User:ZScarpia/Sources

Archive searching

Internet Archive Wayback Machine

Newspaper, news site and magazine articles

1972

The New York Times - Eric Pace - Letter-Bombs Mailed to Truman in 1947, 02 December 1972: "“The so‐called Stern gang” of Zionist terrorists tried to assassinate President Truman by letter‐bomb in 1947, according to a new biography written by Mr. Truman's daughter."

1977

The Sunday Times - (Insight Report) Israel tortures Arab prisoners, 19 June 1977.

1985

Index on Censorship - Vladimir Voinovich - "The life and fate of Vasily Grossman"[1], 14 (5): 9–10, 01 October 1985.

Los Angeles Times - Edward J. Bowyer - Kahane Means Terror to Arabs, He Says in L.A., 30 October 1985.

The New York Times - Richard Grenier - Solzhenitsyn and anti-Semitism: a new debate, 13 November 1985: As the man responsible for almost single-handedly informing the West of the horrors of the Soviet Gulag, Mr. Solzhenitsyn has long been the object of Soviet efforts to destroy his reputation. But the accusations of anti-Semitism come from such impeccably anti-Communist sources as Prof. Richard Pipes of Harvard, a Soviet specialist and former director of Eastern European and Soviet Affairs on President Reagan's National Security Council.

1988

The New York Times - Shamir promises to crush rioters, 01 April 1988.

1990

The New York Times - Francis X. Clines - Russia Gets Call By Solzhenitsyn For Slavic State, 19 September 1990: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the exiled master of Russian literature, broke his silence in his homeland today with a call for a separate Slavic state and a scathing indictment of Soviet history, including the noisy reforms of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

1992

Chicago Tribune - Dan Stets - Fixing the Numbers at Aushwitz, 07 May 1992: Jewish and Polish scholars of the Holocaust now agree that the Auschwitz death toll was less than half the four million cited here for four decades. The actual number was probably between 1.1 million and 1.5 million-and at least 90 percent of the victims were Jews. The fiction that more than a million non-Jews died here was a myth created by Poland`s communist leaders. ... In addition to Jews, Auschwitz`s victims included Gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war, Poles, French, Dutch, Germans and other nationals, as well as political dissidents, homosexuals, criminals and prostitutes. The Poles and other non-Jews were mostly starved, poisoned or lined up against the infamous Death Wall and shot. The Jews were herded into the gas chambers. The only other people gassed were Gypsies and some Russian POWs. One of the sad truths about Auschwitz, Polish and Jewish historians agree, is that the exact number of victims will never be known. ... He estimates two million to three million Poles died during World War II, but the overwhelming majority were not killed in Auschwitz, even though the camp was first opened in 1940 for Polish political prisoners. The camp became the extermination center for Jews in 1942. His study indicates that the Soviets got their original estimates from the testimony of former inmates, camp guards and the camp commander.

1993

WRMEA (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs) - James M. Ennes Jr. - This Month in History: The Assault on the USS Liberty Still Covered Up After 26 Years, Page 19, June 1993: Fifteen years after the attack, an Israeli pilot approached Liberty survivors and then held extensive interviews with former Congressman Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey about his role. According to this senior Israeli lead pilot, he recognized the Liberty as American immediately, so informed his headquarters, and was told to ignore the American flag and continue his attack. He refused to do so and returned to base, where he was arrested.

The Independent - Angela Lambert[2] - Beware the march of liberal thought police, 05 July 1993: 'No Fascism is attractive, and the least attractive is liberal fascism,' said Ronald Harwood, president of English PEN. As representatives of this country's writers, we had been discussing censorship (yet again). ... Surely liberal and fascist are contradictory? Yet thinking about it, I realised that this explains my unease about the extreme wings of the liberal ideologies that have shaped my life. ... I felt deep unease when left- wing extremism began to emerge in the Seventies. In 1980 I was at a ward meeting when, with fiendish glee, a clique - were they Militant Tendency? I don't think the word was common currency then - mocked and vilified David Owen, the last Labour Foreign Secretary, who had come to address us. ... I was shattered when the first separatist or (that word again) militant feminists began to proclaim their hatred of men, when they screeched that all men were rapists (nowadays they would say child-abusers). ... Political correctness is also a threat, creating a language that bears as much relation to the way ordinary people express themselves as Legoland does to real life. But its lunatic constructions won't solve any problems of any prejudice and certainly won't create nicer, kinder, friendlier people. The thought police who want to change the way we describe the world and those of its denizens who don't conform to the average are liberal fascists of a new and disturbing kind.

1995

The New York Times - Francine du Plessix Gray - Nicholas and Alexandra: The Sequels, 29 October 1995: It was June 17, 1918, in the Siberian mining town of Yekaterinburg, where the recently abdicated Czar of Russia, Nicholas Romanov, was being held captive with his family and tiny retinue.

1996

Middle East Quarterly - Avi Shlaim - A Totalitarian Concept of History, Volume 3, Number 3, September 1996: Karsh and I clearly differ in our interpretation of what transpired at the secret meeting between Golda Meir and King `Abdallah of Transjordan on November 17, 1947.

1997

The New Yorker - David Remnick - The Afterlife, 03 August 1997: During nine years as a prisoner of the Communist regime, Sharansky had become the emblem of Soviet Jewry, the most desperate realm of the Diaspora.

1998

The New York Times - George Steiner - In Exile Wherever He Goes, 01 March 1998: Solzhenitsyn survived the gulag, survived cancer, survived America. But the new Russia may yet do him in.

The Independent - Julian Kossoff - Jewish Brigade shot Nazi prisoners in revenge, 13 December 1998.

1999

The Guardian - Nick Hopkins - CPS at fault over custody deaths, 12 August 1999: Decisions not to prosecute police officers made in 'unsound' system. ... In a report which described confusion in a system that was "inefficient and fundamentally unsound", Judge Gerald Butler QC said nobody at the CPS - including the former director of public prosecutions, Dame Barbara Mills - wanted to take responsibility for the decision not to prosecute police officers in two high profile investigations. The buck-passing meant that a middle-ranking CPS lawyer, Robert Munday, made key assessments on the deaths of Richard O'Brien and Oluwashijibomi "Shiji" Lapite which should have been referred to more senior solicitors or outside counsel.

2000

The Guardian - Jason Burke - Butcher of Cambodia set to expose Thatcher's role, 09 January 2000: Ta Mok, one of Pol Pot's genocidal henchman, who faces trial, tells Jason Burke in Phnom Penh he will expose the West's part in training the Khmer Rouge.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Remember the First Holocaust, 28 January 2000: Who, I wonder, chooses which holocaust we should remember and which we should not? The six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis must always have a place in our history, our memory, our fears. Never again. But alas,the Armenians who perished in the rivers of southern Turkey, who were slaughtered in their tens of thousands in the deserts of northern Syria, whose wives and daughters were gang-raped and knifed to death by the gendarmerie and their Kurdish militiamen - they have no place in our memory or our history.

New Statesman - John Pilger - How Thatcher gave Pol Pot a hand, 17 April 2000: After two and a half years in power, the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by the Vietnamese on Christmas Day, 1978. In the months and years that followed, the US and China and their allies, notably the Thatcher government, backed Pol Pot in exile in Thailand. ... On 25 June 1991, after two years of denials, the government finally admitted that the SAS had been secretly training the "resistance" since 1983.

The Guardian - Paul Foot - In a state of cruelty, 30 May 2000: I was struck by two profound quotations from top people in Israel reacting to last week's historic retreat from the Lebanon.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Armenian slaughter should not have been included in genocide exhibition, say Turks, 31 August 2000: In an extraordinary example of holocaust denial, the Turkish embassy in London has officially complained that an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London should have excluded references to the 1915 Armenian genocide in which 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered by Turkish forces.

The Telegraph - Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Euro-federalists financed by US spy chiefs, 19 September 2000: Declassified American government documents show that the US intelligence community ran a campaign in the Fifties and Sixties to build momentum for a united Europe.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Why the Armenian Holocaust must not be airbrushed from history, 27 November 2000: Take that letter from the Home Office’s “Race Equality Unit” – first revealed in The Independent last week – refusing to acknowledge the Armenian Holocaust at Britain’s Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January. Its author, Neil Frater, told the Armenian Assembly of America that “the massacres [sic] in Armenia, like many other atrocities before the Holocaust and the Nazi era, were brought to our attention in response to last year’s consultation exercise”, on the memorial day. The dishonesty of this sentence is almost breathtaking. At no point does Mr Frater even say that the Armenians suffered a genocide – let alone a holocaust – and he then lumps this appalling crime against humanity with “many other atrocities before the Nazi era”.

2001

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Was it Libya? Or did Iran take revenge for the 'Vincennes'?, 01 February 2001.

London Review of Books - Charles Glass - Balfour, Weizmann and the Creation of Israel, Vol. 23 No. 11, 07 June 2001, pages 7-10. (full text from The Guardian)

2002

History Today - David Cesarani - Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain, Volume 52 Issue 2, 02 February 2002: The first Holocaust Memorial Day was the subject of fierce polemics as well as more reflective criticism, including an incisive article by Peter Gray and Kendrick Oliver in History Today (The Memory of Catastrophe[3], February 2001). To what extent have these questioning and cautionary voices been heeded? ... It was accused of being exclusive, devoted only to the memory of Jewish suffering and, implicitly, the result of Jewish lobbying. ... The charge of exclusivity was always misplaced. When he introduced the programme for the ceremony on January 27th, 2001, Jack Straw, then Home Secretary, explained: 'Holocaust Memorial Day is about learning the lessons of the Holocaust and other more recent atrocities which raise similar issues.' ... However, to ensure the broad relevance of the Day, while avoiding a parade of undifferentiated horror that would confound the capacity to identify with the suffering of others, the advisory group working with the Home Office agreed to focus on genocides committed since 1945, and either recognised as such by the UN Convention on Genocide or otherwise undisputed. This decision occasioned bitter reproach, particularly over the alleged ‘exclusion’ of the Armenian genocide. ... In this respect Peter Novick’s book 'The Holocaust in American Life' (1999) exerted a baleful influence on the national debate.[4][5][6]

Haaretz - Michael Ben-Yair - The war's seventh day , 3 March 2002: In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day. The author was attorney general from 1993-96.

The Guardian - Charles Glass - Palestine's Pétain?, 15 May 2002: For seven years, Arafat was the Palestinian Pétain. Sharon's violent policies transformed him for a moment into De Gaulle. Palestinians in Ramallah cheered the man who stood up to the Israeli bombardment. One week later, the refugees in Jenin booed the man who jailed dissenters, tortured opponents, protected the settlements and allowed his officials carte blanche to steal. Which Arafat will emerge now?

ISR (International Socialist Review) - Annie Levin - The hidden history of Zionism, Issue 24, July–August 2002: The writings of Herzl and his colleague, Max Nordau, are littered with descriptions of European Jews as parasites, social diseases, germs, aliens. They were frustrated and bewildered that most Jews wanted to assimilate and live in their countries of birth. To these men who worshipped power and privilege, the desperate poverty of the Jews of Eastern Europe was a sign of weakness in the Jewish character. ...Weizmann wrote to Herzl with alarm, "In general West European Jewry thinks that the majority of East European Jewish youth belongs to the Zionist camp. Unfortunately, the contrary is true. The lions-share of the youth is anti-Zionist, not from an assimilationist point of view as in West Europe, but rather as a result of their revolutionary mood. ... Almost the entire Jewish student body stands firmly behind the revolutionary camp…and all this is accompanied by a distaste for Jewish nationalism which borders on self-hatred." ... Many of the leaders like Herzl were extremely hostile to socialism. But marxism was enormously influential in the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. If Zionism was going to build in that kind of atmosphere, it had to make some accommodation to the mood. Ber Borochov was the father of the movement called "proletarian Zionism," which as its name implies, tried to synthesize Marxism and Jewish nationalism. ... The organization Borochov founded, the Workers of Zion (Po’ale Zion) actually played a reactionary role in the Russian labor movement. Zionists in the unions argued against any united action with non-Jewish workers, which in effect put them in the position of strikebreakers. Here was a party claiming to represent Jewish workers that opposed the struggles of Jewish workers! In 1901, members of the Bund, the Jewish revolutionary organization that was bitterly hostile to Zionism, organized to drive the Zionists of their unions, "informing them that, since they lived in Pinsk and not Palestine, such talk in Pinsk was objectively class-treason, as the Jewish workers of Pinsk, were, quite definitely, engaged in a desperate class struggle with the capitalists and the police," writes Brenner. In Palestine, the "socialist Zionists" built organizations that were invaluable to the process of colonization. They founded the Histadrut, the Jewish-only trade union federation, which organized the exclusion of Arab workers from the job market. ... The reality of "Zionist Marxism" is that it had to stretch Marxism beyond all recognition to justify its colonial project. David Hacohen, a Labor Party leader, recalled the ideological difficulties in 1969: "I had to fight my friends on the issue of Jewish socialism, to defend the fact that I would not accept Arabs in my trade union, the Histadrut; to defend preaching to housewives that they not buy at Arab stores; to defend the fact that we stood guard at orchards to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there.… To pour kerosene on Arab tomatoes, to attack Jewish housewives in the markets and smash the Arab eggs they had bought; to praise to the skies the Kereen Kayemet [Jewish Fund] that sent Hankin to Beirut to buy land from absentee effendi [landlords] and to throw the fellahin [Arab peasants] off the land–to buy dozens of dunams from an Arab is permitted, but to sell, god forbid, one Jewish dunam to an Arab is prohibited; to take Rothschild, the incarnation of capitalism, as a socialist and to name him the "benefactor"–to do all that was not easy." ... Revisionists were openly sympathetic to fascism. Betar, the Revisionist youth movement, admired Mussolini. They wore brown shirts and did the fascist salute. The Revisionist newspaper carried a regular column called "From the Notebook of a Fascist," and on one occasion when Jabotinsky came to Palestine, the newspaper ran a column called "On the arrival of our Duce."31 In 1933 a columnist wrote, "Social democrats of all stripes believe that Hitler’s movement is an empty shell [but] we believe that there is both a shell and a kernel. The anti-Semitic shell is to be discarded, but not the anti-Marxist kernel." ... The legacy of the Holocaust is brought out to justify every atrocity committed by Israel. But it is precisely the record of how the Jewish Agency (the government of the pre-state Jewish settlements in Palestine) responded to the Holocaust that provides the most damning evidence against Zionism. To the leaders of the Jewish Agency, the rise of fascism had a definite upside. Menahem Ussishkin told a Zionist Executive meeting, "There is something positive in their tragedy and that is that Hitler oppressed them as a race and not as a religion. Had he done the latter, half the Jews in Germany would simply have converted to Christianity."35 In 1934, Labor Zionist Moshe Beilinson went to Germany and reported back to the Labor Party, "The streets are paved with more money than we have ever dreamed of in the history of our Zionist enterprise. Here is an opportunity to build and flourish like none we have ever had or ever will have."36 Specifically, "the opportunity" meant the potential for thousands of new immigrants and their assets to come flooding into Palestine. However, Zionist officials were quite blunt in stating that they didn’t want all the refugees from Hitler’s Holocaust. They didn’t want the burden of absorbing millions of impoverished sick refugees who had no ideological passion for Palestine. The Agency only wanted young, healthy Jews who could come over and work and fight and build the state. ... To the Zionists, the needs of the Jewish State came first, second, and last. The refugees who did make it to Palestine were treated with contempt by the press and public. They were seen as passive victims whose families perished because they failed to stand up for themselves. Everyone knew that most of the refugees, if they had had a choice, would never have come to Palestine at all. The Labor Party newspaper, Davar, published an article saying that the Holocaust was "punishment from heaven" for the European Jews for not choosing Palestine. One German immigrant wrote into the German language press, "We have seen Germany’s nationalism gone mad and we trembled; we are on the road to a similar situation here." ... The bottom line was that the Jewish Agency in Palestine had many opportunities to rescue tens of thousands of Jews and perhaps more. But they sabotaged proposal after proposal, choosing to spend their money on land settlements instead of rescue. David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, said, "It is the job of Zionism not to save the remnant of Israel in Europe but rather to save the land of Israel for the Jewish people and the Yishuv." ... We don’t learn that, up until the Second World War, vast numbers of Jews supported the parties of revolutionary socialism–a tradition that opposed Zionism. ... The socialist tradition condemned Zionism both for its solution to anti-Semitism and for its colonization of the Arabs. In 1910, the Jewish socialist Karl Kautsky defined Zionism as a "sport for philanthropists and men of letters" who wanted to make Palestine "a world ghetto for the isolation of the Jewish race." ... On the other side stood the Zionists who collaborated with the Tsar and his butchers, stood aside from the struggles for self-defense, and sabotaged work in the unions. It was the revolutionary workers movement–and not Zionism–that offered a genuine hope for liberation for European Jews.

Haaretz - Akiva Eldar - Perles of Wisdom for the Feithful, 01 October 2002: In 1996, Richard Perle and Doug Feith joined a small group of researchers who were asked to help Benjamin Netanyahu in his first steps as prime minister. They could not have known that four years later that the working paper they prepared, including plans for Israel to help restore the Hashemite throne in Iraq, would shed light on the current policies of the only superpower in the world.

2003

The Guardian - Nick Paton Walsh - Solzhenitsyn breaks last taboo of the revolution, 25 Jan 2003: "Nobel laureate under fire for new book on the role of Jews in Soviet-era repression."

Haaretz - Ari Shavit - White Man's Burden, 03 April 2003: The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible. But another journalist, Thomas Friedman (not part of the group), is skeptical.

The Guardian - David Aaronovitch - Message to the left: there is no all-powerful Jewish lobby, 27 May 2003: There is no all-powerful Jewish lobby. There is no secret convocation. Most journalists with Jewish names do not write the things they do because of loyalty to their race or religion. Nor can you simply change the word "Jewish" to "Zionist" and somehow be exempt from the charge of low-level racism. And it's no good wiffling on about your Jewish friends or trying to slip your prejudices past the guards by boldly proclaiming your refusal to be intimidated. There are no Elders and there are no Protocols.

The New York Times - Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - Leon Uris, Author of 'Exodus,' Dies at 78, 24 June 2003: In his later work, Mr. Uris continued to turn out what reviewers liked to call variously "nonfiction novels," "propaganda novels," and outright "journalism".

The Guardian - The war game, 21 September 2003: David Hirst's account of the Arab-Israeli conflict, "The Gun and the Olive Branch", caused a storm 25 years ago. In this edited extract from his new and updated edition he offers a personal and highly controversial view of the current crisis in the Middle East."

The New York Review of Books - Tony Judt - Israel: The Alternative, 25 September 2003: The problem with Israel, in short, is not—as is sometimes suggested—that it is a European “enclave” in the Arab world; but rather that it arrived too late. It has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a “Jewish state”—a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded—is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism.

Haaretz - Moshe Gorali - Legality is in the eye of the beholder, 25 September 2003.

Haaretz - Rabbis said okaying use of 'watch pigs' in settlements, 28 October 2003: Pigs can also detect the presence of weaponry at great distances, and can be trained to walk toward a terrorist, thereby pointing him out, Ben-Yaakov was quoted as saying. The animal, considered unclean by Islam as well, can also act as a deterrent to Muslims who believe that touching a pig could keep them from entering heaven, he added.

2004

VDare.com - Sam Francis - Philip Zelikow And The Iraq “Threat” That Dare Not Speak Its Name, 5 April 2004: The Asia Times reported last week that a gentleman named Philip Zelikow, a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in 2001, said in a speech months before the war that "the real threat" of Iraq was not to the United States but "against Israel."

The Guardian - Chris McGreal - Israeli officer: I was right to shoot 13-year-old child, 24 November 2004.

The Nation - Baruch Kimmerling -  Israel’s Culture of Martyrdom, 22 December 2004.

2005

The Guardian - G. O. Jones - Obituary: Sir Joseph Rotblat, 2 September 2005: While working at Los Alamos, Rotblat had been shocked to hear General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, remark quite casually that the real purpose, of course, was to subdue the Soviet Union. When he decided to leave the project, a determined but highly incompetent attempt had been made to "fit him up" as a Russian spy.

2006

Information Clearing House - Does Iran's President Want Israel Wiped Off The Map - Does He Deny The Holocaust? 19 April 2010: Translation to English by Erik Appleby of an article by Anneliese Fikentscher and Andreas Neumann appearing in "Kein Krieg!".

ABC News - Were Israelis Detained on Sept. 11 Spies?, 06 January 2006: Sources also said that even if the men were spies, there is no evidence to conclude they had advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. The investigation, at the end of the day, after all the polygraphs, all of the field work, all the cross-checking, the intelligence work, concluded that they probably did not have advance knowledge of 9/11," Cannistraro noted.

The Guardian - Nick Cohen - The ghost of Lloyd George's bagman should haunt all party treasurers, 26 March 2006: The case of Maundy Gregory, the only other political operator to be convicted of selling honours, may help them with their inquiries. Gregory was a spy and blackmailer who worked as Lloyd George's bagman. He raised £150m at today's prices for his master and made a small fortune for himself. The 1925 act was meant to stop him, but it had no effect whatsoever. Gregory had too much dirt on how Lloyd George's Liberals and their Tory allies had sold peerages to profiteers from the First World War to be caught by new laws. The fate of Victor Grayson, a brave and flamboyant Labour politician, was a warning to those who wished to challenge him. ... What did for Gregory in the end was that he tried to corrupt an honest man. He offered Lt-Cmdr EW Billyard-Leake a knighthood for £10,000.

The Independent - Johann Hari - Congo's tragedy: the war the world forgot, 5 May 2006: The Belgians unified Congo in the first great holocaust of the 20th century, a programme of slavery and tyranny that killed 13 million people.

The Guardian - Alan Rusbridger - Courage under fire, 10 July 2006: Fifty years ago, Britain and France went looking for an excuse to invade Egypt. The result was the Suez crisis. Most papers toed the patriotic line - but not the 'treacherous' Guardian and Observer. ... One of the extraordinary aspects of the paper's role in the build-up to the Suez crisis was the private back channel between the US secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, and the editor of this Manchester broadsheet, owned by a family trust and with sales of well under 200,000. ... The Guardian's coverage proved so uncomfortable for the prime minister, Anthony Eden, that he tried to prevent the BBC from quoting from it and wanted the paper's diplomatic correspondent, Richard Scott, banned from the airwaves. He also floated a plan to take control of the corporation in the event of an invasion of Egypt. ... Within a week Hetherington had received the first of his back-channel messages from the paper's Washington correspondent, Max Freedman, who had ready access to Dulles. The message jolted Hetherington. It confided that Dulles had been told (by the president's special envoy in London) that the British government was preparing for war. ... No one - including most of Eden's closest colleagues - knew that the French had proposed a secret Franco-Israeli plan whereby Israel would attack Egypt, allowing the British and French an excuse to occupy the land on either side of the canal under the pretext of "peacekeeping". By October 24 Eden was covertly committed to the sham war. The Israeli attack was duly launched on October 30. ... It was the Guardian that, just over two weeks later, produced the first irrefutable proof of Israeli-French collusion - in a dispatch filed from Cyprus by James (now Jan) Morris. His front-page report on November 20 asserted that French pilots had played a key role in the Israeli attack on Egypt. Kennett Love's history of the Suez war captured the full impact of Morris's report: "Morris ... despatched French pilots' accounts of attacking Egyptians in the Sinai, of flying cover over Israeli territory, and of dropping supplies to Israeli paratroopers at Mitla Pass. Morris attributed to French flyers a 'ghastly accuracy' in napalm attacks on Egyptian war vehicles he saw burnt out in the desert. He said the French role was possibly decisive in Israel's Sinai victory. "Against all this he reported [Israeli chief of staff General Moshe] Dayan's official - and false - denial of French participation. The French and Israeli Defence and Foreign Ministries, too, promptly denied Morris's dispatches.

Counterpunch - Tom Hayden - I was Israel's dupe, 20 July 2006.

New York Observer - Philip Weiss - In Hebron, a South African Compares Israeli Occupation to Apartheid. 08 August 2006.

The Guardian - Stewart Purvis - Israel ups the stakes in the propaganda war, 20 November 2006: More than 25,000 registered users of www.giyus.org have downloaded the megaphone software, which enables them to receive alerts asking them to get active online.

YNet - Sever Plocker - Stalin's Jews, 21 December 2006: We cannot know with certainty the number of deaths Cheka was responsible for in its various manifestations, but the number is surely at least 20 million, including victims of the forced collectivization, the hunger, large purges, expulsions, banishments, executions, and mass death at Gulags. ... Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin's collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. ... In 1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin. They too, of course, were gradually eliminated in the next purges.

2007

Marxism - Yossi Schwartz, Fred Weston - Israel’s use of biological weapons in 1948, 04 January 2007: In the wake of Haifa's occupation on 23 April 1948 by the Zionists, under the nose of the British Mandate forces commended by General Stockwell, Acre was attacked. ... The city water supply came from a nearby village, Kabri, about 10kms to the north, through an aqueduct. The Zionists injected typhoid into the aqueduct at some intermediate point which passed through Zionist settlements. The story can now be told, thanks to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) files which have become available, 50 years after the event. A series of reports, under the reference G59/1/GC, G3/82, sent by ICRC delegate de Meuron from 6 May to about 19 May 1948, describe the conditions of the city population, struck by a sudden typhoid epidemic, and the efforts to combat it. ... The minutes stated that there were at least 70 known civilian casualties; others may not have been reported. It was determined that the infection was "water borne", not due to crowded or unhygienic conditions as claimed by the Israelis. ... In his other reports, de Meuron mentioned 55 casualties among British soldiers, who were spirited away to Port Said for hospitalisation. ... Two weeks later, after their "success" in Acre, the Zionists struck again. This time in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of refugees had gathered after their villages in southern Palestine had been occupied. The end however was different. ... The first report about the cholera in Egypt was published in The Times of London on 26 September, 1947, p4. By the time the final cases appeared in January 1948, 10,262 people had died. He also states that the outbreak in Syria was much smaller. It was limited to two towns, about 60 kilometres south of Damascus, i.e. close to the Palestinian border. The first report appeared in the New York Times on 22 December, 1947, p5. The Syrian army formed a cordon sanitaire and the casualties were limited to 44, including 18 deaths. Soon after, the Beirut French-language newspaper, Orient, reported that several Zionist agents, who employed cholera to disrupt the mobilisation of the volunteers' army, were arrested. Their destiny is unknown. ... Sara Leibovitz-Dar is a persistent investigative journalist. The trauma experienced by her parents in their native Lithuania left an indelible mark on her. She abhorred injustice and, particularly, the meek acceptance of it. She investigated the Gaza and Acre poisoning and shooting down of the civilian Libyan aircraft. The Israeli military historian, Uri Milstein, identified for her the names of the officers responsible for biological crimes.

Counterpunch - Trish Schuh - The Salvador Option in Beirut, 08 February 2007.

Counterpunch - Christopher Ketcham - What Did Israel Know in Advance of the 9/11 Attacks?, 07 March 2007.

The Guardian - Arthur Neslen - When an anti-semite is not an anti-semite, 05 April 2007: "A new 'working definition' promoted by Israel lobbyists seeks to confuse anti-semitism with anti-Zionism."

The Guardian - Tony Greenstein - Stop conflating anti-Zionism and anti-semitism, 12 April 2007: Yet barely a murmur has greeted the report of the all parliamentary inquiry into anti-semitism, chaired by the rightwing Labour MP Denis MacShane, who in a previous life as a junior Foreign Office minister greeted the CIA coup that temporarily overthrew Hugo Chávez of Venezuela by denouncing the latter as "a ranting, populist demagogue" (Hugh O'Shaughnessy, March 12 2007). The committee itself had no status when it drew up the report. It was self-selecting, and not one of the 14 members of the inquiry voted against the war in Iraq on March 18 2003. In other words, they came to the question of anti-semitism from a rightwing political perspective. Yet the report on anti-semitism, which the government has accepted by upgrading the committee's status to that of a select committee (Jewish Chronicle, March 30 2007: "Police told to focus on hate crime"), is deeply disturbing in its cavalier approach to the definition of anti-semitism, which it conflates throughout with anti-Zionism. ... The inquiry report is part of a continuum that began with the creation of an offence of "glorifying" terrorism and is continuing with the suggestion that anti-Zionism - that is, opposition to the Israeli state and the movement it created - is anti-semitic. Ironically, it is repeating one of the oldest anti-semitic myths: adopting the EU's working definition of anti-semitism, the report states that anti-semitism includes "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, eg by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour". Yet it has long been an article of faith among anti-semites that Jews, wherever they lived and whatever they did, formed a nation separate from those they lived among.

Haaretz - Amir Oren - 23 April 2007:
- U.S. had emergency plan for attacking Israel in 1967.: Plan was aimed at preventing Israel from expanding westward, into Sinai, or eastward, into the West Bank.
- The right to strike.: A declassified study reveals that the U.S. had plans to attack Israel, and began to dust them off in May 1967. But organizational foot-dragging and the IDF's prowess in Sinai spurred the general in charge of the U.S. Strike Command to put them back in the drawer.

London Review of Books - Judith Butler - "I merely belong to them", Vol. 29 No. 9, pages 26-28, 10 May 2007: "The Jewish Writings" by Hannah Arendt, edited by Jerome Kohn and Ron Feldman, Schocken, March 2007, ISBN 978 0 8052 4238 6.

The Guardian - Stuart Jeffries - Shit! Manzoni's work doesn't do what it says on the tin, 12 June 2007: So Piero Manzoni filled his cans not, as labelled, with Merda d'Artista, but with plaster. Does that matter? Does the concept still stand? Or should the Tate get rid of their investment fast? (Wikipedia, Tate Gallery, Box Vox)

The Guardian - Linda Grant - The real exodus, 30 June 2007: When the tale of Jewish illegal immigrants sailing for Palestine was turned into a bestselling book and film, it came to symbolise the birth of a nation.

Middle East Eye - Areeb Ullah - Meet Stuart Polak, the Israel lobbyist at centre of Priti Patel scandal, 08 November 2017: Israel lobbyist and Conservative peer accompanied Patel on all of her meetings in Israel where she met Benjamin Netanyahu. ... According to the Conservative Home website, CFI "supports Conservative candidates in elections up and down Britain, and organises campaigns to get the vote out for them, especially in target seats." Prior to stepping down as director of the influential lobby group, Polak headed CFI for more than 25 years, where he helped influence the Conservative Party's stance on the Middle East.

Haaretz - Carlo Strenger - Zionism? Post-Zionism? Just give arguments, 20 December 2007.

2008

RadioFreeEurope / RadioLiberty - Gulnoza Saidazimova - Uzbekistan: Belly-Dancing Girlfriend Of Former British Envoy Exposes Brutal Regime, 23 January 2008: Soon after the incident, Alieva became a pole dancer in a Tashkent nightclub, earning some $300 a month -- enough to support her entire family. ... Her story also includes another rape in Uzbekistan by a police officer and lap dancing in London to make ends meet after Murray lost his job.

Der Spiegel - Ulrike Putz - Graveyard Shift for Islamic Jihad: A Visit to a Gaza Rocket Factory, 29 January 2008.

Washington Post - Kevin Sullivan - The Envoy & His Navel Liaison, 01 February 2008: British Ambassador Craig Murray found her when she was 21, dancing for tips in a sleazy club in Tashkent, the capital. He tucked $20 into her embroidered panties, walked away from his wife and two children and brought his belly dancer to London to start a new life together. ... Shortly after his arrival, he said, photos of a man who died in Uzbek police custody landed on his desk. Pathology reports showed that he had been boiled to death, after having had his fingernails ripped out. ... And evidence of something else began emerging: Karimov's men were torturing suspected terrorists, and passing the resulting intelligence on to the Americans and the British. In the fall of 2002, Murray says he sent a cable to London. It remains classified, but he says it argued that it was morally wrong and illegal to accept information gained from torture. He says he sent similar cables in early 2003 and in July 2004. ... That night, Murray says he went to wash away his frustration the way he always did. He wandered down to his favorite strip club to guzzle Chivas Regal and savor the gyrations of half-naked dancers. ... The ambassador slipped a $20 bill in her panties and gave her his business card. He told her he was married, but he wanted her to quit the club and be his mistress. ... Murray says he now believes that the fuss he kicked up in Uzbekistan unwittingly touched on something much more sensitive than London's moral standards. He says he stumbled into the U.S. program of "extraordinary rendition," in which terror suspects were shipped for interrogation to countries not squeamish about torture. That explains, he says, why the response to his complaints was so "ferocious." Uzbekistan was later named, including in a 2006 report by European investigators, as part of the rendition program. But at the time of Murray's agitation, the program was still secret.

The Guardian - Peter Preston - The spooks who ruled the States. 03 February 2008: "Hugh Wilford's masterful study of the CIA, The Mighty Wurlitzer, points up its unparalleled influence on American affairs ... Newspapers like the New York Times, even though it had had a secret agreement with the agency to employ at least 10 agents as reporters or clerks in its foreign bureaux, assumed irate attack mode."

Haaretz - Nadav Shragai, Yoav Stern - MK, activists demand probe into rabbi who banned employing Arabs, 24 March 2008.

BBC - 'World peace' hitcher is murdered, 12 April 2008: An Italian woman artist who was hitch-hiking to the Middle East dressed as a bride to promote world peace has been found murdered in Turkey. The naked body of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, 33, known as Pippa Bacca, was found in bushes near the northern city of Gebze on Friday.

The Guardian - Rachel Cooke - Man of war, 13 April 2008: He's been bombed, shot at and severely beaten. His reporting over 30 years in the Middle East has earned him many awards - and as many enemies. So, at 61, is Robert Fisk finally ready to leave Beirut?

The Independent - David Usborne - McCain forced to ditch pastor who claimed God sent Hitler, 24 May 2008.

Haaretz - Meir Zamir - The French Connection, 26 June 2008: On December 15, 1947, at approximately 1:45 P.M., about 20 fighters of the Haganah - the pre-state underground Jewish militia - seized a British truck south of Acre. The men, armed but wearing civilian clothing, confiscated about half a ton of documents, packed into eight sealed steel containers and 12 sacks of diplomatic mail. The documents had been sent from the British legation in Beirut to Haifa Port, from which they were to be transported to Britain. ... Immediately after the incident, the French consul in Jerusalem came to Tel Aviv. The French were given classified documents from the truck that were of great operational importance to them. ... France acted against Britain primarily out of a desire to avenge its own expulsion from Syria and Lebanon in May 1945. ... The ties with the Zionist institutions that eventually made France a close friend of the nascent State of Israel began with a letter sent by the head of the French Mission to Syria and Lebanon, General Paul Beynet, to the head of France's provisional government, General Charles de Gaulle, in late June 1945. ... Beynet was the French official who played the key role in shaping France's relations with the Jewish Agency. Before being named delegate-general to Syria and Lebanon, he had served on the Free French delegation to the U.S., where he came to recognize the scope of the influence wielded by Jewish organizations. Beynet met with Ben-Gurion in Beirut on October 15, 1944. He already knew then, based on British documents provided by the French agent secreted into the British office in Beirut, that Britain intended to continue forcing its White Paper on the Zionist movement and to prevent the establishment of an independent Jewish state. This policy was part of Britain's secret plan to establish a Greater Syria by unifying Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Palestine into a single political entity. ... The first test of the Jewish Agency's ability to keep its end of the bargain, as it had been articulated in the talks with Beynet, came during de Gaulle's visit to the U.S. in late August of that year. ... The Zionist movement also benefited from the visit. Indirect evidence suggests that de Gaulle briefed president Harry Truman on the conspiratorial nature of Britain's dealings in the Middle East and on its role in the Syrian crisis. ... One of the findings revealed in British and Syrian documents in the French archives is that Britain tried to use Truman's support for Jewish refugee immigration to Palestine Israel as a means to convince King Abdul Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia to revoke the oil concessions granted to U.S. companies in his country. ... The secret collaboration of the French with the Jewish Agency grew stronger in the U.S. as well, particularly in Zionist-Maronite campaigns to secure Lebanon as an independent Christian state.

The Guardian - William Harrison - The other Solzhenitsyn, 04 Aug 2008: "Praise his critique of the Soviet system certainly, but remember that it was informed by a deeply reactionary pan-Slavism."

MR Online - M. Junaid Levesque-Alam - "Just the Facts": Interview with Norman G. Finkelstein, 28 September 2008: Hezbollah organized. Hezbollah prepared. Hezbollah analyzed and understood its enemy. Its judgment was not 100% accurate, but certainly that’s where it invested its energy, with very impressive results. When you read detailed accounts of the 2006 Lebanon war, you realize just how astonishing was its defeat of the Israeli military. Hezbollah fired about 5,000 missiles altogether at Israel or in Lebanon (anti-tank missiles); Israel delivered or fired 162,000 weapons at Lebanon (about 4,800 per day). Israel fielded about 30,000 troops; Hezbollah’s fighters numbered about 2,000 and there were about 4,000 village militia. Israel never even faced the crack Hezbollah forces which were stationed on the Litani waiting for an Israeli invasion that never happened.

The Daily Mail - Richard Kay - I'm getting Murrayed, says Craig, 24 October 2008: He was further ridiculed when it emerged he had undiplomatically fallen in love with a nubile bellydancer plying her trade in his remote Central Asian posting. Now, I discover, Craig Murray, Her Majesty's former ambassador to Uzbekistan, has not only outed himself as a manic depressive, but has also revealed he is to marry his girlfriend Nadira Alieva, the former stripper-turned-actress for whom he swapped his wife and two children. Having exchanged a palace in the Uzbek capital Tashkent to live with Nadira in a cramped flat in West London, Murray has revealed he has suffered from bipolar disorder since being diagnosed at the age of 20.

2009

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - In Israel, detachment from reality is now the norm, 22 January 2009: All these years on from Sabra and Chatila, has anything changed? ... Israeli society was always introverted but these days it reminds me more than ever of the Unionists in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s or the Lebanese Christians in the 1970s. Like Israel, both were communities with a highly developed siege mentality which led them always to see themselves as victims even when they were killing other people.

Haaretz - Akiva Eldar - Perfect English or not, Netanyahu shares no common language with Obama, 10 February 2009.

Democracy Now| - Seymour Hersh: Secret US Forces Carried Out Assassinations in a Dozen Countries, Including in Latin America, 31 March 2009.

The Office of Tony Blair - Tony Blair speech to Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 23 April 2013.

gulfnews.com - Abbas Al Lawati - "You can't authorise murder": Hersh, 12 May 2009.

CounterCurrents.org - Franklin Lamb - Remembering Amnon Kapeliouk, 01 July, 2009. (Counterpunch)

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Netanyahu's paranoia extends to 'self-hating Jews' Emanuel and Axelrod, 9 July 2009.

The Guardian - Antony Lerman - A disaster for Jews and Israel, 15 July 2009: An extreme Zionist like Natan Sharansky is the last thing the world's largest Jewish organisation needs.

Aftonbladet - Donald Boström - "Our sons are plundered of their organs", 26 August 2009.

Information Clearing House - John Pilger - Lockerbie: Megrahi Was Framed, 04 September 2009.

Guardian - Severin Carrell - US paid reward to Lockerbie witness, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi papers claim, 02 October 1999.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Genocide forgotten: Armenians horrified by treaty with Turkey, 08 October 2009: In the autumn of 1915, an Austrian engineer called Litzmayer, who was helping build the Constantinople-Baghdad railway, saw what he thought was a large Turkish army heading for Mesopotamia. But as the crowd came closer, he realised it was a huge caravan of women, moving forward under the supervision of soldiers.

Haaretz - Tom Segev - The Makings of History / Revisiting Arthur Ruppin, 08 October 2009: Arthur Ruppin believed that the realization of Zionism demanded "racial purity" among the Jews. ... What is less known is Ruppin's belief that the realization of Zionism demanded "racial purity" among the Jews. In part, his views were inspired by the works of anti-Semitic thinkers, including some of the original Nazi ideologists. After the Holocaust, Israeli historiography tended to play down this embarrassing information as much as possible - or even ignore it totally. However, a few weeks ago, Tel Aviv University accepted a doctoral thesis by a researcher named Etan Bloom, who found, inter alia, that not only was Ruppin influenced by the theories that engendered Nazi racism, he also had an impact on their formulation. Bloom discovered that Ruppin had a "definitive influence" on the German view of the Jews as a race.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Obama, man of peace? No, just a Nobel prize of a mistake, 12 October 2009: His Middle East policy is collapsing. The Israelis have taunted him by ignoring his demand for an end to settlement-building and by continuing to build their colonies on Arab land. His special envoy is bluntly told by the Israelis that an Arab-Israel peace will take "many years". Now he wants the Palestinians to talk peace to Israel without conditions. He put pressure on the Palestinian leader to throw away the opportunity of international scrutiny of UN Judge Goldstone's damning indictment of Israeli war crimes in Gaza while his Assistant Secretary of State said that the Goldstone report was "seriously flawed". After breaking his pre-election promise to call the 1915 Armenian massacres by Ottoman Turkey a genocide, he has urged the Armenians to sign a treaty with Turkey, again "without pre-conditions". His army is still facing an insurgency in Iraq. He cannot decide how to win "his" war in Afghanistan. I shall not mention Iran. And now President Barack Obama has just won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Telegraph - Tom Chivers - Internet rules and laws: the top 10, from Godwin to Poe, 23 October 2009: The internet has matured into a world of its own, and like the real world, it obeys certain immutable laws. Here are 10 of the most important.

WRMEA - Alison Weir - Israeli Organ Harvesting: From Moldova To Palestine, p.15, November 2009.

WRMEA - Allan C. Brownfeld - Attempts to Silence Critics of Israeli Policies As “Self-Hating Jews” a Failing Strategy, p.53, November 2009.

Haaretz - Akiva Eldar - U.S. State Department: Israel is not a tolerant society, 6 November 2009: Report claims Israel discriminates against Muslims, Reform Jews, Christians, women and Bedouin.

The Guardian - Peter Oborne, James Jones - Friends in high places, 16 November 2009.

The Guardian - Ian Black - Pro-Israel lobby group bankrolling Tories, film claims, 16 Novermber 2009.

Haaretz - Anshel Pfeffer - Is the Israel lobby doing more harm than good, 20 November 2009: You'd have to be particularly ill-informed to be surprised that well-connected, pro-Israeli groups try to lobby the main British political parties and that wealthy individuals connected to such groups donate large sums to the parties and many members of Parliament.

London Review of Books - Charles Glass - Melancholy Actions,Vol. 31 No. 24, 17 December 2009, pages 16-18: When France fell in June 1940, a small remnant of the French army and navy found itself in England. (full text at Charles Glass website)

Guardian - Linda Grant - Ike Aronowitz obituary, 27 December 2009.

2010

Haaretz - Adar Primor - Blair to Haaretz: Global terror is one battle, one struggle, 07 Jan 2010: When asked whether the wave of global terror, with its roots in countries like Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen, proves it was a mistake to focus on a single dictator, he replies: "Personally I think we will defeat this terrorism when we understand it is one battle, one struggle. This is a global movement with an ideology."

Sunday Herald - Graeme Murray, Chris Watt - Auschwitz survivor: ‘Israel acts like Nazis’, 24 January 2013: Dr Hajo Meyer, 86, who survived 10 months in the Nazi death camp, ... “Formerly an anti-Semite was somebody who hated Jews because they were Jews and had a Jewish soul. But nowadays an anti-Semite is somebody who is hated by Jews.”

Huffington Post - Hajo Meyer - An Ethical Tradition Betrayed, 27 January 2010.

The Jerusalem Post - Rebecca Anna Stoil - As online user-generated encyclopedia celebrates 100,000th Hebrew-language entry, it prompts debate in Knesset, 2 February 2010.

The Jewish Daily Forward - Josh Nathan-Kazis - Dershowitz Explains Critical Goldstone Remark, 3 February 2010.

The Electronic Intifada - Jillian C. York - Israeli media first to report Haitian organ theft rumor, 19 February 2010. {Jenny Tonge}

The Guardian - Antony Lerman - Trials of the Diaspora by Anthony Julius, 27 February 2010.

Forward - Nathan Guttman - Jewish Lobby Sits Out Vote On Armenian Genocide, 10 March 2010: Deteriorating relations between Turkey and Israel led Jewish groups to step back from active lobbying this year against a congressional resolution declaring the 1915 Turkish slaughter of Armenians a case of genocide.

The Guardian - Chris Phillips - Miliband's grand Middle East delusion, 12 March 2010: The foreign secretary is wrong: Britain's soft power in the Middle East has much greater influence than its show of force in Iraq.

Jonathan Cook - Israeli Couple Forbidden From Renting to Bedouin Friends, 23 March, 2010.

Vanity Fair - Michael Lewis - Betting on the Blind Side, April 2010: Excerp from The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.

The Guardian - Eugene Terre'Blanche supporters withdraw threat of violence ahead of World Cup, 05 April 2010: "This was such an unnecessary thing," his brother, Andries, said. "We are not racists, we just believe in purity of race."

The Guardian - Chris McGreal - Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians, 05 April 2010: A secret video showing US air crew falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad and then laughing at the dead after launching an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency, was revealed by Wikileaks today. The footage of the July 2007 attack was made public in a move that will further anger the Pentagon, which has drawn up a report identifying the whistleblower website as a threat to national security.

BBC - Israel protest at concert 'was not racist', 08 April 2010.

Electronic Intifada - Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign - “Racism” charges dropped against Scottish solidarity activists, 08 April 2010.

Herald Scotland - Brian Donnelly - Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism, rules sheriff, 09 April 2015.

Antiwar.com - Ran HaCohen, Israel, a New Decade, 10 April 2010.

Independent - Robert Fisk - Malaya 1948: another shameful episode in Britain's colonial past, 10 April 2010.

Antiwar.com - Grant Smith - America's loose nukes, 13 April 2010.

Guardian - Homa Khaleeli - Nawal El Saadawi: Egypt's radical feminist, 15 April 2010.

Antiwar.com - Alfred W. McCoy and Tom Engelhardt - America and the Dictators, 16 April 2010.

Guardian - Nick Davies - Melilla: Europe's dirty secret, 17 April 2010.

Counterpunch - Esam Al-Amin - Israel’s Enabler in the U. S., 21 April 2010: Wiesel is simply “a terrible fraud.” — Noam Chomsky.

Guardian - Shaista Gohir - The hypocrisy of child abuse in many Muslim countries, 24 April 2010.

tomdispatch.com - Noam Chomsky - A Middle East Peace That Could Happen (But Won’t), 27 April 2010: Meanwhile in the West Bank, always with firm U.S. backing, Israel has been carrying forward longstanding programs to take the valuable land and resources of the Palestinians and leave them in unviable cantons, mostly out of sight. Israeli commentators frankly refer to these goals as “neocolonial.” Ariel Sharon, the main architect of the settlement programs, called these cantons “Bantustans,” though the term is misleading: South Africa needed the majority black work force, while Israel would be happy if the Palestinians disappeared, and its policies are directed to that end.

Independent - Anti-gay Baptist minister took male prostitute on holiday, 6 May 2010.

Independent - Robert Fisk - The Arabs have their gulags too, 08 May 2010.

Antiwar.com - Grant Smith - Declassified GAO Report Exposes Fatally Flawed Israel Investigations, 10 May 2010.

antiwar.com - Ran HaCohen, From Two States to One, 10 May 2010.

Independent - Catrina Stewart - A massacre of arabs masked by a state of national amnesia, 10 May 2010: Sixty years on, the true story of the slaughter of Palestinians at Deir Yassin may finally come out.

Guardian - Gilbert Achcar - Arabs have a complex relationship with the Holocaust, 12 May 2010.

Alternet.org - Zach Carter - America's Ten Most Corrupt Capitalists, 13 May 2010.

TheNational (UAE) - Jonathan Cook - US funds 'apartheid' road network in Israel, 15 May 2010.

Antiwar.com - Thalif Deen - Shielded by US Umbrella, Israel Joins OECD, 17 May 2010: Writing on U.S. foreign aid to Israel for the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) last December, Jeremy Sharp, a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs, said, “Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II.” Since 1985, the United States has provided over $3 billion annually in outright grants – with no payback obligation – to Israel.

Antiwar.com - Charles V. Peña, Why We Can’t Win in Afghanistan, 24 May 2010.

Guardian - Ahdaf Soueif - The dig dividing Jerusalem, 26 May 2010.

Haaretz - Hamas: Flotilla shows whole world opposes Gaza siege, 28 May 2010: Earlier on Friday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called the Freedom Flotilla violent propaganda against Israel's sovereignty, and added that Israel would not allow such a threat to continue. "The aid convoy is violent propaganda against Israel, and Israel will not allow its sovereignty to be threatened in any way, in any place - land, air or sea," Lieberman said during a foreign ministry briefing on the aid convoy's progress towards the shores of Gaza. "There is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip," Liebeman added. "Despite Hamas' war crimes against Israeli citizens and the thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns, Israel continues to respond in the most humane way possible."

Haaretz - Yossi Sarid - A sour pickle. Ben-Gurion was better at boycotting than Abbas or Fayyad, 28 May 2010.

The Times - Uzi Mahnaimi - Israel stations nuclear missile subs off Iran, 30 May 2010.

YNet News - Report: Israel to station nuclear missile subs off Iran, 30 May 2010.

The Economist - Trade Off, What goods does Israel bar from the Gaza Strip, 1 June 2010.

The Guardian - Rachel Shabi - Israel forced to apologise for YouTube spoof of Gaza flotilla, 6 June 2010.

The Jerusalem Post - Blair: 'I am 100% on Israel's side' , 08 June 2010.

McClatchy - Sheera Frenkel - Israeli document: Gaza blockade isn't about security, 9 June 2010.

The New York Review of Books - Peter Beinart - The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment, 10 June 2010.

Guardian - Simon Winchester - Amid the tears and cheers, a full stop to Britain's colonial experience in Northern Ireland, 15 June 2010.

Jonathan Cook - Israel’s Palestinian Minority Thrown into a Maelstrom, 16 June 2010.

Independent - John Lichfield - A very French invasion to remember the fight against Hitler, 18 June 2010: De Gaulle came to regard Churchill as a romantic drunk. Churchill became infuriated by De Gaulle's claims – never officially recognised by Britain – to be not just an anti-Nazi resistance leader but the one and true incarnation of French gloire and French national identity..

Guardian - Luke Harding - Dagestan: My daughter the terrorist. What made village schoolteacher Mariam Sharipova blow up herself and 26 others on the Moscow metro? 19 June 2010.

m&c - Israel surprised by German minister criticism of Gaza travel ban, 20 June 2010:
Western countries have placed a diplomatic and political embargo on Hamas, after the organization, which won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, refused to change its charter to recognise Israel, renounce violence, and honour previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
Israel imposed its blockade on the Gaza Strip in June 2006, after militants staged a cross-border raid and snatched an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who is still being held in the salient as negotiations for his release have so far come to naught.
The Israeli siege was tightened in June 2007, when Hamas militants seized control of the Strip's security installations, after routing officials loyal to Abbas and to the Palestinian Authority.
Israeli President Shimon Peres said Sunday that Israel would end the siege if Hamas ended attacks against the Jewish state and released Shalit.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Ghosts from the past: Syria's 30 years of fear, 24 June 2010: A grim report sheds light on the thousands of 'disappearances' during Hafez al-Assad's 30-year rule.

The Independent - Donald Macintyre - Barred from Jerusalem for crime of being Palestinian, 29 June 2010 :Engineer's battle to overturn loss of residency highlights plight of thousands.

Ha'aretz - Egypt forces kill Eritrean woman at Israel border, 29 June 2010.

TheNational - Jonathan Cook - Israel condemned for expelling Palestinian politicians, 29 June 2010.

TheNational - Mitchell Prothero - Offshore gas fields renew Israel-Lebanon row, 29 June 2010.

The Guardian - Matthew Duss - Saying good riddance to the US in Iraq, 29 June 2010.

The Guardian - Ian Cobain - Iraq deaths in British custody could see military face legal challenges, 1 July 2010.

Associated Press - Bridget Huber - Secret list shows fate of Argentine disappeared, 1 July 2010.

The Independent - Adel Darwish - Obituary: Abu Daoud: Palestinian terrorist who masterminded the 1972 Olympic massacre, 6 July 2010.

Antiwar.com - John Mearsheimer - Israel’s Nukes Harm US National Interests, 9 July 2010.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - CNN was wrong about Ayatollah Fadlallah, 10 July 2010.

Antiwar.com - Uri Avnery - Two Sit-Ins, 12 July 2010.

The New York Times - Michael Slackman and Ethan Bronner - Trapped by Gaza Blockade, Locked in Despair, 13 July 2010.

The Jerusalem Post - Isi Leibler - Scandal at the Claims Conference, 13 July 2010.

Reprieve - Government memos show Prime Minister Tony Blair ordered the Foreign Office to violate its legal obligation to assist British citizens abroad - bowing to pressure from President George W Bush , 14 July 2010.

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Tricky Bibi, 15 July 2010.

Democracy Now - The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It, 16 July 2010: A new article in Harper’s Magazine examines the role Goldman played in the food crisis of 2008 when the ranks of the world’s hungry increased by 250 million. We speak to Harper’s contributing editor Frederick Kaufman.

Antiwar.com - Andy Worthington - UK Sought Rendition of British Nationals to Guantánamo; Tony Blair Directly Involved, 16 July 2010.

Huffington Post - Netanyahu In 2001: ‘America Is A Thing You Can Move Very Easily’', 16 July 2010.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - They're all grovelling and you can guess the reason, 17 July 2010.

The National - Jonathan Cook - Netanyahu admits on video he deceived US to destroy Oslo accord, 18 July 2010.

Antiwar.com - Uri Avnery - A Parliamentary Mob on a Rampage, 19 July 2010.

The Independent - Johan Hari - Oil, blood money, and Blair's last scandal, 23 July 2010.

The Guardian - Carne Ross - Chilcot inquiry: Iraq expert Carne Ross claims civil servants are withholding vital documents, 25 July 2010.

The Guardian - Afghanistan: The War Logs.
David Leigh - Afghanistan war logs: Secret CIA paramilitaries' role in civilian deaths, 25 July 2010.
David Leigh - Friendly fire deaths plagued invasion from the start, 25 July 2010.
Declan Walsh - Secret war along the Pakistan border, 25 July 2010.
Declan Walsh - White House attacks Pakistan over Taliban aid, 25 July 2010.
Simon Tisdall - Iran's covert operations in Afghanistan, 25 July 2010.

The New Yorker - Amy Davidson - Wikileaks and the war, 26 July 2010.

BBC - Zoe Murphy - Chum Mey: Tuol Sleng survivor, 26 July 2010.

The Guardian - Saeed Kamali Dehghan - Iran stoning case woman fainted on hearing sentence, says cellmate, 27 July 2010.

Haaretz - Amira Hass - The Palestinian Authority is imprisoning Gazans, 28 July 2010: The same government that includes a call to end the blockade on Gaza, in practice aids in imprisoning the Gazans by preventing them from holding valid Palestinian passports.

Mondoweiss - Jonathan Cook - The rich tapestry of Israeli apartheid, 30 July 2010.

The Guardian - Tim Gautreaux - BP oil spill: A Louisiana tragedy, 31 July 2010: For Tim Gautreaux, a Louisiana local whose family is immersed in the oil industry, the BP leak means the death of his whole community. And things can only get worse.

The Independent - John Kampfner - Witnesses bent on self-exoneration, 31 July 2010: The Chilcot inquiry, which marks its first anniversary this weekend, was flawed from the start. Its purpose was not to apportion blame. Everyone realised from the outset that Blair would get away with it scot-free.

Antiwar.com - Gareth Porter - The Real Aim of Israel’s Bomb Iran Campaign, 01 August 2010.

Antiwar.com - Jonathan Cook - Israeli Settlers Step Up ‘Price-Tag’ Policy, 3 August 2010.

Antiwar.com - Jake Hess - Kurdish Refugees: ‘We’re Not Living, Just Not Dying’, 4 August 2010.

Atlantic Free Press - Jonathan Cook - Israel plans mass forced removals of Bedouin Negev village torn down for second time, 8 August 2010.

Atlantic Free Press - Jonathan Cook - Suspected torturer gets key police job in Jerusalem, 8 August 2010.

Haaretz - Rabbis refuse to be questioned on incitement to kill non-Jews, 9 August 2010: Rabbis Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef say they will not answer police questions about whether they supported the book "The King's Torah", by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, that described how it is possible to kill non-Jews.

Al Jazeera - Flotilla violence was "expected" - 10 August 2010: Israel's defence minister has said a Gaza-bound aid flotilla seized in a bloody commando raid was a "planned provocation" and that Israel had expected violence weeks before the operation.

Scientific American - Michael Shermer - Our Neandertal Brethren: Why They Were Not a Separate Species, 11 August 2010: Genome sequencing has revealed our common humanity.

Guardian - Omar Barghouti - Besieging Israel's siege, 12 August 2010.

The Economist - Palestine's Jerusalem MPs, Just get out, 12 August 2010: The Israeli authorities try to expel Hamas’s MPs from East Jerusalem.

media-ocracy - Noam Chomsky - Why Wikileaks Won’t Stop the War, 13 August 2010.

Haaretz - Leah Aini - No other Jews like them, 13 August 2010: A new volume on the destruction of Greece's Jews in the Shoah is a fitting reminder of how little attention the 'official version' of history pays not only to that subject, but also to the miraculous culture that characterized the Jews of Salonika.

Haaretz - 4 African migrants killed in clash with Bedouins near Egypt border, 14 August 2010.

The MetroWest Daily News - Gwynne Dyer - The Mavi Marmara Inquiry: Denying the Obvious, 17 August 2010.

The Guardian - Rachel Shabi - Wikipedia editing courses launched by Zionist groups, 18 August 2010. (See also Haaretz, Arutz Sheva (A7)) ( ... and the Atlantic Free Press)

Guardian - Chris McGreal - The US blogger on a mission to halt "Islamic takeover", 20 August 2010.

Antiwar.com - Mel Frykberg - In Palestine, Barriers Rise Between Ramadan Gatherings, 20 August 2010.

Haaretz - Noam Ben Ze'ev - Those noisy barbarians, 23 August 2010: Dov Lior, the chief rabbi of Hebron, doesn't want Jews to take on boogie-woogie from the jungle.

The Guardian - Chris McGreal - Nuremberg laws that General Patton stole given to US National Archives, 25 August 2010.

The Independent - Johann Hari - Violence breeds violence. The only thing drug gangs fear is legalisation, 26 August 2010.

Haaretz - Yossi Sarid - Any bastard can be a rabbi, 27 August 2010.

Guardian - Robert King (as told to Paul Willis) - Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement, 28 August 2010.

The Daily Telegraph - Patrick Hennessy and Andrew Alderson - How Bush and Blair plotted in secret to stop Brown, 28 August 2010.
... [follow up: Guardian - Nicholas Watt - George Bush's White House had 'grave doubts' about Gordon Brown as PM, 29 August 2010]

Haaretz - 29 August 2010:
... Shas spiritual leader: Abbas and Palestinians should perish: Army Radio reports Rabbi Ovadia Yosef denounces Palestinians as bitter enemies of Israel ahead of upcoming direct peace talks.
... Erekat: Israeli religious figure urging genocide of Palestinians: Netanyahu distances himself from remarks by Shas spiritual leader who said earlier that all Palestinians should perish.

Guardian - Nadeem Badshah - The taxi driver who doubled as a bounty hunter, 29 August 2010: For £5,000 he tracked down young women fleeing a forced marriage and brought them back to their families.

Antiwar.com - Grant Smith - Could Ground-Zero Mosque’s Backers Be Worse Than AIPAC’s?, 30 August 2010.

AlterNet - Max Blumenthal - How to Kill Goyim and Influence People: Israeli Rabbis Defend Book's Shocking Religious Defense of Killing Non-Jews, 30 August 2010: A rabbinical guidebook for killing non-Jews has sparked an uproar in Israel and exposed the power a bunch of genocidal theocrats wield over the government.

Haaretz - Bradley Burston - A Special Place in Hell / Celebrate Jewish New Year with a De-Occupation Seder, 30 August 2010.

The Guardian - Andrew Sparrow - Tony Blair's A Journey memoir released – live blog, 1 September 2010.

The New Statesman - Mehdi Hasan - Fisking Blair’s chapter on Iraq, 1 September 2010: Our ex-prime minister is still the best Bliar in the business.

The Guardian - Pankaj Mishra - When will those brave critics of Islam decry this mob hate, 1 September 2010: As anti-Muslim hysteria in the US reaches a peak, its intellectual accomplices should start to reconsider their actions.

The Guardian - Ghada Karmi - A Middle East peace that wreaks havoc, 1 September 2010.

The Australian - Peter Wilson - Blair's book reveals background to war, 2 September 2010: In a chilling insight into the mood of the Bush White House, Blair says vice-president Dick Cheney "would have worked through the whole lot, Iraq, Syria, Iran, dealing with all their surrogates in the course of it -- Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. ... Blair thought Cheney "had one central insight which was at least worth taking seriously" -- the view that the West's enemies were linked by a common ideology -- but he disagreed with Cheney's view that the battle could be won "by a hard-power strategy alone".

Haaretz - Settlers defy peace talks with new construction across West Bank, 2 September 2010.

The Christian Science Monitor - Joshua Mitnick - Why most Palestinians don't support Israeli-Palestinian talks – or another intifada, 2 September 2010.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Blair should take responsibility for Iraq. But he won't. He can't, 3 September 2010: But it's not a bloody debate – it's a bloody, blood-soaked disaster, for which Blair should take responsibility. But he won't. He can't. So Iraq's descent into butchery was all the fault of al-Qa'ida, of "the external involvement" of al-Qa'ida and Iran.

AlterNet - Nick Turse - 5 Jaw-Dropping Stories in Wikileaks' Archives Begging for National Attention, 3 September 2010.

Al Jazeera - Larbi Sadiki - The elephant in the room, 5 September 2010: Excluding Hamas from current and future Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations is an exercise in futility.

Straight.com - Gwynne Dyer - Tony Blair and the great Islamic threat, 5 September 2010.

The Raw Story - David Edwards, Daniel Tencer - Tony Blair: Cheney’s vision ‘not stupid,’ possible ‘over time’, 5 September 2010.

Haaretz - Or Kashti - Poll: Half of Israeli teens don't want Arab students in their class, 6 September 2010: Study polling 500 teens aged 15 to 18 finds that most don't think Arabs enjoy equal rights in Israel, and most of those don't think Arabs deserve equal rights.

The Guardian - Avi Shlaim - This time in Washington, honest brokerage is not going to be enough, 7 September 2010.

Information Clearing House - Alan Hart - Obama Signalled His Complete Surrender To Zionism, 7 September 2010.

Haaretz - Gidi Weitz - Israeli probe finds Austrian billionaire behind illicit money transfer to Sharon family, 7 September 2010: Investigation reveals Martin Schlaff is behind the $4.5m funneled to the former PM's family; millions more went to company believed to be controlled by Lieberman.

ABC News - Matthew Mosk, Brian Ross, Joseph Rhee - Exclusive: Whistleblower Claims Many U.S. Interpreters Can't Speak Afghan Languages, 8 September 2010.

The Guardian - Tony Platt - These Nazi Nuremberg documents were no gift. General Patton pocketed them, 8 September 2010.

The Guardian - Ahmed Moor - Disarming Lebanon's Palestinians, 8 September 2010.

The Guardian - Chris McGreal - US soldiers "killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies", 9 September 2010.

Information Clearing House - Juan Cole - Top Stories More Important than Quran-Burning Nut Job, 10 September 2010.

The Guardian - Chris Phillips - Lebanon: Blair's other Middle East mistake, 11 September 2010: "A Journey" presents Blair's actions during the 2006 Lebanon war as those of a committed ideologue, not simply Bush's poodle.

lobelog - Marsha B. Cohen - In the Wake of 9/11, Israel Put Iran into “Axis of Evil”, 10 September 2010.

Salon.com - Glenn Greenwald - America the Exceptional, 11 September 2010.

The Raw Story - Daniel Tencer - Journalist: Women raped at Abu Ghraib were later ‘honor killed’, 11 September 2010.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - A man who lived by his word – and died by it, 11 September 2010.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Nine years, two wars, hundreds of thousands dead – and nothing learnt, 11 September 2010.

The Guardian - Henry McDonald - Billy Wright assassin: Maze security was ‘a joke’, 13 September 2010.

The New York Review of Books - Nathan Thrall - Our Man in Palestine, 16 September 2010: Dayton, meanwhile, was overseeing the recruitment, training, and equipping of Abbas’s rapidly expanding security forces. ... In February 2007, on the brink of civil war, Fatah and Hamas leaders traveled to Mecca, where they agreed to form a national unity government, a deal the US opposed because it preferred that Fatah continue to isolate Hamas. ... The Peruvian diplomat Alvaro de Soto, former UN envoy to the Quartet, wrote in a confidential “End of Mission Report” that the violence between Hamas and Fatah could have been avoided had the US not strongly opposed Palestinian reconciliation. “The US,” he wrote, “clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fateh and Hamas.”

The Peninsula (Qatar) - Churchill blamed for Indian famine that killed three million, 18 September 2010.

The Guardian - Johnny Langenheim - The last of the sea nomads, 18 September 2010.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Israeli FM: Peace Talks An Opportunity to Eject Arabs, 19 September 2010.

The Guardian - Lorraine Adams, Ayesha Nasir - Inside the mind of the Times Square bomber, 19 September 2010.

Haaretz - Avi Issacharoff - MESS Report / For Palestinians, settler abuse is only the beginning of the ordeal, 19 September 2010.

The Guardian - Chris McGreal, Rachel Shabi - Israel seeks release of spy in exchange for extending settlement freeze, 20 September 2010: Binyamin Netanyahu hopes release of spy will appease right wing but US intelligence likely to oppose the deal.

The Guardian - Ian Cobain, Fariha Karim - MI6 consulted David Miliband on interrogations, 21 September 2010.

Haaretz - UN Human Rights Council: Israel flotilla raid broke international law, 22 September 2010.

The Guardian - Ewen MacAskill, Jon Boone, Declan Walsh - Barack Obama's bitter divisions with generals revealed in new book, 22 September 2010.

The Guardian - Haroon Sidique - Gaza flotilla attack: UN report condemns Israeli 'brutality', 22 September 2010.

The Guardian - Chris McGreal - UN panel accuses Israel of war crimes for 'unlawful' assault on Gaza flotilla, 23 September 2010.

Antiwar.com - Jason Ditz - Rhetoric Aside, Settlement ‘Freeze’ Has Meant Very Little, 23 September 2010.

Haaretz - Jonathan Lis - Top Likud minister: Obama knows settlements are part of Jewish homeland, 26 September 2010: Thousands of activists from Netanyahu's faction crowds the lawn at Yisrael Katz's estate, where their host declares Israel should never accede to international pressure when it comes to the right to settle in the Jewish homeland.

Haaretz - Akiva Eldar - Settlement freeze furor is a mask for Netanyahu's true intentions, 27 September 2010: Netanyahu is looking for a magical solution to both let the tractors get back to work in the West Bank and to keep Abbas at the negotiating table.

Antiwar.com - Uri Avnery - Gandhi’s Wisdom, 27 September 2010.

Antiwar.com - Grant Smith - Free Pollard Now, Pay Later, 27 September 2010: Declassified FBI file reveals cost of ignoring Israeli espionage.

The Guardian - Matthew Cassel - Why Lebanese Palestinians insist on the right to bear arms, 27 September 2010.

The Guardian - Richard Norton-Taylor, Ian Cobain - Tony Blair received early torture warning, court told, 28 September 2010.

Salon - Glenn Greenwald - U.N. Report finds Israel "summarily executed" U.S. citizen on flotilla, 1 October 2010.

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Amid row over settlements, Netanyahu says committed to Mideast peace, 1 October 2010: The United States is reportedly incensed over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of a draft letter that would have extended the freeze on West Bank settlement construction, formulated by advisers to the U.S. and Israeli leaders.

Al Jazeera - M J Rosenberg - Netanyahu humiliates Obama again , 2 October 2010.

TheNational (UAE) - Jonathan Cook - Reported US offer to Israel will fuel doubts, 3 October 2010.

Information Clearing House - Francis Boyle - The Impending Collapse of Israel in Palestine, 2 October 2010.

Information Clearing House - Jonathan Cook - Obama’s Cave-In To Israel, 4 October 2010.

BBC - Riaz Sohail - Nato contractors 'attacking own vehicles' in Pakistan, 6 October 2010.

Haaretz - Yossi Melman - Did Israel ever consider using nuclear weapons, 7 October 2010: Newly declassified documents shine a light on the deliberations of Israel's leaders during the early days of the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Nothing has changed since the Yom Kippur War, 7 October 2010.

Guardian - Simon Hoggart - Prime ministers I have known, 8 October 2010.

The Sydney Morning Herald - Bernard Lagan - US never took peace adviser seriously, 9 October 2010.

Haaretz - Amira Hass - Gaza teens brave IDF fire to collect salvaged building materials, 10 October 2010.

Haaretz - Jonathan Lis, Barak Ravid - Justice Minister: Jews should be required to sign loyalty oath too, 10 October 2010: Divisions in Israel's cabinet as vote on loyalty oath looms; Netanyahu: Israel is defined by its dual status as Jewish state and democracy.

The Jerusalem Post - Jonah Mandel - Yosef: Gentiles exist only to serve Jews, 10 October 2010.

TheNational (UAE) - Jonathan Cook - An oath for the few excludes the many in an ethnocracy, 15 October 2010.

TheNational (UAE) - Jonathan Cook - Israeli police launch drive to fill ranks with settlers, 16 October 2010.

The Telegraph - Ben Farmer - Aid worker Linda Norgrove was close to freedom, Afghan tribal elders claim, 16 October 2010.

The Observer - Philip French - The Stoning of Soraya M – review, 17 October 2010.

The Guardian - 7 July London attacks:
Esther Addley - 7/7 inquest hears survivors describe moment of Aldgate bombing, 18 October 2010.

AntiWar.com - Uri Avnery - The State of Blah-Blah-Blah, 18 October 2010.

AntiWar.com - Declassified Statement on Jonathan Pollard by Caspar W. Weinberger, 18 October 2010.

The New Republic - Martin Peretz - "Goyim Were Born Only To Serve Us": The Moral Wisdom Of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, 19 October 2010.

The Jerusalem Post - Carter: "Palestinians living in a cage in Gaza", 19 October 2010.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Israeli Envoy Slams 1967 Border Proposal: Says No One But Israel Can Set Israel’s Borders, 19 October 2010.

Haaretz - Natasha Mozgovaya - ADL slams Shas spiritual leader for saying non-Jews "were born to serve Jews", 20 October 2010: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef says in Saturday sermon that 'Goyim have no place in the world - only to serve the People of Israel'; ADL chief calls Yosef's words 'hateful' and 'divisive'.

AntiWar.com - Mel Frykberg - Palestinians Earning a Living in No Man’s Land, 20 October 2010.

The Guardian - Nick Davies, Jonathan Steele, David Leigh - Iraq war logs: secret files show how US ignored torture, 22 October 2010.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Echoes of El Salvador in tales of US-approved death squads, 23 October 2010.

The Independent - Robert Verkaik - British troops accused of abusing prisoners in first days of invasion, 23 October 2010.

The Independent - Jerome Taylor - Huge dossier of secret files shows the US ignored torture of Iraqis, 23 October 2010.

The Guardian - Iraq: The War Logs:
David Leigh, Maggie O'Kane - US turned over captives to Iraqi torture squads, 24 October 2010.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - West Bank olive groves become battleground, 24 October 2010.

Haaretz - Amos Harel - IDF chief tells Gaza flotilla investigators: Commandos had no choice but to shoot, 24 October 2010.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - The shaming of America, 24 October 2010.

The Independent - Samira Ahmed - Floella Benjamin: From Big Ted to the Big Society, 24 October 2010. (Samira Ahmed blog)

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Gaza flotilla was 'Turkish provocation', Livni tells inquiry, 25 October 2010.

The Australian - John Howard - Why we took on Saddam's Iraq, 25 October 2010.

The Huffington Post - Gen. Hugh Shelton: Bush Officials Pushed For Iraq War "Almost To The Point Of Insubordination", 25 October 2010.

The Independent - Yasmin Alibhai-Brown - A worse record than Saddam's, 25 October 2010.

The Guardian - Tony Paterson - German foreign ministry helped Nazis flee country after the war had ended, 26 October 2010.

The Guardian - Jonathan Freedland - Credit to Obama for sticking with the Middle East. But it's gone very wrong, 26 October 2010.

Al Jazeera - Sherine Tadros - Israeli flotilla probe "a sham", 26 October 2010.

Foreign Policy Journal - Jeremy R. Hammond - The Myth of the U.N. Creation of Israel, 26 October 2010: On September 3, UNSCOP issued its report to the General Assembly declaring its majority recommendation that Palestine be partitioned into separate Jewish and Arab states. It noted that the population of Palestine at the end of 1946 was estimated to be almost 1,846,000, with 1,203,000 Arabs (65 percent) and 608,000 Jews (33 percent). Growth of the Jewish population had been mainly the result of immigration, while growth of the Arab population had been “almost entirely” due to natural increase. It observed that there was “no clear territorial separation of Jews and Arabs by large contiguous areas”, and even in the Jaffa district, which included Tel Aviv, Arabs constituted a majority. Land ownership statistics from 1945 showed that Arabs owned more land than Jews in every single district in Palestine. The district with the highest percentage of Jewish ownership was Jaffa, where 39 percent of the land was owned by Jews, compared to 47 percent owned by Arabs. In the whole of Palestine at the time UNSCOP issued its report, Arabs remained “in possession of approximately 85 percent of the land”, while Jews owned less than 7 percent. Despite these facts, the UNSCOP proposal was that the Arab state be constituted from only 45.5 percent of the whole of Palestine, while the Jews would be awarded 55.5 percent of the total area for their state.[9] The UNSCOP report acknowledged that: "With regard to the principle of self-determination, although international recognition was extended to this principle at the end of the First World War and it was adhered to with regard to the other Arab territories, at the time of the creation of the ‘A’ Mandates, it was not applied to Palestine, obviously because of the intention to make possible the creation of the Jewish National Home there. Actually, it may well be said that the Jewish National Home and the sui generis Mandate for Palestine run counter to that principle." In other words, the report explicitly recognized that the denial of Palestinian independence in order to pursue the goal of establishing a Jewish state constituted a rejection of the right of the Arab majority to self-determination. And yet, despite this recognition, UNSCOP had accepted this rejection of Arab rights as being within the bounds of a legitimate and reasonable framework for a solution. ... The position of the Arabs had been clear from the beginning, but the Arab Higher Committee issued a statement on September 29 reiterating that “the Arabs of Palestine were determined to oppose with all the means at their disposal, any scheme that provided for segregation or partition, or that would give to a minority special and preferential status”. It instead "advocated freedom and independence for an Arab State in the whole of Palestine which would respect human rights, fundamental freedoms and equality of all persons before the law, and would protect the legitimate rights and interests of all minorities whilst guaranteeing freedom of worship and access to the Holy Places." The Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question was established by the General Assembly shortly after the issuance of the UNSCOP report in order to continue to study the problem and make recommendations. A sub-committee was established in turn that was tasked with examining the legal issues pertaining to the situation in Palestine, and it released the report of its findings on November 11. It observed that the UNSCOP report had accepted a basic premise “that the claims to Palestine of the Arabs and Jews both possess validity”, which was “not supported by any cogent reasons and is demonstrably against the weight of all available evidence.” With an end to the Mandate and with British withdrawal, “there is no further obstacle to the conversion of Palestine into an independent state”, which “would be the logical culmination of the objectives of the Mandate” and the Covenant of the League of Nations. It found that “the General Assembly is not competent to recommend, still less to enforce, any solution other than the recognition of the independence of Palestine, and that the settlement of the future government of Palestine is a matter solely for the people of Palestine.” It concluded that “no further discussion of the Palestine problem seems to be necessary or appropriate, and this item should be struck off the agenda of the General Assembly”, but that if there was a dispute on that point, “it would be essential to obtain the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on this issue”, as had already been requested by several of the Arab states. It concluded further that the partition plan was “contrary to the principles of the Charter, and the United Nations have no power to give effect to it.” The U.N. could not "deprive the majority of the people of Palestine of their territory and transfer it to the exclusive use of a minority in the country…. The United Nations Organization has no power to create a new State. Such a decision can only be taken by the free will of the people of the territories in question. That condition is not fulfilled in the case of the majority proposal, as it involves the establishment of a Jewish State in complete disregard of the wishes and interests of the Arabs of Palestine." Nevertheless, the General Assembly passed Resolution 181 on November 29, with 33 votes in favor to 13 votes against, and 10 abstentions.

YNetNews.com - Roni Sofer - Bill allowing towns to reject residents gains ground, 27 October 2010.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Israeli Parliament Softens Title of ‘US War Crimes’ Motion, 27 October 2010.

The Independent - Johann Hari - Not his finest hour: The dark side of Winston Churchill, 28 October 2010.

The Guardian - Xan Rice - Girls killed by Islamist firing squad in Somalia, 29 October 2010.

Haaretz - Amnon Be'eri-Sulitzeanu - Segregation of Jews and Arabs in 2010 Israel is almost absolute, 29 October 2010.

Atlantic Free Press - Jonathan Cook - Protest met with rubber bullets - Israeli police shoot ‘hated’ Arab legislator in back, 31 October 2010.

The Independent - Donald Macintyre - Lieberman: The man dragging Israel to the right, 3 November 2010.

The Guardian - Ian Cobain - Iraqi prisoners were abused at 'UK's Abu Ghraib', court hears, 6 November 2010.

The Guardian - Mark Townsend - 'I was wrong,' admits historian over claims of Malaya massacre, 7 November 2010.

TheNational (UAE) - Jonathan Cook - Safed 'the most racist city' in Israel, 8 November 2010.

Tablet - David Samuels - Q&A: Noam Chomsky, 12 November 2010: The world’s most important leftist intellectual talks about his Zionist childhood and his time with Hezbollah.

Salon.com - Glenn Greenwald - Eric Cantor's Pledge of Allegiance, 13 November 2010.

PoliticalCorrection - MJ Rosenberg - Cantor Recants, 15 November 2010.

The Independent - Catrina Stewart - The Holocaust survivor whose life is in danger again, 15 November 2010: In the Israeli city of Safed, an 89-year-old man has been accused of treachery for welcoming Arab students.

The Guardian - Ian Traynor - Immigration: Far-right fringe exploits European coalitions, 15 November 2010.

Slate - Christopher Hitchens - Israel's Shabbos Goy, 15 November 2010: Why America will come to regret the craven deal Obama is offering Netanyahu.

Medialens - "Put the Palestinians on a diet", 17 November 2010: Media bury documents revealing Israel's deliberate policy of near-starvation for Gaza.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - An American bribe that stinks of appeasement, 20 November 2010.

AntiWar.com - Uri Avnery - Who’s Laughing? 22 November 2010.

The Guardian - Simon Jenkins - US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment, 28 November 2010.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Now we know. America really doesn't care about injustice in the Middle East, 30 November 2010.

The Guardian - Rob Evans, David Leigh - WikiLeaks cables: Secret deal let Americans sidestep cluster bomb ban, 1 December 2010.

GLOBES - Ran Dagoni - WikiLeaks: Russian mob laundered $10b with Israeli assets, 2 December: Organized crime in Israel now has global reach, with direct impact inside the US.

The Guardian - Neal Ascherson - WikiLeaks cables are dispatches from a beleaguered America in imperial retreat, 4 December 2010.

The Guardian - Declan Walsh - WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists, 5 December 2010.

The Independent - Andy Rowell, Eveline Lubbers - Ken Saro-Wiwa was framed, secret evidence shows, 5 December 2010: Witness statements accuse Nigerian military commander of ordering killings and taking bribes.

The Independent - Johann Hari - This case must not obscure what WikiLeaks has told us, 8 December 2010.

The Electronic Intifada - Max Blumenthal - The Carmel wildfire is burning all illusions in Israel, 6 December 2010.

The New York Times - Maureen Dowd (NYT articles) - Pass the Caribou Stew, 7 December 2010.

LewRockwell.com - Eric Margolis (articles) - The Scarlet Pimpernel of Cyberspace, 7 December 2010.

The New York Times - Michael Slackman - Officials Pressed Germans on Kidnapping by C.I.A., 8 December 2010.

BBC - Former EU leaders urge sanctions for Israel settlements, 10 December 2010.

The New York Times - Sam Roberts - Declassified Papers Show U.S. Recruited Ex-Nazis, 11 December 2010.

Haaretz - 'It wouldn't be U.S. concern if U.S.S.R sent Jews to gas chambers', Kissinger told Nixon, 12 December 2010: Former American president can also be heard making many disparaging comments about 'abrasive and obnoxious' Jews on the 1973 recording, including: 'I don't want any Jew at that [state] dinner who didn't support us in that campaign'.

The Guardian - David Leigh - WikiLeaks cables: US keeps Uzbekistan president onside to protect supply line, 12 December 2010.

The Independent - Donald Macintryre - "Our lives became something we'd never dreamt": The former Israeli soldiers who have testified against army abuses, 12 December 2010.

Crikey - Bernard Keane - Funding illegal Israeli settlements? Priceless, 13 December 2010.

Haaretz - Dror Etkes - Instead of befriending neo-fascists, Israel should make peace, 14 December 2010.

TheNational (UAE) - Jonathan Cook - Arab family's home win blow to Israeli 'Jews only' policy, 15 December 2010.

The Guardian - Neil Clark - Kosovo and the myth of liberal intervention, 15 December 2010.

El País - Javier Moreno - Why El País chose to publish the leaks, 23 December 2010.

Forward - Benjamin Ivry - Forgotten Witness to the Gulag, 28 December 2010: Margolin ... should be as familiar a name as Solzhenitsyn for bearing witness to the Soviet gulag system.

The Guardian - John Whitbeck - On Palestine, the US is a rogue state, 29 December 2010.

The Telegraph - Adrian Blomfield - Holocaust survivors warn of stirrings of neo-fascism, 31 December 2010.

Jewish Telegraph - Profile: New envoy’s a passionate horse-loving Zionist.

2011

AlterNet - Juan Cole - WikiLeaks: Israel Plans Total War on Lebanon, Gaza, 3 January 2011.

AntiWar.com - Uri Avnery - Interim Forever!, 3 January 2011.

Haaretz - WikiLeaks: Israel aimed to keep Gaza economy on brink of collapse, 5 January 2011.

The Guardian - Amira Nowaira - The slow death of tolerance in Egypt, 5 January 2011.

The First Post - Alexander Cockburn - Why Bradley Manning is fighting for his sanity, 6 January 2011.

The Guardian - Dominic Streatfeild - How the US let al-Qaida get its hands on an Iraqi weapons factory, 7 January 2011.

The Guardian - Michael Ratner - Bringing the 'Bush Six' to justice, 7 January 2011.

The Independent - Ian Burrell - From allies to enemies: how 'The Guardian' fell out with Assange, 8 January 2011.

The Observer - Nick Cohen - Only religious thugs love blasphemy laws, 9 January 2011.

Haaretz - Hamas urges Gaza militant groups to stop attacks on Israel, 9 January 2011.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - Irving Moskowitz demolishes part of Jerusalem hotel to build settler housing, 9 January 2011.

The Guardian - Donald Macintyre - EU officials propose help for arrested Palestinians, 10 January 2011.

Haaretz - Akiva Eldar - EU stance on East Jerusalem reflects negative turn toward Israel, 10 January 2011.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - 'Evil spirit' sweeping over Israel, warns opposition leader Tzipi Livni, 10 January 2011.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - West Bank protester has jail term extended, 11 January 2011.

The Guardian - Alastair Campbell - Alastair Campbell diaries: The shaping of a war leader, 14 January 2011.

Haaretz - Akiva Eldar - Lost Innocence, 14 January 2011. Hanan Ashrawi was one of the first Palestinians to negotiate with Israelis over the future of the territories. After almost 20 years of disappointments, does she still believe peace is possible?

AntiWar.com - John Pilger - The War on WikiLeaks, 15 January 2011.

Information Clearing House - Mike Whitney - The US/Israeli Coup in Beirut, 15 January 2011.

The Independent - David C Anderson - Amanda Knox is a victim of Italian pride, 16 January 2011.

HindustanTimes - "Israel tested Stuxnet on Iran, with US help", 16 January 2011.

Haaretz - Bradley Burston - Think Israel's a lost cause? Ten reasons to think again, 17 January 2011.

The Guardian - Richard Norton-Taylor - Chilcot inquiry: Blair shut me out, says former legal chief Lord Goldsmith, 17 January 2011.

The Guardian - Saeed Kamali Dehghan - Iran has hanged 47 people in three weeks, say human rights groups, 17 January 2011.

The Guardian - Ian Cobain, Fariha Karim - UK linked to notorious Bangladesh torture centre, 17 January 2011.

Consortium News- Robert Parry - Troubled History of the Hariri Probe, 17 January 2011.

The Raw Story - Stephen C. Webster - ‘Smoking gun’ letter reveals official Vatican cover-up of child sex abuses, 18 January 2011.

CounterPunch - Kathleen Christison - (US was Cheerleader for Massacre) Wikileaks Cables on Israel's Gaza Onslaught, 19 January 2011.

The Guardian - Richard Norton-Taylor - Advisers 'regret' not warning Tony Blair enough about dangers of invading Iraq, 19 January 2011.

The Guardian - Kim Ives - WikiLeaks points to US meddling in Haiti, 21 January 2011.

Consortium News- Lawrence Davidson - Obama Submits to Israel Lobby, 21 January 2011.

The Guardian - The Palestine Papers (Wikipedia:Palestine Papers):
Chris McGreal - Reaction to the leaked Palestine papers, 24 January 2011.
Ian Black, Seumas Milne - Papers reveal how Palestinian leaders gave up fight over refugees, 24 January 2011.
Ian Black, Seumas Milne - Barack Obama lifts then crushes Palestinian peace hopes, 24 January 2011.
Rory Carroll - Condoleezza Rice: send Palestinian refugees to South America, 24 January 2011.
Ian Black - George Mitchell, 24 January 2011.
Ian Black, Seumas Milne - Palestine papers reveal MI6 drew up plan for crackdown on Hamas, 25 January 2011.
Ian Black - Israel asked Palestinian Authority to kill al-Aqsa commander, 25 January 2011.
Ian Black - Mohammed Dahlan, 25 Jamuary 2011.
Ian Black, Seumas Milne - PLO urged Israel and Egypt to do more to prevent Gaza smuggling, 25 January 2011.
Ian Black, Seumas Milne - Tony Blair criticised for 'Israeli bias' , 26 January 2011.
Ian Black, Seumas Milne - Gaza war report was stalled by Palestinian Authority on US request, 26 January 2011.
Ian Black, Seumas Milne - Palestinian distrust of Iran revealed in leaked papers, 26 January 2011.
Ziyad Clot - Why I blew the whistle about Palestine, 14 May 2011.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - 'I want to be Palestinian forever ... but we're Israeli too', 24 January 2011.

Haaretz - Tomer Zarchin - Prof. Frances Raday, were you surprised by the Turkel committee's conclusions?, 24 January 2011.

Aljazeera - Ali Abunimah - The Palestine Papers - A dangerous shift on 1967 lines, 24 January 2011.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - A new truth dawns on the Arab world, 26 January 2011: Could it be, perhaps, that the Arab world is going to choose its own leaders? Could it be that we are going to see a new Arab world which is not controlled by the West? When Tunisia announced that it was free, Mrs Hillary Clinton was silent. It was the crackpot President of Iran who said that he was happy to see a free country. Why was this?

The Guardian - Richard Norton-Taylor - Iraq war inquiry: Top admiral told 'regime change not the goal' by Blair, 27 January 2011.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - Palestinians preventing Middle East peace deal, says Israeli deputy PM, 27 January 2011.

The Guardian - Jack Shenker - Bloody and bruised: the journalist caught in Egypt unrest, 27 January 2011.

Al Jazeera - Mark Perry, Ali Abunimah - The US Role as Israel's Enabler, 27 January 2011.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Egypt: Death throes of a dictatorship, 30 January 2011.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - How much longer can Mubarak cling on, 31 January 2011.

The Guardian - Haneen Zoabi - Palestinian negotiators must not take key decisions on our behalf, 31 January 2011.

Tablet - Adam Kirsch - Macho Man, 01 February 2011: Book Reviews: "Leon Uris: Life of a Best Seller, the new, distinctly unflattering biography", Ira B. Nadel - Most important of all, however, was the way Uris turned these unimaginably tragic and complicated events into a clear-cut and inspiring tale of good against evil—a Middle Eastern Western. ... “You can write westerns in any part of the world,” Uris remarked ... American Jewish intellectuals were frequently appalled by the way Uris turned the Israelis into fantasies of toughness—what one critic called “Jewish Tarzans.” To Robert Alter, Exodus was a clinical case study in “what Americans would like to think about Jews and what American Jewish intellectuals would like to think about themselves.”

AntiWar.com - Uri Avnery - A Villa in the Jungle?, 7 February 2011.

The Guardian - Jack Shenker, Brian Whitaker - The Muslim Brotherhood uncovered, 8 February 2011.

The Guardian - Robert Tait - 28 hours in the dark heart of Egypt's torture machine, 9 February 2011.

BBC - Andrew Lycett - Breaking Germany's Enigma Code, 17 February 2011.

The Guardian - Gareth Peirce - The Birmingham Six: Have we learned from our disgraceful past?, 12 March 2011: For 16 years every other aspect of the case was disregarded; that the men were, in Paddy Hill's words, "tortured and framed" on arrest, beaten, subjected to mock executions, threatened with being thrown from a high building or a car on the motorway, and burnt with cigarettes; that their torturers were the infamous West Midlands serious crime squad, or that the scientist called to Heysham was the incompetent Dr Skuse. ... Within an hour they were in Winson Green prison, where they ran the gauntlet of a lynch mob of prison officers; by the end the teeth of two of the men and the blood of all covered the reception area; the evidence essential to establish in the future that the "confessions" in police custody had been beaten out of them had been obliterated. ... How could the brutal West Midlands serious crime squad remain unscathed, having rampaged unchecked for more than two decades? In the end its overconfidence was its ruin; one interviewee too many, shackled naked to a chair, had been half suffocated with a plastic bag to force a confession. Questionnaires sent out to every prison were returned revealing in unrelated cases the same fabricated police verbals. Officers on the periphery of events in 1974 hinted at the true picture; one Special Branch officer at the Heysham Ferry confided that the night before giving evidence at the trial he had rewritten his entire notebook to coincide with the evidence given by a colleague in court the day before as to the actual time of arrival in Lancashire of the West Midlands police. He excused himself, "you know how things were". But in the end, it was the simplest of stupidities that concluded the matter. As the members of the serious crime squad had written (and rewritten) their false accounts, indentations on the pages underneath revealed how their books had been altered.

Arutz Sheva (IsraelNationalNews.com) - Gilad Sharon - The PA National Story Born in the Wake of Zionism, 14 March 2011.

The Guardian - Richard Norton-Taylor - Every copy of Afghanistan war book bought and pulped by MoD, 15 March 2011.

The Telegraph - MoD tried to stop Dead Men Risen book ‘to prevent ally withdrawing from Afghanistan’, 15 March 2011.

TheNational (UAE) - Jonathan Cook - Israel admits kidnapping operations manager of Gaza's only power plant, 23 March 2011.

The Jewish Chronicle- Anshel Pfeffer - Bombing back in Israel, but not as we knew it, 24 March 2011.

The Jerusalem Post - David Horovitz - How Palestinians will use the GA to advance statehood, 25 March 2011.

The Daily Mail - Daniel Bates, Martin Duell - 'Death Squad': Full horror emerges of how rogue U.S. brigade murdered and mutilated innocent Afghan civilians - and kept their body parts as trophies, 29 March 2011.

Ynetnews.com - Yitzhak Benhorin - UN chief: End occupation, divide Jerusalem, 30 March 2011.

The Washington Post - Richard Goldstone - Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes, 1 April 2011.

Haaretz - Natasha Mozgovaya - What made Goldstone change his mind about the Gaza war report?, 3 April 2011.

Ynetnews.com - Aviel Magnezi - 'Goldstone's road to atonement long' , 3 April 2011.

The Guardian - Conal Urquhart - Israeli authors join campaign to keep Arab bookseller in the country, 3 April 2011.

The Guardian - Aluf Benn - Despite its flaws, the Goldstone report has changed Israel's behaviour in Gaza, 3 April 2011.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - The shady men backed bythe West to displace Gaddafi, 3 April 2011.

Labour and Trade Union Review (The Magazine of The Bevin Society) - David Morrison - There was an alternative to Operation Cast Lead, 4 April 2011.

The New York Times - Ethan Bronner - Prominent Israelis Will Propose a Peace Plan, 4th April 2011.

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Top defense official: Israel faces isolation 'no less severe than war' , 4 April 2011.

Al Jazeera - Noura Erekat - Goldstone: An act of negligence, 4 April 2011.

Haaretz - Amira Hass - Fayyad's road to freedom runs over Israeli law, 4 April 2011.

Ynetnews.com - Alon Liel - Goldstone won’t help us, 4 April 2011: Israel’s record includes blatant, ongoing violations of international law since 1967, especially in respect to the transfer of population to occupation land in Judea and Samaria. On this matter, there is no argument among the international community. We also cannot expect any article by a leading international jurist who will speak out in our defense. Should Israel fail to secure an agreement with the Palestinians by September 2011, these violations will be haunting us as early as this year. (Alon Liel served as the Israeli Foreign Ministry Director General in the years 2000-2001)

The Guardian - Owen Bowcott - Richard Goldstone: the judge who 'regrets' his Gaza report, 5 April 2011.

The Guardian - Ed Pilkington, Conal Urquhart - Goldstone's Gaza report stands, UN insists, 5 April 2011.

The Guardian - Conal Urquhart - Leading Israelis push for two-state solution with new peace initiative, 5 April 2011.

The Guardian - Kenneth Roth - Gaza: the stain remains on Israel's war record, 5 April 2011.

Antiwar.com - Jonathan Cook - Goldstone’s Rethink, 6 April 2011.

The Guardian - Jonathan Freedland - Where's the Goldstone report into Sri Lanka, Congo, Darfur – or Britain, 6 April 2011.

The Independent - Tony Paterson - Secret tapes of 'professional sadists' reveal true story of German soldiers' war brutality, 6 April 2011.

Ynetnews.com - US doubts Goldstone report can be fixed, 6 April 2011.

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Goldstone has paved the path for a second Gaza war, 7 April 2011.

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Goldstone, Yishai in spat over whether judge will take new Cast Lead view to UN, 7 April 2011.

The Guardian - David Leigh, James Ball - Latest WikiLeaks cables reveal Israel's fears and alliances, 7 April 2011: On 12 November 2009 the embassy reported the views of the general responsible for Gaza and southern Israel, Major General Yoav Galant, that Hamas needed to be "strong enough to enforce a ceasefire".

The New York Times - Dan Bilefsky - Warning by Israeli on U.N. Nod to Palestinians, 7 April 2011.

M&C - No Berlin recognition for unilateral Palestinian state, 7 April 2011.

The Independent - Andy Smith - Cabinet 'hushed up' torture of Mau Mau rebels, 8 April 2011.

Haaretz - Eli Ashkenazi - Safed rabbi says struggle to keep the city Jewish moving forward, 8 April 2011.

BBC - Dominic Casciani - British Mau Mau abuse papers revealed, 12 April 2011: The first series of documents have been released by the High Court in the legal challenge by Kenyans for abuses and torture more than 50 years ago. ... The papers - the first of more than 17,000 pages - contain reports of British officers implicated in atrocities including the murder of suspected Mau Mau rebels. One document sent to a cabinet minister says an officer was involved in burning alive a suspect held at a detention and interrogation camp. ... The documents, many of which have yet to be reviewed, cover the eight years of the May Mau uprising and emergency and the response in Kenya and London. ... Baring told the cabinet minister in the telegram that eight European [meaning white] officers had been accused of serious crimes, including accessory to murder. They would be given immunity from prosecution. One district officer was accused of the "beating up and roasting alive of one African". A Kenyan Regiment Sergeant and a field intelligence assistance had been implicated in the burning of two further suspects "during screening operations".

The Guardian - Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin, Desmond Travers - Goldstone report: Statement issued by members of UN mission on Gaza war, 14 April 2011.

Haaretz - Gaza war report co-authors reject Goldstone's retraction, 14 April 2011.

Ynetnews.com - Elior Levy - Soldiers ignore settlers hurling stones, 14 April 2011.

Haaretz - Uri Avneri - Israel must recognize Hamas' government in Gaza, 14 April 2011.

The Guardian - John Hooper - Vittorio Arrigoni: pacifist supporter of the Palestinian cause, 15 April 2011.

The Guardian - Conal Urquhart - Palestinians rally to mourn kidnapped Italian activist murdered by extremists, 15 April 2011.

Haaretz - Barak hails U.S. decision to continue funding Iron Dome, 15 April 2011.

The Western Front - Will Graff - Manning peer sheds light on WikiLeaks: Former military intel analyst shares his thoughts on the motive of alleged leaks, 15 April 2011.

Haaretz - Alon Idan - Another country, 15 April 2011: Thousands of Palestinians go on trial every year in the Ofer military court for offenses like illegally entering Israel or demonstrating against the separation fence. No one really wants to know what goes on there. So is there any point at all to telling this story?

The Guardian - Polly Toynbee - Saturday interview: Aung San Suu Kyi, 16 April 2011.

The Providence Journal - Paul F.M. Zahl - A moral wake-up call from World War II, 17 April 2011.

newKerala.com - Rehman Malik - Pak F-16 fighter jets can't target US drones, 18 April 2011.

The Guardian - Richard Norton-Taylor - Ministry of Defence ordered to disclose involvement in US-led rendition, 18 April 2011.

The Independent - Paul Bignell - Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq, 19 April 2011.

The Guardian - Robert Booth - Fish worth £4m seized in EU crackdown on illegal fishing, 19 April 2011.

The New York Times - Ethan Bronner, Jennifer Medina - Past Holds Clue to Goldstone’s Shift on the Gaza War, 19 April 2011.

The Telegraph - Robin Yapp - Israel "supplied arms to Argentina during Falklands War", 20 April 2011.

The Independent - Jonathan Brown, Paul Bignell, Andy McSmith - Iraqi oil supply was considered to be 'vital' to British interests, 20 April 2011.

Antiwar.com - John Pilger - Marching for Anzac in the 51st State, 22 April 2011.

Haaretz - David Sheen - Wave of vandalism hits non-Orthodox synagogues anew, 22 April 2011.

The Guardian - Nawal El Saadawi - New song of Egypt's elite, 26 April 2011.

The Australian - Ben Packham, Mark Dodd - Secret US files on Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks released by WikiLeaks, 25 April 2011.

Global Security Newswire - ElBaradei Blasts Bush Administration Over Iraq War, 25 April 2011.

The Guardian - Declan Walsh, David Leigh, Jason Burke, Ian Cobain - Guantánamo Bay files: Al-Qaida assassin 'worked for MI6', 26 April 2011.
The Guardian - Clive Stafford Smith - These Guantánamo claims against my client are based on ignorant gossip, 27 April 2011.

Haaretz - Eli Ashkenazi - Lands conference awards Safed rabbi who said Jews shouldn't rent to non-Jews, 28 April 2011.

Haaretz - Avi Issacharoff - PA: New unity government to prepare elections and rehabilitate Gaza, 29 April 2011.

Haaretz - Egypt warns Israel: Don't interfere with opening of Gaza border crossing, 30 April 2011.

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Hamas leader Meshaal in Cairo to sign unity deal, 1 May 2011.

Haaretz - Egypt says it will soon open Gaza border permanently, 1 May 2011.

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Netanyahu: Hamas-Fatah unity deal should worry all those who care about peace, 1 May 2011.

The Guardian - Ewen MacAskill - Osama bin Laden's final moments: America changes its story, 3 May 2011.

GlobalResearch.ca - Michel Chossudovsky - Syria: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO "Humanitarian Intervention", 3 May 2011.

The Guardian - Tania Branigan - North Korea holds 200,000 political prisoners, says Amnesty, 4 May 2011.

New Left Project - JamieSW - Revising the Six Day War, 05 May 2011.

The Guardian - Terry Macalister - Battle for Arctic oil intensifies as US sends Clinton to polar summit, 12 May 2011.

The Guardian - Richard Norton-Taylor - Iraq dossier drawn up to make case for war – intelligence officer, 12 May 2011.

Politico - Ben Smith - Mitchell's exit marks low point, 13 May 2011.

Haaretz - Nir Hasson, Jack Khoury, Anshel Pfeffer - Clashes erupt as Nakba Day protests sweep Palestinian territories, 15 May 2011.
The Washington Post - Joel Greenberg - Israeli troops fire at Palestinian protesters on borders, killing at least 12, 15 May 2011.

Haaretz - Jonathan Lis - Former UN envoy: Israel's international status at all-time low, 20 May 2011.

Haaretz - Jonathan Lis - Netanyahu: Israel willing to 'cede parts of our homeland for true peace', 17 May 2011.

The Guardian - Simon Jenkins - In Libya, Britain has slid into every interventionist fallacy, 17 May 2011.

Salon - Glenn Greenwald - Obama and the Israel Lobby, 22 May 2011.

The Guardian - Tony Klug - Israel and the real failing of resolution 242 (Letter), 26 May 2011: Yet the principal author of resolution 242, Lord Caradon, told me in 1973 that the ambiguity of that phrase was deliberate to avoid either a US or Soviet veto on behalf of their respective allies.

Truthout - Shlomo Ben-Ami - Netanyahu's Border War, 28 May 2011.

PressTV - 'US dropped cluster bombs on Misratah', 29 May 2011.

Daily Mail - Sam Greenhill - Are these men SAS helping Libyan rebels? News crew films Western troops liaising with gunmen, 31 May 2011.

Information Clearing House - Eric Margolis - Coming to America, The Pain In Spain, 31 May 2011.

Information Clearing House - Alan Hart - Peace on Zionism’s Terms, Obama is the wrong target, 31 May 2011.

Haaretz - Carlo Strenger - The Israeli right's refusal to accept other versions of Zionism, 31 May 2011.

Haaretz - Carlo Strenger - Israelis must brace for dark times, 3 June 2011.

Haaretz - Jack Khoury - MKs slam 'racist' Upper Nazareth mayor, 6 June 2011.

Information Clearing House - Chris Floyd - Israel: A Choice To Kill, 7 June 2011.

BBC - Adrian Brown - Osama Bin Laden's death: How it happened, 7 June 2011.

Information Clearing House - M.K. Bhadrakumar - More to Syria Than Meets the Eye -- Major Power Battle Between Kremlin and US Underway, And the Stakes Are High, 15 June 2011: First and foremost, a regime change in Syria has become absolutely critical for breaking Israel's regional isolation. The US-Israeli hope is that the back of the Hezbollah can be broken only if the regime of Assad is overthrown in Damascus and the Syrian-Iranian alliance is ended.

GlobalResearch.ca - Michel Chossudovsky - The Destabilization of Syria and the Broader Middle East War, 17 June 2011.

The Telegraph - Duncan Gardham - Osama bin Laden a 'ranting chief executive', 19 June 2011.

Haaretz - Amir Oren - Defense Ministry: Altalena fallen were 'murdered', 19 June 2011.

Information Clearing House - Ceyda Nurtsch - "The West Is Terrified of Arabic Democracies", 22 June 2011: Interview with Noam Chomsky about the Arabic spring in its global context.

Haaretz - Akiva Eldar - The Oslo Accords are all but dead, 4 July 2011.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Why I had to leave The Times, 11 July 2011: "The end came for me when I flew to Dubai in 1988 after the USS Vincennes had shot down an Iranian passenger airliner over the Gulf. Within 24 hours, I had spoken to the British air traffic controllers at Dubai, discovered that US ships had routinely been threatening British Airways airliners, and that the crew of the Vincennes appeared to have panicked."

Haaretz - Natasha Mozgovaya - Former Israeli diplomats in Washington: 1967 borders are defensible, 25 July 2011.

Spiegel Online - Frank Patalong - Blogging Hate: Anders Breivik's Roots in Right-Wing Populism, 25 July 2011.

Spiegel Online - Charles Hawley - Europe's Right-Wing Populists Find Allies in Israel, 29 July 2011.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution- Rami Al-Shaheibi - NATO bombs Libyan TV transmitters, 30 July 2011: Witnesses say Abdel-Fattah Younis was killed by his comrades this week while in custody after being arrested by the opposition's leadership on suspicion of treason.

The Daily Mail - Simon Walters - The damning of Tony Blair: Former PM to be held to account on Iraq in Chilcot report on war, 31 July 2011.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Why the West is committed to the murderous rebels in Libya, 31 July 2011.

The Independent - Nigel Morris - Blair angered by 'pre-judging' of Chilcot inquiry on Iraq war, 1 August 2011.

The Guardian - Paul lewis - UK riots: Paul Lewis's five-day journey, 12 August 2011.

Yahoo.com - Mike Stobbe - Panel reveals new details of 1940's experiment, 30 August 2011.

AntiWar.com - Philip Giraldi - Israel Wages Lawfare Against Gaza Flotilla, 1 September 2011.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Rebel military chief says he was tortured by CIA, 2 September 2011.

The Guardian - David Batty - Turkey to challenge Gaza blockade at International Court of Justice, 3 September 2011.

The New York Times - Steven Lee Myers, Mark Landler - U.S. Is Appealing to Palestinians to Stall U.N. Vote, 3 September 2011.

The Guardian - Cherry Wilson - Secret Libyan files claim MI6 and the CIA aided human rights violations, 3 September 2011.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - Tony Blair to meet Palestinian and Israeli leaders in peace push, 4 September 2011.

The Guardian - Martin Chulov, Nick Hopkins, Richard Norton-Taylor - Libyan commander demands apology over MI6 and CIA plot, 4 September 2011.

The Guardian - Full text of a CIA document indicating UK role in rendition of a terror suspect, 4 September 2011.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - It's not the brutality that is 'systematic'. It's the lying about it, 9 September 2011.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - New light on an old horror – and still there is no justice, 10 September 2011.

AntiWar.com - Alison Weir - Spinning the Egyptian Anti-Israel Protest, 10 September 2011.

AntiWar.com - John Glaser - Cables: Iraqi Detainees Were Tortured, Beaten, Raped, 12 September 2011.

The Guardian - Harold Evans - "Rupert Murdoch is the stiletto, a man of method, a cold-eyed manipulator", 18 September 2011.

The Guardian - Gilad Atzmon - (Letter): Moral obligation and Jewish identity, 28 September 2013: To paraphrase what I say in my book ["The Wandering Who?"], "An antisemite used to be someone who hates Jews; nowadays an antisemite is someone Jews hate."

The Guardian - Rupert Neate - Adam Werritty bankrolled by three pro-Israel business tycoons, 18 October 2011. (other Werritty-related Guardian articles)

The Guardian - David Leigh, Rupert Neate - Donor in Liam Fox scandal revealed as defence lobbyist Stephen Crouch, 26 October 2016: Crouch gained an audience with Gerald Howarth after donating a reported £20,000 to Adam Werritty. (other Adam Werritty related Guardian articles)

The Independent - Kim Sengupta - Simon Mann: 'My biggest mistake was approaching Mark Thatcher', 31 October 2011.

Information Clearing House - Patrick J. Buchanan - Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor, 6 December 2011.

The Guardian - Seumas Milne - War on Iran has already begun. Act before it threatens all of us, 7 December 2011.

Information Clearing House - Washington’s Enemy ‘Doesn’t Exist’ : Former CIA Officer - transcript of interview with Michael Scheuer, RT news channel, 9 November 2011.

Holocaust Controversies - Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. Chapter 5: Gas Chambers at the Aktion Reinhard Camps (5). The Gassing Engine: Diesel or Gasoline?, 27 December 2011: A re-examination of the relevant testimonies with the Reinhard camps and gas vans reveals an interesting feature, one long ignored by MGK: witnesses who had closer experiences to the actual gassing engine share a large agreement that they were run by gasoline/petrol, while those witnesses with only an indirect hearsay knowledge of the engine were more likely to identify it as diesel.

2012

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Israel's right-wing is trying to stifle the reality of Palestinian demographics, 3 January 2012.

Haaretz - Yoel Marcus - Ehud Barak is a parody of a leader, 7 January 2012.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - The 'invented people' stand little chance , 14 January 2012.

