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… As antiwar activist and author Norman Solomon has noted, [Kamala] Harris “has toed President Biden’s war line, while at times voicing sympathy for the victims of the Gaza war that’s made possible by policies that she supports. Her words of compassion have yet to translate into opposing the pipeline of weapons and ammunition to the Israeli military as it keeps slaughtering Palestinian civilians.” Despite their best efforts, the [pro-Palestine] protestors didn’t get much traction this week … They couldn’t even get a Palestinian-American speaker on stage because, as the Washington Post reported, “many Democratic leaders were concerned that such a speech from the podium would threaten the unity that has been on vivid display at the convention.”

Greenwald takes a close look at the foreign policy record of Kamala Harris. He shows that for years she has supported the Democratic Party’s policies of military intervention around the world, the “neocon” pro-war agenda, and the internationalist establishment. Although Harris repeats familiar reassurances about upholding American “values” around the world, her record shows that such words are mere rhetoric. For years she has been an emphatic supporter of continued US military and economic aid to Israel. She expresses not a word of criticism of the Zionist state’s entrenched policy of institutionalized discrimination based on ancestry, and “apartheid” oppression of non-Jews. Runtime: 25 mins.

Billed as a national security speech, former President Donald Trump nonetheless took to the stage in North Carolina on Wednesday and offered few specifics about what he would do about the major conflicts roiling the planet under his successor Joe Biden.

This was no more apparent than in his comments about Israel, which were pretty much non-existent … On Israel’s war in Gaza … he declared, “I will give Israel the support that it needs to win, but I do want them to win fast, wouldn’t it be nice if they could win fast?” he said. “And we have to let them win fast. We will restore civility and peace to the Middle East.” If people were looking for a blueprint, a doctrine, or even some guideposts on what Trump would do in a second term on foreign policy and national security, Wednesday’s speech was certainly not it.

… Israel continues the ethnic cleansing and slaughter of the Palestinian people more than 75 years on … Every Israeli knows exactly what is going on in Gaza – after all, their children-soldiers keep posting videos online showing the latest crimes they have committed, from blowing up mosques and hospitals to shooting randomly into homes. Polls show all but a small minority of Israelis approve of the savagery that has killed many tens of thousands of Palestinians, including children. A third of them think Israel needs to go further in its barbarity … No serious case can be made today that Israel is carrying out any of its crimes in Gaza – from bombing civilians to starving them – with regret, or that its leaders seek the best for the Palestinian population.

“Israeli soldiers set fire to Aqsa University library in Gaza City and took pictures of themselves in front of the flames,” journalist Younis Tirawi reported on X on May 23. Tirawi showed evidence that photo was shared on social media by Israeli soldier Tair Glisko. 424th Battalion, Givati Brigade, who later made his account private. Several left-wing voices have said lately that Israel is falling apart. The society is torn over the war, the government is dominated by brutal racists, and the country’s only answer to the fundamental question – half the population is Palestinian – is apartheid and rolling massacres … There is a sense that Israel has no way out. No wonder there are reports that hundreds of thousands of Israelis have fled the country since last October.

In this headline-making work, a prominent French scholar delivers one powerful blow after another to the pernicious historical myths cited for decades to justify Zionist aggression and repression, including the Israeli legend of a “land without people for a people without land,” and the most sacred of Jewish-Zionist icons, the Holocaust extermination story. For financial gain, as an alibi for indefensible policies, and for other reasons, Jews have used what the author calls “theological myths” to arrogate for themselves a “right of theological divine chosenness.” The wartime suffering of Europe’s Jews, he contends, has been elevated to the status of a secular religion, and is now treated with sacrosanct historical uniqueness.

Police have arrested at least 330 people in connection with incidents at the Notting Hill Carnival, the Met said tonight – with three people including a 32-year-old mother left fighting for their lives. Five people were stabbed today, taking the total across the two days to eight, while three people sustained slash wounds and one incident was said to have involved a corrosive substance. The violence came despite pleas from the Metropolitan Police for an end to attacks, as a senior officer begged: ‘We are tired of saying the same words every year’. Officers recovered firearms at the festival and during a traffic stop in Harrow involving individuals believed to be on their way to Notting Hill. And 35 officers were injured today … Local businesses board up windows in anticipation of the chaos that

accompanies it every year.

On the third night of the Democratic National Convention four years ago, immigration was front and center. Americans heard a series of personal stories about how Trump-era policies had scrambled immigrants’ and their families’ lives … Four years later, the DNC sounds a lot different … Gone are the heartfelt testimonies from undocumented immigrants, the repudiation of Trump-era policies, and the calls for better treatment of migrants and expansion of asylum protections. Instead, Wednesday [Aug. 21] evening’s speakers embraced tougher policies for asylum seekers, praised President Joe Biden’s attempts to negotiate a bipartisan border security bill, and conceded the changed reality of immigration politics since the pandemic’s dawn.

