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The United States was isolated at the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights as the other countries on the council opposed the move. In a letter requesting Wednesday’s meeting, Syria described the U.S. decision as a “flagrant violation” of council resolutions … Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in 1981 in a move the 15-member U.N. Security Council declared “null and void and without international legal effect.” British U.N. Ambassador Karen Pierce told the council that the U.S. decision was in contravention of that 1981 resolution …

The Trump Administration’s decision to recognize Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights — Syrian territory seized in the June 1967 war — marks a serious violation of fundamental principles of international law. The inadmissibility of any country expanding its territory by force is a longstanding principle of the international legal order, enshrined in the United Nations Charter, U.N. Security Council resolutions, and repeatedly confirmed by the International Court of Justice. Following its conquest of the Golan region, Israeli forces drove out most of its residents in what has accurately been called ethnic cleansing … International reaction to Trump’s decision has been overwhelmingly negative … The Golan decision may also serve as precedent to recognize Israeli sovereignty over much of the Palestinian territory seized in the 1967 war.

The number of families detained crossing the southern U.S. border without documentation continues to climb this month, according to new data released by the U.S. border agency. U.S. Customs and Border Protection predicts that by March 30, it will have detained roughly 55,000 undocumented family units that crossed into the U.S. The number raises questions about what is triggering the increased arrivals. The head of CBP, Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, repeated at a news conference Wednesday in El Paso that the “surge numbers are just overwhelming the [U.S.] system.” While the U.S. has handled more border apprehensions than the current level, what has shifted in recent months is the demographics. More parents are traveling with young children …

This weekend the New York Times breaks one of the biggest taboos, describing the responsibility of Jewish donors for the Democratic Party’s slavish support for Israel. Nathan Thrall’s groundbreaking piece [“How the Battle Over Israel and Anti-Semitism is Fracturing American Politics”] repeats a lot of data we’ve reported here, and says in essence that it really is about the Benjamins, as Rep. Ilhan Omar said so famously. The donor class of the party is overwhelmingly Jewish, and Jews are still largely wed to Zionism – that’s the nut … The article is a thorough-going rebuke of every journalist and former official (Daniel Shapiro, former ambassador under Obama, for instance, as well as the Forward and the Times opinion writers) who says that money is not at the root, or very near the root, of Democratic Party support.

… There is little willingness among Democrats to argue publicly for substantially changing longstanding policy toward Israel. In part, some Hill staff members and former White House officials say, this is because of the influence of megadonors: Of the dozens of personal checks greater than $500,000 made out to the largest PAC for Democrats in 2018, the Senate Majority PAC, around three-fourths were written by Jewish donors … Another former member of the Obama White House, who asked not to be named, fearing professional retaliation, said that concerns about donors among Democrats dominated not just “what was done but what was not done, and what was not even contemplated.” Even the timing of the administration’s policies toward Israel was dictated by domestic politics.

Poland has said it will bar entry to British Holocaust denier David Irving if he plans to present his opinion on the Nazi genocide of Jews during his planned tour of death camps in the country later this year. “Negation of the Holocaust is not allowed by Polish law, therefore he will not be welcome here in Poland if he wants to come and present his opinions,” Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz told reporters on Friday, according to the Reuters news agency. Earlier in the week, the UK’s Jewish News reported that Irving’s website was taking deposits for the tour of Nazi historical sites scheduled for September, prompting Israel to urge Warsaw to deny his entry.

Historian David Irving and his book Hitler’s War are under fire in this remarkable 1977 session of a popular and influential British television show. In this session of BBC television’s “David Frost Programme,” the best-selling British author defends his detailed, recently-published book, Hitler’s War, against fierce criticism by two academics — Gerald Fleming and Robert Waite — who reject Irving’s view of Hitler’s role in “the Holocaust.” Viewers were surprised to learn that in the audience was Richard Schulze, an SS officer who had served as Hitler’s personal adjutant, 1941- 1944. During the years of World War II when he worked closely with the German leader, explains Schulze, he never heard Hitler mention anything about extermination of Jews or a “final solution.” The next day British newspapers called this session a victory for Irving. Runtime: 27:30 mins.

As dawn was breaking on Sunday morning, June 22, 1941, military forces of Germany, Finland and Romania suddenly struck against the Soviet Union. The stunning news of this attack was announced to the world by German radio at 5:30 that Sunday morning, when Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels broadcast the text of a proclamation by Adolf Hitler to the German people that laid out his reasons for the historic offensive. Following that was the broadcast of Germany’s declaration of war against the Soviet Union. This was in the form of a diplomatic note to the Soviet government. Because Hitler’s proclamation and the German Foreign Office declaration explain at some length the reasons and motives for the fateful decision to strike against the USSR, these are documents of historic importance.

… Stalin knew that Germany’s invasion of Poland would cause Britain and France to declare war on Germany. Stalin expected to pick up the pieces after Germany, Britain and France had exhausted themselves and were ripe for invasion and Communist revolution … Soviet propaganda later tried to cover up Stalin’s plan to attack Europe, claiming his forces were outmoded and unprepared, and generals incompetent … But, contends Suvorov, had Hitler not attacked first in 1941, Stalin’s 30-million man army, backed by mammoth industrial production, would have overwhelmed all of Europe in a 1941 surprise blitz. Suvorov’s unstated conclusion: Hitler saved Western Europe from Stalin … Hitler, in his own warped thinking, believed he was actually doing good for mankind. Stalin had no such illusions. His only interest was raw power.

… We assume that American soldiers die in defence of our rights and freedoms, as they protect us from existential threats. We thank veterans for their service and revere the dead as martyrs. By and large, we never dig deep into why they actually fight and die. After all, no grieving mother wants to think her child gave their life for nothing. But in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, that’s exactly what’s happening … US forces are held hostage by a path-dependent foreign policy that either aims for the impossible (such as the total defeat of “terror”) or refuses to see the entire world as anything other than a US protectorate.

President Trump’s decree recognizing the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights. Israeli officials have presented this as a major ground-breaking recognition, and seemed to hope it would be embraced by someone else. So far though not a single nation has endorsed the move. On Wednesday, the European Union announced that all 28 member states have unanimously rejected the US recognition of Israel’s annexation, and will continue to view Golan in line with UN Security Council resolutions. The Golan Heights are legally part of Syria, occupied by Israel in 1967 and annexed by them in 1981. The United States now stands as the only nation to recognize Israel’s annexation. The recognition of the annexation has fueled concerns Israel may try to annex more occupied territories in the future, figuring the US will ultimately sign off on them.

Controversy has struck the Southern Poverty Law Center, the formidable progressive law firm best known for tracking hate groups in the U.S. Co-founder Morris Dees, President Richard Cohen, and other top executives are exiting the organization amidst a staff uprising over alleged sexual and racial harassment in the work place. The leadership shakeup, fueled by allegations that black staffers were shut out of key positions and that Dees personally harassed female staffers, has brought the SPLC considerable media scrutiny, and it’s about time. Regardless of whether these specific accusations have merit, the SPLC should face a reckoning over its extremely shoddy work, which has mistakenly promoted the idea that fringe hate groups are a rising threat.