The Guardian - Owen Bowcott - Batang Kali relatives edge closer to the truth about 'Britain's My Lai massacre', 25 January 2012.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - The present stands no chance against the past, 28 January 2012.

The Guardian - Patrick Wintour - Former adviser criticises David Cameron over Liam Fox inquiry, 31 January 2012: Sir Philip Mawer says PM should have asked him to investigate whether former defence secretary breached ministerial code. (other Adam Werritty related Guardian articles)

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Sanctions can only deepen the Iran crisis, 29 January 2012.

Antiwar.com - John Glaser - US Officials: Israel Works With Terror Group to Kill Iranian Scientists, 9 February 2012.

Information Clearing House - Richard Engel, Robert Windrem - Israel Teams With Terror Group to Kill Iran's Nuclear Scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News, 9 February 2012.

Aljazeera - Pepe Escobar - What is really happening in Iran?, 26 February 2012.

Aljazeera - New evidence casts doubt in Lockerbie case, 27 February 2012.

The Guardian - Simon Jenkins - We are fighting Islamism from ignorance, as we did the cold war, 1 March 2012.

Aljazeera - Gareth Porter - Who was behind the Delhi bombing, 02 March 2012.

The Guardian - John Pilger - The dirty war on WikiLeaks, 9 March 2012.

Haaretz - Tom Segev - Recycled rhetoric, 9 March 2012.

The Independent - Catrina Stewart - Israelis build the world's biggest detention centre, 10 March 2012.

Haaretz - Aluf Benn - Netanyahu is preparing Israeli public opinion for a war on Iran, 15 March 2012.

Haaretz - Niva Lanir - Amos Oz: 'I get up in the morning and ask: What if?', 15 March 2012.

Haaretz - U.K's Cameron: No justification for Israeli attack on Iran, 16 March 2012.

Haaretz - David Landau - Backlash to Netanyahu's Iran speech ignores Holocaust's enduring effect , 16 March 2012.

Information Clearing House - Alan Hart - "The most dangerous man in the world" Netanyahu v Obama, 16 March 2012.

The Guardian - Blaine Harden - How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp, 16 March 2012.

Information Clearing House - Gareth Porter - How Mossad Justified Its Murder of an Innocent Iranian Electrical Engineer, 18 March 2012.

Information Clearing House - Stephen Lendman - Rape and Murder in Afghanistan, 19 March 2012.

The Guardian - Glenn Greenwald - Afghanistan and American imperialism, 19 March 2012.

Aljazeera - Neve Gordon - Preparing Israel for war, 21 March 2012.

The Guardian - Simon Jenkins - Margaret Thatcher's biggest debt was to Argentina's navy, 22 March 2012.

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Israel mulls ways to penalize PA in wake of UN human rights probe, 25 March 2012. "We are dealing with Al-Qaida terror on the one hand and diplomatic terror by Abu Mazen on the other," Lieberman said, referring to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Behind the scenes of Israel's new submarine deal with Germany, 25 March 2012.

Haaretz - Natasha Mozgavaya - U.S. Supreme Court: Federal judges to rule on ‘Jerusalem, Israel’ passport case, 26 March 2012: U.S. law, which actually allows passports to list “Jerusalem, Israel”, has existed since 2002. However, like Congress’ decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it was never implemented. ... Since Israel’s founding, the American government has not recognized any sovereignty over Jerusalem, be it Israel, Palestinian or Jordanian. As part of this policy, the U.S. embassy to Israel was established in Tel Aviv, despite a law passed in Congress, calling for the embassy to be moved to Jerusalem. Furthermore, in passports of Jerusalem-born American citizens, the name of the city appears without any reference to a home country.

The Guardian - Jason Burke - One Tibetan woman's tragic path to self-immolation, 26 March 2012.

LewRockwell.com - Eric Margolis - What is really going on in Syria?, 26 March 2012.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - The true price of Egypt's freedom, 27 March 2012.

Information Clearing House - James Petras - The Massacre of the Afghan 17 and the Obama Cover-Up, 27 March 2012.

Information Clearing House - "I Don't Work For You No More""I Am No Longer the Monster I Once Was": Jon Turner relates his experiences in Iraq at the Winter Soldier 2008 event.

The Independent - Jonathan Owen - Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all, 1 April 2012.

The New American - Thomas R Edlem - “Curveball” Reiterates Confession About Iraq War Lies, 2 April 2012.

The Independent - Guy Adams - Scientology's 'heretic': How Marty Rathbun became the arch-enemy of L Ron Hubbard devotees, 7 April 2012.

The Independent - Peter Stanford - Father Bernard Lynch: "The Vatican has told them to get rid of me", 8 April 2012.

The Guardian - Ian Cobain - Special report: Rendition ordeal that raises new questions about secret trials, 8 April 2012: In 2004, Fatima Bouchar and her husband, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, were detained en route to the UK, and rendered to Libya. This is the story of their imprisonment, and the trail of evidence that reveals the involvement of the British government.

BBC - Peter Taylor - Rendition of Abdul Hakim Belhaj, 8 April 2012: In an interview on BBC Radio 4 last year Labour's foreign secretary at the time, Jack Straw, appeared to be unequivocal. "We were opposed to unlawful rendition. We were opposed to any use of torture or similar methods. Not only did we not agree with it, we were not complicit in it and nor did we turn a blind eye to it."

The Progressive - Matthew Rothschild - In Defense of Gunter Grass, 9 April 2012.

The Guardian - Simon Jenkins - The war on terror is corrupting all it touches, 12 April 2012.

Information Clearing House - Teymoor Nabili - A Rare Admission From Israel, 14 April 2012: It's when I challenged him on the biggest talking point of all, Iran's supposed determination to "wipe Israel off the face of the map," that Meridor seemed to stumble outside the lines of the agreed narrative.

The Guardian - Huw Bennett - After the release of colonial records – what about Northern Ireland?, 20 April 2012.

FAIR - Alex Kane - New Conflict of Interest at NYT Jerusalem Bureau, 1 May 2012.

The Guardian - Lawrence Joffe - Benzion Netanyahu obituary, 01 May 2012.

The Guardian - Mark Townsend - Revealed: how Britain tried to legitimise Batang Kali massacre, 6 May 2012.

+972 - Yossi Gurvitz - Thoughts on an attack by a Jewish mob, 24 May 2012.

AntiWar.com - Ran HaCohen - Tel Aviv ‘Race Riots’ Reveal Much About Israel, 28 May 2012.

Information Clearing House - Michel Chossudovsky - "The Salvador Option For Syria" US-NATO Sponsored Death Squads Integrate "Opposition Forces", 28 May 2012.

Haaretz - Amira Has - The warnings we should be hearing, 13 June 2012.

The Nation - Max Blumenthal - The Sugar Mama of Anti-Muslim Hate, 14 June 2012.

The Guardian - Nicholas Watt - The Campbell diaries: Bush left in no doubt over Blair's support for Iraq war, 15 June 2012.

The Guardian - Nicholas Watt - Rupert Murdoch pressured Tony Blair over Iraq, says Alastair Campbell, 15 June 2012.

AntiWar.com - John Glaser - US Plans to Surge Military Presence Across Middle East, 19 June 2012.

Information Clearing House - James O'Neill - Afghanistan: The Top Ten Lies that Recur in the Mainstream Media, 20 June 2012.

The New York Times - Eric Schmitt - C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition, 21 June 2012.

The Daily Mail - David Rose - UK soldiers 'beat innocent Iraqi men in black ops jails but new secret justice law means their torture will be hidden forever', 24 June 2012.

BBC - Gorden Corera - Heath Caper: A Czech blackmail plot against Ted Heath?, 25 June 2012.

The Nation - Clara Gutteridge - How the US Rendered, Tortured and Discarded One Innocent Man, 27 June 2012 [article appeared in the July 16-23, 2012 edition of The Nation].

The Economist - (Palestine and the West Bank) The calm may not last for ever, 30 June 2012.

Aljazeera - Gregg Carlstrom - Arafat's widow calls to exhume his body, 04 July 2012.

AntiWar.com - Grant Smith - Netanyahu Worked Inside Nuclear Smuggling Ring, 04 July 2012.

Haaretz - Chaim Levinsonn, Tomer Zarchin - Netanyahu-appointed panel: Israel isn't an occupying force in West Bank, 9 July 2012.

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Netanyahu knew report on legalizing West Bank outposts would be a diplomatic bombshell, 9 July 2012.

Haaretz - David Kretzmer - Bombshell for the settlement enterprise in Levy report, 10 July 2012.

Haaretz - Bury the report , 10 July 2012.

Haaretz - Michael Sfard - Occupation no more, 10 July 2012.

The Telegraph - Christopher Hope - MI6 chief Sir John Sawers: "We foiled Iranian nuclear weapons bid", 12 July 2012.

The Telegraph - Christopher Hope - Sir John Sawers: US spies 'got so obsessed' with right answer they resorted to torture, 12 July 2012.

The Guardian - Nick Hopkins - Inside Iraq: the British peacenik who became key to the US military, 15 July 2012.

The Guardian - Nick Hopkins - Iraq war will haunt west, says Briton who advised US military, 15 July 2012.

Information Clearing House - Tony Cartalucci - Bombshell: Defected Syrian Ambassador Admits Role in Killing US Troops, 15 July 2012.

Yahoo! News - Israel may punish UN agencies for 'illegal' work, 15 July 2012.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Israeli Govt. Abandons Pledge, Will Subsidize More Settlement Homes, 15 July 2012.

The Guardian - Nick Hopkins - Inside Iraq: "We had to deal with people who had blood on their hands", 16 July 2012.

Ma'an News Agency - Clinton assures Israel Mursi will keep Gaza closure, 16 July 2012.

The Hindu - Russia backs Assad as fighting in Damascus escalates, 16 July 2012.

Information Clearing House - Michael Higgs (Stop the War Coalition) - How Britain's Top Spy is Beating the Drums for War on Iran, 16 July 2012.

AntiWar.com - Justin Raimondo - Tall Tales in Tremseh, 16 July 2012.

The Guardian - Anna Politkovskaya killing: former Moscow policeman charged, 16 July 2012.

Counterpunch - Jonathan Cook - Israel’s Annexation Plan, 18 July 2012.

Haaretz - Chemi Shalev - Levy Committee member angrily rejects protest letter by American leaders, 19 July 2012.

Guardian - Ghaith Abdul-Ahad - Al-Qaida turns tide for rebels in battle for eastern Syria, 30 July 2012.

The National Interest - Eric S. Margolis - Syria and the Invisible Hand of Foreign Intervention, 10 August 2012.

BBC - Israeli 'document' on Iran attack leaked, 15 August 2012.

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Lieberman to Haaretz: Israel must launch concerted campaign to delegitimize Abbas, 26 August 2012.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - The forgotten massacre, 15 September 2012: "Thirty years after 1,700 Palestinians were killed at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps, Robert Fisk revisits the killing fields."

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Israel's National Security Council urges to include Jewish refugees in deal with Palestinians, 24 September 2012.

Haaretz - Rachel Shabi - The Jewish refugee equation: An obnoxious form of diplomacy, 2 October 2012.

+972 - Mairav Zonszein - Testimony: Israeli activist blindfolded, mugged, beaten by settlers, 5 October 2012.

BBC - Vincent Kearney - Inside the Torture Chamber: water boarding allegations against the army and RUC, 6 October 2012.

The New Yorker - Amy Davidson - Beyond Guantánamo's Wardrobe Malfunction, 16 October 2012.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Israel: Gaza Flooded With Missiles From Libya, 17 October 2012.

+972 - Mairav Zonszein - "Non-partisan" campaign urging Americans in Israel to vote linked to the right, 18 October 2012.

AntiWar.com - Andrew P. Napolitano - Who Is Responsible for the Mess in Libya, 18 October 2012.

The Jewish Chronicle - Marcus Dysch - Brick Lane mural gets partial whitewash, 18 October 2012: Freedom for Humanity was painted on a property near Brick Lane in London’s East End last month by renowned international graffiti artist Kalen Ockerman, known as Mear One. White paint now covers the centre section of the mural, which showed a group of apparently Jewish bankers sitting around a Monopoly-style board counting money. ... A fortnight ago the word “Haganah” — the underground military wing of the Jewish leadership in British Mandate Palestine — was scrawled over the mural. A star of David and the words “no to antisemitism” were also said to have been daubed on the work. Mr Ockerman has admitted the work was intended to depict Jewish bankers, but responded to accusations of antisemitism by saying “this I am most definitely not… what I am against is class”.

Information Clearing House - Richard Edmondson - Has the US Banned the Autobiography of a Former Guantanamo Prisoner, 19 October 2012.

The Guardian - Seumas Milne - The end of the New World Order, 19 October 2012.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Gaza-Bound Aid Ship’s Crew Tasered, Greek MPs Reportedly Attacked, 21 October 2012.

AntiWar.com - John Glaser - Jimmy Carter: Netanyahu Has Abandoned Two-State Solution, 22 October 2012.

Haaretz - Amira Hass - You need to have a dream, veteran U.S. civil rights activist tells Obama after visiting West Bank, 22 October 2012.

The Guardian - Glenn Greenwald - Joe Klein's sociopathic defense of drone killings of children, 23 October 2012.

Haaretz - Akiva Eldar - How Israel dug its own grave in Lebanon, 23 October 2012.

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Survey: Most Israeli Jews wouldn't give Palestinians vote if West Bank was annexed, 23 October 2012. [follow-up: Gideon Levy - Errors and omissions excepted, 29 October 2012)

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Apartheid without shame or guilt, 23 October 2012.

The Independent - Catrina Stewart - The new Israeli apartheid: Poll reveals widespread Jewish support for policy of discrimination against Arab minority, 23 October 2012.

Information Clearing House - John Pilger - Making the World a More Dangerous Place: The Eager Role of Julia Gillard, 24 October 2012.

Information Clearing House - Jonathan Cook - Israel‘s Formula For A Starvation Diet (How 400 trucks to feed Gaza became just 67), 24 October 2012.

Information Clearing House - Stephen Lendman - Remembering Russel Means, 25 October 2012.

Information Clearing House - Adam Curtis - He's Behind You, How Colonel Gaddafi and the Western Establishment Created a Pantomime World , 26 October 2012.

CBC (via The Associated Press) - Canada, Israel call for UN investigator's resignation, 26 October 2012.

Israel Hayom - David M. Weinberg - Letter to my American Jewish brothers, 02 November 2012: I know that this makes Obama much closer to you than Romney on matters of reproductive choice, Medicare, healthcare and the environment. And still I would hope and I want to believe that American leadership in the world and its defense of Israel is an equally important, if not more important, consideration for you when it comes time to select the next American president.

Haaretz - Bradley Burston - The 'Exodus' Effect: The Monumentally Fictional Israel That Remade American Jewry, 09 November 2012: Tailoring, altering and radically sanitizing the history of the founding of the State of Israel to flatter the fantasies and prejudices of American Jews, Uris succeeded well beyond his own wildest dreams, essentially remaking his eager readers and himself as well.

Haaretz - Nir Hasson - Israeli peace activist: Hamas leader Jabari killed amid talks on long-term truce, 15 November 2012.

The Huffington Post UK - Christopher York - Israel-Gaza Conflict: Which Side Of The Fence Do Tory, Labour And Liberal Democrats MPs Sit On?, 20 November 2012.

Tablet - Nathalie Rothschild - The Blood Libel that Won't Quit, 03 December 2012.

The New York Review of Books - Richard C. Lewontin - Is There a Jewish Gene?, 6 December 2012.

Norman Finkelstein Blog - Bertrand Russell on Israel and Palestine, 20 December 2012: Bertrand Russell’s Last Message. This statement on the Middle East was dated 31st January, 1970, and was read on 3rd February, the day after Bertrand Russell’s death, to an International Conference of Parliamentarians meeting in Cairo. For over 20 years Israel has expanded by force of arms. After every stage in this expansion Israel has appealed to “reason” and has suggested “negotiations”. This is the traditional role of the imperial power, because it wishes to consolidate with the least difficulty what it has already taken by violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression.

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - UK lawsuit challenges college union’s right to boycott Israel, 21 December 2012.

Aljazeera - Joseph Massad - Zionism, anti-Semitism and colonialism, 24 December 2012: Zionist leaders consciously recognised that state anti-Semitism was essential to their colonial project, writes Massad.

2013

The Independent - Matthew Kalman - Defend government policy or resign, Israel's ambassadors are told, 1 January 2013.

The Irish Story - Aidan Beatty - "A long and oddly intertwined history" – Irish nationalism and Zionism, 23 January 2013: It was not only the most radical Zionists, however, who saw a parallel with Ireland. Moderate Zionists also took a strong interest. This was partly because of Ireland’s presidency of the League of Nations, under whose auspices British rule in Palestine was supposedly granted. Even if the League of Nations remained something of a paper organisation this did create the amusing situation that Britain was, in theory, answerable to a body headed by a de Valera appointee. ... When the 1937 Royal Commission on Palestine recommended partitioning Palestine, Zionists had another reason for taking an interest in the course of Irish history.

The Independent - Alistair Dawber - Israel gave birth control to Ethiopian Jews without their consent, 24 January 2013.

The New Yorker - Patrick Radden Keefe - Rocket Man, 25 November 2013: "How an unemployed blogger confirmed that Syria had used chemical weapons. ... The Brown Moses Blog began as an eclectic collection of videos from Syria, including everything from explosions to street protests. ... Kristyan Benedict, the campaign manager of Amnesty International, told me that the organization has staff members monitoring videos from Syria, but said of Higgins, “He just gets there quicker than a lot of established research outlets have been able to.” ... An admirer of Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein, he generally took a progressive view on foreign policy, and compulsively read the Web site of the Guardian, often being the first to comment on articles relating to politics in the Middle East. ... After Higgins discovered videos of cluster bombs being deployed by the regime, he assisted Human Rights Watch in producing a report."

The Observer - Martin Bright - Katharine Gun: Ten years on what happened to the woman who revealed dirty tricks on the UN Iraq war vote?, 3 March 2013.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Settler Complaints Spawn Israel’s New ‘Arab-Only’ Bus Lines, 3 March 2013.

The Guardian - Mona Mahmood, Maggie O'Kane, Chavala Madlena, Teresa Smith - Revealed: Pentagon's link to Iraqi torture centres, 6 March 2013.

The Guardian - Mona Mahmood, Maggie O'Kane, Chavala Madlena, Teresa Smith, Ben Ferguson, Patrick Farrelly, Guy Grandjean, Josh Strauss, Roisin Glynn, Irene Baqué, Marcus Morgan, Jake Zervudachi, Joshua Boswell - From El Salvador to Iraq: Washington's man behind brutal police squads, 6 March 2013.

Haaretz - Rachel Shabi - For generation of British lefties, Matzpen hasn't lost moral compass,06 March 2013: An appreciation of Akiva Orr, a co-founder of the revolutionary socialist, anti-Zionist organization Matzpen, and its powerful influence on British leftists.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Iraq: a history that must not be repeated, 8 March 2013.

Information Clearing House - Maidhc Ó Cathail - 20 Israel Partisans Behind Iraq War Still at Large, 12 March 2013.

Information Clearing House - Kevin Ryan - Official Account of the 9/11 Attacks Unraveling. Forgetting Torture: Lee Hamilton, John Brennan, and Abu Zubaydah, 14 March 2013. [7]

FoxNews.com - Egyptian Christians describe torture at the hands of Libyan captors, 15 March 2013.

allAfrica - Libya: Security of Christian Communities 'Precarious' in Libya - Archbishop, 15 March 2013.

BBC - Vatican denies Dirty War allegations against Pope, 15 March 2013.

BBC - David Taylor - The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon's 'treason' , 16 March 2013.

The Guardian - Alan Travis - Thatcher papers show Falklands doubts in heart of Downing Street, 22 March 2013.

The Independent - Andy McSmith - Thatcher confidential: The untold story of the Falklands War, 22 March 2013.

Times Higher Education - Jack Grove - Tribunal slams academic for bringing anti-Semitism case, 27 March 2013. (Empoyment Tribunal Judgement: Evidence given to us about booing, jeering and harassing of Jewish speakers at Congress debates was also false, as truthful witnesses on the Claimant’s side accepted. One painfully ill-judged example of playing to the gallery was Mr Newmark’s preposterous claim, in answer to the suggestion in cross-examination that he had attempted to push his way into the 2008 meeting, that a ‘pushy Jew’ stereotype was being applied to him. The opinions of witnesses were not, of course, our concern and in most instances they were in any event unremarkable and certainly not unreasonable. One exception was a remark of Mr Newmark in the context of the academic boycott controversy in 2007 that the union was “no longer a fit arena for free speech”, a comment which we found not only extraordinarily arrogant but also disturbing. We did not derive assistance from the two Members of Parliament who appeared before us. Both gave glib evidence, appearing supremely confident of the rightness of their positions. For Dr MacShane, it seemed that all answers lay in the MacPherson Report (the effect of which he appeared to misunderstand). Mr Mann could manage without even that assistance. He told us that the leaders of the Respondents were at fault for the way in which they conducted debates but did not enlighten us as to what they were doing wrong or what they should be doing differently. He did not claim ever to have witnessed any Congress or other UCU meeting. And when it came to anti-Semitism in the context of debate about the Middle East, he announced, “It’s clear to me where the line is ...” but unfortunately eschewed the opportunity to locate it for us. Both parliamentarians clearly enjoyed making speeches. Neither seemed at ease with the idea of being required to answer a question not to his liking.)

Commentary Magazine - Ben Cohen - How British Justice Failed Ronnie Fraser, 28 March 2013.

The Jewish Chronicle - Jenni Frazer - Pro-Israel activist's case against UCU fails, 28 March 2013.

Huffington Post - Jessica Elgot - UCU 'Not Anti-Semitic' Tribunal Rules After Case By Academic Friends Of Israel Campaigner Ronnie Fraser, 28 March 2013.

The Jewish Chronicle - Simon Rocker - Anti-Israel union case was ‘act of epic folly’, 4 April 2013.

The Independent - Jonathan Owen - Tony Blair and Iraq: The damning evidence, 7 April 2013.

Haaretz - Anshel Pfeffer - British Jewry in turmoil after tribunal blasts pro-Israel activist for bringing harassment case, 8 April 2015.

The Daily Beast - Ali Gharib - What Kind Of Friend To Israel Was Thatcher, 8 April 2013.

The Jerusalem Post - Ariel Ben Solomon - WikiLeaks: US blamed Israel for peace delay in 1975, 10 April 2013.

The Times of Israel - David Horovitz - The ‘Vicar of Baghdad’ comes to Jerusalem, 11 April 2013.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Iran election: Farewell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we’ll miss you – but not that much..., 13 April 2013.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - Film-maker captures Israeli spy chiefs' doubts over covert killing operations, 14 April 2013

Information Clearing House - Gearóid Ó Colmáin - France’s Media Admits that the Syrian “Opposition” is Al Qaida, 15 April 2013.

Haaretz - Amira Hass - Stone-throwing, an old Jewish custom, 15 April 2013: "... the man who in 1943 wrote the brilliant poem on Ponary, where 70,000 Vilna Jews were driven into pits by the Nazis and shot as were gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war and opponents of the Nazi regime."

The Electronic Intifada - Ilan Pappé - When Israeli denial of Palestinian existence becomes genocidal, 20 April 2013.

Haaretz - Chaim Levinson - Ex-IDF top rabbi: Publishing discriminatory Jewish ruling was blunder, 21 April 2013.

The Telegraph - Peter Osborne - Iran: how the West missed a chance to make peace with Tehran, 21 April 2013.

The Guardian - Seumas Milne - Shaker Aamer and the dirty secrets of the war on terror, 23 April 2013.

Information Clearing House - John Pilger - Dance on Thatcher's Grave, but Remember, There Has Been a Coup in Britain, 25 April 2013.

Counterpunch - Franklin Lamb - Zionists and Gulf Monarchs Ponder Pushing Al Qaeda to Take on Hezbollah, 26 April 2013.

Stop the War Coalition - Lindsey German - Tony Blair attacks Islam to absolve his wars from any responsibility for the Woolwich killing, 3 May 2013.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - How Achille Lauro hijackers were seduced by high life, 5 May 2013.

Guardian - Seumas Milne - The west and its allies cynically bleed Syria to weaken Iran, 7 May 2013.

The Independent - Andy McSmith - Melanie Phillips: The scourge of the Left has joined the world of e-publishing, 10 May 2013.

Information Clearing House - Eric Margolis - A Welcome Pause in the Craziness Over Syria, 11 May 2013.

Electronic Intifada - Amena Saleem - Senior BBC official insists that all of Jerusalem is an “Israeli” city, 17 May 2013.

Haaretz - Ofer Aderet - The Gospel according to Sand: We are not Jews, 19 May 2013: “Being a Jew in Israel means, first and foremost, not being an Arab.”

BBC - Matt Carr - Rewriting History, Iraq and the BBC Glove Puppets, 10 June 2013.

The Guardian - Leo Benedictus, Leo Hickman, Richard Norton-Taylor - Edward Snowden and whistleblowers: 'The truth sets you free', 11 June 2013 - Seth Freedman: "When I first worked in the City, as a coked-up teenage trader, I saw corruption around the clock, but I never spoke out."

The Guardian - Ewen MacAskill - Edward Snowden: how the spy story of the age leaked out, 12 June 2013.

The Times of Israel - Naomi Chazan - Israel’s new post-Zionists, 2 June 2013.

Information Clearing House - Alex Kane - What Bradley Manning Showed The World About Israel/Palestine, 13 June 2013.

The Slate - Josh Voorhees - Bill Clinton Suggests Obama Risks Looking Like a "Wuss" and "Total Fool" on Syria, 13 June 2013.

Information Clearing House - “The Palestinian Future is In Jordan”: Israeli deputy Defense Minister, 14 June 2013.

Arutz Sheva - Gil Ronen - 100-Year-Old Israeli General: We Razed Arab Villages, So What, 14 June 2013: “My conscience is at ease with that, because if we hadn't done so, then there would be no state by now. There would be a million more Arabs,” ... Sharon was an unnecessarily cruel commander who once said at a meeting with officers that he would offer champagne to whoever killed an enemy fighter – and whoever brings him a wounded enemy "will drink soda."

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Iran to send 4,000 troops to aid President Assad forces in Syria, 16 June 2013.

The Times of Israel - Naomi Chazan - When wrong is also stupid, 16 June 2013.

Truthout - Stephen Zunes - Troubling Implications of Susan Rice's Appointment as National Security Adviser, 17 June 2013.

The Times of Israel - Cnaan Lipshiz - Efforts to blacklist Hezbollah in Europe curtailed by Bulgaria, 19 June 2013.

The Guardian - Peter Forbes - Peter Forbes: rereading Einstein's collected papers, 21 June 2013: "The Zionists are shameless and importunate; I have a hard time adopting the appropriate position in each instance, considering that I am, of course, well-disposed to the cause."

Truthout - Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez - Did US Government Lie About TWA Flight 800 Crash? Ex-Investigators Seek Probe as New Evidence Emerges, 21 June 2013.

RT - 'Get them to write a big check:' Irish banker pulls bailout figure from 'arse' in leaked tapes, 24 June 2013.

Wired - Kevin Poulsen - WikiLeaks Volunteer Was a Paid Informant for the FBI, 27 June 2013.

YNet - US: Morsi's government was undemocratic, 7 July 2013.

The Independent - Ian Birrell - Some protests suit Blair more than others, 9 July 2013.

Aljazeera - Neve Gordon, Nicola Perugini - Israel's indigenous invaders, 10 July 2013.

Information Clearing House - Jonathan Cook - Treatment of Palestinians is Apartheid by Any Other Name, 10 July 2013.

Aljazeera - Emad Mekay - Exclusive: US bankrolled anti-Morsi activists, 10 July 2013.

Shabab Libya - Jenan Moussa and Harald Doornabus for Foreign Policy - Comrades in Arms: How Libya sends weapons to Syria’s rebels, 10 July 2013.

The Guardian - The NSA Files.

Information Clearing House - Glen Ford - The U.S. was a Passive Observer in Egypt – If You Believe the New York Times, 11 July 2013.

Information Clearing House - Thomas Hedges - “Everyone is Corrupt, I’ve Come to Learn”, 12 July 2013: Imprisoned CIA whistle-blower John Kiriakou has advice for Snowden -- and a warning for the rest of us.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - EU Bans Cooperation With Settlements, Fueling Israeli Ire, 16 July 2013.

The Atlantic - Olga Khazan - The Creepy, Long-Standing Practice of Undersea Cable Tapping, 16 July 2013.

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Netanyahu responds to EU: Israel will not tolerate external edicts on our borders, 16 July 2013.

BBC - Dave Lee - How Scientology changed the internet, 17 July 2013.

The Daily Beast - Josh Rogin - U.S. to Push for Israeli Seat on U.N. Security Council, 17 July 2013.

AntiWar.com - Philip Giraldi - The Mystery of TWA 800, 18 July 2013.

The Guardian - Simon Jenkins - David Cameron has failed to resist the lunchtime lobbyists' lure, 18 July 2013.

The Guardian - Patrick Kingsley - Killing in Cairo: the full story of the Republican Guards' club shootings, 18 July 2013.

CNN - Gary Sick - Netanyahu's crying wolf on Iran, 18 July 2013.

The Daily Mail - Commander Robert Green - Why I believe sinking of Belgrano made MI5 murder my crusading aunt, 20 July 2013.

The Times of Israel - Gavriel Fiske - Israel praises Hezbollah blacklist, calls on EU to go further, 22 July 2013.

The Independent - Peter Popham - 'Buddhist Bin Laden' Wirathu unharmed by car bomb attack in Burma, 22 July 2013.

Information Clearing House - Franklin Lamb - Caving to White House Pressure Livni Squeals, Kerry Deals and the EU Picks Up the Tab, 23 July 2013: Ms. Livni demanded three things from Kerry as the ‘price tag’ of the Israeli government going thru the motions of appearing to be willing to resume negotiations and to state publicly that Israel will consider some sort of slow-down or temporary ‘time-out’ for the frenzied construction project on the West Bank.

Yahoo! News - Oliver Holmes (Reuters) - Diluted Hezbollah terror listing by EU is largely symbolic, 23 July 2013: Hezbollah's deputy leader said last year his group did not divide itself into military and political wings, saying all elements were "in the service of the resistance" against Israel.

Haaretz - U.S. court rules Americans born in Jerusalem cannot list 'Israel' as place of birth, 23 July 2013.

Information Clearing House - Lawrence Davidson - The Boycott of Israel Eight Years In, 29 July 2013.

Information Clearing House - Richard Falk - Reviving the Israel-Palestine Negotiations: The Indyk Appointment, 01 August 2013.

The Observer - Hugh O'Shaughnessy - Chilean coup: 40 years ago I watched Pinochet crush a democratic dream, 7 September 2013.

+972 - Noam Sheizaf - Jerusalem Court: Okay to call Im Tirtzu a ‘fascist group’, 08 September 2020: Im Tirtzu has become known over the past several years for their attacks on left-wing academics and organizations. ... Later, Im Tirtzu members campaigned against academics who taught courses about the Palestinian narrative of 1948, and led the campaign to shut down the political science department in Ben Gurion University, which was considered too “lefty.” ... This is a major blow to Im Tirtzu’s attempts to position themselves as a mainstream grassroots movement. In the past, group members threatened a lawsuit against Wikipedia Israel for calling it “a right-wing movement” on its entry. Im Tirtzu has been sponsored by John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel. According to the movement’s report, in recent years most of the support to Im Tirtzu comes from the Central Fund of Israel, which sponsors various religious, right-wing and settler causes.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - (Voices>Commment) Gas missiles 'were not sold to Syria', 22 September 2013: While the Assad regime in Damascus has denied responsibility for the sarin gas missiles that killed around 1,400 Syrians in the suburb of Ghouta on 21 August, information is now circulating in the city that Russia's new "evidence" about the attack includes the dates of export of the specific rockets used and – more importantly – the countries to which they were originally sold. They were apparently manufactured in the Soviet Union in 1967 and sold by Moscow to three Arab countries, Yemen, Egypt and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's Libya. ... And even if the Assad regime was not responsible for the 21 August attacks, its forces have committed war crimes aplenty over the past two years. Torture, massacre, the bombardment of civilian targets have long been proved. ... Nevertheless, it also has to be said that grave doubts are being expressed by the UN and other international organisations in Damascus that the sarin gas missiles were fired by Assad's army. While these international employees cannot be identified, some of them were in Damascus on 21 August and asked a series of questions to which no one has yet supplied an answer. Why, for example, would Syria wait until the UN inspectors were ensconced in Damascus on 18 August before using sarin gas little more than two days later – and only four miles from the hotel in which the UN had just checked in?

The Guardian - Richard J. Evans - The Bombing War: Europe 1939‑1945 by Richard Overy – review, 27 September 2013.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Further proof emerges of Turkey’s genocide, 13 October 2013.

Information Clearing House - Max Blumenthal - The Desert of Israeli Democracy, 14 October 2013: Back in November 1989, while serving as a junior minister in the Likud-led governing coalition of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, a younger Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan University, “Israel should have taken advantage of the suppression of demonstrations [at China’s Tiananmen Square], when the world’s attention was focused on what was happening in that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the Territories. However, to my regret, they did not support that policy that I proposed, and which I still propose should be implemented.”

BBC - Israel warns against easing sanctions on Iran, 14 October 2013.

+972 - Noam Sheizaf - Report: EU to bypass its own anti-settlements guidelines, 17 October 2013.

London Review of Books - Nick Richardon - Nothing Fits, Vol. 35 No. 20, 24 October 2013, pages 35-38: "None of the stories we’ve been told about Meredith Kercher’s death really works."

The Guardian - Tom Kington - Costa Concordia engine-room crew tells court: "Captain didn't care if we died", 12 November 2013.

The National - Jonathan Cook - Israel’s gains from the death of Arafat cannot be ignored, 12 November 2013.

Asia Times - Pepe Escobar - Why France is playing 'stupid' on Iran, 12 November 2013.

The Independent - Oliver Wright - Tony Blair kept Cabinet in the dark over Iraq 'deliberately' as ministers evaluated case for war in 2003, 13 November 2013.

The Guardian - Randeep Ramesh, Alex Hern - Conservative party deletes archive of speeches from internet, 13 November 2013: The party has removed the archive from its public website, erasing records of speeches and press releases from 2000 until May 2010. ... In a remarkable step the party has also blocked access to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a US-based library that captures webpages for future generations, using a software robot that directs search engines not to access the pages. ... The Wayback Archive was used by the Guardian last year when it began to investigate the software company set up by the Tory party chair Grant Shapps, who used the name Michael Green in the business. Traces of his family firm, which marketed software that the police said if sold could constitute the offence of fraud, disappeared from the archive a few weeks after the newspaper printed stories about Shapps. A slew of websites disappeared, leaving no trace of Michael Green's offer to make $20,000 (£12,500) in 20 days "or your money back" or details of phone lines offering expert internet marketing advice for $297 an hour. (Computer Weekly, 12 November 2013: "Conservatives erase Internet history")

Information Clearing House - Uri Avnery - The Assassination, 16 November 2013.

Information Clearing House - Gareth Porter - Lavrov Reveals Amended Draft Circulated at “Last Moment”, 16 November 2013.

+972 - Mairav Zonszein - European MPs to Ashton: Make Israel pay for settlements, 21 November 2013.

RT - ‘Incoherence, inconsistency, opacity’: Report reveals UK blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan, 22 November 2013.

Information Clearing House - Howard Zinn - The Problem is Civil Obedience, from Violence: The Crisis of American Confidence, Johns Hopkins Press, 1972.

BBC - Vincent Kearney - Former internees claim 'new evidence' of Army torture, 28 November 2013.

BBC - Mark Dowd - Why did Pope Benedict XVI resign, 28 November 2013.

EJP (European Jewish Press) - (Andrea Teoharescu) - ‘Working Definition’ of anti-Semitism abandoned by Europe - 14 December 2013 (29 November 2013).

Information Clearing House - Thierry Meyssan - François Hollande, Zionist Always, 30 November 2013: It all started in 2004 with the break between Jacques Chirac and Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian President had promised his French counterpart to favour Total’s tender. But when the French proposal reached the palace, it was so disadvantageous for the country that the president changed his mind. Furious, Jacques Chirac broke with Syria and presented Resolution 1559 to the Security Council. ... In Le Figaro, his friend, Israeli President Shimon Peres glowingly compared him to Léon Blum and to Guy Mollet, although the latter is no longer popular in France. In 1936, the former had proposed to surpass the UK by creating the State of Israel in Lebanon, which was then under French mandate. In 1956 the latter attempted to seize the Suez Canal with the help of the Israeli army.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Nearly a century after the Armenian genocide, these people are still being slaughtered in Syria, 1 December 2013.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - Israel's plan to forcibly resettle Negev Bedouins prompts global protests, 1 December 2013: In response to the demonstrations, Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said: "We are fighting over the national land of the Jewish people and there are those that intentionally try to steal that land and control it by force. It is impossible to close our eyes and run from this reality."

Information Clearing House - Alan Hart - Zionism’s Last Card and Hope For Palestine, 2 December 2013: At the time, and with the help of the Zionist lobby, Ben-Gurion was blocking Kennedy’s efforts to prevent Israel possessing nuclear weapons. In other words, Kennedy was seeking to prevent Israel actually doing, for real, what Israel is falsely accusing Iran of doing!

+972 - Alma Biblash (translated by Dimi Reider) - Beaten, arrested, threatened: A personal account from the anti-Prawer protest, 4 December 2013.

The Guardian - Richard Davenport-Hines - Stephen Ward Was Innocent, OK by Geoffrey Robertson – review, 4 December 2013.

The Times of Israel - EU drops its ‘working definition’ of anti-Semitism, 05 December 2013: Fundamental Rights Agency had previously defined the term to include the vilification of Israel or Israelis. ... Campaigners against anti-Semitism said the document is significant because alongside classical anti-Semitic behavior, it lists the vilification of Israel or Israelis, which some scholars call “new anti-Semitism.” The definition lists “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and drawing comparisons between Israel and Nazis as examples of anti-Semitism. ... Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center told JTA that the agency’s “disowning of its own definition is astounding” and that “those who fight anti-Semitism have lost an important weapon.” He also said the “Union’s about-face on its own definition damages its credibility.”

The Independent - Steve Connor - Life on Earth may have developed below rather than above ground, reveal scientists, 8 December 2013.

El País - Walter Oppenheimer - ‘The Guardian’ falls under the shadow of McCarthyism, 8 December 2013.

London Review of Books - Seymour M. Hersh - Whose sarin?, 8 December 2013.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - An obsessive’s documenting of Israeli war crimes in Lebanon can show us how the West lost respect for international law, 8 December 2013.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Mass murder in the Middle East is funded by our friends the Saudis, 8 December 2013.

+972 - Michael Omer-Man - See the Prawer Plan map Israel's government was keeping secret, 9 December 2013.

Haaretz - Chaim Levinson - IDF seized West Bank house despite court ruling for Palestinian owners, 9 December 2013'

FAIR - Peter Hart - Hersh: Syria Sarin Story "Was Bought by the Mainstream Press", 9 December 2013.

The Times of Israel - Abraham H. Foxman - How Mandela won over the Jewish community, 9 December 2013.

The Guardian - Simon Jenkins - The Mandela coverage and the banality of goodness, 10 December 2013.

Information Clearing House - Jeff Kaye - CIA Document Suggests U.S. Lied About Biological, Chemical Weapon Use in the Korean War, 11 December 2013.

The Independent - James Cusick - Lockerbie: If not Megrahi, then who?, 16 December 2013.

London Review of Books - Seymour M. Hersh - Whose sarin?, Vol. 35 No. 24, 19 December 2013: "Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack."

+972 - Ran Greenstein - Did Mandela actually receive training from the Mossad?, 25 December 2013.

+972 - Larry Derfner - The world's blatant double standard - in Israel's favor, 27 December 2013.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - Israeli government backs Jordan Valley annexation ahead of John Kerry visit, 31 December 2013.

Haaretz - Dov Waxman - Where's the All-powerful Israel Lobby Now?, 31 December 2013: AIPAC's power is legendary, not least to conspiracy theorists, but the pro-Israel lobby’s latest push for Congress to impose more sanctions on Iran reveals the limitations of its influence. ... Both its detractors and its supporters alike view the lobby, especially AIPAC, as enjoying immense influence in Washington DC. This perception has itself fuelled the lobby’s power, as politicians fear incurring its supposedly mighty wrath. Now this power is being tested in a very public manner. ... You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist or an anti-Semite to see AIPAC’s hands all over this bill. Whatever the motivations of the senators proposing the legislation - it is worth noting that Senator Kirk is one of the biggest recipients of campaign funding from pro-Israel political action committees (PACs) - this is a bill that AIPAC strongly supports, along with the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, two other influential members of the pro-Israel lobby. ... Most importantly, American foreign policy is really made in the White House, not on Capitol Hill. However much sway the pro-Israel lobby, and AIPAC in particular, has in Congress, it is no match for a determined President when it comes to foreign policy. On the few occasions when AIPAC has directly challenged a president, as it famously did over President Ronald Reagan’s sale of AWACs aircraft to Saudi Arabia in 1981 and President George H.W. Bush’s suspension of loan guarantees to Israel in 1991, it has lost. Now that President Barack Obama has promised to veto the Iran sanctions bill if it gets through the Senate, AIPAC will probably suffer another defeat.

2014

Foreign Policy - Calder Walton - How Zionist Extremism Became British Spies’ Biggest Enemy, 2 January 2014.

The Guardian - Owen Bowcroft - Thatcher's discussions over murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher revealed, 3 January 2014.

The Guardian - Ed Pilkington - Burglars in 1971 FBI office break-in come forward after 43 years, 7 January 2014.

The Guardian - Bonnie Raines - Democracy needs whistleblowers. That's why I broke into the FBI in 1971, 7 January 2014.

The Wall Street Journal - Robert M. Gates - The Quiet Fury of Robert Gates, 7 January 2014.

The Independent - Tom Harper - Scotland Yard’s rotten core: Police failed to address ‘endemic corruption’, 9 January 2014.

The Independent - Tom Harper - The corruption of Britain: UK’s key institutions infiltrated by criminals, 10 January 2014.

The Guardian - Lawrence Joffe - Ariel Sharon obituary, 11 January 2014.

The Independent - Eric Silver - Ariel Sharon dies: Obituary, 11 January 2014.

+972 - Dimi Reider - Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dies at 85, 11 January 2014.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - Ariel Sharon divides opinion as sharply in death as he did in life, 12 January 2014.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Iran’s dead poets society: The execution of Hashem Shabaani shows the pen can be mightier than the sword, 13 February 2014.

Information Clearing House - Jonathan Cook - Why Israelis are Content to Live in a Bubble of Denial, 26 February 2014.

The Independent - Cahal Milmo - Enemy within: The network of Britons who spied for Hitler during Second World War, 27 February 2014.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Were it not for the French, Hezbollah would all be Syrians fighting on their own government’s side inside their own country, 2 March 2014.

Information Clearing House - Pawel Kuczyński - Reichstag Fire in Kiev, 2 March 2014.

The Independent - Boyd Tonkin - The Vikings: Why do the seafaring warriors still intrigue us?, 4 March 2014.

Washington Post - Henry Kissinger - How the Ukraine Crisis Ends, 06 March 2014: The Ukrainians are the decisive element. They live in a country with a complex history and a polyglot composition. The Western part was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939, when Stalin and Hitler divided up the spoils. Crimea, 60 percent of whose population is Russian, became part of Ukraine only in 1954 , when Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian by birth, awarded it as part of the 300th-year celebration of a Russian agreement with the Cossacks. The west is largely Catholic; the east largely Russian Orthodox. The west speaks Ukrainian; the east speaks mostly Russian. Any attempt by one wing of Ukraine to dominate the other — as has been the pattern — would lead eventually to civil war or breakup. To treat Ukraine as part of an East-West confrontation would scuttle for decades any prospect to bring Russia and the West — especially Russia and Europe — into a cooperative international system.

The Guardian - Marina Lewycka - Ukraine and the west: hot air and hypocrisy, 10 March 2014.

The Telegraph - Gordon Rayner - Lockerbie bombing 'was work of Iran, not Libya' says former spy, 10 March 2014: "Iranian defector Abolghassem Mesbahi says Pan Am 103 attack was revenge for US Navy strike on Iranian passenger jet."

The Independent - James Cusick - New Lockerbie report says Libyan was framed to conceal the real bombers, 11 March 2014.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Al-Qa’ida, the second act: Why the global 'war on terror' went wrong, 16 March 2014.

Information Clearing House - John Pilger - The Forgotten Coup - How the Godfather Rules from Canberra to Kiev, 17 March 2014.

+972 - Noam Sheizaf - The death of an Israeli war hero and Palestinian "incitement", 17 March 2014.

The Guardian - Stuart Clark - Primordial gravitational wave discovery heralds 'whole new era' in physics, 17 March 2014.

Salon - Roger Waters - Roger Waters: Why I must speak out on Israel, Palestine and BDS, 17 March 2014.

Information Clearing House - Kourosh Ziabari interview with Gareth Porter - Israel Provided IAEA with Fake Documents on Iran’s Nuclear Program, 18 March 2014.

The Guardian - Nafeez Ahmed - Iraq invasion was about oil, 20 March 2014.

Consortiumnews.com - Robert Parry - Firewall: Inside the Iran-Contra Cover-up, 21 March 2014.

The Observer - Ian Sample - Gravitational waves discovery: "We have a first tantalising glimpse of the cosmic birth pangs", 22 March 2014.

The Daily Mail - Mark Nichol - British snipers killed Afghans in pointless 'turkey shoot' and boosted support for the Taliban, says major who revealed how troops died due to lack of equipment, 22 March 2014.

The National - Ben White - Israel fears the ‘apartheid’ label as it reveals its gruesome tactics, 22 March 2014.

The Daily Mail - Peter Hitchens - We're being dragged into a new Cold War by a puffed-up bullfrog (and I don't mean President Putin), 23 March 2014.

Electronic Indifada - Ali Abunimah - Al Jazeera once again removes Joseph Massad article on Palestine, 24 March 2014.

Yahoo.com - Louis Charbonneau (Reuters) - U.S. says glad 'noxious' U.N. rights envoy for Palestine leaving, 24 March, 2014.

The Guardian - Peter Beaumont - Plan to transfer Arab-Israelis to new Palestinian state seeks legal approval, 25 March 2014.

Information Clearing House - Alan Hart - An Israeli Takeover of the Palestine Authority…?, 25 March 2014.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Israel’s ‘Gaza Arms Ship’ Likely Wasn’t Heading to Gaza, 25 March 2014.

The Guardian - Tariq Ali - How Vladimir Putin became evil, 28 March 2014.

Ynet - US defends Israel at UN Human Rights Council meeting, 28 March 2014.

The Guardian - Vanessa Thorpe - Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers, 29 March 2014.

Aljazeera - Jonathan Cook - Israel to consider war crimes case, 29 March 2014.

Mother Jones - Andy Kroll, David Corn - In Private Speech, Dick Cheney Talks Bombing Iran and GOP Donors Applaud, 1 April 2014.

Al-Akhbar (Reuters) - Israel threatens annexation against Palestinian move to join UN agencies, 2 April 2014.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - A Week Late, Israel ‘Cancels’ Prisoner Release, Blaming PA, 3 April 2014.

Reuters - Noah Browning - Palestinian U.N. moves designed to avoid U.S. retaliation, 3 April 2014.

The Independent - Tony Paterson - A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: Austro-Hungarian army executes civilians in Serbia, 7 April 2014.

IPS News - Thalif Deen - Criminal Court a U.S.-Israeli “Red Line” for Palestinians, 7 April 2014.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Has Recep Tayyip Erdogan gone from model Middle East 'strongman' to tin-pot dictator?, 10 April 2014: Once a cuddly ally of Barack Obama, the Turkish Prime Minister has shown himself to be increasingly authoritarian.

Haaretz - Meir Zamir - Uncovered: U.K. Intel Encouraged Arab Armies to Invade Israel in 1948, 10 April 2014: Intelligence obtained by the French secret services in the Middle East sheds new light on Britain’s role in the Arab-Israeli War of Independence. ... On September 20, the Lebanese newspaper Le Jour reported that after the Arab League meeting in Saoufar, Lebanon, Brig. Iltyd Clayton – whom it defined as “head of the British intelligence in the Middle East” – had left for Damascus. It quoted a Syrian newspaper speculating on whether his visit was connected to the Greater Syria scheme and the tense relations between the Syrian and Lebanese presidents (Shukri al-Quwatli and Bishara al-Khuri) and Jordan’s King Abdullah, or to events in Palestine. ... In fact, these and other reports in the Lebanese press on the activities of British secret agents were part of a secret war being waged by French intelligence against the British. Information conveyed by the French intelligence services to the Haganah [the prestate underground Jewish army] in the fall of 1947 indicated that Brig. Clayton and his assistants were involved in a new initiative to secure Britain’s strategic position in the Middle East, and linked Clayton to the escalating Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine. The sources also referred to a new partition plan proposed by Clayton, which, contradicting that of the United Nations, aimed to split Palestine between the neighboring Arab states and limit the designated territory of the Jewish state to the coastal area between Atlit [just south of Haifa] and Tel Aviv. ... The French tied this initiative to renewed British efforts to implement the 1946 Morrison-Grady Plan [aka the Cantonization Plan] and warned of the danger of an attack on the Yishuv [Jewish community in Palestine] by irregular forces organized by the Arab League. ... Reports in the Haganah archives from those months – where Clayton’s name figures frequently – tie the escalation in the Arab-Jewish conflict to Britain’s efforts to secure its strategic position in the Middle East. They, too, alluded to a new scheme, promoted by the British secret services in Cairo, to divide Palestine between the neighboring Arab states. In the early months of 1948, information continued to reach SHAI on secret British attempts, orchestrated by Brig. Clayton’s “clique” in Cairo, to reconcile the Arab leaders and convince them to join forces to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state. ... The urgency to uncover the British secret services’ intentions prompted Ben-Gurion to approve the “Acre operation,” in which the Haganah seized the files of the British Legation in Beirut, on December 25, 1947, as they were being transferred from Beirut to Haifa, en route to Britain. ... Zaslani counted the following against them: Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin’s adviser, Harold Bailey; Brig. Clayton; and Gerald de Gaury, a Foreign Office Arabist and liaison officer. Zaslani noted that these “experts,” who advocated a collective military agreement with the Arab countries, believed that a future Jewish state could not be relied upon. He added that they were reinforcing the Arab side without the cabinet’s agreement. Nevertheless, he assessed that they would not be able to influence the cabinet’s decision to end the mandate and withdraw British forces from Palestine, as it was supported by the two highest-ranking British officials – High Commissioner of Palestine Alan Cunningham and the commander of the British forces in Palestine, Gen. Gordon MacMillan. ... Syrian and British documents uncovered in French archives confirm de Gaulle’s accusations and reinforce Ben-Gurion’s charges. These documents and French intelligence reports reveal that the British-Arabist secret agents, who engineered France’s eviction from the Levant in 1945, took similar steps to prevent the formation of a Jewish state in 1947-48. ... Two conclusions can be drawn from research into these documents, which are relevant to the role of British intelligence in the war in Palestine. The first is that, in the 1940s, Britain conducted a two-track policy in the Middle East: one, a well-documented, official policy defined by Whitehall under both the Conservative and Labour parties; the second was informal and secretive, which can be termed “regional,” implemented by “agents in the field,” which left few traces in British archives. It was perpetrated by a small, influential group of Arabist secret agents who manipulated the cabinet in London and implemented their own policies, which deviated from the official position. ... On May 28, 1947, Najib al-Armanazi, the Syrian ambassador to London, informed his foreign minister of an incident involving Brig. Clayton – a confrontation between the Foreign Office and the secret services, who had “categorically refused to remove him from Egypt.” Armanazi noted that “support for Clayton surpasses the imagination,” adding that he had been given “carte blanche to direct the vast program he aims to complete,” which consisted of advancing the Greater Syria plan and securing British control over Libya. ... In the summer of 1947, a shift took place in the British Arabists’ stand – especially those in the secret services – toward the Labour cabinet’s Middle East policy.Unable to influence Prime Minister Attlee, who was resolved to withdraw a substantial part of the British forces from the region, they “hijacked” Britain’s Middle East policy, taking matters into their own hands. They were determined to act against what they perceived as a policy that was endangering their country’s vital strategic interests in the face of the Soviet thrust into the region. From June 1947 until May 1948, Britain thus conducted two contradictory policies in the Middle East – one official, carried out by the cabinet and foreign secretary; the other, unauthorized and secretive, devised by Arabist secret agents in Cairo, Amman and Baghdad. Brig. Clayton played a key role in coordinating and implementing this covert policy. ... But contrary to the French attaché’s account, the cabinet in London neither knew of nor approved the scheme of their secret agents to instigate an Arab armed invasion of a Jewish state. Prime Minister Attlee, who decided on withdrawal from Palestine despite the objections of his chiefs of staff, would not have taken on the moral responsibility for a plot that could have annihilated the Jews in Palestine only three years after the Holocaust. Moreover, such an act could have jeopardized Britain’s international standing and its relations with the United States. Foreign Secretary Bevin, who still believed in the strategic importance of the Middle East, was caught between his prime minister, the chiefs of staff and the secret services. But it was unlikely that he would have acted against his prime minister’s decision. The record of his tense relations with his secret services in the Middle East – revealed in the Syrian documents – reinforces the assumption that he too was misled, a victim of his inability to control them.

The Guardian - Spencer Ackerman - CIA and White House under pressure after Senate torture report leaks, 11 April 2014.

The Guardian - Antony Loewenstein - Bob Carr was right to start a debate on the influence of the Zionist lobby, 15 April 2014.

London Review of Books - Seymour M. Hersh - The Red Line and the Rat Line, Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian rebels, Vol. 36 No. 8, 17 April 2014: In 2011​ Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons. Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. ... Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? ... Obama’s change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal.

The Guardian - Duncan Campbell - Israel's Mordechai Vanunu is as much a hero as Edward Snowden, 20 April 2014.

Forward - Seth J. Frantzman - Israel’s Uncomfortable History of Racist Engineering, 21 April 2014: In mid-March, during Purim, 15 students from the suburban community of Mevaseret Zion dressed up as members of the Ku Klux Klan, and three of their friends wore blackface. A principal of the school defended the actions, according to a report; “the costume was designed to create interesting and important discussions…. This act essentially created a platform where discussion can exist.” ... A little noticed 2011 book by academic Etan Bloom revealed that the father of Israeli sociology and a leading Zionist of the British Mandate named Arthur Ruppin, was a believer in eugenics. In 1919 he argued that the Jewish race should be “purified” and that it was “desirable that only the racially pure come to the land.” As head of the Palestine Office of the Zionist Executive (later the Jewish Agency for Israel), he put his purity schemes into practice, arguing that Ethiopian Jews should not be permitted to immigrate, because “they have no blood connection,” and arguing that Yemenite Jews should be brought only for menial labor. Ruppin and his fellow travelers were able to influence the Zionist movement, tragically in retrospect, to view non-Europeans as a different caste and to back up their arguments with outdated theories of eugenists.

The Independent - Peter Popham - A History of the First World War in 100 moments: The mutiny that sent a ripple of fear through the Empire, 22 April 2014.

Information Clearing House - Eric Margolis - Amateur Hour in Ukraine, 22 April 2014.

The Guardian - Justin McCurry - The defector who wants to go back to North Korea, 22 April 2014.

The Guardian - Ian Black - Long shadow over Palestine killing, 23 April 2014.

The Observer - Peter Pringle - Marcus Klingberg: the spy who knew too much, 27 April 2014.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Demented Tony Blair recites the Saudis' creed in his latest speech, 27 April 2014.

Information Clearing House - Thierry Meyssan - Towards the End of U.S. Propaganda, 28 April 2014.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Israel Imposes Sanctions Against Palestinians, 28 April 2014.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: The Turkish holocaust begins, 28 April 2014.

YNet - Nahum Barnea - Inside the talks' failure: US officials open up, 2 May 2014.

The Guardian - Peter Beaumont - Netanyahu pushes to define Israel as nation state of Jewish people only, 4 May 2014.

Information Clearing House - Jonathan Schell - How Did the Gates of Hell Open in Vietnam?, 5 May 2014.

The New Yorker - Bernard Avishai - Israel's Independence Day, and it's future, 6 May 2014.

The Independent - Rupert Cornwell - US accuses Israel of ‘alarming, even terrifying’ levels of spying, 8 May 2014.

The Guardian - Ian Cobain - Films of UK army interrogations in Iraq 'show the good, the bad and the ugly', 13 May 2013.

The Guardian - Chris McGreal - Kerry wasn't wrong: Israel's future is beginning to look a lot like apartheid, 14 May 2014: In an interview late last year, Danon told me that there is not going to be a Palestinian state, and that Netanyahu shouldn't worry what the Americans think

Information Clearing House - Alan Hart - Wow! An Israeli Government Minister Speaks The Truth!, accessed 15 May 2014: “This lunch time Sharon convened a secret meeting of some of our top generals and other security people. They signed a blood oath which commits them to fight to the death to prevent any government of Israel withdrawing from the West Bank.”

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Back to the Israelite Kingdom, 15 May 2014.

Alternet - Frank Shaeffer - Why Jesus Would Have Hated Most Modern Day Religion, 15 May 2014: Excerpt from Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to Give Love, Create Beauty and Find Peace by Frank Schaeffer.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: A botched coup, sanctified by martyrdom, 18 May 2014.

The Independent - Chris Blackhurst - Phil Shiner: ‘I will not rest until I know how many Iraqis died in British custody’, 18 May 2014.

The Independent - Ian Johnston - Intelligence services tried to withhold reports from Tony Blair after WMD fiasco, 25 May 2014.

The Guardian - Jonathan Fenby - Dear Leader review – a telling account of the madness of North Korea, 25 May 2014.

The Guardian - Stuart Jeffries - Ukip founder Alan Sked: 'The party has become a Frankenstein's monster', 26 May 2014.

The Independent - John Lichfield - A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: Massacre of the innocents - the day 21,000 British men walked bravely to their deaths, 27 May 2013.

Foreign Policy in Focus - Phyllis Bennis - Pope Francis in Palestine, 28 May 2014: “You are being invited to help make history,” Herzl wrote to Rhodes. “It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews. … How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial. … I want you to…put the stamp of your authority on the Zionist plan.”

The Huffington Post - Mehdi Hasan - Tony Blair Bears 'Total Responsibility' For Isis, Says Academic Who Advised Him On Iraq, 17 June 2014.

The Guardian - Spencer Ackerman - Iraqi ambassador to US fears Isis 'ethnic cleansing' unless Obama acts, 18 June 2014.

The Sunday Herald - Neil Mackay - The trial of Tony Blair, 22 June 2014.

Ma'an News Agency - Rachelle Friesen - Analysis: This is not about 3 settlers, 22 June 2014.

The Guardian - Owen Jones - Why the left must speak up about the persecution of Christians, 25 June 2014.

Haaretz - Ofer Aderet - Jews are not descended from Khazars, Hebrew University historian says, 26 June 2014.

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Our wretched Jewish state, 6 July 2014: "Now we know: In the Jewish state, there is pity and humane feelings only for Jews, rights only for the Chosen People. The Jewish state is only for Jews. ... The media in the Jewish state wallows in the murder of three yeshiva students, while almost entirely ignoring the fates of several Palestinian youths of the same age who have been killed by army fire over the last few months, usually for no reason."

The Electronic Intifada - Max Blumenthal - Netanyahu government knew teens were dead as it whipped up racist frenzy, 8 July 2014: "#BringBackOurBoys: On 17 June, the same day the Israeli army forcibly confiscated CCTV cameras in Beitunia that captured footage of its soldiers killing two unarmed Palestinian boys during a Nakba Day protest, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor appeared behind a lectern at the UN Mission in New York City."

The Times of Israel - Rebecca Shimoni Stoil - Netanyahu said to have offered Lewinsky tapes for Pollard, 23 July 2014.

The Jerusalem Post - Martin Sherman - Into the fray: Why Gaza must go, 24 July 2014.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - The secret report that helps Israelis to hide facts, 27 July 2014.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Israel's propaganda machine is finally starting to misfire, 29 July 2014.

The Guardian - Chris McGreal - American media's new pro-Israel bias: the same party line at the wrong time, 31 July 2014.

Information Clearing House - Jonathan Cook - The Experts’ Verdict: Every Israeli Missile Strike is a War Crime, 01 August 2014.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Israel-Gaza conflict: What has Israel achieved in 26 bloody days?, 3 August 2014.

The Guardian - Noam Chomsky - As Hiroshima Day dawns, why are we still tempting nuclear fate?, 6 August 2014.

The Independent - Yasmin Alibhai-Brown - I didn’t join the Gaza march because I didn’t want to be called an anti-Semite, 10 August 2014: I didn’t join the marchers in London because, well, I was worried that I would lay myself open to charges of anti-Semitism. Which is what happened when, some time back, I went out on a march against the Israeli strangulation of Gaza. ... What I couldn’t get my head around, though, was the way extreme and even reasonable Zionists were pointing to anti-Semitism as a way of shutting down debate. ... The decision of the Tricycle Theatre to drop the Jewish Film Festival because a small amount of funding came from the Israeli government was not proof of left-wing Jew-hatred, as some neocon and Jewish Chronicle journos allege. ... A young American-Jewish journalist who works in Britain castigated the Tricycle and wrote this chilling line: “Watch yourself, Europe. Your roots are showing.”

Common Dreams - Lance Tapley - The Double Identity of an "Anti-Semitic" Commenter Smearing a Progressive Website to Support Israel, 20 August 2014: Like many other news websites, Common Dreams has been plagued by inflammatory anti-Semitic comments following its stories. But on Common Dreams these posts have been so frequent and intense they have driven away donors from a nonprofit dependent on reader generosity. A Common Dreams investigation has discovered that more than a thousand of these damaging comments over the past two years were written with a deceptive purpose by a Jewish Harvard graduate in his thirties who was irritated by the website's discussion of issues involving Israel.

The Jewish Chronicle - David Aaronovitch - Now's not the time to pack the suitcase and leave the UK, 21 August 2014: So, when we begin to have the odd Hitler placard at Gaza demos, when a synagogue is attacked with bricks, when a theatre manages not to have a Jewish film festival, when a car slows down on an evening street and young men shout obscenities at Jews, when a former head of the diplomatic service stands up in the Lords and blames antisemitism on Israel, when the dunces’ chorus of fashionable outrage manages to repeat almost every old “Jewish lobby” trope (but repackaged for the moment) — when we have all this, shouldn’t we go upstairs and check the state of that old trunk? ... Jewish lobby? Great idea, when does it start?

The New Yorker - Connie Bruck - Friends of Israel, 25 August 2014: The lobbying group AIPAC has consistently fought the Obama Administration on policy. Is it now losing influence? ... “There were five senators present and literally no one else!” the staffer said. “They reintroduced it and passed it. This was one of the more amazing feats, for AIPAC.” In a press conference, Graham, who has been a major recipient of campaign contributions connected to AIPAC, pointed out that the funding for Iron Dome was intended as a gesture of solidarity with Israel. ... Dine decided that “if you wanted to have influence you had to be a fund-raiser.” ... Republicans knew that they would never get more than a minority of the Jewish electorate, but AIPAC members convinced them that voting the right way would lead to campaign contributions. ... Dine estimated that in the eighties and nineties contributions from AIPAC members often constituted roughly ten to fifteen per cent of a typical congressional campaign budget. ... In the fall of 1991, President George H. W. Bush decided to delay ten billion dollars in loan guarantees to Israel, largely because of the continuing expansion of settlements. ... Soon afterward, Bush remarked that he was “one lonely little guy” fighting “something like a thousand lobbyists.” ... Afterward, Rabin admonished the leaders of AIPAC, telling them that they had done more harm than good by waging battles “that were lost in advance.” ... In 1995, AIPAC encouraged Newt Gingrich, the new Speaker of the House, to support bipartisan legislation to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. ... “AIPAC flourishes when there is tension between Israel and the U.S., because then they have a role to play” ... The next day, Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress and received twenty-nine standing ovations. ... A broader political challenge to AIPAC came in 2009, with the founding of J Street, a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” advocacy group. ... A few months later, the Gaza war began, and AIPAC mobilized again. ... A couple of weeks after the film appeared, Israeli shells struck a United Nations school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, killing twenty-one people and injuring more than ninety; it was the sixth U.N. school that Israel had bombed. ... Recently, Sheldon Adelson, who funded AIPAC’s new office building a few years ago, has been increasing his support for the right-wing Zionist Organization of America.

The Independent - Mira Bar Hillel - The truth about the UK's pro-Israel lobbies, 01 September 2014: Why did our government ignore the slaughter in Gaza, and continue to sell arms to Israel? The answer lies in two of Britain's influential pressure groups. ... I never imagined there was an AIPAC equivalent here in the UK, not least because there are only around 250,000 Jews in this country – 0.5 per cent of the population. Another reason is that it deliberately keeps a vastly lower profile. But sheltering under the harmless-sounding titles of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) the pro-Israel lobby is incredibly powerful.

Counterpunch - Alexander Cockburn - Truth and Fiction in Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, 01 October 2014: In The Jewish Press for February 1, Andrew Silow Carroll was a bit friskier. He cited Wiesel as declaring to the New York Times that Night “is not a novel at all. All the people I describe were with me there. I object angrily if someone mentions it as a novel.” ... In his 1995 memoir, "All Rivers Run to the Sea" Wiesel writes that at the age of 18, recently liberated from Auschwitz, “I read The Critique of Pure Reason ­don’t laugh! ­ in Yiddish.” Finkelstein comments, “Leaving aside Wiesel’s acknowledgement that at the time ‘I was wholly ignorant of Yiddish grammar’ The Critique of Pure Reason was never translated into Yiddish.” ... By no means short-changing Wiesel on what he regards as his genuine achievements, Pfefferkorn can be unsparing: “He’s become a eulogist of the dead but he doesn’t raise his mellifluous voice against the wrong done to survivors, 35 per cent of them below the poverty line in the US.” There are piercing passages in Pfefferkorn’s memoir concerning Wiesel’s opportunism and betrayals in the murky battles over the design of the Holocaust Museum, and above all in his artful pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize, which he was awarded in 1986. “Would Wiesel,” Pfefferkorn asks, “ever have received this prize for his work as a journalist?” Pfefferkorn answers his question, “It’s hard to imagine. No. Wiesel got the prize because he elevated himself as the spokesman for the survivors. His mostly absurd pretensions to be a ‘peace missionary’, had nothing to do with it.” Then, once he had the prize he so fiercely pursued, Wiesel gradually, but consistently ­ so Pfefferkorn stresses ­ “alienated himself from the survivors”. ... I asked Hilberg what accounts of the death camps and the Holocaust did he admire most. “That really depends on the reader. I don’t have that kind of favorite. For my purposes, obviously they have to be correct. There’s an account by Filip Mueller, who was on the gas chamber detail in Auschwitz in 1942, written in collaboration with two people: Eyewitness Auschwitz. It has to be read with care. Another book is Rudolf Vrba’s I Cannot Forgive, written with Alan Bestic. ... Wiesel’s pusillanimity was well illustrated in an interview with The National Jewish Post & Opinion for November 19, 1982. Asked about the massacre of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila, he said he felt “sad”. ... In 1985, Wiesel was asked by a reporter from Ha’aretz about Israel’s aid to the military junta in Guatemala. By way of response Wiesel remarked that he had received a letter from a Nobel laureate (Salvador Luria of M.I.T. had written to him on this subject a month earlier) documenting Israel’s contributions to mass murder in Guatemala and urging Wiesel to act privately to pressure Israel. Wiesel “sighed”, the Ha’aretz reporter wrote, and said, “I usually answer at once, but what can I answer him.”

RT - German journo: European media writing pro-US stories under CIA pressure, 18 October 2014: "German journalist and editor Udo Ulfkotte says he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, adding that noncompliance ran the risk of being fired. Ulfkotte made the revelations during interviews with RT and Russia Insider."

Jerusalem Post - Jerry Lewis - British MP condemned for anti-Israel comments, 19 October 2014: Sir Alan Duncan is a lifelong Arabist and a former UK government minister who retains a desk in the Foreign Office as Britain’s special envoy to Oman and Yemen.

The Telegraph - Dan Hodges - Labour’s first Jewish leader is losing the Jewish vote, 30 October 2014: "The Jewish community is preparing to break with Labour. Ed Miliband needs to ask himself why."

The New Statesman - Harry Leslie Smith - “Hunger, filth, fear and death”: remembering life before the NHS, 31 October 2014.

New Statesman - Richard J. Evans - “One man who made history” by another who seems just to make it up: Boris on Churchill, 13 November 2014: The book reads as if it was dictated, not written. All the way through we hear Boris’s voice; it’s like being cornered in the Drones Club and harangued for hours by Bertie Wooster.

Haaretz - Daniel Blatman - The 'Nation-state' Bill: Jews Should Know Exactly Where It Leads, 27 November 2014.

The Guardian - Ed Vulliamy, Helena Smith - Athens 1944: Britain’s dirty secret, 30 November 2014.

Scottish Express - Paula Murray - SNP activist 'killed over child sex files', 30 November 2014.

Insurge Intelligence - Nafeez Ahmed - 'Palestine is not an environment story', 03 December 2014: "Several other journalists I spoke to inside and outside The Guardian went so far as to describe Freedland as the newspaper’s unofficial ‘gatekeeper’ on the Middle east conflict, and that he invariably leaned toward a pro-Israel slant."

2015

The Independent - Sarah Helm - Hitler's war on women: The story of Ravensbrück concentration camp, 20 January 2015.

The Independent - Jenn Selby - Winston Churchill: From accusations of anti-Semitism to the blunt refusal that led to the deaths of millions, 23 January 2015.

The Independent - Steve Connor - Human skull discovery in Israel proves humans lived side-by-side with Neanderthals, 28 January 2015.

Haaretz - Ariel David - Oldest modern human remains outside Africa found in Israel, 28 January 2015.

Information Clearing House - Seven Countries in Five Years, 19 February 2015: from an AE article.

MailOnline (Blog) - Peter Hitchens - A (not so) Brief History of Crimea, 21 February 2015: What it shows is that the issue of Crimea’s relations with Ukraine ( and of the Donbass region around Donetsk) was a live and troublesome matter even before the break-up of the USSR at the end of 1991. And it also shows that at one stage the recently-established Ukrainian government in Kiev acted with considerable ruthlessness to prevent a referendum in Crimea on independence, a referendum which had been requested by 246,000 of the peninsula’s 2.5 million people.

Information Clearing House - Eric Margolis - Mid-East Peace is Buried, 21 March 2015.

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Netanyahu will be remembered for speaking Israel's truth, 22 March 2015.

Alternet - Max Blumenthal - Paranoid Benjamin Netanyahu Prepares For His Last Stand, 20 March 2015.

The Independent - Ben Lynfield - Amnesty's other verdict on Gaza war: Hamas committed war crimes as well, 26 March 2015.

The UNZ Review - Philip Giraldi - Declaring Independence from Israel, It's Way Overdue!, 31 March 2015.

The Guardian - Avi Shlaim - Binyamin Netanyahu has failed. There’s a better way to achieve security for Israel, 13 March 2015.

eSharp - Jane Jackman - Advocating Occupation:Outsourcing Zionist Propaganda in the UK, Issue 25 Vol.1 "Rise and Fall", Spring 2015.

Information Clearing House - Robert Parry - The US-Israel-Iran Triangle’s Tangled History, 03 April 2015.

New Statesman - Anoosh Chakelian - The Armenian genocide: the journey from victim to survivor, 04 April 2015: The global activity around the Armenian genocide centenary is unprecedented ... . But has this brought international recognition any closer?

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Spain: Israel Deliberately Targeted UN Peacekeepers in Lebanon, 06 April 2015.

The Independent - Rose Troup Buchanan - US prisoners of war had parts of their brains and livers removed during WWII, new Japanese exhibit shows, 07 April 2015.

Middle East Monitor - Yvonne Ridley - Justice, Jenin and Janner, 18 April 2015.

Haaretz - David B. Green - 2008: Yossi Harel, the real person behind Paul Newman’s Ari Ben-Canaan, dies, 26 April 2015: Between 1945 and 1948, Harel was responsible for the attempted immigration to pre-state Israel of some 25,000 refugees, most famously in 1947 on the Exodus, the ship whose tale became the basis for Leon Uris’ 1958 book “Exodus.” The character of Ari Ben-Canaan, played by Paul Newman in the 1960 film version of the book, was loosely based on Harel.

Haaretz - Anshel Pfeffer - Is David Cameron the most pro-Israel British PM ever?, 27 April 2015.

+972 - Michael Omer-Man - Congress: There is no legitimate form of Palestinian resistance, 27 April 2015.

Daily Express - Stephen Pollard - Margaret Hodge’s foul hypocrisy just beggars belief, 01 May 2015: It’s difficult to imagine a more blatant, shameful and utterly contemptible piece of two-faced hypocrisy than the behaviour of Margaret Hodge that has been revealed this week. Mrs Hodge, you may recall, was chair of the Public Accounts Committee in the last parliament, when she was Labour MP for Barking. ... In that role, she developed a big public profile haranguing the often hapless representatives of businesses such as Amazon, Starbucks and Google which used off-shore arrangements to minimise their tax bills. She would haul them before her committee and denounce them, with guilt already predetermined, as if she was in charge of a show trial. So great was her profile - and the popularity that she developed in some quarters for her attacks on business - that she has been widely touted as the Labour candidate to be Mayor of London in the 2016 vote. But in one of the most jawdropping pieces of personal and political hypocrisy you will ever see, Mrs Hodge turns out to be herself a beneficiary of precisely that form of off-shore tax avoidance that she so regularly lambasts when used by businesses. ... The hypocrisy is so startling that’s it’s almost impossible to believe. Almost. Because it doesn’t end there. It has also emerged that around three quarters of the shares in the trust from which Mrs Hodge benefitted had previously been held in Panama. ... What foul hypocrisy. Her behaviour drags the entire political system into disrepute, and she would now be well advised to withdraw from public life. Not that she will, if her previous behaviour is anything to go by. Because this is far from the first scandal that Mrs Hodge has been involved in. Last April, she apologised for what she called her “shameful naivety” when, as leader of Islington Council, she dismissively brushed aside the victims of paedophiles who preyed on children in council care. One victim, Demetrious Panton, who was abused by the former head of an Islington children’s home in the late 1970s, was dismissed by Mrs Hodge in a letter to the BBC as “extremely disturbed”. It was almost beyond parody when she was then appointed Children’s Minister by Tony Blair. Mrs Hodge is not the first and will not be last politician to say one thing and do another. But the sheer grubbiness of her brand of hypocrisy leaves a stench that makes others look almost admirable.

London Review of Books - Neve Gordon - The Day After, Neve Gordon on the IDF’s new tactics, 04 May 2015.

+972 - "John Brown" - Next head of 'Civil Administration' said Palestinians are sub-human, 08 May 2015.

The Times of Israel - Tamar Pilaggi - New deputy defense minister called Palestinians ‘animals’, 11 May 2015: While discussing the resumption of peace talks in a radio interview in 2013, Ben Dahan said that “To me, they are like animals, they aren’t human.”; “A Jew always has a much higher soul than a gentile, even if he is a homosexual,” he said.

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Soldier pays the price for criticizing the Israel army, 21 May 2015.

Voltaire Network - Thierry Meyssan - Failure of the US coup d’État in Macedonia, 23 May 2015.

NEO (New Eastern Outlook) - F. William Engdahl - Washington Blows Itself Up With Its Own Bomb, 24 May 2015.

Middle East Monitor - John McHugo - Do we have a demagogue as minister of justice?, 26 May 2015.

The Guardian - Peter Beaumont - Hamas executed 23 Palestinians under cover of Gaza conflict, says Amnesty, 27 May 2015.

Jacobin - Assaf Kfoury, Fawwaz Traboulsi - The Two Apartheids, 27 May 2015.

The National - Jonathan Cook - Why Israel’s cabinet will be a headache for the US, 28 May 2015: She called together the country’s chief diplomats last week to cite rabbinical justifications for taking Palestinian land. Her broader message was that Israeli embassies abroad needed to stop worrying about being “smart” and concentrate instead on being “right”. Urging the country’s envoys into a headlong confrontation with the world community, she told them the “basic truth” was: “All the land is ours.” ... And Washington averted last week a threat to Israel’s large, undeclared nuclear arsenal by blocking the efforts of Arab states to convene a conference to make the Middle East free of nuclear weapons by next year.

AntiWar.com - Ted Snider - Stephen Harper’s Unprincipled and Inconsistent Foreign Policy, 30 May 2015: In September 2013, Michael Oren, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. said, “We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.” Oren told the Jerusalem Post that “This was the case . . . even if the other ‘bad guys’ were affiliated with al-Qaeda.” Nearly a year later, in June 2014, Oren would repeat Israel’s position of preferring ISIS and al-Nusra over Assad: “From Israel’s perspective, if there’s got to be an evil that’s got to prevail, let the Sunni evil prevail.”

The National Interest - Paul R. Pillar - Watering Israel's Image, 30 May 2015.

The Independent - Richard Jinman - The Battle of the Beanfield: The violent new-age traveller clash with police at Stonehenge remembered 30 years on, 30 May 2015.

Information Clearing House - Eric Margolis - The Rohingya - Adrift on a Sea of Sorrows, 31 May 2015.

The Guardian - Michael Scott Moore - My 977 days held hostage by Somali pirates, 2 June 2015.

The Guardian - Peter Beaumont - Israel exonerates itself over Gaza beach killings of four children last year, 11 June 2015.

Politico Magazine - Tim Weiner - That Time the Middle East Exploded — and Nixon Was Drunk, 15 June 2015.

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Israeli Officer: Attacking Gaza Medical Clinic ‘Boosted Morale,’ Attack Was Revenge for Death of Armored Corps Captain the Day Before, 17 June 2015.

The Independent - Doug Bolton - Saudi Arabia warns citizens about 'fake' information after Wikileaks release 60,000 secret documents giving an insight into Saudi foreign policy and the behaviour of the royals, 21 June 2015.

The Guardian - Peter Beaumont - UN accuses Israel and Hamas of possible war crimes during 2014 Gaza war, 22 June 2015.

The Guardian - Ian Black - From the archive, 30 June 1982: In a word, the war is about ‘terrorism’, 30 June 2015: The abuse of language is a familiar component of any war, but in this showdown between Israel and the Palestinians words have lost their meaning.

The Guardian - Ian Jack - The Real Deal: The Autobiography of Britain’s Most Controversial Media Mogul by Richard Desmond – Review, 01 July 2015.

Information Clearing House - Jonathan Cook - Israel’s Army of Spin-doctors is Doomed to Defeat, 7 July 2015.

Haaretz - Reform Jews cannot be called Jews, says Israel's religious services minister, 7 July 2015.

The Guardian - Ian Cobain - Northern Ireland: when Britain fought terror with terror, 9 July 2015.

The Guardian - Ian Cobain - Secret report accused three MI5 officers of concealing evidence in police killing, 9 July 2015.

Haaretz - Judy Maltz - The Unconverted, August 2015.

The Times of Israel - Adiv Sterman - Catholic Church files complaint against extreme-right group leader, 08 August 2015: Leaders of the Catholic Church in Israel filed an incitement complaint against the head of an extreme right-wing group opposed to Jewish-Arab integration, who on Tuesday advocated the burning of mosques and churches in Israel at a public forum. The complaint against Lehava chairman Bentzi Gopshtain was filed in coordination with the Vatican, according to a Haaretz report Friday, and was formulated by a committee that included over 20 bishops and archbishops across Israel. ... “Maimonides…,” Gopshtain started, apparently alluding to the rulings of the 12th-century Jewish sage, “you must burn [churches], are you against Maimonides or in favor of Maimonides?” ... Gopshtain later responded to reports that he advocated burning churches by saying, “The law is straightforward: Maimonides’ interpretation is that one must burn idolatry. There’s not a single rabbi that would deliberate that fact. I expect the government of Israel to carry that out.” ... Lehava opposes homosexuality and the assimilation of Jews, and activists regularly rally against personal or business relationships between Jews and non-Jews, including outside wedding celebrations between Jews and Arabs.

The Jewish Chronicle - Daniel Finkelstein - Why is Labour so placid?, 13 August 2015: While Ed Miliband was not wildly popular with most Jews, he took a respectable position on Israel. ... It was, however, a respectable position, for all its faults. Jeremy Corbyn is in a different place altogether. He shares the virulent anti-Zionism of the hard left. One that seeks to make Israel a pariah state. One that treats Israel as if it were the central cause of all foreign affairs problems. One that treats with Hamas and is friendly to Hizbollah.

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - 4 reasons the “anti-Semitism” attacks on Jeremy Corbyn are dishonest, 19 August 2015: "Salah was ultimately vindicated. In April 2012 a judge ruled in his favor “on all grounds.”"

The Spectator - Nick Cohen - Why I left, 19 September 2015: Conservatives will talk as if there is a right-wing gene which, like male-pattern baldness, manifests itself with age. The US leftist-turned-neocon Irving Kristol set the pattern for the pattern-baldness theory of politics when he opined that a conservative is a liberal who has been ‘mugged by reality’. He did not understand that the effects of reality’s many muggings are never predictable, or that facts of life are not always, as Margaret Thatcher claimed, conservative. If they were, we would still have feudalism. The standard explanation from left-wingers is equally self-serving. Turncoats are like prostitutes, they say, who sell their virtue for money. They are pure; those who disagree with them are corrupt; and that is all there is to it. ... But slowly, too slowly I am ashamed to say, I began to notice that left-wing politics had turned rancid. ... I never imagined that left-wing politics would get as bad as they have become. I assumed that when the criminally irresponsible Blair flew off in his Learjet, the better angels of the left’s nature would re-assert themselves. What a fool I was.

The Independent - Caroline Mortimer - British Army 'could stage mutiny under Corbyn', says senior serving general, 20 September 2015.

The New York Times - Joseph Goldstein - U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies, 20 September 2015.

London Review of Books - Thomas Laqueur - Devoted to Terror, Vol. 37 No. 18, 24 September 2015: Review of "KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps" (2015) - Nikolaus Wachsmann.

Fathom - Alan Johnson - The Left and the Jews: Time for a Rethink, Autumn 2015: It was called the ‘socialism of fools’ in the 19th century. It became an ‘anti-imperialism of idiots’ in the 20th century. And it takes the form of a wild, demented, unhinged form of anti-Zionism – not mere ‘criticism of Israeli policy’ – that demonises Israel in the 21st century."

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Syria’s ‘moderates’ have disappeared... and there are no good guys, 4 October 2015.

The Electronic Intifada - Ali Abunimah - Video: Death-chanting Israeli mob rejoices as Palestinian teen is executed, 4 October 2015.

Aljazeera - Mark Weisbrot - WikiLeaks cables shed light on US foreign policy failures, 6 October 2015: The answer can be found in diplomatic communications released by WikiLeaks, which show that regime change in Syria has been the policy of the U.S. government as far back as 2006. Even more horrifying — after hundreds of thousands of deaths, untold lives ruined and 4 million people displaced — is the evidence that Washington has had a policy of promoting sectarian warfare in the country for the purpose of destabilizing the Assad government.

Information Clearing House - Alan Hart - The Only Surprise Is That Not More Israeli Jews Are Being Attacked And Killed, 9 October 2015: The Israeli athletes were killed because Israel’s then defence minister, Moshe Dayan, insisted on a shoot-out at Furstenfeldbruck Airport before the captured Israeli athletes could be transferred to the plane that was supposed to take them to Cairo.

The Guardian - Rachel Cooke - Nawal El Saadawi: ‘Do you feel you are liberated? I feel I am not’, 11 October 2015.

The Guardian - Mairav Zonszein - Israel’s domination of Palestinians makes violence inevitable, 11 October 2015.

The Guardian - Nick Davies - Stephen Harper: master manipulator, 15 October 2015.

The Guardian - Greg Grandin - Kissinger 1923-1968: The Idealist by Niall Ferguson review – a case of wobbly logic, 15 October 2015.

The Independent - Rupert Cornwell - Watergate: Final secrets of Richard Nixon laid bare – by top aide Alexander Butterfield, 16 October 2015.

The Jewish Chronicle - Marcus Dysch - Did Jeremy Corbyn back artist whose mural was condemned as antisemitic?, 06 November 2015.

The Guardian - Dalye Alberge - Stonehenge may have been first erected in Wales, evidence suggests, 07 December 2015: Evidence that bluestones were quarried in Wales 500 years before they were put up in Wiltshire prompts theory that Stonehenge is ‘second-hand monument’. ... It has long been known that the bluestones that form Stonehenge’s inner horseshoe came from the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, around 140 miles from Salisbury Plain. Now archaeologists have discovered a series of recesses in the rocky outcrops of Carn Goedog and Craig Rhos-y-felin, to the north of those hills, that match Stonehenge’s bluestones in size and shape. They have also found similar stones that the prehistoric builders extracted but left behind, and “a loading bay” from where the huge stones could be dragged away. ... “We have dates of around 3400 BC for Craig Rhos-y-felin and 3200 BC for Carn Goedog, which is intriguing because the bluestones didn’t get put up at Stonehenge until around 2900 BC,” he said. “It could have taken those Neolithic stone-draggers nearly 500 years to get them to Stonehenge, but that’s pretty improbable in my view. It’s more likely that the stones were first used in a local monument, somewhere near the quarries, that was then dismantled and dragged off to Wiltshire.”

2016

The Atlantic - Deborah Cohen - Why Winston Churchill Was So Bad With Money, January-February 2016: Winston Churchill’s finances were a shambles for most of his life. It was a state of affairs, as David Lough reveals in "No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money", entirely of Churchill’s own making. ... Throughout his political career, he relied upon rich acquaintances to bail him out. After he lost his seat in Parliament in 1922, he engaged in dubious lobbying on behalf of oil companies. He stretched all available loopholes to avoid paying taxes, even (and especially) when he served as chancellor of the Exchequer, the head of Great Britain’s Treasury, from 1924 to 1929. And in the end, he made his fortune by taking advantage of papers commandeered from government files to construct his blockbuster memoirs.

Observer - Celia Farber - Exclusive New Docs Throw Doubt on Julian Assange Rape Charges in Stockholm, 05 February 2016: As UN rules Wikileaks founder was 'arbitrarily detained,' he stands accused by two Swedish women—is the whole thing just Nordic neurosis?

New Statesman - Ephraim Mirvis - I grew up in South Africa, so believe me when I say: Israel is not an apartheid state, 24 February 2016: This week on university campuses across the UK, activists are preparing for “Israel Apartheid Week”. This term is not only misleading, but a grave insult to those who were subjugated in South Africa.

ADL - ADL and Reut Institute Forge New Joint Initiative to Battle BDS and the Delegitimization of Israel, 29 February 2016: Recognizing the need for a focused and comprehensive strategy to combat delegitimization of Israel and the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Reut Institute have announced a new joint initiative to help Jewish communities and the State of Israel face this ounting challenge. The ADL-Reut Initiative was shaped by a mutual commitment to expose the BDS movement in its efforts to single out and isolate Israel while singularly negating the right of the Jewish people to self-determination. The work will be based on in-depth research and analysis of delegitimization and BDS campaigns both in the United States and globally. (ADL and Reut - The Assault on Israel's Legitimacy - The Frustrating 20X Question: Why Is It Still Growing? Condition, Direction and Response, January 2017, Version A) [8]

The Guardian - Julian Borger, Owen Bowcott - Radovan Karadžić sentenced to 40 years for Srebrenica genocide, 24 March 2016.

The Guardian - Nicole Cliffe - The Romanovs: masterful account of Russia’s doomed royal family, 31 March 2016: The end of the Romanovs is a subject that has fascinated countless nonfiction writers, but no book has yet eclipsed the fame of Robert K Massie’s page-turner.

Consortium News - Robert Parry - ‘Corruption’ as a Propaganda Weapon, 04 April 2016: "Sadly, some important duties of journalism, such as applying evenhanded standards on human rights abuses and financial corruption, have been so corrupted by the demands of government propaganda – and the careerism of too many writers – that I now become suspicious whenever the mainstream media trumpets some sensational story aimed at some 'designated villain.' Far too often, this sort of “journalism” is just a forerunner to the next “regime change” scheme, dirtying up or delegitimizing a foreign leader before the inevitable advent of a “color revolution” organized by “democracy-promoting” NGOs often with money from the U.S. government’s National Endowment for Democracy or some neoliberal financier like George Soros."

openDemocracyUK - Ben White - Shifty antisemitism wars, 22 April 2016: "By 2013, the EUMC’s successor body, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), had abandoned the politicised definition as unfit for purpose ... Nine days previously, Pickles had spoken at a conference on antisemitism in Berlin, where he described the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign as akin to the Nazi boycott of Jewish goods ... This is also misguided; put simply, “self-determination does not equate to statehood.” ... The Israeli government’s counter-offensive has found willing accomplices in the Conservative government, with ministers seeking to deter local councils from taking ethical investment and procurement decisions that they are in fact entitled to make ... ."

openDemocracyUK - Jamie Stern-Weiner - New accusations of antisemitism thrown at the left are flimsy, 25 April 2016.

openDemocracyUK - Jamie Stern-Weiner - Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t got an ‘antisemitism problem’. His opponents do., 27 April 2016.

The Guardian - Jessica Elgot - Naz Shah: timeline of events leading to MP's suspension from Labour, 27 April 2016.

The Independent - Jon Stone - Labour antisemitism row: Read the Ken Livingstone interview transcipts in full, 28 April 2016.

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis, 28 April 2016: But an investigation by The Electronic Intifada has found that some of the most prominent stories about anti-Semitism in the party are falsified. The Electronic Intifada can reveal that a key player in Labour’s “anti-Semitism crisis” covered up his involvement in the Israel lobby. ... The Jewish Chronicle claimed Unite’s Jennie Formby was “to be moved from her role partly as a result of her anti-Israel activism.” It cited no evidence. ... The Jewish Chronicle swiftly edited the online text and headline of the article to water down its claims (a copy of the original can still be found online).

+972 - John Brown - Hebron shooter called to 'kill everyone in Gaza', 29 April 2016.

The Independent - Adam Taylor - How the Labour Party became engulfed by accusations of antisemitism, 29 April 2016.

The Intercept - Robert Mackey - Why a British Fight Over Israel and Anti-Semitism Matters to the Rest of Us, 29 April 2016.

The Independent - Jon Stone - Labour antisemitism row: Read the Ken Livingstone interview transcipts in full, 29 April 2016.

Information Clearing House - Eric Margolis - Remember the Golan Heights?, 30 April 2016.

The Independent - Ben Judah - You wouldn't be surprised by Naz Shah's remarks if you knew more about the city she came from, 30 April 2016.

+972 - Gilad Halpern - What the Left can learn about anti-Semitism from Ken Livingstone, 01 May 2016: Edouard Drumont, the godfather of French anti-Semitism, congratulated Theodor Herzl in his 1891 book Jewish France and suggested that Jews should be “sent back to Palestine.” It became an instant bestseller. In 1933, the German government and the Zionist Organization signed an agreement that facilitated the immigration of 50,000 German Jews to Palestine. And in 1934, a delegation led by SS officer Leopold Von Mildenstein visited Palestine to assess the feasibility of resettling Germany’s Jews in it. The coordinator of the visit was Kurt Tuchler, the leader of the Zionist Federation of Germany, whose grandson Arnon Goldfinger made a fascinating documentary about it.

openDemocracyUK - Jamie Stern-Weiner, Norman Finkelstein - The American Jewish scholar behind Labour’s ‘antisemitism’ scandal breaks his silence, 03 May 2016: Norman G. Finkelstein talks Naz Shah MP, Ken Livingstone, and the Labour ‘antisemitism’ controversy.

The Guardian - Michael Freedland - How everyday antisemitism in Britain has left its mark on me, 03 May 2016.

The Independent - Lizzie Dearden - Journalist who infiltrated Isis cell planning a terror attack in France 'never saw any Islam', 03 May 2016.

Information Clearing House - Professor Kamel Hawwash - A Palestinian View on the Antisemitism Row, 03 May 2016.

The Independent - Lizzie Dearden - Jewish author whose Israel 'relocation' map was shared by Naz Shah condemns 'obscene' Labour antisemitism row, 04 May 2016.

Information Clearing House - Jonathan Cook - The True Anti-semites, Past and Present, 04 May 2016.

AlterNet - Max Blumenthal - How Opponents of U.K. Labour Leader Corbyn Advanced a Political Coup With Antisemitism Smears, 06 May 2016.

Electronic Intifada - Rania Khalek - Pro-Israel groups vow to “eliminate” BDS, 31 May 2016.

Jewish News - Stephen Oryszczuk - 31 countries adopt broader anti-Semitism definition, 31 May 2016: The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has adopted a broader ‘Working Definition’ of anti-Semitism, saying it needs “political tools to fight the scourge”. The intergovernmental organisation, comprising 31 member nations, adopted the European definition after “in-depth discussion” during plenary meetings in Bucharest last week. The EUMC Working Definition is increasingly used by European law enforcement officers because it gives examples of the kind of behaviour which may constitute anti-Semitism, including references to Israel. Sir Eric Pickles, UK Envoy for Post-Holocaust Issues and head of the UK delegation to the IHRA, said: “I’m delighted… We can [now] step up our efforts in the fight against anti-Semitism internationally.” ... Mark Weitzman, Chair of the IHRA Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial, said: “In order to begin to address the problem of anti-Semitism, there must be clarity about what antisemitism actually is. This is not a simple question.”

BBC - Two Weeks in January: America's secret engagement with Khomeini, 03 June 2016.

The Intercept - Glenn Greenwald, Andrew Fishman - Andrew Cuomo and Other Democrats Launch Severe Attack on Free Speech to Protect Israel, 06 June 2016.

The New Yorker - Helen Epstein - Idi Amin's Israel Connection, 27 June 2016: Arye Oded, who was in charge of Ugandan affairs in Israel’s Foreign Ministry at the time, denies that Bar-Lev had anything to do with Amin’s coup, but Bar-Lev himself told the Times, Slater, and the historian Ofer otherwise. ... But relations with both countries soon soured, especially after Israel refused to sell Amin fighter planes with which he hoped to bomb Tanzania, where Obote was then raising a rebel army.

The Independent - Elsa Vulliamy - Refugees who cannot pay people smugglers 'being sold for organs', 04 July 2016.

Al Jazeera - Sharif Nashashibi - Corbyn and anti-Semitism: Much ado about something else, 05 July 2016: The Labour leader's opponents are using red herrings to ramp up pressure on him to resign.

AlterNet - Max Blumenthal - It Is Important to Have Perspective on Elie Wiesel’s Legacy, 05 July 2016.

The Jewish Chronicle - David Hirsh - The Chakrabarti report failed, again and again, 07 July 2016: The charge is simple. It is that a culture of visceral hostility to Israel has been moving into the mainstream of the left. Campaigns to delegitimise Israel, to portray it as a central source of racism and oppression, to say it is like Nazism and apartheid, have been successful. ... The key thing that Ms Chakrabarti needed to show was how the incidents of explicit antisemitism which triggered the inquiry were related to this underlying culture of hostility to Israel and to the Jews who are assumed to support it. She did not do this. ... We have made strong, coherent, and moderate arguments; we have explained the problem. The Chakrabarti Inquiry is the latest body to look down at us over its spectacles and ignore what we say. ... Jewish scholars, institutions, journalists and activists produced compelling submissions to the Chakrabarti Inquiry. The report does not engage with the key issues; it ignores them. Where was David Feldman, co-chair of the inquiry? Professor Feldman knows and understands the issues, no defence of naivety or ignorance is available to him. His Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism has remained scrupulously neutral between those who intellectually underpin the new antisemitism and those who oppose it. Jewish antisemitism-denying groups, such as Jews for Justice for Palestinians and Independent Jewish Voices, of which Prof Feldman is a signatory, have been influential in their efforts to undermine the strong and healthy consensus against antisemitism among Jews. (David Hirsh is a sociology lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London)

The Guardian - Nick Hopkins - Iraq war: after Blair and Bush met, the tempo changed, 09 July 2016.

Times Higher Education - Matthew Reisz - Labour antisemitism inquiry academic on being caught in a storm, 13 July 2016: On 29 April, Jeremy Corbyn appointed Shami Chakrabarti to chair an inquiry into “anti-Semitism and other forms of racism including Islamophobia, within the [Labour] party”, after a series of incidents involving Ken Livingstone, Naz Shah and others. It soon attracted comment from both “sides”. There were those who believe that the Labour Party is riddled with antisemitism and feared that the inquiry would be a whitewash. Others suggested that the issue was just a storm in a teacup, an attempt to curb legitimate criticism of the state of Israel or part of a coordinated campaign against Mr Corbyn’s leadership. One of those caught in the crossfire was David Feldman, vice-chair of the inquiry, and director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London. ... Most of the attacks, Professor Feldman went on, came from “the Jewish communal leadership, figures and institutions who strongly identify with Israel”. He was taken to task for distancing himself from what he calls the “subjective” definition of racism, that “if a group or an individual regards something as racist, then it is”. Some also called attention to the fact that he had signed a declaration by Independent Jewish Voices, a group which has raised concerns about “the proliferation in recent weeks of sweeping allegations of pervasive antisemitism within the Labour Party”, although he responded that the particular declaration he signed was “very uncontroversial: in favour of human rights, international law, Israelis and Palestinians living in peace and security; against racism and especially antisemitism”.

Consortium News - Robert Parry - Will NYT Retract Latest Anti-Russian ‘Fraud’?, 22 July 2016 : "In a fresh embarrassment for The New York Times, a photographic forensic expert has debunked a new amateurish, anti-Russian analysis of satellite photos related to the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, labeling the work 'a fraud.'"

Haaretz - Ofer Aderet - 70 Years Later, Perpetrator and Victim Recall King David Hotel Bombing, 23 July 2016: Levy Kampos remembers clearly what happened when the deadly blast went off on that fateful July morning in 1946 — so does Sarah Agassi, who called the hotel to inform them of the bomb her group left there.

Haaretz - Yotam Berger - Secret 1970 document confirms first West Bank settlements built on a lie, 28 July 2016.

Frontiers in Genetics - Eran Elhaik (Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield) - In Search of the jüdische Typus: A Proposed Benchmark to Test the Genetic Basis of Jewishness Challenges Notions of “Jewish Biomarkers”, 05 August 2016.

The Guardian - Uki Goñi - Kissinger hindered US effort to end mass killings in Argentina according to files, 09 August 2016.

The Independent - Ian Johnston - This shark may have been alive in the time of Shakespeare – and fishermen just killed it, 12 August 2016.

The National Interest - Thomas Parker - When Winston Churchill Bombed France: The Battle of Mers el-Kabir, 13 August 2016.

SputnikNews - Nikolai Gorshkov - Secret British Papers on Afghanistan Reveal Parallels With Syria Tactics, 24 August 2016.

The Spectator - Lara Prendergast - ‘I have become their voice’ Anastasia Lin, Miss World Canada 2015, is using her fame to highlight the troubling organ trade in China, 03 September 2016. p23.

The Independent - Ashley Cowburn - Corbyn critics using antisemitism row to undermine leader, Momentum claims, 25 September 2016.

The New York Review of Books - Nathan Thrall - Obama & Palestine: The Last Chance, 10 September 2016.

Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Israeli ministries feud over anti-BDS warfare in U.K., 29 September 2016: Diplomats warn that actions of ministry other than the Foreign Ministry are in potential violation of British law. ... In a cable to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the nation’s embassy in London protested this week against the Strategic Affairs Ministry’s coordination of activity against the BDS movement. The cable accused the ministry of “operating” British Jewish organizations behind the embassy’s back in a way that could put them in violation of British law and undermine Israeli-British relations. A copy of the cable obtained by Haaretz, said that when Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan visited London about two weeks ago, embassy officials met several times with senior Strategic Affairs Ministry officials to coordinate activities against the local boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Embassy officials sought to reinforce understandings reached previously between Erdan’s ministry and the Foreign Ministry to coordinate their activities, but that only the Foreign Ministry would work directly with people or organizations overseas. They urged Erdan’s advisers “not to pose as the embassy,” and the advisers promised not to do so. But a few days later, an incident occurred in violation of these understandings, infuriating both embassy personnel and Foreign Ministry officials in Jerusalem. Asher Friedman, the Strategic Affairs Ministry official responsible for contact with the Diaspora Jewry, asked a senior official in Britain’s Jewish community to use his connections to thwart an anti-Israel campaign by the Palestinians, the cable said. Friedman contacted the official directly rather than via the embassy and didn’t even inform the embassy he was doing so.

Times of Israel - Jenni Frazer - This man wrote the book on British Labour anti-Semitism — literally, 03 October 2016: "At campaign events around the country, people are seen reading Dave Rich’s four-decade-long study on the Left’s wayward shift"

The Guardian - Letters: Jackie Walker ruling betrays Momentum members, 04 October 2016.

Travellers' Times - Parliamentary Anti-Gypsyism meeting collapses after ‘offensive’ booklet emerges, 04 October 2016: A three-way parliamentary group seminar planned to discuss racism against Gypsies and Travellers has dramatically collapsed after the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Anti-Semitism pulled out after details of an “offensive” legal advice booklet emerged - produced and distributed by John Mann MP, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw, Notts, and the Chair of the Anti-Semitism APPG.

oPenDemocracy - Jonathan Rosenhead - Jackie Walker: a suspense mystery, 15 October 2016.

Veterans Today - Ian Greenhalgh - Essential Reading, The Origins of the Overclass, 16 October 2016: "The Origins of the Overclass By Steve Kangas: The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. ... The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA."

Haaretz - Ehud Ein-Gil - Israel did do ethnic cleansing in 1948. My father’s words prove it, 20 October 2016.

Mondoweiss - Alison Deger - Calling someone a ‘Zionist’ is anti-Semitic and abusive, say British lawmakers, 25 October 2016.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - An apology from Francois Hollande won't absolve France of its responsibility for Arab Harkis, 29 October 2016.

The Guardian - Sasha Polakow-Suransky - The ruthlessly effective rebranding of Europe’s new far right, 01 November 2016.

Aljazeera - Ilan Pappe - Black November, 3 November 2016.

AntiWar.com - John Feffer - Hillary Clinton and the Neocons, 04 November 2016.

The Jewish Chronicle - Simon Rocker - Peerage cost inquiry credibility, 10 November 2016: David Feldman, the joint vice-chairman of Labour's inquiry into antisemitism, has acknowledged the credibility of the report was damaged by its author's acceptance of a peerage. ... But he stressed he knew "of no evidence that follows that the inquiry was conducted as a whitewash because of some prospect of gain". When a member of the audience accused Prof Feldman of demonising Israel, he quipped: "I think it does a good job on its own", before apologising for the remark after cries of protest.

The New York Times - Andrew Higgins - Finger Pointed at Russians in Alleged Coup Plot in Montenegro, 26 November 2016: The man, Aleksandar Sindjelic, a veteran anti-Western activist from neighboring Serbia, has become a key informant — and a suspect — in a sprawling investigation into an alleged plot orchestrated by two Russians to seize Montenegro’s Parliament building last month, kill the prime minister and install a new government hostile to NATO. ... The Montenegrin authorities say two Russians carrying passports in the names of Eduard V. Shirikov and Vladimir N. Popov commanded the botched plot. ... The Montenegrin news media has reported that they are agents of Russia’s military intelligence service, known as the G.R.U. People close to the investigation said that they were Russian intelligence officers but that their precise affiliation was unclear.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - This is why everything you’ve read about the wars in Syria and Iraq could be wrong, 02 December 2016.

The Electronic Intifada - Selma Dabbagh - Palestine’s “scallywag leader of incredible cunning”, 16 December 2016.

The Guardian - Patrick Wintour - British policy has made situation in Syria worse, says former ambassador, 23 December 2016.

The Guardian - David Feldman - Will Britain’s new definition of antisemitism help Jewish people? I’m sceptical, 28 December 2016: This year there have been no less than three inquiries and reports on antisemitism: Janet Royall’s presented in May, Shami Chakrabarti’s at the end of June (I served as one of the vice-chairs to this inquiry, although the resulting report was Chakrabarti’s alone) and the home affairs committee report published in October. ... Those who make Israel the target of criticism for these actions are now denounced as antisemitic by Israel’s leaders and by their supporters around the world. In this way antisemitism is a term that does service both as a defence of minority rights, and in the context of support for a discriminatory and illiberal state power. ... At times the debate over antisemitism has been a surrogate for another quarrel: whether the Labour party should be a comfortable place for Zionists. In parts of the left the terms “Zionism” and “Zio” have become part of the lexicon of invective. Zionism and anti-Zionism encompass a range of positions, but in debate they get defined by opponents according to their maximalist connotations: religious and ethnic privilege, occupation and settlement are ascribed to one side, refusal to assent to the legitimacy of the state of Israel by the other. The facts provide a different picture. Many people who think of themselves as Zionists are at the forefront of protest against Israel’s policies. Many who conceive of themselves as anti-Zionists accept the state’s right to exist while they oppose its objectionable laws and policies. ... So does the IHRA definition that Britain has adopted provide the answer? I am sceptical. ...The IHRA definition has been circulating for over a decade and has already been buried once. It is almost identical to the European Union monitoring commission’s working definition, formulated in 2005 as part of the global response to the second intifada in the early 2000s. The definition was never accorded any official status by the EUMC and was finally dropped by its successor body, the Fundamental Rights Agency. The definition has been resurrected just as we are moving to new times. David Friedman, who will soon become President Trump’s ambassador to Israel, has denounced the “two-state” solution. The prospect of continued Israeli dominion over disenfranchised Palestinians, supported by a US president whose noisome electoral campaign was sustained by nods and winks to anti-Jewish prejudice, is changing the dynamic of Jewish politics in Israel and across the world. In this new context, the greatest flaw of the IHRA definition is its failure to make any ethical and political connections between the struggle against antisemitism and other sorts of prejudice.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - We are not living in a 'post-truth' world, we are living the lies of others, 29 December 2016.

2017

Unz Review - Tom Suárez - Terrorism: How the Israeli State Was Won, 01 January 2017: "On December 14, Tom Suárez spoke at The House of Lords, London, at the invitation of Baroness Jenny Tonge. Drawing from his recently published book State of Terror, he addressed the centennial of the Balfour Declaration and his views on the way toward ending today’s Israel-Palestine “conflict”. The following are Suárez’s remarks. The book was reviewed here by David Gerald Fincham." (article also posted on Mondoweiss)

International Socialism - John Newsinger - The Labour Party, anti-Semitism and Zionism, 03 January 2017.

Al Jazeera - Israel’s parliamentary plot against UK politicians, 07 January 2017.

Middle East Eye - David Hearst - REVEALED: Secret tapes expose Israeli influence over UK Conservative Party, 07 January 2017.

Middle East Eye - "Hamas is Hamas is Hamas": How MP spoke up for Israel in parliament, 07 January 2017.

The Guardian - Ian Cobain, Ewen MacAskill - Israeli diplomat caught on camera plotting to 'take down' UK MPs, 07 January 2017. {Shai Masot}

The Daily Mail - Simon Walters - Israel plot to 'take down' Tory minister: Astonishing undercover video captures diplomat conspiring with rival MP's aide to smear Deputy Foreign Secretary, 07 January 2017.

The Telegraph - Israel "plotted to take down Tory minister", 08 January 2017.

The Independent - Lizzie Dearden - Israeli embassy official filmed discussing how to 'take down' Sir Alan Duncan and other pro-Palestinian MPs, 08 January 2017.

The Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Secret video reveals Israeli plot to “take down” UK minister, 08 January 2017.

The Guardian - Ewen MacAskill, Ian Cobain - Israeli diplomat who plotted against MPs also set up political groups, 08 January 2017: He also says Robin should not tell other people that the embassy has established the group. “LFI is an independent organisation. No one likes that someone is managing his organisation. That really is the first rule in politics.”

The Guardian - Siobhan Fenton - Civil servant resigns after discussing how to 'take down pro-Palestine MPs' with Israeli diplomat, 08 January 2017.

