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Biden warns of tech oligarchs’ power in farewell speech, ignoring his own role in expanding censorship

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | January 16, 2025

Outgoing President Joe Biden concluded his presidency with a farewell address on Wednesday night, sharply criticizing what he termed the “tech-industrial complex” while urging tighter accountability for social media platforms. Ironically, Biden’s remarks highlighted the decline of free press and the dangers of “misinformation,” even as his administration has often been linked to censorship efforts and suppression of dissenting viewpoints.

During his speech, Biden drew parallels to President Dwight Eisenhower’s famous warning about the “military-industrial complex.” He stated, “Six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well.” His comments painted a picture of concentrated power in the hands of tech oligarchs, whom he accused of enabling an “avalanche of misinformation and disinformation” to flourish unchecked.

The president, leaving office with historically low approval ratings, accused social media platforms of abandoning fact-checking efforts and contributing to the erosion of public trust. “The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking,” Biden said.

Biden’s condemnation of social media fact-checking policies appeared aimed directly at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose platform recently transitioned away from third-party fact-checking to a “community notes” model reminiscent of the system employed by Elon Musk’s X.

Throughout his presidency, Biden frequently championed tighter controls on digital platforms under the guise of protecting democracy and public health. However, critics argue his administration’s push for censorship often targeted dissenting views and stifled legitimate debate.

Biden also lamented the decline of legacy media, suggesting that unchecked misinformation on digital platforms undermines democracy. “We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families, and our very democracy from the abuse of power,” he declared.

The president’s rhetoric on misinformation is not without controversy. He has faced repeated accusations of spreading false or unverifiable claims himself, such as recent remarks regarding Los Angeles utilities during wildfire discussions that local officials disputed.

Regarding Covid vaccines, Biden also famously said: “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations,” and added, “If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the IC unit, and you’re not going to die.” Those who challenged this idea found themselves banned on several social media platforms.

Meta’s recently abandoned fact-checking model, which involved junior writers downgrading posts based on often-disputed analyses, has faced criticism for censoring accurate information that reflected poorly on Biden. The new community-based approach on X and Meta allows users to collaboratively evaluate content, signaling a move away from centralized content moderation.

January 16, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Biden’s ’empty threats’ let Israel get away with horrors in Gaza: Prominent US journalist

Press TV – January 16, 2025

An investigative American journalist says the Biden administration repeatedly undermined international institutions and damaged US credibility in a desperate attempt to shield Israel during the regime’s aggression against the people of the besieged Gaza Strip.

Brett Murphy, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2018 for his investigative reporting series, said in a recent article published on ProPublica that Biden’s record of repeated empty threats had given the Israelis a sense of impunity.

The reputed journalist spoke with scores of current and former officials throughout the year and read through government memos, cables and emails, many of which have not been reported previously.

The records and interviews shed light on why Biden and his top advisers refused to adjust his policy even as new evidence of Israeli abuses emerged.

The author maintains that almost none of the US’s demands that Israel improve conditions in the besieged Palestinian territory had been met.

Biden’s failure to follow through led to impunity for widespread human rights abuses, including blocking aid deliveries, even after explicit US warnings, he wrote.

In October, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the administration delivered their most explicit ultimatum yet to Israel, demanding the army allow hundreds more truckloads of food and medicine into Gaza every day.

The October red line was the last one Biden laid down, but it wasn’t the first. His administration issued multiple threats, warnings and admonishments to Israel.

Soon after, when the 30-day deadline was up, Blinken made it official and said that Israelis had begun implementing most of the steps he had laid out in his letter. The top US diplomat’s position was immediately called into question.

In the month that followed, the Israeli military was accused of roundly defying the US, its most important ally.

The Israeli military tightened its grip, continued to restrict desperately needed aid trucks and displaced 100,000 Palestinians from North Gaza, humanitarian groups found, exacerbating what was already a dire crisis “to its worst point since the war began.”

On Nov. 14, a UN committee said that Israel’s methods in Gaza, including its use of starvation as a weapon, were “consistent with genocide.”

The international rights groups went further and concluded a genocide was underway.

The International Criminal Court also issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former war minister Yoav Gallant for the war crime of deliberately starving civilians, among other allegations.

Time and again, Israel crossed the Biden administration’s red lines without changing course in a meaningful way, according to interviews with government officials and outside experts.

Last spring, the president vowed to stop supplying offensive bombs to Israel if it launched a major invasion into the southern city of Rafah.

The Biden administration told Netanyahu the US was going to rethink support for the war unless he took new steps to protect civilians and aid workers after the Israeli military blew up a World Central Kitchen caravan.

And Blinken signaled that he would blacklist a notorious Israeli unit for the death of a Palestinian-American in the West Bank if the soldiers involved were not brought to justice.

The southern city of Rafah was supposed to be a haven for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who the Israeli military had forced from their homes in the north at the start of the war.

“It is a red line,” Biden had said, marking the first high-profile warning from the US.

Netanyahu invaded in May anyway. Israeli tanks rolled into the city and the Israeli soldiers dropped bombs on residential areas, including a refugee camp, killing dozens of civilians.

Biden responded by pausing a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs but otherwise resumed military support.

In late May, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to stop its assault on the city, citing the Geneva Conventions.

Behind the scenes, State Department lawyers scrambled to come up with a legal basis on which Israel could continue smaller attacks in Rafah.

Several experts told the author that international law has been effectively discretionary for some states or entities.