An Alabama Republican congressman kicked up a political storm Monday when he quoted from Hitler’s 1925 book “Mein Kampf” on the House floor … Mo Brooks emphatically compared present-day Democrats with members of the Nazi Party … Brooks directly compared Democrats, whom he repeatedly referred to as “socialists,” with Germany’s National Socialist German Workers Party, better known as the Nazis … Brooks, whose point was that Democrats had spread the “big lie” of White House collusion, read the piece as if Hitler was endorsing the concept. If you read the original, you see Hitler is accusing his Jewish enemies of spreading the “big lie” of German culpability in World War I … The book has been invoked in Congress at least three dozen times …

February’s federal budget deficit was the largest on record, according to figures released by the Treasury Department on Friday. President Donald Trump promised during his campaign that he would balance the budget in eight years. The total debt surpassed $22 trillion for the first time ever in February — $2 trillion higher than when Trump took office. The massive shortfall is being attributed to a 20 percent drop in corporate revenue and increased federal spending. The Trump administration slashed corporate taxes in his new 2017 tax law from 35 percent to 21 percent. Trump’s tax-cut package cost the government $1.5 trillion … The deficit for the first five months of the federal fiscal year is $544.2 billion, up nearly 40 percent from the same period the previous year, according to Treasury figures … Money owed is eating up an increasing share of the GDP.

One of America’s most influential political figures recently expressed allegiance to Israel in language that’s extravagant even by the standards of rhetorical hype that often prevail today. At an important Zionist conference, Nancy Pelosi pledged: “I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid … and I don’t even call it aid … our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.” Pelosi, who is speaker of the US House of Representatives, was addressing the annual conference of the Israeli-American Council, Dec. 2, 2018. Together with her were two powerful Jewish-Zionist figures: US Senate Democratic Party leader Chuck Schumer, and Haim Saban, a billionaire Israeli-American businessman who has been the leading financial backer of Democratic Party candidates.

US officials including Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with more than a dozen US lawmakers appeared on stage on the second day of AIPAC’s annual conference to vow support for Israel … “Under President Donald Trump, if the world knows nothing else the world knows this: America stands with Israel,” Pence said. Trump meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, signed a declaration recognizing Israeli control of the Golan Heights … Pompeo warned of rising anti-Semitism worldwide in the Middle East, Europe and the US. “The United States stands with the Jewish people and Israel in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry,” Pompeo said. “My friends, let me go on record, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,” Pompeo said, drawing applause.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, the wealthiest civil rights organization in the country, has ousted its founder, Morris Dees, and president, Richard Cohen, amid unspecified allegations of workplace misconduct by Dees … The organization has long been dysfunctional in even deeper ways, and the story of Dees and the SPLC is useful for illustrating some of the worst and most hypocritical tendencies in American liberalism … The biggest problem with the hate map, though, is that it’s an outright fraud. I don’t use that term casually. I mean, the whole thing is a willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the SPLC … The SPLC has continuously sent out terrifying lies to make old people part with their money … To me, this is a scam bordering on criminal mail fraud.

This report takes a critical look at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a wealthy leftist organization that for years has received uncritical support and approval from the mainstream US media. It includes short interviews with Carol Swain and Glen Allen, two victims of the influential Center. Allen has brought a lawsuit against the SPLC in response to its efforts to destroy his career. The Center’s activities are “un-American and unfair,” he says. It labels organizations it does not like as “hate groups” not on the basis of any objective standard, Allen says, but rather in accord with its “left-wing orientation.” Runtime: 5:27 mins.

The corruption in South Africa is so bad, it’s like a noxious fog that has settled on a once peaceful, prosperous, and prejudiced nation … The corruption is not only in the ANC but also in every facet of the nation: the schools, local governments, utilities, the mines, the police, the unions, South African Airlines, the rail service, and the banks … Everyone seems to demand a bribe to do anything … The biggest burr under the saddle is that most of the arable land belongs to Whites; and Blacks want that burr removed. Hence, the Parliament has voted to take land from white farmers (without compensation) and give it to Blacks. That bit of political thievery has turned the nation into a powder keg as white farmers including children and the elderly have been tortured, raped, and killed by roaming black thugs.

With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, US President Donald Trump declared Monday that the Golan Heights belongs to Israel — handing another major diplomatic victory to the premier ahead of tight elections. Netanyahu spared no praise as he watched Trump sign the Golan proclamation at the White House … Netanyahu was visiting Washington for the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel US lobby … Trump was isolated in the move, with the United Nations and US allies France and Britain all saying that they still considered the Golan Heights “Israeli-occupied” in line with UN resolutions. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Trump’s declaration “ignores all international procedures” and “could drive a new wave of tensions” in the Middle East.

… Trump’s statement last Thursday was a turning point in US policy over territory Israel captured from Syria in a 1967 war and annexed in 1981, in a move the UN Security Council declared unlawful. “I am confident that the Lord is at work here,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was in Israel when Trump made his announcement on Twitter, told the Christian Broadcasting Network … But Trump’s decision, following U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017, could tempt other powers to annex land, undermine the roll-out of a U.S. Middle East peace plan and tilt Israel back into conflict with its Arab neighbors, Middle East analysts say … U.S. recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights could embolden the Israeli right-wing to step up its push for annexing settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

A newly unearthed batch of heavily redacted, classified emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal email server revealed that the former secretary of state discussed establishing a “private, 100% off-the-record” back channel to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that one of her top aides warned her that she was in “danger” of being “savaged by Jewish organizations, in the Jewish press and among the phalanx of neoconservative media” as a result of political machinations by “Bibi and the Jewish leadership.” … The documents, representing a small proportion of the tens of thousands of emails still unaccounted for from Clinton’s server, also underscored the apparently significant political threat that the Obama administration felt it faced at the hands of Israel.

The number of deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide in 2017 hit the highest level since federal data collection started in 1999, according to an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data by two public health nonprofits. The national rate for deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide rose from 43.9 to 46.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2017, a six percent increase, the Trust for America’s Health and the Well Being Trust reported Tuesday. That was a slower increase than in the previous two years, but it was greater than the four percent average annual increase since 1999. Deaths from suicides rose from 13.9 to 14.5 deaths per 100,000, a four percent increase. That was double the average annual pace over the previous decade.

… Many, however, have never heard of the sinking of MV (Motor Vessel) Wilhelm Gustloff, which was torpedoed in the Baltic Sea in 1945. Thousands more lives were lost than the Titanic — including thousands of women and children … The S-13 fired three torpedoes, all of which struck the Gustloff. Panic ensued as the ship started to list. Lifeboats were covered with ice and only a few were able to be launched. Many passengers were trapped below or already dead from the explosions. Those who couldn’t get in the few lifeboats and rafts took their chances in the sea, where most died of exposure. The Wilhelm Gustloff slid beneath the surface less than 40 minutes after being struck.

Many of those who view “Titanic,” the blockbuster motion picture, may leave the movie theater believing that the April 15, 1912, sinking of the great British liner, with the loss of 1,523 men, women and children, was history’s greatest maritime disaster … But these disasters are dwarfed by the sinkings of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the General Steuben and the Goya, three German ships crowded with evacuated refugees and wounded soldiers that were struck by Soviet submarines during the final months of the Second World War.

For many people, the image of a great maritime disaster calls to mind the well-known sinking of the Titanic, which went down in April 1912 after striking an iceberg, taking the lives of 1,503 men, women and children … Dwarfed by the little-known sinkings of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the General Steuben and the Goya – converted German liners crowded with refugees and wounded soldiers that were sunk by Soviet submarines during the final months of the Second World War. In each case, more lives were lost than in the sinkings of either the Sultana, the Lusitania or the Titanic.

The sinking of the `Wilhelm Gustloff’ is not well known, but this was one of the worst naval disasters in history. This 44-minute documentary tells the story of how this German vessel, packed with women and children refugees, was sunk by a Soviet submarine on Jan. 30, 1945. Estimates of the number of drowning victims run as high as 9,000 — that is, more than the number of those who died in the Titantic and Lusitania sinkings combined.