Information Clearing House - Craig Murray - Why Has Israeli Spy Shai Masot Not Been Expelled?, 08 January 2017. (Original article at Craig Murray's blog, which refers back to article Matthew Gould and the Plot to Attack Iran)

Information Clearing House - Jonathan Cook - How Many British MPs are Working for Israel?, 08 January 2017. (Copy of article on Jonathan Cook's blog)

The Guardian - Patrick Wintour - Why might an Israeli diplomat believe Alan Duncan needs 'taking down'?, 08 January 2017: “No settlement endorsers should be regarded as fit to stand for public office, remain a member of a mainstream political party or sit in a parliament. How can we accept lawmakers in our country or any other country when they support lawbreakers in another? They are extremists and should be treated as such.”

Informationn Clearing House - Robert David Steele - The Russians Did Not “Hack” the US Election – a Few Facts from a Former CIA Spy, 08 January 2017.

The Guardian - Ian Cobain, Ewen MacAskill, Peter Beaumont - Israeli diplomats cautioned against 'operating' British Jewish organisations, 09 January 2017.

The Guardian - Ian Cobain, Ewen MacAskill - Israeli official who plotted to 'take down' British MPs resigns, 12 January 2017.

Al Jazeera - Avi Shlaim - Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in British Politics, 12 January 2017.

Al Jazeera - Jackie Walker - Opposition to a Jewish state is a legitimate position, 14 January 2017: This Facebook contribution was reduced to a sensationalist and inaccurate article in the Jewish Chronicle ... The right-wing of the Labour Party, the Jewish Chronicle and the Jewish Board of Deputies appeared enraged. The mainstream media, including all the national newspapers, even those traditionally identified as more liberal, such as The Guardian, chimed in. No one interviewed me or asked for my version of events. They simply repeated the inaccurate, substandard and biased reporting of the Jewish Chronicle. The British media appear to have become lazy and scared. As Shai Masot, the Israeli official filmed undercover by Al Jazeera Investigations points out, I became someone whose every movement was to be followed and reported on. ...Attempts to smear Corbyn started as soon as he became a leadership candidate. Newspapers that had published anti-Semitic articles on Ed Miliband, the previous (and Jewish) leader of the Labour Party, suddenly became champions against anti-Semitism. The mainstream media strained the limits of every story, twisting every statement, misquoting what they could, to paint Corbyn as an anti-Semite or soft on anti-Semitism. And the right of the Labour Party did what they could to assist them. ... The Israeli government has allocated millions to fund undisclosed activities to undermine the BDS.

The Guardian - Jonathan Cook - Palestinians Will Need More Than Grudging Unity To Save Them, 22 January 2017.

Al Jazeera - UK committee to investigate Israeli embassy scandal, 29 January 2017: Supporters of Corbyn, who is a leftist with a long history of Palestinian solidarity activism, were among those accused of anti-Semitism by Israeli officials, as Al Jazeera's investigation documented.

The Times of Israel - Ron Kampeas - Remember the 11 million’? Why an inflated victims tally irks Holocaust historians, 01 February 2017.

truthout - George Monbiot - How Corporate Dark Money Is Taking Power on Both Sides of the Atlantic, 07 February 2017.

Information Clearing House - Allison Weir - Trump’s Refugee Ban - Made in Israel?, 10 February 2017: “This country was taken over by a group of people with a policy coup,” Clark said in his 2007 lecture. “Wolfowitz, Rumsfield, Cheney, and you could name a half dozen other collaborators from the Project for a New American Century. They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.”

Haaretz - Uri Avnery - The Green Line is not sacred, 14 February 2017: When BDS says there is no difference between Israeli citizens inside the Green Line and the ones in the territories – it pushes innocent Israelis into the arms of the settlers. The settlers would doubtless love to get help from BDS in getting rid of that Green Line.

Haaretz - Uri Avnery - Who Really Started the 1948 War and When, 23 February 2017: We saw photographs showing their severed heads being paraded through the Old City of Jerusalem. The inevitable strategy of the Jewish side was to expel the Arabs from around the roads. ... We spent the day cleaning off the grease in which the rifles and submachine guns had been packed. They had been manufactured in Czechoslovakia for Adolf Hitler’s army (but arrived too late for World War II). ... In preparation for the anticipated battles, the Jewish army “cleansed” large areas of its Arab population, in order not to leave concentrations of Arab civilians behind our lines. ... This was the stage of mass expulsions of Arabs from the cities and villages.

The Guardian - Sally Weale, Steven Morris - Universities spark free speech row after halting pro-Palestinian events, 27 February 2017.

The Guardian - (Letters) Free speech on Israel under attack in universities, 27 February 2017.

The Electronic Intifada - Rod Such - How Zionist terrorism determined Palestine’s fate, 15 March 2017: "Thomas Suárez sheds much new light on those questions in State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel. He does this largely by mining previously neglected declassified documents from the British National Archives, covering the period of the British Mandate for Palestine (1920-1948)."

The Electronic Intifada - Tony Greenstein - Campaign Against Antisemitism is a campaign against Palestinians, 20 March 2017.

Moon of Alabama - Israel Just Received A HUGE Gift From Russia. What Is Its Side Of The Deal?, 06 April 2017: "Russia just published a quite sensational statement on Israel and Palestine. It recognizes, as before, East-Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine. But Russia now also recognizes, under certain condition, West-Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel."

The Intercept - Glenn Greenwald - The Spoils of War: Trump Lavished With Media and Bipartisan Praise For Bombing Syria, 07 April 2017.

Moon of Alabama - Syria: New U.S. Air Support On Request Scheme For Al-Qaeda, 07 April 2017.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - The US air strikes say more about the Vladimir Putin-Donald Trump relationship than the Middle East, 08 April 2017.

The American Conservative - Philip Giraldi - The True Cost of Israel, 12 April 2017.

Haaretz - Jonathan Rosenhead - Opinion: In Defense of Ken Livingstone, 12 April 2017: Quoting historical facts can hardly be anti-Semitic, which is presumably why the Labour Party didn’t even charge Livingstone with it. ... One of Shah’s re-tweets had been a quote from Martin Luther King: “Remember that everything that Hitler did in Germany was legal.” Feltz asked Livingstone a question about Hitler, seemingly to pick up this point, but he misunderstood the thrust and responded with some views on Hitler’s interactions with European Zionist leaders in the 1930s, which he had written about decades earlier. ... The Nazis wanted Jews out of Germany, and Zionists wanted Jews to settle Palestine. As a quid pro quo for the arrangement Zionists called off the economic boycott of Germany and gave other assistance to the faltering German economy. How could this statement of facts be seen as anti-Semitic? One neat solution found by Livingstone’s enemies was to misquote it, either as “Hitler and the Zionists collaborated”; or even as “Hitler was a Zionist.” (Jonathan Rosenhead is Emeritus Professor of Operational Research at the London School of Economics. He is chair of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, and Vice-Chair of Free Speech on Israel.)

The Guardian - Letter: We reject the call for Labour to expel Ken Livingstone, 12 April 2017: "Francis Nicosia, the Raul Hilberg professor of Holocaust studies at Vermont University, wrote in his book Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany (p79) that: “Throughout the 1930s, as part of the regime’s determination to force Jews to leave Germany, there was almost unanimous support in German government and Nazi party circles for promoting Zionism among German Jews.”"

The Electronic Intifada - David Cronin - UKIP dominates new support group for Israeli settlers, 12 April 2017.

The Independent - Kim Sengupta - How the US came to drop 'the mother of all bombs' in Afghanistan, 15 April 2017.

Information Clearing House - Leon Rosselson - Is Zionism Antisemitic?, 15 April 2017: " Like many educated, secular German-speaking Jews, Herzl despised the mass of Eastern European Jews. The first solution to the Jewish problem’ offered by the founding father of Zionism was a mass conversion to Catholicism in Vienna’s St Stephen’s Cathedral. The one language that was forbidden to be spoken in Herzl’s ideal Jewish state was Yiddish. Contempt for Jewish life outside a Jewish state has been an enduring feature of Zionism. In his interview with the Guardian, Yehoshua described Jews in the diaspora, like Freedland, ‘partial’ Jews, not proper Jews. Ben Gurion, in a conversation with Isaac Deutscher, echoed Stalin when he said, ‘They have no roots. They are rootless cosmopolitans. There can be nothing worse than that.’" (Leon Rosselson blog: Is Zionism Antisemitic?)

The Independent - Robert Fisk - If Trump cares so much about Syrian babies, why is he not condemning the rebels who slaughtered children?, 17 April 2017: "And the regime’s claim that a Syrian air attack set off explosions in al-Nusra weapons store in Khan Shaykoun (an idea which the Russians also adopted) would be easier to dismiss if the Americans had not used precisely the same excuse for the killing of well over a hundred Iraqi civilians in Mosul in March; they suggested that a US air strike on an Isis arms lorry may have killed the civilians."

Haaretz - Nir Hasson - Wary Israel tried to conceal East Jerusalem's annexation in 1967, documents reveal, 18 April 2017.

Information Clearing House - Robert Parry - Why Not a Probe of ‘Israel-gate’?, 21 April 2017.

Conservative Friends of Israel - CFI thanks ‘greatest friend’ Sir Eric Pickles as he stands down as MP, 22 April 2017: Sir Eric was instrumental in the drafting of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which Prime Minister Theresa May announced the UK would be adopting at CFI’s Annual Business Lunch in December 2016. The IHRA definition is now used by UK police, councils, universities, and schools. (Sir Eric Pickles (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) – Head of UK Delegation to IHRA, 2015; Statement by Experts of the UK Delegation to the IHRA on the Working Definition of Antisemitism, 2018 ["Any ‘modified’ version of the IHRA definition that does not include all of its 11 examples is no longer the IHRA definition. Adding or removing language undermines the months of international diplomacy and academic rigour that enabled this definition to exist."]; [olocaustremembrance.com/member-countries/united-kingdom Eric Pickles] Head of the United Kingdom Delegation to the IHRA: "A major focus for the UK is ensuring Britain has a permanent memorial to the Holocaust and educational resources for future generations and we are planning a major Holocaust memorial and learning centre next to Parliament. We are also proud to be the first country to have adopted IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism, announced by our Prime Minister in December 2016, and adopted subsequently by various councils and universities across the UK."]

The Guardian - Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance author dies aged 88, 25 April 2017. (Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

Electronic Intifada - Ali Abunimah - Leaked report highlights Israel lobby’s failures, 28 April 2017: Key Israel lobby groups have conceded that they have failed to counter the Palestine solidarity movement, despite vastly increasing their spending. The admission is contained in a secret report that The Electronic Intifada has obtained. ... The existence of the report had been revealed in February by The Jewish Daily Forward. It was prepared by the Anti-Defamation League and the Reut Institute, an Israeli think tank founded by former government adviser Gidi Grinstein, with the help of “experts” from Israel lobby groups and the Israeli goverment.

Foreign Policy Journal - Jeremy R. Hammond - What Is the Greatest Obstacle to Peace between Israel and Palestine?, 02 May 2017.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Trump and Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman are the most dangerous men in the world – and they’re meeting next week, 12 May 2017.

The Guardian.com - Nathan Thrall - Israel-Palestine: the real reason there’s still no peace, 16 May 2017.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - To prevent another week of terror, our state must not become a vast Isis recruiting sergeant, 27 May 2017.

The Times Literary Supplement - Assaf Gavron - Playing for Palestine, 31 May 2017: In a television commercial from 2009 for the Israeli mobile phone carrier Cellcom, a jeep drives alongside a grey concrete wall, which looks exactly like the separation barrier between Israel and the West Bank.

Psychology Today - Stephen Friedman - Hidden Bias and Racism, 15 June 2017: A social worker shares his struggle with unconscious attitudes.

The Intercept - Charles Glass - Syrian Archives Add New Details to Henry Kissinger’s Disastrous Middle East Record, 18 June 2017: "Kissinger cajoled, lied, and manipulated. In the end, he got what he wanted: a deal that gave Israel its most peaceful border until the Syrian civil war changed the game. He also achieved an American monopoly on Arab-Israeli negotiations that abandoned comprehensive peacemaking in favor of what he called “step-by-step” diplomacy. The steps led to the Lebanese civil war, Israel’s many invasions of Lebanon, the creation of Hezbollah and the expulsion of Israel from Lebanon, unrestricted Israeli colonization of the West Bank, the Palestinians’ intifada uprisings, and the continuing degradation of Palestinian life."

Wired - Alex Sobel Fitts - Welcome to the Wikipedia of the Alt-Right, 21 June 2017: Wikipedia was the rare place where people across the political spectrum could hash out solid facts. A wave of defectors is challenging that. ... Day is bothered because he believes that Wikipedia is a Democratic tool, run “by the left-wing thought police who administer it,” he tells me over email. ... So last fall, in the midst of a public debate about what, exactly, constitutes a fact, Day decided it was time to do something about the Wikipedia problem. ... That site, Infogalactic, is made with Wikipedia’s MediaWiki software—so by design it looks a lot like Wikipedia. ... But Infogalactic is only one of a number of crowdsourced encyclopedias tailored to various conservative factions. There’s Metapedia, a wiki with a white supremacist bent, which is published in 16 languages but is especially popular in Hungary and Germany. (On Metapedia, Barack Obama isn’t just a former president, he’s a “mixed race former president,” and the Holocaust is a genocide only according to "politically correct history.") Or there’s Conservapedia, a version aimed at religious conservatives and created by Andrew Schlafly, son of the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. (Infogalactic:Political Correctness)

Welt N24 - Seymour M. Hersh - Trump‘s Red Line, 25 June 2017: "President Donald Trump ignored important intelligence reports when he decided to attack Syria after he saw pictures of dying children. Seymour M. Hersh investigated the case of the alleged Sarin gas attack."

Haaretz - Omer Benjakob - U.S. Jews have finally realized: Netanyahu isn’t the king of the Jews, 29 June 2017: From the time of Ben-Gurion, Israel’s deal with U.S. Jews has been based on an assumption of a shared fate. U.S. Jews would defend Israel abroad and it would forever remain open to them should the Jewish diaspora face peril again.

The Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - When Israel’s friends in Labour advocated genocide, 25 July 2017: In a 1959 lecture in Israel, Crossman discussed Zionism in the context of other settler-colonial episodes in history. Referring to European settlers – which he collectively called “the white man” – in Africa and the Americas, he argued: “No one, until the 20th century, seriously challenged their right, or indeed their duty, to civilize these continents by physically occupying them, even at the cost of wiping out the aboriginal population.” He lamented that “Jewish settlers” in Palestine had not “achieved their majority before 1914,” and that the Palestinians “regarded them as ‘white settlers,’ come to occupy the Middle East.” ... During the postwar Labour government of Clement Attlee, Crossman worked hard to advance the Zionist movement’s takeover of Palestine. ... In a biography of John Strachey, then a member of the cabinet’s defense committee, it is recounted that Crossman aided Zionist militias in armed attacks on the British army. ... In 1944, the party’s national executive committee issued a report called “The International Post-War Settlement,” which outlined the leadership’s views on global issues, ahead of the 1945 election which resulted in a landslide Labour victory. The document’s principal author was Hugh Dalton, who the following year would be finance minister in Attlee’s government. It argued that there was a necessity in Palestine “for transfer of population. Let the Arabs be encouraged to move out, as the Jews move in.” ... Neither was Dalton’s racism confined to Palestinians. He seems to have made a habit of privately referring to people of color as “diseased nigger communities” or as “wogs.”

Mint Press News - Whitney Webb - James Le Mesurier: The Former British Mercenary Who Founded The White Helmets, 31 July 2017.

Arutz Sheva - PM wants to know: Who compared Irgun and Lehi to terrorist organizations?, 06 August 2017: The IDF removed the document accusing the groups of terrorism from the IDF website so that instructors and officers could not use it. In a manual titled “Nationalism in the Land of Israel – Between Zionists and Palestinians”, the Irgun is accused of “terrorist activities” against the British. The document also accuses the Lehi of “radical terrorism” against the Mandate.

The Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Far-right Britain First fosters ties with Zionist movement, 31 August 2017: On its Facebook page, Britain First in 2015 described Besser as its “commanding officer for London.” According to the Exposing Britain First blog, the group’s leader describes Besser internally as its “intelligence officer.”

Jewish News - Michael Gove at Tory conference: ‘Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism’, 03 October 2017: Gove said Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn chose “death-squads over democrats” while saluting pro-Israel Labour MPs Joan Ryan and Ian Austin for their “fantastic job in standing up for Jewish people’s right to self-determination”. He concluded: “At a time when people say that ‘I’m not an anti-Semite, I’m just anti-Zionist,’ it is important that we should say no, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.”

The New Yorker - Ronan Farrow - [ghing-the-costs-of-speaking-out-about-harvey-weinstein Weighing the Costs of Speaking Out About Harvey Weinstein, 28 October 2017: "Annabella Sciorra, Daryl Hannah, and other women explain their struggles with going public."

Middle East Eye - Peter Osborne - 100 years after Balfour: The reality which still shames Israel, 29 October 2017.

Verso Blog - Avi Shlaim - The Balfour Declaration and its Consequences, 01 November 2021: In 1915 Britain promised Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca, that it would support an independent Arab kingdom under his rule in return for his mounting an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, Germany’s ally in the war. The promise was contained in a letter dated 24 October 1915 from Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, to the Sharif of Mecca in what later became known as the McMahon–Hussein correspondence. The Sharif of Mecca assumed that the promise included Palestine. In 1916 Britain reached a secret agreement with France to divide the Middle East into spheres of influence in the event of an Allied victory. Under the terms of the Sykes–Picot agreement, Palestine was to be placed under international control. In 1917 Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, promising to support the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Thus, by a stroke of the imperial pen, the Promised Land became twice-promised. ... On the question of conflict between Britain’s promises to Sharif Hussein and to the French, the most definitive study is by Elie Kedourie. ... His principal conclusion is that the Sykes–Picot agreement did not violate the commitments contained in the McMahon–Hussein correspondence. ... In 1916 the Sharif of Mecca proclaimed himself "King of the Arab Countries," but the Allies recognised him only as King of the Hijaz. ... When news of the Declaration reached Hussein he was greatly disturbed by it and asked Britain to clarify its meaning. Whitehall met this request with the dispatch of Commander D.G. Hogarth, one of the heads of the Arab Bureau in Cairo, who arrived in Jedda in the first week of January 1918 for a series of interviews with King Hussein. "Hogarth’s Message," as it came to be known, reaffirmed the Entente’s determination that "the Arab race shall be given full opportunity of once again forming a nation in the world." So far as Palestine was concerned, Britain was "determined that no people shall be subject to another." Britain noted and supported the aspiration of the Jews to return to Palestine but only in so far as this was compatible with "the freedom of the existing population, both economic and political." Hussein voiced no disagreement with this policy, though we may be sceptical of Hogarth’s report that he "agreed enthusiastically" with it. Hogarth’s Message is crucial for understanding King Hussein’s attitude to the Balfour Declaration. Following the meetings in Jedda, Hussein thought he had Britain’s assurance that the settlement of the Jews in Palestine would not conflict with Arab independence in that country. This explains his initial silence in public and his private efforts to allay the anxieties of his sons. ... He was not opposed to the settlement of Jews in Palestine and even welcomed it on religious and on humanitarian grounds. He was, however, emphatically opposed to a Zionist takeover of the country. Hogarth gave him a solemn pledge that Britain would respect not only the economic but also the political freedom of the Arab population. When Britain subsequently refused to recognise Arab independence in Palestine, Hussein felt betrayed and accused Britain of breach of faith. ... The definition of British interests in the Middle East began in 1915, leading to the Sykes–Picot agreement which reconciled Britain’s interests with those of France, with a compromise over Palestine. On further reflection, however, the British felt that control over Palestine was necessary in order to keep France and Russia from the approaches to Egypt and the Suez Canal. In Vereté’s account, it was the desire to exclude France from Palestine, rather than sympathy for the Zionist cause, that prompted Britain to sponsor a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. It was also thought that a Declaration favourable to the ideals of Zionism was likely to enlist the support of the Jews of America and Russia for the war effort against Germany. Finally, rumour that Germany was courting the Zionists accelerated the pace at which Britain moved towards its dramatic overture. In contrast to Stein, Vereté concludes that Zionist lobbying played a negligible part in drawing Britain towards Palestine. A similar though not identical argument was advanced by Jon Kimche in The Unromantics: The Great Powers and the Balfour Declaration. As the title suggests, the author believes that the driving force behind the Declaration was not sentimentality but hard-headed realism. {Excerpted from "Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations."} (Copy)

The Guardian - Peter Beaumont - What did Israel hope to gain from Priti Patel's secret meetings?, 08 November 2017.

Middle East Eye - Clayton Swisher - Priti remarkable change of times, 09 November 2017: To put Patel’s resignation in context, it is worth going back to the government’s fleeting and dismissive response to Al Jazeera’s four-part investigative expose "The Lobby,” broadcast in January this year. ... While the alarming discussion about Duncan generated headlines everywhere, the investigation was primarily focused on exposing the mosaic of Israeli embassy activities. This amounted to a sophisticated and well-funded campaign by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs to smear and discredit British activists and critics of Israel alike - on British soil - including members of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. ... The activities of the Israeli ministry were causing alarm inside the London embassy itself. Months before the Al Jazeera broadcast in September 2016, Ha’aretz newspaper reported how the Israeli embassy in London cabled its concern to Tel Aviv that the Ministry of Strategic Affairs was putting the embassy in legal jeopardy for “operating” British Jewish organisations, in violation of British law. ... At a low budget London hotel ballroom speaking “off the record” to British admirers of Israel, our undercover reporter recorded Erdan’s uncompromising views. He plainly admitted that he “grew up with the ideology that the land of Israel totally belongs to the Jewish people - not any compromise, morally, biblically”. Erdan told his guests that he was not troubled by the lack of a two-state solution or illegal settlements. Instead he decried Britain’s rising chorus of criticism against Israel for prolonging the occupation. That criticism, championed by BDS supporters, “is a strategic threat to the future of Israel,” Erdan declared.” He urged Britain’s help in countering it, saying, “if we allow them to continue with all the lies that they are spreading against Israel, we will lose this fantastic young generation and maybe from here, they will be the next leaders of the UK.” ... After the BBC outed her undeclared meetings, Patel confessed to seeing Erdan, claiming it was to discuss “growing anti-Semitism” in British politics. That holds a special irony considering Erdan and the ministry officers and ex-spies he employs have been quietly fanning passions in Britain by falsely conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. The Labour Party and its popular leader Jeremy Corbyn took the brunt of this activity in 2016.

Middle East Eye - Ryvka Barnard - Priti Patel’s Israel scandal: The tip of the iceberg, 13 November 2017: One of Patel’s secret meetings in London was with Gilad Erdan, Israel’s public security and strategic affairs minister, and is responsible for the heavily funded Israeli government taskforce to fight the BDS movement. Erdan was name-checked last year by Amnesty International for his role in Israeli government intimidation of human rights defenders, when he said that Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists should be made to “pay the price” for their activism. Erdan’s taskforce gloats openly about its programme of monitoring Palestinian and Israeli human rights defenders in Israel, but also of BDS activists abroad. ... Following Erdan’s meetings in London, Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that concerns had been raised by a British organisation’s head who had been contacted by Israel’s Ministry for Strategic Affairs asking him to “use his connections to thwart” an unnamed pro-Palestinian campaign.

Labour Friends of Israel - Analysis: Thornberry lays out Labour’s Israel agenda, 30 November 2017: The next Labour government will challenge antisemitic incitement by the Palestinian Authority, support the establishment of an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and continue to oppose the BDS movement, the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, told this week’s annual LFI lunch. Ms Thornberry also repeated Labour’s pledge to recognise a Palestinian state and made clear it would challenge settlement-building in the West Bank. ... In her speech, Ms Ryan said she was “ashamed – and we should all be ashamed – of some of the language we have seen used by members of the Labour Party when discussing Israel… age-old tropes about international conspiracies and Jewish power, the suggestion that Jews are manipulating allegations of antisemitism for their own ends, and, most pernicious of all, the attempt to link Zionism and Nazi Germany”.

Haaretz - Omer Benjakob - After Trump move, Jerusalem battle now plays out on Wikipedia, 07 December 2017: Dramatic change in U.S. policy finds its way onto Wikipedia, where Jerusalem is Israel’s capital in English and Hebrew, but the Palestinians' capital in Arabic.

2018

London Review of Books - Neve Gordon - The 'New Anti-Semitism', Vol. 40 No. 01, page 18, 04 January 2018.

Haaretz - Adam Raz - 'We look at them like donkeys': What Israel's first ruling party thought about Palestinian citizens, 13 January 2018.

The Washington Post - Ellen Nakashima, Souad Mekhennet, Greg Jaffe - A German hacker offers a rare look inside the secretive world of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, 17 January 2018: The three major U.S. intelligence agencies — the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency — assessed “with high confidence” that Russia relayed to WikiLeaks material it had hacked from the Democratic National Committee and senior Democratic officials. And last year, then-FBI Director James B. Comey said that the bureau believes the transfer was made using a “cut-out,” or a human intermediary or a series of intermediaries. Exactly how the Russians delivered the email trove to WikiLeaks is the subject of an ongoing examination by U.S. and European intelligence officials. As part of their effort to understand the group’s operations, these officials have taken an intense interest in [Andy] Müller-Maguhn, who visits Assange monthly, U.S. officials said. Müller-Maguhn insists that he was never in possession of the material before it was put online and that he did not transport it. “That would be insane,” he says. “It’s time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a nonstate hostile intelligence service,” CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in the spring after the group released documents describing CIA hacking tools. In December, he doubled down on that assessment, describing WikiLeaks as a national security threat and suggesting that Assange cannot protect those who pass him state secrets. “He ought to be a bit less confident about that,” Pompeo said.

Jewish News - Jenni Frazer - More than 70 attend re-launch of UK Zionist group, 19 January 2018: Pro-Israel leaders call for “unapologetic Zionism” at this week's event, which saw the revival of Herut UK. ... More than 70 people attended the re-launch event of Herut UK, the political Zionist group affiliated to World Herut in Israel. The party’s executive director, Karma Feinstein-Cohen, who came from Israel especially for the re-launch, spoke about the history of the movement while pro-Israel activist David Collier spoke about the legacy of Zionist founding father, Vladimir Jabotinsky. ... Herut UK is a political group in the UK, not a political party.

Haaretz - Israeli Army Ordered to Shoot Down Passenger Planes to Kill Arafat in 1982, New Book Claims, 24 January 2018.

GlobalResearch - James F. Tracy - The CIA and the Media: 50 Facts the World Needs to Know, 30 January 2018: "Consider the coverups of election fraud in 2000 and 2004, the events of September 11, 2001, the invasions Afghanistan and Iraq, the destabilization of Syria, and the creation of “ISIS.” These are among the most significant events in recent world history, and yet they are also those much of the American public is wholly ignorant of."

AP News - Robert Burns - US has no evidence of Syrian use of sarin gas, Mattis says, 02 February 2018.

The Guardian - Owen Bowcott, Ewen MacAskill - Sweden tried to drop Assange extradition in 2013, CPS emails show, 11 February 2018: UK prosecutors tried to dissuade Swedish counterparts from doing so, exchange shows.

Haaretz - Omer Benjakob - Judea and Samaria District? Wikipedia in Hebrew can't find the West Bank, 16 February 2018: In theory, Jewish settlements in the West Bank constitute one of Israel’s seven administrative districts. However, the so-called “Judea and Samaria District” may not actually be a district, or at least does not have the official status of one, according to a recent discovery by Hebrew Wikipedia editors."

Jewish News - Jenni Frazer - More than 70 attend re-launch of UK Zionist group, 19 February 2018: Lawyer Mark Lewis emphasised the importance of “unapologetic Zionism”, while the UK national director, Mandy Blumenthal, chaired the event and introduced Herut UK’s youth director, Harry Saul Markman.

Middle East Eye - Simon Hooper - Job advert offers glimpse into secretive work of Home Office 'propaganda' unit, 22 February 2018: A job advert posted earlier this month offers rare insight into the work of the Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU), which is based within the Home Office’s Office for Counter-Terrorism and Security.

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - What's in Al Jazeera's undercover film on the US Israel lobby, 05 March 2018.

The Guardian - Heather Stewart - Corbyn in antisemitism row after backing artist behind 'offensive' mural, 23 March 2018: "Labour MP Luciana Berger raised the issue with Corbyn’s office after screenshots of the Facebook post emerged."

BBC - Jeremy Corbyn regrets comments about 'anti-Semitic' mural, 23 March 2019: "Mear One - whose real name is Kalen Ockerman - has denied being anti-Semitic, saying the mural was about "class and privilege"."

The Times - Michael Kemp - Corbyn ‘supported antisemitic mural’, 24 March 2018: "Luciana Berger, the MP for Liverpool Wavertree, had demanded an explanation for her leader’s apparent support for what she described as “one of the worst examples of antisemitic imagery”. ... Ockerman, who is based in Los Angeles, denied that his mural was antisemitic but admitted he had “depicted the elite banking cartel known as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Morgans, the ruling elite few, the Wizards of Oz playing a board game of Monopoly on the backs of the working class”."

Lobe Log - Eli Clifton - Trump’s Choice of Bolton Satisfies His Biggest Donor, 24 March 2018.

Haaretz - After Six Years, Corbyn Now Regrets Defending 'anti-Semitic' London Mural, 25 March 2018: "The mural depicts businessmen and bankers, some of them Jewish, counting money around a Monopoly-style board balanced on the backs of men with dark complexions."

BBC - Jennifer Scott - How the Labour anti-Semitism saga unfolded, 26 March 2018.

Strategic Culture Foundation - Jonathan Cook - The Sharks Circling Around Corbyn Scent Blood, 28 March 2018: Last week, Corbyn was a Soviet spy. This week we’re in more familiar territory, even if it has a new twist: Corbyn is not only a friend to anti-semites, it seems, but now he has been outed as a closet one himself. ... The knife of choice for the Labour backstabbers this time is a wall mural removed from East London in 2012.

New Statesman - Matt Bolton, Frederick Harry Pitts - To combat left anti-semitism, Corbynism must change the way it sees the world. 27 March 2018: There has been widespread revulsion at Corbyn’s defence of a virulently anti-semitic graffiti artist, and contempt for his excuses for doing so: that he was merely defending the right to free speech and had, unfortunately, failed to examine the picture closely enough.

YouGov - John Humphrys - Anti-Semitism in Labour: How Serious a Problem?, 29 March 2018.

Middle East Eye - Peter Osborne - Jeremy Corbyn and anti-Semitism: How his critics ignore Israel's brutality, 04 April 2018.

Morning Star - Peter Kirker - Enough already with this zionist frenzy, 04 April 2018: With a little bit of help from the Israeli embassy, as revealed by an Al-Jazeera sting last year, broadcast in four episodes as The Lobby and still available to watch online, the zionist tendencies have established a solid bridgehead in the Labour Party through the affiliated Jewish Labour Movement (JLM). Virtually unknown until Corbyn, a long-time campaigner for Palestinian rights, was elected to the Labour leadership, the JLM has sometimes played down the uncritically pro-Israel flavour of its ethos. But its claim to decades-long affiliation to the Labour Party rests on it being just a rebranding of Poale Zion, whose name spoke for itself. British Poale Zion had in fact been defunct for several years when JLM emerged from its ashes. Moreover, and in potential conflict with its status as a Labour affiliate, the movement is also affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation through which, according to the UN, Israel funds a significant element of its illegal settlements programme.

Haaretz - David Feldman, Brendan McGeever - British Left's anti-Semitism Problem Didn't Start With Corbyn. It's Been Festering for a Century, 09 April 2018.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - The search for truth in the rubble of Douma – and one doctor’s doubts over the chemical attack, 17 April 2018: "Exclusive: Robert Fisk visits the Syria clinic at the centre of a global crisis."

New Statesman - Len McCluskey - The Corbyn ultimatum, 25 April 2018: “Corbyn-hating” MPs must end their shameless smears – or face the consequences.

Arutz Sheva - Rabbi Yehuda HaKohen - The tragic legacy of David Raziel, commander of the Etzel, 09 May 2018: Stern had come from a revolutionary socialist background, growing up in the All Union Leninist Pioneer Organization (youth faction of the Russian Communist Party) at the time of the Russian Revolution and first entering the Jewish community through the socialist Hashomer Hatzair. Stern had been unimpressed with both the Zionist right and left but was immediately inspired by Rav Kook’s messianic philosophy and – in addition to gradually taking on Jewish ritual practices – accepted upon himself the task of reviving the Israelite Kingdom. Stern understood the Jews to constitute a people and not a mere culture or religion as most Marxists claimed. He recognized Israel’s primordial attachment to Palestine and identified British colonialism as the greatest obstacle to Jewish liberation. ... But Stern the revolutionary saw more value in a clandestine underground. His background enabled him to analyze the factors standing in the way of Israel’s freedom. He identified Britain’s material interests in the Middle East, concluded that these interests demanded permanent control of Palestine and decided on the necessity of an anti-colonial struggle to free the country. In fact, by applying a Marxist method of analysis to the Jewish people as a native people victimized by British imperialism, Stern came to deeply identify with the anti-Roman rebels of the Second Temple era ... When World War Two erupted, Stern distinguished between the German tzorer (persecutor) and British oyev (enemy), arguing that while the Germans hated and sought to harm the Jews, the British were the true enemy for standing in the way of the Jewish mission (by occupying our homeland and preventing Jews from returning home). ... Stern, by contrast, was shot dead while handcuffed by British detectives in Tel Aviv. ... Every single explosion, shot fired and word of propaganda pasted to the walls of urban centers was geared towards very specific short- and long-term goals: forcing the British into a policy of collective punishment to maintain security, fostering general hostility towards the empire among the populace, dragging the Etzel (and even briefly the Haganah) behind them in their anti-colonial struggle, finding points of common cause with progressive forces in the Arab world, generating global sympathy – especially on the left – for their cause and making the price of ruling Palestine more expensive for the British than the benefits of exploitation. Applying the same analysis as their martyred leader, the Sternists identified the empire’s material interests in the region and attacked those interests until retreat became England’s best strategic option.

El País - Ana Carbajosa - Syrian torrture victims, Building the Case against Assad's regime, 15 June 2018.

Mirror - Steve Myall - King David Hotel bombing killed 91 and struck at heart of British rule in Palestine - now Prince William is staying there, 26 June 2018: Daily Mirror reporter Barbara Broad was walking in through the hotel entrance when the bomb exploded. ... In an hotel telephone booth I talked with Emil Christian, Arab telephone operator who received a telephone message from one of the terrorists a few moments before the explosion. "A voice suddenly came on the line saying, 'The building has been mined. You have four minutes to escape,'" Emil told me. The line then went dead while the operator tried vainly to give warning in time to the hotel military headquarters and secretariat.

The New York Times - David M. Halbfinger - From Jewish Saint, to Israeli Politician, to Diaspora’s Ally, 29 June 2018: The relationship between Israel and the diaspora is at an inflection point, in Mr. Sharansky’s view. ... Those days are gone, Mr. Sharansky said. Israelis know that world Jewry is its most reliable ally against delegitimization, and American Jews have learned that without a connection to Israel, “their grandchildren would not be Jewish.”

Information Clearing House - Eve Mykytyn (Blog) - Exposed! How Britain’s anti-Semitism Scaremongers Operate, 10 July 2018: This article about the British charitable organisation, the Campaign against Anti-Semitism (CAA), and its officers, Gideon Falter and Steve Silverman, examines events in England but ought to serve as a cautionary message for Canadians and Americans. The article will delve into the corrosive methods of the CAA; review the manner in which this ultra Zionist group “discovers” anti-Semitic “incidents”; examine their inaccurate statistical “studies” and see how they seek to intimidate political parties, venues, the press and others; and look at the court cases which the CAA has prosecuted. In the guise of fighting anti-Semitism, the CAA has managed to manoeuvre British society into abdicating its core liberal values, intimidate the prosecutorial and judicial system, and silence criticism of Israel in both social media and the mainstream media.

Information Clearing House - Amjad Iraqi - US House Approved Latest Version of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, 16 July 2018.

Middle East Eye - Ahmad Tibi - Anti-Semitism and Labour: Muzzling free speech silences rightful criticism of Israel, 16 July 2018: "Longstanding Knesset member Ahmad Tibi urges Labour not to change its definition of anti-Semitism at its meeting on Tuesday."

ZCommunications - Gavin Lewis - Hijacking Victimhood and Demonizing Dissent: The Post 2014 Gaza Bombing Anti-Semitism Moral Panic – a Short History - 18 July 2018.

Haaretz - White Nationalist Richard Spencer Backs Israel's Contentious Nation-state Law, 22 July 2018: In a series of tweets, Spencer writes of his admiration for the law, which confers the right to national self-determination in Israel to the Jewish people alone, and says Jews are 'showing a path forward for Europeans.'

Haaretz - Elon Gilad - When the Jews believed in other gods, 26 July 2018.

Morning Star - David Rosenberg - Stand down, Margaret, 26 July 2018: NOT content with calling Jeremy Corbyn a “fucking anti-semite and racist,” and treating herself as the victim when the Labour Party threatened to act on a third party complaint about her use of outrageous and abusive language against a fellow Labour MP whom she has known for several decades, and is the leader of the Labour Party, Margaret Hodge has had the chutzpah to compare her fight against Corbyn’s alleged anti-semitism with her fight in her Barking constituency against the British National Party (BNP). ...But it gets worse the more you dig. In the run-up to the elections of 2006, Hodge claimed that eight out of 10 white working-class people were thinking of voting BNP. For the BNP activists this was manna from heaven. Those who were leaning towards the BNP policies but couldn’t necessarily see the point in voting as Labour always got in were suddenly very motivated to vote. Small wonder that the BNP sent Hodge a bunch of flowers to thank her. A year later, what do we find this brave and courageous anti-racist doing? She is busy advocating a housing policy that talks explicitly of privileging “the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by indigenous families” over the “legitimate needs demonstrated by new migrants.” Not exactly the words of an anti-racist champion who is entitled to casually throw accusations of racism at others. She was widely accused, not least by the Refugee Council and several other anti-racist bodies, of legitimising BNP arguments, competing with the BNP on the territory they were establishing by absolutely conceding to their arguments.

Electronic Intifada - Rod Such - Painting a false picture, 26 July 2018: The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media by Greg Shupak, OR Books (2018).

The Jewish Chronicle - Lee Harpin - Board president Marie van der Zyl meets Baroness Warsi privately to discuss 'concern and past disagreement', 26 July 2018: The JC understands Baroness Warsi tried to lobby her on relations with fast-growing Muslim advocacy group. ... The president of the Board of Deputies has held a private meeting with Baroness Warsi, the former Minister for Faith and Communities and ex-Conservative Party chair, to discuss “matters of common concern and past disagreement”. Marie van der Zyl met the peer for talks in Central London last week in a meeting set up following a request from Gerald Ronson, the chairman of the Community Security Trust. The Board confirmed the meeting took place, but refused to give further details on the agenda. ... The pair also discussed overcoming the “sometimes strained” relationship between the Baroness and former Board president Jonathan Arkush. A source said the session had also included a conversation on possible joint efforts from the Jewish and Muslim communities to tackle antisemitism and Islamophobia within the main political parties. Baroness Warsi has been vocal over claims the Conservative Party suffers from a “widespread” Islamophobia problem and has called for an “independent inquiry” into the matter. But her decision to urge Mrs van der Zyl to consider greater engagement with groups including Mend will be a cause for concern for many in the Jewish community. ... Baroness Warsi did not respond to requests for a comment about the meeting. She was involved in a public row with Mr Arkush in March last year after she criticised British Jews who join the IDF. In a statement at the time, Mr Arkush said: “Sayeeda Warsi lost all touch with reality when she walked out of government over her Gaza issues, and into well-earned obscurity. If she is really suggesting that a Briton who volunteers for the French Foreign Legion or serves in the armed forces of a close ally is a traitor, then no-one can treat her seriously.”

Mondoweiss - Robert Cohen - The Jewish establishment’s ‘war against Corbyn’ risks bringing real anti-Semitism to Britain, 29 July 2018.

Mondoweiss - Joel Reinstein - "Zionism’s troubled relationship with anti-Semitism", 31 July 2018.

Haaretz - Mehdi Hasan - Dial down the hysteria on anti-Semitism in Corbyn's Labour, 01 August 2018.

The Jewish Chronicle - John Ware (Panorama presenter) - Jeremy Corbyn’s gold standard code on antisemitism is far from black and white, 02 August 2018: Labour’s definition of Jew-hate appears to raise more questions than it answers.

The Guardian - Maev Kennedy - Bones found at Stonehenge belonged to people from Wales, 02 August 2018: Tests show 5,000-year-old remains found at the world heritage site came from more than 100 miles away in west Wales. ... The remains of at least 10 of 25 individuals, whose brittle charred bones were buried at the monument, showed that they did not spend their lives on the Wessex chalk downland, but came from more than 100 miles away. ... It was known that Stonehenge was used as an early cremation cemetery, but not who was buried there. The tests were all on tiny pieces of skulls which were buried in the “Aubrey holes” (named for the 17th-century naturalist John Aubrey who first spotted them), a circle of 56 pits outside the stone circle now showing only as marks in the turf. It used to be thought that the pits held timber posts, but recent excavations have found bluestone chips suggesting they may have held the first circle of the bluestones which were then repeatedly rearranged for centuries. ... The earliest bones have been dated to about 3000 BC, and then cover a range of around 500 years. John Pouncett, a lead author of the study, said: “The earliest dates are tantalisingly close to the date we believe the bluestones arrived, and though we cannot prove they are the bones of the people who brought them, there must at least be a relationship. The range of dates raises the possibility that for centuries people could have been brought to Stonehenge for burial with the stones.” The revelation sheds new light on the people who built Stonehenge and regarded it as a special place in its earliest centuries. The huge sarsen stones were comparatively easy to deliver to Stonehenge, merely having to be dragged 20 miles across Salisbury plain. It’s known that the bluestones came from Preseli, but arguments have raged over how.

NewStatesman - Patrick Maguire - "How did Labour lose the trust of Britain’s Jews?", 03 August 2018.

Jewish Voice for Labour - Leon Rosselson - Jonathan Freedland: a critique, 07 August 2018.

Electronic Intifada - Adri Neuwhof - How Israel attacked and Auschwitz survivor to smear Corbyn, 07 August 2018.

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Jeremy Corbyn for U.K. prime minister, 09 August 2018.

Media Lens - Israel is the Real Problem, 09 August 2018.

Al Jazeera - Ian Almond - The danger of conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, 12 August 2018: At the moment, two phenomena are taking place in UK politics. For the first time in nearly 40 years, a politician with seriously left-wing ideas, and pro-Palestinian sympathies, is approaching political power. Over the past two years, that same politician's party has been going through a series of anti-Semitism allegations so comprehensive and systematic that we may employ the term "blanket coverage". ... So many aspects of this coverage are disturbing: the widespread assumption among TV hosts and commentators that anti-semitism is a problem exclusive to the Labour Party (polling suggests it is clearly not); the alarming paucity of any evidence or statistics, so that the sentence "anti-Semitism in the Labour Party", repeated ad nauseam, becomes its own self-generating fact; the frankly ridiculous allegations of anti-Semitism levelled at the leader Jeremy Corbyn himself ...; the unconditional authority and respect given to voices who have been widely criticised elsewhere for bias - the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, for example, whose unreserved equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism drew a letter of protest from 88 Jewish celebrities; the lack of journalistic professionalism in giving any sense of proportion to the actual problem (the membership of the British Labour Party is 570,000 - the number of cases pending for expulsion from the party for anti-Semitism, the Guardian reported this week, is 70). Media coverage has been so appalling that, earlier in the summer, a group of 40 senior British academics accused the media of relying for its sources on a handful of "well-known political opponents of Corbyn himself. In particular, the Labour Party is being called "anti-Semitic" because it has refused to recognise the entirety of a disputed definition of "anti-Semitism" - the code of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), repeatedly described in the media as an "internationally recognised" definition, but in reality is a highly controversial one.

The Guardian - Quentin Sommerville - Face to face with ‘the Beatles’, the Isis torture squad, 12 August 2018.

Haaretz - Sonia Resnick - We’re British Jewry’s Newest Anti-occupation Group - and You Can’t Dismiss Us, 13 August 2018: In May 2018, a group of more than 50 British Jews – old and young, Orthodox and progressive, Zionist and non-Zionist – gathered in London’s Parliament Square to mourn the Palestinians killed by the IDF in Gaza. ... In the aftermath of that protest, we were vilely abused, harassed, and threatened by members of our community. ... We were no longer the present and future of the Jewish community, despite being active in synagogues, the Board of Deputies of British Jews (British Jewry’s main representative body), youth movements, and charities. We were now Kapos. Traitors. Scum. ... That experience drove us to found Na’amod: British Jews Against Occupation in July 2018. We were galvanized by the British Jewish community’s complicit silence on Israel’s transgressions against Palestinians and the severity of abuse levelled at anti-occupation Jews.

The Guardian - Nathan Thrall - BDS: how a controversial non-violent movement has transformed the Israeli-Palestinian debate, 14 August 2018: In 2016, Israel’s embassy in London sent a cable to Jerusalem complaining that the strategic affairs ministry was endangering British Jewish organisations, most of which are registered as charities and forbidden from political activity: “‘operating’ Jewish organisations directly from Jerusalem … is liable to be dangerous” and “could encounter opposition from the organisations themselves, given their legal status; Britain isn’t the US!” Last year, al-Jazeera aired undercover recordings of an Israeli official working out of the London embassy, who described being asked by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs to help establish a “private company” in the UK that would work for the Israeli government and in liaison with pro-Israel groups like Aipac.

Middle East Eye - David Hearst - Fascist tactics: How Jeremy Corbyn's detractors are plotting to remove him, 14 August 2018.

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - New challenge to Israel's effort to undermine Jeremy Corbyn, 24 August 2018: Human rights activists have lodged a freedom of information request under Israeli law seeking documents about the state’s ongoing disinformation campaign against UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. ... As examples of Israel’s friendly relations with anti-Semitic governments, Mack cites Hungary, Poland and Ukraine. ... The letter names in particular four pro-Israel groups: the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Community Security Trust, Labour Friends of Israel and Conservative Friends of Israel.

Al Jazeera - Haider Eid - My take on Jeremy Corbyn's apology, 16 August 2018: Earlier this month, UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn apologised for "the concern and anxiety he caused" by hosting an event in Parliament on Holocaust Memorial Day 2010, titled "Never Again for Anyone - Auschwitz to Gaza". ... And a couple of weeks ago, following a report by The Times newspaper, his participation in the 2010 event was swiftly added to the long list of his alleged "anti-Semitic" acts. ... I feel the need to comment on the criticism of this particular event and Mr Corbyn's apology, because I was also present - albeit on the phone - at the said event, and my name was also mentioned in relation to these baseless accusations.

The Times of Israel - Cnaan Liphshiz - Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters see a ‘Zionist’ conspiracy against him, 17 August 2018.

Huffington Post - Robert Silverman - How An Elite New York City Prep School Created A Safe Space For Angry Zionists, 21 August 2018: "Influential parents accused Riverdale Country School of leftist “indoctrination,” and now two teachers are gone. A parable about the real political correctness."

Middle East Eye - Jonathan Cook - Is Israel’s Hand Behind the Attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, 24 August 2018: That question is raised by a new freedom of information request submitted this week by a group of Israeli lawyers, academics and human rights activists. ... The role of the strategic affairs ministry, given its covert nature, is harder to assess. But the existence of a 'dirty tricks' unit points towards a strategy to vilify and isolate high-profile Palestinian solidarity activists such as Corbyn.

RT - Ken Livingstone - Smearing Critics of Israel Undermines Importance of Tackling Genuine anti-Semitism, 27 August 2018.

Strategic Culture Foundation - Jonathan Cook - Evidence Grows of Meddling by Netanyahu Government in UK Politics, 28 August 2018: Has Israel been covertly fuelling claims of an “anti-Semitism crisis” purportedly plaguing Britain’s Labour Party since it elected a new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, three years ago? That question is raised by a new freedom of information request submitted this week by a group of Israeli lawyers, academics and human rights activists. ... But while these interventions have angered Corbyn and many of his supporters, there are suggestions that, behind the scenes, Israel has been playing a much larger role in helping to stoke the party’s “anti-Semitism crisis,” as the freedom of information request suggests. The main source of Labour’s current woes looks to be Israel’s strategic affairs ministry, which has been headed by Erdan since 2015.

NewStatesman - Hugo Drochon - Why Nietzsche has once again become an inspiration to the far-right, 29 August 2018: The philosopher was appropriated by the Nazis and now influences the alt-right. Is he doomed to be abused and misunderstood?

American Herald Tribune - Stuart Littlewood - Crucifying Corbyn: Former Chief Rabbi Joins in, 30 August 2018.

Middle East Eye - Azzam Tamimi - Who stands to benefit from the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn?, 31 August 2018: The Labour leader is being condemned for doing what other British politicians, including Tony Blair, have done, that is working with Hamas leaders to solve the Middle East conflict.

The Guardian - Alan Rusbridger - (The long read) Who broke the news?, 31 August 2018: In general, they were as good as their word. If the Guardian upset a rival editor or publisher, you could guarantee a form of retribution within days. It could be a snide diary paragraph or a threat to dig up dirt on Guardian employees’ private lives – including mine. It could be a hatchet job about “troubles” at the paper. Sometimes these stories had a grain of truth, at other times they were simply invented. At first I was shocked that even broadsheet rivals would knowingly run untrue stories about us in “revenge”. ... Davies’s quest to explore the power of the press had resulted in a fiercely forensic book, Flat Earth News, which chronicled how many newsrooms, obsessed with traffic and with ever-declining budgets, had started practising what he termed “churnalism”.

Middle East Monitor - Asa Winstanley - Israel’s smear campaign will not stop until Jeremy Corbyn fights back, 01 September 2018.

Conflicts Forum.org - Alastair Crooke - Is a 'Suez' event being prepared for Syria, 01 September 2018.

Al Jazeera - UK: Labour Party adopts IHRA anti-Semitism code in full, 04 September 2018: The debate fed into a months-long row over alleged anti-Semitism in the party, in which MPs and Jewish groups repeatedly accused Corbyn of failing to act. But Corbyn supporters said the controversy was stirred up by his enemies within and outside of the party to discredit the politician, who has long campaigned for political justice for Palestinians.

Middle East Eye - Jonathan Cook - The Israel lobby’s non-stop attacks on Corbyn will backfire, 06 September 2018.

Haaretz - David Feldman, Brendan McGeever - Corbyn’s Labour, British Jews and anti-Semitism: Will Peace Now Break Out?, 06 September 2018.

Al Jazeera - Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi - Attacks on Jeremy Corbyn make us weaker against the far-right, 07 September 2018: The summer months have seen a massive escalation in attacks on UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, centring on charges that he and his supporters are hostile to Jews and that a government headed by him would constitute an "existential threat" to the Jewish community in Britain. As a founding member of Jewish Voice for Labour and vice-chair of Chingford and Woodford Green Labour Party constituency, I believe such attacks are motivated by a determination on the part of the political establishment to undermine Corbyn's left-wing leadership. ... Bundists had as their watchword "doykayt" or "hereness" - the belief that Jews belong wherever in the world they live, that the fight against anti-Semitism has to be fought alongside all oppressed people of every race or faith. It is shameful that such a position is now condemned by self-declared Jewish community leaders as heretical and treacherous, that "real Jews" are only permitted to hold one view and that questioning Zionism and the Israeli state is treated as a form of anti-Semitism. ... Pro-Israel lobbyists have recently called on the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to brand the Labour Party as "institutionally anti-Semitic". ... It is no coincidence that the charge of institutional anti-Semitism emanates from an organisation called the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) which was set up in 2014 explicitly to defend Israel against opprobrium for its deadly assault on Gaza that year. It deliberately deploys accusations of anti-Semitism to try and shut down campaigns in support of Palestine. It is, for this reason, the subject of a complaint to the Charities Commission.

Strategic Culture Foundation - Conn M. Hallinan - Parsing the UK's Anti-Semitism Debate, 19 September 2018: Does the British Labour Party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, have an “anti-Semitism problem,” or has the Party’s left wing been targeted by the Israeli government for its support of the growing boycott and divestment movement that challenges Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land? A group of Israeli lawyers and social activists would like to know the answer to that question and have filed a Freedom of Information action in an effort to find out. Spearheaded by Israeli human rights activist Eitay Mack, the request targets Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to “verify that these play no part in the de-legitimization waged in recent years on the UK Labour Party and Mr. Corbyn.”

Mail on Sunday - Peter Hitchens - Forget Corbyn, the real Marxists in Labour were the BLAIRITES - and I should know because they were my comrades when I was a young radical, 22 Septemeber 2018: One of Blair’s closest aides and best speechwriters, Peter Hyman, recently confessed that New Labour was devised ‘to take and hold the levers of power... winning power and locking out the Tories to ensure that the 21st Century was a Labour century with Labour values’. The scale of that ambition, he said, was ‘breathtaking’, and far more radical than Jeremy Corbyn.

Electronic Intifada - Chris Knight - UK Labour enables assaults on free speech, 26 September 2018.

London Review of Books - Lorna Finlayson[9] - Corbyn Now, Vol. 40 No. 18, pages 17-18, 27 September 2018.

iNews - Karl McDonald - What is Corbynism? The author of a new book explains why even some left-wingers have problems with it, 27 September 2018: One effort to get to grips with this comes in the form of Corbynism: A Critical Approach, a book by Matt Bolton and Frederick Harry Pitts.

Al Jazeera - Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party and anti-Semitism, 29 September 2018: "Are they interested in eradicating anti-Semitism or are they interested in eradicating Jeremy Corbyn?" asked Michael Rosen, a Corbyn supporter and award-winning novelist.

Tablet - Yair Rosenberg - Jackie Walker Can't Stop Saying Offensive Things About Jews, 30 September 2016.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Here’s what I found out when I spent the day with Israel’s most controversial journalist, Gideon Levy, 27 September 2018.

Mondoweiss - Jonathan Ofir - Israeli left lawmaker says Corbyn is an ‘anti-Semite,’ but Netanyahu isn’t a racist cause ‘you can’t be an Israeli PM and be racist’, 02 October 2018.

Arutz Sheva - Karma Feinstein-Cohen - Corbyn defenders attack UK Zionists with lies, lies and more lies, 02 October 2018: The lies being told about Herut are due in part to the fact that some of the most outspoken Jewish activists against anti-Semitism in the UK have been active with Herut. Herut is proud of them, and indeed, of all our activists in the UK who take a stand for Israel and the Jewish People. ... Herut is not a UK political party and never has been. ... Herut is an educational movement and there has not been an active political party in Israel with Herut in its name since before the 2009 Israeli Knesset elections. Herut UK, is a Zionist group and is an affiliate of World Herut, is in no way connected with Israel's Likud party and never has been. ... Herut is unabashedly supportive of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and has been since its inception and there is nothing extremist about that. Many members of the Knesset live in these communities and we do not believe there to be anything illegal or immoral about the 'settlement movement.' We do not believe that Jews should be denied the right to live anywhere they so choose, whether it is a neighborhood in London or in Hevron.

Norman Finkelstein Blog- Noam Chomsky - Noam Chomsky on Finkelstein's Gaza Book, 03 October 2018.

Media Lens - Blanket Silence: Corporate Media Ignore New Report Exposing Distorted And Misleading Coverage of Corbyn, 03 October 2018: In the careful MRC study, articles and news segments on Labour and antisemitism from the largest UK news providers, both online and television, were subjected to in-depth analysis. ... In other words, the corporate media have been pumping out reams of 'fake news' promoting a narrative that Corbyn and Labour are mired in an 'antisemitism crisis'.

Mondoweiss - Jonathan Ofrir - For Zionists, the ‘two state solution’ has always meant more ethnic cleansing, 07 October 2018.

The Herald - Peter Swindon - Meet the Scots couple whose family sheltered Nelson Mandela in Apartheid South Africa, 07 October 2018: Radha Chetty, 80, fled the country for Glasgow in the 1950s and later married teacher Maggie. ... The couple were involved in the anti-racist movement, and Maggie was assaulted by police officers who waded in to a demonstration against the National Front in Glasgow in 1976. The moment was photographed and appeared in a newspaper at the time.

American Herald Tribune - Stuart Littlewood - After 70 Years of Abuse, A Definition of Anti-Palestinian Racism, 08 October 2018.

The Atlantic - Howard Jacobson - Corbyn’s Complaint, 08 October 2018.

American Herald Tribune - Michael Howard - The Times Whitewashes Haley. 10 October 2018.

The New York Review of Books - Janine di Giovanni - Why Assad and Russia Target the White Helmets, 16 October 2018: The de facto leader of the disinformation campaign is a blogger called Vanessa Beeley, who has been dubbed by The Guardian’s former Middle East editor as “the Syrian conflict’s goddess of propaganda.” ... The work of this small group is also spread by a spectrum of far-left, anti-West conspiracy theorists; anti-Semites; supporters of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah; libertarians; and far-right groups. At their core are Beeley, the daughter of a British diplomat; a Canadian activist named Eva Bartlett; the Hezbollah-friendly commentator Sharmine Narwani; and Max Blumenthal, the son of the former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal. ... The views of pro-Assad writers also filter into the mainstream through more respectable Assad-friendly American and British journalists such as Robert Fisk, Stephen Kinzer, and John Pilger ... . In turn, their reports are echoed by public figures such as the British MP Emily Thornberry, Baroness Cox, and the Reverend Andrew Ashdown, an Anglican minister.

The Independent - Lizzie Dearden - Anjem Choudary: How Islamist preacher sparked rise of Tommy Robinson and the far-right, 17 October 2018: English Defence League would not have been founded if not for Choudary's incendiary protests, former member says.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - The story of the Armenian Legion is finally being told – and it is a dark tale of anger and revenge, 18 October 2018: And the French created an Armenian Legion – an offshoot of the French Foreign Legion, needless to say – to fight against the Ottoman Turks for Cilicia.

Haaretz - Anshel Pfeffer - Amateur hour with BDS: The real scandal in Al Jazeera’s Israel lobby investigation, 24 October 2018.

Al Jazeera - Jeremy Corbyn's tussle with the UK media, 27 October 2018: However, the most persistent story, one that has resisted news cycles' attention deficits, has been around accusations of anti-semitism in the Labour Party and against Corbyn himself. Some have argued that the story points to an endemic problem in the party, others have dismissed the scandal as a red herring: a weaponisation of the subject in order to undermine an anti-establishment leader, with the help of the media "establishment".

+972 - Antony Loewenstein - New Al Jazeera film uncovers 'rotting foundation' of U.S. Israel lobby, 01 November 2018.

Electronic Intifada - Watch the film the Israel lobby didn’t want you to see, 02 November 2018.

Conflicts Forum - Alastair Crooke - The Unraveling of the Netanyahu Project for the Middle East, 05 November 2018.

Al Jazeera.com - Kristian Coates Ulrichsen - Remembering World War I in the Middle East, 10 November 2018.

The Independent - Sarah Helm - ‘'Will he lose his leg?’: Thousands of Gaza protesters facing life-altering injuries from Israeli high velocity bullets, 11 November 2018.

Haaretz - Shlomo Sand - The twisted logic of the Jewish ‘historic right’ to Israel, 14 November 2018.

The Independent - The brutality of the Syrian regime must be told, 12 November 2018: More than 95,000 Syrians have ‘disappeared’ since March 2011. Alistair Burt MP, minister of state for the Middle East, introduces Amina Khoulani, who witnessed the regime’s brutality first hand.

Strategic Culture Foundation - Elias Samo - The Plan: Why Israel Is Bent on Supporting Arab Division, 13 November 2018.

+972mag - Eitay Mack - 'We hope the regime lasts': When Israel enjoyed cozy ties with Brazil's military dictatorship, 18 November 2018: Following the 1967 war, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol came up with and examined a plan to foment the “emigration of Arab residents from the disputed territories to Brazil.” After talks with the Israeli embassy in Brazil, Eshkol wrote on August 8, 1967: “These talks give me reason to believe that with intensive efforts, thousands, if not tens of thousands of Arab families, especially from the Gaza Strip, could emigrate to Brazil.” ... Similar to Israel’s relationships with Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile, and Argentina, its ties with Brazil were not shaken by allegations of anti-Semitism, nor by the fact that Nazis who fled Europe following World War II were living in the country. In 1967, Brazil appointed Miera Pena to serve as the Brazilian ambassador to Israel, despite the fact that both Israel’s foreign and defense ministries suspected he was a Nazi.

Boston Review - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - What White Supremacists Know, 20 November 2018.

The Saker - Lynda Burstein Brayer - Zionism, Judaism and the Jewish State of Israel, 23 November 2018.

Eric Margolis blog - Eric Margolis - A big step for a Greater Israel, 24 November 2018.

Middle East Eye - Mark Curtis - Why the West's World War One carve-up is still unfinished business, 29 November 2018.

ZNet - Gavin Lewis - Over-Representing Anti-Semitism Protests, 12 December 2018: Since Israel’s 2014 summer bombing of Gaza, UK critics of Israel – including large sections of the Labour Party – have in pre-emptive reaction, been subjected to media campaign of McCarthyite anti-semitism smears.

BBC - Caroline Davies, Owen Bowcott - Major apologised to Bill Clinton over draft-dodging suspicions, 28 December 2018: Home Office checked whether Clinton sought UK citizenship at Oxford.

The Guardian - Julia Pascal - Amos Oz obituary, 28 December 2018.

Middle East Eye - Jonathan Cook - Labour and anti-semitism in 2018, The truth behind the relentless smear campaign against Corbyn, 29 December 2018.

2019

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Judge Richard Goldstone suffered for turning his back on Gaza – but not as much as the Palestinians he betrayed, 03 January 2019.

The Guardian - Avi Shlaim - Ten years after the first war on Gaza, Israel still plans endless brute force, 07 January 2019.

Middle East Eye - David Hearst - Revealed: How Gulf states hatched plan with Israel to rehabilitate Assad, 08 January 2019.

Grayzone - Max Blumenthal, Mark Ames - New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics, 08 January 2019: "The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing foundation money, this massive “political smear unit” is infiltrating the US."

Consortium News - Ann Garrison - Liberté, Égalité, Impérialisme! Vive la France in Black Africa, 10 January 2019: “Hotel Rwanda” is a touchstone of interventionist ideology, writes Ann Garrison. Debunking that script helps show why the closure of the assassination case against Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame serves Western interests.

The Jewish Chronicle - Lee Harpin - Board of Deputies nearly backed Islamophobia definition 'decisively influenced' by controversial group,,10 January 2019: The Board of Deputies was on the verge of backing a proposed working definition of Islamophobia devised by a parliamentary group described as “decisively influenced” by the controversial Muslim advocacy group Mend. ... Following the meetings, the Board was ready to back the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims’ working definition of anti-Muslim hatred, which was unveiled at a high-profile Westminster launch last month. A letter sent to Prime Minister Theresa May on December 1, purportedly from Muslim organisations across the UK from a broad range of backgrounds, called on the Conservative Party to adopt the working definition. It included the signatures of the pro-Hamas and anti-Zionist Friends of al-Aqsa group alongside Islamic Relief, the charity outlawed by Israel over disputed claims that it has in the past channelled funds to terror groups. One of the academics responsible for writing the proposed definition of Islamophobia is Professor Salman Sayyid. ... Mend, which submitted evidence, has long been mired in controversy. Last year, a senior Mend representative asserted that Muslims in the UK face a situation analogous to that of Jews in Nazi Germany before the Holocaust. The group’s former director of engagement, Azad Ali, is reported to have said in March 2017 that that month’s attack on Parliament, which killed five people, was “not terrorism”. In February 2018, Sir Mark Rowley, the outgoing Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and former head of Counter-Terrorism Command, said that Mend was “seeking to undermine the state’s considerable efforts to tackle all hate crime’”. But the JC has learned that were it not for a last-minute intervention by leading moderate British Muslims and concerns raised by the Community Security Trust, the Board was ready as late as November 26 to offer its support to the proposed Islamophobia definition — in time for the Westminster launch only days later.] (BODBJ Response, 11 January 2019: The article by Lee Harpin in today’s Jewish Chronicle – “Board of Deputies nearly backed Islamophobia definition ‘decisively influenced’ by controversial group” – is concocted from a mixture of innuendo, half-truths, and outright falsehoods. {Twitter})

The Guardian - Lawrence Joffe - Moshe Arens obituary, 14 January 2019: Aeronautical engineer and Likud politician who served as Israel’s defence minister and foreign minister ... A leader in Betar, a rightist Zionist youth movement, Arens believed in Jewish self-reliance and an “iron wall” against Arab nationalism. ... He fought for Menachem Begin’s Irgun underground and helped found Herut, a precursor to the rightwing party Likud. ... One month later Arens warned US officials of Iraq’s impending attack on Kuwait, but was rebuffed. ... Having turned down an offer to replace Shamir as Likud leader, in 1993 Arens backed Netanyahu, who was elected prime minister in 1996. In 1999, however, the 73-year-old charged his protege with mismanagement and challenged his leadership. ... In February 2001 Arens was recalled to “sell” new prime minister Sharon to a wary Washington. Four months later he criticised Sharon’s “restraint” as the al-Aqsa intifada escalated.

Council on Hemisphere Affairs - Roger Harris - Juan Guaidó: The Man Who Would Be President of Venezuela Doesn’t Have a Constitutional Leg to Stand On, 07 February 2019.

Information Clearing House - Mark Curtis - Britain and the Iranian Revolution: Arms & Secret Deals, 08 February 2019.

World Socialist Web Site - Robert Stevens - Corbyn leadership bows before Blairite’s anti-Semitism witch-hunt, 09 February 2019.

Information Clearing House - Eric Zuesse - What the Press Hides From You About Venezuela, 10 February 2019: "On 3 August 2018, the UN’s General Assembly received the report from the UN’s Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, concerning his mission to Venezuela and Ecuador. His recent travel though both countries focused on “how best to enhance the enjoyment of all human rights by the populations of both countries.”"

The National - Jonathan Cook - The international observer mission in Hebron acted as a restraint on the worst excesses of Israeli settlers. Now that has come to an end, 10 February 2019.

BBC - Labour: 673 anti-Semitism complaints in 10 months, 11 February 2019.

The New Yorker - Adam Entous, Ronan Farrow - Private Mossad for Hire, Inside an effort to influence American elections, starting with one small-town race, 11 February 2019: Ben-Barak was enthusiastic about Butterfly. He said that the fight against B.D.S. was like “a war.” In the case of B.D.S. activists, he said, “you don’t kill them but you do have to deal with them in other ways.”

The Intercept - Ryan Grim - Pro-Israel Lobby Caught on Tape Boasting That Its Money Influences Washington, 11 February 2019: “This is the biggest ad hoc political group, definitely the wealthiest, in D.C.,” Ochs says, adding that it has no official name, but is clearly tied to AIPAC. “It’s the AIPAC group. It makes a difference; it really, really does. It’s the best bang for your buck, and the networking is phenomenal.” ... Without spending money, Ochs argues, the pro-Israel lobby isn’t able to enact its agenda. “Congressmen and senators don’t do anything unless you pressure them. They kick the can down the road, unless you pressure them, and the only way to do that is with money,” he explains. ... In the wake of Omar’s tweets, the Washington Post, for instance, reported, “The American Jewish Committee demanded an apology, calling her suggestion that AIPAC is paying American politicians for their support ‘demonstrably false and stunningly anti-Semitic.’” ... ‘You can swipe each of these credit cards for a thousand dollars each’ ... AIPAC, on its own website, recruits members to join its “Congressional Club,” and commit to give at least $5,000 per election cycle. Eric Gallagher, a top official at AIPAC from 2010 to 2015, tells the Al Jazeera reporter that AIPAC gets results. “Getting $38 billion in security aid to Israel matters, which is what AIPAC just did,” he notes at one secretly recorded lunch. “Everything AIPAC does is focused on influencing Congress.”

Sludge - Alex Kotch - Here’s How AIPAC Spends Money to Influence Congress, 11 February 2019: U.S. representatives claimed their colleague, Rep. Ilhan Omar, was anti-Semitic when she brought up AIPAC’s influence over members of Congress. ... Does AIPAC directly pay members of Congress to vote for “pro-Israel” policies, something Omar alleged and Forward opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon challenged on Twitter? The short answer is “no,” but the nuanced answer is far more complicated. ... AIPAC is not a political action committee and does not donate directly to political candidates, but it requires its members to donate to the campaigns of certain members of Congress in order to receive exclusive membership benefits. ... The New Yorker explained AIPAC’s role in the late 1980s establishing allied pro-Israel PACs, which often had AIPAC leaders in charge and “looked to [AIPAC] for direction” regarding campaign contributions. ... Both billionaire donors have said that Israel is their chief focus. “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel,” Saban has said. “I’m a one-issue person. That issue is Israel,” Adelson said in 2017. ... As the Center for Responsive Politics points out, other pro-Israel groups put more money directly into elections than AIPAC, but federal lobbying is where the group spends the bulk of its money in politics. ... AIPAC has logged several victories under Trump, including the relocation of the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Obama-era Iran Deal, and cuts in U.S. aid to Palestinians. ... The influence of AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations impacts one of Washington’s biggest special-interest groups: the defense industry.

Media Lens - Dump The Guardian, 13 February 2019: "The Guardian is: 'among the most biased and self-righteous institutions around...full of private-school-educated Oxbridge graduates who see themselves as crusading liberals fighting against corporate and state power. But if you step a bit to the left of them, you will know about it. They guard their left flank religiously, instructing the world that anyone operating there is beyond the pale.'"

The Guardian - Alex Kotch - Ilhan Omar is right about the influence of the Israel lobby, 13 February 2019: The furor over BDS has led more than half of US states to pass laws attacking BDS. These laws clearly trample on the constitutional right to free speech and expression, but that didn’t stop the US Senate from passing the very first piece of legislation this session, which forbids Congress from pre-empting such state laws. ... Then the real tsunami began. Omar was immediately labeled an antisemite. By early afternoon on Monday, Democratic leaders – who sank a proposal to censure the nine-term, openly white supremacist representative Steve King just weeks earlier – had called on Omar to apologize, which she did promptly. ... Evil people have used the hateful conspiracy theory that Jews use their money to secretly control politicians and the media for many centuries. That has led to atrocities being committed against Jewish people. ... Omar’s controversial tweets noted two important realities. First, money is a huge problem, and motivator, in Washington. Second, Aipac is a powerful group that uses its money to influence the policy decisions of members of Congress. As Mehdi Hasan and Ryan Grim detail in the Intercept, Aipac officials have bragged about their power over Washington lawmakers. ... I explain at Sludge that Aipac played a role in forming separate pro-Israel Pacs and has encouraged its members to donate to its favorite candidates for decades; it spends more money than any other pro-Israel group every year to lobby the federal government.

Mondoweiss - Yumna Patel - ‘There are no foreigners left’: Israeli settlers rampage in Hebron following expulsion of human rights observers, 14 February 2019.

Moon of Alabama - Venezuela: Media Find Trump's Coup Plan Does Not Work, 14 February 2019.

+972 - Asaf Shalev - More than 100 files from the 1800s are still classified in Israel’s archives, 15 February 2019.

RT - BBC producer says hospital scenes after 2018 Douma ‘chemical attack’ were staged, 16 February 2019.

The Jewish Chronicle - Rose Doherty - Academic who attacked 'smear campaign' against Labour running to be Golders Green candidate, 18 February 2019: "A member of Jewish Voice for Labour who has downplayed Labour's antisemitism crisis has announced he is running to be Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Finchley and Golders Green. Justin Schlosberg, who is a senior lecturer in journalism at Birkbeck University and a vocal supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, is among seven candidates expected to compete to represent Labour in the seat in the next general election."

BuzzFeed.News - Alex Wickham, Hannah Al-Othman - The Chaos Of The New Independent Group Meant Only 7 Out Of 30 Potential Labour Rebels Quit, 18 February 2019.

The Guardian - Letters: Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour is a crucial ally in the fight against antisemitism, 20 February 2019: "Over 200 Jewish members and supporters of the Labour party sign a letter urging that anyone seeking an end to bigotry and racism should back Labour and Corbyn" {Dave Rich, 20 February 2019, Twitter response: This is a great letter that tells us all we need to know about the Labour Party's antisemitism problem. Just look at some of the signatories...}

Middle East Eye - Jonathan Cook - Anti-semitism is cover for a much deeper divide in Britain's Labour party, 20 February 2019: "Breakaway MPs hope that smearing Corbyn will obscure the fact that they are remnants of an old political order bankrupt of ideas."

The Guardian - Antisemitism at worst levels since second world war, says Macron, 21 February 2019: "Sylvain Maillard, a politician in Macron’s centrist La République En Marche, said this week that anti-Zionism must be made a punishable offence in France, arguing that it was too often being used as a cover for antisemitism. But the adoption of a new working definition of antisemitism in France, to include anti-Zionism, will not at this stage mean changing the law."

BBC - Labour anti-Semitism claims: Jewish group backs Corbyn, 21 February 2019.

Middle East Monitor - Nasim Ahmed - Is Labour’s anti-Semitism row fuelled by pro-Israel online ‘guerrilla warriors’?, 21 January 2019.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - This new history of the Christian genocide during the Ottoman Empire sounds a dark warning for the future, 21 February 2019: Israeli historian Benny Morris doesn’t do things by half. The footnotes of his new book on the 30-year genocide of Christians by their Turkish rulers, cowritten with his colleague Dror Zeevi, take up more than a fifth of the 640-page work.

The Guardian - Simon Jenkins - The City may thrive despite Brexit, but the rest of us won’t, 22 February 2019.

Mail on Sunday - David Rose - Corbyn’s closest aide 'is a national security risk' because of links to terrorists and political extremists, former head of MI6 warns, 23 February 2019.

World Socialist Web Site - Robert Stevens - Labour right and Tories unite in new parliamentary group, 23 February 2019.

+972 - Natasha Roth - Israel's fascist sideshow takes center stage, 24 February 2019: "For the first time in over 30 years, a proper Kahanist party could be entering the Knesset."

Forward - Joshua Leifer - Wake Up, American Jews: You’ve Enabled Israel’s Racism For Years, 25 February 2019.

The Guardian - Seth Jacobson - Labour has widespread problem with antisemitism – Momentum founder, 25 February 2019: "Jon Lansman says more party members than previously thought hold ‘hardcore’ opinions."

Middle East Eye - David Hearst - The truth about Seumas Milne, Jeremy Corbyn and the new McCarthyism, 25 February 2019: "False accusations by yesterday's spooks against Milne and Corbyn are a direct attempt to stop a popular and democratically elected leader from becoming prime minister."

The Jewish Chronicle - Rosa Doherty - MP Chris Williamson accused of 'trolling Jewish community' by hosting Jackie Walker film in Parliament, 26 February 2019.

The Guardian - Chris Williamson says Labour has been 'too apologetic' about antisemitism – video, 27 February 2019.

The Guardian - Peter Walker - Labour MP faces party censure over antisemitism film, 27 February 2019: "The Labour MP, Chris Williamson, faces a dressing-down from party officials after he helped to arrange a screening in parliament of a film defending Jackie Walker, the activist suspended from the party over comments about antisemitism."

The Guardian - Heather Stewart, Peter Walker - Labour splits exposed as MP is suspended over antisemitism remarks, 27 February 2019: "Top official reverses initial decision not to suspend Chris Williamson after pressure from within party."

The Guardian - Jonathan Freedland - Labour doesn’t have zero tolerance of antisemitism if Chris Williamson is an MP, 27 February 2019.

The Guardian - Rowena Mason , Peter Walker, Jessica Elgot - Corbyn set for clash with Watson over MP’s antisemitism remarks, 27 February 2019: "Chris Williamson issued with ‘notice of investigation’ by Labour but not suspended."

Forward - Aiden Pink - This Rabbi Was Fired And Has No Pulpit, But He’s Running For President, 27 February 2019: "Rabbi Dario Hunter said he was dismissed because of comments he made to the news site Cleveland.com in an article about his presidential run, in which he said the U.S. should stop providing aid to Israel because of its “horribly atrocious” actions against Palestinians."

Al Jazeera - Ali Saad - Criminalising anti-Zionism in France, 27 February 2019: "On February 20, confirming the government's intent, Macron declared that he was considering pushing forward legislation that would designate anti-Zionism as "one of the modern forms of anti-Semitism.""

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Israel lobby funders back breakaway British MPs, 27 February 2019.

Middle East Monitor - British Jewish organisation critical of Israel forced to cancel documentary screening, 27 February 2019: "Labour MP Chris Williamson booked a room in parliament to screen the film about the suspended Jewish Labour activist Jackie Walker, although the screening was organised by Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), a network for Jewish members of the Labour Party."

The Guardian - Greg Grandin - The Long Read: How violent American vigilantes at the border led to Trump’s wall, 28 February 2019: "From the 80s onwards, the borderlands were rife with paramilitary cruelty and racism. But the president’s rhetoric has thrown fuel on the fire."

The Independent - Tom Batchelor - Israel security forces may be guilty of war crimes over killings of Palestinians in Gaza, UN says, 28 February 2019.

Electronic Intifada - Maureen Clare Murphy - UN investigators call for arrests over Gaza war crimes, 28 February 2019.

Counterpunch - Jonathan Cook - Britain’s Witchfinders are Ready to Burn Jeremy Corbyn, 01 March 2019.

The Jewish Chronicle - Ben Welch - Jewish Labour members 'in tears' as Diane Abbott's local party passes motion questioning 'institutional antisemitism', 02 March 2019.

Financial Times - Jade Azim - A conspiracist left is splitting Labour, 02 March 2019: "The suspension of an MP this week hints at a battle among the party’s grassroots."

BBC - A guide to Labour Party anti-Semitism claims, 03 March 2019: "Mural row: In March 2018, Mr Corbyn was criticised for sending an apparently supportive message to the creator of an allegedly anti-Semitic mural in 2012. ... The artist, called Mear One, denied this, saying the mural was about "class and privilege"."

Information Clearing House - Jeff Handmaker - Unfounded allegations of anti-Semitism cover up Israeli apartheid, 05 March 2019. {originally published in Mondoweiss}

The Guardian - Dan Sabbagh, Helen Pidd - Equality watchdog to decide if Labour broke law over antisemitism, 06 March 2019: "The EHRC is preparing to rule on a dossier complied by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), which has asked the body to open an investigation into “discrimination against Jews and victimisation of those who oppose antisemitism within the Labour party”. A second complaint, thought to be more detailed, was also filed by the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM)."

Haaretz - Anshel Pfeffer - 'Anti-Semitism is about our values’: U.K. lawmaker on why she quit Corbyn’s Labour Party, 06 March 2019: "Joan Ryan was one of nine MPs to quit Labour over ‘institutional anti-Semitism.’ ... They see Jews as capitalists controlling politics; it’s a simplistic, student politics approach. ... Corbyn put his ideology first. He always saw the EU as a capitalist club and wants to change our alliances to be more in line with [Vladimir] Putin than with our European allies."

Media Lens - The Fake News Nazi - Corbyn, Williamson And The Anti-Semitism Scandal, 06 March 2019.

Haaretz - Amos Harel - How Assad Defied the Odds, Won in Syria and Pushed the U.S. Out, 07 March 2019.

The Guardian - Peter Beinart - Debunking the myth that anti-Zionism is antisemitic, 07 March 2019. (orinal Forward article)

Electronic Indifada - Asa Winstanley - Jewish Labour Movement was refounded to fight Corbyn, 07 March 2019.

Middle East Monitor - Tony Greenstein - The Haaretz war on Jeremy Corbyn: scratch a Liberal Zionist and you find a chauvinist, 07 March 2019: The attitude of Haaretz towards the Labour leader in Britain has also been hostile. With a few exceptions, notably Gideon Levy and Israel's most famous poet, Yitzhak Laor, its coverage has been almost entirely hostile. Haaretz correspondents have bought into the idea that Corbyn and the Labour Left are anti-Semitic. A friend in the United States sent me an article by a hitherto unknown writer, Alona Ferber, and suggested that I might like to reply to it. The article – in Haaretz – was headed "Corbyn's Labour Will Never Stop Gaslighting Jews" (20 February).

Middle East Eye - Peter Osborne - Jeremy Corbyn and the truth about Tom Bower's book, 09 March 2019.

Morning Star - David Rosenberg - Now, who has got a problem with discrimination?, 09 March 2019: "David Rosenberg takes a closer look at the Campaign Against Antisemitism ... To get a flavour of what CAA is about, the EHRC may wish to investigate CAA’s petition launched last August which started life as “Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-semite and must go.” ... I would strongly recommend that the EHRC ask the CAA for a full list of the comments that were originally published on the petition and were left there by the CAA for several days before they were forced to remove them, after people protested and complained to the Charity Commissioners."

AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Netanyahu: Sending Money to Hamas Key to Keeping Palestinians Divided, 11 March 2019.

Electronic Intifada - Ali Abunimah - Labour Party investigates Electronic Intifada journalist, 11 March 2019.

The Jewish Chronicle - Lee Harpin - Labour ditches Jewish Labour Movement for antisemitism training, backs new university course instead, 11 March 2019: Labour has committed to a university course on antisemitism, ending a three-year association with the Jewish Labour Movement for giving training on antisemitism to branches across the country. ... The party is committing itself to new university course, devised by Birkbeck, University of London, and the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism. One JLM source was furious, saying: “For the Labour Party to institute training without the consultation of their Jewish affiliate at this point is an astonishing level of arrogance. JLM should continue to train those who wish to stand in solidarity with Jewish members”. ... Birkbeck confirmed Labour’s “interest” in the project – which has been developed with Professor David Feldman, Director of the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism. Professor Feldman was vice-chairman on Baroness Chakrabarti’s report into Labour antisemitism on, which was widely criticised as a “whitewash”, with critics saying it failed to define contemporary antisemitism or give any indication of how to spot it.

The Independent - David Keys - Neolithic Britons travelled across country for regular mass national feasts 4,500 years ago, new research claims, 13 March 2019.

The Guardian - Oliver Holmes, Quique Kierszenbaum - The fall of the Israeli peace movement and why leftists continue to fight, 14 March 2019.

YNet - Itamar Eichner - US drops 'occupied' from description of West Bank, Golan Heights, 13 March 2019.

Haaretz - Ofer Aderet - Israeli who commanded massacre of dozens of Arab captives in 1948 dies at 93, 15 March 2019: Shmuel Lahis shot all remaining men in a Lebanese village and then blew up the house ‘to make a mass grave. ... In 1978, he was named president of the Jewish Agency.

Information Clearing House - Miko Peled - The Zionists’ Fight Extends Beyond Palestine, 16 March 2019: "Miko Peled highlights the campaign by pro-Israel groups to overwhelm the Labour Party into submission and bring about the fall of Corbyn by using a barrage of anti-Semitism accusations."

BBC - Labour pair withdraw over "anti-Semitic" Facebook post, 21 March 2019: "Mear One has denied being anti-Semitic and described the piece as being about "class and privilege"."

The Jewish Chronicle - Lee Harpin - Suspended Labour activist Jackie Walker in 'white millionaire elite' rant against Jewish MP, 24 March 2019: Former Momentum vice-chair posts Facebook video accusing Margaret Hodge of 'black Jew-baiting'.

The Guardian - Jason Wilson - With links to the Christchurch attacker, what is the Identitarian Movement?, 28 March 2019.

+972 - Rami Younis - Everywhere you go in Gaza, you see people wounded in the Return March, 28 March 2019.

The Guardian - Ronnie Kasrils - I fought South African apartheid. I see the same brutal policies in Israel, 03 April 2019.

Middle East Monitor - Israel general: Israel was behind coup against Egypt’s Morsi, 03 April 2019.

Unz Review - Mike Whitney - Trump's Neocons See Erdogan as Their Ticket to a Region-Wide M.E. War, 06 April 2019.

The Sunday Times - Gabriel Pogrund, Richard Kerbaj - Labour’s hate files expose Jeremy Corbyn’s anti‑semite army, 07 April 2019: "Thomas Gardiner, a Corbyn ally and the powerful chief of Labour’s governance and legal unit, last month frustrated efforts by a member of his staff to fast-track the investigation of a member who condemned two Jewish MPs for being “shit-stirring c** buckets” in the pay of Israel.”" "In one case, an MP reported a member for saying the Board of Deputies, Britain’s representative Jewish body, were “c****” and that saying so was “not anti-semitic, it’s anti-c***. See Israel.” The member was let off with a warning."

The Defense Post - Anna Badillo - The US-Israel ‘special relationship’ subsidizes American military industry and Israeli colonialism, 09 April 2019.

The Guardian - Julian Borger - Pompeo flounders on why annexation is good for the Golan but not for Crimea, 11 April 2019.

Irish Examiner - Judge tells ‘narcissist’ Julian Assange to ‘get over to US’, 11 April 2019.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Calling Assange a ‘narcissist’ misses the point – without WikiLeaks we would live in darker, less informed times, 12 April 2019.

The Intercept - Charles Glass - Julian Assange Languishes in Prison as His Journalistic Collaborators Brandish Their Prizes, 14 April 2019.

The Independent - Harry Cockburn - Britons who built Stonehenge were product of ancient wave of migrant farmers, DNA reveals, 16 April 2019: "Ancient skeletons reveal arrival of eastern Mediterranean population replaced hunter-gatherer population of British Isles."

HuffPost - Chris York, Ewan Somerville - Professor Piers Robinson Leaves Sheffield Uni Post After Accusations Of Promoting Conspiracy Theories, 17 April 2019: "Professor Piers Robinson was exposed by HuffPost as a supporter of 9/11 conspiracy theories."

Middle East Eye - Mueller report confirms Trump team meddled in Egypt's UN resolution on Israeli settlements, 18 April 2019.

The Guardian - Tom McCarthy - All the president's men and women: how disobedient aides saved Trump, 20 April 2019.

The Guardian - Sarah Marsh - Jeremy Corbyn rejects antisemitism claim over book foreword, 01 May 2019.

Haaretz - Holocaust Facts: Where Does the Figure of 6 Million Victims Come From?, 01 May 2019.

Haaretz - Gili Izikovich - My aunt had a dinner party, and then she took her guests to kill 180 Jews, 01 May 2019: Swiss journalist Sacha Batthyany knew he belonged to an aristocratic family, centered around his respected aunt. He didn’t know about the murderous ball held in 1945, that led to a personal quest, threats from relatives and a book.

The Times of Israel - Judah Ari Gross - US journal: Israel had a plutonium device ready to turn into a nuke in 1967 war, 02 May 2019.

The Independent - Chris Pavone - The morning when normal ended: A personal account of September 11, 02 May 2019.

Red Revolution - Michael East - Taking a Look at the Mysterious Wikipedia Editors Who Supported the Hobson Antisemitism Smear, 02 May 2019: While the role of the far-right Israeli state and anti-Corbyn activists is well documented, one aspect that has been overlooked is the role of Wikipedia in perpetuating this false narrative, or to be more exact the role of a handful of mysterious editors who seem particularly intent on ensuring that these falsehoods enter the internet’s most popular encyclopedia as the “truth”.

Information Clearing House - Eric Zuesse - Leaked: USA’s Feb 2018 Plan for Coup in Venezuela, 03 May 2019.

The Spectator - Geoffrey Alderman - Is Jeremy Corbyn really anti-Semitic?, 08 May 2019: Is Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite? I began researching the answer to this question well before Danny Finkelstein’s recent revelation in the Times that eight years ago Corbyn had written a glowing foreword to a new edition of Imperialism: A Study, written by the radical economist John Atkinson Hobson, first published in 1902.

London Review of Books - Christian Davies - Under the Railway Line, Christian Davies on the battle for Poland’s history, Vol. 41 No. 9, pages 29-30 , 09 May 2019: As with all good conspiracy theories, there are some elements of truth to the story. There was a camp in German-occupied Warsaw called Konzentrationslager Warschau or KL Warschau, where many thousands of Polish citizens died.

Middle East Eye - Ian Cobain, Hassina Mechaï - UK propaganda unit has secret plans to target French Muslims, 15 May 2019: Government contract requirements seen by Middle East Eye show that France is among countries targeted by Home Office’s Research, Information and Communications Unit.

ThoughtCo. - Robert McNamara - 1893 Lynching by Fire of Henry Smith, 16 May 2019: The lynching of Henry Smith, a black laborer in Paris, Texas, on February 1, 1893, was extraordinarily grotesque. Accused of raping and murdering a four-year-old girl, Smith was hunted down by a posse. When returned to town, the local citizens proudly announced they would burn him alive.

The Guardian - Christopher de Bellaigue - Useful Enemies by Noel Malcolm review – learning from the Turks, 22 May 2019: A decade later the Franco-Ottoman alliance was so fixed a part of the European scene that François allowed a Turkish fleet under Hayreddin Pasha to winter in Toulon, the Mediterranean port having been emptied of its Christian inhabitants. ... Far from being divided neatly between the Christian and Muslim worlds, southern and central Europe seethed with opportunism and expediency.

Middle East Eye - Ian Cobain - 'Mind control': The secret UK government blueprints shaping post-terror planning, 22 May 2019: After Alan Henning, a British aid worker, was murdered by Islamic State in October 2014, the Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) – a controversial propaganda unit that is part of the Office of Security and Counterterrorism at the UK Home Office – turned to a striking image that had already been developed by one of its private sector contractors.

The New York Times - Saeb Erekat (chief negotiator for the PLO) - Opinion: Trump Doesn’t Want Peace. He Wants Palestinian Surrender, 23 May 2019: While the concept of a “biased mediator” has in some negotiations been used to obtain concessions from the party closer to the mediator, that is not what is happening here. The “concessions” that the Trump administration will ask of Israel are marginal. Above all they do not require Israel to end its military control over the land and people of Palestine. What the Trump administration is seeking is not a peace agreement but a Palestinian declaration of surrender.

Haaretz - Ravit Hecht - The Israeli Lawyer Who Defends the Most Violent Fighters Against the Occupation. 25 May 2019: "Palestinians with knives don’t scare attorney Lea Tsemel. A new documentary deconstructs the controversial character who will defend anyone who opposes the occupation – even if they resort to the most violent means."

Haaretz - Omer Benjakob - The Witch Hunt Against a 'pro-Israel' Wikipedia Editor, 27 May 2019: The mysterious ‘Philip Cross’ has raised the ire of Kremlin-backed media and far leftists, who accuse him of targeting their Wikipedia pages – even going as far as to offer a reward to anyone who can reveal his identity.

Redress Online - Stuart Littlewood - Zionists call up heavy artillery to blast disobedient UK Labour, 04 June 2019: Zionist pressure groups are crowing with delight at the decision by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) to investigate anti-Semitism within the Labour Party.

Information Clearing House - "The Day Israel Attacked America", 06 June 2019: Audio tapes obtained by award winning British film maker Richard Belfield prove what every USS Liberty survivor, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer have said all along: that Israel deliberately attacked an American ship.

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Anti-Palestinian activists guilty of harassment, 19 June 2019: Jonathan Hoffman, a former leader in the Zionist Federation, and Damon Lenszner changed their earlier not-guilty pleas in exchange for government prosecutors dropping related assault charges.

The Jewish Chronicle - Ben Welch - Pro-Israel activists convicted for 'wholly unacceptable behaviour' during demonstration, 19 June 2019: Court sees footage of Jonathan Hoffman and Damon Lenszner 'hector' and try to 'drown out' pro-Palestinian activists.

Moon of Alabama - Iran Shoots Down Strategic U.S. Drone, 20 June 2019.

The Guardian - Amelia Gentleman - The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files review – who could feel proud of Britain after this?, 24 June 2019.

The New York Times - Danny Danon (Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations) - Opinion: What’s Wrong With Palestinian Surrender?, 24 June 2019: Knowing when to give up is often the first step to making peace. ... Surrender is the recognition that in a contest, staying the course will prove costlier than submission.

Medium - Nils Melzer (UN Special Rapporteur on Torture) - Demasking the Torture of Julian Assange, 26 June 2019.

Washington Post - Ishaan Tharoor - Forget peace. Trump and Israel want Palestinian surrender, 26 June 2019: “What Kushner has presented ahead of the Bahrain summit is devoid of any political content. And it has deliberately refused to address the fundamental political aspirations of the Palestinians for national self-determination,” tweeted Harry Reis of the New Israel Fund, a liberal U.S.-based nonprofit that supports civil society groups in Israel. “That is because it is not designed for the Palestinians. It is not designed to be implemented. It is designed *in order to* produce a Palestinian ‘no.’ Why? To lay the groundwork for Israeli unilateral #annexation.”

SANA (Syrian Arab News Agency) - British academics: OPCW report on Douma incident deliberately suppressed Engineering Assessment, 28 June 2019.

Consortium News - Lawrence Davidson (TothePointAnalysis.com) - [ Echoes of FDR in Trump’s Bid for Palestinian Surrender], 01 July 2019: Back in 1942, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann told members of the U.S. State Department’s Division of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) that Winston Churchill wished to make the Saudi king, Ibn Saud, “the boss of bosses in the Arab World.” The only condition to this offer was that Ibn Saud must “be willing to work out with Weizmann to achieve a sane solution to the Palestine problem.” Weizmann further claimed that the U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt was “in accord on this subject.” {Lawrence Davidson: America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood}

Haaretz - Ariel David - Ancient DNA solves age-old mystery of Philistine origin, 03 July 2019.

Haaretz - Hagar Shezaf - Burying the Nakba, How Israel systematically hides evidence of 1948 expulsion of Arabs {alt link}, 05 July 2019: The report asserts that Malmab removed historical documentation illegally and with no authority, and at least in some cases has sealed documents that had previously been cleared for publication by the military censor. ... According to the Israeli narrative that was disseminated over the years, responsibility for the exodus from Israel rests with Arab politicians who encouraged the population to leave. However, according to the document, 70 percent of the Arabs left as a result of Jewish military operations.

RealClear Investigations - Aaron Maté - CrowdStrikeOut: Mueller’s Own Report Undercuts Its Core Russia-Meddling Claims. 05 July 2019. (Aaron Maté YouTube videos: Mueller Report Drops!; RussiaGate Skeptics Do Victory Lap; "Collusion" Author Can’t Say Where Collusion Is)

Telesur - Israel Disappeared Evidence of Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine to Discredit Nakba: Investigation, 07 July 2019: An investigative report by Haaretz revealed that an Israeli Defense Ministry department called the “Director of security of the Defense establishment” or MALMAB (its acronym in Hebrew) is tasked with wiping out archives on Nakba, or catastrophe in Arabic, which opposes the Israeli version of the event. {Haaretz-Mondoweiss}

Haaretz - Gideo Levy - Opinion: Israel’s Border Police, murderers among us, 07 July 2019.

Haaretz - Editorial: The Nakba Isn’t Going Away, 07 July 2019: The description of war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers in 1948 – expulsion, looting, murder and rape – are shunted aside, and publishing information on them is seen as undermining the justness of the national project. ... Malmab, whose authority to censor the past is dubious and controversial, ignores the opposition of historians and archive directors who support exposing the events of the past as they happened. The goal of concealing them is to blur the evidence and strengthen the mendacious Israeli narrative that “the Arabs fled of their own free will, encouraged by their leaders.”

Skwawkbox - The background of the man behind the Panorama ‘hatchet job’ – or ‘jobs’ – on Labour Party, 07 July 2019.

Middle East Monitor - Gideon Levy at PalExpo: ‘Corbyn is a victim of a systematic campaign’, 08 July 2019.

The Guardian - Rowena Mason - Three Labour peers quit over handling of antisemitism cases’, 09 July 2019: David Triesman claims party is ‘institutionally antisemitic’ in his letter resigning the whip.

The Guardian - Ian Sample - Piece of skull found in Greece ‘is oldest human fossil outside Africa’, 10 July 2019.

The Guardian - Miles Taylor - Insurgent Empire by Priyamvada Gopal review – a superb study of anticolonial resistance, 11 July 2019.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Trump’s hissy-fit over Darroch will blow a chill wind across Britain’s embassies in the Middle East, 11 July 2019.

Middle East Monitor - Asa Winstanley - Far from being impartial, Panorama was a partisan attack on Labour’s left, 13 July 2019: But this pair – who can be seen in the screengrab above – were anything but disaffected Labour Party supporters. They were Jonathan Hoffman and Harry Saul Markham, two of the UK’s most notorious far-right anti-Palestinian activists. ... On his Facebook page last year, Markham proudly posted a photo of him in Israel, posing with two veterans from Lehi, the most extreme of the pre-state Zionist terror organisations.

Gilad Atzmon [Blog] - Why The BBC acts as a Propaganda Outlet for Israel– An Insider View, 14 July 2019: “The BBC is institutionally pro-Zionist and institutionally spineless” says former BBC senior editor.

Haaretz - Benny Morris - Benny Morris: Israel’s concealing of Nakba documents is totalitarian, 15 July 2019.

BBC - A guide to Labour Party anti-Semitism claims, 16 July 2019.

Mint Press News - Whitney Webb - Hidden in Plain Sight: The Shocking Origins of the Jeffrey Epstein Case, 18 July 2019: Epstein is only the latest incarnation of a much older, more extensive and sophisticated operation that offers a frightening window into how deeply tied the U.S. government is to the modern-day equivalents of organized crime.

The Canary - Joshua Funnell - Fresh testimony from Labour members could blow Panorama’s antisemitism claims wide open, 19 July 2019.

Haaretz - Dan Tamir - When Jews praised Mussolini and supported Nazis: Meet Israel's first fascists, 20 July 2019.

The American Spectator - Doug Bandow - After a Century of Chaos, Totalitarianism, and War, Versailles Treaty Still Haunts the World, 21 July 2019.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Genocides begin in the wilderness, far from prying eyes – in Ottoman Turkey as well as Nazi Germany, 25 July 2019: New evidence tells a story of Armenian killings carried out in the provinces long before the ‘Medz ​Yeghern’ was thought to have begun.

Haaretz - Ayelet Bechar - When Arabs were invited to live the Zionist dream, 26 July 2019: In Israel’s first decades hundreds of young Arabs left their villages to work on kibbutzim, where they learned Hebrew, raised the Israeli flag and even took Hebrew names. The Arab pioneers movement was born of romantic hope that was soon tragically dashed.

Mint Press - Whitney Webb - How a Small Group of Pro-Israel Activists Blacklisted MintPress on Wikipedia, 30 July 2019: For over ten years, Wikipedia has been a key focus of right-leaning, pro-Israel groups that have effectively weaponized the online encyclopedia as a means of controlling the narrative when it comes to the state of Israel’s more than 50-year-long military occupation of Palestine. ... In addition to his efforts to remove information from Wikipedia articles that paint Israel’s military occupation of Palestine in a critical light, Icewhiz also attempted to alter the article on Palestinian nurse Razan al-Najjar, who was killed by an Israeli sniper during the Great Return March protests in the Gaza Strip last year, despite clearly wearing a vest marking her as a medic. Icewhiz added a video of al-Najjar that was later found to have been heavily edited and promoted by the Israel Defense Force as a means of justifying her death and subsequently re-edited the article to promote the IDF interpretation of the video after another editor included information critical of the IDF’s use of the doctored video. Icewhiz also edited the article on Razan al-Najjar to claim that she was “allegedly shot” by the IDF, despite the fact that there has been no disputing the IDF’s responsibility for her death, even from Israel’s government.

Haaretz - Ariel David - Earliest form of writing, a secret visual code, may have been found in Israel, 06 August 2019: The images in the 6,000-year-old copper hoard from Nahal Mishmar are a code used by Chalcolithic metal workers, one scholar claims.

Mint Press News - Whitney Webb - Mega Group, Maxwells and Mossad: The Spy Story at the Heart of the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal, 07 August 2019: The picture painted by the evidence is not a direct Epstein tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations.

The Independent - Tom Peck - Dominic Cummings, the latest self-appointed genius to run 10 Downing Street, is the most deluded of them all, 08 August 2019.

The Independent - Andrew Adonis - I read Dominic Cummings' blogs so you don't have to – and they reveal a worldview that should worry us all, 08 August 2019.

+972 - Michal Talya - How I learned to stop worrying and acknowledge the Nakba, 08 August 2019: That is precisely why hiding the truth was necessary on two levels. One was practical, allowing Israel to maintain good relations with other countries. The other was internal, having to do with the Jewish collective self-image, which perceives the Jew as both spiritually and morally superior. ... One of the reasons we have not been able to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for over 100 years has to do with our self-perception as the Jewish people on three fundamental levels: the traditional-religious level, according to which we are spiritually and therefore essentially superior to all other nations; the cultural level, according to which we believe our morality is greater than of all other nations (this can be seen as the secular interpretation of the religious layer); and the historical-sociological level, in which we perceive ourselves as the ultimate victims of the world’s cruelty, manifested in anti-Semitism throughout the course of Western history and until today.

Jews sans frontieres (Anti-Zionist blog of Mark Elf) - Deborah Maccoby on Dave Rich's Book, The Left's Jewish Problem - Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti-Semitism, 08 August 2019: The stated aim of “The Left’s Jewish Problem” is to inquire into the reasons for the breakdown of the relationship between the British Jewish community and the British Left, especially the Labour Party. The unstated aim is to discredit Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Party. The book (which incorporates some parts of the author’s 2011 doctoral dissertation) was evidently timed to appear as a kind of companion piece to the Home Affairs Select Committee’s Report on Anti-Semitism.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - The Battle of the Bogside was 50 years ago – so why are the same mistakes being made right now?, 09 August 2019.

The Independent - Anthony Lerman - I warned that adopting the IHRA would shut down Palestinian protest – I’ve been proved right, 10 August 2019: Internal mails, acquired by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign after submission of a freedom of information request, revealed that officials, influenced by the furore over antisemitism in the Labour Party, were concerned that references to “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” on the Big Ride’s website were antisemitic, according to the definition.

Lobe Log - Amos Goldberg, Raz Segal - Distorting the Definition of Antisemitism to Shield Israel from All Criticism, 11 August 2019: Two major techniques facilitate such allegations. The first relates one’s claim very illusively to some antisemitic imagery. ... The second technique draws on the definition of antisemitism formulated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Le Monde Diplomatique - Eric Alterman - Young, liberal and critical of Israel, 16 August 2019: American Jews are growing more liberal, just as Israel’s government moves to the far right. That has profoundly changed a relationship of 40 years. ... When a crazed Trump supporter murdered 11 Jews in a synagogue in Pittsburgh on 27 October 2018, members of Netanyahu’s government rushed uninvited to the scene in order to absolve Trump’s hateful rhetoric of responsibility. Predictably, they blamed the left.

Lobe Log - Abdulla Moaswes - What’s Happening in Kashmir Looks a Lot Like Israel’s Rule Over Palestine, 15 August 2019.

Middle East Eye - Osha Mahmoud, Khaled Shalaby - The 'woke' media outfit that's actually a UK counterterror programme, 16 August 2019: In fact, it was created by a media company on behalf of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT) at the UK Home Office.

The Telegraph - Patrick Sawer - Revealed: Full extent of Lord Mountbatten's role in '68 plot against Harold Wilson, 17 August 2019.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - The history of religious conflict in the Middle East carefully leaves out periods of coexistence, 20 August 2019.

The Guardian - Stewart Lee - Stewart Lee book extract: ‘My work became increasingly angry, bitter and incoherent’, 25 August 2019: Ahead of an annotated collection of his Observer columns, extracted below, Stewart Lee reflects on how political turmoil has affected his writing over the past three years.

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - If there’s such a thing as a murderous culture, then it exists in Israel, 29 August 2019.

Haaretz - Ariel David - Israeli archaeologists may have found Emmaus, where Jesus appeared after crucifixion, 03 September 2019: Exploration of massive 2,200-year-old Hellenistic fort at Kiriath Yearim unexpectedly sheds light on biblical mystery: The true location of Emmaus.

The Guardian - Stephen Kinzer - From mind control to murder? How a deadly fall revealed the CIA’s darkest secrets, 06 September 2019: Frank Olson died in 1953, but, because of clandestine US government experiments, it took decades for his family to get closer to the truth.

The Guardian - Tim Adams - ‘Farmed’ out to a white family, I became a skinhead: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje on his first film, 08 September 2019.

Declassified UK - Matt Kennard, Mark Curtis - How the UK Security Services neutralised the country’s leading liberal newspaper, 10 September 2019: The Guardian, Britain’s leading liberal newspaper with a global reputation for independent and critical journalism, has been successfully targeted by security agencies to neutralise its adversarial reporting of the ‘security state’, according to newly released documents and evidence from former and current Guardian journalists.

The Guardian - Oliver Holmes - Israel accused of planting spying devices near White House, 12 September 2019.

Politico - Daniel Lippman - Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House, 12 September 2019.

London Review of Books - Richard J. Evans - The Demented Dalek, Vol. 41 No. 17, 12 September 2019: Attempting to smooth things over, Cameron told Clegg: ‘The thing that you’ve got to remember with Michael is that he’s basically a bit of a Maoist – he believes that the world makes progress through a process of creative destruction.’ But a lot of it wasn’t creative at all. When I asked Cummings what working for Gove was like, he told me that he had to spend most of his time firefighting, putting out the conflagrations his boss caused in one policy area after another.

Electronic Intifada - Ali Abunimah - Why would Israel spy on Donald Trump?, 13 September 2019: In 1985, US naval intelligence officer Jonathan Pollard was arrested after spending 18 months copying and transferring to Israel the most highly classified American secrets. Israel then reportedly traded those secrets to the Soviet Union in exchange for Moscow allowing Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. ... But according to a 2014 book by Daniel Halper, Netanyahu used the fruits of additional espionage in an attempt to blackmail Bill Clinton into freeing Pollard.

The Observer - Michael Savage, Emma Graham-Harrison - ‘Johnson is a liar who only backed Leave to help his career’ – David Cameron, 15 September 2019: Former PM vents fury in his memoirs at his old colleagues over their stance on Brexit and compares Leave campaign to racist Tory electioneering in 1964.

The Guardian - Edward Snowden - Edward Snowden on 9/11 and why he joined the army: ‘Now, finally, there was a fight’, 15 September 2019.

openDemocracy - Lib Dem members: party line on Labour anti-Semitism is ‘ill-judged and uncritical’, 16 September 2019: Party group call for Lib Dem leadership to distance itself from Labour anti-Semitism ‘smear campaign’.

The Times Literary Supplement - Lydia Wilson - Blame game, Lydia Wilson on the dangers of writing about Assad, 17 September 2019: It is easy to blame the United States for many of the world’s ills: easy because of the availability of evidence. It is also easy to overstate your case, with misleading or one-sided examples – the trap that Max Blumenthal falls into in "The Management of Savagery".

The Independent - Phoebe Weston - Gigantic asteroid collision 470 million years ago caused Earth to freeze over, scientists say, 18 September 2019.

Haaretz - Ariel David - Archaeology confirms Book of Genesis on Israel’s arch-nemesis, the Edomites, 18 September 2019: Study of ancient copper production sites in the deserts of Israel and Jordan indicates that the nomadic Edomites could and did form a powerful political entity more than 3,000 years ago, as the Bible suggests

The Guardian - Zadie Smith - Zadie Smith: ‘I’ve never finished Proust or even The Brothers Karamazov’, 21 September 2019.

Unz Review - Amalric De Droevig - Israel Worship Is White Nationalism for Boomers Too Cowardly to Demand Their Own Ethnostate, 26 September 2019: Despite what the modern left may believe, there is nothing inherently illegitimate about a state like Israel, one rooted in history, in genes, in religion, and in race. States built around a shared ethnicity or a shared religion (or, as in Israel’s case, an ample helping of both) are generally more stable and successful than diverse societies erected upon propositions most people and peoples don’t really accept, or leftist values that have ideological quicksand for their foundations.

The New York Times - Katrin Bennhold, Michael Schwirtz and Christiaan Triebert - The Berlin Police Are Confident the Killer Is in Jail. They Just Don’t Know His Name, 26 September 2019: At the outset, the German officers investigating the brazen daylight assassination of a former Chechen separatist commander were lucky. The killer, a man in a wig who had gunned down the victim in a Berlin park, was spotted by two teenagers, who called the police. ... Days after the Aug. 23 killing, investigators received an email from an anonymous sender. It suggested that the suspect was a hit man who had been released from prison by the Russian authorities in order to carry out the assassination in Berlin. It claimed his real name was Vladimir Alekseevich Stepanov, though authorities worried the email could be a hoax. ... The Kremlin has denied any connection to the Berlin suspect, but it has also ignored German investigators’ requests for help. The victim, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, fought against Russian troops in at least two wars in the early 2000s and had survived other assassination attempts before settling in Germany in 2016. ... The email predicted that the suspect would not talk and described him as a Russian contract killer who had done time in a penal colony identified as IK-11. The prison, located in the town of Bor, 270 miles east of Moscow, is said to be reserved for former law enforcement and intelligence officers convicted of grave crimes, according to news reports. ... It is not uncommon for Russian intelligence services to recruit prisoners and former criminals, experts say. Earlier this year, Oleg Smorodinov, a former police officer turned professional crook, told The New York Times of being recruited by Russian intelligence operatives and sent into Ukraine to kill a retired special forces commander.