When it comes to estimating the size of demographic groups, Americans rarely get it right. In two recent YouGov polls … Americans tend to vastly overestimate the size of minority groups. This holds for sexual minorities, including the proportion of gays and lesbians (estimate: 30%, true: 3%), bisexuals (estimate: 29%, true: 4%), and people who are transgender (estimate: 21%, true: 0.6%). It also applies to religious minorities, such as Muslim Americans (estimate: 27%, true: 1%) and Jewish Americans (estimate: 30%, true: 2%). And we find the same sorts of overestimates for racial and ethnic minorities, such as Native Americans (estimate: 27%, true: 1%), Asian Americans (estimate: 29%, true: 6%), and Black Americans (estimate: 41%, true: 12%).

Britons see immigration as the most important issue facing their country for the first time since 2016 when the public voted to leave the European Union, a survey from Ipsos found. According to the Ipsos Issues Index, 34 per cent of people in Britain see immigration as the top issue facing the country, marking the first time that the influx of foreigners has topped the list since October 2016 in the wake of the Brexit referendum. Immigration beat out concerns about healthcare and the NHS at 30 per cent, the economy at 29 per cent, and inflation at 20 per cent, the poll found. Some 75 per cent of supporters of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party listed immigration as their top priority, followed by 62 per cent of Conservative Party voters, 45 per cent for those who work in manual labour jobs, and 43 per cent of people aged 65 or above.

The Israeli government sought legal advice on a US federal law requiring the disclosure of foreign-backed lobbying campaigns, out of concern that mounting enforcement of the law could ensnare American groups working in coordination with the Israeli government, leaked documents reviewed by the Guardian suggest. Emails and legal memos originating from a hack of the Israeli justice ministry show that officials feared that the country’s advocacy efforts in the US could trigger the US law governing foreign agents. The documents show that officials proposed creating a new American nonprofit in order to continue Israel’s activities in the US while avoiding scrutiny under the law.

A man who grew up in Santa Monica returns to report on how the famed southern California city has changed in recent years. He shows that homelessness is rampant, retail businesses are leaving, and the police seem unable to cope with the plague of shoplifting, home robberies, and many other crimes. The bizarre antics of drugged up, crazy people, he explains, frightens away tourists and shoppers. Local residents relate their own experiences, and describe how conditions have worsened in recent years. Runtime: 19 mins.

Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan concluded his four-year tenure at the world body in a ceremony in Manhattan on Monday organized by Israel’s U.N. delegation and the UJA-Federation of New York. Hundreds attended to honor Erdan, including many ambassadors, heads of Jewish organizations, New York Mayor Eric Adams and Rep. Richie Torres (D-N.Y.). “Many times I have been asked how I can come to work every day in a place where there is so much hatred and hypocrisy against Israel,” Erdan said. “My answer is simple: It is easy to defend Israel because if you know the truth and believe in it, you hold your head up proudly even in the face of continuous criticism and attacks.” Added Erdan: “I know the good that I represent—the most moral country in the world, Israel.”

A German court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by a 99-year-old woman who was convicted of being an accessory to more than 10,000 murders for her role as a secretary to the SS commander of the Nazis’ Stutthof concentration camp during World War II. The Federal Court of Justice upheld the conviction of Irmgard Furchner, who was given a two-year suspended sentence in December 2022 by a state court in Itzehoe in northern Germany. She was accused of being part of the apparatus that helped the camp near Danzig, now the Polish city of Gdansk, function. She was convicted of being an accessory to murder in 10,505 cases and an accessory to attempted murder in five cases.

America’s most influential pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC, has been boasting about its success in recent congressional primary elections … AIPAC and its partners have spent over $24 million so far this year to influence elections, and has enjoyed a series of successes all summer … For example, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — a member of the House Liberty Caucus, and a strong defender of non-intervention overseas — has been critical of how much American aid goes to Israel, and other nations … AIPAC spent roughly $400,000 in an effort to defeat him in his primary in May. Rather than succumbing to AIPAC’s efforts, Massie trounced his opponent, pulling in over 75% of the vote. A few Democrats who have criticized America’s relationship with Israel have also successfully dodged AIPAC’s wrath.

