Headlines

A report by the Institute For Science and International Security (ISIS) released last week claims Israel has 115 nuclear warheads and some 660 kg of plutonium. Israel has never confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons under a policy of ambiguity aimed at deterring longtime Arab and Muslim adversaries. The report, written by institute founder David Albright, is based largely on information leaked by Mordechai Vanunu in 1986, as well as intelligence reports, media reports and other research … “The actual number of Israeli nuclear weapons is a closely guarded secret,” Albright explains … According to the report, Israel also illegally procured a wide variety of high tech nuclear equipment from abroad, that can be used both for civilian and military purposes.

Middle-aged white Americans are seeing rising death rates that have shocked researchers. Why is this happening? While non-whites, younger people and people in other countries are seeing falling death rates, a new study shows the reverse is happening for white men and women in the US aged 45-54. Covering the period from 1999 to 2013, the study by Princeton University researchers says it is particularly acute for those without a college education … Middle-aged whites are committing suicide at an unrivalled rate … But why are whites so much more likely to commit suicide than other demographic groups? Researchers say the answer is complicated – and has a lot to do with culture.

A recent study published by the National Academy of Sciences, co-authored by a Nobel laureate, revealed a spiraling death rate since 1999 of Americans described as middle-aged (45 to 54), middle/ working-class (without a college degree) whites (apparently self-identified as such) … Their conclusions are explosive — given that they raise questions about the conventional wisdom that “white privilege” trumps class considerations and is the key driver of minority despair and the inability to ensure equality of result … White working-class psychological despair is not alone attributable to lack of good jobs, or affirmative action, or the constant slur of so-called white privilege. There is a class element at the heart of the nihilism — or, rather, the furor at the prevailing hypocrisy.

For the past eight decades Saudi Arabia has been careful … Today that circumspect diplomacy is in ruins, and the House of Saud looks more vulnerable than it has since the country was founded in 1926. Unraveling the reasons for the current train wreck is a study in how easily hubris, delusion, and old-fashioned ineptness can trump even bottomless wealth … Saudi debt is on schedule to rise from 6.7 percent of GDP this year to 17.3 percent next year, and its 2015 budget deficit is $130 billion … Saudi Arabia has one of the youngest populations in the Middle East, many of whom are unemployed and poorly educated. Some 25 percent of the population lives in poverty. Money keeps the lid on, but — even with the heavy-handed repression that characterizes Saudi political life — for how long?

A huge 1990s election poster of Marion Marechal-Le Pen as a blonde toddler with her grandfather, founder of France’s far-right National Front party, greets visitors at her campaign headquarters. Now a 25-year-old rising political star and France’s youngest lawmaker, she wants to win a December local election in southern France, to put the anti-immigration, anti-Europe party started by the maverick Jean-Marie Le Pen on a firmer footing for the 2017 presidential vote. Like her aunt, National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen, she hopes to bring the party into the mainstream … Polished, softly-spoken and comfortable smiling for selfies with supporters, opinion polls show Marechal-Le Pen neck-and-neck with former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives …

It’s a common notion that after discovering America, Columbus and his crew then brought back the scourge of syphilis to Europe. But there’s now conclusive evidence that the theory simply isn’t true, and syphilis was already present in the Old World long before Columbus set sail in 1492. Researchers at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, say they have discovered evidence of congenital syphilis — the type of illness passed from a mother to her fetus — in skeletons buried as early as 1320 in the cathedral square of St. Polten, Austria.

Los Angeles city and county have the most chronically homeless people in the country, and nearly all of them sleep on the streets, according to figures released Thursday by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department. L.A.’s chronically homeless population has grown 55 percent, to 12,536, since 2013, accounting for almost 15 percent of all people in that category, HUD reported. More than one-third of the nation’s chronically homeless live in California, the agency added … The number of chronically homeless people nationwide remained basically flat, rising one percent, the report said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded his visit to Washington with an appearance at the Center for American Progress (CAP), where he sought to redeem himself with the Democratic Party and draw broader acceptance of the indefinite Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Early on in the hourlong Q&A session, CAP president Neera Tanden asked the Israeli prime minister whether he envisions Israel will continue to occupy the West Bank and control Gaza in 20 years. Netanyahu’s response was a winding depiction of a protracted battle between modernity and “early medievalism,” without any explicit mention of the Palestinians.

As many Americans mourn the perceived demise of their America, alienated, fearful and angry voters are turning to Donald Trump to reverse the changes they see around them. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that 58 percent of Americans no longer identify with what America has become under the Obama administration. The figure for Obama’s own party was 45 percent, while among Republicans, those no longer identifying with what they see around them is 72 percent. The poll also found that 53 percent of all Americans feel like a “stranger in their own country.” “They look around and wonder where it all went,” wrote commentator Steven H. Ahle.

In the last week, Princeton University students who object to having Woodrow Wilson’s name on an academic unit and a residential college occupied the president’s office and left only when promised that the university would review its use of the Wilson name. The students pointed out that Wilson was a racist who, as president of the United States, had federal government agencies segregated, reversing progress toward civil rights for black people. Many observers have wondered which historical figure honored on American campuses would next capture critical attention. The answer appears to be Thomas Jefferson. At both the University of Missouri at Columbia and the College of William & Mary, critics have been placing yellow sticky notes on Jefferson statues, labeling him — among other things — “rapist” and “racist.”

… In short, a perfect witch’s stew for the beginning of a real war between Russia and the West that has been simmering in Syria and Ukraine. US forces are now operating in both nations within spitting distance of Russian troops … By picking a fight with Russia, Turkey is shooting itself in the foot … Turkey exports $4 billion to Russia, and imports large quantities of wheat, oil, gas, steel. Four and a half million Russian tourists come annually to Turkey. Shooting down a Russian warplane will make hyper-nationalist Turks beat their chests but the hangover will seriously damage Turkey’s unsteady economy. Putin and Turkey’s Erdogan should meet asap to resolve their issue before it becomes yet another step on the road to World War III.

The atrocities committed in the latest Paris attacks rightly horrify us, but they should surprise no one, least of all the French … By now every government should recognize what America learned on September 11, 2001. Wandering the globe bombing, invading, and occupying other states, intervening in other nations’ political struggles, supporting repressive governments, and killing residents for good or ill inevitably create enemies and blowback … Terrorism is evil and awful. But the best tactic against it is to stay out of other people’s wars. That should be the principle lesson of Paris, like 9/11 … Voters desperately need a candidate willing to put their interests before that of neoconservative ideologues and foreign monarchs. Until then Americans are doomed to fight more unnecessary wars and risk more unnecessary terrorist attacks.

In the wake of the ISIS terrorist attack on Paris, President Barack Obama declared that his administration has the right strategy on ISIS and will “see it through”. But the administration is already shifting its policy to cooperate more closely with the Russians on Syria, and an influential former senior intelligence official has suggested that the administration needs to give more weight to the Assad government and army as the main barrier to ISIS and other jihadist forces in Syria. Obama’s Europeans allies as well as US national security officials have urged the United State to downgrade the official US aim of achieving the departure of Bashar al-Assad from Syria in the international negotiations begun last month and continued last weekend.

Germany’s hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) are now the third most popular party in the country, according to a poll released on Tuesday. In a sign of the sharp rise of the far-right in Germany over recent weeks, the INSA survey gave the AfD 10.5 percent of the vote if an election were to be held tomorrow – meaning they leapfrogged the Green Party and Die Linke (Left party) … After an internal party feud in which its founder was deposed earlier in 2015, it has focused on criticizing the government’s immigration policies … The party has been prominent in the media in recent weeks after its most firebrand leader drew comparisons with Hitler due to his aggressive nationalistic rhetoric. Björn Höcke, party chief in the eastern state of Thuringia, has created headlines with proclamations at crowded rallies …

A German politician welcomes the displacement of the indigenous people of her own country. Stefanie von Berg, a Green party member of the Hamburg city-state parliament, says that the transformation of the metropolis into an ethnically undefined “super cultural society” is “good.”

… Contrary to claims by [Jonathan] Pollard’s supporters, his punishment has been completely justified; he ranks as one of the 20th century’s most appalling American spies … Four retired admirals — all of whom had served as directors of U.S. Naval Intelligence — wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post warning that Pollard’s idealistic image was a “clever public-relations campaign.” In fact, they revealed, Pollard had offered highly classified documents to three other countries before hitting up Israel … For more than twelve years after his arrest, senior Israeli officials told their American allies that Pollard had been a “rogue” who had no contact with the Israeli government. Finally, in 1998, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted to President Clinton that Pollard had been an Israeli agent all along …

Thousands of Palestinians will be displaced as part of a new Israeli plan to build several Jewish-only communities in the Negev region in south of Israel which will be built on top of Bedouin Palestinian villages, civil rights groups said Wednesday. “This is part of an ongoing policy of pushing Palestinian Bedouins off their land in the Negev,” Sana Ibn Bari, a lawyer for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), told Al Jazeera. The plan was approved by the Israeli government Sunday allowing the construction of five Jewish statements in the Negev region. Israeli Minister of Housing Yoav Galant hailed the government’s decision and said the region should be turned “into a desired and flourishing area, in accordance with the Zionist vision.”

