom are returned exiles, care little for Russia or any other country but are internationalists and they are trying to start a worldwide social revolution.”
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Was the Bolshevik Revolution a Jewish Plot?
A. Asa-El - The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
… Lenin’s deputies Lev Kamenev (originally Rozenfeld) and Grigory Zinoviev (born Hirsch Apfelbaum) and his treasurer Grigori Sokolnikov (Girsh Yankelevich Brilliant) were all Jews, as were Karl Radek (Sobelsohn), co-writer of the Soviet Constitution, Maxim Litvinov (Meir Henoch Wallach-Finkelstein), foreign minister of the USSR … Most proverbially, a Jew – Yakov Sverdlov – oversaw the nighttime execution of Czar Nikolai, Empress Alexandra, and their five children. Jewish revolutionaries were prominent beyond Russia as well … In Poland, two of the three Stalinists who led its transition to communism – Hilary Minc, who collectivized its economy, and Jakub Berman, who headed its secret police – were Jews. The revolution, in short, was so crowded with Jews that one had to wonder whether “the Jews” were inherently revolutionary.
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The year’s biggest movie phenomenon was a one-two punch of blockbusters with Jewish roots — and they both came up big at Tuesday’s Oscar nominations. “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s biopic of the Jewish “father of the atomic bomb,” led the year’s nominations with 13, including best picture and director, and is favored by many prognosticators to win the big prize. The film’s rendition of J. Robert Oppenheimer covers a fair amount of Jewish ground … The movie’s summer release-date companion and partner-in-memes, Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” picked up eight nominations, including best picture. The doll at the center of the musical comedy was created by Jewish inventor Ruth Handler (a minor character in the movie, played by Rhea Perlman).
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Netanyahu Rejects US Calls for a Postwar Palestinian State
Associated Press
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday rejected U.S. calls to scale back Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip or take steps toward the establishment of a Palestinian state after the war, drawing an immediate scolding from the White House. The tense back and forth reflected what has become a wide rift between the two allies over the scope of Israel’s war and its plans for the future of the beleaguered territory … In a nationally televised news conference, Netanyahu struck a defiant tone, repeatedly saying that Israel would not halt its offensive until it realizes its goals of destroying Gaza’s Hamas militant group and bringing home all remaining hostages held by Hamas. He rejected claims by a growing chorus of Israeli critics that those goals are not achievable, vowing to press ahead for many months.
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Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza Is Becoming an Official Israeli Government Policy
D. DeCamp – Antiwar. com
The idea of cleansing Gaza of its Palestinian population is slowly becoming an official Israeli government position, Zman Israel reported on Wednesday. A senior Israeli official said that Israel is already in discussions with Congo and other nations on absorbing Palestinian refugees. “Congo will be willing to take in migrants, and we’re in talks with others,” the official said. Israeli officials are framing the plan as a “voluntary” resettlement, but the Israeli military is making Gaza uninhabitable … Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel told Zman that “voluntary migration is the best and most realistic program for the day after the fighting ends.” … It was obvious from the start of the Israeli onslaught in Gaza that the Israeli government wanted to achieve ethnic cleansing in the enclave.
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Two Israeli Ministers Say ‘Resettle’ Palestinians from Gaza and Build Jewish Settlements in the Strip
Antiwar.com
Two extremist ministers in the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated calls on Monday for the “resettlement” of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, and for the establishment of Israeli settlements in the enclave. Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s minister of national security and leader of the Jewish Power party, said the onslaught in Gaza presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza.” “We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there, I believe it is also an important thing,” Ben Gvir told reporters and members of his party …
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Mark Weber talks about “The Last Emperor,” an outstanding film that focuses on the remarkable life of Pu Yi, who became emperor of China at the age of two, and was emperor of Japanese-controlled Manchukuo during World War II, but then was held for years as a prisoner before ending life as a simple gardener. This highly-acclaimed 1987 epic is a work of stunning imagery, fine acting, superb storytelling, and emotive music. In this episode of the online Decameron Film Festival, Weber also talks with host Frodi Midjord about China’s turbulent 20th-Century history, and its growing power and influence in today’s world.
