| 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. Israel Offered to Sell Nuclear Weapons to South Africa, Newly Revealed Documents Show The Guardian (Britain)  Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons. The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". .. The revelations will be an embarrassment ... They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted. Memos and Minutes That Confirm Israel's Nuclear Stockpile The Guardian (Britain) Documents reveal how then-defence minister Shimon Perez tried to sell South Africa's apartheid government the bomb. Katyn and the 'Good War' Patrick J. Buchanan  ... Before, during and after the Nuremberg trials that would convict the Nazis of "crimes against humanity," one of the greatest crimes against humanity in history was being committed. Fifteen million Germans - old men, women, children - were driven like cattle out of ancestral homes in Prussia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Silesia and the Sudetenland ... On Sept. 3, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany to restore the integrity and independence of Poland. For this great goal they converted a German-Polish clash that lasted three weeks into a world war lasting six years. And was Poland saved? No. Poland was crucified. The Dark Side of the 'Good War' Michael Bess -- Los Angeles Times  World War II is widely considered one of the most morally unambiguous military conflicts in history -- the quintessential "Good War," as journalist Studs Terkel once described it... At the same time, 60 years of research and reflection have gradually brought to light numerous aspects of this conflict that do not fit a straightforward pattern of black-and- white moral clarity... Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo -- entire cities, tens of thousands of noncombatant civilians at a time, incinerated or blasted to bits under a steady torrent of British and American bombs. The large-scale killing of children, women and old people had now become routine facets of Allied warfare. The Swastika is a 'Historic Legacy,' Says Court in Lithuania JTA  A Lithuanian court has ruled that a swastika is a part of the country's historic legacy and not a Nazi symbol. The ruling on Wednesday capped a three-month case involving four men who displayed swastikas at Klaipeda's national independence parade. "It is not a Nazi attribute, but a valuable symbol of the Baltic culture, an ancient sign of our ancestors, which had been stolen from them and treacherously used by other peoples," one of the defense witnesses said, according to RT, Russia's English news channel. Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi hunter and Israel director, called the decision "outrageous" and likely to lead to a tremendous increase in the use of Nazi symbols by Lithuania's ultra-nationalists. Russia Rebukes Strasbourg Court for Helping to `Revise World War II Results' RIA Novosti (Russia) Russia on Monday accused the European Court of Human Rights of going along with people who seek to rehabilitate Nazis by upholding Latvia's appeal in the case of a Soviet World War II veteran. Vasily Kononov, 87, who led a group of resistance fighters against Nazi Germany in the Baltic state during World War II, was jailed by Latvia in 1998 after he was convicted of ordering the killing of nine villagers in 1944. He admitted to the killings, but said the dead were Nazi collaborators who were caught in crossfire ... "The Grand Chamber of the Court in fact has fallen in line with those who strive to revise the results of World War II and rehabilitate the Nazis and their collaborators, China's President Calls for `Correct' View of History, and `New International Order' Xinhua (China)  Chinese President Hu Jintao on Saturday called for a correct view of history, saying the Soviet Union and China's contributions to victory in the world's anti-fascist war are "ironclad." ... "China and Russia bear the responsibility of promoting the world multipolarization and the democratization of international politics for the establishment of a more equitable and reasonable new international political order," Hu said. China's Cut-Throat Railway Revolution Der Spiegel (Germany)  China is spending mountains of money to expand its country's high-speed railway network and manufacture the world's fastest trains ... By 2020, its new rail network is set to increase in size from around 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles) to 18,000 kilometers (11,000 miles). A web of high-speed train lines will connect the most important cities -- from north to south and east to west. In a later phase, planners even want to expand on a global scale, toward Southeast Asia and the West, even as far as London. And, of course, they want to use Chinese high-speed train technology in the process. Documenting Destruction: Photos Show Impact of Allied Air War Against Germany Der Spiegel (Germany)  A "gallery" of 32 photos that graphically document a devastated and defeated nation. / In May 1945, US pilots embarked on hundreds of reconnaissance flights, aboard the same bombers which had razed much of Germany to the ground. Instead of launching bombs, however, they shot photographs, creating a hard-hitting portrait of their trail of destruction. Files Reveal Britain's Secret Biological Weapons Trials in Second World War The Guardian (Britain)  British scientists experimented with ways of spreading foot-and-mouth disease, and lethal infections such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid in secret biological warfare trials during the Second World War. An extensive list of the contagious agents and plagues that could be turned into weapons of mass destruction is revealed in files from a War Cabinet committee released to the National Archives. The government was known to have produced five million anthrax-filled cakes to infect cattle in Germany during the war, but the latest documents show research was carried out into a far larger variety of diseases, mostly in Porton Down, near Salisbury, and Pirbright in Surrey. Allies Might Have Lost at D-Day if Hitler Has Used Nerve Gas, Says Expert ANI (India)  As the D-Day anniversary approaches, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, Frank J. Dinan, has revealed what could have happened if Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler had used the deadly nerve gas Tabun. According to Professor Dinan, had Hitler used Tabun, the Allies could have been forced back into the sea with enormous casualties. That Bright, Dying Star, The American Wasp Robert Frank -- The Wall Street Journal  ... By ushering in a Protestant-free court, Ms. Kagan is helping to sweep away some of the last vestiges of a group that ruled American politics, wealth and culture for much of the nation's history. "The fact that we're going to zero Protestants in the court may not be as significant as the fact that her appointment perfectly reflects the decline of the Establishment, or the WASP Establishment, in America," said David Campbell, associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. Seen from the distance of time, the changes are stunning. In the 1960s, the vast majority of corporate managers were Protestant, according to E. Digby Baltzell's famous 1964 tome, "The Protestant Establishment.Kagan Appointment Shows, Jews Are The New WASPs Philip Weiss  ... The Kagan appointment means that we have entered a period in which Jews are equal members, if not actually predominant members, of the American Establishment. Obama's two closest political advisers are Jewish, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, and are said to be his foreign-policy braintrust. The economy is supervised to a large degree by Jewish appointees, Larry Summers and Fed Reserve Board chair Ben Bernanke (Time's man of the year last year, a selection overseen by Rick Stengel, the Time magazine editor, who is also Jewish). Recently a Jewish friend in the media said, "We're the new WASPs," referring to the patrician class that used to represent the elite in American society. Elvis Costello Cancels Concerts in Israel The Guardian (Britain)  Elvis Costello has cancelled two concerts he was scheduled to play in Israel in protest at its treatment of Palestinians. Costello, one of the most gifted British songwriters of his generation, was due to play on 30 June and 1 July but says his "conscience" dictated that he pull out of the performances. He joins a list of performers who have decided not to play in Israel, including Gil Scott-Heron and Santana. Eugenics: Alive and Well in Israel David Kramer  In two separate stories, my [fellow Jewish] landsmen are making obstetrical recommendations in order to prevent population growth in "undesirable" groups living in Israel. In the first video, there is a story about Israeli authorities heavily promoting birth control to pregnant Ethiopian (i.e., Black, i.e., "schvartze") Jewish refugees. In the second video, Harvard Professor Martin Kramer (NO relation!!!) is pushing to end post-natal subsidies to Palestinian refugees in order to cut down on the future "terrorist" population. The Most Elderly US Congress Ever The Daily Caller  In terms of old geezers, this Congress is setting all kinds of records. In February 2009, 83-year-old Rep. John Dingell, Michigan Democrat, became the longest-serving House member in history. In November, 92-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd, West Virginia Democrat, became the longest-serving member of Congress, period. And it's not just those two. This is the oldest Congress measured by its average age since records have been kept. Graphic Footage of Mass Murder of Germans in Prague Czech TV Czech TV public television broadcasts a documentary film entitled "Zabíjení po cesku," or "Killings Czech style." It features unique footage of a massacre of more than 40 ethnic Germans in Prague in May 1945, shortly after the end of the war. The authors say they want to draw attention to the atrocities committed against German civilians in post-war Czechoslovakia, though some historians believe this particular murder was carried out by Soviet troops. Mortgage Delinquencies Surge To A Record The Associated Press  The number of homeowners who missed at least one mortgage payment surged to a record in the first quarter of the year, a sign that the foreclosure crisis is far from over. More than ten percent of homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment in the January-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. That number was up from 9.5 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and 9.1 percent a year earlier. GAO Report Casts New Doubt on US Afghanistan Policy McClatchy Newspapers An independent government report raises new questions about the likelihood of success for President Barack Obama's Afghanistan policy, which nearly doubles the number of U.S. troops there before a planned drawdown begins in July 2011. The report, by the Government Accountability Office, found the Taliban remain a resilient fighting force, despite the boost in U.S. troops, and suggested many factors remain in place that will allow the Taliban to survive U.S. efforts to eradicate them. The report noted that Taliban-initiated attacks in Afghanistan rose 75 percent between 2008 and 2009 and that civilian casualties rose 72 percent between last September and March, compared with the comparable period a year earlier. Sunic and Weber Probe Major Issues in Broadcast Voice of Reason Broadcast Network - Audio  In this "Voice of Reason" broadcast of May 11, 2010, European-American scholar Tomislav Sunic and American historian Mark Weber discuss current and historical issues, including: The decades-long hate campaign directed at Europeans and European-Americans; The growing sense of despair in the US and Europe, and the dramatic demographic transformation of the West over the past 60 years; The "legalistic" outlook of many Americans and Europeans, and its relationship to a Jewish worldview that sees society and religion in contractual, "covenant" terms; The campaign by many Americans to "return to the Constitution.The Birth of Israel: A Tale of Lies, Deceit, and Terrorism William A. Cook  ... The plight of the Palestinians that began so ruthlessly in 1947, and is now called the Nakba, was an intentional, calculated campaign to force the Palestinian Arabs out of Palestine, a systematic genocide of a people as defined by the United Nations in its adoption of Genocide Convention, Article II ... Nothing makes more obvious the meaning of the "Zionist Juggernaut" than Catling's TOP SECRET "Memorandum of the Criminal Investigation Department" of July 31, 1947 : "The purpose of this memorandum is to furnish documentary evidence of the extent to which the supreme Jewish national institutions in Palestine and their principal officials have been parties to acts of sedition, violence, incitement and other offences against the laws of Palestine." Jewish Group Seeks Cancellation of Buchanan's Column The Hill (Washington, DC)  A group of Jewish Democrats wants a large newspaper syndicate to stop publishing conservative commentator Pat Buchanan's columns. Buchanan found himself in hot water last week after he penned a piece saying that if Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is confirmed, the number of Jews on the Court will be highly disproportionate to the U.S. population. The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) wrote a letter to Creators Syndicate asking it to take down the column and stop publishing him. "We ask that you pull down Buchanan's latest column from your website and that you stop publishing his over-the-top, conspiratorial screeds," it reads. NATO Code Compromise: Russia Acquired Secrets Through Air Crash Bill Gertz -- The