AP | The House passed legislation Wednesday that would establish a broader
definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to enforce
anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a
nationwide student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.
The proposal, which passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support, would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism
in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal
anti-discrimination law that bars discrimination based on shared
ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin. It now goes to the
Senate where its fate is uncertain.
Action on the bill was just
the latest reverberation in Congress from the protest movement that has
swept university campuses. Republicans in Congress have denounced the
protests and demanded action to stop them, thrusting university
officials into the center of the charged political debate over Israel’s
conduct of the war in Gaza. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been
killed since the war was launched in October, after Hamas staged a
deadly terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.
If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would broaden
the legal definition of antisemitism to include the “targeting of the
state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” Critics say the
move would have a chilling effect on free speech throughout college
campuses.
“Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful
discrimination,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said during a hearing
Tuesday. “By encompassing purely political speech about Israel into
Title VI’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly.”
Advocates of the proposal say it would provide a much-needed,
consistent framework for the Department of Education to police and
investigate the rising cases of discrimination and harassment targeted
toward Jewish students.
“It is long past time that Congress act to protect Jewish Americans
from the scourge of antisemitism on campuses around the country,” Rep.
Russell Fry, R-S.C., said Tuesday.
The expanded definition of
antisemitism was first adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group that includes the
United States and European Union states, and has been embraced by the
State Department under the past three presidential administrations,
including Joe Biden’s
Previous bipartisan efforts to codify it
into law have failed. But the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas militants
in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza have reignited efforts to
target incidents of antisemitism on college campuses.
apnews | Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who made history as his country’s
first gay and first biracial leader, announced Wednesday that he is
stepping down for reasons that he said were both personal and political.
Varadkar announced Wednesday he is quitting immediately as head
of the center-right Fine Gael party, part of Ireland’s coalition
government. He’ll be replaced as prime minister in April after a party
leadership contest.
“My reasons for stepping down now are personal
and political, but mainly political,” Varadkar said, without
elaborating. He said he plans to remain in parliament as a backbench
lawmaker and has “definite” future plans.
Varadkar, 45, has had two spells as taoiseach, or prime minister — between 2017 and 2020, and again since December 2022 as part of a job-share with Micheál Martin, head of coalition partner Fianna Fáil.
He was the country’s youngest-ever leader when first elected, as well
as Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister. Varadkar, whose mother is
Irish and father is Indian, was also Ireland’s first biracial
taoiseach.
“I’m proud that we have made the country a more equal and more modern
place,” Varadkar said in a resignation statement in Dublin.
Varadkar was first elected to parliament in 2007, and once said he’d quit politics by the age of 50.
He led Ireland during the years after Britain’s 2016 decision to
leave the European Union. Brexit had huge implications for Ireland, an
EU member that shares a border with the U.K.’s Northern Ireland.
U.K.-Ireland relations were strained while hardcore Brexit-backer Boris
Johnson was U.K. leader, but have steadied since the arrival of Prime
Minister Rishi Sunak.
Varadkar recently returned from Washington, where he met President Joe Biden and other political leaders as part of the Irish prime minister’s traditional St. Patrick’s Day visit to the United States.
This is not about fascism or nazism or Galician nationalism, which
all so many cynical ways to inflame grunts on the ground. From day 1
Ukraine has been the new Albania, a black state run by a huge
interlocking global mafia. It was designed so, a place where a black
market in girls, drugs, intelligence, guns, money laundering and
electronic warfare could thrive and proliferate like a tumour inside
Europe and Russia. The Russians wanted to clean it up. I bet most of the
Ukrainians did too. 2014 was a mafia coup with eyes on land grabs in
the East. The first Donbass war was fought against the foot soldiers of
the capos.
A good friend of mine was caught up in a marriage scam in Kiev about a
decade ago, two years before the coup. It was an utterly lawless town
by his account and he was shocked to say he'd felt far safer in Lagos,
Kinshasa or even Soweto. From the moment he arrived the taxi driver
suggested a hired bodyguard/interpreter connected to various
organisations in order to smooth his trip out. When he pulled the plug
after 3 days goons paid him a scary visit at his hotel room after which
he was lucky to make his way straight to the airport and camped there
for 24hrs until his rescheduled flight. All up he forked over somewhere
between $5-6K in payoffs. It made 1980s El Salvador look civilised. He
later heard horror stories that might have been his story with a
different ending.