Each time, the US yielded and continued to send Israel’s military deadly weapons of war, approving more than $17.9 billion in military assistance since late 2023, by some estimates. The State Department recently told Congress about another $8 billion proposed deal to sell Israel munitions and artillery shells.

“It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the red lines have all just been a smokescreen,” said Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and a preeminent authority on US policy in the region. “The Biden administration decided to be all in and merely pretended that it was trying to do something about it.”

Throughout the contentious year inside the State Department, senior leaders repeatedly disregarded their own experts.

They cracked down on leaks by threatening criminal investigations and classifying material that was critical of Israel.

Some of the US top Middle East diplomats complained in private that they were sidelined by Biden’s National Security Council.

The council also distributed a list of banned phrases, including any version of “State of Palestine” that didn’t have the word “future” first.

Two human rights officials said they were prevented from pursuing evidence of abuses in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

During a series of internal State Department meetings, top regional diplomats voiced their frustrations about messaging and appearances. Hady Amr, one of the government’s highest-ranking authorities on Palestinian affairs, said he was reluctant to address large groups about the administration’s Israel policy.

US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew told the Times of Israel he worried that a generation of young Americans would harbor anti-Israel sentiments into the future.

The repercussions for the United States and the region will play out for years.

Protests have erupted outside the American embassies in Muslim-majority countries like Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, while polls show Arab Americans grew increasingly hostile to their government stateside.

By the summer, State Department analysts in the Middle East sent cables to Washington expressing concerns that the Israeli military’s conduct would only inflame tensions in the West Bank and galvanize young Palestinians to take up arms against Israel.

On Wednesday, after months of negotiations, Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire deal.

Early reports suggest if the Biden administration had followed through on its tough words, a deal could have been reached earlier, saving lives.

“Netanyahu’s conclusion was that Biden doesn’t have enough oomph to make him pay a price, so he was willing to ignore him,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute.

“Part of it is that Netanyahu learned there is no cost to saying ‘no’ to the current president,” Omari said.

Over the past 15 months, Israeli soldiers have videotaped themselves burning food supplies and ransacking homes. One Israeli military group reportedly said, “Our job is to flatten Gaza.”

Israel’s defenders within the US administration acknowledge the devastating human toll but contend that American arms have helped Israel advance Western interests in the region and protect itself from other enemies.

January 16, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Houthi: Israel ‘failed miserably’ in onslaught on Gaza Strip

Press TV – January 16, 2025

The leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement says Israel “failed miserably” in the Gaza Strip, and that the US and the Tel Aviv regime were forced to accept the ceasefire agreement with Hamas after committing horrific crimes for months.

“The announcement of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza is an important development. The Israeli enemy and the US were forced to agree to the deal after months of horrendous atrocities,” Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in a televised speech on Thursday evening.

“The Israeli enemy, with full American complicity, continued its efforts to exterminate the Palestinians in Gaza, committing more than 4,050 massacres,” the Ansarullah chief said.

Houthi said the Israeli military indiscriminately targeted all Palestinians in Gaza, attacking all sections of the society in a barbaric manner.

“The Israeli enemy subjected prisoners and captives to the most heinous forms of torture, violating human dignity. The plight of Gaza marks a gross injustice that can neither be denied nor ignored.

“The steadfastness of resistance fighters in Gaza, under the most challenging circumstances and with the most basic means, is truly praiseworthy,” Houthi stated.

The Ansarullah leader emphasized that the Israeli army failed in Gaza despite possessing sophisticated weapons and extensive intelligence operations aimed at ending the resistance front and eliminating all its fighters.

“The Israeli enemy failed in Gaza even though it employed all tactics to decisively win the battle, with full US support. The Palestinians in Gaza stood firm despite being subjected to daily extermination and all forms of terror that many other nations cannot endure.”

The Ansarullah leader said the Americans had no option but to accept an agreement after a major failure.

Many Israeli leaders, media figures, and research centers were in a state of despair and frustration as well, he said.

“The Israeli enemy failed to achieve any of its declared objectives, and dismally could not release its captives without a prisoner exchange deal. It also failed to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

“What the Israeli enemy achieved in Gaza is an enormous record of unprecedented crimes within a limited expanse of land,” Houthi pointed out.

He also noted that the Palestinian nation was not protected by international organizations, which represent themselves as so-called advocates of justice and human rights.

“The United Nations was mocked and ridiculed by Israelis, with criminal [Benjamin] Netanyahu at its very platform. The world body, however, took no concrete action against the Israeli enemy.

“At the very least, the UN should have rinsed out the deep shame of recognizing Israel and granting it membership. The international community did not intervene to impose a no-fly zone over occupied Palestinian terrorists and establish safe zones, as is the case with other regions,” he said.

Houthi criticized Arab governments for their inaction, as well as their abject failure to politically and economically boycott the Zionist regime and support the Palestinian nation.

Elsewhere in his speech, Houthi stated that Yemeni forces have conducted operations to support Gaza under very difficult conditions, emphasizing that such strikes have significantly affected Israel.

“We carried out 1,255 operations involving ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, drones as well as unmanned underwater vehicles. We worked diligently to do everything possible in support of Gaza, continuously developing our capabilities and escalating our operations,” he said.

Houthi stressed that the US, from the onset of the Gaza genocidal war, sought to provide full protection to Israel, threatening regional countries against taking any action in support of Palestinians.

“The US deployed its naval fleets and provided military and technological protection, intercepting any attacks targeting the Israeli-occupied lands. Certain regimes even collaborated with the US in intercepting missiles and drones launched towards the occupied lands.