Washington Times  The recent crash of a Polish military transport that killed most of Warsaw's senior civilian and military leaders was not only a human catastrophe for a key U.S. ally. NATO sources said that, in addition to the loss of nearly 100 pro-U.S. Polish leaders, the crash provided Moscow with a windfall of secrets. The crash killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski in western Russia on April 10 and decapitated Poland's military, killing two service chiefs, key military aides and several national security officials, many of whom were carrying computers and pocket memory sticks that contained sensitive NATO data. Are Liberals Anti-WASP? Patrick J. Buchanan  ... Of the last seven justices nominated by Democrats JFK, LBJ, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, one was black, Marshall; one was Puerto Rican, Sonia Sotomayor. The other five were Jews: Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than two percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this the Democrats' idea of diversity? Pentagon Doubts Grow on US Plan for Afghan War Gareth Porter - Inter Press Service  Although Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's plan for wresting the Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar from the Taliban is still in its early stages of implementation, there are already signs that setbacks and obstacles it has encountered have raised serious doubts among top military officials in Washington about whether the plan is going to work ... The same military official is also quoted as pointing out that parts of Helmand that were supposed to have been cleared by the offensive in February and March are in fact still under Taliban control and that Afghan government performance in the wake of the offensive had been disappointing, according to Ignatius. Expect War For Five-Ten More Years, Says Marine Corps General Army Times (Virginia)  For the next "five to ten years," the military likely will remain engaged in the same kinds of conflicts it has been fighting since 2001, said Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright. The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs on Thursday told a conference in Washington that "no one I know thinks we'll be out of" these kinds of conflicts any time soon. "There is nothing out there that tells us we won't be wrapped up in these conflicts for as far as the eye can see," Cartwright said ... US Troops Executing Prisoners in Afghanistan, Says Seymour Hersh The Raw Story  The journalist who helped break the story that detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were being tortured by their US jailers told an audience at a journalism conference last month that American soldiers are now executing prisoners in Afghanistan. New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh also revealed that the Bush Administration had developed advanced plans for a military strike on Iran. At the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva, Hersh criticized President Barack Obama, and alleged that US forces are engaged in "battlefield executions."Broad Approval For New Arizona Immigration Law Pew Research Center for the People and the Press  The public broadly supports a new Arizona law aimed at dealing with illegal immigration and the law's provisions giving police increased powers to stop and detain people who are suspected of being in the country illegally. Fully 73% say they approve of requiring people to produce documents verifying their legal status if police ask for them. Two-thirds (67%) approve of allowing police to detain anyone who cannot verify their legal status, while 62% approve of allowing police to question people they think may be in the country illegally. After being asked about the law's provisions, 59% say that, considering everything, they approve of Arizona's new illegal immigration law while 32% disapprove. Declassified US Report Exposes Fatally Flawed Israel Investigations Grant Smith  ... U.S. presidents have long acquiesced to "strategic ambiguity" -- a policy of neither confirming nor denying that Israel even possesses nuclear weapons. This pretext has allowed the U.S. to deliver the lion's share of its foreign assistance budget to Israel, despite clear legal prohibitions imposed by the Glenn and Symington amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act ... The 62-page General Accounting Office investigation and correspondence confirms the United States refuses to mount credible investigations that would enable warranted prosecutions of the perpetrators. Secret 1969 White House Memo on `Dangers' of Israel Nuclear Weapons Nixon Presidential Library and Museum - pdf document In this secret internal memo of July 19, 1969, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger explains to President Richard Nixon the "dangers" of Israel's nuclear weapons program. Kissinger notes that Israel had broken its pledge to the US not to "introduce" nuclear weapons in the region. He also notes that if the US tries to force Israel to live up to its commitment by withholding delivery of US warplanes, "enormous political pressure will be mounted on us." This memo, declassified in 2007 after being "sanitized," lays out US policy regarding the Zionist state's nuclear arsenal: "While we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact." Southern Public Schools Are First to Become Majority-Minority The New York Times  The South has become the first region in the country where more than half of public school students are poor and more than half are members of minorities, according to a new report ... The numbers also herald the future of the country as a whole, as minority students are expected to exceed 50 percent of public school enrollment by 2020 and the share of students poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches is on the rise in every state. Probing the 1948 Deir Yassin Slaughter of Palestinians The Independent (Britain)  ... The place is Deir Yassin. An Arab village cleared out in 1948 by Jewish forces in a brutal battle just weeks before Israel was formed, Deir Yassin has come to symbolise perhaps more than anywhere else the Palestinian sense of dispossession. Sixty-two years on, what really happened at Deir Yassin on April 9 remains obscured by lies, exaggerations and contradictions. Now Ha'aretz, a liberal Israeli newspaper, is seeking to crack open the mystery by petitioning Israel's High Court of Justice to release written and photographic evidence buried deep in military archives. U.S. Posts 19th Straight Monthly Budget Deficit Reuters  The United States posted an $82.69 billion deficit in April, nearly four times the $20.91 billion shortfall registered in April 2009 and the largest on record for that month, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday. It was more than twice the $40 billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue. The government has now posted 19 consecutive monthly budget deficits, the longest string of shortfalls on record. Jews Welcomed the Soviet Takeover of Eastern Poland in 1939 Mark Paul - Electronic Museum  ... Throngs of Jews, often dressed in their best attire for the occasion, avidly greeting the Soviet invaders of Poland in September 1939. Jewish accounts about such pro-Soviet outbursts are legion, as are Polish accounts ... "The Red Army entered ... early on the morning of Tuesday, 19 September 1939, to an enthusiastic welcome by Vilna's Jewish residents, in sharp contrast to the Polish population's reserve and even hostility." " ... The Jewish population [of Slonim] received the Soviet Army on its entry into the city with bread and wine, with a shower of flowers that were thrown at the soldiers, with drums and dances. ... The gentiles whispered and said: `Now the Jewish government has come'." More Britons Consider Emigrating Reuters  Almost three-quarters of Britons have considered emigrating this year, with Australia as the most popular destination, according to a new survey ... About one in ten of the 1,029 people surveyed said that a change in the pace of life was the main reason they wanted to emigrate. The survey also found that Canada was the next most popular destination after Australia, followed by the United States, New Zealand, Spain, France and Thailand. Minding the Gap: Judaism Between Law and Ethics Ariella Atzmon  ... Jewish monotheism is distinct not only from the Pagan world but also from Christianity. As a tribal cult, regarding themselves as chosen, Jews differentiated themselves from the gentiles whom they held in contempt. Christianity as a universal religion enables ethical contemplation without the interference of supremacist postures. Judaic Law is thus an impoverished system of justice ... Whilst grieving the forgotten wisdom of the Talmud, Jewish scholars disguise its formal judicial nature. Jewish Law is not founded in a moral or an ethical conception of man; but rather as a set of regulations which grew out of social conditions and cultic motives obsolete and no longer understood. A New Look at The `Jewish Question' in Britain Harold Bloom -- The New York Times  Anthony Julius has written a strong, somber book on an appalling subject: the long squalor of Jew-hatred in a supposedly enlightened, humane, liberal society ... After many massacres, the expulsion of 1290 effectually ended the Jewish presence in England until they were readmitted [nearly four centuries later] under Oliver Cromwell [1656]. The best chapter in "Trials of the Diaspora" concerns the cavalcade of anti-Semitism in English literature, with its monuments in Chaucer's "Prioress's Tale," Shakespeare'With Kagan's Confirmation, No Protestant Christian on US Supreme Court The Boston Globe  President Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court represents a turning point in American religious history: If Kagan is confirmed, the high court will not have a single Protestant member. Just over half of all Americans are Protestant, while less than one-quarter are Catholic and just 1.7 percent are Jewish, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's US Religious Landscape Survey. But, if Kagan is confirmed to the bench, the nation's highest court -- dominated by Protestants for most of its history -- will be made up of six Catholics and three Jews. "This whole project of a Protestant America is really going under, and it's going under quickly," said Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University ... Food Stamp Tally Nears 40 Million, Sets Record Reuters  Nearly 40 million Americans received food stamps -- the latest in an ever-higher string of record enrollment that dates from December 2008 and the U.S. recession, according to a government update. Food stamps are the primary federal anti-hunger program, helping poor people buy food. .. The Agriculture Department said 39.68 million people, or one in eight Americans, were enrolled for food stamps during February, an increase of 260,000 from January. USDA updated its figures on Wednesday. School Lunches a `National Security Threat,' Say Retired Military Officers The Associated Press  School lunches have been called many things, but a group of retired military officers is giving them a new label: national security threat ... School lunches have helped make the nation's young people so fat that fewer of them can meet the military's physical fitness standards, and recruitment is in jeopardy. A new report being released Tuesday says more than nine million young adults, or 27 percent of all Americans ages 17 to 24, are too overweight to join the military. Now, the officers are advocating for passage of a wide-ranging nutrition bill that aims to make the nation's school lunches healthier. Strategic Implications of American Millennialism Major Brian L. Stuckert - US Army - School of Advanced Military Studies  ... The inevitability of millennial peace through redemptive violence and an exceptional role for America have been and continue to be powerful themes running throughout the security and foreign policies of the U.S ... As demonstrated by American history, millennialism has predisposed us toward stark absolutes, overly simplified dichotomies and a preference for revolutionary or cataclysmic change as opposed to gradual processes. In other words, American strategists tend to rely too much on broad generalizations, often incorrectly cast in terms of 'good' and 'evil,' and seek the fastest resolution to any conflict rather than the most thoughtful or patient one. A New Openness to Discussing Allied War Crimes in World War II Der Spiegel (Germany)  ... Allied soldiers committed war crimes in Normandy to a much greater extent than was previously realized. Beevor extensively quotes reports and memoirs of those who took part in the invasion, many of whom state that American, British and Canadian troops killed German POWs and wounded soldiers ... Near one village, Audouville-la-The Soviet Union Came Close to Defeat in 1941, Marshal Zhukov Acknowledged The Telegraph (Britain)  An interview in which a Soviet commander admitted how close Moscow came to defeat by Germany during the Second World War has been broadcast in Russia for the first time. The Soviet Union nearly lost the war in 1941 and suffered from poor planning, according to Marshal Georgy Zhukov in the frank television interview that has been banned since it was recorded in 1966. Zhukov, the most decorated general in the history of both Russia and the Soviet Union, admitted that Soviet generals were not confident that they could hold the German forces at the Mozhaisk defence line outside Moscow. The Revenger's Tragedy: Denial and Reality of British WWII Bombing Leo McKinstry -- New Statesman (Britain)  The British government has long denied that wartime air raids on German cities were