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Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top foreign policy official, said Monday that the destruction in Gaza as a result of the Israeli bombing campaign could be “even greater” than the damage to German cities during World War II … A report from Financial Times found the damage to northern Gaza was comparable to the most heavily bombed cities of Germany in World War II. “Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne — some of the world’s heaviest-ever bombings are remembered by their place names,” Robert Pape, a US military historian who focuses on air power … Israeli officials and their supporters in the US have invoked the allied strategic bombing campaigns of World War II to justify the mass slaughter in Gaza … The Israeli bombing campaign has also been compared to the US bombing of Japanese cities during World War II …
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A British presentation of the Allied aerial assault on Hamburg in late July 1943. The British-American “Operation Gomorrah” bombings killed 42,600 civilians and wounded 37,000. It created a 1,500-foot-high tornado of fire, a firestorm. A million civilians fled the city. This was an example of Allied “area bombing,” which targeted for death all Germans — including all women and children. British prime minister Winston Churchill himself wrote in a memo of the Allied policy of “bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror.” Runtime: 2:20 mins.
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The Bombing War in Europe 1939-1945: A Review
J. Stephenson – Times Higher Education (Britain)
… One of Overy’s major preoccupations is with the morality of bombing civilians. At the start of the war, all sides agreed that the intentional bombing of civilians was illegal and that bombing should be confined to military targets. But desperate straits on the Western Front in spring 1940 (rather than the German bombing of Rotterdam) led the British to abandon this policy in favour of bombing targets in Germany for a military purpose even where civilians would undoubtedly be in the firing line. Both Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee were strongly in favour of this approach. For Overy, one of the many myths of the Second World War was that the Germans were the first to bomb civilians: in his view, the British got their retaliation in first.
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The federal government’s gross national debt has surpassed $34 trillion, a record high that foreshadows the coming political and economic challenges to improve America’s balance sheet in the coming years. The U.S. Treasury Department issued a report Tuesday [Jan. 2] logging U.S. finances, which have become a source of tension in a politically divided Washington that could possibly see parts of the government shutdown without an annual budget in place. Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed last June to temporarily lift the nation’s debt limit, staving off the risk of what would be a historic default. That agreement lasts until January 2025.
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President Joe Biden attempted to make his case that democracy is at stake in the 2024 presidential election. President Biden delivered his first campaign speech of the year near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. It’s where George Washington rallied the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He noted that Washington was fighting for freedom and democracy. “Today we are here to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” President Biden stated. “This isn’t rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. It is what the 2024 election is all about.”
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Congress members who were more supportive of Israel at the start of the Gaza war received over $100,000 more on average from pro-Israel donors during their last election than those who most supported Palestine, a Guardian analysis of campaign data shows. Those who took more money most often called for US military support and backed Israel’s response, even as Gaza’s civilian death toll mounted, the findings show … About 82% of Congress members were more supportive of Israel, and just 9% more supportive of Palestine during this period. The remainder had “mixed” views. Legislators categorized as supportive of Israel received about $125,000 on average during their last election, while those supportive of Palestine on average took about $18,000 … Over $58 million went to current Congress members, and all but 33 received donations.
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Jewish-Zionist Power in America
Mark Weber – Video
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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FAA’s Diversity Push Includes Focus on Hiring People With ‘Severe Intellectual’ and ‘Psychiatric’ Disabilities
New York Post
The Federal Aviation Administration is actively recruiting workers who suffer “severe intellectual” disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website. “Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring,” the FAA’s website states. “They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.” The initiative is part of the FAA’s “Diversity and Inclusion” hiring plan, which claims “diversity is integral to achieving FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond.”
