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San Francisco is poised to surpass a record-breaking year for overdose deaths. There were 563 overdose fatalities in the Golden City between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, according to a recent report from the San Francisco chief medical examiner. This puts the city on track to hit 845 overdose fatalities in 2023, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, far surpassing the record 725 in 2020. “There’s so much fentanyl that it’s contaminated other drugs sold on the street like meth and crack cocaine. It’s in everything,” Tom Wolf, a former drug user and current recovery advocate, told Fox News. He said the surge in overdoses is because the amount of fentanyl on the streets has increased threefold compared to 2020 … There have been more than 10 times as many fentanyl-related overdose deaths in 2023 compared to 2017.

The Speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, Anthony Rota, has apologised for praising a Ukrainian man who served in a Nazi unit during World War Two. Yaroslav Hunka, 98, was sitting in the gallery and got a standing ovation in parliament after Mr Rota said he was a “hero” during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Canadian Jewish group CIJA said it was “deeply troubled” that a former member of a Nazi division that participated in the genocide of Jews had been celebrated. It said this should never happen again … At one point, Mr Rota pointed to Mr Hunka who sat in the gallery, saying the man was “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service”.

The Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia has temporarily enclosed a monument to Ukrainian war dead at one of its cemeteries as it seeks “open, scholarly and compassionate dialogue” with Jewish organizations that have expressed concern over this particular memorial and the complex history behind it. Erected during the 1990s, the black, cruciform monument — which bears the Ukrainian trident and a lion, an ancient symbol of the Galicia region — honors World War II Ukrainian soldiers who … fought in Germany’s 14th Waffen-SS “Galicia” Division, later known as the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army in 1945. Similar memorials exist among the Ukrainian diaspora throughout the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.

Contemporary film report on a mass rally in Lviv (Lemberg), Ukraine, July 18, 1943, for the newly formed SS Division “Galicia.” Ukrainian-language narration. Runtime: 2:27 mins. Ceremonies begin with an outdoor religious service. Ukrainians greet the German Governor, Otto Wächter, who then addresses the large, joyful crowd. Taking part in the parade are many young men who have volunteered for service in the new military formation, as well as young women in traditional dress. Many carry the symbol of the “Galicia” Division, a yellow stylized lion on a blue background – the Ukrainian national colors.

Germany’s president has warned that the country has “reached the limit” of the number of migrants it can take in. Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the fact a third of all migrants who reach the EU come to Germany means that the country has “like Italy, reached the limit of what it can bear”. Talking to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Wednesday, Mr Steinmeier said that he “took seriously the calls for help from local government” and added that “stronger controls and surveillance on Europe’s external borders” were necessary. The role of president, while not one with policy-shaping power, comes with considerable political influence in Germany. German presidents are often former ministers, expected to act as the country’s highest moral voice and give their opinions on the most fundamental issues of the day.

Italy’s prime minister has said that European countries must work together “to stop departures [from Africa]” and swiftly deport those turned down for asylum, who she said “threaten the future of Europe”, after thousands of people seeking refuge arrived on Lampedusa in the last week. Giorgia Meloni toured the tiny Sicilian island, which for years has been the first port of call for people making the treacherous journey by sea from north Africa … Meloni, whose far-right government took power last October, said the influx threatened “the future of Europe” and that “serious solutions” were needed, such as cracking down on people smugglers, swiftly deporting illegal immigrants, and moving quickly to implement a deal signed this year with Tunisia.

Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi explains that billions of “idol worshippers” – including all Christians – do not deserve to live. (By “JC,” he means “Jesus Christ”) Apparently these remarks do not violate YouTube’s “terms of service” or its strictures against “hate.” The ADL likewise doesn’t seem to regard the Rabbi’s remarks as “hate” or “extremism.” None of the politicians and newspapers that voice concern about the dangers of “antisemitism” seems to regard Mizrachi’s remarks as worthy of note. Mizrachi was born in Israel, but in his twenties moved the US where for a time he pursued a career in finance and banking. Now living in Monsey, New York, he devotes his efforts to explaining the importance of the Jewish scriptures (Torah). He’s regarded as an influential orthodox Jewish religious figure.