intended to kill as many civilians as possible. In fact, the raids, led by Arthur Harris, were motivated largely by a desire to hit back and destroy indiscriminately / ... "The aim of [Britain's] Bomber Command should be unambiguously and publicly stated," he [Harris] wrote in 1943. "That aim is the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany." He wanted the government to declare its commitment to "the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale", and he expressed his contempt of the official eagerness "to downplay the obliteration of German cities and their inhabitants"The Bogus Mythology of World War II Eric Margolis  ... History is the propaganda of the victors. Few photographs of the gulag have survived, evidence was destroyed, and witnesses have died. Churchill and Roosevelt could not admit they were allied to the greatest mass killer since Genghis Khan, and complicit in his crimes. Or reveal that Communist agents of influence had shaped White House policy. The feeble-minded Roosevelt even hailed Stalin as "Uncle Joe." ... Those who considered the Jewish Holocaust a unique historical crime were not eager to bring attention to Stalin's genocide lest it diminish or dilute their own people's suffering. A Timetable For War Philip Giraldi ... The principal advocates of war in the United States are not in the White House. They continue to belong to the Israeli lobby as given voice through its acolytes in Congress and the media ... That is precisely the reason why I think a new war in the Middle East is inevitable and will take place this year, probably by August. Blackberry Predicted a Century Ago by Nikola Tesla The Telegraph (Britain)  The Blackberry was first predicted more than a century ago, by Nikola Tesla, the electrical engineer, it has been claimed. Tesla, a pioneering American physicist, made the prediction about the portable messaging service in the Popular Mechanics magazine in 1909. Tesla, whose name lives on at Tesla Motors, the electric car manufacturer, saw wireless energy as the only way to make electricity thrive. He wrote in the magazine that, one day it would be possible to transmit wireless messages all over the world. Tesla, who [was born in Europe and] spent most of his adult life in America before his death in New York in 1943, imagined such a hand-held device would be simple to use and that, one day, everyone in the world would communicate to friends using it. This, he added, would usher in a new era of technology. U.S. Nuclear Option on Iran Linked to Israeli Attack Threat Gareth Porter - Inter Press Service The Barack Obama administration'False Virtue: The Politics of Lying About History Thomas J. DiLorenzo  ... A major theme of [Warren's] The Legacy of the Civil War is that the war left the North (which is to say, the U.S. government) with "a treasury of virtue." This is the "psychological heritage" left to the North, and it is an insidious heritage, wrote [Pulitzer-Prize winning poet and novelist] Robert Penn Warren. "The Northerner, with his Treasury of Virtue, feels redeemed by history." ... Warren called this "moral narcissism." It is "a poor basis for national policy," he wrote, but is the "justification" for "our crusades of 1917-1918 and1941-1945 and our diplomacy of righteousness, with the slogan of unconditional surrender and universal spiritual rehabilitation for others." Engaging Speakers Highlight Successful IHR Meeting Institute for Historical Review  Life and death in World War Two Poland and Germany and the battle for Internet free speech were the topics tackled by three stimulating speakers at the packed IHR meeting on Saturday evening, April 17, 2010. Paul Fromm, Canadian free speech activist, reviewed major assaults against on-line freedom of expression, and recent legal victories against groups that seek to impose "politically correct" censorship on the Internet. Dana Alvi spoke graphically of privation, suffering and death in Poland during World War Two. She recounted numerous moving personal anecdotes, including grim memories from the bloody Warsaw Rising of 1944. And Gretel Hines spoke vividly about day-to-day life in the Third Reich. A Look at Costs of Afghan War to US Taxpayers Reuters  ... Obama has asked for $33 billion more to help fund 30,000 extra U.S. soldiers being sent to Afghanistan this year. He wants another $4.5 billion for beefed-up foreign aid and civilian operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year; about $2 billion of this amount is dedicated to Afghanistan ... Congress has approved $345 billion so far for the war in Afghanistan, where the United States invaded to fight al Qaeda and topple the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. This figure is from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which says that about $22 billion has gone for Afghan-war-related activities in other countries. About twice as much money -- $708 billion -- has gone to the war in Iraq so far, CBO says. A US Supreme Court Without Protestant Christians? CNN  ... Roughly half of all Americans identify themselves as Protestant today. But since John Paul Stevens announced his retirement last month, legal and religious scholars have begun entertaining the unprecedented prospect of a Supreme Court without a single Protestant justice. Besides Stevens, who is Protestant, the current Supreme Court counts six Catholics and two Jews ... Of the three candidates who are reported to lead Obama's short list, two -- Solicitor General Elena Kagan and federal appeals judge Merrick Garland -- are Jewish, while one, federal appeals judge Diane Wood, is a Protestant. The Future of Palestine John J. Mearsheimer  ... .From the start, Zionism envisioned an Israeli state that controlled all of Mandatory Palestine. There was no place for a Palestinian state in the original Zionist vision of Israel ... No American president can put meaningful pressure on Israel to force it to change its policies toward the Palestinians. The main reason is the Israel lobby, a remarkably powerful interest group that has a profound influence on U.S. Middle East policy ... In short President Obama is no match for the lobby ... In sum, there are great dangers ahead for the Palestinians, who will continue to suffer terribly at the hands of the Israelis for some years to come. But it does look like the Palestinians will eventually get their own state, mainly because Israel seems bent on self-destruction. Nuking the Mullahs Philip Giraldi  ... Israel is fast becoming a pariah nation, like South Africa before the final collapse of apartheid, because no one any longer accepts the legitimacy of its settlement growth and occupation policies ... If the US refuses to cooperate in bombing Iran conventionally, Israel might well accept the view that the Iranian nuclear program can only be destroyed by using other nuclear weapons. Tel Aviv, controlling its own nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver the bombs on target, would be able to stage such an attack unilaterally. An increasingly isolated Israel headed by reactionary and irrational politicians who are influenced by their own sense of racial superiority just might decide that the gamble is worth it. It would be a very bad decision for Israel, Iran, and for the United States. More Hype About Iran? Stephen M. Walt  Back when I started writing this blog, I warned that the idea of preventive war against Iran wasn't going to go away just because Barack Obama was president. ... One of the more remarkable features about the endless drumbeat of alarm about Iran is that it pays virtually no attention to Iran's actual capabilities, and rests on all sorts of worst case assumptions about Iranian behavior ... Indeed, Iran is significantly weaker than Israel, which has roughly the same total of regular plus reserve military personnel and vastly superior training. Israel also has more numerous and modern armored and air capabilities and a sizeable nuclear weapons stockpile of its own. Arizona Legislature Votes to Ban Ethnic-Studies Programs Yahoo News Just a week after signing the country's toughest immigration bill into law, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer now must decide whether to endorse another bill passed by her state legislature -- one that outlaws ethnic-studies programs in public schools. The bill forbids Arizona schools from using any curriculum that promotes "the overthrow of the United States government" or "resentment toward a race or class of people." It also disallows any curriculum that's "designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group" or that seeks to "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals. Six Largest US Banks Total 63 Percent of GDP The New Republic  ... As a result of the crisis and various government rescue efforts, the largest six banks in our economy now have total assets in excess of 63 percent of GDP (based on the latest available data). This is a significant increase from even 2006, when the same banks' assets were around 55 percent of GDP, and a complete transformation compared with the situation in the United States just 15 years ago, when the six largest banks had combined assets of only around 17 percent of GDP. If the status quo persists, we are set up for another round of the boom-bailout-Mexico's Illegals Laws Tougher Than Arizona's The Washington Times  ... Under the Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who are deported and attempt to re-enter can be imprisoned for 10 years. Visa violators can be sentenced to six-year terms. Mexicans who help illegal immigrants are considered criminals. The law also says Mexico can deport foreigners who are deemed detrimental to "economic or national interests," violate Mexican law, are not "physically or mentally healthy" or lack the "necessary funds for their sustenance" and for their dependents. In the Name of Zionism Uri Avnery (Israel)  ... The leaders of the "Zionist State" depend to a large extent upon the Diaspora and use it for their own purposes. The Exile-Jewish AIPAC ensures the subjection of the US Congress to the will of the Israeli government. The "Anti-Defamation League" (which should more properly be called the "Defamation League") is terrorizing the American media in order to prevent any criticism of Israeli policy. In the past, the United Jewish Appeal was essential for the economic wellbeing of Israel ... If one speaks in Israel of "Zionism", one means "not Arab". A "Zionist" state means a state in which non-Jewish citizens cannot be full partners. Eighty percent of Israel's citizens (the Jews) are telling the other twenty percent (the Arabs): the state belongs to us, not to you. ... England is the `Least Patriotic' Country in Europe, New Survey Shows The Telegraph (Britain)  ... Political correctness and a fear of appearing racist were said to be the main factors in the apparent lack of patriotism in England, along with the increasing influence of the European Union ... Twenty percent blamed a broken society for their lack of patriotism, while half said they had been patriotic in the past. ... One in four English adults said 'political correctness' had left them feeling ashamed to be English, while forty per cent said they felt England had completely lost its national identity. Just ten per cent said they would happily fly the national flag on their house or in their garden, compared to more than a third of Dutch people, with more than a quarter saying they feared being called racist if they did so. US Holocaust Museum Yearly Budget -- More Than $50 Million Sara J. Bloomfield - US Holocaust Memorial Museum  ... The Museum's budget request for [fiscal year] FY 2011 is $50,520,500. The proposed budget increase over FY 2010 is $1.4 million for pay raises and inflation. The request level will provide for the continuation of current Museum operations. The Museum was built to do more than just teach the Holocaust - it was built to inspire people, including our leaders, to act on the lessons learned from the Holocaust. As a living memorial to the Holocaust, the Museum seeks to inspire leaders and citizens worldwide to confront hate, prevent genocide and promote human dignity. Major US Jewish Organizations Defend Israel's Humiliation of America James Petras  When Israel announced a major new Jews-only building project of 1600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem, it was not only "spitting in the face" of visiting Vice President Biden, it was demonstrating its power to humiliate America and Americans. Netanyahu was sending a message to world: Israel backed by its billionaire-Talk by Supposed Auschwitz Camp Survivor Cancelled Amid Fraud Accusations Wausau Daily Herald (Wisconsin) A public presentation in Wausau by a man who claimed to have survived Auschwitz has been canceled as family members have come forward disputing the veracity of his story. Gunther Skaletz was scheduled to speak publicly Tuesday evening at Wausau East High School, hosted by a Wausau group A Walk in Their Shoes. In a statement Monday morning, the group said it could not verify or confirm allegations that Skaletz was lying, but that it was canceling the event due to a "cloud of controversy. Eruption on the Nile: Oppression and Discontent in Egypt Eric Margolis  ... Washington's powerful Israel Lobby dominates Congress and thus US food aid to Egypt. Sadat and Mubarak gave Israel decisive influence over Egypt's policies in exchange for food aid and billions of dollars, a fact that enrages Egypt's Islamists and nationalists ... While Washington fulminates against Iran and China over human rights, it says nothing about client Egypt, where all elections are rigged, regime opponents brutally tortured, and political opposition liquidated. Washington could quickly impose real democracy to Egypt, where it