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Timely and Relevant: More Than Ever
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IHR News & Views
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Why I Survived the A-Bomb
Akira Kohchi
Hiroshima native Kohchi was a 16-year-old schoolboy when his city was devastated by the first nuclear attack in history. He tells the dramatic, personal story of how he experienced and survived the bombing, and provides a moving account of his search for his family through the burning rubble of the doomed city. Then Kohchi recalls how, years later, he forced himself to come to grips with his past and uncover the facts about the bombing and the history the led up to it. The author’s frankness and humane spirit make this a first-hand Japanese account of a war crime that dwarfs almost all others. A unique revisionist classic. Praised by the Japan Times newspaper as a “noteworthy” and “authentic” personal account, and by Bookwatch newsletter as a “moving, gripping account.” With full color dust jacket, photos and notes
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Straight Talk About Zionism
Mark Weber
… A Zionist Jew, by definition, owes his primary loyalty to the Jewish community and to Israel. Zionism is not compatible with patriotism to any country or entity other than Israel and the world Jewish community … Zionist Jews and their non-Jewish supporters embrace a blatant double standard. Jewish-Zionist organizations, along with their non-Jewish allies, support one social-political ideology for Israel and the world Jewish community, and a completely different one for the United States and other non-Jewish countries. They insist that ethnic nationalism is evil and bad for non-Jews, while at the same time they vigorously support ethnic nationalism — that is, Zionism — for Jews.
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Machinations of the Anti-Defamation League
Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey, Jr.
I was in politics for fifteen years, and I think you should start with the assumption: never trust a politician … When people finally learn the truth, they turn against those who have been lying to them. And I think that if the movement of which you people are the cutting edge can retain dispassion in the face of outrages, setbacks and humiliations, the truth can ultimately prevail. You are doing something worse than criticizing the government of the United States; you’re threatening the security of the state of Israel. And the Jewish community is dedicated to preserve that state, and to destroy those who speak against it. Good luck!
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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,” Joe Biden told a gathering of Jewish leaders in Washington, DC … “Behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those [major social-political] changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media, are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense … And, I might add, it is all to the good,” he went on.
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… 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.
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The Spanish Inquisition and the Jewish Question
Brian Chalmers
It is nearly impossible to dig into any chapter of Jewish history without uncovering lessons for our own age. Spain during the 15th and 16th centuries is a particularly striking example. Even today, our view of this period, and particularly of the Spanish Inquisition, colors our attitudes regarding relations between Jews and non-Jews. The Inquisition is considered one of Jewish history’s darkest chapters — and one of Christian history’s most shameful.
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Suggested Reading: A Study Guide
Mark Weber
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.
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YouTube Censors 'Restrict' IHR Videos
Institute for Historical Review
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.
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How Hitler Tackled Unemployment
Mark Weber
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.
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Why Germany Attacked the Soviet Union
Institute for Historical Review
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.
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The Civil War Concentration Camps
Mark Weber
No aspect of the American Civil War left behind a greater legacy of bitterness and acrimony than the treatment of prisoners of war. “Andersonville” still conjures up images of horror unmatched in American History. And although Northern partisans still invoke the infamous Southern camp to defame the Confederacy, the Union had its share of equally horrific camps. Prison camps on both sides produced scenes of wretched, disease-ridden and emaciated prisoners as repulsive as any to come out of the Second World War … In addition to camps for captured soldiers, the North also established concentration camps for civilian populations considered hostile to the Federal government.
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On the Importance of Revisionism For Our Time
Murray Rothbard
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.
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More than once I have come across the view that if British lads of the 1940s could have foreseen the state of their country today, they would never have bothered to fight the Second World War. Few of those who have heard that view may realize that there is empirical evidence to support it … The prevailing tone of their letters is one of bitterness over what had become of the county they once cherished. Of the four or five most often voiced complaints, the most common is over mass migration from other countries and continents, and how that has drastically changed British life, culture and society … “The men who offered their lives have been betrayed and gave their lives in vain. Most of the older people say thank goodness we are ending our lives. It is no longer the Britain that we fought for.”
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A Straight Look at the Jewish Lobby
Mark Weber
… 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.
