Biden: Vote for Me or Hitler Wins
By James Bovard | January 8, 2023
“Endless hysteria will keep you free,” said none of the Founding Fathers. But President Joe Biden missed that message before his absurdly overheated speech last Friday near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Biden draped himself in Revolutionary War virtue as he demanded that Americans quiver in fear at the prospect of his reign ending. Biden invoked the third anniversary of the January 6 Capitol clash to effectively call for canceling the 2024 presidential election.
At a minimum, Biden wants to turn the November election into a referendum on Adolf Hitler. Biden boasted, “We are still a nation that gives hate no safe harbor.” A few minutes before that uplifting assertion, Biden accused Donald Trump of “echoing the same exact language used in Nazi Germany.” CNN reported last week that Biden campaign aides plan to go “full Hitler” on Trump, making “a direct comparison to the Nazi leader rather than couching their attacks by saying Trump ‘parroted’ him.” A few weeks ago, the Biden campaign posted a graphic on Twitter comparing Trump and Hitler’s rhetoric.
Biden continually equated democracy with freedom. And whatever is good for democracy is “close enough for government work” to freedom. Biden declared, “Democracy means having the freedom to speak your mind.” Unless Team Biden disapproves of your thoughts, of course.
Biden neglected to explain why his vision of democracy justifies the near-total suppression of freedom of speech for his opponents. On July 4, Federal Judge Terry Doughty condemned the Biden administration for potentially “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history,” and a federal appeals court condemned Team Biden for “suppressing millions of protected free-speech postings by American citizens”—mostly by conservatives and Republicans.
“If only Uncle Joe had known about that abuse,” right? Like hell. Biden’s Justice Department is fighting tooth and nail at the Supreme Court to preserve his power to secretly censor anyone the feds claim is spouting disinformation, perhaps including denying that Biden is God’s gift to America.
Another key to Biden’s vision of democracy is that the president is entitled to imprison peaceful protestors who opposed him. Biden proved the villainy of Trump supporters by touting case numbers from January 6: “Since that day more than 1,200 people have been charged for the assault on the capitol, and nearly 900 of them have been convicted and they have been sentenced to more than 840 years in prison.”
Biden neglected to quote the bombshell Washington Post report today revealing that vast numbers of the January 6 charges have been crap cases. Federal judges have rejected Biden Justice Department sentencing demands in almost 90% of the January 6 cases—an astounding record. If those cases were not being tried by juries overstocked with federal employees and NPR devotees, the prosecutions would have crashed and burned long ago.
The Supreme Court may obliterate many of the cases. More than 320 of the convictions against J-6 protestors hinge on a bizarre contortion of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law enacted after corporations destroyed documents sought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“The average sentence for those convicted of obstructing an official proceeding has been 39 months,” the Post reported. Former federal prosecutor Gene Rossi warns that the Supreme Court taking that case is a “red flag and a loud gong” because that law was the “North Star” used by prosecutors. If the Supreme Court strikes down the Biden twist of the 2002 law, that will make the January 6 prosecutions look like one of the worst witch hunts in American history.
Yet, according to Team Biden, the real problem is that not enough lives have been ruined for sinful thoughts on January 6. Last Thursday, Matthew Graves, Biden’s chief prosecutor for the District of Columbia, issued a warning of potentially thousands of more January 6 indictments: “If a person knowingly entered a restricted area [near the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021] without authorization, they already committed a federal crime. Make no mistake: Thousands of people occupied that area that they were not authorized to be present in in the first place.” Talking about hounding people who merely were in the general vicinity of the Capitol confirms that for Team Biden, “Trespassing plus thought crimes equals terrorism.”
Actually, Biden’s FBI already classifies all the people arrested for January 6 Capitol clash offenses as domestic terrorists—even people busted for “parading without a permit.” The FBI presumes that any American suspected of supporting the January 6, 2021 protests forfeited his constitutional rights. An FBI whistleblower revealed in congressional testimony in May 2023 that FBI headquarters pressured FBI agents to treat anyone who attended the January 6 protests as a criminal suspect. Roughly 2,000 pro-Trump protestors (including an unknown number of undercover agents and informants) entered the Capitol that day. But an FBI analyst exploited the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to unjustifiably conduct warrantless searches on 23,132 Americans citizens suspected of January 6 offenses “to find evidence of possible foreign influence, although the analyst conducting the queries had no indications of foreign influence,” according to FISA Chief Judge Rudolph Contreras.
Biden assured the audience that “we still believe that no one, not even the president, is above the law.” Okay, but what if the president or the vice president uses the names Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware as email aliases to hustle business deals for a family member? Is it OK for them to slip the law then?
The only way to assume that Biden is not “above the law” is to assume that his decrees alone are the law. The Supreme Court struck down his COVID vaccine mandate, his moratorium for evicting deadbeat renters, his $500 billion federal student loan forgiveness scheme, and numerous other Biden policies.
Biden spent half an hour fearmongering and then closed by promising “freedom from fear.” This is the famous Biden two-step—demagoguing to his heart’s content and then closing with a few schmaltzy uplift lines, entitling the media to re-christen him as an idealist.
Biden castigated Trump as the “Election Denier in Chief,” a new offense not yet been codified in the statute book. Biden endlessly warned that Trump posed a deadly threat to both freedom and democracy. Biden campaign masterminds were clever enough to permit an unknown local politician to deliver the “takeaway” from the day’s events. Biden was preceded at the podium by Dauphin County commissioner candidate Justin Douglass, who proclaimed that “Donald Trump represents a clear and present danger” to democracy. Since Trump is the ultimate enemy of the Constitution, anything that Biden and his campaign does to banish Trump from the ballot will be pro-democracy.