The Guardian - Jim Waterson, Caroline Davies, Heather Stewart - Growing backlash against BBC in Naga Munchetty race row, 27 September 2019: Corporation faces staff revolt over response to presenter’s Donald Trump remarks.

OffGuardian - Peter Gregson - The Rule of the Mob: Labour Conference Banner Banned, Slashed, 27 September 2019: On Sunday 22nd Sept, I, a Labour Party member since 1986, had my banner taken down from outside Conference. Why? The police agreed it was not anti-Semitic. When Zionists first started complaining about it, the police photographed it and referred it to their superiors. Not a problem, they said. The banner could stay. But the Zionists, from the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) and the Sussex Friends of Israel (FoI) were incandescent with rage. Repeatedly they complained and when the police refused to act, they took the law into their own hands. ... Later that day, Jeremy Corbyn waded in. He tweeted: "I’m disgusted that this banner was displayed near our #Lab19 conference centre. We asked the police to remove it and I’m glad they did. This kind of antisemitic poison has no place whatsoever in our society.” ... I am chair of Labour Against Zionist Islamophobic Racism (LAZIR), a group of Labour Party activists which sees Zionism as racism and who want to end its influence, seeking to get the JLM disaffiliated. ... (Latuff’s cartoon was first published in September 2018, when it was used to illustrate Gregson’s article "Why let Netanyahu write the Labour rulebook?")[10][11][12][change.org - Peter Gregson - Petition: "Labour members declaring Israel a racist endeavour ask NEC to abandon full IHRA"]

The Canary - US businesswoman ‘told friends of affair with Boris Johnson while he was mayor’, 28 September 2019.

Middle East Eye - Tom Westcott - Who reached America first – Columbus or the Phoenicians?, 28 September 2019: A replica Phoenician vessel made in Syria is sailing the Atlantic to prove the ancient civilisation did it 2,000 years before Columbus.

The New York Times - Kenneth P. Vogel, Andrew E. Kramer, David E. Sanger - How a Shadow Foreign Policy in Ukraine Prompted an Impeachment Inquiry, 28 September 2019.

The Sunday Times - Jennifer Arcuri ‘told friends of affair with Boris Johnson’, 29 September 2019: PM denies conflict of interest as he faces four official inquiries.

The Guardian - Simon Jenkins - I used to think Boris Johnson could get a Brexit deal. Not after last week, 29 September 2019: It goes back to the tactic adopted by the McCarthyites in the 1950s, when any victim of Joseph McCarthy and his young lawyer Roy Cohn would be assailed with wildly repetitive accusations of communism and homosexuality. ... One Cohn method was the relentless recitation of a damaging falsehood. ... This is pure Cohn: “I don’t want to know what the law is; I want to know who the judge is.”

The Guardian - Sayeeda Warsi - Challenging Islamophobia? An event at conference tells me the Tories don’t care, 30 September 2019: A party member of 37 years who introduced himself as proudly Conservative, Muslim and British, said: “I’m trying to figure out whether [the panellists] are here to tackle Islamophobia rather than promote it – I’m struggling to understand.”

Electronic Intifada - David Cronin - How Israel lobby set EU anti-Semitism agenda, 30 September 2019: For nearly four years, Katharina von Schnurbein has been posing as a champion of Europe’s Jews.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - A year on from Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, and Saudi Arabia is lurching towards hysterical chaos, 30 September 2019.

The Independent - Chelsea Ritschel - Sir William Ramsay: How a Scottish chemist changed the periodic table forever, 01 October 2019.

People's World - Steve Sweeney - Secret Israeli nuclear test covered up to help Jimmy Carter’s re-election, 01 October 2019.

The Guardian - Henry McDonald - British spy in IRA and 20 others could be charged with Troubles-era crimes, 02 October 2019: Belfast prosecutors considering action against ‘Stakeknife’ and his British army handlers.

Electronic Intifada - Tamara Nassar - Secret Israel-Jordan gas deal revealed, 02 October 2019.

Unz Review - Linh Dinh - Jewish Genius, 02 October 2019: In Tangier, Twain stopped at “a spot where stood a monument which was seen and described by Roman historians less than two thousand years ago, whereon was inscribed: “We are the Caananites, we are they that have been driven out of the land of Canaan by the Jewish robber, Joshua.”

Mint Press - Whitney Webb - Former Israeli Intel Official Claims Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell Worked for Israel, 02 October 2019: A recent interview given by a former high-ranking official in Israeli military intelligence has claimed that Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual blackmail enterprise was an Israel intelligence operation run for the purpose of entrapping powerful individuals and politicians in the United States and abroad.

Haaretz - Omer Benjakob - The fake Nazi death camp: Wikipedia’s longest hoax, exposed, 04 October 2019: For example, a Twitter account allegedly set up by the Israeli to counter the distribution of revised Wikipedia articles online recently got him banned. ... Per Wikipedia’s rules, the fact that he allegedly took to Twitter to fight the Polish editors is akin to what was done by those who were implicated in the EEML scandal.

The Guardian - Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Bernardine Evaristo, Chigozie Obioma, Elif Shafak and Lucy Ellmann - How to write a Booker contender – by Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and others, 05 October 2019: Where do Booker-prize authors find their inspiration? The authors on the 2019 shortlist reveal the secrets behind their novels.

Mail on Sunday - Padraic Flanagan - Great British Bake Off's Nadiya Hussain reveals she was sexually abused when she was five by a relative in Bangladesh, 05 October 2019: I had become used to looking over my shoulder. Because no matter how much I tried to hide, they were there. 'Miss, I'm being bullied.' 'Ignore them and they will go away.' I ignored them and they never went away. As I walked out that lunchtime one of them gave me a greeting with his willy peering out of his grey trousers, waiting for my imminent arrival to get it into an aroused state. ... 'Look at it,' he said as he pulled out his manhood. Ashamed and embarrassed, I turned away. 'You're disgusting.' 'You're disgusting, you black bitch.' He grabbed my hair. It was the only time I have ever been pleased to have hair so short you couldn't grab it from the back. But it was enough hair to draw some blood. Then they held my hands down into the hinge of the Portakabin door. I couldn't fight them off. I had tried weeks before when they had flushed my head down the boys' gammy toilets. They were strong and I accepted that this was going to happen whether I liked it or not. They slammed the door on to my fingers three times. When they stopped I got off my knees and ran with the faint sound of 'ugly black bitch' mixing in with the pounding of my heart. I cried because it hurt so much. My fingers, everything just hurt so much. (The Guardian: [13][14])

Middle East Eye - Alex MacDonald - 'No friends but the mountains': History repeats itself with latest US betrayal of Kurds, 07 October 2019: The US decision to withdraw forces from northern Syria in anticipation of Turkish assault is only the most recent betrayal Kurds have faced.

The Guardian - Julian Borger, Martin Chulov, Bethan McKernanin - Trump's shock Syria retreat reverberates as Turkish troops mass, 08 October 2019: Officials scramble to understand implications of US move as Kurds face prospect of invasion alone.

The Guardian - Rory Carroll - Pat Finucane murder: 'MI5 destroyed investigation files into alleged collusion', 08 October 2019: Hard discs of judge re-examining Northern Ireland killings were removed in 2002, BBC documentary says.

BBC - Julian O'Neill - Pat Finucane: Security service wiped hard drives, 08 October 2019: The security service MI5 wiped secret information from computer hard drives being held by an inquiry examining the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane. Retired Canadian Judge Peter Cory, head of the inquiry, complained to police and feared a diplomatic incident.

Haaretz - Ariel David - Gigantic prehistoric city found in Israel during roadworks, 08 October 2019: En Esur, with its monumental temple and huge population, was vastly bigger than anything thought possible in the Southern Levant 5,000 years ago.

The New York Times - Michael Schwirtz - Top Secret Russian Unit Seeks to Destabilize Europe, Security Officials Say, 08 October 2019: First came a destabilization campaign in Moldova, followed by the poisoning of an arms dealer in Bulgaria and then a thwarted coup in Montenegro. Last year, there was an attempt to assassinate a former Russian spy in Britain using a nerve agent. Though the operations bore the fingerprints of Russia’s intelligence services, the authorities initially saw them as isolated, unconnected attacks. Western security officials have now concluded that these operations, and potentially many others, are part of a coordinated and ongoing campaign to destabilize Europe, executed by an elite unit inside the Russian intelligence system skilled in subversion, sabotage and assassination. The group, known as Unit 29155, has operated for at least a decade, yet Western officials only recently discovered it. Intelligence officials in four Western countries say it is unclear how often the unit is mobilized and warn that it is impossible to know when and where its operatives will strike. The purpose of Unit 29155, which has not been previously reported, underscores the degree to which the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, is actively fighting the West with his brand of so-called hybrid warfare — a blend of propaganda, hacking attacks and disinformation — as well as open military confrontation. ... The unit appears to be a tight-knit community. A photograph taken in 2017 shows the unit’s commander, Maj. Gen. Andrei V. Averyanov, at his daughter’s wedding in a gray suit and bow tie. He is posing with Col. Anatoly V. Chepiga, one of two officers indicted in Britain over the poisoning of a former spy, Sergei V. Skripal. ... Western intelligence agencies first identified the unit after the failed 2016 coup in Montenegro, which involved a plot by two unit officers to kill the country’s prime minister and seize the Parliament building. ... Ultimately, the British authorities exposed two suspects, who had traveled under aliases but were later identified by the investigative site Bellingcat as Colonel Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin. ... But the operation was more complex than officials revealed at the time. Exactly a year before the poisoning, three Unit 29155 operatives traveled to Britain, possibly for a practice run, two European officials said. One was Mr. Mishkin. A second man used the alias Sergei Pavlov. Intelligence officials believe the third operative, who used the alias Sergei Fedotov, oversaw the mission. Soon, officials established that two of these officers — the men using the names Fedotov and Pavlov — had been part of a team that attempted to poison the Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev in 2015. ... The team would twice try to kill Mr. Gebrev, once in Sofia, the capital, and again a month later at his home on the Black Sea. ... Unit 29155 is not the only group authorized to carry out such operations, officials said. The British authorities have attributed Mr. Litvinenko’s killing to the Federal Security Service, the intelligence agency once headed by Mr. Putin that often competes with the G.R.U. Although little is known about Unit 29155 itself, there are clues in public Russian records that suggest links to the Kremlin’s broader hybrid strategy. A 2012 directive from the Russian Defense Ministry assigned bonuses to three units for “special achievements in military service.” One was Unit 29155. Another was Unit 74455, which was involved in the 2016 election interference. The third was Unit 99450, whose officers are believed to have been involved in the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. ... But European security officials are also perplexed by the apparent sloppiness in the unit’s operations. Mr. Skripal survived the assassination attempt, as did Mr. Gebrev, the Bulgarian arms dealer. The attempted coup in Montenegro drew an enormous amount of attention, but ultimately failed.

El País - José María Irujo - Director of Spanish security company that spied on Julian Assange arrested, 09 October 2019: The owner of UC Global, David Morales, was detained in August and has since been released on bail. He is facing offenses related to violating the privacy of the WikiLeaks founder and passing the information on to the United States’ intelligence services.

El País - José María Irujo - Russian and US visitors, targets for the Spanish firm that spied on Julian Assange, 09 October 2019: The CIA had access to the server where the company stored the profiles of hundreds of people who visited the WikiLeaks founder during his stay in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

The Guardian - Rajeev Syal - Chris Williamson loses legal bid over Labour party suspension, 10 October 2019.

The Guardian - Martin Chulov - 'Betrayal leaves a bitter taste': spurned Kurds flee Turkish onslaught, 10 October 2019: As they seek safety away from Turkish shells, Syrian Kurds burn with anger at Donald Trump’s betrayal.

The Independent - Michael Schwirtz - Top secret Russian unit seeking to destabilise Europe, security officials say, 09 October 2019: Despite it having been in operation for at least a decade, Western intelligence agencies have only recently learned of the prolific Unit 29155.

The Canary - Tracy Keeling - Don’t let the media fool you. Chris Williamson got a big win in the High Court today, 10 October 2019.

The Guardian - Sarah Boseley - Work of renowned UK psychologist Hans Eysenck ruled ‘unsafe’, 11 October 2019.

The Guardian - Jamie Doward - MI6 accused of thwarting effort to solve 1961 killing of UN chief , 12 October 2019: Files on Dag Hammarskjöld plane crash are being withheld, says inquiry.

The Guardian - Duncan Campbell - 'Oval Four' could be cleared after 47 years in wake of corrupt officer case, 13 October 2019: Court of appeal to review controversial 1972 case in which group of black men claimed they were framed by police.

Sputnik - Neil Clark - Andrew Philip Cross: Wikipedia Editing Scandal Continues (But For How Much Longer?), 13 October 2019. (BBC Sounds - The Mysterious Wikipedia Editor, 15 June 2018)

The Guardian - Bethan McKernan - Turkey-Syria offensive: Kurds reach deal with Damascus to stave off assault, 14 October 2019: Agreement to hand over border towns comes after more than 700 Isis affiliates escape camp.

The Guardian - Giran Ozcan - The Kurds have faced their own ‘endless war’. And this is a dark new chapter, 14 October 2019.

The Guardian - Martin Chulov - Russian shadow falls over Syria as Kurds open door for Assad, 14 October 2019: The public handover on show was that between the Assad regime and the Kurds, but the real power shift was between Washington – whose fighting troops have all but left the region, 16 years after invading Iraq – and Moscow, whose reach and influence across the Middle East has now been cemented.

The Guardian - Michael Safi, Bethan McKernan - Syrian troops enter Kurdish fight against Turkish forces, 14 October 2019: Syrian troops have begun sweeping into Kurdish-held territory on a collision course with Turkish forces and their allies, a day after the beleaguered Kurds agreed to hand over key cities to Damascus in exchange for protection.

The Guardian - Giles Tremlett - Catalonia’s separatists were jailed for sedition, but brought down by hubris, 15 October 2019.

The Guardian - Edward Snowden - The US, UK and Australia are taking on Facebook in a bid to undermine the only method that protects our personal information, 15 October 2019.

Information Clearing House - Paul Craig Roberts - Journalists Are Prostitutes,15 October 2019: In 2014, the German journalist and writer Udo Ulfkotte published a book that created a big stir, describing how the journalistic profession is thoroughly corrupt and infiltrated by intelligence services. ... I was fairly quickly sent along in a bus by the Iraqi army, the bus was full of loud, experienced war reporters, from such prestigious media as the BBC, several foreign TV-stations and newspapers, and me, poor newbie, who was sent to the front for the first time without any kind of preparation. The first thing I saw was that they all carried along cans of petrol. ... Roughly speaking: everyone knows that you won’t, for example in the Springer-newspapers – Bild, die Welt – get published articles extremely critical of Israel. They stand no chance there, because one has to sign a statement that one is pro-Israel, that one won’t question the existence of the state of Israel or Israeli points of view, etc. [15]

Haaretz - Ruth Schuster - Early humans reached Greek island 200,000 years ago, changing picture of spread from Africa, 16 October 2019: Smack in the middle of the Aegean Sea lies the island of Naxos, best known for its beaches, antiquities, and grilled octopus. It was home to the Cycladic culture, which coexisted with the Minoans over 4,000 years ago. Now discoveries of stone tools on the Greek island newly proven to go back at least 200,000 years demonstrate that somehow, both Neanderthals and early humans reached this island – and apparently an earlier form of hominin, too. ... The latest thinking on human evolution is that early anatomically modern humans began seeping out of Africa through the Levant at least 200,000 years ago (on foot). Maybe even earlier.

Alt-Market.com - Brandon Smith - The Syrian Debacle Is Actually Well Planned Chaos, 16 October 2019: First, most people reading this should know by now that US covert intelligence agencies (among others) were the force behind the “revolution” in Syria against the Bashar al-Assad. The majority of the fighters coming into the region were trained and equipped in Jordan in camps run by western agencies. The program was called “Operation Timber Sycamore” and was launched in different stages from 2011-2013.

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - An anonymous backpacker turned Israeli hero, 17 October 2019: A new Gilad Shalit has been born: Naama Issachar. An unlucky Israeli backpacker, who was found in possession of a drug that made her the victim of an international plot. She has become our latest national heroine.

The Guardian - Matthew Weaver - Resigning MP claims Corbyn has failed to tackle Labour antisemitism, 17 October 2019: Dame Louise Ellman says prospect of leader becoming PM prompted her exit.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Trump’s disgrace in the Middle East is the death of an empire. Vladimir Putin is Caesar now, 17 October 2019: This presidency looks like the manic days that presaged the fall of Rome.

Haaretz - David Stavrou - A million people are jailed at China's gulags. I managed to escape. Here's what really goes on inside., 17 October 2019: Rape, torture and human experiments. Sayragul Sauytbay offers firsthand testimony from a Xinjiang 'reeducation' camp.

The Independent - Clark Mindock - Trump lavishes praise on ‘tough man’ Erdogan over Syria ceasefire as Turkey claims it is just a ‘pause’, 18 October 2019:Erdogan agrees to 120-hour cessation of hostilities in Syria.

Haaretz - Daniel Blatman - Israel, it's time to call off the anti-Polish hunt, 18 October 2019: If there is a guilty side regarding the lie of the annihilation by gas in the Warsaw concentration camp – it's Wikipedia, not Poland.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - I don't blame the Lebanese rioters setting Beirut alight – they are hungry, poor and furious, 19 October 2019.

The Independent - Faiza Shaheen - I could write a book about the racism I’ve experienced running for office in the last 18 months, 20 October 2019: Dr Faiza Shaheen is the Labour Party’s parliamentary candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green.

Norman Finkelstein Blog - Deborah Maccoby - BREXIT UPDATE 48: The Letwin Amendment, 20 October 2019.

The Canary - Fréa Lockley - A UK university is trying to censor Jewish critics of Israel, 22 October 2019: In 2017, fifty years later, a group of academics took part in a conference to review Chomsky’s essay. As Walker, one of the speakers, told The Canary, this “very successful conference” led to a book. UCL Press has published the book and planned a launch event on 29 October.

The Guardian - Aaron Walawalkar - Labour peer suspended over sexual harassment and transphobia, 23 October 2019: Lord Stone, a former managing director of Marks and Spencer, also repeatedly used the N-word in evidence to the commissioner in a bid to defend his conduct.

Courage Foundation - Analytical Points: OPCW Panel, 23 October 2019: "A critical analysis of the final report of the Douma investigation left the panel in little doubt that conclusions drawn from each of the key evidentiary pillars of the investigation (chemical analysis, toxicology, ballistics and witness testimonies) are flawed and bear little relation to the facts."

Consortium News - Caitlin Johnstone - Panel Finds Gaping Holes in OPCW Report on Alleged Syrian Chemical Attack, 25 October 2019: A whistleblowers’ advocacy group finds “unacceptable practices” by an investigation of the 2018 chemical attack in Douma.

Consortium News - John Pilger - Did This Happen in the Home of the Magna Carta?, 25 October 2019: John Pilger, legendary filmmaker, journalist and friend of Assange, describes the troubling scene inside a London courtroom this week where the WikiLeaks publisher appeared in his U.S. extradition case.

The Guardian - Caroline Davies - Nazi directives and accounts of Roma genocide go on display, 27 October 2019: Forgotten Victims exhibition in London documents fate of 500,000 Roma and Sinti.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - The killing of Isis leader Baghdadi does not solve all problems for the west, 28 October 2019: His death may do more harm than good because he was a demonstrably disastrous leader from the point of view of his own movement.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Trump may have claimed to kill al-Baghdadi, but he has brought Isis back to life, 28 October 2019.

The Guardian - Rajeev Syal - Keith Vaz faces parliamentary ban over drugs for sex workers scandal, 28 October 2019.

The Independent - Nnamdi Kanu - ‘Soldiers came to kill me: I’d be shot in the head and dumped in a shallow grave with my dead companions’, 29 October 2019: At the height of the war in 1969, 12,000 people a day starved to death in Biafra. More than 50 years later and the violent persecution of the Biafran people by the Nigerian state continues unabated.

NewStatesman - Hugo Drochon - The closing of the conservative mind: Between revolution and reaction, 30 October 2019: It was the historian René Rémond who elaborated the thesis of the “three rights” in his 1954 book La Droite en France de 1815 à nos jours (“The right in France from 1815 to today”).

AntiWar.com - Morgan E. Hunter - Kurdish Participation in the Armenian Genocide, 30 October 2019: A bipartisan 405-11 majority of the US House of Representatives decided Tuesday to condemn the 1915 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. The result came after decades of attempts by the Armenian lobby, which had been successfully opposed by Turkey and its friends in the United States, especially – until recently – the pro-Israeli Jewish lobby.

Consortium News - As`ad AbuKhalil - THE ANGRY ARAB: The Origins of Lebanon’s Protests, 07 November 2019: Thus, Syrian intelligence (with Saudi and U.S. support) installed the most corrupt prime minister in the history of Lebanon. The era of Rafiq Hariri had begun; an era that lasted well after 2005, when he was assassinated in a massive car bombing.

openDemocracy - Antony Lerman - When Jews are just fodder for the Tory propaganda machine, 09 November 2019: Were Cleverly and Gove more concerned, they might have stepped up when Jacob Rees-Mogg in the Commons Brexit debate on 3 September, castigated Sir Oliver Letwin and Speaker John Bercow for blocking Brexit. ... JC’s editor, Stephen Pollard, whose hawkish exaggeration of the threat of antisemitism pre-dates Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader by many years, was given a platform by the Sunday Telegraph to double down on the fearmongering.

The Guardian - Rachel Cooke - John Bercow: ‘I may be pompous and an irritant. But I am completely authentic’, 10 November 2019: "No, the only thing I feel really ashamed about is that, when I joined the Monday Club, I joined its immigration, repatriation and race relations industry subcommittee. I’m deeply ashamed of that.” ... “I don’t want to rubbish my dad, but it is possible for Jewish people to be racist, just as it is possible for people of other faiths to be. Dad was a creature of his time. He had a particular view about Commonwealth immigration.”

Sputnik - Finian Cunningham - US Hand in Bolivia Coup, 11 November 2019: Only days before Evo Morales stepped down as Bolivia’s president audio tapes were published implicating opposition politicians, the US embassy and American senators in a coup plot.

The Times of Israel - Michael Bachner, Times of Israel Staff - PM sought Abu al-Ata’s killing after rocket forced him offstage before election, 12 November 2019: Reports say Netanyahu wanted to immediately eliminate Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror chief after September 10 incident in Ashdod, but security officials made him wait.

ZeroHedge - Tyler Durden - All Products From Israeli Settlements Must Be Labelled: EU Court In Landmark Ruling, 13 November 2019.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Michael Lynk’s UN report on Israeli settlements speaks the truth – but the world refuses to listen, 14 November 2019: Hamas is not spared criticism: the Islamist militia in charge of Gaza stands accused of ‘beatings, arbitrary arrest and detentions, and torture and ill treatment’ of hundreds of Palestinian protesters. But the opposition to Lynk is not down to his even-handedness.

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Erdogan’s ethnic cleansing of the Kurds is still happening now – and we have Trump to thank, 15 November 2019.

Counterpunch - Jonathan Steele - The OPCW and Douma: Chemical Weapons Watchdog Accused of Evidence-Tampering by Its Own Inspectors, 15 November 2019: "Claims that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have used chemical weapons are almost as old as the Syrian civil war itself. They have produced strong reactions, and none more so than in the case of the alleged attack in April last year on the opposition-controlled area of Douma near Damascus in which 43 people are said to have been killed by chlorine gas. The United States, Britain and France responded by launching airstrikes on targets in the Syrian capital."

The Guardian - Lily Kuo - 'Show no mercy': leaked documents reveal details of China's Xinjiang detentions, 17 November 2019: More than 400 pages leaked to New York Times by Chinese political insider document brutal crackdown on Muslim minority.

CaitlinJohnstone.com - Caitlin Johnstone - The Hugely Important OPCW Scandal Keeps Unfolding. Here’s Why No One’s Talking About It, 17 November 2019: The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is now hemorrhaging evidence that the US and its allies deceived the world once again about yet another military intervention, which should be a front-page story all over the world.

Daily Maverick - Open Secrets Dame Margaret Hodge MP – a very British apartheid profiteer, 20 November 2019.

Bellingcat - The Dreadful Eight: GRU’s Unit 29155 and the 2015 Poisoning of Emilian Gebrev, 23 November 2019: In a new joint investigation with Der Spiegel and The Insider, Bellingcat can now reveal that at the heart of the Bulgarian poisoning operation was a team of as many as eight GRU officers – all members of the same unit – who traveled to Bulgaria in the weeks surrounding the poisoning attempt. Crucially, constellations of teams of three – including Maj. General Denis Sergeev – were present in Bulgaria during both suspected poisonings. ... About 20 hours before the tourists’ premature departure, late in the evening of 27 April 2015, Emilian Gebrev felt the first symptoms of what would soon turn out to be a near-fatal poisoning. ... Following the news of the Skripals poisoning with Novichok in 2018, and recognizing some of the symptoms described in their case, Gebrev approached Bulgarian authorities with a request to reopen the cold-case investigation and probe for the possible use of Novichok or a similar substance on him. He also urged Bulgarian authorities to request a new chemical analysis of the samples submitted to Verifin in 2015, with the hindsight awareness of the possible use of Novichok, and accumulated knowledge of its residual manifestations in blood and urine. While the Bulgarian government has reopened the investigation and is known to be cooperating with UK law enforcement, Gebrev’s requests for a repeat chemical analysis – in cooperation with the OPCW – have not yet been acted upon. ... As we have reported earlier, GRU officers from Unit 21955 traveling undercover are issued passport in batches, and their passports are renewed approximately every two years. Each batch contains sequentially numbered passports, most of which are reserved to GRU officers. This has allowed us to identify all members of this GRU sub-unit by using as seed the cover identities – and associated passport numbers – of the trio of the Skripal-poisoning suspects.

MailOnline (Blog) - Peter Hitchens - My Response to Allegations that I am an Apologist for Syria and the Assad State - updated and reinforced, 24 November 2019: Following the publication of my story on the leak from the OPCW, suggesting that evidence against Syria was sexed up to justify war, I expect the ad hominem fallacy to be operating at full blast.

The Guardian - Patrick Wintour - Chemical weapons watchdog defends Syria report after leaks, 25 November 2019: Whistleblower claims OPCW’s findings misrepresented some facts over 2018 chlorine attack.

InPublishing - Ray Snoddy - Punching above its weight, 25 November 2019: The Jewish Chronicle has a circulation of just over 20,000 but, as the voice of the UK’s Jewish community since 1841, its voice carries far. Ray Snoddy talks to editor Stephen Pollard about the challenges he faces, both political and publishing. ... And for Pollard who edits the 178 year-old Jewish Chronicle, the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the world, the biggest story of all is Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party. Pollard who has edited the JC, as it is universally known, for eleven years, used to believe he did not know whether Corbyn was anti-Semitic or not and that he would judge the Labour leader by his actions. That all changed when Jewish Labour MP Margaret Hodge denounced Corbyn. “When Margaret Hodge called Corbyn an anti-Semite, we put that on the front page of the JC – her phrase was ‘a racist and anti-Semite’,” says Pollard. The newspaper has an extensive database of its Jewish readers, ideal for polling. Stephen Pollard: “I still get a thrill when the paper comes into the office every week.” A Survation poll after the Hodge attack found that 85 per cent of British Jews believe the Labour leader is an anti-Semite and that 38 per cent would consider leaving the country if Corbyn became prime minister. ... He replied to a Corbyn tweet supporting the England captain Harry Kane’s determination to take his team off the pitch if it faced racist abuse. “Does that mean MPs should walk out of the Commons when Britain’s leading racist opens his mouth,” the JC editor asked. ... Growing up, Pollard says, he was barely aware of anti-Semitism, aside from being on the receiving end of a couple of stupid remarks. ... The JC had tracked Corbyn as a humble backbencher and recorded the Middle Eastern groups he met. ... The JC regards itself as being “unambiguously a Zionist pro-Israel paper but it’s not about the government, it’s about the country. We view ourselves as a critical friend,” explains Pollard.

Haaretz - David Feldman - The Real Reason Corbyn's 'Anti-racist' Labour Just Can’t Deal With anti-Semitism, 27 November 2019: But the issues which Labour faces go deeper than this. The very problem itself has been misconceived - both by the party leadership and its critics. ... The idea that anti-Semitism is a virus or a poison has become a cliché. Some clichés express important truths, but this one obscures far more than it reveals. In Britain prejudice against Jews has been longstanding and widespread, not discontinuous. For the most part the problem we face today is not ideological anti-Semitism displayed by a few, but negative and stereotypical ideas about Jews that have accumulated over centuries and are embedded deeply within our culture. Rather than conceive anti-Semitism as a virus, we will do better to think of it as a deep reservoir of stereotypes and narratives, one which is replenished over time and that can be dipped into with ease. ... The number of thorough-going, ideologically committed anti-Semites in Britain amount to a tiny minority within the adult population. ... So, in contrast to the small number of anti-Semites in the country, the diffusion of anti-Semitic attitudes reaches almost a third of the population. ... For the most part, Labour, and the left more broadly, don’t talk about Jews because they are committed ideological anti-Semites, but because they associate Jews with some of the key issues they most care about: the legacy of colonialism and the operation of power within capitalist society. In the case of colonialism, this happens because they regard Israel - the Jewish state - and the continuing injustices suffered by Palestinians as an expression of colonialism. ... Once Jews are conceived as a problem, there is a reservoir of negative stereotypes and narratives available for use. People draw on this pool for its apparent explanatory power. ... The reality is that Labour’s anti-Semitism problem is neither so simple nor contained: the issue is one of anti-Semitism, not anti-Semites.

The Jewish Chronicle - Lee Harpin - Labour accused of election 'dirty tricks' against equalities watchdog investigating its antisemitism, 28 November 2019: Labour appeared to mount an open attack on the EHRC on Tuesday when the party’s Race and Faith manifesto was launched, containing a commitment to make the organisation “truly independent” if in government. A BBC Newsnight report on Tuesday evening, which questioned the independence of two senior figures within the EHRC, coincided with Labour’s attack on the EHRC. ... On Wednesday, when asked to comment on Labour’s attempt to frustrate the EHRC investigation a JLM spokesperson said: “The Labour Party is up to dirty tricks with the EHRC.

The Jewish Chronicle - IPSO upholds Labour activist’s accuracy complaint against JC, 29 November 2019: Following publication of four articles ... Audrey White complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that the Jewish Chronicle breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice. The complaint was upheld, and IPSO required the Jewish Chronicle to publish this adjudication. ... The newspaper had not been able to demonstrate that it had taken care over the accuracy of the article on these two points; the result was a breach of Clause 1 (i). ... Upon receipt of the correspondence provided by the complainant, the newspaper had not offered to correct this significantly inaccurate claim, in breach of Clause 1 (ii). ... The Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable.

Mail on Sunday - Peter Hitchens - My secret meeting with mole at the heart of The Great Poison Gas Scandal, 01 December 2019. (leaked email in full: [16])

The Jewish Chronicle - Stephen Pollard - Ten myths about Jeremy Corbyn and Labour antisemitism deconstructed, 05 December 2019: The JC’s polling by Survation has shown that 86 per cent of Jews are unpersuaded, believing Mr Corbyn himself to be an antisemite — leading the Chief Rabbi to ask: “What will become of Jews and Judaism in Britain if the Labour Party forms the next government?” ... Claim: In his interview with Andrew Neil, Mr Corbyn said that antisemitism is “not acceptable in any form in society. When the far right are rising across Europe, using antisemitic tropes in order to intimidate people, then I think we’ve all got to stand up together on this.” Reality: Mr Corbyn has indeed opposed what one might consider “classic” antisemitism inspired by the far right. Since 1977 he has signed or sponsored 13 Early Day Motions (EDMs), 10 tweets and led (at least) one demo. But it is notable that whe never he condemns and elaborates on antisemitism, he singles out this far-right version and never mentions left-wing antisemitism — precisely the issue with Labour. This left-wing, Labour antisemitism updates all the old tropes of classic antisemitism by, amongst other things, overlaying them onto the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Mint Press - Alan Macleod - Study Reveals How UK Intelligence Works with Media to Smear Jeremy Corbyn, 06 December 2019: New research from Matt Kennard has shown how the British intelligence establishment works with the UK media to smear Jeremy Corbyn.

The Guardian - David Smith, Michael McGowan , Christopher Knaus, Nick Evershed - Revealed: Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib targeted in far-right fake news operation, 06 December 2019: Israeli-based group uses Facebook to spread disinformation to more than a million followers around the world, singling out Muslim US congresswomen.

Al Jazeera - Tony Greenstein - Is Jeremy Corbyn a 'threat' to British Jews?, 07 December 2019: Corbyn's opponents cannot defeat his political programme so they attack his character with spurious allegations. ... A November poll by the Jewish Chronicle showed that 87 percent of British Jews consider Corbyn to be an anti-Semite and 47 percent would "seriously consider" emigrating if he wins on December 12. Some may assume given that such an overwhelming majority of British Jews believe Corbyn to be an anti-Semite, he must be. This, however, is not the case. As revealed by Greg Philo, Mike Berry, Justin Schlosberg, Antony Lerman and David Miller's recently published book "Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party and Public Belief", between Corbyn's election in June 2015 and March 2019 there had been 5,497 stories on the subject of Corbyn, anti-Semitism and the Labour Party across Britain's eight most popular national newspapers. Most of these reports were hostile to the Labour leader. Moreover, Jewish publications like the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News and the Jewish Telegraph also repeatedly filled their pages with reports accusing the Jewish leader and the supporters of his party of being anti-Semitic.

The Times of Israel - Wiesenthal Center names UK’s Corbyn top anti-Semite of 2019, 08 December 2019: Ahead of Thursday’s British elections, Labour chief placed above US synagogue killer on group’s annual list; rabbi warns electing him would make UK a ‘pariah’.

The Guardian - Lily Kuo - China claims detained Uighurs have been freed, 09 December 2019.

The Independent - Ben Welch - Jewish life won't change under a Corbyn government – and deep down my community knows that, 11 December 2019: In my years reporting for The Jewish Chronicle, I have yet to interview anyone who has made serious plans to emigrate were Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister.

Mint Press - Whitney Webb - Former Spy Details Israel’s Main Motive Behind Epstein’s Sexual Blackmail Operation, 13 December 2019: MintPress speaks with Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli spy who worked closely with Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, as part of their work with Israeli military intelligence and had frequent encounters with Jeffrey Epstein.

Tareq Haddad blog - Lies, Newsweek and Control of the Media Narrative: First-Hand Account, 14 December 2019: Until several days ago, I was a journalist at Newsweek. I decided to hand my resignation in because, in essence, I was given a simple choice. ... It was while investigating this story that I started to come across growing evidence that the U.N.-backed body for investigating chemical weapons use, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), issued a doctored report about an alleged chemical attack in Douma in April of 2018, much to the anger of OPCW investigators who visited the scene.

The Mail on Sunday - Peter Hitchens - PETER HITCHENS reveals fresh evidence that UN watchdog suppressed report casting doubt on Assad gas attack, 14 December 2019.

The Guardian - Simon Jenkins - The Lib Dems helped the Tories to victory again. Now they should disband, 16 December 2019: His 43.6% of the vote was ahead of Theresa May’s only by 1.2 percentage points ... But the Lib Dem vote soared by 1.3m or 4.1 percentage points, while Corbyn’s fell by 2.6m. Johnson’s rose by only 304,000.

The Jewish Chronicle - Melanie Philips - Don’t fall for bogus claims of ‘Islamophobia’, 16 December 2019: 'The taunt of Islamophobia is used to silence any criticism of the Islamic world, including Islamic extremism.'

The Guardian - Jim Waterson - 'Islamophobia a bogus label': Jewish Chronicle under fire over article, 17 December 2019: Melanie Phillips says that the term ‘is used to silence criticism of Islamic world’.

TomDispatch.com - Danny Sjursen - Remembering America’s First (and Longest) Forgotten War on Tribal Islamists, 17 December 2019: How soon we forget that the Army, which had fought prolonged guerrilla wars against tribal Native Americans throughout the nineteenth century, went on -- often led by veterans of those Indian Wars -- to wage a counterinsurgency war on tribal Islamic Moros in the Philippine Islands at the start of the new century, a conflict that was an outgrowth of the Spanish-American War.

The Guardian - Kate Aronoff - Accusing Bernie Sanders of antisemitism? That's a new low, 18 December 2019: Like the attacks against Corbyn abroad and Ilhan Omar at home, those now being lobbed at Sanders aren’t about defeating antisemitism so much as using it as a narrative device to undermine a worldview that offends them.

StarTribune - Lauren Kay Johnson - Selling the war: I helped craft the official lies in Afghanistan, 18 December 2019: Recently, Washington Post reporting showed that the conflict in Afghanistan has been an operation of deception, as the war’s architects knowingly misled the public about its objectives and progress. The “Afghanistan Papers” were not a revelation to me. I was one of the deceivers.

truthdig - Scott Ritter - Chemical Weapons Watchdog Is Just an American Lap Dog, 18 December 2019: A spate of leaks from within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the international inspectorate created for the purpose of implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention, has raised serious questions about the institution’s integrity, objectivity and credibility.

New Statesman - Valerie Grove - Laurie Lee’s rural myths, 18 December 2019: Full of village legends and adolescent lust, Laurie Lee’s recycled yarns of the landscape of his childhood eventually strangled his writer’s voice.

Le Monde Diplomatique - Renaud Lambert - Bolivia’s coup, 18 December 2019: Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, has been forced from office, despite winning praise both from progressives and international financial institutions like the IMF.

RT - Newsweek trusts Bellingcat more than Reuters – journalist who quit over ‘suppressed’ OPCW story to RT, 18 December 2019: Blind trust in controversial ‘citizen investigation’ outlet Bellingcat prompted Newsweek editors to drop a report on the latest OPCW leaks, the author of the piece who resigned from the magazine after the incident told RT. Tareq Haddad announced his resignation from Newsweek last week, accusing the magazine of “suppressing” his attempt to report on a leaked email casting doubts on the results of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) investigation into an April 2018 chemical attack in Douma, Syria ... Haddad himself firmly believes that Bellingcat is far from being a backbone of journalistic integrity. “In my own research, I have come to learn that Bellingcat is not something that they purport to be, so I do not think that we as journalists should be relying on them for all information,” he said. Bellingcat, a controversial self-described ‘citizen investigation’ outlet, shot to prominence over its online “open source investigations” several years ago, even though its founder Eliot Higgins has no scientific training whatsoever.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Behind the scenes of one Middle East investigation I'll never forget, 19 December 2019: When the Americans occupied Baghdad in 2003, I went to see the intimidated, fearful few thousand Palestinian refugees who lived in the Iraqi capital.

The Guardian - Andy Beckett - A Labour defeat, yes, but this was not nearly as bad as 1983, 19 December 2019: For a start, 1983 was much worse in many ways than 2019. Back then, the Conservatives won a majority of 144, compared with 80 last week. In 1983 Labour got 27.6% of the vote – its worst share for 65 years. Last week it got 32.2% – mediocre, but more than at the 2010 general election, when Alan Johnson was home secretary, or in 2015 under Ed Miliband.

21stCenturyWire - Sheila Coombes - Mainstream Media on OPCW Leaks – The Good, Bad and Downright Ugly, 20 December 2019: Since early this year when it was revealed that OPCW top management had undertaken censorship of their scientific staff’s reporting on investigations into the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018, there has been relative silence from the mainstream media, with the exception of a few.

The Independent - Jon Stone - British press dramatically cut criticism of ruling Tories for 2019 election, study finds, 21 December 2019: Coverage of Labour was also over twice as hostile compared to previous poll.

The Guardian - Stewart Lee - Only Aamon the demon is fit to replace Jeremy Corbyn, 22 December 2019: During a brainstorming session to debate Labour’s new leader, dark forces loomed large.

The New York Times - Michael Schwirtz - How a Poisoning in Bulgaria Exposed Russian Assassins in Europe, 22 December 2019: For years, members of a secret team, Unit 29155, operated without Western security officials having any idea about their activities. But an attack on an arms dealer in Sofia helped blow their cover. Within days, one man sneaked into a locked parking garage, smeared poison on the handle of the arms manufacturer’s car, then left, undetected, except for blurry images captured by surveillance video. Shortly after, the arms manufacturer, Emilian Gebrev, was meeting with business partners at a rooftop restaurant when he began to hallucinate and vomit. The poisoning left Mr. Gebrev, now 65, hospitalized for a month. His son was poisoned, and so was another top executive at his company. When Mr. Gebrev was discharged, the assassins poisoned him and his son again, at their summer home on the Black Sea. They all survived, though Mr. Gebrev’s business has yet to recover fully. The assassination attempts in 2015 were remarkable not only for their brazenness and persistence, but also because security and intelligence officials in the West initially did not notice. Bulgarian prosecutors looked at the case, failed to unearth any evidence and closed it. Now Western security and intelligence officials say the Bulgaria poisonings were a critical clue that helped expose a campaign by the Kremlin and its sprawling web of intelligence operatives to eliminate Russia’s enemies abroad and destabilize the West. In October, The New York Times revealed that a specialized group of Russian intelligence operatives — Unit 29155 — had for years been assigned to carry out killings and political disruption campaigns in Europe. Intelligence and security officials say the unit is responsible for the assassination attempt last year against Sergei V. Skripal, a Russian former spy in Britain; a failed operation in 2016 to provoke a military coup in Montenegro; and a campaign to destabilize Moldova. Western intelligence agencies now know the name of the unit’s commanding officer, Maj. Gen. Andrei V. Averyanov, and the location of its headquarters in Moscow. Based on interviews with officials in Europe and the United States, it is also now clear that the assassination attempts against Mr. Gebrev served as a kind of Rosetta Stone that helped Western intelligence agencies to discover Unit 29155 — and to decipher the kind of threat it presented. ... In March 2018, a former Russian spy named Sergei V. Skripal was poisoned by a lethal nerve agent in the English town of Salisbury. He began ranting at a restaurant and fell into a coma before clawing his way back to life. ... Working with European allies, the British authorities analyzed travel records of known Russian operatives. One stood out, a man using a Russian passport with the name of Sergei Fedotov. ... For five years, he had traveled extensively in Europe, visiting Serbia, Spain and Switzerland. He was in London a few days before Mr. Skripal was poisoned, leaving shortly after that attack, and British authorities have now identified him as the commander of the team that poisoned Mr. Skripal. It also turned out that he had been in Bulgaria in 2015, making three visits: in February; in April, when Mr. Gebrev was first poisoned; and again in late May, coinciding with the second poisoning. Investigators from the Britain-based open-source news outlet Bellingcat have identified the man using the Fedotov alias as Denis V. Sergeev, a high-ranking G.R.U. officer and a veteran of Russia’s wars in the North Caucasus. The British authorities confirmed the accuracy of the report. ... In the garage, prosecutors discovered grainy surveillance video that showed a well-dressed figure approaching Mr. Gebrev’s gray Nissan, as well as the cars owned by Mr. Gebrev’s son and by the production manager. The figure appears to smear something on the handles of all three cars.

AntiWar.com - Yves Engler - Canada Follows US Lead By Ignoring OPCW Scandal, 24 December 2019.

+972 - Dror Etkes - The decade Israel erased the Green Line, 26 December 2019: For years, Israel's settlement enterprise was widely viewed as temporary and reversible. Today, after a decade of Netanyahu and three years of Trump, the West Bank has become part of the Israeli mainstream.

+972 - Noam Sheizaf - We are all one staters now, 27 December 2019: The ideological argument over the future of Israel-Palestine disguises the fact that, for the past decade, we have been living in a one-state reality.

21stCenturyWire - Patrick Henningsen - Post-Truth World: An OPCW Cover-up, Shielded by MSM and Bellingcat, 28 December 2019: On Friday night, online publisher WikiLeaks released the latest set of internal documents relating to the OPCW’s Fact Finding Mission (FFM) and investigation into the alleged ‘chemical attack’ to Douma, Syria in April of 2018. As with the previous releases, these documents are highly damning, and point to both US meddling and an institutional cover-up at the executive level.

Morning Star - Steve Sweeney - OPCW accused of Syrian chemical attack cover-up, 29 December 2019: Fresh doubt has been cast on an alleged 2018 chemical attack in Syria, as a cover-up of documents which debunk claims that it was carried out by the Syrian government was revealed on Saturday.

2020

The Independent - Robert Fisk - The Syrian conflict is awash with propaganda – chemical warfare bodies should not be caught up in it, 01 January 2020: "The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has an important role to play in ensuring people know the truth. Nothing should get in the way of that."

+972 - Natasha Roth-Rowland - How one hilltop became an incubator for Israeli settler violence, 02 January 2020: "The Israeli government has done little to stop the religious settlers of Yitzhar, whose extremist doctrine is instigating waves of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank."

BBC - Jude Sheerin - Did Britain meddle in a US presidential election?, 06 January 2020: When US President George HW Bush craved "a smoking gun" in 1992 to politically kneecap his White House challenger Bill Clinton, the British government delved into its files for damaging information. So, did the Bush camp solicit foreign interference to help him win an election - the very allegation that has seen President Trump impeached?

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Was Qassem Soleimani a monstrous kingmaker or simply an enabler? The truth is as murky as Tudor history, 10 January 2020: "He was too close to intelligence operatives in non-Arab countries, particularly Turkey, and the Syrians found Soleimani’s rhetoric too much to stomach."

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - We “slaughtered” Jeremy Corbyn, says Israel lobbyist, 10 January 2020: “The beast is slain,” Joe Glasman delighted – Corbyn has been “slaughtered.” He rejoiced that “we defeated him” in the election. “They tried to kill us,” he ranted, but “we won.” Glasman leads the “political investigations team” at the Campaign Against Antisemitism, or CAA – an influential anti-Palestinian lobby group.

Morning Star - Ben Chacko - Lea Tsemel - Israeli lawyer for Palestine, 18 January 2020: " "The hope that we would be a ‘light unto the nations’ has been replaced by crude nationalism, proud racism, the desire for apartheid." ... Israel’s bid to revoke the rights of its Arab citizens and erase their history are all too familiar from the attacks on Muslim and Christian rights in Narendra Modi’s India. Hard-right governments with an increasing contempt for the rule of law and a stated desire to bring the supposedly independent judiciary to heel exist in the United States and Britain as well as in Israel."

AntiWar.Blog - Dave DeCamp - Author of Leaked OPCW Engineering Report on Douma Speaks at UN Security Council, 20 January 2020: "Much of the blame for the lack of pressure on OPCW management after all these leaks, lies on the media outlets that refuse to report on it. Bellingcat – the investigative firm that receives grants from the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy – bears most of the blame, since many mainstream outlets parrot what they say on Syria. Just a few days before this Security Council meeting, Bellingcat published a smear job on Ian Henderson."

The Guardian - Frederick Forsyth - Buried for 50 years: Britain’s shameful role in the Biafran war, 21 January 2020: "A million children starved to death. I’m haunted by the images I saw there – and by the complicity of the Wilson government."

The Independent - Conrad Duncan - ‘Respect the rules’: Macron yells at Israeli police after they try to enter French territory in Jerusalem, 22 January 2020: "French president's confrontation draws comparisons to clash with Jacques Chirac in 1990s."

The Jewish Chronicle - Stephen Pollard - The BBC has shamed itself with Orla Guerin's Holocaust report, 23 January 2020: "Last night's report by the BBC correspondent was truly foul." (Twitter)

The Guardian - Mark Sweney - Former BBC executives criticise Orla Guerin's Holocaust report, 24 January 2020: "Michael Grade and Danny Cohen hit out at ‘unjustifiably offensive’ News at Ten piece."

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Go to Gaza and cry ‘never again’, 23 January 2020: "It’s very important to remember the past; no less important is to be cognizant of the present without shutting one’s eyes. The dozens of statesmen who arrived in Israel yesterday may remember the past, but they’re blurring the present. In their silence, in their disregard of reality while lining up unconditionally alongside Israel, they not only betray their roles, they also betray the memory of the past in the name of which they came here. To be the guests of Israel without mentioning its crimes; to commemorate the Holocaust while ignoring its lessons; to visit Jerusalem without traveling to the Gaza ghetto on International Holocaust Remembrance Day – one can barely think of any greater hypocrisy."

Information Clearing House - Pepe Escobar - Why the New Silk Roads are a ‘threat’ to US bloc, 28 January 2020: "The Persians engaged the Phoenicians in the Syrian coastline as their partners to manage sea trade in the Mediterranean. Enterprising people in Tyre established Carthage as a node between the Eastern and Western Mediterranean. Because of the partnership with the Phoenicians, the Persians would inevitably be antagonized by the Greeks – a sea trading power."

Middle East Eye - David Hearst - Palestinians have only one option left: Stay and fight, 29 January 2020: "The Triangle is home to hundreds of thousands of Arab-Palestinian citizens living in their homeland. Trump and Netanyahu’s annexation and transfer programme remove us from our homeland and revoke our citizenship; an existential danger to all Arab minority citizens."

Yahoo (from AFP) - Carter says Trump Mideast plan violates international law, 30 January 2020.

Republik - Daniel Ryser, Charles Hawley (Translation) - "A murderous system is being created before our very eyes", 31 January 2020: "A made-up rape allegation and fabricated evidence in Sweden, pressure from the UK not to drop the case, a biased judge, detention in a maximum security prison, psychological torture – and soon extradition to the U.S., where he could face up to 175 years in prison for exposing war crimes. For the first time, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, speaks in detail about the explosive findings of his investigation into the case of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange."

Monthly Review - Moshé Machover - Messianic Zionism, The Ass and the Red Heifer, 01 February 2020: From its very beginning in 1897, political Zionism regarded itself as a national movement of political self-determination. Its ideology is based on two central tenets. First, that the totality of Jews the world over is a single national collectivity—a people (ethnos). Second, that this national entity has a valid claim of ownership over its ancestral homeland, Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel).

The Guardian - Patrick Wintour, Bethan McKernan - Inquiry strikes blow to Russian denials of Syria chemical attack, 07 February 2020: "UN watchdog’s investigation rebuts claims it manipulated evidence of Douma incident."

The Jewish Chronicle - Lee Harpin - Labour expels 25 people over antisemitism in a single day, 12 February 2020: "The new drive is believed to explain the decision to suspend Wirral council Jo Bird – who had previously been suspended for her “Jew process” and “privileging” or anti-Jewish racism remarks last March - last Thursday as she campaigned to be elected onto Labour’s ruling body."

Middle East Eye - Clive Stafford Smith - The curious case of Jack Letts: A study in the mindless mill of UK law, 14 February 2020: "What is clear is that he was arrested and abused three times by IS for shooting off his mouth, and he decided they were a bunch of maniacs peddling a false vision of Islam. He wanted to come home to England. He contacted his parents, John Letts and Sally Lane, and asked them to send money so he could pay a people-smuggler to get him out. The British authorities felt it was a crime worthy of years in prison for them to help their son, although they ultimately received a suspended sentence."

MailOnline (Blog) - Peter Hitchens - The Show Trial of A and B. Kafka comes to The Hague, 15 February 2020: "Fact: Leaks from the OPCW last summer, whose source has never been identified, showed that the OPCW had sidelined and suppressed key information undermining its own public conclusion that it was ‘reasonable’ to believe that chlorine gas had been used in warfare in Syria in April 2018."

Middle East Eye - Avi Shlaim - Palestine and the West: A century of betrayal, 17 February 2020: "For the Israeli right, the Trump plan is a diplomatic triumph akin to the Balfour Declaration. For Palestinians, it is just the latest act of western treachery."

Consortium News - John Pilger - Julian Assange Must Be Freed, Not Betrayed, Volume 26, Number 64, 17 February 2020: Revealed by WikiLeaks and published in The New York Times, the Podesta emails triggered a vituperative campaign against editor-in-chief Julian Assange, bereft of evidence. He was an “agent of Russia working to elect Trump”; the nonsensical “Russiagate” followed. That WikiLeaks had also published more than 800,000 frequently damning documents from Russia was ignored. ... In 2011, David Leigh, The Guardian‘s “investigations editor”, told journalism students at City University in London that Assange was “quite deranged”. When a puzzled student asked why, Leigh replied, “Because he doesn’t understand the parameters of conventional journalism”.

Spotlight - Koser Saeed - EXPOSÉ: Who are ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’?, 17 February 2020: In an interview with the Jerusalem Post in November 2019, Falter accused Jeremy Corbyn of being an Antisemite and of corrupting the Labour Party. He claimed that the party had “become institutionally antisemitic”. Shortly after, in December 2019, the Milli Gazette, an Indian Newspaper based in Delhi, published an article linking the CAA to the Hindu far-right and Israel’s partisans who it said were colluding against the Labour Party.

The Guardian (Reuters) - Scientists discover Neanderthal skeleton that hints at flower burial. 18 February 2020: "The fossils found in Iraqi cave provide fresh evidence the species buried their death with mortuary rituals. ... Neanderthals inhabited Eurasia from the Atlantic coast to the Ural Mountains from about 400,000 years ago until a little after 40,000 years ago, disappearing after our species established itself in the region. The two species interbred, with modern non-African human populations bearing residual Neanderthal DNA."

Middle East Eye - Ian Cobain, Alice Ross - REVEALED: The British government’s covert propaganda campaign in Syria, 19 February 2020: Documents obtained by MEE reveal how British contractors recruited Syrian citizen journalists - often without their knowledge - to promote 'moderate opposition'. ... The British government appears to have regarded its propaganda initiative as being in part a way to maintain a presence in Syria until it was able to become militarily engaged, with the blueprint saying that it should have “the capability to expand back into the strategic as and when the opportunity arises, to help build an effective opposition political-military interface”. Around the same time that the initiative was being developed, the British government “loaned” a number of its pilots to the US, French and Canadian air forces, enabling them to take part in combat missions against Syrian targets, despite the county’s parliament having voted against such action. British government enthusiasm for much of the work appears to have begun to wane as it became increasingly clear that the Assad government and its Russian and Iranian allies were winning the civil war, and funding for contracts began to dry up.

Middle East Eye - Ian Cobain, Alice Ross - The British government’s covert propaganda campaign in Syria, 19 February 2020: Documents obtained by MEE reveal how British contractors recruited Syrian citizen journalists - often without their knowledge - to promote 'moderate opposition.'

Daily Mail - Kate Fall - Inside David Cameron's doomed bunker where the war for Remain was lost as former aide reveals the plots, betrayals and broken friendships that came with the vote to leave the EU, 21 February 2020.

MailOnline (Blog) - Peter Hitchens - How Journalists Persuade Themselves to Lie, and even to Denounce the Truth - a Warning from History, 20 February 2020: "The faintly ludicrous and shouty journalist John Sweeney has been attacking me on Twitter for comparing the behaviour of modern journalists, over the poison gas scandal, with that of the Moscow-based correspondents who in 1933 consciously lied about the truthful reports of Stalin's famine by Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge, so killing the story."

Forward - I’ve taught at six Jewish day schools. They’re preaching dual loyalty to Israel, 21 February 2020: I’ve heard teachers or administrators say at assemblies things like “you don’t belong in America,” “Israel is your country” and “the IDF are your soldiers.” When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the United States Congress in opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, against the wishes of President Obama, the high school where I was working cancelled classes to watch “our Prime Minister.” That’s a real quote. ... Of course, some saw this coming. After the founding of the state of Israel, the 1950 Blaustein-Ben Gurion agreement demanded that Israel not claim the loyalty of Diaspora Jews since such loyalty would jeopardize the Diaspora communities.

The Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Jewish Chronicle to pay damages over anti-Semitism libel, 21 February 2020: The UK newspaper admitted on its website it had published “allegations about Mrs Audrey White” which were “untrue.” ... A series of articles by the paper’s reporter Lee Harpin last year had put White at “the center of bullying claims against Jewish MP Dame Louise Ellman” – then the member of Parliament for the Liverpool Riverside constituency. ... The libel settlement comes after a UK press regulator in December ruled that the paper’s four articles about White had been “significantly misleading” and that the paper had engaged in “unacceptable” obstruction of their investigation. ... White told The Electronic Intifada that the Independent Press Standards Organisation, the regulator, had told her it was their longest ever adjudication process with a newspaper. ... In August last year, it was forced to pay $60,000 in libel damages to InterPal, a British charity which aids Palestinians. The paper had falsely attacked the charity with insinuations of “terrorist” activity. Such payouts cannot be helping The Jewish Chronicle with a recent financial crisis. Last year it was reported that the paper had required a major cash injection by “community-minded individuals” to avoid closure. And earlier this month the weekly title announced it would be merging with the Jewish News “to secure the financial future of both newspapers.”

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - With WikiLeaks, Julian Assange did what all journalists should aspire to do, 22 February 2020: "When WikiLeaks did release the video, it was obvious why the US generals had wanted to keep it secret. Three years earlier, I had been in Baghdad when a US helicopter machine-gunned and fired rockets at a group of civilians on the ground who its pilots claimed were armed insurgents, killing or wounding many of them."

The Guardian - Mark Townsend - UK left activists attended events with far right antisemites, 22 February 2020: "Ex-Labour members secretly recorded at meetings with Holocaust deners."

The Guardian - Malena Ernman on daughter Greta Thunberg: ‘She was slowly disappearing into some kind of darkness’, 23 February 2020: "A new book by Greta Thunberg’s mother reveals the reality of family life during her daughter’s transformation from bullied teenager to climate icon."

Voltairenet.org - Thierry Meyssan - The fabrication of the myth of the "Syrian revolution" by the United Kingdom, 25 February 2020: New documents have leaked on the organization of British propaganda against Syria. ... While the United Kingdom has not been present on the ground since 2018, journalist Ian Cobain has just published official British documents in the Middle East Eye that shed light on how London massively intoxicated bona fide journalists and then withdrew 1 He had already published in the Guardian, in 2016, revelations on the organisation of MI6 in this matter 2.

Media Lens - With Head Lowered And Eyes Averted – Israeli Racism And The ‘Honourable’ Robert Peston, 26 February 2020.

+972 - Tom Mehager - Yes, Mizrahim support the right. But not for the reasons you think, 27 February 2020: "Both Ashkenazim and Mizrahim benefitted from the dispossession of Palestinians at different stages of the Judaization of Palestine. While the “gains” of 1948 benefitted the Ashkenazi public, the Mizrahim found their solution to the housing crisis in the welfare settlements beyond the Green Line in Jerusalem and the West Bank. ... In 1945, Eliezer Riger, one of the foremost advocates of vocational schooling who would later become inspector general of Israel’s education system, spoke about the necessity of segregation between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim in education: “Pre-vocational [education] leadership could bring a special blessing to the Oriental population, after all… the Oriental children, at least most of them, do not know how to appreciate simplified learning and cannot derive actual uselessness from non-practical education.” ... In his book “In the Land of Israel,” Israeli author Amos Oz traveled to the development town of Beit Shemesh, where he spoke to a local resident about what peace with the Palestinians might mean for Mizrahim: “If they give back the territories, the Arabs will stop coming to work, and then and there you’ll put us back in the dead-end jobs, like before. If for no other reason, we won’t let you give back those territories.""

Middle East Eye - Ian Cobain - ‘Religious operations’: How British propagandists used Islam to wage cultural Cold War, 28 February 2020: The IRD was set up in 1948 in order to continue the work of a wartime body called the Political Warfare Executive. For the next 29 years it ran a number of newspapers, magazines, news agencies, radio stations and publishing houses, in order to spread unattributed anti-communist propaganda across much of the world. Its favoured method, however, was to place stories in established newspapers and to covertly brief opinion formers. ... The recently declassified documents also shed new light on the way in which in the 1960s the British government persuaded Reuters, the international news agency, to take over the operations run by two IRD fronts, Regional News Service (Middle East) and Regional News Service (Latin America). The relationship between Reuters and the IRD was first exposed in the 1980s. The government funded these Reuters operations through the BBC. It began paying the BBC enhanced fees for its World Service operations, and the BBC in turn paid Reuters extra sums for receiving its news feed. While the IRD accepted that it could not exercise editorial control over Reuters, the declassified papers show it did believe that it would gain “a measure of political influence”.

The Guardian - Kenan Malik - Detention, torture and killing… how the EU outsourced migration policy, 08 March 2020: Only a morally warped ideology can justify opening fire at those fleeing for their lives.

Mirror - Michael Greenwood - Robert Peston's 2020 Hugh Cudlipp London Press Club Lecture in full, 08 March 2020: But mostly what I want to do – with some trepidation – is talk about why we have to rescue impartial journalism from possible oblivion, and fight back against the pernicious ideas that impartial journalism either doesn’t matter, or is just what I or you happen to think it is, that there is no distinction between the objective and the subjective, and that to argue otherwise is a fatuous exercise in impossibilism. ... Now for the avoidance of doubt, as someone who has tried to practice impartial journalism all my professional life, in newspapers as much as TV, let no one think I confuse a commitment to impartiality with some kind of belief that journalists like me have some kind of privileged relationship with the truth. ... So what is impartial journalism? Well it should not be bland. And it is not journalism devoid of views. It is journalism that expresses a view – that this or that is likely to happen, that this or that politician is more likely to be right about a certain important issue – based on evidence, but never on political affiliation, or religious leanings, or commercial interests or prejudice. ... But the important point is that I was being impartial – just as I was during the banking crisis – because I set out the evidence in explaining my conclusion, my view. ... So to repeat, impartiality is about fact or evidence-based journalism, but again please don’t confuse that with immaculate powers of foresight. ... Because, as I’ve argued before it felt to me that the BBC was confusing balance with due impartiality. Balance, or hearing a range of competing views, is of course important. But the duty of the reporting journalist is to weigh up those competing views and say that on the weight of the evidence this or that view is more likely to be correct. It was no service to the BBC’s viewers and listeners to hear one business leader or economist say Brexit would make us poorer, and another say it would make us richer, and then not be given help by presenter or journalist in assessing which was more credible. ... As it happens, only once in my time at the BBC did its bosses stop me saying what I wanted to say. A couple of days before the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, and just ten minutes before going to air on the Ten O’Clock news, a piece I had made on the economic implications of Scottish independence was pulled, on the orders of the corporation’s most senior executives, who feared the ire of Alex Salmond. ... It is of course vital to repeat that impartial journalism is a standard that none of us as individual journalists can ever attain. It is what we aspire to. It conditions what we research, how we weigh the evidence, what we say and how we say it. ... Building what used to be called in the City a Chinese Wall between my private political convictions and how I research and present my stories has been vital to my credibility. Though some of you will say I am kidding myself. ... But although I can credibly claim not to show sympathies for any particular party, there are some facts about me that condition how I am seen and that I’ve chosen not to hide. In the current febrile political climate, it matters – and I say this with regret – that I am Jewish. Five years ago, the idea that I would ever have begun a report by saying “as a Jew” would have been unthinkable. But when reporting on the toxic question of antisemitism in the Labour Party, I feel I have to say it – because although I strive to be as impartial in covering this issue as I would be when covering a general election or reporting on a corporate takeover, I cannot shed my Jewish identity in the way that I can cease to be a member of a political party or can dispose of shares in a company. ... And it matters that all my life I’ve encountered antisemitism, and also that antisemitism has become much more prevalent in recent years. There is an argument, I suppose, that because antisemitism is a personal issue for me, I should not report on it, that as someone who believes in the importance of impartial journalism I should always stand aside when a story about antisemitism and Labour needs to be covered. Possibly that is what Seumas Milne, Jeremy Corbyn’s director of strategy and communications, believes. When I pointed out to him during the general election that Corbyn had refused to be interviewed by me – even though Johnson, Sturgeon and Swinson had each been interviewed by me twice – he said, and I quote from a text he sent, “your reporting on Labour has not been remotely fair or balanced and included a high degree of slanted editorialising, reaching a low point in your broadcast on the 10 on 26/11”. He was referring to a two-way I did on the unprecedented decision of the chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis to write an editorial in the Times Newspaper in which he explicitly raised the question, on behalf of the orthodox part of the Jewish community, to question whether Corbyn was fit for high office, given Corbyn’s failure to root out antisemitism from Labour over the previous two and a bit years. ... The point I made was how shocking it was that the leader of an important section of the Jewish community should feel obliged to speak out during a general election, and that he was moved to do so by the deep hurt and fear felt by many of his congregation. ... I am not so naïve as to believe that impartial journalists like myself are free from bias. Deep in my psyche are prejudices I can’t see – even though I am especially privileged to have a partner who has an unusual ability to expose my capacity to confuse myth with fact. I was reminded of how really hideous prejudices can persist in institutions we think of as liberal when I read Cudlipp’s history of the Mirror, written in 1953: Cudlipp pointed out that the trust deeds of the Observer newspaper at that time stipulated that neither a Jew or a Catholic could be its editor.

Declassified UK - Mark Curtis - How the UK press supports the British military and intelligence establishment, 11 March 2020: Britain’s national press is acting largely as a platform for the views of the UK military and intelligence establishment, new statistical research by Declassified UK shows.

The Guardian - Joanna Moorhead - My autism led me to become a champion of outsiders, 14 March 2020: Charlotte Amelia Poe grew up knowing she was different. Now it’s her mission – through her art and writing – to bring about change ... “That’s called executive dysfunction – you know you should do something, but you can’t bring yourself to do it.”

Consortium News - Gareth Porter - The NYT Insidious Ongoing Disinformation Campaign on Russia and Elections, 17 March 2020: Times reporters have produced a series of stories that loudly proclaim the Russian election meddling narrative but offer no real facts in the body of the story supporting its most sensational claims.

Al Jazeera - US drops case against Russian firm accused of 2016 vote meddling, 17 March 2020: The US Justice Department on Monday abruptly dropped its criminal case against a company controlled by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which allegedly funded the campaign to meddle in the United States' 2016 elections. Just weeks before the trial was to begin, the Justice Department announced it was withdrawing the eight-count indictment of Concord Management and Consulting, a company owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Concord, which funds the St Petersburg-based troll factory the Internet Research Agency, was part of an indictment against 13 Russian individuals and three companies - one of the major outcomes of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's 22-month investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 vote. The Internet Research Agency, Mueller charged, actively pumped disinformation, memes and fake news into social media through false accounts to influence US voters and tilt the election four years ago to help President Donald Trump. Like Mueller, US intelligence chiefs concluded that the Concord-run operation was one half of a sweeping campaign overseen by Putin - the other half was hacking by Russian intelligence - to help Trump and hurt his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton. In a filing in Washington federal district court, the Justice Department said that Concord's tactics of trying to use US law and court procedures to prise out classified intelligence related to the evidence against it was a threat to national security.

Jewish Voice for Labour - Threats and bullying lead to Ken Loach’s withdrawal as anti-racism competition judge, 18 March 2020: More insidiously the attacks on Ken Loach and Michael Rosen were complemented by pressure behind the scenes on the charity itself, including from Government; pressure on football clubs who partner with SRtRC; and threats to jeopardise SRtRC’s charitable status. ... The signatories said that the calls, made by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, for Ken Loach’s removal as a competition judge “clearly reflect political differences, including over Israel-Palestine”. “Legitimate political differences” they said “must not be allowed to undermine unity against a common threat from the far right and racists.”

Nelson Star - Wolf Depner - Dutch stockpile cannabis, French red wine during COVID-19 crisis, 20 March 2020.

The Times - Kieran Andrews, Kenny Farquharson, Magnus Linklater - Critics take aim at Nicola Sturgeon for role in Alex Salmond affair, 24 March 2020: Alex Neil, who served in cabinets under both Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon, said that he believed a “political conspiracy” involving the civil service and the Crown Office may have been behind the pursuit of Mr Salmond and called for a judge-led inquiry into how the case was mounted.

The Herald - Iain Macwhirter - Salmond has won one battle. Now another will begin, 25 March 2020: In the Court of Session last year, the Scottish Government admitted that it had acted unlawfully in accusing Mr Salmond of some of initial sexual offences that later became part of the criminal trial. The Scottish Government had to pay £600,000 in costs for that farrago. ... The Crown Office has questions to answer, too, about why it went ahead with this prosecution when so many of the charges were obviously de minimis. It presumably thought that, under the infamous Moorov doctrine, these allegations would demonstrate a pattern of predatory sexual behaviour. In other words, that if they threw enough mud, some would stick. But the reverse happened. The jury thought most of the charges were ludicrous, and threw out the lot.

The Independent - Lizzie Dearden - Oval Four: Black man framed by corrupt police officer at London Tube station cleared 48 years later, 25 March 2020.

The Guardian - Andrew Roth, Shaun Walker, Dom Phillips - Churchgoers all over world ignore physical distancing advice, 29 March 2020.

The Guardian - Kim Willsher, Julian Borger, Oliver Holmes - 'Mask wars': US faces more accusations of Covid-19 outbidding as demand soars, 03 April 2020: About 200,00 0f N95 masks made by the manufacturer GM were diverted to the US as they were being transferred between planes in Thailand, according to the Berlin authorities who had ordered the masks for the police force. Andreas Geisel, the interior minister for Berlin state, described the diversion of the masks as “an act of modern piracy” and appealed to the German government to demand Washington conform to international trading rules. ... The French media have started calling the rush for equipment “mask wars”. ... State governors quickly learned that they could not rely on the rapidly depleting national stockpile, especially after Donald Trump made it clear that federal help will be affected by political preference, saying he wanted governors to be “appreciative”.

The American Conservative - Gareth Porter - How Generals Fueled 1918 Flu Pandemic to Win Their World War, 04 April 2020: Abundant documentary evidence shows that the 1918 pandemic actually began in Haskell County, Kansas, in early 1918, when many residents came down with an unusually severe type of influenza. Some county residents were then sent to the Army’s Camp Funston at Ft. Riley, Kansas, the military’s largest training facility, training 50,000 recruits at a time for the war. Within two weeks, thousands of soldiers at the camp became sick with the new influenza virus, and 38 died.

The Times of Israel - After Corbyn, UK Labour elects Keir Starmer, Zionist with Jewish wife, as leader, 04 April 2020.

The Guardian - Rebecca Nicholson - Michael Sheen Interview: 'I was face-to-face with Tony Blair': Michael Sheen on Murdoch, class and giving away his money, 06 April 2020: Another guest asked Blair if he thought Sheen’s portrayals had been accurate. Blair replied that he had not watched any of the films. “When people dispersed and it was just me and him, he started talking in fairly minute detail about individual scenes,” says Sheen.

The Guardian - David Feldman - Labour can expel antisemites – but that won't 'root out' antisemitism in our culture, 08 April 2020: Keir Starmer has pledged to eradicate antisemitism in his party. But it is not a ‘virus’ or ‘poison’ – it is a reservoir of hateful stereotypes deeply embedded in society. ... In Britain, the number of committed, ideological antisemites remains small: less than 5% of adults. In contrast, a large minority of the population, more than 30%, will readily agree with negative and stereotypical ideas about Jews: for example, that Jews get rich at the expense of others or that their interests are very different from those of non-Jews. ... The question we need to ask is not whether there is antisemitism in the Labour party but why the antisemitism that exists within Labour rises to the surface. (co-written by Brendan McGeever and Ben Gidley)

Middle East Eye - Ghada Karmi - Jeremy Corbyn's exit: Farewell to a friend of Palestine, 10 April 2020: While much has been made of the capitalist establishment’s role in Corbyn’s downfall due to his socialist economics, it was the pro-Israel lobby that dealt the final blow. ... Persistent campaigning by this lobby since 2016 - largely mediated by the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement, the pro-Israel Board of Deputies of British Jews and Labour Friends of Israel, and likely coordinated by the Israeli embassy - achieved its aim. ... Where does that leave Palestinians post-Corbyn? Starmer is a member of Labour Friends of Palestine and agrees with the two-state solution. He opposes Trump’s peace plan and has appointed Lisa Nandy, an avowed supporter of Palestinian rights, as shadow foreign secretary. At the same time, he also calls himself a supporter of Zionism “without qualification”, and says he believes in the State of Israel.

Sky News - Tom Rayner - Labour antisemitism investigation will not be sent to equality commission, 12 April 2020: An extensive internal investigation into the way Labour handled antisemitism complaints will not be submitted to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, after an intervention by party lawyers. The 860-page report, seen by Sky News, concluded factional hostility towards Jeremy Corbyn amongst former senior officials contributed to "a litany of mistakes" that hindered the effective handling of the issue. The investigation, which was completed in the last month of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, claims to have found "no evidence" of antisemitism complaints being treated differently to other forms of complaint, or of current or former staff being "motivated by antisemitic intent". Instead, the report concludes there was a lack of "robust processes, systems, training, education and effective line management" and found "abundant evidence of a hyper-factional atmosphere prevailing in Party HQ" towards Mr Corbyn which "affected the expeditious and resolute handling of disciplinary complaints". As well as 10,000 separate emails, the dossier uncovers thousands of private WhatsApp communications between former senior party officials and singles out for criticism some who gave whistleblower evidence to last year's highly-critical BBC Panorama investigation on antisemitism within Labour. These include the former General Secretary Lord McNicol and the former acting head of the governance and legal unit, Sam Matthews. Those involved in compiling the huge dossier insist it was intended to provide additional context to the equalities watchdog and supplement the party's main submissions to the investigation into institutional antisemitic racism. Indeed the report directly addresses the EHRC on several occasions, including urging the watchdog to "question the validity of the personal testimonies" of former members of staff and to "focus instead on the documentary, primary-source evidence that the Party has made available", leaving little doubt as to the intention of its authors that the document be submitted to the investigation. However, Sky News understands party lawyers have told General Secretary Jennie Formby the report entitled: "The work of the Labour Party's Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014 - 2019", should not be submitted to the Commission, due to fears it could damage the party's wider case. [Tom Rayner Twitter posts from 11 April about the leaked report]

The Guardian - Rowena Mason - 'Hostility to Corbyn' curbed Labour efforts to tackle antisemitism, says leaked report, 12 April 2020: A leaked internal report into Labour’s handling of antisemitism concludes that factional hostility to Jeremy Corbyn hampered the party’s efforts to tackle the problem. ... The report said there was an “abundant evidence of a hyper-factional atmosphere prevailing in party HQ in this period, which appears to have affected the expeditious and resolute handling of disciplinary complaints”. ... It said: “At its extreme, some employees seem to have taken a view that the worse things got for Labour the happier they would be, since this might expedite Jeremy Corbyn’s departure from office." ... The report contains several leaked WhatsApp messages that show many senior officials were hostile to Corbyn when he took over. It shows references to Corbyn-supporting party staff as “trots”, conversations referring to former director of communications Seumas Milne as “dracula”, and that he was “spiteful and evil and we should make sure he is never allowed in our party if it’s last thing we do”. There were also mentions of Corbyn’s former chief of staff Karie Murphy as “medusa”, a “crazy woman” and a “bitch face cow” that would “make a good dartboard”.

Novara Media - Aaron Bastani - ‘It’s going to be a long night’ – How Members of Labour’s Senior Management Team Campaigned to Lose, 12 April 2020: The product of an extensive internal investigation, the report contains hundreds of pages of evidence, including WhatsApp messages and emails, implicating members of the party’s ‘senior management team’ (SMT), including the former general secretary Iain McNicol. ... Here an executive director, Heneghan, explicitly states that he hopes Labour lose both by-elections, while Oldknow and McNicol make clear that the deputy leader of the party at the time, Tom Watson, was involved in plans to replace Corbyn. ... These revelations should end any debate around whether Labour’s senior management team, including McNicol, were serious about a Labour government in 2017.

The Guardian - Rowena Mason - 'Hostility to Corbyn' curbed Labour efforts to tackle antisemitism, says leaked report, 12 April 2020: The report does not name an author but was completed in the last months of Corbyn’s leadership. It was intended to be submitted as an annexe to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) inquiry into Labour’s approach to dealing with antisemitism. However, it is understood it will not be sent, following an intervention by the party’s lawyers. The report’s conclusions clash with complaints of whistleblowers, formerly working for Labour, who told BBC Panorama last year there had been political interference in the process from the top of the party under Corbyn. ... A Labour party spokesperson told Sky News, which first leaked the document: “The party has submitted extensive information to the EHRC and responded to questions and requests for further information, none of which included this document.” ... But Ian Austin, the former Labour MP who left the party over antisemitism and later called on people to back Boris Johnson, said the report was unreliable. He tweeted: “In last days of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Labour trawled through 10,000 emails and messages to produce a report into antisemitism that attempts to shield him and his supporters from any blame, and instead pin responsibility on whistleblowers and former members of staff. Eight whistleblowers told the BBC’s Panorama last year how they felt undermined by senior Labour bosses in their attempts to tackle antisemitism. They alleged that there was consistent interference in complaints and one key aide mocked their efforts. Labour strongly denied the allegations of political interference and came out on the offensive, as it accused the BBC of bias and called for the documentary to be pulled.

Al Jazeera - Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World, 14 April 2020.

The Independent - Jon Stone - Anti-Corbyn Labour officials worked to lose general election to oust leader, leaked dossier finds, 14 April 2020: But the Campaign Against Antisemitism said the document was a “desperate last-ditch attempt to deflect and discredit allegations” and amounted to “an attempt to imagine a vast anti-Corbyn conspiracy”. ... Tactics by anti-Corbyn staff evidenced in the report include channelling resources to candidates associated with the right wing of the party, refusing to share information with the leader’s office, and “coming into the office and doing nothing for a few months” during the election campaign. ... The report says staffers trawled social media to find reasons to exclude voters from the contest, work which was referred to on numerous occasions by staff as variations of “trot busting”, “bashing trots” and “trot spotting”. ... The report claims that “The party’s resources – paid for by party members – were often utilised to further the interests of one faction and in some cases were used to undermine the party’s objectives.” Ahead of the 2017 election officials spoke of channelling resources to candidates critical of the leadership, with one telling colleagues “we need to try and throw cash” at the seat of then-deputy leader Tom Watson, a persistent Corbyn critic. ... A statement from Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, argued that the material should be submitted to the investigation, but said: “In the dying days of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, the Labour Party appears to have invested in a desperate last-ditch attempt to deflect and discredit allegations of antisemitism. Rather than properly dealing with cases of antisemitism and the culture of anti-Jewish racism that prevailed during Mr Corbyn’s tenure, the Party has instead busied itself trawling through 10,000 of its own officials’ emails and WhatsApp messages in an attempt to image a vast anti-Corbyn conspiracy and to continue its efforts to smear whistleblowers.

Novara Media - Emma Dent Coad - ‘I feel both furious and vindicated’: the Leaked Report Explains Why Labour Didn’t Help Me After Grenfell, 14th April 2020: According to the report, senior party officials withheld information that could have helped us win the 2017 election, and even deliberately sabotaged Corbyn’s attempts to deal expeditiously with complaints, including those regarding the serious issue of antisemitism. ... Reading about the contempt in which I was held, it now becomes clear why I was refused any kind of additional help for my casework team. (Emma Dent Coad is a Labour councillor and was the MP for Kensington from 2017 to 2019)

The Independent - Maya Oppenheim - Cyprus rape case: British teenager accused of lying about attack criticises investigation in first TV interview, 15 April 2020: New details about the case have surfaced in an ITV documentary that includes interviews with an ex Home Office adviser, her mother, and friends who lived with her during the ordeal who have not previously spoken to the media.

AntiWar.com - Bas Spliet - Two Years On, Time To Pull the Douma ‘Gas Attack’ Out of the Memory Hole, 15 April 2020.

The Guardian - Ian Evans - 'Like a spiral UFO': world's longest animal discovered in Australian waters, 15 April 2020: Along with up to 30 new marine species, scientists have found a 150-ft example of a siphonophore, a string-like deep-sea predator.

Declassified UK - Phil Miller - Labour Party officials secretly blacklisted Britain’s anti-war activists, 15 April 2020: Labour Party staff opposed to Jeremy Corbyn compiled a secret blacklist to deny or revoke membership of the party to those criticising “war criminals”, a leaked document shows. Scores of internal emails and WhatsApp messages show that party officials were hostile towards new members who came from Britain’s anti-war movement. ... The leaked report shows that hawkish figures in the party then used disciplinary powers to expel Corbyn supporters from the membership – and stop more joining – to reduce his chances of winning another leadership ballot scheduled for later in 2016. ... Some Labour party staff then secretly added the term “war criminal”, a common description of Blair, to an unofficial list of “banned phrases”. People found to have used such terms – which also included “undercover blairite” and “pseudo Tory” – would have their membership denied or revoked. Officials planned to scan through social media posts by new members after the Chilcot Inquiry was published to identify anyone using the proscribed terms. ... In his response to the attack, Corbyn criticised British foreign policy for increasing the threat of terrorism to the UK — one of the few times that a senior British politician had ever made that argument. ... However, leaked WhatsApp messages show Corbyn’s speech angered some hawkish Labour party staff who believed: “In the face of a terror attack normal people do not blame foreign intervention they blame immigration.” A colleague responded: “The speech won’t go down as badly as it deserves to thanks to the large groundswell of ill-informed opposition to all western interventions.” ... The leaked report appears to show evidence that some of the most highly-paid Labour staffers wanted their party to lose the UK general election in 2017, and that campaign funds were secretly diverted towards candidates in safe seats who were personally favoured by party officials.

Declassified UK - Grace Livingstone - Torture ‘for your amusement’: How Thatcher’s government misled MPs and public about its dealings with the Pinochet regime, 21 April 2020.

The Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Israel lobbyist funded Labour’s new leader, 22 April 2020: A retired auto industry mogul, Chinn has in the past funded both Labour Friends of Israel and Conservative Friends of Israel. He also plays a leading role in the Israel lobby groups BICOM and the Jewish Leadership Council. ... In 2014, Chinn halted his annual donations to the Tricycle Theatre over its decision to decline funding from the Israeli embassy for a film festival it was planning to host. “We can’t accept boycotts and whenever one comes along we have to fight it,” Chinn told The Jewish News at the time. “The Tricycle is going to lose a lot of audience members and a lot of financial support.” The North London theater ultimately reversed its decision after being threatened by Sajid Javid, then Britain’s culture minister. Javid later boasted about this threat to the theater, which had been secret at the time. ... Chinn’s $62,000 donation to Starmer’s campaign was the fourth highest amount from an individual donor – not including trade unions and companies.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Benny Gantz's betrayal of his voters marks the ultimate end of the two-state solution, 23 April 2020: Mike Pompeo’s brief statement said it all: ‘As for the annexation of the West Bank, the Israelis ultimately make those decisions, so that’s an Israeli decision.’

The Times - Kieran Andrews - Ex-diplomat Craig Murray charged over Alex Salmond trial, 24 April 2020: A former British diplomat has been charged with contempt of court after writing blogs about the trial of Alex Salmond. ... It is a criminal offence to publish the identities of the women after a court order was made by Lady Dorrian during the trial. Mr Murray attended two days of the trial in the public gallery and on each day produced blogs of the proceedings. He had been declined access as a member of the media.

BBC - Alex Salmond trial: Blogger faces contempt of court proceedings, 24 April 2020: Craig Murray, an ex-UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, attended two days of the trial at the High Court in Edinburgh before writing about it on his website. ... The women who made the allegations against Mr Salmond included an SNP politician, a party worker and several current and former Scottish government civil servants and officials.

The Guardian - Stephanie Kirchgaessner - WhatsApp: Israeli firm 'deeply involved' in hacking our users, 29 April 2020: NSO Group allegedly connected to hacks of 1,400 people including human rights activists.

Declassified UK - Mark Curtis - How Britain’s Labour government facilitated the massacre of Biafrans in Nigeria – to protect its oil interests, 29 April 2020: British policy was mainly shaped by its oil interests, declassified government documents from the time show. “Our direct interests are trade and investment, including an important stake by Shell/BP in the eastern region,” the Foreign Office noted a few days before the outbreak of the war in 1967.

Los Angeles Times - Kate Linthicum, Wendy Fry, Gabriela Minjares - The U.S. is pushing Mexico to reopen factories even as workers die of COVID-19, 30 April 2020.

Information Clearing House - Pepe Escobar - The deeper roots of Chinese demonization, May 2020: Hegel saw history moving east to west – 'Europe thus absolutely being the end of history, Asia the beginning' ... In a subsequent book, "Nouvelle Division de la Terre par les Differentes Especes ou Races d’Homme qui l’Habitent", published in 1684, the “Mogol” [Francois Bernier (1620-1688)] distinguished up to five human races. This was all based on the color of the skin, not on families or the climate. The Europeans were mechanically placed on top, while other races were considered “ugly.” Afterward, the division of humanity in up to five races was picked up by David Hume — always based on the color of the skin. Hume proclaimed to the Anglo-Saxon world that only whites were civilized; others were inferiors.

Middle East Monitor - Nasim Ahmed - Tributes pour in for veteran anti-apartheid campaigner Denis Goldberg, 01 May 2020: Goldberg was a close ally of the late Nelson Mandela, and one of the most prominent white anti-apartheid activists in South Africa. He spent 22 years in prison for plotting to overthrow the country’s brutal racist state. In the process, he became a vocal critic of Israel.

The Times of Israel - Raphael Ahrens - West Bank annexation not contingent on Palestinian state, US officials emphasize, 01 May 2020: Administration officials tell ToI annexation can go ahead in the absence of a Palestinian state if Ramallah continues to refuse to negotiate.

Associated Press - Joshua Goodma - Ex-Green Beret led failed attempt to oust Venezuela’s Maduro, 01 May 2020: Some 300 heavily armed volunteers would sneak into Venezuela from the northern tip of South America. Along the way, they would raid military bases in the socialist country and ignite a popular rebellion that would end in President Nicolás Maduro’s arrest. ... Among those angling in the open lobby was Jordan Goudreau, an American citizen and three-time Bronze Star recipient for bravery in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he served as a medic in U.S. Army special forces, according to five people who met with the former soldier.

The New European - Adrian Zorzut - Labour appoints former QC to head leaked anti-Semitism report inquiry, 01 May 2020: Sir Keir Starmer has appointed Martin Forde QC as head of an inquiry into a leaked report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Forde, a barrister and independent adviser to the Windrush compensation scheme, will investigate how a report revealing anti-Semitism issues within Labour was leaked in April. He will lead a panel of experts consisting of former Labour general secretary Larry Whitty, councillor Debbie Wilcox and social policy professor Ruth Lister, who are all Labour peers.

Middle East Monitor - Trump tells Netanyahu to accept complete 'deal of the century', 02 May 2020: According to Israeli TV Channel 13, there are “deep” and “basic” differences between the US administration and the Israeli government regarding the annexation of the Jordan Valley, the North of the Dead Sea and other settlements. ... The sources also revealed that Netanyahu was asked to announce his agreement on the principle of the “two states for two nations”, otherwise, the US will not greenlight his annexation plan. The US ambassador to Israel David Friedman also informed Netanyahu that Trump wanted the deal of the century to be implemented, not the Israeli annexation plan.

Declassified UK - Mark Curtis - British government ministers have been complicit in millions of deaths since 1945, so don’t be surprised that they won’t face justice over coronavirus, 02 May 2020: But ministers routinely act with impunity and every prime minister since 1945 has been complicit in deaths abroad.

The Guardian - Tom Phillips - Venezuela: anti-Maduro battle isn't over as ex-US soldier says he launched raid, 04 May 2020: Jordan Goudreau, who was linked to plot to topple Maduro, said his troops are still in action as government said it foiled ‘invasion’.

Counterpunch - Timothy Messer-Kruse - Lingg’s Autobiography: An Overlooked Haymarket Confession?, 04 May 2020.

The Guardian - Venezuela detains two Americans allegedly involved in failed raid to remove Maduro, 05 May 2020.

Grayzone - Aaron Mate - OPCW chief made false claims to denigrate Douma whistleblower, documents reveal, 06 May 2020: The Grayzone has obtained documents exposing numerous falsehoods and misleading claims by OPCW Director General Fernando Arias to degrade the reputation of Douma whistleblower Ian Henderson.

The Guardian - Rutger Bregman - The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months, 09 May 2020: In the 6 October 1966 edition of Australian newspaper The Age, a headline jumped out at me: “Sunday showing for Tongan castaways”. The story concerned six boys who had been found three weeks earlier on a rocky islet south of Tonga, an island group in the Pacific Ocean. The boys had been rescued by an Australian sea captain after being marooned on the island of ‘Ata for more than a year. (Humankind by Rutger Bregman is published by Bloomsbury)

The Observer - Julian Coman - A century on, whatever happened to Labour's firebrand lost leader?, 10 May 2020: Victor Grayson was briefly the most famous socialist in Edwardian England. But in 1920 he disappeared. ... One of the regular visitors to Grayson’s apartment was a colourful and corrupt Whitehall fixer named Maundy Gregory. ... He had carved a postwar niche for himself illegally selling knighthoods, baronetcies and peerages on behalf of David Lloyd George’s government.

The Guardian - Kate Proctor - Equalities watchdog drops plan for Tory Islamophobia inquiry, 12 May 2020: Conservative party commits to own investigation but UK’s largest Muslim body brands it a ‘facade’.

The Grayzone - Max Blumenthal - ‘The American friends’: New court files expose Sheldon Adelson’s security team in US spy operation against Julian Assange, 14 May 2020: An exclusive investigation by The Grayzone reveals new details on the critical role Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands played in an apparent CIA spying operation targeting Julian Assange, and exposes the Sands security staff who helped coordinate the malicious campaign. ... Morales had just signed on to guard Queen Miri, the $70 million yacht belonging to one of the most high profile casino tycoons in Vegas: ultra-Zionist billionaire and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. ... Following Assange’s imprisonment, several disgruntled former employees eventually approached Assange’s legal team to inform them about the misconduct and arguably illegal activity they participated in at UC Global. One former business partner said they came forward after realizing that “David Morales decided to sell all the information to the enemy, the US.” A criminal complaint was submitted in a Spanish court and a secret operation that resulted in the arrest of Morales was set into motion by the judge. ... Throughout the black operations campaign, US intelligence appears to have worked through Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands, a company that had previously served as an alleged front for a CIA blackmail operation several years earlier. ... According to court documents and testimony by a former business associate and employees of Morales, it was Adelson’s top bodyguard, an Israeli-American named Zohar Lahav, who personally recruited Morales, then managed the relationship between the Spanish security contractor and Sands on a routine basis. (Consortium News)

Declassified UK - Mark Curtis - Revelations about UK covert operations in Syria challenge media narratives on the war, 18 May 2020: The British government effectively ran Syrian opposition groups’ media offices and created publicity material aimed at Syrian and UK audiences, challenging the idea the UK has played a small role in the conflict. Documents obtained by investigative journalist Ian Cobain at Middle East Eye provide details of five UK covert propaganda programmes in Syria that began in 2012, involving the creation of a network of citizen journalists across the country to shape perceptions of the conflict.

The Independent - Lizzie Dearden - Britain First leader Paul Golding convicted of terror offence, 10 May 2020: Far-right leader refused to give police access to his devices after being stopped at Heathrow Airport while returning from Russia. ... Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that the group were stopped by Metropolitan Police officers under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act. ... She said Golding had been lawfully questioned and that under Schedule 7 there had been no requirement for “reasonable suspicion” for the stop. ... PC Rory O'Connor, one of the officers who questioned Golding, told the court that Schedule 7 enables accredited officers to search and question people at UK ports on whether "they have been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism”. ... Commander Richard Smith, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said Schedule 7 examinations were "incredibly useful to help keep the UK safe" and had uncovered a terror plot in the past.

Haaretz - Meir Zamir - Intelligence Documents Reveal What Ben-Gurion Learned on the Eve of Declaring Israel's Independence, 18 May 2020: The documents show that during the fateful meeting, Ben-Gurion, the leader of the Yishuv, received secret information from French intelligence to the effect that the leaders of the Arab states, who were meeting at that time in Damascus, had decided, with secret British support, to launch a lightning attack (blitzkrieg) and had devised a coordinated invasion plan. ... The cable, from French intelligence sources, elaborated on the Arab attack plan and on the forces that would be participating. ... The “authoritative source” was the French consulate in Jerusalem; the cable was sent the previous day by the country’s military attaché in Beirut to army headquarters in Paris. Ben-Gurion found out as early as July 1947 about a British plot involving Iraqi leaders to incite war. French intelligence informed him that senior British military and intelligence officers in Cairo and Bagdad were working secretly to thwart His Majesty’s government’s decision to evacuate Palestine by sparking a general war between Jews and Arabs. ... According to the memo, in the first stage, the Arab armies would exploit their advantage in terms of regular forces and heavy arms and munitions to launch a lightning strike and seize the areas allotted to the Arab states, based on the United Nations Partition Plan of November, 29, 1947, as well as the Negev, which was to be part of the Jewish state. The Arab forces, it was predicted, would also successfully conquer Jewish-controlled areas in the northeastern part of the country. ... During his lengthy sojourn in Paris, in 1945-46, Ben-Gurion learned how British intelligence agents had manipulated the leaders of Syria and Lebanon to oust the French from the areas of their mandate in the Levant. The agents also made use of these leaders and others – notably the secretary general of the Arab League, Abd al-Rahman al-Azzam – to forge the Arab invasion coalition. ... On the eve of the May 12, 1948, meeting of Minhelet Ha’am, Ben-Gurion received information from French sources to the effect that British intelligence officers and the British High Command in Egypt had succeeded in persuading King Faruq to reverse his earlier position and join the Arab war coalition. ... Research in the archives of the French army, intelligence branch and Foreign Ministry has revealed many details about how British intelligence personnel and generals in Egypt manipulated Faruq to join in the war against Israel. Among other tactics, British agents made use of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. ... At the same time, the king was told that the Arabs’ conquest of the Negev would encourage the British Army to accede to his request to move its forces there from Egypt. ... However, the most potent lure was the secret supply of weapons to the Egyptian army, in spite of the British government’s embargo on arms sales to the Middle East. ... According to a report of the French military attaché in Cairo, during the period of May 1-25, the British Army supplied the Egyptian expeditionary force with large quantities of weapons and equipment from its Suez Canal depots, including rifles, machine guns, field artillery, ammunition, water containers and other items. Special emphasis was placed on strengthening the Egyptian air force: It received 16 Spitfires, a number of Dakotas, air-to-ground bombs and a great deal of ammunition. The British also agreed to replace planes that were damaged. For their part, the French suspected that British officers were directly involved in planning the Egyptian offensive.

Novara Media - Charlotte England - Did BBC Whistleblowers Mislead the Public on Labour Antisemitism and Blame Their Own Failures on Corbyn?, 19 May 2020: In devastating interviews given to the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme last year, staff in Labour’s disputes team said they did their best to tackle a rising tide of antisemitism complaints but were continually dragged down by interference from Jeremy Corbyn’s team. However an internal party report now claims they were part of an embittered, anti-Corbyn faction, who ignored antisemitism complaints, sometimes for months, and blamed their own failings on the leftwing leadership.

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - New Labour purge against Israel critics, 20 May 2020: A noted academic expert on the Israel lobby and two leading members of a Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) branch were among those whose party membership was suspended on Monday. Professor David Miller of Bristol University, as well as Becky Massey and Pam Page of Brighton PSC all received letters from the party within hours of each other, they told The Electronic Intifada. Along with the summary expulsion of another local member in October, the suspensions seem to add up to an attack on Brighton PSC – one of the UK’s most active branches of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. The new purge commenced only hours after Labour’s new right-wing leader Keir Starmer held a virtual meeting with the leadership of the Jewish Labour Movement, a pro-Israel lobby within the party.

Byline Times - Patrick Howse - In this Age of Untruth BBC Journalists Are Being Taken for a Ride, 28 May 2020: Former BBC producer Patrick Howse considers the different approaches of Laura Kuenssberg and Emily Maitlis and what this tells us about the state of the public service broadcaster. ... Cummings himself, in his extraordinary Downing Street rose garden press conference, admitted that most of the ‘facts’ in this initial statement given to Kuenssberg were actually untrue: he stayed in a second home, separate from his parents and his parents did not help with childcare, meaning that there had been a clear breach of lockdown. ... Today, ‘official sources’ are not satisfied with simply spinning an interpretation of events – they actually just make stuff up; they lie. ... We have someone (Cummings) who holds Parliament and pretty much everything and everyone else in contempt, relaying his questionable version of events to tame journalists who he knows will just repeat it uncritically – because they love to be able to say to their audiences ‘look at me! aren’t I well connected?’. He works for someone who has been sacked twice for lying (Boris Johnson). But the journalists rarely – if ever – caveat what they’ve been told. There is no cautionary context provided. This approach might work with politicians who care about telling the truth but it is not going to work now. ...

The Guardian - Nick Cohen - Cummings and Johnson evil geniuses? Hardly, just lazy and incompetent, 30 May 2020: The post struck Wiechers as a lazy piece of writing filled with extracts from the work of others. The now suspicious Wiechers checked Cummings’ blog on the Wayback Machine, a digital library that tracks changes to billions of web pages. It showed Cummings had added the reference to coronaviruses between 9 April and 3 May 2020.

Haaretz - Oded Revivi - My fellow settlers are wrong to oppose Trump’s annexation plan, 31 May 2020: Efrat mayor: To gain U.S. recognition, we settlers must compromise on our dreams for complete control of Judea and Samaria – or risk losing what we have already achieved. ... After the United Nations accepted partition, the maximalist underground group, Lehi, announced that it "welcomes the UN's recognition of the right of the Jewish people to independence in its homeland, but condemns the partition of the Land of Israel, which is a crime against the geographical, economic, and historical truth of the country, and plunders the Jewish people. The Hebrew Nation does not and will not accept the dissection of its homeland."

Haaretz - Ariel David - Jews and Arabs share genetic link to ancient Canaanites, study finds, 31 May 2020: In most of these, the percentage of ancestry matching that of the Bronze Age samples was above 50 percent. Saudi Arabians, Bedouins and Iranian Jews had the highest ratio, hovering around 90 percent. These were followed by Palestinians, Jordanians and Syrians, with an 80 percent of ancestry shared with the ancient Levantines. Moroccan and Ashkenazi Jews had a roughly 70 and 60 percent contribution. Somewhat unsurprisingly, most of the rest of the ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews comes from Europe. The lowest percentages of Middle Eastern ancestry were found in modern-day Moroccans (40 percent), and 20 percent for Ethiopian Jews, who have a strong contribution from Eastern African ancestry. ... Actually the main goal of this study, titled “The Genomic History of the Bronze Age Southern Levant,” was to determine the origins of the Canaanites and whether they could be described as a genetically coherent group ... The new study shows that genetically at least, the Canaanites did have a lot in common with each other.

The National - Kathleen Nutt - Global figures including Pink Floyd star sign letter backing Craig Murray, 31 May 2020. [17][18]

Middle East Eye - David Hearst - Jeremy Corbyn questions impartiality of EHRC antisemitism inquiry, 01 June 2020: In first interview since stepping down, former Labour leader says allegations he tolerated antisemitism are 'wrong and extremely unfair'.

Morning Star - Steve Sweeney - Minnesota cops 'trained by Israeli forces in restraint techniques', 01 June 2020: But in a chilling testimony, a Palestinian rights activist said that when she saw the image of Derek Chauvin kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck, she was reminded of the Israeli forces’ policing of the occupied territories. Neta Golan, the co-founder of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) said: “When I saw the picture of killer cop Derek Chauvin murdering George Floyd by leaning in on his neck with his knee as he cried for help and other cops watched, I remembered noticing when many Israeli soldiers began using this technique of leaning in on our chest and necks when we were protesting in the West Bank sometime in 2006. “They started twisting and breaking fingers in a particular way around the same time. It was clear they had undergone training for this. They continue to use these tactics — two of my friends have had their necks broken but luckily survived — and it is clear that they [Israel] share these methods when they train police forces abroad in ‘crowd control’ in the US and other countries including Sudan and Brazil.” The training of US police officials by Israeli forces is widespread. Even Amnesty was compelled to report that hundreds of police from Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington state and Washington DC had been flown to Israeli for training. Thousands more have been trained by Israeli forces who have come to the US to host similar events to the one held in Minneapolis. According to the somewhat selective rights organisation, many of these trips are taxpayer-funded, while others are privately funded. Since 2002 the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs have paid for police chiefs, assistant chiefs and captains to train in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), it said.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - Netanyahu can gobble up the West Bank and the EU will do nothing, 02 June 2020: European foreign ministers agree that annexation is against international law and that the theft of other people’s territory is anathema to the core principles of the EU. But the union has a long history of turning a blind eye.

Information Clearing House - John Pilger - The CIA Coup Against 'The Most Loyal Ally' is History's Warning In 2020, 03 June 2020: Gough Whitlam was driven from government on Remembrance Day, 1975. ... Australia is home to some of the most important spy bases in the world. As documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed in 2013, Pine Gap allows the US to spy on everyone. ... Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, "This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House ... a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion." ... Senior CIA officers later revealed that the "Whitlam problem" had been discussed "with urgency" by the CIA's director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said: "Kerr did what he was told to do." ... On November 11, 1975 - the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia - he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal "reserve powers" invested in him by the British monarch, Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. (abridged from "The Coup", in John Pilger's book, "A Secret Country")

The Independent - Joe Sommerlad - Tiananmen Square massacre: Who was the Tank Man and how is he being remembered today?. 04 June 2020: The Tank Man has been identified as 19-year-old archaeology student Wang Weilin, but his fate remains unknown.

Middle East Eye - Peter Oborne, David Hearst - The killing of Jeremy Corbyn, 05 June 2020: The former Labour leader was the victim of a carefully planned and brutally executed political assassination. ... In our review of Tom Bower’s book "A Dangerous Hero", we investigated and exposed a farrago of falsehoods and misrepresentations in what was presented as a major biography of the Labour leader published by Harper Collins, one of Britain’s most significant publishers.

The Grayzone - Ben Norton - Wikipedia formally censors The Grayzone as regime-change advocates monopolize editing, 10 June 2020: On Wikipedia, a small group of regime-change advocates and right-wing Venezuelan opposition supporters have blacklisted independent media outlets like The Grayzone on explicitly political grounds, violating the encyclopedia’s guidelines.

The Grayzone - Ben Norton, Max Blumenthal - Meet Wikipedia’s Ayn Rand-loving founder and Wikimedia Foundation’s regime-change operative CEO, 11 June 2020: Wikipedia has become a bulletin board for corporate and imperial interests under the watch of its Randian founder, Jimmy Wales, and the veteran US regime-change operative who heads the Wikimedia Foundation, Katherine Maher.

The Guardian - No 'patient zero' as Covid-19 came into UK at least 1,300 times. 11 June 2020: They found the virus was not brought to the UK by a single “patient zero”, but arrived on at least 1,356 occasions and spread onwards each time. The rate of introduction peaked around 15 March, with an estimated 34% of cases arriving from Spain, 29% from France, 14% from Italy and fewer than 0.1% directly from China.

The Guardian - Julian Borger - 'Trump thought I was a secretary': Fiona Hill on the president, Putin and populism, 12 June 2020: She was the White House’s top Russia expert catapulted to fame by Trump’s impeachment. She reflects on her journey from County Durham to Washington. ... As senior director for Europe and Russia in the national security council she had been an eyewitness to Trump’s encounters with Vladimir Putin, and to the White House machinations over Ukraine. ... “It’s a story really about how the US, UK and Russia have all ended up in the same spot weirdly, not just in terms of Covid-19 but also populist politics and many of the same out-of-control inequalities,” Hill said. ...In her view populist governments are useless at handling complex problems of governance, almost by definition. If leaders are fit to govern, they generally don’t need populism to get elected. “It’s all about style and swagger and atmospherics, with superficial solutions to things, with lots of sloganeering, and obviously dealing with a pandemic is pretty methodical and boring. It requires an awful lot of planning and logistical organization and you can’t just sort of do it on the fly with an ad hoc coalition.” What interests Hill is how the three such different countries end up in the same boat, run by populists and significantly less able to cope with a pandemic than their neighbours. ... It is her first-hand experience of exclusion in Britain, Hill says, that has helped her to appreciate the powerful appeal of populism. It fills a void. ... “There were these internal knife fights which I was pretty much unaware of,” Hill said. In particular, there was a struggle of who should have a role in Syria policy. “A lot of this stuff which is described as policy is really all about personal fighting … And it’s kind of a comedy of errors, with all this intriguing. It’s very reminiscent of Kremlin intrigue and the kind of intrigue around No 10 in the UK – people always trying to do each other in.” ... “He wants to be like he was as a CEO, he has all these discussions with people in private … He has a very informal style with everyone. Putin is similar. He just tries to engage with people in the way that he thinks kind of fits them best,” she said. ... But Putin could not be treated like the others. The Trump campaign had dozens of contacts with Russian officials or Kremlin intermediaries, and the candidate had appealed to Moscow to interfere in the election by hacking Hillary Clinton’s emails. ...Furthermore, as Hill made clear in her biography of him, Putin has taken all the skills of his long KGB career with him to the Russian presidency. And the Kremlin was constantly outmanoeuvring the White House, arranging events so that Trump would be alone with Putin with only the Russian president’s translator in the room. The state department, which stuck to rigid protocol rules on whose translator should be where and when, was being played. “Putin doesn’t operate like that. Putin takes translators with him for every occasion,” she said. “The Russians are incredibly organized. They take advantage of every opportunity, every vulnerability, every open door they can walk through.”

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - The jokes in parliament prove British leaders have no idea how bad slavery was – and why people are protesting, 12 June 2020: One way to understand what it was really like is to recall how Isis enslaved the Yazidis in northern Iraq and Syria in 2014, murdering men, women and children and selling thousands of women into sexual slavery. ... In fact, it raises the veil on one of the grimiest corners of British history, which is the military campaign fought by Britain on behalf of slave owners in the 1790s to crush the great slave revolt in Haiti, (then called Saint-Domingue) ignited by the French Revolution. The British Army lost 45,000 out of 90,000 troops sent in this war, largely as a result of yellow fever and the fierce resistance of the former slaves. Casualties were heavier than all the British wars against Napoleonic France. ... The best-informed guide to what life was like on a slave plantation in the Caribbean at that time are the books written by James Ramsay, an Anglican clergymen and former navy surgeon who worked as a doctor for 19 years in the plantations on the British-ruled islands of St Kitts and Nevis.

The Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Israel’s next UK ambassador is a settler extremist, 12 June 2020: Israel’s next ambassador to the UK is a pro-settler activist who has promoted the movement to destroy Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Tzipi Hotovely once claimed that there is “no Palestinian people.” ... Hotovely has for years been campaigning for the annexation of the entire West Bank and claims that it, along with present-day Israel, belongs to Jews alone. ... “All the territory that is west of the Jordan River can only be [held] by one nation: the Jewish people,” she said. ... “This land is ours,” she said. “All of it is ours. We did not come here to apologize for that.” Hotovely also claimed the right to expel Palestinians and build homes for Jews on the stolen land, demanding the world “recognize Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.” ... The announcement that she will be Israel’s next ambassador has also raised some opposition among Zionists in the UK, who worry she will damage Israel’s image. Writing for The Jewish News, Jenni Frazer described her appointment as an insult to the UK and warned that she would “alienate so many British Jews” from Israel. Even Melanie Philips, a hard-right Islamophobe and columnist for The Times, opposes Hotovely’s appointment as ambassador, worrying that she sounds “to a British ear like a blustering zealot.”

The Guardian - Peter Walker - 'We cannot edit our past': Boris Johnson's statue tweets explained, 12 June 2020: Boris Johnson has used a series of tweets to speak out against the removal of statues and to urge Black Lives Matter activists not to protest this weekend. ... "We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations. They had different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. But those statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. To tear them down would be to lie about our history, and impoverish the education of generations to come."