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Israel is urging western states to rally to its side as the International Court of Justice prepares to hear this week South Africa’s case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The court is being asked by Pretoria to issue an immediate injunction ordering Israel to halt its military assault on the tiny enclave, to avoid further casualties … South Africa’s 84-page brief argues that Israel’s bombing campaign and siege breaches the 1948 Genocide Convention … Israel expects support from western capitals because they have nearly as much to fear from a verdict against Israel as Israel itself … Israel hopes that, given the difficulties of making a legal case in defence of its actions, diplomatic and political pressure on the court’s justices will win the day instead.
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Here is the full text of South Africa’s submission to the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands, which charges Israel with the crime of genocide in its military campaign in the Gaza district. Israel’s actions, the 84-page document says, “are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part” of the Palestinians of Gaza. It asks the ICJ, also known as the world court, for a series of legally binding rulings. It wants the court … to order Israel to cease hostilities in Gaza that could amount to breaches of the convention, to offer reparations, and to provide for reconstruction of what it’s destroyed in Gaza. Statements by Israeli officials express genocidal intent, the filing also says.
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The Fourteenth Amendment Farce
J. Kennerly Davis, Jr. – The American Conservative
As part of its relentless lawfare against the former President Trump and his bid for re-election, the left has filed suit in several states to compel election officials in those states to keep him off their presidential primary and general election ballots in 2024 … The left argues that the former president is ineligible to run for re-election because he “engaged in insurrection” on January 6 and, as a result, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars him from running for re-election … Here’s a prediction for the new year: The Supreme Court will quickly and decisively shut down these extraordinary legal assaults. It will keep Trump on the ballot … None of the actions to boot Mr. Trump off the ballot have any merit; all are fatally flawed.
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Antisemitism Skyrockets on Social Media at Harvard After Claudine Gay’s Departure
The Times of Israel
In the wake of Claudine Gay’s January 2 resignation from the Harvard presidency, Harvard students are reporting that the anonymous campus social media platform Sidechat has become inundated with an unprecedented level of overt antisemitism. Sidechat requires all participants on its Harvard platform to have a Harvard email address — meaning that while all posters are anonymous, they must be current undergraduates, graduate students, continuing education students, alumni, faculty or staff. Comments range from pure hate (“stfu pedo lover! All of you Zionists are the same. Killers and rapists of children!”) to allegations of Jewish pedophilia (“of course someone who’s on epstein [sic] list would defend Israel,”) to offensive stereotypes (“She looks just as dumb as her nose is crooked”).
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Harvard University has been sued by Jewish students alleging it “has become a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment”. The complaint alleges the Ivy League school is violating the civil rights of its Jewish students by tolerating and enabling discrimination on its campus. It comes just over a week after its president, Claudine Gay, resigned in part over her handling of antisemitism … The complaint, filed on Wednesday night, argues that Jewish students have been “subjected to a severe and pervasive antisemitic hostile educational environment” … It claims that Harvard students and faculty members have harassed, intimidated and assaulted Jewish students in classrooms, in on-campus activities and on social media, including by calling for the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel.
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Jewish Entertainers Excoriate the Oscars for Excluding Jews From Its New Diversity Standards
Daily Mail
Over 260 Jewish Hollywood artists have sent the Academy Awards a letter claiming that they are being excluded from its diversity standards. The letter, which states the exclusion is ‘discriminatory,’ was created by the Jew in the City’s Hollywood Bureau for Jewish Representation and was sent to the Academy yesterday. It has been signed by actors including David Schwimmer, Debra Messing, Ginnifer Goodwin, Mayim Bialik and Josh Gad; comedians, writers and producers. In 2020, notably after George Floyd’s death, the Academy issued a set of ‘standards’ as part of its diversity initiative. These standards recognized commonly ‘underrepresented’ identities, including women, the LGBTQ, an underrepresented racial or ethnic group, or those with cognitive or physical disabilities.