Obviously, if Americans value democracy, then the presidential candidate favored by the most voters in recent polls must not be allowed on the ballot. Team Biden favors a version of “Guardian Democracy” where voters are only permitted to cast ballots for candidates that the ruling class approves. This is part and parcel with the Democratic Party’s plan to let all future elections be determined by ballot harvesting and tsunamis of unverified mail-in ballots.
Why should we believe that democracy dies unless Biden gets four more years to violate the Constitution, censor and jail his opponents, and domineer practically every aspect of Americans’ lives (“step away from that gas stove before we have to hurt you”)? As Thomas Jefferson declared long ago, “An elective despotism is not the government we fought for.”
New Report Highlights Green Failure in Europe and Warns America
By Rick Whitbeck | RealClear Energy | January 4, 2024
As one digests Rupert Darwall’s latest report for the RealClear Foundation, the well-known quote from Spanish philosopher George Santayana might ring through the mind: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Anyone looking to combat the activists pushing a ‘net zero’ agenda here in the U.S. would be wise to read Darwall’s piece, entitled “The Folly of Climate Leadership.”
The analysis tells the story of Great Britain heeding the cries for decarbonization, starting when Parliament wrote an 80% decrease in emissions target into law in 2008. They raised it to 100% – or “net zero” – in 2019. The results have clearly been catastrophic.
Since decarbonization efforts commenced, Britain’s economy has grown at half the rate as it did from 1990-2008. According to a research study from noted British economic historian Nicholas Crafts, that’s the second-worst period of British peacetime growth since 1780.
In addition to the economic malaise, British energy prices have skyrocketed, and Britons are now concerned with how to survive the effect of those costs on their wallets, as they look to heat and power their homes and businesses, travel for work and pleasure and live life as best they can.
The differences between British energy costs and those here in the U.S. are staggering: Britons paid an average of $228 per megawatt hour (MWh) for electricity generated from coal in 2022, whereas Americans paid an average of $27 per MWh. For natural gas, 2022 saw Britons paying $251 per MWh, versus American consumers averaging $61 per MWh for their power.
Darwall’s report also highlights the effects of unchecked and anti-market driven government investment in ‘green’ energy on grid reliability, as intermittent production from wind and solar – coupled with a lack of utility-grade energy storage – dropped electricity generated per gigawatt of capacity falling 28% since 2009.
The same arguments that have crippled Britain’s economy are now being used by the Biden Administration here at home, with zealots in Cabinet-level positions – including Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, and EPA Director Michael Regan – pushing the message from their bully pulpits.
The recent – and completely misnamed – Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress provided the zealots with nearly $400 billion to dole out to supportive organizations and start-ups to jump-start our nation’s push for ‘net zero.’ Those dollars – doled out with few oversights or performance metrics attached in many cases – have produced very few wins in the last year, unless a win is measured in keeping political cronies happy and rich.
Consider: wind energy projects in Nebraska, Colorado, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey were scrapped last year, even after untold millions of federal dollars went to their developers. Over 100 solar companies went bankrupt, and solar projects from California to Florida were shuttered in the middle of their development. Battery storage – a key component to offsetting the intermittency of wind and solar – also saw projects stalled, along with at least one lawsuit filed against a storage company when its solution failed.
Despite the perils of ‘green’ energy dependence shown throughout Europe, the eco-left continues to double down on ridding America of traditional energy sources. Supporting those efforts are ideologue billionaires, who continue to fund net-zero initiatives.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has given well over $1 billion of his personal wealth to the Sierra Club to fund its “Beyond Coal” and “Beyond Carbon” campaigns. Designed to rid the U.S. of every coal-fired power plant by 2030, the Sierra Club/Bloomberg partnership has succeeded in shutting down nearly two-thirds of the plants to-date, with most of the remaining in rural locations, including my home state of Alaska, where alternatives to existing coal plants in the state’s interior don’t readily exist. Without coal, countless Alaskans would have their livelihoods – and very lives – threatened during our long, dark and sub-zero-temperature winters.
With activists entrenched in government bureaucracy, zealots running government agencies and rich men (and women) funding these efforts, only those educated in historical failures of decarbonization – and willing to stand up and fight back against the climate warriors – stand a chance of helping stem the attacks. Darwall’s study should be required reading for anyone looking to build a fortress in their state against job-killing, family-harming decarbonization efforts.
Rick Whitbeck is the Alaska State Director for Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. Contact him at Rick@PowerTheFuture.com and follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @PTFAlaska
SEC Determines Apple Must Allow Free Speech Resolution Proposed by Shareholders To Proceed
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | January 7, 2024
This week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) refuted Apple’s plea to veto a “free speech resolution” proposed by shareholders that were concerned about Apple, as a dominant Big Tech giant, to suppress speech.
This proposal, advanced by the American Family Association (AFA), pushes Apple to scrutinize its processes of content curation and to publish a report addressing fears that the corporation’s policies may inadvertently inhibit speech based on differing views.
The SEC dismissed Apple’s attempt to omit the resolution from the discussion during its 2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, effectively setting the stage for a vote on the resolution in spring.
Apple is known for its strict terms of use policy for all apps on the App Store. As Apple’s own App Store is the only way to get apps on its platform, this means that Apple’s is the judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to what the public is allowed to say and see.
In November of 2023, concerned about potential Apple censorship, the ADF sent a letter to the SEC insisting that Apple should not be allowed to block the resolution, as it is seen as an area of potential misuse.
Following the SEC’s decision, Jeremy Tedesco, ADF Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President for Corporate Engagement, voiced his approval, referring to the development as a “much-needed step toward transparency.”
He urged Apple to regain the trust of its shareholders and customers by clearly stating its stance on not using its power to discriminate against user’s speech and beliefs – irrespective of their political or even religious persuasion.