pulls all the strings, if it wanted. Historian Stephen Ambrose Accused of Faking Eisenhower Interviews Yahoo News  Was one of America's most revered popular historians fabricating his own material? That's the explosive charge now levied at Stephen Ambrose, author of numerous bestselling military and presidential histories. The author of "D-Day" and "Band of Brothers" died in 2002, but several authorities have recently questioned the writer's accounts of his research for "Supreme Commander," a massive two-volume biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower. At a minimum, Ambrose's critics say, he had vastly exaggerated the amount of time he spent interviewing the former president; and at worst, they suggest, he simply made up long stretches of the book. Defense Spending Is Much Greater than You Think Robert Higgs -- The Independent Institute  ... For fiscal 2010, which is still in progress, the president's budget estimates that the Pentagon's spending will run more than $50 billion above the previous year's total. Any supplemental appropriations made before September 30 will push the total for fiscal 2010 even farther above the trillion-dollar mark ... The government is currently spending at a rate well in excess of $1 trillion per year for all defense-related purposes. Owing to the financial debacle and the ongoing recession, millions are out of work, millions are losing their homes, and private earnings remain well below their previous peak, but in the military-industrial complex, the gravy train speeds along the track faster and faster. `Dear Uncle Adolf': Documentary on Fan Mail to Hitler The Telegraph (Britain)  Fan letters written to Adolf Hitler during the Second World War were the subject of a new documentary in Germany last night. / 'Dear Uncle Adolf' was the first documentary detailing the tens of thousands of surviving fan letters Hitler received while in power which were seized by the Soviets when they conquered Berlin in 1945. For years these love notes, advice letters, gifts and health-tips lay undiscovered in Russian archives. Discovered in 2007, they formed the basis of a German book called 'Letters to Hitler'. Last night the Svengali-like grip that the Austrian-born Hitler exerted over Germany was unveiled as actors read out the letters that would fill a truck. They were letters that often accompanied gifts ... Lies and Wars William Pfaff  ... Injustice and lies in the Middle East were responsible for unnecessary new wars in the new century, in which the United States took the lead ... Once more the threat is a polemical invention, intended to frighten American, Israeli (and European) voters, and prompt a preemptive attack on Iran. The reason Mr. Gates reports his uncertainties to the president is that he too recognizes that the conflict with Iran is constructed from fictions - which, as with the lies about Iraq, may turn into another war, whose consequences are sure to be worse for all concerned than the fiasco and tragedy of America's invasion of Iraq. In Britain, 1930s Books Revived to Teach Traditional History The Telegraph (Britain)  ... Currently, pupils study topics such as the Nazis, Soviet Russia, slavery or the Victorians, often taught in isolation and repeated in different years. According to the publishers, the 1930s books are needed to address a "crisis" in the teaching of the traditional narrative of British history. "For more than half a century most intelligent youngsters in Britain have grown up to live in the half-darkness of historical ignorance," said Tom Stacey ... He said that traditional history had "all but vanished" in schools, replaced by a diet of "projects on slavery, Victorian slums, the labour movement or, again and again, the Second World War". Women in the US Now Match Men in Advanced Degrees The Associated Press  Women are now just as likely as men to have completed college and to hold an advanced degree, part of an accelerating trend of educational gains that have shielded women from recent job losses. Yet they continue to lag behind men in pay. Among adults 25 and older, 29 percent of women in the U.S. have at least a bachelor's degree, compared with 30 percent of men, according to 2009 census figures released Tuesday. Measured by raw numbers, women already surpass men in undergraduate degrees by roughly 1.2 million. Women also have drawn even with men in holding advanced degrees. Women represented roughly half of those in the U.S. with a master's degree or higher ... Amnesty Bill Provisions Lou Dobbs - CNN  Lou Dobbs reviews remarkable provisions of an immigration "reform" bill under consideration by Congress in 2007, which was backed by President George W. Bush, and Senator McCain. Runtime: 3:32 mins. Global Views of US Improve While Other Countries Decline BBC News  Global views of the United States have improved markedly over the last year while views of many countries have become more negative, according to the latest BBC World Service poll across 28 countries. For the first time since the BBC started tracking in 2005, views of the United States' influence in the world are now more positive than negative on average ... Germany is the most favourably viewed nation (an average of 59% positive), followed by Japan (53%), the United Kingdom (52%), Canada (51%), and France (49%). The European Union is viewed positively by 53 per cent. In contrast, Iran is the least favourably viewed nation (15%), followed by Pakistan (16%), North Korea (17%), Israel (19%), and Russia (30%). An Act Of War: Sanctions Against Iran Rep. Ron Paul  ... I object to this entire push for war on Iran, however it is disguised. Listening to the debate on the Floor on this motion and the underlying bill it feels as if we are back in 2002 all over again: the same falsehoods and distortions used to push the United States into a disastrous and unnecessary one trillion dollar war on Iraq are being trotted out again to lead us to what will likely be an even more disastrous and costly war on Iran. The parallels are astonishing. We hear war advocates today on the Floor scare-mongering about reports that in one year Iran will have missiles that can hit the United States. Where have we heard this bombast before? Israel, the US and Iran: `Hold Me Back!' Uri Avnery  ... An Israeli attack on Iran would cause a military, political and economic disaster for the United States of America. Since the Iranians, too, realize that Israel could not attack without American consent, they would react accordingly ... Whatever the rantings of Ahmadinejad, the real rulers of the country, the clerics, conduct a cautious and sober policy, and have never attacked another country. They have many important interests, and Israel is not among them. The idea that they would sacrifice their own glorious homeland in order to destroy Israel is ludicrous. Ernst Zundel Speaks Out: Testing the Limits of Freedom of Speech Foreign Policy Journal (Interview)  ... My entire treatment these past seven years by those arresting me, trying and convicting me, and keeping me in prison has been in brutal breach of international conventions. I was arrested in broad daylight on American soil by officials of the U.S. government who acted as hit squads for a nefarious lobby ... My so-called trial in Mannheim was a political show trial in the Stalinist mode in that my guilt was a foregone conclusion ... As we later found out through various freedom of information requests in various countries, there was in place for years a deliberate, convoluted plan to arrest and detain me under false pretenses so as to take me out and put me behind bars. America's Malaise, Zundel's Ordeal, Criticism and Sacrifice Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review - Audio Weber speaks about America's growing social-political malaise, its origins, and what it means for us. He also reviews the ordeal of Ernst Zundel, a "prisoner of conscience" who was recently released from a German prison after years behind bars. The IHR director recalls his relationship of more than 20 years with Zundel. In this address at an IHR meeting, March 6, 2010, Weber also talks about smears by hostile groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. These attacks, he says, should be regarded as a "badge of honor." Finally, Weber speaks about sacrifice, comparing the attitude of Americans today with the idealism and suffering of so many Americans of past generations. Illegal Immigration: Is An Amnesty the Answer? Daniel Sandford -- BBC News  ... Amnesties have been tried before. Researchers at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford have looked at previous studies, in particular ones of a United States amnesty in 1986. They found that "almost all show that the large-scale amnesty implemented in 1986 has not reduced, and has in fact increased, undocumented migration to the US, since it established new migration flows due to networks and family ties". A total of 2.7 million qualified for the amnesty in 1986. By 2000 there were an estimated 9.3 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. Meanwhile, Spain had six amnesties in 20 years. In that time the illegal population rose from 44,000 to 700,000 - a 15-fold increase. Russia Posts Katyn Massacre Documents Online The Associated Press  Russia's state archives posted documents on the Internet for the first time Wednesday about the Soviet Union's World War II massacre of more than 20,000 Polish officers and other prominent citizens ... The documents also include the minutes of the Politburo meeting on March 5, 1940, at which Beria's proposal was approved, and a note from the head of the Soviet secret police in 1959 to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev advising that the Katyn files be destroyed. For 50 years, the Soviet Union blamed the massacres on the Nazi German forces who invaded in 1941. Puritan Values or MBA Values? Kenneth Hopper and William Hopper -- The Christian Science Monitor  ... It was our falling away from Puritan values in the 1970s that sowed the seeds of destruction. This [Puritan] migration endowed the Bay Colony of Massachusetts with four core beliefs: (1) a conviction that the purpose of life, however vaguely conceived, was to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth; (2) an aptitude for the exercise of mechanical skills; (3) a moral outlook that subordinated the interests of the individual to the group; and (4) an ability to assemble and use financial, material, and human resources to a single purpose, on a massive or a lesser scale. These four beliefs created a powerhouse. Did Egypt Start the 1967 War, As Israel Claimed? Jews for Justice in The Middle East  "The former Commander of the Air Force, General Ezer Weizman, regarded as a hawk, stated that there was 'no threat of destruction' but that the attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was nevertheless justified so that Israel could 'exist according the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies.'..Eighteen US Veterans Commit Suicide Each Day Army Times (Springfield, Va.)  Troubling new data show there are an average of 950 suicide attempts each month by veterans who are receiving some type of treatment from the Veterans Affairs Department. Seven percent of the attempts are successful, and eleven percent of those who don't succeed on the first attempt try again within nine months. The numbers, which come at a time when VA is strengthening its suicide prevention programs, show about 18 veteran suicides a day, about five by veterans who are receiving VA care. Tax Evader Who Blamed Holocaust is Sentenced to Prison The Associated Press A tax evader was sentenced Friday to ten months in federal prison after claiming his Jewish parents' experience fleeing the Nazi Holocaust drove him to compulsively hide more than $10 million in secret accounts at Swiss bank UBS AG and other offshore tax havens. U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan imposed the longest sentence to date for a UBS client against 65-year-old Jack Barouh, even after giving him credit for cooperating in the ongoing investigation and belatedly attempting to come clean with the Internal Revenue Service. Mood is Dark as Israel Marks Anniversary The New York Times  ... There is something about the mood this year that feels darker than usual. It has a bipartisan quality to it. Both left and right are troubled, and both largely about the same things, especially the Iranian nuclear program combined with growing tensions with the Obama administration ... Per capita annual gross domestic product is nearly $30,000, double that of Russia and close to that of Germany. Israeli citizens live on average more than 80 years, on a par with life expectancy in Norway. The number of murders per capita is a third of that of the United States. Israel's population has passed 7.5 million, more than nine times what it was at its birth in 1948, and is growing at 1.8 percent a year, a rate no other developed country approaches. Israel at 60: A Grim Balance Sheet Mark Weber ... Contrary to claims made by American and Israeli political leaders, US support for Israel has never been in America's authentic national interest, nor has it been based on a commitment to democracy and freedom ... In spite of its impressive military arsenal, and virtually unlimited support from the United States, Israel's long-term prospects are not good ... Although Israel is a formidable military power, it is an aberrant, crisis-prone state, artificially kept alive with outside support, and based on an unworkable ideology. Russia Publishes Katyn Archives BBC News ... One of the documents is a March 5, 1940, letter from the then-head of the Soviet secret police or NKVD, Lavrenty Beria, to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, recommending the