Political Extremism In Israel And Ukraine

al-mayadeen  |  Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has caught "Israel" and the US by complete surprise. Americans are calling it ‘Israel’s Pearl Harbour’ moment --and an attack on America too). Nikki Haley (running for election) is succinct: To Netanyahu: “Finish them”.

Al-Aqsa Flood is held to be "Israel’s" greatest ‘intelligence failure’. Maybe so, but if Israeli and American intelligence did not see the attack coming, it is because of their Western mechanical, literal way of thinking. If I, and probably thousands of Al Mayadeen readers, broadly knew that this was in the works (but not of course, of its operational details), why was "Israel" blind to it?

The writing was clearly written on the wall. Two years ago, a missile campaign was unleashed from Gaza on "Tel Aviv" in response to the Temple Mount Movement’s religious zealotry and invasion of Al-Aqsa mosque. 

Palestinians rallied to the call to safeguard the Holy Mosque. It was not just Hamas; it was West Bank Palestinians and (for the first time, too, 1948 Palestinians who have Israeli passports) who all rose up to protect Al-Aqsa. Just to be clear, the rallying cry was not for Hamas; it was not for Palestinian nationalism. It was for Al-Aqsa -- an icon that goes to the heart of what it is to be Muslim (Sunni or Shi’a). It was a cry that resonated across the entire Islamic sphere.

Did the West not get it?  Apparently not. It was right under their nose, but super high-tech Intel doesn’t do symbolic meaning. That was true for the 2006 Lebanon war too, by the way; "Israel" could not grasp the symbolism of Hezballah’s ‘Karbala’ stand.

In the intervening period, "Israel" has shattered into two equally weighted factions holding to two irreconcilable visions of "Israel’s" future; two mutually opposing readings of history and of what it means to be Jewish.

The fissure could not be more complete. Except it is. One faction, which holds a majority in parliament, is broadly Mizrahi -- a former underclass in Israeli society; and the other, largely well-to-do liberal Ashkenazi. 

So, what has this to do with Al-Aqsa Flood? Well, the Right in Netanyahu’s government has two long-standing commitments. One is to rebuild the (Jewish) Temple on ‘Temple Mount’ (Haram al-Shariff).

Just to be clear, that would entail demolishing Al-Aqsa.

The second overriding commitment is to the founding of "Israel", on the "Land of Israel". And again, to be clear, this (in their view) would entail clearing Palestinians from the West Bank. Indeed, the settlers have been cleansing Palestinians from swaths of the West Bank over the past year (notably between Ramallah and Jehrico).

On Thursday morning (two days preceding Al-Aqsa Flood), more than 800 settlers stormed the Mosque Compound, under the full protection of Israeli forces. The drumbeat of such provocations is rising.

This is nothing new. The First Intifada was triggered by (then) PM Sharon making a provocative visit into the mosque. I was a part of Senator George Mitchell’s Presidential Committee investigating that incident. Even then, it was clear that Sharon intended the visit to fuel the fire of Religious nationalism. At that time, the Temple Mount Movement was a minnow; today it has ministers in Cabinet and in key security positions -- and has promised its followers to build the ‘Third Temple’.

So, the threat to Al-Aqsa has been building for two decades, and today is reaching an apex.  And yet US and Israeli intelligence didn’t see resistance coming, and nor did they see the settler violence building in the West Bank? 

What happened on Saturday was widely expected and clearly extensively planned. So what’s next?

THEY Big Mad THEY Can't Cancel China...,

nikkei  |  Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has blamed the rapidly worsening conflict in the Middle East on a lack of justice for the Palestinian people, days after the militant group Hamas carried out a deadly assault on Israeli territory.

"The crux of the issue lies in the fact that justice has not been done to the Palestinian people," Beijing's top diplomat said in a phone call with Brazil's Celso Amorim, a former foreign minister and now a special adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. A statement on the call was released by Wang's ministry.

The call came just ahead of an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Friday to discuss the Israel-Hamas war. Brazil, a nonpermanent member, is chairing the council this month.

Wang urged all parties in the Middle East to exercise restraint to prevent further escalation. He added that the United Nations has a responsibility and duty to play a role in the Palestinian issue, and China is ready to cooperate closely with various parties, including Brazil.

Amid an outpouring of Western support for Israel after Hamas' weekend onslaught killed over 1,300 people, Beijing has maintained a relatively neutral position, lamenting civilian casualties but not condemning Hamas. Soon after the initial attack, it called for an immediate cease-fire and repeated its support for a two-state solution that would create an independent Palestinian homeland.

But the comment by Wang on how China sees the root cause of the problem appeared to mark a hardening of its stance amid heavy Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and talk of a possible ground operation to dislodge Hamas, which controls the strip.

Earlier this year, China positioned itself as a potential mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, as it seeks to become a more influential player in the region.

Any Day Now Expect To Read About The Untimely Demise Of Colombian President Gustavo Petro

citypaperbogota  |  “What you are saying is an insult to the six million victims of the Holocaust and to the Jewish People. Your comments here (on “X”), and others on your page completely ignore the hundreds of dead and kidnapped during Hamas’ murderous attack on Israeli civilians. This post is a shame to you and your country. A world leader should do better,” stated the World Jewish Congress, on Tuesday, to Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

In the realm of political irresponsibility and moral bankruptcy, Colombia’s Gustavo Petro’s recent comments stand out as a glaring example of a leader who has not only lost his way, but political accountability. His crude comparison of Gaza to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp where millions of innocent people were systematically murdered, is nothing short of grotesque.

As most recently reported in The Times of Israel, and many other prestigious media outlets, Petro’s remarks have not only drawn condemnation from Jewish organizations but have exposed his woeful ignorance about history, diplomacy, and human suffering. The World Jewish Congress’s statement, directed at President Petro, is a stark reminder of the gravity of his statements.

