This past year has been a particularly busy and productive one for us. For one thing, we have revived and expanded our book distribution and publishing operations ... During the past year we organized nine IHR meetings ... In London, Budapest and Paris, I met with activists, writers, and publishers ... Throughout the past year, we continued to broaden our outreach and strengthen our impact, not only here in the US, but overseas as well ... Dozens of IHR talks, interviews and lectures have been made into independently produced videos that are available online.
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IHR NEWS AND VIEWS
Several times each week we distribute by e-mail a timely “IHR News and Comment” roundup of news, analysis and commentary items. To subscribe, enter your email below:
A man who made headlines during the 1990s as a controversial Jewish "Holocaust denier" has broken 18 years of silence to speak publicly for the first time about the challenges, achievements and mishaps of that era, and his secretive career since then. David Cole - now 45 years old - was in good form as he addressed a spirited, well-attended IHR meeting ... His lively, articulate presentation was packed with colorful anecdotes, humorous asides and eye-opening insights ... He adopted a new identity ("David Stein") and in 1998 began a career as a filmmaker, Republican Party activist and conservative commentator.
We’ve successfully fought back a malicious campaign by an “Israel first” politician that shut down our credit card processing for nearly three months. Earlier this year a New York state legislator with a well-documented record of bigotry and support for Zionist terrorism launched a public campaign to shut down credit card processing by the IHR and several other organizations he calls “hate groups.” MasterCard, a global credit card company, backed this campaign. After considerable effort, we were finally able to restore our credit card processing on Dec. 11, 2013. To everyone whose backing enabled us to carry on during this difficult period, or who sent messages of support, Thank You!
... Unless and until we can break through the historical blackout, now supported even by public policy, and enable the peoples of the world to know the facts concerning international relations during the last quarter of a century, there can be no real hope for the peace, security and prosperity which the present triumphs of science and technology could make possible. The well-being of the human race, if not its very survival, is very literally dependent on the triumph of revisionism.
Over the centuries, hostility against Jews has repeatedly erupted in terrible violence. Again and again, Jews have been driven out of countries where they’d been living. Why does anti-Semitism exist? And why has rage against Jews broken out, again and again, in the most varied nations, eras and cultures? ... Anti-Semitism is not a mysterious “disease.” As Herzl and Weizmann suggested, and as history shows, what is often called anti-Semitism is the natural and understandable attitude of people toward a minority with particularist loyalties that wields greatly disproportionate power for its own interests, rather than for the common good.
In recent years prominent American politicians and other influential public figures have spoken repeatedly of the alleged danger of Iran’s nuclear program, and have again and again threatened war against this Middle East nation of 75 million ... How real is this “threat”? How dangerous is Iran? What’s behind the campaign for war? And what does all this mean for Americans? In fact, the so-called Iran “crisis” is artificial ... Often ignored amid the clamor for war are the sober warnings of informed scholars, historians, specialists, analysts, and military leaders, who point out some basic, key facts: Iran is not building nuclear weapons, Iran is not a threat to the US ... War is not the answer. What’s needed instead is a bold new reality-based approach toward Iran.
In a remarkable but under-reported address, Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged that the “immense” and “outsized” Jewish role in the US mass media and cultural life has been the single most important factor in shaping American attitudes over the past century, and in driving major cultural- political changes. “Jewish heritage has shaped who we are – all of us - as much or more than any other factor in the last 223 years. And that’s a fact," Biden told a gathering of Jewish leaders in Washington, DC.
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 the largest empire the world has even known 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.
American Jews sympathetic to Israel dominate key positions in all areas of our government where decisions are made regarding the Middle East. This being the case, is there any hope of ever changing U.S. policy? ... The answer to achieving an even-handed Middle East policy might lie elsewhere -- among those who support Israel but don't really know why. This group is the vast majority of Americans. They are well-meaning, fair-minded Christians who feel bonded to Israel - and Zionism - often from atavistic feelings, in some cases dating from childhood.
... The ever more obvious symptoms of social decay are inevitable in a nation as unhealthy as today’s America. We understand that a nation guided by false principles, wishful thinking and unrealistic notions about society and history cannot and will not survive ... On this anniversary of American independence, it is altogether fitting that we recall the sacrifices and the outlook of the men who acted boldly out of principle, and risked everything in following the dictate of their conscience.
Writers, filmmakers and scholars from the US, France, Italy and other countries, together with Iranian cinema specialists, journalists, officials and others, gathered in north Tehran for a four-day “Hollywoodism” conference to critically examine the often harmful social-political impact of the US film industry, and to discuss how to counter it ... During this visit I gained a greater understanding of this ancient but vibrant nation of 75 million, which Israel and its allies in the US have demonized and threatened with military attack.
At an IHR meeting in southern California, three seasoned speakers provided informed perspective on Iran and Iranian society, the threats of war by Israel and the US, the impact of the US-organized sanctions campaign against the Islamic Republic, and the prospects for military conflict. Paul Sheldon Foote, a California professor with years of experience in the Middle East, and Art Olivier, a filmmaker and former mayor in southern California, joined IHR director Mark Weber at the spirited gathering.
... Even many of those who readily acknowledge the tremendous influence of American film and television seem not to fully comprehend the formidable scope of the power behind Hollywood, or the outlook and agenda of those who wield that power ... Hollywood, together with the rest of the Jewish-Zionist dominated US media, sensationalizes and distorts current events, systematically falsifies history, promotes debased “entertainment” and perverse cultural standards, and makes possible the Jewish-Zionist hold on American political life ...
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, based in Los Angeles, is one of the most influential Jewish organizations in the world ... Although it claims to promote "tolerance," and makes a pretense of concern for humanity, the Center's real agenda is a narrowly Jewish-Zionist one. The Wiesenthal Center is a staunch supporter of Israel and its Jewish supremacist regime. It fervently defends Israel’s policies of oppression, occupation, dispossession, and institutionalized discrimination against non-Jews.