The Times of Israel - Steven E. Zipperstein - Diaries reveal overwhelmed British officials in Palestine wanted to go home, 13 June 2020: Chancellor by then had decided to resign. He wrote to his son explaining his reasons, ranging from low pay and the high cost of living in Palestine to his disagreement with the core British government policy he had been appointed to implement: "I dislike the policy of the Balfour Declaration & consider that it is unjust to the Arabs & detrimental to the interests of the British Empire & for that reason I do not like being associated with it.. Even if H.M. [His Majesty’s] Government adopt a policy which I approve, I find the Jews so antipathetic to me & so difficult to deal with that I shall be glad to sever connection with Palestine as soon as I can do so with decency." ... Only four days later, on November 11, 1929, Chancellor confided a stunning discovery to his diary, when he learned from the American consul general in Jerusalem that Jewish spies had been intercepting his secret communications with the colonial secretary: "The American Consul General came to see me on Friday to tell me privately that the Jews have organised a very complete espionage system in Jerusalem, one of the main objects of which is to secure copies of all secret official documents." ... Several months later, on October 17, 1930, Chancellor recorded a bizarre incident in his diary, pitting Hebrew speakers against a Yiddish-language film at a cinema in Tel Aviv. ... "The Hebrew speaking Jews ‘demanded’ that it should be forbidden, a demand that of course could not be complied with. The Hebrew speakers accordingly bought up most of the tickets & when the Yiddish was spoken they bombarded the screen with ink bottles, rotten eggs & other vile stuff & caused a disturbance which had to be suppressed by the police."

Haaretz - Ofer Aderet - Assassinations, Terror Attacks and Even Castration – the Hidden Actions of Israel's Pre-state Militia, 13 June 2020: The first Jew to be executed by the Haganah was Baruch Weinschell, who was accused of giving the British information about illegal immigration. He was killed in October 1940, in Haifa. Oscar Opler, a kibbutznik from the Lower Galilee, was also executed. He was a British informant who had revealed the location of hidden weapons and was subsequently condemned to death by the Haganah. Moshe Savtani was exposed as an informant and shot in the stairwell of his house by the Haganah. He died of his wounds in hospital. Yitzhak Sharansky from Tel Aviv, Baruch Manfeld from Haifa and Walter Strauss and others also fell victim to internal assassinations by Haganah members. Such operations continued right up to the establishment of the state. At the end of March 1947, Mordechai Berger, who worked in the Mandatory police’s traffic division, was murdered in the street after being suspected of divulging information about the Haganah to the British. “The assailants gagged him and hit him over the head with clubs. Berger fell bleeding,” wrote Prof. Yehuda Lapidot, an Irgun member who later researched the history of Mandatory Palestine. ... In this context, one cannot ignore the first political murder of a Jew in Mandatory Palestine. The victim was Jacob de Haan, a strange character and proud poet who became ultra-Orthodox and an anti-Zionist, talking with Arabs about the possibility of revoking the Balfour Declaration. Haganah member Avraham Tehomi and other associates were believed to be behind de Haan’s assassination on a Jerusalem street in June 1924.

The Guardian - Paul Daley - 'All lies': how the US military covered up gunning down two journalists in Iraq, 14 June 2020: Former Reuters journalist Dean Yates was in charge of the bureau in Baghdad when his Iraqi colleagues Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh were killed. A WikiLeaks video called Collateral Murder later revealed details of their death.

The Guardian - George Monbiot - Boris Johnson says we shouldn't edit our past. But Britain has been lying about it for decades, 16 June 2020: But, Johnson tells us: “We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history”. Yet lies and erasures are crucial to the myths on which Britain’s official self-image is founded, and crucial to hiding the means by which those who still dominate us acquired their wealth and power.

Press Gazette - Charlotte Tobitt - Mail publisher pays damages to Palestinian centre over 'grotesque' libel in book serialisation, 18 June 2020: The Mail on Sunday and Mail Online ran extracts from investigative biographer and ex-Panorama reporter Tom Bower’s book Dangerous Hero about the former Labour leader (pictured) in February 2019. The book, and one of the serialised extracts, contained the claim that the UK-based Palestinian Return Centre was “known to blame the Jews for the Holocaust”. Carter-Ruck, representing the PRC, said the “grotesque but utterly false” allegation had come from the misreporting in the media of comments made by a member of the audience at an event hosted by the PRC at the House of Lords in 2016.

Haaretz - Anshel Pfeffer - Tzipi Hotovely Is the Ugly, Extremist Face of Israel. British Jews Should Welcome Her, 19 June 2020: Na’amod, a young organization of left-wing British Jews, dedicated to campaigning against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza has organized a petition calling on the British government to reject Hotovely’s appointment due to her “appalling record of racist and inflammatory behaviour throughout her political career.” ... She is the prototype of the new far-right Likudnik, who have pulled the party to the extreme of the political spectrum. Hotovely is an unabashed Islamophobe and religious fundamentalist who denies the existence of the Palestinian people and supports annexation of the entire West Bank and Jewish control of the Temple Mount. Hotovely is also the worst possible representative Israel could send to a country with a proud Jewish community. She is entirely dismissive of the Diaspora. ... And it’s not just U.S. Jews that Hotovely has abused. Last year, following a statement of principles of the Board of Deputies, the main representative body of British Jews, which included support in the two-state solution, Hotovely said that “an organization that supports establishing a Palestinian state is clearly working against the Israeli interest.”

The Independent - Ellie Harrison - Like father, like son: Ken and Jim Loach on filmmaking, grief and the problem with Keir Starmer, 20 June 2020: “The dishonesty, the abuse, the lies – they’re dangerous. It’s dog-whistle politics. And there are idiots out there who will act on the hatred that’s being generated. We’ve been pushed around in the street when one of the kids was having treatment for cancer and lost her hair, two blokes came up, one tried to push me into a corner. They shouted. We’ve had letters to the house, death threats, there’s stuff going to grandchildren. I mean, I’ll say what it is – it’s the pro-Israeli faction who will not tolerate discussions of that political tendency.”

Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign - Mick Napier - MP made to undergo dubious re-education on 'anti-semitism', 21 June 2020: Gidley identifies one of the five main anti-semitic themes he has uncovered as "variations on the historic blood libel" whereby Jews in Medieval Europe were massacred following Christian claims that Jews kidnapped Christian children and used their blood for religious rituals. From that odd starting point he moves to suggest that talking about Israeli snipers killing Palestinian children is problematic since it could upset Jews with a folk memory 12th Century pogroms via the pretext sometimes adduced to launch them. ... Gidley claims the prevailing mood among what he calls “anti-Israel activists…minimises or tolerates anti‐Jewish racism… which is reinforced by the disproportionate focus on Israel/Palestine within the left.” Gidley then asserts without evidence that there is “a convergence…between far right and anti-Israel activists,” whereas there is irrefutable evidence to the contrary, namely a consistent presence of extreme-right, anti-semitic activists and groups on pro-Israeli street events. The piece by Gidley is one of many efforts to smear solidarity campaigning with Palestine that are endorsed by the Anti-semitism Policy Trust. His examination of the "extent and degree of antisemitism in the anti-Israel protests”, by which he means the mass opposition to the massacres of Palestinians during Operation Cast Lead, serves to obscure real anti-semitism by categorising an unspecified proportion of opposition to Israeli war crimes as anti-semitism. ... Gidley identifies one of the five main anti-semitic themes he has uncovered as "variations on the historic blood libel" whereby Jews in Medieval Europe were massacred following Christian claims that Jews kidnapped Christian children and used their blood for religious rituals. From that odd starting point he moves to suggest that talking about Israeli snipers killing Palestinian children is problematic since it could upset Jews with a folk memory 12th Century pogroms via the pretext sometimes adduced to launch them. ... Denouncing the spilling of Palestinian blood in a recent Israeli massacre, specifically the 551 children killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza in summer 2014, is anti-semitic because "British Jews [are] sensitive to the use of the blood libel in triggering pogroms historically" ... Full disclosure: Gidley's bizarre claim was made, cut and pasted, word for word, by a Scottish prosecutor in a trial in Glasgow of two SPSC members, of whom I was one. We and others had protested an Israeli cosmetics stall in Intu Braehead Shopping Centre and referenced Israel's massacre of 2,200 Palestinians a few weeks earlier by carrying this placard. The Glasgow Procurator Fiscal’s case rested primarily on the claim that the placard not only evoked memories of the Medieval blood libel but was intended to do so, regardless of the fact that most of the protesters holding this placard in Braehead were as blissfully unaware of the legend of mythical Little Saint Hugh or the Medieval notion of blood libel as the general population. Sheriff Barry Divers felt his summary rejection of the argument needed no explanation.

The Guardian - Dalya Alberge - Vast neolithic circle of deep shafts found near Stonehenge, 22 June 2020: Four thousand five hundred years ago, the Neolithic peoples who constructed Stonehenge, a masterpiece of engineering, also dug a series of shafts aligned to form a circle spanning 1.2 miles (2km) in diameter. The structure appears to have been a boundary guiding people to a sacred area because Durrington Walls, one of Britain’s largest henge monuments, is located precisely at its centre. The site is 1.9 miles north-east of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, near Amesbury, Wiltshire.

Middle East Eye - Sheren Khalel - US police departments under pressure to end training programmes with Israel, 22 June 2020: Two decades of Israeli-US police cooperation includes training in racial profiling, counter terrorism and suppressing protests. ... The video of a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, an unarmed African American, for nearly nine minutes as he slowly died, gasping for air, has struck a familiar chord with many Palestinians and anti-occupation activists. Since his death in late May, footage of Floyd pleading: "I can't breathe" and "they're going to kill me," has emerged alongside videos and stills of Israeli security forces taking similar positions over the necks of unarmed Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip. The Israeli police force has tried to distance itself from any perceived similarities, issuing statements denouncing what happened and stating that its officers are not trained to use knee-to-neck techniques. But photographs taken as recently as March have shown Israeli forces using the same restraint on unarmed protesters just yards from the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City. ... Rosenfeld called the incident "sad" and said that "there is no procedure that allows an officer of the Israel police department to carry out an arrest by placing a knee on the neck of a suspect". ... For his part, Rosenfeld said that no training exchange with Israel's police forces would "involve such a measure" like the one Chauvin used against Floyd. "It doesn't exist in any [Israeli] police textbook," he said. But Fady Khoury, a Harvard Law School civil and political rights attorney with Adalah legal centre for minority rights in Israel, said textbooks and bylaws cannot negate the physical evidence of such tactics being used by Israeli officers on the ground. "There is plenty of documentation out there of violent arrests that involve kneeling on detainees' heads and necks," Khoury said. "We have seen this not only in the occupied territories when soldiers perform arrests, but inside Israel by police officers as well." Days after Floyd was killed, Mohammad al-Qadi, a Palestinian marathon runner from the occupied West Bank, posted several pictures depicting uniformed Israelis arresting Palestinians by using knee-to-throat techniques similar to the one that resulted in Floyd's death. ... Like Rosenfeld, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo on Wednesday said Chauvin's use of force against Floyd was not part of any MPD training. ... The exchanges with Israeli law enforcement and military have been paid for by public funds, as well as by an array of pro-Israel groups, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). JINSA alone has sent at least 200 American police officers to Israel for training in the wake of 9/11 and has hosted 10 conferences across the United States, with a combined attendance of over 10,500 law enforcement personnel. ... Because of Israel's notoriety for its excessive use of force tactics, many human rights groups have launched campaigns trying to end the US-Israeli police training programmes. ... Scott Brown, an organiser with the group, said the training that takes place with Israel is as much about ideology as they are about tactics and equipment. "The US and Israel are huge political and military allies, so they have a stake in deepening relationships and loyalty between them," Brown said. "So when you're sending police departments there, that's what you're doing, you're deepening relationships in a way that builds up really strong support for Israel and its actions." David Friedman, who was an ADL regional director, echoed that sentiment when talking about the so-called benefits of an ADL-funded trip of American law enforcement executives to Israel in 2015. "[They] come back and they are Zionists," Friedman said. "They understand Israel and its security needs in ways a lot of audiences don’t." [Jewish Virtual Library: "U.S.-Israel Strategic Cooperation: Joint Police & Law Enforcement Training"]

The Critic - David Starkey - A perversion of Puritanism, 22 June 2020: The toppling of Colston’s statue in Bristol sends a terrible message to today’s would-be philanthropist. ... This is the psychosis of Black Lives Matter. But BLM is also a religious movement. Or more precisely, it’s a peculiar perversion of Puritanism, which is why it is at its most rampant in the Anglo-Saxon world. ... “Oh! It’s only a few mouldy old statues of slave traders,” the Appeasers say. The Appeasers are wrong as usual: Black Lives Matter has other, bigger fish to fry. Its aim is not just to topple a few statues and trash a few reputations but — using slavery and imperialism as a battering ram — to delegitimate the whole of British history. ... Hence the repeated claim of BLM that the slave trade was genocide or mass murder. It wasn’t of course, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many blacks in North America or the West Indies. Or indeed in Britain.

The Guardian - Luke Harding - 'A chain of stupidity': the Skripal case and the decline of Russia's spy agencies, 23 June 2020: The unmasking of the Salisbury poisoning suspects by a new digital journalism outfit was an embarrassment for Putin – and evidence that Russian spies are not what they once were. ... One day Higgins logged on to the Guardian’s Middle East live blog. Libya was the centre of international attention. Higgins made his own contributions to the comment section of the Guardian blog, using the name Brown Moses – taken from a Frank Zappa song. ... Higgins documented the Syrian regime’s use of cluster bombs. He discovered that government soldiers were tossing DIY barrel bombs out of helicopters, and that rebels were fighting back around Aleppo with Chinese-made shoulder-launched missiles. His reputation spread. He launched a new investigative website: Bellingcat.

The Guardian - Samuel Gilbert - Protests target Spanish colonial statues that 'celebrate genocide' in US west, 24 June 2020: New Mexico has become the center of this movement in the south-west. Oñate and his soldiers began the Spanish conquest of New Mexico, and the subjugation of its Indigenous peoples, in 1598. The state has long venerated its painful past. The names of conquistadors, like those of Confederate generals in the south, lend themselves to road names, schools, shopping centers and statues. ... Until 2018, the Fiestas included an event known as La Entrada, which celebrated the reconquest of New Mexico by Don Diego De Vargas following the Pueblo revolt, an indigenous uprising in 1680 that expelled the Spanish from New Mexico for 12 years. After sustained pressure, La Entrada was dropped.]

The Independent - Jack de Menezes - Bernie Ecclestone says ‘in many cases black people are more racist than white people’, 24 June 2020: Ex-Formula One supremo makes astonishing claims in an interview about the Black Live Matter movement and insists the sport does not have a problem with racism.

The Independent - Alexandra Pollard - Maxine Peake: ‘People who couldn’t vote Labour because of Corbyn? They voted Tory as far as I’m concerned’, 25 June 2020: “Systemic racism is a global issue,” she adds. “The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.” (A spokesperson for the Israeli police has denied this, stating that “there is no tactic or protocol that calls to put pressure on the neck or airway”.) ... UPDATE (25.06.20): This article has been amended to further clarify that the allegation that US police were taught tactics of “neck kneeling” by Israeli secret services is unfounded. The original version did carry a denial from Israeli police, however we are happy to further clarify the matter.

Morning Star - Editorial: Sacking Rebecca Long Bailey is an attack on the whole left, 25 June 2020: SIR KEIR STARMER’S decision to fire Rebecca Long Bailey is an attack on the whole of the left. It is also a craven submission to those who accuse all critics of the Israeli state and its practices of anti-semitism. The false narrative, trumpeted by almost the whole of the British media for years with the patent aim of derailing Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, that the Labour left is a hotbed of vile anti-semitic views has already done huge damage. Further capitulation has to stop. Long Bailey was the only senior Corbyn ally retained in Starmer’s shadow cabinet. ... Board of Deputies of British Jews president Marie van der Zyl described Long Bailey’s failure to apologise and delete a tweet recommending an interview with the socialist actor Maxine Peake “frankly pathetic.” “Frankly pathetic” is a better description of the grounds for her dismissal. The interview covered a lot of ground: Peake’s acting career, her socialist beliefs, Black Lives Matter, the government’s disastrous handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. It included an appeal for people to continue to support the Labour Party under Starmer so as to remove the Tories from office. Starmer’s spokesman claims it “contained an anti-semitic conspiracy theory.” This refers to a single line in which Peake refers to Israel’s training of the US police, and specifically suggests the knee-on-neck “restraint” technique used by George Floyd’s murderer was learned from Israeli officers. Israel denies this. In fact use of the brutal method dates back decades in the United States and may be nothing to do with Israeli training, although an Israeli police spokesman’s comment to the Independent that “there is no tactic or protocol that calls to put pressure on the neck or airway” doesn’t clear that up: protocol or not, there is abundant photographic and witness evidence that Israeli police do use the knee-on-neck method. But Israeli forces do train US police officers, including in Minneapolis. Amnesty International reported in 2016 that officers from numerous US states were sent for training in Israel and occupied Palestine, which puts “police and other US law enforcement employees in the hands of military, security and police systems that have racked up documented human rights violations for years.” This training has been linked to the militarisation of the US police and its increasing resemblance to an “occupying army” in poor and black neighbourhoods, as depicted in Craig Atkinson’s 2016 documentary Do Not Resist. Indeed, ending Israeli training of US police officers has become a demand of Black Lives Matter protesters in some parts of the US, which is why it was banned earlier this month in one North Carolina city. Attempting to dismiss references to the relationship between the Israeli and US security forces as “an anti-semitic conspiracy theory” is a cynical bid by the Board of Deputies to warn people off attacking the Israeli government at a time when its plans to annex the West Bank are arousing widespread condemnation. [(Twitter) Rebecca Long-Bailey, 25 June 2020: "1.Today I retweeted an interview that my constituent and stalwart Labour Party supporter Maxine Peake gave to the Independent. Its main thrust was anger with the Conservative Government’s handling of the current emergency and a call for Labour Party unity. 2.These are sentiments are shared by everyone in our movement and millions of people in our country. I learned that many people were concerned by references to international sharing of training and restraint techniques between police and security forces. 3.In no way was my retweet an intention to endorse every part of that article. 4.I wished to acknowledge these concerns and duly issued a clarification of my retweet, with the wording agreed in advance by the Labour Party Leader’s Office, but after posting I was subsequently instructed to take both this agreed clarification and my original retweet down. 5.I could not do this in good conscience without the issuing of a press statement of clarification. I had asked to discuss these matters with Keir before agreeing what further action to take, but sadly he had already made his decision."]

Morning Star - Lamiat Sabin, Bethany Reilly, Niall Christe, Ceren Sagir - Socialists condemn Sir Keir for sacking Rebecca Long Bailey, 25 June 2020: The now ex-shadow education secretary had tweeted a link to the interview with actor Maxine Peake on the Independent website, adding: “Maxine Peake is an absolute diamond.” ... But she later said that Mr Starmer had already made the decision to sack her, for what his spokesman said was sharing an article that “contained an anti-semitic conspiracy theory.” ... In an online press briefing held immediately after the sacking, Jeremy Corbyn’s successor said his decision was made in the interests of rebuilding trust with the Jewish community. ... The Independent added in brackets: “A spokesperson for the Israeli police has denied this, stating that ‘there is no tactic or protocol that calls to put pressure on the neck or airway’.” But Israeli security forces have been photographed many times kneeling on the necks of unarmed Palestinians. ... International Solidarity Movement co-founder Neta Golan told the Morning Star that she had been subjected to the kneeling-on-neck tactic multiple times during non-violent protests in the West Bank. ... Palestinian activist Ashraf AbuRahmah (pictured) told the Morning Star he had been subjected to this tactic many times, including three years ago when protesting in the West Bank village of Burin against settler attacks. He told the Star: “When I saw what happened to George Floyd in the US, I thought this was the same thing that happened to me. I was sad and angry but this is daily life in Palestine and no-one speaks about it.” ... A spokesperson from the socialist group Jewish Voice for Labour told the Star that the sacking “takes guilt by association to the nth degree” and that there was “nothing anti-semitic in the interview with Maxine or in Long Bailey’s tweet.” ... “She has fallen foul of the Board of Deputies’ draconian 10 pledges which she signed, alongside Starmer, while standing against him for the party leader’s position. ... David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialists’ Group said that her sacking was based on a “very flimsy pretext.” “US cops’ tactic on Floyd goes back to the ’60s, but today they get training by Israelis, among others,” he noted.

HuffPost - Paul Waugh - What Keir Starmer’s Sacking Of Rebecca Long-Bailey Tells Us About His Leadership, 25 June 2020: Long-Bailey was asked to take down her tweet and to apologise. Instead, she retweeted her original message with a clarification that she had not endorsed the entire Peake article. This was a form of words that she later claimed was agreed with the leader’s office (which is disputed). But this only caused more anger, and she was repeatedly told that Starmer wanted her to delete the message and issue a full apology. HuffPost UK has been told Long-Bailey refused to take phone calls from the leader’s office, and after being given four hours to comply with his wishes, Starmer decided enough was enough. Having given her a way out, he felt he was left with no option but to fire her as shadow education secretary. After informing his deputy Angela Rayner, he rang Long-Bailey in person and said he was removing her from her post.

Jacobin - Daniel Finn - Jeremy Corbyn’s Opponents Burned the House Down to Stop Him — Now Keir Starmer Is King of the Ashes, 25 June 2020: By sacking Rebecca Long-Bailey on a trumped-up pretext, Keir Starmer has set the seal on a drastic shift to the right for the British Labour Party. ... Without taking account of the information that’s come to light about Labour’s inner-party struggles, we can’t fully grasp how Britain came to be in its current position, with a manifestly incompetent crew of shysters and sociopaths responsible for the management of a catastrophe. ... The first major development after Starmer took over as leader was the publication of a leaked report on the Labour Party’s internal culture. ... The EHRC has now confirmed in the most emphatic way possible that this is not the case. Its criteria for launching investigations are strictly political, in the worst sense of the term. That confirmation came on May 12, when the EHRC announced that it would not be investigating the Conservative Party for racism. The statement concluded a lengthy saga. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) first asked the EHRC to investigate the Tories in May 2019. It repeated that request in November after receiving no reply. Once again, the EHRC kicked the issue into touch. ... The MCB submitted a new dossier in March 2020, with exhaustive documentation of Tory racism, but the EHRC could only say that it was “actively considering what, if any, action” it might take. Two months later, it ceased “actively considering” anything and authorized the Conservative Party to investigate itself. ... Three main points emerge from the report. ... Most striking of all is the evidence — carefully summarized by Charlotte England in this article — that Labour officials in charge of the party’s disciplinary process were at best profoundly incompetent in their handling of antisemitism complaints. This is a vital point, because the very same officials appeared on the BBC’s flagship documentary slot Panorama in the guise of “whistleblowers,” accusing Corbyn and his associates of having sabotaged their efforts to root out antisemitism in the party. ... In fact, we have already seen that antisemitism gets a free pass so long as it comes from the political right and targets liberal and left-wing Jews. ... This culture of impunity reached a nadir during the 2019 election campaign, when the Sun’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn promoted a far-right hit list drawn directly from neo-Nazi sources. At a time when charges of antisemitism dominated the news agenda, a prominent journalist could channel readers to a group called Aryan Unity without exciting the interest of his colleagues. ... There was a coda of sorts to John Ware’s Panorama documentary in April 2020, when a consortium took over the ailing Jewish Chronicle newspaper and kept its editor Stephen Pollard in his post. Pollard has turned the Chronicle into a right-wing propaganda sheet with a costly track record of publishing falsehoods about his political opponents. He directed its fire against Corbyn from the earliest stages of his leadership and played a significant role in constructing the overall narrative. The head of the consortium was Robbie Gibb, erstwhile director of communications for Theresa May. It also included the ex-Labour MP John Woodcock — who resigned from the party in a haze of controversy and campaigned for a Tory victory last December — and none other than John Ware himself. Gibb, Woodcock and Ware clearly believe that Stephen Pollard and his Muslim-baiting columnists have a valuable role to play.

The Independent - Sabrina Barr - Olive Morris: Google Doodle honours activist who campaigned to improve the lives of the black community. 26 June 2020: In the 1970s, activist Olive Morris became an influential voice for the black community in the UK, using her platform to speak out against the injustices and discrimination black people faced. Born in Jamaica on 26 June 1952, Morris and her family emigrated to London when she was nine years old. ... One of the earliest examples of Morris’ activism occurred in 1969, when Nigerian diplomat Clement Gomwalk was attacked by police officers in Brixton. Not believing Gomwalk when he said that he was a diplomat, the police proceeded to beat him in front of a crowd of onlookers. While one journalist’s account from the day claimed that Morris “broke through the crowd to the scuffle” and “tried to physically stop the police from beating the Nigerian”, Morris reportedly later stated that she did not arrive at the scene until Gomwalk had already been taken away by the police. However, Morris received brutal treatment from the police, being taken into police custody, forced to strip and threatened with rape. ... Following her violent treatment at the hands of police officers, Morris continued her campaign to combat systemic racism in the UK, joining the British Black Panther Movement in 1968 and going on to become a founding member of the Brixton Black Women’s Group in 1974, one of the first networks for black women in Britain.

The American Conservative - Jim Bovard - The Korean War Atrocities No One Wants to Talk About, 26 June 2020: For decades they covered up the U.S. massacre of civilians at No Gun Ri and elsewhere. This is why we never learn our lessons.

Tribune - Ronan Burtenshaw - How Keir Starmer Sabotaged Rebecca Long-Bailey, 26 June 2020: To many onlookers, Rebecca Long-Bailey’s sacking might have seemed strange. After all, she was fired for sharing an interview by someone else in which they made a claim which was only marginally incorrect. (The Israeli police do, in fact, train the US police and encourage the use of “excessive force” against those who “pose little or no threat.”) Long-Bailey did not flag those comments – instead simply praising long-time Labour supporter Maxine Peake – and agreed the wording of a clarification with Starmer’s office. The accusation that she defended an “antisemitic conspiracy theory” is entirely without basis. In fact, it is probably actionable. But none of that really mattered. Long-Bailey’s sacking was not about the proximate cause but the political context. Starmer had hoped, no doubt, to marginalise her over many months and discard her in a reshuffle. The prominence of education during the Covid-19 crisis made that impossible. Instead, he accelerated the move against the Left he was always going to make – winning himself acclaim from the media in the process.

Middle East Eye - Peter Oborne - The death of truth: Boris Johnson joins the ranks of Putin, Sisi and MBS, 26 June 2020: The British prime minister now belongs to a new category of world leader for whom truth is appropriated in the service of power.

The Guardian - Rebecca Long-Bailey - I know how painful antisemitism is and never intended my tweet to cause hurt, 29 June 2020: Over my morning coffee, I saw the Independent had tweeted an interview with my constituent and stalwart Labour party supporter Maxine Peake. I did a quick read and as I admire Peake, I retweeted it straight away. I was then contacted by the Labour leader’s office and my heart sank when I learned that many people were concerned about a passage in the article: talking about the Black Lives Matter protests, Peake had written: “Systemic racism is a global issue,” but followed this with an inaccurate reference (which she has since apologised for) to US police learning tactics such as those that killed George Floyd from training seminars with Israeli secret services.

Fathom - Oren Kessler - Mandate100 | ‘A dangerous people to quarrel with’: Lloyd George’s Secret Testimony to the Peel Commission Revealed, July 2020: The Palestine Royal Commission was appointed in summer 1936 to probe the causes and possible remedies of a six-month Arab rebellion that had inflicted £3.5 million in damages, and cost the lives of 80 Jews, 28 Britons and hundreds of Arabs. Its report a year later was a watershed in the Mandate, establishing the ‘two-state solution’ as the template for settling what had become an unignorable national dispute. ... Chaired by Lord William Peel, the panel heard 60 witnesses in public sessions – transcribed, collated and published alongside the report by His Majesty’s Stationery Office. But nearly the same number testified in secret — so secret that even the witness list itself was hidden, and witnesses barred from appearing with prepared notes. Transcripts of the sessions were recorded solely for the commissioners’ use and might have been lost or destroyed had not their far-sighted secretary recognised their significance. ... Exactly eight decades into that remote future, in 2017, Whitehall quietly released them to the National Archives at Kew. ... The secret witnesses included the upper crust of the Mandate – administrators like High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope and two of his predecessors, as well as the chief immigration officer and the commander of British forces in the country. They also included Chaim Weizmann, president of the world Zionist Organization, and David Ben-Gurion, chair of the Jewish Agency for Palestine (Arab witnesses – who boycotted most of the proceedings after London refused to halt Jewish immigration – insisted all their own testimony be public). The penultimate testimony, heard after the commission’s return to London, came from David Lloyd George, who had been prime minister during the Balfour Declaration, announcing the Crown’s backing for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, exactly two decades before. Lloyd George had been an unflinching Zionist since the Great War. His first acquaintance with the movement came in late 1914, while still Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the person of Weizmann. He was neither the first nor last British official seduced by the charisma of the Russian-born chemist and Zionist activist ... In late 1916 Lloyd George was elected prime minister, and as foreign secretary named Arthur James Balfour – Churchill’s successor at the Admiralty and a former premier himself. Lloyd George wrote that like himself, Balfour was taken in by Weizmann, ‘won over completely by his charm, persuasiveness and his intellectual power.’ The motives for Balfour’s eponymous 1917 Declaration formed the heart of Lloyd George’s secret Peel testimony twenty years later. He had recently completed the last of his nine-volume memoirs of the Great War and used the section on the Declaration as the basis for his prepared remarks (the commission apparently exempted him from their ban on pre-written statements). His tone was unrepentant and combative – he was now a septuagenarian MP from North Wales of waning political relevance – even more so as his prepared text gave way to unscripted, impromptu answers. His greater admiration for Jews than Arabs is unmistakable, but so too are evaluations of Jewish power and cunning that if uttered today would end the most distinguished career. ... Public opinion in the United States and Russia were crucial, ‘and we had every reason at that time to believe that in both countries the friendliness or hostility of the Jewish race might make a considerable difference.’ If Balfour had not issued his Declaration that November, Lloyd George suggested, the Kaiser might have beat him to it. It was made just days before the Bolshevik Revolution, and Germany was ‘equally alive to the fact that the Jews of Russia wielded considerable influence in Bolshevik circles. The Zionist Movement was exceptionally strong in Russia and America,’ he said – a vast exaggeration for a what was still a fringe, aspirational ideology – and the Germans were sparing no effort to court it. For nearly three years both warring blocs had striven to blockade the other’s supplies, and a Russia friendly to the Central Powers ‘would mean not only more food and raw material for Germany and Austria, but fewer German and Austrian troops on the Eastern Front and therefore, more available for the West.’

Foreign Policy - Amy MacKinnon - What’s This Unit of Russian Spies That Keeps Getting Outed?, 01 July 2020: Unit 29155 of the GRU is behind plenty of Russia’s high-profile misadventures abroad—and now, apparently, the bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. ... On Friday, the New York Times broke the explosive story that a unit of Russia’s military intelligence—Unit 29155 of the GRU—had allegedly offered bounties to militants in Afghanistan to kill U.S. troops. ... Unit 29155, accused of offering bounties to Taliban-linked militants, has spearheaded some of Russia’s most brazen overseas operations in recent years—or at least the ones we know about, from the attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016 to the botched effort to assassinate former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in England. ... While Unit 29155 is often described as secretive, its tradecraft has at times been sloppy, including implausible cover stories and repeated use of the same aliases. Using leaked passport records, flight passenger data, and databases of border crossings, journalists and open-source investigators from groups such as Bellingcat and the Russian outlet the Insider have been able to use this trail of breadcrumbs to build a remarkably detailed picture of the unit and its members. ... Russia has three main intelligence agencies: the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), and the Federal Security Service (FSB), the most powerful of the three. All three are involved in foreign operations, but it’s the GRU that has the necessary audacity to attempt complicated, high-stakes operations. “The GRU was always seen as a little more thuggish. They are tasked to do all of these things but their tradecraft is not great,” Polymeropoulos said. ... Unit 29155 is thought to have operated for at least a decade, but it wasn’t until its agents attempted to assassinate former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in 2018 that intelligence agencies and investigative reporters were able to gradually map out the group’s membership and their involvement in other Russian operations in Europe.

The Independent - Robert Fisk - How did we get here on Israel's annexation plan? It's all in the Balfour Declaration, 02 July 2020.

The Critic - Richard Griffiths - Britain’s little Hitlers, July/August 2020: Richard Griffiths reviews "Failed Führers", by Graham Macklin.

The Electronic Intifada - Ciaran Tierney - Did Irish minister distort truth over Israel’s settlement imports?, 07 JUly 2020: Ireland’s foreign minister Simon Coveney may have misled his fellow lawmakers during a debate on forbidding goods from Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank. Coveney has been the key obstacle to introducing such a ban. Two of the three parties forming Ireland’s new government have supported the Occupied Territories Bill – as the legislation banning settlement imports is called. Yet Coveney vetoed its inclusion in the program for the new coalition.

The Electronic Intifada - Nora Barrows-Friedman - Israel lobby’s Kenneth Marcus resigns as Trump’s civil rights enforcer, 10 JUly 2020: Over the two years since his appointment, Marcus inspired Israel lobby groups to file complaints to the Office for Civil Rights under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The complaints typically claim that universities have failed to protect Jewish students by not cracking down on Palestine solidarity activism. This strategy was pioneered by Marcus himself before he was picked to lead the US government office and allowed to adjudicate them himself. To this end, Marcus gave the Zionist Organization of America special treatment in reopening a complaint against Rutgers University, according to evidence gathered by nine civil rights groups including Palestine Legal. Marcus prioritized the ZOA’s complaint over more than 400 other open appeals, including nearly 80 that had been pending for longer than 10 years, according to records obtained by the civil rights groups. In May, those groups called on the inspector general’s office at the Department of Education to investigate Marcus over violations of federal law.

The Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Has the UK’s “Labour anti-Semitism” probe been rigged?, 14 July 2020: The UK’s official equality watchdog is facing questions over its impartiality after it was revealed that one of its commissioners failed to declare financial links to the ruling Conservative Party. ... Newsweek has revealed that EHRC commissioner Pavita Cooper made donations totaling $4,400 to the Conservative Party. Cooper’s donation was not declared when she took up the role in 2018. Cooper and her husband also hosted a fundraising event for their local Conservative member of Parliament. The investigation into Labour was launched at the request of two pro-Israel lobby groups in May 2019. It is expected to report sometime this summer. The supposedly impartial watchdog also appointed one of the same groups’ leaders to its panel of legal advisers mere days before it announced its probe of Labour. The Jewish Labour Movement’s vice chair Sarah Sackman said she was “delighted” to have been given the post. ... The second known anti-Palestinian case pursued on behalf of Israel by Libson was that of Moty Cristal. An Israeli army colonel, Cristal sued public sector union Unison as well as the National Health Service after they declined his offer to host a workshop on “negotiations.” The case was ultimately dropped. ... As well as the Newsweek revelation, communist newspaper The Morning Star ran a series of exposés last year of a string of conflicts of interest at the EHRC. Journalist Phil Miller revealed a litany of the body’s financial ties to the Conservative Party and the government. Perhaps the clearest sign so far of the EHRC’s institutional bias against Labour is how it has repeatedly refused to investigate the Conservatives for their endemic bigotry against Muslims, even while investigating Labour for supposed anti-Semitism. (Morning Star - EHRC Exposed)

de Volksrant - Ana van Es, ANneke Stoffelen - Founder of Foundation behind White Helmets Admits Fraud, 17 July 2020: According to its founder, fraud has been committed in the Dutch organisation that received over a hundred million euros in donations for the rescue workers of the White Helmets in Syria. European governments ended their subsidies without going public about the wrongdoings. ... The foundation concerned is Mayday Rescue in Amsterdam. Founder James Le Mesurier informed the donor countries – including the Netherlands – about the fraud and financial abuse in November last year. In his letter, which de Volkskrant has, he offers his resignation. Three days later, Le Mesurier died after a fall from his apartment in Istanbul, Turkey. The death of the 48-year-old British rescue worker was world news. The Turkish authorities assume that he killed himself. ... The problems at the foundation came to light in November last year, when a Dutch accountant visited the Mayday office in Istanbul. He uncovered false receipts that were made up to reveal that 50,000 dollars had disappeared. Le Mesurier admitted to the accountant that he had paid out of the money, which was intended for the White Helmets, to himself. ... After Le Mesurier’s death, the donor countries instigated a forensic inquiry of Mayday’s books. The governments involved wish to keep this inquiry secret, according to the new Mayday administrator, Cor Vrieswijk. This paper has had access to the inquiry’s summary. The summary says that there is no evidence for embezzlement. However, most of the financial administration of Mayday is missing. Some of the larger transactions can therefore not be checked anymore. The fraud reported by Le Mesurier himself is the result of a ‘misunderstanding’, according to the investigators. ... In addition, Le Mesurier, his wife – also one of the administrators – and a third administrator would pay themselves cash bonuses, on top of their salaries. Vrieswijk calls the salaries ‘excessive’. ‘But the donor countries knew about this and had given their consent.’ ... This spring, Mayday suspended its financial director. He had ‘an initiating role’ in bringing the problems at Mayday to light, was the conclusion of the Amsterdam court in a verdict concerning the employment conflict. (NLTimes.nl - Janine Pieters - Dutch accountant uncovers fraud behind Syria rescue organization White Helmets: report, 17 July 2020)

Haaretz - Ofer Aderet - Bombshell: Fake News From Pre-state Days of Jewish Underground Militias, 20 July 2020: For years, a special report gathered dust in the archives alleging that the forerunner to the Israeli army paid the Irgun to blow up the King David Hotel. Three months after Jerusalem’s King David Hotel was blown up in July 1946, an unusual report appeared in the intelligence service of the Haganah. “The Haganah paid 70,000 Palestine pounds to the Irgun to blow up the King David Hotel,” stated the document, which has been gathering dust in an archive for decades. ... He discovered the document as part of in-depth research, revealing that a more complex story lies behind the story, centering on a Jewish journalist who was denounced as a liar and a traitor: George Marantz.

The Guardian - Eveline Chao - The 'perfect Uighur': outgoing and hard working – but still not safe from China's camps, 21 July 2020.

The Independent - Andy Gregory - Scientists bring dormant microbes to life after 100 million years on sea floor in discovery boosting life on Mars hopes, 29 July 2020: The organisms are from the oldest marine sediment samples ever studied, collected 10 years ago during an expedition to the South Pacific Gyre, from up to 75 metres below the seafloor and nearly 6,000 metres below the ocean’s surface. They have remained in an energy-saving state since dinosaurs roamed the planet, in an atmosphere where living conditions are harsh and the nutrients that fuel the marine food chain are extremely limited.

The Guardian - Oliver Wainwright - Looted landmarks: how Notre-Dame, Big Ben and St Mark's were stolen from the east, 13 August 2020: And so she has, with Stealing from the Saracens, an exhilarating, meticulously researched book that sheds light on centuries of borrowing, tracing the roots of Europe’s major buildings – from the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey to Chartres cathedral and St Mark’s basilica in Venice – back to their Middle Eastern precedents.

Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign - Mick Napier - Scottish Friends of Israel's fake Facebook page posted anti-semitic material, 16 August 2020.

The Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - This is the bogus anti-Semitism report that sank Jeremy Corbyn, 24 August 2020: The road to Jeremy Corbyn’s political downfall began at Oxford University Labour Club in February 2016. A rogue inquiry by a Labour staffer with close ties to the Israeli embassy included fabricated allegations of anti-Semitism. ... It also triggered Labour’s “anti-Semitism crisis” in earnest. ... After a four-year investigation, The Electronic Intifada has obtained the full Rubin report, which has never been published. Michael Rubin, who wrote it, was chair of the right-wing group Labour Students. But the “inquiry” was his own initiative and had not been mandated by either Labour’s leader or its ruling National Executive Committee. Rubin was also collaborating with Shai Masot, an Israeli “diplomat” who would be kicked out of the UK the following year. Soon after writing the report, Rubin was hired by Labour Friends of Israel, a group which secretly coordinates with the Israeli embassy in London. ... Rubin’s “evidence” is at best tenuous. But it also includes outright falsehoods. ... The full document also suggests Rubin covered up allegations of racism by right-wingers in the Labour club – even alleged anti-Semitism. ... One anonymous student quoted in the document states that during the club’s debate over Israeli Apartheid Week, a Palestinian student was “shouted down by the chair of the meeting, Alex Chalmers, called a terrorist sympathizer and subject to particularly aggressive questioning and speeches,” especially by David Klemperer, another right-winger. ... Chalmers’ false allegations of anti-Semitism against the Oxford University Labour Club made international headlines after his resignation as co-chair on the night of the vote for Palestinian rights on 15 February 2016. ... Rubin had been close with Israeli embassy agent Shai Masot even before he started working for Labour Friends of Israel in May 2016. ... The footage shows Rubin admitting to an undercover reporter that Labour Friends of Israel was essentially a front for the Israelis, but that “publicly we just try to keep the LFI as a separate identity to the embassy.” It also revealed that the embassy finances Labour Friends of Israel’s activities.

Forward - Aiden Pink - U.S. pro-Israel groups failed to disclose grants from Israeli government, 31 August 2020: More than half of all American states have passed laws designed to combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. No advocacy group was more important to this push than the Israel Allies Foundation, an American non-profit that supports a network of pro-Israel legislators across the globe. ... Public records obtained by The Forward show that the Israeli government approved a grant of more than $100,000 to the Israel Allies Foundation in 2019. The IAF has not disclosed this or any previous Israeli grants to the United States government, in possible violation of laws requiring American political advocacy groups to disclose foreign-government contributions. ... It is one of 11 American groups that received Israeli government funds, according to the documents, which show that the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs and a quasi-governmental organization it created have given at least $6.6 million to U.S. organizations since 2018. These grants, along with millions more that went to groups in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Israel itself, were to further the country’s public diplomacy efforts, particularly against BDS.

The Guardian - Giles Tremlett - Operation Condor: the illegal state network that terrorised South America. 03 September 2020: During the cold war, eight US-backed military dictatorships jointly plotted the cross-border kidnap, torture, rape and murder of hundreds of their political opponents. Now some of the perpetrators are finally facing justice.

The Guardian - Kehinde Andrews - Paul Stephenson: the hero who refused to leave a pub – and helped desegregate Britain, 01 October 2020: When he sat down in a pub that banned black people, Stephenson helped change Britain’s discrimination laws. He talks about organising the Bristol bus boycott, attacks from the National Front – and why Muhammad Ali composed a poem about him.

The Grayzone - Aaron Maté - Ex-OPCW chief Jose Bustani reads Syria testimony that US, UK blocked at UN, 05 October 2020: "My name is José Bustani. I am honoured to have been invited to present a statement for this meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the Syrian chemical dossier and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. As the OPCW’s first Director General, a position I held from 1997 to 2002, I naturally retain a keen interest in the evolution and fortunes of the Organisation. I have been particularly interested in recent developments regarding the Organisation’s work in Syria. For those of you who are not aware, I was removed from office following a US-orchestrated campaign in 2002 for, ironically, trying to uphold the Chemical Weapons Convention. My removal was subsequently ruled to be illegal by the International Labour Organisation’s Administrative Tribunal, but despite this unpleasant experience the OPCW remains close to my heart." (YouTube}

Free Speech on Israel - Counsel’s opinion on the IHRA definition, opinion by Hugh Tomlinson QC, 05 October 20020: "I am asked by Free Speech on Israel, Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for Justice for Palestinians and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to provide an Opinion on the effect of the Government’s decision to “adopt” the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (“IHRA”) non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism (“the IHRA Definition”)." [19]

Jacobin - Caren Holmes - The Campaign to “Kill” the BDS Movement Against Israel Extends Far and Wide, 06 October 2020: In recent weeks, the US State Department has committed to “target,” “fight,” and “kill” the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, a non-violent political campaign exercising free speech on American soil. ... The State Department’s commitment to “kill” this liberation struggle, a movement modeled on the international boycotts against apartheid South Africa, is part of a nationwide right-wing push to suppress criticism of Israel. US State Department Special Envoy’s Elan Carr has claimed that attempts to “economically strangle the state of Israel” are unequivocally anti-Semitic and said that the department’s efforts to clamp down on BDS would include targeting even those campaigns which call for boycotting goods produced by companies profiting from the expansion of illegal settlements in Palestinian Occupied Territories. Despite citing economics as a justification for their anti-BDS campaigns, the US State Department and its partners in the Israel lobby admit that boycotts do not pose a viable threat to Israel’s economic security. The US government and the Israel lobby instead fear the political motivations of the movement and the growing successes of its capacity to shift public opinion toward Israel’s apartheid regime.

The Skwawkbox - Jewish Chronicle, Pollard and Harpin apologise and pay damages (yet again) for fake news accusing left activist of antisemitism, 10 October 2020: The Chronicle, which also paid Ms Al-Sanjari’s legal costs, accepted that all its accusations were ‘completely unfounded’ and has published the apology on its website ... The paper and its hacks are repeat offenders. Earlier this year, the rag apologised and paid out a hefty sum to Liverpool pensioner and Labour activist Audrey White for a ‘litany of lies’ – also penned by Harpin – and was hammered by its own regulator IPSO for its failure to check the accuracy of its claims, to withdraw its lies even when challenged, or even to cooperate with IPSO’s investigation. ... As in the Al-Sanjari case, the Chronicle did even try to defend its claims or conduct in court. Last year, the paper also paid £50,000 plus legal costs to UK Palestinian aid charity Interpal after libellously claiming it was associated with terrorism. The Jewish Chronicle was bailed out from its financial woes earlier this year by a consortium including John Ware, who made last year’s Panorama programme alleging antisemitism in the Labour Party, former MP John Woodcock – who left Labour before the party’s investigation into ‘sex pest’ allegations was completed and now works for the Tory government – former BBC executive and Tory spin doctor Robbie Gibb and others.

The Guardian - Simon Hattenstone - Ultraviolence: the shocking, brutal film about deaths in police custody, 12 October 2020: Two decades ago the police tried to silence Ken Fero’s fearless documentary Injustice. Twenty years later, his follow-up is filled with even more pain and outrage.

The Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Jewish Chronicle admits libeling Labour councilor over “anti-Semitism”, 14 October 2020: In a series of articles published last year, The Jewish Chronicle writer Lee Harpin claimed that Nada al-Sanjari, who is Muslim, had invited an “anti-Semitic activist” to speak at a Labour Party event. But the activist was Jewish Voice for Labour secretary Glyn Secker – who al-Sanjari had never invited in any case. In an apology published online and in print, The Jewish Chronicle withdrew its claims against al-Sanjari. It also agreed to pay her “a substantial sum” in libel damages as well as her legal costs, her lawyers said. ... The articles containing the false claims against al-Sanjari were deleted from the paper’s website. Harpin and his editor Stephen Pollard have also apologized to her, according to al-Sanjari’s lawyers. The paper falsely claimed that the councillor had launched “a vicious protest” against Jewish lawmaker Luciana Berger “in terms suggestive of anti-Semitism,” al-Sanjari’s lawyers said. ... Secker, who is Jewish, was suspended from Labour in 2018 after false allegations of anti-Semitism. He was only reinstated after “a chorus of angry voices” campaigned for a reversal. A spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain said the stories smearing al-Sanjari are only “the latest in a long line of appalling articles by The Jewish Chronicle related to Muslims.” ... In February, The Jewish Chronicle apologized and paid damages to Labour activist Audrey White after a series of articles attacking her over supposed anti-Semitism in the Labour Party in Liverpool. In September 2019, the paper agreed to pay $60,000 in damages to Interpal, a British charity which aids Palestinians.

AntiWar.com - Romana Rubeo, Ramzy Baroud - Zionist War on Palestinian Festival in Rome Is Ominous Sign of Things to Come, 17 October 2020: The latest episode began on September 24, when the Palestinian community in Rome announced plans to hold ‘Falastin – Festival della Palestina’, a cultural event that aims at illustrating the richness of Palestinian culture in all of its grandeur. The idea behind it is not to simply humanize Palestinians in the eyes of ordinary Italians, but to explore commonalities, to cement bonds and to build bridges. However, for Israel’s allies in Italy, even such unthreatening objectives were too much to bear. ... But clarity followed soon when, on September 30, the Jewish Community of Rome issued a statement expressing outrage at the II Municipio for allegedly sponsoring "an anti-Semitic festival". Taking advantage of the deliberate distortion between anti-Semitism and the legitimate criticism of apartheid Israel, the Community’s representatives raged on about BDS and the alleged boycott of Jewish businesses. ... Based on that logic, the statement concluded that, one, "the BDS movement is anti-Semitic" and, two, "the II Municipio is legitimizing anti-Jewish hatred". In a clearly coordinated move, the Wiesenthal Center, which often poses as a progressive organization, also went on the attack. On the same day that the Jewish Community of Rome released its statement, the Center dispatched a letter to Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, also recounting the same false claims of BDS’ alleged anti-Semitism, the IHRA definition and so on. The Center stooped so low as to compare the BDS movement to Germany’s Nazi program. It claimed that the Palestinian boycott movement was, in fact, inspired by the Nazis’ boycott of Jews, referencing the slogan "Kaufen nicht bei Juden" (Do not buy from Jews).

The Independent - Patrick Cockburn - Robert Fisk had true independence of mind – which is why he angered governments and parts of the media, 14 November 2020: It was also self-evident that partisan critics were not going to apologise and retire in embarrassment if their mendacity or misinformation was exposed, but would simply replace one set of lies with another. The effectiveness of this brazen disregard for truth is demonstrated daily by Donald Trump who almost won re-election despite repeated exposure. ... He understood that people who are trying to kill each other will not hesitate to lie about each other, and about anybody, notably about journalists, whose information – particularly if it is true – they deem not to be in their interests. ... It was all too easy to be demonised as a pawn of Saddam Hussein in 2003 if one said, as Robert frequently did, that the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq would end badly. Similar denunciations of partiality were directed against anybody who wrote about the Syrian conflict post-2011 as a genuine civil war, described the armed Arab opposition as being mostly jihadis, and suggested that Bashar al-Assad was likely to stay as leader, given the balance of power between those fighting each other. Governments and other proponents of such views do not like to be contradicted and will put great energy into seeking to discredit those who do so. ... In later years, I would become irritated or bored by such venomous tittle-tattle, and started to ask those who expressed it to justify what they were claiming. Almost invariably they would look alarmed at being challenged and then repeat some third-hand piece of gossip, or say that they had been where Robert was and had not witnessed what he had seen. But when I probed further, it usually turned out that they had not been quite as close to the front line as he was and they had not stayed there for as long as he had. None of this malicious gossip matters very much and falls into the category of partisan criticism that Robert and I counselled each other to ignore. Some of it surfaced in the obituaries of Robert, though most laud him as a magnificent reporter and historian. Certainly, he was the best journalist I have ever known. ... At the heart of this was relentless and meticulous eyewitness reporting of events, a refusal to see complex conflicts in terms of black and white, while not surrendering to moral indifference and keeping a sense of outrage when confronted with real evil. Above all, perhaps, he showed an unbending refusal to back down when what he said was being denied, denounced or ignored by politicians and the media. Such an approach seems to me to be obviously right, but it is very different from the approach to journalism which is conveniently exemplified by an obituary of Robert appearing in The Times, for whom he worked for 17 years until joining The Independent in 1989. It cites, as an example of his partiality for victims over perpetrators, his account of the massacre of over a thousand Palestinian men, women and children in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut in 1982. ... It is curious – and depressing – to find commentators who are still shocked by a journalist who criticised government policies at the time that they were being implemented, even when they have since become thoroughly discredited. Robert reporting from Iraq in 2003 was highly critical of the invasion and led, according to The Times, which appears to consider this a weighty point, to the long-forgotten British defence minister of the day, denouncing Fisk’s reports as showing him to be “a dupe of Saddam Hussein’s regime”.

AntiWar.com - Dave De Camp - Pompeo: State Department to Designate BDS Movement as ‘Anti-Semitic’, 19 November 2020: Pompeo calls BDS a 'cancer' during visit with Netanyahu in Jerusalem ... “Today I want to make one announcement with respect to a decision by the State Department that we will regard the global anti-Israel BDS campaign as anti-Semitic,” Pompeo said while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. “Look, we want to stand with all other nations that recognize the BDS movement for the cancer that it is, and we’re committed to combating it.” ... Thirty-two US states currently have anti-BDS laws on the books that deny state funds to those who advocate boycotting Israel. The laws require state contractors to sign oaths pledging not to boycott the Jewish state. Such unconstitutional laws were passed due to lavish lobbying campaigns from pro-Israel groups. Israeli officials have also promoted the laws. “Whoever boycotts us will be boycotted,” Netanyahu said in a tweet in February. “In recent years, we have promoted laws in most US states, which determine that strong action is to be taken against whoever tries to boycott Israel.”[20] Pompeo also visited a settlement in the West Bank on Thursday, making him the first US secretary of state to visit the occupied territory. Pompeo announced that any products made in West Bank settlements can now be labeled “Made in Israel.”

The Guardian - Richard Lea - Jan Morris, historian, travel writer and trans pioneer, dies aged 94, 20 November 2020: A disagreement with the Times over its stance on Anthony Eden’s adventure in Suez saw Morris join the Guardian, heading for Egypt when Israel launched an invasion. Returning through the Sinai desert with Israeli forces, Morris noticed Egyptian lorries and tanks that had been completely incinerated. When she fell into conversation with some French fighter pilots based at an airport outside Tel Aviv, she discovered they had been supporting the Israeli campaign with napalm bombs. The report was the first evidence of French collusion in the Suez conflict, lifting the lid on a plan that forced Eden to resign and left Britain humiliated. ... Rebecca West admitted that “now we are both women he mystifies me”. Noting acerbically that, as a man, “he had all the pleasures he wanted”, West questioned the validity of Morris’s identity: “She sounds not like a woman, but like a man’s idea of a woman, and curiously enough, the idea of a man not nearly so intelligent as James Morris used to be … I cannot accept Conundrum as the story of a true change of sex.”

Morning Star - Bethany Rielly - Labour leader accused of ‘direct’ political interference in purge of party members, 23 November 2020: However, data accessed by former Labour member Rebecca Massey, including an email chain from officials in the complaints department, suggests that the leader’s office played a role in her expulsion. Ms Massey, a prominent Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) member, was expelled in May this year, along with others. The documents she received included a list compiled by the Board of Deputies of British Jews calling for her “permanent expulsion.” The secret document, entitled Outstanding Labour Anti-Semitism Cases, highlighted those of 11 Labour members which it claimed were “among the most serious we have seen.” Posts picked out by the board included Ms Bassey accusing former Labour MP Chukka Umuna of “swallowing the conflation of zionist with Jew.” Jewish Voice for Labour’s (JVL) Mike Cushman said that there was nothing in her posts that could be interpreted as anti-semitic. ... Ms Bassey was suspended exactly a week after the board’s document was submitted to the Labour Party. She told Electronic Intifada that she considered the document to be a “political hit list.” A chain of emails between officials in the party’s complaints department was also received by the campaigner. Correspondence discussing her suspension were forwarded to “LOTO” — a reference to the leader of the opposition’s office. This suggests that the Labour leader may have initiated the suspensions or known of them from the outset. “The direct political interference of Keir Starmer’s office in these cases is totally inappropriate. It is yet another case of ‘one rule for us, another rule for them’,” Mr Cushman added. “If Becky’s case is, as the BoD claim in their briefing paper, ‘among the most serious we have seen,’ it would suggest that any problem of anti-semitism in the Labour Party is far smaller than the Board of Deputies and their allies have been asserting.”

The Guardian - Kehinde Andrews - Minnijean Brown-Trickey: the teenager who needed an armed guard to go to school, 26 November 2020: As one of the Little Rock Nine, she was just 16 years old when she defied racist mobs at the school gates.

+972 - Antony Lerman - Fighting Labour antisemitism must not come at the cost of Palestinian rights, 26 November 2020: Lost amid this fast-moving saga, however, was a critical appraisal of the EHRC’s findings. Repetitive, bureaucratic, and overly fixated on process and procedure, the report places enormous weight on the only two instances of actionable unlawful behavior by the party, and is more significant for what it does not, rather than does say. Notably, the report does not conclude that the party is institutionally antisemitic, even as those who welcomed the findings drew that conclusion. More problematic is the EHRC’s failure to define its understanding of antisemitism on which the report’s judgments are based — even as it criticizes Labour for having a rule book that “does not provide any guidance on the meaning of antisemitism.” For example, the report stresses that there is no protection for “antisemitic criticism” of Israel, but fails to define what that, or “legitimate criticism,” consists of. Moreover, the EHRC admits that it “may have [had] regard to” the non-legally binding, though hugely controversial, IHRA working definition of antisemitism. But why be so coy about it when the party itself, after intensive internal wrangling, adopted the definition in full?

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Guardian censors Jeremy Corbyn cartoon, 26 November 2020: The Guardian has censored Steve Bell, one of the UK’s leading political cartoonists.

The Guardian - Dalya Alberge - 'Sistine Chapel of the ancients' rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest, 29 November 2020: One of the world’s largest collections of prehistoric rock art has been discovered in the Amazonian rainforest. Hailed as “the Sistine Chapel of the ancients”, archaeologists have found tens of thousands of paintings of animals and humans created up to 12,500 years ago across cliff faces that stretch across nearly eight miles in Colombia.

The Grayzone - Aaron Maté - OPCW executives praised whistleblower and criticized Syria cover-up, leaks reveal, 07 December 2020.

Middle East Monitor - New Israeli ambassador in Britain describes Nakba as 'Arab lie', 08 December 2021: Israel's new Ambassador to the United Kingdom, 42-year-old Tzipi Hotovely has used her first speech during an event organised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews to describe the Nakba as "a very strong and very popular Arab lie." She added that the displacement of Palestinians since 1948, when Israel was created in their land, is "a made up story". ... Senior Reform Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner also criticised Hotovely's record. "Her political views on Palestinians, annexation and religious pluralism clash with our core values," she told the Guardian. Labour peer Lord Jeremy Beecham told the Jewish Chronicle that, "The appointment of an ultra-right wing ambassador, while typical of the present government of Israel, will do nothing to win friends in the UK – or indeed any other reasonable country." In June, when Hotovely's appointment was first announced, it looked as though her views were too extreme even for the Board of Deputies. According to the Jewish Chronicle, she launched an outspoken attack on the Board over its support for a Palestinian state in its 2019 Jewish Manifesto. She accused the 260-year-old body of failing to consult "Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, our ambassador, [or] any other political authority" ahead of the manifesto's release. (Na'amod: "UK Government: Reject Settlements Minister as Israel’s New Ambassador" petition.[21])

Mint Press News - Miko Peled - Netanyahu’s Days May Be Numbered, but a Cadre of Far-Right Fanatics Wait in the Wings, 14 December 2020: The religious Zionist movement has, until recently, been treated as a fringe group, but they have long been on the cutting edge of the Zionist project, and most post-1967 Zionist expansion can be credited to them. ... While serving as defense minister, Bennett said, “the ICC comes from an antisemitic starting point, such that Israel will always lose because it is the Jewish State and Israel should not try to ingratiate itself to the court.” Further, he is quoted as saying, “The Hague is the workshop of modern antisemitism.” ... Bennett has served as an officer in some of the IDF’s most murderous terror units and is known to defend IDF soldiers and commanders who commit war crimes. During Israel’s 1996 criminal excursion into southern Lebanon, Bennett commanded a reconnaissance unit and personally ordered an artillery attack on the UN compound in Qana village, where hundreds of Lebanese civilians had taken shelter. The attack caused the death of over 100 civilians who had fled there to take shelter. ... Smotrich is one of the founders of the Regavim organization, known for its campaigns to terrorize Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank. In their well-funded campaigns, they claim Palestinians are “stealing Jewish land and water, taking over lands that are not theirs, and building illegally.” It’s a radical organization of right-wing religious Zionists who promote racism and violence. ... “The Land of Israel was desolate and empty,” Smotrich stated, referring to Palestine as “Eretz Yisrael.” ... In a rare speech delivered in English, he added that “Only when they [the Palestinian people, MP] give up on their national aspirations here in the Land of Israel will there be a chance for peace.” ... Smotrich is careful not to discuss the issue of Jerusalem and the building of a so-called “Jewish Temple” to replace the 1,500-year-old Al-Aqsa Mosque, a mainstay of the religious Zionist right. While detailed plans are being made and millions of dollars invested to that end, all he says is that this will be done in accordance with the will of the Almighty. Smotrich has referred to Arabs as uncivilized and barbaric and referred to himself as a “proud homophobe” and the Gay Pride Parade as a “parade of beasts.” He called the Palestinian Bedouin a demographic ticking time bomb and said something must be done about their fast growth as a community.

Spiked - Kevin Rooney - Remembering the Belfast Pogrom, 18 December 2020: This was a terror campaign lasting 20 months from 1920 until 1922. It was unleashed against Catholics in the greater Belfast area to ‘teach them a lesson’, and silence all opposition to the establishment of a Northern Ireland state. The pogrom involved large-scale expulsions of Catholics from their workplaces and from districts where they were a small minority, and violent attacks on isolated Catholic populations.

Morning Star - Ian Sinclair - The poisonous propaganda behind the Iraq war still has purchase today, 19 December 2020: The thesis that Hussein tricked the rest of the world into thinking Iraq had WMDs is surprisingly common. ... Compare these claims with public statements from Saddam Hussein and other members of the Iraqi government. ... As anyone who had a passing interest in the news circa 2002-03 will remember, the UK government’s lies and deceptions on Iraq were numerous, relentless and increasingly blatant. For example, Blair repeatedly said he wanted to resolve the issue of Iraq and WMD through the United Nations. The historical evidence suggests something very different. ... The Head of MI6 is summarised as saying “Military action was now seen as inevitable” in Washington. “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” The minutes summarise Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as saying the case for war “was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.” ... Summarising the findings of the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War, the Guardian noted in July 2016: “Chilcot finds that Blair deliberately exaggerated the threat posed by the Iraqi regime as he sought to make the case for military action to MPs.” Largely ignored by the media at the time, and rarely mentioned since, is the testimony of Iraqi general Hussein Kamel, the head of Iraq’s weapons programme in the 1980s and 1990s, which was leaked to Newsweek magazine. Speaking to UN inspectors in Jordan in 1995 Kamel, who was Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law, said: “I ordered the destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons — biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed.” However, not only did the Blair government fail to disclose this important information in the run-up to the war, Blair shamelessly cited Kamel when he pushed for war in parliament on March 18 2003: “Hussain Kamel defected to Jordan. He disclosed a far more extensive BW [biological weapons] programme and for the first time said Iraq had weaponsied the programme.”

Counterpunch - Dan Glazebrook - The Tragedy of Corbynism, A Postmortem, 27 December 2020: At the outset of this process, it is essential to recognise some basic political realities. Firstly, the UK is an imperial entity. ... The basic contours of the world economy created by colonialism – a system of wealth transference from Asia, Africa and Latin America to North America and Western Europe – remain intact, and have indeed been strengthened and perfected in the era of neo-colonialism, to the extent that net resource transfers from the global South to the North today amount to roughly $3trillion per year ... The domestic accomplishments of Clement Attlee’s Labour government – the NHS, social housing, the welfare state – were largely paid for by the intensified exploitation of the colonies, and colonialism has underwritten social democracy ever since. ... Thirdly, Britain has consistently used its military might to protect and defend this colonial wealth transfer whenever it has been under threat. ... Social democracy in Britain has always reflected this colonial reality; it has always been a fight over the spoils of colonialism, rather than a challenge to it. The need to uphold and defend the colonial wealth transfer at the heart of world capitalism has always been the singular point of agreement between governments of left and right in the UK. It was, after all, the Attlee government that initiated both Britain’s nuclear weapons programme and NATO, as well as sending troops to Greece, Malaya and Korea to drown their revolutions in blood and restore the rule of more pliant local aristocrats; and it was Tony Blair’s New Labour who spearheaded illegal Anglo-American aggression against Serbia and Iraq as well as sending troops to Sierra Leone and invading Afghanistan, for the fourth time in Britain’s modern history. All of these interventions, from Attlee to Blair, can best be understood as wars to contain threats to colonial ‘global capitalism’ in general (as Christopher Doran has comprehensively shown in the case of Iraq) and British corporate interests in particular (as documented by Mark Curtis). ... Saudi Arabia had begun bombing Yemen in March 2015 in an unsuccessful attempt to restore their hated stooge President Hadi to power following his ouster in a popular rebellion that had quickly gained control of 80% of the country.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - Soas repay student's £15,000 fees over 'toxic antisemitic environment', 29 December 2020: Soas University of London has refunded a student £15,000 in fees after he said he was forced to abandon his studies because of a “toxic antisemitic environment”. ... The move comes amid pressure on universities to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. ... Noah Lewis, a Canadian, was enrolled as a student at Soas in the academic year 2018/19. He claimed that during his time at Soas, Jews and people who were pro-Israel were labelled as “Zionists”, antisemitic graffiti and symbols were found on lockers, desks and toilet walls, and many people publicly stated their support for the BDS movement, which promotes boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel.

Haaretz - Chemi Shalev - Farewell to Haaretz and All Its Readers – but Especially American Jews, 31 December 2020: After hopefully averting four more years with Trump, relieved American Jews who still care about Israel might rethink whether their top priority is to blindly back the policies of whatever government is in power there or to make sure their cherished values aren’t snuffed out in Israel as well. Many Israelis believe American Jews require their protection, but it could very well turn out to be the other way round. ... Despite its handicap of publishing in a foreign language, Landau made The Post into a force to be reckoned with by virtue of its numerous scoops and hard-hitting reporting. This may have been the reason why Netanyahu – the same one, of course – prodded David Radler more than 30 years ago to engineer the newspaper’s acquisition by Conrad Black and his Canadian Hollinger group, who promptly turned The Post from a widely-respected and quoted newspaper to a right-wing rag of no importance, as it remained during most of their 14 years of ownership. Over the course of my career, I have personally witnessed and may have collaborated at times with the steady decline of Israeli journalism. After The Post I went to Davar, which the Labor Party and Histadrut shortsightedly closed shortly after I left for Maariv. Maariv sacrificed its journalistic integrity at the altar of a wiretapping scandal involving owner Ofer Nimrodi. ... Like other newspapers big and small around the world, Haaretz had hardly come to terms with the loss of advertising revenue to television before it was blindsided by the free content on the Internet, robbed in broad daylight of its already diminished income by Google, Facebook et al., and then exposed to the vicious and malicious anti-media campaign conducted by Netanyahu and the nationalist right, for which Haaretz is a prime target. As with Trump, it’s not a fair and balanced media that Netanyahu is seeking; it’s the truth that he can’t handle and certainly doesn’t want his fans to hear.

2021

Consortium News - Chris Hedges - The Empire is Not Done with Julian Assange, 04 January 2021 {Scheerpost}: As is clear from the memoir of one of his attorneys, Michael Ratner, the ends have always justified the means for those demanding the WikiLeaks‘ publisher’s global persecution. ... Assange had just returned to London from Sweden where he had attempted to create the legal framework to protect WikiLeaks’ servers in Sweden. Shortly after his arrival in Stockholm, his personal bank cards were blocked. ... Assange was granted permission to leave the country. He flew to Berlin. When Assange arrived in Berlin three encrypted laptops with documents detailing U.S. war crimes had disappeared from his luggage. ... Assange earned the eternal enmity of the Democratic Party establishment by publishing 70,000 hacked emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee and senior Democratic officials. The emails were copied from the accounts of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. The Podesta emails exposed the donation of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and identified both nations as major funders of Islamic State [ISIL/ISIS]. They exposed the $657,000 that Goldman Sachs paid to Hillary Clinton to give talks, a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe. They exposed Clinton’s repeated mendacity. She was caught in the emails, for example, telling the financial elites that she wanted “open trade and open borders” and believed Wall Street executives were best positioned to manage the economy, a statement that contradicted her campaign statements. They exposed the Clinton campaign’s efforts to influence the Republican primaries to ensure that Donald Trump was the Republican nominee. They exposed Clinton’s advance knowledge of questions in a primary debate. They exposed Clinton as the principal architect of the war in Libya, a war she believed would burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate. The Democratic Party, which routinely blames Russia for its election loss to Trump, charges that the Podesta emails were obtained by Russian government hackers. Hillary Clinton has called WikiLeaks a Russian front. James Comey, the former FBI director, however, conceded that the emails were probably delivered to WikiLeaks by an intermediary, and Assange has said the emails were not provided by “state actors.” ... A few weeks after Ratner’s first meeting with Assange, WikiLeaks published 220 documents from Cablegate, the U.S. State Department classified cables that Chelsea Manning had provided to WikiLeaks. ... Some of the most stunning revelations:

• In 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered U.S. diplomats to spy on UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and other UN representatives from China, France, Russia and the U.K. The information she asked for included DNA, iris scans, fingerprints and personal passwords. U.S. and British diplomats also eavesdropped on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
• The U.S. has been secretly launching missile, bomb and drone attacks on terrorist targets in Yemen, killing civilians. But to protect the U.S., Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told Gen. David Petraeus, “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours.”
• Saudi King Abdullah repeatedly urged the U.S. to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities to “cut off the head of the snake.” Other leaders from Israel, Jordan and Bahrain also urged the U.S. to attack Iran.
• The White House and Secretary of State Clinton refused to condemn the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew elected President Manuel Zelaya, ignoring a cable from the U.S. embassy there that described the coup as “illegal and unconstitutional.” Instead of calling for the restoration of Zelaya, the U.S. supported elections orchestrated by the coup’s leader, Roberto Micheletti. Opposition leaders and international observers boycotted those elections.

The Guardian - David Daley - Trump is trying to thwart democracy itself. But the problem is deeper than one man, 05 January 2020: Republicans have carefully cultivated rot in the voting system. It didn’t start with Trump and it won’t end after he leaves. ... On Sunday, the Washington Post published smoking-gun audio of Donald Trump pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to reverse the election outcome and declare Trump the winner, or face potential legal consequences. ... The party has subverted free and fair elections for years, in ways so ordinary that they’ve been accepted as politics as usual for far too long. Republican gerrymandering – the manipulation of electoral constituencies in favor of one party – in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin has locked in Republican control of state legislatures even when their candidates win hundreds of thousands fewer votes statewide. ... Republicans drew themselves similarly friendly maps for Congress and state legislatures in Texas, Ohio and Florida. ... The threat only grows more urgent. Republicans’ gerrymandering strategy, known as Redmap, was executed in 2010.

The Jewish Chronicle - Lee Harpin - Ex-Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp set to become BBC's third Jewish chairman, 06 January 2021: The son of Lord Sharp of Grimsdyke - formerly Eric Sharp - the new BBC chair was one of three children born to parents who were members of Westminster Synagogue. ... Mr Sharp has previously donated money to the Tory Party – but he was also linked to the former centrist group United for Change.

The Guardian - Rebecca Solnit - Call it what it was: a coup attempt, 06 January 2020: On Wednesday, a coup attempt was led by the president of the United States. A rightwing mob attempted the coup in the form of a violent riot that stormed the Capitol building. They disrupted the proceedings that would have completed the recognition of the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Those proceedings had been disrupted earlier by elected officials bringing forth bad-faith claims that the election was not legitimate and should instead produce a continuation of Trump’s presidency. This too was a coup attempt, an attempt to violate the constitution and override the will of the voters in this election.

The Guardian - Harriet Sherwood - Williamson wrong to force universities to abide by antisemitism definition, say lawyers, 07 January 2021: A group of eminent lawyers, including two former appeal court judges, has accused Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, of “improper interference” with universities’ autonomy and right to free expression. They say that Williamson’s insistence that universities adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism or face sanctions is “legally and morally wrong”. Their statement comes amid some academic resistance to Williamson’s letter to university vice-chancellors in October, in which he warned: “If I haven’t seen the overwhelming majority of institutions adopting the [IHRA] definition by Christmas, then I will act.” ... According to the report of a working group set up by UCL’s academic board, the definition and examples “disproportionately draw debate over Israel and Palestine into conversations around antisemitism, potentially conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism … thereby … risking the suppression of legitimate speech and academic research.” ... One critic of the report, Harry Goldstein, claimed its arguments give credence to “precisely the conspiracy theories that are central to classical antisemitism. It must all be a plot to silence criticism of Israel.” In a blogpost, Goldstein – who describes himself as a liberal centre-left supporter of Israel – said the report blurred the distinction between criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism, used tendentious language, and failed to “understand the distinctive nature of antisemitism compared to other racisms”. (The Guardian: Letters: Lawyers and retired judges argue that the IHRA working definition undermines freedom of expression, and Gavin Williamson is wrong to forcefully impose it on universities, 07 January 2021)

Middle East Eye - Richard Sanders, Peter Oborne - Labour and antisemitism: What’s going on at the Forde inquiry?, 11 January 2021: Eight months have passed since eminent barrister Martin Forde was asked to investigate Labour’s leaked report into antisemitism. The report, entitled "The work of the Labour Party's Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014-2019", was commissioned by then-general secretary Jennie Formby, an ally of Jeremy Corbyn, during the dying days of his leadership. It was leaked to the press in April 2020 after Labour Party leader Keir Starmer elected not to publish it. The leaked report produced a mountain of evidence which, if true, largely exonerated Corbyn of the charge that he had been complacent on antisemitism. Instead, it pointed the finger at party officials who had been among his fiercest critics. Forde’s report into that leaked report was due to have been published before the end of 2020. Just before Christmas, it was quietly announced that publication has been delayed until “early in 2021”. But more important still, the Forde inquiry’s terms of reference have been watered down.

Morning Star - Peter Frost - The curious twin lives of Dr David Lewis, 15 January 2021: David Henry Lewis was both a communist London GP and perhaps the most colourful seafaring adventurer of the second half of the last century.

The Guardian - Haroon Siddique - EHRC undermined by pressure to support No 10 agenda, says ex-chair, 18 January 2021: Britain’s equality watchdog is being undermined by political pressure to support the government’s misguided agenda, a former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said. The criticism from David Isaac, the chair of the organisation from 2016 until August last year, follows a spate of controversy surrounding the EHRC, including the revelation of recent government appointees’ past comments about feminism, ethnic minorities and Islamophobia. Isaac said a speech by Liz Truss, the minister for women and equalities, last month announcing a shift in government equality priorities away from gender and race made no pretence of the EHRC being independent, with Truss saying saying the new commissioners would “drive this agenda forward”. He told the Guardian: “She says ‘I’ve appointed a new chair and these new commissioners’, and she doesn’t say ‘they’re going to do my bidding’, but it’s pretty implicit in what she’s saying that they are people who are supportive of her approach to equalities, which is a focus on white working-class people and the north of England and the levelling up agenda. “My view is that an independent regulator shouldn’t be in a position where the governments of the day can actually influence the appointments of that body to support a particular ideology.” Isaac described Truss’s speech as a “call to arms” to equality campaigners such as himself, because it pitted advancement of ethnic minorities’ rights against those of the white working class. ...Addressing the EHRC’s decision to halt an investigation into Conservative party Islamophobia, Isaac said it was only a pause, while the Tories carried out their own inquiry. “It [the party inquiry] was due to report by the end of the year [2020] so I’m interested to know whether or not it has reported or whether it’s slipped,” he said.

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - UK Labour Party hires former Israeli spy, 19 January 2021: The UK Labour Party has hired a former Israeli spy to help manage its social media ... Assaf Kaplan will work in the office of Labour leader Keir Starmer ... Kaplan was in Israeli military intelligence for nearly five years, an officer in Unit 8200, its cyberwarfare branch. Unit 8200 specializes in spying, hacking and encryption. It carries out blackmail, mass surveillance and systematic discrimination against Palestinians. According to his LinkedIn profile, Kaplan was in the Israeli army’s military intelligence division from May 2009 to November 2013. He was a Unit 8200 intelligence analyst and later an officer. ... Another explained that: “Any Palestinian is exposed to nonstop monitoring by the Israeli Big Brother, without legal protection, and with no way of knowing when they too would become an objective – targeted for harassment, extortion or physical injury.” ... He began work in December, a source told The Electronic Intifada. His full job title is “Social Listening and Organizing Manager.” A relatively new trend in public relations, “social listening” is a way for organizations to monitor online conversations about their “brand.” ... His LinkedIn profile states that he was deputy head of the Israeli Labor Party’s campaign for the April 2019 general election to the country’s parliament, the Knesset. ... Labour’s right-wing leader Keir Starmer has obsessively purged the party of left-wing and Palestine solidarity elements since succeeding Jeremy Corbyn last year. ... His Facebook profile shows he is “friends” with both Shai Masot and Michael Rubin. ... A close contact of Masot, Rubin is director of Labour Friends of Israel. ... Rubin was chair of Labour Students in February 2016, when the fabricated “Labour anti-Semitism crisis” against Jeremy Corbyn first kicked off in earnest at Oxford University. Rubin secretly conducted Labour’s first ever “investigation” into alleged anti-Semitism. It was such an obvious hatchet job that it was buried by the party. (The Skwawkbox - Starmer appoints former foreign ‘cyber-spy’ to monitor social media – and right-wing Labour already has ‘form’ for spying on members, 19 January 2021.)

Information Clearing House - Philip Giraldi - Goodbye Sheldon Adelson: The malignant toad is dead, 19 January 2021: He had been suffering from cancer and has been buried at the Mount of Olives Cemetery in Israel. When his body arrived in Israel it was met by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Jonathan Pollard, the most damaging spy in United States history. ... In fact, Adelson was all about the Jewish state, positioning himself as the principal funder of the Republican Party under Donald Trump and receiving in return as a quid pro quo the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA), the move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the recognition of Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, and a virtual concession that the Jewish state could do whatever it wants vis-à-vis the Palestinians, to include expelling them from Palestine. ... Adelson was actively engaged on Israel’s behalf until the week before his death. He provided his casino’s private 737 luxury executive jet to transport Jonathan Pollard “home” to Israel. Pollard has served 30 years in prison after being convicted of espionage and was on parole, which restricted his travel. As yet another a gift to Israel, Donald Trump lifted that restriction, allowing him to fly to Israel where he received a hero’s welcome. It is generally agreed that Pollard was the most damaging spy in American history, having stolen the keys to accessing U.S. communications and information gathering systems. A month after Pollard’s arrest in 1985, C.I.A director William Casey stated: “The Israelis used Pollard to obtain our war plans against the USSR – all of it: the co-ordinates, the firing locations, the sequences, and Israel sold that information to Moscow for more exit visas for Soviet Jews.” ... He famously publicly stated that he wished he had worn the Israeli Army uniform instead of that of the U.S. Army, where he served briefly as a draftee. He also expressed his desire that his son would serve as an Israeli army sniper, presumably allowing him to blow the heads off of Palestinians. In 2013 Adelson advocated ending nuclear negotiations with Iran and instead detonating a nuclear weapon in “the middle of the [Iranian] desert,” followed by a threat to annihilate the capital city Tehran, home to 8.6 million, to force Iran to surrender its essentially non-existent nuclear program. ... And if one is concerned that the Democrats will not be cooperative, they too have their own major donor similar to Adelson. He is an Israeli film producer named Haim Saban, who, echoing a similar statement by Adelson, said that he is a one issue guy and that issue is Israel.

Information Clearing House - Rebecca Gordon - The Rubble of Empire, Doctrines of Disaster and Dreams of Security as the Biden Years Begin, 19 January 2021: U.S. economic, military, and political influence has long extended far beyond those internationally recognized possessions and various presidents have enunciated a series of “doctrines” to legitimate such an imperial reach. Monroe: The first of these was the Monroe Doctrine, introduced in 1823 in President James Monroe’s penultimate State of the Union address. He warned the nations of Europe that, while the United States recognized existing colonial possessions in the Americas, it would not permit the establishment of any new ones.President Teddy Roosevelt would later add a corollary to Monroe’s doctrine by establishing Washington’s right to intercede in any country in the Americas that, in the view of its leaders, was not being properly run. “Chronic wrongdoing,” he said in a 1904 message to Congress, “may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation.” The United States, he suggested, might find itself forced, “however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.” In the first quarter of the twentieth century, that Roosevelt Corollary would be used to justify U.S. occupations of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua. Truman: Teddy’s cousin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, publicly renounced the Monroe Doctrine and promised a hands-off attitude towards Latin America, which came to be known as the Good Neighbor Policy. It didn’t last long, however. In a 1947 address to Congress, the next president, Harry S. Truman, laid out what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, which would underlie the country’s foreign policy at least until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It held that U.S. national security interests required the “containment” of existing Communist states and the prevention of the further spread of Communism anywhere on Earth.

Israel Today - As America Declines, Will Israel Become the New Superpower?, 19 January 2021: Top rabbi says that while it might seem presumptuous, it is Israel’s destiny to lead civilization forward. ... Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu (pictured), the Chief Rabbi of Safed and a member of the Israel’s Rabbinate Council, says that we are witnessing the beginning of the end of America as a superpower, thus paving the way for Israel to take its place in guiding civilization forward. ... The Rabbi points out correctly that there is a vacuum in moral leadership in the world today and believes that it is Israel’s destiny to take up this role. “Israel leads the world in protecting family values,” he stresses. “The average number of children for an Israeli woman is double the average of the Western world, and that is what drives the successful Israeli economy and ingenuity.”

The Guardian - Frederick Forsyth - Buried for 50 years: Britain’s shameful role in the Biafran war, 21 January 2020: A million children starved to death. I’m haunted by the images I saw there – and by the complicity of the Wilson government.

Prole Star - Forde Report 'Rewritten To Protect The Guilty?, 23 January 2021: The Prole Star has received information from a source within Labour, who claims that the report's original draft implicated several prominent figures including at least one current Shadow Cabinet member in the bullying, racism and sabotage within the party detailed in the leaked report. Rather than laying the leaked report to bed, it is alleged that the Forde findings showed even worse behaviour, some by people who have subsequently been paid off to settle court action.

The Independent - David Keys - How modern pet dogs originated from wolves in Ice Age Siberia, 25 January 2021: A combination of DNA and archaeological evidence has revealed that every poodle, dachshund, chihuahua, alsatian and every other type of dog in the world originated as grey wolves in eastern Siberia in around 21,000BC. ... At the height of the last Ice Age (around 21,000 to 17,000 BC), temperatures dropped and precipitation declined to such an extent in Siberia that many of the wolf's normal prey (animals like reindeer, musk oxen, wild horses, bison and others) became locally extinct or at least much less numerous. This appears to have forced some desperate yet enterprising wolves to start scavenging around human encampments – looking for bones and gristle, which the humans had discarded. Wolves have an ability to rapidly learn new skills and then develop new economic and cultural specialisms which can then be passed down through succeeding wolf generations. Wolves born into such economically specialist lineages tend only to mate with others from the same skill-set background. ... Without any human guidance, they would almost certainly have automatically become the encampment's unofficial guards. At the very least, they would have made a lot of noise (so-called “wolf coughing”) if any potential aggressor (human or animal) approached the camp – normally long before humans (with their much poorer hearing and sense of smell) would have noticed. As a result, a mutually beneficial relationship seems to have developed between the scavenging-adapted wolves and humans. The researchers point out that this symbiotic relationship (guarding in return for food) exists elsewhere in the animal world. Indeed, even today, special caribou-hunting wolves accompany caribou (reindeer) herds in Canada to prevent other wolves predating on them. ... So close had the dog/human bond become that by 13,000BC, humans began to give dogs similar funerary treatment to humans. The earliest known dog graves, dating back to that era, have been found in Germany – and, by 6000BC, dogs in Scandinavia, the southeast USA and northern Japan were being buried with their own grave goods for use in their doggy afterlives.

The Guardian - Jamie Grierson, Vikram Dodd - William Shawcross’s selection for Prevent role strongly criticised, 26 January 2021: William Shawcross, a former head of the charity watchdog who has made controversial comments about Islam, is to lead the struggling review of the government’s anti-radicalisation programme Prevent. ... Civil liberties and human rights organisations such as Amnesty International have been calling for an independent review of Prevent for some time, saying it fosters discrimination against people of Muslim faith or background and inhibits legitimate expression. The appointment of Shawcross, who chaired the Charity Commission between 2012 and 2018, was met instantly with criticism over previous remarks he has made about Islam. In 2012, as a director of the neoconservative thinktank the Henry Jackson Society, he said: “Europe and Islam is one of the greatest, most terrifying problems of our future. I think all European countries have vastly, very quickly growing Islamic populations.” The Charity Commission for England and Wales under Shawcross’s tenure was accused of institutional bias against Muslims by the Claystone thinktank, while Muslim groups have highlighted as concerning comments he made in his book Justice and the Enemy, which appear to support use of torture and the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay. Dal Babu, a former senior Muslim officer in the Met police, condemned the appointment. Babu, who described Prevent as a toxic brand in 2015, said: “Shawcross is a man who has demonstrated lack of independence in matters involving the Muslim community and sadly this is a missed opportunity to develop an effective [programme] that safeguards our children.” A spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain said Shawcross’s appointment was a “Trumpian” move. They said: “Once again, the government is making it clear it has no interest in truly reviewing the policy. William Shawcross is singularly unfit to be a neutral and fair assessor of this government policy, which has been criticised for unfairly targeting British Muslims, given his frightening views about Islam and Muslims. “It is ironic that a policy supposedly charged with preventing extremism is to be scrutinised by a person who holds hostile views on Islam and Muslims, who has links to people with extreme views on us, and who defends the worst excesses of the so-called ‘war on terror’.” The home secretary picked Shawcross, who is a fellow with the rightwing thinktank Policy Exchange, over Nazir Afzal, the former chief crown prosecutor in the north-west who is from a Muslim background. Afzal was interviewed for the final stages of the process. On Tuesday he pointed out on Twitter that the Telegraph had reported that Shawcross was ministers’ favoured candidate a week before they were interviewed, which did not “suggest a fair fight”. He added: “I threatened to withdraw my application at that stage as I was just in race to give public impression that it was open selection. But I didn’t go to Eton (just humble comprehensive) nor was I best mates with ministers. Independence means a different thing to me. I’m not disheartened.”

Sky News - Ashna Hurynag - 'We haven't learned the lessons': Holocaust Memorial Day widened to include remembrance of all genocide, 27 January 2021: In the decades since the Holocaust, the world has seen many more acts of genocide. ... Holocaust Memorial Day is dedicated to the millions of people, including six million Jews, who were murdered under Nazi rule during the Second World War and takes place on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp. This year, however, its scope has been widened to include all victims of genocide.

BBC - Ancient Jersey teeth find hints at Neanderthal mixing, 01 February 2021: Prehistoric teeth unearthed at a site in Jersey reveal signs of interbreeding between Neanderthals and our own species, scientists say. ... The teeth may represent some of the last known Neanderthal remains. ... The Neanderthals evolved around 400,000 years ago and inhabited a large area from western Europe to Siberia. ... They finally disappeared around 40,000 years ago, just as anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens), a newly arrived species from Africa, was settling in Europe. However, the two types of human may have overlapped for at least 5,000 years. The teeth were discovered on a small granite ledge at the cave site. ... While all the specimens have some Neanderthal characteristics, some aspects of their shape are more typical of teeth from modern humans. ... Research leader Prof Chris Stringer, from London's Natural History Museum, said: "Given that modern humans overlapped with Neanderthals in some parts of Europe after 45,000 years ago, the unusual features of these La Cotte individuals suggest that they could have had a dual Neanderthal-modern human ancestry." At the time these individuals were alive, the climate in this part of the world was colder than it is today and the sea level was tens of metres lower. ... In fact, there is a record of occupation at the La Cotte site going back to 250,000 years ago. The human teeth are thought to be around 48,000 years old, close to the presumed Neanderthal extinction date of 40,000 years ago.

NLR (New Left Review) - Daniel Finn - A Fabricated Crisis, 01 February 2021: By the time the EHRC delivered its findings, there was ample evidence of its own crude partiality – perfectly encapsulated by its refusal to investigate racism in the Conservative Party despite multiple requests to do so. The Commission itself is a classic Blairite quango, set up in the last years of the New Labour government with a mandate to canalize anti-racism within limits determined by the state. Since the Conservatives returned to power in 2010, they have slashed the EHRC’s budget to less than a third of its previous level and stuffed its board with political appointees. In the process, the Commission has come to resemble a Matryoshka doll of bias: the former EHRC chair David Isaac, previously accused by his own chief executive of avoiding topics that might prove challenging for the Tories, has now levelled the same charge against its current leadership. In the weeks following Corbyn’s suspension, there were multiple blows to the Commission’s credibility. On a single day in November, it published a report on gender discrimination at the BBC that was derided as a ‘whitewash’, then faced a stinging rebuke from a Westminster committee investigating racism against black people, which found the EHRC to have been ‘unable to adequately provide leadership and gain trust in tackling racial inequality.’ Within 24 hours of that double whammy, the Conservative government had appointed David Goodhart, a leading apologist for its ‘hostile environment’ policy, as an EHRC commissioner. To complete the debacle, the lawyer who led the Commission’s investigation of Labour, erstwhile Whig candidate Alasdair Henderson, was revealed to be a fan of race-baiting hard-right ideologues like Roger Scruton and Douglas Murray. The report itself is underwhelming and comes nowhere close to substantiating the media hype. There is a striking discrepancy between the facts it presents and the way it interprets such evidence – a competent lawyer could drive a coach and horses through some of the conclusions that it reaches. Take, for example, its eye-catching claim to have found evidence of ‘unlawful harassment’ of Jewish people by the Labour Party. In support of this conclusion, the EHRC refers to a controversy that erupted during the 2016 local election campaign around social-media posts by the Labour MP Naz Shah, which predated her stint as an MP. According to the Commission, Shah’s posts ‘went beyond legitimate criticism of the Israeli government’ and were ‘not protected by Article 10’ of the European Convention on Human Rights. What were these unacceptable comments by Shah? The EHRC refers to ‘a graphic suggesting that Israel should be relocated to the United States’ (a jokey meme, not a serious proposal) and ‘a post in which she appeared to liken Israeli policies to those of Hitler’. The report’s authors do not explain why the latter should be considered unlawful rather than in poor taste – if indeed Shah intended to make such a comparison when she ‘appeared’ to do so. ... The report claims that it was Ken Livingstone rather than Shah herself who perpetrated this act of ‘harassment’ when he ‘repeatedly denied that these posts were antisemitic and sought to minimize their offensive nature’. In a final twist, it asserts that Livingstone was acting on behalf of the Labour Party when he did so, although it had been several years at the time since he held any position for Labour in local or national government. These are the slender reeds upon which the EHRC rests its much-vaunted claim that Labour broke anti-discrimination laws under Corbyn’s leadership. The merest application of pressure to any of those reeds will cause them to snap. ... McNicol and Matthews subsequently appeared as star witnesses in the BBC Panorama documentary ‘Is Labour Antisemitic?’, where they presented themselves as heroic dissidents whose unflinching efforts to combat antisemitism had been obstructed by Corbyn’s office. The programme’s maker, John Ware, is an egregiously partisan and historically illiterate figure, who believes it should be compulsory to describe the violent expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in 1947–48 as a legitimate act of self-defence. The EHRC tacitly dismisses the principal claims of Ware’s documentary – claims that had already been demolished at exhaustive length in a dossier compiled under Jennie Formby’s supervision. ... Corbyn himself was said to be personally antisemitic, with a deep, all-consuming hatred of Jewish people, while antisemitism was reported to be endemic within the Labour Party – aided and abetted by its leadership, which had ‘declared war on the Jews’ – to the point that it now constituted an ‘existential threat to Jewish life in Britain’ without precedent in any European country since 1945. The people making such claims, from the Labour MP Margaret Hodge to the Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl and the Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard, were at the heart of public debate over this meta-controversy for several years, with regular access to newspaper frontpages and TV bulletins. (Part 2: "Perceptions and Reality") {Spectator: [22]} {Rachel Shabi: [23]}

NLR (New Left Review) - Daniel Finn - Perceptions and Reality, 03 February 2021: The Chronicle has published so many inaccurate stories about left-wing activists and Palestinian groups that it has provoked a whole series of regulatory rulings and libel settlements. These humiliating judgements have received little or no attention from the rest of the British media, unlike the ‘existential threat’ statement drafted by Pollard and his associates in the summer of 2018, or the front-page editorial during the 2019 election campaign that accused Corbyn of holding ‘racist views’. Despite – or more likely because of – this track record, a consortium fronted by Theresa May’s spin doctor Robbie Gibb rescued Pollard’s editorial tenure when his paper faced bankruptcy in April 2020. Such editorial practices were by no means a peculiar habit of Pollard and his star reporter Lee Harpin, previously embroiled in the phone-hacking scandal. In November 2019, with the election campaign in full swing, the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland casually defamed a Labour candidate as an antisemite, having confused him with another man who was also called Majid Mahmood. The New York Times has still not corrected Howard Jacobson’s demonstrably false claim that the 2017 Labour conference heard a motion in favour of Holocaust denial. ... Writing for the Nation, another left-wing pundit, Rachel Shabi, at least tried to explain why she thought Corbyn’s statement was wrong, but the results were not impressive. Shabi had previously endorsed the claims of Panorama’s ‘whistleblowers’ without a hint of scepticism. Instead of pausing to reflect on her own credulity, she transferred it wholesale to a fresh object, accepting the EHRC report in toto, and asserting without evidence that it was just ‘the tip of the iceberg’. For Shabi, any attempt to quantify the scale of antisemitism in the Labour Party was a ‘numbers game’. ... Shabi herself acknowledged that Corbyn was merely ‘telling the truth’ when he said that the problem had been exaggerated, so we are left with a familiar bogeyman: ‘leftists who dismissed the entire problem as a smear campaign’. ... Shabi could only muster a single sentence for the issue that is not merely the elephant in the room, but the furniture and fittings as well, when she noted that Israel’s British supporters ‘routinely conflate antisemitism with valid criticisms of Israel.’ ... With such prominent figures as Jones and Shabi acting like negligent public defenders who want their client to accept a plea bargain despite being wholly innocent of the charges against them, it becomes easier to grasp how this frame-up was able to progress as far as it has.

World Socialist Web Site - Steve James - Craig Murray case exposes factional warfare in Scottish National Party between Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond, 03 February 2021: By November 2019, Murray had become aware of the identities of all those accusing Salmond of sexual offences. He commented, "I realised that something extraordinary and morally disgusting was happening. If the public knew the identities of those being put up to make allegations, and just how close to Nicola Sturgeon they were, they would immediately understand what was happening. But the convention protecting the identities of those making allegations of sexual assault made such allegations the perfect vehicle for a positive campaign to frame on false charges, while the perpetrators of this conspiracy to pervert the course of justice had the protection of the courts against exposure."

The Guardian - Narelle Towie - Anything but ordinary: the 81-year-old who has sailed around the world 11 times, 06 February 2021: When Jon Sanders left Australia on his latest circumnavigation, which was to raise awareness about microplastics, there was no coronavirus.

The Times - Richard Spencer - Mossad agents ‘used remote-controlled gun’ to kill Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 11 February 2021: Israeli Mossad agents smuggled a one-tonne automated machinegun into Iran piece by piece, used it to shoot the head of Iran’s nuclear programme 13 times and then blew it up to destroy the evidence, according to a wide-ranging account of the hit. The Jewish Chronicle said it had confirmed that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 59, was assassinated outside Tehran in November in an operation involving a 20-member Mossad team. ... The weapon was so heavy because it included a bomb to destroy the evidence after the killing, the Chronicle said.

The Guardian - Jessica Elgot - Labour to delay publication of antisemitism inquiry findings, 11 February 2021: Findings on leaked report shelved indefinitely over concerns about prejudicing ICO investigation. ... In a leaked letter seen by the Guardian, the chair of the inquiry, Martin Forde QC, told Labour’s general secretary, David Evans, that the seriousness of the investigation meant the inquiry findings could not be published.

The Guardian - Dalye Alberge - Dramatic discovery links Stonehenge to its original site – in Wales, 12 February 2021: Find backs theory that monument was dismantled and dragged over 140 miles to Wiltshire ... Now a vast stone circle created by our Neolithic ancestors has been discovered in Wales with features suggesting that the 12th-century legend may not be complete fantasy. ... The evidence backs a century-old theory that the nation’s greatest prehistoric monument was built in Wales and venerated for hundreds of years before being dismantled and dragged to Wiltshire, where it was resurrected as a second-hand monument.

Jewdas - Yirmeyahu Wedgewood - Aging Liberal Confuses Self, Blames Left. A review of 'Jews Don’t Count' by David Baddiel, 12 February, 2021.

The Guardian - Patrick Wintour - Boris Johnson 'a liar' who will blame Brexit costs on Covid, says diplomat, 24 February 2021: Boris Johnson is “an unrepentant and inveterate liar” who feels he is not subject to the same rules as others, Sylvie Bermann, the former French ambassador to the UK during the Brexit vote, says in a new book. ... She admits she did not believe the Brexit referendum would be lost by David Cameron’s government, pointing out that both sides of the debate had told her the same. In retrospect, she viewed the defeat as the first crisis of electoral democracy, and the harbinger of the populism that has been followed through in the US and Europe. “David Cameron was always telling other heads of government that he would win and he rejected any help from EU countries,” she told Rusi. She said that if Cameron had warned the EU that he was going to lose, Europe would have come up with a new offer on migration. British ministers told her that they might win with as much as 60% of the vote. In the book, she asks: “How this country whose influence had been decisive in Brussels, which insolently rolled out the red carpet for French entrepreneurs and which Xi Jinping had elected in October 2015 as the gateway to Europe, at the dawn of a golden period, how has it undertaken to scuttle itself?” She predicts: “Boris Johnson’s temptation will be to hide the bill for Brexit under the Covid carpel, valued at more than £200bn for 2020, almost as much as the United Kingdom’s total contribution to the European Union since its accession in 1973, which was £215bn.” [24][25]

Middle East Eye - Avi Shlaim - On British colonialism, antisemitism, and Palestinian rights, 01 March 2021: From the 'original sin' of 1917 to the government's more recent adoption of the controversial IHRA antisemitism definition, Britain has always been firmly in Israel's camp. ... The Conservative Party and its leaders are the standard-bearers of this shameful legacy of unqualified British support for Israel and indifference to Palestinian rights. Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) is by far the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group in Britain, and its membership includes around 80 percent of Tory members of parliament. Since the May 2015 general election, CFI has sent 24 delegations with more than 180 Conservatives to visit Israel.

The Times - Oliver Moody - Hans Globke, Hitler’s former henchman, was true architect of modern Germany, 04 March 2021: The man who framed the anti-Jewish Nuremberg race laws also played a key role in Israel’s development of nuclear weapons ... During the Third Reich Globke had given shape to some of the dictatorship’s most virulently antisemitic legislation, including the definitive handbook on the 1935 Nuremberg race laws. Yet he also had a distinguished cast of anti-Nazis lining up to testify under oath that he had been an instrumental figure in the resistance against Hitler. More importantly one of the US military intelligence services had already identified him as one of the “crown jewels” it hoped would lead the foundation of the new democratic Germany. ... In the new Reich interior ministry Globke took responsibility for “questions of citizenship and race”, earning praise from his superiors for his diligence, capability and “positive attitude” towards Nazism. In 1936 he wrote an infamous legal commentary on the Nuremberg race laws, which had explicitly stripped Jews and other “non-Aryans” of their political rights. Globke’s guidebook, which became ubiquitous in Nazi Germany’s court rooms, offered many harsh interpretations of the rules. He stipulated that sex between Aryans and non-Aryans was a crime even if it took place outside Germany. He also wrote that no German woman under the age of 45 could work as a servant in the same household as a Jewish man because of the “racially pernicious sexual threat” posed by Jews. ... In 1941 he took part in drawing up an ordinance that stripped Jews in the conquered nations of their statehood and allowed their possessions to be confiscated, regarded as one of the most important legal bases of the Holocaust. He has also been identified as the probable author of a Reich interior ministry report from France that complained in virulently racist language of the “infiltration of coloured blood into Europe” and called for the “elimination” of these “detrimental influences” on the gene pool. ... In 1949 Konrad Adenauer, West Germany’s newly elected chancellor, hired Globke to be one of his closest aides, despite furious protests from the opposition parties and parts of the CIA. ... One of the most valuable sources of Globke’s power was an illegal espionage operation on West German soil. In 1950 he began working with a former Wehrmacht major general called Reinhard Gehlen, who had run Nazi Germany’s formidable military intelligence division on the Eastern Front. After the war the CIA secretly hired Gehlen to form a spy agency dedicated to penetrating the mysteries of the Soviet bloc from Pullach, a village near Munich. The Americans turned a blind eye as this agency, known as the Org, hired more than a hundred veterans of the Nazi security apparatus, including former members of the SS and the Gestapo. ... What US intelligence may not have realised was that the Org was spying illegally and intensively on its fellow Germans. ... In 1960 Gehlen furnished Globke with a report on Willy Brandt, Adenauer’s nemesis in the SPD and his future successor as chancellor. It said: “This pig has things on his record from his time in the safety of western exile and with the Red Orchestra (a wartime anti-Nazi organisation) that could bring him down at any point of our choosing. We’ve got the material, but we have time, too.” ... In 1960 Adolf Eichmann, the SS Obersturmbannführer who had arranged the mass deportation of Jews to the death camps, was found hiding in Argentina by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. Eichmann was kidnapped and prosecuted for his crimes in Jerusalem, in what quickly became known as the “trial of the century”. The trial sent a ripple of terror through the West German government. Bonn dreaded that Eichmann might stand up in the courtroom and implicate Globke and his other former Third Reich comrades in the Holocaust in an attempt to save his own skin. The Germans persuaded the White House to get the CIA to expunge all mention of Globke from a serialisation of Eichmann’s memoirs in an American magazine. But the archives show they went much further than that. Government documents obtained after years of legal wrangling by Gaby Weber, a German journalist based in Buenos Aires, reveal that the lawyer appointed to lead Eichmann’s defence, Robert Servatius, had already been a West German intelligence asset for five years. Servatius not only kept his masters in Germany fully appraised of Eichmann’s state of mind: he cut Globke’s name and others out of his client’s final speech to the court. Weber also discovered that German intelligence had known about Eichmann’s whereabouts since the end of the Second World War but done nothing to pursue him. There was another twist in the tale. Months before the trial Globke and Adenauer began work on a secret deal to lend Israel 2 billion deutschmarks, or about £4 billion in today’s terms, for a “development project” in the empty sands of the Negev desert. The files released to Weber suggest this was in fact the atomic research facility and heavy-water reactor at Dimona, the cradle of Israel’s nuclear weapons programme. The deal was codenamed Aktion Geschäftsfreund, Operation Business Associate. ... Yet the Germans appear to have suspended the negotiations during the Eichmann trial so that the Israelis would ensure his silence. “We can only pay up when it is certain that Eichmann will not incriminate Globke or other high-ranking members of the government in the courtroom,” a foreign ministry document says. Some German diplomats were appalled by the project, warning that the emergence of a new nuclear power in the Middle East would be a “burning torch to the powder keg” of the Cold War. They also feared that if the deal came to light it would provoke a ferocious response across the Arab world. “The German government has already . . . supplied scientific devices for atomic energy research to the nuclear physics department of the Weizmann Institute in Israel,” one noted. “In the recent past this support has led to hefty attacks on us in Arab propaganda . . . Our assistance for an atomic project cannot under any circumstances be used for military purposes.”

Middle East Monitor - Asa Winstanley - Don't let the Israeli lobby fire David Miller, 13 March 2021: David Miller provided an expert testimony in Salah's trial. He was able to give the proper context to the CST's particular slanted views on Palestinian political activism, which has a long history of smearing and attacking. ... But today, Israel and its lobby are running an all-out campaign to have Miller fired from his job at Bristol university. ... In 2013, his organisation Spinwatch published an important report on BICOM, a major Israel lobby group in the UK. ... In 2016, Spinwatch published another ground-breaking report, this time on the Israel lobby in the European Union. This one showed how anti-Muslim groups in the US had funded the Israel lobby in Europe. The links between the Zionist movement and the global anti-Muslim network have been a major theme in Miller's work for years. ... As revenge for Miller's exposure of their activities, pro-Israel networks in the UK are currently waging a war against Miller. This is part of what he, accurately, describes as Israel's war on British universities. Pro-Israel activists, both on and off campus, are demanding that Miller be fired.

Haaretz - Yossi Melman - The Canaanite Files: How Israel's Security Service Spied on Political Activists, 18 March 2021: The documents also expose the existence of units of the secret service that today are part of the Shin Bet’s Jewish Division, tasked with dealing with terror threats from Israel’s Jewish population. ... In short order, Ratosh began weaving pagan motifs into his writings and to call, in his poetry and articles, for the creation of a new people in the Land of Israel – Hebrew, not Jewish. The new group coalesced around these ideas. The poet Avraham Shlonsky labeled them, pejoratively, “Canaanites,” and the name stuck. The Canaanites viewed contemporary Hebrew land settlement as the continuation of the cultures that existed in the ancient Land of Israel and Mesopotamia. They aimed to shed the Jewish religion in favor of a new, indigenous identity. The Canaanite manifesto, drafted by Ratosh in 1943, highlighted the group’s feelings of alienation from Judaism and Zionism: “The Committee for the Consolidation of Hebrew Youth calls upon you as a Hebrew. As one for whom the Hebrew homeland is a homeland in concrete practice and literally: not as a vision, not as a wish and not exegetically; not as a solution for the Jewish question, not as a solution to global questions, and not as a solution to various neuroses of the diaspora-stricken... For not even the best efforts of parents, teachers, leaders and rootless intellectuals were able to make you fond of and draw you close to the Jewish village [i.e., shtetl] and to the history of the Jewish dispersion, with its pogroms and expulsions and martyrs; [they] could not uproot from your heart the natural estrangement from all the precursors of Zionism.” ... They were another oppositionist stream, and the documents now being revealed are just more proof of the Shin Bet’s politically oriented activities during the state’s early years. According to Yair Spiegel, from the Shin Bet’s history unit, about half the organization’s budget was allocated to political espionage at that time. ... In terms of strict, long-term surveillance on political grounds, the Canaanites were not alone: Others included Herut, the communist parties Maki and Rakah, as well as various protest organizations – from the social-activist Black Panthers to the radical-left group Matzpen. To justify its activity, the Shin Bet classified these entities as being “suspected of subversion.” It wasn’t until the political upset in May 1977, when Begin came to power, that the Shin Bet desisted from this activity. When it became clear that the Labor Alignment had lost for the first time, Shin Bet chief Avraham Ahituv became anxious and ordered that all politically oriented materials be destroyed immediately. The incinerators that destroyed the documents apparently worked around the clock for days, until the formation of the new government. ... The document notes that Lotan left the Herut movement following Begin’s decision to end activities against Germany, which had been intended to scuttle the German-Israel agreement on the payment of reparations to Israel and to individual survivors of the Holocaust, in 1952. Begin saw the payments as “blood money.” When the information about Lotan arrived, the Shin Bet was all ears. “Recently the above-mentioned decided to establish an independent underground with the aim of eradicating the existing regime,” the Shin Bet wrote about Lotan. ... Moreover, the Shin Bet account added, “for the underground’s first activity Lotan is thinking about blowing up the new building of the Histadrut [labor federation] in Tel Aviv. For that he needs 500 kilos of explosives, which according to the calculations should cost about 1,000 Israeli pounds.” About two months later, Lotan was arrested as an accomplice of Dov Shilansky – later a Likud MK and speaker of the Knesset – who was seized in the cellar of the Foreign Ministry building in October 1952 while in possession of a suitcase containing a bomb. Shilansky, who joined the underground organization that tried to derail the reparations agreement, was sentenced to 21 months in prison. In July 1952, in one of the most dramatic events of the period, a bomb was planted in the home of the transportation minister, David Zvi-Pinkas, in Tel Aviv. ... Two former members of the Lehi, Amos Kenan and his friend Shaltiel Ben-Yair, were arrested on suspicion of trying to assassinate the minister in protest of what they saw as an act of religious coercion. ... Reports in the press at the time stated that the Canaanites, who were indeed active against religious coercion, were responsible for the attempted assassination of the transportation minister.