Israeli army uses drones to terrorize civilians at Gaza hospital
Palestine Informtion Center – January 7, 2024
GAZA – The health ministry in Gaza has accused the Israeli occupation army of using its armed drones to terrorize the patients and medical staff at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah City in central Gaza.
“Israeli drones are opening fire at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital’s sections and courtyards, targeting everyone who moves,” the health ministry said in a statement on Sunday evening.
The ministry also accused the Israeli army of seeking to put Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital out of service through intensively opening fire at it from drones.
The ministry pointed out that the ongoing shooting attack on the hospital forced a number of patients and wounded civilians to leave it and expose themselves to gunfire from the drones.
The ministry warned that thousands of wounded and sick people in central Gaza would be sentenced to death if the hospital stopped providing its services.
Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli army’s military aggression against Gaza and its deliberate attacks on medical facilities have made the majority of the hospitals and health centers “nonfunctional.” The Israeli army has also destroyed 121 ambulances since then.
Day 93: Israeli Assault Claims Two More Journalists
Al-Manar | January 7, 2024
Gaza Strip is witnessing a sharp escalation in violence, with Israeli military operations in last night’s onslaught in Al-Faluga and Khan Yunis leaving at least 20 Palestinians martyred, a toll that tragically includes civilians seeking refuge and victims from an attack on a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school in the Mughazi refugee camp.
In the southern Gaza Strip, at least two journalists, Hamza Wael al-Dahdouh, son of al-Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh, and Mustafa Thuraya, were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted and blew up their vehicle in Khan Younis on Sunday.
The journalists, including Hamza, were en route to the Moraj area northeast of Rafah, designated a “humanitarian zone” by the Israeli army but reportedly subject to recent bombings. Their intention was to report on the situation and aftermath of bombings in the area, where many displaced Gazans sought refuge from bombardment in other regions of the territory.
Bureau chief for Al-Jazeera Arabic in Gaza, Wael Dahdouh, stands over the body of his son Hamza
Wael al-Dahdouh, Hamza’s father and Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, was recently wounded in an Israeli strike. His wife and two children had been killed by a separate Israeli strike in the initial weeks of the aggression.
The media office of the Hamas resistance movement strongly condemned the “heinous crime” committed by the “Israeli occupation army against journalists.” The Zionist entity aims to “intimidate journalists in a failed attempt to obscure the truth and prevent media coverage,” the office added.
The media office called “on all press unions, human rights and legal bodies to condemn this crime and denounce its repeated commission by the occupation.” It also called for pressuring “the occupation to stop the genocidal war against our defenseless people in the Gaza Strip.”
20 Palestinians lost their lives during the night as the Israeli occupation forces launched airstrikes on Al-Faluga in the Jabalia refugee camp, situated in the northern Gaza Strip. Among the targeted locations was a building belonging to the Abu Alba family in Al-Faluja. Concurrently, air strikes pounded Tal Al-Zaatar in the northern Gaza Strip, further exacerbating the already dire situation.
Adding to the toll, 16 Palestinians were martyred in the bombing of the central Gaza Strip since evening.
Deir al-Balah witnessed 11 casualties due to Zionist attacks, while in Khan Yunis, located in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, the death toll rose to 17. Artillery shelling intensified in the neighborhoods of the city’s center, west, and north.
Rafah also bore the brunt of the occupation’s aggression, with several areas being targeted. The toll rose to 7 as a result of an Israeli bombing that specifically aimed at a building housing displaced people. Disturbingly, reports emerged of injuries resulting from an air strike on a house belonging to the Al-Ajez family in the Al-Zuhur neighborhood, situated in the northern part of Rafah.
According to reports from the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, the Israeli military targeted a residence in Khan Yunis, where a significant number of displaced individuals sought refuge. Tragically, this resulted in the loss of at least 12 civilian lives and injuries to 50 others.
Furthermore, Israeli warplanes struck a school operated by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the Mughazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, leading to the death of at least four individuals, including a woman.
The report indicates that the Israeli military employed drones and engaged in intensive firing at homes and streets in the Mughazi camp. Simultaneously, Israeli warplanes launched a fire attack near Sekka Street west of the camp, accompanied by heavy artillery fire from the army.
Eyewitnesses reported a fire breaking out east of the neighboring Nuseirat camp due to sustained Israeli airstrikes.
The Israeli aggression extended to Tel al-Zaatar and the city of Deir al-Balah, where fierce airstrikes resulted in additional casualties, according to the report.
The grim statistics underscore the severity of the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza, with the death toll reaching at least 22,700 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children. Additionally, 7,000 individuals are reportedly missing under the rubble, presumed to be casualties of the conflict. The international community faces an urgent call to address the escalating humanitarian crisis and seek a sustainable solution to the longstanding conflict in the region.
Display of Resistance
Palestinian forces thwarted the advances of the Zionist enemy, effectively dealing heavy blows and preventing any consolidation of occupation across various regions of the Gaza Strip.
Despite the passage of two and a half months since the commencement of the ground operation, the relentless efforts of the Palestinian resistance have led to successive defeats for the occupying forces, compelling their withdrawal from the majority of areas in the northern Gaza Strip—an accomplishment of significant magnitude for the steadfast resistance fighters.
A notable triumph unfolded today as the Al-Qassam Brigades orchestrated the complete destruction of a Zionist personnel carrier situated in Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip, employing the formidable “Al-Yassin 105” shell. Scenes depicting the obliteration of the personnel carrier were released by Al-Qassam, symbolizing a powerful stance against the occupiers.
The resilience of Al-Qassam forces further manifested as they obliterated enemy forces that had penetrated Al-Maghazi camp, utilizing a barrage of heavy-caliber mortar shells. Simultaneously, the Al-Quds Brigades announced the successful missile salvoes targeting strategic locations, including “Nahal Oz,” “Sufa,” and “Hulit.”