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No figure of modern French history is as honored as Charles de Gaulle … In 1940 he refused to accept his country’s defeat by Germany, and from London he founded and led the pro-Allied “Free French” force during World War II. From 1944 to 1946 he headed the provisional government of France. In 1958 he was called from retirement by popular acclaim to resolve the seemingly unsolvable crisis over Algeria … During the years that he dominated his country’s political life – 1958-1969 – he charted an independent foreign policy, tied neither to the US nor the USSR, and strove to make France the preeminent nation in Europe … It’s impossible to read any lengthy biography of this man without admiration for his audacious self-confidence, courage, determination, and cunning.
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Stalin's War Against His Own Troops
Yuri Teplyakov
… 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.
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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.
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Abraham Lincoln and the Issue of Race
Robert Morgan
Many Americans think of Abraham Lincoln, above all, as the president who freed the slaves. Immortalized as the “Great Emancipator,” he is widely regarded as a champion of black freedom who supported social equality of the races, and who fought the American Civil War to free the slaves. While it is true that Lincoln regarded slavery as an evil and harmful institution, it also true, as this paper will show, that he shared the conviction of most Americans of his time, and of many prominent statesmen before and after him, that blacks could not be assimilated into white society. He rejected the notion of social equality of the races, and held to the view that blacks should be resettled abroad.
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Liberating America From Israel
Paul Findley
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.
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Was America’s World War II ‘Crusade’ Worthwhile?
Spencer J. Quinn
… This flagrant betrayal of the principles and goals for which the US fought in World War II, Chamberlin explains [in America’s Second Crusade], was inevitable given Roosevelt’s abiding trust in Soviet dictator Stalin, and his unwillingness to leverage America’s massive military and economic aid to the Soviets to press for a better postwar world … This book … distinguishes itself by challenging the American public to consider that the death, destruction, and trauma of the Second World War may not have been “worth it” in the end. Chamberlin is … not afraid to measure the stated goals of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill against the objective historical record by which the question he poses might be answered. The arguments for America’s entry into the war, he concludes, ultimately come up wanting.
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Zionism’s Violent Legacy
Donald Neff
… The Irgun was not the only Jewish terrorist group but it was the most active in causing indiscriminate terror in pre-Israel Palestine. Up to the time of the Jaffa attack, its most spectacular feat had been the July 22, 1946, blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, with the killing of 91 people – 41 Arabs, 28 Britons and 17 Jews. The other major Jewish terrorist group operating in Palestine in the 1940s was the Lohamei Herut Israel – “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel,” Lehi in the Hebrew acronym – also known as the Stern Gang after its fanatical founder Avraham Stern.
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The Ethics of War: Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Gregory P. Pavlik
Since the last “good war,” a debate has ensued over the moral legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapons, particularly against civilians. The critics hold that it is a crime to incinerate civilians en masse; defenders commonly claim that the bombing was necessary to bring the war to a close, thereby saving countless American lives. Most of those who make this claim do so in earnest. The problem is that this defense is both historically false, and taken to its logical conclusion, extremely dangerous … The U.S. War Department and related agencies that specialized in producing hate propaganda and lies developed specifically racialist attacks on the Japanese.
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… With the aid of the civilian population, mass graves had been discovered, in which thousands of corpses had been buried. These graves were to be opened and the commission was to establish whom the [Soviet] NKVD had murdered … The exhumations in Vinnytsia began on May 25, 1943, and were carried on in three places. The [local] population was of the opinion that there were around 20,000 victims in the war years … I had been a soldier in the Ukrainian army during the First World War and had seen many men killed in battle, but what I had then seen can in no way be compared with what I witnessed in that park … The horror of Vinnytsia I shall never forget, and it is doubtful whether ever a Dante would be able to portray the agony that had taken place.