... In Andernach about 50,000 [German] prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The women were kept in a separate enclosure that I did not see until later. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets. Many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement ... I encountered a captain on a hill above the Rhine shooting down at a group of German civilian women with his .45 caliber pistol. When I asked, "Why?," he mumbled, "Target practice," and fired until his pistol was empty.
Nine-Eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe the 9/11 catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president in recent decades had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful and intimidating, but any determined president could prevail and win overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by laying these facts before the American people.
Many Americans think of Abraham Lincoln, above all, as the president who freed the slaves. Immortalized as the "Great Emancipator," he is widely regarded as a champion of black freedom who supported social equality of the races, and who fought the American Civil War to free the slaves. While it is true that Lincoln regarded slavery as an evil and harmful institution, it also true, as this paper will show, that he shared the conviction of most Americans of his time, and of many prominent statesmen before and after him, that blacks could not be assimilated into white society. He rejected the notion of social equality of the races, and held to the view that blacks should be resettled abroad.
... I’m going to try to extract from my experience certain basic sort of tactics that I think the Jewish lobby has used over the years pertaining to my particular situation ... The first and major tactic that I discovered in their attack on me was their reliance on lies -- just straight-up lies. There’s no other way to describe it, just telling lies. Many of the categories that I will enumerate overlap, and many of them could also come under this general rubric of telling lies. But I think that if one had to isolate a single tactic, it was a tactic of telling lies. I think they’ve elevated telling lies to a very high artistic form.
... How did America come to war against Germany, the heart of Europe? Could not Roosevelt have acted as a great peacemaker by mediating the Danzig conflict in 1939, instead of instigating the Poles against Germany? ... The American President could very possibly have saved the peace in 1939. Instead, he fed the American people inventions about a hypothetical German plot to take over the United States and the whole world.
How accurate is this hallowed portrayal of America's role in World War II? As we shall see, it does not hold up under close examination ... The three Allied leaders accomplished what they accused the Axis leaders of Germany, Italy and Japan of conspiring to achieve: world domination ... Presidential deception to justify war did not start with George W. Bush. Americans who express admiration for the US role in World War II, and for Franklin Roosevelt's presidential leadership, have little moral right to complain when presidents follow his example and lead the country into war by breaking the law, subverting the Constitution, and lying to the people.
Revisionism as applied to World War II and its origins (as also for previous wars) has the general function of bringing historical truth to an American and a world public that had been drugged by wartime lies and propaganda ... Revisionism brings to the artificial frenzy of daily events and day-to-day propaganda, the cool but in the last analysis glorious light of historical truth. Such truth is almost desperately needed in today's world.
… That atrocities were committed by the Allies against Germans and non-combatant civilians on both the Eastern and Western fronts is not often acknowledged. In large measure this reflects the fact that "victors write the history." … POWs, whether Germans or Axis allies, were often shot out of hand, or shortly after they had been questioned ... When the Red Army invaded German territory in late 1944, civilians who had been unable to flee before their advance were condemned to undergo a regime of ferocious brutality. At such towns as Goldap, Gumbinnen, and Nemmersdorf, even children were raped before being murdered by Russian soldiers.
Among the highlights of my nine-day visit to Iran was a guest appearance on an influential prime-time public affairs television show, a memorable meeting with the nation’s President, and a well-received lecture of more than two hours on “The Zionist Lobby in America," given to a gathering of several hundred university students.
... Fascism was touted by Mussolini as a unique combination of thought and action, yet fascism was still seeking an ideology after the Second World War was over. The roots of fascism are many and complex. The fascist leadership, notably Mussolini, admitted the multi-faceted influences of liberalism, marxism, syndicalism, risorgimento, socialism, catholicism and nationalism on their ideology.
To deal with the massive unemployment and economic paralysis of the Great Depression, both the US and German governments launched innovative and ambitious programs. Although President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” measures helped only marginally, the Third Reich’s much more focused and comprehensive policies proved remarkably effective. Within three years unemployment was banished and Germany’s economy was flourishing. And while Roosevelt’s record in dealing with the Depression is pretty well known, the remarkable story of how Hitler tackled the crisis is not widely understood or appreciated.
... During his lifetime he made a mark not only as a pioneering global aviator, but also as a prize-winning author, environmentalist and anti-war activist. Given the scarcity of truly heroic Americans during the past century, he towers as a man of exemplary accomplishment and courage. He deserves to be remembered today not only as an authentic American hero, but also because much of what he wrote and said is relevant in our own age. Indeed, some of his remarks have proven to be prophetic.
... Jews wield immense power and influence in the United States. The "Jewish lobby" is a decisive factor in US support for Israel. Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to American interests. In fact, they often conflict. As long as the "very powerful" Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of current affairs and history, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the U.S. political system, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace.
… In August 1941 Hitler permitted a Red Cross delegation to visit the camp for Soviet POWs in Hammerstadt. It is these contacts that resulted in an appeal to the Soviet government, requesting that it should send food parcels for our officers and men. We are prepared to fulfill and comply with the norms of the Geneva convention, Moscow said in its reply, but sending food in the given situation and under fascist control is the same as making presents to the enemy … How great was Stalin's hatred for those who had found themselves behind enemy lines. It made no difference: who, where, how and why? Even the dead were considered to be criminals.
"The Sound of Music" is perhaps the most popular American musical picture ever produced. But whatever its merits as entertainment, the film's presentation of history is deceitful. In particular, its portrayal of the 1938 union or Anschluss of Austria with the German Reich is a gross distortion of historical reality.