“American aircraft carriers and warships initially intercepted some missiles; but now they can barely shoot them down and often resort to retreat,” the Ansarullah leader said.

Houti emphasized that Yemen will continue its pro-Palestinian military operations in case the Israeli enemy insists on its genocidal campaign and reneges on implementing the ceasefire agreement.

He said a total of 106 Yemenis have been killed and another 328 wounded in the course of aggression carried out by the US, Britain and Israel against Yemen.

The Ansarullah leader finally called upon all Yemeni people to participate in mass pro-Palestinian rallies across the country on Friday, reaffirming their unflinching support for Palestinians to the entire world.

January 16, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tagesspiegel publishes guide for workplace witch hunts against right-wing views ahead of German election

By Thomas Brooke | Remix News | January 16, 2025

A recent piece published by the mainstream German Tagesspiegel newspaper has advocated for employees across Germany to confront and report colleagues expressing right-wing political views in the workplace.

Quoting workplace diversity trainers and academics, the article describes supporters of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as aligned with “right-wing extremism” — despite the AfD’s projected rise to become the second-largest party in the Bundestag — and offers guidance on how those with more “tolerant,” progressive views should respond should political debate occur in the lead up to next month’s federal elections.

Entitled, “Help, my colleague talks like the AfD! This is how you counter right-wing populist slogans in the workplace,” the article presents a framework for addressing opinions considered “anti-human” or “anti-democratic,” citing examples of such unpalatable views as being of the opinion that asylum seekers should be deported or that NATO has played a role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

It even singles out those who criticize the mainstream media as the “lying press” as being troublesome in professional settings.

Sandro Witt of the German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB) is quoted as stating: “In any case, you can’t say nothing if someone in the room makes anti-human comments.” He goes further to argue that “such positions should not go unchallenged,” encouraging employees to intervene and report statements they find problematic to human resources or other workplace authorities.

The article advocates for companies to act decisively against right-wing viewpoints, with Witt stating: “Employers should intervene, make a clear statement, address the workforce, create clarity and draw up a guideline,” effectively promoting a culture of workplace surveillance, where political disagreements could lead to disciplinary actions and even dismissal.

It suggests that employees who encounter dissenting views should not hesitate to involve internal mechanisms, such as “complaint management, equal opportunities officers, or human resources.” This directive, combined with advice to “find allies in the workforce,” has sparked concerns about fostering division and hostility in professional environments.

The call for stricter deportation rules for asylum seekers and the belief that NATO is partly responsible for the war in Ukraine may be contentious and may be deemed unpalatable by some political factions, but they reflect concerns shared by significant portions of the German population as evidence by the growing popularity of the AfD.

David Lanius, a philosopher cited in the piece, provides advice on debating colleagues with differing opinions but warns of the difficulty of changing minds. “The goal cannot be to convince the other person of your own point of view or to proselytize the other person,” he states. Lanius also suggests that confronting such views can take an emotional toll, empathizing with those who have to endure the views of those they don’t agree with. “It’s exhausting. It takes strength to stand against right-wing populism,” he says.

The article emphasizes a long-term approach to countering right-wing opinions, with Lanius asserting: “Constant dripping wears away the stone.” This metaphor implies that repeated coercive challenges to a colleague’s views could eventually lead them to change their mind.

With nearly one in five Germans reportedly supporting the AfD, the article’s framing of dissenting views as “anti-human” or “extremist” has drawn sharp criticism for ignoring legitimate grievances over rising living costs, immigration, and the policies of successive coalition governments comprising of Germany’s legacy parties, namely the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Surveys cited in the piece, such as a study from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation claiming that “almost 1 in 12 Germans has a manifestly right-wing extremist worldview,” are used to paint a picture of growing extremism without acknowledging the broader dissatisfaction driving political shifts.

Despite its focus on “fostering discussion,” the article largely promotes an adversarial approach to political disagreements in the workplace. While it advises employees to engage in dialogue and “try to understand” their colleagues, it simultaneously portrays those with right-wing views as needing to be “re-educated” through persistent challenges.

Reingard Zimmer, professor of labor law at the Berlin University of Economics and Law, is cited in the piece as saying that when right-wing extremist or anti-democratic comments are made at work, it can result in reprimands and ultimately dismissal.

“If a colleague complains about ‘foreign infiltration’ in Germany, the employer will first reprimand the behavior” before issuing a formal warning. If such views are repeated, “you will be terminated immediately,” he adds.

“Employers have a duty to protect their employees and must intervene if a case is so serious that it is unreasonable for them to tolerate the poisoning of the working atmosphere to continue,” says Zimmer.

The fundamental issue with the piece is that the term “racist” has been so fundamentally diluted within society to the point that anything that deviates from the liberal, progressive stance promoted by “palatable” political leaders is questioned.

Immigration has become one of the most prominent topics of concern across many European nations, dominating elections that have resulted in those calling for stricter policies prevailing across the continent — take the Netherlands, Austria, and Italy as just three examples.

When citizens no longer have confidence in institutions and others in society to reasonably define racism, it opens up a Pandora’s Box of uncertainty, distrust, and societal breakdown that further fuels division and creates political opportunities for genuine extremists who prey on a frustrated and disillusioned electorate whose only option of resistance is anonymously at the ballot box.

January 16, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

In Israel, ADL Chief Jonathan Greenblatt Appears to Call for Using Terrorism to Murder Me and My Friends

 By Andrew Anglin | The Daily Stormer | January 15, 2025

The head of the Israeli lobbying group the Anti-Defamation League was in Israel last week, where he appeared to call for using Israeli terrorist tactics to maim and murder “antisemites” who criticize Jews on the internet.

