-
Trump's Offer to Meet Iran's President Rouhani Won't Get Us A Better Deal. We Had Our Chance And Lost It.
Trita Parsi
… Trump thinks he can achieve this by sanctioning Iran until the rulers in Tehran beg for mercy. But if history is a guide, there will be no such capitulation by Iran: With the Iranians, one of the most costly things to do, both culturally and politically, would be to show Trump the respect and deference he desires after his aggressive string of insults. So I am skeptical about Trump’s ability to pivot to diplomacy with Iran, but that is not to say that a better deal cannot be achieved. Indeed, better deals have often been on the table — but the United States rejected them at the time … If Trump wants to explore realistic changes in Iran’s regional policies, missile defense or tougher restrictions on its nuclear program, he must first be willing to contemplate changes in U.S. policy.
-
The Looming War Against Iran
Eric Margolis
… We are by now used to blood and thunder rhetoric between Washington and Tehran. But this time White House policy is clearly being directed by pro-Israel American neocons who want the US military to crush Iran as it did Iraq. Crushing Iran will leave Israel with unfettered control of the Mideast and its oil – unless Russia or Turkey intervene against Israel, which is most unlikely … The Pentagon has planned a high-intensity air war against Iran that Israel and the Saudis might very well join. The plan calls for over 2,300 air strikes against Iranian strategic targets … Direct western intervention in a major ground campaign seems unlikely.
-
Trump’s Iran Derangement
Daniel Larison - The American Conservative
I have frequently described Trump’s hostility to Iran as his Iran obsession, but after tonight’s unhinged tweet we might have to start calling it his Iran derangement … Trump and his allies have already made sure that tensions with Iran are high and getting worse daily, and the president’s latest outburst will makes things even worse than they were. Talking about inflicting consequences “the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered” strongly suggests a willingness to cause massive death and destruction in Iran. It is imperative that Congress make clear that the president has no authority to order an attack on Iran, which would be a flagrant act of aggression, a violation of the U.N. Charter, and a breach of his oath of office.
-
Trump is Seeding War Clouds Over Iran
Michael S. Rozeff
Trump and Pompeo are squeezing Iran where it hurts. They are trying to prevent Iran from selling oil internationally. They are applying maximum pressure upon Iran. This is overt. It is announced policy … The U.S. is threatening China and India if they buy Iranian oil … In essence, the U.S. policy is an act of war. Trump is seeding war clouds over Iran. He wants Iranians to overturn their government. Failing that, he appears to want Iran to attack American assets or engage in some other act of retaliation, perhaps in Europe or the Persian Gulf, that can be made into a cause of war so that the U.S. and its allies (NATO, Israel, Saudi Arabia) can attack Iran in force. At least, that is what he is risking … The U.S. long-term aim is to have this entire region be under the wing of America.
-
Mark is devoted to Fox News. Polly is a loyal viewer of MSNBC. Their viewing habits reflect a deeply polarised nation and shape how they see the world. As part of the Ask America project, the BBC visited their hometown of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, to find out how that’s impacting the national conversation.
-
… From Europe’s villages to the grand capitals of London, Paris and Rome, there has been an explosion in the number of Chinese tourists — the most visible sign of China’s expanding economic presence in Europe, one both welcomed and feared. In 2017, more than six million Chinese citizens visited European countries, according to a report by the China Tourism Academy and the Chinese online travel agency Ctrip. European authorities estimate the numbers are higher — more like ten million. Tourism from China to European Union countries has tripled in the past ten years, and has risen more than from any other major non-EU countries, such as the United States, Russia or Brazil, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency … The numbers are expected to continue to surge in 2018 …
-
Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi left prison Sunday and was greeted by crowds of supporters after serving eight months for slapping Israeli soldiers, an episode that made her a symbol of resistance for Palestinians. Tamimi, 17, and her mother Nariman, who was also jailed over the incident, arrived in their village of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank, where they were mobbed by journalists. Easily recognisable by her shock of reddish hair, Tamimi wore a Palestinian-style keffiyeh around her neck, at times appearing relaxed but at other moments overwhelmed as television cameras followed her. “The resistance continues until the fall of the occupation, and of course the (female) prisoners in jail are all strong,” Ahed Tamimi said, her voice barely audible above the crowd.
-
What Everyone Seemed to Ignore in Helsinki
Jon Basil Utley - The American Conservative
Sifting through the cacophony of commentary from the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, here are four key points missed, ignored or glossed over by the Washington establishment and mainstream news coverage — and they require a good airing … Big Media totally ignored the trillion dollar gorilla in room: Why does anyone have to spend so much on NATO in the first place? … The Trump administration and Big Media, for all their noise, mainly argue that more spending is good. There is no debate about the reasons why. Meanwhile Russia is cutting its military spending. Washington is so dominated by our military-industrial-congressional complex that spending money is a major intent.
-
The Madness Gripping Washington
Philip M. Giraldi
The United States and Israel have been threatening Iran for something like twenty years, using the pretext that it was developing a nuclear weapon initially, but also more recently declaring that Tehran has become a threat to the entire Middle East. Both contentions are essentially lies, concocted by an Israel and Saudi Arabia that would prefer to have Iran removed as a possible impediment to their own ambitions. And they would like the United States to do the removing. Iran is the hottest of all hot spots in the American view, but the tendency of the White House to threaten first before engaging in negotiations has meant that most nations have come to see the United States as the greatest threat to peace worldwide.
-
President Trump Could be Ready to Order a Strike Against Iran, Australian Government Figures Say
ABC (Australia)
Senior figures in the Turnbull Government have told the ABC they believe the United States is prepared to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, perhaps as early as next month, and that Australia is poised to help identify possible targets. It comes amid intense sabre-rattling by US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani. The ABC has been told Australian defence facilities would likely play a role in identifying targets in Iran, as would British intelligence agencies. But a senior security source emphasised there was a big difference between providing accurate intelligence and analysis on Iran’s facilities and being part of a “kinetic” mission.
-
The America That Howard Zinn Made
Gilbert T. Sewall - The American Conservative
… Two generations have come of age saturated by Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and its disdain for legacy America. Having sold an estimated three million copies since 1980, Zinn’s book is the nation’s best known American history … Zinn’s view of U.S. history permeates what students learn about the country’s past from grade school to grad school … Zinn’s critics often ignore the wide concerns Americans of all political backgrounds feel over past injustices and the desire to rectify them in the present … Zinn did more than anyone else to turn the prevailing American narrative from one of national pride and triumph to centuries of dishonor. His book’s impact on how the nation’s post-patriotic establishment thinks is unique and possibly accelerating.
-
PayPal Censors Journalists Who Criticize Israel
A. Abunimah - The Electronic Intifada
An operative of Israel’s global censorship campaign has admitted to exaggerating claims of anti-Semitism in order to engineer crackdowns on supporters of Palestinian rights. In the latest instance, Benjamin Weinthal has apparently succeeded in persuading PayPal to close down the account of the French online publication Agence Media Palestine. This constitutes censorship as it denies journalists the means to raise money for their work and retaliates against them for ideas they express … Weinthal is a “research fellow” at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, an American neoconservative group that works closely with the Israeli government, and which has attempted to smear the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights as linked to Hamas and Iran.
-
Hasbara is Dead: Israel is Losing the PR Battle
Philip Weiss – Mondoweiss
… Hasbara [Zionist propaganda] has died. The Israeli effort to “explain” its actions to the world – that era is over. Israel has given up trying to explain itself to fair-minded people. Because the fair-minded have all made up their minds; the slaughter in Gaza has seen to that … No, its explanations are reserved now for the hard-core supporters. The hasbara is pure propaganda, aimed at rallying the base. And everyone else is tuning out … Then there’s Israel’s embrace of apartheid and massacre as its only answer to its constitutional problem, the Palestinians. There is no vision in Israeli leadership, and after four Gaza massacres, everyone knows it. At a July 4th party a guest who used to love Israel admitted it may not be around 30 years from now … Hasbara always relied on a passive American press and active advocates for the Israeli line who got airtime.
-
In Britain, Jewish Community Newspapers Say Labour Party Leader Corbyn Poses 'Existential Threat'
Reuters
Three British Jewish [community] newspapers said on Wednesday that there would be an “existential threat to Jewish life in this country” if the opposition Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, won power from the ruling Conservative Party. The Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News and Jewish Telegraph said in a joint editorial titled “United We Stand” that the Labour Party had shown a tolerance of anti-Semitism since Corbyn was elected leader of the party in 2015. It said their response was needed “because of the existential threat to Jewish life in this country that would be posed by a Jeremy Corbyn-led government”.
-
… Putin has made considerable efforts to reach out to Russian Jewish communities, both within his state’s borders and in Israel. His country’s chief rabbi, Berel Lazar, is a close confidante … Marvin Kalb, a Brookings Institution fellow who authored the 2015 book “Imperial Gamble: Putin, Ukraine, and the New Cold War,” suggested that Putin’s courting of Russia’s Jews is the result of cold calculation, not emotion. “He reaches out to the Jews of Russia for reasons relating to old-fashioned Slavic anti-Semitism and the new requirements of Russian policy in the Middle East,” Kalb told JTA in an email … Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have met in Russia and in Israel, pursuing future “shared victories” and strengthening a fledgling symbiotic relationship.
-
Israel’s 'Nation State Law' Fuels Tension in the Region, Says Russia’s Foreign Ministry
Middle East Monitor
The Russian foreign ministry said a recent law passed by Israel which declares the country a state for all Jews “complicates the peace process” and “increases regional tension”. Russian foreign ministry official, Artyom Kozhin, said unilateral steps do not serve peace, raise tension and greatly hamper efforts to launch the peace process. “A just and guaranteed settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict must be based on the principles of international law, relevant Security Council resolutions and the UN General Assembly, which provide to settle all final issues through negotiations,” he added. Last Thursday, the Israeli Knesset passed the “nation state bill” into law which limits self-determination right to Jews only.
-
Israel’s 'Jewish Nation-State' Law a Prelude to Annexation
David Sheen - Middle East Eye
When the Netanyahu government passed a Basic Law this week enshrining a superior set of rights for Israel’s Jewish citizens, it ushered in a new era of open apartheid. To appreciate the significance of the new nation-state law, one must understand why the bill split Israel’s nationalist camp, and why demographic factors forced it to the fore. After the final vote, ruling Likud lawmaker Avi Dichter, who sponsored the bill’s first iteration, explained its true purpose. “We are enshrining this important bill into a law today to prevent even the slightest thought, let alone attempt, to transform Israel to a country of all its citizens,” Dichter gloated after the law passed this week … Of course, ever since the state was founded in 1948, Israel has discriminated against its non-Jewish Palestinian citizens in a myriad of ways.
