US stop-gap budget missing pledged increases for Israel

 

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=200629

Peace.
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What sort of TRUTH is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth?

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Der kleine Nazi: "Der Engel grüsst den lieben Gott!"

 

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfVe2ztXXOo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Peace.
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@ 917-974-6367

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Military Resistance 8L9: A Hidden History [17 Attachments]

Military Resistance:

thomasfbarton@earthlink.net

12.19.10

Print it out: color best.  Pass it on.

 

Military Resistance 8L9

 

 

The Soldiers Truce:

A Hidden History From The First World War

My letter to Amazon re WikiLeaks

 

From: Daniel Stone <justice_freedom@earthlink.net>
Date: December 23, 2010 9:07:30 PM EST

 

Daniel H. Stone

1374 17^th Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94122-1945

(Please close my Amazon account)

 

December 23, 2010

 

OPEN LETTER

 

Jeffrey P. Bezos

President, CEO & Chairman of the Board

Amazon.com Corporate Headquarters

1200 12th Avenue, Suite 1200

Seattle, WA 98144

 

Dear Mr. Bezos,

 

I am deeply disappointed that you missed a golden opportunity to stand up to the U.S. government — you should have continued to allow WikiLeaks to operate on the Amazon Web Services ("AWS"), your cloud hosting services. You can still take them back. Please do.

I was going to close my Amazon.com account anyway, as soon as I learned that Amazon / AWS had removed WikiLeaks from its services. Then American hero Daniel Ellsberg started an Amazon Boycott, so consider me a part of that. Therefore, I respectfully request that you close my account with Amazon. If it has not been closed by January 1, 2011, I will close it myself.

Amazon Web Services has stated that the technical reason why AWS evicted WikiLeaks was that it violated your terms of service, but a technicality must not be placed above the greater good of standing up for free speech, free information, and your customers' right to free expression --- and standing against a repressive government. You had, and still have, a choice.

YouTube opposed the U.S. government successfully --- if success, rather than principle and values, is the criterion for you. And they are still operating. Why don't you follow their righteous example and oppose the government also, instead of the wrongeous example of Mastercard, Visa and PayPal ?!  Why don't you ignore the manufactured hysteria against WikiLeaks?

If you are so concerned about your clients not harming anyone, as so stipulated in your rules of service, why is Eli Lilly one of your clients? Or investment banks? Or hedge funds?

The January 15, 2009 "Eli Lilly Promotion of Zyprexa" criminal fine of $515 million is the largest criminal fine for an individual corporation ever imposed in a United States criminal prosecution of any kind. (And this was on top of Lilly's $800 million civil settlement and other past violations.) Lilly was not only charged, but convicted. WikiLeaks has not even been charged. So much for your abiding by your own rules and legal technicalities.

And investment banks and hedge funds are behind the economic collapse, causing great harm to a great number of Americans. Yet you have not asked them to leave, much less unceremoniously kicked them off your servers as you did WikiLeaks.

So how did the aforementioned entities, and perhaps other clients of harmful nature, slip through your rigorous screening process, but somehow WikiLeaks got snagged, coincidentally on exactly the same day Sen. J. Lieberman called you to ask, "What is your relationship with WikiLeaks?"

Just as high-profile people and groups lined up to support the illegal and immoral u.s. invasions and occupations of two small countries, so too have you and too many other groups sided with the government and against free speech and freedom of the press. How do you sleep at night?

In exercising your own right of free speech in this particular case, you have betrayed the larger principle of opposing the state when it wishes to crush dissent and halt the dissemination of information. The purpose of the media is to provide facts and information to the public so that the public is well-informed. The American imperial media disseminates little or no information on the most important issues. WikiLeaks has filled that gaping void.

You can undo most of the damage you have done by publicly accepting WikiLeaks back onto your servers. You can change your rules by which you accept clients, if you must, so that WikiLeaks can be re-admitted to AWS.

Sincerely yours,

s/  Daniel Stone

 

 

 

________________________________________

 

-- It is not illegal to expose an illegal war. Support Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks !!

 

-- An asylum for the sane would be empty in America. - George Bernard Shaw

 

-- It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class — except congress.

- Mark Twain

 

-- 30 million christianist fundamentalists (probably the largest voting bloc in the world) voted for bush, war and occupation in 2004, about as far away from a Christian approach to other people as it is possible to get. As Chris Hedges says, "The gospels are the one book the [christianist] fundamentalists know nothing about."

 

— The Palestinian intifada is a war of national liberation. We Israelis enthusiastically chose to become a colonialist society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities ... we established an apartheid regime.

- Michael Ben-Yair, Israeli attorney general in the1990s, quoted in The Guardian (U.K.), April 11, 2002

 

___________________________________

 

Daniel Stone

justice_freedom@earthlink.net

 

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Jewish Lobby Wins: Seattle Metro Bus Ad Pulled

 

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/12/23/king-country-executive-bans-free-speech/

Peace.
Michael Santomauro
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.. Why are we importing a million-plus workers a year when 17 million Americans can't find work?

 