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Genocide in Gaza
John Mearsheimer
I am writing to flag a truly important document that should be widely circulated and read carefully by anyone interested in the ongoing Gaza War. Specifically, I am referring to the 84-page “application” that South Africa filed with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 29 December 2023, accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. It maintains that Israel’s actions since the war began on 7 October 2023 “are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic … group in the Gaza Strip.” That charge fits clearly under the definition of genocide in the Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory. The application is a superb description of what Israel is doing in Gaza. It is comprehensive, well-written, well-argued, and thoroughly documented.
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A Chance to Hold Israel, and the US, to Account for Genocide
Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J. S. Davies
On January 11th, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is holding its first hearing in South Africa’s case against Israel under the Genocide Convention. The first provisional measure South Africa has asked of the court is to order an immediate end to this carnage, which has already killed more than 23,000 people, most of them women and children. Israel is trying to bomb Gaza into oblivion and scatter the terrorized survivors across the Earth, meeting the Convention’s definition of genocide to the letter … In the extraordinary case of Israel, whose cult of biblically ordained entitlement is backed to the hilt by unconditional U.S. complicity, its leaders have been uniquely brazen about their goal of destroying Gaza as a haven of Palestinian life, culture and resistance.
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Americans are increasingly concerned about the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, and the percentage who think the Biden administration should be tougher on immigrants trying to cross it is up to the highest percentage yet. Most say the border situation is very serious, and nearly half now say it’s a crisis — up from May — a change in sentiment driven primarily by Democrats and independents. As a result, President Biden’s approval on handing the U.S.-Mexico border has also dropped, and his approval on handling immigration in general is at an all-time low, though it hasn’t dragged down his overall approval rating. Support for transporting migrants to northern cities has also dipped — among Democrats and Republicans — and now, most Americans disapprove of the practice.
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I Oppose Trump – and Any Efforts to Ban Him
William P. Barr (Former US Attorney General)
… The efforts to knock him off the ballot are legally untenable, politically counterproductive, and, most ominously, destructive of our political order. The Supreme Court needs to act swiftly to strike down these foolish [Colorado and Maine] decisions … Congress — not the states — gets to decide how individuals are disqualified from office under the Fourteenth Amendment … In present-day America, under existing law, the only way to disqualify someone under Section Three is through criminal prosecution under Section 2383. The federal government, which has painstakingly examined the events of January 6, has not charged President Trump with insurrection or even incitement … The actions of Colorado and Maine, and other states that follow suit, are not only doomed to legal failure, they also embolden and empower the former president.
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Biden Says Israel’s Gaza Bombing Campaign Is ‘Indiscriminate,’ Vows to Keep Supporting It
D. DeCamp – Antiwar. com
President Biden on Tuesday said Israel was losing global support due to its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza, which has been supported by unconditional US military aid, and criticized certain elements of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu … Despite labeling the Israeli campaign as “indiscriminate,” he [Biden] said the US will continue to provide military assistance, which involves supplying 2,000 pound bombs … Biden said Netanyahu justified his slaughter by pointing to US and allied bombings in World War II, as the destruction in Gaza is comparable to the most heavily-bombed German cities. “It was pointed out to me that — by Bibi (Netanyahu) — that ‘Well, you carpet-bombed Germany. You dropped the atom bomb. A lot of civilians died,’” Biden said.