Speaking before the Israeli Knesset, Jonathan Greenblatt bemoaned the fact that people are complaining about Jewish behavior online, saying that Jews are “losing the battle” against “antisemitism.” He framed the fight to silence critics of Israel on the internet as the “eighth front” of Israel’s “seven-front war.” He then said that last year’s terrorist attack against Lebanon, which involved explosives being implanted into pagers which were detonated to mutilate and murder Lebanese people, should be the inspiration for silencing people on the internet.

It would have been bad enough if he had said this as a joke, but based on the context and the way he spoke, there is no indication he was joking.

“We need the kind of genius that manufactured Apollo Gold Pagers and infiltrated Hezbollah for over a decade to prepare for this battle,” Greenblatt said.

He went on to state that terrorism is a characteristic of Jewish people: “This is the kind of ingenuity and inventiveness that have always been a hallmark of the State of Israel, that have always been a characteristic of the Jewish people. I know we can do it.”

You can watch the video above to get the full context of the statement, and see if you think he is saying something different. The most generous interpretation would be that he is saying that it took a certain kind of cunning to do the terrorist attack against Hezbollah and that this type of cunning is needed to silence critics of the Jews. It is seemingly unfathomable that he would want to leave people with the impression he was calling for terrorism against internet critics, and furthermore, he calls on the Israeli Defense Force to form a group to shut down these online critics, which definitely implies he is talking about real violence being used.

However, even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and suppose he is calling for some kind of metaphorical terrorism, we must ask what exactly it is he is talking about doing to prevent people from holding opinions he opposes.

Believing that Jews should not slaughter children in Gaza, or that they shouldn’t push child transsexualism, mass immigration, pornography, abortion, and other socially deleterious schemes in the West is an opinion. How can you stop people from having an opinion, other than by killing them? What are the other options?

The ADL is primarily a censorship group, which lobbies governments to pass laws criminalizing the criticism of Jews, and lobbying Silicon Valley to silence critics of Jews online. This is obviously anti-American, fundamentally, but the ADL is one of many Jewish groups which engages in this activity. Internet censorship is ubiquitous, and even the supposed “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk has recently begun silencing his critics on Twitter.

Jewish groups successfully lobbied for TikTok to be banned in America due to the fact that the Chinese owners feel that Americans have a right to criticize Israel in a way that no American company allows them to.

However, none of this has to do with the government of Israel. If Greenblatt was suggesting that Israel should engage in more active lobbying for internet censorship and hate speech laws, he could have simply said that. Instead, he invoked terrorism and called for the IDF to fight people who criticize Jews online.

Being on the frontlines of criticism of Israel and the collective behavior of individual Jews, I have personally had an adversarial relationship with the ADL for more than a decade, regularly being a target of slander and hate from Jonathan Greenblatt and others in the organization, so this call for the Israeli military to use terrorism to silence people like me is particularly disturbing.

At this point, there is so much criticism directed at Israel, and to some extent also the behavior of diaspora Jews, that it would be virtually impossible to censor all of it. Twitter and Facebook would have to ban tens or hundreds of millions of people, and banning that many people would definitely result in those who weren’t banned criticizing Jews for getting all of those people banned.

However, if the Jews began assassinating critics, that may prove to be a significant deterrent.

Although I’ve said it many times, I want to put it on the record again that I am in very good health, I did not take the coronavirus vaccine so I am not at risk of dying suddenly, and I would never, under any circumstances, kill myself.

The video linked above is a week old and has fewer than 100 views. I have not seen this story reported anywhere else. I hope that others will clip the relevant portions and spread them on Twitter and elsewhere. I would like to see Tucker Carlson, Glenn Greenwald, Judge Napolitano, and others with large platforms addressing these statements by Greenblatt and demanding that he explain what exactly it is he is calling for when he says that terrorism needs to be used to silence people whose opinions he does not like.

The Jewish agenda to shut down freedom of speech was already extreme enough, but calling for violence to be used as a solution to internet posts takes this into a whole new realm. If America was a serious country, traveling to a foreign country and calling for state terrorism against American citizens would be grounds for serious criminal charges.

January 16, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Support for Gaza Genocide Top Reason Biden Voters Did Not Support Harris

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | January 15, 2025

A new poll shows that the Israeli onslaught in Gaza was the top reason that Americans who turned out for Joe Biden in 2020 did not vote for Kamala Harris in 2024.

The poll, conducted by  YouGov and the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, “found “what few in the Democratic Party have been willing to admit: Vice President Harris lost votes because of the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”

A press release on the IMEU explains, “29% of voters nationally who voted for Biden in 2020 and did not for Kamala Harris in 2024 say “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” was the top issue affecting their vote choice.” The economy ranked second at 24%.

After the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the Biden administration flooded Israel with weapons and other military aid that was used by Tel Aviv to cause mass death and destruction in Gaza. A recent Lancet study found that at least 64,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel over the past 15 months.

Among the dead are tens of thousands of children, many of whom died when Israel dropped American-made bombs from American-made planes. The Lancet study did not count those killed from illness and deprivation caused by the Israeli siege of Gaza. In recent wars, the number of indirect deaths from conflicts is often many times higher than those killed by direct violence.

Before dropping out of the presidential race last summer, President Biden was regularly confronted on the campaign trail by protesters labeling him “genocide Joe.” Several top international aid agencies have determined the Israeli military operations and blockade of Gaza constitute genocide.