-
Being Ordinary
Gilad Atzmon
… Jewishness is a sophisticated survival strategy. It is a strict regulatory system of adherence. It encourages internal debate but limits any such deliberation by clear boundaries … It took me a few years to understand that my dissent was actually pretty similar to early Zionist thought, sharing its phantasmic idea of becoming ‘people like all other people.’ Indeed, my personal goal was to fulfil the early Zionist project for myself: to become an ordinary human being like all other goyim. I realised that to achieve my goal, the first step was to stop being a Jew. … I saw the need to emphasise that rather than speaking ‘to Jews,’ I much preferred to talk about “Jewishness, Jewish culture and ID politics.”
-
Ernest Hemingway Was Secret Soviet Spy, New Book Claims
L. Pasha-Robinson - The Independent (Britain)
Celebrated American novelist Ernest Hemingway was a Soviet spy for Joseph Stalin, a new book has claimed. Written by former CIA officer Nicholas Reynolds, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935-1961 suggests the war correspondent and novelist led a secret double life. Mr Reynolds, who said he was able to access a classified KGB file smuggled out of Moscow, claims the Pulitzer prize-winning author was recruited in 1940 by the predecessor to the KGB known as NKVD. The document reportedly revealed that Hemingway was given the codename “Argo” after he was recruited by Jacob Golos, a top NKVD official in New York. “Argo did not give us any political information, though he repeatedly expressed his willingness and desire to help us,” the Soviet file reportedly reads.
-
Rouhani and Trump Trade Barbs: Sharp Exchange in US-Iran 'War of Words'
US Institute of Peace (Washington, DC)
On July 22, President Hassan Rouhani cautioned President Donald Trump against taking hostile actions toward Iran. “Don’t play with the lion’s tail; you will regret it,” Rouhani said at a meeting of Iranian diplomats. Trump, in a tweet, warned that further threats would be met with “consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before.” … National Security Advisor John Bolton echoed Trump’s warning. “President Trump told me that if Iran does anything at all to the negative, they will pay a price like few countries have ever paid before,” he said.
-
Iran Vows Not to Negotiate With US 'Under Shadow of Threats'
Press TV (Iran)
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi says the US should forget about the possibility of holding one-sided negotiations with the Islamic Republic “under the shadow of threats.” … Noting American authorities need to avoid repeating their “failed experience” of the past. “The US should know better that the world today and the current era are no place for domination, bullying or one-sidedness,” he said, adding that the negative view of the world public opinion towards US policies was indicative of a great change in the international scene.
-
Ugly Destination of Trump’s Iran Policy
Paul R. Pillar
… To the extent Iranian leaders might be sounding a little testy these days, no one should be surprised. In response to Iran’s internationally certified compliance with an agreement in which the country willingly subjected itself to some of the most severe restrictions and intrusive monitoring in the history of nuclear arms control, the Trump administration has reneged on U.S. obligations under the same agreement, sworn hostility toward Iran, waged economic warfare against it, and blatantly attempted to destabilize it. … The timing of Trump’s all-caps blast most likely was related to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech the same day, which was a full-throated call to destabilize the Iranian government.
-
Electronic Frontier Foundation: Banks, Payment Processors Are Becoming 'De Facto Internet Censors'
A. Bokhari - Breitbart
Payment processors like PayPal and Stripe are becoming “de facto internet censors”, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the leading liberal nonprofit claiming to defend free expression and privacy online. The EFF thinks that the behavior of services like Stripe and PayPal — which Breitbart News covered extensively in an article today — constitute a major threat to free expression on the web. “EFF is deeply concerned that payment processors are making choices about which websites can and can’t accept payments or process donations,” an EFF spokeswoman told Breitbart News. “This can have a huge impact on what types of speech are allowed to flourish online.” … Online financial services have clamped down on right-wingers and supporters of free speech in recent years.
-
The Jewish Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis
A. Pink - Forward
… The [Sackler] family’s fortune comes from selling pharmaceuticals — most notably OxyContin, the addictive painkiller at the center of America’s opioid epidemic. A new profile in Esquire chronicles the life and business practices of Arthur, Mortimer and Raymond Sackler, three brothers from a Jewish immigrant family who built a medical empire. Their descendants privately own Purdue Pharma, which was instrumental in using lobbying and advanced marketing techniques to convince doctors of the need to manage patients’ pain — and then prescribe OxyContin to manage it. As OxyContin use ballooned in the 1990s and 2000s, so did addiction.
-
Once Again, Israel’s Influence Outpaces Russia’s: Israel Was the Big Winner from the Trump-Putin Meeting
Philip Weiss
Trump’s fiasco in Helsinki has provided fresh impetus for the story of Russian influence over the White House. Yet again few are commenting on an obvious big winner of the presidential meeting, Israel. Trump repeatedly praised Israel at the press conference, Vladimir Putin vowed to work with Israel in Syria, and Netanyahu pronounced the presidential meeting a great gain for Israel … Trump’s praise for Israel was fulsome and unprompted, far more lavish than his praise of Putin. No country has ever been closer than Israel to the US. “We’ve worked with Israel long and hard for many years, many decades. I think we’ve never — never has anyone, any country been closer than we are. President Putin also is helping Israel … Creating safety for Israel is something that both President Putin and I would like to see very much.”
-
Donald Trump went into his meeting Monday with Vladimir Putin in Finland deeply concerned about national security. It wasn’t the security of American citizens, however, but rather those of Israel that the US President appeared to have on his mind. This wasn’t a surprise as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been urging Trump to discuss Israel’s number one strategic concern with the Russian President: Iran’s involvement in Syria … Let’s compare that commitment to Israel’s national interest with Trump’s failure to address US interests on Monday … It seems that Trump delivered for Israel, if not the US. After the summit, Netanyahu tweeted, “The friendship between Israel and the US has never been stronger.”
-
'Like Father, Like Son': Testing Folk Beliefs About Heredity in the Arena of Assisted Reproduction
Kevin Mitchell – Wiring the Brain
… When people are making choices that they fell may directly and possibly profoundly affect their children, they clearly place a heavy emphasis on the power of heredity … People looking for sperm or egg donors clearly prefer those with certain traits and without others … But it goes beyond just exercising that choice – people are willing to pay extra for donors with more desirable traits … The willingness of prospective parents to pay for desirable traits indicates both the value attached to such traits as well as the confidence attached to the idea that they are really heritable. If people didn’t’ think a trait like intelligence was largely heritable, they wouldn’t pay for more intelligent donors, no matter how much they value the trait … Beliefs about the heritability of intelligence or mental illness are, in fact, well founded and match our current scientific understanding.
-
NATO: The Model Entangling Alliance
Jacob G. Hornberger - FFF
… How does NATO work? If another nation attacks any member of NATO, the United States is automatically bound to come to its defense. That is not the type of system on which the United States was founded when the U.S. Constitution called the federal government into existence … NATO now decides when the United States goes to war and, equally important, decides which countries the American people are obligated to defend. No congressional declaration of war is required. If, say, Russia were to invade Latvia, the American people, thanks to NATO’s decision to admit Latvia as a member, would be automatically bound to go to war against Russia. NATO is a blank, signed check which the American people have handed to NATO bureaucrats, a check by which they have obligated the lives of American youth and America’s money …
-
Stripe, PayPal, Patreon: The Right Is Being Banned from Online Fundraising
A. Bokhari - Breitbart
The creeping exclusion of the right from online platforms like Twitter and Facebook is well-known, drawing the attention of Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and the RNC. But a greater challenge is on the horizon: the exclusion of the right from financial services. Conservatives have long been the target of shadowbans, biased algorithms, and account bans on social media. Not content with silencing their voices online, the left now wants to stop the right from using the web to fundraise. Thanks to the increasing willingness of online fundraising platforms and payment processors to ban clients for political reasons, they are getting their way … Like the rest of Silicon Valley, Patreon has decided it wants to be more than just a neutral platform, and now routinely cuts off income from content creators for political reasons.
-
Donald Trump’s New World Order
Adam Entous - The New Yorker
… Over time, Obama and his advisers came to believe that Netanyahu had been playing them, occasionally feigning interest in a two-state solution while expanding settlements in the West Bank, thus making the creation of a viable Palestinian state increasingly difficult to conceive. By Obama’s second term, his aides no longer bothered to mask their frustration with the Israelis. “They were never sincere in their commitment to peace,” Benjamin Rhodes, one of Obama’s closest foreign-policy advisers, told me … Less than a month after his Inauguration, Trump met with Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office for the first time. After the meeting, the two men issued a joint statement in which they “agreed that there will be no daylight between the United States and Israel” and “reaffirmed the special relationship” between the two allies.
-
Yes, We Should Call Them Imperialists
Paul Gottfried
… One reason the views offered by [Charles] Krauthammer and [Max] Boot did not elicit more widespread criticism — and have enjoyed enthusiastic favor among Republicans for decades, culminating in the oratorical wonders of George W. Bush — may have been the embrace of another neoconservative doctrine: “American exceptionalism.” The belief that the U.S. is a supremely good nation founded on universal principles has consequences that go well beyond electoral politics. Dennis Prager, a nationally syndicated talk radio host and co-owner of the website Townhall.com, extols American exceptionalism, which he says springs from American values … The quest for hegemony always looks the same, no matter what moral labels some choose to give it.
-
The Trump administration has launched an offensive of speeches and online communications meant to foment unrest and help pressure Iran to end its nuclear program and its support of militant groups, U.S. officials familiar with the matter said. More than half a dozen current and former officials said the campaign, supported by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, is meant to work in concert with U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to economically throttle Iran by re-imposing tough sanctions … The current and former officials said the campaign paints Iranian leaders in a harsh light, at times using information that is exaggerated or contradicts other official pronouncements, including comments by previous administrations.
-
Syria and Trump’s Iran Obsession
Daniel Larison – The American Conservative
The Trump administration appears to be in no hurry to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria:
US President Donald Trump’s top security adviser said Sunday that US troops would remain in Syria as long as Iran continues to “menace” the region, seemingly reversing a promise by the White House to pull out sooner. … It bears repeating that U.S. forces are in Syria illegally. There is no Congressional authorization for U.S. forces to be in Syria, there is no international mandate for them to be there, and the Syrian government does not want them there. The U.S. has no business keeping an illegal military presence in Syria, and it certainly shouldn’t be conditioning the continuation of that presence on Iran’s involvement in the wider region. There is no compelling reason why U.S. forces should still be in Syria in 2018 … -
A Swiss politician is facing expulsion from the country’s center-right Conservative Democratic party after he said that late Nazi leader Adolf Hitler “can’t have been that infinitely bad.” In an online discussion about a Swiss policeman who was promoted despite espousing admiration for Germany’s fascist World War II-era leader, Thomas Keller said he believes “today’s historical view of Hitler is rather one-sided.” He said he didn’t see Hitler as an evil tyrant and dictator, and that all nations that fought in the war had “blood on their hands.” According to Swiss news platform SWI, the Conservative Democratic Party on Tuesday began proceedings to expel Keller from its ranks.