Christmas Greetings Best wishes to you and your loved ones during this joyous season!  To everyone who helped support my work in 2010 - a heartfelt Thank You.  Peace. Michael Santomauro Donations by PayPal: MSantom629@aol.com    Christmas Truces During First World War Were Not 'One-Offs' BBC News  Christmas truces between opposing soldiers continued throughout World War One rather than being a one-off, a historian has claimed. A seasonal ceasefire, exchange of gifts and carol singing famously took place on the battlefields in 1914. Dr Thomas Weber, of the University of Aberdeen, says cease-fires continued to take place in 1915 and 1916. However, the academic believes this was played down when it came to official war records. Historian Dr Weber claimed that heavy artillery, machine gun, and sniper fire meant truces were small-scale and localised to a greater extent than the events of 1914 and have generally been overlooked.  In Seattle, 'Israeli War Crimes' Signs To Go On Metro Buses  King 5 News (Seattle)  "Israeli War Crimes," the enormous advertisement reads. "Your tax dollars at work." To the right of the image is a group of children -- one little boy stares out at the viewer, the others gawk at a demolished building, all rebar and crumbled concrete. It's an ad you'll be seeing soon on a handful of Metro buses in downtown Seattle. A group calling itself the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign has paid King County $1,794 so that 12 buses will carry that message around town, starting two days after Christmas.  Beltway Bunkum Philip Giraldi  ... To discern what everyone outside Washington sees clearly requires stepping back and observing that Emperor Obama has no clothes, and nor does anyone else in the Washington establishment, something difficult for a beltway insider to assimilate. It means admitting that there is no longer any rational and sustainable foreign policy being generated by the elites who surface in The Washington Note and just about everywhere else in the media ... The Dec. 8 th Congressional appropriation of $205 million more in aid for Israel, hardly a sign that anyone is about to talk tough or go about making "new frames" with Bibi. The fact is that the United States has exactly zero leverage with Israel and Netanyahu knows it.  Ship of Fools 2 Uri Avenry (Israel)  ... The Israeli government rules Washington, D.C., more firmly than ever. The new Congress is even more loyal to Israel than the old one, if that is possible. Just now, the outgoing House unanimously passed a resolution objecting to the declaration of Palestinian statehood ... Obama can say what he wants: in a real test he will have to veto any Security Council resolution which is distasteful to the Israeli government. He will have no choice. And he will also supply Israel with all the airplanes it desires - and more. Those who had illusions about Netanyahu - Israelis and others - seem to have sobered up by now. He does not want peace, nor a "peace process," nor any movement at all toward peace.  The `Holocaust': What Did the Grand Mufti Know? Wolfgang G. Schwanitz - World Politics Review  ... Amin al-Husaini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, remains a controversial figure ... It is, above all, the Grand Mufti's close ties to National Socialist Germany that are the subject of ongoing debates ... Some German authors, like René Wildangel, claim that it is still unclear whether and to what extent Amin Al-Husaini was informed about the Nazis' exterminationist policies toward the Jews.  The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Meets With Hitler  German newsreel (1941) -- Video  Narration: "The Fuehrer receives the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (Amin al-Husseini), one of the most influential leaders of Arab nationalism. The Grand Mufti is the religious leader of the Arabs in Palestine, and at the same time their chief judge and financial administrator. Because of his nationalist position, he has been harshly persecuted by the British, who have offered a reward of 25,000 Pounds for his capture. After an adventurous journey he reached Germany by way of Italy." From the German weekly newsreel, "Deutsche Wochenschau" Dec. 10, 1941.  A Jewish Defector Warns America Benjamin H. Freedman (1961)  A Jewish "insider" provides startling revelations and insights in this address at a meeting in Washington, DC, in 1961.Text and audio recording. Runtime: 43 mins. "Here in the United States," says Freedman, "the Zionists and their co-religionists have complete control of our government. For many reasons, too many and too complex to go into here at this time, the Zionists and their co-religionists rule these United States as though they were the absolute monarchs of this country. Now you may say that is a very broad statement, but let me show you what happened while we were all asleep."  Is This Our America Anymore? Patrick J. Buchanan  ... Why are we importing a million-plus workers a year when 17 million Americans can't find work? Whose country is this? Why do we not declare a moratorium on all immigration, until our unemployment rate falls to 6 or 5 percent? Charity begins at home. Ought we not take care of our own jobless first before we invite in strangers to take their jobs? According to the Pew Hispanic Center, each year between 300,000 and 400,000 "anchor babies" are born to illegal aliens. These newborns are entitled to citizenship, free health care and education, welfare and food stamps.  Holocaust Added to Australia's National Education Curriculum  JTA  The Holocaust has been included in the national education curriculum in Australia for the first time. Jewish leaders welcomed the move, announced last week by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, with some reservations. "One difficulty is that study of the Holocaust is limited to the years1942-1945," said Executive Council of Australian Jewry executive director, Peter Wertheim.  Child Sacrifice in Tenth-Century Peru  New Scientist  Sacrifice is an age-old ritual, but the inhabitants of tenth-century Peru brought sinister novelty to their rites by slaughtering children. In the Lambayeque valley on the north coast of the country, the earliest definitive evidence of ritual child sacrifice has been uncovered. The bloodletting took place at a site called Cerro Cerrillos. "The scale and sheer complexity of the blood sacrifice of children at Cerro Cerrillos appears to be something completely new," said Haagen Klaus of Utah Valley University in Orem.  Crumbling US Infrastructure: Failing Bridges, Roads and Dams Philip R. Davis  ... What was once the world's mightiest and proudest economy, this once great nation of builders has been given an overall grade of "D" in the American Society of Civil Engineers report on our Infrastructure ... According to the report, decades of underfunding and inattention have jeopardized the ability of our nation's infrastructure to support our economy and facilitate our way of life. At risk of catastrophic failure besides the dams (including levees) are things like our drinking water, sewage systems, bridges, waterways, rail lines, airports, roadways (especially elevated ones) and, of course, our entire electrical grid.  America's Bridges are Falling Down Robert Longley  America's Bridges are Falling Down. And so are the roads, dams, pipes, and just about everything else making up what's left of America's quickly crumbling infrastructure. How much will it cost to fix it? A smooth $2.2 trillion over the next five years, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).  Can Democracy Cope?  Patrick J. Buchanan  ... California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are facing historic deficits, as the stimulus money that enabled them to survive 2009 and 2010 runs out. Illinois is facing a shortfall of $15 billion, a third of the state budget. California is being compared to Spain ... The deficit is not shrinking, but growing. Even before the Barack Obama tax compromise -- price tag $857 billion -- the 2011 deficit is surging. ... Spending is approaching 200 percent of revenue. Obama's deficit for the first quarter of 2011 alone will be the same size as the largest annual deficit George W. Bush ever ran.  In the Mideast, the US Is a Helpless Giant  Eric Margolis  ... Over the next half century, the Israel lobby became the most powerful and feared lobby in America, dominating both the US Congress and media. The lobby's brilliant success was again confirmed last week as Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of Israel's rightist coalition, literally spit in Obama's face, sneeringly rejecting the president's pleas to create a viable Palestinian state ... By caving in to Israel's hard right over the West Bank, Obama sends a message of profound weakness to the rest of the world. He is signaling that Israel, not the White House, really makes America's Mideast policy.  With Mideast Peace Talks Adrift, the US Searches for Plan B  The Christian Science Monitor  With the Obama administration's big idea to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks - a settlement freeze - abandoned, the region is skeptical about American leadership ... "Up until now the Americans haven't fulfilled anything that they promised to the Palestinian leadership: George Bush promised at Annapolis that within two years there would be a Palestinian state. President Obama talked about freezing settlements, and now he is giving up,'' says Hana Sinora, the codirector of the Israel Palestinian Center for Research and Information.  How King George VI Overcame His Stammer BBC News  The British film, The King's Speech, nominated this week for seven Golden Globes, tells the story of George VI's battle to overcome a terrible stammer. He was a reluctant king, thrust into the role when his elder brother, Edward VIII, abdicated to marry the American divorce, Wallis Simpson ... The only speech by George VI on the BBC website is the triumph that forms the culmination of Tom Hooper's film - the King's Speech rallying the nation on the outbreak of war in 1939.  Fraud at the Jewish Claims Conference: Stolen Milllions  Der Spiegel (Germany)  A lack of transparency, dubious real estate deals and now massive fraud -- the Jewish Claims Conference is no stranger to negative headlines. Now, the German government has stepped in to ensure that Holocaust victims get their due. ... The JCC has always been very secretive. It has never even released figures on the number of staff members who work there. Such opaqueness is highly unusual for such a prominent organization which, since it was established in 1951, has disbursed billions of euros from Germany to Holocaust victims around.  Torture Memoirs Revive Horrors of Communism The Telegraph (Britain)  Hankering in the former East Germany for a return to the supposed simplicity of life under communist rule has been challenged by a 73-year-old woman's account of eight years of rape and torture she suffered when she was a political prisoner. Erika Riemann was 14 when she was imprisoned by the communist regime. She had defaced a portrait of Stalin hanging in her school by painting a red bow over his moustache with her mother's lipstick. In three East German prisons, including a former Nazi concentration camp, she was repeatedly raped, starved and beaten. Finally she was forced to endure a mock mass extermination in a gas chamber.  A Prominent False Witness: Elie Wiesel Incites Hate Against Germans Robert Faurisson  ... Wiesel claims to be full of love for humanity. However, he does not refrain from an appeal to hatred. In his opinion: "Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate -- healthy, virile hate -- for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the dead."  Middle East Peace Process: Dead But Not Buried Editorial - The Guardian (Britain)  The Middle East peace process died a quiet, undramatic death with the statement last week that the US had given up trying to persuade Binyamin Netanyahu to stop building on occupied land as a prerequisite to direct talks with the Palestinians ... The contradiction at the heart of US policy is that its support for Israel is unconditional. Even the offer of billions of dollars of aid did not turn Mr Netanyahu's head, because he knew, if he refused, the flow of US money and weaponry would continue unabated. Any future US president, not just the current one, must calibrate the relationship with Israel as the US does with any other ally.  Australian Intelligence Chiefs Fear Nuclear War Between Israel and Iran  Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)  Australian intelligence agencies fear that Israel might launch military strikes against Iran and that Tehran's pursuit of nuclear capabilities could draw the US and Australia into a potential nuclear war in the Middle East. Australia's top intelligence agency has also privately undercut the hardline stance towards Tehran of the United States, Israeli and Australian governments, saying that Iran's nuclear program is intended to deter attack and that it is a mistake to regard Iran as a ''rogue state''.  Waffen SS Veteran Holds Seat in Latvia's Parliament  WSWS  On November 8, a former member of the National Socialist Waffen SS was elected chairman of the parliamentary committee of the Latvian government responsible for dealing with the Russian minority in the Baltic state. The 86-year-old deputy, Visvaldis Lacis, will head the parliamentary committee responsible for the implementation of new nationality laws. ... Lacis, who fought in the Second World War against the Soviet Union as a member of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen SS, has published numerous articles and books glorifying Hitler's Germany, the Waffen SS and the war against the Soviet Union.  In Latvia, Thousands Pay Tribute to Fallen Waffen SS Troops The Independent (Britain)  ... Watched by more than 1,000 blue-uniformed riot police, they brandished red-and-white Latvian national flags and barked out patriotic wartime "warrior songs" that echoed ominously through the narrow streets of Riga's old town. The march, by some 350 surviving former members of Latvia's Nazi Waffen SS division and more than 2,000 of their supporters, looked like an act of collective octogenarian defiance ... Controversy has always surrounded Latvia's so-called Legionnaires' Day. It marks the anniversary of a 1943 battle in which two Latvian divisions of some 30,000 Waffen SS troops inflicted defeat on the Soviet Red Army.  Drumbeats for Clemency for Pollard Reverberate Again M. E. "Spike" Bowman -- Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies  Every few years there is an orchestrated attempt to forge popular opinion towards the release of convicted spy Jonathan Jay Pollard. There are several arguments for his release. Taken in the aggre gate, and without analysis, they seem logical; however, if one looks behind the sound bites, the issues are far from simple and explain why clemency continues to be ill-advised. There have been few rebuttals of this escalation of calls for Pollard's release. Mainly because so few were cognizant of the scope of Pollard's disclosures, or the misuses of those disclosures, and the damage they did to our own operations and sources; and even fewer, of the policy implications of these unauthor ized releases to a foreign power.  Obama, Globalization, Revisionism, the Zionist Push for War, and More  Audio Archive - Institute for Historical Review  Recordings of broadcast interviews with the IHR director, and other presentations, covering a range of topical and historical issues. In these probing, thought-provoking interviews and guest appearances, Mark Weber and others examine the Zionist push for war, the harmful impact of Globalization, historical revisionism, the Holocaust, the danger of war with Iran, the Obama administration's record, Jewish-Zionist power, and much more. Also here are older interviews, broadcasts and lectures.  The Art of Lying For One's Country  Eric Margolis  Decent people may be shocked by reading about Washington's heavy-handed treatment of friends and foes alike, its bullying, use of diplomats as junior-grade spies, narrow-minded views, and snide remarks about world leaders. But more Americans seem annoyed by the leaks than by the imperial diplomatic hubris of their elected government ... So far there have been no big surprises from WikiLeaks. Note the total absence of any criticism of Israel in spite of the fact that it is so deeply involved in making US Mideast policy. In fact, we have seen Israel's viewpoint, particularly towards Iran, woven through WikiLeaks - and no dissenting opinions.  