The Palestine Chronicle - Mahibul Hoque - The ‘Pro-Israel’ Think Tank that Funds Antisemites across the World, 20 March 2021: Like many other far-right political parties and groups, Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) is also known for its neo-nazi and antisemitic overtones. ... The party enjoyed huge support from right-wing groups and organizations worldwide, including the Middle East Forum (MEF) and Daniel Pipes. MEF, an Islamophobic think tank based in Pennsylvania, is headed by Pipes, who often receives flak for his xenophobia, bigotry, racism, and hate-mongering. The rabidly Islamophobic MEF has been called by Southern Poverty Law Center as well as the Center for American Progress as the hub of anti-Muslim misinformation. ... Pipes calls the ideas promulgated by AfD and other far-right parties “the future of Europe.” ... According to The Guardian, the Middle East Forum had earlier funded a British right-wing extremist Tommy Robinson with $60,000. ... Another organization funded by MEF is the Centre for Security Policy (CSP), headed by Frank Gaffney. ... This is not the first time the Middle East Forum supported a right-wing extremist. Geert Wilders, a notorious Islamophobe, who was banned from entering the United Kingdom for his problematic views on Islam in 2009, is widely appreciated and cited by MEF. Daniel Pipes went so far as to call Wilders “the most important man in Europe.” ... In February 2020, the Middle East Forum put up controversial billboards in Tel Aviv as a part of its Israel Victory Project campaign featuring Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh blindfolded, holding a white flag and begging for mercy on their knees. The caption on the billboard read: “You can only make peace with enemies who have been utterly humiliated.” ... Daniel Pipes was recently slammed by Jeremy Issacharoff, Israeli Ambassador to Germany, who called him an Islamophobe and neo-Nazi sympathizer. ... In 2015, MEF Founder and President Pipes participated in IndiaIdeas event organized by India Foundation, which is headed by India’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval’s son Shaurya and founded by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Ram Madhav. A Hindu supremacist paramilitary organization founded in 1925, the RSS draws its inspiration from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

The Times - Philip Roth by Blake Bailey, review — the writer as an angry sex maniac, 21 March 2021: When he was just 26 his first book, Goodbye Columbus, won the National Book Award. It also attracted vicious attacks from prominent members of the Jewish community who objected to Jewish characters being portrayed as less than sympathetic.

The Spectator - Nick Spencer - Who was to blame for the death of Jesus?, 03 April 2021 - The book traces numerous readings of the trial from its canonical origins in the gospels, and highlights the various attempts to get Pilate off the hook. The best known of these are the Christian ones, motivated by the twin desires to exonerate Rome and (further) impugn the Jews. An innocent Pilate suited those who wanted to curry favour with the authorities (in the early centuries) or demonise society’s outsiders (in the later ones). ... More surprisingly, there is a Talmudic tradition which proudly proclaimed Jewish responsibility for Jesus’s death, recollecting how he was charged, sentenced, stoned and ‘hanged’ by Judeans rather than by the Romans on the basis that he was not the messiah but merely a ‘blasphemer and idolater’. As far as the Islamic tradition is concerned, Sura 4 in the Quran claims that Jesus did not die on the cross and implies that he was replaced by a body double. The Quran does not mention Pilate by name, but the implication of this is that he was innocent of Jesus’s death; and a later tradition, from around 1000, offers a detailed retelling of the trial in which it is Herod rather than Pilate who acts as Jesus’s judge. ... Exculpating Pilate left everything he stood for intact. Pilate was the representative of Roman political power that was also, by its own lights, divine. If he was simply and correctly discharging justice in his encounter with Jesus, all of that — Pilate, Tiberius, Rome, empire — remain authoritative.But if Pilate was indeed guilty, as the gospel writers, the mainstream tradition of the Church and, most influentially, St Augustine insist, then all this quasi-divine political authority is undermined.

BBC - Hunter Biden: What was he doing in China and Ukraine?, 06 April 2021: Hunter was a director on the board of Burisma - a Ukrainian-owned private energy company while his father was the Obama administration's pointman on US-Ukrainian relations.

Middle East Eye - Daid Hearst - The plot against Jordan's King Abdullah, 14 April 2021: Abdullah fell foul of the axis of Mohammed bin Salman and Benjamin Netanyahu after refusing to go along with the Trump plan to push West Bank Palestinians into Jordan.

The Independent - David Keys - Revealed: the ancient propaganda war that led to the triumph of Christianity, 15 April 2021: The propaganda conflict which preceded the triumph of Christianity occurred between roughly AD290 and 313, and as that battle intensified, the struggle between pro-pagan and pro-Christian forces became a more physically violent one. First, between 303 and 313, a succession of pagan Roman emperors launched a brutal suppression of Christianity (mainly in the east of the empire). But, in the final few years of that period, armies, led by pro and anti Christian emperors, began to clash. The two key battles were in AD312 when Constantine, who had been declared emperor by the Roman legions in Britain six years earlier, defeated his pro-pagan rival near Rome – and in the following year, when the emperor Maximinus Daza was defeated by Christian-aligned forces near what is now Istanbul.

The National - Laura Webster - Labour ministers launched 'propaganda' unit to fight independence, documents reveal, 20 April 2021: Newly published documents from the 1970s reveal Labour ministers discussed bringing North Sea oil into “English waters” in an effort to undermine Scottish independence support. Papers opened at the National Archives in Kew show James Callaghan’s government launched a secretive “publicity and propaganda” unit to deal with the SNP amid fears around the party’s campaigning on the issue. The “It’s Scotland’s Oil” campaign caused concern for then foreign secretary Anthony Crosland, who wrote of the “potential damage” it could cause in a private briefing note to the PM. He feared “Scotland could take with it into independence the oil which is the basis for much of Britain’s future prosperity” and wrote: “It could damage our international creditworthiness." ... The documents were written during the same era as the McCrone Report, which predicted how profitable Scotland’s oil would become but was never published due to fears over independence support.

The Times - Marc Horne - Ministers plotted to keep Shetland in UK if Scots broke away, 22 April 2021: Cabinet ministers in the James Callaghan government backed the partition of Scotland and drew up plans for Shetland to remain part of the UK in the event of independence, it has emerged. It comes after The Times disclosed that the Labour administration of the late 1970s proposed bringing North Sea oil into “English waters”, after becoming alarmed by the rise of the SNP.

Mirror - Adenike Adenitire - Army hero left to die in police station as officers made monkey noises at him, 24 April 2021: War hero Christopher Alder died on the floor of a Hull police station, hands cuffed behind his back, choking in a pool of his own blood and vomit while officers chatted and made monkey noises. ... By 1998, aged 37, he had left the army and split from his wife, the mum of his two kids, and was working in Hull as a trainee computer programmer. ... A witness said he was able to stand up straight and walk unaided as he left hospital. But by the time the van arrived at the station minutes later it was a different story. Christopher had to be dragged into the building with his feet scrapping the floor. His belt was missing, his trousers were pulled down around his ankles and he had acquired some fresh injuries, including a missing tooth. ... However, the case collapsed after the judge ordered the jury to acquit the defendants on all charges, on the grounds that they could not be safely convicted on the evidence put forward. ... In 2011, they discovered the body in Christopher’s grave was not his.

Haaretz - Adam Raz - Israel claimed its 1967 land conquests weren't planned. Declassified documents reveal otherwise, 03 June 2021: Contrary to the claim that Israel suddenly found itself holding territories after the June '67 war, declassified documents reveal detailed directives drawn up by the IDF ahead of the prolonged policing mission it would be tasked with. ... The August 1963 order was prepared following an evaluation two months earlier by the military government unit that controlled the lives of Arabs within Israel. ... Called the “Organization Order – Military Government in State of Emergency,” it stated that, “The IDF’s thrust to transfer the war to the enemy’s territories will necessarily bring about expansion [into] and conquest of areas beyond the state’s borders.” Based on the Israeli experience in the period following the Sinai campaign, the document stated that it would be necessary to install a military government quickly, because “these conquests might last for a short time only and we will have to evacuate the territories following international pressure or an arrangement.” The part that followed, however, was meant for those who would be tasked with administering the military government in the future occupied area, and it hints at the intention of the order’s authors: “However, a convenient political situation might develop which will make it possible to retain occupied territory indefinitely.”

Labour Campaign for Free Speech - Stephen Sedley - Statement on IHRA, 06 June 2021: It is now five years since the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (the IHRA) published what it called “a non-legally binding working definition of anti-semitism”. It is a clumsy piece of drafting distinguished by two particular features: it fails the first test of any definition by being open-ended and indefinite; and it is accompanied by examples some of which are visibly designed to protect Israel from legitimate criticism. ... It may therefore be relevant to say a word about the IHRA and the genesis of its “working definition”. Although the IHRA is a publicly-funded intergovernmental body, based in Berlin, it publishes no minutes and does not reveal who attends its meetings. Among its first member-states were the US, the UK and Israel. Recent research, however, has established that the “definition” adopted by the IHRA’s Bucharest plenary in 2016 consisted only of the two initial sentences, taken from an abandoned document produced by a European predecessor body. ... So far as can be ascertained, the grafting on of the list of examples was the work of representatives of two uncompromisingly pro-Israel organisations, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and the American Jewish Committee. There appears to be no evidence that the list was ever adopted by a plenary meeting of the IHRA. None of this has prevented it from being weaponised.[26]

The Atlantic - Tom McTague - The Minister of Chaos, Boris Johnson knows exactly what he’s doing, 07 June 2021.

Novara Media - Oliver Eagleton - Here’s What Really Happened When Labour Suspended Corbyn, 27 July 2021: Starmer had been prepared to draw a line under the affair, but he had not anticipated the level of instant pushback from the right (having grown complacent after months of glowing media attention). The Jewish Labour Movement and the Board of Deputies of British Jews went into overdrive, bombarding LOTO with threats to reignite the crisis. The former briefed that Labour had “expedited this case for hearing by a factionally aligned political committee”; the latter called the decision “a retrograde step for the party in its relations with the Jewish community”. Dame Margaret Hodge – the Labour MP for Barking, once lofted by the BNP for arguing that immigrants should be denied access to council housing – angrily confronted Starmer, threatening to resign unless Corbyn was kept out of the parliamentary Labour party (PLP). These threats rattled the leader, who was heard “shouting and swearing” in chief whip Nick Brown’s office on the night of 18 November. Starmer told Brown he had never approved the text of Corbyn’s statement nor signed off on his readmission to the party. The chief whip found this hard to swallow, as it would have meant McSweeney – who was in contact with Starmer almost every hour of the day – had taken the extraordinary step of planning Corbyn’s readmission without the leader’s knowledge.

JVL - Call to investigate the Jewish Chronicle for ‘serious and systemic breaches’ of code, 03 August 2021: We repost a letter to IPSO Board members, signed by nine victims of misreporting by the Jewish Chronicle. ... We accompany the letter with a table listing 13 cases against the JC which have been reported to IPSO between July 2018 and July 2021. It includes the number of breaches found in each case and the remedy prescribed with links to the IPSO judgments or the JC’s various apologies. While the letter refers to 28 recorded breaches of the Editors’ Code our listing below makes it 31.

Skwawkbox - JVL tells EHRC and Forde: Starmer’s Labour is engaged in ‘purge of Jews’, 05 August 2021: In failing to consult JVL with regard to the membership of the Advisory Board recommended by the EHRC, even as it pledged to consult Jewish stakeholders, the Party has in effect decided that we aren’t a Jewish community, and emboldened those actors within British Jewry that have denied or ridiculed our Jewish identity; There is considerable evidence that Jewish members have been disproportionally targeted with investigation for antisemitism. It appears that as a population share, almost five times more Jewish than non-Jewish Labour members have faced complaints of antisemitism which have been investigated. We estimate that Jewish JVL members have been subject to actioned antisemitism complaints at a rate 20 times greater than non-Jewish Labour members; The assumption of disciplinary investigations is that all Jews are Zionists and/or that anti-Zionists are not proper Jews and indeed are antisemitic, delegitimising an entire swathe of Jewish opinion and tradition.

HackedOff - Brian Cathcart - IPSO caught with its pants down, 17 August 2021: The sham press ‘regulator’ IPSO has seen its weakness and cowardice embarrassingly exposed this month in the case of the serial misconduct of the Jewish Chronicle.

Middle East Eye - Peter Oborne - US humiliation in Afghanistan could be a turning point in world history, 20 August 2021.

Declassified UK - Phil Miller - How MI6 backed ‘right-wing religious fanatics’ in Afghanistan, 04 September 2021: “I think the Americans were supplying the wrong people because the intelligence they were getting was flawed,” Fullerton reflected. “They’d subcontracted the intelligence to Pakistan’s ISI. Pakistan had a forward policy which was to control Pashtun areas of Afghanistan, to ensure that whoever was in Kabul was their man and basically to create a huge cordon sanitaire.” Pakistan was afraid of being encircled by its old rival India and wanted a buffer zone on its northwestern flank in Afghanistan. “The ISI was interested in giving all this largesse or some of it to their people and their people were basically Islamist”, Fullerton added. ... As a result of this political dynamic, the largest recipient of CIA funds from Operation Cyclone was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the “very hardline” Hezbi Islami (Islamic Party) and someone who Fullerton regarded as “a nasty character”.

The Guardian - Haroon Siddique - Britain’s equality watchdog ‘colluding in denial of institutional racism’, 19 September 2021: A former employee of Britain’s equality watchdog has accused it of failing to support the human rights of ethnic minorities and colluding in the denial of structural and institutional racism. ... As an example, she said structural racism terminology had been removed from the EHRC’s inquiry into racial inequality in health and social care workplaces – despite the fact that NHS Providers has acknowledged its existence – and that minority ethnic colleagues subsequently felt compelled to leave the inquiry. She also cited the EHRC’s positive response to the government-commissioned Sewell report on race and ethnic disparities, which was widely criticised, including by UN human rights experts who said it tried to “normalise white supremacy”. Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the EHRC, welcomed the report when it was published, saying it “identifies the varied causes of disparities”. In a speech last year the then minister for women and equalities, Liz Truss, announced a shift in the government’s equality priorities away from gender and race, saying the watchdog commissioners would “drive this agenda forward”. The email sent by the former EHRC employee reads: “Some of our senior leadership in England has helped dismantle the backbone of the commission – its integrity and authenticity – when it comes to race. This is incredibly difficult. Not only am I experiencing structural and institutional racism, I also have to try to fight it, all while the government and now the EHRC tell me that it doesn’t exist.” Parliament’s joint committee on human rights has accused the EHRC of failing “to provide leadership and gain trust in tackling racial equality” and called for the recreation of a body similar to the Commission for Racial Equality, which was disbanded and folded into the EHRC in 2007.

The Independent - Donald Macintyre - Sally Rooney has has every right to make the choice she has over her new book – and we will see more like it, 14 October 2021: But it’s also important to see what Rooney’s decision is not. It has of course already been described as antisemitic. There is not a shred of evidence that Rooney is any such thing. One of the huge successes of Israeli hasbara (the word for “explaining” which denotes its government’s energetic public diplomacy) has been to conflate in the public mind a wide range of activities and movements against its policies with antisemitism, ignoring (among much else) the fact that Jewish people – including Jewish Israelis – are often in the forefront of such movements. When Ben and Jerry’s decided this year to stop selling its ice-cream in West Bank Jewish settlements, it too was widely condemned, at least in the US, as antisemitic.

The Guardian - Paul Lashmar, Nicholas Gilby, James Oliver - Revealed: how UK spies incited mass murder of Indonesia’s communists, 17 October 2021: A propaganda campaign orchestrated by Britain played a crucial part in one of the most brutal massacres of the postwar 20th century, shocking new evidence reveals. British officials secretly deployed black propaganda in the 1960s to urge prominent Indonesians to “cut out” the “communist cancer”. It is estimated that at least 500,000 people – some estimates go to three million – linked to the Indonesia Communist party (PKI) were eliminated between 1965 and 1966. Recently declassified Foreign Office documents show that British propagandists secretly incited anti-communists, including army generals, to eliminate the PKI. The campaign of apparently spontaneous mass murder, now known to have been orchestrated by the Indonesian army, was later described by the CIA as one of the worst mass murders of the century.

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Scottish college censors Israel’s critics, 04 November 2021: At the time she wrote the article, Jackman was doing PhD research on the silencing of the Palestinian voice in the UK via pro-Israel groups. ...The statement alleges “failures in scholarship” in the paper, including a “biased selection of sources” and “misrepresentation of data,” which “promote an unfounded anti-Semitic theory regarding the state of Israel and its activity in the United Kingdom.” But the apology is not accompanied by any evidence for the claims of bias, errors or the conclusions being “unfounded.” The apology also says the journal’s current editorial collective has introduced “new checks and balances” for its articles. ... Contrary to the statement’s unsupported claim of “biased” sourcing, an analysis of the paper’s bibliography by The Electronic Intifada found otherwise. Our research showed that the paper cites exactly 16 sources each which might fairly be described as pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian respectively. It also cites a further 12 sources which might be described as neutral, such as mainstream corporate newspapers (which many people would argue have an intrinsic pro-Israel bias in any case). Jackman’s article is an examination of how Israel has mobilized its UK-based assets to promote its interests “in order to buttress from below the British government’s traditionally staunch support for Israel and to combat increasing public antipathy to Israel.” ... The Electronic Intifada understands that an internal debate then ensued at the university, with some managers and academics wanting the article deleted altogether and other academics defending it. The decision to keep the article online but apologize for it has been described as a “compromise.” ... She told The Electronic Intifada that she then wrote to the university’s “Complaints Resolution Office” challenging its assertation that she had promoted an “unfounded anti-Semitic theory” and asking what it was referring to. She says the university responded by claiming it had changed the wording of the apology. Instead of alleging that her paper contained an “unfounded anti-Semitic theory,” the new apology used the words “what some would regard as an unfounded theory.” But this change was not in fact made.

The Guardian - Jennifer Rankin - Ex-Nato head says Putin wanted to join alliance early on in his rule, 04 November 2021: The Labour peer recalled an early meeting with Putin, who became Russian president in 2000. “Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’” The account chimes with what Putin told the late David Frost in a BBC interview shortly before he was first inaugurated as Russian president more than 21 years ago. Putin told Frost he would not rule out joining Nato “if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner”. He told Frost it was hard for him to visualise Nato as an enemy. “Russia is part of the European culture. And I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilised world.”

The Jewish Chronicle - On the anniversary of Kristallnacht, a Jew hunting mob on the streets of London, 10 November 2021: On 9 November 1938, the Nazis instigated a pogrom in Germany which became known as Kristallnacht. Eighty three years later to the day, the Israeli Ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely, was forced out of the LSE by violent racists on the hunt for a Jew to attack. Social media posts make their aim very clear, with one from @lseclasswar calling for her car window to be smashed. “Let’s fuckin frighten her”, it continued. “Let’s make her shake.” ... Eighty three years after Kristallnacht, the ambassador of the world’s only Jewish state was attacked by a hate-filled mob on the streets of London. History is alive.

The Jewish Chronicle - Josh Kaplan - Israeli ambassador rushed out of event at LSE as protesters swarm her car, 10 November 2021: Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely was evacuated from a debating event at the London School of Economics last night as protestors swarmed her car. ... The call to violence came on the eve of the 83rd anniversary of Kristallnacht, when the windows of Jewish owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed by Nazi paramilitaries across Germany. ... The event at LSE was part of a series of debates on the future of the Middle East, with the head of the Palestinian mission to the UK Husam Said Zomlot to speak at LSE on November 11.

Middle East Monitor - Nasim Ahmed - Rushing to support the 'ugly, extremist face of Israel' does not defend 'free speech', 11 November 2021: Britain is mired in another row about freedom of speech following Tuesday's student protest against extreme right-wing Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely. ... Since her appointment as ambassador to the UK last year, Hotovely has been in the headlines over her racist views. The daughter of immigrants from the then Soviet Republic of Georgia, she has been described as the "ugly, extremist face of Israel". She is said to be an unabashed Islamophobe and religious fundamentalist who not only denies the existence of the Palestinian people, but also supports the annexation of the entire West Bank as well as Jewish control of Al-Aqsa Mosque. Her views put her at odds with the international community, large sections the Jewish community and the British government itself. ... "I am so sorry Ambassador Hotovely," tweeted Secretary of State for Education Nadhim Zahawi, who described her exit from the LSE as "deeply disturbing". ... Zahawi's remarks and the 40-second video had the desired effect. At one point #Kristallnacht, a reference to the brutal anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany, began trending on twitter. Anti-Palestinian newspaper the Jewish Chronicle published a sensational article with a headline declaring the protestors to be "a Jew hunting mob [sic]". ... Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary, Lisa Nandy, fuelled the hysteria. "The appalling treatment of Israeli Ambassador @TzipiHotovely is completely unacceptable," she tweeted. "There is no excuse for this kind of behaviour. Freedom of speech is a fundamental right and any attempt to silence or intimidate those we disagree with should never be tolerated." ... It was also pointed out that contrary to the fact-free narrative that was being spread by the right-wing media and politicians like Nandy, Hotovely had actually spoken in the debate. The event went ahead in full without interruptions and the ambassador left as scheduled. Her freedom of speech was not impeded. She was, however, booed as she left the university building, but was not in any danger. Contradicting the hysteria of the pro-Israel narrative, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that there were no incidents of note and that no one was arrested at the protest.

Middle East Monitor - Asa Winstanley - Politicians are lying about the Palestine student protest at LSE, 13 November 2021: This week, students at the London School of Economics (LSE) protested on campus to oppose a lecture by Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely. ... Hotovely is a particularly egregious example of Israeli racism. Her record is very well-known. She is a far-right religious extremist who claims that God gave the "Land of Israel" (historical Palestine) to the Jews, and to the Jews alone. "The land is ours," she once spat, "all of it is ours. We did not come here to apologise for that." She has also claimed that there is "no Palestinian people" and that the Nakba – Israel's well-documented 1948 expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians – is a "popular Arab lie". In 2017, she infamously attacked Palestinian lawmakers in Israel's parliament, claiming that they have no history and that Palestinians are "thieves of history". This is a very typical settler-colonial lie. Personally recruited into the Likud Party more than a decade ago by Benjamin Netanyahu himself, Hotovely swiftly rose through the ranks. She was brought on board to appeal to Israel's far-right religious settler constituency. She has a long track record of promoting and supporting the interests of the West Bank's worst Jewish extremists, and has used her various government positions to continue her anti-Palestinian activism. She has boasted that during her tenure as deputy foreign minister under Netanyahu, she transformed the ministry into a bastion of the pro-settler hard-right. Describing this as a "revolution in the Foreign Affairs Ministry", Hotovely has helped move the country towards outright annexation of remaining Palestinian land in the West Bank. In a position characteristic of anti-miscegenation white racists the world over, Hotovely also opposes mixed marriages between Jews and non-Jews, again using her government offices to promote the work of Jewish supremacist group, Lehava. (Solidarity Assembly)

Middle East Eye - Joseph Massad - Starmer's apology skipped over Britain's long history of antisemitism, 29 November 2021: But has the Labour Party, let alone Britain itself, in fact been a friend to British Jews for a century? One of Labour’s founders, Keir Hardie, believed Jewish financial institutions were part of a secret cabal that pushed for the Second Boer War of 1899-1902. Another prominent Labour figure of the era, John Burns, spoke of the omnipresent “financial Jew, operating, directing, inspiring the agonies that have led to this war”.

Palestine is Still the Issue - Asa Winstanley - IMPRESS should never have investigated "anti-Semitism" in the first place - #33, 30 November 2021: The press regulator IMPRESS absolved left-wing independent media outlets The Canary and The Skwawkbox of anti-Semitism, after a seven-month investigation. Both publications issued magnanimous statements in which they spoke highly of IMPRESS and welcomed their findings. ... IMPRESS admits it only launched its investigation into the two websites “following the publication” of a farcical academic report commissioned by Mann supposedly on “Antisemitism and the ‘alternative media’.” In fact that report was nothing but a whitewash for Israel. Its methodology alone made that clear. ... The lead author of the report was Daniel Allington, who for more than two years was “Head of Online Monitoring” for an Israel lobby group, the Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Jewish News - Lee Harpin - Lib Dem candidate sorry for ‘sick, inaccurate and offensive’ Goebbels comment, 07 December 2021: The Lib Dem candidate in the North Shropshire by-election was forced into a grovelling apology after she accused Priti Patel of using methods adopted by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels to clamp down on small boats. Helen Morgan was responding to a tweet by the Home Secretary who said: “Today we removed people who came here via small boat. “They had previously claimed asylum elsewhere and had no legal right to be in the UK. “Removals continue to be frustrated by activist lawyers, but I will not let up until this route is unviable.” The Lib Dem hopeful wrote:”I think we would all appreciate an explanation of the difference between a lawyer and an activist lawyer. “In the meantime, please tear up your copy of Goebbels’ manual; it is most unbecoming of one of The Great Offices of State.” Her comments sparked sparked a backlash last night. Co-Chair of the APPG Against Antisemitism, Andrew Percy told The Sun: “Comparisons to the Nazis are not only sick, they are inaccurate, offensive and diminish the memory of the 6 million Jewish and other victims of the Nazi murder machine. “Such throwaway comparisons undermine Holocaust education efforts and risk enabling antisemitism. “The Lib Dems must act to take strong and immediate action against this candidate’s repeated use of these sick and disgusting comparisons.” ... In 2019 Morgan had again resorted to Nazi comparisons over Boris Johnson’s attempt to prorogue parliament. She added: “It’s what Hitler did in 1933… this is a shameless power grab by a right-wing elite.” Then when writing about her son’s experience of reading The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, in which the son of the camp commandant befriends a Jewish boy on the other side of the fence, she appeared to liken the experience of Channel migrants to Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz. Ms Morgan, who is trying to overturn a Tory majority of nearly 23,000, said in September 2020: ‘He commented that the Nazis were only able to do such terrible things because they didn’t think their victims were people. He’s 11.

The Guardian - Kate Connolly - Burying Leni Riefenstahl: one woman’s lifelong crusade against Hitler’s favourite film-maker, 09 December 2021: Nina Gladitz dedicated her life to proving beyond doubt the Triumph of the Will director’s complicity with the horrors of Nazism.

The Times of Israel - Trump: I thought Israelis would do anything for peace, but found that not to be true, 11 December 2021: In the latest taped comments broadcast by Channel 12, Trump said he believed Netanyahu “did not want to make peace. Never did”; claimed he prevented the Israeli leader from annexing West Bank land (“I got angry and I stopped it”); offered his favorable opinion on Defense Minister Benny Gantz (“I think [he] wanted to make a deal… if he won, I think it would be a lot easier”); and his evolving view on the Israel-Palestinian conflict (“I [had] thought the Palestinians were impossible, and the Israelis would do anything to make peace and a deal. I found that not to be true”).

The Cradle.co - Kit Klarenberg - "Rotten to the core:" How Israel influenced British policy on Hamas, 13 December 2021: Israel now controls British Foreign policy through a highly-infiltrated, ferociously-active network of organizations, campaigners, and relationships. ... On 26 November, the British government officially banned Hamas “in its entirety” as an “Islamist terror group”, with both its members and “those who invite support” for the movement facing jail terms of up to 14 years. ... Emails obtained by The Cradle reveal that an intensive pressure campaign waged by Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and the Zionist Federation, two highly significant Israeli lobby groups, had forced Whitehall’s hand. ...CUFI was founded in 2006 by Texan pastor John Hagee, a Christian fundamentalist who preaches that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler – who he brands a “half-breed Jew” – purged Europe of its Jewish population in order to shepherd them to Palestine, and that the Holocaust was actively willed by God for this divine purpose. Having grown rapidly, today CUFI is the largest pro-Israel organization in the US, a highly competitive category indeed, with its membership reportedly exceeding over eight million. CUFI’s website boasts that this vast network of foot soldiers “enables us to make a difference during crucial moments.”

The Times of Israel - ‘What the hell was that?’: Netanyahu annexation announcement caught Trump off guard, 14 December 2021: In January 2020, during a festive White House unveiling of Donald Trump’s long-gestating peace plan, then-Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu giddily announced that under its auspices, Israel would move to immediately annex large parts of the West Bank. ... According to the podcast, Netanyahu decided to go forward with the annexation announcement after receiving assurances from then-US ambassador to Israel and longtime settlement-backer David Friedman that the US would back the move, even though the envoy never ran the idea by the White House.

The Guardian - Nawal El Saadawi remembered by Mona Eltahawy, 14 December 2021: Soon after I interviewed her, she went into self-imposed exile in the United States. She had been imprisoned by Anwar Sadat in 1981, not long before he was assassinated, because he felt she was threatening his reputation as a dictator, but in 1993, she left Egypt for the US because the militant Islamists felt that she was ruining their reputation too and they put her on a death list. ... When people ask me if I could distil Nawal’s ethos, it would be what her protagonist in the novel Woman at Point Zero says when she is accused in court of being a savage and dangerous woman. She says: “I speak the truth and the truth is savage and dangerous.” ... Nawal was the first woman in Egypt to write openly about the female genital mutilation that she was subjected to, at the age of six, and she wrote about it so poignantly, not just the torture that was committed against her body, but the fact that when this was happening, she looked around for her mother, hoping she would come and comfort her, and to her shock and horror she found that her mother was standing on the side of these women who were cutting her.

Counterpunch - Lawrence Davidson - Censoring Texas History, 16 December 2021: In 1827, the Mexican government forbade the importation of slaves into the country. Then, in 1829, slavery was officially abolished. Throughout this period slaves of American immigrants in Texas were periodically rebelling and running away in order to, among other things, join the Mexican army. ... A small American slaveholders’ rebellion occurred in 1831. This was triggered by the refusal of Mexican authorities to return runaway slaves. In other words, it was a protest against the Mexican insistence on enforcing their own laws. A larger and more seminal rebellion began in 1835. The thirteen-day siege of the Alamo (February 23 to March 6, 1836) was part of this latter conflict. The 1835 uprising led to the declaration of Texas independence in 1836. Immediately thereafter, slavery was officially made legal. Then in 1836, perhaps to affirm white supremacy, Texas authorities under the leadership of Mirabeau Lamar began what he called an “exterminating war” against local Indian peoples. University of Houston historian Raul Ramos finds Lamar’s description accurate—he confirms that this effort amounted to “a state-sanctioned program of genocide.” There may have been multiple reasons why U.S. immigrants chose to move into Mexican Texas, but there was only one reason—the desire to own slaves—for which these immigrants rose up in armed rebellion in 1835-1836 and subsequently declared independence. No white resident of Texas at that time would have denied this fact. ... Nonetheless, in defense of its mythology, Texas has produced simpleminded Trump-style personalities and soundbites. For instance, there are the pronouncements of Brandon Burkhart, the gun-toting president of the “This is Freedom Texas Force.” Burkhart lauds the message that Texas was founded with the ideal of freedom front and center. And anyone who wants “to bring up that it was about slavery, or say that the Alamo defenders were racist, or anything like that, they need to take their rear ends over the state border and get the hell out of Texas.” ... All groups, from the smallest, like a family or a club, to the largest, such as a multi-regional religion or a nation-state, seek to create a unifying “thought collective.”

Morning Star - Bethany Rielly - Government seeking 'absolute ban' on BDS next year, MP claims, 17 December 2021: Tory MP and former housing secretary Robert Jenrick said such a Bill could be introduced to Parliament as early as next spring. ... “What we want to do is pass a piece of legislation here and I’m pretty confident that will be in the next legislative programme — the Queen’s speech as we call it — in the spring of next year which would outlaw BDS in the UK,” he said. “Within a year or two we should really have an absolute ban on BDS which would really be a great step forwards.” The former housing minister made the comments during an online talk on December 14, hosted by the Leadership Dialogue Institute — described on its website as a “private diplomatic channel fostering closer cultural ties between Australia, the UK and Israel.”

2022

NPR - Deepa Shivaram - 90 tons of U.S. military aid arrives in Ukraine as border tensions with Russia rise, 22 January 2022: Continued tensions between Ukraine and Russia have led to the U.S. providing 90 tons of military aid that arrived in Ukraine, as roughly 100,000 Russian troops remain stationed along the border. The shipment is part of the additional $200 million of "lethal aid" approved by President Biden in late December and includes ammunition for Ukraine's front-line defenders, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv tweeted. Overall, the U.S. has provided $650 million in defense equipment and services to Ukraine in the past year — the most it has ever given that country, according to the State Department.

Jewish Currents - Joshua Leifer - The Jews Expelled from Labour over Antisemitism, 07 February 2022: According to Mike Cushman, a JVL officer, as of January 2022 the Labour Party had initiated 55 internal investigations of Jews on the grounds of antisemitism allegations, and 43 members of the JVL had been sanctioned. One JVL member, Diana Neslen, an 82-year-old Jewish South African émigré and former anti-apartheid activist, has been investigated three times; on Monday, the party dropped its case against her after she threatened to sue Labour for discriminating against her on the basis of her anti-Zionist beliefs. Two JVL members—Mike Howard, 72, a 40-year Labour member, and Riva Joffe, a South African-born anti-racist activist in her 80s—have died while under investigation for alleged antisemitism, Cushman said, “before they could clear their names.”

RT - Daniel Kovalik - "The mouse kills the cat": Augusto Cesar Sandino’s rebellion against the US, 21 February 2022: Sandino was not a revolutionary by training or study; he was drawn into the armed struggle in response to the US Marine invasion and occupation of his country which began in 1911 with the goal of ousting Liberal Party President Jose Zelaya. As the US State Department itself explains, American opposition to Zelaya stemmed from his intention to work with the Japanese government to develop a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua which would rival the US-controlled Panama Canal. This flew in the face of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which holds that the US has sole dominion over the Western Hemisphere and the right to intervene in any country therein to prevent the influence of other nations. The US was able to put in place a succession of Conservative Party presidents to its liking with the backing of the brutal National Guard. The US was thereby able to ink a deal with the Nicaraguan government which gave the US and US companies significant control over Nicaragua’s treasury, finances and railroad. However, this did not sit well with the Nicaraguan people who, eventually, revolted. As the US State Department explains (in an incredible act of understatement), the US’ attempt to “prevent local management of finances … caused considerable nationalist concern in Nicaragua.” To quell the resulting unrest and civil war which broke out between the Liberals and Conservatives, the US, which withdrew the Marines in 1924, sent an even greater Marine force to Nicaragua in 1925. ... Still, Sandino and his mostly peasant liberation army persisted, and successfully drove the US Marines out of Nicaragua in 1933, but not before the Marines were able to shore up the National Guard under the leadership of Anastasio Somoza. Not able to defeat Sandino on the field of battle, the only method left for Somoza was chicanery. And so, on the promise of a peace deal, Somoza lured Sandino to Managua where he was assassinated on February 21, 1934. Sandino’s remains disappeared and have never been found. Meanwhile, Somoza – “a son of a bitch, but … our son of a bitch” as FDR would quip – declared himself president of Nicaragua with the backing of the United States and turned quickly to repressing Sandino’s followers and supporters. Somoza and his son, and then his grandson, ruled Nicaragua with an iron fist (and US military assistance) for the next 45 years.

PBS - Jonathan Masters - Why NATO and Ukraine are a flash point with Russia 30 years after the end of the Cold War, 22 February 2022: For the Kremlin, the notion that Ukraine, a pillar of the Soviet Union with strong historic ties to Russia, would join NATO was a red line. “No Russian leader could stand idly by in the face of steps toward NATO membership for Ukraine. That would be a hostile act toward Russia,” Putin warned U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs William J. Burns, who is now director of the CIA, in the weeks leading up to NATO’s 2008 Bucharest Summit. Although NATO did not announce a formal membership plan for Ukraine and Georgia at the Bucharest Summit, the alliance did affirm “that these countries will become members of NATO,” and it extended formal invitations to accession talks to Albania and Croatia, which became members in 2009. NATO expanded again in 2017, admitting Montenegro, and in 2020, welcoming North Macedonia. ... Some experts point to another pivotal moment to help explain the mistrust between Russia and NATO today: the 1993–94 discussions between the Bill Clinton administration and the Russian government led by Boris Yeltsin. By this point, the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union had collapsed, and the Clinton administration was seeking to craft a new security architecture in Europe that would help foster and fortify the continent’s fledging, post-Soviet democracies, including Russia. Some in the Clinton government, as well as Central European countries such as the Czech Republic and Poland, wanted to move quickly and start expanding NATO’s membership eastward. However, most Clinton officials reportedly did not, being wary that expansion would rankle Russian leaders at a fragile, transitional moment and detract from other U.S. foreign policy objectives, such as nuclear arms control. Instead, Clinton chose to develop a new NATO initiative called the Partnership for Peace (PfP), which would be nonexclusive and open to all former Warsaw Pact members, as well as non-European countries. Seeing this non-membership framework as a compromise of sorts, in October 1993, U.S. diplomats proposed it to Yeltsin, who eagerly accepted. (Just days before, Yeltsin, with the Russian military’s support, forcefully put down an attempt by parliament to oust him.) NATO launched PfP at its annual summit in January 1994, and more than two dozen countries, including Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine, joined in the following months. However, Clinton soon began speaking publicly about expanding NATO’s membership, saying in Prague just days after the launch of PfP that “the question is no longer whether NATO will take on new members but when and how.” Yeltsin warned Western leaders at a conference in December of that year that “Europe, even before it has managed to shrug off the legacy of the Cold War, is risking encumbering itself with a cold peace.” Clinton subsequently made efforts to allay Yeltsin’s concerns: pushing off enlargement until after the Russian leader was reelected in 1996, inviting Russia to join the Group of Seven, and establishing a formal, non-adversarial forum for Russia-NATO diplomacy. But analysts say that NATO’s expansion in the ensuing years would leave deep scars on the Russian psyche. “For many Russians, most importantly Vladimir Putin, the 1990s were a decade of humiliation, as the United States imposed its vision of order on Europe (including in Kosovo in 1999) while the Russians could do nothing but stand by and watch,” James Goldgeier, an expert on NATO-Russia relations, wrote for War on the Rocks. The Russian government, led by Putin, continued to be wary of NATO expansion in the 2000s. Putin expressed doubts that the alliance, which grew its fastest in 2004, would be effective in tackling the security challenges of the day, including international terrorism and the conflict in Afghanistan. Many new members, particularly the Baltic countries, saw NATO membership as a shield against their former Soviet rulers. In the years that followed, Putin grew increasingly outspoken in his displeasure at NATO’s inroads into Eastern Europe, saying at a high-profile speech in Munich in 2007 that “it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernization of the alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.” In the summer following NATO’s 2008 Bucharest Summit, where NATO stated its intent to admit Georgia and Ukraine, Russia invaded the former. Six years later, as Kyiv stepped closer to an economic partnership with another Western bloc, the European Union, Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Russia has put forth two draft agreements that seek explicit, legally binding security guarantees from the United States and NATO, respectively: ...

Middle East Eye - David Hearst - Russia-Ukraine war: Putin is now doing what he accused America of - regime change, 24 February 2022: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is epoch-making, but not in the way the western powers understand it. Nothing less than three decades of US and western domination is unravelling over the world’s military and economic affairs, which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. What is being formed in its place is a world run by great powers. Nothing less than three decades of US and Western domination over the world’s military and economic affairs is unravelling. Apart from the US, one bloc will stand out - a Eurasian power bloc with China at one end and Russia at the other. Between them will lie the greatest landmass in the world, unlimited reserves of energy, manpower, military, cyber and AI strength. ... Putin did not start out anti-western. It took him seven long years, between his emergence as prime minister in 2000 and his speech at the Munich security conference in 2007. In this time he repeatedly tried to engage the West and join Nato. He was repeatedly rebuffed. So too were his ideas for a European security pact, which was again misinterpreted as an attempt by Russia to control the politics and freedoms of vassal East European states. A turning point on his journey from pro-western oligarch to Russian nationalist autocrat was the fall of Libya's Gaddafi. Not that he had any love for the Libyan dictator, but Russian oil and military interests were involved. ... It was Libya in 2011, not the invasion of Iraq in 2003, that determined the Russian intervention of Syria in 2015. ... Ultimately there is no excuse for starting another war. None of this justifies or excuses tanks rolling into Ukraine. I was in Grozny in 1994 when Russian tanks attempted to roll in there. The Chechens put up a huge fight, won a temporary reprieve and were only crushed when Putin re-invaded in 2000, by levelling every building, and installing a psychopath as president. The second Chechen war was notably chronicled by my brave Russian colleague Anna Politkovskaya. When I asked why she risked her life uncovering what she described as Russian war crimes, she said she was fighting for the soul of Russia. She was gunned down by a professional hitman in the lobby to her block of flats. ... The bloodshed that we will witness in the next few days and weeks could be enormous. In war, the concept of "precision strikes" quickly goes out the window, and in Russian hands, precision strikes entailed the use of vacuum bombs in Grozny which sucked the air out of a central square in the town centre. ... This war need not have happened. Putin's issue with Nato could have been avoided. New security structures could have been agreed with Moscow that upheld the independence and sovereignty of states, which in turn respected the human rights and loyalties of Russian speakers. ... The tragedy is that while Russia regarded the Cold War as over, we in the West kept on fighting it. Now we have recreated the very enemy we thought we had left behind.

Haaretz - Dmitry Shumsky - The Ukrainian People Are Fighting for Their Lives, 24 February 2022: The Ukrainian national pantheon today, its greatest and most revered political and cultural heroes, mainly arouse in me a feeling of disgust. Thus I found it disgusting, if not downright creepy, to see streets in the capital named for Symon Petliura and Stepan Bandera. The first, president of the Ukrainian People’s Republic during the Russian Civil War, was among those responsible for the slaughter of Ukrainian Jews in 1919-20 – the biggest mass murder of Jews prior to the Holocaust (an estimated 50,000-200,000 were killed). The other headed the far-right Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which as early as the 1930s displayed clear genocidal tendencies with its call to rid the country of “hostile nationals.” ... But the truth is that the basic tenets of imperial Russian ideology vis-a-vis the Ukrainian people, language and culture have not changed since the 19th century: The very existence of the Ukrainians as a unique national-cultural group is a historical accident. In the Russian language, in the era of the czars – which is now regarded as the country’s golden age – the Russian people are the “Great Russians” and the Ukrainians are the “Little Russians.” And now, as in the past, Ukrainians are regarded in the eyes of imperial Russia as rebellious and culturally inferior little brothers. The Ukrainian language is seen as a kind of corrupted and defective dialect of the “great and powerful” Russian language whose geographical proximity only enhances Russian contempt and ridicule for it.

The Intercept - Guillaume Long - The U.K. Wanted to Extradite Julian Assange to the U.S. From the Start, 24 February 2022: Events since have demonstrated that the British argument that Assange was “holed up” in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid facing sexual assault allegations in Sweden was deceitful. The case was always about Assange’s publishing activities as the head of WikiLeaks. In fact, my government had made it clear to both its British and Swedish counterparts that if Ecuador received guarantees of nonextradition from Sweden to the United States, Ecuador would have no problem with Assange traveling to Sweden to face questioning. Assange himself agreed to this. But Sweden refused to offer such guarantees, which obviously further heightened Ecuador’s suspicions that Assange was being persecuted.

Washington Post - Karoum Demirjian, Alex Horton - As war loomed, U.S. armed Ukraine to hit Russian aircraft, tanks and prep for urban combat, declassified shipment list shows[27], 04 March 2022: Taken together, the variety, volume and potency of firepower being rushed into the war zone illustrate the extent to which the United States sought to prepare the Ukrainian military to wage a hybrid war against Russia, even as President Biden has expressly ruled out inserting American troops into the conflict. ... In the last year, the United States has committed more than $1 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, the senior defense official said. That includes counter-mortar radars, secure radios, electronic equipment, medical equipment, vehicles and a steady supply of Javelin missile systems, according to the list The Post reviewed. At least nine Island-class patrol boats and five Mi-17 transport helicopters have also been provided to Ukraine from the U.S. reserve of excess defense articles. Ukraine had previously received 210 Javelins through the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing program in 2018 and purchased an additional 150 Javelins that arrived in 2020. The United States has committed about $3 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Haaretz - Ben Samuels - AIPAC's Endorsement List: Dozens of Republicans Who Deny Biden's Election Win, 06 March 2022: AIPAC's reply: 'We are a single-issue organization focused on Israel' ... AIPAC, the strongest pro-Israel lobby in the United States, surprised the U.S. political world last year by forming a political action committee. ... Another endorsee, Rep. Scott Perry, has compared Democrats to Nazis and promoted white supremacist conspiracies of 'population replacement.' ... Despite criticism, AIPAC – the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – says it is ramping up efforts to shore up support for Israel regardless of lawmakers' positions on other issues. ... “Unlike other groups which have ideological and partisan agendas, we are a single-issue organization that is focused on our mission of building bipartisan support in Congress to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship,” AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittmann said.

The Guardian - Oliver Bullough - The Long Read: How Britain welcomed the oligarchs, no questions asked, 08 March 2022: Dmitry Firtash, a gas billionaire, is wanted by the FBI for bribery. Nonetheless, he was received into the heart of the British establishment. ... By the 70s, the Soviet Union, which had been seen as a great economic rival of the west in the years after the second world war, was falling rapidly behind. However, the USSR did have one thing that the west lacked: vast quantities of natural gas, which it used to power its factories, heat its homes and earn valuable dollars as exports to the west. This abundance of gas – controlled by the country’s first state-run corporation, Gazprom – helped stitch the Soviet economy together, and nowhere more so than in Ukraine, which was a centre of heavy industry second only to Russia. And then, in 1991, everything changed. The Soviet Union collapsed. Ukraine became independent and suddenly went from being an energy-rich country to being energy-poor. ... Fortunately, the need to reach an immediate decision was postponed by the fact that Russia also relied on gas. Its economy survived thanks to the hard currency it earned by exporting gas to Europe, and almost all those exports passed through Ukraine. That meant that if Ukraine couldn’t pay its gas bills, it could just steal it from the pipelines that ran through its territory, and Russia couldn’t turn off the taps without also cutting off its high-paying customers farther west. It is well established that large reserves of oil or gas almost invariably corrupt countries, and this is what happened in Ukraine. But this corruption derived not from controlling the gas, but from controlling the pipelines that moved it, and thus the ability to reward supporters with valuable shipments, or export licences. ... Insiders in Russia and Ukraine teamed up to create shady intermediary companies that took gas from Gazprom at the Russian border, sold it to high-paying Europeans, and split the proceeds. ... Nothing did more to corrupt Ukraine or to maintain its dependence on Moscow than its politicians’ addiction to this money. Russia added the cost of the stolen gas to Ukraine’s bill, but the insiders didn’t care, since they were allowed to keep the profi ts. When Vladimir Putin became Russian president in 2000, however, he decided that – at least at the Russian end – this wealth machine needed to be brought in house. If anyone was going to get rich from exporting gas, it was going to be him and his friends, not Gazprom managers and their shady enablers. It took him a little while to wrestle the old guard out of the door, but eventually he had a loyalist in charge of the gas giant. There would still be an intermediary company between Russia and Ukraine, so the money flows would remain hidden, but that company would be half-owned by Gazprom to ensure Putin got his share. Its name was RosUkrEnergo (RUE), and it took over gas supplies between the two countries in July 2004. That was a big year in Ukraine. In the autumn, the prime minister, a thug called Viktor Yanukovich who was heavily backed by Putin, tried to win the presidency by rigging an election. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets of Kyiv, waving the orange fl ags of Yanukovich’s rival Viktor Yushchenko. After weeks of continuous protests, the election was reheld and Yanukovich lost. For many young Ukrainians this moment – known as the Orange Revolution – was a glorious expression of how ordinary people can triumph over the corrupting influence of oligarchs and their money. For Putin, however, who had spent time and money backing Yanukovich, Ukraine’s revolution was a personal humiliation. But he had a useful way to remind Ukrainians – and any other countries tempted to follow Ukraine’s lead – why humiliating the Kremlin was a bad idea. Gazprom told the post-revolutionary government it would be renegotiating its gas supply contract, and when Ukraine refused to agree to its terms, cut it off. ... Yushchenko capitulated and signed the new deal with RUE, a humiliation that split the coalition that had powered the revolution, and from which his reputation never recovered. RUE was already doing well under the old contract, and now the money really started to flow. ... But who were those interests? Who actually were the owners of RUE? Everyone knew that Gazprom owned half of the company, but who owned the other half? The owner of the other half of RUE, it turned out, was a 39-year-old Ukrainian man named Dmitry Firtash. ... Thanks to his alliance with Gazprom and by extension with Putin, Firtash had gained extraordinary wealth and power. He was the Kremlin’s man in Ukraine, a gas-fuelled kingmaker. In his home country, Firtash became a controversial fi gure, accused of restoring Russia’s infl uence over their homeland. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that he started looking around for a foreign country where he might buy a second home. He chose the UK.

The New York Times - Cecilia Kang - What It Was Like to Work for Russian State Television, 12 March 2022: Until RT America ended abruptly, life as a journalist there was “actually so normal.”

The Atlantic - Kaitlyn Tiffany - RT America, You Were Very Weird and Bad, 28 March 2022: Russia Today started broadcasting in English from Moscow in 2005, with the stated intention of rehabilitating Russia’s global image by explaining Russian news and culture to the world. RT America came on the air five years later, shortly after the larger network’s name was shortened to the less conspicuous RT. ... Under its editor in chief, Margarita Simonyan, the network expanded and adopted the look and feel of global cable news, and by 2011, the Russian government was allocating more than $300 million a year for RT’s operating expenses. President Vladimir Putin banned budget cuts for state-run media outlets two years later.

BBC - Jonathan Amos - Tanis: Fossil of dinosaur killed in asteroid strike found, scientists claim, 06 April 2022.

JewishCurrents - Mari Cohen - Deborah Lipstadt vs. “The Oldest Hatred”, 28 April 2022: In her new role as antisemitism envoy, Deborah Lipstadt will attempt to fight a scourge of antisemitism that she seems to regard as incurable.

Electronic Intifada - Asa Winstanley - Video: How Israel helped bring down Jeremy Corbyn, 30 April 2021.

Haaretz - Moshe Gilad - How Israel Destroyed Old Tiberias, 18 May 2022: Some 300 years ago, Zahir al-Umar, then the Ottoman ruler of the Galilee, invited Rabbi Hayyim Abulafia, convincing him to travel from Izmir and settle on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. The rabbi finally relented, arriving with 40 adherents in 1740, and the governor assisted him in constructing the Jewish Quarter in the heart of the Old City. The quarter was surrounded by Muslim ones, and the relations between the neighbors, according to Abbasi, were excellent. This tranquil coexistence characterized Tiberias for over 200 years. The Jewish leadership, headed by the Abulafia and Alhadif families, large and prestigious Sephardi families, lived in good relations with the Arab residents, headed by the al-Tabari family, whose members served as qadis and muftis and held much property.Thanks to the local leadership, peace was maintained during the 1929 riots that washed over the rest of the country. Twenty years later, the situation was different. Moderating influences had weakened. The Jewish mayor, Zaki Alhadif, was murdered in 1938. In Kiryat Shmuel, near the city, 19 Jews were murdered that year. The moderating forces on each side disappeared. The extremists and the militants dictated the tone. On April 18th, 1948, after several days of battle between the Haganah underground militia and Arab forces, the British removed the Arabs of Tiberias by bus. Before that, the Old City had been home to 6,000 Jews and 5.000 Arabs. (Today, the city is home to 50,000 people, all Jews.) Tiberias, long sacred to Christians and Jews, received a sanctified status from Muslims, as well. The holiest Muslim compound in the city, almost unmentioned in advertising for the city, according to Abbasi, is a shrine to Sitt Sakina, a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. This tomb is known today as the Tomb of Rachel, wife of Rabbi Akiva, and is located at the southern end of town. ...Old Tiberias was destroyed in three stages. First, in April 1948, a few buildings were destroyed in the fighting. In June of that year, the military blew up a few more buildings, and in January 1949 massive demolition of Old City houses began. Half the properties in the Old City were Jewish-owned, yet the authorities destroyed its ancient area almost completely, showing no regard for its holiness or history of coexistence. According to Abbasi, the demolitions were not random, but part of an overall approach toward Arab villages and towns in order to prevent the return of the Arab residents. While the government made no formal decision to destroy the city, it provided the military and municipal authorities with the means to do so, and never tried to prevent the destruction. Government institutions displayed contempt toward the Jews of the Old City, who belonged to what was called “the old yishuv.” This contempt was expressed not only in the destruction of their homes, but also the confiscation of the land and the demand that they pay rent for their temporary abodes in empty Arab homes.

Haaretz - Nirit Anderman - Long-lost Recordings of Eichmann Confessing to the Final Solution Revealed, 23 May 2022: New documentary film 'The Devil's Confessions: The Lost Eichmann Tapes,' offers a harrowing expose of the executor of the Final Solution, Adolf Eichmann, based on long-lost interview recordings. It also raises questions about Israel's reluctance to use the recordings in his trial. ...Through interviews with experts from various fields, Mozer paints a picture according to which then-Prime Minister Ben-Gurion tried to convince prosecutor Hausner not to mention affairs that could embarrass Germany (for instance, the Nazi past of then-Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s deputy Hans Globke) so as not to sabotage cooperation between the countries. “The implication of Ben-Gurion’s decision to use German money for the nuclear project was to stop with these trials, to stop hunting Nazis. That was the agreement between the sides,” Mozer notes. The Israeli establishment also wanted to keep the affair involving Rudolf Israel Kastner under wraps (the reference is to the 1957 murder of Hungarian-born Kastner, who had been convicted of collaborating with the Nazis). On this matter as well, it seemed that senior officials preferred that the interview with Sassen didn’t reach the Jerusalem courtroom in order not to open up painful wounds.

Haaretz - Rotem Kowner - The Strange Story of the Japanese Terrorists Behind the '72 Israel Airport Massacre, 27 May 2022: Okamoto’s father was the first to assume responsibility for the event. Two years before the massacre, and after another of his sons took part in the JRA hijacking of the plane to North Korea, he displayed public responsibility typical of officials of his status by resigning from his position as a school principal. Now he was facing even more extreme embarrassment: Besides the fact that the family disgrace focused on his youngest son, things had shifted from the national to the international arena, shaming the entire Japanese nation. Seeing no other way out, Okamoto’s father did the unbelievable and demanded that his son be executed. ... Okamoto himself sought to take full responsibility for his actions. He was a model of cooperation in the interrogation, and confessed in the hope that he would be executed quickly. ... Toward the end of the trial, Kritzman discovered that his client’s age did not appear on the charge sheet; taking advantage of the uncertainty, he then noted that the death penalty was prohibited for people under the age of 18. Okamoto, however, immediately cleared things up by standing and stating his actual age.

Jacobin - Daniel Finn - The Forde Report Has Exposed the Rotten Foundations of Keir Starmer’s Leadership, 22 July 2022: Lawyer Martin Forde has finally published a report on the Labour Party’s bitter factional wars under Jeremy Corbyn. The findings of the report show that the case against Corbyn made by his opponents was a shameless and cynical frame-up. .. The Panorama documentary was not merely one story among many about antisemitism in the Labour Party. It was the capstone of the entire media narrative that took shape between 2015 and 2019. The reaction to Panorama dominated the news agenda and sucked up Labour’s energy just as Boris Johnson was becoming prime minister. During the 2019 election campaign, when the BBC presenter Andrew Neil demanded that Corbyn apologize for his purported record of dealing with antisemitism, it was above all the claims made in the documentary to which he was referring. Those claims were incendiary and would have been utterly damning if they were well grounded in the facts. Now Forde informs us, in his own understated fashion, that “Is Labour Antisemitic?” turned reality on its head, just as the leaked report insisted it did.

The Postil Magazine - Jacques Baud - The Hidden Truth about the War in Ukraine, 01 August 2022: As a winner of the Second World War, the USSR had a de jure a veto right over German reunification. In other words, Western countries had to obtain its agreement, in exchange for which Gorbachev demanded a commitment to the non-expansion of NATO. It should not be forgotten that in 1990 the USSR still existed, and there was no yet question to dismantle it, as the referendum of March 1991 would show. The Soviet Union was therefore not in a weak position and could prevent the reunification. ... Promises were thus made simply because the West had no alternative, to obtain the USSR’s approval; and without promises Germany would not have been reunified. Gorbachev accepted German reunification only because he had received assurances from President George H.W. Bush and James Baker, Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, her successor John Major and their Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, President François Mitterrand, but also from CIA Director Robert Gates and Manfred Wörner, then Secretary General of NATO. ... The representatives of the other countries also accepted the idea of not offering NATO membership to the other Eastern European countries. So, written record or not, there was a “deal,” simply because a “deal” was inevitable. Now, in international law, a “promise” is a valid unilateral act that must be respected (“promissio est servanda“). ... On 20 January 1991, before the independence of Ukraine, the Crimeans were invited to choose by referendum between two options: to remain with Kiev or to return to the pre-1954 situation and be administered by Moscow. ... This was the first referendum on autonomy in the USSR, and 93.6% of Crimeans agreed to be attached to Moscow. The Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Crimea (ASSR Crimea), abolished in 1945, was thus re-established on 12 February 1991 by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. On 17 March, Moscow organized a referendum for the maintenance of the Soviet Union, which would be accepted by Ukraine, thus indirectly validating the decision of the Crimeans. At this stage, Crimea was under the control of Moscow and not Kiev, while Ukraine was not yet independent. As Ukraine organized its own referendum for independence, the participation of the Crimeans remained weak, because they did not feel concerned anymore. Ukraine became independent six months after Crimea, and after the latter had proclaimed its sovereignty on September 4. On February 26, 1992, the Crimean parliament proclaimed the “Republic of Crimea” with the agreement of the Ukrainian government, which granted it the status of a self-governing republic. On 5 May 1992, Crimea declared its independence and adopted a Constitution. ... In 1994, by signing the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine surrendered the nuclear weapons of the former USSR that remained on its territory, in exchange for “its security, independence and territorial integrity.” At this stage, Crimea considered that it was—de jure—no longer part of Ukraine and therefore not concerned by this treaty. On its side, the government in Kiev felt strengthened by the memorandum. This is why, on 17 March 1995, it forcibly abolished the Crimean Constitution. It sent its special forces to overthrow Yuri Mechkov, President of Crimea, and de facto annexed the Republic of Crimea, thus triggering popular demonstrations for the attachment of Crimea to Russia. An event hardly reported by the Western media. ... This situation led the Crimean Parliament to formulate a new constitution in October 1995, which re-established the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. This new constitution was ratified by the Crimean Parliament on 21 October 1998 and confirmed by the Ukrainian Parliament on 23 December 1998. These events and the concerns of the Russian-speaking minority led to a Treaty of Friendship between Ukraine and Russia on 31 May 1997. In the treaty, Ukraine included the principle of the inviolability of borders, in exchange—and this is very important—for a guarantee of “the protection of the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious originality of the national minorities on their territory.” On 23 February 2014, not only did the new authorities in Kiev emerge from a coup d’état that had definitely no constitutional basis and were not elected; but, by abrogating the 2012 Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law on official languages, they no longer respected this guarantee of the 1997 treaty. The Crimeans therefore took to the streets to demand the “return” to Russia that they had obtained 30 years earlier. ... The whole Western narrative about the “annexation” of Crimea is based on a rewriting of history and the obscuring of the 1991 referendum, which did exist and was perfectly valid. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum remains extensively quoted since February 2022, but the Western narrative simply ignores the 1997 Friendship Treaty which is the reason for the discontent of the Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens.

The Intercept - Austin Ahlman - AIPAC Defeats Andy Levin, the Most Progressive Jewish Representative, But the Israel lobby couldn’t take out Rashida Tlaib, 03 August 2022: Michigan’s Democratic primaries on Tuesday, dropping over $8 million through its super PAC, United Democracy Project. Almost half of that spending went toward the race to unseat Democratic Rep. Andy Levin, who trailed fellow Rep. Haley Stevens with 40 to her 60 percent of the vote Wednesday morning. Other conservative pro-Israel groups with deep ties to AIPAC — like Democratic Majority for Israel, Urban Empowerment Action PAC, and Pro-Israel America PAC — also made substantial financial investments in Michigan races. The right-wing Israel lobby spent over $10 million altogether across the state’s 11th, 12th, and 13th congressional districts, far outpacing any other interest group or the fundraising from the candidates themselves. The campaign to defeat Levin marked a significant escalation in AIPAC’s push to quell criticism of Israel from Jewish members of Congress. ... In an email to members of the Michigan Jewish community earlier this year, former AIPAC President David Victor declared that Levin was “the most corrosive member of Congress to the US-Israel relationship.” He contrasted Levin with Muslim members of Congress who have criticized Israeli human rights abuses — saying Levin, as a self-identified Zionist Jew, was “more damaging than Rashida Tliab [sic] or Ilhan Omar.”

Information Clearing House - Chris Hedges - When the Just Go to Prison, 04 August 2022: Hale, a 34-year-old former Air Force signals intelligence analyst, is serving a 45-month prison sentence, following his conviction under the espionage Act for disclosing classified documents about the U.S. military’s drone assassination program and its high civilian death toll. The documents are believed to be the source material for “The Drone Papers” published by The Intercept, on Oct. 15, 2015. {The Intercept - The Drone Papers}

The Times of Israel - Jeremy Sharon - Understanding the ominous rise of Israel’s most notorious ultra-nationalist, 04 August 2022: With a poll giving Religious Zionism 13 seats if headed by extremist Itamar Ben Gvir, a look at where these votes are coming from and what they say about where Israel may be headed.

The Guardian - Dan Collyns - How Bolivia’s ruthless tin baron saved thousands of Jewish refugees, 11 August 2022: He has been described as ‘the worst kind of businessman’, but we now know that industrialist Moritz Hochschild also rescued as many as 20,000 Jews from the Nazis.

Spiked! - David Allen (ex-chair of the Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality (TORCH) from 1996 to 1999) - How trans ideology hijacked the gay-rights movement, 21 August 2022: The ‘LGBTQIA+’ lobby has nothing in common with the liberation struggles of old. ... But at some point in the late 1990s, the transvestites and transsexuals merged into a new group: ‘transgender’ people. The public mostly thinks that transgender people are the same as the old ‘transsexuals’ – ie, gender dysphorics who have either already ‘changed sex’ or at least intend to. But more than 95 per cent of transgender people do not ‘change sex’. ... Next up for a takeover was the jewel in our community’s crown, Stonewall. What was once a model lobby group has been hijacked and turned into, effectively, a consultancy firm for companies looking to put a tick in a ‘corporate social responsibility’ box.

Byline Times - Richard Sanders - BBC Panorama & the Labour Antisemitism Crisis, 11 October 2022: Last month, Al Jazeera broadcast a three-part series, The Labour Files, drawing on internal party documents. The second part – ‘The Crisis’ – presented an alternative perspective on Labour’s antisemitism crisis. It investigated the Panorama episode and made four very specific allegations.

+972 - Yuval Abraham - An olive harvest lynching, 20 October 2022: On Wednesday afternoon, a group of masked settlers lynched a 70-year-old Jewish Israeli woman who was accompanying a Palestinian farmer for the olive harvest in the occupied West Bank. Her name is Hagar Geffen. They attacked her with clubs until she bled, after which they beat her in the head with rocks.

The Guardian - Emma Brockes - Chelsea Manning: ‘I struggle with the so-called free world compared with life in prison’, 22 October 2022: Manning wanted to apprise the American public of several things: how badly the Iraq war was going; and that the secrecy around it was designed to save face, not a security measure to protect the national interest.

The Article - John Ware - Rewriting history: Corbyn’s Labour Party, antisemitism and ‘Panorama’, 18 October 2022.

The Guardian - Simon Petherick - The Long Read: My small, doomed stand against Thatcher’s war on truth, 25 October 2022.

Haaretz - Gideon Levy - How Ties Between Mizrahi Jews and Arabs Were Ruined – With Help From Ashkenazi Israelis, 31 October 2022: Cohen offers some astounding examples, not all of them known, of the degree of racism that elite exhibited from the dawn of Zionism, both vis-à-vis Palestinian Arabs and the so-called Jewish Arabs. ... Cohen brings us a plethora of patronizing quotes from Ashkenazim, who talk about the inborn violent nature of Mizrahim. ... Atrocities committed by “Marokaim" (Israelis from Moroccan decent) were deemed to be a function of their character and culture. Identical acts committed by Ashkenazi members of the left were presented as a deviation that was a typical of the men who carried out those acts; their ethnic identity is not cited and they are described as “well-bred persons,” notwithstanding the murdering and plundering. ... Jabotinsky, Netanyahu’s teacher and spiritual guide, spoke of the need “to sweep away… all traces of the ‘Mizrahi soul." Why? “Not because we are Jews or even Europeans, but simply because we are men of culture.” ... Ben-Gurion even laid the blame for the murderous raid on the West Bank village of Qibya in 1953, in which some 70 Palestinians were killed, on the residents of “the fringe” – a synonym for Mizrahi Jews, although he knew well that that was a lie. His Mapai party had from its start endeavored to portray itself as not hating Arabs, as opposed to the Arab-hating Herut movement. ... The most powerful conclusion one gleans from the book is that everything goes back to the moment of genesis, the very beginnings of Zionism. The racism, the patronizing and the extreme nationalism. ... The depressing historic journey into the heart of the discrimination, the roots of the conflict and the hatred, not only between Jews and Arabs but also between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi, no less bitter and difficult, ends very badly. If at the beginning of Zionism Mizrahiness signaled a potential for close relations with the Arab natives of the land, it has been transformed in the eyes of many into an identity that has crystallized around a hatred for Arabs.

The Independent - Geoffrey Robertson - I am Lula’s lawyer – this is what I can tell you about the man who always deserved to be president, 01 November 2022: I know him as a kind and principled man, determined to fight to improve the lives of the Brazilian people.

The Guardian - Ian Sample - Oldest known written sentence discovered – on a head-lice comb, 09 November 2022: The letters on the comb spell out seven words that form the first completely deciphered sentence in a Canaanite dialect, written in Canaanite script, said the researchers in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.

The Guardian - Linda Geddes - Oldest cooked leftovers ever found suggest Neanderthals were foodies, 23 November 2022: The burned food remnants – the oldest ever found – were recovered from the Shanidar Cave site, a Neanderthal dwelling 500 miles north of Baghdad in the Zagros Mountains. Thought to be about 70,000 years old, they were discovered in one of many ancient hearths in the caves. ... The team also used a scanning electron microscope to analyse ancient charred food fragments recovered from Franchthi Cave in southern Greece, which was occupied by early modern humans about 12,000 years ago.Taken together, these findings suggest that Palaeolithic diets were diverse and prehistoric cooking complex, involving several steps of food preparation. “We present evidence for the first time of soaking and pounding pulse seeds by both Neanderthals and early modern humans (Homo sapiens) at both sites, and during both phases at Shanidar Cave,” said Dr Ceren Kabukcu, an archaeobotanist at the University of Liverpool, who led the study.

2023

The Guardian - Nicola Garrard - A moment that changed me: three schoolboy truants convinced me to become a teacher, 25 January 2023.

The Independent - Daniel Reast - Remains of 11,000-year-old human uncovered, 26 January 2023: Found at Heaning Wood Bone Cave in Great Urswick, south Cumbria, the cave has been confirmed as a burial site by experts from an international team from the University of Central Lancashire. ... Dr Peterson continued: “Cave burials like this are well known from some periods of British prehistory and the Heaning Wood burials are an important addition to our knowledge of funeral practices.” ...Before this recent discovery, the earliest ‘northerner’ excavated was a 10,000-year-old burial from the nearby Kent’s Bank Cavern, Morecambe Bay discovered in 2013. Dr Peterson said: “To put it in perspective, the last Ice Age lasted until about 11,600 years ago. After that period, the global temperature warmed rapidly over about 100 years to give us the climate we’ve got today. “These people are just about as early as we could expect them to be - the pioneers reoccupying the land after the Ice Age.”Mr Stables, from Ulveston in Cumbria, told reporters: “I never expected anything like the Early Mesolithic connection in my wildest dreams.”

i - Yasmin Alibhai-Brown - The Prevent review is a Tory stitch-up designed to stoke culture wars and ostracise Muslims, 08 February 2023: The exceedingly well-connected, staunchly right-wing Sir William Shawcross is back in the news. ... His review of the Government’s anti-radicalisation programme, Prevent, is expected to be published soon. Snippets released thus far are revealing and alarming. ... Shawcross has long been openly hostile to Muslims. Here, in his own words: “Europe and Islam is one of the greatest, most terrifying problems of our future. I think all European countries have vastly, very quickly growing Islamic populations.” This was in 2012, when he was director of The Henry Jackson Society, an Anglo-American thinktank. Its co-founder Matthew Jamison wrote in 2017 that he was ashamed of his involvement and never imagined the HJS would relentlessly demonise Muslims and Islam and become “a far-right, deeply anti-Muslim, racist… propaganda outfit”. ... Between October 2012 and January 2018, Shawcross was chair of the Charities Commission, which then secretly proceeded to label 55 Muslim charities “extremist” and “radical”. ... I once sat next to Shawcross at a dinner organised by the then conservative Canadian government. When I brought up the discrimination faced by Muslims, he came across as a coiled cobra, dangerous and volatile. It was intimidating. I left.

Mint Press News - David Miller - Canadian Government Partners with Israel Lobby to Delete Pro-Palestinian Accounts, 17th February 2023: Cotler’s public persona is that he has some sympathy for the underdog. ... By the late 1970s, he was already heavily involved in Zionist advocacy, being the lawyer for Anatoli Shcharansky. A Ukrainian Zionist activist, Shcharansky was active in agitation as part of an operation run by a secret Israeli intelligence organization, Nativ, to access new settlers from the Soviet Union. Was Cotler aware that he was involved in an intelligence operation? ... Though referred to only as a professor of law at McGill, Cotler made it clear that he was a committed partisan of Israeli hasbara, complaining that “hasbara efforts are discriminated against” and that “Israel itself has become some kind of illegitimate entity.” ... Nor are Cotler’s interesting links with the far right in Ukraine; he is reportedly on the advisory board of “Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter,” which honored Ukrainian Nazis who collaborated with Nazi Germany and massacred Jews in the 1940s. ... But it is in the policy planning process of the state of Israel that Cotler seems to have made the most significant impact. Cotler has been, as British writer Antony Lerman puts it, “probably the most significant and influential international figure in the propagation of the concept of the ‘new antisemitism.'” As codified and finally published in its current form in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association, the “working definition” of antisemitism is the weapon of choice of the Zionist movement to intimidate and bully supporters of the Palestinians. While the idea of the new antisemitism has roots back to the 1940s and was a subject of renewed interest from the early 1970s, the administrative infrastructure to redefine antisemitism flourished from the late 1980s when Mossad was given the lead in the coordination of the strategy. As Lerman has noted, the Monitoring Forum on Antisemitism, established in 1988, “aimed at establishing Israeli hegemony over the monitoring and combating of antisemitism by Jewish groups worldwide.” It “was coordinated and mostly implemented by Mossad representatives” working in Israeli embassies. A key step in the process was the first Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust in January 2000. The resulting Stockholm Declaration “became the founding document” of the International Holocaust Remembrance Association. Cotler headed the Canadian delegation to that event. ... In 2003 a new body, the Global Forum for Combatting Antisemitism, was created by Melchior and Cotler’s friend and former “client” Natan Sharansky (formerly known as Anatoli Shcharansky, he changed his name to Zionise it, as do many incoming settlers). Sharansky was also – as an Israeli government minister in charge of antisemitism —chair of the Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism, which had been set up in the 1990s. ... As the State of Israel developed its strategy to redefine antisemitism as opposition to Israeli government policy, it embedded a number of Zionist lobby groups in the process. ... Some of these advisors to the state of Israel were carried over as advisors to the European Union Monitoring Center, which first introduced the “working definition” of antisemitism in 2005.

Consortium News - Chris Hedges - Ukraine’s Death by Proxy, 14 March 2023: Proxy wars devour the countries they purport to defend. ... The war in Ukraine has little to do with Ukrainian freedom and a lot to do with degrading the Russian military and weakening Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power. ... I heard similar sentiments expressed to justify other proxy wars. “They are our brothers, these freedom fighters, and we owe them our help,” Ronald Reagan said of the Contras, who pillaged, raped and slaughtered their way through Nicaragua. “They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance,” Reagan added. “We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left, it is right versus wrong.” ... “I want to hear him say we’re going to arm the Free Syrian Army,” John McCain said of President Donald Trump. “We’re going to dedicate ourselves to the removal of Bashar al-Assad. We’re going to have the Russians pay a price for their engagement. All players here are going to have to pay a penalty and the United States of America is going to be on the side of the people who fight for freedom.” ... Israel’s proxy militias in Lebanon, along with its military intervention in 1978 and 1982, were designed to dislodge the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from the country. This objective was achieved. But the removal of the PLO from Lebanon gave rise to Hezbollah, a far more militant and effective adversary, along with Syrian domination of Lebanon. ... Prior to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, the Soviet bloc provided Palestinian fighters with heavy weapons, including tanks, anti-aircraft missiles and artillery. The lack of training made those weapons ineffective against Israeli air power, artillery and mechanized units. ... President Richard Nixon’s rapprochement towards China, in another example, included terminating covert assistance to Tibetan rebels.

The Guardian - Arwa Mahdawi - Conservatives hate wokeness. Don’t trigger them by asking what it means, 16 March 2023: An anti-woke commentator short-circuited when asked to define the term, which the right has turned into a catch-all. ... The term comes from African American Vernacular English and, originally, was broadly defined as being “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”.

The Guardian - Kenan Malik - ‘Stop the boats’ does echo the language of the 30s – but those words were English, 19 March 2023: The TUC deplored the fact that Britain had become “the refuge of all the rubbish of the central countries of Europe”. Jews were “the most lecherous breed in existence”, wrote Joseph Banister in his antisemitic tract England Under the Jews, and would run the sex trade. ... Then, a largely press-generated panic about “fifth columnists” led in May 1940 to the mass internment of 29,000 Germans, Austrians and Italians, mostly Jews. Internees were held in camps across the UK, the largest being on the Isle of Man, with Jews forced to mingle with Nazi sympathisers. More than 7,500 were also shipped to internment camps in Australia and Canada – the 1940s version of “offshore detention”.

The Guardian - Sinan Antoon - A million lives later, I cannot forgive what American terrorism did to my country, Iraq, 19 March 2023: The ‘new Iraq’ that the warmongers promised us did not bring Starbucks or startups, but car bombs, al-Qaida and Islamic State.

Consortium News - Chris Hedges - Iraq 20 years: The Lords of Chaos, 20 March 2023: Two decades ago, I sabotaged my career at The New York Times. ... I had spent seven years in the Middle East, four of them as the Middle East Bureau Chief. I was an Arabic speaker. I believed, like nearly all Arabists, including most of those in the State Department and the C.I.A., that a “preemptive” war against Iraq would be the most costly strategic blunder in American history. ... This mayhem was accompanied by an orgy of killing by U.S. occupation forces, such as as the gang rape and murder of Abeer al-Janabi, a 14-year-old girl and her family by members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne. The U.S. routinely engaged in the torture and execution of detained civilians, including at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca.

Iain Macwhirter (Substack) - He’ll Be Back. How Alex Salmond outlasted the “conspirators” in the SNP who tried to have him jailed, 26 March 2023: For the former First Minister of Scotland it was the end of a struggle that began in October 2017 when Nicola Sturgeon, inspired by the online #metoo movement, ordered her staff to create a new and retrospective investigation into allegations of sexual impropriety by government ministers. Her predecessor as FM, Alex Salmond, was the first target of this new inquisition. Complaints made years previously, that had apparently been resolved to the satisfaction of the complainants, were reopened. Later, as his conduct became a police matter, the party hierarchy was trawled for complaints against the former FM no matter how trivial. Salmond’s original criminal charge sheet, presented to him on January 23, 2019, at Dalkeith police station, included “culpable and reckless conduct” for opening a bottle of sparkling water in his ministerial car. Other charges involved “touching while clothed” and what would be regarded by many people as social kissing. But he also faced two charges of attempted rape and other more serious accusations of sexual assault. ... It remains a mystery to many in the SNP just why Nicola Sturgeon, who had always insisted before 2017 that Salmond “hadn’t a sexist bone in his body”, condoned this extraordinary and ultimately disastrous campaign to imprison the man she had worked with closely for over a decade. She later claimed that the allegations once revealed to her made her feel “physically sick”. Many of her closest advisers at the time including her aide of over a decade, Noel Dolan, thought the exercise was a miscarriage of justice and called for the resignation of the Permanent Secretary, Leslie Evans, who had been responsible for the star chamber that initially accused Salmond. The affair consumed the energies the Scottish government, Police Scotland and any number of Party luminaries and legal advisers for years. It led to the longest parliamentary inquiry in Holyrood’s history.

The Spectator - Iain Macwhirter - Is Alex Salmond behind the SNP’s implosion?, 26 March 2023: It is hard to pinpoint precisely the moment when things started to go wrong for the Scottish National Party, but as good a place as any to start is the 24 August 2018. That was when it is alleged that someone in Sturgeon’s inner circle leaked to the Daily Record the extraordinary intelligence that the former first minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, had been accused of sexually assaulting two female civil servants. ... In January 2019, Salmond won a ruling from the Court of Session that the Scottish government had acted ‘unlawfully’ in accusing him of sexual misconduct and awarded him £512,000 in costs. A year on, Salmond was acquitted by a High Court jury of 13 charges of attempted rape and sexual assault after a sensational trial. His accusers included senior figures in the SNP and civil servants.In the subsequent parliamentary inquiry into the affair, Salmond in turn accused Sturgeon’s husband, party CEO Peter Murrell, of personally organising a criminal ‘conspiracy’ to ‘ruin’ his reputation and have him ‘imprisoned’. ... It was sometime between #MeToo and the turmoil of the Salmond affair that Sturgeon decided to dedicate herself to the cause of self-identification (self-ID). It was a cause which, she hoped, would show that she and Scotland were in the vanguard of progressive reform.

Internet

Jodey Bateman - 4000 years of history in 4,200 words.

The Jerusalem Fund - Professor John J. Mearsheimer: The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners: Probably the best single indicator of how far to the right Israel has moved in recent years is the shocking fact that Avigdor Lieberman is employed as its foreign minister. Even Martin Peretz of the New Republic, who is well known for his unyielding support for Israel, describes Lieberman as “a neo-fascist,” and equates him with the late Austrian fascist Jorg Haider.

antonyloewenstein.com - Jeff Halper - An unhelpful discourse on Israel, 31 March 2009.

Andrew Sullivan - The Third Strike, 10 April 2010: The AP's story on Joseph Ratzinger's direct involvement in delaying for six years the defrocking of a priest who had confessed to tying up and raping minors ends any doubt that the future Pope is as implicated in the sex abuse crisis as much as any other official in the church.

We Meant Well - blog by Paul Van Buren.

Uri Avnery (Gush Shalom):

London Review of Books - Charles Glass - Belts Gleaming, Vol. 31 No. 11, 11 June 2009, pages 15-16: Uri Avnery’s two wartime memoirs, now collected as 1948: A Soldier’s Tale, were published in Hebrew in 1949 and 1950. (full article from Charles Glass website)

- Who is Afraid of a real Inquiry? 12 June 2010.
- His Father’s Boy, 9 October 2010.
- “Islam is the Solution”, 4 December 2010.
- The Gold and the Stone, 9 April 2011.
- Rubber Man, 14 May 2011.
- Bibi and the Yo-Yos, 28 May 2011.
- Deny! Deny!, 18 June 2011.
- Sacred Mantras, 25 June 2011.
- The Jewish Ayatollahs, 2 July 2011.
- Instilled Memory, 9 July 2011.
- It Can Happen Here, 15 July 2011.
- The Charge of the New York Times, 23 July 2011.
- Dogs of War, 3 September 2011.
- “With Friends Like These…”, 17 December 2011: Who are these Palestinians?
- The Blockbusters, 21 January 2012.
- (from Information Clearing House) Zionism A Rebellion Against Judaism, 01 June 2012.
- The War of Lies, 9 June 2012.
- Two Faces, 14 July 2012: Two former Prime Ministers of Israel are in the news these days. They represent two of the many faces of Israel. ... The group ceased to exist – until Shamir and a colleague, Eliahu Giladi, broke out. The two acted together and brought LEHI to life again. One day Shamir had Giladi tried and shot. Giladi was not accused of treason, but, on the contrary - of excessive zeal. He made plans for revolutionary actions, such as killing David Ben-Gurion and the entire Zionist leadership. Shamir decided that his adventurous nature endangered the organization and that he must be removed. ... Many years later I asked him which historical personality he admired most. He answered without hesitation: Lenin. I understood that he admired him because Lenin ruthlessly followed the maxim “the end justifies the means”. ... This time he was sent to a detention camp in Africa, from which he duly escaped. He reached French Djibouti, was brought by a French warship to Paris where he stayed until Israel came into being. ... In Israel, Shamir disappeared from view. For years he worked for the Mossad. It was rumored that his speciality was sending letter bombs. ... His other great achievement was preventing Jews from reaching the US. When the Soviet leadership allowed Jews to emigrate, almost all of them proceeded straight to the US. Shamir persuaded the White House to shut the gates, and thus compelled more than a million Russian Jews to come to Israel (where they now swell the ranks of the extreme right.) ... SHAMIR, THE dead honest fanatic, has many followers. Olmert, the living corrupt pragmatist, has very few. Netanyahu, their current successor, has the vices of both and the virtues of neither.
- Talking Zionism, 28 July 2012.
- Bloddy Spring, 11 August 2012.
- Mad or Crazy?, 18 August 2012.
- The Fountainhead, 25 August 2012: ... Was not interested in Paul Ryan, the man about to be nominated by the Republican party for the office of Vice President, until the name Ayn Rand popped up.
- The Third Intifada?, 2 March 2013.
- Butterflies in Damascus, 8 June 2013.
- Triumph and Tragedy, 15 June 2013: Nasser did not want the war. ... He was egged on by the Soviet Union, whose leaders believed that Israel was about to attack their main client in the region, Syria, as part of a worldwide American plot.
- When the Gods Laugh, 22 June 2013.
- The Assassination, 16 November 2013.
- The Battle of the Titans , 23 November 2013.
- The Debacle, 30 November 2013.
- (Un)holy River , 7 December 2013.
- Angel Face, 21 December 2013.
- The Imperator, 18 January 2014: Like a Roman imperator, Sharon was a supreme being, admired and feared, ... .
- Captain Boycott Rides Again, 21 February 2014.
- The Monster on the Hill, 5th April 2014.
- In One Word: Poof!, 12 April 2014.
- An Oslo Criminal, 19 April 2014.
- Words, Words, Words , 26 April 2014.
- Waving in the first Row, 17 January 2015: The three Islamic terrorists could have been very proud of themselves, if they had lived to see it. By committing two attacks (quite ordinary ones by Israeli standards) they spread panic throughout France, brought millions of people onto the streets, gathered more than 40 heads of states in Paris. ... And who marched in the first row, beaming like a victor? Our own and only Bibi. How did he get there? The facts came out within record time. Seems he was not invited at all. On the contrary, President Francois Hollande sent explicit messages: please, please don't come. It would turn the demo into a show of solidarity with the Jews, instead of a public outcry for the freedom of the press and other "republican values". Netanyahu came nevertheless, with two extreme rightist ministers in tow. Placed in the second row, he did what Israelis do: he shoved aside a black African president in front of him and placed himself in the front row. Once there, he began waving to the people on the balconies along the way. He was beaming, like a Roman general in his triumphal parade. ... Netanyahu went to Paris as part of his election campaign. ... But the fight between Jews and Arabs on French soil has little to do with anti-Semitism. It is a struggle imported from North Africa. When the Algerian war of liberation broke out in 1954, the Jews there had to choose sides. Almost all decided to support the colonial power, France, against the Algerian people. That had a historical background. In 1870, the French minister of justice, Adolphe Cremieux, who happened to be a Jew, conferred French citizenship on all Algerian Jews, separating them from their Muslim neighbors. ... The local Jews, proud of their French citizenship, staunchly supported the colonists. In the end, the Jews were prominent in the OAS, the extreme French underground which conducted a bloody struggle against the freedom fighters. The result was that practically all the Jews fled Algeria together with the French when the day of reckoning arrived.
- A Boy Called Bibi, 02 May 2015.
- The Real Naqba, 06 June 2015.
- The Settlers' Prussia, 17 October 2015.
- The Other Gandhi, 21 April 2016.
- I Was There, 21 May 2016.
- Just a Trick, 11 June 2016.
- Hatred Unlimited, 09 July 2016.
- Welcome! Bienvenue!, 16 July 2016.
- The Great Rift, 23 July 2016.
- The Orange Man, 30 July 2016.
- The Shot Heard All Over the Country, 06 August 2016.
- It Can Happen Here, 17 September 2016: "Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, suggested in his fundamental book "The Jewish State" that in Palestine we would volunteer to serve as an outpost for European civilization against barbarism."
- The Saga of Sisyphus, 24 September 2016.

Richard Forer - Commit Yourself To The Truth, Cutting Through the Confusion About Israel/Palestine (1, 2), 22 June 2010.

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Remarks by PM Netanyahu and Tony Blair, Quartet Envoy to the Middle East, 20 June 2010.

The main section dealing with apartheid in Israeli-controlled areas of the IPSC site. Articles containing the phrase Israeli apartheid ('Hafrada' or 'afrada') on the IPSC site.

Jews for Justice for Palestinians - Tom Segev reviews Benny Morris’s book on 1948, 19 July 2010.

Esser Agaroth (Blog) - Battling The Erev Rav Mentality,...Again, 21 August 2009: An Open Letter to the "Jew," or rather the "un-Jew," who identifies with the liberal, cultural elite of Europe and North America.

Reprieve - Guantanamo Bay: "Reprieve represents 33 of the 240 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay; over 50 of our clients have been released to date."

Iain Dale's Diary - In Conversation With Matthew Parris Interview (Uncut Version), 24 August 2010.

Zionist Conspiracy blog - Steven Plaut - Tel Aviv University's Shlomo Sand and the Neo-Nazi Theory about the Khazars, 3 August 2008.

Craig Murray:

Judiciary of Scotland, Sentencing Statements: Craig Murray: Petition and Complaint. (scotcourt.gov.uk: Opinion of the Court, Craig Murray, 25 March 2021)

- Nadira's Story, 09 December 2007: (from The Sunday Times, 09 December 9 2007) The belly-dancing mistress of Britain’s controversial former ambassador to Uzbekistan is to perform her life story on the London stage in an attempt to change her image. ... Unbeknown to Murray, she decided to dance again to support him and ended up at Spearmint Rhino. “It was awful,” she said. “They expect you to strip naked for £20. I got more than that in Uzbekistan for wearing a bikini. And I had to pay the club £80 a night to dance.”
- The Disgraceful Sir Michael Wright, A Grovelling Tool of the Police State, 3 December 2008.
- Iraq Inquiry: The First Big Lie, 24 November 2009.
- Raise A Glass to Wikileaks, 29 November 2010.
- Ludicrous Attack on Assange, 7 December 2010.
- Gazan Youth Breaks Out. 3 January 2011.
- No End To Afghan War, 10 May 2011.
- In Bed With Lola and Gulnara, Information Clearing House, 6 December 2011.
- Scotland/England Maritime Boundaries, 11 January 2012.
- Heartsick, 6 March 2012: Given that it is the US which funds Israel, and not vice versa, it is all very peculiar. Or is it simply that the US taxpayer funds Israel, but Israel funds US politicians, thus Israel is simply a de facto pimp in the diversion of taxpayers money into politicians’ pockets?
- America’s Vassal Acts Decisively and Illegally, 16 August 2012.
- The Tragedy of Malala, 16 October 2012.
- The Security State Crushes Ever Tighter, 19 February 2014.
- Moazzam Begg a Political Prisoner Again, 26 February 2014.
- Lockerbie, 11 March 2014.
- You Don't Say, 21 July 2014.
- Met worse than Murdoch, 26 July 2014.
- Werritty’s Chum Gould Cheers on Gaza Genocide, 31 July 2014.
- Machiavellianism and Brexit, 17 January 2019: "A Cabinet Office source tells me today No. 10 is considering agreeing a second referendum with three choices: No Deal Brexit, May’s Deal or No Brexit."
- Democracy and the Corrupt Seven (Eight), 19 February 2019.
- Has the Elite’s Slavish pro-Israel Agenda Finally Gone Too Far?, 25 February 2019.
- Pure: Ten Points I Just Can’t Believe About the Official Skripal Narrative, 07 March 2019.
- Heroes, Villains and Establishment Hypocrisy, 27 September 2019: What I find deeply reprehensible in all the BBC coverage is their failure to report the facts of the case, and their utter lack of curiosity about why Joe Biden’s son Hunter was paid $60,000 a month by Burisma, Ukraine’s largest natural gas producer, as an entirely absent non-executive director, when he had no relevant experience in Ukraine or gas, and very little business experience, having just been dishonorably discharged from the Navy Reserve for use of crack cocaine?
- Jonathan Sacoolas Is Not, and Has Never Been, a Diplomat, 08 Octover 2019: Jonathan Sacoolas does not have, and has never had, any entitlement to diplomatic immunity in international law. Sacoolas works as an NSA technical officer at the communications interceptions post at “RAF Croughton”. His role is support to the interception of communications from British citizens.
- Bad Faith Negotiation, 15 October 2019: When the Attorney General publishes his view on such a matter, it has been drafted by FCO Legal Advisers or at the least is based on a minute from them. The sole exception to this of which I know was when Blair’s Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, received formal advice from FCO Legal Advisers that to invade Iraq would be an illegal war of aggression. Goldsmith then flew to Washington on instruction from Blair and Goldsmith’s final advice that the war was legal was based on drafting, not from FCO Legal Advisers, but from George Bush’s Legal Advisors. ... There is currently considerable alarm in the FCO that Legal Advisers have been asked about the circumstances constituting force majeure which would justify the UK in breaking a EU Withdrawal Agreement in the future. ... The situation that Johnson and Raab appear now to contemplate is agreeing a “backstop” now to get Brexit done, but then not implementing the agreed backstop when the time comes due to “force majeure”.
- Assange in Court, 22 October 2019: I was deeply shaken while witnessing yesterday’s events in Westminster Magistrates Court. Every decision was railroaded through over the scarcely heard arguments and objections of Assange’s legal team, by a magistrate who barely pretended to be listening.
- Indigenous Eurasian Islamic Populations, 19 December 2019.
- The Terrifying Rise of the Zombie State Narrative, 02 January 2020: As I reported back in May last year, that the expert engineers sent to investigate by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) did not buy into this is hardly surprising. That their findings were deliberately omitted from the OPCW report is very worrying indeed.
- The USA Doubles Down on its Saudi Allegiance, 03 January 2020: For the United States to abandon proxy warfare and directly kill one of Iran’s most senior political figures has changed international politics in a fundamental way. ... This switch in US foreign policy was known in the White House of 2007 as “the redirection”. It meant that Sunni jihadists like Al-Qaida and later al-Nusra were able to switch back to being valued allies of the United States.
- Lies, the Bethlehem Doctrine, and the Illegal Murder of Soleimani, 04 January 2020: Developed by Daniel Bethlehem when Legal Adviser to first Netanyahu’s government and then Blair’s, the Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of “pre-emptive self-defence” against “imminent” attack. ... Daniel Bethlehem became the FCO’s Chief Legal Adviser, brought in by Jack Straw, precisely because every single one of the FCO’s existing Legal Advisers believed the Iraq War to be illegal. In 2004, when the House of Commons was considering the legality of the war on Iraq, Bethlehem produced a remarkable paper for consideration which said that it was legal because the courts and existing law were wrong, a defence which has seldom succeeded in court.
- The Troubling Decline of International Law, 24 January 2020.
- J’Accuse, 30 March 2020: A 22 person team from Police Scotland worked for over a year identifying and interviewing almost 400 hoped-for complainants and witnesses against Alex Salmond. This resulted in nil charges and nil witnesses. Nil. The accusations in court were all fabricated and presented on a government platter to the police by a two prong process. The first prong was the civil service witch hunt presided over by Leslie Evans and already condemned by Scotland’s highest civil court as “unlawful, unfair and tainted by apparent bias”. The second prong was the internal SNP process orchestrated by a group at the very top in SNP HQ and the First Minister’s Private Office. A key figure in the latter was directly accused in court by Alex Salmond himself of having encouraged a significant number of the accusers to fabricate incidents. ... What the police did get was eye witness evidence that several of the allegations they had been handed by the closed group were fabricated. ... But they ignored it. ... You may be interested to know the police also spent a great deal of time attempting to substantiate the “incident” at Edinburgh airport that has been so frequently recycled by the mainstream media over years. MI5 also hired a London security consultancy to work on this story. ... Coverage of the trial was a disgrace. The most salacious accusations of the odious prosecutor were selected and magnified into massive headlines. The defence witnesses were almost totally ignored and unreported. The entire stream of evidence from credible witnesses that disproved the prosecution case in its entirety was simply never presented in the papers, still less on radio and TV. A great deal of that evidence proved that prosecution witnesses were not merely mistaken, but had been deliberately and coldly lying.
- That Leaked Labour Party Report, 20 April 2020: The report does conclusively refute the accusation that delays were occasioned by Jeremy Corbyn or his office, or that his office displayed any sympathy for anti-semitism. In fact, the opposite is the case. Corbyn’s office showed a proper hatred of anti-semitism, but also an alarming willingness to throw good people under the bus on very flimsy allegations of anti-semitism. pp306-7 The report shows a serious inability to distinguish between real, nasty anti-semitism and opposition to the policies of Israel. Furthermore, this is the attitude of the authors of the report themselves who in many scores of examples take for granted that the accusations of anti-semitism are sufficient to consider the case proven, and accept a number of specified opinions as proof of anti-semitism which are anything but. ... The epicentre of this incompetence was Sam Matthews, who was to be the star of the BBC’s Panorama programme “Is Labour Anti-Semitic” and the primary source of the allegations that Corbyn’s office was preventing action and protecting anti-semites. It is impossible to read this report – and I have ploughed through all 851 pages – without coming to the conclusion that Matthews himself was responsible for a great deal of inertia. The report hints throughout that the failure to deal with anti-semitic Labour Party members was a deliberate act by party HQ staff in order to make Corbyn look bad.
- Damage to the Soul, 14 July 2020: The imprisonment of Julian Assange has been a catalogue of gross injustice heaped upon gross injustice, while a complicit media and indoctrinated population looks the other way. In a truly extraordinary twist, Assange is now being extradited on the basis of an indictment served in the UK, which is substantially different to the actual indictment he now faces in Virginia if extradited.
- My Sworn Evidence on the Sturgeon Affair, 27 January 2021: I swore on oath two affidavits for my trial for contempt of court, and adopted them as my evidence today. (Press Gazette - Blogger took care not to identify women in Alex Salmond trial, court told, 27 January 2021)
- Your Man Back in the Public Gallery: Assange Extradition, US Appeal Result, 13 December 2021: The High Court accepted that Baraitser had rightly judged the expert evidence on Assange’s health, so the diagnoses of serious depression and autism stand. However she had erred in not seeking diplomatic assurances from the United States that he would be kept in conditions that would not trigger suicide. Holroyde’s argument rested entirely on the Diplomatic Note received from the US government containing these assurances. They constituted, he stated, a “solemn assurance from one state to another”, as though that were a thing of unimpeachable surety. Holroyde did not address the point that these were assurances from the very state whose war crimes and multiple breaches of international law Assange had exposed, resulting in this very extradition in the first place. He did not address the fact that the United States has a record of breaking exactly these kind of assurances on prisoner conditions, and there is substantial European Court of Human Rights case law on the subject. In fact the legal force of diplomatic assurances has been the subject of a massive opus of recent jurisprudence that Holroyde simply ignored. He did not address the fact that the very assurances in this Diplomatic Note were shot through with conditionalities. He did not address the fact that repeated US court decisions stated that US domestic authorities were not bound by any diplomatic assurances given to foreign governments (which incidentally is precisely the same argument, accepted by Baraitser, that UK courts are not bound by the UK/US extradition treaty bar on political extradition). He did not address the fact that the majority of the charges against Assange in the extradition request were now exposed as based on perjured evidence from a convicted paedophile and fraudster in the pay of the CIA, which some might see as reflecting poorly on the US authorities’ bona fides. He did not address the fact that the government whose assurances as to treatment he viewed as unquestionable, had been plotting to kidnap or assassinate the subject of the extradition.
- Biden Works to Prolong Ukraine War, 07 June 2022: Turkey continues to be the centre of diplomatic activity on resolving the Ukraine war. ... Turkey has for now turned towards the more limited goal of ensuring that grain supplies can be shipped out from the Black Sea through the Bosphorus. ... Ukraine is objecting to this plan to export its own wheat, because it objects to the removal of the mines, which I should be clear were put down in the sea lanes by Ukraine to prevent amphibious attack on Odessa.
- Fascist judges, 09 March 2023: Juries are an essential safeguard from injustice by the state. ... Perhaps the most famous example in my lifetime was the trial of Clive Ponting under the Official Secrets Act. ... He blew the whistle on the truth of the sinking of the Argentine battleship, the General Belgrano. ... A British naval task force had set sail to retake the islands. Furious diplomatic efforts were underway to find a peaceful solution, led by the United States and by Chile. When the British nuclear submarine Conqueror sunk the Belgrano, killing 323 people, it ended the prospects of a peaceful settlement to the conflict. The resultant Falklands War catapulted Margaret Thatcher from extreme unpopularity to extreme popularity on a frenzy of jingoism. ... The Belgrano was sunk deliberately and completely unnecessarily in order to precipitate full on war, at a time when it posed no threat to British forces and was 250 miles south west of the Falklands and steaming away from them. ... The scale of loss of life was such that the UK embarked on an entirely misleading campaign to talk up the threat posed by the Belgrano, and by referring to the zig zagging denied it was heading back to the mainland and away from the Falklands. MOD internal communications were of course quite clear that the Belgrano was heading away when it was sunk, and these are what Clive Ponting leaked to Labour MP Tam Dalyell. ... Clive never denied it was he who had leaked the documents. His defence, when tried at the Old Bailey, was that it was in the public interest to reveal the truth. This defence was flatly rejected by the judge. He refused, in closed court without the jury, the defence barristers’ argument that it was for the jury to decide whether the leak was in the public interest. In his instructions to the jury, the judge directly ordered them to convict, and specifically stated that the public interest could only be whatever the government of the day defined as the public interest.

Wings Over Scotland - Stuart Campbell

- The poisoned pens, 05 April 2020: Scotland’s media is still unable to contain its outpouring of bitter, resentful rage over Alex Salmond’s exoneration by a jury on trumped-up sexual assault charges.

Grouse Beater

- Churchill in Dundee, 23 May 2020.

Americans for Middle East Understanding - The Link, Volume 43, Issue 5, November - December 2010 - Jonathan Cook - Publish It Not: (1. AMEU), {2. jkcook.net), (3. Unabridged PDF). Australians for Palestine (AFP) - DANKNER: Decline to brutality – I am ashamed, 13 January 2011: Article by Amnon Dankner, Ma’ariv [p.B22], 7 January 2011, obtained from the Hebrew Press translation service of the Israel News (Daily Summary of the Hebrew Media) for embassies and journalists.

William Blum - The Bombing of PanAm Flight 103 Case Not Closed, 2001.

B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories:
Soldiers kill father and 4-year-old son and wound other family members in their home, a-Zeitun neighborhood, Gaza City, 4 January 2009.
Suspicion that soldiers shot Palestinian farmer to death today without warning, 18 January 2011.

Coteret (News, analysis and opinion from the Israeli Hebrew print and electronic media):
Breaking the Silence’s landmark new book, now in English, 22 December 2010.
Yediot’s Plocker: Thank you Mossad for removing Iranian bomb distraction. Can we move on now?, 10 January 2011.

Mondoweiss

- (Philip Weiss) The war of ideas in the Middle East:
- ‘This One Is So Hot’: The Censorship of Walt and Mearsheimer, 14 August 2007: Walt and Mearsheimer point out that Michael Oren spoke at the Council earlier this year on Middle East matters without "context."
- Do Jews Dominate in American Media? And So What If We Do?, 08 March 2008: Last year Senator Russ Feingold, buttonholed on CSPAN about why so many speakers on air were Jewish, said, “Well, we’re good at talking… .” ... Support for Israel is an element of Jewish religious practice and more important, part of the Jewish cultural experience. Even if you’re a secular Jewish professional who prides himself on his objectivity, there is a ton of cultural pressure on you to support Israel or at least not to betray Israel. ... Conversations about Israel even inside the liberal Jewish community are emotionally loaded, and result in people not speaking to one another. ... As former CNN correspondent Linda Scherzer has said, "We, as Jews, must understand that we come with a certain bias … We believe in the Israeli narrative of history. We support the values that we as Americans, Westerners, and Jews espouse. Thus, we see news reporting through our own prism."
- A taperecording of Nadia Matar’s call for the assassination of Mahmoud Abbas, 20 March 2009.
- Why I’m going to ‘Move Over AIPAC’, 12 April 2011.
- Bill Kristol celebrates Republican Party purge of ‘oldfashioned Arabists’ Scowcroft, Baker and Bush I, 21 May 2012.
- In landmark case on Israel and Jewish identity, British tribunal says anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism, 9 April 2013.
- (Allison Deger) Obama and Kerry drop talk of Palestinian state for ‘state institutions’ and ‘transition’, 9 December 2013.
- Israeli government tries to undo image of Pope at the wall, 26 May 2014.
- (Annie Robbins) ‘Common Dreams’ website traps Hasbara troll spewing anti-Semitism, 21 August 2014: Beck, a Harvard graduate now a grad student at a midwestern university, created literally dozens of online personas to support his true objective: poisoning online discourse critical of Israel. So if evidence of anti-Semitism wasn’t there, he’d create it himself. ... And what was the goal of this pollution? Common Dreams says the hate speech undermined fundraising efforts, and was intended to do so.
- (David Gerald Fincham) Understanding the Jewish National Home, 17 April 2015.
- (David Gerald Fincham) Understanding the Partition plan, 02 August 2015: As expressed in the Zionists’ Carlsbad Resolution and implemented in the British-administered Mandate for Palestine, Palestine was to become the national home of the Jews while remaining the national home of the existing, mostly Arab, population: “a common home the upbuilding of which will assure to each of these peoples an undisturbed national development” with “perfect equality in all matters between Jew and Arab”.
- Palestinians will never have a state and will be ruled by Israel — says Israeli minister, 10 October 2015.
- (David Gerald Fincham) ‘State of Terror,’ by Thomas Suárez, 13 October 2016: Montagu was instrumental in changing the aim of the Balfour Declaration from “Palestine AS THE Jewish national home” to the vaguer “A Jewish national home IN Palestine”. Orthodox Jews, including the indigenous Arab Jews of Palestine, thought that the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel could not take place until the time of the Messiah, and rejected Zionism as an attempt to replace Jewish religion with a secular, nationalistic ideology.
- (Yoav Litvin) Haaretz smears the Tamimi family to counter worldwide solidarity with 16-year-old Ahed, 05 January 2018: Promote the blood libel? Check. Glorify terrorism? Check. Celebrate Israeli deaths? Check. Ahed Tamimi and her family aren’t fighting for peace, and they’re not just fighting the occupation: They’re fighting to destroy Israel, and their fight is seasoned with Jew-hatred. (Haaretz 1/4/18) That is how Petra Marquardt-Bigman begins her article published yesterday in Haaretz, Israel’s leading liberal news outlet.
- {Peter Gregson) Why let Netanyahu write the Labour rulebook?, 12 September 2018: I’d had a suspicion that we were going to end up with the full IHRA when the Labour National Executive Committee (NEC) met on 4th Sept.
- (Jonathan Ofir) Amos Oz was the wizard of liberal-Zionist zealotry, 04 January 2019.
- Ilhan Omar is charged with invoking ‘myth of dual loyalty’ — but many Jewish writers say it’s no myth, 01 March 2019.
- (Jeff Handmaker) Unfounded allegations of anti-Semitism cover up Israeli apartheid, 04 March 2019.
- (Yumna Patel, Jonathan Ofir) Kahane in, Arabs out: Israeli election panel disqualifies Palestinian party calling for equality, approves racist Jewish Power leader, 07 March 2019: Under Israeli law, if you advocate for a democratic state that is not specifically “Jewish”, then you violate Israeli law.
- Hannah Arendt would agree with Ilhan Omar, 05 March 2019: Arendt was alarmed by the arrogance of Israel’s founders, in proceeding with contempt for their Arab neighbors. So long as the Jewish state had the enmity of its neighbors, she said, the country would be forced to rely on a superpower’s protection, and therefore on the lobbying of U.S. Jews, who would thereby open themselves to the dual loyalty charge. In her 1944 essay “Zionism Reconsidered,” Arendt, a refugee from Nazi Germany who died in New York in 1975 at age 69, wrote that the double loyalty issue for American Jews was “unavoidable.”
- Don’t accept the rules for how to criticize the Israel lobby, 15 March 2019: "John Judis’s book, “Genesis: Truman, American Jews and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict” says that American Zionist pressure was essential to formulating Truman’s approach"
- Trump brags he blew off calls from world leaders to give Adelsons the greatest gift: Jerusalem, 07 April 2019.
- On many occasions, our website has relied on ‘Wikileaks’ revelations to report depth of U.S.-Israel relationship, 17 April 2019.
- (Jonathan Cook) As the Israel lobby in the US weakens, its UK counterpart grows more fearsome, 22 April 2019.
- (Jonathan Ofir) Israeli Defense Ministry dep’t is dedicated to covering up evidence of the Nakba — ‘Haaretz’, 05 July 2019: "Israel has a secret Defense Ministry department which is assigned the task of making Nakba archives disappear. ... The department is called “Director of security of the Defense establishment”, acronym MALMAB in Hebrew."
- (Yossi Gurvitz) Purging the Nakba. Or how an Israeli security agency takes on a monstrosity, the truth, 06 July 2019: "One of Israel’s most notorious security apparatus, DSDE, has been going through official archives for almost two decades and removing “delicate” documents from them, particularly those recording events during the Nakba."
- (Mati Shemoelof) ‘There is no peace without equality, and there is no equality without peace’ — the legacy of Israeli Black Panthers activist Kochavi Shemesh, 10 July 2019.
- Shocking report on leading Jews’ effort to defeat Rashida Tlaib, 09 August 2019.
- (Yossi Gurvitz) ‘Come be my slave’ — Israeli rabbi at military academy says Palestinians should be enslaved for their own good, 09 August 2019: “Yes, we are racists, of course we are. There are races in the world and nations that have genetic attributes, and that demands that we [the Jewish people] will think of how to help them. The fact that someone is your inferior is not a reason to deride him or eliminate him, but help him. Yes, there are differences between races and that’s precisely the reason who should offer aid.
- (James North, Philip Weiss) The ‘NYT’ gives another book review to a rightwing Zionist, who denies the Nakba, 27 September 2019.
- (Richard Falk) In praise of Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, 15 October 2019: It took the withdrawal of the Nelly Sachs Prize to make me familiar with the fine literary achievements and compassionate politics of Kamila Shamsie.
- (Uri Weiss) Remembering Meir Shamgar, the chief legal architect of Israeli apartheid, 04 November 2019: Judge Shamgar was the chief architect of the Israeli legal regime of occupation, settlement construction, and apartheid. More specifically, he is responsible for the removal of judicial impediments to war crimes. Judge Shamgar’s main influence was in denying Palestinians the protections that international law affords to human beings under occupation, leading to Israel’s deepening of the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. As far as Judge Shamgar was concerned, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are ‘possessed territories’, which means that Palestinians residing in these territories are not entitled to human beings’ rights under occupation, nor are they entitled to Israeli citizenship. Thus, Judge Shamgar fashioned a law of denied occupation, one which amounts to apartheid.
- (Liz Rose) Rereading Amos Oz a year after his death, 19 December 2019.
- (Joel Doerfler) Facing Reality: moving on from the two-state solution in Ian Lustick’s ‘Paradigm Lost’, 19 December 2019.
- (Rob Lipton) MuzzleWatch: Israel-based Facebook effort targets Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, 30 December 2019.
- (Jonathan Ofir) ‘Arab culture is the jungle’: Leader in Gantz’s Blue White party gives racist Haaretz interview, 10 February 2020.
- (Haim Bresheeth) My life’s work as an anti-racist and anti-Zionist activist makes me an antisemite according to Labour, 14 February 2020: I would like to tell you about my background, in order to support my request. I am an academic, author and filmmaker, an ex-Israeli Jew who has been active for over five decades as a socialist, anti-Zionist and anti-racist activist.
- (Steve France) Khalidi takes on ‘hegemonic narrative’ of Jewish nationalism in personal new book, 17 February 2020: And so began the continuing pattern of Zionists and their state sponsors dismissing Palestinians as insignificant, if not nonexistent. On that point, Khalidi cited as landmarks the 1917 Balfour Declaration; the League of Nations Mandate for the U.K. to rule Palestine; the 1947 UN Partition Resolution, which was “bulldozed through the General Assembly by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R”; the U.S. greenlight given to Israel in 1967 to conquer the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights from neighboring Arab states; the UN response to that aggression in Resolution 242; all the way to President Trump’s just-released “peace plan.” In closing, Khalidi asserted that “all nationalisms fabricate a history to justify themselves.” But the “particular and peculiar” thing in the case of Israel is that the “trauma and ideas that generated Jewish settler-colonialism all happened in Europe, but were moved to Palestine.” In other words, for more than 100 years the Palestinian people have had a Jewish nationalist dream working itself out in their land, taking their property and destroying their rights and dignity and their very lives.
- (Rob Lipton) MuzzleWatch: Signs the British weaponization of antisemitism is coming to the US, 26 February 2020: A high profile example is most telling, Jo Bird, an ascendant left candidate who has been suspended from the Labour List. Jo Bird’s Jewish background is simply ignored here with the more salient issue being her strong left voice and criticism of the entire process. Similar to what Milan Kundera describes in “The Joke” Bird is being accused of antisemitism for comments obviously taken out of context by those seeking to attack left Labour, particularly Jeremy Corbyn.
- (Steve France) An unlikely nemesis, 20 March 2020: Specifically, he [Martin McMahon] just sued Benjamin Netanyahu, Miriam Adelson, AIPAC (and assorted AIPAC operatives), David Friedman, Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt, Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Mario Cuomo, Mitch McConnell and a few other adherents of Zionism in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging they are “war criminals” or aiders and abettors of war criminals.
- (Sana Towns) Rep. Ilhan Omar is challenged by the Israel lobby, 19 May 2020.
- (Gabriel Polley) Britain and Palestine: a question of colonialism, 01 June 2020: Britain’s colonial entanglement in Palestine did not begin with the entry of General Allenby into Jerusalem on December 18, 1917 after its capture from the Ottoman Empire ... Its roots go back to the era of high imperialism in the mid-nineteenth century. By the 1870s and 1880s, British travelers in what was known in the West as the “Peaceful Crusade,” were acting and writing as if they were already Palestine’s colonial masters. ... The “explorers” (for its indigenous inhabitants, Palestine needed no exploration) of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), founded in London in 1865, were key in the reimagining of Palestine as a future colony, administered by Britain but populated by Jewish immigrants. Charles Warren, who led the Fund’s first archaeological expeditions in Jerusalem in the 1860s, dreamt of a body like the East India Company, “to govern and farm Palestine for twenty years.” ... Several years later, the British diplomat and novelist Laurence Oliphant toured the Eastern Mediterranean, supported by the British government, looking to establish a Jewish colony. While Palestine was too densely inhabited for an agricultural colony to be founded – Oliphant recorded that “the few fertile spots which exist are already under cultivation by the resident population” – he selected a large region in present-day Jordan. As this area too was inhabited, Oliphant concluded that it would be necessary to keep “a firm hand upon the Arabs,” and to expel them from the area if necessary: “if they were driven back to the Arabian deserts from which they came, there is abundant pasture in its oases for their camels and goats.” While nothing came of Oliphant’s plan, in the 1880s he settled in northern Palestine, and provided advice and money to early Zionist settlers, who eagerly absorbed his idea of the “transfer” of the indigenous population.
- (Salman Abu Sitta) Massacres as a weapon of ethnic cleansing during the Nakba, 12 June 2020: From April 1st to May 14, 1948 -- before Israel was declared, before the British left, and before any Arab soldier entered Palestine to save it -- Zionist militias essentially conquered Palestine. ... Ben-Gurion seized the moment. In May 1942, at the Biltmore conference attended by 600 Zionist leaders, he declared Palestine to be “the Jewish Commonwealth”. He ordered the Haganah to draft military plans to conquer Palestine and he created the Village Files, in which complete intelligence was gathered about every Palestinian village. ... The Partition Plan (UNGA 181 of 29 November 1947) was born. ... By mid-March 1948, the US and the UN realized that the plan could not be implemented without bloodshed. They dropped it, and an UN Trusteeship over Palestine, replacing Britain, was proposed by the US. That was a major blow for Ben-Gurion’s scheme. ... From the 1st of April to May 14, 1948, before the settlers’ state was declared and before the British left and before any Arab soldier entered Palestine to save it, the Zionist Invasion essentially conquered Palestine. Its declaration on May 14 was the crowning conclusion of this invasion. This critical period leading to Al Nakba has rarely been looked upon in this light. We made a detailed study of this period. ... In all, we listed 155 war crimes of massacres and atrocities (indiscriminate killing of civilians) which led to the depopulation of 530 cities and villages. This essay covers only Phase 1, which led to the Declaration of Israel. [28][29]
- (Philip Weiss, James North) It sure looks like Trump and Adelson have cut a deal on annexation, 12 June 2020: Look at it from Trump’s point of view. He doesn’t care about peace in the Middle East or Palestinian human rights. He wants one thing, to win in November, and he needs money. Why would the Adelsons risk $200 million on a loser? Well, because it’s not a losing cause; they get their payback now. They figure that Israeli annexation is permanent no matter what happens to Trump. “Facts on the ground” is the Israeli way of expansion. The embassy move will never be reversed by a Joe Biden. So let’s annex. Today, Sheldon’s Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom is promoting annexation. “[A]nnexation is Israel’s right, and. . . it poses no threat to the interests of either the United States or the Jewish state.” ... The Guardian said in February that insiders expect the Adelsons to donate between $100 and $200 million to Trump’s reelection hopes this year. ... Sheldon Adelson is a funder and board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition; the RJC calls Trump the most pro-Israel president ever and, big coincidence, the RJC “is launching a lobbying effort on Capitol Hill to rally support for Israeli annexation,” according to Jewish Insider.
- George Floyd killing highlights issue of US police training in Israel, 04 June 2020: The real purpose of the program is evidently to build connections between American security professionals and Israeli officials, so that the U.S. continues to back Israel.
- (Avigail Abarbanel) An obituary for Sheldon Adelson by a former Israeli, 14 January 2021: By his own admission, “I’m a one-issue person. That issue is Israel.”[30] ... Israeli Zionist indoctrination makes it absolutely clear that if you are Jewish, the only value that should matter to you is the survival of the Jewish people, your people. ... The survival of Israel is not merely a matter of political ideology or intellectual preference. ... The very identity and raison d’être of every Jew is expected to be bound up with the survival and existence of Israel as an exclusively Jewish state. Adelson was a perfect example of how spectacularly-successful such education can be. ... As soon as a conflict arises between a cause, a person or a group of people you care about, and Israel’s interests, you are expected to put Israel first, even if it means abandoning your cause.
- (James North) Dershowitz persuaded Trump to let the Israeli billionaire, Dan Gertler, loot DR Congo again, 25 January 2021: Five days before Trump’s term ended, his close adviser Dershowitz convinced him to remove Dan Gertler from a U.S. Treasury Department blacklist, which since 2017 had restricted the Israeli’s ability to do business with American banks and corporations. ... The Treasury Department’s statement when it put Gertler on the list was clear: "Gertler is an international businessman and billionaire who has amassed his fortune through hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). . . As a result, between 2010 and 2012 alone, the DRC reportedly lost over $1.36 billion in revenues. . . ." So now Dan Gertler is back in business. The $1.36 billion figure certainly understates his looting. What’s also vital to remember is that the DR Congo’s annual budget is only $7.2 billion, a pittance for a nation with 87 million people.
- (Abba Solomon) The magic meaning of a Zionist polemic, ‘You Gentiles’, 20 July 2021: {"You Gentiles" (1924) - Maurice Samuel} There is no mention of Palestine or Zionism in the book. But it is a Zionist polemic, meant to leave only separation, territory for Jews, as the solution to hostility from gentiles in the diaspora. Samuel was a leader of the Zionist Organization of America, and a protege and lifelong friend of Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, the future first President of the State of Israel. For antisemites, who have quoted and republished the book a number of times in the last century, it is a revelation of how Jews “really feel” about gentiles, as proof of the “real” nature and intention of Jews.
- (Michael Arria) The ADL declares war on Palestine solidarity groups, 02 May 2022: In a prerecorded speech, shown at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) annual National Leadership Summit on May 1, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, tagged Palestine advocacy groups as “extremists”, and equated left critics of Israel with white supremacists. ... The ADL’s own website states that anti-Zionism “isn’t always necessarily antisemitic,” but this isn’t the first time that Greenblatt has seemingly contradicted the organization’s official view. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” the former Obama special assistant told an ADL crowd in November 2021. “Denying the right of Jews — alone among all peoples of the world — to have a homeland is antisemitism. Singling out just the Jewish state for condemnation while ignoring others, is prejudice.”
- US Jews must not side with Palestinians, ‘our mortal enemies’ — Israeli diplomat, 09 February 2023: Danny Ayalon, a vigorous advocate for Israel and former ambassador to the U.S., says he is worried about the growth of Jewish anti-Zionism in the United States. ... There must be “no daylight” between U.S. Jews and Israel, he warned; and anti-Zionist Jews who side “automatically with Palestinians which are so far our mortal enemies” should have sense “drilled into” them. What is that sense? That the land belongs to the Jews even though others have “challenged” that claim, Ayalon explained. And Zionism and Judaism are one and the same, so anti-Zionism is antisemitism.
- Criticizing Israel is suddenly the new order for liberal Zionists, 09 March 2023: Both Tamkin and Friedman’s pieces are refreshing for their honest description of the Israel lobby. Writes Friedman, Since Israel’s founding, “the ‘religion’ of many nonobservant American Jews” has been “supporting the country’s security and its economic development and cementing its diplomatic ties to the U.S…. That mission drove fund-raising and forged solidarity among Jewish communities across America.” While Tamkin says that liberal Jews helped form the Israel lobby. After 1967, “Israel moved to the center of American Jews’ politics and self-imagination. To be an American Jew, including a liberal American Jew, was to support Israel.” So Jews over 40 grew up with the idea that their “job” as American Jews “is to support Israel,” Hadar Susskind of Americans for Peace Now explains. Susskind points out how effective this programming was politically: “The political education of many members of Congress was such that ‘you don’t criticize the Israeli government,’ he added. But it’s incumbent on American Jews, he said, to encourage their elected leaders to speak up for human rights, even if that comes with some political cost.”