Singapore, Switzerland and Denmark have been named the world’s most competitive economies in the 2024 World Competitiveness Ranking published by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) on Tuesday [June 18, 2024] … Social cohesion, adaptability and agility are qualities the U.S., with its increasingly polarized political landscape and its slow-moving legislative process, currently lacks, which partly explains the U.S. economy’s gradual decline from the top of IMD’s annual ranking. Having held the top position uninterrupted from 1997 to 2009 and not fallen out of the top 3 until 2017, the world’s largest economy dropped out of the top 10 for the first time this year, slipping from 9th to 12th place.

For the first time ever, global business executives ranked the United States outside the Top 10 in international surveys of competitiveness. The US was firmly in the top spot for decades, and was never out of the top three. According to this year’s survey, executives pushed the United States to #12, while Asian economies Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the UAE snagged four of the top eight spots. This survey of international business leaders mirrors what everyday Americans tell pollsters at home: the United States is on the wrong track, and American citizens’ confidence in national institutions are at all-time lows. But our policymakers rely on other surveys, such as from the World Economic Forum and the UN, which continue to show the US as the most competitive.

Beginning Aug. 6, the Ukrainian military launched a surprise, cross-border offensive against Russia in the eastern Kursk region, seemingly flipping the script on the war’s current trajectory. Kyiv claims its units have pushed more than 20 miles into Russian territory, taking over 74 settlements and towns encompassing some 400 square miles … So we put the following question to a well-rounded group of foreign policy experts [including John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt] : “What is the likely impact of current Ukrainian military incursions into the Russian Kursk region on the broader Ukraine War?”

… It’s permissible to discuss the power of every other group, from the Black Muslims to the Christian Right, but the much greater power of the Jewish Establishment is off-limits. That, in fact, is the chief measure of its power … Explicitly “Jewish” organizations like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League enforce a dual standard. What is permitted to Israel is forbidden to America. This is not just thoughtless inconsistency. These organizations consciously support one set of principles here — equal rights for all, ethnic neutrality, separation of church and state — and their precise opposites in Israel, where Jewish ancestry and religion enjoy privilege.

Former President Donald Trump received an immediate backlash Thursday when he said the Presidential Medal of Freedom he awarded to Dr. Miriam Adelson, the widow of Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, was “equivalent” and “much better” than the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award for bravery in combat. Speaking from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, during an event on fighting antisemitism, Trump praised the late Las Vegas casino magnate as “one of the greatest businessmen in the world,” before addressing Sheldon Adelson’s widow … In front of multiple American and Israeli flags. He added, “It’s actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they are dead.” …

Some Americans believe that undocumented immigrants are a criminal threat to society … A study co-led by Northwestern University economist Elisa Jácome provides the first historical comparison of incarceration rates of immigrants to U.S.-born citizens. Using incarceration rates as a proxy for crime, a team of economists analyzed 150 years of U.S. Census data and found immigrants were consistently less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the U.S. They also found beginning in 1960, the incarceration gap widened such that immigrants today are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than the U.S.-born … In the more recent time period, immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S. born citizens, and 30% less likely relative to U.S. born whites.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza may go down as the first genocide in history where the perpetrators have documented, posted, shared and celebrated their crimes on social media. Over the past 10 months, Israeli soldiers in Gaza have taken photos and videos of themselves while they blew up homes and schools, and tortured captives. To boast of their atrocities against civilians, Israeli forces have routinely filmed themselves demolishing residential blocks in Gaza, which they proceeded to share online … Israeli soldiers have recorded themselves looting jewelry, clothes, and valuables from the homes of Palestinians they have bombed and ethnically cleansed in Gaza. Many photos feature soldiers basking gleefully in the ruins of bombed homes, schools and hospitals.

On September 12, 2002, Benjamin Netanyahu — then a private citizen — was invited to Congress to give “an Israeli perspective” in support of a U.S. invasion of Iraq … Netanyahu’s advice was catastrophically wrong. America’s invasion of Iraq was a bloody disaster that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more, creating massive instability in the region and paving the way for ISIS’s rise … Netanyahu is used to coming to Washington, telling U.S. leaders what to do, and seeing them oblige. The consequences of abiding his arrogant approach have been nothing short of disastrous.

Authorities in the UK are now arresting people for posting “inaccurate information” on social media, according to a new report. Sky News reports that a woman has been arrested by Cheshire Police for posting “inaccurate information on social media” about the attacker who stabbed three girls to death in Southport last week. The 55-year-old woman was arrested near the northern town of Chester on “suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred and false communications.” Chief Superintendent Allison Ross gave a statement explaining how the post is alleged to have “fueled” the protests and riots in the UK over the last week, which she asserts started as a result of “malicious and inaccurate communications online.”