-
Israel Just Dropped the Pretense of Equality for Palestinian Citizens
Yousef Jabareen - Los Angeles Times
The Israeli Knesset on Thursday passed into law a bill designed to make a permanent underclass of Palestinian citizens … The so-called “Jewish nation-state” bill formalizes in Israeli law the superior rights and privileges that Jewish citizens of the state enjoy over its indigenous Palestinian minority, who comprise roughly 20 percent of the population. It demotes Arabic from one of two official languages to a mere “special” status, deepens racial segregation by directing the government to “encourage and promote” Jewish settlement, and declares that the right to self-determination in Israel is “exclusive” to the Jewish people, denying the history and ancient Palestinian roots in this land … It will lead to more racist, anti-democratic laws, adding to the more than 50 laws already on the books that disadvantage non-Jewish citizens.
-
Those Poor, Helpless Indian Savages
Jim Goad - Taki’s Mag
On July 2, Facebook’s indefatigable legions of Hate Robots censored a post as “hate speech” because it dared to contain a passage from the Declaration of Independence … The three words everyone zeroed in on were “merciless Indian savages.” … Contra modern revisionist images of a Harmonious Red Rainbow that was nonviolent until the White Ghosts arrived, Injuns were slaughtering one another long before a freckled toe set foot on this continent. The so-called “Five Civilized Tribes” of the Southeast routinely conducted murderous raids on one another … The Comanches, who ruled a giant empire in what is now Texas, Kansas, and eastern New Mexico by systematically terrorizing, dominating, slaughtering, and enslaving their supposed blood brethren the Apaches, Hopis, Navajos, and Utes.
-
Life Styles: Native and Imposed
Kevin Beary – The Journal of Historical Review
… Today our children our being taught that the people who lived in the pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere were not “merciless Indian savages” (as Jefferson calls them in the Declaration of Independence), many of whom delighted in torture and cannibalism, but rather spiritually enlightened “native Americans” whose wise and peaceful nobility was rudely destroyed by invading European barbarians … ; and that Africans were not uncultured slave traders and cannibals, but unappreciated builders of great empires. But just how did these peoples live before they came into contact with Europeans? Although historical myth is ever more rapidly replacing factual history, not only in popular culture but also in our schools and universities, we may still find accurate historical accounts buried in larger libraries or in used book stores.
-
For a Balanced History of the American Indian
Zoltán Bruckner – The Journal of Historical Review
… I don’t defend a false or romanticized image of the Indians, as propagated, for example, by Hollywood in such films as “Pocahontas” and the others mentioned in the Journal. But just as inaccurate as the currently fashionable media image of the “Noble Red Man” is the disgraceful picture drawn by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) in the article reprinted from a 1870 issue of The Galaxy … While the Iroquois’ ferocity against their enemies may seem quite shocking to us, what real difference is there between burning people to death on scaffolding by Indians in the 17th century, and incinerating tens of thousands of people at a time in fire-bombings (Hamburg, Dresden) or with atomic blasts (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) by “civilized” Whites in the “enlightened” 20th century?
-
Einstein the Anti-Racist? Not in His Travel Diaries
The New York Times
In 1922, the same year he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, Albert Einstein set out with his wife, Elsa, on a five-and-a-half-month odyssey of discovery of a new world: the Far East and Middle East … He also kept a travel diary, noting in stark, often racist terms his impressions of the people he encountered on stops in Hong Kong and Singapore, China, Japan, India and Palestine … In his private writings on that journey from October 1922 to March 1923, “other peoples are portrayed as being biologically inferior, a clear hallmark of racism,” wrote Ze’ev Rosenkranz, assistant director of the Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology and the editor of the book.
-
Israel Convinced Trump to Quit Iran Nuclear Deal, Says PM Netanyahu
The Times of Israel
In a video clip aired Tuesday by Israeli television, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel was responsible for US President Donald Trump’s decision to quit the Iran nuclear deal. In the video, which the Kan public broadcaster said was filmed two weeks ago, Netanyahu can be seen speaking to activists and senior members from his Likud party. “We convinced the US president [to exit the deal] and I had to stand up against the whole world and come out against this agreement,” Netanyahu says in the video. “And we didn’t give up.”
-
A Neoconservative Plan for Punishing Iran
Philip Giraldi
President Donald Trump makes a point of insisting that he has nothing against the Iranian people and is only interested in opposing what he regards as the dangerous activities of their government, but his own record in office belies that claim. It is clear that what he is trying to do is put pressure on the people of Iran to rise up and force a change in government, a process otherwise referred to as regime change … Iran is neither Libya nor Iraq. It has a strong and historic national identity that means that it does and will resist being bullied by outside powers, including the “leader of the free world” United States … The sad fact is that the pretense of U.S. global leadership now consists of a basket of new “rules” that are both arbitrary and basically illegal supported by pretexts that are essentially fabricated.
-
Trump Says His Meeting With Putin Was 'Really Good' for Israel
The Times of Israel
US President Donald Trump on Monday said his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin Monday was good for Israel, seemingly referring to efforts to remove Iran-backed fighters from Syria’s Golan border. Trump also said Putin was a strong supporter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but did not offer any specifics on what was discussed that related to Israel at the meeting in Helsinki, where Iran’s presence in Syria had been widely expected to be a main topic of conversation between the two world leaders. “We came to a lot of good conclusions. A really good conclusion for Israel. Something very strong,” Trump told Fox News, without going into detail.
-
Pompeo’s Breathtaking Arrogance
D. Larison - The American Conservative
Mike Pompeo [US Secretary of State, and former CIA director] gave an interview to Sky News Arabia this week in which he made some remarkable statements: “Well, Iran needs to get out of Syria. They have no business there. There’s no reason for them to be there. There’s been Iranian influence there for a long time. Iranian forces, Iranian militias must leave the country.” If Iran has no business in Syria, the U.S. certainly doesn’t have any business keeping troops there. Leave aside the absurdity of the statement that the ally of a government has no business supporting that government in a war, and just consider the breathtaking hypocrisy of this statement coming from a U.S. official. The U.S. is engaged in hostilities in at least a half dozen countries around the world, and attacks other governments at will.
-
This Think Tank is Pushing Regime Change in Iran — and the White House is Listening
James W. Carden – The Nation
… Described by the journalist Mark Perry as “perhaps the most powerful outside influencer of the Trump White House today,” FDD [Foundation for Defense of Democracies] is credited, even by its opponents, as being among Washington’s most effective proponents of neoconservative ideas … But what is clear is that FDD, awash in funding by stalwart advocates of Israel, has adopted policy positions that rarely — if ever — deviate from the preferred policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party … Meanwhile, in the face of recent history, evidence, and common sense, FDD continues its push for regime change in Iran. And, worryingly, it seems to be making progress toward that end.
-
Don’t Let Israel Become a Promised Land of Impunity for Crooks and Fraudsters
S. Weinglass, D. Horovitz - The Times of Israel
… While law enforcement bodies overseas are devoting considerable effort and resources to tackling binary options, forex, cryptocurrency and other financial fraud emanating from Israel, Israeli police and other law enforcement bodies are not cooperating effectively with these efforts, and at times are actively stonewalling them. … Over the last decade, Israel has become a global hub of investment scams, employing more than 10,000 citizens — many of them new immigrants and foreign-language speakers — in boiler rooms throughout the country, selling fraudulent binary options, forex, CFDs (contracts for differences) and cryptocurrency investments over the phone and internet to people abroad … Israel’s binary options, forex and cryptocurrency fraudsters have to date enjoyed total impunity here.
-
The Trump-Kushner Delusion on Palestine
Sheldon Richman
… Donald Trump and his Palestine-Israel fixers think they can buy a peaceful and permanent settlement of the 70-year conflict by getting Arab governments to pressure the Palestinians into forgetting the “politicians’ talking points” – you know, superficial things like independence from the routine abuses and indignities of colonial oppression (that’s right; the same trifles Americans celebrated on July 4) – and focusing instead on what really matters: roads, jobs, and money. In Trumpworld, everyone and everything – including the longing for justice – has a price … Americans who rely on the establishment news media for information would not know that the Palestine-Israel story has been carefully crafted to make the Israelis look good and the Palestinians bad.
-
The Peace Deal That is All Israel
Stanley L. Cohen - Counterpunch
… Jared Kushner has been a regular visitor to Israel since his childhood. As a 16-year-old, he and thousands of other Jewish teenagers were led on a tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp by Benjamin Netanyahu, himself, waving Israeli flags along the way. At the end, they flew to Israel as part of their “Zionist rebirth.” The Kushners consider Netanyahu part of the family … The United States has, for decades, posed as a neutral interlocutor in the so-called “peace process” … claiming to broker a just peace for Palestinians even as it armed Israel and abetted its steady expansion into Palestinian lands … Filled with hollow promise and little more, make no mistake about it Kushner speaks to Palestine not just as a delivery boy for Donald Trump, but as a rubber stamp for Netanyahu and his age old colonial project.
-
Fighting Fake Stories: The New Yorker Serves Up A Doozie
The Polemicist
… The New Yorker published a short piece by Adam Entous, under the graphic above, titled “The Maps of Israeli Settlements That Shocked Barack Obama.” In the article, Entous purports to tell us the heretofore unknown inside story of how the Obama administration came to the surprising realization that Israeli settlements were taking over the West Bank … So, in any possible reading of this article, it’s a damning indictment of the liberal ideology embodied by Obama Democrats and/or by an iconic media outlet of highbrow culture. In any possible reading, someone’s a political fool. In option 1, it’s a true story, and Obama and his team were terribly ignorant fools who should not have been allowed near the responsibilities of the Presidency …
-
In 1948, just prior to the foundation of Israel, six Polish Christians were executed without trial in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem by the fledgling country’s Jewish army, the Haganah. An investigative analysis on the killings – dubbed the Riftin Report – was compiled for future Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, but has never been made public … The Riftin Report saga is a palpable microcosm of the wider issue of Israeli government determination to suppress archival material implicating the state in atrocities carried out against civilians when the country was in its infancy … The Military Court of Appeals is currently reviewing a historian’s request to declassify files relating to the 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre … Authorities likewise repeatedly blocked attempts to declassify files related to the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre …
-
Hitler’s Would-be Assassins Were, Themselves, Nazi War Criminals. Why Celebrate Them?