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The Origins of the Second World War: A Review
Murray N. Rothbard
It is not often that one is privileged to review a book of monumental import, a truly significant “breakthrough” from obscurantism to historical knowledge and insight. But such a book is the magnificent work by A.J .P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War … The central theme of Taylor is simply this: Germany and Hitler were not uniquely guilty of launching World War II (indeed they were scarcely guilty at all) … Basically, Hitler has no “master plan”; he was a German intent, like all Germans, on revising the intolerable and stupid Versailles-diktat, and on doing so by peaceful means, and in collaboration with the British and French … Not only did Hitler do this with insight, he did it with patience, as Taylor excellently shows …
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Several months before Japan’s Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt secretly authorized devastating American bombing raids against Japanese cities. A top-secret document declassified in 1970 shows that in July 1941 Roosevelt and his top military advisers approved a daring plan to use American pilots and U.S. war planes – deceitfully flying under the Chinese flag – to bomb Japan’s major cities … An air strike force of 500 Lockheed Hudson bombers was to be organized as “The Second American Volunteer Group” under Chennault’s command. Its mission would be the “pre-emptive” bombing of Japan. The strategic objective of JB 355 was the “destruction of Japanese factories in order to cripple munitions and essential articles for maintenance of economic structure in Japan.”
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The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed
David L. Hoggan
In this important, detailed study of the origins of the Second World War, Dr. Hoggan explains why Hitler decided to attack Poland in 1939, and examines the short-sighted policies that made war all but inevitable. The author dismantles the often-repeated charge of sole German responsibility for the war, which for many years has been a centerpiece of the prevailing narrative of twentieth century history. The eminent American historian Harry E. Barnes called this “the first thorough study of the responsibility for the causes of the Second World War in any language … likely to remain the definitive revisionist work on this subject for many years.” With an introduction by Mark Weber, dust jacket, detailed index, source notes, extensive bibliography, map, and 30 photographs. Also available in softcover edition.
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Collusion: Franklin Roosevelt, British Intelligence, and the Secret Campaign to Push the US Into War
Mark Weber
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.
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… Judaism is not just “another religion.” It’s unique among the world’s major religions. The core values and ethos of Judaism are markedly unlike those of Christianity, Islam, and the other great faiths … A core message of the Hebrew scriptures is that Jews are a divinely “chosen” people — a unique community distinct from the rest of humanity … The seemingly intractable Middle East conflict is more than just a problem of Zionism or politics, or a dispute over land. Israel’s often arrogant policies, and especially its inhumane treatment of non-Jews, have roots in centuries-old attitudes that are laid out in ancient Jewish religious writings.
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What Christians Don’t Know About Israel
Grace Halsell
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.
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In years when so many politicians and foreign policy experts waxed poetically about their vision of a “rules-based international order” of enduring global harmony, John Mearsheimer persistently warned against the delusions and dangers of this outlook. For years he has been a leading voice for a realist foreign policy, an outlook impressively laid out in his most important work, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics … a hard-nosed examination of international politics rooted not in sentiment or presumed idealism, but in the immutable realities of power politics … While liberals speak of economic interdependence and international norms, and neoconservatives push regime change in the name of “democracy,” Mearsheimer contends that material power, not ideology, drives the foreign policy decision-making of government leaders.
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The Boer War Remembered
Mark Weber
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.
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Was Hiroshima Necessary?
Mark Weber
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.”
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The Past Marches On
George Morgenstern (1953)
… Add to these the operations of an organized propaganda capable, apparently, of doping Americans into belief in any myth, and there is formidable reason why public opinion should be so stupefied and stultified that the nation can be led from war to war in pursuit of ever retreating goals. Yet, despite the general numbness, Americans, surveying the results of half a century of intermeddling, dimly perceive that all is not well.
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Tactics of Organized Jewry in Suppressing Free Speech
Prof. Tony Martin – Institute for Historical Review
… 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.
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Our Job in a Time of Crisis
Institute for Historical Review
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.
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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.
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Zionism and the Third Reich
Mark Weber
A little-known chapter of history is the wide-ranging collaboration between Zionism and Hitler’s Third Reich. During the 1930s, Jewish Zionists and German National Socialists shared similar views on how to deal with the “Jewish Question.” They agreed that Jews and Germans were distinctly different nationalities, and that Jews did not belong in Germany. During the 1930s no nation did more to substantively further Jewish-Zionist goals than Hitler’s Germany.