The support for Israel, which included at least $22 billion in military aid during the first year of the onslaught, may have cost Kamala the election. YouGov found that the war was the top reason voters did not cast their ballot for Harris in Arizona (38%), Michigan (32%), Wisconsin (32%), and Pennsylvania (19%). Biden won all four states in 2020.

That Democrats viewed the war in Gaza as a genocide should not have come as a surprise to the Harris campaign. In May, a poll found over half of Democratic party voters believed Israel was conducting a genocide.

Still, in the waning days of the 2024 election season, the Harris team refused to say she would cut arm transfers to Israel after taking office. Instead, the campaign notoriously embraced GOP ultra-hawks such as Dick and Liz Cheney.

January 15, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Calls for Spain to ban Israel basketball team from playing in Madrid

MEMO | January 14, 2025

The head of the Spanish opposition party Podemos, Ione Belarra, called for banning Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv team from entering the country. The team is due to face Real Madrid in a EuroLeague basketball match later today.

In a letter sent to the Ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs, Belarra said: “The Spanish people have clearly demanded a severing of all ties with the Zionists who have committed genocide against the Palestinian people.”

“Maccabi Tel Aviv and its fans are not allowed to enter Spain. We have informed the Government of this. We cannot allow the apology of genocide in our country.”

Belarra pointed out that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have caused a security problem in other countries by defending the genocide in Gaza.

In this context, Belarra called on Spanish fans to gather in front of the arena where the match will be held and protest.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares, however, said Maccabi Tel Aviv team will not be banned from entering Madrid, adding: “Sports should be free from politics.”

In November, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans unleashed racist and violent attacks on civilians and private property during an away game in Amsterdam.

Offensive actions also consisted of the removal of Palestinian flags from buildings, attacking a Dutch-Moroccan taxi driver and even the interruption of the one-minute’s silence ahead of the game for the victims of the Valencia flood.

January 14, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Why NATO’s Plan to Conscript Ukraine’s Youth Will Likely Fail

By Professor Glenn Diesen | January 14, 2025

NATO continues to pressure Ukraine to lower its conscription age to 18 as the huge casualties by Ukraine have resulted in a lack of manpower. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is pressuring Ukraine into “getting younger people into the fight”, while NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has been more cautious in his language by arguing “We need probably more people to move to the front line”.[1] The incoming Trump administration also appears to take the same line, as Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Walz argued that lowering the conscription age could “generate hundreds of thousands of new soldiers”.[2]

While there is seemingly bipartisan support in the US for sacrificing Ukraine’s youth, the plan is deeply flawed. The Ukrainians are overwhelmingly in favour of immediate negotiations, the Ukrainian government resists the pressure from NATO, and there is very little chance that the new recruits will significantly improve the situation.

Bring Russia to the negotiation table & negotiate from a position of strength

NATO’s argument is seemingly reasonable: More Ukrainian soldiers are necessary to pressure Russia to the negotiation table and to negotiate from a position of strength.

The need to pressure Russia to the negotiation table is based on lies, as Russia has been open to negotiations over the past three years. NATO has rejected negotiations and even basic diplomacy with Russia for three years that may have prevented escalation and possibly led to peace. Russia contacted Ukraine already on the first day after the Russian invasion, to negotiate a peace agreement based on putting an end to NATO expansion. President Zelensky confirmed on 25 February 2022: “Today we heard from Moscow that they still want to talk. They want to talk about Ukraine’s neutral status”.[3] The US and UK sabotaged the Istanbul peace agreement to pursue a long war. In March 2022, Zelensky confirmed in an interview with the Economist: “There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives”.[4] By rejecting any diplomacy and negotiations, NATO made it a war of attrition as Russia was left with the dilemma of either continuing the fight or capitulating.

The need to negotiate from a position of strength is a reasonable objective, yet there are reasons to doubt NATO’s sincerity. Is NATO attempting to strengthen Ukraine’s position in negotiations or to keep the war going? On 27 February 2022, the same day that Russia and Ukraine announced peace talks, the EU approved 450 million Euros in military aid to Ukraine, which reduced the incentives for Kiev to negotiate with Moscow.[5] The consistent argument has been that Ukraine must negotiate from a position of strength, yet it has been three years of intensive war and NATO countries still react with panic as Trump prepares to start negotiations to end the war.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, recognised in November 2022 that the Ukrainians were in an ideal situation to start negotiations after successes on the battlefield. Milley recognised that a military victory was impossible to achieve and that this was therefore the optimal time to negotiate.[6] Fearing that its long war would end, the Biden administration quickly intervened and Milley had to walk back his comments.

What will NATO and Ukraine achieve with their strengthened position at the negotiation table? Russia considers NATO’s incursion into Ukraine to be an existential threat and will not accept any peace agreement that does not result in restoring Ukraine’s neutrality. Both the Israeli and Turkish mediators during the peace negotiations in 2022 recognised that Russia was prepared to compromise on anything, besides the issue of NATO expansion. NATO’s continuous promise of membership for Ukraine in the military bloc after the war is over has made a peaceful settlement impossible and thus cemented the conditions for a long war. Strengthening Ukraine’s army will not soften Russia’s position.

What is the likely outcome?

Forcing hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians into the army will undoubtedly slow down the Russian advances, although it cannot stop or reverse the Russian military. The Ukrainian army has been exhausted, and a new army cannot simply be built from scratch. The losses on the battlefield and lies from their government have diminished morale, which will not be improved by sending less experienced young men into a battlefield dominated by Russia.