Ukraine has to be taken and cleaned out because it is a collection of
organised criminal fiefdoms. The empire needs it because it is a
blackbox in Europe: nothing that goes in comes out, and nothing that
comes out can be traced. One can only guess at the volume of untraceable
goods and services that have flowed through there since 1992. I'd guess
more than anywhere else in the last 200 years. That's a huge chunk of
Ukraine's value to the West.
Imagine a cartel of organized criminals demanded protection payments
from you. Imagine you were able to resist their depredations in
collaboration with other locals similarly threatened. Now imagine that
your government backed the criminals (because they were cartel shills)
and you spent the next eight years terrorized by both your government
and the cartel.
Now imagine the US, UK and Europe also backed the cartel against you. But Russia said 'enough'.
We shouldn't forget what happens to those who say 'enough' in the
face of such coalitions. If anyone has seen the documentary 'Excellent
Cadavers' (2005) you'll know what I mean. And I guess we can also simply
point to the Kennedys and remind ourselves never again bring a knife to
a gunfight. One must be like 'Robespierre L'Incorrutible' and mix
virtue with terror.
Shutting Ukraine down is not an ethnic, political, ideological or
territorial imperative, but a civilisational imperative. If it can be
done there one can turn to the US/UK/EU and begin the real work. Russia is raining on the West's cosy black-ops parade in Ukraine
where old-fashioned criminal scams are concealed under layers of
misdirection ("hey let's put Nazi symbols on their uniforms, it'll keep
everyone guessing and the skinheads we hired will dig it"). But there is
something really archaic about it all: think about what Cicero
disclosed about Verres' operation in Sicily in the 70s BC, or even
before that how Italian tax-farmers were allowed to do what they like in
the province of Asia—until the locals had enough and called in
Mithridates. The scams are as old as the hills: slavery, theft,
extortion, rackets, land-grabs, forced migration. The genius of the
western psyop is to have its public smell shit and say its roses.
About the child-exploitation. That alone must be
an immense operation with many dimensions—blackmail, extortion,
laundering. But the suffering inflicted on thousands of girls is a crime
without justice. Unless Russia can lay hands on the evidence. Wouldn't
that be a dossier worth publishing online.
haaretz | In a call with Prime Minister Naftali
Bennett, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized for Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov's assertion that Adolf Hitler had Jewish
origins.
#BREAKING: Israel PM office says: Putin apologized to PM Bennett for Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov's anti-semitic remarks;
Bennett thanked Putin for the president's attitude toward the Jewish people and the memory of the Holocaust
Bennett
accepted Putin's apology for Lavrov's remarks and thanked him for
clarifying the Russian president's attitude toward the Jewish people and
the memory of the Holocaust, Bennett's office said in a statement.
The
two leaders also stressed the importance of May 9 – the day of victory
of Nazi Germany – to Israelis and Russians, as well as the memory of
victims of war and the Holocaust.
Bennett
mentioned the contribution of the Red Army to the victory in the Second
World War. During the conversation, he brought up Zelenskyy's request
to find a solution to the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol,
where it is estimated that several hundred people are trapped. Putin
said that Russia was still ready to provide safe passage for civilians
to leave the plant and called on Kyiv to order Ukrainian fighters holed
up in Azovstal to put down their weapons.
Putin also sent his congratulations to President Isaac Herzog to mark Israel's Independence Day.
"I extend my sincere wishes on the occasion of Israel's Independence Day," Putin wrote to Herzog.
"I
believe that relations between Russia and Israel, based on the
principles of friendship and mutual respect, will continue to develop
for the benefit of our people and in order to strengthen peace and
security in the Middle East.
"I wish you good health and great success, as well as joy and prosperity for all Israeli citizens," he added.
mid.ru |Question: After your statement about the possibility
of a nuclear war, of the third world war, the whole world is asking: is
there a real risk of that happening?