‘With Open Gates: The forced collective suicide of European nations’, a slick, hard-hitting film about the European migrant crisis is going viral in Europe, already watched at least half a million times. Although the 19-minute film may feel like a dispatch from the future, it is cut entirely from recent news reports, police camera footage, and interviews. Kicking off with scenes of a modern car ferry disgorging thousands of illegals into Greece, the film then cuts to dozens of aerial shots of columns of migrants marching north into Europe.

“With Open Gates: The Forced Col­lec­tive Sui­cide of Euro­pean Nations,” a vir­u­lently anti-refugee pro­pa­ganda video widely cir­cu­lated on the Inter­net has received over four mil­lion views on YouTube over the last two weeks. The video uses selec­tive footage of African and Mus­lim refugees and immi­grants to depict them as cre­at­ing may­hem and destruc­tion through­out Europe. The video ends with a clip of the founder of a Jew­ish cul­tural insti­tute in Swe­den, who claims that Jews sup­port efforts to pro­mote mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism in Europe … “With Open Gates” demon­strates graph­i­cally how the ideas of extrem­ists and white suprema­cists can res­onate with a wide audi­ence. It also illus­trates just how recep­tive so many peo­ple in North Amer­ica and Europe are to anti-immigrant and anti-refugee fear and loathing.

A Belgian court sentenced controversial French comedian Dieudonné Wednesday to two months in jail for incitement to hatred over alleged racist and anti-Semitic comments he made during a show in Belgium, a lawyer said. Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, who has faced similar court cases in France, was also fined 9,000 euros ($9,500) by the court in the eastern city of Liege, said Eric Lemmens, a lawyer for Belgium’s Jewish organisations. He was not in court for the verdict. The judgement “says that all the accusations against Dieudonné were established — both incitement to hatred and hate speech but also Holocaust denial” relating to a show in Liege in 2012, Lemmens told AFP.

The editor of the French far-right publication Rivarol, Fabrice Bourbon, has been fined 4,000 euros by an appeal court for incitement to hatred against Jews. In January 2014, Rivarol published an article entitled “The unacceptable Jewish thought police”, attacking the decision of France’s Council of State to ban performances by antisemitic comic Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala. The article referred to the Council of State as “a rabbinical court” and stated that French people were living under “full Jewish tyranny.” The Court of Appeal doubled the fine originally imposed by decision of the lower court.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely has met with representatives of YouTube and Google to discuss ways to cooperate in what she calls the fight against “inciting violence and terrorism” … Since the latest escalation of violence between Palestinians and Israeli security services that erupted at the beginning of October, many people have been sharing videos depicting Israeli aggression towards Palestinians to highlight the Palestinian perspective of the conflict. London-based Arab newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed has expressed concerns that the meetings suggest moves towards censoring Palestinian material on the part of the Israeli state.

Palestinians were outraged after footage emerged Thursday showing Israeli forces disguised in traditional Arab outfits, including one impersonating a pregnant woman and others appearing to have fake beards, bursting into a West Bank hospital overnight and killing a Palestinian man during a daring arrest raid caught on video. The raid late Wednesday took place in Hebron, a volatile city in the southern West Bank that has been a frequent flashpoint of violence during weeks of Israeli-Palestinian unrest. Jihad Shawar, director of Al-Ahli hospital, said more than 20 undercover Israeli forces entered the hospital overnight. They went to the surgical unit, where they pulled out their guns and stormed a room where Azzam Shalaldeh was being treated for gunshot wounds, he said.

A Romania-born woman who immigrated to Israel won the third annual Miss Holocaust Survivors Beauty Pageant in Haifa. Rita Berkowitz, 83, was chosen among the 16 European natives who participated in the contest on Tuesday. She came to Israel in 1951. Hairdressers and makeup artists primped and pampered the contestants before they took to the runway … In a message for “the entire people of Israel,” she said: “That all Jews from all across the world will come (to Israel), all of them. And we shall be stronger. We are not afraid of anyone. The Jew will never disappear from the world.”

… For the past ten years the US government has been planning and executing a regime change operation against the Syrian government. It is this policy that has produced the chaos in Syria, including the rise of ISIS and al-Qaeda in the country. After a decade of US destabilization efforts, we are now told that Syria is totally destabilized and we therefore must take in thousands of Syrians fleeing the destabilization that Washington caused … The American people have been forced to pay untold millions for a ten-year CIA and Pentagon program to undermine and overthrow the Syrian government, and now we are supposed to pay millions more to provide welfare for the refugees Obama created.

… The strength of ISIS, of the Islamist militants, of those willing to die driving the “Crusaders” out of their lands, beheading infidels, imposing sharia, attacking the West, lies in an emptiness in the soul of Western Man. Many Europeans are the “hollow men” of T. S. Eliot’s depiction. They have repudiated their cradle faith Christianity, apologized for the sins of their fathers and sought to make reparations, embraced La Dolce Vita, materialism and hedonism, freeloaded off U.S. defense for 70 years, ceased to have children, thrown open their borders to former colonial peoples to come and repopulate the continent, and turned their back on patriotism to celebrate diversity and globalism … The colonized are slowly becoming the conquerors. The challenge of ISIS is not entirely unhealthy. It will tell us whether Europe has the will to survive.

In this quick-paced hour-long broadcast, Mark Weber and host Henrik Palmgren discuss the recent terrorist attack in Paris, and who is responsible. They also look at the migrant crisis in Europe, and the intensifying strife that is an inevitable consequence of policies that promote “diversity,” “tolerance” and “multiculturalism,” and which are hastening Europe’s ethnic-cultural death. US intervention in the Middle East in recent years, especially the invasion and occupation of Iraq, along with the US alliances with Saudi Arabia and Israel, betray the principles the US claims to uphold, and have all but destroyed American credibility.

The Southwest border has broken open in recent weeks, with non-Mexicans — and illegal immigrant children in particular — crossing at a record rate in October, according to Border Patrol statistics … Nearly 5,000 unaccompanied children were caught in October, and nearly 3,000 more had been caught in the first half of November — a record pace for those months … Those who track the issue said the surges show a breakdown in enforcement, and called it worrying at a time of heightened international danger … Some 25,000 illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala have been caught in the first seven weeks of the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1 — an increase of 58 percent. The number of Chinese, Brazilians, Indians and, strikingly, Cubans, has each surged by more than 100 percent …

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has approved a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions, at the body’s annual meeting in Denver on Friday night [Nov. 20]. The motion in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign was passed by 1,040 votes in favour, and 136 against. The resolution will now be forwarded to the full membership for a final vote by electronic ballot in the coming months. In addition, a resolution opposed to BDS was defeated 1,173 to 196. With over 10,000 members, AAA is by far the largest academic association in the United States to endorse the boycott at an annual meeting. The resolution enjoins the AAA not to enter into any formal collaborations with Israeli academic institutions.

A report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) watchdog group has found a significant rise in anti-Israel activity on US college campuses over the past academic year. The report found that so far in the 2014-2015 academic year, over 150 “explicitly anti-Israel programs” have taken place or been planned. This marks an increase of 30 percent from the same period last year, when the number of such programs was 105 … Top on the report’s list of challenges are the continued efforts of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to delegitimize the Jewish state by drawing parallels to Apartheid South Africa and urging individuals, companies and governments to stop their contacts with Israel and Israelis.

More than 30 “White Student Union” pages have recently sprung up over the last several days on Facebook pages that affiliate themselves with various universities around the nation. The creation of an “Illini White Student Union” Facebook page that surfaced Nov. 18 in response to a “Black Student Solidarity Rally” at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign gained national attention, but apparently it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Over the last week, at least 33 other “White Student Union” pages have appeared on Facebook, according to research conducted Sunday … These “White Student Union” pages currently exist only as social media creations, and it is not clear whether they are created by students at their respective universities. It is also unclear if these groups plan to become actual student organizations on campus …

Campus protests over racial issues continue to spread — and on Wednesday [Nov. 18] led to a revived debate at Princeton University over the legacy of Woodrow Wilson and the use of the word “master” to describe those who lead residential colleges … At Princeton, the debates over Wilson may be difficult for the university. While some campuses have moved to rename single buildings that honor people seen as bigots today, the Wilson name is quite visible on the Princeton campus … The group Black Justice League occupied the office of President Christopher L. Eisgruber at Princeton and offered a series of demands: that the university “acknowledge the racist legacy of Woodrow Wilson and how he impacted campus policy and culture,” and that all buildings and programs named for Wilson have their names changed.

Woodrow Wilson was our worst president. He did many of the things that Lincoln did to destroy life, liberty and property but did them on a grander scale, with less excuse and with more lasting consequences … In pushing the United States into the war that would ruin a human century, Wilson was instead freeing the British and French Empires. Enormous egos typify the leaders of progressivism: TR, FDR, LBJ. None of them, however, recklessly plunged our nation into a world war in the absence of a direct attack, believing that the resulting chaos would somehow reshape the world for the better. Don’t let his utter lack of charisma fool you. Wilson’s ego was as big as any of theirs.