Petro’s troubling statements began with a series of pro-Palestinian messages on “X” in which he prominently displayed at the top of his profile a collage of photos of Palestinian children, whom he claims were “murdered by the illegal occupation of their territory.” This collage posted on the same day Israelis were being murdered in the street, in their homes and at an outdoor music festival, shows a shocking lack of empathy for Israelis, or the citizens of any other nation that could be attacked on such a massive, inhumane, scale.

When Israel’s Ambassador to Colombia, Gali Dagan, cordially expected Petro to condemn Hamas up to 48 hours after Saturday’s horrific attacks, Petro’s response was nothing short of astonishing. His reply, “Terrorism is killing innocent children, whether in Colombia or Palestine,” is a disturbing failure to differentiate between the actions of a terrorist organization and a democratic state’s efforts to protect its citizens. Petro’s tweet was posted as an estimated 150 Israelis, Americans, Canadians, Italians, even a Colombian couple, ranging in age from toddlers to the elderly, were taken hostage by Hamas.

The Confederación de Comunidades Judías de Colombia, Colombia’s Jewish communal organization, issued a robust statement condemning Petro’s comments. The statement rightly pointed out that the vast majority of democracies around the world, including those led by progressive and democratic forces, had unequivocally condemned the aggression against Israel. Petro’s incoherent stance put him in stark contrast with his global counterparts. Petro’s incoherence also put him in stark contrast to other Latin American leaders, among them, Chile’s Boric and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio “Lula” Da Silva, who categorically condemned the mass terrorist attack on Israel – one that has claimed more than 900 lives.

But Petro’s rhetoric didn’t stop with his verbose, self-aggrandizing remarks. He went on to claim that Gaza is being “converted into a concentration camp,” statement that reeks of historical ignorance and offensive hyperbole. His analogy between the situation in Gaza and Nazi concentration camps is not only historically inaccurate but deeply offensive to the memory of Holocaust victims and survivors.

The World Jewish Congress’s words highlight the extent of Petro’s biased historical rewrites. To invoke the Holocaust, an unparalleled symbol of human suffering and evil, in the context of a contemporary political dispute is not only insensitive but also reprehensible. It reflects a dangerous disregard for history and an alarming willingness to exploit the past for political protagonism.

In a challenging moment with the international community paying tribute to the victims of the indiscriminate slaughter of Israelis – and many foreign nationals – Gustavo Petro has embraced inflammatory rhetoric, rejected moral clarity, and tarnished the reputation of Colombia, at home and around the world. The country’s “progressive” leader appears also willing to weaken his country’s relationship with Israel, a long-standing friend and ally, to salvage misguided statements and his social media platform.

Among the most stinging rebukes of Petro’s social media postings came from the prominent Israeli politician Dani Dayan and chairman of Yad Vashem – the memorial and museum in Israel dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust. “President Gustavo Petro, as President of Yad Vashem, I can affirm that you did not understand anything you saw in Auschwitz or denied seeing it. You have the ignominious distinction of being the only world leader, outside of Iran, to trivialize and deny the Holocaust in such a manner.”

On Tuesday, social media feeds in Colombia erupted with the hashtag #VergüenzaMundial (#WorldShame), reflection of the outrage Petro has ignited among his fellow citizens. His shameful statements are not just a stain on the country’s democratic integrity, but a perilous course that threatens to cast Colombia alongside pariah states such as Iran and Venezuela.

Adding to the gravity of the situation, on Saturday, vandals defaced the entrance to the Israeli Embassy in Bogotá with swastikas, a Jewish star and “terror” written in Hebrew. The words “Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine,” “Arafat lives” and “Free Palestine” were also graffitied along the Embassy’s white columns. Ambassador Dagan, in a caustic statement on social media, referenced the vandalism, stating: “Look at ‘the solidarity’ we receive below at our [Embassy] installations.” Petro also failed to condemn this hateful act, further highlighting his indifference to antisemitism and intolerance.

Petro’s tweets are not a diplomatic blunder; they are a slap in the face to the people of Israel who have endured decades of conflict and terrorism. They are also a disservice to the countless innocent victims of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Should Israel determine that it will no longer maintain diplomatic relations with Colombia, it would be in its right to do so, especially after Petro likened the Israeli military to Nazis in a tweet directed at Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. “Concentration camps are prohibited by international law and those who develop them become criminals against humanity,” stated Petro as Gallant explained the extent of military’s operation against Hamas.

Petro’s repeated insults to the memory of the Holocaust is a betrayal of the universal values the international community must uphold. Failure to do so should generate strong condemnation from Colombia’s closest allies, among them the U.S, Spain, Canada, United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France, but hopefully, remembering that the vast majority of Colombians do uphold the universal values of respect and human decency.

THEY Take A Deep Dive Into The Ukro-Canadian Nazi's Family And Background

forward  |  After the Forward article about Hunka’s past was picked up by news outlets around the world, Canadian lawmakers and Jewish groups rushed to condemn House Speaker Rota for inviting him. In his mea culpa, Rota made it sound like Hunka was a constituent from his district (called a “riding”) whom he did not know much about. “This initiative was entirely my own,“ Rota said, “the individual in question being from my riding and having been brought to my attention.” 

But Rejean Venne, an independent Canadian journalist, wrote in his Substack newsletter this week that Rota and Hunka family members have had numerous chances to cross paths over the years. Among Venne’s examples:

• One of Hunka’s sons, Martin, was chief financial officer of Redpath Mining, a multinational corporation headquartered in Rota’s district. Redpath has contributed to Rota’s campaigns and Rota has provided government funding for recreational facilities operated by Redpath. (The company did not respond to inquiries from the Forward made Thursday.)
• Martin Hunka has also served as chair of the board of trustees for North Bay Hospital, which is located in Rota’s district and which Rota has supported. Hunka’s name can no longer be found on the hospital’s website and social media posts. (The hospital did not respond to a request for comment emailed Thursday.) 
• North Bay Pride, an LGBTQ+ organization, gave an award to Rota nine months after Yaroslav’s granddaughter Leshya Lecappelain joined its board of directors. In 2022 and 2023, North Bay Pride received more than $100,000 in funding from Rota. (Asked about this, a spokesperson for North Bay Pride said Lecappelain had not been on its board for several years.)

