| How Franklin Roosevelt Lied America Into War William Henry Chamberlin  ... American involvement in war with Germany was preceded by a long series of steps [by FDR, including] ... the orders to American warships to shoot at sight at German submarines, formally announced on September 11 [1941]. The beginning of actual hostilities may be dated from this time rather than from the German declaration of war, which followed Pearl Harbor ... The promises to "keep America out of foreign wars" were a deliberate hoax on the American people, perpetrated for the purpose of insuring Roosevelt's re-election and thereby enabling him to proceed with his plan of gradually edging the United States into war. The Southern Poverty Law Center: Profiting From Defamation The Social Contract (Michigan)  This special issue of The Social Contract journal provides detailed, devastating analysis of the influential and misnamed "Southern Poverty Law Center." Contributors to this issue review the hidden record and agenda of this highly profitable engine of defamation. Jews and Russians in 1920s USSR: From Solzhenitsyn' Kevin MacDonald -- Occidental Observer  ...This chapter relies on a wide range of academic historical writing to paint his picture of the USSR during the critical decade of the 1920s. His account is therefore based on mainstream scholarship and overall is similar to other accounts .... Solzhenitsyn is emphasizing the ethnic angle to mass murder in the USSR: Russians were disproportionately victims, and non-Russians, and particularly Jews, were disproportionately perpetrators. He also emphasizes that a prime motive for Jews was revenge against the old order .. "Jewish communists participated efficiently and diligently" in collectivization. It was a war against the Russian people -- a war that was carried out with "a certain enthusiasm among Jews." Israel's Nukes Harm US National Interests John Mearsheimer  ... I actually believe the situation is going to get much worse over time. I believe that we're not going to have an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. I believe that talk of a two-state solution and all this talk about moving from "proximity talks" to "direct talks " is a charade ... America's interests and Israel's interests are going to continue to diverge. And the end result of that, back here in the United States, is that the [pro-Israel] lobby is going to have to work overtime to cover that up and make it look like everything is hunky-dory when in fact it's not. And that has all sorts of negative consequences for domestic politics. So I think things are very bad now but I'm sad to say they're only going to get worse. The Truth About Israel's Land Grab In The West Bank The Independent (Britain)  Jewish settlers, who claim a divine right to the whole of Israel, now control more than 42 per cent of the occupied West Bank, representing a powerful obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state, a new report has revealed. The jurisdiction of some 202 settlements, illegal under international law, cover much more of the occupied Palestinian territory than previously thought. And a large section of the land has been seized from private Palestinian landowners in defiance even of an Israeli supreme court ruling, the report said, a finding which sits uncomfortably with Israeli claims that it builds only on state land The Two Sides of a Barbed-Wire Fence Nicholas D. Kristof  The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is widely acknowledged to be unsustainable and costly to the country's image. But one more blunt truth must be acknowledged: the occupation is morally repugnant ...None of that changes the ugly truth that our ally, Israel, is using American military support to maintain an occupation that is both oppressive and unjust. Israel has eased checkpoints this year -- a real improvement in quality of life -- but the system is intrinsically malignant ... Meanwhile, the settlements continue to grow, seemingly inexorably -- and that may be the most odious aspect of the occupation. Israeli Soldiers Shoot Palestinian Children BBC News - Video  After Israeli soldiers order a Palestinian family out of their home, they open fire with an M16 machine gun. Two children are instantly killed, and one is paralysed. BBC journalist Christian Fraser reports. Runtime: 3:19 mins. Diversity in Ads Not Reflected in Real Life The Associated Press  Somewhere there's an America that's full of neighborhoods where black and white kids play softball together, where biracial families e-mail photos online and where Asians and blacks dance in the same nightclub. And that America is on your television ... Critics say such ads gloss over persistent and complicated racial realities. Though the proportion of ethnic minorities in America is growing, experts say, more than superficial interaction between groups is relatively unusual. Most Americans live and mingle with people from their own racial background. Advertising, meanwhile, is creating a "carefully manufactured racial utopia, a narrative of colorblindness" says Charles Gallagher, a sociologist at Georgia State University ... Veterans of Israel's Attack on USS Liberty Want Investigation Russia Today (Russia)  On the anniversary of Israel's 1967 murderous assault on the USS Liberty, survivors call for a impartial US government inquiry into the attack, and the shameful white-washing afterwards by US officials. Runtime: 5:13 mins. Lieberman: A Zionist Foe of Freedom Maidhc Ó Cathail -- Dissident Voice  It would be hard to think of anyone who has done more to undermine American freedoms than Joseph Lieberman. Since 9/11, the Independent senator from Connecticut has introduced a raft of legislation in the name of the "global war on terror" which has steadily eroded constitutional rights. If the United States looks increasingly like a police state, Senator Lieberman has to take much of the credit for it ... How much faith would American voters have in the likes of Lieberman, who claims that the Jewish state is their greatest ally, if they knew that Israeli agents planted firebombs in American installations in Egypt in 1954 in an attempt to undermine relations between Nasser and the United States ... Memoir By Veteran ADL Official Provides Revelations John Cobden - Institute for Historical Review  ... Contrary to what the author intended, this revealing book by a high-ranking ADL official serves as valuable exposé of the moral character of a man who sanctions violence against political opponents, who spits on the First Amendment, uses illegal methods to obtain information about adversaries, and who served as an agent for a foreign spy agency. Over the years, I have read several tracts and articles designed to discredit the Anti-Defamation League. None was able to persuade me of the illicit nature of this organization; it took the memoir of Arnold Forster to do that. Presbyterians Approve Call to End US Aid to Israel The Associated Press  Presbyterian leaders strongly backed a proposal Friday that included a call to end U.S. aid to Israel unless the country stops settlement expansions in disputed Palestinian territories. But they said the 172-page report, which details their church's approach to issues in the Middle East, was a sincere effort to mend long-standing fractures between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Jewish groups. It earned qualified praise but also criticism from pro-Israel organizations, which have long taken issue with various Presbyterian statements on Middle East peace. Church delegates approved the report by an 82 percent vote during the church's general assembly in Minneapolis. Why West Lost Afghan War Michael Scheuer  Recent events surrounding Afghanistan shouldn't confuse anyone, as the reality of the situation still lies in one simple statement: The US-NATO coalition has lost a war its political leaders never meant, or knew how, to win. 'Winning' in Afghanistan was never anything more than killing Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar, as many of their fighters and civilian supporters as possible and then getting out immediately with the full knowledge that -- as Mao said long ago -- insurgencies always rebuild and the process might need to be repeated. Another Failed President? Patrick J. Buchanan  ... Obama's "reset" in foreign policy seems to have yielded no more fruit than George W. Bush's crusade to "end tyranny in our world." Three months after Iraqi elections, there is no government in Baghdad. The August deadline for withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops will likely be missed ... America is facing a crisis of confidence in government, with the nation unable to win its wars, balance its budgets, control its borders, stop the bleeding of its manufacturing base or plug a hole in the ocean floor. Demjanjuk Trial in Germany Postponed Again The Associated Press  A court session in John Demjanjuk's trial in Germany has been put off after the court's doctor said the 90-year-old was recovering from dehydration. Dr. Albrecht Stein told the court Thursday that Demjanjuk had not been drinking enough during recent hot weather and needed intravenous fluids. The former Ohio autoworker is being tried on 28,060 counts of accessory to murder over allegations he was a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp. He says he is a victim of mistaken identity and never served as a guard at any camp. Demjanjuk suffers from a variety of medical problems, and it was at least the 10th session to be canceled for health reasons since the trial began Nov. 30. The Demjanjuk Trial: An Interim Assessment Prof. Johannes Houwink ten Cate -- The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (Israel) ... This trial is a novelty. It marks the first time in German legal history that a non-German national has had to stand trial for the murder of non-German nationals that took place outside of Germany proper - namely, in Poland. ... This trial is also novel in the sense that the mass murder in Sobibor is described as a single process, implicating all those present in Sobibor in the extermination. For the first time, a person who was low in the chain of command has been indicted even though there is no proof of him having committed a specific offense. ... The goal is not to win the trial; it may be unwinnable. Perhaps the goal of informing the world about Sobibor is rhetorical as well, for the Jewish slaves who tried to escape the extermination sites had the same goal. An Evil Campaign to Frame an Innocent Man Lesya Jones (1995) ... Sheftel [in his book] amasses incontrovertible evidence which proves that the Demjanjuk affair was not simply a case of mistaken identity but, rather, a deliberate and cold-blooded conspiracy by superpowers United States and former Soviet Union, as well as Germany, Israel and Poland to withhold exculpatory evidence in their possession and send to the gallows an innocent no man's man. These countries did this in pursuit of their respective agendas. In the United States, the Office of Special Investigation (OSI) at the Department of Justice, which was established to investigate alleged Nazi war criminals residing in the US, was particularly zealous in its efforts to destroy Demjanjuk. Iran 's President Rebukes Western Double Standard on Holocaust DPA (Germany)  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned the historic dimensions of the Holocaust but rejected the label of an anti-Semite, the Fars news agency reported Friday. "The West made a claim - about the Holocaust - and urges all the people in the world to accept it or otherwise go to prison," Ahmadinejad told a group of Islamic scholars Thursday in Nigeria, where he attended a summit of the Developing Eight, a group of countries with large Muslim populations. "The West allows everybody to question prophets and even God but not to pose a simple question and open the black box of a historic event," he charged. Martin A. Larson Revisionists.  Martin A. Larson (1897-1994) was an American scholar and author who specialized in religious history, comparative religion, the origins and evolution of Christianity, the life and work of Thomas Jefferson, and taxation and money issues. He was a free-thinker and a populist, and an ardent defender of individual freedom, both political and religious ... He served as a member of the Editorial Advisory Committee of the IHR's Journal of Historical Review from its first issues in 1980 until his death. Over the years four articles by Dr. Larson appeared in the Journal . In India, A New Film Underscores Enduring Interest in Hitler The Associated Press  ... In India, Hitler is not viewed as the personification of evil, but with an attitude of morally ambiguous fascination. He is seen as a management guru - akin to Machiavelli or Sun Tzu - by business students, and an object of wonder by people craving order amid the chaos of India ... Mein Kampf, Hitler's semi-autobiographicSubhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle for Independence Andrew Montgomery - Institute for Historical Review ... Bose was favorably impressed with the discipline and organizational strength of fascism as early as 1930, when he first expressed support for a synthesis of fascism and socialism. During his stays in Europe during the 1930s, he was deeply moved by the dynamism of the two major "fascist" powers, Italy and Germany. After observing these regimes first-hand, he developed a political ideology of his own that, he was convinced, could bring about the liberation of India and the total reconstruction of Indian society along vaguely authoritarian- California on 'Verge of System Failure' The Globe and Mail (Canada)  ... It's a story that's being repeated all across California - and throughout the United States - as cash-strapped state and local governments grapple with collapsed tax revenues and swelling budget gaps. Mass layoffs, slashed health and welfare services, closed parks, crumbling superhighways and ever-larger public school class sizes are all part of the new normal. California's fiscal hole is now so large that the state would have to liberate 168,000 prison inmates and permanently shutter 240 university and community college campuses to balance its budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1. Think of California as Greece on the Pacific: bankrupt and desperately needing a bailout. New York: Demise of a State Herbert London -- Newsmax The sound you hear on Wall Street at noon isn't bells chiming, but rather the death knell for New York State. The once proud Empire State that was the engine for capital investment across the country is gasping for breath. Wall Street, that paid the state's bills, is a shell of its former self. ... There is no doubt New York State has extraordinary assets: an educated workforce, potable water, cheap hydro-electric power, magnificent scenery. But these assets have been surpassed by manipulative leadership, profligate spending, and the appeasement of municipal union demands. As I see it the once magnificent Empire State is now the vampire state with the Albany government sucking the blood of working men and women who are trying to eke out a living. Illinois Stops Paying Its Bills, But Can't Stop Digging Hole The New York Times  ... For the last few years, California stood more or less unchallenged as a symbol of the fiscal collapse of states during the recession. Now Illinois has shouldered to the fore, as its dysfunctional political class refuses to pay the state's bills and refuses to take the painful steps -- cuts and tax increases -- to close a deficit of at least $12 billion, equal to nearly half the state's budget. ... More broadly, Illinois is caught between blue state convictions about social safety nets and a red state aversion to taxes. For years, the Democratic-controllRemembering the Fallen of the Somme BBC News  The Battle of the Somme, which began in early July 1916, has come to symbolise the horror and futility of war, as Fergal Keane reflects on a visit to the battlefield. On the other side of the wood, the fighters soared and looped in a bright blue sky. I was standing in a cornfield and thought of how, in another time, that sound would have sent me running in terror for any cover I could find ... Between July and November 1916, more than a million men became casualties of war in these fields. Gertrude Stein's Complex Worldview: Nobel Peace Prize for Hitler? Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review  Scholars of the life of Gertrude Stein were recently startled to learn that in 1938 the prominent Jewish-American writer had spearheaded a campaign urging the Nobel committee to award its Peace Prize to Adolf Hitler ... Stein's seemingly paradoxical views about Hitler and fascism have never been a secret. As early as 1934, she told a reporter that Hitler should be awarded the Nobel peace prize. "I say that Hitler ought to have the peace prize, because he is removing all the elements of contest and of struggle from Germany. By driving out the Jews and the democratic and Left element, he is driving out everything that conduces to activity. That means peace ... By suppressing Jews ... he was ending struggle in Germany" US Will Attack Iran `If It Must,' Say Prominent Senators The Jerusalem Post (Israel)  There is wide support in Congress for using all means to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power, "through diplomatic and economic sanctions if we possibly can, through military actions if we must," visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said Wednesday in Jerusalem. Lieberman, flanked at a Jerusalem press conference by his senate colleagues John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), used very tough language, saying the words "military action" in regards to stopping Iran's nuclear program. Most US officials opt to tiptoe around the subject, saying "no options are off the table." Get Ready for a Binational State Gideon Levy -- Haaretz (Israel) ... The reality is that Israel has again managed to fool not only America, but even its most promising president in years ... More than anything, the meeting proved that the criminal waste of time will go on. A year and a half has passed since the two took office, and almost nothing has changed except lip service to the freeze. A few lifted roadblocks here, a little less blockade of Gaza there - all relatively marginal matters, a bogus substitute for a bold jump over the abyss, without which nothing will move. Israeli Duplicity Comes Ever More Clearly into Focus Jeff Gates With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the White House July 6, it's time to recall how Tel Aviv deceived Washington throughout the entirety of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. U.S. military leaders will be watching this meeting very closely, as will the veterans community. For me, confirmation of Israel's strategic duplicity came in a meeting with Harry McPherson who served as counsel and speechwriter for Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ entered the Senate in 1948 with Louisiana Senator Russell Long for whom I served as counsel and speechwriter. At his law offices in Washington, Harry described his arrival in Tel Aviv the night that the 1967 War began. That war typifies the consistency of this ongoing deceit. Tax-Exempt Funds Aiding West Bank Settlements The New York Times  ... HaYovel is one of many groups in the United States using tax-exempt donations to help Jews establish permanence in the Israeli-occupied territories -- effectively obstructing the creation of a Palestinian state, widely seen as a necessary condition for Middle East peace. The result is a surprising juxtaposition: As the American government seeks to end the four-decade Jewish settlement enterprise and foster a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the American Treasury helps sustain the settlements through tax breaks on donations to support them. A New York Times examination of public records in the United States and Israel identified at least 40 American groups that have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last decade. Netanyahu Hears No Discouraging Words From Obama Dana Milbank -- The Washington Post  A blue-and-white Israeli flag hung from Blair House. Across Pennsylvania Avenue, the Stars and Stripes was in its usual place atop the White House. But to capture the real significance of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit with President Obama, White House officials might have instead flown the white flag of surrender. Four months ago, the Obama administration made a politically perilous decision to condemn Israel over a controversial new settlement. The Israel lobby reared up, Netanyahu denounced the administration'Israel Has Right to Nuclear Capability for Deterrence Purposes, Obama Pledges Haaretz (Israel) The Obama administration has revealed to the public, during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington, a series of understandings between the two countries on Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity" - which to date had been kept under wraps. At the center of these understandings lies an Israeli veto on the holding of an international conference for a nuclear-free Middle East ... According to the announcement, "The president told the prime minister he recognizes that Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats, and that only Israel can determine its security needs. The president pledged to continue U.S. efforts to combat all international attempts to challenge the legitimacy of the State of Israel." Secret Document Affirms U.S.-Israel Nuclear Partnership Haaretz (Israel) Israel's Army Radio reported on Wednesday that the United States has sent Israel a secret document committing to nuclear cooperation between the two countries. According to Army Radio, the U.S. has reportedly pledged to sell Israel materials used to produce electricity, as well as nuclear technology and other supplies, despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Other countries have refused to cooperate with Israel on nuclear matters because it has not signed the NPT, and there has been increasing international pressure for Israel to be more transparent about its nuclear arsenal. Winston Churchill's Cigar Air-Brushed From Photo The Telegraph (Britain)  A photograph of Winston Churchill giving his victory salute has been airbrushed to remove his signature cigar. In the well-known original image, Churchill makes a "V" shaped symbol with his fingers - while gripping a cigar in the corner of his mouth. But in a reproduction of the picture, hanging over the main entrance to a London museum celebrating the wartime leader, he has been made into a non-smoker through the use of image-altering techniques.William Chamberlin: A Man Ahead of His Time Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review  ... Chamberlin opens America's Second Crusade with the words: "Americans, more than any other people, have been inclined to interpret their involvement in the two great wars of the twentieth century in terms of crusades for righteousness.Winston Churchill: An Unsettled Legacy Mark Weber The well-entrenched idealization of Churchill is part and parcel of a drastically misleading view of the Second World War that Americans have been fed for decades. One common deceit is to give the impression that Hitler sought war against Britain and France, and that Germany aggressively attacked those two countries ... Churchill's enduringly stellar image is all the more remarkable considering that his views on a range of issues were, by today's standards, hopelessly backward and politically incorrect ... Along with most Britons (and Americans) of his era, he was also an unabashed racist. FBI Expands Probe of Fraud at Holocaust Claims Conference Jewish Week (New York)  The Federal Bureau of Investigation has widened its probe into allegedly fraudulent Holocaust-era claims that could have bilked the German government out of millions of dollars, The Jewish Week has learned. The fraud was discovered in December by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany in New York, which processes Holocaust-era claims for survivors in behalf of the German government. It immediately contacted federal authorities, including the FBI. The fraud initially involved claims submitted to the Hardship Fund but has now been broadened to include the Article 2 Fund, a pension program that may have been defrauded out of about $7 million over the last decade. Both investigations are continuing and the Article 2 Fund pensions of more than 200 people were suspended last Thursday. Dariusz Ratajczak: A Courageous Historian Revisionists.  Dariusz Ratajczak (1962-2010) was a Polish historian who was dismissed from his university teaching post, publicly vilified, and convicted of "Holocaust denial" for having published arguments and evidence that cast doubt on aspects of the familiar Holocaust story. He held a doctoral degree in history, and was the author of several books ... Publication of "Dangerous Themes" set off a storm of fierce criticism, including protests by some prominent scholars. Rethinking Iran-Contra: A Much Darker Story? Robert Parry  ... An accumulating body of evidence suggests that the traditional view of Iran-Contra was mistaken, that this conventional understanding of the scandal was like starting a novel in the middle and assuming you're reading the opening chapter ... In view of the latest evidence - and the crumbling of the long-running October Surprise cover-up -- there appears to have been a single Iran-Contra narrative spanning the entire twelve years of the Reagan and Bush I administration, and representing a much darker story. And it was not simply a tale of Republican electoral skullduggery and treachery, but possibly even more troubling, a story of rogue CIA officers and Israel's Likud hardliners sabotaging a sitting U.S. president, Jimmy Carter. Worse Than a Nightmare Bob Herbert - The New York Times  ... For us to even consider several more years of fighting and dying in Afghanistan -- at a cost of heaven knows how many more billions of American taxpayer dollars -- is demented ... We're like a compulsive gambler plunging ever more deeply into debt in order to wager on a rigged game. There is no victory to be had in Afghanistan, only grief. We're bulldozing Detroit while at the same time trying to establish model metropolises in Kabul and Kandahar. We're spending endless billions on this wretched war but can't extend the unemployment benefits of Americans suffering from the wretched economy here at home. The difference between this and a nightmare is that when you wake up from a nightmare it's over. This is all too tragically real. The Last Post: McChrystal's Bleak Outlook The Independent on Sunday (Britain)  Sacked US General Stanley McChrystal issued a devastatingly critical assessment of the war against a "resilient and growing insurgency" just days before being forced out. Using confidential military documents, copies of which have been seen by the IoS, the "runaway general" briefed defence ministers from Nato and the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) earlier this month, and warned them not to expect any progress in the next six months. During his presentation, he raised serious concerns over levels of security, violence, and corruption within the Afghan administration. Sinking Ship: Israel and Its Lobby in the US John J. Mearsheimer Israel's botched raid against the Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla on May 31 is the latest sign that Israel is on a disastrous course that it seems incapable of reversing. The attack also highlights the extent to which Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States. This situation is likely to get worse over time, which will cause major problems for Americans who have a deep attachment to the Jewish state ... The lobby will remain influential enough over the next decade to protect Israel from meaningful U.S. pressure. Obama Expands Global U.S. 'Secret War' The Washington Post  Beneath its commitment to soft-spoken diplomacy and beyond the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has significantly expanded a largely secret U.S. war against al-Qaeda and other radical groups, according to senior military and administration officials. Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year. In addition to units that have spent years in the Philippines and Colombia, teams are operating in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia ... Obama, one senior military official said, has allowed "things that the previous administration did not." German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler John Ries -- Institute for Historical Review ... The picture of the relationship between German big business and the Nazi party which Turner provides us is one that reveals how little big business had to do with the party's success ... Most of the NSDAP funds were derived from membership dues, interest-free loans, and the gate receipts from the many mass rallies the party held ... In sum, the NSDAP was a prototypical "grass-roots" political organization able to expand and prosper during a period when most of the bourgeois parties suffered a serious loss of support. Archimedes Set Roman Ships Afire With Cannons, Says Engineer Jeremy Hsu -- LiveScience  Greek inventor Archimedes is said to have used mirrors to burn ships of an attacking Roman fleet. But new research suggests he may have used steam cannons and fiery cannonballs instead. A legend begun in the Medieval Ages tells of how Archimedes used mirrors to concentrate sunlight as a defensive weapon during the siege of Syracuse, then a Greek colony on the island of Sicily, from 214 to 212 B.C. No contemporary Roman or Greek accounts tell of such a mirror device, however. Both engineering calculations and historical evidence support use of steam cannons as "much more reasonable than the use of burning mirrors," said Cesare Rossi, a mechanical engineer at the University of Naples ... German Man Facing Jail Over Hitler Ringtone ABC (Australia)  A German man is facing up to six months in jail for having a speech by Adolf Hitler as his mobile phone ringtone. Every time the 54-year-old man's phone rang, it played a speech by Hitler, in which the former dictator pledged the destruction of world Jewry if Germany was dragged into war. Fellow passengers on a train in Hamburg heard the ringtone several times during a journey and reported him to police, who seized the telephone and arrested him when the train stopped. Police found swastika stickers and a photo of Hitler on the telephone with the words "the greatest commander of all time" written over it. The man was charged with violating the German constitution, which expressly forbids public displays of the Nazis and all their works. Why the French Hate Chomsky Diana Johnstone ... It has contributed to the sacralization of the Holocaust, or "Shoah", which has increasingly been regarded less as an historic event than as a sacred dogma. In a secular state where traditional religions are excluded from public schools, only the Shoah demands both the mental and emotional adherence traditionally reserved for religion. Its place in the school curriculum grows as the teaching of history in general shrinks ... This amounts to a reversal of the much-decried Medieval stigmatization of Jews as "Christ-killers" U.S. Pledges $15 Million to Preserve Site of Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp CNN News  The United States will donate $15 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, pending congressional authorization and appropriations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday. Speaking at the Schindler Factory Museum in Krakow, Poland, Clinton said the contribution will go to preserve the site of the concentration camp and "demonstrates America's commitment to Holocaust education, remembrance and research," the State Department said. Methodist Church of Britain Votes to Boycott Israeli Goods The Jerusalem Post (Israel) The Methodist Church of Britain voted on Wednesday to boycott Israeli-produced goods and services from the West Bank because of Israel's "illegal occupation of Palestinian lands." "A majority of governments recognize the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as illegitimate under international law," the church body said at its annual conference in Portsmouth. The church body will now encourage Methodists across the UK to follow suit. Connecting the Zionist Dots Gilad Atzmon  ... Democracy in its current state, especially within the English-Speaking world, is a political system that specializes in positioning inadequate, unqualified and dubious characters in leading positions. Two democratically elected leaders launched the illegal war in Iraq. Two democratically elected leaders marched the west into a financial disaster ... .As much as our elected leaders are totally clueless, the Sabans, the Lord Levys and the Wolfowitzes know exactly what to do. The Jewish religion, culture and ideology provides its followers with a narrative that saves us of the democratic limbo. The Sabans of this world are far from being amateurs or clueless; they know exactly what to do. They have been doing it for three thousand years. More American Women Not Having Children Reuters  More American women are choosing not to have children than three decades ago, according to a new report. Nearly 20 percent of older women do not have children, compared to 10 percent in the 1970s, the Pew Research Center said. ... Education also is a factor in a woman's choice to be a mother. The more educated women are, the higher the childless rate is. Activist Explains the Gaza Flotilla, Rebuts Israeli Claims Hardtalk - BBC television (Video)  In this interview on the British BBC television program "Hardtalk," an activist describes how Israeli troops stormed the Gaza flotilla vessel. Given here in three parts. The BBC presenter repeatedly tries to justify or excuse Israel's attack on the humanitarian aid ship, as well as the Zionist state's overall policies. Ken O'Keefe, a former US Marine combat soldier, speaks calmly but forcefully about the Israeli attack, the humanitarian flotilla operation, the plight of the Palestinians, and Israel's propaganda lies. Assault on `German Village' Mike Davis -- Der Spiegel  During the Second World War the Americans tested in the desert of Utah the bombardment of Berlin. In accurate detail they had copies of tenement buildings constructed. The architect was the well-known German Jew Erich Mendelsohn / ... The Berlin tenements were erected in May 1943 on the Dugway Proving Grounds, shortly before Winston Churchill had gale-force firestorms ignited in the center of Hamburg. Their intended purpose was to try out the possibilities and to solve the problems that clearly lay beyond any moral limits of target bombardments. The buildings became a trade fair for the growing lobby of fire war. Nearly All Terrorist Attacks in US and Europe Have Been By Non-Muslims Danios - Loonwatch ... Only six percent of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Islamic extremists. The remaining 94 percent were from other groups -- 42% from Latinos, 24% from extreme left wing groups, 7% from extremist Jews, 5% from communists, and 16% from all other groups ... In fact, a whopping 99.6% of terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups; a good 84.8% of attacks were from separatist groups completely unrelated to Islam. Leftist groups accounted for over sixteen times as much terrorism as radical Islamic groups. Only a measly 0.4% of terrorist attacks from 2007 to 2009 could be attributed to extremist Muslims. The Zionist Terror Network Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review  This booklet documents the background and criminal activities of Jewish Zionist terrorist groups, and especially the Jewish Defense League. Particular emphasis is given here to terror -- including murder -- against "thought criminals" who question the Holocaust story that six million Jews were systematically killed during the Second World War ... This terror campaign culminated in a devastating arson attack on the Institute's offices and warehouse in Torrance on July 4, 1984 -- the 209th anniversary of American independence. Damage in the attack, carried out in the early morning hours of the 4th, was estimated at $400,000. The US is a `Puppet State' of Israel, Says Dr. Roberts Paul Craig Roberts -- Press TV -- Video  The United States is a "puppet state of Israel," says Dr. Roberts, and the US media presents the American public with "Israeli propaganda." "The United States government does not represent the American people," he continues. "It represents the military-security complex, the Israel lobby, Wall Street, the oil companies, the insurance industry, the pharmaceuticals.Jews Hurt Blacks, Says Farrakhan JTA  Minister Louis Farrakhan in a letter addressed to U.S. Jewish organizations accused Jews of hurting blacks and called for dialogue to "repair" the damage. The Nation of Islam leader sent the letter, as well as a two-volume copy of "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews" by the Nation of Islam Historical Research Team, which he said proves "an undeniable record of Jewish Anti-Black behavior," the Associated Press reported Tuesday. "We could charge you with being the most deceitful so-called friend, while your history with us shows you have been our worst enemy," he reportedly wrote in the letter, dated June 24. Zionist Group Criticizes Latvia Over Commemoration of 1941 Liberation Reuters A well-known Nazi hunter criticized a Latvian court Tuesday for allowing a procession to commemorate the day in 1941 when Nazi troops entered the country's capital after ejecting the Soviet Union's Red Army. Efraim Zuroff, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel, criticized a Riga district court decision to allow an event to be held at the central Freedom Monument on July 1... The German invasion in 1941 followed a year of Red Army occupation, during which Latvia was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union and tens of thousands of Latvians were shipped to Siberia, leading people to cheer the arrival of German troops in the streets of Riga. California Legislator Demands French Rail Company Disclose Holocaust Role European Jewish Press  French rail operator SNCF is being targeted by a California state lawmaker who has introduced legislation that would force the company to disclose its role in the Holocaust as a condition of a multibillion-In Georgia, Authorities Pull Down Stalin Monuments The Associated Press  Authorities in Georgia on Sunday tore down another monument to Soviet dictator and native son Josef Stalin. The monument in the town of Tkibuli in western Georgia was taken down two days after authorities tore down a bigger and more famous monument to Stalin in his hometown of Gori. Both statues were brought down in the middle of the night in an apparent bid to avoid protests and media attention. A Flash of Lightning Uri Avnery  ... For two generations, our [Israeli] foreign policy used the Holocaust as its main instrument. The bad conscience of the world determined its attitude towards Israel. The (justified) guilt feelings - either for atrocities committed or for looking the other way - caused Europe and America to treat Israel differently than any other nation - from nuclear armaments to the settlements. All criticism of our governments' actions was branded automatically as anti-Semitism and silenced. But time does its work. New tragedies have blunted the world's senses. For a new generation, the Holocaust is a thing of the remote past, a chapter of history. The sense of guilt has disappeared in all countries, except Germany. In Canada, Falling Support For Israel Thomas Walkom -- The Star (Canada)  ... But my sense is that while politicians and media remain fearful of criticizing Israel the public is starting to move on ... My sense is that within the public the residual goodwill for Israel is wearing thin. Holocaust guilt, which in the past has been skillfully used to mute criticisms of Israel, no longer has the same effect. Nor do ritual charges of anti-Semitism. The politicians tiptoe around Israel. The public is coming to understand that it is just another country. How Relevant is Holocaust Revisionism? Mark Weber (Jan. 2009)  ... Although "Holocaust remembrance" remains well entrenched in our society, its impact seems to have diminished in recent years. In part this is because the men and women of the World War II generation are nearly all gone ... The Holocaust imagery of the 1940s is less potent because it's less relevant. Criticism of Israel and its policies has become much more common in recent years, even in the United States. Among thoughtful men and women, and especially among the young, sympathy for Israel has fallen noticeably, while skepticism about the role of the Holocaust in society has grown. The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau Robert Clive -- Institute for Historical Review  ... That atrocities were committed by the Allies against Germans and non-combatant civilians on both the Eastern and Western fronts is not often acknowledged. In large measure this reflects the fact that "victors write the history." ... POWs, whether Germans or Axis allies, were often shot out of hand, or shortly after they had been questioned. At Feodosiya, on the Black Sea, wounded soldiers were drenched with water and then left on the beaches to freeze to death ... When the Red Army invaded German territory in late 1944, civilians who had been unable to flee before their advance were condemned to undergo a regime of ferocious brutality. At such towns as Goldap, Gumbinnen, and Nemmersdorf, even children were raped before being murdered by Russian soldiers. Turkey Bars Israeli Flight Bound for Auschwitz AOL News The Turkish government confirmed today that an Israeli military cargo plane taking soldiers to visit the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in Poland was banned from entering Turkish airspace. The move comes as Turkey has promised to reduce ties with Israel to a minimum after nine Turkish citizens were killed late last month when Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel attempting to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Military flights from Israel will from now on be allowed to enter Turkish airspace only on a case-by-case basis. Iranian Delegation Rejects German Invitation to Visit Former-Nazi Camp DPA (Germany)  An Iranian delegation upset its German hosts by refusing to tour a concentration-In Norway, 40 Percent Support Ban on Israeli Products AFP  More than 40% of Norwegians are already boycotting Israeli products or are in favor of doing so, according to a poll published Wednesday, two days after Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. The survey, conducted on Tuesday by the InFact institute and published Wednesday in the Verdens Gang tabloid, showed that 9.5% of the Norwegians questioned were already boycotting Israeli products, while 33.5% said they would like to. Only 29.4% of the 1,028 people polled said they were opposed to such a boycott, while 27.6% said they had no opinion on the issue. The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict Jews for Justice in the Middle East  As the periodic bloodshed continues in the Middle East, the search for an equitable solution must come to grips with the root cause of the conflict. The conventional wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational "terrorists" who have no point of view worth listening to. Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance ... This paper outlines the history of Palestine to show how this process occurred and what a moral solution to the region's problems should consist of. If you care about the people of the Middle East, Jewish and Arab, you owe it to yourself to read this account of the other side of the historical record. Punishing Turkey Philip Giraldi  ... Hitlerization is the price one inevitably pays for criticizing Israel or opposing its policies. Whenever Israel discovers that yet another foreign nation has turned Nazi and is intent on recreating the Holocaust, the American lap dog soon picks up the scent ... But now it [Turkey] must be punished because it has crossed the line by opposing the kleptocracy Israel. And it will be punished, first pilloried in the US media, a process which is underway right now, and then by the US Congress and White House, which will together find some subtle and not-so-subtle ways to bring Ankara to heel. And the loser in all of this will be the American people, who will alienate a good and staunch friend in the Middle East and make another unnecessary enemy. New Documents Describe Hitler's Time in Prison Der Spiegel (Germany)  New historical documents show that Adolf Hitler wanted for nothing during his short incarceration at Landsberg Prison in 1924. He was able to hold court and maintain his political contacts -- all with the consent of the prison management. A personnel manager couldn't have been more well-meaning in his description. "He was always reasonable, frugal, modest and polite to everyone, especially the officials at the facility," prison warden Otto Leybold wrote about the inmate on Sept. 18, 1924. The prisoner, he added, didn't smoke or drink and "submitted willingly to all restrictions.America's Becoming a Babylon Tower Patrick J. Buchanan -- Russia Today America is breaking down into ethnic, religious, political and even racial enclaves and risks the same thing that happened to the Soviet Union in 1991, according to political commentator and author Pat Buchanan. "Native born Americans of European descent are the ones who are really angriest at the enormous numbers of illegal aliens marching into the country, many if not most of them from the third world, changing the character and composition of their country and eventually voting them out of power," states Buchanan ... Today he says that America is "developing a society of a war of all against all". In California, Whites Now `Below The Replacement' Level San Francisco Chronicle  California's white population has declined since 2000 at an unprecedented rate, hastening the day when Hispanics will be the state's largest population group, according to newly released state figures. There were half a million fewer whites in California in 2008 than in 2000, a period when the state's overall population grew by 4 million to 38.1 million, according to a study released Thursday by the state Department of Finance. By 2008, whites made up 40 percent of Californians, down from 47 percent at the turn of the century. In 2000, Hispanics comprised 32 percent of the population; that number grew to 37 percent in 2008. Was Supreme Court Nominee Kagan a Youthful Socialist? Time magazine  Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's undergraduate thesis submitted at Princeton University in 1981, was a detailed history of the rise and fall of New York's Socialist Party in the early 20th Century. It's an impressive work for a young person -- and it is sparking questions about the extent to which the young Kagan had embraced left-wing views ... Kagan's critics will focus on her conclusion, however -- which can be read as a personal statement in support of the socialist dream. "The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America," she wrote. "American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope." United Kingdom Faces Worst Budget Cuts Since World War II BBC News  The United Kingdom faces the "longest, deepest, sustained period of cuts to public services spending at least since World War II", said an economic think tank. It is the first time that six years of consecutive spending cuts will have been endured, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said. Some government departments may see budgets slashed by a third, it added. Churchill and U.S. Entry Into World War II David Irving  ... If I'm known for anything as a historian, apart from being a pain in the neck, it's because I uncover things. And uncovering things does not necessarily mean you go into the archives and see something and say: "Look at this, this is something quite extraordinary.Churchill `Agonized' Over His `Finest Hour' Speech, Papers Reveal The Telegraph (Britain)  The address he made to the British nation as it stood alone against the Nazi war machine is one of the most celebrated speeches in history. Full of passion and Shakespearesque language, his appeal for fortitude and courage was credited with re-galvanising the country in its darkest hour. But a new examination of his papers shows how he agonised over every famous phrase - even adding one at the last minute - and how his private secretary was secretly unimpressed by his efforts. The Real Churchill Adam Young ... The truth about Winston Churchill is that he was a menace to liberty, and a disaster for Britain, for Europe, for the United States of America, and for Western Civilization itself ... With his lack of principles and scruples, Churchill was involved in one way or another in nearly every disaster that befell the 20th century. He helped destroy laissez-faire liberalism, he played a role in the Crash of 1929, he helped start World War I, and by bringing in America to help, prolonged the war and created the conditions for the rise of Nazism, prolonged World War II, laid the groundwork for Soviet domination, helped involve America in a cold war with Russia, and pioneered in the development of total war and undermining western civilized standards. Photos Document WWII Allied `War Against Art' Der Spiegel (Germany)  ... The Nazis decided to send German art historians to Italy to fulfill an article of the conventions which called for invading powers to ensure that cultural treasures in occupied territory be protected. The "art preservation unit," as it was named, was funded out of the military budget ... Before long, says Peters, the unit once responsible for protecting Italy's cultural heritage began delivering emotional images depicting devastated palaces, churches reduced to heaps of rubble and shattered sculptures. ... He had hundreds of pictures taken and wrote contributions for brochures on "the war against art" in which he spoke of the "enemy terror attacks." Secret Mussolini Diaries Closed Until 2025 Daily Mail (Britain)  Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini hid a set of secret diaries in an Italian hillside and ordered them not to be opened until 2025, the son of the man who buried them has revealed. Mussolini, who ruled Italy from 1922 until he was executed by partisans in 1945, has long been rumoured to have kept diaries which could detail the extent of his relationship with wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Mad Dog of the Planet: Another Disaster for Israel's Propaganda Machine Patrick Cockburn  .. The problem is that nobody believes Israeli propaganda as much as Israelis. Pro-Palestinian activists often lament the fluency and mendacity of Israeli spokesmen on the airwaves and the pervasive influence of Israel's supporters abroad. But, in reality, these PR campaigns are Israel's greatest weakness, because they distort Israelis' sense of reality. Defeats and failures are portrayed as victories and successes. The slaughter of civilians is justified as a military necessity or somehow the fault of the other side. Opponents are demonized as bloodthirsty terrorists. Comforted by such benign accounts of their activities, Israeli leaders are consumed by arrogance because they come to believe they have never made a mistake. International Law and Israel's War on Gaza Francis A. Boyle  ... Israel has violated its conditions for admission to U.N. membership and thus must be suspended on a de facto basis from any participation throughout the entire United Nations System ... Third, we must abandon the fiction and the fraud that the United States government is an "honest broker." The United States government has never been an honest broker from well before the very outset of these negotiations in 1991. Rather, the United States has invariably sided with Israel against the Palestinians. Literary Reading in US in Sharp Decline National Endowment for the Arts (2004)  Literary reading is in dramatic decline with fewer than half of American adults now reading literature, according to a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) survey ... Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America reports drops in all groups studied, with the steepest rate of decline - 28 percent - occurring in the youngest age groups. The study also documents an overall decline of 10 percentage points in literary readers from 1982 to 2002, representing a loss of 20 million potential readers. The rate of decline is increasing and, according to the survey, has nearly tripled in the last decade. Chosen, But Not Special Michael Chabon -- The New York Times  ... As a Jewish child I was regularly instructed, both subtly and openly, that Jews, the people of Maimonides, Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk and Meyer Lansky, were on the whole smarter, cleverer, more brilliant, more astute than other people ... The man who praises you for your history of accomplishment may someday seek therein the grounds for your destruction. This is, of course, the foundational ambiguity of Judaism and Jewish identity: the idea of chosenness, of exceptionalism, of the treasure that is a curse, the blessing that is a burden, of the setting apart that may presage redemption or extermination. To be chosen has been, all too often in our history, to be culled. Is Benjamin Netanyahu Rational? Philip Giraldi  ... The neoconservatives frequently complain that Islam is not a "religion of peace," but the Old Testament is also a bloody book, including as it does many accounts of the Israelites massacring their enemies with God's blessing. There are also elements of the Jewish religion that are dark and lend themselves to a mindset that accepts one standard for Jews and another for gentiles ... Based on recent evidence, lying to the gentiles certainly appears to be the hallmark of the Israeli government response to the Gaza flotilla massacre. The Israelis have fabricated information and even two videos, contrived a manifestly false narrative, and lied at every step along the way More College Grads Are Returning Home to Live Baltimore Sun  ... A survey of last year's college graduation class showed that 80 percent moved back home after getting their diplomas, up significantly from the 63 percent in 2006. The CollegeGrad.Obama Pushes Diversity in the Federal Courts McClatchy newspapers  President Barack Obama is appointing women and minorities to federal judgeships at an unprecedented rate, and nowhere is the evidence more clear than in the Golden State ... Obama has already done more to diversify the Supreme Court than any other president by choosing two women for the high court. His first choice, Sonia Sotomayor, is the first person of Latino heritage to serve on the Supreme Court. ... Of Obama's nominees, 43 percent are women and minorities, a much higher rate than any of his predecessors, according to an analysis by Alliance for Justice, a liberal advocacy group. Multiracial US Becoming Even More Diverse The Associated Press  The nation's minority population is steadily rising and now makes up 35 percent of the United States, advancing an unmistakable trend that could make minorities the new American majority by midcentury. As white baby boomers age past their childbearing years, younger Hispanic parents are having children -- and driving U.S. population growth ... Currently four states -- Hawaii, New Mexico, California and Texas -- as well as the District of Columbia have minority populations that exceed 50 percent. The Lobby's Blend of Paranoia and Belligerence Mike Carlton -- Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)  It is a ferocious beast, the Jewish lobby. Write just one sentence even mildly critical of Israel and it lunges from its lair, fangs bared ... It's standard operating procedure for the lobby to hurl accusations of anti-Semitism with that peculiar Israeli blend of paranoia and belligerence ... None of this is accidental. The Israel lobby, worldwide, is orchestrated in Jerusalem by a department in the Prime Minister's office with the rather Orwellian name of the Ministry for Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs. Less than 24 hours after the attack on the Mavi Marmara, the ministry hit the internet with "important talking points" for Jews around the world, the first of which was - surprisingly - that "the Palestinian people are not under blockade". The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment Peter Beinart -- The New York Review of Books  ... Morally, American Zionism is in a downward spiral. If the leaders of groups like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations do not change course, they will wake up one day to find a younger, Orthodox-dominated, Zionist leadership whose naked hostility to Arabs and Palestinians scares even them, and a mass of secular American Jews who range from apathetic to appalled. ... In the world of AIPAC, the Holocaust analogies never stop, and their message is always the same: Jews are licensed by their victimhood to worry only about themselves. ... This obsession with victimhood lies at the heart of why Zionism is dying among America's secular Jewish young. Israel's Cult of Victimhood Jonathan Cook  ... The Holocaust's lesson for most Israelis is not a universal one that might inspire them to oppose racism, or fanatical dictators or the bullying herd mentality that can all too quickly grip nations, or even state-sponsored genocide. Instead, Israelis have been taught to see in the Holocaust a different message: that the world is plagued by a unique and ineradicable hatred of Jews, and that the only safety for the Jewish people is to be found in the creation of a super-power Jewish state that answers to no one. Put bluntly, Israel's motto is: only Jewish power can prevent Jewish victimhood ... The lesson the rest of us need to draw from the deadly commando raid is that the world can no longer afford to indulge these delusions. What Price Afghanistan? Patrick J. Buchanan  ... Eight years ago, the Taliban seemed finished. Since then, we have poured in scores of thousands of troops, spent $300 billion, lost 1,000 soldiers and seen thousands more wounded. Yet, the Taliban have never been stronger or operated more broadly ... To succeed in creating in Afghanistan a country where the Taliban have been driven permanently from power and there is no chance of al-Qaida's returns, we need a government in Kabul and an Afghan army and police that can follow up U.S. military gains by taking control, protecting the population and providing social reforms. We don't have that government. We have, instead, a regime that has no confidence we will stay the course and is thus dealing behind our backs with the enemy who is killing our troops.Helen Thomas: An Appreciation Paul Craig Roberts ... Any other government that murdered thousands of civilians in other countries, as Israel does routinely in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank, would have its entire government and military on trial before the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague. Israelis have no worst enemy than their own government. Every time the rest of the world tries to hold the Israeli government accountable for