Papers Shed New Light On Eisenhower's Famous 'Military-Industrial Complex' Speech The Associated Press  For nearly two years, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his aides searched for the right words to describe at the end of his presidency his fear that the nation's burgeoning military power was driving its foreign policy, newly released papers show Many months before delivering the farewell address in which he famously warned about the strength of the American "military-industrial complex," Eisenhower weighed various ideas for the speech, but concerns about the military were always central to his remarks. The Eisenhower Presidential Library on Friday unveiled previously unseen drafts of the speech that were found recently in a cabin owned by Eisenhower speechwriter Malcolm Moos.  The `Military Industrial Complex' Danger: A Presidential Warning  Dwight Eisenhower - Video  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-industrial complex." Excerpt. Runtime: 1:54 mins. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."  Germany Pledges Additional $80 Million For Auschwitz Memorial BBC News  Germany has agreed to contribute $80 million towards a fund aiming to preserve the Auschwitz Nazi death camp as a symbol of the Holocaust. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Fund, set up in 2009, says $120 million is needed to preserve the site in southern Poland ... Germany is one of several countries contributing to the fund to maintain the main concentration camp, Auschwitz, and the nearby satellite camp of Birkenau. The US has pledged $15 million and Austria $6 million, with smaller amounts promised by other countries, including the Netherlands, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, a spokesman for the Auschwitz memorial said.  Ancient Sun Temple Found in Bulgaria The Sofia Echo (Bulgaria)  The oldest temple of the Sun has been discovered in northwest Bulgaria, near the town of Vratsa, aged at more then 8000 years, the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reported on December 15 2010. The Bulgarian 'Stonehenge' is hence about 3000 years older than its illustrious English counterpart. But unlike its more renowned English cousin, the Bulgarian sun temple was not on the surface, rather it was dug out from under tons of earth and is shaped in the form of a horse shoe, the report said.  Stolen German Field Marshal's Baton Sells for $731,600  UPI  A Maryland auction house said a Nazi field marshal's baton sold for $731,600 after it was valued at only $10,000 to $15,000. The 19-inch long baton, which once belonged to Nazi Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, was listed with an estimated value of $10,000 to $15,000 prior to Saturday's auction at Alex Cooper auctioneers in Towson, The Baltimore Sun reported Monday. The auction house declined to release the name of the buyer. The baton was discovered by a U.S. soldier searching a Berlin castle for traps in July 1945, the Alex Cooper Web site said. The item was passed down to his son, who consigned it for auction.  Kissinger Says `Gas Chamber' Remark Should Be Viewed in Context  JTA  It should have been ancient, if unsavory, news: A cavalier reference to gassing Jews, an aside in a conversation nearly 40 years old. But the aside was pronounced by Henry Kissinger, a German-born Jew who fled Nazi horrors as a child and who has been honored by multiple Jewish organizations as one of Israel's saviors during its darkest days, when he was secretary of state to President Nixon. "If they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern," Kissinger is heard saying on the latest batch of Nixon-era Oval Office tapes released by the Nixon Library.  Latest Nixon Tape Buries Henry Kissinger's Reputation  Christopher Hitchens  ... In the past, Kissinger has defended his role as enabler to Nixon's psychopathic bigotry, saying that he acted as a restraining influence on his boss by playing along and making soothing remarks. This can now go straight into the lavatory pan, along with his other hysterical lies. Obsessed as he was with the Jews, Nixon never came close to saying that he'd be indifferent to a replay of Auschwitz. For this, Kissinger deserves sole recognition. It's hard to know how to classify this observation in the taxonomy of obscenity. Should it be counted as tactical Holocaust pre-denial? That would be too mild. It's actually a bit more like advance permission for another Holocaust.  Nixon Excluded Jews on Decisions About Israel, Tapes Show  New York Post  Former President Richard Nixon didn't want any Jewish members of his staff involved in policy-making decisions on Israel -- including his then national security adviser Henry Kissinger, formerly classified documents reveal. "No Jew can handle the Israeli thing," notes from a July 1971 meeting taken by Nixon's Chief-of-Staff Bob Haldeman read, the Wall Street Journal reported. Haldeman later wrote in another missive, "Forget the Jews. They're against [the administration]." If Kissinger, one of the most powerful members of Nixon's team, tried to meddle in Israeli policy, Nixon had explicit plans to deal with him. "Whenever [Kissinger] calls -- [then-aide Alexander] Haig should notify [the president]," the note reads.  The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education Jennifer Peto  This paper focuses on issues of Jewish identity, whiteness and victimhood within hegemonic Holocaust education. I argue that today, Jewish people of European descent enjoy white privilege and are among the most socio-economically advantaged groups in the West. Despite this privilege, the organized Jewish community makes claims about Jewish victimhood that are widely accepted within that community and within popular discourse in the West. I propose that these claims to victimhood are no longer based in a reality of oppression, but continue to be propagated because a victimized Jewish identity can produce certain effects that are beneficial to the organized Jewish community and the Israeli nation-state.  Anger Over University For Thesis That Calls Holocaust Education Racist Jewish Chronicle (Britain)  A Canadian university has defended a controversial decision to accept a master's thesis that described Holocaust education as "racist". Jewish groups have reacted furiously to the revelation that the University of Toronto awarded a degree to a student for a work titled "The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education". The essay looked at two programmes which take young people to the Nazi sites of Poland; March of the Living for Jewish students, and the March of Remembrance and Hope, which educates non-Jewish participants. It was written by Jenny Peto, a Jewish pro-Palestinian activist who was involved in an occupation of Toronto's Israeli consulate in 2009.  Jews: A Religious Community, a People, or a Race? Mark Weber  Defining "Jew" has never been simple. Is he someone who practices Judaism, the Jewish religion, or is he identified by his ancestry? While many Americans assume that Jews are essentially a religious group, Jews themselves take for granted that their community is much more ethnic-national than it is religious. Benjamin Netanyahu, who has served as Israel's prime minister, frankly regards Jews as members of a racial group. Speaking to a gathering of nearly a thousand Jews in southern California, he said: "If Israel had not come into existence after World War II then I am certain the Jewish race wouldn't have survived."  Dispatches From a Beleaguered America in Imperial Retreat Neal Ascherson -- The Guardian (Britain)  ... Behind all these diligent reports glows an evening landscape, in which a declining empire has lost its way. When communism collapsed, the US expected to become the unchallenged global superpower. But instead the US instantly lost control of countless nations and movements stampeding away from cold war discipline. Paradoxically, it was in those cold war years that America had been in charge of most of the world, mostly by consent, and knew why it was in charge. Now that world has burst into a thousand pieces: all sharp, many of them unstable, some of them fearfully dangerous. And the certainty of mission has gone.  Bizarre Extermination Tales From Auschwitz  Mark Weber  ... At one time it was seriously claimed that at Auschwitz Jews were systematically killed with electricity. American newspapers in February 1945, citing a Soviet eyewitness report from the recently-liberated camp, told readers that the methodical Germans had killed Jews there using an "electric conveyor belt on which hundreds of persons could be electrocuted simultaneously [and] then moved on into furnaces. They were burned almost instantly, producing fertilizer for nearby cabbage fields." At the Nuremberg Tribunal, chief US prosecutor Robert Jackson charged that the Germans had used a "newly invented" device to instantaneously "vaporize" 20,000 Jews near Auschwitz "in such a way that there was no trace left of them."  The Legendary 88mm Gun of World War II  Video  During World War II, Germany's legendary 88mm artillery gun proved itself a formidable weapon of great versatility and fire-power. It was effective against tanks, as regular artillery and as flak against enemy warplanes. It was used with great success in the north Africa campaign, on the eastern front against Soviet forces, and in defending the homeland against Allied bombers. Runtime: 7:16 mins.  In Germany, Jewish Physician Refuses to Operate on Patient With Nazi Tattoo  The Telegraph (Britain)  The doctor, who has not been named, refused to perform thyroid surgery on the 36-year-old lorry driver when he saw the tattoo of an imperial eagle perched on top of a swastika, surrounded by laurel wreathes. "I can't operate on this man. I am Jewish," the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung quoted him as saying. Leaving the patient anaesthetised, he found a senior colleague, who then performed a successful operation. The 46-year-old Jewish doctor, who works at hospital in the city of Paderborn, explained later that his conscience prevented him from treating people he suspected of having neo-Nazi sympathies.  Actual Cables Refute Claims of Gulf States' Backing for Strikes on Iran Gareth Porter and Jim Lobe  .. But a careful reading of all the diplomatic cables reporting the views of Saudi and other Gulf Arab regimes on Iran shows that the Times' account seriously distorted the content - and in the case of the Saudis, ignored the context - of the cables released by Wikileaks ... In fact, the cables show that most Gulf Arab regimes - including Saudi Arabia itself - have been seriously concerned about the consequences of a strike against Iran for their own security, in sharp contrast to Israel's open advocacy of such a strike. They also show the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait expressing that concern with greater urgency in the past two years than previously. Those facts were completely ignored, however, in the Times' account.  Europeans Criticize Fierce U.S. Response to Leaks The New York Times  For many Europeans, Washington's fierce reaction to the flood of secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks displays imperial arrogance and hypocrisy, indicating a post-9/11 obsession with secrecy that contradicts American principles ... American officials and politicians have been widely condemned in the European news media for calling the leaks everything from "terrorism" (Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York) to "an attack against the international community" (Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton).  In Canada, University Master's Thesis Calls Holocaust Education `Racist' Maclean's (Canada)  A University of Toronto student who submitted a master's thesis that argues Holocaust education is "racist," is drawing heated criticism against the university for accepting it. In her thesis, Jennifer Peto argues that the March of the Living and the March of Remembrance and Hope programs perpetuate "Jewish victimhood" while obscuring "Jewish privilege," denying "Jewish racism," and promoting the "interests of the Israeli nation-state." Her thesis is titled, "The Victimhood of the Powerful White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education."  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.  New Evidence That Vikings Were First to America  Time  ... Until now, the historical evidence has suggested that while the Vikings may have reached the Americas, they didn't really engage with the indigenous population. "According to the sagas, the Vikings had troubles with the locals and couldn't settle there, so they returned to Iceland," says Helgason. "But if we're right, it will mean they didn't just sail there and come back. They had real contact with them." For now, the story of the lone American Indian woman taken on a Viking ship to Iceland remains a hypothesis. To prove it will require finding the same genetic sequence in older Amerindian remains elsewhere in the world -- family members, as it were, of that 1,000-year-old woman who ended up so far from home.  Chinese Villages Reportedly Descended From Roman Soldiers, Say Specialists  The Telegraph (Britain)  Genetic testing of villagers in a remote part of China has shown that nearly two thirds of their DNA is of Caucasian origin, lending support to the theory that they may be descended from a 'lost legion' of Roman soldiers. Tests found that the DNA of some villagers in Liqian, on the fringes of the Gobi Desert in north-western China, was 56 per cent Caucasian in origin. Many of the villagers have blue or green eyes, long noses and even fair hair, prompting speculation that they have European blood.  Why Are We Still in Korea? Patrick J. Buchanan  ... We borrow from Europe to defend Europe. We borrow from Japan and China to defend Japan from China. We borrow from the Gulf Arabs to defend the Gulf Arabs ... How to explain why America behaves as she does? From 1941 to 1989, she played a great heroic role as defender of freedom, sacrificing and serving mankind, a role of which we can be forever proud. But having won that epochal struggle against the evil empire, we found ourselves in a world for which we were unprepared. Now, like an aging athlete, we keep trying to relive the glory days when all the world looked with awe upon us. We can't let go, because we don't know what else to do. We live in yesterday -- and our rivals look to tomorrow.  Jewish Conductor Wants Wagner Free of Nazi Link The Associated Press  Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim says the perception of Richard Wagner is unjustly influenced by the fact he was Hitler's favorite composer, infuriating a Holocaust survivors group which blasted the argument as a "moral failure." "We need one day to liberate Wagner of all this weight," Barenboim told reporters Friday. He is conducting Wagner's "Die Walkuere" for the gala premiere of La Scala's season in Milan next week.  Oceans of Blood and Profits for the Mongers of War Robert Fisk -- The Independent (Britain)  Coming soon to a war near you; oceans of blood, bodies torn to shreds, of course. But bring your credit card. Or a cheque book. It's big business. And there may be profits ... According to Israeli historian Illan Pappé, since 1949, the US has passed to Israel more than $100 billion in grants and $10 billion in special loans - more than Washington hands out to North Africa, South America and the Caribbean. Over the past 20 years, $5.5 billion has been given to Israel for military purchases. But for sheer self-abuse, it's necessary to read of the Midas-like losses in the entire Middle East since just 1991 - an estimated $12,000,000,000,000. Yup, that's a cool $12 trillion.  In Israel, Top Rabbis Tell Jews Not to Sell Property to Non-Jews The Associated Press  Three dozen top Israeli rabbis threw their support Tuesday behind a religious ruling barring Jews from selling or renting homes to non-Jews -- an indication of growing radicalism within the rabbinical community at a time of mounting friction between Israeli Arabs and Jews. The action by the clerics -- chief rabbis in some of Israel's largest cities and influential among the devout -- fueled charges of racism.  Israel's Racist Rabbis  Jonathan Cook  Jews must not rent homes to "gentiles". That was the religious decree issued this week by at least 50 of Israel's leading rabbis, many of them employed by the state as municipal religious leaders. Jews should first warn, then "ostracise" fellow Jews who fail to heed the directive, the rabbis declared. The decree is the latest in a wave of racist pronouncements from some of Israel's most influential rabbis ... Two months ago, Mr Yosef explained the logic behind his views and those of like-minded rabbis. "Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us."  