All prisoners of German wartime concentration camps who perished while in German custody are routinely regarded as “victims of Nazism” — even if they lost their lives as direct or indirect result of Allied policy … Among the German concentration camp prisoners who perished at Allied hands were some 7,000 inmates who were killed during the war’s final week as they were being evacuated in three large German ships that were attacked by British war planes. This little-known tragedy is one of history’s greatest maritime disasters.

The steady rise of anti-semitism around the world means that Jews in the US and Europe have little choice but to recognize that the need for “resistance and counteroffensive has returned,” the leading French-Jewish writer and public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy told The Algemeiner during an extensive interview this week. Lévy’s core message … is that antisemitism has reached a severity that the majority of Jews alive today have not so far encountered. “Antisemitism is back. Everywhere. Openly,” Lévy said … Lévy pointed out that the 18th-century French philosopher Voltaire, commonly regarded as “the incarnation of the Enlightenment, was also the incarnation of antisemitism.”

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) is the author of The Canterbury Tales, a collection of 22 stories, mostly written in verse; Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was a renowned playwright, poet, and translator; William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is perhaps the most famous writer of all time, having authored approximately 39 plays and 154 sonnets. What do these three writers have in common? They all depicted Jewish characters as extortionate money-lenders or tax gatherers; haters of the Christian savior; cowards; murderers of Christian children; and clannish in nature … Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is similar to The Jew of Malta. Both narratives are about alien, crafty, wealthy Jewish money-lenders who are consumed by material greed.

For decades after the Holocaust, many Jews refused to visit Germany. Some still do. But now it has become common to hear Hebrew spoken in the bakeries and bars of Berlin. At least 10,000 Israelis are estimated to have moved to the German capital in the past decade, according to Tal Alon, the Berlin-based editor of the Hebrew-language magazine Spitz … In the city of more than 3.5 million, Israelis punch above their weight culturally. They are helping drive Berlin’s blossoming culinary scene, with several high-end Israeli restaurants in the city including Layla, opened last fall by Tel Aviv celebrity chef Meir Adoni. And the director of Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theater, Yael Ronen, is Israeli, as is Daniel Barenboim, the conductor of Berlin’s state opera.

Here’s the foreign policy question of questions in 2019: Are President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, all severely weakened at home and with few allies abroad, reckless enough to set off a war with Iran? Could military actions designed to be limited — say, a heightening of the Israeli bombing of Iranian forces inside Syria, or possible U.S. cross-border attacks from Iraq, or a clash between American and Iranian naval ships in the Persian Gulf — trigger a wider war? Worryingly, the answers are: yes and yes … Last month, Prime Minister Netanyahu was heard remarking that Israel and its Arab allies want war with Iran.

“We can’t be divided by race, religion, by tribe. We’re defined by those enduring principles in the Constitution, even though we don’t necessarily all know them.” So Joe Biden told the firefighters union this week. But does Joe really believe that? Or does that not sound more like a plea, a wistful hope, rather than a deep conviction? … What is it that is tearing us apart? Is it not our differences? Is it not our diversity? … “Diversity is our greatest strength!” we are ever admonished. But where is the evidence for what appears to be not only an inherently implausible claim but a transparently foolish and false one?

Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel is “not a state of all its citizens”, in a reference to the country’s Arab population. In comments on Instagram, the prime minister went on to say all citizens, including Arabs, had equal rights, but he referred to a deeply controversial law passed last year declaring Israel the nation state of the Jewish people. “Israel is not a state of all its citizens,” he wrote in response to criticism from an Israeli actor, Rotem Sela. “According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it … He called Israel a “Jewish, democratic state” with equal rights, but “the nation state not of all its citizens but only of the Jewish people”.

British government officials forged documents to produce “fake news stories” during the Cold War, newly released files show. The Information Research Department (IRD) was the Foreign Office’s secret propaganda unit. For 30 years it fed information to journalists and had its own news agencies too. Almost 2,000 of its files have been transferred to the National Archives since the start of 2019. The files cover the early 1960s – the heyday of the IRD, when it employed between 400 and 600 people, according to Paul Lashmar, author of Britain’s Secret Propaganda War. In 1978, Mr Lashmar was part of the team of journalists who revealed the existence of the IRD. He says this is the first time their role faking documents has been exposed … Part of the project involved working abroad, but it also fed information to London-based academics and correspondents.

Before there was John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory (1936), there was his Economic Consequences of the Peace. Written during the summer of 1919, few books did more to discredit the Treaty of Versailles which formally ended four years of war between the victorious Allied powers and a defeated Germany. It also launched the 36 year-old Keynes into a public and international spotlight which he never left … Keynes didn’t always get his way. But it’s hard to think of any economist who comes even close to Keynes in terms of single-handedly shaping the parameters within which questions of economic policy have been discussed throughout the West from the 1920s onwards up to today.

Casual observers of the House of Commons’ monthly ritual in which British MPs grill the country’s Foreign Office ministers would know that Israel and the Palestinians are frequent topics of debate. But the true scale of the UK parliament’s growing focus on the Jewish state has now been revealed by the researcher and blogger David Collier. Using Hansard — the official transcripts of proceedings in parliament — Collier has uncovered what he claims to be “astonishing results” underlining the “total obsession with Israel” in Britain’s legislature … It is not necessary to believe that there may be some darker motive for what Collier terms “the increasing fixation” with the world’s sole Jewish state to recognize that it skews the way in which politicians and the public in the UK come to view the problems of the region.

The college admissions scandal should be the populist issue of our time. Most of the talk in our politics about how “the system is rigged” is incredibly abstract and symbolic. But this is infuriatingly concrete … But the scandal goes beyond just these issues. It’s also a searing indictment of the value of an elite college education in the first place. None of these parents seemed remotely concerned about whether their kids could hack it once they got into their dream schools — and rightly so … As a matter of public policy, the way we tell everyone they should go to college, even if it means incurring crushing debt, is a scandal. College isn’t for everyone, and it isn’t necessary for many careers or vocations — and shouldn’t be necessary for many others.

When letters first showed up on Alan Leveritt’s desk saying the Arkansas Times was required to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel in order to continue to receive state contracts, he ignored them … This means that if a company wanted a state contract over $1,000, the public entity granting the contract had to certify that the company does not participate in a boycott of Israel … Arkansas is one of more than 25 states that have passed legislation meant to curtail the BDS movement, and around 15 more have seen anti-BDS legislation introduced in their state chambers.

Critics of a Florida House bill that aims to crack down on anti-Semitism say the legislation is too narrow because it fails to address other forms of xenophobia and hate crimes, and that it violates the First Amendment by criminalizing legitimate criticisms of the State of Israel. HB 741, which would specify that the term “religion” include anti-Semitism for purposes of the hate crime statute, among other things, passed unanimously in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee Tuesday morning … The bill also cites what it calls “examples of anti-Semitism related to Israel,” which includes “blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions” and “focusing peace or human rights investigations only on Israel.”

[ Address given in London, England, and, slightly modified, in Guadalajara, Mexico. Runtime: 33 mins. ] … As long as the power of what Desmond Tutu calls “the very powerful” Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of history and current affairs, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the US political system and the American media, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace. That’s why no task is more important or pressing than to identify, counter and break this power.