its crimes, the US vetoes the UN resolution. America has become the enabler of the zionist-hijacked Israeli government. And the Israeli government knows it. Grim Outlook for the Global Economy Eric Margolis  ... The United States, 25 percent of the global economy, can't rein in its spending or cut debt. President George Bush inherited a surplus and went on to create the biggest deficit in US history (excepting WWII). Now, President Barack Obama is making matters worse by piling on more unsustainable debt ... Most alarmingly for resource exporters like Canada and Australia, Roubini warns China has massively overspent on infrastructure, exporting its excess capacity. Beijing has "front-loaded 15 years of capital spending," says Roubini. Who Are We Defending?: Cut Military Spending B. Friedman and C. Preble - Los Angeles Times  ... The truth is that the U.S. no longer has a "defense" budget. The adjective is wrong. Our military forces' size long ago ceased to have any meaningful attachment to the requirements of protecting Americans ... Our military spending is nearly equal to half the world's, and our allies spend most of the other half. Russia, China, North Korea, Syria and Iran collectively spend about a fourth of what we do on defense ... Our deficit problem is an opportunity to surrender the pretension that we are the world's indispensable nation, preventing instability, shaping the international system and guiding history. We should be content to settle for being the big kid on the block that looks out for itself and occasionally helps friends in a bad spot. Stop 'Thriving Holocaust Industry,' Says German Legislator Ynet News (Israel)  "Stop cooperation with the state of Jewish scoundrels", "Don't give in to the thriving Holocaust industry." These statements were not said in the Tehran parliament, but in the German city of Dresden, during a parliament meeting in the state of Saxony. Leader of the extreme right National Democratic Party (NPD) Holger Apfel stirred up a storm in the parliament on Thursday when he carried a speech titled "no to cooperation with scoundrel countries - and end cooperation between Saxony and Israel." In Ireland, a Call For End of `Cynical Holocaust Exploitation' by Israel The Irish Times (Ireland)  David Norris (Ind.) [member of the Seanad or Senate of the Irish Republic] called on the Israeli authorities to end their "cynical, heartless and contemptible exploitation of the Holocaust for their own political purposes. This lets us all down, including those tragic victims of Auschwitz and all the other terrible camps." Mr Norris said he utterly condemned the recent murderous assault on the Gaza-bound peace flotilla, "where, in what was the equivalent of Bloody Sunday for the Israelis, a group almost equal in numbers of innocent, peaceful protesters against an outrage against humanity in Gaza were slaughtered by Israeli commandos." Arizona Lawmaker Takes Aim at Automatic US Citizenship The Associated Press  Emboldened by passage of the nation's toughest law against illegal immigration, the Arizona politician who sponsored the measure now wants to deny U.S. citizenship to children born in this country to undocumented parents. Legal scholars laugh out loud at Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce's proposal and warn that it would be blatantly unconstitutional, since the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the U.S. But Pearce brushes aside such concerns ... The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War, reads: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." New York Hotel Pioneers Birth Tourism Breaking Travel News (Britain)  A New York hotel is staking its claim to have invented a new hospitality niche ? birth tourism. The Marmara Manhattan offers "an exclusive package for new mothers that wish to give birth in the USA", with the additional bonus of the newborn child gaining US citizenship. The hotel, which is part of the Turkish hospitality chain, exploits the 14th amendment to the US constitution, which states that all children born on American soil "are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside". Joe Biden: In Israel's Service Jeffrey Blankfort  ... Like scores of other US politicians who have traded their political souls for access to the seemingly bottomless checking accounts of Israel's American supporters, Biden has become a poster boy for "dual loyalty." Given that he has done this as a member of Congress and continues to do so while now a heartbeat from the White House should probably qualify him for a treason trial and a cell next to Jonathan Pollard ... Biden stated, "When I was a young senator, I used to say, 'If I were a Jew I'd be a Zionist.' I am a Zionist," he said. "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist." Genes Set Jews Apart, Study Finds Los Angeles Times  Jews of European descent living on opposite sides of the globe are more closely related to one another than they are to their fellow countrymen, according to the largest study ever conducted of what it means genetically to be Jewish. Ashkenazis, the primary group descended from European Jews, are all as closely related as fourth or fifth cousins would be, the study found ... They [Jews] are not different enough to be considered a separate race, as some experts have argued, he added, but definitely are a "distinct population" -- the result, presumably, of cultural separation down through thousands of years. Irving's File on the Strange Franke-Gricksch Documents David Irving  An index to documents on the 1943 "Franke-Gricksch Report," including 1945 British Army documents on the genuine Franke-Gricksch report, a summary of the genuine report, entries from the postwar diary of SS officer Maximilian von Herff, a facsimile of the alleged extract of the Franke-Gricksch report made public by Lipman. Pearl Harbor: Case Closed? Theodore O'Keefe - Institute for Historical Review  ... Two recent books argue that Admiral Husband Kimmel, in particular, was gravely wronged by his superiors, not merely after December 7, 1941, but in the weeks and months before. One, Robert Stinnett's Day of Deceit, is radically revisionist, claiming to abound in new evidence for a conspiracy involving the president, the war and navy departments, the army chief of staff, and the chief of naval operations, among many other participants. The other, Michael Gannon's Pearl Harbor Betrayed, makes no explicit accusations of conspiracy, nor does it seriously fault America's confrontational diplomacy vis-a-vis Japan in the years leading up to the attack. Odd as it might seem, this reviewer found the second the more satisfying book. Franklin Roosevelt, the Myth of Pearl Harbor, and the U.N. John V. Denson  A book entitled The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable, by George Victor and published by Potomac Books Inc. of Washington, D.C. is well researched and gives a very clear picture of how and why the Pearl Harbor myth was created. ... Based on a good summary of the up-to-date research the author, who is an approving admirer of Roosevelt, concludes that Roosevelt deliberately provoked the attack and that he and his key military and administrative advisers clearly knew, well in advance, that the Japanese were going to attack both Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. Remains of First King of England's Sister Found in German Cathedral The Guardian (Britain) Bones offer insight into royal life of Eadgyth, whose brother Athelstan married off to German king in 929, say scientists. She ate lots of fish, rode frequently, may have suffered from a disease or an eating disorder at ten and regularly moved around the chalky uplands of southern England, presumably as she followed her regal father around his kingdom. Analysis of remains found in a German cathedral have not only confirm they belonged to the granddaughter of the English king Alfred the Great but also given an insight into the life and times of a Saxon princess. Israelis Feel Growing Isolation The Associated Press  ... Israel seems to be losing the battle against the country's isolation worldwide. That isolation was exacerbated after Israel's May 31 naval raid on a flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza spiraled into violence that left nine Turkish activists dead in a clash with the troops. Ecuador, South Africa and Turkey recalled their ambassadors and Nicaragua broke off diplomatic relations following the raid. Vietnam put off a visit by Israel's president, Greece suspended military exercises and Swedish dockworkers launched a weeklong boycott of Israeli ships and goods. The Deadly Closing of the Israeli Mind Ilan Pappé -- The Independent (Britain) ... One would have thought that Israel's drastic decline in international reputation would prompt new thinking by its leaders. But the responses to the attack on the flotilla in the past few days indicate clearly that there is no hope for any significant shift in the official position ... As long as the international community is complacent, the Arab world impotent and Gaza contained, Israel can still have a thriving economy and an electorate that regards the dominance of the army in its life, the continued conflict and the oppression of the Palestinians as the exclusive past, the present and future reality of life in Israel. In the Footsteps of the Oregon Trail Pioneers The Associated Press  ... Kids crossing the continent in the mid-19th century often had roles and responsibilities that were critical to the family's survival, said Larry Jones, a retired Idaho state historian who has written extensively about the Oregon Trail. "They were pretty tough little kids," said Jones. "Many walked the entire 2,000 miles barefoot." It's been about 160 years since the westward migration started up in force between Missouri and the Pacific states, but there are still plenty of signs left behind by the more than 400,000 people estimated to have made that journey. ... The details of the crossing are dramatic. An estimated one in ten pioneers perished en route from cholera or dysentery or from accidents like accidental gunshots or falling under a wagon wheel. Why Some Jews Would Rather Live in Siberia Than Israel The Christian Science Monitor  ... This Siberian territory bordering Manchuria and seven time zones east of Moscow is a Jewish republic. The Jewish Autonomous Region [Birobidzhan] was created by Stalin 75 years ago as an alternative to the Zionist project in Israel ... Today, just 6,000 of the region's 200,000 residents identify as Jews. But the Jewish dream in Siberia is not quite dead yet, and the region is now experiencing a small revival, thanks to Jews arriving from Israel. Orthodox Jews Rally to Maintain Segregated Schools Haaretz (Israel)  One of the toughest clashes between the [Israeli] state and Israel's ultra-Orthodox community came to a head on Thursday ... The parents, of Ashkenazi descent, have refused to allow their daughters to study alongside peers from Sephardi descent at a religious school in the West Bank settlement of Immanuel. The parents had removed their daughters from the school, despite the court's decision barring them from doing so, and refused to comply with the ruling in the future ... 100,000 ultra-Orthodox demonstrators came out to the streets to support the right of Ashkenazi Hasidic parents to keep their children in classes segregated from their Sephardi peers and to greet the parents on their way to custody. In India, Hitler Memorabilia Attracts Youthful Interest BBC News  Slowly but steadily, a decade-old business around the dead and universally despised dictator Adolf Hitler is emerging as a small-scale industry in India. Books and memorabilia on the German leader's life have found a steady market in some sections of Indian society where he is idolised and admired, mostly by the young ... Jaico, the largest publisher and distributor of Mein Kampf in India, has sold more than a 100,000 copies in the last ten years. Crossword, an India-wide chain of book stores, has sold more than 25,000 copies since 2000 and marketing head Sivaram Balakrishnan says: "It's been a consistent bestseller for us." ... In the US, it sold 26,000 copies last year 2009. In 2005 it sold 100,000 copies in Turkey in just a few months. US Policy in Afghanistan is Failing Gareth Porter -- Inter Press Service Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal confronts the specter of a collapse of U.S. political support for the war in Afghanistan in coming months comparable to the one that occurred in the Iraq War in late 2006. On Thursday, McChrystal's message that his strategy will weaken the Taliban in its heartland took its worst beating thus far, when he admitted that the planned offensive in Kandahar City and surrounding districts is being delayed until September at the earliest, because it does not have the support of the Kandahar population and leadership. Equally damaging to the credibility of McChrystal's strategy was the Washington Post report published Thursday documenting in depth the failure of February's offensive in Marja. US Hegemony in the Middle East Is Ending Chris Phillips -- The Guardian (Britain)  ... US power is waning. Though Washington remains the world's only superpower, the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan have exposed the limits of US ambitions, while the economic crisis has forced the Obama administration to focus energy elsewhere. While the Bush era saw the US hegemonic in the region, squeezing the defiant few like Syria and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, today's Middle East sees a power vacuum led by partial US retreat being filled by assertive regional and middle powers. Turkey and Brazil's recent nuclear deal with Iran typify this emerging new climate. British Government Names Special `Post Holocaust' Envoy BBC News  A former UK ambassador to Israel has been named as the government's first envoy for post-Holocaust issues. Sir Andrew Burns has held a number of positions during his diplomatic career and is a former chairman of the Anglo-Israel Association. Foreign Secretary William Hague said part of the job would be to "make sure the lessons of this terrible period in our history are never forgotten". A Day in November: Obama and Israel Uri Avnery  ... It seems that at some stage, months ago, Obama came to the conclusion that he had lost the first round of his contest with Binyamin Netanyahu, and that it would be better to live and fight another day. He himself spelled it out in a conversation with Jewish leaders: at the beginning of his path in the Middle East he stepped on some landmines. He has learned his lesson ... AIPAC has already shown that it can have a big impact on election results. When the lobby decides to topple a member of Congress, that is the end of his political life. When the lobby concentrates its financial and political might on a certain spot, it is almost invincible. Obama Goes With Neocon Flow on Iran Robert Parry Whether wittingly or witlessly, President Barack Obama is pursuing a neocon-charted path on Iran that parallels the one that George W. Bush took to war with Iraq - ratcheting up sanctions against the "enemy," refusing to tolerate more peaceful options, and swaggering along with the propagandistic tough-guy-ism of the major U.S. news media ... That may be the opposite of what Obama seeks, but it is what the neocons and Likud would cite as justification for another Middle East war. Just as the neocons and Israel wanted "regime change" in Iraq, they have long hungered for "regime change" in Iran, too. Hans Schmidt, RIP Revisionists.  