… Based on interviews with roughly 90 gen Z political activists, numerous focus groups and extensive polling, [Melissa] Deckman has identified what she calls a “historic reverse gender gap”. She has found that gen Z men are becoming more conservative as well as increasingly indifferent to politics … Meanwhile, gen Z women have not only become the most progressive cohort in US history but are also expected to outpace their male peers across virtually every measure of political involvement, such as donating money, volunteering for campaigns, registering people to vote – and, of course, voting.

More than 100 illegal Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, killing one person and setting fire to a home and several vehicles, according to multiple sources … Over the past few years, the Israeli military has conducted regular raids in the West Bank, which have escalated since the beginning of its war on Gaza in October last year. At least 632 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 5,400 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Ministry of Health. In a landmark advisory opinion on 19 July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and for reparations to be paid to Palestinians.

If you hadn’t heard the term before, “zog” might sound like a strange piece of internet slang … But the term, it turns out, is shorthand for Zionist Occupied Government … The acronym, which had historically remained relatively confined to neo-Nazi and white supremacist circles, made a sudden leap into the mainstream over the weekend … Far-left talking head, Max Blumenthal of Greyzone, also used it in a podcast. “I used to think ‘Zionist Occupied Government’ was an antisemitic term. Now I’m forced to see it as a pretty accurate description of the reality we live in,” he said. “One nation, under zog.” … “Zog” originally gained popularity in neo-Nazi circles after its use in The Turner Diaries, a 1978 novel by Andrew Macdonald — a pseudonym for William Luther Pierce, the founder of white nationalist group National Alliance.

Hiroshima native Kohchi was a 16-year-old schoolboy when his city was devastated by the first nuclear attack in history. He tells the dramatic, personal story of how he experienced and survived the bombing, and provides a moving account of his search for his family through the burning rubble of the doomed city. Then Kohchi recalls how, years later, he forced himself to come to grips with his past and uncover the facts about the bombing and the history the led up to it. The author’s frankness and humane spirit make this a first-hand Japanese account of a war crime that dwarfs almost all others. A unique revisionist classic. Praised by the Japan Times newspaper as a “noteworthy” and “authentic” personal account, and by Book­watch newsletter as a “moving, gripping account.” With full color dust jacket, photos and notes.

There is only one country in the world right now, in the midst of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is guaranteed dozens of standing ovations from the vast majority of its elected representatives. That country is not Israel, where he has been a hugely divisive figure for many years. It is the United States. On Wednesday [July 24], Netanyahu was back-slapped, glad-handed, whooped and cheered as he slowly made his way – hailed at every step as a conquering hero – to the podium of the US Congress. This was the same Netanyahu who has overseen during the past 10 months the slaughter – so far – of some 40,000 Palestinians, around half of them women and children. More than 21,000 other children are reported missing, most of them likely dead under rubble.

… Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a dishonest and obnoxious speech to a joint session of Congress [July 24]. As expected, the prime minister obsessed over Iran and exaggerated the threat from Iran and its proxies. He absurdly claimed that Israel was fighting on behalf of the “civilized” world against “barbarism.” In reality, Israeli forces have been committing countless war crimes, and the Israeli government deliberately starves the entire population of Gaza. It was crude propaganda that insulted the intelligence of anyone that heard it, and to their lasting discredit most of the audience lapped it up and cheered … Perhaps the most absurd part of the speech came later on when Netanyahu pretends that Israel is keeping the U.S. safe.

The Oregon National Guard is sending off 230 guardsmen to Iraq and Syria amid soaring tensions in the Middle East as the US is pledging to defend Israel from an expected Iranian reprisal attack. The US has about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 troops occupying eastern Syria. The Oregon guardsmen are likely being sent out on a regular rotational deployment, but the move comes as the US beefs up its presence in the region. According to KGW8, a local NBC affiliate in Oregon, the unit is being deployed for a year and will serve as “primary artillery defenders” for the US and its partners in Iraq and Syria.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a joint session of Congress, Washington must finally face reality: its emphatic embrace of Israel’s war in Gaza is not advancing U.S. interests or promoting regional stability — to say nothing of the immense human toll. In fact, it is doing the opposite. So long as Washington refuses to change course, the U.S. will continue to confront major problems that are the product of its own policies … Meanwhile, the carnage Washington is subsidizing in Gaza is seriously damaging America’s global standing … Washington’s involvement, most critically the provision of the weapons responsible for much of the killing, makes a mockery of the U.S.’ claim to lead a “liberal” or “rules-based” international order.

It has long been regarded as the greatest sporting snub in history — when Adolf Hitler stormed out of the Olympic Stadium in Berlin because Germany had been humiliated by a black man … Now a veteran sports reporter in Germany has come forward to claim that, though Hitler did indeed leave the stadium after the race, it was not before shaking Owens’ hand. Siegfried Mischner, 83, claims that Owens carried around a photograph in his wallet of the Fuehrer doing just that. Owens, who felt the newspapers of the day reported ‘unfairly’ on Hitler’s attitude towards him, tried to get Mischner and his journalist colleagues to change the accepted version of history in the 1960s. Mischner claimed Owens showed him the photograph and told him: ‘That was one of my most beautiful moments.’