From Jefferson to Assange  Robert Scheer  ... The pretend patriots who use the national security argument to gut what remains of our most important security asset -- our constitutional guarantees of a truly free press -- are just what President George Washington feared when in his farewell address he warned "against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the Impostures of pretended patriotism. ..." ... It is unconscionable to target Assange for publishing documents on the Internet that mainstream media outlets have attested had legitimate news value.  The Roosevelt Legacy and The Kent Case Tyler Kent -- Institute for Historical Review  ... In 1940, an obscure cypher clerk at the American Embassy in London came across documents which, in his judgment and that of many reputable historians subsequently, proved conclusively that Roosevelt both directly and through his agents was engaged in activities designed to foment a war and eventually to compel American participation in it. I was that cypher clerk ... The new basic law of nations requires only one clause, very simply: "It pays to be on the winning side."  Medieval Britons Were Richer Than Modern Poor People, Study Finds  Reuters  ... Medieval England was not only far more prosperous than previously believed, it also actually boasted an average income that would be more than double the average per capita income of the world's poorest nations today, according to new research. Living standards in medieval England were far above the "bare bones subsistence" experience of people in many of today's poor countries, a study says... "The majority of the British population in medieval times could afford to consume what we call a 'respectability basket' of consumer goods that allowed for occasional luxuries," said University of Warwick economist Professor Stephen Broadberry, who led the research.  Obama To Netanyahu: `You Win'  Alan Hart  ... With his decision to abandon efforts to persuade Israel to renew a freeze on illegal settlement building on the occupied West Bank, he [Obama] has proved that the makers of American policy for resolving the conflict are Israel's leaders and their lobby in the U.S. (including its many stooges in Congress and the mainstream media), not the man who occupies the Oval Office in the White House ... As all seriously well informed people know (sadly the very few, not the very many), unconditional American support for the criminal state of Israel is not in America's own interests.  Another Phony `Last Nazi' Story  Guy Walters -- The Telegraph (Britain)  This winter seems to have unearthed numerous elderly Nazis, and today has proved to be no exception. Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth is reporting the finding by an American called Mark Gould of a 97-year-old former SS officer, Bernhard Frank, who, according to the report, "was responsible for signing the first order of the Reich instructing the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews".This claim is pure junk. Although I've no doubt that Frank was in the SS, the significance of his role in the Holocaust has been blown grossly out of proportion. ... Frank himself has been living openly in Germany for years, and there is no evidence to link him to committing any war crimes.  US Students Are Trailing In Global Performance Ranking The Associated Press  United States students are continuing to trail behind their peers in a pack of higher performing nations, according to results from a key international assessment. Scores from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment to be released Tuesday show 15-year-old students in the U.S. performing about average in reading and science, and below average in math. Out of 34 countries, the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math. Those scores are all higher than those from 2003 and 2006, but far behind the highest scoring countries, including South Korea, Finland and Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai in China and Canada.  Israel on Iran: So Wrong For So Long Justin Elliott -- Salon  Officials at the U.S. Department of State, we learned from the secret cables released by WikiLeaks last week, have serious questions about the accuracy -- and sincerity -- of Israeli predictions about when Iran will obtain a nuclear weapon ... According to various Israeli government predictions over the years, Iran was going to have a bomb by the mid-90s -- or 1998, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2005, and finally 2010. More recent Israeli predictions have put that date at 2011 or 2014.  Strategy for Regime Change in Iran Raw Story  According to a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, in August 2007 the head of Israel's intelligence agency urged US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, R. Nicholas Burns, to join with Israel in carrying out a five-part strategy to implement regime change in Iran. Mossad Director Meir Dagan acknowledged at the meeting that the American analysis of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program was different from Israel's, but he insisted that the threat from Iran was "obvious" and stated that Israel was willing to take action unilaterally.  Argentina and Brazil Recognize Palestine, Prompting Zionist Anger  BBC News  Israel has reacted angrily to Argentina's recognition of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders. Monday's move by Argentina comes days after a similar step by South American neighbour Brazil. The Argentinian foreign ministry said recognition was in line with the Palestinians' right to build an independent state. More than 100 states around the world recognise Palestine, their mission at the United Nations says. "The time has come to recognise Palestine as a free and independent state," Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said, adding that Argentina was "frustrated" that peace talks had stalled. Brazil recognised Palestine on Friday, and Uruguay said it would do the same next year. Costa Rica, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have already done so.  Germany Pledges Additional Funds for Holocaust Survivors  The Associated Press  Germany has agreed to double its contribution toward in-home care for Holocaust survivors in order to meet the increasing need of the rapidly aging group. Germany's Finance Ministry confirmed Tuesday it would increase its contribution for 2011 to euro 110 million ($147 million), pending approval from parliament, which is widely expected. The money is distributed by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which announced the decision on Monday.  German Rail Company Gives Additional Five Million Euros to Nazi Victims  AFP  Germany's state-owned rail company pledged Wednesday to donate five million euros (6.6 million dollars) to a fund for Nazi victims, mostly in projects in eastern Europe. "Sixty-five years after the end of the war, the suffering of the victims of Nazism is not forgotten," Deutsche Bahn chief executive Ruediger Grube said.... The money will go to the Remembrance, Responsibility and Future Foundation (EVZ), which since its creation in 2000 has disbursed some 4.4 billion euros to 1.66 million people in almost 100 countries from the German government and firms.  Billions Paid by Germany in Holocaust Restitution  Der Spiegel (Germany) - 2007  ... For more than half a century, the Jewish Claims Conference has been responsible for dealing with the German government over compensation claims made by victims of the Holocaust. In 1965, Germany signed a treaty agreeing to pay individual victims; survivors had to file their claims before 1969. Since then, Germany has paid out over 63.2 billion euros -- including 1.5 billion euros in direct payments to the Israeli government.  In Britain, Mayor Says Hitler Was Right About Gypsies  Daily Mail (Britain)  A mayor has provoked outrage by allegedly claiming Adolf Hitler had the 'right idea' about dealing with Germany's gipsies. Mike Eckersley is said to have made the remarks at a council equalities meeting, which was immediately halted. Fellow councillors called for him to quit and for David Cameron to throw him out of the Tory party. Mr Eckersley, who is mayor of Prestatyn in North Wales, has offered an apology, claiming he simply referred to the Nazis rather than praised them. However, Christine Evans, an independent councillor who chaired the meeting, said he had spoken of how Hitler got rid of the gipsies.  Zionists Control Congress, the White House, Hollywood and Wall Street, Says Helen Thomas The Detroit News  Helen Thomas said that she stands by her comments about Israel she made earlier this year that led to her resignation as a national columnist. And she went further, saying that Zionists control U.S. foreign policy and other institutions. ... Thomas, a longtime White House correspondent who grew up in Detroit as the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, was in Dearborn for a workshop on anti-Arab bias. ... "Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists. No question, in my opinion," she said. "They put their money where their mouth is. We're being pushed into a wrong direction in every way."  Michigan University Scraps Thomas Award Over 'Zionists' Remark CNN  The alma mater of journalist Helen Thomas will not bestow an award that had been given in her name, making the decision after the 90-year-old scribe made more controversial comments about Jewish people. Wayne State University, the Detroit, Michigan, institution that Thomas graduated from in 1942, said in a statement Friday that the school will no longer give out the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in the Media Award. "Wayne State encourages free speech and open dialogue, and respects diverse viewpoints," the school's statement said. "However, the university strongly condemns the anti-Semitic remarks made by Helen Thomas during a conference yesterday."  Pearl Harbor: Fifty Years of Controversy Charles Lutton -- Institute for Historical Review  ... Over the past half-century, Pearl Harbor revisionism has come of age. From the first writings of John T. Flynn, to George Morgenstern's masterful study, to the work encouraged by Harry Elmer Barnes, the testimony of participants in the events, and the latest findings of "second-generation" historians who are not satisfied merely to retell the standard accounts, this endeavor to uncover the truth has not been marked by paranoid "conspiracy theories" or reactionary "Roosevelt baiting." What revisionists have accomplished is a sober re-appraisal of the origins of the Pacific War, and the making of a strong case for remembering December 7, 1941 as President Roosevelt's "Day of Infamy."  US Scraps Israel Settlements Freeze Bid to Revive talks BBC News  The United States is abandoning efforts to persuade Israel to renew a freeze on settlement-building as part of efforts to revive Middle East peace talks. Washington had been negotiating with Israel to try to meet Palestinian conditions for restarting direct talks. The Palestinians suspended talks in September after a 10-month freeze on Israeli building in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, expired. The US says it will continue to explore ways to bring the two sides together. A senior US official told the BBC that attempts to get Israel to renew a partial freeze on settlement construction in occupied territory had failed.  The Nine Eleven of American Diplomacy  Patrick J. Buchanan  ... The WikiLeaks dump comes in an age where diplomatic insults are common. Hence, nothing so dramatic as war is likely to result. Still, this is a diplomatic disaster of the first order. For what it reveals is that the world's last superpower cannot be trusted with diplomatic confidences or secrets ... Secretary of State Clinton, who has made a favorable impression on foreign leaders, comes off as mildly paranoid with her instructions to have U.S. diplomats spy on and steal credit card numbers of allied diplomats at the United Nations. Because of these leaks, many U.S. diplomats, who were candid about leaders in the capitals where they represent our country, will see their usefulness diminished or destroyed.  We Don't Need WikiLeaks To Know Netanyahu is Unreliable Haaretz (Israel)  ... The U.S. State Department does not need to wait for the next wave of leaks in order to know that any promise Netanyahu makes in a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or President Barack Obama often lasts only until the prime minister's next meeting with Interior Minister Eli Yishai, or even Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely. In the best case. Clinton recently received another reminder about Netanyahu's trustworthiness: In closed conversations, the secretary of state has said the prime minister put words in her mouth that were never uttered at her last one-on-one meeting with him.  What If NATO Is Defeated In Afghanistan?  Eric S. Margolis  Amazing as it sounds, NATO, the world's most powerful military alliance, may be losing the only war the 61-year old pact every fought. All its soldiers, heavy bombers, tanks, helicopter gunships, armies of mercenaries, and electronic gear are being beaten by a bunch of lightly-armed Afghan farmers and mountain tribesmen ... Obama is fresh from groveling before Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He pleaded with Israel's leader to impose a short, token freeze on settlement building in exchange for a multi-billion dollar bribe from Washington of advanced US F-35 stealth warplanes, promises of UN vetoes, and raising the value of US arms stockpiled for Israel's use to $1 billion. Rarely has a US president crawled so low.  A Tea Party to Nowhere Philip Giraldi  ... It is easy to forget that when Bill Clinton left office in 2000 there was a budget surplus. Ballooning defense and security spending since that time, all accomplished without raising taxes, has been the engine of growth for a $13 trillion national debt, a total that increases by $4 billion every day. The United States now accounts for 45% of the entire world total for military spending, euphemistically referred to as "defense." ... The United States is on a road that can only lead to ruin.  New German Film Broaches Taboo Topic of Post-War Expulsions  Deutsche Welle (Germany)  The movie "Habermann" tells the tragic tale of the Germans and Czechs living in the Sudetenland from the day the Nazis marched in until the Germans were expelled after World War II. That history remains a touchy topic. The expulsion and murder of the so-called "Sudeten" Germans by war-weary Czechs after World War II traumatized the German-Czech relationship ... The film opens with a dramatic scene from 1945: the violent expulsion of the Germans by a mob of murderous Czechs.  Revisiting the `Good War's' Aftermath Dwight D. Murphey  ... The American public has long thought of the Allied effort in World War II as a "great crusade" that pitted good and decency against Nazi evil. Even after all these years, it is likely that the last thing the public wants to learn is that vast and unspeakable wrongs were committed by both the Western Allies and the Soviet Union during the war and its aftermath. It flies in the face of that reluctance for MacDonogh to tell "the brutal history" at great length [in his book, After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation]. That willingness is commendable for its intellectual bravery.  America's New Poor: The End of the Middle-Class Dream Paul Mason -- The Guardian (Britain)  ... America's middle class is disappearing. A lifestyle sustained for 30 years by rising debt is dissolving as the credit dries up. And the question beyond the crisis is: can it ever come back? Figures released last month by the US Census Bureau show it will be hard. Middle incomes are lower, in real terms, than in 1999. The median income, stagnate for a decade, fell by 4.2% once the crisis hit. Since December 2007 more than six million Americans have been pushed below the official poverty line.  Global Poverty Has Doubled Since 1970s, Says UN Report  Agence France-Presse  The number of very poor countries has doubled in the last 30 to 40 years, while the number of people living in extreme poverty has also grown two-fold, a UN think-tank warned Thursday. In its annual report on the 49 least developed countries (LDCs) in the world, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said that the model of development that has prevailed to date for these countries has failed and should be re-assessed.  