News & Comment
Trump’s Attempt To End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty
Ron Paul
… President Trump started a war on Iran against all sober guidance and in violation of the US Constitution’s requirement that only Congress can declare war … The neocons who had hailed him as a great leader – Levin, Bolton, Pompeo, etc. – suddenly turned against him when he turned against further escalation of the war. Even Trump’s top funder, Miriam Adelson, attacked Trump in her newspaper Israel Hayom. “You could have been the greatest president of all, but you failed,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial. Not much gratitude from the Israel-first crowd, even if the war was started to benefit Israel. And more telling even than this was the reaction of the “opposition” party in Congress, the Democrats. They attacked him harder for ending – or at least pausing – the war more than for starting the war in the first place!
Trump Was Right. The War Ended With a Surrender.
Nicholas Kristof - The New York Times
… Trump’s fundamental mistake was not ending the war but getting into it in the first place. At this stage, Trump was right to retreat, for he had no good options and continuing the war would surely have cost more lives. It was already shattering the global economy and Republicans’ chances in the midterms. “If we didn’t do this deal, we could have dropped more bombs for another three weeks, two weeks, four weeks, two years; you would never have the Hormuz Strait open,” Trump said. “I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe.” The unpalatable truth is that Iran won the war, and that’s why it won the negotiation … The lesson to be learned from this debacle is to avoid starting needless wars, to temper our hubris that everything will work out perfectly, and to rely far more on diplomacy to solve global problems.
Trump’s U-Turn on Iran War Has Ended Israel’s Middle East Dream
David Hearst – Middle East Eye
Of all the military failures the US has suffered in the past 25 years in the Middle East, the Iran war is probably the most consequential … The failure to subdue Iran has halted, or shattered, a much larger ambition: a project to change the shape of the Middle East, with a reborn and rejuvenated “greater Israel” at its head … If the genocide in Gaza killed off the myth lingering in the western world that Israel was a democracy striving for peace but only finding war, the attack on Iran has dealt a similar blow to Israel’s credibility in Washington as a military ally. There is a clear shift not only in the opinion polls but in the rhetoric of political campaigns. Aipac, the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, is becoming toxic among Democrats.
The Origins of the Second World War – A Review
Murray N. Rothbard
It is not often that one is privileged to review a book of monumental import, a truly significant “breakthrough” from obscurantism to historical knowledge and insight. But such a book is the magnificent work by A.J .P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War … The central theme of Taylor is simply this: Germany and Hitler were notuniquely guilty of launching World War II (indeed they were scarcely guilty at all) … Basically, Hitler has no “master plan”; he was a German intent, like all Germans, on revising the intolerable and stupid Versailles-diktat, and on doing so by peaceful means, and in collaboration with the British and French … Not only did Hitler do this with insight, he did it with patience, as Taylor excellently shows …
The Origins of the Second World War
AJP Taylor - Book available from IHR
An eminent British historian provides a brilliant, devastating critique of the widely accepted, “official” view of the origins of World War II. The war between Germany, Poland, Britain and France that broke out in September 1939, he shows, was not the result of an intentional plan by Hitler. “Far from wanting war, a general war was the last thing he wanted,” Taylor writes. “The war of 1939, far from being premeditated, was a mistake, the result on both sides of diplomatic blunders.” This edition includes a bibliography and index, and a “Second Thoughts” response to critics. This controversial and intensely discussed work earned praise from respected British journals. The New Statesman called it “A masterpiece: lucid, compassionate, beautifully written.”
Alternative for Germany Revives Nazi-Era Attacks on Bauhaus
Financial Times
The Bauhaus Foundation has warned that the far-right Alternative for Germany is reviving rhetoric reminiscent of the Nazi-era attacks on the art school, as it prepares for a possible legal battle if the party wins regional elections in the eastern state where the institution is based. Bauhaus Dessau Foundation head Barbara Steiner said the institution that revolutionised modern architecture and design had become a prime target of the AfD ahead of September’s elections in Saxony-Anhalt as the far-right party pursues a “patriotic” cultural policy. The AfD’s criticism of Bauhaus echoes Nazi-era attacks on modernism, Steiner told the FT in her office in Dessau-Roßlau, where the institution reopened in the 1970s after closing its Berlin headquarters under pressure from Adolf Hitler’s regime in 1933.