Hans Schmidt was an energetic and prolific German-American activist who for years steadfastly defended Germany's heritage, forthrightly countering lies and distortions of twentieth-century European history. He was also the author of several books. During World War Two he served as a soldier in the Waffen SS. He died on May 30, 2010, in North Carolina, where he had been living with his wife. Obama Secretly Deploys US Special Forces to 75 Countries Across World The Times (Britain)  President Obama has secretly sanctioned a huge increase in the number of US special forces carrying out search-and-destroy missions against al-Qaeda around the world, with American troops now operating in 75 countries. The dramatic expansion in the use of special forces, which in their global span go far beyond the covert missions authorised by George W. Bush, reflects how aggressively the President is pursuing al-Qaeda behind his public rhetoric of global engagement and diplomacy. Wartime Pope Begged President Roosevelt to Halt US Bombing of Rome The Telegraph (Britain)  Pope Pius XII personally wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Second World War to beg him to spare Rome from bombing. A newly disclosed letter has unveiled the extent of the Vatican's anguish over Allied raids on the city and its cultural and architectural treasures. In his letter, dated August 30, 1943, the wartime pope said Italy was "shackled and quite without the necessary means of defending herself." ... The British and Americans began raids on Rome on May 16, 1943. One of the heaviest raids was on July 19, 1943, when more than 500 Allied aircraft bombed railway freight yards, steel factories and an airstrip, causing hundreds of civilian casualties. Long-Term Jobless Rate Sets New Record The Associated Press  ... The proportion of people jobless for six months or more has accelerated in the past year and now makes up 46 percent of the unemployed. That's the highest percentage on records dating to 1948. By late summer or early fall, they are expected to make up half of all jobless Americans. Economists say those out of work for six months or more risk becoming less and less employable. Their skills can erode, their confidence falter, their contacts dry up. Their growing ranks also will keep pressure on Congress to keep extending jobless benefits, which now run for up to 99 weeks. In India, A Major New Film About Hitler IANS (India)  Indian history has been revised time and again on celluloid, but debutant director Rakesh Ranjan Kumar moves into a global canvas with 'Dear Friend Hitler' to capture the last few days of the Nazi dictator in his Berlin bunker and Germany after his downfall in 1945 ... Rakesh maintains that the film also shows how Hitler contributed to India's independence and what happened to soldiers in Subhas Chandra Bose's Azad Hind Legion in Germany. 'It shows Hitler's love for India and how he indirectly contributed to Indian independence. It also depicts the struggle for survival of the lesser known Indian Legion soldiers who were left in Germany by Subhas Bose to fight for India's independence and Germany's prestige,' said Rakesh. Israel's Gaza Blockade Is For `Economic Warfare,' Not Security, Document Shows McClatchy newspapers  As Israel ordered a slight easing of its blockade of the Gaza Strip Wednesday, McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory ... Sari Bashi, the director of Gisha, said the documents prove that Israel isn't imposing its blockade for its stated reasons, but rather as collective punishment for the Palestinian population of Gaza. Gisha focuses on Palestinian rights. How Rudolf Hess Was Persuaded To Reveal Nazi Secrets The Times (Britain)  ... Hess was eventually persuaded to admit that he had been part of the planning team for the invasion of the Soviet Union. This is what had convinced him to try at the last moment to seek an alliance with Britain against Bolshevism. "I knew that there was only one way out -- and that was certainly not to fight against England," Hess said into the tape recorder. "Even though I did not get permission from the Führer to fly I knew that what I had to say would have had his approval. Hitler had great respect for the English people ... little did I know that Churchill did not have the power to stop the rolling stone. I went too late." ... Hess's mysterious death in 1987 fed the myths. "It must have been murder," Mr Zwar says. The Franke-Gricksch 'Resettlement Action Report': Anatomy of a Fabrication Brian Renk -- Institute For Historical Review  ... A key document cited by Fleming in his book is a two-page report entitled "Umsiedlungs-Attack on Flotilla Undermines Israel's Cause Nicholas D. Kristof -- The New York Times  ... Yet now, as a rabbi noted on my Facebook page, it is Israel that never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems locked in a self-defeating dynamic in which it feels misunderstood and gives up on international opinion. It lashes out with force in ways that undermine its own interests. It is on a path that could eventually be catastrophic ... Israel and its hard-core supporters tend to dismiss outside criticism as inherently unfair and anti-Semitic, and embrace unilateral solutions based on force ... Above all, Israel needs to be nudged away from its tendency to shoot itself in the foot, and us along with it. Israel's Insane Attack on the Freedom Flotilla. Prof. Avi Shlaim ... The present government [of Israel], however, is the most irresponsible, right-wing and racist in Israel's history. It seems to think that Israel is above the law and its behaviour is increasingly paranoid and irrational ... Israel's official spokesmen claim that their soldiers acted in self-defence against terrorists wielding knives and clubs. Anyone who believes this will believe anything. The official version of this incident, as of most incidents involving the use of force, is a pile of garbage. The backdrop to this act of piracy on the high is an unbroken record of Israeli brutality towards the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza going back to 1967. The Outrage at Helen Thomas Alison Weir  ... For years, long before her recent words, Thomas has been the target of Israel's vicious American volunteers, the Zionist blogosphere abounding with nasty slurs on her looks and her Lebanese ancestry, this latter also consistently emphasized by the media, despite her Kentucky birth and upbringing. One of the reasons for the ferocious animosity toward her is the fact that Thomas is one of the very few mainstream reporters to challenge the neocon engendered lies that led the U.S. into wars that have caused massive death, destruction and tragedy and to continue to expose ongoing policies of violence and cruelty. Veteran US Reporter Helen Thomas Quits Over Israel Comments BBC News Veteran US White House reporter Helen Thomas has retired after making controversial remarks about Israel. In an interview on May 27, she said that Israelis should get "the hell out of Palestine" and suggested they went to Germany, Poland or the US. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said her comments were "offensive and reprehensible" Helen Thomas Was Quoted Out of Context Paul Findley  Fearless, decent seeker-of-truth Helen Thomas, 89, the pre-eminent challenger of political power for a half-century as dean of White House correspondents, has resigned her position with Hearst Newspapers ... Her intent was unmistakable: Jews are unlawfully residing in occupied Palestine and should leave. She made no reference to Jews in pre-1967 Israel, where all Jews can lawfully reside ... This dark, undeserved cloud over the reputation of an unrelenting grand champion of human rights will have a silver lining if it awakens the American people to their own quiet, complicit role in Israel's sustained violation of Palestinian rights. Our Job in a Time of Crisis Mark Weber - Institute for Historical Review - Audio  Mark Weber explains why the work of the IHR in countering the forces of historical deceit, bigotry and cultural distortion is vitally important. An awareness of factual history is essential to an understanding of ourselves and the great issues of our age, says the IHR director in this five-minute audio presentation. Unless and until the interests that have gripped our nation are clearly identified and discredited, he says, there will be no change in basic policies or direction. The Soviet Story Edvins Snore - Film (2008)  Moving, disturbing, information-Israel's Latest Violation Stephen Zunes Every time Israel's right-wing government engages in yet another outrageous violation of international legal norms, it is easy to think, "No way are they going to get away with it this time!" And yet, thanks to the White House, Congress and leading American pundits, somehow, they do ... Obama's response to this tragedy underscores the phoniness of 'his advocacy for human rights elsewhere in the Middle East ... They [Israelis] can't have it both ways. They can either acknowledge that the Gaza Strip remains occupied territory since Israel has it under a sea blockade, or they can acknowledge that the ships have a right to enter Gaza's port unimpeded. The Shah of Iran Speaks Bluntly About the Jewish Lobby CBS - 60 Minutes  In this 1970s interview, the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, speaks to Mike Wallace about the power in the US of the "Jewish lobby." It is "strong," he says, and is "controlling many things," including "newspapers, medias, banks, finance." And the Shah agrees when asked if "the Jewish community" in the US "makes the media reflect their view of foreign policy." Runtime: 3:07 mins. Israel Is Gradually Becoming Burden to US, Says Mossad Chief Haaretz (Israel)  Mossad Chief Meir Dagan said on Tuesday that Israel is progressively becoming a burden on the United States. "Israel is gradually turning from an asset to the United States to a burden," said Dagan, speaking before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Dagan said that the U.S. government has recently examined the possibility of coercing a settlement on Israel and the Palestinians, but retreated from the idea after realizing it would not lead to a peace agreement. Buchenwald: Legend and Reality Mark Weber  Buchenwald is widely regarded as one of wartime Germany's most notorious "death camps." In fact, though, this carefully cultivated image bears little resemblance to reality ... The camp deserves another, more objective look. U.S. Military Spending Far Outpaces Rest of the World Inter Press Service  The United States continues to lead the world in defence spending, according to a new report released Thursday by the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a U.S.-based non-partisan research organisation. In fact, the U.S outspends Russia, the next highest spender, by more than 800 percent ... Not only does U.S. spending dwarf that of other nations, but it has also grown in recent years. The budget for fiscal year 2011 is 720 billion dollars, up 67 percent from 2001's 432 billion, accounting for inflation ... The U.S. Navy can carry twice as many aircrafts at sea as the rest of the world put together, he said, and the navy's overall power is estimated to exceed that of the next 13 most powerful navies combined. Dunkirk: Are We Finally Ready to Face the Truth? Peter Hitchens - Daily Mail (Britain)  I think enough time has passed since Dunkirk for us to admit the truth about it. It was not a triumph, but a terrible national defeat - surpassed in the 20th Century only by the other Churchillian catastrophe of Singapore in 1942. Having entered a war for which we were wholly unready, for a cause which was already lost, at a time we did not choose and with allies on whom we could not rely, we were flung off the continent of Europe in weeks. Only thanks to a double devil's pact did we survive as a nation. We sold our economy and our empire to Franklin Roosevelt's USA, and we handed half of Europe to Joseph Stalin's homicidal tyranny. They won the war in the end, though we had to contribute many lives to their victory. Time To Call Out Israel's Bad Behavior James Zogby ... The on-going Israeli blockade of Gaza is illegal and immoral. Gaza is one of the poorest places on earth (I've been there and been overwhelmed by what I experienced) America Complicit in Israel's Crimes Paul Craig Roberts ... Once again the US government has permitted the Israeli state to murder good people known for their moral conscience ... Conservative Americans want the US to be like Israel. They do not understand why the US doesn't stop pissing around after nine years and just go ahead and defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. They don't understand why the US didn't defeat whoever was opposing American forces in Iraq. Conservatives are incensed that America had to "win" the war by buying off the Iraqis and putting them on the US payroll. Israel murders people and then blames its victims. This appeals to American conservatives, who want the US to do the same. Germany's Birth Rate Hits Historic Low Time  Germany is shrinking -- fast. New figures released on May 17 show the birth rate in Europe's biggest economy has plummeted to a historic low, dropping to a level not seen since 1946. As demographers warn of the consequences of not making enough babies to replace and support an aging population, the latest figures have triggered a bout of national soul-searching and cast a harsh light on Chancellor Angela Merkel's family policies. According to a preliminary analysis by the Federal Statistics Office, 651,000 children were born in Germany in 2009 -- 30,000 fewer than in 2008, a dip of 3.6%. In 1990, German mothers were having on average 1.5 children each; today that average is down to 1.38 children per mother. The U.S.S. Liberty and the Culture of Impunity Philip Weiss  The attack on the USS Liberty is one of the great enigmas of US-Israel relations. On June 8, 1967, in the middle of the Six-Day War, Israeli planes attacked an American spy ship, the Liberty, that was in international waters off the coast of Egypt, listening in on secret communications. The attacks appeared to be deliberate, involving numerous passes on a clearly-marked American boat, strafing and napalming. The