Trump will likely be able to pressure Zelensky to lower the conscription age, yet this will be incredibly unpopular among the Ukrainian population. The overwhelming majority of Ukrainians want negotiations to start immediately, not to sacrifice their youth in a lost war. Newsweek reports that “Over 6 million Ukrainians of conscription age haven’t complied with legislation introduced last year to boost dwindling troop numbers fighting Russia”. The public wants an end to the war, not to send their teenagers to die.

Conscription of Ukraine’s youth will cause great social upheaval in a society that is already fed up with watching their men being snatched from the streets and thrown into vans by “recruiters”. These young men are also important for the workforce to keep the economy going, which will be lost if they are conscripted or go into hiding. Once the war is finally over, these young men are indispensable to rebuilding Ukraine which is already facing a demographic crisis.

Ukraine cannot survive more “help”

Between 1991 and 2014, the US attempted to help Ukraine into NATO despite that only 20% of Ukrainians desired membership in the military alliance during this time. In 2014, NATO helped Ukrainians topple their government in an unconstitutional coup without majority support from Ukrainians. Rather than implementing the Minsk peace agreement, NATO helped Ukraine build a large army so it could instead change realities on the ground. When 73% of Ukrainians voted for Zelensky’s peace platform in 2019, NATO helped Ukraine avoid “capitulation” by pressuring Zelensky to reverse his position. In 2021, NATO helped Ukraine by refusing to give any security guarantees to Russia, even as Biden and Stoltenberg recognised that Russia would invade without security guarantees. In 2022, the US and UK helped Ukraine by pressuring Kiev to abandon a peace agreement in which the Russians committed to pulling troops back in return for neutrality. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed, large parts of its territory have been lost and the nation may not survive – NATO is now attempting to help yet again by pressuring war-weary Ukrainians to also sacrifice their youth. Irrespective of any new soldiers entering the war, the position of Ukraine will only continue to get worse.

If NATO really wants to help Ukraine and strengthen its position at the negotiation table, NATO should offer Russia what it wants the most – a pan-European security agreement based on indivisible security that replaces the zero-sum bloc politics. This is the best option for the West, Russia and Ukraine.

[1] A. Medhani, ‘White House pressing Ukraine to draft 18-year-olds so it has enough troops to battle Russia’, AP News, 28 November 2024.

[2] B. Gaddy, ‘Rep. Waltz: Negotiations to release Hamas hostages are underway’, ABC News, 12 January 2025

[3] V. Zelensky, ‘Address by the President to Ukrainians at the end of the first day of Russia’s attacks’, President of Ukraine: Official website, 25 February 2022.

[4] The Economist. ‘Volodymyr Zelensky on why Ukraine must defeat Putin’ The Economist, 27 March 2022.

[5] J. Deutsch and L. Pronina, ‘EU Approves 450 Million Euros of Arms Supplies for Ukraine’, Bloomberg, 27 February 2022.

[6] O. Libermann, ‘Top US general argues Ukraine may be in a position of strength to negotiate Russian withdrawal’, CNN, 16 November 2022.

January 14, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

French Greens leader calls for X to be banned in EU

National Secretary of The Ecologists – Europe Ecology The Greens, Marine Tondelier © AP / Louise Delmotte
RT | January 14, 2025

Marine Tondelier, secretary-general of The Ecologists – Europe Ecology The Greens, has called for the social media platform X to be banned across the European Union, at least during election periods, arguing that it plays a role in shaping public opinion in ways that can threaten democracy.

Speaking on RTL’s Le Grand Jury program on Sunday, Tondelier expressed concerns about the influence of social media on democratic processes amid heightened tensions between the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, and EU officials who accuse the US-based billionaire of meddling in European politics.

“It’s not a question of freedom of expression; it’s a question of shaping public opinion,” she claimed. Tondelier highlighted the growing concentration of media ownership in France and globally, accusing “ultra-rich individuals” of trying to “buy power” once they accumulate enough wealth.

“We also need to take social media into account in this calculation now. It is part of the fabrication of opinion. It has a grip on reality. It impacts election results,” she stated. “It’s dangerous because it’s a challenge to our democracies,” she added, suggesting a ban on X during sensitive periods, such as elections.

“The social network Twitter is not only annoying but also dangerous. The question of leaving it obviously arises, but it will not be enough: it must be banned,” she wrote in a post on X.

Tondelier also urged her partners from the left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) coalition, which won the most National Assembly seats in this summer’s legislative elections, to migrate to alternative networks.

“I’m going to leave, but what are the others doing? It will still have an impact on reality. It will still contribute to destabilizing the upcoming elections,” she said.

Musk provoked major controversy by claiming in December that “only the AfD can save Germany,” a statement some EU officials denounced as unacceptable foreign meddling. This followed an op-ed piece published by the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, in which he defended the right-wing party’s policies. Last week, Musk hosted an interview on X with Alice Weidel, the AfD’s candidate for chancellor in the upcoming German election.

Musk also clashed with former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, referring to him as “the tyrant of Europe,” after Breton appeared to endorse the cancellation of Romania’s presidential elections, warning about potential foreign interference in the upcoming German polls.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot recently voiced concerns about Musk’s influence, urging the European Commission to take a firmer stance and use existing mechanisms against alleged external meddling. Breton clarified that his remarks were aimed at ensuring compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act.