“Rota’s response that this was a last-minute request doesn’t add up,” Venne said in an email interview. “The Hunka family appears well connected in Rota’s district.” 

The Forward could not determine whether Hunka and Rota met before he was honored at Parliament. Rota and others at the House of Commons did not respond to several requests for comment sent Wednesday and Thursday. 

Efforts to reach Yaroslav, Martin and Peter Hunka, Lecappelain and other members of the family for comment were also unsuccessful.

Endowments honoring Hunka and others tied to the SS

On Wednesday, the University of Alberta said it would return the CA$30,000 endowment that Hunka’s sons donated in 2019 in their father’s honor. The money was intended to fund research at the school’s Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies.

But Per Anders Rudling, a university alumnus and expert on Ukrainian nationalism who teaches at Sweden’s Lund University, said the Hunka fund is just “the top of an iceberg.” 

In an email to the Forward, Rudling said the University of Alberta has “much larger endowments” honoring other figures connected to the Waffen SS unit. The “most problematic,” he said, is the Volodymyr and Daria Kubijovych Memorial Endowment Fund. At CA$450,000 — about $334,000 — it’s 15 times larger than the Hunka fund the university is returning.

Rudling described Kubijovych as Ukraine’s chief collaborator with Hans Frank, the Nazi governor of occupied Poland. Kubijovych played a crucial role in convincing the Third Reich to create SS Galichina. He also lobbied for Ukrainians to seize Jewish property and advocated for ethnic cleansing. 

In comparison to Kubijovych, Rudling said, Hunka is “small fry.” 

In a Facebook post Thursday, Rudling also questioned university endowments named for other Galichina Division veterans, including Roman Kolisnyk, Levko Babij and Edward Brodacky.

Pointing to research he published in The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Rudling said, “I have tried to raise this issue in the past, to no avail.” 

Asked about Rudling’s concerns, Michael Brown, a spokesperson for the University of Alberta, reiterated a statement in which interim provost Verna Yiu said the school is “reviewing its general naming policies and procedures, including those for endowments, to ensure alignment with our values.” Yiu also expressed the school’s “commitment to address anti-Semitism in any of its manifestations, including the ways in which the Holocaust continues to resonate in the present.” 

The honors given to SS Galichina fighters extend beyond academia. One of the University of Alberta’s endowments is for its former chancellor Peter Savaryn, another SS Galichina member. In 1987, Savaryn was awarded the Order of Canada, among the nation’s highest honors, bestowed by Canada’s governor general, the representative of the British Crown. Mary Simon, the current governor general, has condemned the Hunka scandal as “a shock and an embarrassment.”

Controversial church leaders 

When the Hunka endowment was announced in 2020, the university said it would fund research on two “leaders of the underground Ukrainian Catholic Church,” Cardinal Josyf Slipyj and Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky. (A metropolitan is akin to a bishop.)

Slipyi was a deputy in Ukraine’s 1941 self-proclaimed government, which pledged to work closely with Germany under Hitler’s leadership. Slipyi also assigned chaplains to SS Galichina and celebrated the unit’s inaugural Mass. After the war, the Soviets sent him to gulag prison camps.

But Sheptytsky’s legacy is layered. He helped “dozens of Jews find refuge in his monasteries and even in his own home,” according to Yad Vashem, while also supporting “the German army as the savior of the Ukrainians from the Soviets.” 

Harvard University also houses a Ukrainian Research Institute. Asked, after Alberta’s announcement, whether that institute’s funding would be scrutinized for Nazi ties, the university said in a statement that the institute had never received money from the Hunkas, nor had it received donations designated for research related to SS Galichina. 

Harvard did, however, in 1974 establish a fellowship and faculty position in European studies with money from a foundation named for Alfred Krupp, who was convicted of war crimes for using slave laborers from Auschwitz to build and work in a factory.

THEY Tryna Kanye X And Its African American Owner Elon Musk...,

Slate  | To get this out of the way: I am still using the site formerly known as Twitter.

I have been posting regularly on what is now known as X since December 2011. The site brought me many things over the years—close friendships, news from around the world, a husband—but these days I mostly use it for one reason. That reason is that I am a freelance journalist, and Twitter—excuse me, X—is still the most useful place to share and get work. In other words, it helps me get paid.

But there is a certain tension in this. I regularly write on Jewish history and politics. This includes politics around antisemitism, and the threat posed by antisemitism. Increasingly, that means that in order to potentially have the professional opportunity to cover the threat of antisemitism, I use a social media platform owned by someone who, I would argue, is using the same platform to make the threat of antisemitism actively worse.

Twitter has long had its issues, but Elon Musk, since taking over late last year, has made existing problems more pronounced—for example, in allowing accounts that had been previously suspended for hate speech to come back—and has invented problems that didn’t need to exist, including by getting rid of check marks that verified identity (and also firing thousands of staff). Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, top advertisers have left the platform and ad sales have reportedly fallen dramatically.

But Musk has found someone other than himself to blame: the Anti-Defamation League, which he has now threatened to sue.

“Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!” Musk posted on Monday. He added, “If this continues, we will have no choice but to file a defamation suit against, ironically, the ‘Anti-Defamation’ League.”