Senate Rebukes Trump by Approving House-Passed Measure Calling for End to Iran War
NBC News
The Senate on Tuesday approved a war powers resolution previously passed in the House that rebukes President Donald Trump by calling for an end to the U.S. war against Iran. The resolution passed 50-48, with four Senate Republicans joining almost all Democrats in support of the measure. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., opposed the resolution, and two Republicans did not vote. The nonbinding measure is Capitol Hill’s sharpest symbolic pushback on the war yet. The House voted 215-208 this month to pass the same Democratic-led measure to end Trump’s war with Iran, offering a rare reprimand of the president. The resolution “directs the President to remove U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities against Iran unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or a congressional authorization for use of military force against Iran.”
Switzerland Moves to Ban All Use of Nazi Symbols Amid Rise in Antisemitism
AFP
The Swiss government on Friday submitted a draft law to ban public displays of the swastika, Hitler salute and other Nazi signs, amid a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in the country. The bill, aiming to regulate “the prohibition of using, wearing, displaying or publicly disseminating Nazi symbols,” will now go to parliament for a vote. That vote, the timing of which has yet to be announced, is expected to be a formality: it was the parliament itself that asked the government in 2024 to draft the bill … Swiss law currently allows for the prosecution of anyone using Nazi, racist, extremist or violence-glorifying symbols for propaganda purposes. But anyone simply displaying such symbols without using them for propaganda has until now faced no penalty.
J.D. Vance Infuriates the Neocons
Jack Hunter - American Conservative
… The vice president rocked Washington last Thursday — and infuriated neoconservatives — when he defended the Trump administration’s memorandum of understanding (MOU) deal with Iran at a press briefing … Vance’s remarks at the press briefing suggest that they should be careful about undermining a deal signed by a mercurial president who can take policy critiques personally. From the podium, Vance continued … “Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower,” he said. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.” Vance seemed to be putting Israel in its place.
Trump Ended His Idiotic Iran War. Good.
Trita Parsi – Responsible Statecraft
… Given the circumstances, President Trump’s decision to strike a deal with Tehran and bring this costly, unnecessary war to an end is the right one. It deserves support, not partisan second-guessing … Wars become interminable when leaders convince themselves that ending them without victory is politically more costly than continuing them without hope … Remember Afghanistan … That is the curse of endless war. The refusal to accept an unfavorable reality today merely guarantees a higher bill tomorrow. Some credit must be given to Trump for breaking this pattern, even as he should be blamed for having started this war in the first place … The main external threat is the Israeli government and Benjamin Netanyahu’s obsession with sabotaging any opportunity for Iran and the United States to bury the hatchet.
Vance Slams Israeli Critics of Iran Deal, Says They Need to ‘Wake Up and Smell the Reality’
JNS
U.S. Vice President JD Vance had sharp words on Thursday for Israeli critics of the Trump administration’s peace deal with Iran, accusing them of being ungrateful to the United States … “Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower,” Vance said. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.” … “Two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars.” He stated that “the problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump …”
Trump Just Changed the Conversation About Iran
Andrew Day – The American Conservative
… What Trump has actually accomplished is to reframe the Islamic Republic as a legitimate actor in world affairs, rather than a Forever Enemy whose very existence America can scarcely tolerate. “We got along very well with Iran,” Trump said on Monday in a joint press conference with France’s President Emmanuel Macron. “I find them to be more rational, very smart,” Trump told NBC News last week. Would any American president before Trump have been caught describing the Islamic Republic in this way? Trump seems to have arrived at this reframing not through any naively liberal tendency to trust an America-hating theocracy, but as the result of a war in which Iran demonstrated that it has real leverage rooted in military power.
A Third of Americans Say They’re Reading Fewer Books
CBS News
As the summer reading season begins in earnest, a third of Americans say they’re reading fewer books for personal enjoyment than they did 10 years ago — a decline that cuts across age and education levels. About half who report reading less say it’s because they are too busy and don’t have enough free time, and about half also say there are too many distractions competing for their attention. More than a third say their own attention spans have gotten worse over the past 10 years. … More than half who are reading less say they’re spending more time watching movies and television, as well as spending more time on social media … For those who prefer nonfiction, history is the top choice (the clear favorite among men) … A quarter of Americans, however, say they don’t generally read any books at all.