In another commendable operation, the Brigades revealed their precision and efficacy by targeting an occupation army force entrenched in a house in Tal al-Hawa, Gaza, with an OG-7V anti-personnel missile. This precise strike resulted in casualties within the force, and the Mujahideen successfully seized the soldiers’ equipment.
So You’re a Professor? Here’s What You Can Do to Oppose Genocide
By Steve Salaita | January 7, 2024
College instructors, particularly those in Europe and North America, are generally limited when it comes to meaningful intervention in imperialist horrors afflicting the Global South. Nevertheless, it is usually their governments either orchestrating or abetting the horror. They ought to do something, then, even if it seems pyrrhic or inadequate.
People around the world are now witnessing a particularly gruesome event as the Zionist entity, armed by its U.S. sponsor and enjoying the support of capitalist institutions across the globe, commits one atrocity after the other in the Gaza Strip (along with the West Bank and at times further afield). The atrocities, anyone with a modicum of integrity agrees, add up to genocide. The depth of grief and suffering Palestinians now experience is indescribable, immeasurable.
Do professors and other campus workers have any ability to mitigate the grief and suffering? Not really. But we’re not entirely powerless, either. Higher education is an important sector for information and activism and an industry where participants like to contemplate the role of both exceptional and ordinary people in making a better world. Like anybody else, teachers and researchers can be most effective in their own communities, which are not inoculated from the genocide. Zionist groups have organized hundreds of defamation campaigns against Palestinian students and faculty, often resulting in employment termination and other serious forms of recrimination. These campaigns don’t exist in a vacuum. Targeting Palestinians and anti-Zionists is an extension of the genocide, or at least one of its attendant tactics. And then, of course, many of the campuses are somehow invested in the Zionist entity—financially, politically, or logistically. It does no good to say that “we” aren’t affected by what happens “there.”
The following is a list of suggestions for Western academics, with the understanding that not all professors are equal and each campus is different in terms of its cultural and economic composition. In turn, I have tried to be comprehensive, offering comments that I hope will be useful to everyone from contingent faculty whose employment is precarious to senior scholars with big platforms at elite institutions. (The latter are much more likely to be facilitating the genocide, either obliquely or explicitly, but nevertheless.)
One thing is clear: the world is now experiencing a moral crisis whose enormity will reshape political attitudes and alliances for generations to come. Pretending that life, no matter how sheltered or comfortable, can simply continue as normal is its own kind of moral crisis.
Try one or more of the following if you can:
Defend Palestinian Students: Be it from forces on or off campus, or be it individuals you know or don’t know personally, it is reprehensible that students should suffer doxing and harassment, whether it is orchestrated by skeezy has-beens like Michael Rapaport or hysterical faculty on their own campus. Speak on behalf of your students. It can be done publicly through the usual channels or in private communication with chairs, deans, and other administrators. Or keep it simpler: reach out to the students and offer yourself as a resource.
Defend Palestinian Colleagues: The same idea holds, but with a quick addendum. Being a Palestinian in Western academe can be deeply alienating, in no small part because shitting on Palestinians is a reliable method of upward mobility. I’m sure some of your Palestinian colleagues will appreciate any gesture that might make them feel slightly less alone.
Boycott: Up to this point, academic boycott of Israeli universities has been controversial, even in supposedly progressive quarters of the industry. The facts, however, are clear. Israel has destroyed every institution of higher learning in the Gaza Strip. It has murdered dozens of faculty and administrators, including university presidents, and an untold number of students. There is no academic freedom in Palestine. There is no academe at all in Gaza. Reluctance to boycott is no longer acceptable. It is the baseline of political decency. Anybody who continues to oppose or dissemble about academic boycott should be regarded as untrustworthy on everything else.
Divest: Start or join a local campaign to force your university to divest any holdings from the Zionist entity. Divestment can include study abroad programs in Israel, which inherently discriminate against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students. In the past decade, students have successfully passed divestment resolutions at numerous universities, but management simply ignores them. Faculty voices will help these efforts.
Invite People from Gaza: Surely the rank-and-file in academe are tired of the same few dozen big-name professors and celebrity activists saying the same three or four things in the lucrative lecture economy. Decisionmakers on campus invite speakers for prestige, for the brand, or else to network or be in the presence of fame. The habit needs to die and there’s no better time than now. Instead of summoning the usual Endowed Chair of Gobbledygook at Wealthy Private University to deliver radical affectations at a cost of multiple thousands, reach out to scholars and journalists from Gaza (and for God’s sake give them a proper honorarium). They will assuredly be more insightful than warmed-over relics of the pre-millennial theory craze. Likewise: recruit graduate students from Palestine. You can also look into bringing Palestinians as visiting writers/scholars or as researchers/consultants in any effort to document the genocide. Start with people who are currently outside of Gaza; when conditions are better, reach out to those still inside the territory. Gaza is filled with individuals of remarkable talent. You will be better off for having sought it.
Organize or Attend a Demonstration: You don’t need to be a seasoned organizer to raise hell about the abomination that is the Zionist entity.
Direct Action: Why should students always be the ones to shut down administrative offices or gum up the machinery of genocide? Professors can participate, as well. I’m not saying you need to do it. I just want you to bear in mind that nobody, no matter how urbane or well-published, is too good to get fired or sit in jail for a few hours in solidarity with a people whose heroism is known and admired around the world.
Teach Palestine: Hundreds of Palestinian poets, novelists, and essayists write in English or are available in translation. Consider including them on your syllabus. So what if your courses don’t focus on Palestine or the surrounding region? If you’re a modernist, then assign Fadwa Tuqan or Mahmoud Darwish. If you’re in gender studies, look up Fatima Bernawi or Rasmea Odeh. If you teach novels, try Susan Abulhawa, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Sahar Mustafah… on goes the list. If you’re an Americanist, there are numerous options. Same for Latin Americanists. A critical theorist? No problem: there’s Elias Sanbar and Bassel Al-Araj and Ghassan Kanafani. And if you’re, say, a medievalist? That’s no problem, either.