Sergey Lavrov: It
looks like by the whole world you mean Western media and politicians.
This is not the first time I note how skillfully the West twists what
Russia’s representatives say. I was asked about the threats that are
currently growing and about how real the risk of the third world war is.
I answered literally the following: Russia has never ceased its efforts
to reach agreements that would guarantee the prevention of a nuclear
war. In recent years, it was Russia who has persistently proposed to its
American colleagues that we repeat what Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald
Reagan did in 1987: adopt a statement reaffirming that there can be no
winners in a nuclear war, and therefore it must never be unleashed.
We failed to
convince the Trump Administration, because it had its own ideas on this
issue. However, the Biden Administration agreed to our proposal. In June
2021, at a meeting between President of Russia Vladimir Putin and US
President Joseph Biden in Geneva a statement was adopted on the
inadmissibility of a nuclear war. Let me stress: this was done at our
initiative.
In January
2022, five permanent members of the UN Security Council adopted a
similar statement at the highest level, also at our initiative: there
can be no winners in a nuclear war. It must never be unleashed. In order
to achieve this goal, President Vladimir Putin proposed convening a
summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. This
proposal was supported by our Chinese colleagues and France. The United
States and the United Kingdom, which always defers to it, are holding
back this important event for the time being.
After I said
this, I urged everyone to exercise utmost caution not to escalate the
existing threats. I was referring to the statement made by President
Vladimir Zelensky in February that it had been a mistake for Ukraine to
give up its nuclear weapons and it was necessary to acquire them again.
There was also a statement made by the leadership of Poland about their
readiness to deploy American nuclear weapons on their territory, and
much more.
Somehow there
were no questions from the media about the statements made by Vladimir
Zelensky and Poland. Or after the statement by Foreign Minister of
France Jean-Yves Le Drian, who said suddenly: Let us not forget that
France also has nuclear weapons. This is what I was talking about. When
Western journalists take words out of context and distort the meaning of
what I or other Russian representatives actually said, this does them
no credit.
Question: Several days ago, President Vladimir Putin said Russia had “unparalleled weapons.” What did he mean?
Sergey Lavrov: Everyone
knows this well. Three years ago, during his Address to the Federal
Assembly, President Vladimir Putin presented the latest Russian
innovations. First of all, these included hypersonic weapons. He gave a
frank and detailed explanation that Russia began developing them after
the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Back
then President George W. Bush, answering the question why his country
was destroying this essential document, which ensured global stability
to a large extent, told President Vladimir Putin they were going to
withdraw from the treaty to create an anti-missile system that would not
be aimed against Russia. He said they were concerned about North Korea
and Iran, and “you can do whatever you want in response.” They will also
consider this as not aimed against the United States.
We had no
choice but to work on hypersonic weapons because we knew perfectly well
that the US missile defence system would not be aimed at North Korea and
Iran but against Russia and then China. We needed weapons that were
guaranteed to overpower missile defences. Otherwise, a country that has
missile defence systems and offensive weapons may be tempted to launch
the first strike thinking that a response will be suppressed by its
missile defence systems.
This is how
we developed these weapons. They are described in detail in specialised
publications. We don’t hide that we have them. We were even ready to
hold talks with the US on including a discussion on the new systems that
have already been developed or will be developed in the future in the
treaty on strategic stability that would replace the current New START.
Today the Americans have suspended all these talks. We will rely on our
own resources.
Question: When
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was visiting Kiev, the city was
hit by missile strikes. What would you say in response to Western media
and President Vladimir Zelensky who regard these strikes as a
provocation against the UN?
Sergey Lavrov: We
gave constant warnings. When he announced the launch of the special
military operation, President Vladimir Putin said it will be aimed
against the military infrastructure in Ukraine used to oppress civilians
in the east of the country and create a threat to the security of
Russia. They know very well that we are attacking military targets in
order to deprive the Ukrainian radicals and the Kiev regime of the
opportunity to receive reinforcements in the form of weapons and
ammunition.