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The Bombing War: Europe, 1939‑1945
Review by Richard J. Evans - The Guardian (Britain)
… There were hesitations about breaking agreed and, in effect, legally binding international sanctions against the use of air power to attack civilians. Hitler explicitly ruled out “terror bombing,” and deployed the Luftwaffe to clear the way for the invasion of the British Isles by destroying the RAF – and then, when the job was done (as the Germans wrongly thought it had been by mid-September), to weaken the British economy in support of the blockade … Yet [Britain’s bomber wing commander] Harris went beyond this to attack civil society in Germany itself, hoping that the devastation of its cities would lead to a popular uprising against the regime. He boasted regularly of the total destruction of German towns and cities by Bomber Command and its American allies …
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Israel-Gaza: The Status Quo is Smashed. The Future is Messy and Dangerous
Jeremy Bowen - BBC News
At the end of the war that started on 7 October lies a big, unknown place called the future … Israel’s prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] has not spelt out his plan for the day after, if he has one … The prime minister’s broad statements about what happens after the war, assuming Israel can declare victory, all point to continued occupation of Gaza … President Biden’s vision of the future is very different to Benjamin Netanyahu’s … The US president wants Israel to return to some kind of revitalised peace process. He wants the Palestinian Authority (PA) eventually to run Gaza while Israel agrees arrangements for an independent Palestine alongside Israel … Continued Biden support for Israel carries a political price in America’s coming election year.
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Two Souls
Uri Avnery (Israel)
… Jews learn at a very tender age that they are God’s chosen people. Unconsciously, this knowledge remains anchored in their “soul” throughout their life, even though many of them become total atheists … We are special. The language reflects this. There are Jews and there are the others … That is where we are now. A domineering regional power and a global crybaby, ruling a colonized population deprived of all rights while being convinced that dark forces are out to exterminate us at any moment, considering ourselves a very special people and an eternal victim. All this quite sincerely. And all this together. When somebody dares to suggest that anti-Semitism in the West is dying, and that anti-Islam is on the rise instead, the Jewish reaction is furious. We need anti-Semitism for our mental equilibrium. Nobody is going to steal it from us.
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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is being urged to ban neo-fascist groups after hundreds of men were seen giving fascist salutes during a rally in Rome on Sunday night. They were taking part in an annual commemoration for three far-right activists who were killed in the 1970s, allegedly by far-left militants. But a video shared on social media has thrust the event into the spotlight. In it, rows of black-clad men can be seen extending their right arms. They are also heard shouting “Present!”, in response to the rallying cry “For all fallen comrades!” – a slogan typical of the Italian far-right. The rally is held every year to commemorate the 1978 killings of three teenage activists from the youth wing of the far-right Italian Social Movement (MSI).
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The Fools on Capitol Hill
Philip Giraldi
Americans remain largely ignorant about the extent to which foreign influence pervades the United States government … Few outside the government itself are likely to be aware of the extent to which the state of Israel and its domestic affiliate-lobby operating out of Washington and New York have corrupted the United States political system, to the point where nurturing and enabling the Jewish state in its ambitions to dominate much of the Middle East has become effectively US policy. As the exchanges surrounding the recent fighting in Gaza, rightly referred to as a war crime and ethnic cleansing, perhaps even the first steps in a planned genocide, demonstrate that even when the US has genuine interests at stake Israel believes itself empowered to say “no” to the president of the United States.
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There’s No Way to `Explain’ the Degree of Death and Destruction in Gaza
Gideon Levy – Haaretz (Israel)
There is no way to “explain” Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip. Destruction, killing, starvation and siege in such monstrous dimensions can no longer be explained or justified, even by an effective propaganda machine like Israeli public diplomacy (hasbara) … It is very doubtful this will do any good. Hasbara is now an immoral machine. Anyone who makes do with being shocked at what has been done to us while disregarding what we’ve been doing since has no integrity or conscience … Israeli hasbara is a deception. It tells a story that isn’t the whole truth. By hiding more than half the truth, hasbara should have been seen as a shameful activity. But it isn’t.
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Dead End: Israel Gets Lost in Gaza
Daniel Beaumont - CounterPunch
… On October 7 an eruption of violence occurred from that small piece of land that few people in Israel — or anywhere else — would have thought possible … October 7 also dashed the complacency of the US and Europe … Israel under Netanyahu’s policy of no Palestinian state under any condition is on a collision course with reality. Now it appears that the Hamas attack on October 7 has not only changed Israel but the calculus of the Middle East. Israel is more isolated than ever. Its military response to October 7 is only increasing its isolation, even making more people in its most powerful ally the US question its relationship with Israel. October 7 has made one thing clear. The Palestinians will not go away. And the current Israeli leadership is deluded in thinking they can solve matters by military power.