Stop Pandering to Customs of Civility: You don’t need to condemn “Hamas.” You don’t need to “affirm Israel’s right to exist.” You don’t need to bang on about “democratic values.” You don’t need to be “nuanced.” You need to defend the people suffering a genocide. Not a single one of them is asking for anything else. (“Who is my audience?” keep asking yourself. If the answer is anything other than “the dispossessed,” then recalibrate your ethics and try again.)
Shun the Genocidaires: Those rationalizing or cheering on the genocide are personae non grata from here on out. No co-authoring articles with them. No sitting together on conference panels. No buddy-buddy bullshit on the networking circuit. Sure, sometimes circumstance will force you onto the same committee or whatever, but, if the association is voluntary, then decline the opportunity and find colleagues who don’t celebrate mass murder.
Speak: [speak]
Or better still: Listen.
While Gaza Burns, Media Zionists Still Portray Israel as Victim
By Niall McCrae | 21st Century Wire | January 7, 2024
In words often wrongly attributed to Voltaire, Kevin Alfred Strom asserted that ‘to learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise’.
Since the Hamas attack on 7th October, this has been made very clear. Influential Zionist activists, who exert phenomenal influence on western politics, governments, and media, have ensured that only the one version of events, the Israeli version, is socially acceptable. This political reality was demonstrated in grave detail in Al Jazeera’s multi-part investigative documentary, The Lobby -Britain and The Lobby – USA. Of course, a different truth is known by any objective observer, especially millions of Palestinian people, and also by the millions who march worldwide against the brutal military bombardment and massacre of civilians in Gaza. But the BBC and The Daily Mail still refuse to broadcast or publish the widespread and justified disgust at the actions of the Israeli government.
Disturbingly, the British mainstream media have been actively shilling for the Israeli government, as their Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on continuing the annihilation of Gaza. A prime asset of the campaign to cast Israelis as the oppressed, and the Palestinians as the oppressor is British media pundit Douglas Murray. Writing in the Spectator, Why I’m considering a life of crime, Murray denounced posters at Heathrow Airport inviting travellers from the ‘Israel/Palestinian territories’ who have ‘witnessed or been a victim of terrorism, war crimes or crimes against humanity’ to report to it police, in potential pursuance of a case by the International Criminal Court. This call for international justice deeply offends Murray, who asserts that ‘there is no country called Palestine’. Why not, Douglas? My old atlas from the 1930s clearly shows a land of this name, on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea and bordering on Trans-Jordan.
Curiously, Murray is not sure what status to give the remaining Palestinian area. As he explains, ‘there is the disputed territory of the West Bank and there is Gaza, which was handed over to the Palestinians in 2005 and which promptly became a ‘terror state’. Hold on, Douglas, don’t you deny such statehood? It seems that Murray wants Gaza to have responsibility without any sovereign recognition or power, and the inverse for Israel.
But their journalists and commentators are not only concerned with what’s happening in a narrow strip of land invaded by Israeli troops. They portray all Jews living in Britain as victims of hate, because supporters of the Palestinian cause are railing against the murderous exploits of a state that claims to represent Jewish people worldwide. Meanwhile our police and judiciary appear bent on protecting a foreign jurisdiction two thousand miles away; for example, arresting UK protestors with placards likening the Knesset to the Third Reich.
INFOGRAPHIC: Latest number in Israel’s ongoing genocide of the native Palestinian population in Gaza (Source: EuroMed)
The lead opinion piece in the Daily Express (4th January 2024), by the chairman of Glasgow Friends of Israel, shows the way that the wind is blowing. According to Sammy Stein, anti-Zionism is nothing but rebranded anti-Semitism. Although Stein acknowledges the right to criticise Israel and its leaders (as do many Israelis), he smears the regular large pro-Palestinian rallies in Glasgow as “anti-Semitic,” based on his experience in running a market stall in the city centre adorned with Israeli flags. He believes that flying a national flag (of a country that is clearly committing crimes against humanity) is somehow defending the rights of Jews. Within reasonable limits, criticism of his stall is an expected and justifiable act of free speech, a fundamental right in a free society.
Stein confines the concept of anti-Semitism to dislike of Jews, despite the broader meaning of Semitic peoples (including the Semitic Palestinian people, the targets of Israeli bombs and bullets). He claims that this ‘is a term established specifically for the hatred of the Jewish people and not, as some believe, hatred against people who can be described as Semites, such as Muslims’. The expanding scope of anti-Semitism, as determined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), is now sufficiently wide enough to quell any opprobrium towards Israel, while there is no equivalent protection for the native Palestinian people and their diaspora. Shamefully, nearly all major Western political parties have signed up to this blatantly one-sided censorship.
Despite the efforts of these Western institutions to impose an arbitrary definition of what constitutes a ‘hate crime,’ the fact remains that Jews are not the same as the state of Israel, and both of which is not the same as the ideology known as Zionism. But the distinction between Zionists and the Israeli leadership is becoming blurred. As the Palestinians and their supporters chant of ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, treated by many Western authorities as a potentially hateful message, Netanyahu’s administration seems to be aiming for that very same outcome – capturing the whole land for Israel and evicting the Palestinians from their homeland. Stein notes that ‘today, Zionism refers to support for the continued existence of Israel, in the face of regular calls for its dissolution’. The Israelis have a right to self-determination, Stein believes, but not the Palestinian inmates trapped in the world’s largest concentration camp.
