In a new show dedicated to making sense of current affairs, “Weekly Roundup With Mark Weber,” host Frodi Midjord and historian Mark Weber provide insightful, “big picture” perspective on important events.
IHR NEWS AND VIEWS
Secretive and unlawful collusion by an American leader with a foreign power that subverts the US political process is not new. The most far-reaching and flagrant case was by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1940-41. In the months before the US formally entered the war in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt did everything he could to get America into the global conflict without actually declaring war. The cooperation with British intelligence by the President and other high-ranking US officials during that period was quite illegal. Such collusion by the nominally neutral US to further the war aims of a foreign government was contrary to both US law and universally accepted international norms.
Revisionism as applied to World War II and its origins (as also for previous wars) has the general function of bringing historical truth to an American and a world public that had been drugged by wartime lies and propaganda ... Revisionism brings to the artificial frenzy of daily events and day-to-day propaganda, the cool but in the last analysis glorious light of historical truth. Such truth is almost desperately needed in today's world.
... Unless and until we can break through the historical blackout, now supported even by public policy, and enable the peoples of the world to know the facts concerning international relations during the last quarter of a century, there can be no real hope for the peace, security and prosperity which the present triumphs of science and technology could make possible. The well-being of the human race, if not its very survival, is very literally dependent on the triumph of revisionism.
… Jews wield immense power and influence in the United States. The “Jewish lobby” is a decisive factor in US support for Israel. Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to American interests. In fact, they often conflict. As long as the “very powerful” Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the Jewish-Zionist grip on the US political system and the American media, the Zionist oppression of Palestinians, and the Israeli threat to peace.
Mark Weber explains why the work of the IHR in countering the forces of historical deceit, bigotry and cultural distortion is vitally important. An awareness of factual history is essential to an understanding of ourselves and the great issues of our age, says the IHR director in this five-minute video presentation. Unless and until the interests that have gripped our nation are clearly identified and discredited, he says, there will be no change in basic policies or direction.
In a remarkable but under-reported address, one of America’s most prominent and influential political figures has acknowledged the “immense” and “outsized” Jewish role in the US mass media and cultural life. Joe Biden – now President of the U.S. – said that this has been the single most important factor in shaping American attitudes over the past century, and in driving major cultural-political changes. “Jewish heritage has shaped who we are – all of us – as much or more than any other factor in the last 223 years. And that’s a fact,” Biden told a gathering of Jewish leaders in Washington, DC.
In an age when vast amounts of information from a wide range of sources are instantly available online, it can be difficult to sort out what’s reliable, useful, and trustworthy. In response to many inquiries over the years, here are recommended books on five important historical topics: The Second World War, American History, International Relations, Communism, Marxism and the Soviet Union, and, Zionism, US-Israel Relations, and the ‘Jewish Question.’ This listing is neither exhaustive nor final. Additional subject categories and titles are planned, and descriptions may be revised or updated.
We’ve always understood that our work promoting historical awareness and unmasking the enemies of peace and understanding enrages powerful groups that smear us, and keep trying to take us down. We’re not discouraged by the hate campaign against us. We regard it as a badge of honor. They target us because we’re effective. Now we’re up against what may be the greatest threat we’ve ever faced … In spite of such difficulties, we continued throughout the past year to reach a large, global audience … Now, during this time of rampant media bias, new assaults against free speech, routine historical distortion, stifling “political correctness,” and social and racial discord, the need for a vital and effective IHR has never been greater.
On Nov. 27, 2020, Facebook removed the Institute for Historical Review from its popular social media platform. No reason was given for the abrupt measure, but it was hardly a surprise. It came right after the publication of three widely distributed media items that complained that Facebook had still not dropped the IHR. These articles were in line with a decade-old campaign by Jewish-Zionist groups to get social media platforms to remove the IHR and other organizations they regard as harmful to their interests and agenda … People who care about accuracy and fairness in the media should understand the methods used by those who, in the name of “fighting hate,” work to silence voices they don’t like.
Mark Weber, an American historian and director of the Institute for Historical Review, was banned from Britain in April 2015 by order of Theresa May, who later became the country’s Prime Minister. The decision to ban him was “taken personally” by May while she was serving as Home Secretary ... The Home Office finally ... accepted that the reasons for the 2015 exclusion order were insufficient, but cited new justifications to support a continued ban ... Weber explained in some detail just why the new examples of allegedly “unacceptable behavior” presented by the agency to justify a continued ban against him “lack any reasonable basis in fact,” are “weak, unconvincing or irrelevant,” and are “applied in an arbitrary way.” ... May has been one of the most ardently pro-Zionist political figures in modern British history.
… The development of a working philosophy of history is the most urgent, as well as the most difficult, task of Twentieth Century thought … The future will always resemble the past because human nature does not change; men will always be actuated by the same basic desires and motives … The social and political questions of our day are all primarily historical problems. To think about them rationally, we must begin by consulting the record of human experience in the past. And we soon realize that if only we knew enough about history – and understood it – we should have the answers to all our questions.
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American Jews sympathetic to Israel dominate key positions in all areas of our government where decisions are made regarding the Middle East. This being the case, is there any hope of ever changing U.S. policy? ... The answer to achieving an even-handed Middle East policy might lie elsewhere -- among those who support Israel but don't really know why. This group is the vast majority of Americans. They are well-meaning, fair-minded Christians who feel bonded to Israel - and Zionism - often from atavistic feelings, in some cases dating from childhood.
America's leaders understood Japan's desperate position: the Japanese were willing to end the war on any terms, as long as the Emperor was not molested. If the US leadership had not insisted on unconditional surrender -- that is, if they had made clear a willingness to permit the Emperor to remain in place -- the Japanese very likely would have surrendered immediately, thus saving many thousands of lives ... General Curtis LeMay, who had pioneered precision bombing of Germany and Japan (and who later headed the Strategic Air Command and served as Air Force chief of staff), put it most succinctly: "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war."