One thing that should be said about Representative Ilhan Omar’s tweet about the power of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (more commonly known as AIPAC, or the “Israel lobby”) is that the hysterical reaction to it proved her main point: The power of AIPAC over members of Congress is literally awesome, although not in a good way … Again, I know this because I witnessed it over and over again. I sat in AIPAC staff meetings at which the political director discussed whom “we” would be supporting in this campaign and whom “we” were going to “destroy” in that one … This is the lobby’s goal: to ensure that Congress never questions Israel about anything, that it just shuts up and keeps the billions of dollars in aid coming. And above all, without conditions …

An Israeli professor disclosed in a recent lecture series at Columbia University that Israeli authorities have permitted large pharmaceutical firms to experiment on Palestinian prisoners, and have been testing weapons on Palestinian children. Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at Israel’s Hebrew University, also presented in Amsterdam in January on the same topic … Shalhoub- Kevorkian’s presentation was based on data she gathered for a research project for the university … Shalhoub-Kevorkian also pointed out that Israeli military firms test weapons on Palestinian children in the Palestinian neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem. “Palestinian spaces are laboratories,” she explained.

Israel’s rabbinate “has been performing genetic testing on Israelis from the former Soviet Union, to check if they are ‘genetically Jewish’ as a condition for marriage registration”, according to Ynet. The [Israeli] news site reported that “at least 20 couples have come forward after having been asked to undergo the procedure in the past year.” “Although the existence of such tests was initially denied by Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau admitted to having requested that some couples prove their Jewish status,” Ynet added, noting that “Lau claimed those were isolated incidents and there was no coercion.”

A maddening element of the Ilhan Omar controversy is all the experts offering instruction on The right way and the wrong way to criticize the Israel lobby. Why must someone who sees a dreadful faction working to skew US policy-making walk on eggshells when attacking it? Do the Parkland students hold back about their target lobby? … Oh – but you are talking about Jewish influence … I think the Israel lobby is a baleful influence that has helped to make the Middle East a violent neighborhood and to involve the U.S. in quagmires; and so we need to talk about it. It’s too important not to. And if you accept all the rules, it means you will never really take on the lobby out of fear of saying the wrong thing about money or allegiance and being labeled an anti-Semite. Which is sort of the point, right?

Only twelve percent of Americans think Israel is a top foreign policy partner, according to a Pew study released earlier this month. According to the poll, 37% of Americans believe the UK would be the most valuable partner, and after that China (26%), followed by Canada with 25%. However, more Republicans seem to believe Israel is a key partner, with 25% in comparison to 5% of Democrats. Germans were also asked which country they view as the most important foreign policy partner. No significant number mentioned Israel. Most Germans viewed France as that partner (61%).

… The U.S. provides the Jewish state with $3.8 billion a year in aid, and has committed to doing so for each of the next ten years … Again you might ask: What did the U.S. get in return for all this from Israel? And again the answer is: Nothing. Actually, worse than nothing. The U.S. suffers internationally from this alliance. Don’t take it from me … This grotesque distortion of U.S. foreign policy deserves a much wider debate, but is constrained by cheap accusations of anti-Semitism … It seems to me that it is simply a fact that the Israel lobby uses money, passion, and persuasion to warp this country’s foreign policy in favor of another country — out of all proportion to what Israel can do for the U.S. That comes perilously close to anti-Semitic tropes, but it’s also the truth.

… This flood of Jewish money into foreign policy generation has done incalculable damage to the actual interests of the United States as Sullivan, to his credit, makes clear in his article. The point is that politics in America is all about money and Ilhan Omar was quite right to make that connection … Andrew Sullivan pulls no punches in his article, which should be read in extenso. He writes “The basic facts are not really in dispute. A very powerful lobby deploys the money and passions of its members to ensure that a foreign country gets very, very special treatment from the U.S.” and then goes on to detail exactly how Israel is a major liability to America.

On NPR this morning, David Greene interviewed Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League about the mass murders in the New Zealand mosques … Greenblatt said the attack is unprecedented … Greenblatt failed to remember 1994’s rightwing Zionist attack on the Ibrahimi mosque, at the Cave of the Patriarchs, when Baruch Goldstein, a messianic Jewish settler who had moved to occupied territories from Brooklyn, killed 29 Muslims while they prayed.

The mayor of a central German town has apologized after a Nazi-era advertisement appeared without comment in an official gazette. It even announced a speech by dictator Adolf Hitler. Several German political parties have called for the resignation of the mayor of the central town of Hildburghausen after a municipal notice commemorating an Allied bombing raid on the town in World War II was found to include a Nazi-era advertisement calling the bombardment a “terror attack.” Left Party politician Bodo Ramelow, the premier of the state of Thuringia, where Hildburghausen is situated, described the publication of the Nazi material as “simply unbearable.” Criticism also came from Social Democrat and Green lawmakers.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has fired its famed co-founder, Morris Dees, over unspecified misconduct, the nonprofit announced Thursday, a stunning development at an organization that became a bedrock of anti-extremism research and activism under nearly half a century of Dees’ leadership … Stephen Bright, a Yale law professor and former director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, has long questioned what he calls the center’s “fraudulent” fundraising … “Morris is a flimflam man and he’s managed to flimflam his way along for many years raising money by telling people about the Ku Klux Klan and hate groups,” he said … “It’s remarkable,” he said, “how many people who have worked at the center have not spoken very well of the center after they left.”

What is the arch-salesman of hate-mongering, Mr. Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center doing now? … Ever since 1971 US Postal Service mailbags have bulged with Dees’ fundraising letters, scaring dollars out of the pockets of trembling liberals aghast at his lurid depictions of hate-sodden America, in dire need of legal confrontation by the SPLC. Nine years ago Ken Silverstein wrote a devastating commentary on Dees and the SPLC in Harpers, dissecting a typical swatch of Dees’ solicitations. At that time, as Silverstein pointed out, the SPLC was “the wealthiest civil rights group in America,” with $120 million in assets.

… In the last ten years, the niche market for art by Hitler has grown, experts say, and this has led to an increase in the value of the paintings, drawings and watercolors supposedly created by the future dictator over a century ago. But many, if not most, of these works are likely not by Hitler. After years of letting such public auctions go unchecked, German prosecutors are starting to take notice.

A news kiosk inside Poland’s parliament was found to be selling a newspaper with an article instructing readers on “How to recognize a Jew”, drawing accusations that lawmakers were happy to tolerate anti-Semitism. The article in “Tylko Polska” (“Only Poland”), a low-circulation, nationally distributed right-wing weekly, describes how to recognize Jews based on their last names, personality traits and facial features … It goes on: “Because the whole world belongs to them … they are supposed to exist in every country, take power over nations and lead to the creation of one worldwide Jewish state.” … Parliament said it would request the publication be withdrawn from sale, but a Jewish groups demanded stronger action.

The Israel lobby’s buying off of nearly every senior politician in the United States, facilitated by our system of legalized bribery, is not an anti-Semitic trope. It is a fact … The well-funded campaigns by the Israel lobby, which works closely with Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, to discredit any American politician or academic who even slightly deviates from Israeli policy is not an anti-Semitic trope. It is a fact … The massive interference in our internal affairs by Israel and the Israel lobby, far exceeding that of any other country, including Russia or China, is not an anti-Semitic trope. It is a fact … Israel’s outsized, transparent and often illegal meddling in the American political system and Israel’s brutal oppression of Palestinians. It is too obvious and too egregious to hide.

… The GIs should have remembered what the British had learned the hard way: never underestimate the Germans. Soon Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, admiringly dubbed the “Desert Fox” by the British, would teach the rookie Americans a lesson on the art of war at a dusty defile called Kasserine Pass … Kasserine left a bitter residue that poisoned the Allied cause for the rest of the war. It confirmed the British in their belief that the Americans were baby soldiers, soft and spoiled amateurs who needed gentle but firm guidance from their wiser, more experienced English cousins.