The Anti-Defamation League dates back to the 1910s, and per its founder, attorney Sigmund Livingston, exists “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Today, the organization tracks hate-crime laws in the United States and provides legal services, such as serving as co-counsel in a federal lawsuit against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for their role in attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

That doesn’t mean the ADL is above reproach. Increasingly, it has come under criticism from the left for putting the fight against antisemitism and for civil rights second to the desire to defend Israel and Zionism. In 2021, progressive outlet Jewish Currents published a report based on interviews with former staffers that charged that “CEO Jonathan Greenblatt has repeatedly chosen to support crackdowns on criticism of Israel over protecting civil liberties, putting him in conflict with his own civil rights office.” Earlier this year, the New Republic ran a piece that took Greenblatt to task for not doing enough to tackle white supremacy, noting that his keynote speech at the ADL’s annual leadership summit this year “had virtually nothing to say about the rise of white Christian nationalism. … Instead, he focused his ire on what the ADL calls ‘hostile anti-Zionist activists groups’ like Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, which loudly criticize and protest against Israel on America’s college campuses, calling them ‘the photo inverse of the extreme right.’ ” Ironically, Greenblatt faced backlash last year when, on television, he said, “Elon Musk is an amazing entrepreneur and extraordinary innovator. He’s the Henry Ford of our time.”

But one does not need to think that Greenblatt is good at his job, or even to think that the ADL has any credibility as an institution, to be concerned that Musk appears to share with Henry Ford not only ownership of an automobile company, but also a penchant for blaming Jews. In looking for someone to blame for his troubles, Musk is lashing out at a Jewish institution that, at least in theory, exists to push back against antisemitism.

This encourages others to join in: Right-wing figure Charlie Kirk, who days earlier had posted that the ADL today is “a hate group that dons a religious mask to justify stoking hatred of the left’s enemies,” tweeted out a video of Greenblatt on MSNBC that Kirk said showed Greenblatt “bragging” about “how the group extorts every single tech company in Silicon Valley to censor Americans and ‘ban’ hate speech.” Stephen Miller, the former senior adviser in the Trump White House who was called an immigration hypocrite by his uncle, also chimed in, offering: “Speaking as a Jew: ADL is NOT a Jewish organization,” which was then reposted thousands of times. The idea that a person (or, in this case, institution) can be deemed “not really Jewish” and thus fair game for an antisemitic smear is a not uncommon one.

 

The 4th Reich Is BIG MAD With Elon Musk

nbcnews  |  Tech billionaire Elon Musk has come under fire from Ukraine after it emerged he thwarted a major attack on the Russian navy.

According to excerpts published by CNN, a soon-to-be-released biography of the SpaceX CEO claims that Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his Starlink satellite network over Russian-occupied Crimea last year in order to prevent a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s naval fleet. 

Musk was worried that the planned attack on the Kremlin’s Black Sea fleet, which occurred early in the war, could escalate tensions and potentially lead to nuclear conflict, according to the extract from historian Walter Isaacson’s upcoming book.

The claim was immediately met with criticism from Kyiv. 

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, blasted the tech billionaire on X, formerly Twitter, which Musk owns. 

“Sometimes a mistake is much more than just a mistake,” Podolyak wrote. 

“By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via #Starlink interference, @elonmusk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities,” he added.

Russia is known to have used its naval ships in the Black Sea to strike deep into Ukrainian territory and impose an effective blockade of the Ukrainian Black Sea coast, which is crucial to global grain shipments. 

“As a result, civilians, children are being killed,” Podolyak said. “This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego. However, the question still remains: why do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder? And do they now realize that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?”

Musk responded to the report, denying that he turned off the service but accepting he had chosen not to enable the attack as he did not want to become directly involved in the war. 

“The Starlink regions in question were not activated. SpaceX did not deactivate anything,” Musk said in a response to a thread on X about the new book’s claims. 

“There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol,” he said in another response, referring to a key port city in Crimea that is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. 

“The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor,” Musk added. “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”

According to the excerpts from the new biography, it meant that Ukrainian submarine drones packed with explosives lost connectivity as they approached the Russian ships, and saw them “washed ashore harmlessly.”

The book also delves into how Musk’s decision played out, alleging Musk spoke with top U.S. officials along with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.

NBC News has reached out to SpaceX and Zelenskyy’s office for comment.

 

THEY've Decided It's Time To Shut Roger Waters Down....,

 unz  |  The Jews won’t tolerate you disagreeing with them.

They are now going after Roger Waters – a pointed critic of Israel – for being against Nazism, saying that satirizing Nazism is the same thing as being a Nazi.

They’ve been trying to get at this guy for years. This is what they’ve come up with.

These people will not tolerate dissent. They will crush you, whoever you are.

RT:

German police have launched a criminal investigation into English rock legend and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters on suspicion of glorifying Nazism during two concerts in Berlin. The musician has insisted the performance was in opposition to fascism.

On Friday, in a statement quoted by several media outlets, the Berlin police said that Waters was suspected of inciting hatred, and that the probe was centered on his performances on May 17 and 18 in the German capital.

In footage posted on social media, the musician can be seen wearing a leather trench coat resembling a Nazi uniform with two crossed hammers and a red armband. He then proceeds to take a mock gun and shoot into the crowd.

“The context of the clothing worn is deemed capable of approving, glorifying or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims and thereby disrupts public peace,” the police said.

…

The Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon suggested that Waters wanted to compare Israel to the Nazis, describing the musician as “one of the biggest Jew haters of our time.”

On Friday, the musician addressed the controversy, writing on Twitter that he had become a target of “bad faith attacks” from those who disagreed with his political views.

“The elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice and bigotry in all its forms”, he said, adding that he had spent his entire life speaking out “against authoritarianism and oppression.”

What he should have explained, frankly, is the fact that he’s been doing this bit for literally decades. Roger Waters has been performing this show, in this costume, in Germany, for 42 years.

Now, inexplicably, it’s a problem.

Of course, the reason it is a problem is that since 1981, and particularly over the last decade or so, Waters has gotten aggressively political. He is extremely anti-Israel, and he is against this Jewish war in the Ukraine. If you want more information on that, you can really just check the Roger Waters archive on the Daily Stormer.