Joseph Goebbels, Third Reich Germany's chief publicist and spokesman, is widely portrayed as a master of lies and deceitful propaganda. But this familiar image, which is particularly entrenched in the United States, is itself a propaganda falsehood.
... 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.
Fraudulent quotations attributed to Hitler and other Third Reich leaders have been widely circulated for years. Such quotes are often used by polemicists -- of both the left and the right -- to discredit their ideological adversaries by showing that Nazis held similar views. Here's a look at a few of the many remarks falsely attributed to Hitler and other top Nazis.
Websense company, a major US supplier of web content filtering software, says that the Institute for Historical Review promotes "racism and hate," and blocks access to the IHR website, on the basis of an unfair standard that deceives the public and its own customers. In a letter to the IHR, Websense Senior Legal Counsel Eric Proul makes clear that the company has no objective basis for its claim that the IHR promotes "racism and hate."
... 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."
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 documents also confirm the crucial role of Jewish power and influence on US foreign policy during these years.
... If I'm known for anything as a historian, apart from being a pain in the neck, it's because I uncover things. And uncovering things does not necessarily mean you go into the archives and see something and say: "Look at this, this is something quite extraordinary." If you go into the archives long enough, ten or twenty years, you become what I would call a "gap-ologist" ... Now what a scandalous statement that is! Here's the one country, Germany, trying to prevent anwar and the other country -- Roosevelt, neutral -- trying to fan the flames of anti-German feeling to fuel the war. Yet it is the Germans who are called the criminals, and the Americans who do the prosecuting.
Video based on interview with Mark Weber by Daniel Davis, host of the "Beyond 50" radio show. The United States, says Weber, has changed from a republic focused on its own prosperity and well-being to a globally intrusive military power. This worldwide military presence reflects an entrenched American view that the US is a social-political model for all nations, and therefore has a right, based on perceived moral superiority, to intervene everywhere. He traces the evolution of this outlook from the fateful Spanish-American War of 1898, and the false pretexts and promises used since then to justify wars. Going to war to fight "evil" or "terrorism," says Weber, is a recipe for endless strife and conflict.
... We hear a lot about terrible crimes committed by Germans during World War II, but we hear very little about crimes committed against Germans. Germany's defeat in May 1945, and the end of World War II in Europe, did not bring an end to death and suffering for the vanquished German people. Instead the victorious Allies ushered in a horrible new era of destruction, looting, starvation, rape, "ethnic cleansing," and mass killing.
Germany's enemies maintain today [1940] that Adolf Hitler is the greatest disturber of peace known to history, that he threatens every nation with sudden attack and oppression, that he has created a terrible war machine in order to bring misery and devastation everywhere. At the same time they intentionally conceal an all-important fact: they themselves drove the leader of the German people finally to draw the sword. They themselves compelled him to seek to obtain at last by the use of force that which he had been striving to gain by persuasion from the beginning: the security of his country ... A quick look at the most important events provides incontrovertible proof of this.
The news that I would be addressing the Institute of Historical Review came to some people as, well, news. It was mentioned in the Jewish newspaper Forward and on the Zionist Wall Street Journal OnLine. The editors of two conservative magazines called and wrote me to express their concern that I might damage my reputation, such as it is, by speaking to "Holocaust deniers." ... In short, the Holocaust has become a device for exempting Jews from normal human obligations. It has authorized them to bully and blackmail, to extort and oppress. This is all quite irrational, because even if six million Jews were murdered during World War II, the survivors are not entitled to commit the slightest injustice.
... A Zionist Jew, by definition, owes his primary loyalty to the Jewish community and to Israel. Zionism is not compatible with patriotism to any country or entity other than Israel and the world Jewish community ... Zionist Jews and their non-Jewish supporters embrace a blatant double standard. Jewish-Zionist organizations, along with their non-Jewish allies, support one social-political ideology for Israel and the world Jewish community, and a completely different one for the United States and other non-Jewish countries. They insist that ethnic nationalism is evil and bad for non-Jews, while at the same time they vigorously support ethnic nationalism -- that is, Zionism -- for Jews.
Jews played a highly disproportionate and probably decisive role in the infant Bolshevik regime, effectively dominating the Soviet government during its early years ... With the notable exception of Lenin, most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews ... The US ambassador in Russia warned in a dispatch to Washington: "The Bolshevik leaders here, most of whom are Jews and 90 percent of whom are returned exiles, care little for Russia or any other country but are internationalists and they are trying to start a worldwide social revolution."
America's leaders understood Japan's desperate position: the Japanese were willing to end the war on any terms, as long as the Emperor was not molested. If the US leadership had not insisted on unconditional surrender -- that is, if they had made clear a willingness to permit the Emperor to remain in place -- the Japanese very likely would have surrendered immediately, thus saving many thousands of lives ... General Curtis LeMay, who had pioneered precision bombing of Germany and Japan (and who later headed the Strategic Air Command and served as Air Force chief of staff), put it most succinctly: "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war."
.. By supporting Israel and its policies, the United States betrays not only its own national interests, but the principles it claims to embody and defend. The only country in the world that has a nuclear weapons arsenal, that occupies territory of its neighbors, and which is in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions - is Israel. In fact, if the United States were to hold Israel to the same standards that it has applied to Iraq, Serbia, and other countries, American bombers and missiles would be blasting Tel Aviv, and American troops would seize Israel's leaders and punish them for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
By Tomislav Sunic
So if the official reasons given for the war were untrue, why did the United States attack? Whatever the secondary reasons for the Iraq war, the crucial factor in President Bush's decision to attack was to help Israel. With support from Israel and America's Jewish-Zionist lobby, and prodded by Jewish "neo-conservatives" holding high-level positions in his administration, President Bush -- who was already fervently committed to Israel -- resolved to invade and subdue one of Israel's chief regional enemies.