With the onset of war in Europe [in 1914], hostilities began in the North Atlantic which eventually provided the context – or rather, pretext – for America’s participation … In their reply to the State Department note, the Germans observed that submarine warfare was a reprisal for the illegal hunger blockade; that the Lusitania was carrying munitions of war; that it was registered as an auxiliary cruiser of the British Navy; that British merchant ships had been directed to ram or fire upon surfacing U-boats; and that the Lusitania had been armed.

… Even where armed intervention has achieved a semblance of tactical success — the ousting of some unsavory dictator, for example — it has yielded neither reconciliation nor willing submission nor even sullen compliance. Instead, intervention typically serves to aggravate, inciting further resistance. Rather than putting out the fires of radicalism, we end up feeding them … Rather than assuming an offensive posture, the West should revert to a defensive one. Instead of attempting to impose its will on the Greater Middle East, it should erect barriers to protect itself from the violence emanating from that quarter. Such barriers will necessarily be imperfect, but they will produce greater security at a more affordable cost than is gained by engaging in futile, open-ended armed conflicts. Rather than vainly attempting to police or control, this revised strategy should seek to contain.

Among the presidential candidates of the Republican Party and their foreign policy leaders on Capitol Hill the cry is almost universal: Barack Obama has no strategy for winning the war on ISIS. This criticism, however, sounds strange coming from a party that controls Congress but has yet to devise its own strategy, or even to authorize the use of U.S. military force in Syria … If we declare a no-fly zone over Syria, or establish a “safe zone,” we risk war not only with Syria, but Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. None of these allies of Assad will meekly stand aside while we take military action to deny the Syrian regime and army the right to defend itself and survive in its war against ISIS, al-Nusra and other assorted jihadists and rebels.

Something very odd is going on in Washington … The willingness to fight Russkies and Persians simultaneously has surfaced more than once in the current series of debates … In truth, the dangerous Washington consensus that Russia must for some reason to be confronted and even destabilized truly boggles the mind, particularly as it has become dogma for both political parties and even for many critics of the global war on terror and all its tainted fruit … Russia does not threaten the United States and it does not threaten Western Europe, but push hard enough and long enough and a nightmare scenario could easily arise, driven by carelessly stoked fear and the thoughtless language employed by an array of presidential wannabes as well as their punditry enablers.

A new Pew Research Center poll shows that 40 percent of American Millennials (ages 18-34) are likely to support government prevention of public statements offensive to minorities. It should be noted that vastly different numbers resulted for older generations in the Pew poll on the issue of offensive speech and the government’s role. Around 27 percent of Baby Boomers (ages 51-69) agree that censoring offensive speech about minorities should be a government issue … The poll comes at a time when college activists, such as the group “Black Lives Matter,” are making demands in the name of racial and ethnic equality at over 20 universities across the nation.

Facebook announced it will work with Germany to fight anti-refugee speech and xenophobic content online. The social media giant on Monday [Sept. 14] heeded the call of German justice minister Heiko Maas to strengthen its measures combating hate speech amidst the ongoing European refugee crisis. “Facebook users are, in particular, complaining increasingly that your company is not effectively stopping racist ‘posts’ and comments despite their pointing out concrete examples,” said Maas in a letter to Facebook. He mentioned having received many complaints from users criticising Facebook for ignoring posts that want racist posts removed. The issue resulted in a meeting between Facebook executives and the German government.

The world is once again being subjected to a Hillary Clinton campaign, with all the showmanship, pomp, hype, lies and distortions that the candidate is famous for … Her pronouncements continue to astound, showing either her ignorance of issues, her disdain for the intelligence of the voting public, or her belief that the concept of ‘all men are created equal’ is just a myth … She knows where the financial bread is buttered. One example is billionaire Haim Saban, a dual United States-Israel citizen, who donated between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. Mr. Saban is a hardline supporter of Israel, who has stated that he’s “a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.” When asked how much he would donate to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, he responded: “As much as is needed”.

Leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton this morning [Sept. 9] delivered a foreign policy speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington. … As for Israel itself, Clinton eagerly promised to shower it with a long, expensive, and dangerous list of gifts … Then she took the ultimate pledge: “I would not support this agreement for one second if I thought it put Israel in greater danger.” So even if the deal would benefit the U.S., she would not support it “for one second” if it “put Israel in greater danger.” That’s an unusually blunt vow to subordinate the interests of the U.S. to that foreign nation … In a clear rebuke to the current president, she decreed that any criticisms U.S. officials may utter of Israel should be done only in private ..

… When the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), of which [Sheldon] Adelson is a major funder, held its annual conference at the [Las Vegas] Venetian in April, the former president [George W. Bush] attended, presenting Adelson with a painting he’d made himself of Adelson’s Singapore casino. And in May, when [his brother] Jeb appeared at a private meeting in New York with Republican donors — many of them Jewish and associates of Adelson — he told them that his most influential adviser on Israel and the Middle East was his brother … That month, Jeb also made a personal pilgrimage to the Venetian to pay his respects … So, here we have every single Republican presidential candidate and every single member of Congress lining up against the Iran agreement.

The mass media, with usual exceptions, have allowed themselves to be pulled down to the level of the political circus. If the Republican Party’s early primary campaigns for the presidential nomination had an elephant and a clown car, Ringling Brothers would be in trouble. It is hard for the Republican presidential candidates to resist temptation, defined by hyping an entertainment circus led by the chief circus barker — Donald Trump of gambling casino fame … After their so-called debates, the media emphasize the insults of Trump and others against one-another. Reading the coverage and watching the TV clips, once comes away with the impression that snarls, quips, ripostes, and gaffes, now pass for news. How rancid! How demeaning to our country and its people!

… Despite his surge in the polls, the anti-immigration hard-liner has strikingly little support among prominent Republican Jewish donors, activists and consultants … Trump’s pundit-defying rise has highlighted the distance between the Republican Party’s growing Jewish caucus and some parts of its base. That’s an unlikely role for Trump, who has perhaps the most personal ties to the Jewish community of any Republican candidate: His daughter Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism in 2009, and Trump has lived his life in the heavily Jewish milieu of upper-class Manhattan … Republican Jewish elites see Trump as a hawkish supporter of Israel, like nearly all other members of the Republican primary field.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush unveiled on Friday the full membership list of a designated Jewish leadership group to raise funds and support for his campaign within the Jewish community … The so-called National Jewish Leadership Committee is led by former House Majority Leader Republican Eric Cantor, who is Jewish, and includes notables such as erstwhile U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus … A spokesperson also pledged a “restoration of alliances around the world, especially with the brave and democratic State of Israel” …

Hillary Clinton’s foreign-policy speech at the Brookings Institution reflected the fact that the former secretary of state is much more hawkish than President Obama. She favored the Iraq War. She believes the U.S. should’ve intervened in Iran during the failed Green Revolution. She urged U.S. intervention in Libya. And she unsuccessfully lobbied for the U.S. to assist anti-government rebels in Syria. Journalists should note her hawkish, interventionist record. But when writing about it, they should not unconsciously embed hawkish, interventionist assumptions in their coverage by characterizing her approach as a more “muscular” or “tougher” foreign policy than the one offered during the Obama Administration.

Newspaper editors, lend me your ears: Please, never allow the phrase “muscular foreign policy” to blight your pages again … First, muscular is not a neutral word. It basically means strong. Its opposite is weak, puny, flabby, flaccid. Whether Martin and Peters realize it or not, by calling Republican foreign policy “muscular,” they’re essentially signaling their approval. Muscular is not a neutral word. Muscular is a condition. War is an action. Second, and more importantly, “muscular” is a euphemism. When Martin and Peters say George W. Bush pursued a policy of “muscular engagement,” what they really mean is that he twice took the United States to war … The correct adjective for these policies is not “muscular.” It is “warlike.”

It’s true that Hillary Clinton is slipping in the polls. But she’s still got an overwhelming lead in another measure that political scientists consider very important: endorsements. Mrs. Clinton has corralled the support of 59 percent of all Democratic Party national-level officials – governors, representatives, and senators … Bernie Sanders has none. He’s been shut out … What they are is a means for party elites to organize and communicate amongst themselves. These people want the strongest possible nominee on the top of the ticket. They want that person identified early, so there’s lots of time to raise money, plan strategy, and campaign. That’s what the so-called invisible primary is all about. In the months prior to actual voting, candidates vie for the backing of party insiders.

Populist leaders around Europe rushed to demand an end to an influx of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa on Saturday after a wave of deadly attacks in Paris claimed by Islamic State militants. The carnage in the French capital, directly linked to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, seemed bound to further complicate the European Union’s task in sharing out hundreds of thousands of migrants who have entered the bloc this year, fleeing war and poverty. Poland’s designated Europe minister said Warsaw could not take in refugees under an EU quota system after Friday’s wave of attacks on restaurants, a concert hall and a soccer stadium in Paris, in which 127 people died and some 200 were injured.

