JerusalemCats Comments: This is a time of Midah K’negged Midah, Measure for Measure. Just as the West and the Soviet Union(Russia) destroyed the Jewish body and soul now it is happening to them. Some people would call it Karma.
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Insights
Why the War? Cui bono? Who benefits? :
What should be: |
 Gazprom gas Meter And Now Gazprom Reminds Europe: Winter Will be Big (Video)By John Galt on 06September2022 https://johngaltfla.com/economics/and-now-gazprom-reminds-europe-winter-will-be-big-video/ Epic propaganda: Gazprom has published a video with an epic soundtrack “And winter will be big”
Yet we have buffoons in the US, especially on financial television, which claim that the problems of Europe, Japan, and South Korea will not impact the domestic economy.
The bad news is that just this one chart shows that the impacts are coming, soon and fast:  ALUMINUM ZINC INVENTORIES EUROPE 2017-2022 Once the US inventories are depleted, all bets are off on just how fast US industrial production collapses as these are crucial metals for manufacturing.
Maybe Senile Joe can start a game show called “Wheel of Protein” where Jen Psaki spins it to see if poor people can win 4 months worth of food at 2000 calories per day or a couple of tanks of gas for their used cars. |
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Ex-Polish FM thanks US for destruction of Russian gas pipeline27 Sep, 2022 21:32 https://www.rt.com/news/563632-sikorski-usa-nordstream-poland/ Moscow has called the incidents a ‘terrorist attack’ Radek Sikorski MEP-tweet-27September2022-Thank you USA While the US, Russia and most European governments have reserved judgment as to who might be behind Monday’s explosion that damaged both Nord Stream pipelines, former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski had no such qualms.
“Thank you USA,” Sikorski tweeted on Tuesday, alongside a photo of the massive gas leak in the waters of the Baltic Sea. Both pipelines were severely damaged off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm, in what many now call a deliberate act.
Sikorski later tweeted, in Polish, that damage to Nord Stream means that Russia will have to “talk to the countries controlling the Brotherhood and Yamal gas pipelines, Ukraine and Poland” if it wishes to continue delivering gas to Europe. “Good work,” he concluded.
Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 lost all pressure on Monday, after what the Swedish and Danish authorities later said were a series of undersea explosions. The first pipeline was operating at reduced capacity after what Russia said were technical difficulties, while the second was fully pressurized but not operational, due to German refusal to certify it.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wondered if Sikorsky’s tweet amounted to an “official statement that this was a terrorist attack.” Meanwhile, Moscow’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, thanked Sikorski for “making it crystal clear who stands behind this terrorist-style targeting of civilian infrastructure!”
 Dmitry Polyanskiy-tweet-27September2022-Thank you radeksikorski Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki didn’t go quite as far as Sikorski, but chose to describe the Nord Stream incident as “an act of sabotage, related to the next step of escalation of the situation in Ukraine.”
Not just any MEP, Sikorski is a former UK citizen and a fellow at numerous US and NATO think-tanks, as well as Poland’s former defense (2005-2007) and foreign minister (2007-2014). In October 2014, he was caught fabricating a claim about Russian President Vladimir Putin wanting to partition Ukraine with Warsaw, and was forced to recant.
Sikorski called Russia a “serial rapist” in January 2022 and in June told Ukraine’s Espreso TV that NATO had the right to give Kiev nuclear weapons. He is married to American pundit Anne Applebaum, who is also an outspoken foe of Russia.
While Sikorski thanked the US for the Nord Stream sabotage, Kiev blamed Russia. President Vladimir Zelensky’s adviser Mikhail Podoliak called it “a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression towards EU,” arguing the best response would be sending German tanks to the Ukrainian army. |
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Putin’s speech during accession ceremony of new territories to RFPosted 01October2022 RT:
Signing of treaties on accession of Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and Zaporozhye and Kherson regions to RussiaA ceremony for signing the treaties on the accession of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Lugansk People’s Republic, the Zaporozhye Region and the Kherson Region to the Russian Federation took place in of the Grand Kremlin Palace’s St George Hall. September 30, 2022 – 16:00 The Kremlin, Moscow http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69465 President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Citizens of Russia, citizens of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, residents of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, deputies of the State Duma, senators of the Russian Federation,
As you know, referendums have been held in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. The ballots have been counted and the results have been announced. The people have made their unequivocal choice.
Today we will sign treaties on the accession of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Lugansk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye Region and Kherson Region to the Russian Federation. I have no doubt that the Federal Assembly will support the constitutional laws on the accession to Russia and the establishment of four new regions, our new constituent entities of the Russian Federation, because this is the will of millions of people. (Applause.)
It is undoubtedly their right, an inherent right sealed in Article 1 of the UN Charter, which directly states the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
I repeat, it is an inherent right of the people. It is based on our historical affinity, and it is that right that led generations of our predecessors, those who built and defended Russia for centuries since the period of Ancient Rus, to victory.
Here in Novorossiya, [Pyotr] Rumyantsev, [Alexander] Suvorov and [Fyodor] Ushakov fought their battles, and Catherine the Great and [Grigory] Potyomkin founded new cities. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought here to the bitter end during the Great Patriotic War.