M. Olex-Szczytowski – The Spectator (Britain)
On 20 July, Germany’s political elite recalls the day in 1944 when Colonel Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg exploded a bomb intended to kill Hitler, and ran an abortive coup which ended in his own death and that of other plotters … Many of us know these events from the 2008 film Valkyrie with Tom Cruise as Stauffenberg … But in Germany, the ‘Berlin republic’ will be celebrating nothing less than itself, for the failed coup is at the core of the new narrative it has crafted to explain the country’s Nazi past. This tale holds that a group of Nazi fanatics led by Hitler captured the state, so the German people were victims rather than accomplices … Uncomfortable truths (the plotters were a tiny band, most had been Nazis or enthusiastic supporters) have not been allowed to get in the way.
-
Reality and Legacy of the 1944 'Valkyrie' Conspiracy to Kill Hitler
Mark Weber – Video
In July 1944 a group of German conspirators tried to kill Hitler and violently seize power in Berlin. In the US and Germany today, the anti-Hitler conspirators are portrayed as men of exemplary courage, conscience and principle. This prevailing, “politically correct” idealization, Weber explains, is a gross distortion of reality. By today’s standards, von Stauffenberg and the other leading conspirators were “Nazis.” They supported the policies and principles of the National Socialist government for at least five years, and only belatedly turned against the Hitler regime. Runtime: 50 mins.
-
In the aftermath of the July 20, 1944, assasination attempt, in which three men were killed, Hitler visits a clinic to meet with wounded colleagues who survived: Major General Scherf, Rear Admiral von Puttkamer, and General Buhle. Afterwards, Hitler meets with several governmental colleagues, including Eonomics Minister Walter Funk and Armaments Minister Albert Speer. Later Hitler and other high-ranking military, governmental and party figures meet and talk outdoors, including Minister Dr. Goebbels, General Guderian, Party Secretary Bormann, and General Jodl. This is a clip from a weekly German newsreel. Runtime 1:58 mins.
-
… About an hour and a half after the “Valkyrie” order was given [by the von Stauffenberg conspirators], my regiment, by then combat-ready, moved into the areas to be sealed off in accordance with its orders. The normal guard units, such as those at the War Memorial and the Bendlerblock, the headquarters of the Commander of the Replacement Army and of the Defense Production Office, remained at their posts … Goebbels asked me to address the troops assembled there, which I did. Their outrage at the traitorous goings-on was so great that they would have torn every single conspirator to pieces, had they been there.
-
World War II, the Third Reich and Hitler: A Witness of History Remembers
Otto Ernst Remer - Institute for Historical Review
… The initial successes of our forces against the Soviets were due to the fact that the Russians were not stationed in defense positions, but were instead positioned right at the front for attack, which made it possible for us to quickly encircle large Soviet forces. Thus, in the first weeks of the war, we were able to capture more than three million prisoners of war as well as enormous quantities of war equipment, all of which was on the frontier, positioned for attack. That’s the truth of the matter, which can be proven.
-
Education and Intelligence: Pity the Poor Teacher Because Student Characteristics are More Significant Than Teachers or Schools
Douglas K. Detterman - The Spanish Journal of Psychology
… The problem is that focus has often been on schools and teachers and not students. Educational gain will be best predicted by student abilities and much less by teachers’ skill … Seemingly immutable education will not change until we fully understand students and particularly human intelligence. Over the last 50 years in developed countries, evidence has accumulated that only about 10 percent of school achievement can be attributed to schools and teachers while the remaining 90 percent is due to characteristics associated with students. Teachers account for from 1 percent to 7 percent of total variance at every level of education. For students, intelligence accounts for much of the 90 percent of variance associated with learning gains.
-
Russia Struggles to Mourn the Romanovs 100 Years On
TASS (Russia)
… The death of Nicholas II and the Romanov family remains a controversial moment in Russia’s history. Tsarism and Bolshevism are — for the most part — not presented as conflicting forces in a battle in which one order defeated another. Rather, tsars, Bolsheviks and later communists, are seen as a succession of “greats.” … According to recent polls by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), the popularity of Nicholas II, as well as Lenin and Stalin, has increased considerably since 2008 … In Yekaterinburg, where the largest events marking the centennial of the Romanovs’ deaths are being held, the Romanovs are martyred saints revered by devoted pilgrims, with virtually no reference to politics, policies or ideology.
-
Most Russians believe the murder of the last Russian Czar, Nicholas II, and his family members in 1918 had no justification, describing it as a monstrous crime rather than an act of retribution, a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center ahead of the centenary of the execution of the Royal family showed on Monday. “Most Russians (57%) believe that the execution of the Royal family is a heinous unjustified crime … Russians generally see Nicholas II in a positive light (43%).
-
Americans Distrusted US Democracy Long Before Trump’s Russia Problem
Ian Anson – The Conversation
… According to many pundits, people now doubt not just the legitimacy of the Trump administration but the very foundations of the country’s political institutions. According to a July 2018 Brown University opinion poll, only 16 percent of Americans truly believe their vote matters. Just four percent think the government listens to their opinion … Skepticism about U.S. democracy is not a new phenomenon … Historic surveys reveal a deep, long-lasting and bipartisan dissatisfaction with the U.S. government that started over three decades ago … In the waning days of the Bush administration, 51 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Republicans expressed concern that their voices were not being heard. Under President Barack Obama, 69 percent of Republicans thought that most government officials were “crooked.” So did 59 percent of Democrats.
-
Israel has passed legislation that has been welcomed by Jewish nationalists but condemned by Arab citizens. The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, approved a new law that defines the country as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it is a “historic moment in the history of Zionism and … the State of Israel.” … While Netanyahu’s right wing coalition partners are elated, Israeli Arabs, who make up 20 percent of the population, are outraged … Critics say the bill does enormous damage to the State of Israel … In a radio interview, Israeli political scientist Shlomo Avineri said the last thing Israel needs is more bad publicity. He said the law accomplishes nothing other than providing ammunition to Israel’s detractors, including those who accuse the Jewish state of apartheid.
-
Israel Nation-State Law Serves as Rallying Cry for Each Side’s Political Base
O. Liebermann - CNN
… The nation-state law serves as a rallying cry for each side’s political base. Right-wing parties with nationalist messages hailed it as a victory for Zionism. Left-wing parties with pluralist messages decried it as a defeat for democracy … The law is intentionally vague at times. It makes clear and repeated references to the State of Israel and establishes the exclusive right of the Jewish people to self-determination in the state. But it doesn’t define a geographical boundary for Israel. It doesn’t specify whether it’s referring to Israel within the Green Line, which is the internationally accepted boundary, or whether it’s also referring to the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights, considered occupied territory.
-
Canada Should Help 'Holocaust Denier' on Trial in Germany, Says Civil Liberties Group
Canadian Press
A civil liberties group is urging the Canadian government to end the “unjust and immoral” imprisonment of Monika Schaefer, a German-Canadian woman on trial in Germany for publishing videos denying the Holocaust. The Ontario Civil Liberties Association says it’s concerned about Canada’s apparent unwillingness to come to the aid of Schaefer, who it describes as a Canadian “political prisoner” who was charged with a German criminal law that does not exist in Canada and is contrary to international law … Schaefer has been in custody since her arrest and her trial is set to continue until August 17, the office says, adding the maximum penalty for each count is three years’ imprisonment.
-
Facebook Won't Ban 'Holocaust Deniers,' Says CEO Zuckerberg
Associated Press
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says while he finds Holocaust denial “deeply offensive,” he doesn’t believe that such content should be banned from Facebook. Speaking with Recode’s Kara Swisher, Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, said in an interview published Wednesday that he thinks there are things “that different people get wrong.” He added that he doesn’t think they are “intentionally” getting it wrong … The remarks sparked criticism, including from the Anti-Defamation League, which said in a statement that Facebook has a “moral and ethical obligation” not to allow people to disseminate Holocaust denial on its platform. Zuckerberg said offensive content isn’t necessarily banned unless it is to organize harm or attack someone.
-
Zuckerberg’s Holocaust Comment Highlights Facebook Dilemma
B. Ortuatay - Associated Press
Denying the Holocaust happened is probably OK on Facebook. Calling for a mob to kill Jews is not. Mark Zuckerberg’s awkward and eyebrow-raising attempt this week to explain where Facebook draws the line illustrates the complexities social media platforms face as they take on the unwanted role of referee in this age of online misinformation, manipulation and hate speech … If Facebook were to ban Holocaust denial, it might also be called on to prohibit the denial of other historical events, such as the Armenian genocide or the massacre of Native Americans by European colonizers. This, Facebook might argue, could lead to a slippery slope where the company finds itself trying to verify the historical accuracy of users’ posts. So, where it can, Facebook stays out of policing content.
-
Behind the Uproar Over 'Holocaust Denial'
Mark Weber – Podcast
A close, critical look at the campaign against “Holocaust denial,” including the bizarre laws in some countries that punish dissidents as “thought criminals.” The IHR director reviews the outrageous treatment of Ernst Zundel, Germar Rudolf, and many others who have been imprisoned, fined and forced into exile for non-conformist views on this politicized chapter of history. This well-organized global campaign, explains Weber, underscores a well-entrenched Jewish-Zionist bias in the cultural life of modern Western society, and points up the power behind that bias.
-
New Staff Member Sought
Institute for Historical Review
We’re looking for a suitable person to join our team here in southern California, on a part-time or full-time basis. He or she will work on publishing and outreach, including social media, and will handle some website formatting, and office tasks. He or she must be able to write and edit with skill and discernment. He or she must have good communication skills, a responsible attitude, initiative, and regard for the ideals and goals of the IHR.
-
Europe Cringes Before Emperor Trump
Eric Margolis
… In fact, many Germans believe precisely the contrary: that Germany is Washington’s vassal state, and still under American domination seven decades after World War II. They cite US control of Germany’s intelligence agencies, foreign and defense policies, relations with Israel, and sending troops to support the ongoing US occupation of Afghanistan. Over 37 active US bases and installations are spread across northern Germany and Bavaria … The US quietly stores nuclear weapons in Germany. The US has dominated Germany’s sedate media since WWII … Germany and Russia are natural trading partners thanks to proximity and producing what the other lacks. One of America’s perennial fears has been a German-Russian entente.