Hitler Answers Roosevelt: A Major Speech That’s Still Important
Podcast – Our Interesting Times
Mark Weber joins host Tim Kelly to discuss Adolf Hitler’s most widely listened-to public address. The German leader’s speech of April 28, 1939, which was broadcast live on all three major US radio networks, was an eagerly anticipated response to a challenge by US President Franklin Roosevelt, who had called on Hitler to pledge not to attack 31 countries. Weber and Kelly discuss the significance of this Hitler-Roosevelt exchange, and explain why it remains relevant today. Weber and Kelly also review the situation in Europe in 1938-39, with insights on the origins of World War II. IHR director Weber also speaks about Hitler as a public speaker, and explains why he is considered so extraordinarily persuasive and effective. Runtime: 72 mins.
Hitler Answers Roosevelt
Booklet Available from IHR
This booklet includes the text of a widely publicized letter by President Franklin Roosevelt in which he called on the German Chancellor to promise not to attack 31 countries, as well as a specially prepared translation of the address by Hitler in response. Of the many speeches made by Hitler during his lifetime, this is certainly one of the most important. It was also very probably the most eagerly anticipated address of the time, with many millions of people around the world listening to it live on radio or reading of it the next day in newspapers. The historic April 1939 exchange between Roosevelt and Hitler is important in helping to better understand the foreign policy outlook and goals of those two influential twentieth-century leaders, and how very differently each viewed recent history and his own country’s role in the world.
Senate Wants to Force US to Share Sensitive Intel With Israel
Paul R. Pillar – Responsible Statecraft
Buried deep inside a 192-page intelligence authorization bill is Section 622, titled “United States-Israel Intelligence Sharing Enhancement.” It would require the president, acting through the director of national intelligence and as necessary the secretary of defense, to “expand and enhance intelligence sharing with the Government of Israel” on a list of subjects that encompasses almost every topic of intelligence interest in the Middle East … This proposal is one of several recent moves by those in Washington who carry the Israeli government’s water to keep the United States tied to Isreal despite plummeting support for the country among the American public … Israel’s strategy and that of its U.S. supporters is now to rely on ties with, and support from, the United States that are not as salient as the military aid with its prominent price tag.
Did Father Robert Maxwell’s Early Abuse Taint Ghislaine Long Before She Met Epstein?
The Times of Israel
… A self-made multimillionaire. Robert Maxwell rose from extreme poverty in a Jewish shtetl in Czechoslovakia, where he attended yeshiva, a seminary for religious studies. As a teenager, he escaped the Nazis and joined the Czechoslovak Army in exile. He then went on to become a hero in the British Army decorated for his actions during World War II, an academic publishing magnate, a UK Labour Party MP, and eventually the owner of the Daily Mirror, one of the UK’s biggest-selling tabloids. Following his death, world leaders collectively expressed their public condolences … But, as UK journalist John Sweeney writes in the opening pages of his new book, “We can set the pieties aside, Robert Maxwell was a monster, cruel, [and] mad — mad as a box of frogs.”
Thomas Massie Won’t Back Down
Jack Hunter – American Conservative
Thomas Massie isn’t acting like a defeated man … His opposition to U.S. backing and participation in Israel’s wars in Gaza and Iran was seen as a significant factor in why he lost his primary, angering President Donald Trump and, of course, one of the country’s most powerful foreign lobbying groups … Massie was noting that any opposition to — or mere acknowledgement of — Israel’s outsized influence in American politics is almost always labeled as antisemitism by pro-Israel advocates. Yet here was Brooks openly touting it. Neoconservative veteran John Podhoretz even celebrated the role of “Jewish money” in defeating Massie … He’s obviously not cowering or giving an inch to the figures and groups that worked so hard and spent so much to beat him … Thomas Massie doesn’t look or talk like someone who just lost.
We Should Not ‘Integrate’ Our Military With Any Foreign Nation!