Nine-Eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe the 9/11 catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president in recent decades had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful and intimidating, but any determined president could prevail and win overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by laying these facts before the American people.
In this five-minute video presentation, IHR director Mark Weber explains the Institute’s mission and record. “We strive to provide factual information and sound perspective on US foreign policy, World War Two, the Israel-Palestine conflict, Middle East history, the Jewish-Zionist role in cultural and political life, the ‘Holocaust’ remembrance campaign, war propaganda, and much more.” The IHR, is also explains, is an “independent educational center and publisher that works to promote peace, understanding and justice through greater public awareness of the past, and especially socially-politically relevant aspects of modern history.”
The most widely anticipated speech ever given by Adolf Hitler was his address of April 28, 1939. It’s also widely regarded, even by his most vehement critics, as perhaps his most impressive address ever. It was a response to a much-publicized message from US President Franklin Roosevelt, who had called on the Chancellor to promise not to attack 31 countries. Broadcast on radio stations around the world, Hitler’s two-hour Reichstag speech was heard by millions. In the US, major radio networks broadcast it live. The next day, it was the leading news item on the front page of every major US daily newspaper. In his address, Hitler laid out his view of Germany’s place in the world, lucidly reviewed his government’s foreign policy objectives and achievements in recent years, and concluded with an eloquent, imposing retort to the US President.
To deal with the massive unemployment and economic paralysis of the Great Depression, both the US and German governments launched innovative and ambitious programs. Although President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” measures helped only marginally, the Third Reich’s much more focused and comprehensive policies proved remarkably effective. Within three years unemployment was banished and Germany’s economy was flourishing. And while Roosevelt’s record in dealing with the Depression is pretty well known, the remarkable story of how Hitler tackled the crisis is not widely understood or appreciated.
... I’m going to try to extract from my experience certain basic sort of tactics that I think the Jewish lobby has used over the years pertaining to my particular situation ... The first and major tactic that I discovered in their attack on me was their reliance on lies -- just straight-up lies. There’s no other way to describe it, just telling lies. Many of the categories that I will enumerate overlap, and many of them could also come under this general rubric of telling lies. But I think that if one had to isolate a single tactic, it was a tactic of telling lies. I think they’ve elevated telling lies to a very high artistic form.
... While it’s an artistic achievement and grand entertainment, “Darkest Hour” is badly flawed history ... “Darkest Hour” reinforces the widespread belief that Churchill’s speeches played a crucial role in sustaining British morale. A scholar who has carefully looked into the matter has found that this view is largely a myth ... “Darkest Hour” reinforces the widely held impression, which Churchill himself encouraged, that an honorable or lasting peace with Hitler was simply not possible. But as he himself later acknowledged, that’s simply not true ... The British leader’s famous “We shall never surrender” speech was little more than “sublime nonsense,” says British historian John Charmley.
A public service ad by the Institute for Historical Review at San Francisco transit stations has generated wide media attention. The electronic display board, which proclaims “History Matters!,” went up on Sept. 3 at two downtown stations, where it’s scheduled to remain until the end of the month. The Bay Area Rapid Transit Authority (BART) has come under criticism for accepting the billboard, but the agency explains that it has no legal basis for rejecting it. The ad has prompted considerable media coverage, including reports by several California daily newspapers, local television stations, Fox News, Jewish community outlets, and other US based media, as well as by three major British newspapers. The “History Matters!” message is very much in keeping with the Institute’s work and purpose, says the IHR director.
We’re looking for a suitable person to join our team here in southern California, on a part-time or full-time basis. He or she will work on publishing and outreach, including social media, and will handle some website formatting, and office tasks. He or she must be able to write and edit with skill and discernment. He or she must have good communication skills, a responsible attitude, initiative, and regard for the ideals and goals of the IHR.
As dawn was breaking on Sunday morning, June 22, 1941, military forces of Germany, Finland and Romania suddenly struck against the Soviet Union. The stunning news of this attack was announced to the world by German radio at 5:30 that Sunday morning, when Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels broadcast the text of a proclamation by Adolf Hitler to the German people that laid out his reasons for the historic offensive. Following that was the broadcast of Germany's declaration of war against the Soviet Union. This was in the form of a diplomatic note to the Soviet government. Because Hitler's proclamation and the German Foreign Office declaration explain at some length the reasons and motives for the fateful decision to strike against the USSR, these are documents of historic importance. With a foreword by Mark Weber.
In line with a recent crackdown policy, YouTube has “restricted” a number of independently produced videos of IHR talks and presentations. To watch a “restricted” video, the viewer must first click through a warning screen. Also, comments on the video are not allowed, and the number of views is not given. Even worse, YouTube will never “suggest” a “restricted” video to viewers, which is how many people find our videos. While YouTube claims that its “restriction” policy is aimed at videos with “inflammatory religious or supremacist content,” applying it to IHR videos is absurd. YouTube restricts our voice not because we have violated any objective standards, or because we have done anything wrong or illegal -- but because it doesn’t like what we say.
... In Andernach about 50,000 [German] prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The women were kept in a separate enclosure that I did not see until later. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets. Many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement ... I encountered a captain on a hill above the Rhine shooting down at a group of German civilian women with his .45 caliber pistol. When I asked, "Why?," he mumbled, "Target practice," and fired until his pistol was empty.
… In August 1941 Hitler permitted a Red Cross delegation to visit the camp for Soviet POWs in Hammerstadt. It is these contacts that resulted in an appeal to the Soviet government, requesting that it should send food parcels for our officers and men. We are prepared to fulfill and comply with the norms of the Geneva convention, Moscow said in its reply, but sending food in the given situation and under fascist control is the same as making presents to the enemy … How great was Stalin's hatred for those who had found themselves behind enemy lines. It made no difference: who, where, how and why? Even the dead were considered to be criminals.