… What arises from all the aforementioned is that in the words of the Prophets, and also in the words of our Sages OBM [“Of Blessed Memory”], the Gentiles are thought of as animals. Even so, it clearly does not mean that they are actually treated as animals, and there are distinctions between Gentiles and animals … Nevertheless, we have seen that the status of the Gentiles in Halacha [Jewish religious law] is similar to that of animals in many respects, and generally speaking, there is no real distinctions made between them … There is no escaping the facts: the Torah of Israel makes a clear distinction between a Jew, who is defined as “man,” and a Gentile. This distinction is expressed in a long list of Halachic laws, be they monetary laws, the laws of the Temple, capital laws or others.

… Judaism is not just “another religion.” It’s unique among the world’s major religions. The core values and ethos of Judaism are markedly unlike those of Christianity, Islam, and the other great faiths … A core message of the Hebrew scriptures is that Jews are a divinely “chosen” people — a unique community distinct from the rest of humanity … The seemingly intractable Middle East conflict is more than just a problem of Zionism or politics, or a dispute over land. Israel’s often arrogant policies, and especially its inhumane treatment of non-Jews, have roots in centuries-old attitudes that are laid out in ancient Jewish religious writings.

Money should be found to remove statues of America’s founding fathers despite a $12 billion migrant crisis that will ‘destroy’ New York City, its mayor has been told. The city’s Cultural Affairs Committee has demanded the eviction of George Washington and Christopher Columbus and others from public spaces because of links to slavery, along with the establishment of a reparations task force. The plans before the city council on Tuesday come after Mayor Eric Adams warned that New Yorkers face a `financial tsunami’ from the cost of providing for more than 10,000 new migrants a month. But they have prompted fury as the city scratches around for resources with libraries, meals for senior citizens and childcare all now at risk. ‘This is little more than an attempt by the radical left to rewrite our nation’s history,’ said City Councilor Joann Ariola.

… Before New York crumbles under the weight of endless immigration, we need to end our “sanctuary city” policy. Sanctuary cities like New York refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and share citizenship status, arrest data and addresses … The Biden administration isn’t enforcing immigration law as it should. But to be fair to the federal authorities, enforcement becomes burdensome or even impossible when state and local police won’t provide ICE any information that would assist in removal … [New York Mayor] Adams said the federal government needs to “step up” and assist with the never-ending influx of illegal migrants. But why would the feds “step up” for a mayor and a city that continue to refuse all aspects of cooperation with federal immigration authorities?

Cities, states and counties across the USA — listed here, and shown on a map — have declared themselves places of “sanctuary” for illegal migrants. These jurisdictions have enacted laws, ordinances and polices to prevent their officials from cooperating or complying with federal immigration authorities in enforcing US immigration laws. California, Illinois, New York and Colorado are four of the eleven “sanctuary” states. Boston, San Francico, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans and Seatle are among the many “sanctuary” cities. The Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, now complains that the federal government is not helping his uncooperative “sanctuary” city deal with the flood of migrants, a crisis that he says will “destroy” the city.

Careless of life, drained of fear, intimate with killing and death: the blank-eyed soldiers of the elite “storm” units in the vanguard of Ukraine’s counteroffensive have a very different battlefield prognosis from that of their generals and political leadership following the breach of Russia’s first line of defence at Robotyne … In the ten days since Ukrainian storm troops first managed to enter the ruined school building at Robotyne — a tiny settlement straddling the first of three Russian defence lines … The capture of the village has been heralded as a milestone strategic shift by Ukrainian commanders and US officials in a counteroffensive that has been dogged by huge casualties, equipment deficiencies and bitter disputes over schedule and timing.

A group of over 3,500 Israeli academics, writers, artists, former diplomats and other public figures on Friday called on US President Joe Biden and UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres not to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the upcoming General Assembly summit in New York, over his government’s controversial policies. Signatories wrote “from the heart of the struggle for democracy,” warning that Netanyahu was promoting a “deceptive façade” in international media interviews on the benefits of his judicial overhaul proposals … The writers accused Netanyahu of “legitimizing racist, ultranationalist, religious fundamentalist and homophobic political parties that until now operated at the margins of Israel’s political discourse — and this solely for the purpose of his political survival.”

On July 19, 2023, the US Congress convened a special joint session for Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Both Democrats and Republicans bobbed up and down to applaud him 29 times. They did this despite the fact that even though the US expends over $20 million per day on behalf of Israel, (1) Israel has a pattern of spying on the US and stealing our technology; (2) Israel tried to sink a US Navy ship, killing 34 American servicemen and injuring 174, and has lied about it ever since; and (3) Israel has a long, thoroughly documented record of human rights abuses and violations of international law. The unavoidable reality is that Israel has the most pervasive and powerful special interest lobby on behalf of a foreign country in the US (including numerous billionaire campaign donors).

