Former education minister Shulamit Aloni laid to rest - Ynet News

Stephen Lendman: She believed anti-semitism is misused. It's done to suppress legitimate Israeli criticism. She was outspoken to the end. She made fundamental rights her core issue. She was true to her values. She challenged Israel's establishment. She stood up against government officials, generals and extremist rabbis against peace, equity and justice. She was fearless. She was unflinching.

She was often a voice in the wilderness. Israel is more ruthless today than ever. In January 2007, she headlined "Yes, There is Apartheid in Israel," saying:

Jewish self-righteousness is taken for granted among ourselves to such an extent that we fail to see what’s right in front of our eyes. It's simply inconceivable that the ultimate victims, the Jews, can carry out evil deeds. Nevertheless, the state of Israel practices its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population. [It] practices a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp. [It turned Occupied Palestine into an open-air prison.] Indeed Apartheid does exist here. And our army is not 'the most moral (one) in the world' as we are told... [Apartheid is] an international crime. [Israel] rob(s) (Palestinians) of their freedom, land and water. We apply collective punishment to millions of People.

After Operation Cast Lead (December 2008 - January 2009), she said the disgraced IDF is no longer Israel's Defense Forces. She keynoted "A Gathering to Protest and to Mourn" Association for Jaffa Arabs program. Standing room only heard her. She pulled no punches calling the IDF a "brutal and hedonistic army of conquest." On her 81st birthday, she discussed the condition of the State of Israel.

What we do in (Gaza) and the West Bank is worse than all pogroms done to Jews. It's hard for me to say a kind word about the state today. We are in great distress morally and socially, as well as in the realms of politics and law. The Right has two left hands. The Left doesn't exist...Since 2000, with the launching of the Second Intifada, we have murdered thousands. We have blood on our hands.

Desertpeace: Zion’s Outspoken Voice Of Reason Silenced By Death

Sibel Edmonds: This is How USA-Installed Puppets Go from Democratic Presidents to Despots & Terrorists When Their Time Comes ■ Have you heard this famous quote ‘Marketing is everything … and everything is marketing’? I know it was originally meant for product sales, because admit it, you can have the best product engineering, financial backing and operational mastery … but in the end the success of your product is determined by how your customers perceive your product-your brand. This principle of marketing applies equally as well to our domestic politics and politicians, and it is equally valid for world politics and leaders. The principle governs one of the main operations of the U.S. Empire: Regime Building & Puppet Installation. Not only that, it is also used in reverse as well. Think of it as reverse engineering. It is very similar: The Empire uses the same principle of marketing to bring down regimes and uninstall puppets. The reversal of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s world and domestic image provides a perfect example of the Empire’s reverse marketing. In the United States, for over a decade, Turkey’s AKP Party and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been branded, marketed, and promoted as truly democratic and fair, and the best model of a democratic government for the Islamic world.

The Obama political operation that once buried Hillary Rodham Clinton’s White House ambitions is now rapidly converging around her possible 2016 presidential bid, conferring on Mrs. Clinton enormous early advantages in money, expertise and voter targeting techniques. ● On Thursday, Priorities USA Action, a “super PAC” that played an important role in helping re-elect President Obama, announced that it was formally aligning itself with Mrs. Clinton and would begin raising money to fend off potential opponents for 2016. The group — the largest Democratic super PAC in the country — also named new directors, appointments that will cement the group’s pro-Clinton tilt and thrust veterans of Mr. Obama’s political and fund-raising operation into the center of the post-Obama Democratic Party. The move is perhaps the earliest start to big-dollar fund-raising in support of a nonincumbent presidential candidate, providing a fund-raising portal for wealthy Clinton supporters eager to help her White House prospects — and to the legions of others eager to ingratiate themselves with Mrs. Clinton and her inner circle.

“Israel is the only country in the Middle East which has long anchored itself in the ideals of freedom, democracy and the rule of law” - 2 Minute Snip of Harper Speech - Transcript + full version here and here.