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… Poll after poll show that Americans are increasingly opposed to more of their money being spent on the neocon’s lost-cause war to overthrow Putin in Russia. For example, a recent Fox News poll revealed that more than 60 percent of Republican voters do not want any more money sent to Ukraine … On the one hand, supporters of the Ukraine war warn that Russia is about to reconstitute the Soviet empire in Europe, while at the same time the same people tell us Russia is out of missiles and on its last leg. One more infusion of US money will end the “Russian threat” once and for all. Both of these things cannot be true at once. In fact, neither of them is true. But still the Administration, much of Congress, and an insatiable military-industrial complex keep selling the lies.
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Left-Wing and Right-Wing Identity Politics: A Comparison
Hendrik Hansen
… There are ideological commonalities between the identity politics positions of the New Right and the Identitarians, on the one hand, and those of leftists, respectively left-wing extremists, on the other … This article shows that the commonalities trace back to a fundamental change in left or left-wing extremist thinking, which can be characterized as the replacement of universalistic interpretations of the world by particularistic ones … Ethnopluralism, which is the decisive identity-political concept of the New Right, goes back to the idea that the homogeneity of the nation is a prerequisite for democracy … A comparison of the foundations of left- and right-wing identity politics reveals a number of remarkable similarities. First, both are directed against a common opponent or enemy, universalism.
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Turkey’s Erdogan Says Netanyahu Worse Than Hitler
The Times of Israel
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was worse than Nazi leader Adolf Hitler during a speech he gave at an event in Ankara on Wednesday, drawing charges that he himself was guilty of genocide … “We’ve seen the Nazi camps of Israel. How does this happen? They used to talk about Hitler, but how are you any different than Hitler?” he asked of Israel. “This is even worse than Hitler,” he added to raucous applause. “What Netanyahu is doing is no less than what Hitler did.” “Hitler was not as rich as [Netanyahu] is,” Erdogan continued after a short pause. “He is richer than Hitler. He takes support from the West, he receives all kinds of support from the US, and with all that support, 20,000 Gazans have been killed.”
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On the first day of the year, tens of thousands of Turks poured on to the streets of Istanbul, chanting “Murderer Israel, get out of Palestine”. It was not the first massive pro-Palestinian rally in Turkey since the start of Israel-Gaza war on 7 October. But Monday’s mass protest followed incendiary remarks by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since he first came to power more than 20 years ago, Turkey has been a staunch supporter of the Palestinians, including Hamas. But even by Mr Erdogan’s standards, the rhetoric was extreme. What Israel’s prime minister was doing in Gaza, he said, “is not any less than what Hitler did”.
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The Weight of Tradition: Ancient Roots of Modern Conflict
Mark Weber – Podcast
Israel’s inhumane treatment of non-Jews, as well as the often arrogant outlook of the organized Jewish community, reflect a centuries-old mindset that has roots in the Hebrew scriptures (the “Old Testament”). As Weber explains in this hard-hitting broadcast, Judaism is not just “another religion.” Its character and core values are markedly unlike those of Christianity and the other great world religions. Jews are encouraged to regard themselves as separate from the rest of humanity, and as members of a community with interests distinct from those of everyone else.
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Stakes Are Immense as Biden Presses Israel to Change Course
Barbara Plett Usher, Anthony Zurcher - BBC News
The US has a new diplomatic objective in the Gaza War – to convince Israel to scale back its military operations in coming weeks. This is a crucial test of the Biden administration, and whether it succeeds could help determine the next phase of the war – as well as the president’s own political fortunes back home … American policy since that day has fractured Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, lost him crucial support among young and Arab Americans, and left the US looking isolated on the world stage … January will be a crucial test of whether the administration can convince Israel to alter the dynamic of the war … Critics of the American strategy say the US has been so cautious that it is effectively complicit in Israel’s war. … Americans are contending with growing international isolation.