The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 was more than the first major military clash of the 20th century. Pitting as it did the might of the globe-girdling British Empire, backed by international finance, against a small pioneering nation of independent-minded farmers, ranchers and merchants in southern Africa who lived by the Bible and the rifle, its legacy continues to resonate today. The Boers' recourse to irregular warfare, and Britain's response in herding a hundred thousand women and children into concentration camps foreshadowed the horrors of guerilla warfare and mass detention of innocents that have become emblematic of the 20th century.
The German soldiers of World War II have often been portrayed, both during the war and in the decades since, as simple-minded, unimaginative and brutish ... As specialists of military history who have looked into the matter agree, the men of Germany’s armed forces -- the Wehrmacht -- performed with unmatched ability and resourcefulness throughout the nearly six years of conflict ... High-ranking British military figures were similarly impressed with the skill, tenacity and daring of their adversaries. “Unfortunately we are fighting the best soldiers in the world – what men!,” exclaimed Lt. Gen. Sir Harold Alexander, commander of the 15th Army Group in Italy, in a March 1944 report to London.
… Little as we know about the events of the future, one thing is certain: the moving forces of the futures will be none other than those of the past – the will of the stronger, healthy instincts, race, will to property, and power.; Society is based on the inequality of men. This is a fact of nature.; Who would have thought that history lessons and the political education of the people are one and the same?; The great man lives in such a way that his existence is a sacrifice to his idea.; This is our task: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us, this reality with which fate has surrounded us; to live in such a way that we be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.; The essence of religion is perhaps most clearly recognized in what it does not tolerate.
How accurate is this hallowed portrayal of America's role in World War II? As we shall see, it does not hold up under close examination ... The three Allied leaders accomplished what they accused the Axis leaders of Germany, Italy and Japan of conspiring to achieve: world domination ... Presidential deception to justify war did not start with George W. Bush. Americans who express admiration for the US role in World War II, and for Franklin Roosevelt's presidential leadership, have little moral right to complain when presidents follow his example and lead the country into war by breaking the law, subverting the Constitution, and lying to the people.
The grim fate of the 15 million German civilians who found themselves trapped in the path of the Red Army in the closing months of World War II, or on the wrong side of the re-drawn postwar borders, is not a topic that has tended to excite the interest of historians. And the general public, which is subjected to constant reminders about wartime Nazi brutality, is certainly not aware that at least two million Germans lost their lives in the course of flight and mass expulsion from their ancestral homes in Eastern Europe. Alfred de Zayas, a graduate of Harvard Law School who earned a doctorate in history at the University of Göttingen in Germany, has devoted much of his professional career to setting the record straight.
... I learned that the Office of State Security [in Poland] ran 227 prisons for German civilians like Lola's. It also ran 1,255 concentration camps, and I interviewed four of the commandants. They were also Jews ... He picked up a wooden stool and he started beating the Germans to death. For this one camp, I found the death certificates for 1,583 Germans. In other camps and other prisons, thousands of German civilians died. German men, women, children, babies. At one camp there was a barracks for fifty babies.
… The American public has long thought of the Allied effort in World War II as a “great crusade” that pitted good and decency against Nazi evil. Even after all these years, it is likely that the last thing the public wants to learn is that vast and unspeakable wrongs were committed by both the Western Allies and the Soviet Union during the war and its aftermath. It flies in the face of that reluctance for MacDonogh to tell “the brutal history” at great length [in his book, After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation]. That willingness is commendable for its intellectual bravery.
... Even many of those who readily acknowledge the tremendous influence of American film and television seem not to fully comprehend the formidable scope of the power behind Hollywood, or the outlook and agenda of those who wield that power ... Hollywood, together with the rest of the Jewish-Zionist dominated US media, sensationalizes and distorts current events, systematically falsifies history, promotes debased “entertainment” and perverse cultural standards, and makes possible the Jewish-Zionist hold on American political life ...
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, based in Los Angeles, is one of the most influential Jewish organizations in the world ... Although it claims to promote "tolerance," and makes a pretense of concern for humanity, the Center's real agenda is a narrowly Jewish-Zionist one. The Wiesenthal Center is a staunch supporter of Israel and its Jewish supremacist regime. It fervently defends Israel’s policies of oppression, occupation, dispossession, and institutionalized discrimination against non-Jews.
Fraudulent quotations attributed to Hitler and other Third Reich leaders have been widely circulated for years. Such quotes are often used by polemicists -- of both the left and the right -- to discredit their ideological adversaries by showing that Nazis held similar views. Here's a look at a few of the many remarks falsely attributed to Hitler and other top Nazis.
... If I'm known for anything as a historian, apart from being a pain in the neck, it's because I uncover things. And uncovering things does not necessarily mean you go into the archives and see something and say: "Look at this, this is something quite extraordinary." If you go into the archives long enough, ten or twenty years, you become what I would call a "gap-ologist" ... Now what a scandalous statement that is! Here's the one country, Germany, trying to prevent anwar and the other country -- Roosevelt, neutral -- trying to fan the flames of anti-German feeling to fuel the war. Yet it is the Germans who are called the criminals, and the Americans who do the prosecuting.
NEWS AND COMMENT
More than 100 former Israeli diplomats and ambassadors on Wednesday signed a letter to incoming prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning of damage to Israel’s global standing if the new government implements hard-right policies. In the letter … the signatories expressed “profound concern at the serious damage to Israel’s foreign relations, its international standing and its core interests abroad emanating from what will apparently be the policy of the incoming government.” … The former Foreign Ministry employees said they were concerned about a backlash that could harm Israel’s alliance with the US and undo the progress of the Abraham Accords normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. They also warned Israel could face sanctions and prosecution in international courts.