On the other
hand, I have not heard President Vladimir Zelensky say a word about a
situation that is in no way related to either a military plant (whatever
it is called) or any other military facilities. I mean the Tochka-U
missile strikes at the centre of Donetsk over the recent weeks, or the
civil railway station in Kramatorsk and several other places, including
Kherson (just the day before yesterday). The reason for these strikes
was clearly to terrorise civilians and prevent the people living in
these regions from deciding their fate. The majority of people there are
tired from the oppression they have been suffering all these years from
the Kiev regime, which is increasingly becoming a tool in the hands of
neo-Nazis, the United States and its closest allies.
Those who
came to power after a bloody unconstitutional coup launched a war
against their own people and against everything Russian, banning the
Russian language, education, and media. They adopted laws promoting Nazi
theories and practice. We have warned them. All our warnings met a wall
of silence. As we understand now, back then the West led by the United
States already intended to encourage the Ukrainian leaders (Petr
Poroshenko and Vladimir Zelensky, who came after him) in every possible
way in their desire to create threats for Russia.
Our warnings
issued in November and December 2021 about the need to stop NATO’s
reckless expansion to the east and agree on security guarantees that
that will not be related to the accession of new countries to the
military-political bloc were rejected. I would even say the answer we
received was not very polite: “It’s none of your business,” “we will
expand NATO as we wish,” and “we won’t ask for your permission.”
At the same
time, the Ukrainian regime gathered about 100,000 troops along the
conflict line with Donbass and intensified strikes thus violating the
Minsk agreements and the ceasefire. We had no choice but to recognise
these two republics, sign an agreement on mutual assistance with them
and, upon their request, defend them from the militarists and Nazis who
are flourishing in today’s Ukraine.
Question: This
is how you see it, while Vladimir Zelensky puts it differently. He
believes denazification doesn’t make any sense. He is a Jew. The Nazis,
Azov – there are very few of them (several thousand). Vladimir Zelensky
refutes your view of the situation. Do you believe Vladimir Zelensky is
an obstacle to peace?
Sergey Lavrov: It
makes no difference to me what President Vladimir Zelensky refutes or
does not refute. He is as fickle as the wind, as they say. He can change
his position several times a day.
I heard him
say that they would not even discuss demilitarisation and denazification
during peace talks. First, they are torpedoing the talks just as they
did the Minsk agreements for eight years. Second, there is nazification
there: the captured militants as well as members of the Azov and Aidar
battalions and other units wear swastikas or symbols of Nazi Waffen-SS
battalions on their clothes or have them tattooed on their bodies; they
openly read and promote Mein Kampf. His argument is: How can there be
Nazism in Ukraine if he is a Jew? I may be mistaken but Adolf Hitler had
Jewish blood, too. This means absolutely nothing. The wise Jewish
people say that the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews. “Every
family has its black sheep,” as we say.
As for Azov,
there is evidence being published now confirming that the Americans and
especially the Canadians played a leading role in training the
ultra-radical and clearly neo-Nazi units in Ukraine. During all these
years, the goal was to insert neo-Nazis into the regular Ukrainian
troops. Thus, the Azov fighters would play a leading role in every unit
(battalion or regiment). I read such reports in Western media. The fact
that the Azov battalion is clearly a neo-Nazi unit was recognised by the
West without any hesitation until the situation in early 2022, when
they began to change their minds as if on cue. Japan even apologised to
Azov recently for having listed it as a terrorist organisation a few
years ago because of its neo-Nazi ideology.
Journalists
(from some Western media outlet) interviewed Vladimir Zelensky and asked
him what he thought about Azov and the ideas that Azov preaches and
puts into practice. He said there were many such battalions and “they
are what they are.” I would like to emphasise that this phrase – “they
are what they are” – was cut out by the journalist and it was not
included in the interview that was aired. This means the journalist
understands what this person says and thinks. He thinks about how the
neo-Nazis can be used to fight Russia.