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Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Giorgia Meloni and Viktor Orban will lead their hard-Right parties to victory in next year’s European parliament elections, polls have predicted. Their parties are expected to be the largest in the Netherlands, France, Italy and Hungary after the EU-wide vote in June, which is seen as a battle to end Brussels’ overreach into national sovereignty. Nationalist parties from Poland, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Slovakia and Cyprus are also expected to return the most, or equal most, MEPs … More than a third of all MEPs are predicted to be at the very least critical of the EU in a European parliament that has long been dominated by pro-EU groups … Within that group, hard-Right parties firmly opposed to Brussels and often anti-migration, are predicted to compose up to 25 percent of MEPs …
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Ukraine and the End of Magical Thinking
Katrina vanden Heuvel - The Nation
… Ukraine, the second-largest country in Europe, is locked in a war of attrition with a country that is bigger, with more people, more troops, more artillery, and control of the air … Both sides have reason to explore a cease-fire. The damage and casualties inflicted on Ukraine can’t be sustained. Outgunned and outmanned, with its allies distracted and faltering, it can only lose more ground and suffer more destruction in a war of attrition … What’s clear is that any continued support for Ukraine must be tied to a serious exploration of a negotiated settlement with the Russians. That requires a reassessment and a change in course and moving toward negotiations, a cease-fire, and reconstruction — not the continued war of bloody attrition, the senseless killing and fighting to the last Ukrainian in the hope that Putin will collapse.
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Hitler the Peacemaker: A Review of The Forced War
F. Roger Devlin – Counter-Currents
This detailed, five-part review essay persuasively debunks the widely accepted “official” view of the origins of World War II. Devlin presents the key points and arguments made by American historian David Hoggan in The Forced War, a work of more than 800 pages based on his Harvard University doctoral dissertation. As the evidence marshalled here shows, Adolf Hitler was not bent on aggressive war in 1939, much less was he a “madman” determined to “take over the world.” The German leader reluctantly decided to attack Poland only after months of patient effort for a diplomatic revision of the unjust provisions of an imposed victors’ “peace,” and after it became clear that peaceful efforts to secure justice for his people had been made impossible.
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U.S. students lag behind their peers in many industrialized countries when it comes to math, according to the results of a global exam … U.S. students saw a 13-point drop in their 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) math results when compared to the 2018 exam. The 2022 math score was not only lower than it was in 2012 but it was “among the lowest ever measured by PISA in mathematics” for the U.S. … While the U.S. scored below the OECD average in math, it managed to score above the OECD average in reading and science … U.S. students straggled behind their peers in East Asia and Europe … Ten countries and economies — Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Macao and the U.K. — saw their students score proficiently in all three domains …
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Singapore has topped the latest world education ranking informally known as PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment, run by the OECD … As the following chart shows, several other countries and places in Asia feature high on the list, with Macau, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea rounding off the top five. Students in 81 countries and economies completed a series of tests to gauge and compare national averages in education in 2022 … Estonia scored the highest of any European nation with a score of 516, showing particular excellency in science, while Ireland placed in rank nine … The United States trailed behind in rank 18 with an overall score of 489. European nations have lagged behind in this series of tests.
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Award Ceremony In Germany Suspended After Jewish Writer Compares Gaza to Nazi-Era Jewish Ghettos
The Guardian
A German foundation has said it will no longer be awarding a prize for political thinking to a leading Russian-American journalist after criticising as “unacceptable” a recent essay by the writer in which they made a comparison between Gaza and a Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe. Masha Gessen was due to be presented with the Hannah Arendt prize for political thought on Friday. But the award ceremony will now not take place as planned after the Green party-affiliated Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBS) said it was withdrawing its support. The HBS said it had reached its decision in agreement with the senate in Bremen, the northern port city where the ceremony was scheduled to take place.