Walid al-Moallem - Syria Foreign Minister ■ It is regrettable, Ladies and Gentlemen, that seated amongst us today in this room, are representatives of countries that have the blood of Syrians on their hands, countries that have exported terrorism along with clemency for the perpetrators, as if it was their God given right to determine who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. Countries that have prevented believers from visiting holy places of worship whilst abetting, financing and supporting terrorists. Countries that gave themselves the authority to grant and deny legitimacy to others as they saw fit, never looking at their own archaic glasshouses before throwing stones at acclaimed fortified towers. Countries that shamelessly lecture us in democracy, in development and in progress whilst drowning in their own ignorance and medieval norms. Countries that have become accustomed to being entirely owned by kings and princes who have the sole right to distribute their national wealth granting their associates whilst denying those who fall out of favor.

Ladies and Gentlemen, how is what has happened and continues to plague Syria, meeting these aspirations? How can a Chechen, Afghani, Saudi, Turkish or even French and English terrorists deliver on the aspirations of the Syrian people, and with what? An Islamic state that knows nothing of Islam except perverse Wahhabism? Who declared anyway that the Syrian people aspire to live thousands of years in the past?

"We have to acknowledge that there is a huge campaign against the Syrian government for the last three years and the aim is not the Syrian government, the aim is the destruction of Syria, the destruction of the Syrian people for only the benefit of Israel. That is the true story of what is happening in Syria." (3:46)

Stephen Lendman: Malicious Syria Bashing: Part I, Part II
Daniel McAdams: The Ugly American (and Friends) in Geneva
Alex Lantier: US advances trumped-up torture charges against Syria
Brandon Turbeville: 5 Reasons The Latest Report On Syria War Crimes Might Not Be True
Shaaban: Some points in Geneva1 communique still valid, reality requires change in priorities
Al-Moallem : Counterterrorism priority for all Syrians - No foreign solution can be imposed on Syrians

Syria Report: Al-Qaeda Get British and German Ambulances - Video [08 Oct 2013]

Video of riot police stripping detained protester naked in the snow at tempatures below 0 while taking pictures of him. Reports of police torture continue in Kyiv, Ukraine. | Google translation | Ukrainskaya Pravda applied to the press-service of the Interior troops seeking comment, tell who is the head of the 228, whose helmet is one of the security officials. Press-Secretary of the internal troops Andrey Safronov said that only now saw this video and promised within hours to answer our questions. According to "Ukrainian truth", spokesman of the MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS Olga Bilyk, "initiated by the internal investigation, has already begun". "The appropriate action would be taken against policemen in the actions of these violations," said Bilyk.

HuffPo: 29 images of Kiev protests resembling a war zone
Stephen Lendman: Western Manipulated Violence in Ukraine

Supporters of the Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Party, which controls the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, continue to block a supply route for the US-led NATO forces stationed in neighboring Afghanistan, Press TV reports. ● The PTI activists, who are against the deadly US drone strikes in Pakistan, have blocked one of the main NATO routes on the outskirts of the province’s capital, Peshawar, since November 2013. Protesters spend days and nights stopping all travelling trucks and checking them to ensure they are not carrying supplies for US-led forces in Afghanistan, before clearing them to pass through the province. The continuation of the blockage comes as the protesters and their leaders in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been under intense pressure from the European Union, Washington as well as the Pakistani government to open the supply line.

American whistleblower Edward Snowden says he would have no chance to get a fair trial in case he decides to come back to the United States. ● "The hundred-year old law under which I’ve been charged... forbids a public interest defense," the former National Security Agency contractor said during an online question-and-answer session on the "Free Snowden" website on Thursday. "This is especially frustrating, because it means there's no chance to have a fair trial, and no way I can come home and make my case to a jury," Snowden said. The leaker, who has revealed the US spy agency’s surveillance programs since last summer, is currently staying in Russia after Moscow granted him one-year political asylum. He is charged with espionage charges inside the United States. "Returning to the US, I think, is the best resolution for the government, the public, and myself, but it's unfortunately not possible in the face of current whistleblower protection laws, which, through a failure in law, did not cover national security contractors like myself," Snowden said.

xrepublic.tv: U.S. Attorney General Holder Says He Is Ready To Negotiate With Edward Snowden - Video
Russia Today: Snowden Q&A: Indiscriminate mass surveillance is the biggest problem we face

ADL to Economist: Apologize for "anti-Semitic" cartoon implying Jewish control of US government. ● The cartoon, inside an article on Iran’s nuclear program, depicts US President Barack Obama shackled to Congress, represented by the Congressional seal, while reaching out to Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who himself is being held back by the ayatollahs and militants burning the American flag. The Congressional seal is based on the United States’ Great Seal, and, as shown in the cartoon, includes bald eagle clutching arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other. The actual seal includes several stars around the border, which also appear in the Economist cartoon. What does not appear on the seal – but does in the cartoon – is a Star of David, implying that Congress is controlled by Jews with a pro-Israel agenda. [This is a fact. Jews do Control Congress.] The magazine has removed the caricature from the article itself, replacing it with a split image of Obama and Rohani. Nonetheless, it remains in a prominent location on the website’s Middle East page.