Shoplifting has soared in the U.S. in 2024, forcing many stores to leave cities and continuing a trend in recent years. Shoplifting has risen 24% in the first half of 2024 alone, according to newly released data from the Council on Criminal Justice … Shoplifting has become a major problem in cities around the country, with some store owners announcing they had to close up shop because of the increased theft. Shoplifting and looting during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots helped spur on a new era of increased shoplifting. Several major stores, including CVS, Macy’s, Target, Walmart and others have cited shoplifting when they closed down urban locations.

Sixty percent of low-income countries have been economically punished by the US, an in-depth report by the Washington Post has claimed. More than a third of the world’s nations are feeling the adverse effects of some form of US sanctions. Furthermore, the burden has become such that even the bureaucrats in Washington can no longer handle the workload of maintaining such a complex web of economic penalties … Currently, sanctions imposed by the US are three times that of any other country. These penalties target “a third of all nations with some kind of financial penalty on people, properties or organizations,” the newspaper noted … History tells us that US sanctions often fall short of their intended objective … The Biden administration’s plan to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine has produced dismal results.

The world changed forever when a US bomber dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima 70 years ago. The Americans said they took the drastic step to put an early end to World War II and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of US soldiers, but this official narrative is now being overturned … Many historians say the bombings did not lead to the Japanese surrender, and the Soviet declaration of war on Japan two days later was a bigger shock …. America believed the shock and awe of the devastating power of the new bombs would force Japan into surrender, but experts say inside Japan it was viewed differently. The Americans had already destroyed 66 Japanese cities with a massive fire bombing campaign. In just one night, 100,000 civilians were killed in Tokyo.

Credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded Israel’s credit rating from A+ to A on Monday, citing worsening geopolitical risks as the Israel-Hamas war drags on. It also kept the rating outlook negative, which means a further downgrade is possible. “In our view, the conflict in Gaza could last well into 2025 and there are risks of it broadening to other fronts,” the ratings agency said in a statement … Israel’s shekel fell as much as 1.7% against the dollar on Monday and stocks ended over 1% lower in Tel Aviv, as investors fret over a possible attack on Israel. Heightened tensions between Israel and Iran and its allies could imply significant additional military spending, destruction of infrastructure and damage to economic activity and investment, Fitch said.

… The ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 19 July that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is unlawful is earth-shattering. Israel is a rogue state, according to the world’s highest court … There will also be ramifications for domestic courts in the West. It will be hard for judges to ignore the World Court’s opinion when their governments seek to punish Palestinian solidarity activists. Those promoting boycotts and sanctions on Israel, or trying to stop companies supplying Israel with weapons, are doing what, according to the World Court, western governments should be doing of their own accord … Maybe most importantly of all, the ruling will decisively disrupt the West’s intentionally deceitful discourse about Israel … The World Court has done the Palestinians and the rest of mankind a service in unmasking Israel for what it is …

The opinion issued Friday [July 19] by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which stated that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law and that Israel must end its occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as soon as possible, revealed nothing to Israelis that they did not already know. The opinion shatters the lie that the occupation is only temporary and intended only for security purposes … The opinion bursts this bubble of lies and views various acts of the Israeli government as annexation of the territory … Israel’s working assumption – that the world will continue to ignore the occupation – has been shattered in recent months. If Israel continues to ignore what the world tells it, it may wake up to a reality in which it is boycotted and ostracized like apartheid-era South Africa.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent a major portion of his hour-long speech to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday [July 24] lecturing the American people about how they should think and react to Israel’s war on Gaza … The prime minister seemed intent on digging in until “total victory” … He later framed the conflict as one that pitted Tel Aviv and Washington against Tehran and what he called its “axis of terror.” … “Our enemies are your enemies,” he added. “Our fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory.” … The reception inside the room, however, was largely positive, with Netanyahu receiving multiple standing ovations from members of Congress … Outside of the doors of the Capitol, tens of thousands gathered to protest the Israeli prime minister’s speech.

