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Trump’s Gaza Plan is Not America First
Paul R. Pillar – Responsible Statecraft
… Trump is comfortable with the United States helping Israel to “murder” the Gaza Strip — and is increasing the supply of weapons to do so — while pretending to be merciful and compassionate toward the remaining people of Gaza who so far have survived the Israeli onslaught but are suffering immensely. The hypocrisy only adds a further gloss to what already was morally indefensible support for ethnic cleansing … Trump’s declared doctrine may be “America First,” but on anything involving the Middle East his policy is Israel First. Or more accurately, it is a policy of deference to almost anything the government of Israel, with its right-wing extremists, wants, even if those wants run counter to the long-term peace and security of the Israeli people as much as the other people of the Middle East.
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The Israel Lobby Pays, The U.S. Congress Obeys
Video – If Americans Knew
Money talks. This is a brief, graphic look at money from pro-Israel groups to American politicians, which is a major reason that the US has for decades been such a lavish, “blank check” supporter of the Jewish state. The vehemently pro-Israel politicians cited here include Donald Trump, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Nancy Pelosi. OpenSecrets.org is the source for the amounts of money given here. Runtime: 3:16mins.
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Reflections on German and American Foreign Policy, 1933-1945
Karl Otto Braun – Institute for Historical Review
During my career as a German diplomat, I had three superiors … After the [Second World] war these men were condemned as criminals by the Allied Military Tribunal at Nuremberg … I myself was an “automatic arrest” inmate in the Dachau concentration camp, then under U.S. Military Government control … Revisionism has a mission. It is to find facts. Historical fact-finding likewise has a purifying effect because it embodies the struggle for truth … Believe me: Moral values have a more enduring life than shrewd tactics! .. If we keep ourselves on a morally elevated plane, we will emerge victorious … The Middle East has been engulfed in turmoil. This conflict was fostered at Versailles in 1919 when the British and French violated numerous solemn pledges and betrayed the Arabs.
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Did We Just See Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan?
Ted Snider – Antiwar
A leaked document has given us a first glimpse at Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian online newspaper Strana, U.S. officials handed the plan to European diplomats who then passed it on to Ukraine. The existence of the plan has not been verified … If the plan is real, if it is being put on the table by the Trump administration … as a starting point for negotiations, then there is hope. And there is suggestion that it is a starting point. Here is an item by item analysis of what each side may consider acceptable in the plan and what each side may insist on negotiating further.
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What Russian Folklore Can Tell Us About Russia
Melvin Goodman - CounterPunch
… The emphasis on national security gives Russian President Vladimir Putin a great deal of leeway in a wartime situation, and explains the overwhelming support from the Russian people for his war … It is Russia’s firm belief that WWII was fought and won on the eastern front, and that the United States and Britain delayed opening the second front in order to increase the number of casualties for both Germany and Russia. The fact that three-quarters of the German Army and three-quarters of their fatalities were on the eastern front provides some justification for these strongly-held beliefs. Russian veterans have told me that no other nation could have stood up to the German Wehrmacht.
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Trump’s Plan to ‘Clean Out’ Gaza Has Overwhelming Support With Israelis
K. Anzalone – Libertarian Institute
A new poll conducted in Israel found widespread support for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza as proposed by President Donald Trump. A poll from the Jewish People Policy Institute Israel Index released Monday found that 80% of Jewish Israelis support Trump’s proposal to clean out the Gaza Strip of Palestinians. … The Israeli Jewish population is divided on whether the plan is practical. Among Jewish Israelis, a narrow majority (52%) believe that Trump’s plan is “practical” and should be pursued. An additional 30% view cleaning out Gaza as “not practical, but desirable.” Just over one in ten Israeli Jews viewed Trump’s proposal as a “distraction.” Only 3% replied that the ethnic cleansing of Gaza is “immoral.”
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Israeli Historian Says Zionism Entering Its ‘Last Phase’
Video - Al Jazeera
There are many factors — from a Trump presidency to international isolation — that show Zionism is entering its “last phase” before its collapse, says Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. Runtime: 3:19 mins.
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Member of US Holocaust Memorial Council Says the People of Gaza Are ‘Collectively Guilty’ and Don’t Deserve Mercy
D. DeCamp – Antiwar
A Trump-appointed member of the US Holocaust Memorial Council has called for the collective punishment of all Palestinians in Gaza, saying they’re “collectively guilty” and not deserving of any mercy. Writing in The Jerusalem Post, Martin Oliner praised President Trump’s suggestion to “clean out” the Palestinians in Gaza and send them to Egypt and Jordan, which would amount to ethnic cleansing … “And those like myself who do not believe Gazans are worthy of any mercy should welcome it as well,” he said. It’s estimated roughly half of Gaza’s population is made up of children, but Oliner said that all Palestinians in the enclave are responsible for Hamas’s October 7attack on southern Israel … Oliner said the people of Gaza are “fundamentally evil, and they must pay a price for their actions.”