NEWS AND COMMENT
... While the mainstream media is analyzing in microscopic detail Jeb's stumbling over his Iraq war response, it naturally ignores that third rail in contemporary American politics, the power of the Israel lobby ... It is not simply Jeb Bush but all Republican candidates who are paying obeisance not simply to Israel but also to Netanyahu’s policies ... The actions of Jeb Bush would seem to confirm Lobe’s view that support for Israel has more to do with the pro-Zionist mega-donors than the Christian evangelicals. For Bush simply does not kowtow to the Christian evangelicals to the same degree that he does to the Israel lobby magnates.
... Greece should never have been allowed to join the euro in the first place, but the Greek government concealed the scale of its debts and the European Union turned a blind eye to them ... The Greeks have suffered a great deal of hardship already to stay in the euro, and they seem prepared to suffer some more. The European Union is prepared to cut them enough slack to keep them from defaulting, because its members fear the future of the euro itself if it becomes clear that countries can actually leave. However, the EU will not make enough concessions to put Greece on the road to recovery. So this unbearable status quo will continue for a while — and eventually the Greeks will say "enough." But it will still be five minutes to midnight for some months, and quite possibly even into next year.
Another strong showing by the right in northern Europe: the Danish People’s Party (DPP) is celebrating its victorious result in legislative elections, with 21 percent of the votes. This makes the anti-immigration group Denmark’s second-largest political party, and the leading partner in the right wing bloc — dislodging the left from government. Described by detractors as populist or even far right, the DPP confirms an anti-immigration trend in the Nordic countries. Over the last year and a half the right in Denmark, Sweden and Finland have all enjoyed growing strength. In Swedish elections last September, the right wing Sweden Democrats became the third-largest party.
... There are, of course, political stirrings in Europe. The political center, and the area just to the left and just to the right of it, seem dead, one reason for the rise of leftist parties like Syriza in Greece, rightist parties like the National Front in France, anti-immigrant nationalists from Sweden to the Netherlands, and big protest movements against the political establishment (of any stripe) like Podemos in Spain. At the heart of all this, it seems, is a sense that something fundamental is amiss in the economies of Western societies ... Politics is not dead, but it’s dormant, and Berlin remains a useful reminder of how virulent political ideology can be in a climate of social unrest.
In the past half century, some of the most prominent minds in international affairs have predicted the end of meaningful global divisions based on ideology. Daniel Bell published his "End of Ideology" in 1960; Francis Fukuyama published his “End of History and the Last Man" in 1992; and Thomas Friedman his "The World Is Flat" in 2005. Especially in Bell's and Fukuyama's cases, the message was fairly clear: All this energy put into ideology was pretty much posturing. You cannot say that now. The forward march of democracy has been halted, and decisively ... What’s left for liberal democracy? It’s not precisely an endangered species, but in places that are new to it — in parts of Central Europe, Africa and Asia — it’s still fragile. And more to the point, it’s weakening in the two areas which have been its engines: North America and Europe.
Fourteen watercolours and drawings by Adolf Hitler have fetched a total of 391,000 euros [$438,000] at a controversial auction in Nuremberg. A view of Bavaria’s famous fairytale castle Neuschwanstein brought the highest price of 100,000 euros [$112,000] at the auction on Saturday, while a still life of a bunch of carnations fetched 73,000 euros. The other works, all painted or drawn between 1904 and 1922, and most of which are signed “A Hitler”, included views of various buildings in Vienna, an image of Prague in the fog, and a female nude. According to the Weidler auction house, the bidders were investors in China, France, Brazil, Germany and the United Arab Emirates.
President says theme park is part of Russia’s ‘military-patriotic work with young people’, and announces 40 new intercontinental missiles / Lunch consists of army rations, shopping is mainly for Vladimir Putin accessories, and instead of riding rollercoasters children can play with grenade launchers and clamber over heavy weaponry. Welcome to Patriot Park: fun for all the family, with a militaristic twist. This vast military theme park at Kubinka, an hour’s drive from Moscow, was officially opened by Putin on Tuesday at a time of heightened patriotism and military rhetoric in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year and subsequent confrontation with the west.
Georg Konrad Morgen was the first man to prosecute commandants of the Nazi concentration camps, but he wasn’t an officer of war-crimes tribunals. He was himself a German SS officer, and he prosecuted his fellow SS officers in SS courts during the Second World War. Morgen charged them not with crimes against humanity but with ordinary crimes of corruption and murder. While investigating those crimes, he came upon the machinery of mass murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau and, recoiling in horror, he asked himself what he could do about it ... He drew up charges of murder against the commandant of Buchenwald, Karl Otto Koch ... Buchenwald commandant Koch was convicted, but only on a charge of corruption, though he was indeed executed in 1945, shortly before the end of the war.
... The past proves to be as inflammatory as the present ... Society appears to be in the midst of some sort of tectonic shift, from a culture that identified certain bedrock facts -- the historical canon -- to one rooted in evidence, which is to say those renderings of the past that support an argument, be it religious, ideological, scholarly, or nationalistic ... In such a scheme, historians and students become not merely scholars but litigants, and history the stuff of advocacy in which point of view and identity-- racial, ethnic, nationalistic, gender, or sexual orientation -- are all equal partners. History becomes more personalized, more tribal, but less communal. What matters is the presentation ... For now, the narratives of nationalism, political correctness, self-interest, all converge upon the past, claiming it as their own. It is destined to be contested ground.