… As in mid-fifth-century Athens and late-republican Rome, there are signs that the West is eroding — and fast … Take the ongoing mass exoduses from the Third World into Europe and the United States. The reaction on the part of the host countries is largely paralysis, as the contradictions of professed Western liberalism hit the hard reality that Westerners are reluctant to accept millions of poor foreigners arriving en masse. Westerners are hoist on their own petards of “fairness” and “equality” … The future of the European Union is bleak. It cannot define what a European is, so why should its borders not become porous?

… The world is reawakening to truths long suppressed. Race and religion matter. To some they are life-and-death matters. Not all creeds, cultures and tribes are equally or easily assimilated into a Western nation. And First World nations have a right to preserve their own unique identity and character. When Obama says that to prefer Christian to Muslim refugees is “un-American,” he is saying that all the U.S. immigration laws enacted before 1965 were un-American … In Europe, tribalism and nationalism are on the march. Peoples and nations wish to preserve who they are. Some have begun to establish checkpoints and ignore the Schengen Agreement mandating open borders. Eastern Europeans have had all the diversity they can stand.

In this lively session, Mark Weber and seasoned radio host Jeff Rense discuss the migrant crisis in Europe, the decline in achievement and standards in the US educational system, the lack of reality in American policies, both domestic and international, and the systemic lack of accountability of political leaders in the US–style democracy. Runtime: 49 mins.

Is George Soros undermining European national sovereignty? A few weeks ago, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused the billionaire financier of funding activists trying to encourage the continued flow of refugees heading to the continent from the Middle East and beyond. It was a sentiment that expressed the emotions of many Europeans regarding our perception of the continent’s place in the world—and the future of national sovereignty here … Activists like Soros — whose organizations share part of the blame for encouraging migrants to come to Europe and lobby Europeans to regard borders and sovereignty as things of the past — are trying to rip off our birth right to sovereignty and stigmatize people by accusing them of upholding an outmoded Christian identity.

For decades those who questioned the authenticity of Anne Frank’s diary have been castigated as vile holocaust deniers and anti-Semitic bigots. Jewish organisations have taken pains to defy any attempt to interfere with the Anne Frank legacy. Surprise, it is now the holders of the copyright to Anne Frank’s diary who insist that Anne wasn’t the only author of her own diary. Apparently, as some history revisionists, including Robert Faurisson, have been claiming for years, “The Diary of Anne Frank” was not what it claimed to be. What caused the sudden change in attitude to Anne’s masterpiece? Shekels … This shameless shift in narrative provides another opportunity to delve into the elastic nature of Jewish history and its minimal regard for truth or authenticity.

Is The Diary of Anne Frank genuine? For two years that question was included in the official syllabus “Text and Document Criticism,” a seminar reserved for degreed students in their fourth year. The conclusion of my studies and research is that The Diary of Anne Frank is a fraud … That impressive ensemble of additions, subtractions, transferences, alterations; those fictions of Mr. Frank; those dishonesties of the editors; those interventions of outsiders, friends of Mr. Frank, the existence of two such different books presented as one and the same Diary of Anne Frank — all these reveal a work which cannot, in any way, retain the prestige attached to an authentic testimony.

Anti-immigrant boiled over into anti-Semitism in Poland on Wednesday when a protest against taking in Muslim refugees ended with the burning of an effigy of a haredi Orthodox Jew holding the flag of the European Union. Several dozen people were reported in attendance at the rally, in the western Polish city of Wroclaw, which was held in the wake of last Friday’s Paris terrorist attacks, one of whose perpetrators was said to have entered the EU with the flood of Syrian refugees. The crowd shouted: “United Catholic Poland! National radicalism! Down with the European Union!” The demonstration was organized by the National Radical Camp and All-Polish Youth.

More than 70 percent of the 229 self-identified University of California (UC) Jewish students who participated in an online survey reported witnessing or experiencing anti-Semitism on campus, according to a survey conducted by AMCHA Initiative in October. The results also revealed that one-third of respondents felt campus administrators were not sensitive to Jewish student concerns, and three-quarter of respondents reported that BDS campaigns promote hostile actions toward Jewish students on campus. The survey was conducted October 13-22.

Two out of three adults worldwide are financially illiterate, according to a report published Wednesday. The 2014 Gallup survey of 150,000 people in 148 nations asked people to answer questions about risk, inflation, and compound interest. Researchers from the World Bank and Georgetown University analyzed the data, and found most people got at least half the answers wrong. Men generally got slightly better test scores than women. Respondents in Scandinavian nations were the best in the world with around seven out of ten people getting mostly correct answers. At the bottom of the list came Yemen, Albania, and Afghanistan where only about one in seven people passed the test. Residents of the United States scored an unimpressive 14th place in the rankings, with 57 percent of people passing the brief exam.

Jonathan Pollard was released from prison Friday after 30 years behind bars for spying for Israel, and his lawyers immediately went to court to challenge tough parole conditions seemingly designed to ensure he doesn’t spill any secrets he might have left. The 61-year-old former Navy intelligence analyst was set free before daybreak from a medium-security federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, after being paroled from a life sentence that had turned him into a continual source of tension between the U.S. and Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed Israeli officials to keep low-key about Friday’s scheduled release by the United States of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, a cabinet minister said. The former U.S. Navy analyst’s espionage for Israel in the 1980s remains a strain on ties with Washington and his parole terms dictate that he stay in the United States for five years. Pollard, sentenced to life in prison after being convicted in 1987 of passing reams of classified information to Israel, has been behind bars since his arrest in 1985. He is expected to be paroled on Friday from federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, about 45 miles north of Raleigh … Israeli officials are concerned that too warm a celebration over his release might hurt efforts to persuade the U.S. government to let him leave for Israel sooner.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seven other former and current government officials are at risk of arrest if they set foot in Spain, after a Spanish judge effectively issued an arrest warrant for the group, it has been reported. According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, Spanish national court judge Jose de la Mata ordered the police and civil guard to notify him if Mr Netanyahu and the six other individuals enter the country, as their actions could see a case against them regarding the Freedom Flotilla attack of 2010 reopened.

A British Columbia man, Arthur Topham, has been convicted of promoting hatred against Jews through his website, RadicalPress.com, which the Crown said demonized Jews and forwarded antisemitic conspiracy theories. On Thursday [Nov 12], a jury in Quesnel, B.C. agreed, convicting Topham of one count of communicating statements that wilfully promote hatred against Jews. “It’s a very important decision,” said Harry Abrams of Victoria, who alerted B.C.’s Hate Crime Unit to the website … Topham was charged with two counts of communicating statements that promote hatred. The jury convicted him on one count, which dealt with material from 2011 and 2012. He was found not guilty with regard to material from 2013. Topham will be sentenced in 2016.

… I attended some of the extraordinary trial of Arthur Topham in the Supreme Court (the highest provincial trial court) in Quesnel, British Columbia … This trial follows eight years of harassment … The police arrested Mr. Topham for ‘hate’ after they received complaints from various Jewish people … Topham countered the charge of hate and argued as a defense that the writing was political with an expert of his own. Gilad Atzmon, the iconoclastic jazz musician, writer and philosopher volunteered his time to help … Atzmon was qualified as an expert on Jewish Identity Politics a topic that clearly few in the court had heard of … The take away is that if Jews are entitled to criticize Jews, why can’t other people? This is especially true because the Jews have a disproportionate amount of power in government, finance and the media.

The German Neonazi and Holocaust denier Gerhard Ittner was sentenced to 18 months in prison by a regional court in Bavaria on Tuesday. The court in Nuremberg-Fuerth found the 57-year-old guilty of incitement and disparaging the state and its symbols. Ittner distributed pamphlets denying the Holocaust between 2011 and 2012. Police located him in 2012 in Portugal, where he was distributing propaganda material via the internet. Ittner caused nationwide protests in 2003 when he organized a right-wing gathering near the former Nazi party rallying grounds in Nuremberg. He announced at the time that he was planning additional protests in Nuremberg. Ittner was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for incitement in 2005 and subsequently went into hiding.

Students staged a protest Wednesday inside the office of Princeton University’s president, demanding the school remove the name of former school president and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson from programs and buildings over what they said was his racist legacy. Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber told the students he agreed with them that Wilson was racist and that the university needs to acknowledge that, according to a video posted to YouTube. But a school spokesman said the president also told students it is important to weigh Wilson’s racism, and how bad it was, with the contributions he made to the nation. Wilson was president of Princeton from 1902 to 1910 and served as New Jersey’s governor from 1911 to 1913, when he entered the White House.

… There is an alternative to using more military intervention to address a problem that was caused by military intervention in the first place. That solution is to reject the militarists and isolationists. It is to finally reject the policy of using “regime change” to further perceived US and western foreign policy goals, whether in Iraq, Libya, Syria, or elsewhere … Here is the alternative: Focus on trade and friendly relations, stop shipping weapons, abandon “regime change” and other manipulations, respect national sovereignty, and maintain a strong defense at home including protecting the borders from those who may seek to do us harm. We should abandon the failed policies of the past, before it’s too late.