In recent weeks, the South African-born tech mogul also criticized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, accusing him of failing to tackle the Pakistani grooming gang issue and refusing to properly investigate the mass rape of underage girls while he was head of the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service from 2008 to 2013. He also urged Washington to step in and “liberate” the Brits from their “tyrannical government.”

January 14, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Musk calls out ‘tyrant of Europe’

RT | January 13, 2025

X owner Elon Musk has denounced former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton as “the tyrant of Europe” over an interview that appeared to endorse the cancelation of Romania’s presidential elections.

Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the vote last month, citing claims by intelligence services that the front-runner Calin Georgescu had been boosted by a Russian campaign on TikTok. It has since emerged that the campaign had been the work of a rival Romanian party, but the court has refused to reverse its ruling.

In an interview with the French outlet BFMTV/RMC last week, Breton appeared to suggest that the upcoming German elections could suffer the same fate should the Musk-endorsed Alternative for Germany (AfD) party emerge triumphant.

“Let’s stay calm and enforce the laws in Europe, when they risk being circumvented and if not enforced, could lead to interference,” Breton said. “It was done in Romania and obviously, it will have to be done, if necessary, in Germany as well.”

The minute-long video, in French, was shared by the Polish-based account ‘Visegrad24’, prompting Musk to reply, deriding “the staggering absurdity of Thierry Breton as the tyrant of Europe.”

Breton objected to the label on Saturday, however, arguing that he was only referring to online censorship through the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and that the EU “has NO mechanism to nullify any election” in the bloc. “Lost in translation… or another fake news?” he wondered on X.

While it was Visegrad24 that interpreted Breton’s comments as an endorsement of canceling elections, Breton’s clarification did not address the fact that the alleged “interference” in Romanian democracy came from the inside, making the judiciary intervention questionable. Musk said no more on the matter, however, having turned his attention to the wildfires ravaging Los Angeles.

Breton’s initial remarks came in response to Musk’s interview on X with Alice Weidel, AfD’s candidate for chancellor in the upcoming German election. Musk has endorsed her party and urged the Germans to oust the sitting Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which some EU officials have denounced as unacceptable foreign meddling.

The Frenchman was the EU commissioner for Digital Affairs and Internal Markets in August, when he threatened Musk with penalties over an upcoming X interview with Donald Trump, then the Republican candidate for US president.

When Musk threatened to expose “secret deals” the EU offered in exchange for censorship on X, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen claimed the French commissioner had acted on his own. Breton resigned in September, accusing the Brussels leadership of “questionable governance.”

January 13, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Brussels bureaucrat threatens Germany, shows EU effectively a dictatorship

By Drago Bosnic | January 13, 2025

For decades, the European Union was known for its chest-thumping about “freedom, democracy and the rule of law”. The troubled bloc also claimed that it was purely an “economic project” and that it “had nothing to do” with NATO, geopolitics, military, etc. However, in the last two years, all those masks have fallen, showing that the EU is nothing more than a geopolitical pendant of the world’s most vile racketeering cartel.

The troubled bloc’s close coordination with NATO shows that there’s virtually no difference between the two. One of the most glaring examples of this is the “enforcement of democracy” in various member states (and not just member states, as evidenced by Western meddling in Georgia), extremely reminiscent of the way the United States and later NATO did in the immediate aftermath of WWII and later years.

The latest in the long line of these “democratic interventions” happened in Romania, when its election results were annulled after the “wrong” candidate won. In that specific case, sovereigntist Calin Georgescu “made the mistake” of not wanting his country and people to be used as cannon fodder in NATO’s crawling aggression on Russia, so the Romanian Constitutional Court, supposedly “unbiased and independent”, ruled out that his victory was “unconstitutional”. The explanation for this was “vague”, to put it mildly, as the “democratic” enforcers simply used the good old “evil Russian election meddling” mantra. All of us “conspiracy theorists” pointed out that this was ridiculous, but we still had no irrefutable evidence. Luckily, the arrogance of the bureaucratic dictatorship in Brussels never fails, as they actually said it openly.

“Freedom of expression is a fundamental element in Europe. If they don’t, there are fines and the possibility of a ban. Now we are equipped, and we have to enforce this law to protect our democracies in Europe. For now, let’s keep calm and enforce our laws in Europe, when there is a risk that they will be bypassed and if they are not enforced, they can lead to interference. We did it in Romania, and if necessary, we will have to do it in Germany as well,” former French EU Commissioner Thierry Breton stated on live TV, threatening to “enforce democracy” in Germany just like the bloc did in Romania.

Breton’s admission may sound shocking to those who don’t understand how the EU and NATO function. However, this is nothing strange to anyone remotely aware of the state of Western “democracies”. Considering the Nazi origins of both organizations, this is hardly surprising. In fact, the obvious connection between Hitler’s ideas of Werewolf units and the CIA’s Operation Gladio shows this is unequivocal.

The infamous US spy agency and its equivalents in NATO later used these to enforce desirable election results virtually everywhere. Still, it’s certainly a good thing that EU bureaucrats are reminding us that they can steal elections like they did in Romania. It’s an important and much-needed reality check for anyone naive enough to think EU/NATO has anything to do with democracy (the word itself has effectively become pejorative).