Classified Papers Validate German Warnings to Bush Der Spiegel (Germany)  A classified document obtained by Spiegel shows notes from a meeting between a top German diplomat and Condoleezza Rice just weeks before the Iraq invasion. It indicates steps by the German government to prevent the war and undermines claims in George W. Bush's memoir that Gerhard Schröder indicated he would support the president should the US go to war. ... The objections and predictions put forward by Berlin on that Tuesday have turned out to be legitimate and correct. The crux of the German argument was that the political costs of a war in Iraq would be "higher than (the) political returns."  Russian Parliament Condemns Stalin for Katyn Massacre of Poles  AFP  Russia's parliament on Friday declared Stalin responsible for ordering the Katyn massacre of Polish officers in World War II, a crime Moscow spent decades blaming on the Nazis to the fury of Poland. The resolution came amid reports that President Dmitry Medvedev intended to launch a major new "de-Stalinisation" drive that reminded Russians of the Soviet dictator's crimes and declassified once-secret information. The resolution of the State Duma lower house of parliament broke more than half a century of official reluctance to admit that the Soviet leadership under Joseph Stalin ordered the killing of thousands of Polish officers in 1940.  Israel Recruits Thousands of Citizen PR Activists in Europe The Guardian (Britain)  Israel has instructed its embassies in ten European countries, including the UK, each to recruit 1,000 members of the public to act as advocates for its policies in a new public relations offensive. A cable from the foreign affairs ministry was sent to embassies last week, with instructions from Avigdor Lieberman, the controversial and extreme right-wing foreign minister, to adopt a range of measures aimed at improving Israel's standing in Europe. The most unusual was the order to identify up to 1,000 people by mid-January to act as "allies" to Israel. One source described them as "friends who are willing not just to receive messages but to actively promote these messages."  Sarkozy is 'Most Pro-American and 'Pro-Israel' French Leader, Says US Embassy AFP  Even before his election, President Nicolas Sarkozy convinced the US he was the most pro-American French leader since the war and even discussed sending French troops to Iraq, leaked cables showed ... "Sarkozy is instinctively pro-American and pro-Israel," the embassy wrote, according to the memos, noting what they called Sarkozy's "Jewish heritage" a reference to his French Catholic mother's Greek Jewish father. The US embassy was also delighted that Sarkozy chose to appoint Bernard Kouchner, a staunch Atlanticist despite his left-wing credentials, as "the first Jewish foreign minister of the Fifth Republic."  Hillary Clinton Ordered US Diplomats to Spy on Foreign Envoys, Leaked Dispatches Show  Nadia Prupis - Truthout  As the WikiLeaks documents steadily reveal more and more controversial actions taken by the government in its international operations, one report from July 2009 shows Secretary of State Hillary Clinton authorizing US diplomats to spy and collect personal information on members of foreign agencies. The cable, entitled "Reporting and Collection Needs: The United Nations" and sent to 36 American embassies, missions and consuls around the world, details a program called the National HUMINT (human intelligence) Collection Directive (NHCD) and ordered US diplomats to collect a wealth of information on members of the United Nations abroad.  Who Voted For More War? Philip Giraldi  Something strange has occurred in the aftermath of the November 2nd midterm election. Even though the United States is fighting two major wars and is involved as well in a number of lesser military conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, foreign and security policy was not on the ballot anywhere. Apart from a couple of candidates in Illinois trying to outdo each other in terms of affirmation of loyalty to Israel, not a word was heard about America's international engagements and their consequences ... The inside the beltway consensus on foreign policy, that the US is a force for good and should be involved everywhere and at all times, is deeply ingrained in the system even if the voters often don't quite get it.  Israel Approves Large Detention Camp for African Migrants The Irish Times (Ireland)  Israel will build a massive detention facility in its southern Negev desert for thousands of migrants from Africa who have crossed into the country seeking work. Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting that the move was a humane gesture designed to provide the illegal "infiltrators" with food, shelter and medical care until they could be deported. ... "We must stop the mass entry of illegal infiltrators who are looking for work due to the very harsh repercussions that this wave will have on the character and future of the state of Israel.," he said. ... Earlier this month, Israel began constructing a fence along its border with Egypt in an effort to keep out the African migrants, who have swelled to more than 34,000.  In Spain, Thousands Rally On Anniversary of Franco's Death Irish Times (Ireland)  Thousands of neo-Nazis and hundreds of Spanish anti-fascists came face to face this weekend on the 35th anniversary of the death of dictator Gen Francisco Franco. Twelve-kilometre traffic jams blocked the motorway linking Madrid to the Valle de los Caidos - Valley of the Fallen - as the Franco faithful, many of whom had travelled from across Europe, drove 45 km for their annual commemorative Mass at the vast basilica. It marks the grave of the old dictator and that of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of Spain's Falangist Party. More than 100 José Antonio supporters carried a large laurel wreath and marched overnight in freezing rain from his birthplace in central Madrid to the basilica.  With Settlement Deal, U.S. Will Be Rewarding Israel's Bad Behavior Daniel Kurtzer -- The Washington Post  ... But now, the administration says it is prepared to pay off Israel to freeze only some of its settlement activity, and only temporarily. For the first time in memory, the United States is poised to reward Israel for its bad behavior ... Previously, U.S. opposition to settlements resulted in penalties, not rewards, for continued construction. Washington deducted from its loan guarantees to Israel an amount equivalent, dollar for dollar, to the money that Israel spent in the occupied territories.  US Diplomats Ordered To Act As Spies Los Angeles Times  U.S. diplomats have been asked by Washington to gather detailed financial data on their foreign counterparts, including the kinds of information usually sought by spies, according to diplomatic cables made public on Sunday. The cables, part of a massive release of secret U.S. dispatches by the activist website Wikileaks, show that U.S. diplomats have been asked to gather foreign diplomats' credit card, frequent flier numbers and iris scans, as well as information on their internet identities and the telecommunications networks they use.  US Embassy Cables Leak Sparks Global Diplomatic Crisis The Guardian (Britain)  The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year. At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables -- many designated "secret" - the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN leadership. These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches, which were obtained by Wikileaks, the whistleblowers' website, also reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.  America in Decline: A Society in Denial Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review -- Audio  Weber reviews how America has changed over the past 50 years, and the factors behind the dramatic transformation. Politicians of both major parties, he says, along with those who control our nation's cultural and educational life, have been leading America in the wrong direction for many years. To further narrow partisan interests, they promote harmful policies based on false notions about history, society and life. America today is a society in denial, he says. Audio recording of a talk that was also given at an IHR meeting in San Diego.  Liar, Liar  Philip Giraldi  ... It is also past time that he begin to speak the truth to the American people also. His administration's retreat from any confrontation with Israel in an attempt to make a recalcitrant Netanyahu conform even to minimal standards of behavior confirms what all the world already knows: Israel will act and the United States will follow, even if those actions will inflict grave damage on the American people and on the US national interest ... When American politicians and senior government officials speak of their love of a foreign government that pursues policies inimical to US values and interests they should be disowned by every true patriot and also by every respectable media outlet. It should be grounds for their immediate removal.  Lithuanian Historian Quits After Holocaust Article AFP  A Lithuanian historian quit his civil service job Thursday after seven ambassadors from fellow European nations accused him of denying the Holocaust. Lithuania's interior ministry said that Petras Stankeras, an independent historian who also held a middle-ranking post in its planning department, had left at his own request ... An article by Stankeras in the mainstream weekly Veidas on the Nuremberg trials, where thevictorious Allies tried top Nazi German officials after World War II. Stankeras wrote that the trials "provided a legal basis to the legend about the six million purportedly murdered Jews"  Political Correctness Trumps Security  Thomas Sowell  ... What do the Israeli airport security people do that American airport security do not do? They profile. They question some individuals for more than half an hour, open up all their luggage and spread the contents on the counter -- and they let others go through with scarcely a word. And it works. Meanwhile, this administration is so hung up on political correctness that they have turned "profiling" into a bugaboo. They would rather have electronic scanners look under the clothes of nuns than to detain a Jihadist imam for some questioning. Will America be undermined from within by an administration obsessed with political correctness and intoxicated with the adolescent thrill of exercising its new-found powers?  Turkey's Prime Minister `Simply Hates Israel,' Says US Secret Dispatch AFP  Turkey's Islamist-rooted Prime Minister "simply hates Israel" on religious grounds, US cables released by WikiLeaks say, reflecting growing US misgivings over Ankara's foreign policy. The scathing assessment comes in a memo on a conversation with Israeli ambassador to Turkey, Gabby Levy, about Recep Tayyip Erdogan's frequent outbursts against Israel following the Jewish state's operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip last year. "Our discussions with contacts both inside and outside of the Turkish government... tend to confirm Levy's thesis that Erdogan simply hates Israel," the cable said. Levy reportedly dismissed domestic political calculations as the motive behind Erdogan's hostility, and instead attributed it to the prime minister's Islamist background.  An American Bribe that Stinks of Appeasement Robert Fisk -- The Independent (Britain)  In any other country, the current American bribe to Israel, and the latter's reluctance to accept it, in return for even a temporary end to the theft of somebody else's property would be regarded as preposterous ... It is a sign of just how far America (and, through our failure to condemn this insanity, Europe) has allowed its fear of Israel - and how far Obama has allowed his fear of Israeli supporters in Congress and the Senate - to go.  Netanyahu Seeks US Release of Israeli Spy The Jerusalem Post (Israel)  Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has asked the US to release Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard as part of a series of gestures made to Israel in an effort to restart peace talks with the Palestinians, sources with knowledge of the talks told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend. Sunday is the 25th anniversary of Pollard's arrest at the gates of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. He is serving a life sentence in prison in Butner, North Carolina, for passing classified information to an ally, a charge that normally carries a sentence of no more than ten years.  China, Russia Quit Dollar In Trade Between Their Countries  China Daily (China)  China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday. Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies. "About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies," Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg.  Prominent Norwegians Call for Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel  European Jewish Press  One hundred famous Norwegians, led by the country's national football coach, have signed a petition demanding a cultural and academic boycott of Israel, accusing its educational institutions of "playing a key role in the occupation" and equating it with apartheid ... Egil Drillo Olsen, coach for the national Norwegian football team, recently wrote in Aftenposten, the country's second largest paper, that the call to boycott Israel was "in line with what 90 percent of the world's population believes. There cannot be many other opinions." The petition is the last item in a string of similar and high-profile initiatives to have taken place in Norway over the past two years.  Israel Is `Root Cause of Terrorism,' Says British Politician  The Jerusalem Post (Israel)  In the second attack on Israel by Liberal Democrat politicians in the same week that the party's leader said the party got it wrong on Israel, Jenny Tonge claimed on Friday that Israel's treatment of Palestinians is the root cause of terrorism worldwide. Possibly "Holocaust guilt" allows this treatment to go unchecked, Tonge said, adding that it might also be the "power of the pro-Israel lobby" in the UK and US ... Last week, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Phillips told a meeting of the radical fringe group Palestine Solidarity Campaign in parliament that "Europe cannot think straight about Israel because of the Holocaust, and America is in the grip of the well-organized Jewish lobby."  Stalin Was Preparing to Attack Germany in 1941, Says Russian Historian Bunich Wikipedia  Igor Bunich, a Russian historian, says that Stalin was actively preparing to invade western Europe in 1941 before plans were made for Germany's "Operation Barbarossa" strike against the Soviet Union. In three published volumes titled "Operatsia Groza" ("Operation Thunderstorm"), Bunich documents Stalin's plan for a massive military strike westward against central and western Europe, to be launched on July 10, 1941. Bunich is not the only Russian historian who has rejected the legend of "Hitler's treacherous surprise attack against the peace loving Soviet Union."  Russian and German Historians Debate `Barbarossa' Daniel Michaels - Institute for Historical Review  Revising the history of the Second World War's crucial Russo-German campaign is very much a work in progress, nowhere more so than in Russia and Germany. Ever since Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir Rezun) broke the ice a decade ago with his sensational Ledokol (published in English as Icebreaker... Russian historians have been reexamining the many myths, legends, and fantasies associated with the outbreak of the death duel between Communism and National Socialism. The role of Joseph Stalin, in particular, has aroused the most heated controversy. In Russia, the debate has involved two major groups.  Israel's Shabbos Goy: President Obama Christopher Hitchens -- Slate  ... The only mystery is this: Why does the United States acquiesce so wretchedly in its own disgrace at the hands of a virtual client state? A soft version of Rabbi Yosef's contemptuous view of the gentiles is the old concept of the shabbos goy ... How the old buzzard must cackle when he sees the gentiles actually volunteering a bribe to do the lowly work! And lowly it is, involving the tearing-up of international law and U.N. resolutions and election promises, and the further dispossession and eviction of a people to whom we gave our word. This craven impotence will be noticed elsewhere, and by some very undesirable persons, and we will most certainly be made to regret it. For now, though, the shame.  Liar, Liar  Philip Giraldi  ... It is also past time that he begin to speak the truth to the American people also. His administration's retreat from any confrontation with Israel in an attempt to make a recalcitrant Netanyahu conform even to minimal standards of behavior confirms what all the world already knows: Israel will act and the United States will follow, even if those actions will inflict grave damage on the American people and on the US national interest ... When American politicians and senior government officials speak of their love of a foreign government that pursues policies inimical to US values and interests they should be disowned by every true patriot and also by every respectable media outlet. It should be grounds for their immediate removal.  