The Southern Poverty Law Center on Thursday announced that it had fired Morris Dees, the center’s co-founder and long-time public face of the civil rights organization, amid undisclosed allegations that Dees failed to meet the standards of the SPLC. A statement sent by SPLC president Richard Cohen alluded to issues within the organization that made for a working environment that was lacking in “truth, justice, equity and inclusion.” … Internal emails obtained by APR related to Dees’ firing appear to show that the problems — which employees said spanned from sexual harassment to gender- and race-based discrimination — were more systemic and widespread … Specifically, the employees’ email alleged multiple instances of sexual harassment by Dees, and it alleges that reports of his conduct were ignored or covered up by SPLC leadership.

A former Republican governor of Maine claimed Monday the Democratic Party’s “money comes from” Jewish donors “for the most part” — escalating a recent spate of rhetoric from elected officials and media figures that has been widely criticized as bigoted. Paul LePage, who left the Augusta governor’s mansion in January after two terms, made the remarks during an interview with a radio station in Portland, Maine, in which he rebuked recent statements Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has made about Israel. “The Jewish people in America have been great supporters of the Democratic Party,” LePage told WGAN- AM. “In fact, that’s where their money comes from for the most part” …

… On 19 March, the Jewish Museum London will open an exhibition both fascinating and deeply unsettling. It’s called Jews, Money, Myth, and it makes clear that the tendency to connect Jews and money is a habit centuries – indeed millennia – old … Given the 2,000-year-old history of this equation between Jews and the wickedness of money, it is absurd to imagine any one of us would be immune to it. Inevitably, plenty of Jews have themselves internalised it – including no less than Karl Marx, whose writings are peppered with anti-Jewish sentiment, who referred to money as “the jealous god of Israel”, and who looked forward to “the emancipation of mankind from Judaism”.

… Thomas Jefferson, a lifelong believer in a “natural aristocracy” among men, was contemptuous: “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49.” [James] Madison wrote in Federalist 10, “democracies … have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” … We do not select NFL coaches or corporate executives or college professors or generals or admirals by plebiscite. What is the empirical evidence that this is the best way to choose a president or commander in chief? Peoples are wondering that the world over, as our democracy does not appear to be an especially attractive stock.

Twelve pro-Israel groups delivered a letter on Monday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), urging for the removal of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the committee amid the Minnesota congresswoman’s latest anti-Semitic remarks … “We hope you will continue to demonstrate your commitment to the high moral standards of your office by removing Rep. Omar, a woman who has repeatedly exhibited strong biases against the State of Israel and the Jewish people, from this critically important and sensitive committee,” they continued.

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s comments last week in Washington that seemed to question the allegiance of Americans who advocate tirelessly for Israel have incurred the wrath of those advocates, who charge her with anti-Semitism … But Omar’s critique goes to the nature of Zionism; and it was anticipated by the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt. Arendt’s prophetic writings about Zionism in the 1940s described the “double-loyalty” issue for American Jews that Israel would bring on them, by compelling them to be “the lobbies” for an embattled Jewish state … Arendt predicted the rise of the Israel lobby: influential Zionist individuals and organizations that would be called upon to shape American policy. That has come to pass …

… There is particular concern over the issue at the moment because a freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar has let the proverbial cat out of the bag by alluding to American-Jewish money buying uncritical support for a foreign country which is Israel without any regard to broader U.S. interests, something that everyone in Washington knows is true and has been the case for decades but is afraid to discuss due to inevitable punishment by the Israel Lobby … He and other dual loyalists, to be generous in describing them, should be exposed for what they are, which is the epitome of the promoters of the too “passionate attachment” with a foreign state that President George Washington once warned against. If the United States of America is not their homeland by every measure, they should perhaps consider doing Aliyah and moving to Israel.

… In a long-standing tradition, Washington’s Farewell Address to the nation is read aloud on the floor of the U.S. Senate every February 22, in honor of the birth date of our first President. Yet that document reveals the stark contrast between the principles espoused by Washington and the politics practiced today in the city that bears his name. “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” Washington wrote, “the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” … While Washington worried over his nation being drawn into the rivalries, ambitions and wars of Europe, he could hardly have imagined we would today be waging war simultaneously in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Niger.

… In proportion to their numbers, Jews are the most successful and powerful group in the United States today. They have both raw power, political and economic, and enormous intellectual influence, shaping America’s self-understanding … The Jews don’t really “run” America; but they haunt it in a peculiar way that makes it seem as if they run it, and gives them a leverage out of all proportion to their numbers, and even to their raw power. They have a certain moral authority, which isn’t altogether specious, but is certainly lopsided, since they are exempted from the kind of public criticism they are free to dish out.

… Maybe, for the first time in history, someone will dare tell the truth to the American people, absorbing scathing accusations of anti-Semitism, without bowing her head. The chances of this happening aren’t great; the savage engine of the Jewish lobby and of Israel’s “friends” is already doing everything it can to trample her … Jews have immense power in the U.S., far beyond the relative size of their community, and the blind support given by their establishment to Israel raises legitimate questions regarding dual loyalty. Their power derives from their economic success, their organizational skills and the political pressure they exert. Omar dared to speak about this.

As most are surely aware, the last year or two has seen a growing crackdown on free speech and free thought across the Internet, with our constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights being circumvented through the agency of monopolistic private sector corporations such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google. Although as yet our government has not gained the power to ban discordant views nor punish their advocates, anonymous tech company censors regularly take these steps, seemingly based upon entirely opaque and arbitrary standards which lack any power of appeal … In effect, the ADL seems to function as a privatized version of our secret political police, seeking to maintain the power of the interlocking Jewish groups which dominate our society …

After almost ten years online, over 250 videos, almost 13,000 subscribers, and about eight million total video views, YouTube has terminated the Middle East Observer (MEO) channel on its platform. Although perhaps MEO became best known for its video translations of regional political actors such as Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, its work was certainly not limited to that. Middle East Observer sought to provide its viewers with reliable English translations on politics, religion, and culture from the Middle East more broadly, with a particular focus on media from key states such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran … We gradually realised that no matter what measures we took, it would not satisfy YouTube’s ‘Guidelines’, as the platform’s architecture and policies increasingly moved towards the censorship of alternative news and views.

Websense company [now Forcepoint], a major US supplier of web content filtering software, says that the Institute for Historical Review promotes “racism and hate,” and blocks access to the IHR website, on the basis of an unfair standard that deceives the public and its own customers. In a letter to the IHR, Websense Senior Legal Counsel Eric Proul makes clear that the company has no objective basis for its claim that the IHR promotes “racism and hate.” In an attempt to justify this claim, Proul cites three “Holocaust revisionism” items — out of hundreds posted on the IHR website — but he is unable to show any connection between these three items and “racism and hate.”

The Catholic Church in Carinthia, Austria, rejected a request to hold an annual mass because they said it would be used to promote nationalistic ideas on Friday, according to Balkan Insight, a network of NGOs promoting free speech and justice in Eastern and Southern Europe … According to the report, the Catholic Church believed that the event would undermine their reputation. Symbols from the WWII fascist group Ustaša are often spotted at the mass, organized by the Croatian Bishops’ Conference. The mass commemorates tens of thousands of Nazi-allied Croatian troops and civilians who were killed in 1945 by Yugoslav Partisans. Croatian Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković was deeply upset by the Croatian group’s inability to memorialize the dead.

Saying anything negative about Israel has long been the third rail of US politics and media. Israel is our nation’s most sacred cow. Any questioning of its behavior brings furious charges of anti-Semitism and professional oblivion … Criticize, or even question, Israel at your own peril. Until recently, we journalists were not even allowed to write there was an ‘Israel lobby.’ It was widely considered Washington’s most powerful lobby group but, until lately, mentioning its name was seriously verboten … Israel’s brutal repression of Palestinians has sparked bitter anti-Israel sentiments across Europe. Not so much in America, where media leans far over to Israel’s side and evangelical Christians have been bamboozled into believing that a Greater Israel is somehow necessary for the Second Coming.