Question: There
are several thousand or perhaps tens of thousands of neo-Nazi
militants. Can their presence excuse the denazification of a country
with the population of 40 million? There are such battalions as the
Wagner Group, who also draw inspiration from neo-Nazi ideas, serving
with the Russian troops.
snriu | The Russian Federation attacked the following nuclear installations and facilities in Ukraine:
the radioactively contaminated 30-km
Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and nuclear facilities on its territory, such
as the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, spent nuclear fuel storage
facilities, Ukrainian enterprise for storage and disposal of radioactive
waste, more than 700 temporal storage sites with Chornobyl radioactive
material (from February 24, 2022);
the radioactive waste storage facility of the Kharkiv Inter-regional Branch of the Radon enterprise (February 26, 2022);
the radioactive waste disposal facility of the Kyiv branch of the Radon enterprise (February 27, 2022);
the site of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant with seven nuclear facilities on-site (March 3, 2022);
numerous medical facilities, civilian
industrial enterprises, and research institutions that used or manage
radionuclide sources and radioactive material (systematic from February
24, 2022);
the research nuclear installation
“Neutron Source Based on a Subcritical Assembly Controlled by a Linear
Electron Accelerator” with 37 loaded nuclear fuel cells in Kharkiv
(systematic shelling from March 6, 2022);
also military attacks of the Russian
Federation on March 9, 2022, and afterwards resulted in blackouts at the
Chornobyl nuclear power plant and other nuclear facilities in the
Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.
Obstruction by the Russian military of
normal work and variability of personnel creates conditions for
violation of radiation safety, creating a radiation threat.
The Russian Federation brutally violates
international laws and nuclear and radiation safety requirements by
committing military attacks on nuclear installations and other nuclear
facilities that use radioactive material and radionuclide sources. By
attacking Ukrainian nuclear installations, the Russian Federation also
hinders the fulfilment of Ukrainian commitments under the Convention on
Nuclear Safety, the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel
Management and Radioactive Waste, and the Agreement between Ukraine and
the IAEA on the application of guarantees within the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The acts of nuclear terrorism of
the aggressor threaten the lives and health of the civilian population
in Ukraine and globally. Specifically, the Russian Federation violates:
gilbertdoctorow | In the past couple of days, there were two major diplomatic scandals at
the international level. One concerns the Ukrainian ambassador to
Berlin, who grossly insulted the Chancellor. The other concerns Russian
Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov’s offhand remarks in an
interview regarding anti-Semitism, which immediately riled the political
establishment in Israel. Though both incidents have been featured in
news bulletins, neither has been approached from the angle of
investigative journalism.
However, no one asked the question which begs to be addressed: how,
why would Sergei Lavrov, who is surely the most experienced diplomat on
the world stage, make remarks that could only do damage to
Russian-Israeli relations?
I admit that there is an innocuous explanation. Lavrov intended his
words as a counter to Western denial that Kiev is a Nazi-dominated
regime on grounds that President Zelensky himself is Jewish. But Lavrov
had to be aware how Jerusalem would react to his words, so we should
look further.
Let me hazard a guess. Lavrov knew well what he was doing and
probably had discussed this subject with his boss, Vladimir
Vladimirovich, before he opened his mouth.
The Russians are very dissatisfied with Israel over its past military
cooperation with Ukraine, and Lavrov’s statement was only the opening
round. If we go back to the very first days of Russia’s ‘special
military operation,’ when they took control of the Zaporozhye nuclear
power station and seized there documents relating to Ukraine’s efforts
to build a ‘dirty nuclear weapon,’ the Russian Ministry of Defense
announced that there were foreign enablers active there. Then the next
day, unexpectedly and in great haste, Israeli Prime Minister Bennett
flew to Moscow for unscheduled talks with Putin. Almost nothing was
disclosed about the subject of their talks. But subsequently the foreign
enablers were never identified by the Russians.
Though I have been praised by some readers for avoiding
‘speculation,’ I will permit myself just this once to speculate: it is
not inconceivable that the Israelis were among the key advisers to Kiev
on its program to build nuclear weapons. If that is so, we may expect
Russian-Israeli relations to get a lot worse in the coming weeks and
months.
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