-
Europe Can No Longer Fully Rely on the US, Says Germany’s Foreign Minister
The Times of Israel
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Monday that he believed European powers could no longer rely on US President Donald Trump and must strengthen their own relations within the continent, after the American leader referred to the European Union as a “foe” in a late-night TV interview Sunday. “We can no longer completely rely on the White House,” Maas said during an interview with the Funke newspaper group. “To maintain our partnership with the USA we must readjust it. The first clear consequence can only be that we need to align ourselves even more closely in Europe.” According to Reuters, Mass added that “Europe must not let itself be divided however sharp the verbal attacks and [however] absurd the tweets may be.”
-
100,000 Pilgrims March in Memory of the Romanovs on the Centenary of Their Deaths
The Moscow Times (Russia)
Early in the morning of July 17, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia led a 22-kilometer procession in honor of the Romanov royal family on the 100th anniversary of their murder. Law enforcement agencies reported that over 100,000 pilgrims participated. Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra Fyodorovna, their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei, along with physician Yevgeny Botkin and three servants, were executed by Bolshevik revolutionaries on July 17, 1918 … In 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized the entire family as saints … A recent survey by the state-run VTsIOM pollster found that the majority of Russians consider the shooting of the royal family a “monstrous and unjust crime.”
-
The Legacy of the Romanovs: How Russians Remember the Royal Family
Helen Rappaport - BBC News
In the early hours of 17 July 1918, Bolshevik revolutionaries marched the Russian Imperial family — Tsar Nicholas II, his empress and their five children — and their staff down to the cellar of the house in which they were living in exile, in Ekaterinburg, and shot and bayonetted them to death. When Josef Stalin rose to power in the 1920s and when the Soviet Union was established in 1922, all discussion of Russia’s last Imperial family – either printed or in public – was banned … By the year 2000, the Romanovs had been canonised as saints by the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia … The number of people commemorating the Tsar’s Days has rapidly grown every year. The early pilgrimages comprised of just a few thousand people; in 2017 they estimated crowds of as many as 60,000.
-
The Devastating True Story of the Romanov’s Family’s Execution
Simon Sebag Montefiore - Town & Country
At about 1 a.m. on July 17, 1918, in a fortified mansion in the town of Ekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains, the Romanovs — ex-tsar Nicholas II, ex-tsarina Alexandra, their five children, and their four remaining servants, including the loyal family doctor, Eugene Botkin — were awoken by their Bolshevik captors and told they must dress and gather their belongings for a swift nocturnal departure … What happened next — the slaughter of the family and servants — was one of the seminal events of the 20th century, a wanton massacre that shocked the world and still inspires a terrible fascination today … Members of the Russian public, particularly those who are either ultranationalists or Orthodox believers, are fascinated by the story of the Romanovs.
-
The Decline of the World’s IQ
Richard Lynn, John Harvey - Intelligence (Elsevier)
Dysgenic fertility means that there is a negative correlation between intelligence and number of children. Its presence during the last century has been demonstrated in several countries. We show here that there is dysgenic fertility in the world population … It is estimated that the effect of this has been a decline in the world’s genotypic IQ of 0.86 IQ points for the years 1950–2000. A further decline of 1.28 IQ points in the world’s genotypic IQ is projected for the years 2000–2050 … It seems probable that this “negative Flynn Effect” will spread to economically developing countries, and the whole world will move into a period of declining genotypic and phenotypic intelligence.
-
Brainier Mums Needed to Maintain Future Generations’ Intelligence, Says Professor
The New Zealand Herald
An internationally recognised expert on intelligence warns New Zealand children could get dumber in three or four generations unless women with higher education started producing more babies. Otago University emeritus professor Dr Jim Flynn was commenting on census figures that show mothers without a higher education were the anchor of New Zealand’s current fertility rate. “Everyone knows if we only allowed short people to reproduce there would be a tendency in terms of genes for height to diminish. Intelligence is no different from other human traits,” he told the Sunday Star-Times … Statistics show women without tertiary qualifications who had reached their early 40s had produced 2.57 babies each. In contrast, women with a higher education were producing just 1.85 babies each.
-
It is a century since the execution of Russia’s last tsar and his family after the revolution that established the Soviet Union, a massacre that still raises questions today. Here is a look back at the secret shooting of Nicholas II, his wife and five children in July 1918, and Russia’s efforts since then to come to terms with the killings … Nicholas sought asylum, including in Britain where King George V was his first cousin, but was rejected. The family and a handful of aides were arrested and moved to Siberia and then to Yekaterinburg, far from the seat of power. When anti-Bolshevik “White” Russian forces approached, local authorities were ordered to prevent a rescue. In the early hours of July 17, 1918, Bolshevik police ordered the prisoners to the cellar of the house where they were being held.
-
Tsar Nicholas II's Murder 100 Years On: The Terrible Fate of Russia’s Imperial Family
The Independent (Britain)
… The 100th anniversary of the execution of the Russian royal family by their Bolshevik captors, one of the most shocking events in 20th century history. Tsar Nicholas II, the Tsarina Alexandra and their five children, along with three servants and the family physician, Dr Yevgeny Botkin, were slain in cold blood in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16 July 1918 … Goloshchekin travelled to Moscow to obtain the order for the assassination and is thought to have secured it from Vladimir Lenin himself, although no paper trail exists to confirm the fact, no doubt deliberate on the part of the Bolshevik leader. “Revolutions are meaningless without firing squads,” he famously said.
-
Jews played a highly disproportionate and probably decisive role in the infant Bolshevik regime, effectively dominating the Soviet government during its early years … With the notable exception of Lenin, most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews … The US ambassador in Russia warned in a dispatch to Washington: “The Bolshevik leaders here, most of whom are Jews and 90 percent of whom are returned exiles, care little for Russia or any other country but are internationalists and they are trying to start a worldwide social revolution.”
-
Jewish Groups Condemn Polish Sainthood Candidate Backed By Pope for 'Anti-Semitic' Views
C. Kuruvilla - Huffington Post
Prominent Jewish groups are condemning Pope Francis’ decision to push Poland’s top Roman Catholic priest during and after World War II further along the road to sainthood, claiming the would-be saint’s legacy is tainted by anti-Semitic views. Pope Francis confirmed the “heroic virtues” of Cardinal August Hlond in late May, which means that he put a stamp of approval on a Vatican body’s initial review of the priest’s candidacy for sainthood … But two leading U.S.-based Jewish organizations, the American Jewish Committee and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, have already stepped in to question Hlond’s attitude toward Polish Jews … In a 1936 pastoral letter sent to Polish churches, Hlond warned his flock to stay away from the “harmful moral influence of Jews” and to avoid Jewish shops and publications.
-
Trump’s 'Art of the Deal' Leaves Europeans Bruised
Jamie Dettmer - VOA News
… Some European officials say the Continent now needs to start thinking about defense plans independent of NATO … European officials say they were floundering in their efforts to contain Trump, and they fear a bigger bust-up next year … Combat readiness across the board among European militaries is woefully inadequate. Last February, the German parliament’s military commissioner issued a scathing report on the readiness of Germany’s armed forces, noting that only a fraction of crucial weapons systems was operational … Gen. Ben Hodges, who served as Commanding General of the United States Army in Europe, says Trump has left NATO allies angry and worrying about whether they can rely on the U.S.
-
Germany’s foreign minister rejected suggestions that Berlin could be browbeaten by U.S. President Donald Trump into hiking military spending, saying that his country would make its own “sovereign” decisions. Trump caused uproar at this week’s summit of the NATO alliance in Brussels by accusing Europeans of free-riding on U.S. security spending, and saying Germany was a “captive” of Russia because of the two countries’ close energy ties. German voters and its political class are deeply divided over military spending, with fears about regional insecurity and an assertive Russia jostling with a traditional post-World War Two reluctance to flex its muscles militarily.
-
'Operation Finale': Another Major Holocaust-Theme Movie
Trailer - Video
Another major Holocaust-theme movie is set for release by MGM on Sept. 14. “Operation Finale” focuses on Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking German SS official who played an important role in organizing large-scale deportations of Jews to camps during World War II. Portrayed by veteran actor Ben Kingsley, Eichmann is seen in flashbacks to World War II and years later in Argentina, where he lived in hiding until Israeli agents kidnapped him in 1960. The film depicts the covert operation by which he was tracked down and flown to Israel, where he was put on trial and then hanged.
-
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has called for the “immediate” closure of his country’s embassy in Dublin after the upper house of the Irish parliament voted to ban the import of goods produced in Israeli settlements. The comments came after Israel summoned Ireland’s ambassador in Tel Aviv shortly after the vote at the Irish senate, known as the Seanad, on Wednesday. “There is no point in summoning the Ambassador of Ireland for a ‘reprimand,’” Lieberman wrote in a tweet on Thursday. “Israel needs to immediately close the embassy in Ireland. We don’t turn the other cheek to those who boycott us.” … Ireland has strongly condemned the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank — considered illegal under international law.
-
Plurality of Germans Want U.S. Troops Out of Their Country, New Poll Shows
The Washington Times
As President Trump spars with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the world stage this week, a new survey shows that a plurality of Germans want U.S. troops out of their country. A recent YouGov poll found that 42 percent of Germans want America to withdraw the roughly 35,000 troops currently stationed there. About 37 percent of Germans want the U.S. forces to stay, and another 21 percent were undecided. The survey was commissioned by the German press agency DPA, and was conducted several days before Mr. Trump arrived in Brussels earlier this week for a high-stakes NATO meeting. The poll also shows that about 75 percent of Germans oppose Mr. Trump’s call for each NATO member to increase defense spending to at least two percent of its annual GDP …
-
Irish Senate Backs Bill Banning Israeli Settlement Goods
Associated Press
The Irish Senate has voted in favor of a bill seeking to ban the import of West Bank settlement products — a measure that still must pass several hurdles before becoming law. The bill aims to make it an offence to import or sell goods or services from Israeli settlements. If passed, Ireland would become the first European country to ban settlement goods. Senators voted 25 to 20 Wednesday in favor of the proposal, which still needs to be debated and voted on in Parliament’s Lower House. That is expected to take months. The Irish government strongly opposes the measure, saying there should be a common European Union response. In a statement, Israel’s Foreign Ministry criticized the Irish Senate for supporting “a populist, dangerous and extremist anti-Israel boycott initiative.”
-
How Britain’s Anti-Semitism Scaremongers Operate
Eve Mykytyn
This article about the British charitable organisation, the Campaign against Anti-Semitism (CAA), and its officers, Gideon Falter and Steve Silverman, examines events in England but ought to serve as a cautionary message for Canadians and Americans. The article will delve into the corrosive methods of the CAA; review the manner in which this ultra-Zionist group “discovers” anti-Semitic “incidents”; examine their inaccurate statistical “studies” and see how they seek to intimidate political parties, venues, the press and others; and look at the court cases which the CAA has prosecuted … In the last 18 months Britain’s largest political party, the Labour Party, has suspended and expelled over a hundred of its members for expressing their views on Israel or Jewish history.