attack killed 34 Americans and produced very little by way of investigation. It was deemed an accident from the start, although many American officials doubted this conclusion. The USS Liberty: America's Most Shameful Secret Eric Margolis (2001) ... Far more shocking was Washington's response. Writes Bamford: 'Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel attacked the ship and killed American servicemen deliberately, the Johnson Administration and Congress covered up the entire incident.' Why? Domestic politics. Johnson, a man never noted for high moral values, preferred to cover up the attack rather than anger a key constituency and major financial backer of the Democratic Party. Congress was even less eager to touch this 'third rail' issue. The Vexing 'Jewish Question' Goldwin Smith (1894)  .... Those who maintain that there is nothing in the character, habits, or disposition of the Jew to provoke antipathy have to bring the charge of fanatical prejudice not only against the Russians or against Christendom, but against mankind ... Critics of Judaism are accused of bigotry of race, as well as of bigotry of religion. The accusation comes strangely from those who style themselves the Chosen People, make race a religion, and treat all races except their own as Gentiles and unclean ... We have given up the fancy that the Jew is accursed. We must cease to believe that he is sacred. Socialism in North Dakota: Story of a State-Owned Bank John Case The Bank of North Dakota is the only state-owned bank in America. Despite that, or because of it, the bank earned a record profit last year even as its private-sector corollaries lost billions ... The North Dakota state bank was created 90 years ago, in 1919, as a populist movement swept the northern plains. Basically it was a very angry movement led by farmers against bank and land speculators in Minneapolis, or New York. ADL Rewrites New Testament: Oberammergau' Harmony Grant Daws  ... Over the past two decades, the town [Oberammergau, in Bavaria] has been the stage for a different kind of passion play. Few places in the world more perfectly present the drama of Jewish power and aggressive intent to deny public expressions of Christianity. For the past two decades, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League -- ever-ready to stifle any virile expression of Christianity -- has taken its editing scissors to the play's script. Jewish crimes have been expunged. Today, the Jews play a bleached and sanitized role in the death of Christ. Turkey's Prime Minister Denounces Israel's Latest Attack and Its Lies Video  In a major address, Turkish prime minister Erdogan denounces as an act of "state terrorism" Israel's recent attack against an international humanitarian aid ship. "Turkey will never give up on this issue," he says. Israel, he goes on, "uses lying as a state policy, and is not ashamed of its crimes." He warns: "Turkey's hostility is as strong as its friendship." "We are sick your lies," he concludes. Runtime: 2:02 mins. Gaza Attack Shows How Far Israel Has Declined David Grossman (Israel) No explanation can justify or whitewash the crime that was committed off the coast here early Monday morning, and no excuse can explain away the stupid actions of the Israeli government and the army ... Above all, this insane operation shows how far Israel has declined. There is no need to overstate this claim. Anyone with eyes to see understands and feels it. Already there are those here who seek to spin the natural and justified sense of Israeli guilt into a strident assertion that the whole world is to blame. Our shame, however, will be harder to live with. Palestinians' Loss of Land, 1946-2000 Occupation magazine Four colored maps graphically show how Zionist policies have steadily brought ever more Palestinian land under Jewish control. The `Good War' It Wasn't James J. Martin - Institute for Historical Review  Of the approximately half-million titles issued by mainline American publishers in the 1980s, Wartime by Professor Paul Fussell is one of a small selection which a revisionist might profit from reading ... It used to be a conviction generations ago that the only certainty upon the outbreak of war was that one side would not win. Modern wars are mainly lost by both sides, though it takes awhile for this to be realized ... All times are disorderly. The notion that human affairs move in the direction of something called "normalcy" is a hallucination. Vienna Has World's Best Quality Of Life Agence France Presse  Vienna has the world's best quality of life and Baghdad the worst, with wildly popular but less organized cities like New York and London falling between, according to a survey Wednesday. Mercer consultants' city rankings for 2010 lists Vienna, Zurich, Geneva, Vancouver and Auckland the top five urban living destinations. Paris comes in only at 34, London at 39, Tokyo 40, Madrid 48 and New York at a lowly 49 ... Switzerland scores three times in the top ten with the addition of Bern at number nine. Germany also has three top ten: Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich. Netherlands, Canada Happiest With Their Local Area Reuters  Residents of the Netherlands, Canada and Australia are the most satisfied with the areas where they live, according to a survey of 23 countries. Paris-based market research company Ipsos asked about 23,000 people if they were satisfied with their local area and found that job prospects, clean streets and the level of crime and public transport were major factors in people's happiness ... The people who were most satisfied with their local area were the Dutch, with 85 percent of people living in the Netherlands happy with their neighborhood. Canada came second with 83 percent satisfaction, followed by Australia with 82 percent. India, Germany and the US rounded out the top six. The Art of War BBC News - Audio  The Art of War is an ancient Chinese treatise on military and intelligence strategy. It was written by the military scholar Sun Tzu about 2,500 years ago and still has tremendous relevance to war now. Over the centuries it has been influential to both traditional armies and guerrilla fighters - the IRA, for instance, read it with interest and commanders in the first Gulf war and the recent war in Iraq have spoken of the influence of Sun Tzu on direct military operations and the intelligence cycle during extended wars. But ultimately the moral of Sun Tzu's book is that the greatest leaders avoid war: Runtime: 22:22 mins. Tintin Ban is `Like Book Burning' The Telegraph (Britain)  Legal attempts to ban [the book] Tintin in the Congo for racism are a form of "book burning", according to lawyers acting for the estate of Hergé, the Belgian cartoon hero's creator. Belgium's courts are investigating whether Tintin's 1931 Congolese adventures, when the country was a Belgian colony, portrays black Africans in a racist way ... Allegations of racism surrounding the Tintin book are deeply sensitive in Belgium, a small country where the intrepid boy reporter and his dog Snowy are a rare national symbol, and where postcolonial guilt over its record in the Congo is acute. Welcome to Obama's Jewish America JTA  ... The first-ever Jewish America Heritage Month celebration at the White House on Thursday underscored the Obama administration'Remembering Wars and Warriors Patrick J. Buchanan  ... In the grammar and high schools we attended in the 1940s and early 1950s, they were all good wars, all just wars, all necessary wars. Perhaps that is how it should be taught to America's children ... In 1917, we declared war on Germany "to make the world safe for democracy." And our major allies were four of the largest empires on earth: the British, French, Russian and Japanese. We deposed the Kaiser, and got Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and World War II. As a result of these world wars, all the Western empires fell, and Western Civilization began its inexorable advance to the grave. Impending bankruptcy aside, not one Western nation has a birth rate that will enable its native-born to survive many more generations. We did it to ourselves. Newly Discovered Film Shows Post-War Massacre of Germans Der Spiegel (Germany)  It has long been known that German civilians fell victim to Czech excesses immediately following the Nazi surrender at the end of World War II. But a newly discovered video shows one such massacre in brutal detail. And it has come as a shock to the Czech Republic ... The shaky images show an event that has been described again and again by eyewitnesses and historians: the systematic killing of German civilians. Yet the film comes as a shock to Czechs. "Until now, there was no footage whatsoever of such executions," says Czech documentary filmmaker David Vondracek, who showed the historical images on television. "When I watched this for the first time, it was like seeing a live broadcast from the past." National Debt Soars Past $13 Trillion ABC News  The U.S. national debt has passed the $13 trillion mark, according to USDebtClock.Worldwide Outrage Over Deadly Israeli Raid on Gaza Ship Agence France Presse  Shock and outrage swept the globe Monday after Israeli commandos stormed a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza Strip, as the Jewish state's foes and allies closed ranks in condemning the deadly raid. The UN's rights chief Navi Pillay said she was "shocked" at the violence of the raid, which left at least ten dead, many of them reportedly Turks, while the European Union demanded a full inquiry from Tel-Aviv ... In Europe, condemnation was equally swift. The European Union demanded Israel mount a "full inquiry," with foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton demanding "an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening" of crossings to Gaza. World Condemns Israel After Aid Ship Attack Sky News (Britain)  An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council has been held amid mass protests and international condemnation after Israel's deadly attack on an international aid convoy. Britain joined other countries in denouncing the dawn raid as "deplorable" with Palestinian leaders describing the bloodshed as a "massacre" ... The incident has sparked a diplomatic crisis, while tens of thousands of people rallied across the world in furious protest. Israeli flags were burned as 10,000 marched through the streets of Istanbul, as the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accused Israel of committing "inhuman state terror". The War Over America's Past Patrick J. Buchanan  ... Liberals are enraged that a Republican-dominateWho Has a Right to Live in the U.S.? Walter E. Williams ... There are close to seven billion people on our planet. I'd like to know how the libertarians answer this question: Does each individual on the planet have a natural or God-given right to live in the U.S.? ... Various estimates put the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. between 10 and 20 million. One argument says we can't round up and deport all those people. That argument differs little from one that says since we can't catch every burglar, we should grant burglars amnesty. New Zealand Bans Jewish Ritual Slaughter JTA  New Zealand has banned shechita, the kosher slaughter of animals. The country's new animal welfare code, which took effect Friday, mandates that all animals for commercial consumption be stunned prior to slaughter to ensure they are treated "humanely and in accordance with good practice and scientific knowledge." The regulation has shocked the Jewish community. Palestine/ Israel History Since 1878 Sabbah TV (Video) A short documentary that debunks familiar "Big Lie" myths about Zionist ambitions, policies and history. Shows how Israel was built on the land, homes and bodies of the native Palestinians. Also reviews Zionist massacres. Runtime: 9:40 mins. Israel Is Ready For War On Iran, Says Netanyahu Deputy Reuters  Israel is primed for a war on Iran, a deputy to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, in a rare break with his government's reticence as world powers try to talk Tehran into curbing its nuclear plans. By spearheading assaults on guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon and Palestinian territories, the Israeli air force had gained the techniques necessary for any future strikes on Iranian sites, Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said. ... Israel, which is assumed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981 and launched a similar sortie in Syria in 2007. US Orders Expanded Secret Actions in Mideast The New York Times  The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents. The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate. The Spanish Inquisition and the Jewish Question Brian Chalmers - The Institute for Historical Review  It is nearly impossible to dig into any chapter of Jewish history without uncovering lessons for our own age. Spain during the 15th and 16th centuries is a particularly striking example. Even today, our view of this period, and particularly of the Spanish Inquisition, colors our attitudes regarding relations between Jews and non-Jews. The Inquisition is considered one of Jewish history's darkest chapters -- and one of Christian history's most shameful. The Strategic Ally Myth: Israel and the US Philip Giraldi  ....Israel is not now and never has been an ally of the United States. As Zuckerman is a lawyer he should know that to be an ally requires an agreement in writing that spells out the conditions and reciprocity of the relationship. Israel has never been an ally of any country because it would force it to restrain its aggressive behavior, requiring consultation with its ally before attacking other nations. It is also unable to define its own borders, which have been expanding ever since it was founded in 1948. ... Make no mistake, Tel Aviv is always carefully calculating how it can use Washington to further its own objectives with little regard for possible American interests. China: A New Sun Rises in the East Martin Jacques - New Statesman (Britain)  ... Even a more democratic China will be profoundly different from the western model. In short, China will act as an alternative model to the west, embodying a very different kind of political tradition - a post-colonial, developing country, a Communist regime, a highly sophisticated statecraft, and an authoritarian Confucian rather than democratic polity ... The United States is entering a protracted period of economic, political and military trauma. It finds itself on the eve of a psychological, emotional and existential crisis. Its medium-term reaction is unlikely to be pretty: the world must hope it is not too ugly. Israel's Bomb Out of the Shadows Jonathan Cook  Israel faces unprecedented pressure to abandon its official policy of "ambiguity" on its possession of nuclear weapons as the international community meets