Rep. Ilhan Omar has intensified her claims that some Jewish lawmakers have a dual loyalty to Israel, rejecting criticism from Democratic colleagues that she is engaging in anti-Semitism. “I should not be expected to have allegiance/ pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee,” Omar tweeted Sunday afternoon. “I am told every day that I am anti-American if I am not pro-Israel. I find that to be problematic and I am not alone. I just happen to be willing to speak up on it and open myself to attacks.” Omar, an aggressive first-term Democrat hoping to bring left-wing views to the Foreign Affairs Committee, has drawn rebukes from Democratic leaders after her comments about the U.S.-Israel alliance.

It was a mere two months ago the president of the United States declared he would leave Syria and bring home the troops … That was then, this is now. Now Trump has gone back on his promise, as he has gone back on most of his other promises, and US troops will continue to violate Syria’s national sovereignty for the foreseeable future … This illegality, this violation of international law and the UN Charter (the US signed this document in 1945 with the founding of the UN), represents a cornerstone of US foreign policy. The US has invaded 70 nations, engaged in genocide, economic warfare, and has fomented terror since the founding of the nation … The centerpiece of this strategy is Israel, which has for years called for an outright invasion of Iran, using the fallacious pretext of nuclear weapons.

… Not one of the U.S.’s post-9/11 wars was authorized by the UN Security Council, as the UN Charter would require, meaning that they all either violate the UN Charter, as Secretary General Kofi Annan admitted in the case of Iraq, or violate the explicit terms of UN Security Council resolutions … U.S. leaders show the same disdain for the U.S. Constitution as for the UN Charter and UN resolutions … U.S. political debates over war and peace pointedly ignore the legal reality that the UN Charter, backed up by the “Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy” in the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the prohibition against aggression in customary international law, all prohibit the U.S. from attacking other countries.

… The importance of the Nazi-Zionist [“Haavara”] pact for Israel’s establishment is difficult to overstate. According to a 1974 analysis in Jewish Frontier cited by Brenner, between 1933 and 1939 over 60 percent of all the investment in Jewish Palestine came from Nazi Germany … The very uncomfortable truth is that the harsh characterizations of Diaspora Jewry found in the pages of Mein Kampf were not all that different from what was voiced by Zionism’s founding fathers and its subsequent leaders, so the cooperation of those two ideological movements was not really so totally surprising.

In spite of a basic hostility between Third Reich Germany and international Jewry, German National Socialists and Jewish Zionists shared similar views about ethnicity and nationhood, and worked together in the years 1933 through 1940-41 for what each group believed was in its own best national interest. The Hitler government vigorously promoted Zionism and Jewish emigration to Palestine. In collaborating with the Zionists for a mutually desirable and humane solution to a complex problem, Third Reich Germany was willing to make foreign exchange sacrifices, impair relations with Britain, and anger Arabs. Runtime: 49 mins.

… The idea of sending Jews to Madagascar was still not a Nazi plan. Poland was the next to seriously consider the idea; they even sent a commission to Madagascar to investigate. In 1937, Poland sent a commission to Madagascar to determine the feasibility of forcing Jews to emigrate there. Members of the commission had very different conclusions … On November 12, 1938, Hermann Goering told the German Cabinet that Adolf Hitler was going to suggest to the West the emigration of Jews to Madagascar … Himmler discussed his proposal with Hitler of sending the Jews “to a colony in Africa or elsewhere,” and Hitler responded that the plan was “very good and correct.” … Rademacher’s plan was set down in the memorandum, “The Jewish Question in the Peace Treaty” on July 3, 1940.

… With the U.S. debt over 100 percent of gross domestic product and the deficit running at nearly five percent of GDP, at full employment, the burden the migrant millions are imposing upon our social welfare state will one day collapse the system … These folks will be eligible for city, county, state and federal programs that provide free or subsidized food, rent, housing and health care … How many more can we take in before government sinks under the weight of its beneficiaries? … The resolution and determination of Third World peoples to come to America, even if they have to break our laws to get in and stay, is proven. And if there is no matching national will to halt the invasion, and no truly effective means that would be acceptable to our elites, the migrants are never going to stop coming. And why should they?

Support for Israel in the American public is at its lowest point in a decade, according new Gallup poll released Wednesday, with a whopping decline among self-identified Republicans who said they sympathized more with Israelis than Palestinians … The 2019 survey found that the decline in sympathy for Israel extended to both of America’s major political parties. While support for Israel among Democrats dropped by six percent, Republican support declined by 13 percent, a staggering figure in light of Republican President Donald Trump’s cultivation of an intensely close relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The percentage of Republicans saying they sympathize more with Israel in the conflict fell from an all-time high of 87% in 2018 to 76% today,” the poll said.

… This is not the first time that students have turned to Roman history for tools that might help them understand the present. During the Iraq war, students and journalists alike looked to the later Roman Empire to diagnose the condition of American global hegemony … The discussion proved so fruitful that I decided to redesign my class to focus on issues that Rome confronted 2000 years ago, and that the US now struggles to address. I believe that this is now the main job of a Roman historian. The US republic is a descendent of the Roman Republic, patterned on Rome by our founders. When our country began, Rome offered history’s most successful republic … We examine how Roman economic inequality grew in the mid-second century BCE in ways that resemble what has unfolded in the US over the last 30 years.

… Today, the U.S. maintains a policy of containment of Russia and China, which are more united than they have been since the first days of the Cold War. We are responsible for defending 28 NATO nations in Europe, twice as many as during the Cold War, plus Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. We have troops in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and appear on the cusp of collisions with Venezuela and Iran. Yet we field armed forces a fraction of the size they were in the 1950s and 1960s and the Reagan era. And the U.S. national debt is now larger than the U.S. economy. This is imperial overstretch. It is unsustainable.

Some foreign diplomats in Iran have revealed that the US sanctions on Iran cover the country’s tourism industry as well, saying Washington has warned a number of foreign travel agencies and diplomatic missions against cooperating with the Islamic Republic in the tourism area. Deputy Ambassador of Malaysia to Iran and some Chinese tour leaders say some US agents have contacted them warning against establishing cooperation with Iran in the tourism area. “This time the US has blatantly threatened Iran’s tourism industry. Foreign travel agencies are not allowed to take anyone on a tour of Iran, otherwise it would ban them and create legal problems for the tourists who visited Iran when they want to enter the US,” a report by Mehr news agency said.

Meir Kahane, the founder and leader of Israel’s openly racist Kach party in the 1970s and ’80s, was assassinated in the United States after delivering a lecture at a Manhattan hotel on November 5, 1990. Yet his name is currently dominating Israeli politics … There has been much talk about “Kahanists” returning to the Knesset [parliament], but what does this mean? And who exactly is the extremist rabbi who has returned to Israeli politics with a vengeance? … The JDL [Jewish Defense League, founded by Kahane] attacked Russian targets: an Aeroflot airline office; a Soviet diplomat’s residence … He wrote a book called “They Must Go” and was arrested over 60 times for provocative actions against Arabs. He openly declared that Israel could not be both Jewish and democratic, and that his choice was a state guided by Jewish law …

This booklet documents the background and criminal activities of Jewish Zionist terrorist groups, and especially the Jewish Defense League, founded by Meir Kahane. Particular emphasis is given here to terror — including murder — against “thought criminals” who question the Holocaust story that six million Jews were systematically killed during the Second World War … This terror campaign culminated in a devastating arson attack on the Institute’s offices and warehouse in Torrance on July 4, 1984 — the anniversary of American independence. Damage in the attack, carried out in the early morning hours of the 4th, was estimated at $400,000.