The United Nations General Assembly approved on Friday a resolution requesting the International Court of Justice to weigh in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israeli “annexation” and the “legal status of the occupation.” The resolution passed by a vote of 87 in favor, 26 against, with 53 abstentions. The resolution is titled “Israeli practices and settlement activities affecting the rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories,” and calls on the Hague-based ICJ to “render urgently an advisory opinion” on Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory.” It also calls for an investigation into Israeli measures “aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem,” and says Israel has adopted “discriminatory legislation and measures.”
More than 330 American rabbis, including some who occupy prominent roles in major cities, are pledging to block far-right members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s incoming government from speaking at their synagogues, and will lobby to keep them from speaking in their communities. An open letter said they will not invite members of the far-right parties “to speak at our congregations and organizations. We will speak out against their participation in other fora across our communities … The letter’s uncompromising tone and the breadth of the signatories is a signal of a burgeoning crisis in relations between Israel and the US Jewish community triggered by the elevation of the far-right parties.
Top economist Nouriel Roubini has painted a gloomy picture on what 2023 has in store for the global economy. In an interview with the Financial Times, Roubini, often dubbed "Dr Doom" for his pessimistic predictions, said a convergence of old and new problems pose risks to the world. “I think that really the world is on a slow-motion train wreck. There are major new threats that did not exist before, and they're building up and we're doing very little about it," he said … He warned that the oncoming economic downturn will be severe. "No, this is not going to be a short and shallow recession, it's going to be deep and protracted," he said … Earlier this month, Roubini sounded the alarm on potential stock market losses given the likelihood of a US recession. He predicted the S&P 500 could crash as much as 25% if the US economy contracts next year.
Fraudulent claims of college degrees, a non-existent real estate portfolio, and confusion over whether he's Jewish - or merely "Jew-ish" - are just some of the controversies New York Republican congressman-elect George Santos is facing just days before he's due to be sworn in on 3 January. Before winning his race in the November midterm election, the 34-year-old billed himself as "the full embodiment of the American dream": An openly gay child of Brazilian immigrants who rose to the upper echelons of Wall Street before entering the world of politics. His victory lap, however, has been short-lived. Mr Santos's narrative of his life has fallen into tatters, with the embattled soon-to-be representative admitting that large portions of it were entirely made up. He now faces calls to resign amid federal and local investigations …
Israel could launch a military offensive targeting Iran’s nuclear sites within a two to three-year timeframe, Defense Minister Benny Gantz told a class of graduating Israeli Air Force cadets on Wednesday, boasting that the country had “significantly increased its preparedness in recent years and is preparing for the possibility of an attack on Iran.” Outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid clarified that such an attack would be a response to “threats that we see as existential” … Israel’s longest-serving prime minister until he was unseated last year, Netanyahu is a committed Iran hawk who has been predicting the Islamic Republic would have a nuclear bomb within three years since 1992. Israel’s own military intelligence forecast does not include Tehran getting the bomb anytime soon, however.
The Austrian city of Linz said Thursday it planned to rename a street honoring [Ferdinand Porsche] the founder of the luxury carmaker Porsche after a commission probing controversial names found his Nazi past “problematic.” The renaming of streets and other public places is still a hotly debated issue in Austria — Adolf Hitler’s birthplace — which Nazi Germany annexed in 1938 and which long cast itself as a victim. Only in the past three decades has the country begun to seriously examine its role in the Holocaust, which saw the murder of about a third of Austria’s Jewish population of 200,000. The Porscheweg and three other streets are to be renamed in Linz …
… Americans collectively owe over $31 trillion … This staggering amount constrains our economic flexibility. In just a few years, paying interest on the debt will take up more of our budget than the military. As the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to fight inflation, newly elected politicians must recognize how our decades-long spending spree simply isn’t sustainable. This year, the U.S. added another $1.4 trillion to the debt … And yet, despite high interest rates and a mounting debt, the Biden administration keeps on spending. The administration’s recent attempt to pass off billions of privately held student loan debt onto the taxpayer displays a stunning lack of attention to our revenue shortfalls. Attempting to repay private debts by borrowing more money is a scheme only a politician could entertain.
If a prize was to be awarded for the most important yet least reported story in the media in 2022, it might well go to the news outlets that failed to report on the escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians, which is now combining with the likely impact of the incoming far-right government in Israel. The explanation for the neglect is domination of the news agenda by the war in Ukraine and, more culpably, fear by part of the media that any criticism of Israel will be attacked as anti-Semitic … Only in the last few weeks have the implications of what is happening in Israel and the occupied territories begun to sink in abroad.
Israel is in the process of putting together an aggressively racist rightwing government under the leadership of the unprincipled Benjamin Netanyahu. This is not the first such repugnant government Israelis have elected. Indeed, at least three prior times in its short history, the Israeli Jewish electorate has chosen ideologically committed fanatics (in those cases, having the additional allure of terrorist pasts), as their leaders: Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon, and Menachem Begin. Nor were these judgments of the electorate exceptions that were somehow contrary to Israel’s national character … Apartheid is not something the Israeli Jews just woke up to one morning. It is their historical choice … Zionism’s goal has always been acquisition of all of Palestine with as few Palestinians in residence as possible.
Dozens of right-wing lawmakers from both the presumed incoming coalition and its opponents on Wednesday called a leaked European Union document formulating a new program to protect Palestinian claims in the West Bank an “extremely grave breach” of the EU-Israel relationship. In a letter to top EU officials, the Knesset members effectively accused the Europeans of antisemitism and of dismissing historical Jewish ties to the West Bank. “We were apparently mistaken in thinking that racist, religious hatred of Jews and Israel was a thing of the past,” read the missive, signed by 40 MKs … The letter called on the EU to halt illegal construction in areas under Israeli control, stop activities that damage heritage sites and nature in the West Bank, and desist from funding NGOs that seek to delegitimize Israel.