-
President Richard Nixon and the Rev. Billy Graham – the nation’s most prominent Christian evangelist – frankly discuss the Jewish role in the US media during a private meeting in the White House. This recording of their conversation on Feb. 1, 1972, was made public 13 years later. Nixon says: “It’s all run by Jews and dominated by them in their editorial pages. The New York Times, The Washington Post – totally Jewish too.” Graham responds: “This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain.” In response to that, the president says: “You believe that?” “Yes, sir,” says Graham. “Oh, boy,” replies Nixon. “So do I. I can’t ever say that [publicly], but I believe it.” MSNBC television news report. Runtime: 1:03 mins.
-
Konrad Adenauer served as Chancellor of the German Federal Republic 1949-1963. In this interview, given in 1965, he says (in English translation): “One should not underestimate the power of the Jews, even today, especially in America. Accordingly, and it has long been my view, after careful and conscientious consideration, I devoted all my effort to help bring about, as much as possible, a reconciliation between the Jewish people and the German people.”
-
Israel Lobby Seeks to Erase Occupation From Virginia Schoolbooks
Nora Barrows-Friedman
Human rights activists in Virginia are fighting to protect the quality and accuracy of schoolbooks as Israel advocacy organizations seek substantial changes to the texts. The suggested changes would distort the way Israeli history is depicted, deliberately whitewashing its military occupation and ongoing policies of land theft, apartheid and expulsion of Palestinians. These changes have been proposed to the Virginia Department of Education by the California-based Institute for Curriculum Services – a “strategic initiative” of the Jewish Community Relations Council, an organization with an active Israel lobby. ICS director Aliza Craimer Elias recently boasted in a video interview that her firm works “behind the scenes” with textbook publishers to edit entries about Jews, Judaism and Israel and to train classroom educators with ICS curricula.
-
Was World War Two Pointless?
Peter Hitchens - Daily Mail (Britain)
… On a recent visit to the USA I picked up two new books that are going to make a lot of people in Britain very angry … We were told that the 1939-45 war was a good war, fought to overthrow a wicked tyrant, that the war in Iraq would be the same, and that those who opposed it were like the discredited appeasers of 1938 … The two books … are Patrick Buchanan’s Churchill, Hitler And The Unnecessary War and Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke … Many believe the 1939-45 war was fought to save the Jews from Hitler. No facts support this fond belief. If the war saved any Jews, it was by accident.
-
Israel Ranked Eighth 'Most Powerful' Country in the World
The Times of Israel
An international survey has ranked Israel as the eighth most powerful nation in the world for the second consecutive year, narrowly ahead of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The annual survey by the US News & World Report was published during the weekend, based on the answers of more than 21,000 people from four regions … Israel was ranked 30th on the best countries list, the same ranking as last year, with Switzerland and Canada taking the first two slots. But in the power ranking Israel was ranked inside the top ten, behind the United States, Russia, China, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Japan, in that order … The Jewish state was ranked lower in the rest of the categories: 25th in entrepreneurship, 29th in heritage, 33rd in citizenship, 35th in quality of life, 40th in cultural influence …
-
The Real Story Behind Israel’s 'Blooming Desert'
Whitney Webb - MintPress News
It has often been said that Israel, since its establishment in 1948, has presided over the “miracle” of making the country’s “desert bloom.” That heavily promoted narrative – which asserts that the Palestinians have long lacked the capacity, knowledge or desire to properly develop agriculture in the region — has often been used as a legitimizing factor in Israel’s establishment … There is, however, another side to this story, one that shows that the “blooming desert” of Israel is a convenient disguise for the degradation and destruction of Palestine’s natural resources, a means of obfuscating the worst of occupation by wrapping it in the cloak of Zionist mythology … Thus, it was land theft that was largely responsible for Israel’s initial agricultural production, not the labor or agricultural expertise of Zionist settlers.
-
The Maps of Israeli Settlements That Shocked Barack Obama
A. Entous - The New Yorker
… Kerry met regularly with Obama in the Oval Office. During one of those meetings, Kerry placed the maps on a large coffee table, one after another, so Obama and his advisers could study them. Ben Rhodes, one of Obama’s longest-serving advisers, said the President was shocked to see how “systematic” the Israelis had been at cutting off Palestinian population centers from one another … Alarmed by Israeli actions depicted in the maps, Obama decided to abstain on a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the settlements, clearing the way for its passage. It would be Obama’s final act of defiance against Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, before Donald Trump took office and put in place policies that were fare more accepting of the settlers.
-
After Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shocked the political world by defeating longtime New York Rep. Joseph Crowley in a Democratic primary last month, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez quickly aligned himself with the former political outsider, saying on a radio show that “she represents the future of our party.” If so, that future appears to include the kind of sharp criticism of Israel once considered taboo in both major parties. Ocasio-Cortez ran on a platform of Medicare for all, fully funded public schools and a universal jobs guarantee. But she has also been critical of Israel, calling its military’s killing of Palestinian protesters in May a “massacre.”
-
The Liberal's Lament Over Israel
James J. Zogby
I find it exceptionally irritating when I hear liberals worry about whether Israel will be able to remain a “Jewish and Democratic State” if it retains control of occupied Palestinian lands. It’s irritating because Israel is not now a democratic state nor has it ever tried to be one. A state that prioritizes rights for one group of citizens (in this case Jews, who comprise 80 percent of the population) over the rights of another group (Arabs, who are 20 percent of Israel’s citizenry) cannot be democratic. Israel discriminates against its Arab citizens in law, social services, funding for education, and in everyday life. So although the concerns of liberals in the West are about the future of Israeli democracy, what they ignore is the reality of Israel, in practice
-
Germany Agrees to $88 Million More for Holocaust Survivors
Associated Press
The organization that handles claims on behalf of Jews who suffered under the Nazis says Germany has agreed to pay another 75 million euros ($88 million) to fund social welfare services for Holocaust survivors. The New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany said Tuesday that brings total funding next year to 480 million euros [$561 million] to help survivors as they grow older and more frail … Germany also agreed to increase pensions paid to 55,000 Holocaust survivors in Central and Eastern Europe, and expand eligibility for child survivors. The Claims Conference carries out continuous negotiations to make more people eligible for compensation. Since 1952, Germany has paid more than $70 billion.
-
Historian Hilberg Denounces Jewish 'Blackmail' Against Switzerland
Institute for Historical Review (1999)
For several years now, the World Jewish Congress and other major Jewish organizations have waged a fierce and much-publicized campaign to force Switzerland to pay millions to Jewish organizations and Holocaust survivors … Among those who have spoken out against it is Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg. “I was nearly alarmed when I heard that the Swiss banks would pay 1.25 billion dollars,” he said in a recent interview published in the respected Swiss weekly Weltwoche. In the campaign against Switzerland, Hilberg went on, “the Jews have used a weapon that can only be described as blackmail.”
-
The Holocaust Industry
Norman Finkelstein - Book available from IHR
Powerful interests have hijacked “the Holocaust,” and use it to further their own interests, says the author of this provocative but carefully documented and persuasively argued study. “Organized Jewry,” writes Norman Finkelstein, “has exploited the Nazi holocaust to deflect criticism of Israel’s and its own indefensible policies.” The “Nazi genocide,” he also writes, “has been used to justify criminal policies of the Israeli state and US support for these policies.” Jewish organizations in the US, he also contends, have used the plight of Holocaust survivors to extort staggering sums of money from the rest of the world. This is not done not for the benefit of needy survivors, the author explains, but for the financial advantage of these organizations.
-
Trump, NATO and Russia
Eric Margolis
… Trump and his fellow neocons want NATO to serve as a sort of US foreign legion in Third World wars in Africa and Asia. NATO was formed as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to defend western Europe, not to fight in Afghanistan and who knows where else … The US and its wealthy allies account for two thirds of world military spending … In Europe, it’s hard to find many people who still consider Russia a serious threat … The main fear of Russia seems concentrated in the minds of American neoconservatives, media, and rural Trump supporters, all victims of the bizarre anti-Russian hysteria that has gripped the US … President Trump has learned about war from Fox TV. Europeans have learned from real experience and don’t want any more.
-
Jewish Groups Slam Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee Kavanaugh
Haaretz (Israel)
Jewish groups responded fiercely to U.S. President Donald Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Trump’s nomination of 53-year-old Kavanaugh aimed to entrench conservative control of the court for years to come with his second lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest judicial body … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) expressed concerns about his positions on key social and civil issues. In a statement released by the ADL, concerns over the protection of LGBTQ, voting, immigration and women’s rights were addressed … “We cannot let Justice Kennedy’s retirement jeopardize hard-fought progress in securing our civil rights and civil liberties,” the ADL wrote.
-
In May, President Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal despite Iran living up to its obligations and the deal working as planned. While the US kept in place most sanctions against Tehran, China and Russia – along with many European countries – had begun reaping the benefits of trade with an Iran eager to do business with the world. Now, President Trump is threatening sanctions against any country that continues to do business with Iran. But will his attempt to restore the status quo before the Iran deal really work? Even if the Europeans cave in to US demands, the world has changed a great deal since the pre-Iran deal era. President Trump is finding that his threats and heated rhetoric do not always have the effect he wishes.
-
Germany, China Reaffirm Their Support for Iran Nuclear Deal
PressTV (Iran)
Germany and China have reiterated that they are committed to the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries [Britain, France, USA, Russia, China, and Germany] following the United States’ withdrawal. Speaking alongside visiting China’s Premier Li Keqiang on Monday [July 9], Chancellor Angela Merkel said the nuclear accord, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was well-negotiated. The Chinese premier also warned against the unforeseeable consequences if the deal falls apart … However, Merkel implied that Berlin could do little to protect international companies against punitive US measures, adding that it is up to individual firms to decide if they want to invest in Iran.
-
Why Palestine Matters
Sheldon Richman
… Palestine matters and should matter. I will try to explain why. First, perhaps most basically, the sheer cruelty – the scope of the violation of human, i.e., natural individual, rights – of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians warrants the concern of all who favor freedom and other (classical) liberal values: justice, social cooperation, free exchange, and peace … The second reason why Palestine matters is that American taxpayers are forced to underwrite this system of injustice and repression … The third reason I want to point to is the threat of a wider war, one that could reach beyond Palestine and Israel and even beyond the Middle East. Analysts have long warned that the region could be a flashpoint for a war involving Iran, a long-standing regional power, and Russia.