Probably, the fact that I’ve been so supportive of him is one of the reasons the Jews are so obsessed with him.

Elon Musk: George Soros Is Magneto And I Don't Care - I'll Say What I Want To Say

azerbaycan24  |   Washington thinks criticizing the financier is anti-Semitic, while the Israeli government thinks supporting him is anti-Semitic George Soros addresses the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, May 24, 2022 © AFP / Fabrice Coffrini

The US and Israeli anti-Semitism envoys have taken opposing positions on whether supporters or critics of Jewish financier George Soros is anti-Semitic. The argument kicked off when Twitter CEO Elon Musk compared Soros to a cartoon supervillain.

In a tweet on Monday, Musk said that Soros reminds him of “Magneto,” a mutant-supremacist scientist from Marvel’s ‘X-Men’ universe. When a commenter pointed out that Magneto was depicted – like Soros – as a Holocaust survivor and that both have “good intentions,” Musk doubled down.

“You assume they are good intentions,” he wrote. “They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.”

Musk was quickly accused of anti-Semitism, with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt declaring that by comparing the billionaire “to a Jewish supervillain,” Musk would “embolden extremists.”

Washington thinks criticizing the financier is anti-Semitic, while the Israeli government thinks supporting him is anti-Semitic

Is George Soros actually a real-life Magneto?

The Israeli government disagreed. “The Israeli government and the vast majority of Israeli citizens see Elon Musk as an amazing entrepreneur and a role model,” Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli tweeted on Thursday, adding that “criticism of Soros – who finances the most hostile organizations to the Jewish people and the state of Israel is anything but anti-Semitism, quite the opposite!”

Soros has donated more than $32 billion to liberal political causes through his Open Society Foundations NGO, and was the largest donor in last year’s midterm elections in the US, gifting $128 million to Democratic Party candidates and organizations. Soros funds a number of Palestinian activist groups that accuse the Israeli state of war crimes, and several international organizations that promote boycotts of Israeli goods and sanctions against its leaders.

In the US, the Biden administration sided with its leading donor against Chikli’s criticism.

“Irrespective of how one feels about George Soros’s politics or policies, it is entirely disingenuous to deny that many ad hominem attacks on him rely on classic antisemitic tropes and rhetoric,” US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt tweeted on Friday.

“In bygone eras, the antisemites invoked the Rothschild family to advance their conspiracies about Jews. Today they use Soros to do so,” she declared.

Neither Soros nor his Open Society Foundations have responded to Musk’s comments. Asked on Tuesday whether he was worried his controversial tweets would drive advertisers away from Twitter, Musk told CNBC News “I don’t care. I’ll say what I want to say, and if the consequences are losing money, so be it.” (RT)

 

The United States Has Been Destroyed By Its Ruling Elites

PCR  |  Against the backdrop of the United States’ recognition of the investigation against Donald Trump as politically motivated, structural and ideological controversies, and concerns that the American economy will enter a recession, the GEOFOR editorial board asked Paul Craig Roberts, Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy (USA), a PhD in Economics and US Undersecretary of Treasury in the Reagan administration, to share his views on America’s future.

GEOFOR: Special Counsel John Durham “acquitted” Donald Trump on the so-called “Russiagate”, writing in his report that the FBI investigation was politically motivated. How will this news affect the Democrats’ fight against Trump?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: The Special Counsel’s vindication of Donald Trump and denunciation of the FBI for conducting a politically motivated investigation devoid of any evidence should collapse the equally fraudulent Biden regime investigation of Trump on fake documents charges and the New York state prosecution of Trump on alleged expense misreporting charges. It has been clear for a long time that the list of fake charges against Trump, supported by the media, are propaganda to prevent Trump again running for President and to teach all future potential presidential candidates that they will be destroyed if they attempt to represent the people instead of the unelected ruling oligarchy.

However, the Democrat Party and the presstitutes that service them have no respect whatsoever for truth. Facts simply do not matter to them. This is true also of American Universities, law associations, medical associations, the CIA, FBI, NSA, the State Department, the regulatory agencies such as NIH, CDC, FDA, the large corporations, and many establishment Republican members of the House and Senate who serve the economic interests that pay them, not truth. It is also the case with a high percentage of Democrat voters who have been conditioned by propaganda to hate Trump. To Democrats what matters is not facts, but getting Trump. Truth is not permitted to prevent the destruction of Trump.

Consequently, the US is moving toward a fatal split in the society from which recovery is impossible. Trump represents ordinary Americans who prefer peace to the neoconservatives’ wars, who want their jobs back that the greed-driven capitalist global corporations sent to China and Asia, who want their children properly educated instead of indoctrinated with sexual perversion, Satanism, and told that they are racists. In contrast, the Democrats are increasingly Woke–people who believe that truth is an oppressive tool of white supremacy, that Christian morality is tyrannical and discriminatory against pedophiles and other sexual perverts, and that, as “President” Biden himself has said, white people are the greatest threat to America. See: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/05/15/us-navy-enlists-drag-queen-for-digital-ambassador-role-to-attract-more-recruits-2/

Now that official investigations by the House Republicans have brought the utter corruption of Biden and his son to light (see: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/05/16/bank-records-show-biden-family-received-10-million-in-payments-from-china-foreign-interests-house-oversight/ ), the Democrats, the dangerous and corrupt military/security complex, and the complicit whore American media, are desperate. They all stand as being exposed. So, rather than apologize for their mistreatment of Trump and his supporters–1,000 of whom the Democrats have illegally imprisoned–they will likely strike out while they still control the Executive Branch, the US Senate, the CIA, FBI, NSA, and federal agencies such as the IRS that have been armed and militarized.

Alternatively, the corrupt and threatened Democrats might cause war between the US and Russia, or Iran, or China in the hopes that a war will unify even Trump supporters, especially the super-patriots among them, around the “President” against “foreign enemies.”