The vast majority of the public believe that Britain has not regained control of its borders since Brexit, according to a new Observer poll that suggests that most do not think leaving the EU has improved the UK’s ability to manage immigration. According to the latest Opinium poll, 73% think the UK has not been in control of its borders since Brexit. Only 12% think Britain has been in control … The poll comes as the government is facing a crisis over its management of asylum seekers and refugees crossing the Channel to reach the UK … The scandal appears to have had a serious impact on public opinion, with only 7% of respondents thinking that the government is in control of the situation in the English Channel.
Has Germany reached the limits of its so-called “welcome culture?” A new poll shows a large majority of Germans reject the left-wing government’s immigration policy, with more than two-thirds of respondents (68.3 percent) saying they were concerned about the increasing numbers of asylum seekers. The Insa poll, commissioned by Bild newspaper, shows that only 23.5 percent of respondents have a “relaxed” view of the immigration numbers facing the country. Despite growing opposition to mass immigration, the left-wing government is pursuing a number of initiatives to open the country to up to 500,000 migrants per year, relaxing citizenship laws, and a general amnesty that could see two million illegal immigrants become citizens overnight. The country has already taken in over 1.2 million migrants in 2022 alone …
Germany’s coalition government is working on making it easier for migrants to become German citizens, according to local reports. German newspaper Bild reported on Friday that the Interior Ministry was working on a draft law that would allow foreigners residing in Germany to apply for naturalization after five years instead of eight … Children born in Germany to foreign parents would automatically be granted citizenship if one parent has had “legal habitual residence” in Germany for five years. Ministers from Germany's 16 states have previously called on the federal government to speed up the process of children born to foreigners living in Germany becoming German citizens.
German students in the fourth grade are increasingly worse off in mathematics and German, with the negative trend playing out in every single German state, according to a new study published by the government. However, this drop-off in performance, which has hit its worst levels ever, is most dramatic among children with an immigrant background … The study also acknowledges that the worst results are from students with an immigrant background. An astounding 38 percent of all children in elementary schools in Germany have migrant backgrounds, pointing to the massive demographic shift already underway in the country. In cities like Hamburg, the majority of students have a migrant background. The country’s radical immigration policy in place since 2016 has resulted in millions more migrants in the country …
Adidas recently pledged over $1 million to the ADL, enabling the organization to create “a new anti-bigotry curriculum for student athletes … and to more widely disseminate its educational efforts.” This is deeply ironic, given that the ADL has a long history of bigotry and support for discrimination. ADL is a self-proclaimed “worldwide leader in anti-bias education” and “a relentless advocate for vulnerable communities of all kinds.” It claims a reputation for “unquestioned credibility.” While this may sound like a worthy institution with a noble cause, ADL has for decades generated programs and curricula tainted with bigotry.
A North Carolina professor has claimed that he was fired from a prestigious high school for criticizing critical race theory in a Friday lawsuit, according to a report from Fox 17 WZTV. In the suit, filed by legal the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal advocacy group, Dr. David Phillips alleges that the Governor’s School of North Carolina (NCGS), a publicly funded summer program, fired him without explanation after he criticized the school’s embrace of “racially divisive ideology.” … The lawsuit states that Phillips was met with “open hostility” following the conclusion of each lecture by both students and staff. It also claims that audience members “attacked whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality and Christianity” …
Five statements made over a period of a few days by high level government officials received very little media attention. When combined, though, they produce a pattern that could make headlines … The comments of Mullen, Milley, Kissinger and the unnamed European officials join the four statements made by Macron, Scholtz, Johnson and Blinken within a nine day period, and the advice given Zelensky by Sullivan, in a pattern that suggests the possibility of a break with Zelensky’s preconditions for negotiations. The pattern that emerges suggests a new openness to the possibility of negotiations that include discussions of both the status of Crimea and the Donbas and Russia’s security concerns regarding NATO and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia.
Bethlehem is in the Palestinian West Bank, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. It is encircled by a wall erected by Israel in 2002. All entrances and exits are controlled by armed Israeli soldiers. Israeli forces regularly invade the area, beating and abducting residents. Israeli forces sometimes kill them, including prominent Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh, from a Christian family from Bethlehem. Due to the influence of the Israel lobby, U.S. taxpayers give Israel over $10 million per day. The churches shown at the end of the video are the Church of the Nativity and Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Runtime: 1:53 mins.
Business is bouncing back in Bethlehem after two years in the doldrums during the coronavirus pandemic, lifting spirits in the traditional birthplace of Jesus ahead of the Christmas holiday. Streets are bustling with tour groups. Hotels are fully booked, and months of deadly Israeli-Palestinian fighting appears to be having little effect on the vital tourism industry. Elias Arja, head of the Bethlehem Hotel Association, said that tourists are hungry to visit the Holy Land’s religious sites after suffering through lockdowns and travel restrictions in recent years. He expects the rebound to continue into next year … A giant Christmas tree sparkled in the adjacent Manger Square, and tourists packed into shops to buy olive wood crosses and other souvenirs. Christmas is normally peak season for tourism in Bethlehem, located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank …
As Christians around the world look to the Advent season, preparations are in full swing in the place where it all started, Bethlehem, to celebrate that one story that lies at the heart of all Christian traditions. But as heartfelt and festive as Christmas season may be, reality for people in Palestine today remains one of life under occupation. “As Palestinians, we have an incredibly rich history, culture and heritage,” says Saleem Anfous who lives with his family – his wife Lubna and their three daughters – in Beit Sahour in the Bethlehem Governorate of Palestine. “But despite all the joys of that heritage, we live under occupation, and this inevitably affects our identity as Palestinians too,” he says. Saleem and his wife Lubna rejoice in the fact that Christmas is approaching …
As concerns mount over Israel’s new hardline government, believed to be the most right-wing and nationalistic in the country’s history, church leaders in the Holy Land have lamented increased discrimination against the Christian community and urged youth not to leave … “In this regard, we express our special concern for those faithful who remain as the Christian remnant in the land of our Lord’s birth,” they said, noting that Christians living in the Holy Land in recent years “have increasingly faced assaults on their free exercise of religion.” These assaults, they said, include “attacks against their person, defamation of their churches and cemeteries, unwarranted restrictions against their attendance in worship, and legal threats against their possession and management of church properties.”