Stein also reminds us that ‘Jesus was a Jew,’ who, ironically, was persecuted by the Jews, leading to his crucifixion under the aegis of Roman authority at the time. But for Stein and Zionists, the land of historic Palestine belongs to the Jews because some Jews have continuously inhabited the area for thousands of years, after having first established their presence thousands of years ago. Also, they believe that this homeland was supposedly promised to them as a fulfilment of God’s covenant with Abraham. This is a simplistic and convenient reading of history. There is no straightforward link between Judah of the Bible and present-day Zionists. Regardless, should Israel really be allowed to run an exclusionary ethno-nationalist and inhumane Apartheid state (as Western societies simultaneously promote multiculturalism, diversity, equity and inclusion)?
Stein regards anti-Zionism as ‘unique in demanding the dismantling of an existing state after over seventy years of independence.’ Palestinians would splutter over such hypocrisy. For Stein, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are now the same thing, being slightly different ‘ways of saying that Jews have no right to exist collectively as Jews with the same rights as other humans’. Perhaps Stein should spend a few days on the Gaza strip to learn whose hate is most powerful – that of desperate, bombed-out Palestinians or that of the American-backed Israeli branch of the military-industrial complex.
***
Niall McCrae is a researcher and educator, and author of ‘The Moon and Madness’ (Imprint Academic, 2011), and ‘Moralitis: a Cultural Virus’ (Bruges Group, 2018).
Rwanda, Congo deny claims of talking with Israel to take in displaced Gazans
Press TV – January 6, 2024
Rwanda, Congo and Chad have refuted claims that they have engaged in any discussions with Israel concerning the potential acceptance of Palestinians displaced from the war-torn Gaza Strip.
Citing the latest fake news campaign from Israel, the Rwanda foreign ministry circulated a “disinformation alert” against the Zman Yisrael, an Israeli news outlet and The Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister site, that had claimed on Friday that “Israel is in talks with Chad and Rwanda to accept thousands of Palestinians from Gaza.”
“No such discussion has taken place either now or in the past, and the disinformation should be ignored,” the statement from the Rwanda foreign ministry read on X, formerly Twitter.
Earlier, Congo and Chad also denied holding talks with Israel about the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
Contrary to what is reported in some media, there has “never been any form of negotiation, discussion or initiative” between Kinshasa and Israel on the alleged reception of Palestinian migrants on Congolese soil, the Congolese government spokesperson, Patrick Muyaya, said in a statement late Thursday.
In its report, The Times of Israel asserted that Congo is willing to take in Palestinians. Quoting from a senior source in the security cabinet, it claimed that Congo “will be willing to take in migrants, and we’re in talks with others.”
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is conducting secret contacts for accepting thousands of immigrants from Gaza with Congo, in addition to other nations,” the report read.
Meanwhile, The Times of Israel published another report on Thursday, stating that Israel has denied that it is in talks with other countries about absorbing Gazan immigrants, and that the senior official pushed back on Zman Yisrael’s report.
“It’s a baseless illusion in my opinion. No country will absorb 2 million people, or 1 million, or 100,000, or 5,000. I don’t know where that idea came from,” said the official in a briefing to Israeli journalists, on condition of anonymity, as the report stated.
According to reports, the Israeli regime is adopting the “voluntary” resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza as an official policy.
Earlier, Benjamin Netanyahu said he supports the idea but needs to find countries that are willing to “absorb” Gazans. “We are working on it,” he said.
While quoting a senior Israeli official, the report from Zman Yisrael also stated that whoever volunteers for migration would be handed over a “generous financial grant” and “extensive aid” to the receiving country.
“The principle is to give a generous financial grant to any Palestinian who expresses a desire to emigrate from Gaza, along with extensive aid to the receiving country, including military aid,” the report read.
On Wednesday, despite criticisms from the United States, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism Party, doubled down on a call for “voluntary emigration” from Gaza once the current war on Gaza ends.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the so-called national security minister, this week issued a call “to encourage the migration of Gaza residents” as a “solution” to the humanitarian crisis.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s top foreign policy official, condemned both Smotrich and Ben Gvir for their calls to resettle Palestinians living in Gaza as “inflammatory and irresponsible” on Wednesday.
“Forced displacements are strictly prohibited as a grave violation of [international humanitarian law] and words matter,” Borrell said on X.
A spokesperson for the United Kingdom foreign office said: “Gaza is Occupied Palestinian Territory and will be part of a future Palestinian state. The UK firmly rejects any suggestion of the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza.”
Furthermore, the Spanish government also offered its own rebuke Wednesday, saying the administration rejects recent statements by Israeli authorities evoking population movements in Gaza that would be contrary to international law.
Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.
Since the beginning of the war, at least 22,600 Palestinians have since been killed and 57,910 others injured, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
The relentless attacks have caused extensive devastation in Gaza, resulting in 60% of the region’s infrastructure being either damaged or completely destroyed.
This has led to the displacement of nearly 2 million residents, who now face severe shortages of essential resources such as food, clean water, and medicine.
40 Years in Jail for a Marijuana Offense
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | January 5, 2024
When I read an article yesterday by a man named Edwin Rubis, I sat there, shook my head, and asked myself how any government could do such a thing to anyone.
The reason that Rubis’s article caught my attention is captured in the title of his article: “I’m Serving 40 Years in Federal Prison. Here’s a Glimpse Into My World.” That title intrigued me because I have often wondered what daily life is like for prison inmates. Do they sit around all day reading books? Do they work out? Do they have jobs inside the prison? What type of food do they eat? Are they constantly getting harassed by prison guards? Are they raped or beaten up by other inmates?
That “40 Years” in the title of the article also caught my attention. Imagine: 40 years in jail! As a former criminal-defense attorney, I figured that Rubis had most likely been convicted of a serious federal offense, such as bank robbery or kidnapping, perhaps even felony-murder.