execution of Polish prisoners of war. Beria refers to them as "steadfast, incorrigible enemies of Soviet power". "Each of them is just waiting for liberation so as to actively join the struggle against Soviet power," it says. The letter bears Stalin's signature in blue pencil, with the comment "In favour". Mexico Accused Over Migrant Abuse BBC News  Migrants in Mexico are facing a "major human rights crisis" as the authorities fail to tackle widespread abuses, Amnesty International has warned. The human rights group said officials ignored or even played a part in the rape, kidnap, and murder of migrants, often carried out by criminal gangs. Tens of thousands of Central American migrants pass through Mexico every year to try to reach the US and find work ... Many here think that, when it comes to migration issues, Mexico first has to clean up its own act, our correspondent says. Zionist Center in Israel Calls the IHR `Particularly Dangerous' The Jabotinsky International Center (Israel) ... A particularly dangerous organization, the Institute for Historical Review presents itself as a legitimately researched body interested in historical truth, while spreading anti-Semitic propaganda. Unlike most other anti-Semitic websites, ihr.org presents itself with a professional layout and well written material. Five Presidents `More Radical' Than Obama John P. Avlon -- CNN  Newt Gingrich called President Obama "the most radical president in American history" at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference last week. The leader of the 1994 Republican Revolution is a smart man and a historian, so he must know better. But he's also exploring a run for president, an action that frequently suspends good judgment in pursuit of sound bites. Perspective is the first thing abandoned in hyper-partisan attacks. So here is a look at five presidents who, it could be argued, exceed Obama in the "radical" sweepstakes: Franklin D. Roosevelt, John Adams, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and George W. Bush American History: Right and Left Jonathan Zimmerman  ... That's how most liberals - and, I should add, most historians - see the world. Our heroes are the champions of social justice - Frederick Douglass, Jane Addams, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and so on - and the presidents who tried to put their ideas into practice: Abraham Lincoln, both Roosevelts, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson ... Most of this work proceeds from the basic assumption that the right was wrong: about religion, race, the economy and everything else. Europe is Pledged to the 'Martyrized Jewish People,' Says French President AFP-EJP  French president Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday that "Europe is at Israel's side because it took oath after World War II to give a State to the Jewish people so long martyrised", after meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris with his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres. A Deaf and Defiant Israel is Gambling With Its Future Max Hastings - The Financial Times (Britain)  ... Israel's tragedy is that it is an ever more inward-looking society: proud of its prosperity, deaf to foreign opinion, contemptuous of the Arabs. It willfully ignores the prospect that its Palestinian neighbours can never forge a viable society capable of responsible behaviour on lands chequered with Israeli settlements and strategic roads. Yet Israel's claim upon East Jerusalem is rooted in a sense of moral entitlement, which the rest of the world increasingly rejects. Some day Americans will awaken to the heavy strategic price their own nation pays for indulging Israeli excesses. Israel may be successful in securing all of Jerusalem within its own borders. But it runs the historic risk of making itself, by a ghastly irony, a pariah state. Taking Sides: The U.S. and Israel John Mearsheimer  ... There will be more crises ahead, because a two-state solution is probably impossible at this point and 'greater Israel' is going to end up an apartheid state. The United States cannot support that outcome, however, partly for the strategic reasons that have been exposed by the present crisis, but also because apartheid is a morally reprehensible system that no decent American could openly embrace. Given its core values, how could the United States sustain a special relationship with an apartheid state? In short, America's remarkably close relationship with Israel is now in trouble and this situation will only get worse. Hitler's Secret Indian Army BBC News  ... Thousands of Indian soldiers who had joined Britain in the fight against fascism swapped their oaths to the British king for others to Adolf Hitler - an astonishing tale of loyalty, despair and betrayal that threatened to rock British rule in India, known as the Raj. The story the German officers told their interrogators began in Berlin on 3 April 1941. This was the date that the left-wing Indian revolutionary leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, arrived in the German capital ... By the end of 1941, Hitler's regime officially recognised his provisional "Free India Government" in exile, and even agreed to help Chandra Bose raise an army to fight for his cause. Subhas Chandra Bose, The Indian National Army, and The War of India's Liberation Ranjan Borra -- Institute for Historical Review  The arrival of Subhas Chandra Bose in Germany in 1941 (during the turbulent period of World War II) and his anti-British activities in that country in co-operation with the German government, culminated in the formation of an Indian legion. This marks perhaps the most significant event in the annals of India's fight for independence. Subhas 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-Foreclosure Rates Surge, Biggest Jump in Five Years The Associated Press  A record number of U.S. homes were lost to foreclosure in the first three months of this year, a sign banks are starting to wade through the backlog of troubled home loans at a faster pace, according to a new report. RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday that the number of U.S. homes taken over by banks jumped 35 percent in the first quarter from a year ago. In addition, households facing foreclosure grew 16 percent in the same period and seven percent from the last three months of 2009. More homes were taken over by banks and scheduled for a foreclosure sale than in any quarter going back to at least January 2005, when RealtyTrac began reporting the data, the firm said. The Return of Hitler Macleans (Canada)  ... Almost 65 years later to the day, the man and the totalitarian regime he established continue to fascinate us. In just the last few years, Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler's poorly written, 700-page magnum opus, "turgid, verbose, shapeless," to borrow from Winston Churchill, has earned bestseller status in some unlikely markets: India, Turkey and the Palestinian territories. His paintings are fetching record-setting prices, and trade in anything the Third Reich leader touched, or might have touched, is thriving. ... The 65 years that have passed since Hitler's death have not dulled the allure of the Führer, or his ideology, for the now-burgeoning extreme right. Noam Chomsky Has 'Never Seen Anything Like This' Chris Hedges -- Truthdig  ... He enters his 81st year warning us that we have little time left to save our anemic democracy. "It is very similar to late Weimar Germany," Chomsky told me when I called him at his office in Cambridge, Mass. "The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system." ... Chomsky reserves his fiercest venom for the liberal elite in the press, the universities and the political system who serve as a smoke screen for the cruelty of unchecked capitalism and imperial war. He exposes their moral and intellectual posturing as a fraud. The `Military Industrial Complex' Danger: A Presidential Warning Dwight Eisenhower  In his farewell address, delivered to the American people on national television, Jan. 17, 1961, President Eisenhower spoke firmly, and in carefully chosen words, to warn against the dangers in the years to come of the great "military-industriaIs Elie Wiesel an Imposter? Carlo Mattogno -- Inconvenient History  ... Taking all these aspects into account, one can see that the description given by Elie Wiesel for the journey from Gleiwitz to Buchenwald cannot be true. In short, Elie Wiesel was never interned at Birkenau, nor at Auschwitz, nor at Monowitz, nor at Buchenwald ... The interpretation that the face of the person shown on this photograph is Elie Wiesel's is based solely on his own statement to the effect that he recognized himself. As to "his" ID number - 123565 - that number belonged to Lázár Wiesel. In Germany, Case Dissolves Against 'Hitler' Snowman DPA  German prosecutors said Friday they have dropped an investigation into who built a snowman that bore an uncanny resemblance to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. A group opposed to right-wing activities filed a complaint at the end of January that the snowman violated German laws, which ban the reproduction of Nazi symbols or slogans. The snowman, with a distinctive Hitler moustache and an arm raised in a Nazi salute, was built outside a pub frequented by right-wing extremists in Schorndorf, near the southern city of Stuttgart. The case was dropped this week after police were unable to find the culprit, a spokeswoman for the Stuttgart prosecutor's office said. Irving, Weber Speak on Hitler's Place in History Institute for Historical Review (2005)  British historian David Irving and IHR director Mark Weber tackled the emotion-laden topic of Hitler's place in history at an IHR meeting on Sunday evening, April 17, 2005. Some 70 men and women packed a hotel meeting room in Orange County, southern California, for the event. Weber began his 45-minute address, entitled "Is an Objective View of Hitler Possible?," by telling about John F. Kennedy's visit to defeated and war-ravaged Germany in the summer of 1945. Most Americans Distrust the US Government Reuters  Nearly 80 percent of Americans say they do not trust the U.S. government to do what is right, expressing the highest level of distrust in Washington in half a century, according to a public opinion survey. Only 22 percent of Americans say they trust the government "just about always" or "most of the time," according to the Pew Research Center survey released on Sunday. Americans' trust in the federal government has been on a steady decline from a high of 73 percent during the Eisenhower administration in 1958, when the "trust" question was first posed in a national survey, the research center said. Ill Fares the Land Tony Judt - The New York Review of Books  Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth ... We have entered an age of insecurity -- economic insecurity, physical insecurity, political insecurity. The fact that we are largely unaware of this is small comfort: few in 1914 predicted the utter collapse of their world and the economic and political catastrophes that followed. Insecurity breeds fear. And fear -- fear of change, fear of decline, fear of strangers and an unfamiliar world -- is corroding the trust and interdependence on which civil societies rest. The US Is At a Precipice Tim Gatto  We are at a precipice. This is the end of one era and the beginning of another ... We are not "invincible"The Anat Kamm Affair: The Dark Underbelly of Israel's Security State Jonathan Cook  Next week 23-year-old Anat Kamm is due to stand trial for her life -- or rather the state's demand that she serve a life sentence for passing secret documents to an Israeli reporter, Uri Blau, of the liberal Haaretz daily. She is charged with spying. Blau himself is in hiding in London, facing, if not a Mossad hit squad, at least the stringent efforts of Israel's security services to get him back to Israel over the opposition of his editors, who fear he will be put away too ... Blau's crime is that he published a series of scoops based on her leaked information that have highly embarrassed senior Israeli officers by showing their contempt for the rule of law. A New Look at Hitler's Mistress Eva Braun Der Spiegel (Germany)  Historians have long portrayed Adolf Hitler's mistress Eva Braun as little more than an apolitical accoutrement to the dictator. But a new biography of the woman who was Hitler's wife for a mere 40 hours casts doubt on that image ... And if he had had his way, Braun would also have survived the demise of the German Reich. He repeatedly asked her to leave Berlin in the final days of the war and fly to Bavaria. But Braun refused. Until the very end, Hitler spoke of her "with great respect and inner devotion," Albert Speer, Hitler's crown prince, said in his first statements to the Allies in 1945. Behind the Balfour Declaration Robert John -- Institute for Historical Review  The Balfour Declaration may be the most extraordinary document produced by any government in world history. It took the form of a letter from the government of His Britannic Majesty King George the Fifth, the Government of the largest empire the world has even known, on which -- once upon a time -- the sun never set; a letter to an international financier of the banking house of Rothschild who had been made a peer of the realm ... Malcolm's belief in the Balfour Declaration as a means of bringing the United States into the war was confirmed by Samuel Landman, secretary to the Zionist leaders Weizmann and Sokolow, and later secretary of the World Zionist Organization. U.S. Military Confidence Sinks on Winning Afghan War, Poll Finds David Wood -- Politics Daily  The military's confidence that it will win the Afghan war is declining, according to