at the United Nations in New York this week to consider banning such arsenals from the Middle East. Israel's equivocal stance on its atomic status was shattered by reports on Monday that it offered to sell nuclear-armed Jericho missiles to South Africa's apartheid regime back in 1975. The revelations are deeply embarrassing to Israel given its long-standing opposition to signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, arguing instead that it is a "responsible power" that would never misuse nuclear weapons technologies if it acquired them. Deficit Disorder: The Keynes Solution Robert Skidelsky -- New Statesman (Britain)  ... The one experiment that did prove Keynes's case was undertaken in Hitler's Germany, under the aegis of the Führer's economics minister Hjalmar Schacht, though not in conditions that encouraged democratic emulation. The Schachtian system consisted of three main elements: a) controls on capital exports, b) bilateral payments agreements, whereby Germany's trading partners were only allowed to sell as much to Germany as they brought from Germany, and c) huge state credits to German industry ("printing money"), which over four years reduced unemployment from six million to near zero, with inflationary pressure being repressed by wage and price controls. The Genocide Britain Hushed Up Daily Mail (Britain)  A new film tells the terrible story of Stalin's own Final Solution - and Churchill's shameful complicity / … This is the harrowing scene of a devastating new film, Katyn. It takes its name from the village in western Russia where the bodies of more than 4,000 Polish prisoners of war were dug up in 1943. But these bodies were by no means the only ones to be disinterred. Near the Soviet city of Kalinin, now known as Tver, another 6,000 bodies were unearthed. Near Kharkov in Ukraine there were 4,000. In all, more than 22,000 Poles -- roughly two-thirds of them officers and policemen, the rest political prisoners -- suffered the same appalling fate: to be executed, without trial or even warning, and thrown like carcasses into mass graves. Germar Rudolf Released from Prison in Germany Altermedia  Germar Rudolf, 44, a German chemist and intellectual dissident who had been serving a prison sentence for violating Germany's law against "Holocaust denial," was released from Mannheim prison on July 4 after three years and nine months behind bars. Upon his release, he was met by his American wife and four-year-old US-born daughter. In October 2005 he was arrested in Chicago, and deported to his homeland, where he was tried, sentenced, and imprisoned. David Irving Speaks in 17 US Cities in July  In a tour of the western US, David Irving is addressing meetings in 17 cities, including Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Costa Mesa, and Kansas City. His topic is "Hitler, Himmler and `Enigma': Re-writing World War II history using Nazi messages decoded by the British Secret Service." The best-selling British historian also has available copies of his prison memoir, which tells of his headline-making arrest and harrowing prison ordeal in Austria, 2005-06. Alarm in Baltic as Kremlin Seizes Control of Soviet Past The Independent (Britain)  In Russia it is not only the future that is unpredictable; often the past is equally in doubt … When authorities in Estonia removed a monument to Soviet soldiers from the centre of Tallinn two years ago, riots between police and ethnic Russian citizens of Estonia ensued, and the Kremlin made furious noises. With its new commission and law, Moscow is upping the stakes. Russia accuses the governments of Estonia and Latvia of glorifying partisan regiments which fought on the side of the Nazis. In recent years, relations between Latvia and Russia have normalised in many spheres, but the Second World War is still a thorny issue. Jewish Group Objects to Ukraine 'Great Famine' Case JTA  A Jewish group in Ukraine is objecting to a criminal case brought over the "Great Famine" committed in the 1930s. The nation's security service is pressing the case against a list of former Soviet officials accused of committing the Holodomor, which caused the deaths of millions in Ukraine in 1932-33. Most of the names on the list were Jewish. Holocaust Denial And Uncomfortable Truths Robin Davis  It has always been those few who can see through the political correctness and hypocrisy of popular attitudes who are considered dangerous. "Holocaust denial laws" are now in place in about a dozen countries. Defenders of these laws claim that the expression of unconventional views about the Jewish genocide is "hate speech" and "incitement to violence" and therefore must be suppressed. But history shows the greatest purveyors of lies, hatred and incitement to violence are those with the power to spread their poison by manipulating popular opinion via the control or complicity of the mass media. Jewish Leader: Obama May Be 'Most Hostile President to Israel' Ronald Kessler  President Barack Obama's refusal to take a stand on protests in Iran stands in sharp contrast to demands he has made on Israel, Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, says in a Newsmax interview … Klein says leaders of Jewish organizations are rethinking their support of Obama in light of his attitude toward Israel. "There are many leaders in the organized Jewish world who have privately discussed this issue with me, and say they are deeply concerned about Obama's actions and policies toward Israel, and now they're rethinking their support for Obama during the campaign and the election," says Klein … A `Virulent' New Anti-Semitism is Rife in Britain, Says Chief Rabbi The Times (Britain)  Britain is in the grip of a "virulent" new strain of anti-Semitism, according to the Chief Rabbi. Sir Jonathan Sacks told The Times in an interview that in January the number of anti-Semitic incidents reached the highest level since records began. Jews have been physically attacked, schools targeted and cemeteries desecrated … Although the new "mutation" was different from the anti-Semitism promoted by Hitler, it was dangerous because it was international, he said. "The internet means that we no longer have national cultures; we have global cultures and the new anti-Semitism is very much a phenomenon of the global culture." Whereas in the past, hatred was focused against Judaism as a religion or Jews as a race, the focus this time was on Jews as a nation. The Pentagon Spigot is Wide Open: How Obama Will Outspend Reagan on Defense Winslow T. Wheeler  … Not counting money projected for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the presidentially approved budget plan would continue increasing the Pentagon's budget: by another $8.1 billion in 2011 (up 1.5 percent), another $9 billion in 2012 (up 1.6 percent), and $10.4 billion in 2013 (up1.8 percent), and so on all the way out to 2019. If we add in the costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon budget for the current fiscal year - 2009 - exceeds any year since the end of World War II, including the spending peaks for the Korean and Vietnam wars. President Obama's plan is to increase that lead. Obama also will outspend Ronald Reagan on defense. The Language That Absolves Israel Saree Makdisi -- Los Angeles Times  … Reality can be so easily stood on its head when it comes to Israel because the misreading of Israeli declarations is a long-established practice among commentators and journalists in the United States. In fact, a special vocabulary has been developed for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. It filters and structures the way in which developing stories are misread here, making it difficult for readers to fully grasp the nature of those stories -- and maybe even for journalists to think critically about what they write. The ultimate effect of this special vocabulary is to make it possible for Americans to accept and even endorse in Israel what they would reject out of hand in any other country. The U.S. Regime-Change Recipe for Iran Paul Craig Roberts  … In Iran's system, election fraud has no purpose, because a small select group of ruling mullahs select the candidates who are put on the ballot. If they don't like an aspiring candidate, they simply don't put him on the ballot. When the liberal reformer Khatami ran for president, he won with 70% of the vote and served from 1997-2005. If the mullahs didn't defraud Khatami of his win, it seems unlikely they would defraud an establishment figure like Mousavi, who was foreign minister in the most conservative government, and is backed by another establishment figure, Rafsanjani. Holocaust Denial And Uncomfortable Truths Robin Davis It has always been those few who can see through the political correctness and hypocrisy of popular attitudes who are considered dangerous. "Holocaust denial laws" are now in place in about a dozen countries. Defenders of these laws claim that the expression of unconventional views about the Jewish genocide is "hate speech" and "incitement to violence" and therefore must be suppressed. But history shows the greatest purveyors of lies, hatred and incitement to violence are those with the power to spread their poison by manipulating popular opinion via the control or complicity of the mass media. Historian Says He's Found `Real' Reason for Hitler's Hatred of Jews Daily Mail (Britain)  Adolf Hitler's obsessive hatred for Jews was sparked by his experiences after World War One, according to a new book. Respected historian Ralf-George Reuth argues the dictator blamed them for both the Russian revolution and the collapse of the German economy. The claim is a stark contrast to previous theories … At the time almost half of all German private banks were Jewish owned, the stock exchange dominated by Jewish stockbrokers, almost half of the nation's newspapers were Jewish run as were 80 per cent of chain stores. It became fashionable to decry the loss of the war on Jewish financiers. But Hitler, according to Reuth, also blamed Jews for the Russian revolution … The Underworked American The Economist (Britain)  Americans like to think of themselves as martyrs to work. They delight in telling stories about their punishing hours, snatched holidays and ever-intrusive BlackBerrys … But when it comes to the young the situation is reversed. American children have it easier than most other children in the world, including the supposedly lazy Europeans. They have one of the shortest school years anywhere, a mere 180 days compared with an average of 195 for OECD countries and more than 200 for East Asian countries. German children spend 20 more days in school than American ones, and South Koreans over a month more. Canadian Politician Sues Jewish Groups JTA  An ex-candidate in Canada is suing the country's leading Jewish advocacy groups, alleging they ruined her political career. Lesley Hughes, who was dumped as a Liberal candidate in a Winnipeg-area electoral district, claims the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith Canada made false and defamatory accusations that she is anti-Semitic. In a lawsuit filed June 16, Hughes alleges that as a result of the actions of the CJC and B'nai Brith, former federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion revoked her candidacy in last September's federal elections. Sharp Drop In US Support for Israel, New Poll Shows Mondoweiss  … The state-run radio station's Washington correspondent, Nathan Guttman, obtained data from a recent unpublished poll, conducted by the Israel Project, an organization that works to improve Israel's image in the United States. The Israel Project has been conducting a periodic running poll, asking American registered voters questions about Israel … There is a steep decline in the percentage of Americans who say that the U.S. should support Israel. That has dropped from 71% in March 2008 (at the time of the Annapolis process) to only 44% now. Israeli 'Settlements' Tony Judt -- The New York Times  … Thus President Obama faces a choice. He can play along with the Israelis, pretending to believe their promises of good intentions and the significance of the distinctions they offer him. Such a pretense would buy him time and favor with Congress. But the Israelis would be playing him for a fool, and he would be seen as one in the Mideast and beyond. Alternatively, the president could break with two decades of American compliance, acknowledge publicly that the emperor is indeed naked, dismiss Mr. Netanyahu for the cynic he is and remind Israelis that all their settlements are hostage to American goodwill. He could also remind Israelis that the illegal communities have nothing to do with Israel's defense, much less its founding ideals of agrarian self-sufficiency and Jewish autonomy. The Risky Provocations of Mr. Netanyahu Leonard Fein -- Forward (New York)  … I sometimes fear there's a genetically inbred survival characteristic of the Jews that predisposes us to try to beat the system, to get away with things, a characteristic that came in very handy for all those many centuries during which the nerve and cleverness to beat the system enabled survival, but that has now become a dysfunctional anachronism. Be that as it may, Netanyahu's stance will likely turn out to be a serious miscalculation of Obama's intentions and abilities. Obama has no intention of endangering Israel, but when it comes to outsmarting a would-be outsmarter, he is not exactly a beginner. Netanyahu's Speech: When He Says Yes, What Does He Mean? Uri Avnery (Israel) U.S. Jewish Leaders Deeply Troubled by Obama Haaretz (Israel)  There is growing concern among the American Jewish community over Obama's Mideast initiatives, this according to the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein. "President Obama's strongest supporters among Jewish leaders are deeply troubled by his recent Middle East initiatives, and some are questioning what he really believes," Hoenlein, said in an interview published Monday. Carter Says Palestinians Treated 'Like Animals' AFP Holocaust Lawyer Edward Fagan is Disbarred For Misusing Victims' Funds The Star-Ledger (New Jersey)  Only a few years ago, Edward Fagan was a world-renowned lawyer for the underdog, brash and audacious enough to take on Swiss banks and even whole countries to win judgments for Holocaust survivors and victims of South African apartheid. This week, the Supreme Court announced he was barred from practicing law in New Jersey, completing one of the steepest falls from grace in the state's law community. The court found Fagan, 56, misappropriated nearly $400,000 of the money he won for the victims he so effectively championed. |
Peace.
Michael Santomauro @ 917-974-6367
What sort of Truth is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth?
Let's End Thought Crimes in the Twenty-first Century. -- to separate historical fact from propaganda…peace is patriotic!
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