Not so. After describing what his daily life in prison is like, Rubis included a tagline at the bottom of his article that stated that he was serving a 40-year jail sentence for a non-violent marijuana offense.
Yes, you read that right! 40 years! For … a … non-violent .. marijuana … offense.
That’s incredible. After all, we’re not talking Turkey or North Korea. We are talking about the United States.
40 years for a non-violent marijuana offense. Just let that sink in. Not heroin. Not cocaine. Not fentanyl. Not opioids. Just marijuana.
What would motivate any federal judge to issue such a horrific jail sentence for a non-violent marijuana offense? I did some online research but I could not find the name of the federal judge who issued that sentence. But whoever he is, he ought to hang his head in shame. In fact, if he’s still serving as a federal judge, he ought to resign his position and return to practicing law. It would be the right thing to do.
My research did reveal that Rubis was convicted in Houston of distribution of marijuana rather than possession.
Ever since the start of the war on drugs, possession of drugs has been considered less grave than distribution of drugs. But that always has been a ridiculous distinction. Both possession and distribution are entirely peaceful acts. Unless one is growing his own marijuana, in order to possess a drug, one must receive it. So, why should the one who is selling or delivering the drug be treated more harshly than one who receives or possesses the drug?
The purpose of meting out high jail sentences to marijuana distributors is to dissuade people from distributing drugs. If people are deterred from distributing drugs, the argument goes, then people won’t be able to consume or possess them.
How’s that working out for you drug warriors, including you federal judges who are convinced that you have the responsibility of helping “win” the war on drugs? I’m sure that that federal judge who meted out that 40-year jail sentence to Rubis figured that he was doing his part to “win” the war on drugs. That’s certainly what federal judges were doing back when I was practicing law on the U.S. Mexico Border back in the 1970s. It’s one thing for a judge in the 1970s to have such a mindset. But how in the world could later judges — and judges today — have that same mindset? Their obtuseness boggles the mind.
Edwin Rubin began serving his jail sentence in 1998. He’s been in jail for some 25 years. For a non-violent marijuana offense. He is set to be released in 2032.
How in the world can the American people permit this drug-war madness to continue? How many more lives must be destroyed before a nationwide crisis of conscience forces federal officials to bring it to an end?
McDonald’s latest business titan to face impact of pro-Israel stance
The Cradle | January 5, 2024
The CEO of McDonald’s, Chris Kempczinski, said on 4 January that several markets in West Asia and some outside of the region were facing a “meaningful business impact” due to the war between the Palestinian resistance and Israel.
Kempczinski also said that “associated misinformation” about the company has been a reason for the financial issues the brand is facing, and that the misinformation surrounding McDonald’s was “disheartening and ill-founded.”
Western Israeli-linked fast food chains, including McDonald’s and Starbucks, have seen large grassroots boycott campaigns emerge over pro-Israel stances and alleged financial ties with Israel.
“In every country where we operate, including in Muslim countries, McDonald’s is proudly represented by local owner-operators who work tirelessly to serve and support their communities while employing thousands of their fellow citizens,” Kempczinski said in a social media post. “That local community connection is the genius of the McDonald’s system.”
West Asian locations of McDonald’s are part of the company’s international developmental licensed markets division, a section that generates around 10 percent of the company’s revenue.
McDonald’s franchisee in Malaysia, owned by Saudi Arabia’s Lionhorn Pte Ltd, filed a lawsuit against BDS Malaysia, accusing the group of “defamation,” and is seeking damages of over $1 million. Meanwhile, the Israel franchisee has supported the Israeli army by supplying its forces with free meals, according to BDS, “during the ongoing genocide of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.”
Starbucks, another Western, Israeli-linked company, has also come out to say that the negative views brought upon the brand have been “influenced by misrepresentation on social media of what we stand for.”
In December 2023, the losses of Starbucks, a Seattle-based company, stood at $11 billion in value during the last quarter, due to Palestinian solidarity boycotts and employee strikes.
The company tried to bounce back on losses by implementing a scheme during the holiday season that would allow consumers to receive a free holiday cup with every purchase.
When announcing the gimmick in mid-November last year, the company’s market share crashed by 8.96 percent, accounting for billions in losses, the lowest the company has experienced since 1992.
USA: mask of peacemaker and human rights defender dropped
By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 05.01.2024
The meeting of the UN Security Council on December 8 was a rather sad and very instructive event for all mankind. At this meeting, the United States used its veto right to brazenly and rudely single-handedly block a resolution introduced by the United Arab Emirates and supported by 97 countries. This resolution, as we know, demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in order to put an end to the insane, unprecedented and deliberate daily killings of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli army. With its shameful vote, the United States proved and showed to the whole world that it is not only complicit in Israel’s murder of Palestinians, but also actually complicit in all those crimes committed by the Israeli military and the crazed Netanyahu government in the Gaza Strip.
Saying that almost 18,000 people were killed and 50,000 injured in just over the first 60 days may be a difficult statement to make, especially when the majority of those killed are innocent civilians, mostly women and children. This is not an earthquake or a natural disaster. This is a deliberate, reckless act of revenge directed against all Palestinians, undertaken in the hope that such war crimes will forever put an end to the Palestinians’ desire to free themselves from occupation and establish an independent Palestinian State. Nevertheless, this is a reality that the US administration, led by President Joe Biden, has decided to ignore in spite of the whole world, giving Israel additional time to take the lives of even more innocent people.
This is not the first time that the United States has used its veto right to protect Israel from harsh condemnation by the overwhelming majority of the world for continuing violations of all kinds of UN and human rights conventions in order to maintain its racist occupation of Palestine since 1948. It was US veto No. 46 in favor of Israel, confirming the isolation of the Jewish state, double standards and hypocrisy of successive US administrations when it comes to the rights of Palestinians and Arabs. Even the British government, in an effort to avoid harsh criticism from its own people for supporting Israel’s criminal war, decided to abstain from voting on the resolution.