The Nazis did some bad stuff. But they did good stuff too. They put Germany’s house in order. Japan can learn from them. So say a growing number of people on the internet … Two supposed Nazi achievements draw Japanese praise, Shukan Gendai says. Revisionists credit the Nazis with (1) restoring a gutted economy and (2) restoring a gutted population … Might Hitler serve as a role model? … Up to 15 or so years ago, notes historian Takenori Matsumoto, this sort of thinking was confined to far right circles.

Immediately after taking power, Hitler and his new government launched ambitious programs to deal with the massive unemployment and economic paralysis of the Great Depression. These innovative and comprehensive policies proved remarkably successful. Within three years unemployment was banished and Germany’s economy was booming. As historian Mark Weber explains here, this remarkable achievement is little known and rarely acknowledged. He also takes a look at the Third Reich’s economic and taxation policies, and their impact on people’s lives, as well as the ideology and social-economic principles on which they were based.

Argentina’s Federal Police shut down a publisher that sold books that praised Nazi ideology, seized hundreds of texts and arrested one person as part of what authorities characterized as a “historic seizure” of Nazi propaganda, officials said Wednesday. Law enforcement officers seized around 230 books during Tuesday’s raids in the town of San Isidro, north of Buenos Aires, in which officials said they seized the largest number of texts praising Nazi ideology in recent years … Ñamandú described the books as “high quality,” although videos of the raids released by authorities suggested a homegrown operation rather than a large printing press.

Jewish groups, Israeli officials, and foreign diplomats on Wednesday condemned a recent antisemitic speech by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in which he claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did not hate Jews as a people but rather because of their “dealing with usury and money.” In an address late last month to the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, the political party headed by Abbas, the Palestinian leader ran through a litany of antisemitic conspiracy theories. “They say that Hitler killed the Jews for being Jews, and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews,” Abbas said. “Not true. It was clearly explained that [the Europeans] fought [the Jews] because of their social role, and not their religion” …

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday said the influx of tens of thousands of migrants will bring a “financial tsunami” as departments across the board are forced to slash budgets to accommodate the new arrivals. The mayor’s dire warning came during an appearance on “PIX 11’s on Politics” days after he predicted that the crisis “will destroy New York City.” … “We are about to experience a financial … tsunami that I don’t think the city has ever experienced,” Adams said. “Every service in this city is going to be impacted, from child service to our seniors to housing.” … Several major U.S. cities have struggled with an influx of many thousands of asylum seekers who have filled up homeless shelters after entering the U.S. New York City’s shelter system has been especially overwhelmed.

Every week New York City welcomes thousands of men, women, and children seeking asylum. This surge of newcomers is being bused here from border states because New York City is a Sanctuary city … New York City became a sanctuary city under Mayor Ed Koch in the 1980s. Elected officials wanted to make sure asylum seekers would not be afraid to report crimes or enroll their kids in public school and get medical care over fear of being deported … The crisis putting a spotlight on the city’s status as a sanctuary city.

The public feud in the US between Elon Musk and the Anti-Defamation League is shaping up to be a high-stakes endeavor for both parties and could mark a defining moment in the battle over the borders of acceptable political discourse. Musk, the tech mogul who bought Twitter last year and later renamed it X, has lifted many restrictions on alleged hate speech and other moderated content on the platform as part of his stated free-speech agenda. The ADL, a robust advocacy group against antisemitism and racism, has publicly criticized Musk’s policy, joining calls for advertisers to drop X. Musk this month threatened the ADL with a massive libel suit. The confrontation was the latest eruption in the longstanding tug-of-war between anti-hate watchdog groups like the ADL … and platforms like X that have resisted demands to censor their content.

The Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, was founded in 1913 to fight antisemitism and racism, but after battling racism for 109 years, it just admitted that it doesn’t even know what it is. It wants the public to help it find out … Earlier this month [Feb. 2022], the ADL changed its definition again. But it’s so unsure of itself, it calls this an “interim definition.” … And I thought racism was supposed to be all about “hate.” Where’s the “hate” in preferring your own kind? … And the whole state of Israel is “racist.” You can’t immigrate unless you’re Jewish, and Israel can’t skip out of ADL definition of racism by saying Jewishness is a religion and not a race or ethnicity. Albert Einstein was an atheist, but no one ever said he wasn’t Jewish. The ADL says Israel must remain Jewish – preference for Jews — so by its own definition, Israel is a racist country.

… When their work was done, the 46 soldiers were lined up beside the pits and given just enough time to reach into their breast pockets for photographs of their loved ones. The 47th execution victim, a woman barely out of her teens, was denied even this small comfort before the rattle of submachine gun fire echoed off the surrounding mountains … For almost 80 years, this cold-blooded massacre, carried out six days after the D-Day landings near the pretty town of Meymac … has remained a closely guarded secret … The victims of the massacre were all Germans — bar the woman, who was French … The 47 were summarily executed by a hardened communist Resistance brigade … Had the roles been reversed, the Meymac massacre would doubtless have come to light decades ago and been investigated as a war crime.

Thirstily swallowed by a humiliated France, the dominant narrative of the French Resistance was cooked up by General de Gaulle – “Joan of Arc in trousers”, Churchill testily called him – when he addressed the crowds outside the Hôtel de Ville on August 25, 1944. “Paris liberated! Liberated by its own efforts, liberated by its people with the help of the armies of France, with the help of all of France.” Yet, as Robert Gildea exposes in this comprehensive survey of the French Resistance [Fighters in the Shadows], the myth that the French freed themselves is largely poppycock … It is not hard to see why the Resistance, in Gildea’s estimation, “mobilised only a minority of French people. The vast majority learnt to muddle through under German Occupation and long admired Marshal Pétain.”

… The accused had no attorney, and there was no question of last rites for those condemned to death. The corpses were not put into coffins. The dead were not restored to their families. Very expeditious, this maquis seldom used torture … Perhaps the most detestable acts of violence are those which attack women. Near Limoges, a young woman of the region, Mlle. d’Armagnac, whose family are proprietors of a château, gets married in the church of her village: when she comes out on the parvis from the mass, maquisards kidnap her, her husband, the priest who married them, and a witness. At dawn the next day she is shot to death in her wedding gown. Motives given: first, she is a chatelaine; in the second place, she has taken care of militiamen.

Anti-hate groups and civil rights organizations vowed this week to strengthen their resolve against hate speech on social media, saying they would not be intimidated by threats of lawsuits from tech billionaire Elon Musk. Leaders of several organizations told NBC News that they were gearing up for a long fight with Musk over his management of X, the app formerly known as Twitter … The ADL and the Center for Countering Digital Hate are among more than 60 organizations taking part in the #StopToxicTwitter effort, a pressure campaign to persuade corporations not to buy ads on X so long as Musk keeps lax rules around hate speech, harassment and similar behavior that the app’s previous management often cracked down on.

Last week, I urged everybody to join me in a call to #BanTheADL … As soon as Elon Musk announced his purchase of the platform, the ADL announced another advertiser boycott in November 2022 as part of their “Stop Hate for Profit” coalition of civil rights groups, due to their concern over the apparent imminent threat to Jews created by Elon promising to “free the bird.” … It appeared Elon had finally caved to Greenblatt’s threats. That was, until, the enormous outpouring of anger at the ADL and its agenda, generating over 250 thousand tweets in 4 days under the #BanTheADL tag … As #BanTheADL grew though, it became a more general expression of people’s outrage at the organisation and what it had done to the internet, as well as its sordid history.

On the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, an FBI bulletin … was issued with regard to three suspicious men who that morning were seen leaving the New Jersey waterfront minutes after the first plane hit World Trade Center 1 … “Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion” … It was New York’s venerable Jewish weekly The Forward that broke this story in the spring of 2002, after months of footwork. The Forward reported that the FBI had finally concluded that at least two of the men were agents working for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and that Urban Moving Systems, the ostensible employer of the five Israelis, was a front operation.

The Iraq War was spawned by a deadly combination of political depravity and media complicity. Unfortunately, on the twentieth anniversary of the war, both elements of that conspiracy are being whitewashed. Instead, politicians and their pundit accomplices are prattling as if the Iraq war was a well-intentioned mistake, not a crime against humanity … President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney worked ceaselessly to convince Americans that Saddam was the 9/11 culprit. Official propaganda trumpeting the Saddam/al-Qaeda link was the linchpin for exploiting 9/11 to justify war. A February 2003 poll found that 72 percent of Americans believed that Saddam was “personally involved in the September 11 attacks.”