St Louis Tops List Of Most Dangerous US Cities  The Associated Press  St. Louis overtook Camden, N.J., as the nation's most dangerous city in 2009, according to a national study released Sunday. The study by CQ Press found St. Louis had 2,070.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, compared with a national average of 429.4. That helped St. Louis beat out Camden, which topped last year's list and was the most dangerous city for 2003 and 2004. Detroit, Flint, Mich., and Oakland, Calif., rounded out the top five. For the second straight year, the safest city with more than 75,000 residents was Colonie, N.Y. The annual rankings are based on population figures and crime data compiled by the FBI.  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.  New US Documents Could Feature in Demjanjuk Trial  The Associated Press  A long-secret report on the U.S. Department of Justice's Nazi-hunting unit that was made public over the weekend could help get John Demjanjuk out of jail, his attorney has told The Associated Press. Defense attorney Ulrich Busch said he will submit a motion after the trial resumes next week, relying on the report, that was posted Saturday by the New York Times, arguing that Demjanjuk should be given credit for time he served in Israel ... In a 1993 review of the American denaturalization hearing that led to the extradition to Israel, a federal U.S. appeals panel concluded that the Office of Special Investigations engaged in "prosecutorial misconduct that seriously misled the court."  A Hedge Fund Republic? Nicholas D. Kristof  ... One of America's greatest features has been its economic mobility, in contrast to Europe's class system. This mobility may explain why many working-class Americans oppose inheritance taxes and high marginal tax rates. But researchers find that today this rags-to-riches intergenerational mobility is no more common in America than in Europe -- and possibly less common. I'm appalled by our growing wealth gaps because in my travels I see what happens in dysfunctional countries where the rich just don't care about those below the decks. The result is nations without a social fabric or sense of national unity. Huge concentrations of wealth corrode the soul of any nation.  Roosevelt's 'Secret Map' Speech Mark Weber  ... Roosevelt was not the first or the last American president to lie to the people. But rarely has a major American political figure given a speech as loaded with brazen falsehood as Franklin Roosevelt did in his Navy Day address of October 27, 1941 ... Roosevelt went on to reveal that he also had in his possession "another document made in Germany by Hitler's government. It is a detailed plan to abolish all existing religions -- Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish alike" which Germany will impose "on a dominated world, if Hitler wins."  President Roosevelt's Campaign To Incite War in Europe Mark Weber  This essay focuses on Roosevelt's secret campaign to provoke war in Europe prior to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. It deals particularly with his efforts to pressure Britain, France and Poland into war against Germany in 1938 and 1939. Franklin Roosevelt not only criminally involved America in a war that had already engulfed Europe, he bears a grave responsibility for the outbreak of the most destructive war of all time. This paper relies heavily on a little-known collection of secret Polish documents that fell into German hands when Warsaw was captured in September 1939. These revealing docu ments also confirm the crucial role of Jewish power and in fluence on US foreign policy during these years.  Hitler's Declaration of War Against the United States ... The increasingly hostile attacks by the American President Roosevelt have reached the point that he has ordered the U.S. navy, in complete violation of international law, to immediately and everywhere attack, fire upon and sink German and Italian ships. American officials have even boasted about destroying German submarines in this criminal manner ...The American President and his plutocratic clique have called us the "have not" nations. That is correct! But the "have nots" also want to live, and they will certainly make sure that what little they have to live on is not stolen from them by the "haves."  New Accusations Against AIPAC Israel Lobby Group in Legal Fight  The Washington Post  The latest episode of the AIPAC spy scandal turned sordid last week, with the pro-Israeli lobby releasing its deposition of fired official Steven J. Rosen in which he confesses he engaged in extra-marital sex and watched pornography on his office computer ... Rosen says his actions were common practice at the organization. He said his next move is to show that AIPAC, Washington's major pro-Israeli lobbying group by far, regularly traffics in sensitive U.S. government information, especially material related to the Middle East.  The Tea Party Disconnect Philip Giraldi  ... Palin is something quite different, and a good deal more dangerous than the lumpish and frequently strident Gingrich. She knows nothing of foreign policy and even less of security and defense related issues and is basically a neocon creation being promoted by them as a national candidate ... Tea partiers must begin to understand that accepting the calls of leaders like Palin and Gingrich for smaller and more sensible government and a return to constitutionalism without also understanding that they stand for an incoherent foreign policy, perpetual war, and ballooning deficits is self defeating. They are both traditional Republicans who want nothing more than to return the GOP to power.  Williamson Hires `Neo-Nazi' Lawyer in German `Holocaust Denial' Case  DPA (Germany)  British Bishop Richard Williamson has appointed a radical right-wing lawyer to defend him in a German trial over his denial of scope of the Holocaust, Spiegel news magazine reported Saturday. The lawyer, Wolfram Nahrath, is a member of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), the magazine wrote. He also led the Viking Youth, a neo-Nazi organization modeled on the Hitler Youth, until it was banned in 1994. ... Williamson, of the ultra-orthodox Catholic Society of St Pius X (SSPX), denied in a television interview last year that the Nazis had systematically murdered millions of Jews. The interview, for a Swedish television channel, took place in Germany, where Holocaust denial is a criminal offence.  Energetic Spirit Marks IHR Meeting in San Diego Institute for Historical Review  Lively discussions, an energetic spirit, and a timely, well-received address marked the IHR meeting in San Diego on Saturday evening, Nov. 13. This gathering at a large hotel -- the first IHR meeting outside of Orange Country in more than a year -- was an opportunity to reach out to new people, including an encouraging number of younger people, and to renew and strengthen ties with local supporters. Both attendees and organizers were impressed with the intensity of the discussions, both during the lively Q and A session and in the many one-on-one conservations.  America In Decline: A Society In Denial  Mark Weber  ... America today is a society in denial. The country's political, cultural and intellectual leadership -- both liberal and conservative -- denies social reality and ignores the historical record, and therefore inevitably betrays the interests of the people, leading America down a path that means ever greater anxiety and ever more rapid decline ... The crying need in our nation today is candor, courage and truthfulness -- not childish slogans, simplistic nostrums, or wishful thinking about a mythologized past or a utopian future -- presented by media personalities who are little more than entertainers.  China to the US: Stop With the Monopoly Money  Eric S. Margolis  ... Washington is flooding financial markets with $600 billion of worthless dollars, hoping a rising tide of Monopoly money will somehow lift America out of recession. The Fed's first QE effort was a fizzle. The US government is stoking worldwide inflation in order to lower its outstanding debt by repaying creditors with depreciated dollars. The rest of the world is boiling angry at Washington ... So it seems the US will stagger along under a mountain of unsustainable debt while the world economy suffers widening shocks and turmoil. More empires have been undone by financial collapse than invasion or battlefield defeats. The once mighty United States is staggering in this direction.  Hajo Herrmann, Luftwaffe Hero and Postwar Freedom Fighter  Revisionists.com  Hajo Herrmann (1913-2010) was an outstanding German Luftwaffe pilot who also distinguished himself during the Second World War as a courageous air force commander and innovative air defense tactician. After the war he built a new career as an attorney, and became known for his role in civil rights cases, defending patriots and "Holocaust deniers" accused of violating German laws against free speech. Until his recent death at the age of 97, he remained steadfastly loyal to his people, his heritage, and the ideals of his youth.  In Slovenia, Hundreds of Mass Graves of Communist-Era Victims  The Associated Press  Below Slovenia's cornfields, ski slopes and school yards lie skulls, bones and teeth -- the remains of thousands of people whose fates have been lost for decades. In 1945, enraged anti-Nazi fighters slaughtered suspected collaborators, fascists and panicked civilians who tried to flee through the region to the West, leaving graves scattered from a spree of vengeance that turned the tiny country into what historians call the biggest post-WWII killing site in Europe. Slovenian officials have a list of about 600 suspected graves, at least one in each community, daunting in its sheer scope and amounting to perhaps 100,000 bodies.  Israeli Town Gains Reputation as the Country's Most Racist The Washington Post  ... The town rabbi, Shmuel Eliahu, who along with other area rabbis issued a religious ruling several months ago forbidding residents to rent apartments to Israeli Arab students from the local community college. The rabbi has warned that the Jewish character of Safed, long revered as sacred, is at risk and that intermarriages could follow if the students mingle with the locals. Last month, Eliahu called a public meeting to sound the alarm ... In a city park next to a college building on a recent afternoon, "Death to Arabs" was scrawled on a gatepost. The park is a hangout for the Arab students, who were scattered on benches during a break between classes.  Britain Rejects Pardon For Executed Soldier Breaker Morant  The Telegraph (Britain)  The British government has rejected pleas to grant a royal pardon to Boer War soldier Harry Breaker Morant ... In 1901 his unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers, killed 12 prisoners of war and one German witness. The men admitted the shooting but it was not clear whether they had been ordered to kill the prisoners or not. Commander Unkles said that a double standard was applied because soldiers of other nationalities had done the same thing without similar punishment. Morant's story was made into the film Breaker Morant in 1980 starring the late Edward Woodward.  US Military Personnel Undergo Holocaust Indoctrination Fox News - LiveShots Blog  ... The Mass Atrocity Prevention in Military Practice course is the brainchild of Fred Schwartz, founder of the Auschwitz Institute and its director Tibi Galis who felt strongly that military officers would benefit from participating in a genocide prevention course. They secured a congressional grant to develop this course, which they plan to offer for five years. Working with retired U.S. Army Col Charles Heller, a professor at the General Staff and Command College, they developed a curriculum around a week long trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.  Mafia Attacked French Liner in 1942 To Support US Politician, Mob Boss Luciano Said David Martin  ... In February of 1942 it caught fire, officially as the result of a welding accident, sank, and was deemed unsalvageable. According to Luciano, in his 1974 memoir, The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano, dictated to Martin A. Gosch and finished off by Richard Hammer after Gosch's 1973 death, the Normandie's sinking was pivotal to his release from prison after serving ten years, and the sinking was definitely not accidental.  New Turkish Action Film Highlights Israeli Crimes  The Associated Press  Cinemas across Turkey are showing a trailer for an upcoming Turkish action movie based on a true event: the Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound, blockade-busting flotilla that killed nine activists in May. And if the trailer of the film is any indication, the movie, "The Valley of the Wolves - Palestine," could worsen tense relations between Turkey and Israel when it is released Jan. 28. The anti-Israel melodrama is a spinoff of the controversial but popular Turkish TV series "Valley of the Wolves," about a nationalist undercover agent -- Turkey's answer to James Bond and Rambo -- who takes on Turkey's enemies.  The Valley of the Wolves: Palestine  Trailer - Video  Trailer, with English subtitles, of forthcoming Turkish action film based in part on Israel's May 2010 attack on a humanitarian aid ship. "The Valley of the Wolves - Palestine," is set for release on Jan. 28, 2011.  Latino Kids Now Majority In California Public Schools San Francisco Chronicle  Latinos now make up a majority of California's public school students, cracking the 50 percent barrier for the first time in the state's history, according to data released Friday by the state Department of Education. Almost 50.4 percent of the state's students in the 2009-10 school year identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino, up 1.36 percent from the previous year. In comparison, 27 percent of California's 6.2 million students identified themselves as white, 9 percent as Asian and 7 percent as black. Students calling themselves Filipino, Pacific Islander, Native American or other total almost 7 percent.  US Taxpayers Help Fund Israel's West Bank Occupation  Haaretz (Israel)  Travelers along the "original" West Bank roads, the ones enabling drivers to bypass Palestinian villages, can see signs declaring "USAID from the American People." The roads are one of the initiatives of the United States Agency for International Development for building infrastructure in underdeveloped countries ... According to a June 2010 fact sheet on the USAID Internet site, last year American taxpayers funded the paving of 63 kilometers of asphalt roads in the West Bank ... This is not the only occupation-perpetuating road funded by American money.  Eric Cantor's Pledge of Allegiance Glenn Greenwald -- Salon  Soon-to-be GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor met on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- the same day when the actual U.S. Secretary of State met with Netanyahu -- and vowed that he and his GOP colleagues would protect and defend Israeli interests against his own Government. According to a statement proudly issued by Cantor's own office: Regarding the midterms, Cantor may have given Netanyahu some reason to stand firm against the American administration. "Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington," the readout continued.  Israel Shahak Speaks on Zionism, Israel and Judaism  Video  Interview with Israel Shahak, author of the book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, published in 1994. Israel Shahak (1933-2001),was a Polish-born Israeli professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was also a Holocaust survivor. During World War II he was in the Warsaw ghetto, and was later a prisoner at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He was a critic of the Israeli government, and his writings on Judaism and Zionism have been controversial. Runtime: 59 mins.  French National Railway Apologizes For Wartime Role in Jewish Deportations  BBC News  France's state rail company has for the first time publicly expressed regret for its role in transporting Jews to Nazi death camps in World War II. Until now, SNCF has said its workers were forced to assist in deportations by the occupying German army. The change of language is clearly linked to the lucrative market for high-speed rail contracts in the US. The company has been criticised in the US for failing to apologise for its involvement. French state-owned trains and state-paid rail workers were responsible for carrying some 76,000 Jews from France to Germany and the east in World War II. Only a few of them returned.  