The UN Security Council has rarely been a forum for Arabs and the peoples of developing countries in general to seek justice, given the balance of power between its five veto-wielding countries. After all, this body charged with maintaining international peace and security failed to stop the illegal war waged by former US President George W. Bush to invade and occupy Iraq in 2003, or to force Israel to comply with dozens of Security Council resolutions calling for an end to the occupation of, or the construction of illegal settlements in, the occupied West Bank of Jordan and East Jerusalem.
However, this time the case is different by all standards. After all, it was the Western media that pointed out that nowhere on earth has there been such a brutal bombing campaign against such a tiny enclave as Gaza, where more than 2.3 million people live in appalling conditions. Comparisons were made with the Allied bombing of Dresden (Germany) during World War II, noting that the total weight of bombs dropped by Israel on Gaza could be equal to two atomic bombs that the United States used against Japan in the same war. Apart from the heavy loss of life among Palestinian women and children, which prompted the brave UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to use Article 99 of the UN Charter for the first time since 1971 to call for the intervention of the Security Council to end the war, there was the fact that many more people could have died of hunger and disease due to the appalling living conditions in Gaza since Israel had began its “war of revenge.”
Antonio Guterres said he invoked Article 99 because “there is a high risk of a complete collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza.” The UN expects that this will lead to a “complete disruption of public order and increased pressure for mass displacement to Egypt.” The Gaza Strip is at a “tipping point,” he said, and desperate people are in serious danger of starvation. Guterres said that the HAMAS action in Israel on October 7 would “never be able to justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” The UN chief had earlier angered Israel, which called for his resignation, when he reminded the world at a previous Security Council meeting that the HAMAS attack had not happened “in a vacuum”, but had occurred after more than 56 years of Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights exceeding the right to self-determination. Besides, the right to self-defense of the Palestinians and Palestine has never been terminated by anyone. Or should we assume that in this case, the right to self-defense only exists for Israel, while the Palestinians, according to one Israeli minister, “these animals” should be destroyed by using atomic weapons? What does it feel like for the world in the 21st century to listen to this caveman Israeli, and moreover a minister? Apparently, this is not only his personal opinion, but the dominant view of the entire cabinet under the leadership of “conductor Netanyahu.”
Antonio Guterres described in detail the “humanitarian nightmare” faced by Palestinians in Gaza, referring to the intense, widespread and ongoing Israeli attacks from the air, land and sea, as a result of which, according to incomplete data, 339 educational institutions, 26 hospitals, 56 medical institutions, 88 mosques and three churches were completely destroyed. According to reports, more than 60 percent of housing in Gaza has been destroyed or damaged, about 85 percent of the civilian population has been forced to leave their homes, the health system is collapsing, and “nowhere in Gaza is safe.”
Nevertheless, all these facts seemed to be empty words for the US representative at the Security Council meeting, who, like a well-trained parrot, repeated the same senseless and false arguments that ending the war now would allow HAMAS to carry out new attacks on Israel in the future. It is well known that Israel’s security will be ensured only by the creation of an independent Palestinian State that will be able to build peaceful relations with the Israelis. Echoing the ridiculous fabrications of the Israeli Prime Minister, US officials stupidly and irresponsibly stated that they supported some kind of illusion of “eliminating HAMAS”, although they know that this is practically impossible. Both Israel and the Biden administration insist on arrogant and outrageous disregard for the fact that the only way to prevent future attacks on the Israeli State and put an end to any violence is to end Israel’s racist occupation of Palestinian lands.
Even if HAMAS theoretically disappeared, it would not prevent the emergence of new Palestinian resistance groups as long as the suffering of Palestinians under occupation and the apartheid system continues. Thus, instead of using the same old arguments about protecting Israel’s security and right to exist, an alternative strategy should be to stop putting Israel above all international laws. Take, for example, the fact that Israel is the only state in the Middle East that has not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and has managed to create both nuclear weapons and their means of delivery under the “American umbrella”. Perhaps this explains the fact that Israel allows itself to disobey international laws and regulations of international organizations and is still actively preventing the creation of an independent Palestinian State.
By using its veto right to prevent an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the United States has lost many friends in the Arab region as well as around the world. It has also lost all credibility in asserting that human rights occupy any place on its foreign policy agenda. Washington has completely thrown off the mask of a peacemaker and a champion of human rights and appeared in its true selfish and unsightly form, and no matter how hard it tries, the former prestige, respect and reverence cannot be restored. This is the new current unenviable fate of Americans.
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From the Archives
Politicians lie
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | August 18, 2013
There is no way to say this truth nicely: Politicians lie. That includes Japanese, American, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian politicians! Is there something more common sense than that? Yet, so many citizens around the world believe their own politicians or wistfully acknowledge lies but think it is part of the job needed to run things. They believe even when politicians contradict themselves blatantly. This phenomenon is rather remarkable. It is a dissonance and disconnect from reality that many seem oblivious to. It is very dangerous because it can lead to accepting rationales for going to war. These can be deadly wars that lead to millions of lives lost as happened in what was called World War 1 and WW2. Even when incredible and declassified evidence abound, politicians continue to lie and old mythologies refuse to die. Here are just a few of the countless lies told to us over the past few decades… continue
Blog Roll
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- Debunked: Trump’s egregious UNGA claims on war against Iran crumble under scrutiny
- Europe was part of the infrastructure of US aggression against Iran: Deputy FM
- New evidence on the Bucha Massacre
- Italy and France debunk reports CIA issued ‘Russian drone threat’ warning
- If Americans Knew
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- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
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- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