Moon of Alabama

- Mueller Indictment - The "Russian Influence" Is A Commercial Marketing Scheme, 17 February 2018: The published indictment gives support to our long held believe that there was no "Russian influence" campaign during the U.S. election. What is described and denounced as such was instead a commercial marketing scheme which ran click-bait websites to generate advertisement revenue and created online crowds around virtual persona to promote whatever its commercial customers wanted to promote.
- (Aaron Maté) Mueller Report Claims Much Proves Little, 05 July 2019: But a close examination of the report shows that none of those headline assertions are supported by the report’s evidence or other publicly available sources. They are further undercut by investigative shortcomings and the conflicts of interest of key players involved. (Full Report)
- Syria - Trump Gives A Green Light For Another Turkish Invasion, 07 October 2019: A saying goes "The Kurds have no friends but the mountains." ... There is only one solution for them. They will have to call up the Syrian government and ask it to come back into the north east. That would remove the Turkish concerns and would likely prevent further Turkish moves.
- How The Win-Win-Win-Win Plan For Syria's Northeast Succeeds, 16 October 2019: Everyone involved recognizes that this is a win-win-win-win situation. Erdogan could show that he was fighting against the PKK terrorists and prevented their attempts to become a proto-state. Trump could hold his campaign promise of removing U.S. troops from useless foreign interventions. Syria regained its northeast and the important economic resources of that area. Russia gained global prestige and additional influence in the Middle East.
- Media Suppressed Evidence Of The OPCW's 'Chemical Attack' Manipulations - There Is Now More Of It, 15 December 2019.
- UN Security Council Hears OPCW Inspector Testimony About The Manipulation Of 'Chemical Attack' Reports, 21 January 2020.
- Justice Department Drops Case Against 'Russian Influence Campaign' While New Fake Claims Arise, 18 March 2020: So essentially the Mueller team dropped its own case against Concord because there was no chance that they would win it. ... Western media, primarily the New York Times, were the ones which made false claims about Russian influence campaigns which never existed. Western media, primarily the New York Times, continue to do so.
- Justice Department Drops Case Against 'Russian Influence Campaign' While New Fake Claims Arise, 18 March 2020: The Justice Department dropped its case against a Russian company which was alleged of influencing the 2016 elections. But as one false claim about Russian influence campaigns is now thoroughly debunked new nonsensical claims about alleged Russian influence campaigns arise. ... The Russian trolls sold media space to advertisers. They had nothing to with the election. ... So essentially the Mueller team dropped its own case against Concord because there was no chance that they would win it.
- Russia Attempts To Freeze The Conflict In Libya, 09 June 2020: The war in Libya has become a proxy conflict between many international players. The Government of National Accord (GNA) under Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood. Its main political and financial sponsor is Qatar and its main military ally is Turkey. Italy is also supporting Sarraj. The GNA controls the capital Tripoli and Misrata in the west of the country. On the other side is the (former?) CIA asset Khalifa Haftar with his Libyan National Army. He controls Libya's east and most of its oil resources. He is supported by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece and France. Russia sees its involvement in the conflict as an adjudicator. It wants to reestablish its long term business interests in Libya which had fallen to the wayside after the war the U.S., UK and France waged against country in 2011. It has sold weapons to Hafter through the UAE and has allowed Russian mercenaries to take part in the war on the side of Haftar's LNA.

Max Blumenthal: (Grayzone, Huffpost)

Yitzhak Rabin’s Killers Target Obama, 28 July 2009.
Under Scrutiny, IDF Retracts Claims About Flotilla’s Al Qaeda Links, 3 June 2010.
Did Bin Laden Borrow His Porn Stash From Manuel Noriega, 14 May 2011.
When the Shoah met the Nakba (”One group lost all…while the other found everything they needed”), 15 May 2011.
After 1948: How Israel stopped the “outcast race” from returning home, 16 May 2011.
(AlterNet) How Opponents of U.K. Labour Leader Corbyn Advanced a Political Coup With Antisemitism Smears, 06 May 2016.

Piers Robinson: (Wordpress, Thread Reader)

- The @Times newspaper has renewed its smear campaign, attacking academics researching UK propaganda and the war in Syria ..., 13 June 2020.

Wide Awake in America - Nima Shirazi:

Death of a Proud, Self-Avowed Terrorist: Former Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir Goes to the Great Hague in the Sky, 30 June 2012.
The Washington Post's Racism Problem: Op-Ed Writers Fear 'Flood' of Arabs & Africans Pose Demographic, Existential Threat to a Pure Paradise, 25 July 2012.
Racism and ignorance know no nationality, 26 July 2012.
The Language of Power: Obama's "Humanitarian Hawk" & Israel's New Gladiator at the UN, 18 July 2013.

The Jewish Community of Hebron:
Zachor, 15 March 2011.
Hebron First, 30 March 2011.

ZNet - Noam Chomsky, Stephen Shalom, Michael Albert- Noam Chomsky: On Libya and the Unfolding Crises, 31 March 2011: What then are U.S. motives? At a very general level, the evidence seems to me to show that they have not changed much since the high-level planning studies undertaken during World War II. Wartime planners took for granted that the US would emerge from the war in a position of overwhelming dominance, and called for the establishment of a Grand Area in which the US would maintain “unquestioned power,” with “military and economic supremacy,” while ensuring the “limitation of any exercise of sovereignty” by states that might interfere with its global designs. The Grand Area was to include the Western hemisphere, the Far East, the British empire (which included the Middle East energy reserves), and as much of Eurasia as possible, at least its industrial and commercial center in Western Europe. It is quite clear from the documentary record that “President Roosevelt was aiming at United States hegemony in the postwar world,” to quote the accurate assessment of the (justly) respected British diplomatic historian Geoffrey Warner. And more significant, the careful wartime plans were soon implemented, as we read in declassified documents of the following years, and observe in practice. Circumstances of course have changed, and tactics adjusted accordingly, but basic principles are quite stable, to the present.

Bernard Avishai - Goldstone's Reconsideration, 3 April 2011. Fred on Everything - Fred Reed - Islamo-fascism, Judaeo-fascism, Bapto-fascism, and Why We Need More Bars, 22 June 2009.

The Passionate Attachment - Maidhc Ó Cathail:

On tenth anniversary, Israel partisans behind Iraq War still at large, 12 March 2013.

Tony Greenstein's Blog (tonygreenstein.com):

A Devastating Defeat for Academic Opponents of the Boycott of Israeli Universities, 5 April 2013.
We Name the Gang of Zionists Whose Purpose is to Disrupt Palestinian Events in London, 09 December 2017: "The Thugs and Misfits of the neo-Nazi Jewish Defence League & Assorted Fascists Intent on Destroying Free Speech on Israel and Palestine."
More Revelations about Zionism’s Fascist Wing, 03 August 2018: "Who are Tommy Robinson’s Zionist Supporters?"
The Alliance for Workers Liberty’s Alliance with Tom Watson and Labour’s Right, 08 March 2019: "Matgamna declares that anti-Zionism, including support for the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees ‘should not be tolerated in a healthy labour movement’ and should be made ‘incompatible with membership of the Labour Party’."
Divina Levrini – A Star that will forever burn brightly in our memories, 09 March 2019: "Fearless and brave – the tortured activist on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla whose only thought was for others."
More Fake Anti-Semitism Propaganda from the Jewish Goebbels, 23 May 2019: The Jewish Chronicle conducts an Opinion Poll to test the effectiveness of its propaganda against Jeremy Corbyn!
Now They are Accusing Bernie Sanders of Anti-Semitism - Let’s Hope He’s Doesn’t Follow in Corbyn’s Footsteps & Apologise to his Accusers, 27 December 2019.
Former Columnist and Historian of the Jewish Community, Professor Geoffrey Alderman, is Banned by Jewish Chronicle Editor Stephen Pollard, 16 February 2020: Alderman’s 'Crime' was telling the truth about the Zionists' Antisemitism Disinformation Campaign.
Review: "Wrestling with Zionism – Jewish Voices of Dissent", Daphna Levit, Olive Branch Press, Interlink Publishing Company, 2020, 10 July 2020.
Prussia and the State of Israel – The Parallels, 11 August 2020: Both Prussia and Israel were the product of a holocaust. ... Prussia arose on the ruins of another people (some of whose descendants are still living there). ... The event that largely determined the entire history of Prussia up to World War II was a holocaust: the 30-years war. ... What started out as the Prussian defense forces became an aggressive army of conquest that terrified all its neighbors. ... For a time, the soldiers and their families constituted about a quarter of the Berlin population. ... Adulation of the army became a cult, almost a religion. ... The German crusaders decided that instead of fighting the heathens in a faraway country, it made more sense to fight the neighboring pagans and rob them of their lands. ... The “State” – Der Staat – became a sacred being, transcending all other loyalties. ... When Poland was divided in 1771 between Russia, Austria and Prussia, the Prussian state acquired a national minority problem. In the new territory there lived a large Polish population that stuck to its national identity and language. The Prussian response was a massive settlement campaign in these areas. This was a highly organized effort, planned right down to the minutest detail. The German settlers got a plot of land and many financial benefits. The Polish minority was oppressed and discriminated against in every possible way. The Prussian kings wanted to “Germanize” their acquired areas, much as the Israeli government wants to “Judaize” their occupied territories.This Prussian effort had a direct impact on the Jewish colonization of Palestine. It served as an example for the father of Zionist settlement, Arthur Ruppin, and not by accident – he was born and grew up in the Polish area of Prussia. It is impossible to exaggerate the influence of the Prussian model on the Zionist movement in almost all spheres of life. ... Herzl’s diaries are full of admiration for the German state. He courted Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany, who obliged by receiving him in a tent before the gate of Jerusalem. ... Herzl was not the only one to imprint a Prussian-German pattern on the Zionist enterprise. In this he was overshadowed by Ruppin, who is known today to Israeli children mainly as a street name. But Ruppin had an immense impact on the Zionist enterprise, more than any other single person. He was the real leader of the Zionist immigrants in Palestine in their formative period, the years of the second and third Aliyah (immigration wave) in the first quarter of the 20th century. ... It was he who practically invented the Kibbutz and the Moshav (cooperative settlement).If so, why has he been almost eradicated from official memory? Because some sides of Ruppin are best forgotten. Before becoming a Zionist, he was an extreme Prussian-German nationalist. He was one of the fathers of the “scientific” racist creed and believed in the superiority of the Aryan race. Up to the end he occupied himself with measuring skulls and noses in order to provide support for assorted racist ideas. His partners and friends created the “science” that inspired Adolf Hitler and his disciples. The Zionist movement would have been impossible were it not for the work of Heinrich Graetz, the historian who created the historical image of the Jews which we all learned at school. Graetz, who was also born in the Polish area of Prussia, was a pupil of the Prussian-German historians who “invented” the German nation, much as he “invented” the Jewish nation.
James Baldwin on Black-Jewish Relations, Israel and the United States, 28 August 2020.[31]
The Labour Representation Committee AGM is this Saturday - If It’s Serious About Defeating the Right It Should Get Rid of its President, John McDonnell, 02 September 2020: The second meeting in July, which apart from the four of us included Professor David Miller of Bristol University, who was himself suspended, Tariq Ali and Norman Finkelstein proved somewhat more controversial. Since the meeting was about free speech Norman Finkelstein decided that he would be his normal controversial self in the course of which he praised David Irving, the holocaust denier as a good historian and also asked the rhetorical question of what actually is the Holocaust.
The History of Zionism’s Attempts to Deny the Armenian Holocaust, 01 August 2021: Just as the Nazis had invented the stab-in-the-back legend alleging that the Jews had caused their defeat in WW1, so too did the Turks, holding the Armenians responsible for their defeats in World War 1. ...Despite having ignored and downplayed the Jewish holocaust when it was taking place, the Zionist movement reacts angrily to holocaust deniers. Unfortunately the Zionists are not motivated by opposition in principle to genocide denial other than when it comes to the Jewish genocide. This is because the Jewish holocaust lies at the core of Zionism’s narrative of self-justification. If the Zionists had any principled objection to genocide denial then they would apply that principle to the Armenian genocide which is widely recognised to be the first holocaust of the 20th century. ... Bernard Lewis a prominent Zionist historian was convicted in a French court of denying the Armenian genocide. ... To assuage the Turks, the Foreign Ministry also proposed to plant articles in the press that would be critical of Israel’s attempts to prevent the conference from taking place.[32]
Open Letter to the Guardian's Editor Kath Viner & its Zionist Gatekeeper, Jonathan Freedland: "Do You Not Have a Shred of Decency? Why did the Guardian remove from its coverage of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s death any reference to the Palestinians?", 28 December 2021: People like Boris Johnson, who in his 2004 novel ‘72 Virgins’ depicted Jews as controlling the media and being able to “fiddle” elections. Not forgetting Jacob Rees-Mogg who, apart from tweeting in support of the neo-Nazi AfD in Germany, described fellow Jewish MPs John Bercow and Oliver Letwin as “Illuminati who are taking the powers to themselves.” A comment described as ‘expressly anti-Semitic’ by Professor Michael Berkowitz of UCL. (Twitter: Mark Seddon)
Weekly Worker - Between moral outrage and historical analysis, Zissue 751, 08 January 2009: Tony Greenstein reviews Gabriel Piterberg's 'The returns of Zionism' (Verso 2008, pp298) and Arno J Mayer's 'Plowshares into swords' (Verso 2008, pp432).
My Book ‘Zionism During the Holocaust’ is Being Released This Week, 06 November 2022: In Poland in the last free elections in 1938 in Warsaw the anti-Zionist Bund took 17 of the 20 Jewish Council seats. The Zionists obtained one. ... In Germany the Zionists were even more of a fringe minority. They constituted no more than 2% of its Jews. ... Many Zionist leaders saw the rise of Hitler as a good thing. ... One of the leaders of German Zionism, Rabbi Joachim Prinz admitted that: "It was morally disturbing to seem to be considered as the favoured children of the Nazi Government, particularly when it dissolved the anti-Zionist youth groups, and seemed in other ways to prefer the Zionists. The Nazis asked for a more Zionist behaviour." ... When Chajka went to Palestine in 1944 she made a speech to the Zionist Executive. However the extracts below were not mentioned in references to the speech by Dina Porat, the Chief Historian at the Zionist propaganda museum Yad Vashem, in her book "The Blue and the Yellow Stars of David." Chajka told how the Jewish Councils, the Judenrate, were hated by the masses for their collaboration with the Nazis and how they were largely staffed by members of the Zionist movement ... Today the Zionist movement claims credit for the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance but at the time the leadership of the Zionist movement in Palestine urged them to abandon the fight against the Nazis and go to Palestine via Aliya Bet, the secret emigration of Zionist pioneers from Nazi occupied Europe ... The Zionist leaders saw the risings in the ghettos as ‘a kind of betrayal of the overriding principle of the homeland.’ Yet despite opposing the uprisings at the time, the ghetto fighters were ‘retrospectively conscripted’ into the Zionist terror groups. ...The anti-Zionist leadership of the Warsaw Ghetto resistance, of which the Bund was the main component, has been eliminated by the Zionists from history. The Israeli state was extremely hostile to the last commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance, Marek Edelman, who had written an Open Letter to the Palestinians asking them to stop the bloodshed and enter into peace negotiations. The letter caused outrage because Edelman did not mention the word ‘terrorism.’ ... What was particularly irksome was that Edelman had compared the structures of the Jewish resistance movement in Warsaw to that of the Palestinians. Although he occasionally came to Israel to visit old friends, Edelman retained the Bund’s hostility to Zionism.

Promised Land

Promised Land - "News and Opinion from Israel" written by Noam Sheizaf:

Is Israel an Apartheid State?
Occupation is fun!
Kahana lives in Petah Tikva, Municipality to trace girls who date Arabs.
So much for freedom of speech: Nakba Law passes first Knesset vote.
My own war crime: personal reflections following the Goldstone Report.
Jerusalem day, remember the words of Mayor Kollek: Arabs are second and third class citizens here.
Yitzhar Rabbi publicly supporting attacks on Palestinians.
Israelis find who to blame for Flotilla fiasco: Arab Knesset Members.
The New York Times visits South Mount Hebron.
The occupation in a nutshell.
Netanyahu’s father discusses the peace process(part I)
Netanyahu’s father discusses the peace process(part II)
Netanyahu’s father discusses the peace process(part III)
Back in the West Bank (part I).
Back in the West Bank (part II).
Back in the West Bank (part III).
In a few hours, an entire village is destroyed, 28 July 2010.
The story behind the images of the crying boy, 16 August 2010.
IDF document: “policy principle: separating Gaza from West Bank”, 5 September 2010.
Goldstone “apology” won’t make us stop talking of occupation’s crimes, 2 April 2011.
Settlers’ murder investigation turns into collective punishment, 10 April 2011.
PM Netanyahu is cornered, and the US shouldn’t save him, 14 April 2011.
Twitter reveals JNF’s approach toward Palestinian Bedouin, 8 January 2012.

+972 articles by Noam Sheizaf:
Omissions, half-truths, lies: Ambassador Oren in Foreign Policy, 10 April 2012.

Tikun Olam

Tikun Olam - blog written by Richard Silverstein:

Brandeis Caves to Pipes, Donor Pressure, 23 February 2007: Columbia (Joseph Massad), Yale (Juan Cole) and Princeton (Rashid Kahlidi) have had the honor of their Mideast studies faculty (and faculty candidates) being subjected to a pro-Israel smear campaign. Now, it appears Brandeis is suffering the same fate. But instead of the David Project (behind the Columbia smear), Daniel Pipes is single-handedly taking on Brandeis with the help of some of its pro-Israel donors who’ve threatened a financial boycott.
Alan Dershowitz Accuses Rabbis Supporting Goldstone of Being ‘Anti-Israel,’ Pro-Hamas, Guilty of ‘Blood Libel’, 29 April 2010.
NY Times ‘Discovers’ $200-Million American Jewish Settler Funding Network, 6 July 2010.
Israel’s Attack on Goldstone Belies Its Own Support of Apartheid, 19 May 2010.
Accused IDF torturer to direct police relations with East Jerusalem Arabs, 27 July 2010.
Identity of former IDF torturer exposed, 'Captain George' is Doron Zahavi, 29 July 2010.
Arab Spy Arrests, ‘Payback’ for Decades-Old Shin Bet Murder Scandal? 8 August 2010.
Mossad Accused of 1987 Assassination of German MP, 21 November 2010.
Die Welt on Uwe Barschel's Murder and Possible Mossad Connection, 21 November 2010.
Israel’s ‘Organized Crime’: Mafia and Mossad, 1 December 2010.
Limits of Israeli Democracy, 1 December 2010.
Isaiah Weeps: Jewish National Fund, GOD-TV Erase Israeli Bedouin Village to Bring Jesus’ Second Coming, 6 December 2010.
Israel’s Prisoner ‘Mr. X’ is Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Abducted by Mossad, 11 December 2010.
Iranian General’s Wife Accuses Turkish Intelligence of Collaborating With Mossad in 2007 Kidnapping, 17 December 2010.
Bergman: Bibi Will Send Israeli Bombers on Their Way (To Iran), 19 December 2010.
Israel and Palestine: Free the Prisoners, 3 January 2011.
Palestine: Death of the Innocents Continues, 7 January 2011.
Bergman’s Critique of al-Mabouh Hit in GQ, 9 January 2011.
Israel’s Orthodox Rabbis: ‘Palestinians to the Ovens!’, 12 January 2011: He points out that it has been his custom in criticizing Israelis who support the Occupation to attack the liberal elite which is characterized by the slogan “shooting and crying.” Instead, he says he now will have to pay closer attention to the radical Orthodox who “shoot and laugh.”
Kahanist Orthodox Right Seeks to Make Israeli Commerce Arabrein, 26 January 2011.
Haaretz Discovers al-Araqib Nakba (Finally), GOD-TV Says It’s Not Responsible, 14 February 2011.
Itamar: Turning Victims into National Blood Sacrifices, 14 March 2011.
Eden Abergil: ‘I’m B-A-C-K’, 18 March 2011.
Abusisi’s Arrest in Own Words, 21 March 2011.
Jordanian Intelligence Services Implicated in Abusisi Kidnapping, 25 March 2011.
Bibi: Abusisi is Hamas and He’s Spilling His Guts, 30 March 2011.
Abusisi’s First Public Words at Hearing: ‘I am a Simple, Innocent Man’, 31 March 2011.
Dagan, Ashkenazi, Diskin, Peres Likely Foiled 2010 Netanyahu-Barak Attack on Iran, 6 June 2011.
Bibi’s Secret War Plan, 15 August 2012.
Kafka in an Arab Sea, 17 July 2013.
Iran Conflict Has Little to Do with Nukes, 26 November 2013.
The Not-So-Secret Reason Israel Will Fail to Join Visa Waiver Program, 6 May 2014.
Hear the One About the Mossad Agent in Al Gore’s Crapper?, 11 May 2014.
Israeli Intelligence Agent Conspired to Topple UK Tory Leader, 08 January 2016.
My Wikipedia Stalker, 22 June 2018: The Wikipedia user, Kigelim, has been singled out for stalking me by a Wikipedia admin.
Daniel Pipes Posts Anti-Palestinian Genocidal Billboard Ads in Downtown Tel Aviv, 16 February 2020: One of Daniel Pipes‘ affiliate groups, the Israel Victory Project, paid for skyscraper-size billboards in Tel Aviv featuring images of Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh blindfolded, holding a white flag and begging for mercy on their knees, while Israeli helicopter gunships hover over a decimated Palestinian landscape. The caption is: “You can only make peace with enemies who have been utterly humiliated.” ... The IVP website lists Pipes as its founder. He has voiced similarly genocidal views in the past favoring exterminating Gaza unless it ceased terror attacks against Israel. Pipes also founded Campus Watch, which served as a template for the far more successful Israeli fascist group, Im Tirzu.

TomDispatch.com

TomDispatch.com

Tomgrams by Ann Jones:
Us or Them in Afghanistan, 20 September 2009.
Strategies for "Success" in Afghanistan, 01 July 2010.
In Bed With the U.S. Army, 01 August 2010.

Tomgrams by Ira Chernus:
The Great Israeli Security Scam, 17 April 2011.
Are the U.S. and Israel Heading for a Showdown?, 20 December 2012.

JohnPilger.com

JohnPilger.com - The journalism of John Pilger:

The lies of Hiroshima are the lies of today, 6 August 2008.
Don't forget Yugoslavia, 14 August 2008.
War is peace. Ignorance is strength, 15 October 2009.
Normalising the crime of the century, 9 December 2009.
Welcome to Orwell's world 2010, 30 December 2009.
For Israel, a Reckoning, 15 January 2010.
The kidnapping of Haiti, 28 January 2010.
It's time we recognised the Blair government's criminality, 16 February 2012.

informed Comment - Juan Cole

Towers Of Beirut, 31 October 2004.
Top Ten Ways Ariel Sharon Ruined Israel and the Middle East, 14 January 2014.

JVL: Jewish Voice for Labour

Jennie Formby: strong, principled, refusing to be cowed, 12 February 2019: "Labour general secretary Jennie Formby has responded in detail to an email by seven back-bench MPs complaining about her report to the ‘PLP’ (parliamentary Labour party) on Labour’s efforts to deal with antisemitism complaints."
Labour’s antisemitism data: a genuine problem – and media exaggeration, 12 February 2019.
Antisemitism: no justification for singling out Labour, 19 February 2019. {LabourList - Sienna Rodgers - Jennie Formby provides numbers on Labour antisemitism cases, 11 February 2019}
In summary: the truth behind the stats, 25 February 2019.
Intimidation forces cancellation of WitchHunt film in Parliament, 27 February 2019. {"WitchHunt, A documentary film by Jon Pullman"}
JVL deplores the suspension of Chris Williamson, 27 February 2019.
The attack on Chris Williamson in context, 28 February 2019: "Two articles of support for Chris Williamson, by Jay Blackwood and Jonathan Cook, putting the onsluaght against him in a wider context."
Dirty tricks against Labour?, 01 March 2019: "When a former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, wades in saying that Seamus Milne is a security risk who would have to be fired if Corbyn became prime minister, people are bound to sit up and take notice. Really? David Hearst assesses the accusations and the evidence, arguing that this attack is part of a direct attempt to stop a popular and democratically elected leader from becoming prime minister."
The escalating arms race to insult Jeremy Corbyn, 02 March 2019.
An Open Letter about the Labour Tribune MPs Group Statement on antisemitism in the Labour Party, 20 July 2019: A strong critique of the Panorama Programme “Is Labour Antisemitic” and of the Tribune MPs who signed a statement of support for its allegations is offered by a dozen members of the Cambridge Labour Party in an open letter to their MP Daniel Zeichner.
(Amanda Sebestyen) Remember the Roma Holocaust – join us on 2nd August, 27 July 2019.
On the Labour Party apology, 22 July 2020: The decision by the Labour leadership to make an apology in open court and a commitment to pay “substantial damages” to those who were suing the Party is deeply disappointing. As Len McCluskey has said, the settlement is a misuse of funds derived from the subscriptions of thousands of individual members in order to settle a case that the Party was advised it could win in court. The case hinges on the “whistle blowers’” interviewed on the contested Panorama programme Is Labour Antisemitic?
Jamie Stern-Weiner on Anti-Semitism and the British Labour Party, 10 August 2020: Meanwhile, the Labour Party under Startmer has praised the “committed service” and “valuable contribution” of, while Jewish groups lauded as a “hero”, a former disciplinary unit staffer who, according to one of the Party’s most senior Jewish officials during the Corbyn era, failed to sanction a Holocaust denier despite direct prompting from the leader’s office. {James Schneider, 22 July 2020: The below is my experience of self-styled whistleblower Sam Matthews' commitment to and competence in dealing with cases of antisemitism in the Labour Party. ... While I was troubled by the speed of action to suspend a Jewish activist relative to a clear cut holocaust denier, I assumed that the latter would be dealt with by Matthews. I was wrong.}
The anti-Corbyn coalition is falling apart, 04 August 2022: With Corbyn out of the way, differences are surfacing within the previously unified Jewish communal establishment. This was shown in the broigus (bitter feud) over whether Starmer’s use of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as background wallpaper was antisemitic or not (with formerly united witch hunters such Ruth Smeeth, Lee Harpin and Margaret Hodge rushing to Starmer’s defence in the face of CAA and others’ attacks). ... The most galling response came from Margaret Hodge MP, honorary patron of the CAA, who tweeted: “I’m fed up of CAA using antisemitism as a front to attack Labour. Time to call them out for what and who they really are. More concerned with undermining Labour than rooting out antisemitism.” To say this about an organisation of which you are patron is scandalous, but it is also highly significant politically, given that the EHRC investigation into Labour antisemitism was initiated by a CAA complaint. ... And thirdly, the logic underpinning many of the attacks on the Left during the Labour antisemitism saga, while clearly incoherent at the time, was never earnestly believed by Corbyn’s main detractors and never intended to be in play post-Corbyn. ... The Labour antisemitism saga was primarily an overlapping set of 3 political battles: the electoral contest between Labour and the Conservatives, the battle between the Labour Left and Right for control of the party, and the battle between the Jewish communal establishment (think BoD, JLC, JLM etc.) and the leftwing minority (think JVL, JSG, Jewdas etc.) over political legitimacy. ... With Corbyn out and Starmer in, this coalition has now lost most of its usefulness. Crucially, the contradiction between the Labour Right and anti-Labour political actors, such as the CAA, is becoming the principle fault-line in discussions of antisemitism. {Twitter: Yirmeyahu Wedgewood}

Jonathan Cook: Articles; Blog; Facebook; Middle East Eye; The National; Substack

- Is Israel’s hand behind the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn?, 25 August 2018: That question is raised by a new freedom of information request submitted this week by a group of Israeli lawyers, academics and human rights activists. ... The role of the strategic affairs ministry, given its covert nature, is harder to assess. But the existence of a 'dirty tricks' unit points towards a strategy to vilify and isolate high-profile Palestinian solidarity activists such as Corbyn. (Middle East Eye, 24 August 2018)
- {Blog} The witchfinders are now ready to burn Corbyn, 28 February 2019: "McCarthyism, in other words, is the modern political parallel of the witch hunt."
- {Blog} More than bad faith behind anti-semitism slurs, 04 March 2019: "The media, as well as “moderate” Labour MPs opposed to Corbyn, were outraged that Williamson thought it was possible to be “too apologetic” about bigotry towards Jews. For them, the incident also usefully proved the “institutional anti-semitism” narrative they are so invested in because Williamson’s racism was warmly applauded by all those present. Except none of that is true. You don’t even need to take my word for it. It is all recorded on video. You can listen to what Williamson said yourself and see why the audience cheered."
- Labour’s civil war on Israel has been a long time coming, 07 March 2019.
- {Blog} The 7 years of lies about Assange won’t stop now, 11 April 2019.
- {Blog} UK media, MPs unveil latest Assange deception, 13 April 2019.
- As the Israel lobby in the US weakens, its UK counterpart grows more fearsome, 22 April 2019: "Rather than emerging slowly and organically, as was the case in the US, the British pro-Israel has had to be cobbled together hastily. Israel’s role in directing this immature lobby has been harder to hide. ... So unusually in Britain’s case, the chief pro-Israel lobby group against Corbyn has emerged from within his own party – in the form of the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM)." (Mondoweiss, Consortium News; Cut down version: MR Online, TruePublica)
- With Panorama’s hatchet job on Labour antisemitism, BBC has become the Tory’s attack dog, 11 July 2019: Two years ago, Ware wrote a lengthy article for a right-wing magazine warning of the danger of Corbyn reaching power. He was a politician, wrote Ware, “whose entire political career has been stimulated by disdain for the West, appeasement of extremism, and who would barely understand what fighting for the revival of British values is really all about”. Shortly after Corbyn’s leadership election victory in 2015, Ware headed a Panorama documentary that sought to malign the new leader. Ware is also a strident supporter of Israel and of its state ideology, Zionism. In a 2005 edition of Panorama he suggested that Muslims in Britain who spoke out about Israel’s crimes against Palestinians were “extremists”. In an article in the Jewish Chronicle last year Ware concluded that anti-Zionism had “morphed into antisemitism – itself a Corbyn legacy”.
- With strikes against Iran, Netanyahu risks jeopardising his closest alliance, 09 September 2019.
- {Blog} Brexit reveals Corbyn to be the true moderate, 12 September 2019.
- Israelis have made their verdict clear: Benjamin Netanyahu’s time is up, 18 September 2019: "Without it, he is likely to be indicted on multiple charges of fraud and breach of trust. So desperate was Netanyahu to avoid that fate, according to reports published in the Israeli media on election day, that he was only a hair’s breadth away from launching a war on Gaza last week as a way to postpone the election."
- UN expert’s call to stop Israeli settlement of Palestinian territories falls on deaf ears, 27 October 2019: "The judge who laid down the legal architecture needed to establish Israel’s settlements has just died. But his legacy has inspired a fresh generation of jurists to create new mechanisms for dispossessing the Palestinians.The United Nations’ independent expert on human rights in the Palestinian territories issued a damning verdict last week on what he termed “the longest belligerent occupation in the modern world”. Michael Lynk, a Canadian law professor, told the UN’s human rights council that only urgent international action could prevent Israel’s 52-year occupation of the West Bank transforming into de facto annexation. ...Mr Lynk sounded the alarm days after Israel’s most venerated judge, Meir Shamgar, died aged 94. Shamgar was a reminder that the settlers have always been able to rely on the support of public figures from across Israel’s political spectrum." (The National, 27 October 2019)
- UN expert’s call to stop Israeli settlement of Palestinian territories falls on deaf ears, 27 October 2019: "The United Nations’ independent expert on human rights in the Palestinian territories issued a damning verdict last week on what he termed 'the longest belligerent occupation in the modern world'."
- Antisemitism claims have one goal: To stop Jeremy Corbyn winning power, 27 November 2019: Meanwhile, the Jewish Chronicle’s editor, Stephen Pollard, who has spent most of his career working for right-wing tabloid newspapers, used his paper’s front page to warn readers – once again – of the Corbyn menace. He cited a poll last month that found 87 per cent of British Jews believed Corbyn was an antisemite. Some 47 per cent claimed they would “seriously consider” emigrating were he elected prime minister. ... Last month the Economist magazine, no friend to Corbyn or the Labour party, published a survey of British attitudes towards Israel and Jews, broken down into ideological factions. It found that “very left wing” voters – the people who share Corbyn’s politics – were among the least likely to hold antisemitic views, even though they also had by far the most critical views of Israel. ... Anyone who doubts the media’s ability to shape wider public opinion should remember its role in a strange electoral phenomenon long noted by psephologists. ... In contrast to the manufactured media consensus on Corbyn, an interview this month with John Bercow, the former Speaker of the House of Commons, was a reminder that there are contrary voices inside the Jewish community. After 22 years serving in parliament alongside Corbyn, Bercow observed of the Labour leader: “I have never detected so much as a whiff of antisemitism from him.” Nor, he added, from the Labour Party. ... In a telling sign of how the climate against Corbyn is being manufactured by the media, a letter from prominent Jews and public figures in support of Corbyn, including Mark Ruffalo, Steve Coogan and Mike Leigh, could find a home only in the New Musical Express. ... Marking the 10th anniversary of the financial crash last year, Corbyn warned that he would crack down on those responsible for nearly wrecking western economies by creating a giant Ponzi scheme that repackaged debt. He tweeted: “The people who caused it now call me a threat. They’re right.” Pollard responded: “This is ‘nudge, nudge, you know who I’m talking about, don’t you?’ And yes I do. It’s appalling.” As writer David Rosenberg observed: “Stephen Pollard and Jeremy Corbyn. One of them seems to think all bankers are Jews. Clue: it is not Jeremy Corbyn.” [Middle East Eye]
- [Blog] The Holocaust, the BBC and antisemitism smears, 28 January 2020: "Senior BBC news reporter Orla Guerin has found herself in hot water of an increasingly familiar kind."
- Labour’s next leader has already betrayed the left, 21 February 2020: The low-point of the candidates’ campaigning, and their betrayal of the movement that propelled Corbyn on to the national stage, came last week at a “hustings” jointly organised by the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel. These two party organisations are cheerleaders for Israel, even as it prepares to annex much of the West Bank, supported by the Trump administration, in an attempt to crush any hope of a Palestinian state ever being established. Asked if they were Zionists, two of the candidates – Nandy, the climate change secretary, and Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, who is widely touted as representing “continuity Corbynism” – declared they indeed were. The third candidate – Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, and the man favoured by the party machine – stated only slightly less emphatically that he supported Zionism. Nandy’s response was particularly baffling. She is the current chair of Labour Friends of Palestine, while the other two are supporters of the group. ...Everyone understands why the three candidates signed up enthusiastically as Zionists at the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel’s hustings. They have watched Corbyn slowly destroyed by a four-year campaign of smears promoted by these two groups – and echoed by the corporate media – claiming the party has become “institutionally antisemitic” on his watch. Each candidate has faced demands that they distance themselves from Corbyn. That culminated last month in an ultimatum from the Board of Deputies of British Jews that they sign “10 pledges” or face the same onslaught Corbyn was subjected to. The 10 commitments are designed to ensure that successful moves made in the Labour Party by the board and the Jewish Labour Movement to redefine antisemitism will become irreversible. That is because the pledges also make these two Israel advocacy groups judge and jury in Labour’s antisemitism cases. ... The three leadership candidates all hurried to back the Board of Deputies’ pledges. But these 10 commitments do more than just make serious criticism of Israel off-limits. ... Under these new terms, anyone can be automatically denounced as an antisemite if they try to challenge the changed definition of antisemitism to include criticism of Israel, or if they acknowledge that a pro-Israel lobby exists. ... The decision by Long-Bailey and the other two candidates to back the Board’s pledges has effectively turned the pro-Israel lobby into an executioner-in-waiting. It empowers these groups to destroy any of one of them who becomes leader and tries to promote a Corbyn-style progressive platform. ... The lobby requires that, like the candidates, one must declare one’s support for Zionism, and Israel as a Jewish state, or be denounced as an antisemite. This is the flipside of the mischievous conflation of anti-Zionism – opposition to a political ideology – with antisemitism – hatred of Jews. [Middle East Eye – 21 February 2020]
- How top Labour officials plotted to bring down Jeremy Corbyn, 16 April 2020: "The report confirms long-held suspicions that suspected cases of antisemitism were exploited by head office staff to try to undermine Corbyn. Anyone who was paying close attention to events in the party over the past five years already had a sense of that. ...Confusingly, the report’s authors hedge their bets on the antisemitism claims. One the one hand, they argue that antisemitism complaints were handled no differently from other complaints in Labour, and could find no evidence that current or former staff were “motivated by antisemitic intent”. But at the same time, the report accepts that Labour had an antisemitism problem beyond the presence of a few “bad apples”, despite the known statistical evidence refuting this. A Home Affairs Select Committee – a forum that was entirely unsympathetic to Corbyn – found in late 2016 that there was “no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party”." [Middle East Eye]
- With Corbyn gone, the Israel lobby is targeting Palestinians directly, 13 May 2020: Anti-Palestinian bigotry from an antisemitism watchdog is the latest move to dress up bullying as victimhood. ... Late last month, the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), which claims to represent the interests of the UK’s Jewish community, said it was writing to the General Medical Council and Exeter University to accuse Karmi of making “a series of antisemitic statements”. The supposedly racist comments were contained in an opinion piece in Middle East Eye that praised Jeremy Corbyn’s record – and his decades of support for the Palestinian cause – as he stepped down as Labour leader. ... In early 2015, an all-party parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism accused the CAA of stoking “undue panic and alarm”, and warned it not to “conflate concerns about activity legitimately protesting Israel’s actions with antisemitism”. ... Pro-Israel lobby groups such as the CAA, which feared Corbyn’s pro-Palestinian activism, were soon propelled to centre stage. ... The CAA has accused Karmi of antisemitism by further twisting the already sweeping and misleading provisions of the new IHRA definition. ... Since 2014, Palestinian and Arab professors and students in the US, as well as their supporters, have been living under a reign of terror from a shadowy website called Canary Mission. [Middle East Eye]
- The US and Israel hope to scare the Hague war crimes court off from helping Palestine, 09 June 2020: Created in 2002, the court, it was imagined, would act as a deterrent against the erosion of an international order designed to prevent a repetition of the atrocities of the Second World War. Such hopes did not survive long. The court, which sits in The Hague in the Netherlands, almost immediately faced a difficult test: whether it dared to confront the world’s leading superpower, the United States, as it launched a “war on terror”. ... Now, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, looks poised finally to give the court some teeth. She is threatening to investigate two states – the US and Israel – whose actions have been particularly damaging to international law in the modern era. The court is considering examining widespread human rights abuses perpetrated by US soldiers in Afghanistan, and crimes committed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially Gaza, as well as the officials responsible for Israel’s illegal settlement programme. ... The US is the most powerful offender, and Israel the most persistent. Both states have long dreaded this moment – the reason they refused to ratify the Rome Statute that established the ICC. Last week Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, stepped up US attacks on the court, saying its administration was “determined to prevent having Americans and our friends and allies in Israel and elsewhere hauled in by this corrupt ICC”. [The National AE]
- Keir Starmer’s ‘antisemitism’ sacking is a signal that Israel is safe in his hands, 29 June 2020: The sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey from the UK shadow cabinet – on the grounds that she retweeted an article containing a supposedly “antisemitic” conspiracy theory – managed to kill three birds with one stone for new Labour leader Keir Starmer. First, it offered a pretext to rid himself of the last of the Labour heavyweights associated with the party’s left and its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn. ... Second, the move served as a signal from Starmer that he is a safe pair of hands for the party’s right, which worked so hard to destroy Corbyn from within, as a recently leaked internal review revealed in excruciating detail. ...And third, Long-Bailey’s sacking provided the perfect opportunity for Starmer to publicly light a peace pipe with the Israel lobby after its long battle to tar Corbyn, his predecessor, as an antisemite. The offending article shared by Long-Bailey referred to Israel’s documented and controversial role in training and helping to militarise US police forces. It did not mention Jews. By straining the meaning of antisemitism well past its breaking point, Starmer showed that his promised “zero tolerance” for antisemitism actually means zero tolerance of anyone in Labour who might antagonise the Israel lobby – and by extension, of course, the Israeli government. By contrast, back in February Rachel Reeves, an MP on the party’s right, celebrated Nancy Astor, the first woman to sit in the UK parliament and a well-known Jew hater who supported the appeasement of Hitler. None of that appeared to bother the Israel lobby, nor did it dissuade Starmer from welcoming Reeves into his shadow cabinet weeks later. [Middle East Eye]
- [Blog] Writers’ open letter against ‘cancel culture’ is about stifling free speech, not protecting it, 09 July 2020: An open letter published by Harper’s magazine, and signed by dozens of prominent writers and public figures, has focused attention on the apparent dangers of what has been termed a new “cancel culture”.The letter brings together an unlikely alliance of genuine leftists, such as Noam Chomsky and Matt Karp, centrists such as J K Rowling and Ian Buruma, and neoconservatives such as David Frum and Bari Weiss, all speaking out in defence of free speech.Although the letter doesn’t explicitly use the term “cancel culture”, it is clearly what is meant in the complaint about a “stifling” cultural climate that is imposing “ideological conformity” and weakening “norms of open debate and toleration of differences”.It is easy to agree with the letter’s generalised argument for tolerance and free and fair debate. But the reality is that many of those who signed are utter hypocrites, who have shown precisely zero commitment to free speech, either in their words or in their deeds. (J.K. Rowling tweets about Jeremy Corbyn)
- {Mondoweiss} UK Labour party teeters on brink of civil war over antisemitism, 27 July 2020: New leader Keir Starmer spurns two chances to clear Jeremy Corbyn’s name, preferring instead to pay damages to former staff. ... Starmer, had he chosen to, could have shown that Corbyn’s long history as an anti-racism campaigner was twisted to discredit him. ... But instead Starmer chose to sacrifice his predecessor rather than risk being tarred with the same brush. As a result, Labour now appears to be on the brink of open war. Competing rumors suggest Corbyn may be preparing to battle former staff through the courts, while Starmer may exile his predecessor from the party. ... Unlike Corbyn, Starmer has not previously shown any inclination to take on the might of the establishment. In fact, he had previously proven himself its willing servant. As head of Britain’s prosecution service in 2013, for example, his department issued thinly veiled threats to Sweden to continue its legal pursuit of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who had sought political asylum in London’s Ecuadorean embassy, even as Swedish interest in the case waned. ... In mid-April, an 850-page internal party report was leaked, stuffed with the text of lengthy email exchanges and WhatsApp chats by senior party staff. They showed that, as had long been suspected, Corbyn’s own officials worked hard to sabotage his leadership from within. ...In July last year – long before the report had been leaked – the BBC’s prestige news investigation show Panorama set out to answer a question it posed in the episode’s title: “Is Labour Antisemitic?” John Ware, a reporter openly hostile to Corbyn and well-known for supporting Israel and his antipathy towards Muslims, was chosen to front the investigation. ...After the internal report was leaked in April, the legal scales tipped decisively in Labour’s favor. Starmer was reportedly advised by lawyers that the party would be well-positioned to defeat the legal action and clear Corbyn and the party’s name. But again Starmer preferred to fold. Before the case could be tested in court, Starmer issued an apology last week to the ex-staff members and Ware, and paid them a six-figure sum in damages. Admitting that “antisemitism has been a stain on the Labour Party in recent years”, the statement accepted the claims of the ex-staff to be “whistleblowers”, even capitalizing the word to aggrandize their status. It said: “We acknowledge the many years of dedicated and committed service that the Whistleblowers have given to the Labour Party … We unreservedly withdraw all allegations of bad faith, malice and lying.”
- Former Israeli army spy recruited by Labour should feel right at home, 22 January 2021: If Kaplan’s work in Unit 8200 did not raise a red flag, other details lurking in his social media accounts should have rung alarm bells. Not only was he once an operative for Israel’s military spying machine, but he was also an online “friend” of the disgraced Shai Masot, a far more prominent Israeli spy. ... Starmer’s own campaign to win the leadership included a pledge that he was a Zionist supporter of Israel “without qualification” and a commitment to those same lobby groups that they would get to oversee, and even dictate, Labour policy on Israel-related matters. It emerged after his election that Starmer had accepted – and concealed – a large, £50,000 ($68,000) donation to his campaign from Trevor Chinn, a member of a leading Israel lobby group, Bicom. The organisation was founded by Poju Zabludowicz, whose Israeli father made his wealth from the arms trade. In the past, Chinn has donated to several Labour MPs who worked to undermine Corbyn: Joan Ryan, a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel; Tom Watson, who served as Corbyn’s highly antagonistic deputy; and Owen Smith, who led an early challenge to unseat Corbyn as leader. [Middle East Eye]
- Starmer isn’t ‘too cautious’ – he is ruthlessly tearing Labour apart, 05 April 2021: In other words, British voters’ aversion to Starmer is not that he is “too cautious” or lacklustre. Rather, they suspect that Starmer and his team are politically not being honest. ... In response, and indeed underscoring the increasingly cynical approach from Starmer’s camp, the review proposed reinventing Labour as a patriotic, Tory-lite party, emphasising “the flag, veterans [and] dressing smartly”. ... During the leadership campaign, Starmer signed on to a “10 Pledges” document from the deeply conservative and pro-Israel Board of Deputies of British Jews. ... The Pledges required Starmer to effectively hand over control to the Board of Deputies and another pro-Israel group, the Jewish Labour Movement, on what kind of criticisms Labour members were allowed to make of Israel. ... In his first days as leader, Starmer was reluctantly forced to set up an inquiry into the leaked internal report that had exposed the party bureaucracy as profoundly hostile to Corbyn personally, and more generally to his socialist policies. ... But once the Forde Inquiry had been appointed, Starmer worked strenuously to kick it into the long grass, even bringing back into the party Emilie Oldknow ... He decided not to defend a defamation case against Labour brought by John Ware, a BBC reporter, and seven former staff in Labour’s disciplinary unit. They had worked together on a Panorama special on the antisemitism claims against Corbyn that did much to damage him in the public eye. These former officials had sued the party, arguing that Labour’s response to the BBC programme suggested they had acted in bad faith and sought to undermine Corbyn. In fact, a similar conclusion had been reached in the damning internal leaked report on the behaviour of head office staff. ...When Martin Forde, chair of the Forde inquiry, announced in February that his report had been delayed “indefinitely”, it seemed that the truth about the efforts of Labour staff to undermine Corbyn as leader were being permanently buried. The final straw for many on the party’s left, however, was the revelation in January that Starmer had recruited to his team a former Israeli military spy, Assaf Kaplan, to monitor the use of social media by members. ... While head of the Crown Prosecution Service, Starmer rejected indicting the police officers who killed Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson, and his department effectively cleared MI5 and MI6 officers of torture related to the “War on Terror”. His team not only sought to fast-track the extradition to Sweden of Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder who exposed western war crimes, but it also put strong pressure on its Swedish counterpart not to waver in pursuing Assange. [Middle East Eye]
- How the IHRA antisemitism definition became a pro-Israel cudgel, 27 April 2021: At the height of the attacks on Corbyn, IHRA officials joined UK Jewish groups in falsely claiming its antisemitism definition included examples that protected Israel, when delegates had specifically excluded the examples. ... At the height of the concerted attack on Corbyn, in August 2018, the IHRA published on its website a statement from the UK’s seven delegates that was presented as a “damning rebuke” of Corbyn. The delegates stated: “Any modification of the IHRA definition that does not include all of its 11 examples is no longer the IHRA definition.”
- Over 500 scholars launch fightback against Israel lobby, 25 October 2021: The question is whether universities like Glasgow will continue to submit to attacks on academic life under the cover of false or evidence-free claims of anti-semitism ...Glasgow university officials have found themselves in the eye of a storm this week, accused of “capitulating” in two separate cases that have undermined academic research into the activities of Israel and its supporters. More than 500 scholars from around the world, including a Nobel prize winner, Royal Society fellows, and former and current presidents of major academic bodies, signed a petition delivered to the university this week in protest. ... Jane Jackman, who was then a scholar at Exeter University, published the paper, titled Advocating Occupation, examining the evolution and role of Israel lobby groups in the UK, in the immediate wake of a 2017 documentary aired by Al-Jazeera on the lobby’s interference in British politics. ...But last December, a month after the university formally adopted the IHRA definition, a prominent pro-Israel blogger revived the pressure campaign. David Collier marshalled fellow activists to write to Sir Anton Muscatelli, Glasgow’s principal, complaining that Jackman’s paper was “laden with conspiracy, antisemitism and errors”. He accused Glasgow staff of demonstrating “heavy antisemitism” in clearing it for publication. Jackman’s paper, he claimed, was a “poison spreading through our universities. With malignant cells in place such as Exeter, [London’s] SOAS and Warwick – it acts as a cancer – with new academics, freshly dosed with antisemitic ideology, leaving the nests to spread the sickness elsewhere.” Paradoxically, Collier had been identified by Jackman as particularly adept at characterising critics of Israel as “haters” and antisemites. Collier, she had noted, was a favourite of the Israeli embassy. Officials there had invited him the previous year to help train more than 100 representatives from British pro-Israel groups on advocacy tactics to burnish Israel’s image. ...But this time, the university reversed course, apparently fearing that it might fall foul of the illustrative examples after it had signed up to the main IHRA definition. The journal’s editors subverted their own peer review processes – four years after the fact – and issued an apology in May in a lengthy online preface to the article. ... Astonishingly, when Jackman demanded to know what “antisemitic theory” she had promoted, the university backed off. In an email sent to her last month and seen by MintPress, the university’s complaints resolution office called her paper “thought-provoking” and added that whether her argument could be “described as antisemitic is also a moot point”. ...In other words, the university appears to have conceded that casually and without evidence it defamed the work of an academic, with potentially catastrophic consequences for her personal and professional life. Jackman told MintPress: “It’s not so much the personal offence these allegations caused me, bad as that was, it’s the chilling effect this will have on early career academics, and the consequent silencing of debate.” ...Where this is likely to lead is highlighted by another incident at Glasgow that has similarly disturbed leading academics. Last week, the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (Brismes) wrote to Glasgow university expressing concern that its politics department had sought to vet a talk by Somdeep Sen, a professor at Roskilde University in Denmark. The department had invited Sen to speak on his new book, Decolonising Palestine, published by Cornell University Press. Brismes is the largest national academic association in Europe focused on the study of the Middle East and North Africa. According to the letter, Sen was contacted by the department to say it had received “a message of concern from the University’s Jewish Society” about his forthcoming talk and that he would need to “provide information” on the main points and any slides he intended to use.
- Israel calls the Nakba a lie. So why do its leaders threaten a second one?, 14 June 2022: Israel’s narrative is so dominant that until recently most Israeli Jews believed that their state’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, urged the Palestinian population fleeing the large port city of Haifa in 1948 to return. Palestinians supposedly preferred to wait out the fighting until the Zionist forces were defeated. According to this account, Ben-Gurion sent Golda Meir, later prime minister herself, on a mission to reassure fleeing Palestinians. In her autobiography, Meir recounts: “I sat on the beach there [in Haifa] and begged them to return home… I pleaded with them until I was exhausted but it didn’t work.” But a letter written in early June 1948 by Ben-Gurion came to light seven years ago that undermines Israel’s propaganda. In it, he responded angrily to reports that the British consul was “working to return the Arabs to Haifa”. Ben-Gurion demanded that Haifa’s Jewish leaders actively stymie these British efforts. In fact, an Israeli scholar who was handed an archive file in error disclosed nearly a decade ago that the story of Arab leaders insisting Palestinians flee their homeland in 1948 was a nonsense. It was concocted by Israeli officials as a way to end US pressure on Israel to allow Palestinian refugees to return. Beginning in the 1980s, a new generation of Israeli historians started trawling through Israel’s archives as sections of it were briefly opened. They unearthed documentary evidence of an entirely different set of events that accorded with the Palestinian narrative. Military operations had suggestive titles like “Operation Broom” and commanders received orders to “clean” areas. Many hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed as soon as their populations had been driven out by Zionist soldiers, with the clear intent never to let them return. ...Ayelet Shaked, currently Israel’s interior minister, has characterised all Palestinians as “enemy combatants” – a term suggesting they are legitimate military targets. She has referred to any Palestinians that fight Israel’s decades of belligerent occupation as “snakes” and indicated that their entire families can be eliminated, including their mothers, otherwise “more little snakes will be raised there”. [Middle East Eye]
- Fascists in government won’t dent Western support for Israel, 4 November 2022: Israel is not suddenly a more racist state. It is simply growing more confident about admitting its racism to the world. ... In the face of Palestinian resistance and liberal Zionist failure, Revisionist Zionism offers a more satisfying solution. It prefers to make explicit Jewish supremacy, divinely ordained or otherwise, over an enlarged territory. It concludes that, if Palestinians refuse to submit to their status as third-class guests, then they forfeit any rights and create the grounds for their own expulsion. ... Jewish liberal Zionists invariably argue that Israel is central to their identity. They have even insisted on redefining anything but the most bloodless criticism of Israel as antisemitism. An attack on Israel is an attack on Jewish identity, they argue, and therefore constitutes antisemitism. [Middle East Eye]

CaitlinJohnstone.com

(Medium, Steemit, Twitter, Facebook)

- Debunking All The Assange Smears, 20 April 2019: In 2013 Sweden attempted to drop extradition proceedings but was dissuaded from doing so by UK prosecutors, a fact we wouldn’t learn until 2018. In 2017 we learned that the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service had dissuaded the Swedes from questioning Assange in London in 2010 or 2011, which could have prevented the entire embassy standoff in the first place, and that the CPS had destroyed crucial emails pertaining to Assange.
- Nobody Sets Out To Become A War Propagandist. It Just Sort Of Happens, 31 January 2020: "Senior Huffington Post UK editor Chris York has published what is by my count his twelfth smear piece against a small group of academics and independent journalists who’ve expressed skepticism of establishment Syria narratives."
- Syria Spinmeisters Fumble Attempts To Narrative Manage OPCW Leaks, 10 May 2020: It’s been over 72 hours since The Grayzone published new leaks further exposing how the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has been lying about its investigation into an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria two years ago. (Medium)

Dances WIth Bears (John Helmer, Moscow)

- British Coroner Hides British Police Evidence in the Novichok Case, As BBC Prepares to Broadcast New Lies, 03 June 2020: The Wiltshire county coroner investigating British Government allegations that Russian military agents using a Russian-made poison called Novichok caused the death of a woman, Dawn Sturgess, on July 8, 2018, has lied in his report of the inquest into her death. ...The reason for Ridley’s cover-up is that the “disclosure material” in the “coronial investigation file” includes Wiltshire police evidence, together with blood and toxicology tests from Salisbury District Hospital; these show Sturgess had taken illegal drugs, the contamination of which caused her death. The Wiltshire police and hospital medical reports were dated more than a week before the authorities claim to have discovered Novichok on the kitchen table at the apartment where Sturgess fell mortally ill. The initial police evidence and Coroner Ridley’s later lying about it indicate the British secret services used Sturgess’s corpse to find the weapon missing from their earlier story of the March 4, 2018, attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal.

To the Point Analyses - Lawrence Davidson

- Israel Migrates to the Right, 22 March 2019.
- Are Democracy and Despotic Racism Compatible?, 12 April 2019.
- Making Progressives The Enemy, 03 May 2019.

A New Place Of Exile - Richard Hutton

- Does the Labour Party have ‘a problem with anti-Semitism’? No; and the accusations raise more questions than answers, 02 April 2016: Significantly, Cameron’s involvement with Kaminski was defended by the Jewish Chronicle’s editor, Stephen Pollard; which serves to demonstrate how duplicitous these accusations can be. On the 17th of March 2016, Pollard insinuated – as he would do again, several days later – that Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic, on the basis of his past association with people who had themselves been accused of holding anti-Semitic views.
- Why Chris Williamson needs to step down as an MP – for everyone’s sake, including his own, 15 July 2019: It is also pretty clear that Williamson was not suggesting Labour had been too apologetic about anti-Semitism – but that it had been too willing to accept accusations of being a racist party. ... Nonetheless, the issue evidently has been used to try and undermine Jeremy Corbyn personally, and Labour more generally, by their political opponents. ... There has been a very obvious campaign of denunciation run against Jeremy Corbyn; which began once it became apparent that he might win the Labour leadership contest of 2015. ...By contrast, the behaviour of Ken Livingstone, Peter Willsman, and Chris Williamson, has resulted in their own respective downfalls. Handing easy gifts to their political foes. Creating needless problems for others to contend with; while undermining Corbyn, and Labour, in the process.

Eli Valley

- Stuart The Jewish Turtle Goes To South Africa : Originally published in The Forward, June 29, 2010, after the publication of the Goldstone Report.
- A Day In The Homeland : Originally published in The Nib, July 24, 2018, in the aftermath of Israel’s passage of the controversial “Nation State Law.” (Larger Version)

Right of Reply - Sally Eason

- The Oddest Antisemites: Blog 3 – JewKnow blog – A reply and corrections, 18 May 2018: The creator of the JewKnow Twitter account is Ambrosine Shitrit, a notorious far-right activist and Islamophobe who spoke at a recent Ann-Marie waters rally (founder of the far-right Pegida UK along with Tommy Robinson), she is a member of LikudUK, HerutUK (far-right organisation) ... Also promoted by the EDL and bottom right assorted fascists. ... The CAA @antisemitism on Twitter – Campaign Against Antisemitism is not a ‘Jewish’ organisation, it is a Pro Israel organisation and advertises on its website for ‘operatives’ to work 4 hours a day voluntarily. Part of this work is to attack anybody supporting BDS or it seems Corbyn on Twitter. The organisation was set up during the back-lash against Israel for Operation Protective Edge invasion of Gaza 2014. [Joseph Cohen, Darren Borg, Justin Chorn and Jordan Jay created a Facebook group, Campaign Against Antisemitism. When the Tricycle Theatre decided to boycott the UK Jewish Film Festival (which was funded by the Israeli state) in reaction to the 2014 invasion of Gaza, Rupert Nathan launched a Facebook campaign, which ‘soon joined forces’ with the CAA. Nathan Hopstein and Mandy Blumenthal (my number 1. stalker) also ‘entered the fray’ here. Gideon Falter – the CAA’s current Chairman – sent the group a Facebook message with advice, and they admitted him as a member. He called in Jonathan Sacerdoti as a ‘media man’, and within a week, they had ‘developed a plan’: to call for ‘zero tolerance enforcement of existing laws against anti-Semitism by the police’.] ... Many of us have experienced operatives contacting our workplaces which are not all government organisations as claimed by the CAA. Complaints against pensioners, photographers, charity workers, threatening phone-calls, unwanted parcels and the harassment of friends and family has all been reported. ... This includes harassment towards non zionist Jews like myself. The CAA head Steve Silverman himself was found to have been behind the infamous Twitter trolling account @Bedlamjones as admitted by his own counsel, Jonathan Goldberg QC in a recent private prosecution brought to court. ... In fact David Collier (a Gnasherjew operative) on pg. 89 of his dismal March 2018 report says (on non/anti zionist Jews below). ... The CST was started by Gerald Ronson, convicted Guiness Fraudster.

Tir Tairngire

- You can't put lipstick on a pig (the crazy world of Yonatan Schoffman): Stephen Oryszczuk is the Jewish News Foreign Editor. A few weeks ago he wrote, and the Jewish News published a piece about Jonathan Hoffman entitled ”You can’t put lipstick on a pig.” After about a week it was taken down but not before many people had taken screen shots. ... "Mr Scoffman (heretofore referred to as Scoff, for brevity) can put an argument together. But his arguments are bigoted and his actions embarrassing. He disrupts meetings, screams abuse, waves Israeli flags and gets dragged out by security.Often these meetings offer legitimate discussion on Israel, with open-minded audience members looking on, but to Scoff nuance and reason are the enemies of slander and character assassination, and must therefore be slain. To him, people are either haters (of Israel) or idiots (supporters of Israel who just aren’t as passionate as he is). He dismisses fellow Jews who don’t agree with him as ‘As-a-Jews,’ simultaneously dismissing the reasons he behaves as he does. To be sure, Scoff is a bigot in bigot’s clothing, but for some reason (his bigotry, possibly) we keep publishing him. I’ve tried everything – hacking the site’s homepage, wrestling the editor to the ground, turning all the office lights off and pretending to be out. Still we persist. ... In another op-ed, Scoff discusses a survey on anti-Semitism, having a go at Reform Judaism for covering up the fact that Britain is a hotbed of seething Jew hatred, then taking aim at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) for setting the anti-Semitism bar too low, because why count just those who hate Jews when you can count Israel-haters too. Scoff then re-imagines the survey to suit his own inclinations, whereupon the proportion of left-wing anti-Semites balloons from three percent to 23 percent. ... In another op-ed, Scoff hacks away at the CST’s argument that “anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism”. Really, CST? REALLY? R-EA-LLY? To Scoff, anti-Zionists (those who disagree with Zionism) are one and the same as anti-Semites (those who hate Jews because they are Jews). ... Scoff then says he has “never met” an anti-Zionist who is not an anti-Semite. Yes, Scoff, when you equate the one with the other you won’t have. Then, having left the CST gasping its last breaths, Scoff has a pop at the Jewish Leadership Council for “badmouthing” the Campaign Against Antisemitism for saying that British Jews have packed their bags and bought their tickets. ... Why defend Myers? Because Myers is usually nice about Israel. There are some lines you just don’t cross, and attacking Israel supporters is one of them. ... It is gratifying to note that, for Scoff, there is no irony or hypocrisy worth worrying about. Scoff can, in the same breath, showcase a left-wing racist and tarnish everyone left of the EDL with the same brush, while simultaneously commenting on a “strategy to attribute to all Zionists the action of one."
- (Stephen Bellamy) The Jewish Chronicle: Evil is as Evil does, 01 December 2019: The Jewish Chronicle, under the “leadership” of the rabid racist Stephen Pollard, has evolved into a representation of the very worst of the gutter press. ... I have long been of the view that it was impossible for the Chronicle to sink any lower. However, its role in the horrible pile on against Holly Rigby has blown that theory out of the water. This pile on was inspired by a certain Gabriel Webber, a wannabe Rabbi proud of what he regards as his consumate cleverness and his ” liberalism”. The reality is that Webber is a racist with the intellectual capacity on a par with that of my sister’s pet canary’s retarded cousin. He spends most of his time on twitter being ” clever”. Except whenever he encounters someone who calls out his bullshit he runs away. He is obviously a chip off the old Mirvis block. Holly Rigby is a teacher. She works in an inner city London school with a student population as diverse as you would expect. She is, by all accounts talented and dedicated. She upset the Israelists with comments that implied a less than eulogistic attitude to The State of Israel. As she has pointed out these were statements of obvious political fact. Now Holly expected the Israelists to come after her. She was from the outset expecting it to cost her her membership of the Labour Party which, thanks to the likes of Jon Lansman and Owen Jones, the Israelists now own. She had ruefully accepted this as the price of speaking truth to power. What she didn’t expect, and didn’t factor in, was that they would also seek to destroy the career of this pricelessly dedicated teacher by whingeing and whining to her employer like the narcissistic cry babies that they are.

Simon Maginn

- https://simonmaginn.medium.com/top-ten-labour-antisemitism-smears-f729646378e6 Ten Labour Antisemitism Smears Exposed], 11 April 2021.

Beyond the Great Divide - David Collier

- The Board of Deputies don’t want us to talk about their survey, 01 January 2020: What does matter is that one of the nine constitutional objectives of the BoD is this – "the Board shall take such appropriate action as lies within its power to advance Israel’s security, welfare and standing." If any Deputies have a problem with this – they should either keep quiet or leave. Beyond their fulfilment of this objective – their position on Israel is irrelevant.
- Glasgow University publishes antisemitic conspiracy theory, 11 December 2020: Glasgow University is ranked as a top UK university. The University is a member of the Russell Group. It runs a platform called esharp which is an ‘international online journal for postgraduate research.’ The University is very proud of the outlet. It states that all the paper are ‘double blind peer reviewed’. The university claims that the ‘rigorous and constructive process is designed to enhance the worth of postgraduate and postdoctoral work.’ ... A paper on the ‘Israel lobby’ appeared in issue 25 volume 1 (June 2017). It was written by Jane Jackman, an academic product of the universities of Durham and Exeter. There isn’t much to be found about Jackman online. She spoke at events in Exeter and SOAS and was an active member of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES). In 2017 Jackman was being supervised by Willaim Gallois at Exeter. Unsurprisingly, the conspiracy theorist and ‘liar’ Ilan Pappe was a co-supervisor. ... Jackman’s paper was titled ‘Advocating Occupation: Outsourcing Zionist Propaganda in the UK‘. The key thrust of the argument is that people like myself (I feature prominently) have been recruited by Israel to spread disinformation. ... The paper isn’t just laden with conspiracy, antisemitism and errors – much of the time the reference material does not even support what the article is suggesting. The work is beyond shoddy. Jackman makes unsupportable outlandish statements, that are far more fitting for gutter press journalism such as the Independent than an academic journal. The paper frequently contradicts its own logic. This is in no way an academic piece of work. It should be hung on the walls at Glasgow university as a reminder of the shame that they ever allowed this to be published. The only justification for ‘peer reviewers’ to have accepted this piece is that they agreed with its content and wanted it published. The entire process is rife with heavy antisemitism.
- Victory – as Glasgow University apologises for publishing antisemitic article, 08 July 2021: Last December I ran an exclusive about a deeply antisemitic conspiracy article that was published in the academic esharp magazine at Glasgow University. ‘esharp‘ is an ‘international online journal for postgraduate research’ and Glasgow University is very proud of the outlet. The University website even states that all the post-graduate papers are double-blind peer-reviewed. Having read the paper and researched it thoroughly, I complained that the article was ‘so bad and the errors so numerous, that it would need a book to address them all.’ ... Following their own internal investigation, Glasgow University has recently published a comprehensive apology online. (Wikipedia: "Israel lobby in the United Kingdom)(eSharp article, with disclaimer; eSharp Issue 25, Volume 1 (June 2017))(Ilan Pappe: "Jane Jackman who was a PhD student in Exeter in 2016 and left for personal reasons, published an excellent paper on the pro-Zionist lobby in Britain in E-Sharp, the student newspaper of Glasgow university. A Zionist troll, Collier, 'researched' the paper, send a long review full of factoids (irrelevant facts) and intimidated the poor students to publish the following apology.")

If Americans Knew (Israel-Palestine News) - Alison Weir (Blog, IAK articles)

- International campaign is criminalizing criticism of Israel as ‘antisemitism’, 17 May 2017: For two decades, some Israeli officials and Israel partisans have worked to embed a new, Israel-focused definition of antisemitism in institutions around the world, from international bodies and national governments to small college campuses in heartland America. ... The definitions adhere to a pattern set by a man named Natan Sharansky, who was Israel’s Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs and chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel. Sharansky founded a Global Forum against Anti-Semitism in 2003, stating: “The State of Israel has decided to take the gloves off and implement a coordinated counteroffensive against anti-Semitism.” ...In 2009 an organization called the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism (ICCA) took up the effort to spread the expanded definition. The group says it brings together parliamentarians from “around the world” to fight antisemitism and lists a steering committee of six European and U.S. legislators. UK politician (and later Prime Minister) David Cameron signed the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition statement calling on governments to outlaw certain forms of criticism of Israel, including calls to boycott Israel; to regulate criticism of Israel in the media; to monitor criticism of Israel online and elsewhere; and to prosecute critics of Israel under “hate crimes” legislation. The group held a conference in London in 2009 at which it issued a “London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism,” which was signed by then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other heads of state and legislators. This declaration called on governments to use the European Monitoring Centre’s definition and to outlaw and prosecute such “antisemitism.” ... In fact, in 1975 the UN General Assembly specifically passed a resolution that “Zionism is a form of racism.” (The resolution was revoked in 1991, but not because the world body had changed its mind. In that year President Bush was pushing for the Madrid Peace Conference, which he hoped would end the “Arab-Israeli” conflict. When Israel said it would only participate in the conference if the UN revoked the resolution, the U.S. pressured member states to do just this.)

Link Collections

Status of Jerusalem

Links:

• BBC: Israel and the Palestinians: Key terms (Israel currently claims sovereignty over the entire city, and claims it as its capital, after capturing East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war.That claim is not recognised internationally and East Jerusalem is considered to be occupied territory.)
• About.com: Jerusalem As the Capital of Israel: Legal Status or Illegal Occupation?
• IsraelNationalNews.com: BBC Rejects Jerusalem as Capital of Israel ('Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said in response: "Jerusalem is Israel's capital. It is the right of every sovereign state to determine which city will be its capital. If this is not accepted by everyone today, I am confident it will be in the future."')
• Reuters: "Israel rebuffs calls for Jerusalem settlement halt ('[Mark Regev:] "Jerusalem is Israel's capital and will remain as such," he said, stating an Israeli position not recognised by world powers and contested by Palestinians who want to establish a state with Jerusalem as its capital.')
• BBC: OECD protest over Israeli minister's Jerusalem remarks
• Knesset site: Basic Law
• Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs: The Status of Jerusalem
• Middle East Policy Council Journal, Volume V, January 1997, Number 1 - Ian S. Lustick - Has Israel Annexed East Jerusalem? (One such misconception is the mistaken claim, asserted by many, including Dore Gold in his 1995 publication on Jerusalem, that the Levi Eshkol government "annexed" East Jerusalem by the legal and administrative measures it implemented in 1967. In fact, this did not occur. As I shall show, even the Eshkol government itself, in the last such official announcement ever made by an Israeli government on the subject, declared that the measures taken to expand the jurisdiction of the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem did not entail annexation of the 71 square kilometers involved and were only implemented as an administrative convenience for the city's Arab inhabitants and in order to protect the holy places.)
• UK FCO: The UK position on Jerusalem
• ProCon.org: What is the United Kingdom's position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ("We do not support any action that predetermines the final status of Jerusalem. Pending agreement, we recognise de facto Israeli control of West Jerusalem and consider East Jerusalem to be occupied territory. We recognise no sovereignty over the city.")
• Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: The Political Dimension: The Positions of the Principal Parties to the Jerusalem Question (There are two very different aspects to the American approach to the question of Jerusalem. One has to distinguish between Jerusalem as a subject of formal policy, and Jerusalem as a subject of internal American politics.)
• The Evolution of U.S. Policy on Jerusalem: International Law versus the Rule of Force. Report from a Palestine Center briefing by Stephen Zunes, 2001.
• Jewish Virtual Library: 1962:U.S. Discourages Nations From Recognizing Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel
• The Jewish Federations of North America: Myth and Fact: U.S. Stance on Jerusalem as the United Capital of Israel
• Israel Unity Coalition: Regarding Moving the Capital of Israel to Jerusalem
• IsraeliInsider: EU, US say they will snub invitation to Jerusalem Day
• MideastWeb.org: Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995
• BBC: Arafat names Jerusalem as capital, 2002
• Wikipedia: Positions on Jerusalem (Most countries of the world do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Many do not recognize it as a city that is properly Israel's.) (In the Palestine Liberation Organization's Palestinian Declaration of Independence of 1988, Jerusalem is stated to be the capital of the State of Palestine. In 2000 the Palestinian Authority passed a law designating the city as such, and in 2002 this law was ratified by Chairman Arafat.)
• Wikipedia: East Jerusalem / Sovereignty
• Wikipedia: Jerusalem Law
• UN GA Resolution 303 (IV), December 9, 1949: The City of Jerusalem shall be established as a corpus separatum under a special international regime and shall be administered by the United Nations.
• UN General Assembly Resolution 63/30, 2009.
• Wikipedia: UN SC Resolution 252
• Wikipedia: UN SC Resolution 267
• Wikipedia: UN SC Resolution 478
• Wikipedia: UN SC Resolution 242
• Wikipedia: UN GA Resolution 181 (1947)
• Wikipedia: UN SC Resolution 446
• Haaretz - U.S. court rules Americans born in Jerusalem cannot list 'Israel' as place of birth, 23 July 2013.
• Competing Claims, Contested City: The Sovereignty of Jerusalem under International Law, Victor Kattan, Kattan Paper for Arab League Conference on Jerusalem, International Conference on Jerusalem, 26-27 February 2012, Doha, Qatar:
  

p.1-2: These suggestions reflect the consistently held view of the international community that Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem is both unlawful and illegitimate. It should be stressed, however, that the question of who has sovereignty over Jerusalem does not only concern the eastern fringe of the city. Whilst the provisions of international humanitarian law apply to East Jerusalem, this does not mean that Israel has sovereignty over West Jerusalme. No state recognises Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem in neither its eastern or western half.

p.3: Only a state whose sovereignty over a specific territory is widely recognised is deemed legitimate. In this regard states usually withold de jure recognition from a state asserting sovereignty over territory that is disputed whilst recognising that it exercises de facto sovereignty. This is currently the position as regards to Israel's status in Jerusalem today. While most states recognise that Israel exercises unilateral de facto authority in the city, they do not recognise that authority to be lawful.

p.4: The main controversy on the question of sovereignty in Jerusalem originates to the moment when Britain withdrew its administration on 15 May 1948 after it became clear that the UN Partition Plan, which sought to establish a corpus separatum in the city, could not be enforced. Indeed the entire legal argument advanced by most Israeli jurists to sovereignty over Jerusalem is based on this moment. ... Jerusalem has been a contested city for the past 3,500 years with one scholar estimating that over the course of that long history the city changed hands more than 25 times.

p.6: For as we shall see, Israel's legal claim to Jerusalem is based on the argument that its title is superior to any other claimants as a result of the sovereignty vacuum in Palestine that emerged upon the termination of the British mandate of Palestine in May 1948. This view is questionable however because Britain, the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations, and the United Nations had already expressed their views on the status of Jerusalem in the various partition plans that were proposed during and after the mandate.

p.9: It is worth observing that this Commission is rarely mentioned in the numerous articles published on Jerusalem by international lawyers partial to an Israeli viewpoint. Perhaps this was because after travelling to Jerusalem, examining the history of the dispute, and listening to the complaints of both Jews and Muslims, the Commission reached the conclusion that: 'To the Moslems belong the sole ownership of, and the sole proprietary right to, the Western Wall, seeing that it forms an integral part of the Haram-esh-Sherif area, which is a Waqf property'. The Commission did, however, acknowledge that the Jews should have free access to the Western Wall for the purposes of devotions at all times and that the Muslims should not impair access of the Jews to the Wall during the times of their devotional visits.

p.10: Although the UN Partition Plan was never enforced, the UN continued to come up with trusteeship proposals in later years to provide a solution to the difficulty that had arisen in Jerusalem. In 1950, the Trusteeship Council approved a special statute for the city. A corpus separatum for Jerusalem and Bethlehem would be administered by the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations. This model was far more modest in size and scope than the corpus separatum that had been proposed in the UN Partition Plan. ... Although nothing became of these proposals, this did not mean that the international community had acquiesced to Israeli and Jordanian sovereignty over Jerusalem.

p.11: Once the British mandate was terminated on 15 May 1948, a dispute over the sovereignty of Jerusalem ensued. Israeli international lawyers and those who sought to advance the Israeli viewpoint on the status of Jerusalem sought to exploit this opportunity with a number of articles that were published in the late 1960s after Israel captured the city in the June 1967 war. The central argument that underlined nearly every analysis of the status of Jerusalem from this perspective was that in 1948 there was a sovereignty vacuum, Israel fought a war of self-defence, it was victorious, and consequently it has a better title to Jerusalem than any other state. The obvious problem with this argument is that it hinges on three misconceptions. First, that Israel acted defensively in 1948. Second, that the use of force in self-defence can confer sovereignty on the victor. Third, it assumes that the Palestinian people could not be bearers of sovereignty. ... Accordingly, whilst Jordan's title to East Jerusalem was defective, Israel's was not, and accordingly Israel acquired sovereignty over the portion of Jerusalem it occupied in 1948. The status of Jerusalem according to Lauterpucht was merely that of 'prolonged de facto occupation'. I should point out that this argument was crafted in order to justify Israel's presence in East Jerusalem after the 1967 War, where the same logic applied. As Lauterpucht explained: 'Once Jordan was physically removed from the Old City by legitimate measures - as the Israeli reactions to the Jordanian attack on 5th June, 1967, undoubtedly were - then the way was open for a lawful occupant to fill the still subsisting vacancy'. ... According to this view, Israel can keep hold of the territory. ... In other words, because in Schwebel's view, Israel captured Jerusalem in two defensive wars, the first being in 1948, when it captured West Jerusalem, and the second in 1967, when it captured East Jerusalem, Israel acquired lawful title over the whole of the city. ... The better view therefore is that neither Israel nor Jordan's presence in Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967 conferred on them sovereignty.

p.15: Regardless of Israel's domestic law, for the purposes of International law, Israel's status in East Jerusalem is that of a belligerent occupant where the provisions of the Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons applies. ... Although the Foreign Minister of Israel denied that his Government was annexing the City, the Israeli Supreme Court took a different view, and ruled that East Jerusalem had effectively been incorporated into the state of Israel.

p.17: Currently no state maintains an embassy in West Jerusalem, including the US. This is despite congressional pressure and a law that was passed calling on the government to do so. Clearly there is a general conviction that despite Israel's best efforts to incorporate the whole of Jerusalem into Israel over a prolonged period of time, no one recognises Israeli sovereignty in the city.

p.18-19: It may be concluded that Israel's de facto annexation of East Jerusalem is, in the words of the Security Council, both 'null and void' under international law, and that East Jerusalem is occupied territory. As such Israel is subject to obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention. No state recognises the applicability of Israeli law and jurisdiction to East Jerusalem, except where the application is compatible with the Fourth Geneva Convention. The situation is analogous as regards West Jerusalem, except that the Geneva Convention does not apply there. The international community recognises Israel's de facto annexation of West Jerusalem but they do not recognise it de jure, which is why most countries have located their embassies in Tel Aviv.

Corpus separatum map.

Cave of the Patriarchs massacre

• History Commons article: Context of 'Early 1998: Oslo Peace Accords Break Down' :

February 25, 1994: Right-Wing Israeli Assassin Kills 29 Palestinians in Reaction to Oslo Accords: Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli-American physician and protege of the extremist right-winger Rabbi Meir Kahane (see November 5, 1990), has been in a deep depression since Kahane’s assassination in 1990. After the signing of the Oslo Accords (see September 13, 1993), Goldstein decided that only an act of Kiddush ha-Shem—ritual self-sacrifice for the sanctification of God—can change history and return the world to what he sees as the pre-ordained path of Israeli domination of its traditional lands in the Middle East. Goldstein enters the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Israel, a sacred site for both Jews and Muslims. He is wearing his army uniform and carrying an assault rifle; worshipers assume he is a reserve officer on active duty coming to pray. Instead, Goldstein opens fire on a group of Palestinians praying there, killing 29 and wounding 150 more. Survivors eventually overcome Goldstein and beat him to death. The reaction among many right-wing Israelis, particularly in the outlying settlements, is ambivalent. Many deplore the violence but express sympathy for Goldstein’s desperation and theological anguish. The spokesman for the settlers’ rabbis committee says he sees no reason to condemn the murders. [Unger, 2007, pp. 136-137]

• The Independent - The Hebron Massacre: Doctor who "vowed to take revenge", 26 February 1994: Baruch Goldstein, the Jewish settler who gunned down Palestinians in a Hebron mosque, had vowed to take revenge after treating a fellow Jew wounded by axe-wielding Arabs in the same place three months ago. He told Israel's army radio he was sick and tired of the army not protecting Jews in Hebron, an Arab town with a Jewish enclave in the occupied West Bank.  ...  He dropped a suicide note off at the local council office on the way to his mission of carnage. An acquaintance, who asked not to be named, said Goldstein had refused to treat wounded Arabs while serving as an army doctor during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s. He quoted Goldstein as once saying he had joined the army 'to help secure Israel and to kill Arabs'.

• The Independent - Sarah Helm - The Hebron Massacre: The slaughter of the innocents: 'Preserve the sanctity of this building' reads the sign at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where dozens died at Ramadan prayers, 26 February 1994.

• The Independent - Sarah Helms - The Hebron Massacre: Holy town where talk is only of vengeance: Yesterday's tragedy was all too predictable. Sarah Helm visited both sides in Hebron a few weeks ago. This is what she found, 26 February 1994.

• The Independent - Charles Richards - The Hebron Massacre: Brutal birth pangs of a nation , 26 February 1994.

• The Independent - Sarah Helm - Hebron Massacre: Hell comes to a holy place: Did Baruch Goldstein act alone? Eyewitnesses afterwards spoke of seeing another man, also dressed as a soldier, handing him ammunition, 27 February 1994: The tip of an Uzi sub-machine-gun would always be sticking out of Goldstein's open car window as he cruised the streets, and a large Star of David flag flew from the roof. He liked to drive slowly, hooting at Palestinian drivers and making eye-contact with those on the street.

• The Independent - Robert Fisk - Hebron Massacre: Israelis can be terrorists too: The litany of Middle East atrocities, says Robert Fisk, reveals a double standard over 'enemies of peace' , 27 February 1994.

• The Independent - Peter Pringle - Hebron Massacre: Brooklyn doctor with a prescription for hatred, 27 February 1994: They knew he had strong views about the Jewish Establishment being what he called 'weak' about the Arabs, and that he was a fervent supporter of the murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane, who inspired militant disciples to follow him to Israel - but they never dreamt of Goldstein as a mass murderer.  ...  In Israel, some say he had been plotting the massacre for at least two years; others that he was pushed into it by the recent murders of two friends in Kiryat Arba, the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, where he worked as a doctor.  ...  Goldstein joined the Kahane Chai, an organisation that brought together the followers of the rabbi, and he repeatedly vowed revenge for Kahane's death.  ...  In 1980, Goldstein was arrested for causing a disturbance at Hunter College in New York during the visit of the then Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin.  ...  Before leaving, Goldstein spelt out his feelings about Arab-Jewish relations in a 1981 letter to the New York Times. 'The harsh reality is,' he wrote, 'if Israel is to avert the kinds of problems found in Northern Ireland today, it must act decisively to remove the Arab minority from its borders.  ...  In Israel, Goldstein served on the local council in Kiryat Arba as the representative of the Kach party, founded by Kahane in the mid-1970s.  ...  Last November, after tending to a Jewish man who had been hacked by two men with axes, he spoke of his outrage to Israeli army radio. 'Again the Arab Nazi enemy, who strives to attack any Jew just because he is a Jew in the land of Israel, has hurt a Jew,' he said. 'The army does not do its job. It doesn't protect the Jews here and co-operates with them (the Arabs). We are sick and tired of this, and with God's help we will create the state of Judea here, and we will know how to handle them ourselves.' Friends say the killing of two of his friends by Palestinians in December changed Goldstein radically. 'He always made clear he was ready to give up his life for his beliefs,' said one settler. The deaths may have set him on the path of revenge.  ...  Mike Guzofsky, a leader of Kahane Chai in the US, said on hearing news of the massacre: 'Baruch Goldstein is the quietest, sweetest guy I ever met. He felt the Arabs wanted us all dead. That's where he got his hatred. He wanted to stop the so-called peace process and save the state of Israel.' Goldstein was totally opposed to the Israel-PLO accord, announced last September, and particularly to any Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank.

• The Independent - Sarah Helm - Israelis admit security lapses: Commission of inquiry opens into Hebron massacre but Palestinians say they have no faith in the investigation, 9 March 1994.

• The Independent - Sarah Helm - Israeli troops 'under orders' not to shoot Jewish settlers: Hebron massacre inquiry shocked by disclosure of army instruction, 11 March 1994.

• The Independent - Charles Richards - Anti-Arab Kach group outlawed in Israel: Belated response to Hebron massacre is likely to help get peace negotiations going again, 14 March 1994.

• The Independent - Sarah Helm - Rabin to be quizzed over Hebron warning: Israeli leader alleged to have ignored telegram from Islamic authorities about earlier attack by Baruch Goldstein, 22 March 1994.

• The Independent - "Several settlers fired in mosque", 23 March 1994.

• The Independent - Sarah Helm - Israelis kill four in Hebron, 24 March 2011: ...  Lieutenant-General Ehud Barak, the Israeli Chief of Staff, was giving evidence to the Commission of Inquiry into the Hebron massacre. He sought to spread responsibility for the massacre to Mr Rabin, telling the inquiry that decisions about the arming of Jewish settlers had been taken at the 'highest level'. Lt-Gen Barak confirmed earlier evidence that the army had 'not expected a massacre by a Jew'. 'We thought Jews only carry arms to protect themselves, while Arabs carry arms to kill a Jew,' he said. But in his evidence to the inquiry yesterday he stressed that soldiers had misunderstood orders that they thought forbade them from shooting Jewish settlers. 'A massacre is a massacre is a massacre. 'You do not need special orders to know what to do,' he said.

• The Independent - Sarah Helm - Hebron inquiry brings light to darkness: Israelis are acknowledging injustice in the occupied territories for the first time, writes Sarah Helm in Jerusalem, 29 March 1994.

• The Independent - Sarah Helm - Israeli inquiry finds Hebron killer acted alone , 27 June 1994.

Richard Goldstone

PBS - Bill Moyers talks with Justice Richard Goldstone, 23 October 2009.

The Washington Post - Richard Goldstone - Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes, 1 April 2011.

The New York Times - Ethan Bronner, [[[Isabel_Kershner|Isabel Kershner]] - Head of U.N. Panel Regrets Saying Israel Intentionally Killed Gazans, 2 April 2011 (Correction: April 6, 2011):

The report by Ms. Davis, the former judge, was more critical of Israel than Mr. Goldstone acknowledged in his article. “Given the scale of this undertaking, much remains to be accomplished,” she wrote, “we noted that a number of investigations reportedly remain open.”

In addition, she noted, “there is no indication that Israel has opened investigations into the actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead,” which was Israel’s name for the military operation.

• Antiwar.com - Jonathan Cook - Goldstone’s Rethink, 6 April 2011:

His original conclusion drew in part on public statements by Israeli military commanders that in Gaza they had applied the Dahiya doctrine — an Israeli military strategy named after a suburb of Beirut that Israel leveled during its 2006 attack on Lebanon. In his article, Goldstone cast no fresh doubt on his earlier premise that such a strategy would by definition endanger civilians.

• UNISPAL - Committee responsible for following up on 'Goldstone Report' on Gaza Conflict to meet in Geneva, 24 January 2011.
• The Jerusalem Post - Jordana Horn - UN panel to follow up on Goldstone meets in Geneva, 25 January 2011.
• Haaretz - Natasha Mozgovaya - What made Goldstone change his mind about the Gaza war report?, 3 April 2011.
• The Guardian - Aluf Benn - Despite its flaws, the Goldstone report has changed Israel's behaviour in Gaza, 3 April 2011.
• Al Jazeera - Noura Erekat - Goldstone: An act of negligence, 4 April 2011. (note: an opinion piece)
• Ynetnews.com - Alon Liel - Goldstone won’t help us, 4 April 2011.
• The Guardian - Owen Bowcott - Richard Goldstone: the judge who 'regrets' his Gaza report, 5 April 2011.
• The Guardian - Ed Pilkington, Conal Urquhart - Goldstone's Gaza report stands, UN insists, 5 April 2011.
• The Independent - Campaign to annul Goldstone report, 4 April 2011.
• The Guardian - Kenneth Roth - Gaza: the stain remains on Israel's war record, 5 April 2011.
• The Independent - UN jurist to review Gaza war criticism, 6 April 2011.
• New Statesman - John Dugard - Where now for the Goldstone report, 6 April 2011.
• The New York Times - Roger Cohen - The Goldstone Chronicles, 7 April 2011.
• Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Goldstone has paved the path for a second Gaza war, 7 April 2011.
• Haaretz - Barak Ravid - Goldstone, Yishai in spat over whether judge will take new Cast Lead view to UN, 7 April 2011.
• The New York Times - Dan Bilefsky - Warning by Israeli on U.N. Nod to Palestinians, 7 April 2011.
• Ynetnews.com - Attila Somfalvi - Goldstone to face libel suit, 7 April 2011.
• Arutz Sheva - Eve Harrow, Hezki Ezra - EU Ambassador to Israel: Goldstone Report Still Stands, 7 April 2011.
• Haaretz - Shlomo Shamir - UN chief to Peres, I will not retract the Goldstone Report, 8 April 2011.
• The Guardian - Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin, Desmond Travers - Goldstone report: Statement issued by members of UN mission on Gaza war, 14 April 2011.
• Haaretz - Gaza war report co-authors reject Goldstone's retraction, 14 April 2011.
• Breaking the Silence, Occupation of the Territories -- Israeli Soldier Testimonies 2000-2010

• Ynetnews.com - Aviel Magnezi - 'Goldstone's road to atonement long' , 3 April 2011.
• Foreign Policy - Sasha Polakow-Suransky - Gold stones, glass houses, 10 May 2010.
• Huffington Post - Sasha Polakow-Suransky - Hypocrisy Now!: The Pro-Israel Crowd's Sins of Omission, 12 May 2010.
• The Jewish Daily Forward - Josh Nathan-Kazis - Dershowitz Explains Critical Goldstone Remark, 3 February 2010.
• The Jerusalem Post - Alan Dershowitz - Goldstone backs away from report: The two faces of an international poseur, 15 October 2009.
• The Jerusalem Post - Alan Dershowitz - It is Goldstone who is politicizing grandson's bar mitzva, 29 April 2010.
• Tikun Olam (Blog) - Richard Silverstein - Alan Dershowitz Accuses Rabbis Supporting Goldstone of Being ‘Anti-Israel,’ Pro-Hamas, Guilty of ‘Blood Libel’, 29 April 2010.
• Taki's Magazine - Charles Glass - Goldstone’s Guide to Gaza, 11 April 2011.
• Gush Shalom - Uri Avnery - The Gold and the Stone, 9 April 2011.
• The New York Times - Ethan Bronner, Jennifer Medina - Past Holds Clue to Goldstone’s Shift on the Gaza War, 19 April 2011.

(The Swedish Radio (national public service radio broadcaster) reported that the sources Goldstone referred to as cause for his change of position have been quite wrongly misinterpreted/misused, according to one of the authors of the source report. Goldstone referred to the Aspergren-Davis report which was a follow up on Goldstone's own report. Author Lennart Aspergren said in an interview today that Goldstone has referred to unverified material (ie interviews from the report, not the result itself) from that report and used it as if it was verified material. Source in Swedish (audio): [33])

Talk:Antisemitism

Answering User:Bill tzay:

Norman G Finkelstein - Beyond Chutzpah, On the misuse of anti-semitism and the abuse of history (2008)

• Informed Comment - Juan Cole - The Decline of the Israeli Right and the Increasing Desperation of the ‘Anti-Semitism’ Charge, 18 February 2010.

• Salon.com - Glenn Greenwald - TNR's ugly and reckless anti-semitism games, 10 February 2010:

What's most striking about this attack is how inconsequential it is. It was once the case, not all that long ago, that an accusation of "anti-semitism" was the nuclear weapon of political debates, rendering most politicians and pundits (especially non-Jewish ones) petrified of being so accused. A 4,300-word prosecution brief published by The New Republic, accusing a major political writer of being a Jew-hater, would have been taken quite seriously, generated all sorts of drama, introspection and debate, and seriously tarnished the reputation of the accused.

No longer. Neoconservatives have so abused and cynically exploited the "anti-semitism" charge for rank political gain -- to bully those who would dare criticize Israeli actions or question U.S. policy towards Israel -- that it has lost its impact. Ironically, nobody has done more to trivialize and cheapen anti-semitism accusations than those who anointed themselves its guardians and arbiters. As Charles Freeman can attest, frivolous anti-semitism accusations can still damage those seeking high-level political positions, but those accusations no longer pack any real punch in virtually any other realm. As neoconservatives became discredited, so, too, did their central political weapon: casually and promiscuously accusing political adversaries of anti-semitism.

• The Atlantic - Andrew Sullivan - The Anti-Semite Card, Again, 19 June 2009.

• The Guardian - Tom Paulin - On Being Dealt the Anti-Semitic Card, 8 January 2003. (A poem which first appeared in the London Review of Books)

• Counterpunch - Norman Finkelstein - Kill Arabs, Cry Anti-Semitism, 12 September 2006. {updated link: [34]}

• The London Review of Books - Judith Butler - No, it’s not anti-semitic, 17 September 2002: Summers uses the ‘anti-semitic’ charge to quell public criticism of Israel, even as he explicitly distances himself from the overt operations of censorship.    ...    Here, it is important to distinguish between anti-semitic speech which, say, produces a hostile and threatening environment for Jewish students – racist speech which any university administrator would be obliged to oppose and regulate – and speech which makes a student uncomfortable because it opposes a particular state or set of state policies that he or she may defend.

• Campus Watch - Professors Contest Charges Of Anti-Semitism, 28 March 2005. (copy of Columbia Spectator article by James Romoser)

• The Electronic Intifada - Jonathan Cook - The new anti-Semitism?, 3 June 2003.
• Information Clearing House - Jonathan Cook - How Israel’s 'new anti-Semitism' is leading to nuclear Holocaust, 23 September 2006.

• The Independent - Christina Patterson - The limits of multi-culturalism, 28 July 2010.

• The Independent - Christina Patterson - How I was smeared as an anti-Semite, 23 December 2010.
• Arutz Sheva - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu - Helen Thomas Leads 2010 List of ‘Top 10 Anti-Semitic Slurs’, 18 December 2010: The last three slurs were by a Lithuanian official, a British journalist and messages on social networks. ... Christina Patterson, who works for the London Independent wrote last year. “I didn’t realize that goyim were about as welcome in the Hasidic Jewish shops as Martin Luther King, Jr. at a Ku Klux Klan convention. I didn’t realize that a purchase by a goy was a crime to be punished with monosyllabic terseness or that bus seats were a potential source of contamination or that road signs and parking restrictions were for people who hadn’t been chosen by G-d.”
• CBS (Los Angeles) - - White House Reporter Remarks Top ‘Anti-Semitic Slurs’ List, 17 December 2010: “Never before, in recent memory, has the Simon Wiesenthal Center seen such a proliferation of anti-Semitism going mainstream,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which bills itself as one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations. “Our list shows that anti-Semitic canards normally thought to belong to the lunatic fringe have in fact been bought into by major elements of Western society.”
• The Jewish Chronicle Online - Stephen Pollard - Christina Patterson's unrelenting bigotry, 28 July 2010.
• The Jewish Chronicle Online - Miriam Shaviv - The limits of multi-culturalism, 28 July 2010.
• The Independent - Jerome Taylor - Manners, multiculturalism, and the battle of Stamford Hill, 31 July 2010.

• The Guardian - Antony Lerman - The pro-Israel lobby and antisemitism, 20 November 2009.
• The Guardian - Antony Lerman - Antisemitic alarm bells, 4 May 2009.

• The Guardian - Jonathan Freedland - Once no self-respecting politician would have gone near people such as Kaminski, 6 October 2009.

• The Guardian - Stephen Pollard - Poland's Kaminski is not an antisemite: he's a friend to Jews, 9 October 2009.

• AntiWar.com - Ran HaCohen - Abe Foxman's 'Anti-Semitic Pandemic' , 17 February 2009.

• Counterpunch - Michael Neumann - What is Antisemitism?, 4 June 2002. {updated link [35]}

• The Independent - Anne Karpf - Anti-Semitism is at the limits of irony, 7 February 2010: If anti-Semitism of this kind seems to have disappeared altogether, we live in postmodern times where some of what looks like anti-Semitism isn't, but, conversely, some of what doesn't look like anti-Semitism in fact is. ... Modern anti-Semitism is a complex phenomenon, but Anthony Julius, for all his often thoughtful analysis, ultimately falls back on the elision of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and the notion that the Zionist is the Jew by another name. Perhaps the best way of countering such reductionism is to reverse it: the BNP's Nick Griffin and the Polish MEP Michael Kaminski have shown that neo-Nazi anti-Semitic sentiments and support for Israel are quite compatible. We should never be complacent about anti-Semitism, but neither should we allow some Jews to exaggerate it, regard it as inevitable, use it to try and delegitimise criticism of Israel or see it as an altogether different kind of animal from other more socially accepted kinds of racism such as Islamophobia. Those who hate are rarely so discriminating.

• The Independent - Yasmin Alibhai-Brown - Still no hope of common sense in the war against anti-Semitism, 8 February 2010: But we can't and shouldn't become credulous. Unquestioning accommodation would be naïve. Accusations of racism are used by all vulnerable groups to deflect legitimate concerns about, say, female genital mutilation, or forced marriages, or the too many young black men sunk into drug addiction and violence, or the lack of real democracy in the Muslim world. Julius plays that game, dextrously extending the accusation of anti-Semitism to implicate principled critics of the Israeli state. Jewish objectors, like the esteemed American Tony Judt, are also cut down with a poisoned blade. Richard Goldstone, the South African Zionist, has found himself similarly discredited by Zionists for writing a scathing UN assessment of the Israeli assault on Gaza. Similar treatment is meted out to others who try to remain scrupulously fair yet tough when scrutinising the government of Israel. These defenders to the end of all Israeli actions knowingly mix politics and race. Their enemies do the same: when Lebanon was attacked, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "This is a war that is fought by all the Jews." It wasn't. To say so is iniquitous, just as bad as the Jihadis who claim all of us Muslims are on their side or must be. The much admired writer Anne Karpf points this out in a beautifully articulated column: "If the Israeli government (wrongly) elides Israel with all Jews it is hardly surprising if anti-Semites do so too."By reproducing this conflation in his book, the eloquent Anthony Julius undercuts his powerful case that anti-Semitism, a very light sleeper, is up again. Doubters have been given a reason to repudiate him.

• The Times - Anthony Julius, Alan Dershowitz - The contemporary fight against anti-Semitism, 13 June 2007: What is anti-Semitism? Anti-Semitism consists, first, of beliefs about Jews that are both false and hostile, and second, of injurious things said to or about Jews, or done to them, in consequence of those beliefs. It is no enlargement at all to rewrite this definition as follows. Anti-Semitism consists, first, of beliefs about Jews or the Jewish State that are both false and hostile, and second, of injurious things said to or about Jews or the Jewish State, or done to them, in consequence of those beliefs. Anti-Semites wrong Jews and the Jewish State, and they are wrong about Jews and the Jewish State. Many anti-Semites also want to hurt Jews and the Jewish State or deny to them freedoms or rights enjoyed by non-Jews or the generality of States.