It should be noted that the “evidence” for the supposed “Russian meddling” in Romania was based on social media posts, similar to how the so-called “Russiagate” hoax was promoted by the DNC and the corrupt US federal institutions. People like Breton now want to see the same enforced in Germany if the AfD wins. Ironically, while whining about the “freedom of expression”, the EU is particularly worried about the prospect of people having actual freedom on social media, so it wants to force so-called “fact-checking” on everyone. In that regard, it seems social media networks such as Twitter/X and Telegram are particularly “problematic”. Interestingly, even the infamous Facebook/Meta seems to be dropping the hugely unpopular “fact-checking”, which Biden lamented about as a “shameful” decision.

Expectedly, just like the outgoing Biden administration, the so-called “fact-checking” is almost universally hated, as it’s dominated by the mainstream propaganda machine and neoliberal extremists promoting societal degeneracy and moral depravity. Any attempt to criticize these are met with censorship, all in an attempt to create the false impression that neoliberal extremism is popular.

Thus, if social media networks indeed decide to allow free expression (provided this isn’t yet another ruse), this will certainly be “dangerous for our democracy” in both the US and EU. Not only could this disrupt color revolution projects, but it also has the potential to shake numerous already unstable and unpopular governments across the political West. Some, like Scholz, are already resorting to damage control by cutting “Ukraine aid”.

Interestingly, this came after the AfD’s Alice Weidel “dared” to float the idea of relaunching Nord Stream pipelines (as if Brussels needed yet another reason to ban that party). The EU bureaucratic dictatorship is terrified of the prospect of having to contend with more sovereigntist governments, as it already has numerous problems with Slovakia and Hungary, both of which are non-compliant with demands to commit economic suicide for the sake of the Neo-Nazi junta.

Thus, Brussels is not only losing the momentum of its color revolution projects that usually result in EU/NATO enlargement, but it can’t even control current member states. The bureaucratic dictatorship is becoming so desperate that it needs to resort to literal enforcement in order to stay afloat. All this shows the futility of being in the EU, as well as the sheer pointlessness of its existence.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

January 13, 2025 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

HTS-led Syrian security forces step up sectarian killings: Report

The Cradle | January 12, 2025

Militants affiliated with the new Syrian government, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, are kidnapping and murdering members of Syria’s Alawite community based on their religious identity in various parts of Syria.

Immediately after ousting the government of Bashar al-Assad and taking power in Damascus on 8 December, militants from HTS began targeting members of the Alawite community based on accusations of crimes they committed as part of the previous government.

However, Al-Akhbar reported on 11 December that in the Hama governorate, especially in the villages of its northern and eastern countryside, HTS and affiliated militants are carrying out “liquidation operations based on identity, without making accusations against them, such as that they are ‘regime remnants’ or were ‘against the revolution’ before ordering the killing.”

The Lebanese paper reports that militants affiliated with the new government are “terrorizing the residents of the Alawite sect and pressuring them to evacuate their homes, especially in some eastern villages affiliated with Salamiyah,” which will lead to demographic changes in the region.

In the villages of Al-Zaghba, Mabatan, Maryoud, Al-Fanat, and Maan in the eastern countryside, armed factions are stealing, looting, and burning homes to ensure that residents do not return.

A resident of Al-Zaghba village told Al-Akhbar that “the militants present in the village prevent the return of the homeowners, and if the purpose of returning is to check on the house or bring some items and necessities from it, then the residents enter at their own risk.”

One of the residents displaced to the villages of the Syrian coast told Al-Akhbar that “he no longer thinks of returning to his village due to the violations committed by militants whose affiliation no one knows.”

He added that “the militants killed a civilian man from the village who returned to check on his house during the past two days.”

When he contacted authorities from the new government to “find out the affiliation of these killers, who responded that the area was outside the control of its factions and that it had nothing to do with the violations taking place there.”

Reports of sectarian killings by HTS or affiliated militants in Homs, Latakia, and Tartous continue to emerge on social media.

On 8 January, an Alawite man, Sheikh Ali Deeb, and his wife were killed in rural Salamiyah in the village of Dniba during an HTS search operation. Their bodies were found on a side road connecting the village of Dniba to the neighboring village of Snida.

On 9 January, Aziz Mamdouh Ahmed was found murdered after being kidnapped in the Dablan area in the city of Homs by HTS militants.

Ahmed was a fifth-year student in the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Homs and is the only child of his parents. He comes from the Alawite-majority village of Al-Qabou.

In another incident this week, extremist militants shot and killed the popular Syrian-Palestinan actor Abdulmounem Amayri, accusing him of blasphemy. According to his daughter, the militants stopped him while he was driving, dragged him out, beat him till he was unconscious, and then stepped on his body.

On 8 January, in the small Alawite village of Ayn al-Sharqiyah on the Syrian coast, three members of the Izzeddine family were murdered while picking olives. Large numbers attended the funeral of Ammar, his son Musa, and his nephew Mohammad.

The HTS-led government sometimes acknowledges that such violations are taking place, but describes them as ‘isolated’ incidents or revenge incidents. At other times, it refuses to comment on them, saying that the armed groups committing these killings have no affiliation with the government.

The new Syrian government has also detained large numbers of soldiers who fought in the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) before its fall in December. The HTS authorities are requiring all soldiers to turn in their weapons and undergo an investigation for their actions during the war. In exchange, they receive a paper showing their reconciled status.

However, reports have emerged of Alawite soldiers being singled out for their religious faith and imprisoned.

On 6 January, relatives of imprisoned soldiers held a protest in Umayyad Square in Damascus, calling for the release of up to 10,000 former Syrian army soldiers and officers currently held in HTS prisons in Adra, Hama, and Idlib. Demonstrators demanded their sons be released, saying many were detained after handing in their weapons and receiving reconciled status.

January 12, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

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