The US Central Intelligence Agency has used a secret prison in Poland in order to torture the suspects that it captured following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ● According to former CIA officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity with The Washington Post, two senior CIA officers sealed a deal with Polish intelligence officials that allowed the CIA to use a secret prison – a remote villa in the Polish lake district – in exchange for $15 million. The CIA had already begun using the secret prison before delivering the money which was in a pair of large cardboard boxes that had flown from Germany to the US embassy in Polish capital, Warsaw, via diplomatic pouch. The CIA prison in Poland was the first of a trio of the agency’s so-called “black sites,” or secret prisons, in Europe used for interrogating and torturing prisoners captured in covert operations.

An independent federal privacy watchdog has concluded that the National Security Agency’s program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down. The findings are laid out in a 238-page report, scheduled for release by Thursday and obtained by The New York Times, that represent the first major public statement by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which Congress made an independent agency in 2007 and only recently became fully operational.

The area around central Kiev descended into a warzone on Wednesday with protesters and police clashing against a backdrop of flames, burning tyres and snow. Heavily armoured officers met protesters throwing Molotov cocktails, and brandishing chains and guns. Three people have already died, according to emergency services, with more fatalities expected. Despite appeals for calm, police in riot gear confronted the anti-government protesters with force after Prime Minister Mykola Azarov continued to take a tough line, branding the protesters “terrorists”. Although President Viktor Yanukovich has held talks with opposition leaders, the violence, sparked when Ukraine ditched a trade deal with the European Union and turn to Russia for financial aid late last year, looks set to continue. ● SEE ALSO: Protest Video Shows Demonstrators Throwing Molotov Cocktails At Armoured Police | As violent clashes continue to scar downtown Kiev, videos have started to emerge on YouTube showing the full horror of the exchanges between police and protesters. The protests, which began two months ago after a planned trade deal between Ukraine and European Union was abandoned in favour of a pivot back towards Russia, have gained in intensity, with this latest (unverified) clip showing demonstrators attacking police with Molotov cocktails before the armoured agents of the state retaliate.

Wayne Madsen: USAID support for instability in Russia
Internet, T.V, and international T.V. have been shut off in Ukraine. Livestream is offline. Direct livestream link

Brandon Turbeville ■ In a recently released and conveniently timed report, complete with references to Nazi Germany and concentration camps, efforts to ramp up support for a “tough line” against Syria at the upcoming Geneva II conference and even possible military intervention, are once again moving into high gear. The report, compiled by three British war crime prosecutors and three “forensic experts” claims that it has demonstrable proof that the Assad government is guilty of torturing and killing over ten thousand people. The report (accessed here) claims to show evidence of physical torture, murder, and starvation. Of course, the Syrian government denies the veracity of the claims of the report and Western media outlets repeat the claims as incontrovertible proof.

Seymour M. Hersh: Whose sarin?
Stephen Lendman: Syria Peace Talks: DOA
Stephen Lendman: Malicious Syria Bashing: Part I, Part II
Alex Lantier: US advances trumped-up torture charges against Syria
Christof Lehmann: Top US and Saudi Officials Directly Responsible for Chemical Weapons Attack
Tony Cartalucci: US Feigns "Horror" Over Cooked-Up Report on Syrian War They Engineered

Craig Murray: Israel Grants Oil Rights in Syria to Murdoch and Rothschild
OilPrice.com: Cheney-Linked Company to Drill in Occupied Golan Heights

Gilad Atzmon: This morning I came across this short video (37sec)...the message is getting shorter and shorter, and this is probably the true meaning of the Quenelle...