Ron Paul
… The [National Defense Authorization Act] NDAA’s Section 224, the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” would “integrate” the Israeli military with our own, fusing technology, production, intelligence-sharing, and more … Is hard to think of a more “America last” position than handing the keys to the Pentagon (and our intelligence community) to a foreign country … Rather than listen to the will of their constituents, Congress has decided to defy the wishes of Americans in favor of the wishes of a foreign government. AIPAC largely controls our Congress and passing Section 224 would be a great victory for the foreign lobby … The US would be further drawn into Israel’s multiple wars with its neighbors. Worse even than backing up Israel in its regional wars, the wars themselves would become ours.
Bill Would Place Israeli Components in U.S. Weapons Systems
H. Berger - American Conservative
Buried within the “must-pass” annual defense authorization bill now before the House is a provision, Section 224, that would order the Pentagon to merge key parts of the American and Israeli defense technology sectors, creating a deeper level of military-industrial integration, analysts say, than the United States maintains with any other country on Earth. Though presented by Israel and its American lobby as a way to draw down U.S. support for Israel, the Quincy Institute, which first reported the measure, describes it as a vehicle to move from the expiring 10-year, $3.8-billion-a-year U.S. aid package to Israel to enduring military cooperation, nestled deep inside the Pentagon’s procurement system, which affords less transparency and accountability.
Trump’s Attempt To End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty
Ron Paul
… President Trump started a war on Iran against all sober guidance and in violation of the US Constitution’s requirement that only Congress can declare war … The neocons who had hailed him as a great leader – Levin, Bolton, Pompeo, etc. – suddenly turned against him when he turned against further escalation of the war. Even Trump’s top funder, Miriam Adelson, attacked Trump in her newspaper Israel Hayom. “You could have been the greatest president of all, but you failed,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial. Not much gratitude from the Israel-first crowd, even if the war was started to benefit Israel. And more telling even than this was the reaction of the “opposition” party in Congress, the Democrats. They attacked him harder for ending – or at least pausing – the war more than for starting the war in the first place!
Trump Was Right. The War Ended With a Surrender.
Nicholas Kristof - The New York Times
… Trump’s fundamental mistake was not ending the war but getting into it in the first place. At this stage, Trump was right to retreat, for he had no good options and continuing the war would surely have cost more lives. It was already shattering the global economy and Republicans’ chances in the midterms. “If we didn’t do this deal, we could have dropped more bombs for another three weeks, two weeks, four weeks, two years; you would never have the Hormuz Strait open,” Trump said. “I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe.” The unpalatable truth is that Iran won the war, and that’s why it won the negotiation … The lesson to be learned from this debacle is to avoid starting needless wars, to temper our hubris that everything will work out perfectly, and to rely far more on diplomacy to solve global problems.
Trump’s U-Turn on Iran War Has Ended Israel’s Middle East Dream
David Hearst – Middle East Eye
Of all the military failures the US has suffered in the past 25 years in the Middle East, the Iran war is probably the most consequential … The failure to subdue Iran has halted, or shattered, a much larger ambition: a project to change the shape of the Middle East, with a reborn and rejuvenated “greater Israel” at its head … If the genocide in Gaza killed off the myth lingering in the western world that Israel was a democracy striving for peace but only finding war, the attack on Iran has dealt a similar blow to Israel’s credibility in Washington as a military ally. There is a clear shift not only in the opinion polls but in the rhetoric of political campaigns. Aipac, the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, is becoming toxic among Democrats.
The Origins of the Second World War – A Review
Murray N. Rothbard
It is not often that one is privileged to review a book of monumental import, a truly significant “breakthrough” from obscurantism to historical knowledge and insight. But such a book is the magnificent work by A.J .P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War … The central theme of Taylor is simply this: Germany and Hitler were notuniquely guilty of launching World War II (indeed they were scarcely guilty at all) … Basically, Hitler has no “master plan”; he was a German intent, like all Germans, on revising the intolerable and stupid Versailles-diktat, and on doing so by peaceful means, and in collaboration with the British and French … Not only did Hitler do this with insight, he did it with patience, as Taylor excellently shows …