… The American government has steadfastly avoided true accountability on the ‘War on Terror’, from explicitly refusing to count bodies, to half-heartedly committing to transparency, to outright revelling in the killing of innocents. Each year, America and the world mourns those lost in the atrocities of 9/11. Yet 20 years later, we still don’t know how many others should be mourned along with them for the atrocities that followed. More than 363,000 civilians have been killed in the War on Terror, according to an estimate from Brown University’s Costs of War Project. And many times more people have been slain after the battles are over. Cumulatively, the overall civilian death toll could very well exceed one million people, when taking into account indirect deaths from war …

Nine-Eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe the 9/11 catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president in recent decades had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful and intimidating, but any determined president could prevail and win overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by laying these facts before the American people …

England’s established church is in deep trouble. An investigation by this paper has revealed that almost 300 Anglican parishes have disappeared in the past five years, the fastest rate of closure since records began. In less than 30 years, the Church of England has lost more than half its regular worshippers … Offering spiritual solace to parishioners should always take precedence over apologizing for slavery, catastrophising over climate change or other modish concerns that are perhaps taking up too much of the Church’s time … This should concern those of all faiths and none. Anglicanism has been perhaps the cornerstone of this nation’s collective identity. Without it, to quote Philip Larkin writing in another context, “And that will be England gone”.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has come under fire from Ukraine after it emerged he thwarted a major attack on the Russian navy. According to excerpts published by CNN, a soon-to-be-released biography of the SpaceX CEO claims that Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his Starlink satellite network over Russian-occupied Crimea last year in order to prevent a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s naval fleet. Musk was worried that the planned attack on the Kremlin’s Black Sea fleet, which occurred early in the war, could escalate tensions and potentially lead to nuclear conflict, according to the extract from historian Walter Isaacson’s upcoming book. The claim was immediately met with criticism from Kyiv.

The government of Finland agreed on a policy to combat racism and Holocaust denial on Thursday in the wake of multiple racism and neo-Nazi scandals that have rocked the administration in its early months. The governing coalition’s parties agreed on the content of a statement submitted to the Finnish parliament that calls for “non-discrimination in Finnish society,” according to a press release, and for new legislation to work toward that goal. “Acts motivated by hate against Jews, Muslims, Christians and other religious groups will be prevented and Holocaust denial will be criminalized,” the release says, adding that the government would also explore “the possibility of criminalizing the use of at least Nazi and Communist symbols to promote ideology.”

Elon Musk is threatening to sue the Anti-Defamation League for ‘roughly $22 billion’ for trying to destroy X by accusing him and the social media giant of being anti-Semitic. In a series of tweets sent out Monday night, Musk, 52, said he plans to launch a lawsuit against the ADL ‘to clear our platform’s name on the matter of anti-Semitism.’ ‘It looks like we have no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League … oh the irony!’ the billionaire wrote. He added: ‘In our case, they would potentially be on the hook for destroying half the value of the company, so roughly $22 billion.’ … Since the acquisition, The @ADL has been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic,’ he wrote in an initial tweet.

Elon Musk is engaging with white nationalists and antisemites who want to ban the Anti-Defamation League from Twitter, the influential social media platform he now calls “X.” Musk on Saturday asked his followers whether he should poll the platform about a hashtag, #BanTheADL, embraced in recent days by white nationalists and others on the far right. Musk had earlier “liked” the tweet launching the hashtag by Keith Woods, an Irish white nationalist and self-described “raging antisemite.” “The ADL’s favourite tactic is financially blackmailing social media companies into removing free speech on their platforms,” Woods said in his Aug. 31 tweet. “Why should they have a platform on X to hold @elonmusk to ransom? It’s time to #BanTheADL.” Musk liked two subsequent tweets by Woods, who touted Musk’s support to his followers.

Elon Musk posted that he was against antisemitism Monday and blamed the Anti-Defamation League for lost advertising revenue since his acquisition of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter … Musk alleged that the ADL has been “trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic.” “If this continues, we will have no choice but to file a defamation suit against, ironically, the ‘Anti-Defamation’ League,” Musk wrote. “If they lose the defamation suit, we will insist that they drop the `anti’ part of their name, since obviously …” Musk also noted that X’s advertising revenue remains down by 60% in the U.S., and alleged that advertisers have told the social media platform that pressure from the ADL is part of the reason.

Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter), is contemplating a poll on banning the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from his social media platform, as #BanTheADL trends on X. “Perhaps we should run a poll on this?” Musk tweeted on Saturday, in response to a post suggesting that the trend demonstrates that people are done “with the ‘we’re labeling everything we don’t like as hateful/racist/dangerous/far-right’ BS,” and are no longer afraid of the ADL’s “intimidation tactics.” … The feud between Musk and the ADL kicked off shortly after the businessman acquired Twitter in April 2022, following Musk’s cancelation of proposed plans for a ‘moderation council’. The ADL, along with other civil rights groups, called for a complete ban on advertising on the platform until the company properly addresses hate speech and other content moderation concerns.

A former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Israel is enforcing an apartheid system in the West Bank, joining a tiny but growing list of retired officials to endorse an idea that remains largely on the fringes of Israeli discourse and international diplomacy. Tamir Pardo becomes the latest former senior official to have concluded that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank amounts to apartheid, a reference to the system of racial separation in South Africa that ended in 1994. Leading rights groups in Israel and abroad and Palestinians have accused Israel and its 56-year occupation of the West Bank of morphing into an apartheid system that they say gives Palestinians second-class status and is designed to maintain Jewish hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

A senior government official in Hungary came under sharp criticism Wednesday for praising the country’s World War II-era leader, an ally of Nazi Germany who is believed to have imposed Europe’s first anti-Jewish laws of the 20th century, as an exceptional head of state and a hero. Minister of Construction and Transportation Janos Lazar made the comments Sunday during a ceremony held on the 30th anniversary of the reburial of Miklos Horthy, Hungary’s regent during most of World War II … “We can honor an exceptional statesman who was a true heroic soldier and a true Hungarian patriot.,” Lazar said … The U.S. ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, also wrote on X that Lazar’s participation in the event honoring Horthy concerned the U.S. government.

Hungary’s Regent and head of state, Miklos Horthy, along with his wife, visits Germany in August 1938. Together with German leader Adolf Hitler, Horthy reviews a large military parade in Berlin. Crowds of joyful Berliners watch. Horthy and wife drive along beflagged boulevards. Large crowds cheer Hitler, Horthy and Göring as they appear on a balcony. British “Movietone” newsreel. No narration. Runtime: 4:35 mins.

Plans should be drawn up to remove all African migrants from Israel after groups of Eritreans were involved in a violent clash in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says. He also wants the migrants involved in the demonstration to be deported immediately. His remarks came a day after rival groups of Eritreans clashed in bloody protests that left dozens of people injured. The groups, supporters and opponents of Eritrea’s government, faced off with construction lumber, pieces of metal and rocks, smashing shop windows and police cars. Israeli police in riot gear shot tear gas, stun grenades and live rounds while officers on horseback tried to control the protesters … The issue of migrants has long divided Israel and the latest violence has brought it back to the fore.

The United States, Germany and the European Union on Thursday condemned recent comments about the Holocaust by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, accusing him of distorting history and promoting antisemitic stereotypes. In a speech last month to senior members of his Fatah movement, Abbas said that Adolf Hitler killed European Jews not because of antisemitism, but because of their “social functions” in society, such as money lending. “These people were fought because of their social function related to money, usury,” Abbas said in the speech. “From Hitler’s point of view, they were sabotaging, and therefore he hated them.”

The European Union’s sanctions policy against Russia has turned into a laughing stock on the global stage, says Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, warning that Europe is “destroying” itself in the name of supporting Ukraine. It would be a “baroque and poetic exaggeration” to say that sanctions against Russia have succeeded in crippling the Russian economy, Szijjarto told attendees at the Tranzit political festival on Saturday. “The policy of sanctions has failed,” he said, adding “everywhere in the world, the European sanctions policy is being laughed at.” European leaders have embraced these self-harming sanctions because they “are in a war psychosis,” Szijjarto said.