As ISIS takes responsibility for the horror of Friday night and details on the deadly attacks continue to emerge, one question remains: Why Paris? … The answer can be found in Syria and Iraq. There, since September 2014, ISIS has lost significant territory and faces the near-term prospect of losing to a multiprong offensive by the international coalition that could decisively cripple the terrorist group. With these daunting prospects, ISIS is lashing out, much like a cornered animal, and the Paris attacks are part of this … French forces are a major part of this military coalition against the Islamic State.

A religious Zionist cleric from a Jewish settlement on the West Bank told mourners on Saturday during the funeral of an Israeli father and son gunned down by Palestinian terrorists that the attacks in Paris were deserved due to what Europeans “did to our people 70 years ago.” The quote from Dov Lior, the chief rabbi of the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, was first reported by the Walla! news agency. “The wicked ones in blood-soaked Europe deserve it for what they did to our people 70 years ago,” Lior said. The controversial rabbi once wrote an approbation for a book called The King’s Torah that was co-written in 2009 by radical settler figure Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, which permitted killing civilian non-Jews in times of war.

The World Fantasy award trophy will no longer be represented by the face of H.P. Lovecraft after a campaign last year that called the author out as an “avowed racist” with “hideous opinions”. The change was revealed at the World Fantasy Convention on Sunday [Nov. 8], where David Mitchell nabbed the award for best novel for The Bone Clocks. It was announced that this would be the last year that winners would receive a statuette modelled on the face of Lovecraft, Locus magazine reported. No reason for the change or details surrounding what will replace Lovecraft were given.

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday [Nov. 10] rejected claims by a French comedian that his right to speak freely was denied when he was convicted and fined in France for insulting Jews. The court said Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, a provocative performer who has been repeatedly accused of hate speech and anti-Semitism, could not claim the protection of free speech guarantees in the European Convention on Human Rights. Siding with the French court that convicted him in 2009, the European rights tribunal said it would not hear his appeal of the conviction because the show that led to it was “unmistakably negationist and anti-Semitic in nature.”

Three Jewish men, two of them Israeli citizens, are among those charged with hacking the website of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars. The indictments of Gery Shalon, Joshua Samuel Aaron and Ziv Orenstein in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York were unsealed Tuesday. The 23-count indictment encompasses the Chase hack along with numerous alleged crimes targeting 12 other companies, including nine financial service companies and The Wall Street Journal, Reuters reported. Prosecutors said the three had been working together since 2007 and that their crimes include artificially inflating stock prices, an illegal bitcoin exchange, operating online casinos and creating at least 75 shell companies around the world.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday likened the European Union’s decision to label goods from Israeli settlements to the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses. Israel in retaliation called off a number of scheduled EU meetings. “The labelling of products of the Jewish state by the European Union brings back dark memories, Europe should be ashamed of itself,” he said as he wrapped up a visit to Washington … He drew the same comparison in September when he said that Israelis “remember history and we remember what happened when the products of Jews were labelled in Europe”. After the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, they imposed a boycott against the country’s Jews, issuing orders and posting signs telling the public not to buy from them.

A row has erupted between the European Union and Israel over the labelling of products “Made in Israel.” New guidelines mean Israeli producers must explicitly mark farm goods and other products that come from settlements built on Israeli occupied land, settlements the EU considers illegal. Israel has described the measure as “discriminatory” and damaging to peace efforts with Palestinians. But the European Commission says the move won’t change existing laws … While there is no EU official wording, goods must now carry the word “settlement” on the tag when sold in European shops. The Commission says the measure will give consumers the choice as to whether to buy or avoid Israeli settlement goods.

… Like the Roman Empire in the early fifth century, Europe has allowed its defenses to crumble. As its wealth has grown, so its military prowess has shrunk, along with its self-belief. It has grown decadent in its shopping malls and sports stadiums. At the same time, it has opened its gates to outsiders who have coveted its wealth without renouncing their ancestral faith … I do know that 21st-century Europe has only itself to blame for the mess it is now in. For surely nowhere in the world has devoted more resources to the study of history than modern Europe … It did no good. We learned nothing that mattered. Indeed, we learned a lot of nonsense to the effect that nationalism was a bad thing, nation-states worse, and empires the worst things of all.

… Now, it’s Europe’s turn to feel some of the horrors of the wars in the Mideast. France is a prime target because of its extensive and deepening military interventions in the Muslim world. Some 10,000 French soldiers or airmen and large numbers of intelligence operatives are involved in Syria, Iraq, the Gulf, Libya, Chad, Mali and Ivory Coast. France props up the authoritarian rulers of Algeria and Morocco. France is playing a central role in its former colonies, Syria and Lebanon. Paris appears to have long-range plans for expanding its influence in the Levant, including installing regimes attuned to French policies … In short, France has made many enemies for itself across the Mideast. It appears only a matter of time before France’s partners in Mideast intervention, the United States and Britain, become new targets of jihadist violence.

There was a painful irony when France’s immediate response to the terrorist attacks in Paris was to close the borders. If they had closed the borders decades ago, they might have avoided this attack. Someone once said that the First World War was the most stupid thing that European nations ever did. Countries on both the winning and losing sides of that war ended up worse off than before. History may yet record that an even greater stupidity, with even more catastrophic consequences in the long run, was the European nations’ decisions to import millions of people with a culture that was not merely very different from, but hostile to, the culture, the values and the people of the Western world. Even now, people who publicly warn of the dangers can be prosecuted in various European countries under “hate speech” laws.

The pathological narcissism of American college students has found a potentially devastating new source of power in the sports-industrial complex. University of Missouri president Timothy Wolfe resigned Monday morning [Nov. 9] in the face of a threatened boycott by black football players of an upcoming game. Wolfe’s alleged sin was an insufficient appreciation for the “systematic oppression” experienced by students of color at the university … There is no evidence that the University of Missouri denies equal opportunity to its black students … But Missouri’s political class has embraced the patent delusion that the university is rife with racism … The precedent set here is monumental.

When Otto Frank first published his daughter’s red-checked diary and notebooks, he wrote a prologue assuring readers that the book mostly contained her words, written while hiding from the Nazis in a secret annex of a factory in Amsterdam. But now the Swiss foundation that holds the copyright to “The Diary of Anne Frank” is alerting publishers that her father is not only the editor but also legally the co-author of the celebrated book … Foundation officials “should think very carefully about the consequences,” said Agnès Tricoire, a lawyer in Paris who specializes in intellectual property rights in France, where critics have been the most vociferous and are organizing a challenge. “If you follow their arguments, it means that they have lied for years about the fact that it was only written by Anne Frank.”

Georgetown University will rename two buildings named for school presidents who organized the sale of Jesuit-owned slaves to help pay off campus debt in the 1830s, the university’s president announced. Mulledy Hall, a new student dormitory named for the president who authorized the sale of about 272 slaves to a Louisiana plantation owner in 1838, will be called Freedom Hall until a permanent name is chosen. McSherry Hall, which houses a meditation center and was named for another university president who served as an adviser on the slave sale, will be called Remembrance Hall until it is renamed.

A German court has sentenced an 87-year-old grandmother to ten months in jail for Holocaust denial after a trial in which she insisted that Auschwitz was “not historically proven” to be a death camp. That is “only a belief,” said Ursula Haverbeck, dubbed Nazi-Oma (Nazi grandma) by the media on Friday. Haverbeck is a notorious extremist who was once chairwoman of a far-right training centre shut down in 2008 for spreading Nazi propaganda. She already has a criminal record with two fines and a suspended sentence for sedition. Haverbeck was dragged back into court after she went on television in April to declare that “the Holocaust is the biggest and most sustainable lie in history”. Unapologetic for her comment, she had told the court cheerfully, “yes I said that indeed”, according to media reports.

… Europe is undergoing the greatest mass migration since World War II, when 14 million Germans were driven out of Prussia and eastern Germany and Central and Eastern Europe. That mass migration halted after two years. But no end is in sight to the migrations from Africa and the Middle East. As long as Europe’s borders remain open, they will come. And the people who wish to come number not just in the millions but the tens and scores of millions. And they know how to get there … Jean Raspail’s “The Camp of the Saints” is proving more prophetic than Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” or Orwell’s “1984.” Considering the crises facing Europe, the question is no longer: Will the EU survive? It is Orban’s question: Will European civilization survive the century?

… There is a visible sense of resignation among many Europeans and Americans … I will try to single out three factors which largely explain the causes of our decline … Capitalism shares a major portion of the blame for the rising interracial tensions and rising social disruptions both in America and Western Europe. It is in the interest of big business in Europe and the USA to import the army of cheap labor into Europe and America … Non-European immigrants know well that they can thrive best in the guilt-ridden post-Christian Europe and America, two continents deeply paralyzed by self-hate and the alleged evils of the legacy of colonialism, slavery and fascism.