Two recent reports suggest that Israel could face catastrophic consequences if it fails to end the mistreatment of Palestinians under its rule, whether in the occupied territories or in Israel itself. The Rand Corporation’s research shows that Israel could lose $250 billion over the next decade if it fails to make peace with the Palestinians and violence escalates. Ending the occupation, on the other hand, could bring a dividend of more than $120 billion to the nation’s coffers. Meanwhile, the Israeli finance ministry predicts an even more dismal future unless Israel reinvents itself. It is likely to be bankrupt within a few decades, the finance ministry report says, because of the rapid growth of two groups who are not productive.
... A few years ago Shauli read "Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War" ... From out of the sea of details, a coherent thesis emerges: Stalin dragged Hitler into war to force Europe into chaos and facilitate a communist revolution on the continent. According to Shauli, there is [additional] evidence to back up this theory, including a speech by Stalin himself as well as a report obtained by the U.S. Consulate in Prague ... The document is in his possession, and now the history of World War II may have to be rewritten: It was Stalin's fault.
Important evidence has come to light in recent decades that shatters the official, endlessly repeated view that Hitler, bent on world conquest, launched a treacherous surprise attack against a peaceful Soviet Union. In 1941 Soviet dictator Stalin deployed an enormous strike force on the western Soviet frontier in readiness for a massive attack against Germany that would roll on to overwhelm central and western Europe. Hitler’s “Barbarossa” attack, say a growing number of historians in Russia, Germany and other countries, was actually a preventive war to forestall an imminent Soviet strike.
On the morning of June 22, 1941, the world is astonished by the news that Germany, together with Finland and Romania, had struck against the Soviet Union. German minister Goebbels broadcasts to the world Hitler’s proclamation announcing the beginning of the “Barbarossa” campaign, the largest military attack in world history. And then Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop addresses a large gathering of German and foreign journalists, and reads Germany’s note to the Soviet government giving its reasons for the attack. This film clip is a portion of the German weekly newsreel, “Die Deutsche Wochenschau” of June 25, 1941. With English subtitles. Runtime: 14 mins.
... Even as the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made Americans less confident about the ways we use our military power, the struggle with the Axis remains the classic example of American might deployed for virtuous ends ... Even today, World War II helps underwrite our claim to that moral difference ... After all, the present is always lived in ambiguity. To those who fought World War II, it was plain enough that Allied bombs were killing huge numbers of German civilians, that Churchill was fighting to preserve imperialism as well as democracy, and that the bulk of the dying in Europe was being done by the Red Army at the service of Stalin.
NASA's leadership in space exploration is what makes it one of the most inspiring and beloved agencies, but some feel that NASA has gotten stuck. It's budget isn't declining, but it’s not growing either. And if we're not careful, other space programs are going to step up and fill the role of space exploration leader. One up-and-coming contender is China. China's space program is showing the same kind of explosive growth as its economy, said Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona ... That means it has grown roughly ten percent a year for the past decade. While that amount is slipping a little and will likely slow down in the next few years, the bottom line is that China's space program is expanding, and NASA's is starting to flounder.
The dramatic seaborne rescue of 328,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk in June, 1940 is well known. But the tragic effort of almost 300,000 French troops to break out of encirclement in eastern France along the Maginot Line is almost totally unknown ... By 17 June, the renowned German cavalry general, Heinz Guderian, had raced his panzer army south down the Meuse to Belfort near the Swiss border, trapping nearly 300,000 French troops in a giant pocket between the Meuse and the Maginot Line. All of these units and the retreating Maginot troops eventually surrendered 21-25 June. A few Maginot forts held out until repeatedly ordered to surrender by the French High Command. The Germans chivalrously allowed their garrisons to leave their forts with banners flying and under arms.
Riyadh’s war in Yemen marks a dramatic escalation in its efforts to roll back Iran’s rising influence in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia portrays its Yemen campaign simply as a battle of “good” Arabs and Sunnis supporting Yemen’s legitimate government against “evil” Iranians trying to overthrow it via local Shi’a “proxies” — reiterating a generalized Saudi (and Israeli) narrative about Iran’s use of proxy allies to consolidate regional “hegemony.” ... Since the 1979 revolution that ended monarchical rule in Iran and created the Islamic Republic, Iranian strategy has been fundamentally defensive. Unlike other Middle Eastern powers — or the United States, for that matter — the Islamic Republic has never attacked another state or even threatened to do so ... Even the U.S. Defense Department acknowledges the defensive character of Iranian strategy ...
The framework agreement that the U.S. and its international partners reached with Iran that blocks Tehran's pathways to building a nuclear bomb is barely a week old, yet the usual suspects have already denounced it as a "bad deal." Former George W. Bush administration official John Bolton called the agreement "a surrender of classic proportions," and for Bolton, war is the only answer ... What do Bolton, Netanyahu, Graham and a whole host of others in Washington opposing this deal have in common? They were passionate supporters of the Iraq war and continue to hold that view today. ... Why should we listen to these people again? The reality is that there is no better Iran deal, and those calling for one never offer a viable plan on how to get there. In fact, the real alternative is war, which will come at tremendous cost.
... The neocons, the likes of Paul Wolfowitz, and his underlings Doug Feith, Richard Perle crafted Bush's every stance on the war with their “Clean-break” document, conceiving of the invasion and terming it constructive destruction. The neocons went into Iraq with every intention of deconstructing the state, 80 years in the making, including the army and other security forces, the government - except for the ministry of oil - and the intent to break up the country ... The US mainstream media, which had claimed the mantle of credibility for more than a century, willingly went along, all the while knowing that the evidence was flimsy at best.
It is painfully clear that there is no U.S. military solution to the deepening crisis in Iraq. Deploying 450 more American servicemembers — in addition to the 3,000 already there — will not bring peace to Iraq nor heal the bitter sectarian divide fueling the conflict. America has spent the past 25 years trying to bomb our way to peace and security in Iraq, but we have only managed to achieve the opposite ... More American soldiers will not change that fundamental reality. It is only likely to make things worse. It is time to admit that the solutions to Iraq's instability will not be found through American bombs or boots on the ground. Failing to do so will put yet more Americans at risk while pouring fuel on a fire that the U.S. military cannot put out.