Gilad Atzmon: Quenelle News ■ Earlier today, Roger Cukierman , the head of CRIF, an umbrella group for Jewish institutions in France, admitted that Anelka’s gesture “was not anti-Semitic” and that he should not be heavily punished. In a video interview, Cukierman said “it seems to me that this gesture (the quenelle) only has an anti-Semitic connotation once performed in front of a synagogue or a memorial to the Holocaust.” I guess that even the Board of Deputies of British Jews would agree that the football pitch is neither a synagogue nor is it a holocaust museum. Cukierman added that “when the quenelle is performed in a place which is not specifically Jewish it…doesn’t deserve sanctions.” Nicolas Anelka has called today on the Football Association to drop a charge against him over his ‘quenelle’ goal celebration and insists he is neither anti-Semitic or racist. Anelka questioned “what better expert” there could be than Roger Cukierman, the president of CRIF. Other Jewish pressure groups, however, have called for Anelka to be handed more than a five-game suspension due to his lack of an apology. Ultra Zionist Jonathan Arkush, vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: “What he did was sufficiently serious to justify a longer suspension than five matches. He has not indicated one bit of remorse or regret or apologised for his actions.” It seems as if we are left with no other option but to leave this dispute to the Jewish Lobby. We better let the CRIF, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and David Baddiel decide who is Kosher qualified to score a goal in the English league.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Iran's atomic drive "will be stopped", a day after an interim agreement bringing sanctions relief for Tehran took effect. ● "Iran's military nuclear programme must be stopped, and Iran's military nuclear programme will be stopped," Netanyahu said at a joint news conference with his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper, without saying how. Israel has long warned that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to the Jewish state, and has refused to rule out a military strike to prevent that from happening. Netanyahu fought a major diplomatic campaign against the so-called Geneva Agreement which was hammered out in November between world powers and Iran, and on Monday he said the agreement would not succeed in stopping Tehran.

Edgar Tamayo Arias, 46, an undocumented immigrant worker from Morelos, Mexico, imprisoned on death row for the last two decades, was killed late Wednesday night with a lethal injection in the death chamber of the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, 70 miles north of Houston. ● The act of state murder was carried out with flagrant contempt for international law and basic rights after the US Supreme Court rejected Tamayo’s appeal. “The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Scalia and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the court said in a terse statement Wednesday night. Scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. Central Time, the high court’s cursory consideration of Tamayo’s fate delayed the killing for just three and a half hours.

France's controversial expulsions of Roma, which has drawn condemnation from the European Commission, hit a record high in 2013. A new report says nearly 20,000 were deported - double the number that were expelled in 2012. ● France expelled nearly 20,000 Roma people in 2013, which is not only a record, but more than double the number kicked out of the country the previous year. Despite President François Hollande’s criticisms of his predecessor’s policy towards the Roma, the number of expulsions has been climbing since he took office in 2012, French newspaper L’Express reported. About 9,400 were expelled in 2012 and 8,400 were forced out in 2011. “The expulsions are part of a policy of refusal,” of the Roma, “that has got worse since the left-leaning government took power,” the report says. “The authorities want only one thing: send the Roma back to their country of origin.” France has been repeatedly criticized by the European Commission for its aggressive removals of Roma people. That inlcuded a warning in September when the commission noted the Roma, like all European Union citizens, are free to go where they wish. Three years ago the Commission's Vice President Viviane Reding sent a similar threat to former president Nicolas Sarkozy insisting that Roma expulsions had to stop. Of a total of 400 Roma camps in France last year, authorities demolished 165 of them, pushing 19,380 people out in the process, according to figures collected by France's League of Human Rights and the European Roma Rights Centre.

AWIP: The Plight of the Roma: Europe's Unwanted People

NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, will ask Russian law enforcers to protect him, his lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, has said. The former NSA contractor is concerned about his safety after seeing death threats coming from the US. ● Snowden, who is currently living in Moscow under Russia’s temporary asylum, has been following the threats against him in various American media. “We are concerned with the situation around Edward. We see the statements made by some US officials containing potential and implicit threats and openly calling for causing him bodily harm,” Kucherena said. One such statement published by BuzzFeed quoted a US intelligence officer describing in detail how he would have assassinated Snowden, if he “had the chance.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday said the absence of Iran from this week's peace talks on the Syrian crisis would be an "unforgivable mistake". "Not to ensure the presence at this event of all those who may directly influence the situation, I think, would be an unforgivable mistake," Lavrov told a televised press briefing. "So I fully support the responsible and principled approach by UN Secretary General (Ban Ki-moon), who sent an invitation to those countries that influence the situation, including the Islamic Republic of Iran." Lavrov added the Iran's absence would make the talks that are due to start on Wednesday in the Swiss city of Montreux a "sham".