Tens of thousands of protesters poured into Warsaw’s streets on Wednesday [Nov. 11] for a demonstration organised by the far right, marching under the slogan “Poland for the Polish” and burning an EU flag. Police said 25,000 people joined the march, which marked the anniversary of Poland’s return to independence after the Second World War, while organisers put the numbers at 50,000. “God, honour, homeland,” chanted the protesters as they marched under a sea of red-and-white Polish flags. Demonstrators trampled and burned a European Union flag at one point … “Yesterday it was Moscow, today it’s Brussels which takes away our freedom,” chanted one group of protesters. Other banners read “Great Catholic Poland” and “Stop Islamisation”.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has weighed in on a popular Internet meme spawned by The New York Times Magazine — if you had the opportunity to kill Adolf Hitler when he was an infant, would you do it? The former Florida governor came down strongly in the “kill” camp, telling The Huffington Post’s Scott Conroy: “Hell yeah, I would!” “You gotta step up, man,” he added. Bush later tweeted the article featuring his answer on Monday, with the comment, “Gotta do it.” Bush has been promising to be more assertive and fiery on the campaign trail, but few likely predicted that meant weighing in on altering the future through infanticide.

French comic Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, inventor of the “quenelle” Nazi salute-like hand gesture, is presenting a lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday, over an $11,000 fine he received for inviting a Holocaust-denier on stage. In December 2008, Dieudonne awarded Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson with a prize at the Zenith theatre in Paris, which he later told a French court “was very funny.”

If you are over fifty and were raised in a Jewish household, you either heard this question, “but is it good for the Jews?” explicitly asked numerous times or were subtly encouraged to think the question to yourself. It reflects a group-centered concern born of the memory of anti-Semitic hostility and a seemingly unending vulnerability, and it can apply to almost any public action … Let’s recall that Israel’s reason for being was to give Jews shelter from the ravages of anti-Semitism … And, there is growing evidence that Israeli behavior is a major source of today’s increasing anti-Semitism.

Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu met for the first time in a year on Monday, pledging to spend much of their meeting discussing ways to expand US military aid to Israel. Putting aside recent disagreements over Iran and Palestine, the US president and the Israeli prime minister struck a hawkish tone during opening remarks in the oval office. “Israel has shouldered a tremendous defence burden over the years and we have done it with the generous assistance of the United States of America,” said Netanyahu, who is thought to be pushing for an existing ten-year deal struck by George W Bush that is worth a total of $30 billion to be replaced by a substantially more generous one once it expires … Israel has received $124.3 billion in military assistance from the US since its founding, according to a recent congressional report.

The migration crisis facing Europe could lead to the collapse of the European Union and even to war, the bloc’s longest-running foreign minister said in an interview published Monday. Jean Asselborn, foreign minister of Luxembourg since 2004, told German press agency DPA that the core EU element of borderless travel, agreed in the Luxembourg city of Schengen in 1985, is under threat. “We have maybe only several months time left [to save it],” he said. “The European Union can break apart. That can happen incredibly fast, when isolation instead of solidarity, both inwards and outwards, becomes the rule.” Asselborn is not the first European politician to warn of a break-up. Slovenian prime minister Miro Cerar said last month he believed the EU would “fall apart” if no solution is found to slow down the influx of refugees and migrants.

An upcoming election has highlighted the deep disagreement between native Hawaiians over what the future should look like. For some, it’s formal recognition of their community and a changed relationship within the US. Others want to leave the US entirely – or more accurately, want the US to leave Hawai’i … Hawaii occupies a unique place in US history — a set of islands 2,500 miles away from the mainland where in 1893, white businessmen and sympathetic politicians, with help from the US military, overthrew a constitutional monarchy … By the time of the overthrow in 1893, the Hawaiian population had gone from at least 400,000 to less than 40,000 people – all in the space of a century, in part because of diseases introduced into the islands.

The key event in this whole story was, of course, the [Nov. 1938] “Crystal Night” (“Kristallnacht”) … Here the Goebbels diary must be treated with the utmost caution … The orders were that the Aktion (operation) was to be carried out by SA men in plain clothes, and the police were not to intervene. There was to be no bloodshed and no harm done to anyone unless, of course, Jews offered armed resistance … “There is to be no looting,” stormtroopers in Kiel were told. “Nobody is to be roughed up. Foreign Jews are not to be touched. Meet any resistance with firearms. The Aktion is to be carried out in plain clothes and must be finished by five a.m.” The result was the Night of Broken Glass, one of Germany’s darkest nights.

Some 53 percent of Israelis have expressed support for the extrajudicial killings of alleged Palestinian attackers on the spot, even after their arrest and when they “no longer pose a threat”, according to a new poll. Published by the Israel Democracy Institute, the poll’s findings reflect hardening attitudes among Jewish Israelis at a time when unrest has spread throughout Israel, the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The poll examined the attitudes of Israeli citizens – both Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel – as tensions and unrest soar amid growing violence. The study was conducted over two days in late October and interviewed 600 adults. It also found that 80 percent of Israeli interviewees believe that the family homes of alleged Palestinian attackers should be demolished.

Whoever bombed the Russian airliner that was destroyed over Sinai last week must be having a hearty laugh watching the ensuing chaotic reaction of the great powers. As of this writing, it increasingly appears that the Russian Metroliner A321-200 Airbus was indeed downed by an explosion … Putin has made clear he does not want a wider conflict in Syria and is only trying to add punch to President Bashar Assad’s beleaguered army. But ‘mission creep’ lurks in all wars, particularly Syria where US special forces are already involved. Let’s hope Putin’s famously steely nerves restrain larger involvement. Meanwhile, the criminals of IS must be laughing and back-slapping over just how much they have sown discord in the ranks of their infidel foes.

The Anti-Defamation League has called upon the new Polish Defense Minister to apologize and retract 2002 comments about the anti-Semitic “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” On Monday, the ADL charged Polish Defense Minister-designate, Antoni Macierewicz, with making an offensive anti-Semitic response to a caller during a broadcast on Radio Maryja … The caller asked what Macierewicz thought about the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a document circulated by the Tsarist secret police to promote the belief that there is an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world. Macierewicz responded that he had read the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and found it interesting. He acknowledged that there’s a debate about the theory’s authenticity, but said: “Experience shows that there are such groups in Jewish circles.”

Members of parliament from Europe began meeting in Berlin Saturday to plan strategy for fighting the pending publication of guidelines to enable EU member states to place consumer labels on exports from east Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria [occupied Palestine] and the Golan Heights. The 24 lawmakers attending the three-day Israel Allies Foundation annual Jerusalem Chairman’s Conference came from Estonia, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Romania, France, Slovakia, Macedonia and Germany. They were joined by Congressional Israel Allies Caucus Chairman Eliot Engel and MKs [Israeli parliamentarians] Yair Lapid, Yoel Hasson, Merav Ben Ari and Sharren Haskel.

Without Congressional permission, public debate, or any attempt to rally the American public’s support, President Obama has ordered U.S. ground troops to a war zone, his most flagrantly unconstitutional war-making since he unlawfully helped to overthrow Muammar al-Qaddafi … This should perturb even proponents of a U.S. war against ISIS. As Obama put it prior to the 2008 election: “The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” Now he is engaging in the very actions that he specifically declared to be illegal. And Congress is abdicating its responsibility to either empower him to wage war or to rein him in.

… The broader challenge to American statecraft is figuring out how to liquidate the unsound strategic positions the United States took on following its Cold War victory — and especially after 9/11 — without inviting allies and adversaries to assume the United States is no longer a force to be reckoned with in places that actually matter … At one level, the idea that Obama is running a toothless foreign policy is silly, and the fact that people believe it shows the extent to which our foreign policy establishment now sees constant military adventures as the norm rather than the exception … In short, the history of the past few decades throws considerable cold water on the claim that the active use of American power is always a dependable source of peace and tranquility.

… The trouble here is that in its central, most crucial scene, [Elie Wiesel’s book] Night isn’t historically true, and at least two other important episodes are almost certainly fiction … Wiesel made things up, in a way that his many subsequent detractors could identify as not untypical of his modus operandi: grasping with deft assurance what people important to his future would want to hear and, by the same token, would not want to hear … In Wiesel’s eyes, as in the eyes of his disciples, Night assumed a level of sacrosanctity, next in importance to the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai … Although the Nobel committee extolled him as a “messenger to mankind” it is difficult to find examples of Wiesel sending any message on behalf of those victimized by the policies of the United States, and virtually impossible when it comes to victims of Israel.