A growing number of Jewish academics are using the term apartheid to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. / Amos Goldberg, a leading professor of the Holocaust at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has published a scathing retort saying that describing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as “apartheid” is not anti-Semitic, in a guest post in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung … [However], Felix Klein, Germany’s commissioner for Jewish Life and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism, said using “apartheid” in such scenarios is “an anti-Semitic narrative” … The Israeli government, Goldberg stated, fights against human rights, democracy and equality and propagates the opposite: “authoritarianism, discrimination, racism and apartheid”. “Accusing Israel of apartheid is not anti-Semitic. It describes reality,” he said.

Amnesty International said Tuesday [Feb. 1, 2022] that Israel has maintained “a system of oppression and domination” over the Palestinians going all the way back to its establishment in 1948, one that meets the international definition of apartheid. With the release of a 278-page report compiled over a period of four years, the London-based rights group joins Human Rights Watch and the Israeli rights group B’Tselem in accusing Israel of apartheid — both within its borders and in the occupied territories … “Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued a policy of establishing and maintaining a Jewish demographic hegemony and maximizing its control over land to benefit Jewish Israelis while restricting the rights of Palestinians and preventing Palestinian refugees from returning to their homes,” Amnesty said.

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party — which is expected to win next year’s elections — has sparked fury with a “frightening” video glorifying fascist thinkers and making knowing nods to the country’s Nazi past. The two-minute promo — which splices an extremist conspiracy theory that white Europeans are being replaced by migrants with images of Notre Dame in Paris in flames — was made by the party’s youth wing … The video shows the party’s youth wing taking part in torchlight processions and standing below the Vienna balcony where Adolf Hitler gave his iconic speech when he returned to his homeland in triumph after the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938 … The FPOe has seen its support soar to around 30 percent in the latest polls — up from 16 percent in 2019 …

“The Sound of Music” is perhaps the most popular American musical picture ever produced. But whatever its merits as entertainment, the film’s presentation of history is deceitful. In particular, its portrayal of the 1938 union or Anschluss of Austria with the German Reich is a gross distortion of historical reality.

This April 1938 newsreel report of British Pathé and UFA documents the enormous popular support across Germany for the union (Anschluss) of Austria with the Reich. Runtime: 6:58 mins. The historic occasion is marked across the country with the ringing of bells in church towers, and large evening rallies and celebrations. In an expression of national solidarity, the sounds of whistles across the Reich signal the start of a two-minute pause of work and traffic. People display the swastika banner at their homes and places of work, and large, joyful crowds greet Hitler’s appearance. In a national referendum, some 99 percent of voters mark “Yes” on their ballots as an expression of support for the Anschluss. Even skeptical foreign observers acknowledged that this overwhelming vote of approval reflected the popular mood.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan raised suspicions in Washington for his decision to maintain relations with the Kremlin. In a characteristically unsubtle move, Khan also visited Moscow shortly after the war began … Little did Khan know that these words may have helped bring about the end of his political career. According to Pakistani diplomatic cables published by the Intercept, U.S. officials reacted to Khan’s stance on the war by subtly encouraging his opponents to remove him from power … The presumption among leaders in the U.S. foreign policy establishment is clear: States with less geopolitical influence have to follow Washington’s lead on major global crises, whether it benefits them or not.

A tenured professor at the University of California, Riverside, who has long been accused of fabricating her Native American heritage, will be allowed to retire with full benefits and her title intact. Ethnic Studies Professor Andrea Smith will reportedly be allowed to keep her current position through August of 2024 … It comes in the wake of a recent complaint by more than a dozen faculty members, who accused her of violating academic integrity by lying about her Native American lineage … Smith and the school signed the deal in January. Its terms avoid an investigation into the faculty complaint … Accusations that Smith lied repeatedly about her Native American heritage date back to at least 2008, when she was denied tenure at the University of Michigan.

The European Court of Human Rights is facing calls to re-examine cases involving Jews after its longest-serving judge was exposed for sharing extreme antisemitic content on social media. Bostjan Zupancic, who worked at the court for 17 years until 2016, has shared claims that Jews are “the central enemies of Western civilization”, as well as the hook-nosed caricatures commonly seen in neo-Nazi propaganda … Zupancic, who has also been Vice President of the UN Committee Against Torture, posted the claim that Jews “introduced … sexual perversions of all sorts… sadism, masochism, lots of homosexuality” before the Nazis came to power … He also shared an assertion that the “Jewish war on white is behind the arson of the West, and unless Jewish power is named as the cancer, there is not hope for the white race”.