New budget estimates show that the growth of the national debt is worse than previously thought. In May, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office released projections that the national debt will hit 110% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product by 2032. With interest rates increasing and GDP growing more slowly, a leading budget group has released more dire projections. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget raised the alarm, saying that the federal debt will be 116% of GDP in 2032 but could reach as high as 138% of GDP in 10 years. The group said that “costly legislative and executive actions” have worsened the debt-to-GDP ratio since CBO’s May estimate … The U.S. Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates to deal with soaring inflation, making all debt more costly, including that held by the federal government.
… Outstanding US debt increased to $30.5 trillion from $19.8 trillion between 2017 and the second quarter of 2022. … If [interest] rates continue to rise, even as inflation falls, this will impose big costs on the government and potentially tax payers. The Congressional Budget Office calculated that if 10-year rates gradually rise to 4.6%, then servicing the debt will cost 7.2% of GDP by 2052. It was only 1.6% of GDP last year and hasn’t exceeded 3.2% since 1960. We should be so lucky. Interest rates already far exceed the CBO’s 2021 forecast, and are going up much faster. If rates rise to their historical average — above 5% — servicing the debt will cost far more.
The Christmas Truce of the First World War has become a legendary story. The romantic image of enemies shaking hands in the middle of no man’s land, or playing football between the trenches, reoccurs again and again in popular culture. But how much of it is true? What do we really know about this moment of peace in a brutal war? The photographs, letters and interviews in IWM’s collection tell the real story of the Christmas Truce. In this video, Head of Documents and Sound Anthony Richards explains how the truce came about, its impact on the course of the First World War and why it never happened again after 1914. Runtimes: 12 mins.
As the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia continues to grow more strained, President Biden keeps arriving at Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s door with gifts to court the kingdom back. And the relationship continues to grow more strained … Saudi Arabia is not trying to break up with the US, but they are trying to balance their relationship to align it with a world that has changed. The most significant sign of Saudi Arabia’s coming out in the multipolar world is their September 2021 admission as a dialogue partner in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The SCO is the world’s second largest international organization, after the UN, and includes Russia, China and India. Its primary purpose is to rebalance the US led unipolar world into a multipolar world.
Christmas is celebrated by soldiers at the front and by families at home. From the World War II German weekly newsreel, “Die Deutsche Wochenschau,” of Dec. 21, 1942. German-language narration. The concluding background choral music is "Hohe Nacht der Klaren Sterne." Runtime: 10:34 mins.
… Washington is sitting atop a monster $30.5 trillion national debt that keeps growing larger and larger. Economists have previously assured us that our ability to print unlimited quantiles, and the world’s willingness to accept this fiat money, meant that our huge deficits and run amok borrowing did not really matter … Governments create inflation and benefit from it. Inflation is a form of taxation that increases their revenue and lowers their debts (they pay back borrowing in depreciated currency) … Forty percent of Americans pay no income tax, meaning that sixty percent must support them. America has ended up, like France, with a permanent underclass that lives off the fat of the land … America’s big cities have also fallen prey to a permanent welfare class that holds the urban areas hostage.
… According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), interest on the national debt is already on track to consume 40 percent of the federal budget by 2052 and will surpass defense spending by 2029! … The federal government’s fiscal picture is made worse by the fact that the Social Security “Trust Fund” will begin to run deficits by 2035 while the Medicare Trust Fund will run deficits by 2028 … Also, if the Fed continues to facilitate federal deficits by monetizing the debt, the result will be an economic crisis caused by a collapse in the dollar’s value and rejection of the dollar’s world reserve status.
Sam Bankman-Fried and two of his close colleagues at the now-bankrupt FTX donated nearly $80 million to political candidates and causes, but those who received the money may have to return it as the company tries to pay back its creditors. That’s because bankruptcy courts often let companies claw back the money that they have given to others in the two years prior to filing for bankruptcy, according to Yesha Yadav, a law professor at Vanderbilt University with expertise in financial and securities regulation. Sometimes, that period is longer than two years, she said. Even the political candidates who received money from Sam Bankman-Fried and told USA Today that they have donated the money to charity or plan to donate it to charity could be forced to give it back, Yadav said.
Outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid led a series of protests on Friday against the presumed incoming government, calling it the “most extremist and insane government in our history.” Supporters of Yesh Atid, the party led by Lapid, gathered on bridges and at roundabouts throughout the country to demonstrate against the incoming government, with tens of thousands attending, according to the party, although independent numbers were not available. The sharp comments came with Netanyahu seemingly closing in on putting together a government and amid ongoing criticism from his political rivals, who accuse him of carving up key agencies for his right-religious allies while negotiating from a weakened position due to his ongoing corruption trial.
To the onlooker, Israel is visibly changing. The shift is most conspicuous from the outside: the world sees a western liberal democracy moving with alarming speed towards ultra-nationalism, fundamentalism, racism, fascism and the breakdown of democratic structures as a result of the recent election. While correct, this view is also distorted. It assumes that until now, Israel was indeed a western democracy, and that it is now visibly becoming something else. The truth, however, is less about Israel fundamentally changing, and more about it shedding its masks and disguises … The new government will force the West to look at Israel and admit, at least to itself: this is an apartheid state … Maybe the West will finally understand that there is no legal or moral difference between the occupation in Ukraine and the occupation in Palestine …
I have the honor to discuss an historical event in which I played a personal role, the notorious Sedition Trial of 1944 ... Some of what I have to tell is merely personal recollection while some is indisputable fact. Historians must make these distinctions. I write here as a witness to history ... I have no regrets about the Sedition Trial ... For the sake of the historical record, I would still like to see the U.S. Congress acknowledge that an injustice was done against 30 American citizens in the Sedition Case. Not one of us ever received a penny in compensation for our mistreatment and expenses, much less any official acknowledgment that our government made a serious mistake.