The religion of “the Holocaust” is a secular one: it belongs to the lay world; it is profane; in actuality, it has at its disposal the secular arm, that is a temporal authority with dreaded power. It has its dogma, its commandments, its decrees, its prophets and its high priests. As one revisionist has observed, it has its circle of saints, male and female, amongst whom, for example, Saint Anne (Frank), Saint Simon (Wiesenthal) and Saint Elie (Wiesel). It has its holy places, its rituals and its pilgrimages. It has its sacred (and macabre) buildings and its relics …

… As European leftists have been invoking the Holocaust to ensure that immigrants are let in, U.S. leftists have been doing the same to ensure that they are not kicked out. Former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick claimed that the deportation of Mexicans is no different from sending Jews “to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps.” Sen. Patrick Leahy was even less subtle on the Senate floor when arguing against deportations: “Think of all those Jews that went to the ovens because we forgot our principles. Let’s not turn our backs now.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein made the same point in a New York Times interview.

The proposal to remove Alexander Hamilton from the ten-dollar bill shows yet again how poorly we often value the really deserving figures in our history: Other than Hamilton’s great patron, colleague, and friend George Washington and his lineal political descendant Abraham Lincoln, no one deserves more gratitude, interest, and credit for the relative success of the U.S.A. as a state, society, and economy than Hamilton … Born poor and illegitimate in the West Indies, Hamilton was a completely self-made man …

… Who is right in this dispute? As a former student of international law in Geneva, here’s my view: Washington is on the right side of international law. China is wrong to lay exclusive claims to the atolls and China Sea. Its claims are based on flimsy historic documents and the suspicious finding of religious relics, a dubious method long used by Israel to justify its land seizures. In fact, China is doing just what Israel has done in the West Bank, using salami tactics and seizure of high ground to back claims by creating facts … As in Syria, aircraft from all sides are flying dangerously close, warships are playing chicken, and threats are growing hotter. The China Seas are hardly worth risking war when diplomacy holds the answers. Besides, China would be unwise to go to war against the US 7th Fleet backed by Japan.

Israel’s Minister for National Infrastructures and Energy, Yuval Steinitz, believes that the election victory of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted AKP party last Sunday is bad news for Israel, calling it “unfortunate.” “During Erdogan’s time in power, and specifically in recent years, relations with Israel have deteriorated from cooperation to bitter tensions,” Steinitz said. “Turkey is drawing closer to Hamas and radical Islam at the expense of relations with Israel, including incitement against Israel,” Steinitz, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Turkey’s snap elections resulted in a decisive victory for President Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Palestine is a war zone, pitting an Israeli aggressor against millions of defenseless Palestinians. State-sponsored terror continues unabated. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reported at least 2,617 Palestinians shot with live fire or potentially lethal rubber or plastic coated steel bullets in October, used indiscriminately … Through Sunday, 72 Palestinians were murdered in cold blood, around 8,300 injured. Video evidence in some cases showed premeditated assassinations, knives then planted beside victims to claim attempted stabbing incidents – Big Lies blaming them for Israeli cold blooded murder … Eight Israeli deaths are known, the last one on October 18 – only two from stabbing incidents. Daily claims of knife wielding Palestinians are Big Lies, blaming victims for Israeli high crimes.

The House passed a resolution Tuesday calling on European governments to enhance security efforts protecting Jews from anti-Semitic attacks. Passed 418-0, the resolution cites recent anti-Semitic massacres this year at a kosher supermarket in Paris and the Great Synagogue in Copenhagen during a bat mitzvah as evidence of religiously motivated violence. “The slaughter of these people, their persecution, leaves for humanity the thought: Have we learned nothing from the Holocaust?” said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.). “European leaders must unequivocally send this message to their people and act to provide greater protection for their Jewish citizens,” he added.

Holocaust survivors and family members in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere can apply for compensation from a $60 million (55,2 million euros) fund for those deported to Nazi camps by France’s state rail company SNCF. The money will be available for survivors of deportations, or spouses or family members of deportees who have since died. The application period for the French-funded, U.S.-administered program opened Tuesday. The agreement between the U.S. and France was reached in December 2014 … This new programme supplements the coverage of deportees and their orphans living in the United States, Israel and other countries and means that France’s compensation regime now covers the full range of deportees and victims around the world.

In this city, the rallying point for Hitler, is the largest piece of real estate bequeathed by the Nazis, and a burden only increasing with time. First comes the sheer physical size: a parade ground bigger than 12 football fields. A semicircular Congress Hall that dwarfs any structure at Lincoln Center. Great Street, more than one-and-a-half miles long, with no structures on either side — a modern Appian Way where the storm troopers strutted between the old Nuremberg of Albrecht Dürer and the rallies idolizing the Führer. Then there are its troubled history and the far stickier question of what to do with it … One of the forum-related events is an exhibit that traces the Parteitagsgelände, where party congresses were held, since United States troops reached it in 1945 and blew up the towering stone eagle and swastika atop the Zeppelin tribune.

They arrived in an unceasing stream, 10,000 a day at the height, as many as a million migrants heading for Europe this year, pushing infants in strollers and elderly parents in wheelchairs, carrying children on their shoulders and life savings in their socks. They came in search of a new life, but in many ways they were the heralds of a new age. There are more displaced people and refugees now than at any other time in recorded history — 60 million in all — and they are on the march in numbers not seen since World War II … The most striking thing about the current migration crisis, however, is how much bigger it could still get … In Nigeria, which already has double the population of Germany, 40 percent of people would emigrate to the West if they could. And the lesson of 2015 — for them and much of the world — is that they can.

Sweden is facing collapse thanks to the recent huge influx of migrants into the country, the Swedish foreign minister has said. As 190,000 migrants this year alone pour into the country, law and order is beginning to break down as the country plays witness to numerous arson attacks, stabbings and gang rapes. The Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallstrom has warned that Sweden, a country of just 9.8 million people, cannot continue to take migrants at the present rate without services breaking down. In an interview, Mrs Wallstrom said: “I think most people feel that we cannot maintain a system where perhaps 190,000 people will arrive every year – in the long run, our system will collapse.”… Once thought of as one of Europe’s most peaceful nations, Sweden is rapidly becoming a fragmented nation, at war with itself.

Billionaire investor George Soros has confirmed he wants to bring down Europe’s borders, following the accusation made last week by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Last week, Mr Orban accused Mr Soros – who was born in Hungary – of deliberately encouraging the migrant crisis. “This invasion is driven, on the one hand, by people smugglers, and on the other side by those (human rights) activists who support everything that weakens the nation-state,” Mr Orban said. “This Western mindset and this activist network is perhaps best represented by George Soros.” … Soros is a firm backer of transnational bodies such as the European Union, and his Open Society Foundation (OSF) provides assistance for pro-migration activists. He is well-known for his support for “progressive” causes … [and] Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Primary schools and kindergartens in Germany are abolishing a Christian celebration and changing it into a generic “festival of lights” so as not to offend the hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants pouring into the country. According to a translated report out of the Epoch Times, schools are re-naming the Christian-themed St. Martin’s Day, an annual celebration that takes place in numerous European countries on November 11. Several daycare centers in Düsseldorf have abolished the festival altogether out of “consideration for the refugees,” a decision that has prompted fierce criticism from head teachers at other schools in the region. Others have re-named the event the “Festival of Lights” in order to “facilitate the integration” of the Muslim migrants, said Nanette Weidelt, head of the Düsseldorf Don Bosco-Montessori School.

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO) said on Monday it had expelled a member of its parliamentary group over anti-Semitic comments on Facebook, and called on her to give up her seat … The remark on Facebook last week, in which MP Susanne Winter expressed support for an anti-Semitic comment, had crossed a “red line”, her party said in a statement … Another user responded to the posting with a comment that included the phrase, “The Zionist money-Jews worldwide are the problem,” according to Austrian media. Winter replied: “You take the words out of my mouth 🙂 There is a lot I am not allowed to write. That is why I am all the more pleased by brave, independent people!”

… I had first-hand experience with Netanyahu’s rewriting of facts in 1990, when I was reporting on Israel with Mike Wallace for 60 Minutes. Our report was provoked by the killing of 17 Palestinians gunned down on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount by Israeli Border Police on October 8th, 1990 … The press bought the story. Except for an excellent but lonely investigative piece in the Village Voice, it went virtually unchallenged by the international media … What we found was that the official Israeli version put out by Netanyahu was, as the Palestinians had charged, a total fabrication. There was no other way to describe it. The tragedy had been precipitated by a radical Jewish group, the Temple Mount Faithful, which had long been advocating a complete Israeli takeover of the holy site.

The US Constitution confers upon Congress the legal power to declare war. Or, to put it a different way, if Congress hasn’t declared war, then the United States is not, in any legal sense, at war. No, an “authorization for use of military force” is not a declaration of war … From these facts, it follows that each and every one of the 90,000 or so US combat deaths since the final casualty of World War II … as well as all “enemy” casualties in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and numerous smaller conflicts, were and remain war crimes. And that the politicians responsible are, yes, war criminals … If Congress isn’t willing to take the simple step of voting to declare war, why should the rest of us pretend that it has done so?