This doesn’t look like extremist hate speech to us. Judging from these blurbs and titles, it looks like pretty balanced and fair discussion of a very serious, and vehemently disputed, allegation. The first one in the list below even presents both sides of the argument in an attempt to get to the bottom of who is telling the truth. Why are some people so afraid of a fair and open discussion? These books were banned from Amazon in March of 2017, but are easily available online at other sellers. Take a look at the blurbs describing these books. They are an eye-opener.

While Americans were obsessing over a third-rate actor’s fake claims of a racial assault, old foes India and Pakistan were rattling their nuclear weapons in a very dangerous crisis over Kashmir. But hardly anyone noticed that nuclear war could break out in South Asia. India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed, have fought four wars over divided Kashmir since 1947, the lovely mountain state of forests and lakes whose population is predominantly Muslim. India controls two thirds of Kashmir; Pakistan and China the rest. This bitter dispute, one of the world’s oldest confrontations, has defied all attempts to resolve it. The United Nations called on India to hold a plebiscite to determine Kashmir’s future, but Delhi ignored this demand, knowing it would probably lose the vote.

The U.S. trade deficit reached its highest sum ever last year, defying President Donald Trump’s efforts and promises to shrink it through his economic policies. The irony is that those policies likely contributed to the deficit. Trump entered office insisting that decades of trade gaps had crushed the U.S. economy and that he would forge new agreements that would diminish the deficits. It hasn’t happened. The government said Wednesday that the U.S. trade gap in goods and services reached $621 billion last year, its highest total since 2008. And the U.S. deficits in goods with China and Mexico surged to record highs. As president, Trump’s signature effort to stimulate U.S. growth — deficit-funded tax cuts — likely helped fuel the willingness of American corporations and households to spend, including on imported goods.

… Members of Congress in both parties who have devoted their career to dutifully supporting the [pro-Israel] AIPAC agenda began once again ganging up to denounce Omar, accuse her of anti-Semitism, and demand apologies and denunciations … There are so many points to be made about this episode, each of which could justify its own entire article. It is, for instance, beyond dispute that what Omar is saying is true … Let’s repeat what The New York Times said in its news article from 2015: “allegiance to Israel has long had nearly unanimous support in Congress.” And let’s repeat what the top funder of the Democratic Party and the Clintons, the billionaire Haim Saban, said: “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.” … The time to put a stop to this repressive punishment for even questioning U.S. policy toward Israel has long passed.

As waves of indignation swirl around Representative Ilhan Omar over her recent remarks about Israel, the new Congresswoman has basically three options … Omar’s statements about the Israel lobby are obviously true: “It’s all about the Benjamins,” she tweeted, observing that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and pro-Israel lobby use money to further their interests in Congress — just as many other well-funded lobbies do … Omar’s statements are being read by some to play to ugly anti-Jewish refrains … AIPAC has targeted numerous representatives in the past for speaking out against their influence and “special relationship” with the Pentagon … She could go much further by speaking more specifically on actual Israeli-U.S. policy … The U.S. government refuses to acknowledge, in addition, that Israel has nuclear weapons.

… Kevin MacDonald, a professor of psychology at California State University at Long Beach, has published a remarkable volume [Separation and its Discontents] that tackles head-on what may be the most diligently suppressed question of our time: Why do people hate Jews? In contrast to the generally available treatments of this issue, MacDonald has produced a study of rare, even shocking forthrightness and scope … MacDonald’s brilliant, well-referenced study, with its bounty of eye-opening facts and insights, is the most important work on the perpetually troubling “Jewish question” to appear in many years … Without an understanding of the real Jewish role in history, we remain dangerously ignorant of how the world actually works.

The first shots may have been fired in a war against “The Duke.” A debate is now underway over whether a Southern California airport should bear the name of screen legend John Wayne, who died nearly 40 years ago at age 72. The discussion stems from the recent social-media uproar that followed the resurfacing of a 1971 Playboy interview in which Wayne made remarks that critics described as racist and homophobic. John Wayne Airport is located in Orange County, where Wayne lived for most of his adult life … The latest calls for changing the name stem from Wayne’s remarks, made at age 63, that he believed in “white supremacy,” at least until “irresponsible” black people became more educated, and that Native Americans were “selfishly” trying to keep their land.

When Google conducted a study recently to determine whether the company was underpaying women and members of minority groups, it found, to the surprise of just about everyone, that men were paid less money than women for doing similar work. The study, which disproportionately led to pay raises for thousands of men, is done every year, but the latest findings arrived as Google and other companies in Silicon Valley face increasing pressure to deal with gender issues in the workplace, from sexual harassment to wage discrimination. Gender inequality is a radioactive topic at Google.

France is to recognise anti-Zionism, the denial of the state of Israel, as a form of anti-Semitism in response to a surge in acts against Jews not seen “since the Second World War”, reports The Telegraph. French president, Emmanuel Macron, also promised new legislation in May to fight hate speech on the Internet, which could see platforms such as Facebook and Twitter fined for every minute they fail to take down racist or violent content. Speaking at the annual meeting of France’s largest Jewish organization, CRIF, Macron said that France and other countries in Europe had recently witnessed “a resurgence of anti-Semitism that is probably unprecedented since World War II.”

In an address to the annual dinner of Crif, the umbrella representative group of Jewish institutions in France, French President Emmanuel Macron announced Wednesday a series of measures to combat the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in the country. He responded to calls from leaders of the Jewish community who urged ”concrete measures and not only declarations.” President Macron told the 1,000 people who attended the dinner, including almost all members of the French government, that France will take steps to define “anti-Zionism as a modern-day form of anti-Semitism” as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). “Behind the negation of Israel’s existence, what is hiding is the hatred of Jews,” he added …

On the face of it, these should be heady times for American workers. U.S. unemployment is as low as it’s been in nearly two decades … But despite the strong labor market, wage growth had lagged economists’ expectations. In fact, despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers … After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago …

Both of America’s great national parties are coalitions. But it is the Democratic Party that never ceases to celebrate diversity — racial, religious, ethnic, cultural — as its own and as America’s “greatest strength.” … Yet, lately, the party seems to be careening into a virtual war of all against all … Within the Democratic coalition, Asian-Americans are now in conflict with blacks and Hispanics over admission policies at elite schools and universities. Asian-Americans are “overrepresented” where students are admitted based on test scores or entrance exams. Black and Hispanic leaders are demanding that student bodies, regardless of test scores, look like the community … Regimes that promise utopian and egalitarian societies inevitably reveal themselves to be undertakers of freedom, America’s cause.

… Washington has attacked Mideast Christians for years and on multiple fronts. The most enduring problem has been the uncritical embrace by many evangelicals of Israel, to the exclusion of Palestinian Christians. In 2016 Republican presidential candidates were particularly shameless in competing to give the most absolute and fulsome endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu’s radical government and occupation policies. Yet Christians living in the West Bank suffer under military rule and de facto colonization by sometimes violent settlers, who often make “price tag” attacks on local Christians … Even in Israel proper, vandalism and harassment of Christian property and clergy, respectively, by ultra-Orthodox activists is common.

The fundamentalist and evangelical Protestant Christians in the US who fervently embrace Israel are the single most important block of non-Jewish American supporters of the Zionist state and its policies. But few of these “Christian Zionists” realize just what an odd minority they are among the world’s Christians, and how out of step their views are with traditional Christian principles. Christian Zionists reject the ethical values of Jesus as laid out in the Gospels, and betray fellow Christians in Palestine who are victims of Israeli dispossession and oppression.