Israel has conducted a systematic policy of prisoner abuse and torture since the start of the war in Gaza, subjecting Palestinian detainees to acts ranging from arbitrary violence to sexual abuse, a report from Israeli rights group B’Tselem said on Monday. The group said the report was based on interviews with 55 Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, who were detained in Israeli prisons since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that set off the war, most of them without being tried. Body bags were laid out for a mass burial in Gaza on Monday, after Israel returned 80 bodies it had previously taken from various graves and locations across the strip. “The testimonies clearly indicate a systematic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel,” the report said.J J V

Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation and other abuse of Palestinian prisoners has been normalised across Israel’s jail system, according to Guardian interviews with released prisoners, with mistreatment now so systemic that rights group B’Tselem says it must be considered a policy of “institutionalised abuse”. Former detainees described abuse ranging from severe beatings and sexual violence to starvation rations, refusal of medical care, and deprivation of basic needs including water, daylight, electricity and sanitation, including soap and sanitary pads for women. In a months-long investigation,  B’Tselem interviewed 55 former prisoners housed in 16 Israeli prison service jails and detention centres … The highly respected Jerusalem-based group concluded that Israel’s prisons should now be labelled “torture camps”.

The 2024 Republican platform promises that, if Donald Trump returns to the White House and Republicans gain complete control of Congress, they will reduce inflation … The GOP’s apparent desire to increase military spending is a disappointment to those of us who hoped the increased skepticism of foreign intervention among Republican voters would dampen Republican enthusiasm for the military-industrial complex. The platform also opposes any reduction in Social Security and Medicare. So, the “fiscally responsible” Republicans want to increase spending on one of the largest items in federal spending (“defense”) while opposing cuts in two others (Social Security and Medicare). Interest on the national debt, another of the top spending items, will continue growing under a Republican government.

Writings on an ancient clay tablet have allowed experts to reconstruct a Bronze Age ship made of reeds and sail it on a maiden voyage off the coast of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The vessel, known as a Magan boat, spans 59 feet (18 meters) in length and was assembled by a team of 20 specialists using techniques that date back to 2100 BC, when the Persian Gulf became part of global maritime trade across the ancient world. Magan was once the name for a region that now encompasses the UAE and Oman. Magan boats were large and strong enough to enable the exchange of goods such as copper, textiles and semiprecious stones 4,000 years ago between societies living in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley in what is now Iraq, Pakistan and India, respectively.

One of the most sensational criminal cases of twentieth century America was the brutal murder in August 1913 of Mary Phagan, a teenage white female factory worker in Atlanta, Georgia. At the conclusion of a widely publicized trial, the factory’s Jewish manager was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death. Sexual coercion, racial bigotry, planted evidence, apparent rape, Jewish community pressure, and alleged anti-Jewish prejudice all figured prominently in the dramatic murder trial, which generated nationwide attention. For any open-minded person, this book convincingly establishes that Leo Frank murdered Mary Phagan. This 536-page work is illustrated with maps, diagrams, and photographs, and is referenced with more than a thousand footnotes.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich implied on Monday that he believes blocking humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip is “justified and moral” even if it causes two million civilians to die of hunger, but the international community won’t allow that to happen. “We bring in aid because there is no choice,” Smotrich said at a conference in Yad Binyamin hosted by the right-wing Israel Hayom outlet. “We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause two million civilians to die of hunger, even though it might be justified and moral, until our hostages are returned. “Humanitarianism in exchange for humanitarianism is morally justified — but what can we do? We live today in a certain reality, we need international legitimacy for this war.”

… The notion that the atomic bombs caused the Japanese surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, has been, for many Americans and virtually all U.S. history textbooks, the default understanding of how and why the war ended. But minutes of the meetings of the Japanese government reveal a more complex story. The latest and best scholarship on the surrender, based on Japanese records, concludes that the Soviet Union’s unexpected entry into the war against Japan on Aug. 8was probably an even greater shock to Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima two days earlier … As historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa writes in his book “Racing the Enemy,” “Indeed, Soviet attack, not the Hiroshima bomb, convinced political leaders to end the war.”

The Polish state broadcaster on Saturday suspended a television journalist who, during the Olympic Games opening ceremony, reacted to a performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine” by saying it was a “vision of communism.” TVP, the broadcaster, issued a statement Saturday saying that the journalist and sports commentator, Przemyslaw Babiarz, would not be allowed to comment on air anymore during this summer’s Games. Lennon’s song asks to imagine no heaven or hell, no countries, and no possessions. “This is a vision of communism, unfortunately,” Babiarz said during the grand opening ceremony along the Seine River in Paris on Friday evening — comments that immediately triggered controversy for those watching in Poland.