a new tracking poll showing only 60 percent of active-duty military personnel believe the U.S. can triumph. The poll, conducted by the Military Times newspapers, which are not affiliated with the Defense Department, showed the percentage of respondents who believe the United States is likely to win in Afghanistan has dropped from 77 in 2008 to 68 in 2009 to 60 percent in late January and early February of this year. The poll findings come as casualties are rising and as President Obama is boosting combat forces there. Jews Invented Hollywood Greenpolitics  While Thomas Edison invented the motion picture camera, immigrant Jewish entrepreneurs (like Sam Goldwyn, Jack and Harry Warner, Louis B. Mayer) created Hollywood. Jews created the three major American television networks, William Paley's CBS, David Sarnoff's NBC and Leonard Goldenson's ABC. Today about two-thirds of leading TV and movie producers are Jewish. Jewish domination of entertainment is little discussed in the mainstream media, which is also dominated by Jews, out of fears of arousing hatred of Jews ... Although fiercely competitive, the Hollywood Jews worked closely together to build a close-knit empire that shamelessly imitated the social hierarchy of the very East Coast society that they felt alienated and patronized them. Rating Agency Warning Raises Fears of Social Unrest in US and Other Countries The Telegraph (Britain)  The world's five biggest AAA-rated states are all at risk of soaring debt costs and will have to implement austerity plans that threaten "social cohesion", according to a report on sovereign debt by Moody's. The US rating agency said the US, the UK, Germany, France, and Spain are walking a tightrope as they try to bring public finances under control without nipping recovery in the bud. It warned of "substantial execution risk" in withdrawal of stimulus. "Growth alone will not resolve an increasingly complicated debt equation. Preserving debt affordability at levels consistent with AAA ratings will invariably require fiscal adjustments of a magnitude that, in some cases, will test social cohesion," said Pierre Cailleteau, the chief author. British Bishop Convicted of `Holocaust Denial' by German Court The Associated Press  A German court convicted ultraconservative British Bishop Richard Williamson on Friday of denying the Holocaust in a television interview. A court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg found Williamson guilty of incitement for saying in a 2008 interview with Swedish television that he did not believe Jews were killed in gas chambers during World War II. The court ordered Williamson to pay a fine of euro 10,000 ($13,544). The Roman Catholic bishop was barred by his order from attending Friday's proceedings or making statements to the media. His lawyer, Matthias Lossmann, told The Associated Press after the court ruling that Williamson has yet to decide whether he would appeal. Denying the Holocaust is a criminal offense in Germany. Bishop Williamson and `Holocaust Denial': Why the Uproar? Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review The furor over the "Holocaust denial" remarks of Bishop Richard Williamson is not a controversy about historical truth, the role of history in society, anti-Semitism or "hate." This affair is really about power -- about those who really wield it in our culture, as well as about how and why that power is used ... A society's real hierarchy of values, and of power, is shown by what it prohibits. The Williamson affair underscores a well-entrenched Jewish-Zionist bias in the cultural life of modern Western society, and reminds us, once again, of the power behind that bias. The Holocaust Won't Protect Israel Forever Nehemia Shtrasler - Haaretz (Israel)  ... Time is working against us. Support for Israel and for bolstering the power of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] can no longer be taken for granted. The world's guilt feelings are gradually becoming dulled, making it possible for the global criticism of the occupation of Palestinian territories to strengthen. And because in the West it is public opinion that ultimately determines how governments act, we must reach an agreement that will get us out of those territories and make Israel a moral and just country once again. This is because the Holocaust flak jacket won't last forever. It is cracking as we watch, and soon it will no longer be able to protect us. Shanghai's Infamous 'No Dogs or Chinese' Sign: Another Historical Fable Institute for Historical Review  For many years it has endured as a particularly striking example of the demeaning, racist way that Chinese were treated in their own country during the early decades of this century. At a time when Europeans, and especially the British, dominated much of China, a sign at the entrance to the Huangpu Park in Shanghai supposedly announced: "No Dogs or Chinese Allowed." For decades this story has been widely repeated. It is cited in numerous books ... Lawsuit Challenges Israel's Discriminatory Citizenship Definition Jonathan Cook  A group of Jews and Arabs are fighting in the Israeli courts to be recognized as "Israelis," a nationality currently denied them, in a case that officials fear may threaten the country's self-declared status as a Jewish state. ... Although all Israelis qualify as "citizens of Israel," the state is defined as belonging to the "Jewish nation," meaning not only the 5.6 million Israeli Jews but also more than seven million Jews in the diaspora. Critics say the special status of Jewish nationality has been a way to undermine the citizenship rights of non-Jews in Israel, especially the fifth of the population who are Arab. Some 30 laws in Israel specifically privilege Jews, including in the areas of immigration rights, naturalization, access to land and employment. John Demjanjuk Tells Court He is a Victim of Hitler BBC News  John Demjanjuk, accused of helping to murder nearly 28,000 Jews at a Nazi death camp, has told a German court he is "one of Hitler's victims". Mr Demjanjuk was "forcibly deported to Germany" and used as "slave labour" he said in a statement read out in court. The family of the Ukrainian-born former US carworker says he is in poor health and is unlikely to survive the trial. Mr Demjanjuk, who is 89, denies being a camp guard at Sobibor, in Nazi-occupied Poland. "I find it an unbearable injustice that Germany is trying to make me, a prisoner of war, into a war criminal with this trial," Mr Demjanjuk said in a statement ... Demjanjuk Case Presents German Law With Difficult Issues Deutsche Welle (Germany) The trial of John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian former prisoner-of- Watching TV is Bad for Children, Say Experts BBC News  Children under two should not be allowed to watch any TV, experts say. Older children should watch no more than two hours a day, the researchers at the Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Centre in Seattle said. Each hour in front of the TV increased a child's chances of attention deficit disorder by ten percent, their research in the Pediatrics journal showed. The study of 1,345 children showed three hours TV a day made children 30 percent more likely to have the disorder. ... Children who were exposed to the unrealistic levels of stimulation at a young age continued to expect this in later life, leading to difficulty dealing with the slower pace of school and homework ... Violent Video Game Play Makes More Aggressive, Anti-Social Youths Iowa State University  Iowa State University Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson has made much of his life's work studying how violent video game play affects youth behavior. And he says a new study he led, analyzing 130 research reports on more than 130,000 subjects worldwide, proves conclusively that exposure to violent video games makes more aggressive, less caring kids -- regardless of their age, sex or culture. The study was published today in the March 2010 issue of the Psychological Bulletin, an American Psychological Association journal. It reports that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive thoughts and behavior, and decreased empathy and pro-social behavior in youths. Why Do Finland's Schools Get the Best Results? Tom Burridge -- BBC News  Finland's schools score consistently at the top of world rankings, yet the pupils have the fewest number of class hours in the developed world. / ... Finnish parents obviously claim some credit for the impressive school results. There is a culture of reading with the kids at home and families have regular contact with their children's teachers. Teaching is a prestigious career in Finland. Teachers are highly valued and teaching standards are high. The educational system's success in Finland seems to be part cultural. Pupils study in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. Finland also has low levels of immigration. So when pupils start school the majority have Finnish as their native language, eliminating an obstacle that other societies often face. In Mexico, 23,000 Killed in Drug War Since 2006 Agence France Presse  Almost 23,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since the launch of a government crackdown on drug gangs at the end of 2006, a parliamentary source has said. The new figure of 22,743 deaths was given to lawmakers on Monday during a congressional debate on the controversial use of the army in Mexico's battle against its powerful drug gangs, the source said, declining to be named. It was a rise of more than 7,000 compared with previous official estimates, and showed 3,365 murders between January and March this year, they added. Animal Welfare in Nazi Germany Wikipedia  There was widespread support for animal welfare in Nazi Germany, and the Nazis took several measures to ensure protection of animals, Many Nazi leaders, including Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering, were supporters of animal protection. Several Nazis were environmentalists, and species protection and animal welfare were significant issues in the Nazi regime. Heinrich Himmler made efforts to ban the hunting of animals. Goering was an animal lover and conservationist. The current animal welfare laws in Germany are more or less modifications of the laws introduced by the Nazis. Long-Term US Unemployment At 65-Year High The Pew Charitable Trusts  The federal government defines "long-term unemployment" as a jobless period of six months or longer. In March 2010, over 44 percent of unemployed Americans met or exceeded that standard -- the highest rate since World War II. In contrast, during the severe recession of the early 1980s, the percentage of workers unemployed for six months or longer peaked at 26 percent in 1983. The media have reported the historically high six-month unemployment figure, but a new study by the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative goes further by calculating the percentage of people who have been unemployed for a year or more. New Israeli Order Will Permit Mass Deportation of Palestinians BBC News  Israel is set to impose a military order which rights groups say could see tens of thousands of Palestinians deported from the occupied West Bank. The order, which comes into force on Tuesday, could have "severe ramifications" for people in the West Bank, human rights groups say. It classifies people without the right Israeli paperwork as "infiltrators"In Hungary, Nationalist Jobbik Party Scores Major Gains The Telegraph (Britain)  The far-Right has taken more parliamentary seats in Hungary's national elections than at any time since the Second World War. Fidesz, Hungary's centre-Right party, won 52.77 per cent of the vote, based on 99 percent of votes counted, in a blow to the Socialist government. Jobbik, a far-Right party, gained entry into parliament for the first time after winning 16.71 per cent of votes, behind the ruling Socialists who took 19.29 percent ... Last month, French regional elections, dominated by debates over immigration, saw electoral revival for the National Front. In June, Dutch elections could propel Geert Wilders, whose anti-Islamic, hard-right Freedom Party leads the polls, into power. Zionism Laid Bare Kathleen Christison  ... Until recent years, the notion that Zionism was a benign, indeed a humanitarian, political movement designed for the noble purpose of creating a homeland and refuge for the world's stateless, persecuted Jews was a virtually universal assumption ... Jewish dispersion across the Western world -- and Jewish influence in the economies, the film industries, the media, and academia in key Western countries -- are what enabled the Zionist movement to survive and thrive in the dark years of the early twentieth century; and Zionist lobbying and molding of public discourse are what has maintained Israel's favored place in the hearts and minds of Americans and the policy councils of America's politicians. In Italy, Man Sentenced for 'Jewish Lobby' List JTA A Rome court has sentenced a man to six months in jail for having posted a list of 162 academics on his blog and describing them as members of an alleged "Jewish lobby." In a verdict handed down April 8, Paolo Munzi, 42, was convicted of defamation. But he was acquitted of having violated privacy laws and a law against instigating racial hatred. In February 2008, Munzi posted a list of 162 people, most of them university professors, and described them in negative terms as members of a Jewish lobby supporting Israel. Some of the professors on the list were not Jewish but had signed pro-Israel petitions. Hitler Artworks Fetch High Prices at British Auction Deutsche Welle (Germany)  Adolf Hitler never made it as an artist, but his drawings and paintings have garnered increasingly high bids at auction. Apparently it's not neo-Nazis who are buying, but history buffs and art collectors. It's no surprise when works by famous artists sell for prices in the tens of thousands. Perhaps more surprising is the fact that drawings and watercolors by Adolf Hitler have commanded similar prices at recent auctions. The British auction house Mullock's offered 15 pieces by Hitler in an auction last April, drawing a sales total of about 140,000 euros ($187,000). Next week, Mullock's will host another auction featuring 22 pieces by Hitler ... President Obama Marks Holocaust Remembrance Day AFP  US President Barack Obama on Sunday marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, saying the world must honor victims of Nazi horror by renewing a commitment to prevent genocide and anti-Semitism. "We must never tolerate the hateful stereotypes and prejudice against the Jewish people that tragically continues to this day," Obama said in a written statement. Black Boomerang: Britain's World War II `Black' Radio Propaganda Seftondelmer.  ... With the dramatic launch of Soldatensender Calais came a move to 24 hour broadcasting on medium wave, with a softening up operation in preparation for the invasion of France. The stories that went out over Soldatensender were re-used for the production of a daily newspaper bombed in to Germany, Nachrichten fur die Truppe. From its earliest days black propaganda with its own master forger had used printed matter as part of its output. Everything from forged ration books. identity cards to official German documents -- anything that they could put a subtle and insidious black twist upon. Shoah Week on PBS: More Holocaust Television Broadcasting JTA  The Public Broadcasting Service will offer U.S. television viewers a concentrated history lesson during Holocaust Remembrance Week, with seven films and documentaries on Jewish death and defiance in the past and on the genocides of the present. Four main films will be aired in prime time by 365 member stations, starting April 11 with a broadcast of the British version of "The Diary of Anne Frank" at 9 p.m., sponsored in part by the Jewish Federations of North America. Holocaust Remembrance: What's Behind the Campaign? Mark Weber  ... Holocaust remembrance is not, as its supporters claim, a noble effort motivated by sincere concern for humanity. Instead, this relentless campaign is an expression of Jewish-Zionist power, and is designed to further Jewish-Zionist interests ... Jewish death and suffering do not deserve to be venerated more than the death and suffering of non-Jews. The Holocaust remembrance campaign deserves scorn, not support, because it is a one-sided effort that serves narrow Jewish and Israeli interests and bolsters Jewish-Zionist power.  Israel's Deadly Cluster Bomb Legacy Still Lurks In Lebanon AFP  ... Israel left a deadly legacy: the United Nations estimates that Israeli jets dropped more than four million cluster bombs in southern Lebanon in the summer battles. Ninety percent of the bombs were dropped in the final 72 hours before the ceasefire after Resolution 1701 was adopted, the United Nations says. Around 40 percent of the munitions failed to detonate on impact, rendering them de facto anti personnel mines. The munitions have killed 46 and maimed over 300 civilians since 2006, according to Lebanese army and UN figures. Historical Myth Justifies Israel's Golan Heights Occupation Institute for Historical Review  For decades Israel has cited vital security concerns to justify its seizure of the Golan Heights. Israelis have claimed that from 1948 to June 1967, Syrian military forces repeatedly used the Heights to shell Jewish settlements and installations below. These artillery bombardments, in the widely accepted Israeli and American view, justified Israel's conquest of the Heights in 1967, and its occupation ever since. Actually, Israel's seizure and occupation of this territory is based on a historical lie. This was frankly acknowledged by Israel General and cabinet minister Moshe Dayan in an interview given in 1976, but which was not made public until April 1997. Dayan, who died in 1981, was a key organizer of Israel's victory in the June 1967 Israel-Arab war. Hitler's `Mein Kampf' Banned in Russia Daily Mail (Britain)  Russia banned Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf today in an attempt to combat the growing number of Nazi-sympathisers in the country. The 1925 diatribe, which outlines the former German dictator's vision of racial supremacy, has been championed by far-Right groups despite anti-Russian tracts. Now, joining Germany, where the book has been illegal since the country's defeat in World War II, Russian prosecutors have defined it as 'extremist' and outlawed it. Hitler as 'Enlightenment Intellectual' Mark Weber A specter is haunting the world -- the specter of Hitlerism. That, in short, is the stern warning of this provocative book, Hitler as Philosophe: Remnants of the Enlightenment in National Socialism, by Lawrence Birken... In spite of decades of vehement vilification, says author Birken, Hitler's views have enduring and dangerous appeal -- not because they are bizarre and alien, but precisely because they are rational and well grounded in Western thought. Good-Bye: Truth Has Fallen and Has Taken Liberty With It Paul Craig Roberts  ... For years I was a mainstay at the Washington Times, producing credibility for the Moony newspaper as a Business Week columnist, former Wall Street Journal editor, and former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. But when I began criticizing Bush's wars of aggression, the order came down to Mary Lou Forbes to cancel my column. The American media does not serve the truth. It serves the government and the interest groups that empower the government ... The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off. When It Comes to Innovation, Is America Becoming a Third World Country? Arianna Huffington  ... Once upon a time, the United States was the world's dominant innovator -- partly because we didn't have much competition. As a result of the destruction wreaked by WWII, the massive migration of brainpower to the U.S. caused by the war, and huge amounts of government spending, America had the innovation playing field largely to itself. None of these factors exist as we enter the second decade of the 21st century ... Adding to the problem is the sense that America's best days may be behind us. Many economists and historians are warning that our current economic downturn has created a new normal. That the country will never be the same. The Disemboweling of America Patrick J. Buchanan  ... The last decade was the first in history where government employed more workers than manufacturing, a stunning development to those of us who remember an America where nearly one-third of the U.S. labor force was producing almost all of our goods and much of the world's, as well ... No nation rose to world power on free trade. From Britain after 1860 to America after 1960, free trade has been the policy of powers that put consumption before production and today before tomorrow. Nations rise on economic nationalism; they descend on free trade. Russia and Poland Remember Katyn Massacre BBC News The Russian and Polish prime ministers have together marked the 1940 Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish troops, in an unprecedented move. Russia's Vladimir Putin had invited Poland's Donald Tusk to the ceremony commemorating the massacre. The Soviet secret police was responsible, but for half a century the Soviet Union blamed it on the Nazis. Both leaders spoke of reconciliation at Wednesday's ceremony, though their statements appeared qualified. "A lie was told for decades, but we cannot blame the Russian people for it," said Mr Putin. Hungarians Not Happy With Democracy Pew Global Attitudes Project  With Parliamentary elections approaching, Hungarians are in a funk. Nearly unanimously, they say the economy is in bad shape, and a stunning 72% say most Hungarians are actually worse off now economically than they were under communism. But Hungary's malaise is not all about economics -- most are frustrated with politics too. Overwhelmingly, Hungarians are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working and discontent with political elites, with about three-in-four saying political corruption is a major problem. Israel is `Main Threat to Peace,' Says Turkish Prime Minister BBC News  Turkey's Prime Minister has described Israel as the "main threat to peace" in the Middle East. Recep Tayyip Erdogan was speaking during a visit to Paris. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded saying he regretted Turkey's "repeated attacks" on Israel. Relations between the two countries have been worsening since the Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip in 2009, made worse by a recent diplomatic row. Mr Erdogan was speaking to journalists before meeting the French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "It is Israel that is the main threat to regional peace," he said. "If a country uses disproportionate force, in Palestine, in Gaza, uses phosphorus bombs we are not going to say 'well done.'" On the Road To Canossa: Netanyahu and Obama Uri Avnery ... This sheds light on a tried and tested Zionist method. When an unofficial consensus about the division of the land between Israel and Palestine is reached, the Israeli government says: OK, now that there is agreement about the land we are getting, let's talk about the rest of the land. Mine is mine, now let's negotiate about what is yours. The existing Jewish neighborhoods are ours already. There we are free to build without limitation. It remains only to decide upon the Arab neighborhoods, where we also intend to build ... That is not just a "crisis" anymore. It is something really momentous: a basic change in the policy of the US. The American ship in the Middle East is making a large turn, and this is taking a long time. The `Jewish Soap' Fable Mark Weber  One of the most lurid and slanderous Holocaust claims is the story that the Germans manufactured soap from the bodies of their victims. Although a similar charge during the First World War was exposed as a hoax almost immediately afterwards, it was nevertheless revived and widely believed during the Second. More important, this accusation was "proved" at the main Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946, and has been authoritatively endorsed by numerous historians in the decades since. In recent years, though, as part of a broad retreat from the most obviously untenable aspects of the "orthodox" extermination story, Holocaust historians have grudgingly conceded that the human soap tale is a wartime propaganda lie. Entitlement Rip-Offs: Social Security and Medicare John Stossel  ... It wasn't the biggest [Ponzi scheme]. Social Security and Medicare are much bigger ones. These are trillion-dollar scams. Medicare has a $36 trillion unfunded liability. Social Security's is $8 trillion. There's no money to keep those promises. But Congress isn't investigating this scam. Congress runs it. That FICA money you thought government had saved for your retirement is gone. There's nothing left but IOUs backed by nothing. Your money was spent not only on current retirees but on wars, welfare, corporate bailouts, earmarks and all the other stuff Congress wants. For years, this was possible because the FICA tax brought in surpluses that allowed government to pay retirees more than they contributed and still help buy those other things. California Public Pensions Underfunded by $500 Billion, Study Shows The Associated Press  California's public pension funds are underfunded by as much as $500 billion, according to a Stanford University study that was commissioned by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and released Monday. The shortfall could create a major financial crisis for the state. And California is not alone: States around the country are facing massive shortfalls in their pension and retiree health care obligations. The estimated California shortfall applies to the retirement systems for its state and local government workers, teachers and University of California employees - about 2.6 million retirees. Behind the Massive Underfunding of California Public Pensions Los Angeles Times The state of California's real unfunded pension debt clocks in at more than $500 billion, nearly eight times greater than officially reported ... To put that number in perspective, it's almost seven times greater than all the outstanding voter-approved state general obligation bonds in California ... For decades -- and without voter consent -- state leaders have been issuing billions of dollars of debt in the form of unfunded pension and healthcare promises, then gaming accounting rules in order to understate the size of those promises ... In California's case, past pension underfunding means reduced funding of current programs. This explains why pension costs rose 2,000% from 1999 to 2009, while state funding for higher education declined over the same period. Israel May Attack Iran By November, Warns Former High-Ranking Israeli Official Newsmax  Israel will be compelled to attack Iran's nuclear weapons facilities by this November unless the U.S. and its allies enact "crippling sanctions that will undermine the regime in Tehran," former deputy defense minister Brig. Gen. Ephraim Sneh said on Wednesday in Tel Aviv ... In an Op-Ed in the Israeli left-wing daily, Haaretz, Sneh argues that Iran will probably have "a nuclear bomb or two" by 2011. "An Israeli military campaign against Iran's nuclear installations is likely to cripple that country's nuclear project for a number of years. The retaliation against Israel would be painful, but bearable." What