With Lying And Stealing As Its National DNA - Israel Must Surely Fail...,

antiwar  |  As Israel celebrates its 75th anniversary, the state-building project it cemented into place in 1948 by expelling 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland is showing the first signs of unraveling.

The surprise is that Israel’s woes spring not, as generations of its leaders feared, from outside forces – a combined attack from Arab states or pressure from the international community – but from Israel’s own internal contradictions.

Israeli leaders created the very problems they all too obviously lack the tools to now solve. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bombardment of Gaza in recent days, killing dozens of Palestinians, should be understood in that light. It is one more indication of Israel’s internal crisis.

Once again, the Palestinians are being used in a frantic bid to shore up an increasingly fragile “Jewish” unity.

Israel’s long-term problem is underscored by the current, bitter standoff over Netanyahu’s plan for a so-called judicial overhaul. The Israeli Jewish population is split down the middle, with neither side willing to back down. Rightly, each sees the confrontation in terms of a zero-sum battle.

And behind this stands a political system in near-constant paralysis, with neither side of the divide able to gain a stable majority in the parliament. Israel is now mired in a permanent, low-level civil war.

To understand how Israel reached this point, and where it is likely to head next, one must delve deep into the country’s origin story.

Morality tale

The official narrative is that Israel was created out of necessity: to serve as a safe haven for Jews fleeing centuries of persecution and the horrors of the Nazi death camps in Europe.

The resulting ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the erasure of hundreds of their towns and villages – what Palestinians call their Nakba, or Catastrophe – is either mystified or presented simply as a desperate act of self-defense by a long-victimized people.

This colossal act of dispossession, aided and abetted by western powers, has been reinvented for western publics as a simple morality tale, as a story of redemption.

Israel’s establishment was not only a chance for the Jewish people to gain self-determination through statehood so they would never again be persecuted. Jews would also build a state from scratch that would offer to the world a more virtuous model of how to live.

This tapped neatly, if subliminally, into a western, Christian-derived worldview that looked to the Holy Land for salvation.

Jews would restore their place as “a light unto the nations” by “redeeming” the land they had stolen from the Palestinians and offering a path by which westerners could redeem themselves too.

How Concerned Will The Anglo Establishment Become About Democracy In Israel?

korybko  |  At all costs, America believes that it must do whatever’s necessary to prevent the Israeli state from exercising its sovereign right under Bibi’s restored leadership to balance between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the Sino-Russo Entente instead of decisively take the former’s side against the latter. Most immediately, its “deep state” wants Israel to arm Kiev, which Bibi himself warned earlier this month could abruptly catalyze a crisis with Russia in Syria.  

It's precisely this outcome that the US wants to have happen because it could open a so-called “second front” in its Eurasian-wide “containment’ campaign against Russia after the most recent efforts to do so in Georgia and Moldova have thus far failed. Furthermore, a major crisis in West Asia could impede the region’s accelerated rise as an independent pole of influence in the emerging Multipolar World Order, the scenario of which became viable after the Chinese-mediated Iranian-Saudi rapprochement.

That aforementioned development coupled with Bibi’s envisaged multi-alignment between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the Sino-Russo Entente could lead to the near-total loss of American influence over West Asia, especially if Israel starts de-dollarizing its trade like Saudi Arabia is soon expected to do. Simply put, the entire region’s future role in the ongoing global systemic transition is at stake, thus explaining the grand strategic significance of Israel’s US-exacerbated crisis.

The socio-political (soft security) dynamics aren’t in Bibi’s favor, which could lead to him either backing down or being overthrown, with either of those outcomes raising the chances that Israel submits to being the US’ New Cold War vassal instead of continuing its trajectory as an independent player. If the military (hard security) dynamics become more difficult such as in the event of a tacitly US-approved Intifada, then his removal could be a fait accompli unless he succeeds in imposing a military dictatorship.

So as not to be misunderstood, the preceding scenario doesn’t imply that the Palestinian cause is illegitimate, but just that it can be exploited by the US like all others in advance of its larger interests. In any case, the situation is extremely combustible and it’s difficult to predict what’ll happen next. Nothing like this has ever happened before in Israel, neither domestically nor in terms of its ties with the US. This is literally unprecedented, especially in terms of its impact on International Relations as explained.

Jewish Extremists Give No Phuggs About Being An Openly Ethnotheocratic Apartheid State

socialistworker  |  For most of Israel’s history the state’s fundamental contradiction didn’t much trouble its governments. The claim of democracy gave them a veneer of legitimacy. It even allowed them to justify their occupation of Palestine, their obsessive military spending funded by the US, and the wars it carries out on the US’s behalf.

But as Israel’s grip on Palestinian land has tightened, it’s been faced with an existential dilemma. Accepting the Palestinians who live there as equal citizens would threaten Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. That’s something that the “liberal” and “left” parties who once dominated Israeli politics could never accept. But they have no solution to the problem of the occupation.

They’re not willing to end the occupation of east Jerusalem and the West Bank. Nor will they give up the settlements there where hundreds of thousands of their citizens now live. But neither are they willing to abandon the pretence of being a democracy. And they cling to the false promise of a two-state solution—the lie that they will one day give Palestinians a state of their own.

The Israeli right does have a solution—but it means casting off Israel’s democratic facade. The Israeli right is much better suited to maintaining Israel’s apartheid system. They’re much more open and determined in their desire to seize all Palestinian land, and in their hatred of Palestinian people.

So as the problem of the occupation grew over the years, so too has the popularity of the Israeli right. Binyamin Netanyahu has become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister by riding that tide. In 2015, he won re-election by warning of the “threat” posed by Arab voters voting “in droves”.