Our Banana Republic  Nicholas D. Kristof - The New York Times  ... The richest one percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. ... The United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana. C.E.O.'s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001 ... We've reached a banana republic point where our inequality has become both economically unhealthy and morally repugnant.  Our Failed National Economy  David Stockman  Tuesday night's election result was a victory for deep partisan stalemate, polarization, dysfunction, and acrimony throughout the halls of government ... It's now guaranteed that the hapless soul who succeeds to the White House in January 2013 will preside over a nation with $15 trillion of reported public debt, that is, debt at 100% of GDP and counting ... The fact is, the Social Security trust fund has $3 trillion of paper IOUs issued by the Treasury Department over the last 70 years, but not one dime of real money ... The world's leading central bank is now dispensing pure monetary heroin. And, ironically, that's likely to kill the patient before the fiscal question is even addressed.  In California, Estimated State Budget Deficit Reaches $25.4 Billion Los Angeles Times  The economy, new restrictions approved by voters, phantom savings in the budget and the end of temporary taxes add to gloomy forecast by Legislative Analyst's Office for the next 18 months. / As Jerry Brown prepares to take over as governor, California faces a $25.4-billion deficit -- far larger than state officials were projecting only days ago -- the state's chief budget analyst said Wednesday ... The report shows $20-billion annual shortfalls in future years as well. "There is no good news," said Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor. Simply keeping K-12 public schools funded at their current level would expand the deficit, Taylor said.  The US Is Not The Greatest Country Ever Michael Kinsley -- Politico  ... The theory that Americans are better than everybody else is endorsed by an overwhelming majority of U.S. voters and approximately 100 percent of all U.S. politicians, although there is less and less evidence to support it. A recent Yahoo poll (and I resist the obvious joke here) found that 75 percent of Americans believe that the United States is "the greatest country in the world." ... The 2010 elections, for all their passion and vitriol, are basically irrelevant. Some people are voting Tuesday for calorie-free chocolate cake, and some are voting for fat-free ice cream. Neither option is actually available. Neither party's candidates seriously addressed the national debt, except with proposals to make it even worse.  Secrets by the Thousands: The Great US Theft of German Technology  C. Lester Walker -- Harper's -- October 1946  ... Tens of thousands of tons of material are involved. It is estimated that over a million separate items must be handled, and that they are, very likely, practically all the scientific, industrial and military secrets of Nazi Germany. One Washington official has called it "the greatest single source of this type of material in the world, the first orderly exploitation of an entire country's brain-power." ... This one war secret alone, many American steel men believe, will revolutionize dozens of our metal fabrication industries. In textiles the war secrets collection has produced so many revelations that American textile men are a little dizzy ... Army Air Force experts declare publicly that in rocket power and guided missiles the Nazis were ahead of us by at least ten years.  Sarrazin's Truths: In Germany, Political Correctness Stifles Debate Matthias Matussek - Der Spiegel (Germany)  German central banker Thilo Sarrazin is being pilloried over his polemic chastising of Muslims, but there are a few things his critics clearly fail to understand. You can't cast away what the man embodies: The anger of a German people who are tired of being cursed at when they offer to help foreigners to integrate. Nothing is as it used to be. In this season of public outrage, the case of Thilo Sarrazin has grown far bigger than Sarrazin. It's much bigger than the man or the Islam-critical book he wrote ... Germans are not only demographically working towards their own demise, but also that they are bidding farewell to their cultural and educational background.  Israel High Court Approves Jews-Only Housing  Haaretz (Israel)  The Supreme Court [of Israel] rejected an appeal on Sunday opposing the leasing of land in Jaffa's Ajami neighborhood for the exclusive use of members of the religious Zionist community. The appeal was brought by Jaffa residents along with human rights groups, in an effort to challenge a decision by the Israel Lands Administration and the Tel Aviv municipality to lease the land in question to B'Emuna, a company specializing in housing complexes for the religious Zionist community. The Tel Aviv District Court rejected the same appeal earlier this year.  Israel Is Proud To Present: The Aggressor-Victim Gideon Levy - Haaretz (Israel)  ... We've always loved victimization, not only when we were real victims, as often was the case in our history, but also when we were the aggressors, occupiers and abusers. And we don't only cast ourselves as victims, but as the only victims. But observe our perception of our wrongdoing. It started with denial, then changed to suppression, then to shamelessness, then to dehumanization and demonization, until we arrived at the current stage: A pride parade.  In Germany, Grave Robbers Targeting World War II Fallen For Memorabilia  The Scotsman (Britain)  ... Thousands of German and Russian corpses recovered from the battlefields around Berlin have been stripped of medals, papers, rank badges, ID discs and other items to feed a worldwide multi-million pound military souvenir industry.... Nazi-era insignia and papers are much sought after. Medals, particularly Iron Crosses, are torn off to fetch up to £500 a time.  In U.S., 14 Percent Rely on Food Stamps The Wall Street Journal  A huge number of American households are still relying on government assistance to buy food as the recession continues to batter families. Food stamp recipients ticked up in August, children consumed millions of free lunches and nearly five million low-income mothers tapped into a government nutrition program for women and young children. Some 42,389,619 Americans received food stamps in August, a 17% rise from the same time a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which tracks the data. That number is up 58.5% from August 2007, before the recession began. By population, Washington, D.C. had the largest share of residents receiving food stamps.  Proficiency of Black Students Is Far Lower Than Expected The New York Times  An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented -- a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another. But a new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known. Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys. Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty ...  Hajo Herrmann, Luftwaffe Hero and Postwar Freedom Fighter, Is Dead  Hajo Hermann, a World War II Luftwaffe hero and a courageous postwar civil rights attorney, is dead. Aged 97, he died on Friday, Nov. 5. During World War II he flew 320 missions as a bomber pilot, and more than 50 night fighter missions. He played a major role in strengthening his homeland's wartime air defenses. In later years he was a defense attorney for such "thought criminals" as Otto Ernst Remer and David Irving. He addressed an IHR meeting in California on Nov. 8, 1998, where he provided fascinating details about his remarkable life, and insights into the climate of intellectual repression in Germany. History's Little Known Naval Disasters Institute for Historical Review  Many of those who view "Titanic," the blockbuster motion picture, may leave the movie theater believing that the April 15, 1912, sinking of the great British liner, with the loss of 1,523 men, women and children, was history's greatest maritime disaster ... But these disasters are dwarfed by the sinkings of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the General Steuben and the Goya, three German ships crowded with evacuated refugees and wounded soldiers that were struck by Soviet submarines during the final months of the Second World War.  The Nobleman and the Horse: Israel and the US Elections  Uri Avnery (Israel)  ... The big winner of the American election is none other than Binyamin Netanyahu ... As to the Congress: as far as Israel is concerned, there is no change. The senators and congressmen dance to the tune of the Israel lobby, and in this respect there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. It "crosses party lines", as one of the leaders of the lobby recently boasted ... Both in the State Department and in the Pentagon, the experts know that the present Israeli policy is contrary to the American national interest.  US Charges 17 With $42 Million Theft of Holocaust Funds BBC News  Seventeen people have been charged in the US with the theft of $42 million of Holocaust compensation funds provided by the German government. Prosecutors alleged the 17 fooled a non-profit-making group that distributes the funds into making 5,500 false payments. Six of those charged work for the group - the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The chairman of the group said it was "outraged" at the alleged thefts. It had detected the matter itself and contacted the FBI. If convicted, the defendants could face up to 20 years in jail.  George Bush `Not Telling Truth.' Says Ex-Chancellor Schroeder  The Telegraph (Britain)  ... Mr Schroeder responded to Mr Bush's claims, accusing him of "not telling the truth." In a statement, he confirmed that he had told Mr Bush he would "stand reliably on the side of the US" if it was confirmed that Iraq was sheltering those responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks. "But this link, as it became clear during 2002, was false and contrived..." .... "We noticed that the intellectual reach of the president of the most important nation at the time was exceptionally low," said Uwe-Karsten Heye, Mr Schroeder's spokesman at the time told German news channel N24. "For this reason it was difficult to communicate with him. He had no idea what was happening in the world. He was so fixated on being a Texan. I think he knew every longhorn in Texas."  US Must Support Israel `Forever,' Says VP Biden  The Jerusalem Post (Israel)  US Vice President Joe Biden delivered an impassioned speech in support of Israel at the Jewish Federations of North American's General Assembly in New Orleans on Sunday, saying whatever differences have recently existed between the White House and Jerusalem these were tactical rather than fundamental. ... "When it comes to Israel's security there can be no daylight - no daylight - between Israel and the US," he said. ... "All these years later I still feel that our support for Israel must continue forever."  In Israel, Rabbis' Edict Bars Renting to Arabs Jonathan Cook  ... In the past few weeks, Safed -- one of Judaism's four holy cities -- has been making headlines of a very different kind. Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, last week declared it "the most racist city in the country" The unflattering, and hotly contested, epithet follows an edict from Safed's senior rabbis ordering residents not to sell or rent homes to "non-Jews" - a reference to the country's Palestinian Arab citizens, who comprise a fifth of Israel's population.  Was the Holocaust Inevitable?  Patrick J. Buchanan  ... What of World War II? Surely, it was necessary to declare war to stop Adolf Hitler from conquering the world and conducting the Holocaust. Yet consider ... The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the war. No war, no Holocaust. Britain went to war with Germany to save Poland. She did not save Poland. She did lose the empire. And Josef Stalin, whose victims outnumbered those of Hitler 1,000 to one as of September 1939, and who joined Hitler in the rape of Poland, wound up with all of Poland, and all the Christian nations from the Urals to the Elbe.  A Superpower in Decline: Is the American Dream Over? Der Spiegel (Germany)  ... Americans have lived beyond their means for decades. It was a culture long defined by a mantra of entitlement, one that promised opportunities for all while ignoring the risks. Relentless and seemingly unstoppable upward mobility was the secular religion of the United States ... The country has always been a little paranoid, but now it's also despondent, hopeless and pessimistic. ... The naked fear of the undertow is palpable throughout the entire country, where people who once considered themselves part of the middle class, the solid center of the country, now feel threatened.  Western Capitalism Is In Crisis: Deception, Delusion and Abuse Peter Morici  From Berlin to Tokyo, governments struggle to instigate enough growth to pay their bills and gainfully employ workers. Meanwhile, China enjoys breakneck progress ... From Obama to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the system is suffering from delusions of grandeur, self-deception and old-fashioned abuse by leaders who address the world as Ivy League intellectuals think it should, rather than how the facts of physics, demography and economics define it.  Prof. Nolte Tackles Taboos of Third Reich History Mark Weber  Decades after its dramatic demise, the Third Reich continues to fascinate millions and provoke heated discussion ... Consistent with the author's strong plea for a more thoughtful and objective look at the phenomenon of Hitler and National Socialism, Nolte presents his often highly unorthodox views without polemics, indeed with a certain reserve and tentativeness. Unlike those who incessantly insist that "we" must "never forget" the "lessons of the Holocaust," Nolte calls for an evaluation of the Hitler era as free as possible of strident, emotion-laden polemics and self-serving purposes.  In France, Court Orders Mayor to Remove Portrait of Petain The Telegraph (Britain)  A court on Tuesday ordered a French mayor to take down a portrait of Philippe Petain, leader of France's wartime Vichy regime, from the wall of a town hall. The portrait of Petain, branded an anti-semitic Nazi collaborator, hung in a municipal marriage chamber in Gonneville-sur-Mer, near the Normandy landing beaches used in World War II by Allied forces. The court overruled a decision by Bernard Hoye, the town's independent mayor, to keep the portrait which he said had been hanging there for years. It had nevertheless been taken down pending Tuesday's decision.  Large Crowds Cheer Marshal Pétain in Paris, April 1944 France-Actualités (1944) - newsreel  Large crowds cheer French Head of State Pétain during his visit to Paris in April 1944. Parisians cry out "Vive Pétain" and sing the national anthem, "La Marseillaise." Pétain also attends a memorial service in the Notre Dame Cathedral for victims of Allied bombing. This visit, is just a few weeks before the D-Day landing of British and American troops at Normandy. Newsreel narration in French. Runtime: 7:28 mins. Philippe Petain, who was a revered military commander during the First World War, was named French Head of State in 1940 by overwhelming vote of the National Assembly.  Virginia's Black Confederates Walter E. Williams  One tragedy of war is that its victors write its history and often do so with bias and dishonesty. That's true about our War of 1861, erroneously called a civil war. Civil wars, by the way, are when two or more parties attempt to take over the central government. Jefferson Davis no more wanted to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington, in 1776, wanted to take over London. Both wars were wars of independence.  Ferocious Battle of the Volga Lives In Russian Memory  National Public Radio  Nowhere is the Volga River more hallowed than in the city named after it: Volgograd, better known to history as Stalingrad. During World War II, perhaps the bloodiest battle in history took place there. A total of two million people were lost on both sides in the fighting from the summer of 1942 to February 1943. Hitler's army, fighting to reach the Volga and seize the country's energy resources to the south in the oil-rich Caucasus, was met by the tenacious Soviet Red Army and a city that would not yield.  