Following Israeli & US pressure, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres forced a UN agency to remove a report that found “on the basis of scholarly inquiry and overwhelming evidence, that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid.” The chief of the agency that published the report resigned over the censorship…
A MUST READ: Robert Parry writes in Consortium News that the neocons, architects of the Iraq War, are counting on Democrats and liberals to be the foot soldiers in the new neocon campaign to push Trump into more “regime change” wars. As part of this they’re hyping evidence-free allegations that Russia colluded with Trump’s team to rig the U.S. election, and pushing for a US invasion of Syria…
Eli Clifton reports in Lobelog that new tax filings reveal that America’s largest pro-Israel group, AIPAC, gave money to a think tank that played a pivotal role in engineering Trump’s ban on Muslim immigration…
Philip Weiss writes in Mondoweiss that Glazer correctly stated that supporting Israel was counter to U.S. interests and that this support was garnered through pressure from the US Jewish establishment. Weiss writes that the lobby’s success is closely related to the rise of Jews in the establishment, with Jews at the heads of global industries from finance to education to Hollywood to government, media, the Supreme Court…
Chemi Shalev writes: Trump could turn out to be the Israeli right wing’s worst nightmare. Obama had to take into account the pro-Israel lobby, the Republican-led Congress and the staunch Israel supporters in his own Democratic Party. Netanyahu exploited them all. Trump is a completely different story. The GOP won’t dare confront him as it would Obama. A President who emphasizes “his personal belief that peace is possible and that the time has come to make a deal” is one who spells trouble for Jewish settlers and their champions…
Philip Giraldi: The neoconservatives, Israel-firsters, hate Trump, having favored Hillary Clinton as president due to their conviction that she would be the more aggressive president. They now believe that if they force Trump out they will return to power, so they continue to pile on. Trump is also being battered by pro-Israel interests on the left. Bernard-Henri Levy warns that Trump is a threat to all American Jews. Why? Because his love for the Jewish people is “insufficient.” Levy explains, “This love is precisely what is required of an American president in dealings affecting Israel.”
The new order is the same in nature as the old one. It prevents admission for nationals from six countries, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Further, the order puts a complete ban on refugees entering the U.S. The new ban does have slight changes. Iraq has been removed from the list; there will be a phase-in period, with the ban taking full effect on March 16, 2017. the ban does not apply to lawful permanent residents (LPRs), and current visa holders….
Philip Giraldi writes: “recently we have seen the Obama administration meddling in Libya, Yemen and Syria in so called humanitarian interventions which have turned out to be largely fraudulent. Yes, under the Obama Dems it was ‘responsibility to protect time’ and all the world trembled as the drones were let loose.”
Over the past six decades, Israeli leaders have refined their strategies for taking advantage of their staunchest ally, the United States. Israeli leaders have frequently manipulated and misled American presidents out of a confidence that U.S. politicians deeply fear the political fallout from any public battle with Israel…
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will begin confirmation hearings on Thursday for Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel. (Rand Paul could be the swing vote). Friedman, who helps finance Israeli settlements, is opposed by a diverse array of groups; some pro-Israel groups say he would be bad for Israel. Some of his Senate supporters received donations from Sheldon Adelson…