The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said. The war has killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number, according to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. When security forces, insurgents, journalists and humanitarian workers were included, the war's death toll rose to an estimated 176,000 to 189,000, the study said.
I have gone on two trips to Iran, in spring of 2014 and 2015 ... Little of what we saw is what we are normally exposed to through American news ... Few of us had a sense for what Tehran looked like — the quality of roads, the quantity of traffic but of newer cars, how most signs are also in English, how couples and families in parks show open displays of affection. We were deeply impressed by the quality of the infrastructure, the talent, and educational skill (especially engineering) of the youth. We were treated with great warmth and respect as Americans in both meetings and random encounters ... Iran is a surprisingly wired country. Nearly 65 percent of homes have broadband access.
... If the next president embraces amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, that will mean the end to America as the Western nation we have been, and the beginning of America's life as what Ann calls, unapologetically, a "Third World hellhole." ... What problem do we Americans confront that will be more easily solved with millions more immigrants? Between 80 and 90 percent of those coming are from Third World nations. On average, they have higher illegitimacy rates than native-born Americans, higher drug use rates, higher rates of obesity, spousal abuse and child abuse, higher rates of disease, lower test scores and higher dropout rates, and higher crime and incarceration rates.
I'm a philosophy professor specializing in ethics and political philosophy, and like many of my fellow academics, I'm a political progressive ... I also want to reduce immigration into the United States. If this combination strikes you as odd, you aren't alone ... Such examples suggest that we Americans cannot meet our important environmental challenges without stabilizing our population. So I've argued that American environmentalists should support significant reductions in immigration ... We need to face limits realistically, consider the trade-offs involved in different policy choices, and ask which ones will best serve the common good over the long term. Current immigration policies are ill suited to create an economically just, ecologically sustainable society.
If you look at the track record of the interventionists you might think they would pause before taking on more projects. Each of their past projects has ended in disaster yet still they press on. Last week the website Zero Hedge posted a report about hacked emails between billionaire George Soros and Ukrainian President Poroshenko. Soros is very close to the Ukrainian president, who was put in power after a US-backed coup deposed the elected leader of Ukraine last year ... Despite the February ceasefire, Soros is pushing behind the scenes to make sure Ukraine receives top-of-the-line lethal weapons from the United States ... So George Soros will use his influence in the US government to put the American people on the hook for a bankrupt Ukraine -- forcing us to pay for weapons, more military training, and Ukraine’s crippling debt.
A month ago, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) issued a call for a Herem (excommunication, Hebrew) against the remarkable activist and writer Alison Weir ... The publication of the call led to a massive surge of resentment towards JVP within the dissident movement. JVP was compelled to explain their move. The call for Herem is deeply rooted in Jewish culture ... Instead of presenting an exemplary case of humanist universal virtues devoted to pluralism and diversity, they responded with a spectacularly gruesome manifestation of Jewish bad behaviour ... The crimes that are committed by the Jewish State in the name of the Jewish people and with the support of the Jewish Lobby all over the world may have something to do with the Jews, their culture and their Identity politics.
... The list of Napoleon’s achievements is, indeed, profound. He overthrew the hated Directory, established a modern school system, delivered a new legal code, financed the arts and theaters, and formalized the bestowal private property onto the rural people of France Profonde ... Far from defending the Jews and liberating the colonized, as Roberts implies, the legacy of Bonapartism would have a hand in the growth of anti-Semitic reaction, and its development in the birth of fascism ... The legacy of Bonapartism never actually left France, but has only retrenched itself more deeply since his departure.
... So exactly what kind of aggressor Putin is matters quite a lot. Here's a clue: Putin was first elected president of Russia in 1999, and for his first 15 years in power he didn't attack anybody. (He responded very toughly to the cretinous Georgian attack on Russian peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia in 2008, but he didn't start that war.) On the whole, would-be world conquerors don't wait 15 years before making their first move. They get started as soon as possible, because it's a big job ... But he is not setting out down the path of world conquest. He is not even planning to take over Ukraine. "Standing up to Putin" is an invigorating moral exercise, but it is not strictly speaking necessary.
... Part of the problem with America’s shifting perception of the price to be paid when one goes to war is that it has been shaped by Hollywood and video games, so much so that it has become divorced from the horrible reality of what happens when countries and peoples do their best to kill each other. Protected by two oceans, the continental United States has been largely immune from being on the receiving end of war ... All of which means that war, unlike for the rest of the world, is itself pretty much an abstraction for the vast majority of Americans who have not themselves been in the military since the draft ended in 1973 ... Far too many Americans see war as an endless series of patriotic bumper stickers with the United States invariably wearing the white hat and emerging victorious.
A fire ripped through one of the most famous Catholic churches in the Holy Land on Thursday, damaging the roof and burning prayer books in what authorities believe is an attack by Jewish extremists. The fire broke out at the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish in the middle of the night, causing extensive damage to the inside and outside of the building, said Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld ... In recent years, mosques and churches have been targeted by vandals in similar attacks. They are often attributed to extremist Jews from West Bank settlements ... Last year, a group of mostly Jewish youth attacked the Church of the Multiplication's outdoor prayer area along the Sea of Galilee, pelting worshippers with stones, destroying a cross and throwing benches into the lake, Karl said.