The Relentless Cult of Novelty  Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (1987)  ... This relentless cult of novelty, with its assertion that art need not be good or pure, just so long as it is new, newer, and newer still, conceals an unyielding and long-sustained attempt to undermine, ridicule and uproot all moral precepts ... To decorate public spaces we put up sculptures that aestheticize pure ugliness -- but we no longer register surprise. And if visitors from outer space were to pick up our music over the airwaves, how could they ever guess that earthlings once had a Bach, a Beethoven and a Schubert, now abandoned as out of date and obsolete?  US Pro-Israel Group Claims Election Victory  Foreign Policy  One prominent pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington is already praising the GOP takeover of the House of Representatives as a net benefit for Israel. "While Democrats are likely to keep control of the U.S. Senate, Republicans will take over the U.S. House of Representatives following Tuesday's elections. This is likely to have implications for Israel-related issues such as Israel's relationship with the United States and the push for sanctions against Iran," said an e-mail blasted out by The Israel Project only minutes after news stations called the turnover of House control a certainty.  You Want War? Pay For It Eric Margolis  ... The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been ignored during the election race. After nine years of combat, 5,000 US dead and 35,000 seriously wounded soldiers, and expenditure of over $1 trillion - silence. These longest and second most expensive wars in US history have dropped off the radar. Not even the latest WikiLeaks shocker, which revealed the US condoning death squads, torture and mass human rights violations in Iraq, became a campaign issue ... Right-wing Republicans will press for more war, in more places - financed, of course, by the magic of credit. Few stop to think that this manic borrowing it wrecking America.  The Phantom Left Chris Hedges  ... The celebrities from Comedy Central and the trash talk show hosts on Fox are in the same business. They are entertainers. They provide the empty, emotionally laden material that propels endless chatter back and forth on supposed left- and right-wing television programs. It is a national Punch and Judy show. But don't be fooled. It is not politics. It is entertainment. It is spectacle. All national debate on the airwaves is driven by the same empty gossip, the same absurd trivia, the same celebrity meltdowns and the same ridiculous posturing. It is presented with a different spin. But none of it is about ideas or truth. None of it is about being informed. It caters to emotions. It makes us confuse how we are made to feel with knowledge.  A German Soldier's Photos of the Devastation of Dunkirk  Daily Mail (Britain)  Rare photos taken by a German soldier of the devastated beaches of Dunkirk after the evacuation have been found 70 years on by the family of a British war veteran. The pictures were taken a few hours after 330,000 Allied soldiers were rescued from the beaches by an armada of little ships having been defeated by the Nazis. The remarkable album was later taken from a German house as a memento by British serviceman Corporal Frank Smith. It includes shots of the Germans surveying the wreckage of downed aircraft and scores of damaged trucks and tanks on the battle-scarred shores of Dunkirk.  Hitler's Grand Error at Dunkirk: Why?  Virtue magazine  ... Why the nonsensical halt order [by Hitler], when the enemy was beaten, and with no chance of stopping the powerful German army? ... But on May 24th, 1940, while the campaign was still in progression, Hitler expressed a deeper, more political motive, to members of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's staff ... "He then astonished us by speaking with admiration of the British Empire, of the necessity for its existence, and of the civilization that Britain had brought into the world ... He concluded by saying that his aim was to make peace with Britain on a basis that she would regard as compatible with her honor to accept." An incredible tale, and yet, it fits with the admiration Hitler expressed for Britain in Mein Kampf. Hitler offered peace to the British twice during World War Two ...  Israel Protests British 'Universal Jurisdiction' Law JTA  Israel reportedly postponed a strategic dialogue with Britain to protest a law that allows for the prosecution of Israeli officials for alleged war crimes. Strategic dialogue between Israel and Britain on defense and security issues occurs annually. This year's strategic dialogue meeting, scheduled for last month in Britain, did not take place, the French news agency AFP reported. The British law provides the country's courts with "universal jurisdiction" to issue arrest warrants for alleged war crimes, including to visiting foreign politicians.  Israel Ranks Among Western World's Most Corrupt Countries Haaretz (Israel) and Reuters  Israel ranks among the most corrupt countries in the Western world, according to a study released by the International Transparency Organization on Tuesday ... The least corrupt countries were listed as Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore ... The United States, meanwhile, has dropped out of the "top 20" in a global league table of least corrupt nations, tarnished by financial scandals and the influence of money in politics. The U.S. fell to 22nd from 19th last year, with its CPI score dropping to 7.1 from 7.5. This was the lowest score awarded to the U.S. in the index's 15-year history and also the first time it had fallen out of the top 20.  German Police Swoop on Neo-Nazi Internet Radio Station AFP  German police staged dawn raids today against right-wing extremists accused of operating a neo-Nazi Internet radio station to whip up anti-foreigner sentiment among young supporters. Authorities swooped in 10 of Germany's 16 states on 22 homes with alleged links to "Radio Resistance", which features "racist and National Socialist" commentary and music from skinhead bands, the Federal Crime Office (BKA) said. "The 23 suspects aged between 20 and 37 from across the country are believed to have acted as administrators and hosts" of programs on the station, the BKA said in a statement.  Anger As Germany Cuts Funding to Orthodox Jews The Telegraph (Britain)  The German government has ignited a row with the country's Orthodox Jews after it stopped funding the training of Orthodox rabbis. The authorities have been subsidising the training of rabbis for several years, but the interior ministry recently announced that it would only fund Liberal rabbis from now on. Thomas de Maziere, the interior minister, blamed "the budget situation" for the decision, the Times reports. However, the move has upset the Jewish community ... Since the Second World War, Germany has been trying to re-establish a Jewish presence in the country. There are now some 120,000 Jews living in Germany, and many are Orthodox.  Dutch Authorities Recall Auto License Plates With `Nazi' Initials  The Telegraph (Britain)  The Dutch authorities have urgently recalled "Nazi" number plates issued to drivers after a computer error. Over 100 car owners received licence plates with the letters "NSB" on them, a Dutch equivalent of the word Nazi. NSB is the notorious abbreviation for the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging, the Dutch fascist party which collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War. Number plates displaying the offending letters were recalled by the Dutch Vehicle Authority on Monday after the first angry complaints by drivers.  The Holocaust and the Myth of the Past as History Howard F. Stein  For the Jews, the term "Holocaust" does not simply denote a single catastrophic era in history, but is a grim metaphor for the meaning of Jewish history. The "Holocaust" lies at the heart of the Jewish experience of time itself. One is either anxiously awaiting persecution, experiencing persecution, recovering from it, or living in a period that is a temporary reprieve from it ... Thus the "reality" of the Holocaust is inextricably part of the myth in which it is woven -- and for which myth it serves as further confirmatory evidence for the timeless Jewish theme that the world is in conspiracy to annihilate them, one way or another, at least eventually.  The Shaming of America  Robert Fisk: -- The Independent (Britain)  As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims. Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general - the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind - to ring-fence us with lies.  The Ten Smartest and Dumbest U.S. Cities Daily Beast -- Alternet  The second annual list of the nation's smartest and dumbest cities. What makes a city "smart" or "dumb," per this list? The education level of the city's citizens, for one, and also its "intellectual environment," as measured by nonfiction book sales and the prevalence of colleges and libraries. Draw your own conclusions about what the list means in terms of a city's desirability. But one thing that seems to be objectively true is that there's an economic element to the rankings: The continuing economic malaise just reinforces a perennial fact: A city's potential lies mostly with the ingenuity and brainpower of its citizens. Regions with intellectual vigor are more likely to bounce back; those without risk a stupor.  British Legion's 1935 Visit to Third Reich Shown In Archive Photos BBC News  A delegation from the British Legion met Adolf Hitler in July 1935, recently uncovered photographs show. The 148 images were in a swastika-embossed album found by an employee. They show British veterans of World War I being saluted by Germans, and delegation leader Maj Francis Fetherston-Godley shaking hands with Hitler's deputy Rudolph Hess ... The five members of the Legion (now known as the Royal British Legion) met Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe. There were photos of German ex-servicemen in wheelchairs giving Nazi salutes as the delegation parade passed with the Union flag, and pictures of the delegation at Commonwealth war graves in Germany.  In Russia, One of `World's Worst' History Textbooks  Foreign Policy  Lesson plan: Buddy Stalin Subject matter: It can't be easy to put a positive spin on Stalin, under whose leadership more than 20 million Russians lost their lives. But that's what's being attempted in Russia today ... Aleksandr Filippov, the author of a new Kremlin-approved textbook told the Times, "It is wrong to write a textbook that will fill the children who learn from it with horror and disgust about their past and their people." His book devotes 83 pages to Joseph Stalin's industrialization plans, but only one paragraph to the Great Famine of 1932 to 1933 in which millions starved as a result of deeply flawed agricultural policy.  In Germany, Berlin Police Fear Entering Immigrant `No Go' Areas ZDF Heute Journal (Germany) - Television video  German television news report on "no go" areas in Berlin, populated by immigrants from outside Europe. These areas are so crime-ridden and disorderly that even police sometimes cannot patrol them without being insulted, spit upon or physically attacked. Runtime: 4:07 mins.  Dr. Siddique Stands By Anti-Israel and Anti-Zionist Statements The Philadelphia Inquirer  A Lincoln University professor who drew criticism this week for anti-Israel statements he made at a recent rally said Thursday that he stood by those words and would not back down from detractors he said are out to "threaten academic freedom." Kaukab Siddique, 67, an associate professor of English and literature, said that he had the support of his faculty and students and that he would continue to speak his mind, despite pressure from those who have referred to him as an "anti-Semite."  Sex Trafficking In Israel CNN  ... Over the past decade, about 10,000 women have been trafficked into Israel in what Keidar calls "modern slavery." The women are locked, beaten, raped, starved and forced to receive 15-30 men a day 365 days a year, according to the attorney. About three years ago, Israeli police greatly reduced women trafficking by pouring resources into the problem.  Israel Sees Double Standard in Response to Wikileaks' Iraq Files  The Christian Science Monitor  The Wikileaks release of US military field reports from Iraq that detail tens of thousands of civilian casualties in seven years of fighting is being used by some Israels to argue that their country is a victim of an international double standard on human rights ... On Monday, Israeli lawmaker Michael Ben Ari said he filed a formal complaint with the UN, calling for war crimes investigations of senior American politicians and "international arrest warrants for US government leaders." In a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, he wrote: "I call on the UN to condemn the behavior of the US and especially its attempts to hide the facts... We need to expose the hypocrisy of the West."  Jewish Groups Launch New, Well-Funded Pro-Israel PR Campaign  JTA  The Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs are launching a multimillion-dollar joint initiative to combat anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns. The JFNA and the rest of the Jewish federation system have agreed to invest $6 million over the next three years in the new initiative, which is being called the Israel Action Network ... The network is expected to serve as a rapid-response team charged with countering the growing campaign to isolate Israel as a rogue state akin to apartheid-era South Africa - a campaign that the Israeli government and Jewish groups see as an existential threat to the Jewish state.  Muslim Sect Sees Struggle Through Christian Lens: A Little-Known Jewish Massacre  The New York Times  Among the ruins on the edge of this ancient oasis city are deep trenches littered with bones. That, local people say, is all that remains of one of the great atrocities of antiquity, when thousands of Christians were herded into pits here and burned to death by a Jewish tyrant after they refused to renounce their faith. The massacre, which took place in about A.D. 523, is partly shadowed by myth and largely unknown to the outside world. But it has become central to the identity of the people now living here, who mostly belong to the minority Ismaili sect of Islam.  Jews in US Sue Hungary Over World War II Railroad Role Haaretz (Israel)  Hungarian survivors of the Holocaust and families of the victims sued the Republic of Hungary and its two rail companies in U.S. court on Thursday, accusing them of collaborating with the Nazis to exterminate Jews during World War Two. The lawsuit accused the Hungarian government and rail companies of confiscating property of Jews and transporting them to ghettos and concentration camps where hundreds of thousands perished in Nazi-occupied Poland and Ukraine.  A New Book `Rehabilitates' Lindbergh, Says Salon  Salon  The influential conservative publishing house Regnery has just released a book that argues, contrary to popular belief, that aviator and political leader Charles Lindbergh was neither anti-semitic nor pro-German, but rather was the victim of an unfounded smear campaign by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. According to promotional material, the book, "Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt: The Rivalry That Divided America" by James Duffy, argues that Lindbergh was the target of a "vicious personal vendetta by President Roosevelt" that "blighted his reputation forever."  US Foreclosure Crisis Becomes More Widespread BBC News  The foreclosure crisis in the US has spread across a wider area of the country, according to RealtyTrac, which monitors repossession activity. The organisation said foreclosure notices increased across a majority of large metropolitan areas, including Chicago and Seattle. Previously, these cities had seen relatively low levels of activity ... The trend is the latest sign that the US foreclosure crisis is worsening as homeowners -- facing high unemployment, slow job growth and uncertainty about house prices -- continue to fall behind on their mortgage payments ... Earlier in the week, data from rating agency Standard and Poor's showed that US house prices also began falling again in August, mainly in response to the expired tax credit.  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.  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': Fictions on the Ground 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.

Michael Santomauro 

@ 917-974-6367 

What sort of TRUTH is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth?

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