A German court on Tuesday convicted a 97-year-old woman of being an accessory to murder in over 10,000 cases for her role as a secretary to the SS commander of the Nazis' Stutthof concentration camp during the Second World War. Irmgard Furchner was accused of being part of the apparatus that helped the camp function. The Itzehoe state court in northern Germany gave her a two-year suspended sentence, German news agency dpa reported … The verdict and sentence were in line with prosecutors' demands. Defence lawyers had asked for their client to be acquitted, arguing that the evidence hadn't shown beyond doubt that Furchner knew about the systematic killings at the camp, meaning there was no proof of intent as required for criminal liability.
The city of Richmond — the capital of the Confederacy for most of the Civil War — removed its last city-owned Confederate statue Monday, more than two years after it began to purge itself of what many saw as painful symbols of racial oppression. It took just minutes to free the statue of Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill from its base before a crane using yellow straps looped under the statue’s arms lifted it onto a bed of tires on a flatbed truck. After the statue was removed, the crew got to work removing the base. Several dozen people, including neighbors and some of Hill’s indirect descendants as well as supporters and opponents of the removal, stood in the closed intersection watching the crew work. Richmond removed its other Confederate monuments amid the racial justice protests that followed George Floyd’s killing in 2020.
German officials arrested 22 suspected members and three suspected supporters of a far-right terrorist organization across the country on Wednesday [Dec. 7] on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. Alleged members of the plot include a descendant of German royalty and a former far-right member of the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, according to German prosecutors and local media reports. In a statement, the German federal prosecutor’s office said an estimated 50 people were suspected to have been part of the group called Reich Citizens (Reichsbürger) movement, founded no later than November 2021, who were plotting to overthrow the government and replace it with their own order.
The second installment of Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” dropped Thursday night and reveals how the social media giant was secretly “blacklisting” conservative tweets and users. Independent journalist Bari Weiss detailed in a series of posts how Twitter used so-called “shadow banning” to limit the visibility of tweets coming from far-right users. Conservative talk show host Dan Bongino, Stanford University’s anti-COVID lockdown advocate Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and right-wing activist Charlie Kirk were among the users targeted for suppression by Twitter, according to Weiss. The former New York Times and Wall Street Journal writer said the blacklists were built “in secret” and “without informing users.”
Elon Musk on Thursday evening confirmed that conservatives were banned from Twitter despite not violating any policies, as the latest installment of the Twitter Files showed the scale of censorship and 'visibility filtering' on the social media platform. Musk, who bought Twitter in October for $44 billion, vowed to end the practice of 'shadow banning' - secretly downgrading a person's tweets or trending themes, to minimize their reach … Musk, 51, singled out Yoel Roth, the global head of trust and safety, who wrote in internal messages that he wanted more creative ways of censoring and muffling specific accounts and content. `Former head of censorship at Twitter was perhaps not entirely unbiased,' Musk said, accompanied by a screenshot of a 2017 tweet in which Roth said there were 'actual Nazis in the White House'.
France’s greatest living author Michel Houellebecq says Europe will be “swept away” by mass migration, adding that he was “shocked” that the ‘great replacement’ is treated as a conspiracy theory. Houellebecq made the comments during a conversation with French philosopher Michel Onfray. “The Great Replacement, I was shocked it’s called a theory. It’s not a theory, it’s a fact,” said Houellebecq. “When it comes to immigration, nobody controls anything, that’s the whole problem. Europe will be swept away by this cataclysm.” Onfray agreed with him, asserting, “It’s objectively what the figures say,” in relation to the issue of massive demographic change … A poll taken in April last year found that the majority of French citizens thought some form of “civil war” was likely as a result of failed multiculturalism and attacks on French identity.
Buckingham Palace has refused to be drawn into the debate over the royal family’s private archives amid mounting pressure to release historical documents following the publication [in July 2015] of a video showing the Queen performing a Nazi salute in the 1930s. As palace aides launched an inquiry on Sunday into the leak of the 17-second home movie, the royal family refused to bow to calls from MPs and leading historians to open up the British monarchy’s official archives … The black-and-white footage is believed to have been filmed by the Queen’s father, the future King George VI, on the family’s Balmoral estate in Scotland in 1933 or 1934. It shows the future Queen – then aged six or seven – raising her right hand in the air as the Queen Mother does the same. The group were apparently being encouraged by the future King Edward VIII.
... Edward VIII's sympathies were not unusual for someone of his class and status at the time. Much of Europe, and particularly Germany, had descended into chaos in the aftermath of the First World War. The first years of the Nazi regime however, saw relative stability return to Germany. For aristocrats and royalty living in England the Nazis, at least from the outside, represented stability and a buffer from Communism ... Some historians have gone even further in their depictions of Edward VIII's sympathies for the Nazis. In a book published earlier this year, the German historian Karina Urbach claims that Edward VIII was a severe anti-Semite who blamed the Jews for the outbreak of the war and hoped that Germany would ultimately beat Britain into submission ... Support for fascism was far from exceptional in 1930s Britain.
Britain’s former King Edward VIII visited Third Reich Germany for twelve days in October 1937, when he and his American-born wife met with Hitler and other high-ranking officials. Edward served as King from January to December 1936, but abdicated to marry Wallace Simpson, who had been divorced. Thereafter, and until his death in 1972, he was known as the Duke of Windsor. Runtime: 1:58 mins.
... Was the decision to declare war on the United States, effectively relieving the Roosevelt administration of the responsibility of mobilizing American sentiment for war in Europe, among Hitler’s greatest blunders? Probably not. Washington and Berlin agreed that war was inevitable; the only question was who would fire the first shots. The United States and Germany were at war in all but name well before December 1941 ... Germany declared war on the United States not out of a fit of pique, but rather because it believed that the United States was already effectively a belligerent, and that wider operations against the U.S. would help win the war. In particular, the Axis declaration of war enabled an operation that the Germans believed was key to driving Britain out of the conflict; a concerted submarine attack against U.S. commercial shipping.