Thousands of Palestinian prisoners have been subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation, electric shocks, the release of dogs on them, and other forms of torture and mistreatment, according to a report by the UN Human Rights Office. The report on detention, released on Wednesday local time, said Israel’s prison service held more than 9,400 “security detainees” as of the end of June, and some have been held in secret without access to lawyers or respect for their legal rights … The report also said detainees had been forcibly removed from Gaza, sometimes from bomb shelters, and dragged into detention in Israel where dozens have died. Many of those seized in Gaza since the war began on October 7 were taken at checkpoints as they fled Israel’s military offensive, or from the schools and hospitals where they were sheltering …

A major rights group on Friday highlighted the escalating violence by Israeli forces and illegal settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. In a statement, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) revealed that 228 Palestinians, including 51 children, were killed in attacks by Israeli forces or illegal settlers and over 1,000 were displaced during the first half of 2024. Commenting on the findings, Ana Povrzenic, NRC’s country director in Palestine, said: “The data indicates that Israeli forces are deploying unwarranted use of lethal force against Palestinian civilians.” “We cannot separate the worsening conditions in the West Bank from the actions of senior Israeli officials aimed to establish sovereignty over the West Bank, in violation of international law,” she emphasized.

Here is the complete text of the remarkable address by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán of July 27, which has generated wide comment. “The biggest problem the world faces today is the weakness and disintegration of the West,” he says in this wide-ranging review. Stressing the need for a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine War, he outlines a path to ending the conflict. In coming years, he says, Asia will be “the dominant center of the world.” Orbán speaks about the crisis of American society today, and problems of US foreign policy. In the crucial struggle of our age between “liberals” and “nationalists,” he calls for activism by “courageous young fighters with a nationalist spirit” against the “left-liberal elite.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday Russia’s leadership was “hyper rational,” and that Ukraine would never be able to fulfil its hopes of becoming a member of the European Union or NATO. Orban, a nationalist in power since 2010, made the comments during a speech in which he forecast a shift in global power away from the “irrational” West towards Asia and Russia. “In the next long decades, maybe centuries, Asia will be the dominant centre of the world,” Orban said, mentioning China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia as the world’s future big powers. “And we Westerners pushed the Russians into this bloc as well,” he said in the televised speech before ethnic Hungarians at a festival in the town of Baile Tusnad in neighbouring Romania.

The U.S. national debt as of Monday officially topped $35 trillion, a grim milestone for the U.S. government and the economy as the national debt continues to soar each year. The national debt has nearly tripled in the last 20 years. “If this sounds familiar, we only just reached $34 trillion at the very end of 2023,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement after the milestone. “We passed $33 trillion three months before that and $32 trillion three months before that. The borrowing just keeps marching along, reckless and unyielding.” MacGuineas said the U.S. annual deficit is on track to hit almost $2 trillion this year and nearly $3 trillion in ten years.

Britain has fallen out of the top ten manufacturing nations for the first time since the industrial revolution … The country has dropped to 12th-biggest manufacturer with an output of $259 bn per year behind the likes of Russia and Taiwan, according to analysis of official data by the lobby group Make UK. It is the first time on record that Britain is not at the top table. As recently as 2000, it was placed fifth. The rankings put it behind Mexico, which has jumped to seventh in the rankings with an output of $316 bn, as well as Italy ($283 bn), Russia ($287 bn) and France ($265 bn). Taiwan has also edged slightly ahead of the UK … China remained top of the rankings with an output of $5.06 trillion – almost a third of global production – with the US in second place at $2.7 trillion.

Teachers are quitting schools in Vienna in droves, with up to 20 teachers quitting per day due to the extremely stressful environments featuring mostly migrant children, many of whom do not speak German or very little German. According to a study by the Austrian Statistical Office, around 70 percent of school-age children in Vienna do not speak German in their everyday life. Now, the rise of mass immigration has created growing problems in the Austrian school system, with the Vienna school system threatening to collapse … According to teachers’ union member Thomas Krebs, teachers are fleeing Vienna’s compulsory schools “in droves.”

… In the early 1980s it became clear to me that the pro-Israel lobby was trying to steer the United States into conflict with the Arab world. I saw nothing in the American interest in that; and my own two sons were approaching the draft age. Until then, I had been strongly pro-Israel myself; but sacrificing my boys for Israel was a higher price than I wanted to pay. Nor did I want other Americans to pay it. But as soon as I began arguing publicly that the U.S.-Israel alliance was not only costly but dangerous to the United States, I became the target of Zionist vituperation and worse. Some, like Podhoretz, tried to ruin my career. And I’ve seen others get the same treatment.

The Romanian Orthodox Church rejected the criticisms brought by the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania over the approved canonization of certain clerics who expressed antisemitic opinions during their lives. Canonization means that a deceased person is worthy of being included in the canon or authorized list of recognized saints … The first, Ilarion Felea (1903-1961), was a member of the Legionary Movement … In his writings, he praised the “destruction of Jewish parasitism.” Another priest, Ilie Lăcătușu (1909-1983), was also a leader in the Legionary movement and participated in the 1941 rebellion … Dumitru Stăniloae (1903-1993) praised Nazi Germany and the connection between Orthodoxy and ethnocracy in his writings.