“The United States is being sucked into a new Middle East war,” says The New York Times. And the Times has it exactly right. Despite repeated pledges not to put “boots on the ground” in Syria, President Obama is inserting 50 U.S. special ops troops into that country, with more to follow … Yet, if we put U.S. forces onto sovereign Syrian territory, against the will and resistance of that government, that is an act of war … Obama has begun an escalation into Syria’s civil war, and not only against ISIS and the al-Nusra Front, but against Syria’s armed forces … Yet, who authorized Obama to take us into this war? The Russians and Iranians are in Syria at the invitation of the government. But Obama has no authorization from Congress to put combat troops into Syria.

France will pay $60 million to mainly American victims of the Holocaust who were transported by train from France to Nazi death camps during World War II, an affair that nearly cost French state rail company SNCF its US contracts. The two countries issued a joint statement Tuesday announcing the entry into force of a compensation agreement drafted in December 2014 after years of legal wrangling. The settlement creates a fund with $60 million paid by France to the United States to compensate thousands of non-French citizens, their spouses or descendants who were not covered by a settlement program that France put in place in 1946.

Former American President George H. W. Bush has publicly criticised Dick Cheney and Donald H Rumsfeld, key members of his son’s administration, in a biography due out next week. Mr Cheney, Mr Bush said, built “his own empire” and Mr Rumsfeld “served the president badly,” US media report. Mr Bush also called Mr Rumsfeld “an arrogant fellow” with “swagger”. Mr Cheney was vice-president and Mr Rumsfeld was defence secretary under George W Bush. “I don’t like what he did, and I think it hurt the president having [Mr Rumsfeld’s] iron-ass view of everything,” Mr Bush said, according to an article in The New York Times that cites the biography’s author, Jon Meacham. “There’s a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks. He’s more ‘kick ass’ and ‘take names, take numbers’. I think he paid a price for that.”

… It begins to make sense when we realize that American neoconservatives, who include Wolfowitz and a host of people in the Bush’s Pentagon and State Department, have for years acted as a brain trust for the right-wing of Israel’s ruling elite (Likud). In that capacity they issued papers, under the auspices of the Israeli Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, expressing favor toward policies to destabilize the secular regimes in Iraq and Syria, as well as the governments in Lebanon (home of Hezbollah) and, ultimately, Iran – the Shia Crescent. (Hence the general demonization of Iran and the touting of the nonexistent nuclear threat.) These proposed policies would embody a change in strategy for Israel, from seeking a “comprehensive peace” with its neighbors to managing a balance of power.

The slogan “Death to America” is not aimed at the American people, but rather American policies, Iran’s supreme leader said in comments reported on his official website Tuesday. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei discussed the slogan while meeting with Iranian students ahead of the anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979 … Khamenei says the “aim of the slogan is not death to American people. The slogan means death to U.S. policies and arrogance.” The slogan has “strong support” In Iran, he said. Khamenei and hard-liners in the Iranian government remain deeply suspicious of the United States and view its policies a threat to the country.

The geography of obesity in the United States has taken an alarming turn for the worse in just a generation. In 1990, the country would have been considered relatively healthy when it comes to weight. Sure, there were plenty of people who were overweight and obese. But the problem was relatively limited with not a single one of our 50 states having a prevalence equal to or greater than 15 percent. Today, all of them do — and new numbers released this week show the problem has been getting worse, not better despite many millions spent on national campaigns …

US archaeologists in Greece have uncovered the skeleton of an ancient warrior that has lain undisturbed for more than 3,500 years along with a huge hoard of treasure, the Greek culture ministry announced Monday. The treasure is “the most important to have been discovered in 65 years” in continental Greece, the ministry said. The wooden coffin of the unknown soldier — evidently a person of some importance — was found on the site of the Mycenaean-era Palace of Nestor on Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula. He had been laid to rest with an array of fine gold jewellery, including an ornate string of pearls, signet rings, a bronze sword with a gold and ivory handle, silver vases and ivory combs.

Religious people still represent the majority of Americans, but the gap between them and the religiously unaffiliated is widening. The perception that America is heading toward European levels of secularity arises from a shift in the number and behavior of non-religiously affiliated Americans, or “nones,” according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday … The non-religious in America are increasing both in number and in antipathy toward religion, but the faithful remain unaffected, said Gregory Smith, the Pew study’s lead researcher. … Americans attend church regularly at roughly the same levels that they did in the 1940s, he said, but they have the perception of unprecedented decrease because church-going in the 1950s and ’60s became unusually high.

Jeb Bush delivered a speech today meant to relaunch his flagging campaign. Among other dubious foreign policy claims he made, this was the most remarkable for its dishonesty: “For the first time in the history of Israel, its greatest existential threat has been created by its greatest ally.” Bush’s statement is just one falsehood after another. Israel does not face an “existential threat” from Iran (or from any other state in the region), and it isn’t going to face one in the coming decades. Iran doesn’t possess the ability to threaten Israel’s existence, and because of the nuclear deal it poses even less of a potential threat to Israel. That is why Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission has reportedly endorsed the deal.

A steady stream of Russians on Thursday read out the names of thousands of people killed by Soviet authorities in an annual ceremony in Moscow to remember the millions of victims of Stalinist terror. Pensioners and mothers with young children braved biting wind to queue in the shadow of the Lubyanka headquarters of the feared Soviet secret police — which now houses Russia’s FSB security service — where they recited names and laid flowers at a modest monument … The yearly event — known as “Bringing Back Names” — is organised by leading rights group Memorial and held on the eve of a national day commemorating those persecuted by the Soviet authorities.

… Kolyma was the harshest island of the Soviet Union’s Gulag archipelago, and the region became a byword for the horrors of the Gulag camp system. Even by conservative estimates, more than 100,000 people died while working, and 11,000 were shot in Kolyma alone. In today’s Russia it is not fashionable to delve too deeply into Gulag history … With the Soviet victory in the second world war elevated to a national rallying point under Vladimir Putin’s presidency, the forced labour camps, through which millions of Soviet citizens passed, are seen by many as an unfortunate but necessary by-product. In many museums and in much public discourse, the Gulag is not ignored completely, but is “contextualised” in a way that plays down the horror and pairs it with the war, suggesting the two come as a package.

The Russian authorities have opened a new museum in Moscow dedicated to the millions who were persecuted in Soviet labour camps in 1930-1950 – in the so-called Gulag system. The opening coincided with a national day of remembrance for the victims of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Earlier, thousands of victims’ names were read out near the Lubyanka, the former base of the KGB secret police. The new Gulag museum is bigger than a previous one founded in 2001. Under President Vladimir Putin’s rule Russian officials have tended to downplay Stalin’s crimes, focusing more on Stalin’s role in the Soviet World War Two victory over Nazi Germany. Portraits of Stalin have reappeared in public – yet they were taboo for decades after his death and the 1956 denunciation of Stalinism by his Communist successor Nikita Khrushchev.

A judge has jailed a “Holocaust denier” for five months for using performance art in the public square in Ennis to further his claims that the Holocaust did not take place. At Ennis District Court, Judge Patrick Durcan jailed 49-year old Dermot Mulqueen of Steele’s Terrace, Ennis for five months for the lunchtime public performance on January 23 … Mr Mulqueen told the court that the performance art entitled ‘Liberation of the Mind’ was carried out to launch International Holocaust Hoax Day. Prior to carrying out the performance in front a crowd of mainly teenagers in Ennis, Mr Mulqueen informed his Twitter followers what he was about to do. In front of a crowd at the monument, Mr Mulqueen had erected a sign entitled ‘International Holocaust Hoax Day’.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) condemned remarks by a member of the Austrian parliament in which she heartily agreed with a comment posted on Facebook that “Zionist money Jews are the global problem.” A person named Oehlmann Hans- Jörg wrote Friday on Winter’s Facebook page: “The Zionist money Jews are the global problem …” … Susanne Winter, an MP and member of the extreme-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), wrote in response to the post: “It is great. You are taking the words right out of my mouth. There are a lot of things I am not allowed to write. Therefore I’m even more pleased about courageous, independent people.”

The trendy bars and clubs of Braamfontein in downtown Johannesburg are not the melting pots of race and culture you might have expected. Most places are all white or all black. The coming together of the nation Nelson Mandela worked so hard for appears to have stalled. The “rainbow nation” he spoke so much about is being seen as a failed project by many young, particularly black, South Africans … They mock the idea of a rainbow nation, scoff at any suggestion they need white friends, and rightly ask why is there more wealth in the hands of the whites now than there was back then. Mr Mandela is dead, a new black consciousness is alive and well. And it is angry.

A talk show that aired this week on Egyptian station al-Rahma TV includes a segment in which the host and a guest agree that burning is the only solution for Jews … The show’s guest, Islamic history professor Yusri Ahmad Zidan, tells host Muhammad Khaled that the Crusaders — primarily European Christian fighters who traveled to the Holy Land in the Middle Ages to reclaim it from Muslim rule — sold Jews into slavery during their campaigns in the Middle East … “The history of the Jews has been black since the dawn of time,” Khaled continues. “Nebuchadnezzar burned them, the Crusaders burned them, and even Hitler and Nazism burned them. Is burning the only solution for the Jews?” “So it seems. So it seems,” Zidan replies.