• Huffington Post - Alan Dershowitz - The Lobby, Jews, and Anti-Semites, 12 April 2006: The perfect test case came last month, when the academic dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a political science professor at the University of Chicago jointly published a "working paper" that parroted virtually every conspiracy theory ever articulated against Jews. Dean Walt and Professor Mearsheimer wrote that Jews control the media and the government; that we are loyal to Israel rather than to our "host" country; and that we dupe non-Jews, against their best interests, into fighting and dying for our interest. All that was missing from the Walt-Mearsheimer screed was the "blood libel": the medieval accusation that Jews use the blood of Christian children to make Passover matzo. (They came close by asserting another blood libel - namely, that Israeli citizenship is based on "blood kinship," a claim which is demonstrably false.)    ...    For responding to Mearsheimer and Walt's false charges, I was accused by The Nation contributer and Huffington Poster Philip Weiss of being a "vigilante" and by Dissident Voice as being one of "the attack dogs of the lobby." So much for the marketplace of ideas! Free speech for me but not for thee!    ...    I am proud of the way the Jewish community has responded to the Walt-Mearsheimer paper. Jews should not be ashamed to stand up for themselves and decry the sort of people who would blame all their own problems, or all of America's problems, on Jewish "power," "influence," and "manipulation." Those attitudes are indisputably anti-Semitic. It is doubly anti-Semitic to justify this sort of Jewish scapegoating by saying that it is "of [the Jews] own making."

• Bernard Lewis - Semites and Anti-Semites, , An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice (1987), Chapter 9: The New Anti-Semitism, p254: Two other groups, among the supporters of Israel, are the inverted and repentant anti-Semites.

• Rootless Cosmopolitan blog - Tony Karon - My Favorite ‘Anti-Semite’, 3 October 2007.

• AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - ‘Anti-Semitism’ Charges Unleashed: Don’t Mention the Mavi Marmara, 16 June 2010.
• AntiWar.com - Jason Ditz - Israeli Information Minister Slams All Reports on Gaza War as Anti-Semitic, 25 January 2010.

• YnetNews.com - Roni Sofer - Minister Edelstein: Goldstone Report anti-Semitic , 21 January 2010.

• The Observer - Ned Temko - Critics of Israel 'fuelling hatred of British Jews' , 3 September 2006: Jonathan Sacks: Criticism of Israel is not antisemitism. Even denial of Israel's right to exist - obscene though that is - is anti-Zionism, not antisemitism, despite the fact that the route from the one to the other is slippery and steep. We do not serve the fight against prejudice by blurring these distinctions. What makes the new antisemitism antisemitic is that it is directed against Jews, not against Israel. Its targets - synagogues, Jewish schools and community centres, Jews in the street - often have nothing to do with Israel; Antony Lerman: But while very many Jews feel a deep attachment to Israel, it is the opposite of clear thinking to assume that all expressions of anti-Zionism are simply a cloak for or a form of antisemitism. It drains the word antisemitism of any useful value for it confuses a strongly held political view with an undifferentiated ideologically-based prejudice against a whole people.

• Front Page Magazine - Steven Plaut - The Pathology of Jewish Anti-Semitism, 16 February 2010.

• Alain Badiou - Reflections On Anti-Semitism, 2013, p.15: A number of diʃerent facets can be identiɹed in contemporary reactionary rhetoric: the violent and vulgar form of regular fascism, the ironic and rather shrill form of the civilized right, and then – very diʃerent – the discourse of the professional assailers of what they call anti-Semitism. The agents of this third facet are intellectuals, often sophisticated, whose argument has one common feature: their object, by way of stages and connections that are quite particular, is to link together things that, as we have just seen, actually have no connection at all. Let us look more closely at the rhetorical details that make this supposed connection. One of its links, deployed very frequently, runs as follows: the kernel of anticapitalism is anti-Americanism, the focus of anti-Americanism is anti-democracy, and at the pivot of anti-democracy – their final leap – lies anti-Semitism.

Sabra and Shatila Massacres

Report of the Kahan Commission on the Sabra and Shatila Massacres, 7 February 1983

Biological Warfare and Israel

• Information Clearing House - Salman Abu-Sitta - Traces of poison, Israel's dark history revealed
• NTI (Nuclear Threat Initiative) - Israel, Biological Warfare Profile

Bradley Manning

• Freedom of the Press Foundation - Bradley Manning Court Transcripts

Lenni Brenner

• Reviews of Lenni Brenner's books

Jeremy Corbyn and Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party

2016 London School of Economics report on journalistic representations of Jeremy Corbyn:

London School of Economics and Political Science, Academic Report on Journalistic Representations of Jeremy Corbyn: Journalistic Representations of Jeremy Corbyn in the British Press: From Watchdog to Attackdog - Bart Cammaerts, Brooks DeCillia, João Magalhães, César Jimenez-Martínez

LSE Department of Media and Communications: Online Description of the "Journalistic Representations of Jeremy Corbyn in the British Press" project.

2018 report preduced jointly by the Media Reform Coalition and Birbeck College, Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Labour, Antisemitism and the News, A Disinformation Paradigm (The Media Reform Coalition is a pressure group set up in the aftermath of the phone-hacking scandal. It has released two reports, the first by the LSE, which analysed three months of newspaper reporting, the second with Birkbeck College's media department. In response to the Media Reform Coalition’s second report, the BBC described the campaigning organisation as a “vested interest group”, but failed to engage with its findings. Justin Schlosberg is the chair of the Media Reform Coalition and author of the report.[36][37] The Media Reform Coalition was set up in September 2011 to coordinate the most effective contribution by civil society groups, academics and media campaigners to debates over media regulation, ownership and democracy in the context of the phone hacking crisis and proposed communications legislation. We work with partner groups and supporting individuals to produce research and to organise campaigning activities aimed at creating a media system that operates in the public interest. Media Reform represents an independent coalition of groups and individuals committed to maximising the public interest in communications.[38]):

Full Report: Labour, Antisemitism and the News, A Disinformation Paradigm (Media Reform Coalition) - Justin Schlosberg, Laura Laker - September 2018.

Executive Summary: Executive Summary: Labour, Antisemitism and the News, A Disinformation Paradigm (Media Reform Coalitioin) - Justin Schlosberg, Laura Laker - September 2018.

Introduction to the report on the Media Reform Coalition's website: Media Reform Coalitioin - New MRC research finds inaccuracies and distortions in media coverage of antisemitism and the Labour Party, 27 September 2018.

Letter with 28 signatories to The Guardian which discusses the MRC report: The Guardian - (Letters) Flawed reporting on antisemitism claims against the Labour Party: Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis, Ken Loach, Brian Eno, Des Freedman, Justin Schlosberg and 21 others write about a recent report by the Media Reform Coalition, 30 September 2018.

"Candidate, Jeremy Corbyn's Improbable Path To Power" - Alex Nunns:

pp846.3 / 1132:

Corbyn supporters’ ritual complaints of media bias had, by the time of the coup, been substantiated by evidence. Research by the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, analysing 812 articles from eight newspapers published between 1 September and 1 November 2015, found 60 per cent of them to be critical or antagonistic towards Corbyn compared to less than 10 per cent that were supportive. Disturbingly, around three-quarters misrepresented or ignored Corbyn’s political views—a dereliction of journalistic duty. “UK journalism played an attackdog, rather than a watchdog, role,” the study concluded. A separate report that focused on the first 10 days of the coup, conducted by the Media Reform Coalition in association with Birkbeck, University of London, found that coverage of Labour’s crisis was heavily skewed towards Corbyn’s opponents whether in the right-leaning Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph or the ostensibly left Guardian and Daily Mirror. More significantly, it found the same bias in the BBC’s main evening TV news bulletins, watched by millions. To show this was an editorial choice not a journalistic necessity, the academics compared the BBC output with that of ITV and found that the latter gave “considerably more equal attention” to pro- and anti-Corbyn voices, while the BBC “gave nearly twice as much unchallenged airtime to sources critical of Corbyn compared to those that supported him.” Moreover, they noted a “strong tendency within BBC main evening news for reporters to use pejorative language when describing Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters.”

Press Gang - Paddy French - Is the BBC Anti-Labour: Panorama's Biased Anti-Semitism Reporting - a Case to Answer, December 2019.

Books

Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities :
(from The Israel/Palestine Question) Until recently the standard Zionist version of the events surrounding the birth of the State of Israel remained largely unchallenged outside the Arab world. The fortieth anniversary of the birth of the state, however, witnessed the publication of a number of books that challenged various aspects of the standard Zionist version. First in the field, most polemical in its tone, and most comprehensive in its scope, was Simha Flapan’s, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities. A former director of the Arab Affairs Department of the left-wing Mapam Party and editor of the Middle East monthly, New Outlook, Flapan wrote his book with an explicit political rather than academic aim in mind: to expose the myths that he claimed served as the basis of Israeli propaganda and Israeli policy. “The myths that Israel forged during the formation of the state,” writes Flapan, “have hardened into this impenetrable and dangerous ideological shield.”

Extracts

Partition

Palestine Post. 15 Jul 1937. David Ben-Gurion. The Jews.

Avi Shlaim, The Debate About 1948, from The Israel/Palestine Question (edited by Ilan Pappé): p162 - "It is true that all the Arab states, with the exception of Jordan, rejected the UN partition plan. It is true that seven Arab armies invaded Palestine the morning after the State of Israel was proclaimed. It is true that the invasion was accompanied by blood-curdling rhetoric and threats to throw the Jews into the sea. It is true that in addition to the regular Arab armies and the Mufti’s Holy War army, various groups of volunteers arrived in Palestine, the most important of which was the Arab Liberation Army, sponsored by the Arab League and led by the Syrian adventurer Fawzi al-Qawuqji. More importantly, it is true that the military experts of the Arab League had worked out a unified plan for the invasion and that this plan was all the more dangerous for having had more limited and realistic objectives than those implied by the wild Pan-Arab rhetoric. But King Abdullah, who was given nominal command over all the Arab forces in Palestine, wrecked this plan by making last-minute changes. His objective in sending his army into Palestine was not to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, but to make himself master of the Arab part of Palestine, which meant preventing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state."

Mike Berry and Greg Philo, Israel and Palestine Competing Histories:
p13ff - Ben-Gurion's position in the wake of Peel Commision: "The Peel Commission proposed that the north-west part of Palestine, accounting for 20 per cent of the country though containing its most fertile land, would become a Jewish state, while the remaining 80 per cent would become an Arab state linked to Transjordan. A corridor to the sea would remain under British control, as would Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The proposal received a mixed reception among Jews. One group, centred on Jabotinsky’s Revisionists, argued that a Jewish state should only be set up in the whole of Palestine and Transjordan. Another, which included Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, argued that this was a historic opportunity to create the Jewish state. The Israeli historian Simha Flapan suggests that Ben-Gurion accepted the plan as a stepping stone to Zionist control of all of Palestine, and points to comments he made before the Zionist executive in 1937 that: ‘after the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the [Jewish] state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of the Palestine’ (Ben-Gurion, cited in Flapan, 1987: 22). The Israeli historian and Ha’aretz columnist Tom Segev (2001) suggests that for Ben-Gurion the proposal (inherent in the Peel recommendations) for the ‘forced transfer’ of the Arab inhabitants out of the proposed Jewish state, and the creation therefore of a ‘really Jewish’ state, outweighed all the drawbacks of the proposal."
p24 - 1947: "Gilbert (1999) suggests they were also wary of alienating Arab opinion because they were concerned to protect their oil interests in the region. The foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, perhaps with this in mind, indicted that he favoured ‘an independent unitary State in Palestine, with special rights for the Jewish minority, but incorporating as much as possible of the Arab plan’ (cited in Gilbert, 1999: 142). Bevin also argued that a Zionist government in Palestine would be unlikely to accept any partition as fi nal but would sooner or later seek to expand its borders. Arab hostility to the Zionist project, he predicted, might lead to long-term instability in the region: ‘If Jewish irredentism is likely to develop after an interval, Arab irredentism is certain from the outset. Thus the existence of a Jewish State might prove a constant factor of unrest in the Middle East’ (cited in Gilbert, 1999: 142). In February 1947 the British decided to end the mandate and hand the question of Palestine to the United Nations."
p25 - "The Arab states as well as a number of others indicated that they did not consider themselves bound by the resolution as they argued it violated the terms of the UN Charter (United Nations, 1990)."
p27 - "The reaction of the Zionist leadership is more contested. Some historians, such as Bregman (2003), argue that the partition resolution was seen as a triumph because it allowed for the creation of a Jewish state in an area three times that recommended by the Peel plan ten years earlier. Shlaim claims that the reaction was more ambivalent. He suggests that it was accepted by most Zionist leaders with a ‘heavy heart’ because they ‘did not like the idea of an independent Palestinian state, they were disappointed with the exclusion of Jerusalem, and they had grave doubts about the viability of the State within the UN borders’ (2000: 25). He notes that it was dismissed out of hand by Jewish paramilitary groups, who demanded all of Palestine for the Jewish state. Gilbert suggests that the Zionist leadership realised that war was inevitable and that Ben-Gurion ‘contemplated the possibility of fi ghting to extend the area allotted to the Jews’ (1999: 149). Gilbert cites orders from Ben-Gurion that Jewish forces should ‘safeguard the entire Yishuv [Jewish community in Palestine] and settlements (wherever they may be), to conquer the whole country or most of it, and to maintain its occupation until the attainment of an authoritative political settlement’ (Ben-Gurion, cited in Gilbert, 1999: 149). Hirst (1977) suggests that the partition plan was accepted by the Zionists because they anticipated they would quickly be able militarily to overwhelm the Arabs, and unilaterally expand the borders of the Jewish state."
p28 - "The UN partition plan did not solve the problems in Palestine. The Arab Higher Committee rejected it outright and called a three-day strike. The Mufti of Jerusalem announced a jihad or struggle for Jerusalem. Fighting between the two communities broke out in early December 1947, and the situation quickly deteriorated into a civil war in which both sides attacked civilian as well as military targets (Gilbert, 1999)."
p28 - "In early April, Zionist forces launched a major offensive code named Plan Dalet. According to Avi Shlaim, the aim of Plan Dalet was ‘to secure all the areas allocated to the Israeli state under the UN partition resolution as well as Jewish settlements outside these areas and corridors leading to them’ (2000: 31). Arab towns and cities were captured and their populations removed so as ‘to clear the interior of the country of hostile and potentially hostile Arab elements’ in anticipation of an attack by the combined armies of the neighbouring Arab states (2000: 31)."
p31 - "The declaration did not specify the borders of the new state, because Ben-Gurion wanted to keep open the possibility of expansion beyond the UN borders."
p35ff - "A third UN truce came into effect on 31 October, which lasted until 22 December, when Israel again broke the truce by launching Operation Horev. This was highly successful, with the Israeli army driving the Egyptians out of the Negev and following it into Egypt proper. Eventually Britain intervened on the Egyptian side under the terms of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, and after forceful pressure from President Truman Ben- Gurion agreed to withdraw his troops from the Sinai and accept a new truce."

Encyclopedia of the Palestinians (2005), Abdullah and the Zionists, p7 -

"The irreconcilable conflict

between the Arab and Jewish national movements in Palestine provided the setting for the emergence of the special relationship between the Hashemite emir and the Jewish Agency. The two sides had a common protector, Britain, and a common enemy, al-Hajj Amin AL-HUSAYNI, the mufti (Islamic law expert) of Jerusalem and the leader of the Palestinians. Al-Hajj Amin had not only opposed the Zionist movement, but was also Abdullah’s principal rival for the loyalty of the Palestinians and for

the control of Palestine."

"It was not until

1937, when the PEEL COMMISSION suggested that Palestine might be partitioned and that Abdullah might rule the Arab part, that Palestine became

the main focus of Abdullah’s territorial ambition."

"During World War II, Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni

threw in his lot with Nazi Germany; Abdullah and the Zionists remained loyal to Britain. Britain rewarded Abdullah for his loyalty by conferring formal independence on the Mandated territory of Transjordan in March 1946. The Zionists, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, intensified the struggle for a state of their own. However, they needed an Arab leader willing to accept a partition of Palestine and to live in peace with a Jewish state; King Abdullah appeared to be the only ruler prepared

to accept the partition of Palestine."

The Palestine Triangle, Nicholas Bethell.

p. 257 -
On July 10th Bevin explained to Norman Brook and Harold Beeley that his mind was not closed to the admission of the hundred thousand Jews. On the contrary, he said, he did not feel able to oppose it. And he no longer mentioned the precondition of Jewish disarmament. But Britain would require full American cooperation and some serious quid pro quo to offer the Arabs. For instance, he wanted the United States to accept a further large number of Jewish refugees. (Britain, he said, could not absorb any more, because of her commitment to shelter tens of thousands of Poles unwilling to return to communist Poland.) The Arabs must also receive provincial autonomy and their standard of living should be raised by an American subsidy.
On July 11th, 1946, Ambassador Henry F. Grady arrived in London with the American deputies. Over the next two weeks they and the British team, under Herbert Morrison, reached agreement on the idea of a federal Palestine with provincial autonomy, divided into Zionist, Arab and central government districts - a variation on the 1944 partition plan. The hundred thousand would be allowed to enter the Zionist area, but it would cover only 1500 square miles and would remain, in the last resort, under British control. The United States would grant $50m. to develop the Arab area.

p. 269-270 -
On July 26th Ambassador Grady sent Byrnes an optimistic telegram about the agreed plan. He had spoken again to Norman Brook, he said, and there was no doubt at all that Britain would give the green light on the hundred thousand. They did not expect formal approval of the plan by either Arabs or Jews, but they did expect 'a measure of acquiescence'. On July 29th Byrnes sent Truman a list of the plan's advantages. Apart from the admission of the hundred thousand, it would nearly treble the area in which Jews could buy land. The Jewish province would contain the best land in Palestine, eighty-five per cent of the entire citrus-growing area, as well as the main water supplies, most of the coastline and the only deep water port. Byrnes also observed that, since eighty-two per cnet of Palestine's Jew's were living in an area of ninety square miles, the proposed 1500-square-mile province would give them large scope for expansion. To support the plan he mentioned only those factors which in his view would favour the Jews.
The idea was then for Herbert Morrison, scheduled to speak for the government in an important House of Commons debate on July 31st, to use this diplomatic success to quieten members' strong feelings about the King David explosion. But by July 28th the outline of the plan was known and Weizmann rejected it as worse than Lord Peel's plan of 1937, while Abba Hillel Silver called it 'a conscienceless act of treachery'. On July 30th it was attacked in the US Senate as a betrayal of the Jewish homeland, an attempt to strangle the Yishuv by confining them inside an economically non-viable ghetto.
Truman therefore decided on July 30th, 1946, that, although the plan had been worked out and approved by his nominees, he would have to reject it. It was, in the words of Ambassador Inverchapel that night, a deplorable display of weakness, solely attributable to reasons of domestic politics. State Department official Loy Henderson explained to the ambassador that the two main American Jewish leaders, Wise and Silver, belonged respectively to the Democratic and Republican parties and that neither could afford by approving the plan to give advantage to the other party in the November congressional elections. Otherwise, said Henderson, there was nothing in the plan that would not have been acceptable to the United States.
Truman explained to Attlee that American opposition to the plan had become so intense that there was no hope of rallying effective support for it. Attlee replied: 'I feel bound to express my great disappointment that you have not yet been able to accept the plan worked out with so much goodwill by the American and British agents as the best solution to this very difficult question.' He made it clear to the President that, if the plan failed, British consent to the admission of the hundred thousand would be withdrawn. This consent was on offer only as a 'package deal', not in isolation. Once again British-American discord on the issue had erupted and once again the Jewish refugees of Europe were denied their wish, when apparently on the brink of being granted it.

Zionism and Israel/Holocaust Identification

Israel and Palestine: Out of the Ashes
p6 -
"Israel and its continuing expansion are impossible to understand outside the liberal-European-secular Jewish narrative that promoted its creation and its consolidation as a nation-state.
This narrative combines a European context – a Jewish minority at the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century that clearly saw the difficulties, if not impossibility, of Jewish life flourishing in modern Europe – with an evolving post-Holocaust consciousness that, especially in the U.S. after the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, commemorates the Holocaust and understands Israel as compensation for suffering and a guarantor of Jewish survival. If we label the European Jewish context ‘Zionism’ and the American Jewish context ‘Holocaust/Israel’, we capture the central movements for the establishment and maintenance of Israel.
Clearly both Zionism and Holocaust/Israel identification in their origins and continuity are complex and diverse. Historically, there have been Zionisms, from state Zionism to homeland Zionism and variations in between. Holocaust/Israel identification was weak in the 1950s and 1960s but strong during the late 1960s and 1970s. Today Zionism has been overshadowed by Holocaust/Israel identification, as advanced by American Jewish economic and political elites."
p7 -
"While those who reflected on the Holocaust could not agree on the presence of God during and after the Holocaust, they could agree that the central religious tasks of Jews after the Holocaust were remembering the Holocaust and building the state of Israel. In 1968, Emil Fackenheim, the Canadian philosopher, wrote of this commitment as the 614th commandment, adding to or perhaps supplanting the 613 commandments of traditional Jewish religious life."
p8 -
"In the crucial time period after the 1967 war, the decision was made within the Israeli government to annex and expand Jerusalem, fortify it with settlements and expand further into the territories for political, economic and military reasons."
"Though official policies of the the U.S. government have never recognized the Israeli annexation of Jerusalem or the West Bank settlements as legal – nor are they recognized by international law – American foreign aid and security assistance has been essential to these policies."
p9 -
"Clearly the major spokesperson over the years for Holocaust/Israel consciousness in the United States is Elie Wiesel."
"Jerusalem is spoken about in an abstract, mystical way, as is the 1967 war, where for Wiesel the Israeli soldiers carried Jewish history and innocence into a battle that was forced upon them by the Arab world.
Shorn of the details of occupation and settlement, in Wiesel’s narrative Israel becomes a homeland for persecuted European Jews and Holocaust survivors. Jews are innocent in suffering and empowerment. Israel is a moral crusade that all of humanity is called upon to affirm and support. In Wiesel’s Israel, politics and the army are almost invisible, as are the Palestinians. The U.S. supports Israel because, like Israelis, Americans are innocent and good."
p10 -
"This raises a further fundamental question as to whether Jewish empowerment at the expense of another people represents a healing for the Jewish people or whether Jews can only be healed of the trauma of the Holocaust when Palestinians are healed of their own trauma of displacement and humiliation."
p13 -
"Few Jews know that Judah Magnes, the first president of Hebrew University, Martin Buber, the great biblical scholar and theologian, and Hannah Arendt, the philosopher of the mind and the human condition, were all binationalists, opposed to a Jewish state in Palestine. They argued instead for a cooperative federation of Jews and Arabs."

Nationalism

The dark side of Zionism : Israel’s quest for security through dominance (Baylis Thomas), The Paradox of Nationalism
p203 -
"Jewish nationalism reflects a universal ideal, the right of a people to selfdetermination. However, fulfillment of this ideal involved the occupation and colonization of a territory already occupied by another people, the Palestinian Arabs, who were themselves seeking self-determination after centuries of oppressive Ottoman rule."
"Nationalism, though the cornerstone of the modern political world, is problematic. It has two faces. It is associated with liberalism, the value of the common man and a people’s right to live free of domination by foreign powers (so-called “emancipatory nationalism”), and yet this focus on self-determination can also lead to corruptions: the glorification of the national character, exaggerated citizen allegiance to the state, and chauvinist belief in entitled conquest or colonization of weaker and devalued peoples (so-called “militant” or “hyper” nationalism)."
p204 -
"The term “nationalism” is often used to refer to these corrupting tendencies: autocracy, militance, national chauvinism, ethnic discrimination, and excess citizen allegiance to the state — the Third Reich being an extreme example. The evolution from “emancipatory” to “militant” nationalism has been no surprise to some political scientists, such as Hans Morgenthau, who sees militance as inevitable in an anarchic world without effective international controls."
"Nationalist states are a historical and political fact. Yet nationalism is also an aspiration, a belief, even a sentiment about: (1) the homogeneity of the people, the idea that the people within a state do (and must) possess a unified national character, and (2) ethnocentrism, the idea that the people and their culture are superior to those in other states."
p205 -
"On the other hand, Joseph Schumpeter finds the presumed prized homogeneity in nationalism to be malignant. It may generate internal social cohesion, but it also generates chauvinism and hatred for others: ... Driven out everywhere else, the irrational seeks refuge in nationalism—the irrational which consists of belligerence, the need to hate, a goodly quota of inchoate idealism, the most naive (and hence also the most unrestrained) egotism. This is precisely what constitutes the impact of nationalism. It satisfies the need for surrender to a concrete and familiar super-personal cause, the need for selfglorification and violent self-assertion."
"The irony is that there is much artifice in the nationalist belief in the homogeneity of the people. Does there exist, for example, a homogeneous Palestinian people? Or a Jewish people? Palestinians, under challenge, might think about themselves as one people, but they are a diverse people with clan rivalries, religious hatreds (Muslim, Druze, Bedouin, and Christian) and class contempts (urban vs. peasant). Is there not also something artificial about the supposed national unity of Jews—fractured as they are by mutual hatreds (Ashkenazi vs. Sephardi)? Ilan Halevi comments on the “founding myth of the nation . . . the false idea that all Jews . . . share a single unequivocal character, a common and unchanging essence either national or religious.” David Shipler observes, “the passion with which Jews hate other Jews and Arabs hate other Arabs certainly rivals the antipathy between Jews and Arabs.” This “as-if” nationalist belief in the unity of “the people” supports war because, as a device, it abstracts and then essentializes the nation as if it is composed of a single people, real, separate, and unbridgeable from others. This provides the social cohesion necessary for war."
p206 -
"Curiously, the fact that groups within a nation hate each other does not mean that they relinquish their belief in a single national character. Rather, it encourages a desire for “cultural or ethnic purification” through rout of the misfits."
"Many sociologists underscore the point that the notion of a unified people or “nation” is largely a mental construction. Ernest Gellner stresses the falseness of the construction. It is a fabricated image: “nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist.”"
"Belief in the nation is constructed, too, on beliefs about a shared ancestral past."
"Ernest Renan wryly defined a nation as “a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbors.”"
p207 -
"The tendency is to exaggerate differences, then impose a value judgment and attribute the lesser behavior of others to their (usually bad) character." (known as the Attributive Error)
"In the vainglorious search for national differences, substantial human commonalities are inevitably ignored."
"Race is another way to dismiss human commonality, separating “us” from “them” in behavior and character. This nineteenth century notion that minor biological differences between people denote moral, intellectual, or character differences is without scientific basis."
p208 -
"Freud referred to the self-regarding need to diminish others, even for minor reasons, as the “narcissism of minor differences,” a need he explained in terms of an instinctual aggressive drive."
"In Bauman’s view (or Chomsky’s “manufactured consent”), the state is not a humanizing or moralizing force but a power machine that usurps, isolates and routinizes its citizens (Arendt’s “banality of evil”).30 Of course, modern societies are hierarchical and citizen success and safety do in fact require some degree of conformity. But in hypernationalisms, individual morality, and responsibility are more radically shifted to state authority, even in democracies."
p209 -
"The Israeli-Palestinian clash concerns competing national liberation movements and their struggle for the same land. Yet the struggle has degenerated into the usual ethno/cultural “us vs. them” assassinations of each other’s national character. Exaggerations about the separate, unbridgeable, and uniquely negative traits of the other have transformed a territorial conflict between two Semitic peoples into a stubborn racist war."
"This racism can be seen in the streets. Israeli leaders publicly express racist attitudes towards Palestinians, and Palestinian leaders openly acknowledge Palestinian racist attitudes toward Jews. It is the racism embedded in all wars and colonizations—the inferiorization of the other—and a militant belief in the entitlements of the better people."
"The paradox of nationalism consists in its contrasting liberal and illiberal aspects. The nationalist seeks liberation and self-determination, yet may aggressively deny these to others."

National Socialism

National Socialism. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, 2010:

Between 1938 and 1945 Hitler's regime attempted to expand and apply the Nazi system to territories outside the German Reich. This endeavour was confined, in 1938, to lands inhabited by German-speaking populations, but in 1939 Germany began to subjugate non-German-speaking nationalities as well. Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, which initiated World War II, was the logical outcome of Hitler's plans. His first years were spent in preparing the Germans for the approaching struggle for world control and in forging the military and industrial superiority that Germany would require to fulfill its ambitions. With mounting diplomatic and military successes, his aims grew in quick progression. The first was to unite all people of German descent within their historical homeland on the basis of “self-determination.” His next step foresaw the creation, through the military conquest of Poland and other Slavic nations to the east, of a Grosswirtschaftsraum (“large economic unified space”) or a Lebensraum (“living space”), which thereby would allow Germany to acquire sufficient territory to become economically self-sufficient and militarily impregnable. There the German master race, or Herrenvolk, would rule over a hierarchy of subordinate peoples and organize and exploit them with ruthlessness and efficiency. With the initial successes of the military campaigns of 1939–41, his plan was expanded into a vision of a hemispheric order that would embrace all of Europe, western Asia, and Africa and eventually the entire world.

Israel lobby

antiwar.com - Declassified GAO Report Exposes Fatally Flawed Israel Investigations, Grant Smith, 10 May 2010:

"Kennedy delivered a final ultimatum to Israel on July 5, 1963, insisting that Dimona undergo serial inspections “in accord with international standards” in order to verify its “peaceful intent.” Simultaneously, the Kennedy Justice Department was waging an intense battle behind closed doors to register and regulate Israel’s elite U.S. lobby, the American Zionist Council, which was bringing in funds from overseas to lobby. Kennedy’s assassination in November traumatized the nation and led to the complete and permanent reversal of both initiatives.

"According to Avner Cohen, in 1958 Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had arranged with Abraham Feinberg, a “major Democratic fund-raiser,” to secretly finance a nuclear weapons program among “benedictors” in America. Abraham Feinberg, who backed Harry S. Truman’s successful whistle-stop election campaign, was personally succinct about his role in the U.S. political system: “My path to power was cooperation in terms of what they needed – campaign money.” Feinberg opened doors in Congress for up and coming leaders of the Israel lobby, including AIPAC founder Isaiah L. Kenen. According to Seymour Hersh, “there is no question that Feinberg enjoyed the greatest presidential access and influence in his 20 years as a Jewish fund-raiser and lobbyist with Lyndon Johnson. Documents at the Johnson Library show that even the most senior members of the National Security Council understood that any issue raised by Feinberg had to be answered.” His power and role in financing Lyndon B. Johnson’s election prospects temporarily quashed scrutiny of Israel’s nuclear weapons program – in the U.S. and abroad – at a critical moment.

"On Oct. 14, 1964, less than three weeks before the 1964 presidential elections, Johnson’s top administrative assistant Walter Jenkins was arrested in a public restroom on sexual solicitation charges. At least $250,000 Abraham Feinberg raised for Johnson was located in Jenkins’ office safe. Johnson phoned his trusted aides Bill Moyers and Myer Feldman with orders to move the cash, which they did with the help of a heavy briefcase. Israel would later replenish Feinberg’s coffers (as it had with Zalman Shapiro through sales commissions) with multi-million dollar favors, such as major ownership in the nation’s Coca-Cola franchise.

"In 1968 as Israel noticeably ramped up activities at the Dimona nuclear weapons facility, Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford placed a final urgent call to Johnson, “Mr. President, I don’t want to live in a world where the Israelis have nuclear weapons.” President Johnson was abrupt before he hung up on Clifford, “Don’t bother me with this anymore.” By the time Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meier lobbied President Nixon to redefine U.S. non-proliferation policy as “ambiguity” toward Israeli nuclear weapons, Israel’s stockpile and number of deployed weapons was steadily growing."

Israel, USSR, US, UK

Michael B. Oren - Six days of war : June 1967 and the making of the modern Middle East.
p. 8 -
The following year, 1954, undistinguished elsewhere in the world, was a Middle Eastern watershed. That year, the Soviet Union, having supported Israel since its creation, having recognized and armed it, switched its allegiance to the other side. The USSR indeed had nothing more to gain from Zionism— the British empire was dying—and everything to gain in terms of placating the new, post-colonial governments, securing its vulnerable southern border, and threatening the West’s oil supplies. ... Short of destroying Israel, the USSR endorsed all and every means of realizing “Arab rights in Palestine.”
The cold war had come to the Middle East, and 1954 was also the year that the U.S. and Britain aspired to defend the region through an alliance of Northern Tier states (Iran, Turkey, Pakistan) and their Arab neighbors. Viewing the Arab-Israeli conflict as an obstacle to the bloc, Anglo-American planners sought to remove it with a secret peace initiative. Code-named Alpha, the plan was to coerce Israel into conceding large chunks of territory in return for an Arab pledge of nonbelligerency. The assumed key to the plan’s success was Nasser, who was close to the Americans—the CIA had quietly assisted his coup—and who stood to gain substantially from his cooperation. Payment would include boatloads of American arms as well as Egypt’s long-coveted land bridge across the Negev.
... His challenges set, Nasser lost no time in meeting them. He concluded an agreement for ending Britain’s seventy-two-year occupation of the Canal Zone, then turned around and thwarted Britain’s attempt to append Iraq to the Northern Tier — the so-called Baghdad Pact.

Avi Shlaim - The Debate about 1948, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3. (Aug., 1995).
p. 292ff -
The first bone of contention concerns British policy in Palestine between 29 November 1947 and 14 May 1948. Zionist historiography, reflecting the suspicions of Zionist leaders at that time, is laden with charges of hostile plots that are alleged to have been hatched against the Yishuv during the twilight of British rule in Palestine. The central charge is that Britain armed and secretly encouraged her Arab allies, and especially her client, King Abdullah of Jordan, to invade Palestine upon expiry of the British Mandate and do battle with the Jewish state as soon as it came into the world. For Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary in the Labour government headed by Clement Attlee, is reserved the role of chief villain in this alleged conspiracy. Ilan Pappé, using English, Arabic, and Hebrew sources, has driven a coach and horses through the traditional Zionist rendition of British policy toward the end of the Mandate, and I tried to follow along the trail that he has blazed. The key to British policy during this period is summed up by Pappé in two words: Greater Transjordan. Bevin felt that if Palestine had to be partitioned, the Arab area could not be left to stand on its own but should be united with Transjordan. A Greater Transjordan would compensate Britain for the loss of bases in Palestine. Hostility to Hajj Amin al-Husayni, who had cast his lot with the Nazis during World War 11, and hostility to a Palestinian state, which in British eyes was always equated with a Mufti state, were important and constant features of British policy after the war. By February 1948, Bevin and his Foreign Office advisers were pragmatically reconciled to the inevitable emergence of the Jewish state. What they were not reconciled to was the emergence of a Palestinian state. The policy of Greater Transjordan implied discreet support for a bid by Abdullah- nicknamed "Mr. Bevin's little king" by the officials at the Foreign Office-to enlarge his kingdom by taking over the West Bank. At a secret meeting in London on 7 February 1948, Bevin gave Tawfiq Abul Huda, Jordan's prime minister, the green light to send the Arab Legion into Palestine immediately following the departure of the British forces. But Bevin also warned Jordan not to invade the area allocated by the U.N. to the Jews. An attack on Jewish state territory, he said, would compel Britain to withdraw her subsidy and officers from the Arab Legion. Far from being driven by blind anti-Semitic prejudice to unleash the Arab Legion against the Jews, Bevin in fact urged restraint on the Arabs in general and on Jordan in particular. Whatever sins were committed by the British foreign secretary as the British Mandate in Palestine approached its inglorious end, inciting King Abdullah to use force to prevent the emergence of a Jewish state was not one of them. If Bevin was guilty of conspiring to unleash the Arab Legion, his target was not the Jews but the Palestinians. The prospect of a Palestinian state was pretty remote in any case because the Palestinians themselves had done so little to build it. But by supporting Abdullah's bid to capture the Arab part of Palestine adjacent to his kingdom, Bevin indirectly helped to ensure that the Palestinian state envisaged in the U.N. partition plan would be stillborn. In short, if there is a case to be made against Bevin, it is not that he tried to abort the birth of the Jewish state but that he endorsed the understanding between King Abdullah and the Jewish Agency to partition Palestine between themselves and leave the Palestinians out in the cold. The Zionist charge that Bevin deliberately instigated hostilities in Palestine and gave encouragement and arms to the Arabs to crush the infant Jewish state thus represents almost the exact opposite of the historical truth as it emerges from the British, Arab, and Israeli documents. The charge is without substance and may be safely discarded as the first in the series of myths that have come to surround the founding of the State of Israel.

Purpose of the Mandate

Capitalism Magazine - Paul Blair - From Time Immemorial - The British Mandate (Part 3 of 6) - 18 April 2002:

Winston Churchill set out the obligations the British had agreed to undertake in his "Statement of British Policy" of June 1922 (before the League of Nations confirmed the text of the Mandate on July 24, 1922):

"Unauthorized statements have been made to the effect that the purpose in view is to create a wholly Jewish Palestine. Phrases have been used such that Palestine is to become "as Jewish as England is English." His Majesty's Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view. Nor have they at any time contemplated, as appears to be feared by the Arab Delegation, the disappearance or the subordination of the Arabic population, language, or culture in Palestine ...

"When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride. But in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance. That is the reason why it is necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection."

Consider further that the Mandate specifically allows the British to exclude Transjordan from the provisions dealing with a Jewish National Home:

ARTICLE 25

In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18.5

The British reported to the League of Nations in 1924 how they had put this provision into effect:

His Britannic Majesty is the Mandatory for Transjordan to which the terms of the mandate for Palestine, with the exception of the provisions dealing with the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people, are applicable.

Reactions to terrorism in Palestine

From a debate on the subject terrorism in Palestine in the House of Commons on 31 January 1947:

(*Note references to Colonies and Mandated Territories)

From speech by Barnett Janner, MP for Leicester West:

I would like to bring to the attention of the House some resolutions passed in relation to these matters by the bodies to whom I have referred. On the 19th of this month, at a meeting of the Board of Deputies, its president, in the course of a statement, said: If there is any ideal dearest to the hearts and thoughts of Jews, it is that of peace; and the sympathy of the world for the work of the Jews in Palestine has been based on the fact that the National Home was being built by hard work and sacrifice, without the spilling of innocent blood. It is, therefore, with a troubled heart that we admit that much sympathy has been lost by the violent and fanatical acts, deeds of men crazed by the sufferings and slaughter of their nearest and dearest and by the obstacles put in the paths of their surviving relatives to join them in Palestine. But when all that is said, their acts are criminal and must be condemned without question. The Board is profoundly disturbed by the renewed outrages in Palestine. It has already placed on record and does so again, its unqualified abhorrence and condemnation of these acts of terrorism by irresponsible groups, whose criminal behaviour is contrary to all the teachings of Judaism and can only harm the interests of the Jewish people. In view of what has been said here, and in other places, I think it is important that the House should know the terms of the resolution which was actually passed at the recent Congress of the Zionist Movement held in Basle. It says: As well as upholding the right of the Yishu"— that means the settlers in Palestine— to resist the policies of the present oppressive regime in Palestine, the Congress condemns murder and the shedding of innocent blood as a means of political warfare. The terrorist campaign to which certain dissident groups have resorted in defiance of Jewish national authority serves to distort the true character of the Yishuv in the eyes of the world, and to defeat rather than promote its legitimate struggle. The Congress pledges the support of the Zionist Movement to the Yishuv in its efforts against terrorism. It calls upon members of the dissident organisations to desist from further bloodshed, and to submit to the national discipline of the organised Yishuv and the Zionist Movement: Then, on the 20th of this month, Vaadi Leumi, the Jewish National Council of Palestine, passed similar resolutions in order to do what it could to prevent the continuation of those acts.

From a question by Mr. Stanley:

I would now like to ask him a question concerning the present relationship between His Majesty's Government and the Jewish Agency. In the past it has been a fluctuating relationship. When we discussed this matter in July, the leaders had just been placed in a detention camp. In November they were released, and a reconciliation took place following the statement by the Jewish Agency that they condemned terrorism. Yesterday I saw that the house of the acting leader of the Jewish Agency was searched by the police. I do not know whether that was a mere accident of geographical location, or whether it involved some new departure in policy.

From statement by P. MacDonald:

The report will tell you that these people were young, fit men, and young women, many of them pregnant, who had their origin in Eastern Poland. When Russia occupied Eastern Poland some of them were sent to Russia to work, and they worked there during the war. They were young and fit, and looked well-fed and well-clothed, and I was told by people in charge of the camp that many of them had large sums of money. They had papers—or, at any rate, the displaced person's passport—and they were thoroughly well organised. When one asked them where they were going, they all said that they were on their way to Palestine. We had to state in our report that we could not trace the origin of this organisation, but the organisation is there, and there is no doubt whatever that the Russian Government are conniving at it. These people were brought down from Poland into Czechoslovakia, where they were fitted out with passports, clothes and money, and transported into the American zones in Germany and Austria. From there, they hoped to find their way to Palestine. This type of emigration to Palestine is not, I hope, one which the Government are being asked to encourage, because these are recruits for the Jewish Army, and that is why they are on their way to Palestine, with the connivance of the American and Russian Governments. They can have only one purpose and that is to embarrass the British Government.

From statement by Richard Crossman:

Many Members of this House do not know what the aim of the terrorists is. The Irgun declared war in 1937 against the British Empire. With the exception of a short armistice in 1941, it has claimed that there has been a state of war between Great Britain and the people of Palestine ever since. Its objective is to stimulate military repression.

...

I said that they declared war in 1937 and they consider themselves at war ever since. It is the aim of the Irgun to get that war recognised by the British Empire if possible. It wants to force us into military operations which will strengthen its position among the Jews of Palestine and seize power from the Agency. I have never known a more Machiavellian plan, and I believe the Colonial Secretary has shown a far deeper understanding of the dangers of Palestine than some of his critics opposite. He has realised that appeasement of the Irgun means permitting them to whip Palestine into a state of war and to "shoot it out" between the British generals on the one side, and the illegal Irgun on the other. We should carefully consider whether the use of savage methods of repression is not playing into the hands of and appeasing the very men we must not appease.

...

They believe it can be proved that the British Government only understands "the Esperanto of the revolver and of the bomb" and that that is therefore the only language which the Jews should speak to the British Government. I think it is well to remember in this House, and especially on this side of the House, that the Irgun and the terrorists are a semi-Fascist organisation, drawn very largely from the upper classes. It has been fought tooth and nail by the organised labour movement in Palestine since its inception. There have been, inevitably, underground conspiracy talks between the Irgun, the Haganah and the trade unions; but the struggle for power in Palestine is between the Left— the trade unions and the labour movement—and its defence force, the Haganah, and this new semi-Fascist organisation which says, "Your methods with the British Government are old-fashioned and out of date. Blow them up and blow the bridges. That is the only way we will get them to understand what we want."

From a statement by Mr. Silverman:

Gruner was not a man who began in enmity to this country. He now regards himself as at war with it. His plea was that he would offer no defence in the court because he regarded himself as a prisoner of war and that one should not try and execute prisoners of war—a fantastic belief, but these fantastic beliefs are the very political facts on which these matters have to be considered. At any rate, he offered no defence and claimed that he was a prisoner of war. How did he come to be at war? He was not originally at war with this country. He had spent five and a half or six years of the war fighting in our ranks and had a very gallant record. It is conceivable that, supposing there had been no Irgun at all, no kidnapping and no terrorists, and having regard to his own personal record and to the whole general situation, the Commander-in-Chief might have said that he would not confirm the sentence. ... I agree, everyone must agree, that the situation in Palestine cannot continue. But I think it is quite futile and unreal to talk about the return of law and order. There can be order in a police State; there can be no law, and there has been no law in Palestine since 1938. Since that date, and I think anyone who knows anything of the situation will not dispute it, the Government in Palestine have had no moral authority with any section of the population—none at all. The Commission established the, fact. It is not possible for government to be carried on in the modern world without the consent of the governed. ... It is sometimes said that all moral authority in Palestine has broken down. That is not true; the real situation in Palestine today is that those who have the power have no moral authority, and those who have the moral authority have no power.

Statement by Winston Churchill:

Now, I come to the particular case of Mr. Dov Gruner, the man under sentence of death. He was going to hang, I think, the next morning, and the terrorists seized a judge off the bench and an officer in the street and took them off, saying they would kill them if the sentence was carried out. And sentence was not carried out. We were immediately told that the prisoner had appealed to the Privy Council. That was not true. It was an excuse, and a procedure vamped up; the Jewish Agency were brought in to make some suggestions and, as far as I can gather from the accounts, he was persuaded only with great difficulty to make an appeal. The fortitude of this man, criminal though he be, must not escape the notice of the House. He made his appeal and now he has withdrawn it. I shall come in a minute to the question of how this works, but what are we to say about altering the course of justice because criminals threaten to add to their crimes? ... I do not feel myself at all convinced by such arguments. If it be the case, first, that there is no British interest—which I declare with a long experience that there is not—then the responsibility for stopping a civil war in Palestine between Jew and Arab ought to be borne by the United Nations, and not by this poor overburdened and heavily injured country. I think it is too much to allow this heavy burden to be put on our shoulders, costing £30 million a year and keeping 100,000 men from their homes. I see absolutely no reason why we should undergo all this pain, toil, injury and suffering because of this suggested advantage. ... I earnestly trust that the Government will, if they have to fight this squalid war, make perfectly certain that the will power of the British State is not conquered by brigands and bandits and, unless we are to have the aid of the United States, they will at the earliest possible moment, give due notice to divest us of a responsibility which we are failing to discharge and which in the process is covering us with blood and shame.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Creech Jones):

I want to come to the case of Mr. Dov Gruner, because certain charges have been made that because of the desire to be lenient with the terrorists, because too, we wished to secure the return of these two men, we were prepared to deflect the course of justice. I want most emphatically to deny that. The circumstances were these. The execution was arranged for the morning of 28th January. It was Gruner's legal representative who gave notice on 27th January of his intention of applying for special leave to appeal to the Privy Council on Gruner's behalf. There was a not in the prison in Jerusalem virtually the whole of that day. Jews or Arabs provoked one another; the prisoners got out of hand, and it was impossible at 1354 that moment, and on that day, for the legal representative to get access to the prison. But when I said in the House that the normal course of judicial procedure was proceeding, that it was not being deflected as the result of the terrorist threats against the two kidnapped men, I spoke in perfectly good faith. I spoke on the advice which had been given to me in regard to the legal procedure, and other lawyers certainly confirm the view which was held in London, that a respite of the sentence must inevitably be given in the circumstances which had arisen. ... The information which I have, is that the legal representative of the man made application for the right to appeal to the Privy Council, and in order to give effect to that intimation, it was necessary for him to obtain the signature of the prisoner. Because of the riot, in view of the fact that the intimation had been given by the man's legal representative, it was felt, in those circumstances, by the General Officer Commanding, that there was no other course open to him but to make the respite. ... On the next point which has been raised, with regard to the withdrawal of the signature of Gruner from his request that this appeal should be made, I gather, though my information on this point is incomplete, that he has now withdrawn his signature, and I am in communication with the High Commissioner in, regard to the position now created.

Revisionist Zionism

Colin Shindler, The Triumph of Military Zionism, Nationalism and the Origins of the Israeli Right, 2006, ISBN 1 84511 030 7.

p. 195-196:

Jabotinsky performed a balancing act between his different constituencies. With Betar and the Irgun in Palestine, he said that if the British attempted to impose partition, he would authorize an uprising against them: ‘so that we can fight together, go together to prison and, if need be, die together.’ Jabotinsky, of course, qualified this by commenting that he thought that the British would never implement the scheme. To the head of the Haganah, Eliahu Golomb, a year later, Jabotinsky implied that in the worst case scenario, he would have to adjust to the fait accompli of partition and live with it. Jabotinsky’s desire was clearly to outmanoeuvre the radicals and modify their wilder schemes in the hope that somehow the situation in both Europe and Palestine would stabilize and thereby offer the possibility of new constructive policies.

p. 215:

Stern perceived Jabotinsky as a relic of times past, an aged and absent leader leading the yesmen from another epoch. He did not believe in Britain and its promises; instead he looked for other national allies, first Italy and later Nazi Germany. He did not believe in a renewed Jewish Legion working in conjunction with the British, but in an army of national liberation which would fight and vanquish them. Indeed, Stern believed that in co-operating with the Polish military, he could create an army of 40,000 European Jews who would rise up against the British in 1940.

p. 217:

However, what initially concerned Jabotinsky was action against Arab civilians. In a telegram from ‘Mendelson’ to the Irgun,16 he quoted from a report in The Times17 which suggested that four Arab women had been shot ‘with premeditation’. He advised the Irgun either to deny it or to punish the assailants. He said that it was better not to shoot at all than to endanger the lives of women.

A week before the invasion of Poland, the Irgun killed three British CID members whom they accused of torturing an Irgun commander. The day before the Germans crossed the border with Poland, the British arrested and imprisoned the entire high command of the Irgun.

p. 218:

As history records, Jabotinsky immediately took the opportunity to throw his personal support and that of the Revisionist movement behind the Chamberlain government. David Raziel in a communiqué from prison resolved to do the same and declared a ceasefire – much to the surprise of Stern and the rest of the Irgun high command. This was the first step in a series of political and personal disputes between Raziel and Stern who had been formerly close colleagues. It ended in a split with Stern leading his own group out of the Irgun.

Stern devoutly believed that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ so he approached Nazi Germany. With German armies at the gates of Palestine, he offered co-operation and an alliance with a new totalitarian Hebrew republic. He hoped that with German assistance, he could now bring 40,000 Jews from occupied Europe to Palestine to overthrow British rule. Both the Germans and fellow Maximalists such as Achimeir did not take Stern seriously.

There was a deepening animosity, however, between the Irgun and Lehi amidst conspiratorial accusations of betrayal of the other side to the British. Indeed, following the wave of arrests in November 1940, the Stern Group threatened to kill both Raziel and Altman.

Begin’s position was once more a halfway compromise: he believed that Britain’s weakness – even when fighting Nazism – had to be exploited, but the enemy of my enemy was not ‘always automatically’ my friend. He maintained that the European war was not ‘our war’.

Begin was eventually arrested by the NKVD – the Soviet secret police – in Lithuania and sentenced to eight years in the Gulag. With the breakdown of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and Hitler’s invasion of the USSR, Begin found himself a member of the newly formed Polish Army of General Anders which eventually made its way to the Middle East.

p. 219:

The Revisionists of Aryeh Altman remained Jabotinsky loyalists. The Irgun under Begin interpreted Jabotinsky selectively. Lehi, first under Stern, then Yellin-Mor, Eldad and Shamir, were advocates of a post-Jabotinsky ideology.

Begin had attempted to draw Lehi back into the Irgun in the autumn of 1944, but it had rejected all his overtures.

Begin resisted considerable pressure for his organization to rejoin the Revisionist family. Propes, who had been replaced by Begin, spoke of him as ‘the brilliant commander of the Irgun Zvai Leumi’.26 In spite of all this, Begin defended the independence of the Irgun as a separate entity and proceeded to turn it into a political party, the Herut movement. Which group, therefore, – the official Revisionists or Herut – represented the legacy of Jabotinsky? Begin understood that his standing as the commander of the Irgun in the emotional aftermath of the establishment of the state of Israel commended him to a section of the Israeli electorate. His defiant rhetoric and flair for the public relations of polarization embellished his position. For Begin, all nationalists, regardless of the path taken, became the children of Jabotinsky ‘our father and teacher’.27 Moreover, he began to develop a public perception of himself as Jabotinsky’s sole heir and only interpreter of his political teachings. In his broadcast on Irgun radio on the eve of the declaration of Israel’s independence, Begin invoked Masaryk, Lafayette, Jefferson and Thomas Paine, followed by Herzl, Nordau, Trumpeldor, ‘and the father of modern Jewish heroism, Ze’ev Jabotinsky’.

Dan Tamir - Hebrew Fascism in Palestine, 1922–1942, 2018, ISBN 978-3-319-73678-5 e-ISBN 978-3-319-73679-2
p. 11.7 / 476:

Von Hentig’s attempt to keep his visit low profile, however, turned out to be less successful. The rumour that a senior German official was visiting Lebanon quickly spread; various delegations and representatives of ethnic and political groups in the region soon came to meet him: Muslims and Christians, from Kurdistan to the shores of the Mediterranean. “The most remarkable delegation came from Palestine,” von Hentig recalled in his autobiography, about 20 years later. “The head [of the delegation], an impressive young man with the look of an officer, suggested working in cooperation with the National Socialists against their own people, primarily the orthodox Zionists, if Hitler would guarantee the sovereignty of Jewish Palestine.” That young fellow was Naftali Lubenczik , and the delegation he headed consisted of members of the “National Military Organisation in Israel”, who—led by Abraham Stern —had split from the general National Military Organisation (NMO) about a year earlier. However, the initiative for collaboration between Nazi Germany and the NMO in Israel did not bear fruit. Lubenczik was arrested by the British police soon after his return to Tel Aviv ; a year later, Stern himself was arrested and executed by the police.

Antisemitism

Cyprian Blamires, Anti-Semitism, pp 43, World Fascism: a Historical Encyclopedia, Cyprian P. Blamires (editor), 2006, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California, ISBN 1-57607-940-6.

Balfour Declaration

War on terror, The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 2006, edited by Chris Miller. p10:
The infamous 1919 Balfour memorandum is an egregious expression of racial and religious prejudice: ‘in Palestine, we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country . . . The four great powers are committed to Zionism, and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land [Palestine]’.

Gregory Harms, Todd M. Ferry, The Palestine–Israel Conflict, A Basic Introduction, Second Edition, 2008. p74ff:
Balfour’s comments at the end of the King–Crane investigation are revealing: "For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country … Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land."

Peter Clarke, The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire, The Demise of a Superpower, 1944-47, 2007:

243.7 / 1410::
Britain was committed to the Balfour Declaration. Arthur James Balfour, the Foreign Secretary (and former Prime Minister) who had framed it in 1917, had been a man of high intellect and deep subtlety, who was known to have published a book in his youth defending philosophic doubt. His eponymous Declaration certainly left a good deal of doubt – philosophic, semantic but above all political – as to its meaning: apparently offering Zionists what they wanted while apparently offering Arabs guarantees that nothing could happen against their wishes. The problem was, of course, that Balfour and Lloyd George wished to propitiate the new force of Zionism while not renouncing the old pledges already given to Arab allies in the region. Hence the joke that Palestine was the twice-promised land.
What British diplomacy under this sort of masterfully ambiguous leadership had achieved in the First World War, American diplomacy largely replicated in the Second World War. Roosevelt’s policy on Palestine – whatever it really was – stood directly in this heritage. Faced with a Zionist movement that had committed itself since 1942 to the establishment of ‘a Jewish commonwealth’ in Palestine, FDR adopted the same formula in his election pledges in 1944, while continuing to ply Arab leaders, notably King Ibn Saud, with private assurances of which Balfour himself would have been proud. It was plainly Roosevelt’s intention that, though Britain might still hold the mandate over Palestine, the country’s fate should be determined by American power and according to American ideas, rather than along British imperial lines.

244.2 / 1410:
Churchill’s long and friendly association with Dr Chaim Weizmann, the British president of the World Zionist Organization, was conducted on this basis. Weizmann’s equally long-serving assistant was no less than Balfour’s niece, Mrs Blanche Dugdale, who used her impeccable Tory connections to help permeate the British establishment with Zionist ideas while reporting back privileged information from ministers to Weizmann, as her diary candidly records. What ‘Baffy’ Dugdale embodied was a traditional British insider strategy of doing good by stealth and by virtue of knowing the right people – such as the Prime Minister, naturally.
Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, though socially well connected – he was a relative of Beatrice Webb and Sir Stafford Cripps – is less interesting for his influence, which was small, than for his views, which were both expansive and revealing. A former intelligence officer who had in his day served in Palestine and then on Balfour’s staff at the Paris peace conference, Meinertzhagen had, by the time he worked for the Mandate authorities in the early 1920s, become a convinced Zionist (unlike his roommate at the Colonial Office, T. E. Lawrence). He was subsequently on good terms with Weizmann, with whose outlook he readily sympathized. Like his Aunt Beatrice, Meinertzhagen kept a diary: hers full of statist Fabian plans, his redolent of British Zionist dreams. ‘The Balfour Declaration is a compromise,’ he wrote in April 1944, ‘giving with one hand and taking away with the other.’ The urgent point now was to make sure that this war brought clarity to the situation – what he sometimes termed ‘a final solution of the Jewish problem’ – in a way that could not subsequently be undone. The Old Testament was an obvious pointer to where an answer lay. ‘The only solution is the gift of Palestine to Jewry,’ he argued. ‘There would be local trouble for a short time and then peace.’ Any slight injustice to the Arabs would be outweighed by this visionary settlement – literally, in the sense of settling the promised land with industrious, progressive Jews in a new form of imperialism. It was simultaneously the right thing to do and the right policy to follow: ‘A great injustice will have been righted and the British Commonwealth will gain a corner-stone in the Middle East which nothing can shake and which will rest loyal to British tradition for all time.’

247.2 / 1410:
Churchill himself had first exhibited Zionist sympathies nearly forty years previously, championing the Jewish community in his Manchester constituency when he first contested it as Liberal, supporting its fight against immigration restrictions into Britain. In the White Paper that he later sponsored as Lloyd George’s Colonial Secretary in 1922, the Balfour Declaration, which committed the British Government to securing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, was reaffirmed; but this was in terms that carefully avoided saying ‘state’ and which precluded ‘the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole’. At this time the population of Palestine had been about 90 per cent Arab, predominantly Muslims but including a significant number of Christians. When in 1937, excluded from power, Churchill gave evidence to the Peel Commission on Palestine, he took advantage of his freedom as a backbencher to assert that the British Government had all along envisaged ‘a great Jewish State there, numbered by millions, far exceeding the present inhabitants of the country’. This was highly disputable; it was certainly not what the Balfour Declaration had said. ‘We never committed ourselves to making Palestine a Jewish State,’ as Churchill had to concede under questioning.

249.7 / 1410:
There was, admittedly, some difference of emphasis among Zionists. All of them agreed that the effect of immigration into Palestine was to displace some of the existing inhabitants. But for Amery, as he acknowledged in 1938, this was a genuine dilemma in which a lesser evil ought to be chosen. ‘There is no real comparison,’ he argued, ‘between the quite natural resentment of the Arabs at seeing the character of their country changed, though with material advantage to themselves, and the agony of the Jews of Central Europe, for whom there is really no other serious alternative city of refuge.’ Weizmann felt much the same. For Churchill, however, the logic of imperialism legitimized the use of immigration to achieve the end of a Jewish state. Thus he could not accept that his scenario for immigration, ‘numbered by millions’, implied injustice for the Arabs. ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘is there harsh injustice done if people come in and make a livelihood for more, and make the desert into palm groves and orange groves?’ In his view, too, British strategic needs would be well served by the establishment of this Zionist idyll.

Lord Moyne

Peter Clarke, The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire, The Demise of a Superpower, 1944-47, 2007:

261.5 / 1410: What had Moyne said in 1942? For the speech was indeed cited by the Stern Gang in justifying its action. Moyne had claimed that any proposal ‘that Arabs should be subjugated by force to a Jewish régime is inconsistent with the Atlantic Charter, and that ought to be told to America’.

262.3 / 1410: It was here that responsible British officials like Moyne had given vent to a sense of frustration at the exploitation of ‘these most pitiable victims of Nazi abominations’ by those bent on furthering their own agenda. ‘It is to canalize all the sympathy of the world for the martyrdom of the Jews that the Zionists reject all schemes to resettle these victims elsewhere,’ Moyne had said in June 1942. Indeed he had been ready to turn the anti-Nazi polemic in a different direction: ‘If a comparison is to be made with the Nazis it is surely those who wish to force an imported régime upon the Arab population who are guilty of the spirit of aggression and domination.’

265.7 / 1410:
How much difference, then, did Moyne’s assassination make? One person who came to think that it had been ‘a critical turning point in the entire story’ of British policy towards Zionism was Isaiah Berlin. Later a distinguished historian of ideas, Berlin served in the British embassy in Washington during these years: a young but perceptive observer of American opinion, on which he reported to the British Government with a calculated informality which appealed to Churchill. Though now proud to proclaim his British citizenship – especially to American officials baffled as to which country was currently claiming sovereignty over his birthplace, the old Latvian capital of Riga – Berlin, with his Jewish background, was obviously sympathetic to the Zionists whose propaganda activities in Washington he was paid to monitor.
Berlin’s own position was delicate. It had become an awkward issue for the British that Zionism was so clearly gaining ground in official Washington in 1943–4: not only previous supporters like Henry Morgenthau in the Treasury, his anti-German sentiments fuelling pro-Zionist even more than pro-British sentiments, but sympathetic recruits in the State Department, notably Edward Stettinius, soon to succeed Cordell Hull as Secretary of State. Hence the sensitivity that had surrounded a leaked story in the summer of 1943, revealing plans for a joint statement by Churchill and Roosevelt on the Middle East, to be issued in the hope of damping down Zionist pressure until the war had been won. The premature leak, especially its publication in the New York Times, had scuppered the statement.
Who could have been responsible? Berlin made a great show of retailing his version to the Foreign Office at length, and, in high satirical style, showing that ‘the whole story is an almost clinical case of Washington intrigue’. He rounded up the usual suspects, he pointed the finger of suspicion alike at the War Department and at State. He acknowledged that ‘the President was a trifle nettled by all this Jewish barrage – after all, what it comes to is the triumph of the Zionist lobby.’ It was, he claimed, ‘a melancholy thing’ that the British Government’s efforts had been thwarted in this way. Above all, it was ‘an instructive model to those who wish to know how the foreign policy of the United States is sometimes moulded’.
Not the least instructive point, as we now know, is that the leak had come from Isaiah Berlin himself, making sure that Morgenthau was tipped off to beard the President and thereby squash any Middle East statement. That Zionist propaganda went unchecked in wartime Washington was as much Berlin’s own doing as that of anyone who featured in his imaginative reports. If this was one token of his own Zionist zeal, another was his subsequent acute distress over Moyne’s death, or rather over its side-effects. The news from Cairo had come to Baffy Dugdale as a great shock. As she put it in her diary: ‘a dreadful disaster, all the more cruel because it follows on a very satisfactory talk Chaim had with the PM when he lunched with him at Chequers last week.’ A couple of days afterwards, she still hopefully recorded what Weizmann had been told in Downing Street, ‘that the whole Palestine settlement depended upon the lives of two men – himself and the Prime Minister’. A third life – Moyne’s – proved equally fateful, in that his violent death prompted Churchill to withdraw his active support for Zionism, in turn duly exposing the supposed influence of Weizmann as a nullity.

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

(Military History Monthy - Issue 18 - 2012 March. From a reader's letter.)
War Diaries, 1939-1945, of Field Marshall Lord Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff during WWII:

Alanbrooke flew to Moscow with Churchill in August 1942 via Gibraltar, North Africa and Iran in a cortege of four Liberators to discuss the conduct of the war with the Russians. His diary entry for 16 August 1942 states:

"... they [Stalin and Churchill] became on friendly terms and began to ask why they had done various things in the past. Winston asked Stalin how it was that he double-crossed us at the beginning of the war when our mission was in Moscow apparently making good progress when suddenly he swung right over to sign an agreement with Ribbentrip? Stalin replied that he thought England must be bluffing, he knew we had only two divisions we could mobilise at once, and he thought we must know how bad the French Army was and how little reliance could be placed on it. He could not imagine we should enter the war with such weakness. On the other hand, he said he knew Germany was certain ultimately to attack Russia. He was not ready to withstand that attack; by attacking Poland with Germany he could make more ground, ground was equal to time, and he would consequently have a longer period of time to get ready. I should think that this was probably a fairly true statement of the reasons that led to his decision."

German rearmanment

Illustrated Guide to World War II Tanks and Fighting Vehicles (1981) - ed. Christopher F Foss:

p. 30:
And the Versailles Treaty of 1919 forbade the Germans from possessing any tanks, so any ideas their military thinkers did have suffered from not being put into practice (although some tanks were produced in Russia during the 1920s and tactics tried out with the Soviet Army, under great secrecy and to the advantage of both countries).
But the Germans had studied Liddell Hart and, when they defied the Treaty and started rearmament in 1933, tanks were high on the priority list. While Britain, France and other armies still tended to see the role of the tank as that of supporting infantry, Germany created the most successful formations of the time, based on the tank.

p. 31:
One of the best advantages the Germans had over their enemies was that the Panzer masterminds never bothered with producing "infantry" tanks to co-operate with the footsloggers.

War of 1812

MHQ - The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vol.21 No 1, 2008 Autumn. Robert Malcolmson, The Battle for Little York, 1813.

p. 42: The decision to attack Little York was a better-than-nothing alternative to what the American government really wanted to achieve, which was to take Québec. Early in 1812, President James Madison's cabinet had formed an optimistic war plan, best described by Thomas Jefferson: "The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Québec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack on Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent."
Soon after Madison signed Congress's declaration of war in June 1812, however, reality set in as the weakly manned, inexperienced American army suffered defeats at Detroit on August 16 and Queenston Heights on October 13. Dearborn's own invasion of Lower Canada (the modern Québec province) fizzled in a minor skirmish at the village of La Colle on November 20, and he marched his troops back to winter camps at Plattsburgh, New York, and Burlington, Vermont.
Despite these military setbacks, the idea of taking Québec and Halifax did not die. Acting as secretary of war in December 1812, James Monroe conceived an ambitious campaign to attain those objectives in 1813.

Ethnic Cleansing

Norman G Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Sbuse of History, 2008. p. xii:

The mainstream interpretation, put forth by Israeli officials and echoed in the scholarly literature, was that Palestinians left during the 1948 war after Arab leaders, primarily via radio broadcasts, ordered them to clear the field for invading Arab armies. Beginning in the late 1980s Israeli academics, notably Benny Morris, concluded after examining newly opened Israeli archives that this standard interpretation was false. Today there is broad consensus among scholars that Palestinians suffered an ethnic cleansing in 1948, although debate continues on the secondary question of whether or not this ethnic cleansing was premeditated. 1 Just how much narrower the controversy has become is vividly illustrated by the publication of former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami’s study Scars of War,Wounds of Peace.2 Ben-Ami, who is also a respected historian, provides this capsule summary of the “reality on the ground” during the 1948 war: “an Arab community in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits against the regular Arab armies, but also by the intimidation, and at times atrocities and massacres, it perpetrated against the civilian Arab community.” Sifting the evidence, he concludes that in fact Israel premeditatedly expelled Palestinians in accordance with the Zionist “philosophy of transfer,” which “had a long pedigree in Zionist thought,” framed Zionist leader David Ben- Gurion’s “strategic-ideological” vision, and “provided a legitimate environment for commanders in the field actively to encourage the eviction of the local population.”

Nazi Germany and Poland

Osprey Campaign 205 - Warsaw 1944, Poland's Bid for Freedom, Robert Forczyk, 2009:

p5: Adolf Hitler, 13 April 1941: We have already formed displacement policies regarding the Polish population within Poland; the ultimate task is to wipe out the Poles and repopulate lands that rightfully belong to Germany.

Wealth and the Church

Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (2012) - Peter Brown.

Preface:

'For Jerome, the persistent advocate of ascetic renunciation, the history of the Church was a history of decline from the first, heroic days of the Apostles to "the dregs of our own times," where the Church "has grown great in power and riches and has shrunk in spiritual energy."

Kahane, Kach and the Jewish Defense League

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1999, pages 81-82, Middle East History: It Happened in August, Jewish Defense League Unleashes Campaign of Violence in America by Donald Neff:

"The aim of the campaign was to draw attention to the 2.1 million Jews living in the Soviet Union. Unknown to the public was the fact that the anti-Soviet actions were being orchestrated by several militant Israelis, including the Mossad spy agency; Yitzhak Shamir, later Israel’s prime minister, and Guelah Cohen, a leader of the extremist Tehiya Party and member of the Knesset. The Israelis persuaded Kahane to wage the anti-Soviet campaign. The goal was to strain U.S.”“Soviet relations, calculating that Moscow would ease the strain by allowing increased numbers of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel."

Herzl and Rhodes

Mark H. Gelber, Vivian Liska (editors), Theodor Herzl: From Europe to Zion (2007), pp.100: " The most disturbing manifestion of Herzl's infatuation with British imperialism can be found in his ardent determination to meet Cecil Rhodes. On January 11, 1902 he writes, "In fact, all things considered, you are the only man who can help me now. [...] You are being invited to help make history. That cannot frighten you, nor will you laugh at it. It is not in your accustomed line; it doesn't involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor, not Englishmen, but Jews. But had this been on your path, you would have done it yourself by now. How, then, do I happen to turn to you, since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial, and because it presupposes understanding of a development which will take twenty or thirty years. There are visionaries who look past greater space of time, but they lack a practical sense. Then again there are practical people, like the trust magnates in America, but they lack political imagination. But you, Mr. Rhodes, are a visionary politician or a practical visionary. You have already demonstrated this. And what I want you to do is not to give or lend me a few guineas, but to put the stamp of your authority on the Zionist plan and to make the following declaration to a few people who swear by you: I, Rhodes, have examined this plan and found it correct and practicable. It is a plan full of culture, excellent for the group of people for whom it is directly designed, not detrimental to the general progress of mankind, and quite good for England, for Greater Britain. [...] What is the plan? To settle Palestine with the homecoming Jewish people." "

Raphael Lemkin (1900–59)

Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies (2010) - Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses:

p.22:
As is well known, the Polish-Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin (1900–59) invented the term genocide in 1943 for his book on Nazi imperialism, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. ... Lemkin was a proponent of what the sociologist Rogers Brubaker calls ‘groupism’: ‘the tendency to treat ethnic groups, nations, and races as substantial entities to which interests and agency can be attributed’, that is, to regard them as ‘internally homogeneous, external bounded groups, even unitary collective actors with common purposes’.

p.23:
Like the Polish romantic nationalists of the nineteenth century, he shared the national cosmopolitanism of Herder’s adherence to the individuality principle and Mazzini’s belief in the unique role of each people in the ‘symphony of nations’ ...

p.24:
Interestingly, though, he was never a Zionist. Lemkin was drawn to Bundist notions of cultural autonomy because, like the Bundists, who were especially strong in Poland, he believed in multiethnic states with minority protection rather than monocultural states tied to specific plots of land that oppressed minorities. If he was attracted to Herder’s romantic notion of cultural individuality, he was also wary of integral nationalism. Lemkin was likely influenced by Karl Renner, the non-Jewish Austro-Marxist, whom Lemkin wrote an effusive letter of praise as an inspiration for his ideas. Bundism drew heavily on Renner’s thinking.

p.27:
Lemkin, like Las Casas, did not oppose colonization or empire as such. He was typical of liberals in the first half of the twentieth century like J. A. Hobson and supporters of the League of Nations mandate system. Empire could be supported on humanitarian grounds if it served the interests of ‘civilization’.

p.39:
So does Article 27 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), which protects minority groups against assimilation: In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language.

Countdown to WWII

31 March 1939: Great Britain guarantees Poland’s independence.

7 April 1939: Italy annexes Albania.

15 April 1939: US President Roosevelt sends a message of peace to Hitler and Mussolini.

27 April 1939: Great Britain introduces general conscription.

28 April 1939: Germany revokes the Anglo-German naval treaty of 1935 and the German–Polish treaty of 1933.

22 May 1939: The German–Italian pact forming the Rome–Berlin ‘Axis’ is signed in Berlin.

22 June 1939: Diplomatic discussions aimed at persuading the Soviet Union to join the Western nations’ ‘Peace Front’ open in Moscow.

10 August 1939: Military talks between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.

23 August 1939: German–Soviet non-aggression pact signed in Moscow.

25 August 1939: Signing of the Anglo-Polish military alliance.

26 August 1939: Germany pledges to respect the neutrality of Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Luxembourg and Switzerland. German propaganda reports border violations along the German–Polish frontier.

1 September 1939: As Germany advances into Poland, Italy declares itself a non-belligerent. Great Britain and France demand the immediate cessation of hostilities in Poland and the withdrawal of German troops back behind the Reich’s borders.

2 September 1939: The German advance gains ground. The Jablunka Pass is taken. Units of the 10. Armee under General von Reichenau reach the River Warthe north of Tschenstochau [Czestochowa].

3 September 1939: Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand and India declare war on Germany. The High Command of the German Navy begins the submarine campaign against enemy shipping with seventeen U-boats.

4 September 1939: General von Küchler’s 3. Armee advancing out of East Prussia makes contact with the 4. Armee of General von Kluge operating out of Pomerania and thereby restores the land connection between East Prussia and the Reich. German troops reach Kulm. Heavy fighting in the Tucheler Heath area.

5 September 1939: Polish fortresses at Graudenz [Grudziadz] and Mlawa captured. First British air raids on Cuxhaven and Wilhelmshaven. The USA declares its neutrality. Slovakia enters the war against Poland.

6 September 1939: All of the Polish industrial region of Upper Silesia back in German hands. Limited French offensives in the Saarbrücken area. The Union of South Africa declares war on Germany.

7 September 1939: German motorized units reach the River Narew. 14. Armee under General List advances out of Slovakia into West Galicia. Cracow surrenders without a fight. A spearhead of General von Reichenau’s 10. Armee is heading towards Warsaw.

8 September 1939: The Polish defenders of Fortress ‘Westerplatte’ surrender after an heroic struggle. Attacks by units of a German armoured corps against the southwestern suburbs of Warsaw driven back by Polish forces. Start of the ‘cauldron battle’ of Radom.

9 September 1939: Pursuit of the routed Polish armies, whose retreat behind the River Weichsel [Vistula] is being blocked by German forces. Capture of Lódz and Radom.

10 September 1939: Attempts at a break-out by General Bortnowski’s encircled Polish Posen-Armee [Poznan Army] are thwarted. German armoured break-through between Sandomierz and Kutno reaches the River Weichsel. Canada declares war on Germany.

12 September 1939: Start of the Battle of Kutno in the great bend of the Weichsel.

13 September 1939: The ‘cauldron battle’ near Radom ends with the capture of some 60,000 Polish prisoners.

15 September 1939: Gdingen [Gdynia] in German hands. Polish attempts to break through at Jutno beaten back. Warsaw rejects German demands for its surrender.

17 September 1939: Kutno and Brest-Litovsk in German hands. Soviet army groups advance into eastern Poland without a declaration of war. The Polish government escapes into Romania and is interned there.

18 September 1939: The British aircraft carrier Courageous is sunk by U-29 commanded by Kapitänleutnant Schuhart.

19 September 1939: End of the Battle of Bzura in the bend of the Weichsel. Polish troops lay down their arms. Around 170,000 Poles taken into captivity.

20 September 1939: German forces begin to withdraw behind the demarcation line agreed with the Soviet High Command.

21 September 1939: Surrender of the Polish armies under General Langner engaged against Soviet forces in the Lemberg [Lwów] area. Some 217,000 prisoners-of-war.

25 September 1939: Major assault on Warsaw. Heavy raids by German Luftwaffe. Under the command of General von Richthofen a total of 1,177 aircraft attack military targets in the Polish capital almost without pause. As a result of the destructive and sustained effects of these raids the OKW (High Command of the German Armed Forces) refrains from further attacks on Warsaw.

26 September 1939: One million leaflets dropped on Warsaw demanding the surrender of the city. In the afternoon the military commander of Warsaw offers the unconditional surrender of the city.

27 September 1939: Upon completion of surrender negotiations a cease-fire comes into effect from 14.00 hours.

28 September 1939: German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship establishes new demarcation line partitioning Polish territory. The Soviet government acquires military bases in Estonia.

29 September 1939: Surrender of the Polish fortress at Modlin (around 35,000 prisoners taken).

30 September 1939: Formation in France of a Polish government-in-exile under General Sikorski.

1 October 1939: German troops enter Warsaw. Surrender of the Polish naval base at Hela [Hel].

3 October 1939: French forward troops retire behind the Maginot Line.

5 October 1939: The Soviet Union acquires military bases in Latvia via a mutual aid pact.

6 October 1939: The last of Poland’s regular forces lay down their arms at Kock and Lublin (17,000 men).

...

14 December 1939 Hitler had ordered the start of preparations for the occupations of Denmark and Norway – operation ‘Weserübung’.

28 March 1940: The Allied war cabinet in London had taken the decision to begin mining Norwegian coastal waters on 5 April 1940 and to send a British brigade, including a contingent of French troops, to occupy the iron ore port of Narvik and to land other units at Stavanger, Bergen and Trondheim. The operations were subsequently postponed until 8 April 1940.

8 April 1940: The Western Powers informed the Norwegian government of the mining of their waters at 05.30 hours, some thirty minutes after the first mines had already been laid in three locations.

9 April 1940: In the early hours of the morning the German ambassadors in Oslo and Copenhagen handed similarly worded notes to the Norwegian and Danish governments giving as the reason for Germany’s intervention ‘the urgent necessity to protect the two nations’ neutrality against the imminent Anglo-French landings’. The declared aim of the German government was to carry out a peaceful occupation. Any resistance, however, would be crushed without compunction and only lead to unnecessary bloodshed.

November 1948, Menahem Begin in New York

State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel, Thomas Suárez, p.566.8 / 954:

"Begin was received with great pomp in New York, a lavish motorcade escorting him through the garment district of Manhattan to an official welcome at City Hall. Mayor O’Dwyer joked about his being wanted as a terrorist, saying that in New York City the Police Department were singing for him. Begin railed against the assassinated Bernadotte for attempting to limit Israel’s expansionism, railed against Albert Einstein for being among twenty-one academics accusing him of “openly preach[ing] the doctrine of the Fascist state”, and accused the American Council for Judaism of anti-Semitism for its criticism of him. To cheering New York crowds, Begin openly preached violence to seize yet more territory:

The fight is not yet over, and not yet has the aim of victory been achieved. We shall continue the fight ... until the whole of [Biblical] Israel is liberated and the whole of our people are back in the country.

At New York’s Diplomat Hotel, Begin spread the same message to two hundred youths aged ten to twenty-three years, all members of the militaristic youth group Brith Trumpeldor, standing in uniform at attention. He addressed a crowd in Carnegie Hall to the accompaniment of a small protest outside; his presence was also condemned by such religious leaders as Reverend Henry Sloan Coffin, Father John La Farge, and Rabbi Lazaron. When the issue of Deir Yassin was raised, Begin countered that the villagers themselves were to blame, because when the Irgun invaded, they resisted (an explanation still used by the Israeli state).

...

While Begin was still in New York, Ben-Gurion announced as policy what had always been the reality: that Israel would not abide by Resolution 181. Stopping off in Paris, Begin sought support to “finish the struggle for the liberation of all of Palestine”, and back in Israel he rallied the public for an “undivided Fatherland”. By campaigning for the conquest of the rest of Palestine, Begin quickly won 14 seats in the Knesset for his new Herut Party in the nation’s first elections. He denounced any “alignment with the United Nations” and warned of new terror should Jerusalem remain an international zone."

Personal quotes

Imam Ali: "If you see another man, he is either your brother in religion or your brother in humanity."

Christina Rossett: "Better by far you should forget and smile/ Than that you should remember and be sad."

Anaïs Nin - "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." (See: Reality Tunnel)

Eichmann in Jerusalem famously incited a storm of indignation among Jewish critics. One of the more interesting criticisms came from Gershom Scholem, who wrote to Arendt of “Ahbath Israel: Love of the Jewish people,” claiming that “in you, dear Hannah, as in so many intellectuals who come from the German Left, I find little trace of this.” Arendt wrote back that although she came from the German philosophical tradition and not the German Left, Scholem was right about Ahbath Israel: “I have never in my life ‘loved’ any people or collective—neither the German people, nor the French, nor the American, nor the working class or anything of that sort. I love ‘only’ my friends and the only kind of love I know of and believe in is the love of persons.”

"Had I been a Jew, I would have been a fanatical Zionist." (Adolf Eichmann, 1955, published in Life magazine in 1960. Eichmann, an SS officer in charge of the "Jewish problem", made this remark in reference to his visit to Palestine in 1937.)

Rabbi Kook, the Elder, the revered father of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism, said: "The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non- Jews—all of them in all different levels—is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle."

Ehud Barak acknowledged that, had he been born a Palestinian, he “would have joined a terrorist organization.”

Moshe Dayan’s recommendation to his colleagues shortly after Israel’s 1967 conquests that they must tell the Palestinians in the territories: “We have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads.”

Ariel Sharon:

'The terms “democracy” or “democratic” are totally absent from the Declaration of Independence. This is not an accident. The intention of Zionism was not to bring democracy, needless to say. It was solely motivated by the creation in Eretz-Israel of a Jewish state belonging to all the Jewish people and to the Jewish people alone. That is why any Jew of the Diaspora has the right to immigrate to Israel and to become a citizen of Israel.' Democracy & the Jewish State, Yedioth Ahronoth, 28 May 1993.

"Jews should live in and around every Arab population centre... Jews should not leave a single place where they don't live and have freedom of movement." Sharon during the 1970s as a champion of settlement building.[39]

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many [Palestinian] hilltops as they can to enlarge the [Jewish] settlements because everything we take now will stay ours ... Everything we don't grab will go to them." As foreign minister, in comments broadcast on Israeli radio in November 1998.[40]

Avigdor Lieberman: citing the “demographic threat” posed by the Arab population, he proclaimed that 90 percent of Israel’s 1.2 million Palestinian citizens would "have to find a new Arab entity" in which to live beyond Israel’s borders. "They have no place here. They can take their bundles and get lost."

Tzipi Livni:

At a meeting in Jerusalem in November 2007: "Israel [is] the state of the Jewish people — and I would like to emphasize the meaning of 'its people' is the Jewish people — with Jerusalem the united and undivided capital of Israel and of the Jewish people for 3007 years". (Al Jazeera, 24 January 2011)

To Ahmed Qurei in November 2007: “Israeli policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that it is impossible, we already have the land and we cannot create the [Palestinian] state,” adding in case of doubt that it had been her government’s policy “for a really long time”. (Clayton E. Swisher, The Palestine Papers, The End of the Road?, 2011)

Menachem Begin, Israeli Prime Minister, (allegedly) in a speech to the Knesset on June 23 1982 (quoted in Begin and the Beasts, New Statesman, June 25, 1982 by Amnon Kapeliouk): "Our race is the Master Race. We Jews are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves."

Menachem Begin: “We intend to attack, conquer and keep until we have the whole of Palestine and Transjordan in a Greater Jewish State”. [41]

David Ben-Gurion:

During a visit to Nazareth, July 1948: "Why are there so many Arabs here? Why didn't you chase them away?"

Writing in his diary in 1937: "With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement] … I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it."[42]

In a letter to his son, Amos in October 5, 1937: "We must expel the Arabs and take their place."

Palestine "contains vast colonization potential, which the Arabs neither need nor are qualified to exploit."

Ben-Gurion understood the significance of what happened in Haifa. Visiting it after the evacuation of its Palestinian residents, he described Haifa as a ‘corpse city’ and as ‘a horrifying and fantastic sight’. Predicting ‘great changes in the composition of the population’ in Palestine, he wrote in his diary that ‘what happened in Haifa can happen in other parts of the country if we hold out.’ ("Balfour's Shadow, A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel", David Cronin, p174.2 / 517, cited to Simha Flapan, "The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities", (New York: Pantheon, 1987), p.99)

Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba in the southern West Bank (quoted in: Haaretz - Noam Ben Ze'ev - Those noisy barbarians, 23 August 2010): There are some honorable people among the goyim. A few, but they exist. I think that even in Hebron there are a few who are human beings - which doesn't mean I'm saying they shouldn't all be sent to Saudi Arabia. They should all be sent to Saudi Arabia!

Effi Eitam and Benjamin Netanyahu (from: Atlantic Free Press - Jonathan Cook - Lieberman and The Ethnic Cleansing of Israel, 19 January 2007):

• Former cabinet minister Effi Eitam, for example, said back in September: “The vast majority of West Bank Arabs must be deported ... We will have to make an additional decision, banning Israeli Arabs from the political system … We have cultivated a fifth column, a group of traitors of the first degree.” He was “warned” by the Attorney-General over his comments (though he has expressed similar views several times before), but remained unrepetant, calling the warning an attempt to “silence” him.
• The leader of the opposition and former prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, the most popular politician in Israel according to polls, gave voice to equally racist sentiments this month when he stated that child allowance cuts he imposed as finance minister in 2002 had had a “positive” demographic effect by reducing the birth rate of Palestinian citizens.

Benjamin Netanyahu (from: Haaretz - Gideon Levy - Tricky Bibi , 15 July 2010):

• He recalled how he conditioned his signing of the 1997 Hebron agreement on American consent that there be no withdrawals from "specified military locations," and insisted he choose those same locations, such as the whole of the Jordan Valley, for example. "Why is that important? Because from that moment on I stopped the Oslo Accords," he boasts.
• The real Netanyahu also brags about his knowledge of America: "I know what America is. America is something that can be moved easily."
• He calls then-U.S. President Bill Clinton "extremely pro-Palestinian," and says the Palestinians want to throw us into the sea.

Benjamin Netanyahu (from: Information Clearing House - Max Blumenthal - The Desert of Israeli Democracy, 14 October 2013) - Back in November 1989, while serving as a junior minister in the Likud-led governing coalition of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, a younger Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan University, “Israel should have taken advantage of the suppression of demonstrations [at China’s Tiananmen Square], when the world’s attention was focused on what was happening in that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the Territories. However, to my regret, they did not support that policy that I proposed, and which I still propose should be implemented.”

Benjamin Netanyahu (to the 2015 World Zionist Congress): Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, “If you expel them, they’ll all come here.” “So what should I do with them?” he asked. He said, “Burn them.”

Benjamin Netanyahu: Careful manipulation of the media by the Arabs has left many Westerners with the indelible impression that Arab paupers are being kicked off their hovels in droves to make way for Jewish suburbs in the ‘densely populated West Bank.’… For what is manifestly occurring is that the West, which so sharply condemned anti-black apartheid in South Africa, is being used by the Arabs as an enforcer of anti-Jewish apartheid that pertains in the Arab’s own countries. (Netanyahu argues that to prevent Jews from building settlements in the occupied territories is a form of apartheid: Avi Shlaim, "The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World", 2000, London, Penguin, p189–92)

Benjamin Netanyahu: (PM Netanyahu: Shimon aspired toward peace but he knew that true peace can be achieved only if our hands strongly grasp defensive weaponry. In the Middle East, and in many parts of the world, there is a simple truth: There is no place for the weak.) ... The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong. (Twitter, 'PM of Israel', 29 August 2018)

Elie Wiesel [43]: “I support Israel—period. I identify with Israel—period. I never attack, I never criticize Israel.”[44]

George Orwell - Notes on Nationalism, 1945: All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.

Christopher Meyer on Tony Blair (quoted by Simon Hoggart): But later I saw an interview with Sir Christopher Meyer, who used to be our ambassador in Washington. He was asked why Blair, who had got on so well with Bill Clinton, got on equally well with George W Bush, and he replied that Blair was rather like a radio searching for a signal, then suddenly locking on to it. Once he identified the signal Bush was sending out, he knew exactly what to say.

Social historian Harold Perkin: Between 1780 and 1850, the English ceased to be one of the most aggressive, brutal, rowdy, outspoken, riotous, cruel and bloodthirsty nations in the world and became one of the most inhibited, polite, orderly, tender-minded, prudish and hypocritical.

H.R. Haldeman recorded in his diary a briefing by the president in 1969, prior to launching of the war on drugs: "Nixon emphasized that you have to face the fact the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to."

Meir Kahane (founder of the JDL [Jewish Defense League] who, in 1971, immigrated to Israel and founded the Kach Party, going on to win a Knesset seat in 1984): "In two years' time, [the Arabs] ... will come to me, bow to me, lick my feet, and I will be merciful and allow them to leave. Whoever does not will be slaughtered." [from: The Fall of the House of Bush, Craig Unger, 2007, pp.133-134] (In 1980 Kahane was jailed for six months on suspicions that he had planned a provocative act of sabotage on the Temple Mount. He was assassinated in 19990 in New York by El Sayyid Nosair, who was later sentenced to life imprisonment as a coconspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center)

Martin Luther King, Jr. - "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

Prospero (from The Tempest}: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded by a sleep”.

From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted as General Resolution 217 A (III), 10 December 1948 (the day before Resolution 194 declared the unconditional right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes):

• Article 9: No-one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
• Article 13/2: Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
• Article 17/2:No-one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Oscar Wilde - "We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell."

Yitzhak Shamir: speaking on 31 March 1988 about Palestinians involved in the violent protests of the Intifada: "We say to them from the heights of this mountain and from the perspective of thousands of years of history that they are like grasshoppers compared to us."

Henry Kissinger: during a conversation with the then-U.S. ambassador to Turkey and two Turkish and Cypriot diplomats, Kissinger quipped: “Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, ‘The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.’[laughter] But since the Freedom of Information Act, I’m afraid to say things like that.”

2 Henry IV. Act III. Scene II: "By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death ... and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next."

John LeCarré, The Times, 15 January 2003: “God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America’s Middle Eastern policy and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.”

Robert Cooper, a senior British diplomat who was an advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair during the Iraq war, The Observer, 7 April 2002: "The challenge to the postmodern world is to get used to the idea of double standards. Among ourselves, we operate on the basis of laws and open cooperative security. But when dealing with more old-fashioned kinds of states outside the postmodern continent of Europe, we need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era – force, pre-emptive attack, deception, whatever is necessary to deal with those who still live in the nineteenth century world of every state for itself."

Jeff Halper, An Israeli in Palestine, Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel (2008): "One of the hardest parts of critical thinking is the ability to detect in yourself elements of irrationality, prejudice, fear, peer pressure and social conditioning — and to confront them."

George Herbert (compiler): Living well is the best revenge.

Winston Churchill at the Peel Commission on Palestine in 1937: "I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. I do not admit it. I do not think the Red Indians had any right to say, ‘The American Continent belongs to us and we are not going to have any of these European settlers coming in here’. They had not the right, nor had they the power."

Winston Churchill: "I am quite satisfied with my views on India, and I don’t want them disturbed by any bloody Indians." (Reply to Lord Irwin [later Lord Halifax], on board ship returning from US, when told that the subcontinent would be granted dominion status and urged to update his views on India by talking to members of the Congress. Churchill & Son (2021) - Josh Ireland)

Winston Churchill: "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

Hajo Meyer, An Ethical Tradition Betrayed: The End of Judaism (2007), p.179: "An anti-Semite used to be a person who disliked Jews. Now it is a person who Jews dislike."
Also:
- Judaism and Zionism are completely different.
- Israel causes antisemitism and without antisemitism Zionism is nowhere.
- Israel looks like Germany in 1933.
- Zionism is the antipode of Judaism.
- Political Zionism is xenophobic, nationalist, colonialist and racist.
- Balfour didn’t want to see the refugees from Kishinev pogroms coming past his window – one of the great antisemites was Lord Balfour.
- Judaism has been substituted by the Holocaust Religion.
- Colonialism is one of the main tenets of Zionism, they call the Palestinians ‘cockroaches’.

Albert Einstein: "The Zionists are shameless and importunate; I have a hard time adopting the appropriate position in each instance, considering that I am, of course, well-disposed to the cause."

Albert Einstein: "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

Dr Arbuthnot, 18th-century writer and satirist: "All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies."

Richard Michell ('The Underground Grammarian'): "But I suspect that for Epictetus the question was not how to escape the gods or the diseases; it was rather, how to remain a good person when stricken by either, as we all must be in one way or another. To be sick, or to suffer, is inevitable; but to become bitter and vindictive in sickness and suffering, and to surrender to irrationality, supposing yourself the innocent and virtuous victim of the evil intentions of the world, is not inevitable. The appropriate answer to the question, Why me? is the other question, Why not me? Those who can ask the first, must have already devised some answer to the second, however unconsciously and incoherently. It is the most important implication of Epictetus' strange assertion that a good person would know better than to devise that answer, an answer that would have to be irrational, setting the deviser above or beyond the natural order in which life takes place." (from The Gift of Fire, Chapter 11)

Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan: Israeli politician: 2013 - Deputy Minister of Religious Services; 2015 - Deputy Minister of Defense. While discussing the resumption of peace talks in a radio interview in 2013, Ben Dahan said that “To me, they are like animals, they aren’t human.” Later that year, while discussing his opposition to Knesset legislation that would offer same-sex parents the same tax breaks as their heterosexual counterparts, Ben Dahan told Maariv that homosexual Jews were superior than gentiles — gay or straight. “A Jew always has a much higher soul than a gentile, even if he is a homosexual,” he said. (The Times of Israel - Tamar Pilaggi - New deputy defense minister called Palestinians ‘animals’, 11 May 2015.) In 2015, while Deputy Minister of Defense: "Palestinians have to understand they won’t have a state & Israel will rule over them." (Mondoweiss - Philip Weiss - Palestinians will never have a state and will be ruled by Israel — says Israeli minister, 10 October 2015.)

Menahem Ussishkin, chair of Jewish National Fund, 1930: “If there are other inhabitants there, they must be transferred to some other place. We must take over the land. We have a greater and nobler ideal than preserving several hundred thousands of Arab fellahin.”

Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, Jewish Week, 26 April 1996: "If every simple cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, is a part of God, then every strand of DNA is a part of God. Therefore, something is special about Jewish DNA. If a Jew needs a liver, can you take the liver of an innocent non-Jew passing by to save him? The Torah would probably permit that. Jewish life has an infinite value. There is something infinitely more holy and unique about Jewish life than non-Jewish life." (Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple?, Motti Inbari, Ch.6, p.133-134: "In traditional Jewish approach, beginning in the postbiblical literature, we can find the idea that the Divine choice of the Jewish people is a cosmic act that grants superiority to the Jews. ... This perspective was developed extensively in the Kabbalistic literature, in which the Jews were presented not merely as distinct from the other products of Creation, but as part of Divinity itself. ... The dualistic concept of the distinction between the Divine soul of the Jews and the animal like soul of the Gentiles became a prominent element at much Hassidic discourse, and particularly in the case of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Ladi, the founder of the Lubavitcher (Chabad) sect of Hassidism. ... Even if a Gentile commits a good act, they do so for negative motives, such as the expectation of some personal benefit. By contrast, the Jewish soul is Divine, and hence its status is superior to any created being. ... Yitzhak Ginzburg has continued to develop these theological approaches. He argues that the Jewish people are a supreme, chosen people; as such it includes a Divine spark and stands above nature. ... The Gentile is created, but the Jew forms part of Divinity itself. ... He claims that while the Jews are the Chosen People and were created in God's image, the Gentiles do not have this status, and are effectively considered subhuman. ... Similarly, Ginzburg stated that, on the theoretical level, if a Jew requires a liver transplant to survive, it would be permissible to seize a Gentile and take their liver forcefully. From this point only a small further step is required to actively encourage and support the killing of non-Jews, as Ginzburg did in the case of Baruch Goldstein.")

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson [45]:
"The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: 'Let us differentiate.' Thus, we do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case of “let us differentiate” between totally different species."
"This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world … The difference in the inner quality between Jews and non-Jews is “so great that the bodies should be considered as completely different species."
"An even greater difference exists in regard to the soul. Two contrary types of soul exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness."
"As has been explained, an embryo is called a human being, because it has both body and soul. Thus, the difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish embryo can be understood."
"... the general difference between Jews and non-Jews: A Jew was not created as a means for some [other] purpose; he himself is the purpose, since the substance of all [divine] emanations was created only to serve the Jews."
"The important things are the Jews, because they do not exist for any [other] aim; they themselves are [the divine] aim."
"The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews."

Steve Kangas, “A Timeline of CIA Atrocities,” 1994: "The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, six million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an 'American Holocaust.' The CIA justifies these actions as part of its war against communism. But most coups do not involve a communist threat. Unlucky nations are targeted for a wide variety of reasons: not only threats to American business interests abroad, but also liberal or even moderate social reforms, political instability, the unwillingness of a leader to carry out Washington's dictates, and declarations of neutrality in the Cold War. Indeed, nothing has infuriated CIA Directors quite like a nation's desire to stay out of the Cold War."

P. J. O'Rourke: "Trump’s haircut makes Kim Jong Un laugh."

Ze’ev Jabotinsky, writing in 1923: "Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized. […] Zionist colonization must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach."

Lord Byron: "Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves."

Hermann Rauschning: “Hitler is not a man with whom a reasonable being concludes an agreement: He is a phenomenon which one slays or is slain by.”

Yitzhak Rabin: on describing what Palestinians security forces would do after Oslo, Rabin said that they'd be unchecked by “the High Court of Justice and B’Tselem.”[46]

David Ha’Cohen, an important figure in Labour Zionism: ‘I had to fight my friends on the issue of Jewish socialism, to defend the fact that I would not accept Arabs in my Trade Union, the Histadrut; to defend preaching to housewives that they should not buy at Arab stores; to defend the fact that we stood guard at orchards to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there... to pour kerosene on Arab tomatoes; to attack Jewish housewives in the markets and smash Arab eggs they had bought... to buy dozens of dunums from an Arab is permitted but to sell God forbid one Jewish dunum to an Arab is prohibited; to take Rothschild the incarnation of capitalism as a socialist and to name him the ‘benefactor’ – to do all that was not easy.’ [David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, p.185, Faber, 2003 citing Ha’aretz 15.11.69.][47]

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: "There is a joke that is currently making the rounds about an Israeli going through passport control at JFK. The immigration officer asks: “Occupation?” The Israeli says: “No. I’m just visiting.”"

Malcolm Gladwell: "The book that is most underrated? "Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel is massively underrated. It had never occurred to me that the problem – or at least the limitation – of history is that it is written by historians, scholars with a predisposition towards a particular kind of narrative. So along comes someone who knows a lot about geology and geography, and history looks completely different. And the crazy thing is that Diamond isn’t even trying to be disputatious or counterintuitive. It’s just – this is what history looks like from another building in the university."[48]

Bertrand Russell, in a statement on the Middle East dated 31st January, 1970, which was read on 3rd February, the day after Bertrand Russell’s death, to an International Conference of Parliamentarians meeting in Cairo: "For over 20 years Israel has expanded by force of arms. After every stage in this expansion Israel has appealed to “reason” and has suggested “negotiations”. This is the traditional role of the imperial power, because it wishes to consolidate with the least difficulty what it has already taken by violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression."[49]

James Gordon Bennett, editor of the New York Herald, wasn’t concerned that conquering Mexican territory would lead to "incorporating millions of dark-skinned people into the United States": ‘Amalgamation has always been abhorrent to the Anglo-Saxon race on this continent,’, he wrote; but just as indigenous ‘barbarism’ had ‘receded before the face of civilization,’, the ‘imbecile’ Mexicans were ‘sure to melt away at the approach of Anglo-Saxon energy and enterprise as snow before a southern sun.’ (page 91, “The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America”, (2019} Greg Grandin)

Ludwig Wittgenstein: "If a lion could speak, we could not understand him." (Philosophical Investigations, p.223)[50]

Theodor Herzl, writing in his diary in 1895: "We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." (Rashid Khalidi, "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance", 2020)

Keith Kahn-Harris: "(From 1967) Support for, and loyalty to Israel became a taken-for-granted feature of almost all Jewish communal institutions. The argument that Jews should not undermine Israel through public criticism became mainstream. The institutional infrastructure of western Jewish communities was transformed to reflect the centrality of Israel ... Support for Israel became a Jewish political priority with the growing strength and importance of lobbying groups and the defence of Israel taking a central role in UK umbrella institutions such as the Board of Deputies." (Uncivil War, quoted by Karl Sabbagh, The Antisemitism Wars, p200)

Richard Pipes: "Bolshevism and Fascism were heresies of socialism." (Richard Pipes, "Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, 1919-1924" [New York: Vintage, 1995], p. 253.)

George Orwell: "Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality. ... In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright,’ I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so’." (from the essay, "Politics and the English Language")

Sigmund Freud: "Love and work … work and love, that's all there is … love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness." (The pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles said that love and strife were the primary moving factors, not just for humans but also for the whole universe)

Miguel de Unamuno: "The gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orangutan, and their kind, must look upon man as a feeble and infirm animal, whose strange custom it is to store up his dead. Wherefore?" ("Tragic Sense of Life", 1912)

Upton Sinclair: "I used to say to our audiences: 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!'" (I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (1935), ISBN 0-520-08198-6; repr. University of California Press, 1994, p. 109 [51][52])

Hillel the Elder: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?" (Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14)[53]

Natan Sharansky: "Whereas classical anti-Semitism is aimed at the Jewish people or the Jewish religion, 'new anti-Semitism' is aimed at the Jewish state."[54]

The Saker: "There is a popular expression in Russia which, I submit, beautifully sums up the current US/NATO doctrine: пугать ежа голой задницей, which can be translated as 'trying to scare a hedgehog with your naked bottom'."[55]

Raul Hillberg: "Speer was once asked, 'How did you know when Hitler made a decision?' This is a very important question because as the Nazi regime developed over the years, the whole structure of decision-making was changed. At first there were laws. Then there were decrees implementing laws. Then a law was made saying, "There shall be no laws." Then there were orders and directives that were written down, but still published in ministerial gazettes. Then there was government by announcement; orders appeared in newspapers. Then there were the quiet orders, the orders that were not published, that were within the bureaucracy, that were oral. Finally, there were no orders at all. Everybody knew what he had to do." (Raul Hillberg, Chapter "The Holocuast", p. 103, "Facing Evil: Confronting the Dreadful Power Behind Genocide, Terrorism, and Cruelty" (2001), Paul Woodruff, Harry A. Wilmer (eds.))

Arthur Hays Sulzberger: "I dislike the coercive methods of Zionists who in this country have not hesitated to use economic means to silence persons who have different views. I object to the attempts at character assassination of those who do not agree with them." (The New York Times, November 1946)

Letter sent to Christopher Mayhew, dated 05 December 1946, postmarked Lisbon: "Mr Mayhew, Under Secretary, Foreign Affairs, London. Remember the very words of the great Stephen S. Wise 'We are going to get a Jewish state soon in Palestine' and we fighters from Lahome Herut Israel, add 'Also against the decision of the British Foreign Office'. Don't forget that the Jewry defeated with your British assistance the bloody and damned Nazis i.e. the first Germanic nation, and don't forget too that its now your turn as the second arrogant Germanic nation to kiss our feet. We are determined this time to squash you British sons of a bitch and we declare war to the finish against the British. For every Jew you stinking British pigs kill in Palestine you will pay a thousandfold in fetid English blood. The L H I has passed sentence of death on the British pig Mayhew. The execution will soon take place by silent and new means. Signed Lahome Herut Israel." (p19, "Publish it not ..., The Middle East Cover-Up")

Leo Tolstoy: "One man does not assert the truth which he knows, because he feels himself bound to the people with whom he is engaged; another, because the truth might deprive him of the profitable position by which he maintains his family; a third, because he desires to attain reputation and authority, and then use them in the service of mankind; a fourth, because he does not wish to destroy old sacred traditions; a fifth, because he has no desire to offend people; a sixth, because the expression of the truth would arouse persecution, and disturb the excellent social activity to which he has devoted himself." (‘What Then Must We Do?’, Green Classics, 1991, p.118)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: "We know they are lying. They know they are lying. They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie."

Lord Salisbury: "If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe."

Plato: "Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it."

Ahmad Tibi: "Israel calls itself a Jewish and democratic state. In reality, it is a democratic state for Jews and a Jewish state for Arabs."[56]

Pashtun Proverb: “There are no good men among the living, and no bad ones among the dead.” (from: "No Good Men Among the Living. America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes" (2014) - Anand Gopal)

Cecil Rhodes: While an Oxford undergraduate: "I contend that we are the first race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race." Later: "I would annex the planets if I could."

Salman Rushdie: "The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt ... freedom of thought becomes impossible."

James Thurber: "All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why."

Abraham Leon, author of "The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation": “like all nationalisms and even more intensely—Zionism views the historic past in the light of the present … [It] tries to create the myth of an eternal Judaism, eternally the prey of the same persecutions.”[57]

Abba Eban, writing in leading liberal Jewish journal Congress Bi-Weekly in 1973 when he was Israeli foreign minister: “One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all. Anti-Zionism is merely the new anti-Semitism. ... Let there be no mistake: the new left is the author and the progenitor of the new anti-Semitism.”[58][59]

Marek Edelman, last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in an interview: [Israel is a] "chauvinist, religious state, where a Christian is a second-class citizen and a Muslim is third-class. It is a disaster, after three million were murdered in Poland, they want to dominate everything and not to consider non-Jews!"[60] (also see Chajka Klinger[61])

Idith Zertal: "There has not been a war in Israel, from 1948 till the present ongoing outburst of violence which began in October 2000, that has not been perceived, defined, and conceptualized in terms of the Holocaust." (p.4) "Yet it was the Eichmann event, which preceded this correspondence [a seven-page letter Ben-Gurion wrote to President John F. Kennedy in 1963], that turned out to be a landmark in the process of the organized, explicit mobilization of the Holocaust in the service of Israeli politics and state policy, especially in the context of the Israeli–Arab conflict." (p.99) (Idith Zertal, 'Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood', 2005, Cambridge University Press)

{whatreallyhappened.com - "Examples of Hate Speech by Israel Against Palestine"}

Terminology

Dictocrat

Dislike of the unlike

Ethnobiological and ethnoreligious ideologies

Herrenvolk democracy

Kompromat

Malinchismo

Moser

(Din moser - "the duty to eliminate a Jew who intends to turn another Jew into non-Jewish authorities" [according to Maimonides, a moser is liable to death]; Din rodef - "the duty to kill a Jew who imperils the life or property of another Jew")

Reality tunnel

(see also: confirmation bias; cognitive bias#List of biases;conditioning)

Indignados / Grillini

I quadrati

"the squares".

Ostrausch

Intoxication of the East; Eastern rush.

Kakistocracy

Government by the worst people.

Kataskopocracy

"rule by spies" (in Russian, a spy is κατάσκοπος - kataskopos).

Knut

An idle upper-class man-about-town. Playboy. Hedonist. (Edwardian slang term) (Wiktionary) (Urban Dictionary: King Canute}

Trimmer

A person who adapts their views to the prevailing political trends for personal advancement.

Hamsterkauf

"COVID-19 has also introduced the rest of the world to one of those German compound words that combines two seemingly unrelated concepts — in this case, Hamsterkauf, literally translated as hoarding purchase, with the first part of the word derived from the verb hamstern, itself referencing the cheek-stuffing rodent, and kauf (purchase)." [62]

Ladaocracia

"Cuba’s revolutionary Lada aristocracy." [63]

Whānau

a Māori-language word for extended family.

Propaganda of the deed

specific political action meant to be exemplary to others and serve as a catalyst for revolution. ("Unlike the revolutionary theories of Marx that relied on mass insurrection and class action, advocates of propaganda of the deed held that individual violent acts inevitably moved toward revolutionary change as they heightened class tensions, perhaps even serving as the spark of a general uprising."[64])

Third rail

"The third rail of a nation's politics is a metaphor for any issue so controversial that it is "charged" and "untouchable" to the extent that any politician or public official who dares to broach the subject will invariably suffer politically. The metaphor comes from the high-voltage third rail in some electric railway systems."

Ship of fools

allegory, originating from Book VI of Plato's Republic, about a ship with a dysfunctional crew. The concept makes up the framework of the 15th-century book Ship of Fools (1494) by Sebastian Brant, which harshly criticised the Catholic Church of its day and served as the inspiration for Hieronymus Bosch's painting.

Filioque

"and from the Son", Latin term added to the original Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (commonly known as the Nicene Creed).

Social Darwinism

"Social Darwinism is a loose set of ideologies that emerged in the late 1800s in which Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was used to justify certain political, social, or economic views. Social Darwinists believe in “survival of the fittest”—the idea that certain people become powerful in society because they are innately better. Social Darwinism has been used to justify imperialism, racism, eugenics and social inequality at various times over the past century and a half."

Doubleplusgoodthinking

"Goodthink, a term used in the superstate of Oceania during the late 20th century, is a Newspeak word signifying a set of thoughts and beliefs that is in accordance with those established by the Party. In the rules of Newspeak the noun stem (which also serves as a verb) can become the adjective goodthinkful, the adverb goodthinkwise, the past participle goodthinked, and the gerund goodthinking. Additionally, one who is "goodthinkful" is referred to as a goodthinker. The opposite of goodthink is crimethink. However, according to the common rules of Newspeak words do not have opposites, and one would just add the prefix un- to the word." (Wikipedia:List of Newspeak words)

Cool Hand Luke Syndrome

"What we've got here is failure to communicate."[65]

Hasbarafia [66]

Thought collective

"A way of thinking and seeing that expresses and adheres to the established beliefs and aims of the collective."[67]

Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda

‘A monkey dressed in silk is still a monkey’.

Dunning-Kruger effect

cognitive bias in which people come to believe they are smarter and more capable than they really are. (list of cognitive biases)

Thucydides Trap[68][69][70]

Pacta sunt servanda

said to be the oldest principle of international law and the basis for ensuring treaties are binding and enforceable, means “agreements must be kept”.