War with Iran Means Patrick J. Buchanan  ... As to who starts it, we know the answer. Tehran has not started a war in memory and is not going to launch a suicide attack on a superpower with thousands of nuclear weapons. As with Iraq in 2003, the war will be launched by the United States against a nation that did not attack us -- to strip it of weapons it does not have. But to Graham's point, if we are going to start this war, prudence dictates that we destroy Iran's ability to fight back. At a minimum, we would have to use air strikes and cruise missiles to hit a range of targets ... Before the War Party stampedes us into yet another war, the Senate should find out if Tehran is really on the "verge" of getting a bomb, and why deterrence, which never failed us, cannot succeed with Iran. Journalist on the Run From Israel is Hiding in Britain The Independent (Britain)  An Israeli journalist is in hiding in Britain, The Independent can reveal, over fears that he may face charges in the Jewish state in connection with his investigation into the killing of a Palestinian in the West Bank. Uri Blau, a reporter at Israel's liberal newspaper, Haaretz, left town three months ago for Asia and is now in London. Haaretz is understood to be negotiating the terms of his return to Israel with prosecutors, according to an Israeli source, who declined to be identified, because of the sensitivity of the situation. Hitler's Art Academy Sketches Up For Sale CNN  A British auction house plans to sell off newly discovered sketches done by Adolf Hitler when he was a struggling student trying desperately to get into art school. The twelve charcoal and crayon sketches cover "typical student subjects" and don't display a great deal of promise, Mullock's Auctioneers said. They include two drawings of an elderly woman thought to be Hitler's mother, as well as studies of objects, landscapes, models, and even a Roman senator. All are signed and some even have Hitler's Vienna address, Mullock's said. The sale also includes the original portfolio in which Hitler kept the sketches, which is signed and has his address, Mullock's said. The Crisis That Wasn't Philip Giraldi  ... Lest there be any confusion about what happened, the White House said "Thou shalt not" and Bibi Netanyahu responded "I shall" with Bibi left standing at the end. AIPAC managed to get the support of nearly every congressman who mattered, including many leaders from Obama's own party ... The propaganda spewed at the current AIPAC conference makes it equally clear that Israel and its supporters are the leading advocates of an attack on Iran and their victory over Obama will only embolden them. Israel can trigger a war by bombing Iran and provoking retaliation that will draw the United States in and there is nothing Washington can do to stop that. Obama Squeezed Between Israel and Iran Pepe Escobar -- Asia Times  ... AIPAC arm-twisted members of the US Congress to sign a letter to the White House calling for the US to bypass the United Nations Security Council and unilaterally sanction Iran . And AIPAC also urged lawmakers to pass with no comments the annual US$3 billion US aid to Israel . This means the new made-in-USA F-35 fighter jets Israel buys will be basically financed by US taxpayers. No surprises here. This is a congress that backed Israel 's assault in Gaza in late 2008 and condemned the Goldstone Report on Israeli atrocities in that conflict by a vote of 334 to 36. After all, the Democratic party depends heavily on very wealthy Jewish - and Zionist - donors for a chunk of its budget. Israel Fears Obama Heading For Imposed Mideast Settlement Ari Shavit -- Haaretz ( Israel ) U.S. President Barack Obama's demands during his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Tuesday point to an intention to impose a permanent settlement on Israel and the Palestinians in less than two years, political sources in Jerusalem say. Israeli officials view the demands that Obama made at the White House as the tip of the iceberg under which lies a dramatic change in U.S. policy toward Israel ... It is not just Obama's demands that are perceived as problematic, but also the new modus operandi of American diplomacy. The fact that the White House and State Department have been in contact with Israel 's European allies, first and foremost Germany , is seen as part of an effort to isolate Israel and put enormous political pressure on it. Topic Of German Expulsion Still Taboo The Record ( Canada )  It's a dark chapter in world history that many know nothing about, that others refuse to acknowledge. It concerns the expulsion of millions of Germans living in Eastern Europe after the Second World War, from such places as Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and eastern areas of Germany ... While casualty estimates vary, many historians -- including Alfred de Zayas, whose books Nemesis at Potsdam and A Terrible Revenge were among the first English works to chronicle the tragedy -- believe that two million Germans died as a result. ... "If I only deal with one category of victims, and deliberately ignore the experience of other victims, I am essentially taking away the human dignity of the other," he said. "I'm essentially saying my corpses are prettier than your corpses."A Forgotten Genocide: Germans in Postwar Central Europe Tom Sunic - Institute for Historical Review - Audio  Dr. Sunic provides an overview of the brutal "ethnic cleansing" of Germans in the aftermath of World War Two, in which some twelve million people, mostly women, children and elderly, were forcibly expelled from centuries-old homelands in eastern and central Europe. Of these, some two million were killed or otherwise perished. In this address at an IHR meeting, March 6, 2010, the European-American scholar contrasts the way in which this massive genocide is all but ignored in the US media, whereas Jewish "victimology" has become a central feature of our society's "civic religion." Making Political Writing Into An Art: George Orwell Jean-Christophe Peuch -- Radio Free Europe  ... It was during this period that Orwell developed the taste for the simple, bohemian lifestyle that marked the rest of his years. It was also the time that spawned his deep political commitment. The former British colonial policemen had already nurtured a profound distaste for any form of imperialism, but had not yet begun to think of himself as a socialist ... While Orwell was polishing "1984" on the Scottish island of Jura , he became ill and was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He died in a London hospital on 21 January 1950, at the age of 46. In the words of his biographer, Orwell has marked his place in the history of literature as a man who succeeded in "making political writing into an art." But for him, politics and literature were equally important. New Head of AIPAC is Former Obama Aide Israel National News  Lee "Rosy" Rosenberg, a jazz recording industry veteran capitalist who accompanied U.S. President Barack Obama on his campaign trip to Israel two years ago, takes over on Sunday as the new president of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Rosenberg also served on the president's national campaign finance committee. The new AIPAC president hails from Chicago , the home state of President Obama, and also is on first-name terms with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, President Obama's senior advisor. Judea Declares War On Obama Gilad Atzmon  ... Jewish lobbies certainly do not hold back when it comes to pressuring states, world leaders and even super powers. AIPAC's behavior last week reminded me of the Jewish declaration of war against Nazi Germany in 1933. Not many people are aware that in March 1933, before Hitler became the undisputed leader of Germany and began restricting the rights of German Jews, the American Jewish Congress announced a massive protest at Madison Square Gardens and called for an American boycott of German goods ... Jewish texts tend to glaze over the fact that Hitler's March 28, 1933, order calling for a boycott against Jewish stores and goods was an escalation in direct response to the declaration of war on Germany by the worldwide Jewish leadership. Pentagon Wants $33 Billion More For War in Afghanistan The Christian Science Monitor  The Pentagon wants $33 billion in additional funding to pay for the war in Afghanistan this year and train the Afghan military, but members of Congress want to make sure they're not writing a blank check. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared before Senate appropriators to defend the war supplemental, which is on top of the $708 billion baseline budget submitted to Congress in February. Most of the war supplemental - a separate account used to pay for war costs - will pay for Afghanistan operations. Afghan War Will Be Won With Talks, Not Troops Eric Margolis  ... The bloody Afghan conflict can only be ended by genuine peace negotiations and withdrawal of all foreign troops. U.S. commanders in Afghanistan admit they have lost the military initiative. The resistance is steadily gaining ground. Increasing U.S. and allied troops to 150,000 won't be enough to defeat Taliban. By year end, U.S. and NATO forces will only equal the number of Soviet forces committed to Afghanistan in the 1980s. Meanwhile Pakistan , without whose co-operation the U.S. cannot wage war in Afghanistan , is in turmoil. Helen Thomas' Unanswered Question for Obama Real News Network  In this interview with Helen Thomas, longest-serving member of the White House Press Corps, Paul Jay asks her about her first question for President Obama. The question, asking Obama to name all the countries in the Middle-East that have nuclear weapons, was avoided by the President, who claimed to not want to "speculate". Thomas claims that knowledge of Israeli nukes is very public in Washington , DC , and Obama's answer shows a lack of credibility. She explains the importance of this question for U.S. policy in the region. North Korea on the Edge B.R. Myers -- The Wall Street Journal  ... The regime seems increasingly unlikely to last out the decade, even if the planned hand-off of power to the Dear Leader's son Kim Jong Eun goes off without a hitch. The economy is only part of the problem ... Such misery prevailed in the mid-1990s too, but at least then the regime admitted an economic crisis, even as it mostly blamed the Yankees. Now it talks of a country transforming itself from one year to the next. No dictatorship can afford to lie so stupidly to its people, or to raise public expectations that will be dashed in a matter of months ... The possibility of a violent, potentially apocalyptic regime collapse in North Korea within the decade is one that all countries with an interest in the region should keep in mind. Row Over Plan By Jewish Shop Owner to Sell Holocaust `Human Soap' The Gazette ( Canada ) A vendor's claim that soap for sale in his Montreal trinket shop is made from the corpses of Second World War victims was greeted yesterday with both outrage and ridicule. But Montreal police said they are investigating after B'nai Brith League for Human Rights lodged a complaint under a Criminal Code ban on violating human remains. The story surfaced after a CBC radio reporter disclosed that a curio shop on St. Laurent Blvd. was selling a bar of soap allegedly made from the fat of Holocaust victims. The light brown bar was inscribed with a swastika and enclosed in a glass case with a card that said it was from Poland ... There is no evidence the Germans ever made soap out of human flesh, most Holocaust experts today agree. The `Jewish Soap' Fable Mark Weber One of the most lurid and slanderous Holocaust claims is the story that the Germans manufactured soap from the bodies of their victims. Although a similar charge during the First World War was exposed as a hoax almost immediately afterwards, it was nevertheless revived and widely believed during the Second. More important, this accusation was "proved" at the main Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946, and has been authoritatively endorsed by numerous historians in the decades since. In recent years, though, as part of a broad retreat from the most obviously untenable aspects of the "orthodox" extermination story, Holocaust historians have grudgingly conceded that the human soap tale is a wartime propaganda lie. 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)  … The idea of the Palestinian state has now become a part of the national consensus, and only a handful of ultra-rightists reject it directly. But this is only the beginning. The main struggle will be about turning the idea into reality. The entire speech was addressed to one single person: Barack Obama. It was not designed to appeal to the Palestinians … Obama is not seeking a frontal collision with the Israeli government. It seems that he wants to exert "soft" pressure, vigorously but quietly. To my mind, that is a wise approach. 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 Former US president Jimmy Carter on Tuesday met Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in the Gaza Strip, where he called for a lifting of Israel's blockade, saying Palestinians are being treated "like animals." Following the talks, Carter called for an end of "all violence" against both Israelis and Palestinians. "This is holy land for us all and my hope is that we can have peace ... all of us are children of Abraham," he said at a joint news conference with Haniya, prime minister of the Hamas government in the Palestinian enclave. 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.
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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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