Having done that, he went on in 2018 to pass a new “basic law”—fundamental legislation that acts as Israel’s constitution. This said openly that only Jewish people have “an exclusive right to self determination” there. It was designed to entrench into law the apartheid system that had for decades been an unspoken reality. 

But it also meant admitting openly, for the first time, that Israel was not a democracy for Palestinians. Now, propped up by parties even further to his right, Netanyahu’s government wants to go further. What the US, Israel’s “centrists,” and the soldiers refusing to serve really fear is that in doing so, they’ll cast off the “democratic” identity. 

With it goes the cloak of legitimacy for the apartheid system. The alternative is a single, secular state in all of Palestine, with equal democratic rights for all of its citizens. But Israel’s defenders of “democracy” would rather envisage civil war before they countenance that.

Netanyahu Tryna Fund And Arm A Jewish Supremacist Militia

middleeasteye  |  Opposition lawmakers condemned the scenes, blaming them on Ben-Gvir and his supporters.

"Ben Gvir’s militias from La Familia are going wild right now on the streets of Jerusalem. Looking for Arabs to beat up," the leader of the Labor Party Merav Michaeli said on Twitter.

"This is the man that Netanyahu promised to set up for him his own militia with regular salaries at the expense of the state. Netanyahu is a threat to Israel."

La Familia, a fan group of the Beitar Jerusalem football team with a history of violence, took part in Monday’s counter demonstrations. 

Haaretz reported that right-wing activists were using WhatsApp and other social media platforms to call on supporters to take up arms and use vehicles to attack anti-government protesters.

In one group, known as 'The Unapologetic Right', a member called on protesters to bring "gasoline, explosives, tractors, guns and knives".

Labour party parliamentarian Gilad Kariv referred to attacks on Palestinians on Monday night as "attempted lynchings". 

"This is an organised infrastructure and not spontaneous gatherings. The police and Shin Bet don’t have a proper response, in intelligence or operations, to this violent infrastructure. It’s time for them to wake up," he tweeted. 

Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian analyst based in the city of Haifa in Israel, told Middle East Eye that Netanyahu's promise to Ben-Gvir of a "national guard" was a bigger win for the far-right than the judicial reforms themselves.

He said the national guard, which Ben-Gvir claims is needed to increase security around Israel and would be loyal to his national security ministry, would have as its "core ideology" hostility to Palestinian citizens of Israel.

NYTimes Sugarcoats And Soft-Peddles "Pro-Democracy" Protests In Jerusalem

If bringing a Palestinian flag to an Israeli “pro-democracy” protest leads to you getting attacked and your flag torn away, it isn’t a “pro-democracy” protest. https://t.co/67VBWoMTHb

— James Ray ☭ (@GoodVibePolitik) March 27, 2023

NYTimes  | What prompted such large-scale chaos? In short, the extreme change that many Israelis feared the proposed judicial overhaul would bring. Like its American counterpart, Israel’s Supreme Court is very powerful. But with the overhaul, Israel’s Parliament could override the court’s decisions with a simple majority, giving the government sweeping power to enact its preferred policies.

Netanyahu and his allies argue that the overhaul is needed to limit the courts’ power. They believe the courts have become increasingly aggressive and have undermined voters’ choices over the past three decades. One example: The Supreme Court’s blocking of some settlements in the West Bank.

The opposition argues that the overhaul would significantly weaken one of the few checks, besides elections, on Parliament. Israelis in the opposition tend to hold a more secular, pluralistic vision for the country, and see the courts as important to preserving that view. The opposition also says that Netanyahu is pushing for the changes to protect himself because he is standing trial on corruption charges. Netanyahu denies that claim as well as the charges.

That opposition has gained momentum because it unites influential parts of Israeli society: universities, unions and the reservists who play a key role in the military. The backing of such organizations is often the difference between successful and failed protest movements, as my colleague Amanda Taub has explained. “Support from those institutions can be a way for protests to gain leverage over leaders, often by splitting up elite coalitions,” Amanda said.

That kind of split is already visible in Netanyahu’s cabinet. Over the weekend, the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, spoke out against the proposed overhaul, citing opposition from members of the military. “I see how the source of our strength is being eroded,” Gallant said.

Importantly, opposition from within the military goes beyond ideology. Soldiers and reservists argue that if the courts are too weak to provide a check on the military, officials may be more likely to give illegal orders and potentially expose soldiers to prosecution in international courts. “Those concrete concerns about self-interest may be far more difficult for the government to defuse than if the protests were just motivated by ideology and political solidarity,” Amanda wrote.

Netanyahu fired Gallant on Sunday. The dismissal prompted the latest protests in the country, which in turn compelled Netanyahu to pause his plans.

What’s next

Netanyahu’s proposed judicial overhaul was made possible by a rightward shift in Israeli politics, as this newsletter has explained. His backtracking in the face of heavy opposition suggests that perhaps Israel’s population hasn’t moved as far to the right as he believes.

The overhaul’s delay has calmed the situation for now. But it could also lead to more political chaos: Netanyahu’s coalition holds a slim majority in Parliament, and it could collapse if his right-wing allies believe he is going back on his word. That could force another election, which would be Israel’s sixth since 2019.

At the same time, reviving the overhaul would probably revitalize the protests and potentially splinter Netanyahu’s government again. Either option could cost Netanyahu his power.

Secular Jews Sick Of Ultraorthodox Extremism Putting Jewish Bidnis Out In These Streets

FT  |  Many say the crisis was triggered by Netanyahu’s decision to form an electoral alliance with extreme ultranationalists previously on the fringes of politics. 

The divisive veteran premier, who is on trial for corruption, returned to power in December by manufacturing a coalition dependent on ultraorthodox parties and ideologically driven religious Zionist leaders. 

These include Itamar Ben-Gvir, who in 2007 was convicted of inciting for racism and is now Netanyahu’s national security minister, and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, a self-declared homophobe whose Religious Zionist party is one of the main drivers behind the legal reform. 