… With the aid of the civilian population, mass graves had been discovered, in which thousands of corpses had been buried. These graves were to be opened and the commission was to establish whom the [Soviet] NKVD had murdered … The exhumations in Vinnytsia began on May 25, 1943, and were carried on in three places. The population was of the opinion that there were around 20,000 victims in the war years … I had been a soldier in the Ukrainian army during the First World War and had seen many men killed in battle, but what I had then seen can in no way be compared with what I witnessed in that park … The horror of Vinnytsia I shall never forget, and it is doubtful whether ever a Dante would be able to portray the agony that had taken place.

… The Olympic Games themselves are a bit fascist. Essentially, both Olympism and fascism are secular religions that venerate the human body and seek the triumph of the will … Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, celebrations of the Olympiads and fascist rallies grew increasingly indistinct. Both were quasi-religious experiences, complete with increasingly sophisticated rites and rituals, and adorned with striking iconography. Even their salutes looked the same … When the Games went to Berlin in 1936, the union between the two movements was blessed. In many ways, the Berlin Olympics were the ultimate Olympic Games, because the Nazis were the only people who really “got” Olympism.

… Polls have shown for months that more Americans disapprove than approve of the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, but Congress and the White House are not interested in the views of the public when they are on the receiving end of hundreds of millions of dollars in “donations” from Jewish billionaires … Predictably, the Congressmen and guests who filled the chamber bobbed up and down applauding wildly after nearly every sentence, producing 53 standing ovations, far exceeding Netanyahu’s record 29 obtained the last time he addressed Congress in 2015 … My particular gripe was over the fact that Netanyahu’s speech was full of uncontested lies and grossly exaggerated assumptions designed to get his audience roaring.

… This is not a `war,’ as the media calls it. It’s an ongoing massacre, shooting fish in a barrel. The two men who made possible this huge massacre, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu and outgoing US President Joe Biden, met this week in Washington to talk about their ‘success’ in Gaza. Many members of US Congress applauded Netanyahu like trained seals. Meanwhile, the US shipped thousands more 500 lb and 2,000 lb bombs and 105mm tank shells to Israel in violation of America’s own arms export laws … Many misinformed Americans and supporters of Israel still applaud Biden. They are wrong. He has blackened America’s name and disgraced the nation with its role in the Gaza massacre, and made a mockery of the UN.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday delivered an address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday and spent a good portion of his speech attacking Americans who have been protesting Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza … The majority of the lawmakers in the chamber responded with a standing ovation.… About half of the Democrats in the House and Senate skipped the address … At least one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), chose not to attend. “The purpose of having Netanyahu address Congress is to bolster his political standing in Israel and to quell int’l opposition to his war,” Massie wrote on X. “I don’t feel like being a prop so I won’t be attending.” … The Israeli leader also said Israel must maintain indefinite “security control” over Gaza, meaning a long-term military occupation.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatens to invade Israel in support of the Palestinians. “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these things to Palestine,” says Erdogan, one of the most bitter critics of Israel on the international stage, referring to the war against Hamas in Gaza. “Just as we entered [Nagorno-]Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we might do the same to them. There is nothing we can’t do. We must only be strong.” Turkey is a member of NATO, which includes the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, and other close Israeli allies.

The four-day, twice-a-decade plenum of the Communist Party of China that took place last week in Beijing, designing an economic road map all the way to 2029, was a stunning affair in more ways than one … The plenum proved once more that “socialism with Chinese characteristics” – or, for the recalcitrant, Chinese-modified capitalism – is “people-centric”. The supreme values are national interest and the people’s interests – attested by the fact that large private corporations remain under the strategic control of the CPC … The Chinese economy will grow by a whopping $1.7 trillion only in 2024 … And Beijing borrowed exactly zero yuan for this growth. The U.S. economy, by comparison, may grow by $300 billion in 2024; but Washington had to borrow $3.3 trillion for that to happen.

Former Israeli intelligence and security official Yuval Malka told Hebrew media on 25 July that Washington has greenlit a wider war on Lebanon. “According to the information I received from the delegation and what I know, Netanyahu has received full legitimacy in the United States to wage a war in Lebanon,” Malka told Israel’s Channel 14 … The Israeli army has reportedly signaled to the government that the time is ripe for an expanded war against Lebanon, according to a defense analyst for Hebrew media … “The Israeli army is sending a signal to the government – we are at the height of preparations for war in the north, and now is the right time,” he added.