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Netanyahu’s Gaza Disaster: The Shocking Truth Behind Israel’s Defeat
Video - Double Down
Israel has not succeeded in destroying Hamas, says David Hearst, editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye, an online news outlet and channel. The Palestinian resistance movement is still very much a fighting force, and is in control of Gaza, he adds. Hamas knows that it cannot defeat Israel in a short-term military clash, he explains. What it seeks to achieve is victory in a long-term, multi-generational struggle similar to that achieved by anti-colonial nationalists in Algeria and Vietnam, who made the price of continuing subjugation so difficult, bloody and costly that the oppressors finally gave up. Moreover, Israel has lost enormous international prestige and credibility in the world, including in the USA. David Hearst was a correspondent of The Guardian in Russia, Europe and Belfast. Runtime: 8:54 mins.
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The Enigma of Lawrence
Desmond Hansen – The Journal of Historical Review
… Lawrence was indeed a very great man, a great thinker and a great military leader and strategist. He planned, organized and led a national rebellion of the Arab peoples and gave them the first opportunity in 400 years to become an important Middle Eastern power. But for Zionism he would have succeeded in his plan. Unfortunately his work was betrayed by Anglo-French and Zionist interests over which neither he nor the liberated Arabs were powerful enough to prevail. As Lawrence himself put it, the opponents of Arab nationalism had bigger guns, that was all … In his epic work on the Arab revolt, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence describes his personal feelings and attitudes; especially his bitterness when his success was undone by the governments of the victorious powers.
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Are Young People Depressed Because of What They Were Taught in College?
John Stossel - Reason
Colleges went mad. They charge students big bucks and then make them feel guilty. My new video looks at a new documentary called The Coddling of the American Mind. It persuasively suggests that today, young people are anxious and depressed because “adults” at their schools brainwashed them. Students like Lucy Kross Wallace at Stanford. “I was anxious,” she says. “I felt guilty constantly. I couldn’t stop thinking about the white privilege thing.” … The new censorship was supposed to help minorities, but minorities, too, are often punished.
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President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Wednesday that he said both reinstates an order combating Jew-hatred from his prior term, which the Biden administration “effectively nullified,” and “directs additional measures to advance the policy thereof in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, against the people of Israel.” … The order states that U.S. policy is “to combat antisemitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” Trump’s executive order gives the heads of departments and agencies 60 days to outline ways that they can better fight antisemitism.
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A far-right Polish member of the European Parliament with a history of antisemitic statements disrupted a moment of silence for the victims of the Holocaust in order to decry “the Jewish genocide in Gaza.” Grzegorz Braun, chairman of the far-right Confederation of the Polish Crown party, known as KKP, interrupted the minute of silence on Wednesday, two days after International Holocaust Remembrance Day … Braun’s party website, which features his photo on the homepage, also includes a link to an 18th century encyclical by Pope Benedict XIV recommending that Poles deprive Jews of property, restrict them from holding office, and avoid doing business with them … On Wednesday, the European Jewish Congress called Braun’s interruption “A vile display of antisemitism in the heart of European democracy.”
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‘Insult to Victims of Nazism’: Yad Vashem Head Condemns Musk Speech to German Far-Right
The Times of Israel Jan. 27, 2025
Dani Dayan, chair of Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem [Israel] Holocaust memorial, came out against Elon Musk for comments he made to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party a day earlier in which he said there is “too much focus on past guilt” in Germany. Contrary to Elon Musk’s advice, the remembrance and acknowledgment of the dark past of the country and its people should be central in shaping the German society,” Dayan wrote on X on Sunday, the day before the world marked the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. “Failing to do so is an insult to the victims of Nazism and a clear danger to the democratic future of Germany,” he added.
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Holocaust Remembrance: Behind the Campaign
Mark Weber – Podcast
Mark Weber explains that Holocaust remembrance is not, as its supporters claim, a noble effort motivated by sincere concern for humanity. He cites compelling evidence to show that the Holocaust remembrance campaign is, above all, an expression of Jewish-Zionist power, and is designed to further Zionist and Israeli interests. Jewish death and suffering do not deserve to be venerated more than the death and suffering of non-Jews, says Weber in this Dec. 2006 audio presentation. The Holocaust remembrance campaign – he concludes — deserves scorn, not support, because it is a one-sided effort that serves narrow Jewish and Israeli interests and bolsters Jewish-Zionist power. Runtime: 18:43 mins.
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A postwar epic about a Holocaust survivor, a contemporary comedy about Holocaust tourism, and a biopic of a Jewish musical legend helped lend a formidable Jewish presence to Thursday’s Oscar nominations. Meanwhile, nominations for a documentary about the West Bank and a docudrama about the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes also kept Israel in the conversation … “The Brutalist,” a three-plus-hour historical drama starring Adrien Brody as a fictional Hungarian Jewish architect inspired by real Jewish designers, is well positioned with 10 nominations, tied for second-most of the year.