An overnight arson attack damaged a revered shrine in northern Israel where Christians believe Jesus performed a miracle, and police briefly detained 16 young Jewish settlers over the incident Thursday. The Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, is where many Christians believe Jesus fed the 5,000 in the miracle of the five loaves and two fish ... A church adviser blamed Jewish extremists for the incident and police later said they had detained 16 youths from settlements in the occupied West Bank for questioning ... Hebrew graffiti was found on another building within the complex, reading "Idols will be cast out" or destroyed, an AFP correspondent reported. The text is part of a common Jewish prayer.
Israel is working on an "ethnically targeted" biological weapon that would kill or harm Arabs but not Jews, according to Israeli military and western intelligence sources cited in a front-page report in the London Sunday Times, Nov. 15, 1998 ... In developing this "ethno-bomb," the British paper went on, Israeli scientists are trying to exploit medical advances by identifying distinctive genes carried by some Arabs, and then create a genetically modified bacterium or virus ... The secret Israel program is based at the Institute for Biological Research in Nes Tsiona, a small town southeast of Tel Aviv, the main research facility for Israel's clandestine arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.
Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki says the Palestinian Authority is planning to file two war crimes complaints against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Al-Maliki said Tuesday that the two files, which are over Israel’s illegal settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and its latest devastating attack on the besieged Gaza Strip, will be submitted to the Hague-based court on June 25 ... In addition to its repeated aggression against the besieged coastal enclave, Israel continues to press ahead with its illegal settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories despite a global outcry. The United Nations and most countries regard Israeli settlements as illegal since the territories were captured by the regime in a 1967 war and are thus subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.
In the wake of the mass shooting in South Carolina, the image of the Confederate flag started trending online - driven by liberals who blame it for stoking racism in America ... Another term became a top US trend on Twitter: "Confederate". It's a reference to the red and blue Confederate battle flag ... The debate sometimes - but not always - breaks down along racial lines ... In a matter of hours after the attack, more than 30,000 tweets were sent including the word "confederate" - the vast majority referring to events in South Carolina. On Twitter some liberals and civil rights activists went so far as to link the flag and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican who supports the flying of the banner, to the attack at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Two German policemen have been carpeted and could face the sack for playing one of the most infamous of Nazi speeches given by wartime propaganda maestro Joseph Goebbels over their radios as they guarded world leaders at last weekend's G7 summit. Bonn police admitted that disciplinary proceedings have been launched against the two officers who played Goebbels' 'Total War' speech which he made in 1943 following the crushing German military defeat at Stalingrad. 'We are shocked and disappointed,' said Robert Scholten, spokesman at Bonn police headquarters, confirming a report in the Der Spiegel magazine about the incident.
Dr. Goebbels’ addresses a mass rally in Berlin on Feb. 18, 1943, just a few weeks after the catastrophic defeat of German and allied forces in the Battle of Stalingrad. The Reich Minister frankly explains the mortal danger that threatens all of Europe. Germany could lose the war, he solemnly warns. To counter the formidable Soviet threat from the East, he goes on, the nation must adopt stern and radical “total war” measures. With English narration and subtitles. Runtime: 2:41 minutes.
If sanity ruled U.S. foreign policy, American diplomats would be pushing frantically for serious power-sharing negotiations between Syria’s secular government and whatever rational people remain in the opposition – and then hope that the combination could turn back the military advances of the Islamic State and/or Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front. But sanity doesn’t rule. Instead, the ever-influential neocons and their liberal-hawk allies can’t get beyond the idea of a U.S. military campaign to destroy President Bashar al-Assad’s army and force “regime change” – even if the almost certain outcome would be the black flag of Islamic nihilism flying over Damascus ... This problem is made worse by a mainstream U.S. news media that marches in lockstep with neoconservatives and their “liberal interventionist” sidekicks ...
In this video, Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett reads out some of the more shocking, violent and racist statements recently made by Israeli ministers and military officials. Boyd Barrett was speaking in Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the parliament of the Republic of Ireland, yesterday (June 10) during questions to Taoiseach (prime minister) Enda Kenny ... Later in the debate, Boyd Barrett slams the “double standards” which lead to Israeli leaders being treated “as if they were a normal government.” This is, Boyd Barrett adds, despite the fact that “Benjamin Netanyahu and his government are guilty of premeditated killing of Palestinians on the same scale and with the same vile ideology running behind it as we see from Islamic State.”
From the 1920s on into the 1990s, the Zionists controlled the storyline in the West on the Israel-Palestine conflict. This meant that their version of history was the only version as far as most of the people in the West were concerned. Consequentially, they had an uncontested media field to label the Palestinians and their supporters as “terrorists” – the charge of anti-Semitism was not yet widely used. Also, as a consequence of their monopoly, the Zionists did not bother to engage in public debate. Then, over the last twenty years the Zionists slowly lost their monopoly ... Besides the public outcry over anti-Semitism, the Zionists are working behind closed doors – the closed doors of American state and federal legislatures and university board rooms – where they do not have to face serious debate.
“As a close friend of yours, it is important for the Czech Republic to say that if the situation does not change it will be hard to maintain our pro-Israel position,” Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said as he is visiting Israel. Zaoralek said that Israel risks suffering international isolation if it doesn’t change its policies in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and if it fails to take viable steps toward establishing a Palestinian state. “We want to avoid initiatives against Israel, but it is getting more difficult with the current government and with the opposition to the two-state solution,” he said. “What is the alternative, to deteriorate towards apartheid?”
More than 2,000 Israeli artists have signed a petition warning against what they call anti-democratic measures being taken by the government against freedom of expression. The petition, which includes the signatures of prominent figures from film, theatre, cinema, dance, literature and music, claims artists are being silenced for views that do not fall in line with those espoused by the new government’s ministers. “We, the signatories below, are the voices you are trying to silence. We hope that Israel will not deteriorate into a country in which artists that express their views are put on a ‘black list’.” The petition was launched after the newly installed minister of culture and sport, Miri Regev, announced she would re-examine the criteria for state funding of the arts.