Here is the complete text of Hitler’s historic address of Dec. 11, 1941, in which the German leader recounts the reasons for the outbreak of war in September 1939, explains why he decided to strike against the Soviet Union in June 1941, reviews the dramatic course of the war thus far, and deals at length with US President Roosevelt's hostile policies toward Germany. Hitler details the US government’s increasingly belligerent actions against Germany and Italy, and concludes by announcing that Germany was now joining Japan in war against the United States.
… The suicide rate for people aged 10 to 19 increased in 2020, compared with before the pandemic. More recently, CDC provisional data for 2021 showed an increase in the national rate from 2020 to 2021, especially for people ages 15 to 24. In other research, the CDC found nearly 45 percent of high school students were so persistently sad or hopeless in 2021 they were unable to engage in regular activities. Almost 1 in 5 seriously considered suicide, and 9 percent of the teenagers surveyed by the CDC tried to take their lives during the previous 12 months … Family upheaval, meanwhile, was widespread, particularly in the early pandemic: Nearly 30 percent of students said an adult in their home had lost a job, and 24 percent said they went hungry for a lack of food.
The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly backs a resolution urging Israel to give up its nuclear weapons and join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). During its meeting on Wednesday, 149 voted in favor and six against the text of a resolution whose earlier version had been approved in the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee in October with a 152-5 vote … The resolution urges Israel “not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons” and to “renounce possession of nuclear weapons.” … Only Israel voted against a resolution calling for the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, a text that had the support of 175 out of the UN 193 nations while the US and Singapore abstained.
The White House will address rising anti-Semitism in a roundtable event with Jewish leaders on Wednesday focused on attacks against Jews across the United States and how to combat hate … The move comes as reports of anti-Semitism have increased nationwide … “I just want to make a few things clear: The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting anti-Semitism wherever it hides. Silence is complicity," Biden, a Democrat, said in a Twitter post Friday.
Over the centuries, rage and hostility against Jews has repeatedly erupted in terrible violence. Again and again, Jews have been driven out of countries where they’d been living. Why does anti-Semitism exist? And why has furious hostility toward Jews broken out, again and again, in the most varied nations, eras and cultures? ... Anti-Semitism is not a mysterious “disease.” As Herzl and Weizmann suggested, and as history shows, what is often called anti-Semitism is the natural and understandable attitude of people toward a minority with particularist loyalties that wields greatly disproportionate power for its own interests, rather than for the common good.
This important work focuses on the phenomenon of anti–Semitism, and explains why hostility toward Jews has persisted over the centuries in a wide range of cultures and societies. This scholarly book – with source notes, bibliography, and index – is the second in an important trilogy by Kevin MacDonald, a professor of psychology at California State University at Long Beach. In a review published in the IHR’s Journal of Historical Review, Peter Harrison wrote of this book: “One would have to go back at least 50 years to find anything comparable to this extraordinary work. It is serious, exhaustively researched, and relentlessly factual.”
Israeli historian Shay Hazkani has said that the Israel State Archive’s refusal to release written material looted from the Palestinians on the pretext that this would “undermine national security” is actually “cover for a completely different fear.” He believes that the tens of thousands of documents looted by Israel during the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population in 1947/48 will, if made available, completely undermine the Zionist narrative about the founding of the occupation state … One of the many false claims spread by Israel's founders was that the Palestinians wanted to “throw the Jews into the sea.” Hazkani has found no calls for murdering Jews just because they were Jews in either Arab propaganda or the educational material aimed at Palestinians and Arab fighters in 1948.
... Because the myth of Israel's birth was so closely linked to the horrors of the Holocaust, to question its truth was for years as unthinkable as doubting the truth of the Holocaust itself. But today a new breed of historians is challenging much of that myth. Palestinian and other Arab scholars, Western Middle East specialists, and non-Zionist Jews such as Elmer Berger, Alfred Lilienthal, and Norman Finkelstein have already published well-documented refutations of the official version of Israel's history. The current debunking process, however, is being carried out for the first time by Israeli Jews a younger generation of historians with impeccable credentials as Zionists, patriotic Israelis and scholars.
Miko Peled, son of a prominent Israeli military leader and author of “The General's Son,” takes a harshly critical look at the mythologized Zionist narrative of Jewish history, including the founding of the Israeli state, Israel’s wars, and the “peace negotiations” with Palestinians. Peled speaks to an audience in Seattle, Oct. 1, 2012. Runtime: 68 minutes.
... The Balfour Declaration reflected in some part the sincere Christian Zionism of Prime Minister David Lloyd George and of Balfour himself. Far more important, however, was the considerable political influence of British Zionists under the able leadership of Chaim Weizmann, and of American Zionists led by Louis Brandeis, a close advisor to President Woodrow Wilson ... Neither Britain nor Zionists had the right to dictate the fate of Palestine. Even at the time, many Britons denounced the double dealing and contempt for indigenous people that underlay the Balfour Declaration ... Today there can be no excuse for celebrating this sordid chapter in settler-colonialist injustice, especially in light of the ongoing nakba: the catastrophe that Palestine’s “non-Jewish communities” continue to suffer in consequence.
Despite initial silence, Iran’s political elites — from a former president to senior clerics and members of the Supreme Leader’s family — have gradually challenged the government’s repressive policies. Several called for dialogue with demonstrators and compromises on issues of personal freedoms. Their statements reflected the growing outrage, even among long-time regime insiders, over the brutal crackdown on protesters, which led to the arrest of more than 18,000 and trials that handed down the death sentence during the first three months. “Recognize the wrong aspects of governance and move towards good governance before it is too late,” warned former President Mohammad Khatami … The sister and niece of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared that the regime had turned into a ruthless dictatorship.