-
Why The Israel-Palestine Issue Is Important for Americans
Mark Weber – Video
The way that American political leaders and the US mass media deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict is an expression of a corrupt, unhealthy society that ignores basic historical and political realities and betrays the principles it claims to uphold. America’s policy of ardent support for the Zionist state also puts the US increasingly at odds against the rest of the world. As the new US ambassador to Israel recently acknowledged, US policy in the Middle East is driven by concern for Israel’s interests — and not by what’s best for America and humanity.
-
A Jasper, Alberta, woman who denied the Holocaust in at least one video posted on YouTube is on trial at a criminal courthouse in Munich. Monika Schaefer, 59, and her 63-year-old German-Canadian brother, Alfred Schaefer, who lives near Munich, are being tried together for Volksverhetzung, which officially translates in English from the German Criminal Code as “incitement to hatred,” said court spokesperson Florian Gliwitzky in an email to CBC News on Friday. “Both are under suspicion, that they published video clips, in which they denied the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust during World War II,” Gliwitzky said … If found guilty, the German sentence for the crime ranges from a fine up to five years in prison.
-
Imperial Hubris Redefined
Philip Giraldi
There have been two developments in the past month that illustrate clearly what is wrong with the White House’s perception of America’s place in the world. Going far beyond the oft-repeated nonsense that the United States is somehow the “leader of the free world,” the Trump Administration has taken several positions that sustain the bizarre view that such leadership can only be exercised if the United States is completely dominant in all relevant areas. Beyond that, Washington is now also asserting that those who do not go along with the charade and abide by the rules laid down will be subject to punishment to force compliance.
-
Israel and the United States formed a joint working group a few months ago that is focused on internal efforts to encourage protests within Iran and pressure the country’s government … Two Israeli officials told me the team was formed as a part of the U.S.-Israeli framework document on countering Iran. The officials added the team has already met several times during the last few months. The Israeli officials told me that both the domestic situation in Iran and the work of the joint team were discussed during a meeting between national security adviser John Bolton and his Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat at the White House several weeks ago … In the last few weeks, both Israel and the U.S. started using social media to convey anti-regime messages to the Iranian people.
-
Vienna regrets Washington’s decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran as these restrictions violate international law, and affect Austria due to their extraterritorial nature, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said on Wednesday [July 4]. “Austria regrets the US pullout from the JCPOA. We also regret the US decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran. This does not concern the so-called primary sanctions against Iran, but the secondary sanctions which affect Austria, too. We believe that these secondary sanctions violate international law due to their extraterritorial nature,” Van der Bellen told reporters after his talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Vienna. The European Commission supports this position against the United States’ decisions related to the JCPOA, the Austrian president added.
-
World Powers Back Iran Oil Exports Despite US Sanctions Threat
F. Zeller – AFP
Iran’s remaining partners in the 2015 nuclear deal vowed Friday to keep the energy exporter plugged into the global economy despite the US withdrawal and sanctions threat. Tehran’s top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif praised them for their “will to resist” US pressure, two months after President Donald Trump walked away from the landmark accord. Britain, France and Germany along with Russia and China met with Iran in Vienna to offer economic benefits and assurances that would lessen the blow of sweeping US sanctions announced by Trump. They said they remained committed to the accord and to building up trade and investment links with Iran, including “the continuation of Iran’s export of oil and gas” and other energy products.
-
Gangsters vs. Nazis: How the Jewish Mob Fought American Admirers of the Third Reich
R. Rockaway – Tablet
Emboldened by Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933, and fueled by the Great Depression, anti-Semitism increased throughout the United States, and over 100 anti-Semitic organizations sprung up across the country … One group of American Jews who had no compunctions about meeting the anti-Semites head-on were Jewish gangsters. Not bound by conventional rules and constitutional legalities, they took direct and violent action against the Jew haters … Nathan Perlman, a judge and former Republican congressman, was one Jewish leader who believed that the Jews should demonstrate more militancy. In 1935, he surreptitiously contacted Meyer Lansky, a leading organized crime figure born on the 4th of July, and asked him to help.
-
US Congress’ Anti-Semitism Awareness Act Doesn’t Protect Jews – It Protects Israel
B. Trachtenberg - Forward
After trying and failing to pass the so-called “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act” in the last legislative session, supporters have once again submitted a bill that, if passed by Congress, will dramatically curb free speech and academic inquiry on college campuses. As I argued in my testimony to the House Judiciary Committee last year, backers of this legislation are less concerned with combatting actual occurrences of anti-Semitism than with suppressing growing criticism on college campuses of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the United States’ complicity in it … The bill will define opposition to Israeli government policy as anti-Semitism, equate Judaism with Zionism, and sanction schools that permit Palestinian human rights activism to occur on their campuses.
-
Two Souls
Uri Avnery (Israel)
… Jews learn at a very tender age that they are God’s chosen people. Unconsciously, this knowledge remains anchored in their “soul” throughout their life, even though many of them become total atheists … We are special. The language reflects this. There are Jews and there are the others … That is where we are now. A domineering regional power and a global crybaby, ruling a colonized population deprived of all rights while being convinced that dark forces are out to exterminate us at any moment, considering ourselves a very special people and an eternal victim. All this quite sincerely. And all this together. When somebody dares to suggest that anti-Semitism in the West is dying, and that anti-Islam is on the rise instead, the Jewish reaction is furious. We need anti-Semitism for our mental equilibrium. Nobody is going to steal it from us.
-
Anti-Semitism: Why Does It Exist? And Why Does it Persist?
Mark Weber – Institute for Historical Review
Over the centuries, rage and hostility against Jews has repeatedly erupted in terrible violence. Again and again, Jews have been driven out of countries where they’d been living. Why does anti-Semitism exist? And why has furious hostility toward Jews broken out, again and again, in the most varied nations, eras and cultures? … Anti-Semitism is not a mysterious “disease.” As Herzl and Weizmann suggested, and as history shows, what is often called anti-Semitism is the natural and understandable attitude of people toward a minority with particularist loyalties that wields greatly disproportionate power for its own interests, rather than for the common good.
-
Isaac Herzog is the outgoing leader of the Israeli political “left,” the Zionist Camp coalition, and the new chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which seeks to strengthen bonds between Jews worldwide. In an interview on Israeli TV, he describes intermarriage between American Jews and non-Jews as a “plague” for which he seeks to find a “solution” … “I encountered something that I called an actual plague. I saw my friends’ children married or coupled with non-Jewish partners!” … Herzog is an expert on love. He has warned that his party must not be seen as “Arab-lovers.” The intermarriage rate among American Jews is 58 percent, but 71 percent among the non-Orthodox … His anti-intermarriage stance is shared within the Zionist community …
-
Credit-Card Wars: How America’s Wars Fund Inequality at Home
Stephanie Savell - Tom’s Dispatch
In the name of the fight against terrorism, the United States is currently waging “credit-card wars” in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Never before has this country relied so heavily on deficit spending to pay for its conflicts. The consequences are expected to be ruinous for the long-term fiscal health of the U.S., but they go far beyond the economic. Massive levels of war-related debt will have lasting repercussions of all sorts. One potentially devastating effect, a new study finds, will be more societal inequality. In other words, the staggering costs of the longest war in American history — almost 17 years running, since the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 — are being deferred to the future. In the process, the government is contributing to this country’s skyrocketing income inequality.
-
… The conspiracy of silence over Israel’s manipulation of the United States government is beginning to break down and journalists have become bold enough to challenge what occurs when pro-Israel Jews obtain real power over the political process. Adelson, for what it’s worth, wants war with Iran and has even suggested detonating a nuclear device on its soil to “send a message.” … A recent story illustrates just how horrible the Israelis can be without any pushback whatsoever coming from Washington objecting to their behavior. As the United States is the only force that can in any way compel Israel to come to its senses and chooses not to do so, that makes U.S. policymakers and by extension the American people complicit in Israel’s crimes.
-
Detention of Unaccompanied Minors at US Entry Nothing New
A. Barros - VOA News
… Ellis Island [New York] operated for 62 years, with 1907 being the port of entry’s peak year, when 1,004,756 immigrants arrived. Ellis Island officials had a rigorous send-them-back policy toward unaccompanied minors coming to the U.S. Thacker said the Immigration Act of 1907 declared that children younger than 16 were not permitted to enter the country without parents. The measure, however, did not say the children must be deported. It said “children under 16 unaccompanied by either parent … shall be held for special inquiry.” The act set up a system in which unaccompanied children, many of whom were orphans, were held in detention, and had to await the result of a special inquiry with immigration inspectors, who would then determine the youngsters’ future in the new world.
-
'Ode to Joy' Has an Odious History. Let’s Give Beethoven’s Most Overplayed Symphony a Rest
John Terauds - The Star (Canada)
… Western classical music usually thinks of itself as being apolitical. But the Ninth is political. Beethoven saw it as political when he wrote it in the early 1820s. And his fellow Germans, looking for a sense of identity, embraced it with fervour. Beethoven’s Ninth became the musical flag of Germanness at a time when nationalism was a growing force in all of Europe … We live in a time no more peaceful than Beethoven’s. Our conflicts today pit the great traditions and ways of thinking of the 19th century against a (hopefully) freer, more spontaneous, more shared, more inclusive 21st century. We have the 19th-century ideal of strength in unity — expressed in the “Ode to Joy” — scraping up uneasily against a 21st-century ideal of strength in diversity.
-
The Relentless Cult of Novelty
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (1987)
… This relentless cult of novelty, with its assertion that art need not be good or pure, just so long as it is new, newer, and newer still, conceals an unyielding and long-sustained attempt to undermine, ridicule and uproot all moral precepts … To decorate public spaces we put up sculptures that aestheticize pure ugliness — but we no longer register surprise. And if visitors from outer space were to pick up our music over the airwaves, how could they ever guess that earthlings once had a Bach, a Beethoven and a Schubert, now abandoned as out of date and obsolete?
-
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is performed by the famed Berlin Philharmonic, under the direction of Wilhlem Furtwängler. This April 1942 performance in honor of Hitler’s 53rd birthday is organized by the National Socialist Party, with an introductory address by Dr. Goebbels. From the German wartime newsreel, “Die Deutsche Wochenschau,” of April 22, 1942. Runtime: 4:39 mins.