Both men live in settlements in the occupied West Bank that most of the international community consider illegal. They represent the religious nationalist settler movement and support the annexation of Palestinian territory. Ultraorthodox leaders hold other key posts, including the interior and religious affairs ministries. 

After last year’s election — the fifth in less than four years — the coalition’s 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset are split between Likud, with 32, and the ultraorthodox and religious Zionist parties.

🇮🇱 ALERTE - Israël s’enfonce dans le chaos en raison d’un projet de réforme visant à accroître le pouvoir des élus sur les magistrats. Le plus gros syndicat de travailleurs va appeler à la #grèvegénérale. Les universités se mettent en grève. Manifestations massives à #TelAviv. pic.twitter.com/jSKPB9pFX9

— Mediavenir (@Mediavenir) March 26, 2023

In coalition agreements with the parties, Netanyahu committed to a number of policies that would have a far-reaching impact on Israeli society, including expanding the powers of Rabbinical courts and tightening rules around religious conversions and immigration. He also pledged to annex the West Bank “while choosing the timing and considering the national and international interests of the state of Israel”. 

Since winning the election last year, the coalition has drafted legislation on a number of fronts, ranging from the legal reforms to changes that allow people convicted of crimes, but spared jail time, to serve as ministers. It has also legalised nine Jewish settler outposts deep in the West Bank, which even Israel had deemed to be built illegally. 

Simcha Rothman, a MP with Smotrich’s Religious Zionist party, who heads the Knesset’s justice committee and is an architect of the planned judicial changes, considers the moment a “great opportunity” for “the believers”.

“What brings together the ultraorthodox, a religious Zionist like me [and] a secular like Netanyahu . . . is the deep belief that Israel is and should always be the homeland of the Jewish people,” he says. Rothman says the legal reforms are needed to rein in the “unchecked and unbalanced” powers of judges. He blames the Supreme Court for having a “big part in radicalising” Palestinians of Israeli citizenship, and argues that in its current form it can block parents’ autonomy over how they educate their children, and even economic policies. 

He complains that Jewish aspects of the state have been eroded, with “progressive elites” staging a “power grab in culture and academia”. He says an Israeli child can spend a year in school without opening a Bible and condemns a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that it was OK for people to bring non-kosher food into hospitals during Passover. 

In his mind, “Israel was helpless against trends that would make Israel lose its Jewish identity”. “I think it’s time for the public in Israel to decide if they want to be a country ruled by its people or by its judges,” Rothman says. “A constitutional moment is always some kind of a crisis, but it’s very important.” The government’s goal, he adds, is to “bring Israel back to normality”.

Musty Medieval Ultra-Orthodox Tryna Take Control Of The Jewish State

tikkunolam  |  As over 600,000 Israelis marched in scores of cities throughout the country and in major world capitals, cracks began to form in the governing coalition.  Facing near munity in the ranks of the IDF, defense minister Yoav Gallant called on Bibi Netanyahu to put a halt to the legislative steamroller being rammed through the Knesset. He did so in a dramatic national TV address, which was clearly intended as a shot across the prime minister’s bow.

Already, the ruling coalition passed a law legalizing five settlements Israel had promised George Bush would not be populated.  It also passed a law removing the attorney general’s right to disqualify a prime minister convicted of a criminal offense.  This will protect Netanyahu if he is convicted on any of the corruption charges he confronts in his current trial.  As Opposition leader Benny Gantz said in a TV interview, there are dozens more pieces of legislation that will follow if the government continues this onslaught.

Regardless of Gallant’s political opinions about this agenda, as a former army general, he understands that Israel must have a cohesive fighting force.  When there is munity within, the country cannot protect its citizens.  Not to mention, that the IDF is most significant unifying institution in the country.  It defines Israeli identity and most citizens serve in it.  For many Israelis the army and the state are indistinguishable.  For that reason, Gallant defines his allegiance to the state via the army.  If the army is not with the government, then the latter cannot or should not function.

To clarify, I am defining Israeli reality as most Israelis see it, in the above paragraph, and not offering my own opinion, which is highly critical, as readers will know.

Two senior Likud MKs followed suit announcing support for Gallant.  On the other side, a number of Netanyahu stalwarts denounced Gallant.  Fascist firebrand, Itamar Ben Gvir, called for the PM to immediately fire him.  I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow he calls for erecting a scaffold in Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street and hanging Gallant by the neck till he is dead, as judges used to say in the old Hollywood westerns.

Netanyahu has two choices: he can accede to Gallant and declare a ceasefire.  That would involve members of the governing coalition and opposition negotiating a compromise legislative agenda that would ensable some of the proposed “reforms,” while eliminating the most objectional ones.  Even if he agreed to this option, these negotiations would have no guarantee of success, since the sides are so far apart.

Or Netanyahu can reject Gallant’s call and go full steam ahead, throwing in his lot with the radical elements of his coalition, the anti-democracy coup plotters, Yariv Levin and Simcha Rotman. As I wrote in a recent post, this will bring a confrontaton between the legisltiave and judicial branches of Israeli government.  Until now, the Supreme Court has exerted limited powers compared to high courts in most democratic countries.  But at least it could review legislation and declare it in violation of Israel’s quasi constitutional Basic Laws.

In that sense, the Court would take up the laws passed by the far-right governing coalition and likely strike down most, if not all of them.  The legislative body really has very little recourse at that point.  It cannot force the Court to arrive a different conclusion short of taking the justices out in the courtyard and offering them a choice between life or death.  The Knesset has no enforcement provision that would enable it to override the Court.  Thus, its edict will prevail.

It remains to be seen how the coup plotters will react.  Perhaps after reading the decisions, they will water down or rephrase new proposed bills in the hope the justices will be willing to approve them.  Since the Court is a right-wing institution, it remains possible that they will approve some of the current legislation; and improve even more if it is modified or recast.