… Mr. Mosier, one of the more entertainingly contrarian military historians writing today, convincingly dashes these myths – and more – in an important and groundbreaking book about the Eastern front … [Deathride: Hitler vs. Stalin: The Eastern Front, 1941-1945] looks beyond Soviet propaganda claims to present a truly eye-opening account of the campaign … As the war wound down in the spring of 1945, Russian losses continued to be so heavy that the Red Army desperately conscripted all men between the ages of 14 and 60, and prepared to form all-female combat units … Indeed, he contends, Hitler well might have succeeded had not the Allied invasion of North Africa caused him to withdraw key units from the Eastern front to protect his southern flanks.

… Hitler is presented [by author John Mosier in his book “Deathride”] as a sane and rational man making sensible and very smart decisions, understanding strategy and global politics far better than his generals. Instead of a surprise attack on the innocent Russians, Mosier has concluded that the war was a pre-emptive strike on a predator poised to invade Germany and Europe … “The most recent evidence confirms what German interrogations of captured Soviet officers revealed in 1941, that Stalin was in fact planning to attack Hitler at the first opportune moment … The recent evidence contradicts a long established Stalinist legend, and certainly explains Hitler’s motivation: his attack on the Soviet Union was a preemptive strike.”

A Spanish newspaper has published an article lauding the “heroism” of volunteers who fought for Hitler against the Soviet Union. The piece highlights only the hardships they faced – and doesn’t bother to tell the whole story. The article was published by one of the country’s major newspapers – the ABC – early in February … The Blue Division – named after blue shirts of Francisco Franco’s Falangist movement – was officially known as the 250th Infantry Division of Nazi Germany’s Wehrmacht. It was created in 1941 as a volunteer unit, to show Spain’s devotion to Hitler’s cause without openly drawing the country into the war … At least 47,000 Spaniards served in it over the years as the unit had numerous rotations and reinforcements … The last Spaniards among the German ranks fought until the end of the war and took part in the Battle for Berlin.

Large crowds in Madrid joyfully welcome soldiers of the “Blue Division” who are returning from combat in Russia after being relieved by new volunteers. People throng the streets of the Spanish capital in May 1942 to cheer the men. Runtime: 2:06 mins. No narration. The Spaniards of the “Blue Division” were among the many hundreds of thousands of young men from across Europe who volunteered for combat in what they regarded as a decisive struggle for Europe’s security and future. Time and time again, the Spaniards proved themselves outstanding soldiers in bitter combat on one of the most fiercely contested sectors of the front. Spanish soldiers were among the final defenders of Berlin in the historic battle for the German capital in the spring of 1945.

Spanish “Blue Division” soldiers in the Volkhov river area in northern Russia. From a World War II Spanish newsreel, with Spanish-language narration. Runtime: 9:45 mins. Also, grateful Russians attend religious services at a re-opened church, which the Soviets had used as a barn. And, General Muñoz Grandes, “Blue Division” commander, is honored with the Iron Cross, First Class, at a ceremony in the legion’s headquarters. In another ceremony, Spanish soldiers who have distinguished themselves in combat are honored. Also shown are German troops in action. The Spanish “Blue Division” was made up of volunteers who served during World War II with German forces against the Soviets on the northern sector of the Eastern Front.

A growing share of people around the world see U.S. power and influence as a “major threat” to their country, and these views are linked with attitudes toward President Donald Trump and the United States as a whole, according to Pew Research Center surveys conducted in 22 nations since 2013. A median of 45 percent across the surveyed nations see U.S. power and influence as a major threat, up from 38 percent in the same countries during Trump’s first year as president in 2017 and 25% in 2013, during the administration of Barack Obama … In 18 of the 22 countries, there were statistically significant increases in the share of people who see American power and influence as a major threat between 2013 and 2018. That includes increases of 30 percentage points in Germany, 29 points in France, and 26 points in Brazil and Mexico.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the past two years of Donald Trump foreign policy has been the assumption that decisions made by the United States are binding on the rest of the world. Apart from time of war, no other nation has ever sought to prevent other nations from trading with each other. And the United States has also uniquely sought to penalize other countries for alleged crimes that did not occur in the US and that did not involve American citizens, while also insisting that all nations must comply with whatever penalties are meted out by Washington. The United States now sees itself as judge, jury and executioner in policing the international community …

One thing that every late-stage ruling class has in common is a high tolerance for mediocrity. Standards decline, the edges fray, but nobody in charge seems to notice. They’re happy in their sinecures and getting richer. In a culture like this, there’s no penalty for being wrong. The talentless prosper, rising inexorably toward positions of greater power, and breaking things along the way. It happened to the Ottomans. Max Boot is living proof that it’s happening in America … Boot became a top foreign policy adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008, to Mitt Romney in 2012, and to Marco Rubio in 2016 … Bill Kristol is probably the most influential Republican strategist of the post-Reagan era. Born in 1954, Kristol was the second child of the writer Irving Kristol, one of the founders of neo-conservatism.

… What Churchill was above all, though, was a committed imperialist — one determined to preserve the British Empire not just by defeating the Nazis but much else besides … He fantasized luridly of having Mahatma Gandhi tied to the ground and trampled upon by elephants … It’s important to remember that these [Indians] weren’t enemies in a war — Churchill also wanted to “drench the cities of the Ruhr” in poison gas, and said of the Japanese, “we shall wipe them out, every one of them, men, women and children” — but British subjects … We shall remember him as a war criminal and an enemy of decency and humanity, a blinkered imperialist untroubled by the oppression of non-white peoples, a man who fought not to defend but to deny our freedom.

… In the Middle East, the cacophony of voices demanding U.S. support has time and again entangled America in regime change wars that can’t be won … Today, Trump’s Middle East policy stands at a crossroad. Recognizing the folly of forever wars in the Middle East, he has decided to pull out of Syria, much to the chagrin of war hawks like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo who have sought to walk back his decision. No doubt, the people of Iran deserve freedom, dignity, and a representative government that empowers rather than represses them. But the regime change cottage industry in Washington is not dominated by genuine democrats. It is in the hands of exiled wannabe rulers like Kian and foreign powers like Saudi Arabia, which, like Bolton and Pompeo, seek to misuse America’s military might for their own ends.

One of Oxford University’s oldest degrees is to be overhauled in bid to boost number of female students getting top grades. Classics dons who marked last year’s exam papers said the gender gap is “very troubling”, adding that it must be addressed as a matter of “urgency”. More than double the number of men were awarded first class honours in their Finals last year than women, with 46.8 per cent of men achieving the top grade compared to 12.5 per cent of their female peers. Academics noted that the gender gap in Finals – which was “already very noticeable” – had “dramatically increased” in the most recent cohort of students due to an a record number of men taking Firsts … Now plans are underway to re-design the syllabus to try to end the disparity between male and female students.

President Donald Trump and the neocon sofa samurais who surround him seem determined to pick a fight with China or Russia, or both at the same time … History amply shows that it’s a bad idea to push China into a corner and make it lose face. Suave diplomacy is the way to deal with the proud, prickly Chinese. They have refused to play by world trade rules, it is true, and need some serious arm-twisting. But not at a time when the Pentagon is ostentatiously planning a war against China in the western Pacific. The fuse has already been lit … Europeans are aghast at the prospect of a nuclear war fought in their backyards. When the history of our era is written, Trump’s reincarnation of Cold War nuclear missile rattling will surely rank as a monumental historic folly.