-
How Sheldon Adelson Just Might be Turning the Tide Against BDS on US Campuses
The Times of Israel
In the academic year that just ended, Sheldon Adelson’s Maccabee Task Force, set up to battle anti-Israel activism on US campuses, focused on 40 of what it assessed were the schools most hostile to Israel, and most intimidating to pro-Israel students. At 15 of these campuses, it had been anticipated that student governments would seek to pass BDS resolutions — resolutions demanding that their schools divest from Israel … Brog visited Israel late last month to attend a conference organized by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs that focused on tackling BDS and other Israel-delegitimization movements … Brog, the former director of the pro-Israel Christian group Christians United for Israel (and incidentally a cousin of former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak), took over as executive director of the Maccabee Task Force three years ago …
-
Record-Low Number Say They’re ‘Record-Low Number Say They’re 'Extremely PrExtremely Proud' to Be American, New Gallup Poll Shows
National Review
Just 47 percent of Americans say they are “extremely proud” of their citizenship, according to a new poll from Gallup — the first time that number has dipped below 50 percent in the 18 years Gallup has been asking the question. In 2003, 70 percent of respondents said they were “extremely proud” to be American, marking the poll’s record high … A large majority of citizens still say that they are somewhat proud to be American: 25 percent consider themselves “very proud” and 16 percent “moderately proud.” … Democrats’ pride in their country has slipped drastically since 2013 from a majority of 56 percent to 32 percent now … Republicans, meanwhile, are the proudest they have been of their American citizenship in five years, with 74 percent reporting they are extremely proud.
-
Facebook’s algorithms have ruled that parts of the US Declaration of Independence are hate speech, and removed excerpts of them posted to the platform. In the run-up to Independence Day, a US community paper based in Texas had been posting small daily chunks of the historic document on its Facebook page. At issue was a part of it that referred to “merciless Indian savages”. Facebook later apologised and allowed the posting. The Liberty County Vindicator had been sharing excerpts from America’s founding document to its Facebook page in an attempt to encourage historical literacy among its readers. Part 10 did not appear, with the paper receiving a notice from Facebook saying the post went against its standards on hate speech.
-
Little House on the Orwellian Prairie
Robert Bridge - RT News
… The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) dumped a literary award named after author Laura Ingalls Wilder, giving it instead the soulless title ‘Children’s Literature Legacy Award.’ The stated reason for dropping the ‘Laura Ingalls Wilder Award’ was due to the “anti-Native and anti-Black sentiments” that purportedly peppered Wilder’s writing … There are a number of books in the pantheon of American literature that seem destined for endangered-species status due to the uncomfortable historic associations they make, including Mark Twain’s ‘Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ … America’s oppressive atmosphere of political correctness threatens to shut down critical thinking on all uncomfortable topics, and this lamentable state of affairs can only lead to national ruin.
-
Israel’s Holocaust memorial centre has accused the Israeli and Polish leaders of minimising Polish persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. Benjamin Netanyahu and Mateusz Morawiecki had made a statement saying that Polish networks had tried to help Jews during the Nazi occupation. But Yad Vashem said their statement was an “offence to historical truth” … Yad Vashem said this contradicted decades of historical research, and contained “grave errors and deceptions”. It said much of the Polish resistance in its various movements “not only failed to help Jews, but was also not infrequently actively involved in persecuting them”. Polish assistance to Jews during the Holocaust was “relatively rare”, Yad Vashem said, and “attacks against and even the murder of Jews were widespread”.
-
A Conservative Group Is Using Ronald Reagan to Attack President Trump's Immigration Policies
Time Magazine
A conservative group is running a Fourth of July ad using footage of former President Ronald Reagan to repudiate President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. The ad, paid for by the Becoming American Initiative, uses audio of a Reagan speech in which he praised immigrants and their contributions to American society, along with footage and photographs of the Statue of Liberty and various immigrants through the years. “They didn’t ask what this country could do for them, but what they could do to make this refuge the greatest home of freedom in history,” Reagan says in the footage. “They brought with them courage and the values of family, work and freedom. Let us pledge to each other that we can make America Great Again.”
-
Spanish Inquisition Was a Moderate Court by the Standard of Its Time
Ed Condon - National Review
… While any reasonable person would find a lot not to like about the Spanish Inquisition, much of our popular conception of it is the product of Elizabethan propaganda and gothic fiction. There was a concerted effort by northern (mostly Protestant) European kingdoms to paint the Spanish Empire as constitutionally evil … The Inquisition was the poster child for these efforts, which collectively became known as the Black Legend … In fact, examined simply as a functioning court, the Spanish Inquisition was in many ways ahead of its time and a pioneer of many judicial practices we now take for granted. … By the standards of the time, in many ways superior to almost all other courts. Even in the centuries since, we have at times done worse than the Spanish Inquisition — and that is something no one expects.
-
The Spanish Inquisition in Reality and Myth
The Journal of Historical Review
Much of the sinister reputation of the Spanish Inquisition, promoted even in major motion pictures, is undeserved. Oxford University lecturer Reginald Trevor Davies, a specialist of Spanish history, confirms this in an article published in the 1957 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica … Edward Peters, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Pennsylvania, has detailed the development and impact of the Inquisition as historical myth.
-
A US Civility Crisis: Total Political War
A. Zurcher - BBC News
Interrupted dinners, driveway confrontations, threatening leaflets. Donald Trump administration officials are increasingly facing harassment from liberals enraged by the president’s words and actions. Is it a reflection of an increasingly acrimonious political environment, a sign that liberals are spinning out of control, or a reasonable response by citizens faced with what some see as a historic national crisis and a president who critics say likes to stoke the fires of discord? It depends on who you ask and – in an increasing fractured US society – their partisan proclivities … What US society now may be experiencing is total political war, where – thanks to media and technology – partisan discord is inescapable …
-
Postliterate America
Linh Dinh
… Our physical degradation is nothing compared to our mental derangement. Take our song lyrics, which are no longer required to make sense, as long as the beat is righteous. Postliterate, we fumble and befoul English. As we are forced to shout at each other above the constant din, there is no subtlety left to language … There is a silver lining to all this, for the internet has allowed deeply heretical views to surface, so that we can be swayed by writers who would otherwise be entirely silenced … Serious art forms such as painting, sculpture and poetry have become occult pursuits, for they require contemplation, solitude and silence, which are all but banished from this manic society … Trapped in this self-congratulatory, narcissistic, house of mirrors nation, how can we be anything but solipsists?
-
Rudy Giuliani Calls for Iran Regime Change at Rally linked to Extreme Group
The Guardian (Britain)
Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, addressed a rally staged by an extreme Iranian opposition group in Paris on Saturday, calling for regime change in Tehran. Giuliani spoke to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella coalition largely controlled by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), which was once listed as a terrorist organisation in the US and Europe and is still widely viewed as a Marxist-Islamist cult built around the personality of its leader, Maryam Rajavi … The guest of honour at last year’s NCRI conference was John Bolton, who has since become Trump’s third national security adviser … Giuliani was one of 33 senior US officials and military brass at the year’s conference …
-
True Scale of UK Role in Torture and Rendition After 9/11 Revealed
The Guardian (Britain)
British intelligence agencies were involved in the torture and kidnap of terrorism suspects after 9/11, according to two reports by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee. The reports published on Thursday amount to one of the most damning indictments of UK intelligence, revealing links to torture and rendition were much more widespread than previously reported. While there was no evidence of officers directly carrying out physical mistreatment of detainees, the reports say the overseas agency MI6 and the domestic service MI5 were involved in hundreds of torture cases and scores of rendition cases. The committee says the agencies were aware “at an early point” of the mistreatment of detainees by the US and others.
-
Turkey on a Roll
Eric Margolis
… Over the past decades, Erdogan and his AK [Party] have restored Turkey’s rickety finances, boosted the economy, imposed more efficient, honest government, made peace with the restive Kurdish minority, ended feuds with neighbors, and forced the 600,000-man army back to its barracks and out of politics … Washington has long been annoyed by Erdogan’s independent-minded actions, notably in Syria and Palestine. Israel’s hard right government, now the dominant force in US foreign policy, despises Erdogan for supporting the Palestinian cause. As a result, the US intelligence services, media and Congress are bitterly anti-Erdogan. His warming relations with Russia have further annoyed the US, leading to more anti-Erdogan plots in the military.
-
Three Hundred Prominent Global Figures Accuse Israel Of Committing 'War Crimes'
Middle East Monitor
Israel’s forcible transfer of thousands of Palestinians has been denounced as a war crime by over 300 elected officials, legal scholars, academics, artists, faith leaders and activists from around the world. The universal show of solidarity to the Palestinians was published in an open letter which voiced strong opposition to Israel’s plans to forcibly transfer thousands of Palestinians living in farming-shepherding communities in the occupied West Bank. Signatories include 90 members of parliament, many of whom are from the EU and UK parliaments … Dozens of Rabbis have also signed the letter denouncing Israel for what many would describe ethnic cleansing. “Forcible transfer – by direct physical force or by creating a coercive environment that makes residents leave their homes – is a war crime,” the letter states.
-
The European Atrocity You Never Heard About
R. M. Douglas -- The Chronicle of Higher Education
… Between 1945 and 1950, Europe witnessed the largest episode of forced migration, and perhaps the single greatest movement of population, in human history. Between 12 million and 14 million German-speaking civilians — the overwhelming majority of whom were women, old people, and children under 16 — were forcibly ejected from their places of birth in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and what are today the western districts of Poland … Most disturbingly of all, tens of thousands perished as a result of ill treatment while being used as slave labor (or, in the Allies’ cynical formulation, “reparations in kind”) in a vast network of camps … By any measure, the postwar expulsions were a man-made disaster and one of the most significant examples of the mass violation of human rights in recent history.
-
The Ugly and Forgotten Legacy of Potsdam
B. Brewer – History News Network
To Americans World War II is all that is great about America. It represents American bravery, sacrifice, fortitude and compassion … When the expulsions came to a halt at the end of 1947 some 1,415,135 Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia had been expelled into the United States Zone of Occupation, along with 750,000 to the Russian zone and 1,500,000 to British zone … Thus, the United States was complicit in legalizing the largest episode of ethnic cleansing that occurred in the twentieth century when 12,000,000 to 16,000,000 Germans came to be expelled from their historic homelands from east-central Europe from the spring of 1945 to the end of 1947.
-
Germany’s defeat in May 1945, and the end of World War II in Europe, did not bring an end to death and suffering for the vanquished German people. Instead the victorious Allies ushered in a horrible new era that, in many ways, was worse than the destruction wrought by war. In a sobering and courageous new book, After the Reich: The Brutal History of Allied Occupation, British historian Giles MacDonogh details how the ruined and prostrate Reich (including Austria) was systematically raped and robbed, and how many Germans who survived the war were either killed in cold blood or deliberately left to die of disease, cold, malnutrition or starvation.