Stephen Lendman: Syria Peace Talks: DOA ■ Geneva talks aren't about peace. Obama demands regime change. [He says] conflict resolution is impossible as long Assad remains president. He won't step down as long as Syrians want him retained. They do so overwhelmingly. No global consensus exists. Washington, other Western countries, Israel, and rogue regional allies want regime change. Russia, China, Iran and numerous other nations want Syrian sovereignty respected. Demanding Assad must go violates it. Syrians alone must decide their future. International law prohibits outside interference. Washington rules make peace impossible. Talks are DOA.

Finian Cunningham: Geneva II: Iran nixed proves US fixed ■ There is a good reason why Iran has been blocked from attending the Geneva II conference on Syria – because the meeting is not about finding a peaceful settlement. Rather, it is merely an American mechanism for engineering regime change in Syria. What the Americans have failed to achieve through state-sponsored terrorism, they are now trying to win through state-sponsored politics. Iran has consistently endorsed the sovereign right of the Syrian people to negotiate their political future – without pre-conditions or pressure from external powers. And it is because of this Iranian position of principle over Syria that it is being banished at the behest of the US. Iran being nixed proves the US has fixed.

Riot police brutally dispersed radical protesters from central Kiev in the largest operation since the latest outbreak of violence. Almost 200 officers have been injured over four days of scuffles. Two people were reportedly killed amid the crisis. The police cleared Khrushchevskovo Street, the scene of intensive confrontation with radical anti-government activists in the vicinity of the Ukrainian parliament building. They proceeded to the neighboring European Square, where opposition activists have been camping for weeks. Footage from the Ukrainian capital showed hundreds of police officers using tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades against the protesters. Some episodes involved policemen snatching individual rioters from the crowds and brutally beating them.

Russia Today: Police and rioters face-off in Kiev - LIVE

Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts is making some bold new claims about the Federal Reserve and its official government gold holdings. ● Dr. Roberts contends, “They don’t have any more gold. That’s why they can only give Germany 5 tons of the 1,500 tons it’s holding. In fact, when Germany asked for this delivery last year, the Fed said no. But it said we will give you back 300 tons...So, they said we will give you back 20% of what you trusted us to keep for you over the next seven years, but they are not even able to do that.” Dr. Roberts goes on to say, “The stocks of gold at the Bank of England seem to be disappearing. The stocks of many of the gold trusts, such as GLD, are being looted...all of this gold is disappearing into Asian markets. The entire West is being drained of gold.”

Dieudonné | Mahmoud [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

The property website Zoopla has announced that it will end its sponsorship of West Bromwich Albion at the end of the current season. Zoopla said its decision was prompted by the actions of French striker, Nicolas Anelka, who has been photographed (right) making a gesture known as the quenelle which, Zionists claim has “anti-Semitic” connotations. Zoopla is owned by the Jewish businessman Alex Chesterman. It was reported last week that the company had told West Bromwich that it would withdraw its sponsorship if Anelka wasn’t dropped from the team. Zoopla was reportedly “stunned” when the team didn’t comply. The Football Association has announced that it has appointed an “expert” to look into the matter. The Football Association has not yet named the “expert” who will lead the investigation into the gesture, which was made by the French striker after he scored against West Ham in late December.

The quenelle – which translates literally as “dumpling” in English – is a straight-arm salute with one arm pointing downwards and the other hand across the chest. It has been made famous by the French comedian Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, who has described it as a gesture of defiance, not specifically against Jews but against the establishment in general. Although Dieudonné denies the gesture is “anti-Semitic” it has been described by his critics as an inverted Nazi salute. As has been pointed out however, an inverted Nazi salute could just as easily be interpreted as a gesture of defiance against “anti-Semitism” rather than support for Nazism. Dieudonné , who French authorities claim has been insulting the memory of Holocaust victims during his stage shows, has been banned from performing in a growing list of French towns and cities.