... The Israeli prime minister has proved himself a master of mining the rich seam of fear that dominates Israeli political discourse. It is the source of his power, as he illustrated during the election campaign when he warned voters the country’s Arab citizens were “coming out in droves”. A poll of schoolchildren last week showed how deeply entrenched such chauvinist sentiments have become. It found that only a quarter of Jewish youngsters believe it is more important for Israel to be democratic than Jewish ... Education is almost completely segregated, as is residency ... A majority of Jewish children are taught in religious schools that consciously eschew modern education in favour of a Biblical tribalism ... In this world of perpetual fear, Arabs and Iranians are viewed only as distant and dangerous objects, not people.
Most of the score of one of the 20th Century's most popular film tunes, Moon River, was never written down, but a painstaking restoration is about to make its debut in London. Moon River was made famous by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany's, in which she played the part of New York socialite Holly Golightly. But Hepburn was not a trained singer and initially Paramount film-makers thought they would need to dub somebody else's voice. But the composer Henry Mancini persevered in composing something she could manage.
Mexican teenagers have sparked controversy with a video showing them flaunting Nazi symbols during a dance contest in this western metropolis [Guadalajara]. The three-minute clip was shot by a dance enthusiast during the Cheerdance ACMX competition held May 31 in Guadalajara, but was only posted this week on the multimedia platform Liveleak. In the choreography, young men and women appear wearing military uniforms and waving red flags. The dance simulates a battle that peaks with the unfurling of a red-and-black swastika flag carried by two youths giving a Nazi salute. Both Liveleak and local media Web sites have screened the event, while viewers have posted comments for and against.
French comedian Dieudonne was fined 130,000 Euros ($146,000) for a parody song of a Jewish singer and Holocaust survivor. An appeal court upheld the ruling by the French Supreme Court in January and tacked on an additional daily fine for his not removing the parody from online venues. Dieudonne, who has been convicted seven times for inciting racial hatred against Jews, changed the song by the late Barbara from “The Black Eagle” to “The Black Rat.” He reportedly called the singer “crazy.”
... The Magna Carta (“Great Charter”), which turns 800 years old on Monday, is often invoked in the U.K., the U.S., and around the world as a font of freedom, the touchstone for today’s constitutional democracy. But its specifics are largely forgotten. And what you realize in combing through the document, which was originally written in Latin and runs to about 4,500 words in English, is this: Those specifics are incredibly specific, which makes the charter’s widespread and enduring appeal all the more surprising.
Things were coming to a head when the Magna Carta was signed by King John 800 years ago on June 15, 1215, in Runnymede near Windsor ... Jewish history gained another footnote. It was a time when Jewish moneylenders could be wealthier than the king of England ... Among the 3,500 Latin words written and signed upon calfskin that day were two “clauses” (a system of 63 sections was devised in 1759) that directly dealt with England’s Jews ... In 1274, Edward I codified the “Statute of Jewry,” which stated, “Each Jew, after he is seven years old, shall wear a distinguishing mark on his outer garment ...” ... A wildly popular Edict of Expulsion was written in 1290, and the Jewish community was banished from England.
If there is one thing our elites enjoy it is giving each other a big pat on the back and the extravagant celebrations planned for the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta will give them lots of opportunities to do just that ... Why have clauses 10 and 11 been airbrushed from history? These were the ones inserted in the original charter to protect widows and underage heirs specifically from Jewish moneylenders by restricting the recovery of debt out of the deceased debtor’s estate. But they are nowhere to be found in the official Magna Carta Trust website nor the US National Archive website which instead features the text of the later — and much shorter — 1297 version ... The Jews of medieval England were occupied entirely as moneylenders and enjoyed great privileges and the special protection of the King.
After last week's G7 summit, political and business leaders are due to meet again. The new venue is a hotel in Tyrol, Austria, but everything else remains a secret. The event [June 11-14] is called the Bilderberg conference ... Bilderberg attendees subject themselves to specific rules of participation. The most important one ... obliges every conference attendee to observe absolute confidentiality with respect to conversation content and speakers' statements. Unsurprisingly, this meeting point of the power wielders draws criticism year after year ... due to its lack of transparency ... That was perfect fodder for the critics, who have always placed Bilderbergers under general suspicion, because of the alleged links between politics and business.
A leading academic group voted Saturday to censure the University of Illinois’ flagship campus over its decision not to hire a professor following his anti-Israel Twitter messages, a vote the university's chancellor said will have repercussions and is being taken seriously. In a voice vote, the membership of the American Association of University Professors affirmed the censure at the group's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The decision came in reaction to the university rescinding Steven Salaita's job offer following his posts on Twitter concerning Israel and the West Bank. The vote hinged on the principle of academic freedom, said Anita Levy, an association staff member involved with the group's investigation of the matter.
In a decision that may have long-lasting repercussions for the university's reputation, a leading university group on Saturday voted to censure the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for firing Professor Steven Salaita after he made comments critical of Israel's attack on Gaza last summer. The university rescinded Salaita's tenured faculty appointment at school's the American Indian studies program after he issued a series of Tweets condemning those who defended Israel's military actions against Palestinians in Gaza ... The school board's dismissal of Salaita received widespread condemnation by groups accusing the university of having a pro-Israel bias.
Spain’s parliament on Thursday passed a law allowing descendants of Sephardic Jews to gain nationality, more than five centuries after their ancestors were expelled from the country. The law could potentially allow an estimated 3.5 million Sephardic Jews whose families settled in Israel, the United States, Argentina, France and elsewhere to apply for citizenship. They would not have to give up their current nationality to do so.