We will always remember the heroes of the Russian Spring, those who refused to accept the neo-Nazi coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, all those who died for the right to speak their native language, to preserve their culture, traditions and religion, and for the very right to live. We remember the soldiers of Donbass, the martyrs of the “Odessa Khatyn,” the victims of inhuman terrorist attacks carried out by the Kiev regime. We commemorate volunteers and militiamen, civilians, children, women, senior citizens, Russians, Ukrainians, people of various nationalities; popular leader of Donetsk Alexander Zakharchenko; military commanders Arsen Pavlov and Vladimir Zhoga, Olga Kochura and Alexei Mozgovoy; prosecutor of the Lugansk Republic Sergei Gorenko; paratrooper Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov and all our soldiers and officers who died a hero’s death during the special military operation. They are heroes. (Applause.) Heroes of great Russia. Please join me in a minute of silence to honour their memory. (Minute of silence.) Thank you.
Behind the choice of millions of residents in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, is our common destiny and thousand-year history. People have passed this spiritual connection on to their children and grandchildren. Despite all the trials they endured, they carried the love for Russia through the years. This is something no one can destroy. That is why both older generations and young people – those who were born after the tragic collapse of the Soviet Union – have voted for our unity, for our common future.
In 1991 in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, representatives of the party elite of that time made a decision to terminate the Soviet Union, without asking ordinary citizens what they wanted, and people suddenly found themselves cut off from their homeland. This tore apart and dismembered our national community and triggered a national catastrophe. Just like the government quietly demarcated the borders of Soviet republics, acting behind the scenes after the 1917 revolution, the last leaders of the Soviet Union, contrary to the direct expression of the will of the majority of people in the referendum of 1991, destroyed our great country, and simply made the people in the former republics face this as an accomplished fact.
I can admit that they didn’t even know what they were doing and what consequences their actions would have in the end. But it doesn’t matter now. There is no Soviet Union anymore; we cannot return to the past. Actually, Russia no longer needs it today; this isn’t our ambition. But there is nothing stronger than the determination of millions of people who, by their culture, religion, traditions, and language, consider themselves part of Russia, whose ancestors lived in a single country for centuries. There is nothing stronger than their determination to return to their true historical homeland.
For eight long years, people in Donbass were subjected to genocide, shelling and blockades; in Kherson and Zaporozhye, a criminal policy was pursued to cultivate hatred for Russia, for everything Russian. Now too, during the referendums, the Kiev regime threatened schoolteachers, women who worked in election commissions with reprisals and death. Kiev threatened millions of people who came to express their will with repression. But the people of Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson weren’t broken, and they had their say.
I want the Kiev authorities and their true handlers in the West to hear me now, and I want everyone to remember this: the people living in Lugansk and Donetsk, in Kherson and Zaporozhye have become our citizens, forever. (Applause.)
We call on the Kiev regime to immediately cease fire and all hostilities; to end the war it unleashed back in 2014 and return to the negotiating table. We are ready for this, as we have said more than once. But the choice of the people in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson will not be discussed. The decision has been made, and Russia will not betray it. (Applause.) Kiev’s current authorities should respect this free expression of the people’s will; there is no other way. This is the only way to peace.
We will defend our land with all the forces and resources we have, and we will do everything we can to ensure the safety of our people. This is the great liberating mission of our nation.
We will definitely rebuild the destroyed cities and towns, the residential buildings, schools, hospitals, theatres and museums. We will restore and develop industrial enterprises, factories, infrastructure, as well as the social security, pension, healthcare and education systems.
We will certainly work to improve the level of security. Together we will make sure that citizens in the new regions can feel the support of all the people of Russia, of the entire nation, all the republics, territories and regions of our vast Motherland. (Applause.) Friends, colleagues,
Today I would like to address our soldiers and officers who are taking part in the special military operation, the fighters of Donbass and Novorossiya, those who went to military recruitment offices after receiving a call-up paper under the executive order on partial mobilisation, and those who did this voluntarily, answering the call of their hearts. I would like to address their parents, wives and children, to tell them what our people are fighting for, what kind of enemy we are up against, and who is pushing the world into new wars and crises and deriving blood-stained benefits from this tragedy.
Our compatriots, our brothers and sisters in Ukraine who are part of our united people have seen with their own eyes what the ruling class of the so-called West have prepared for humanity as a whole. They have dropped their masks and shown what they are really made of.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the West decided that the world and all of us would permanently accede to its dictates. In 1991, the West thought that Russia would never rise after such shocks and would fall to pieces on its own. This almost happened. We remember the horrible 1990s, hungry, cold and hopeless. But Russia remained standing, came alive, grew stronger and occupied its rightful place in the world.
Meanwhile, the West continued and continues looking for another chance to strike a blow at us, to weaken and break up Russia, which they have always dreamed about, to divide our state and set our peoples against each other, and to condemn them to poverty and extinction. They cannot rest easy knowing that there is such a great country with this huge territory in the world, with its natural wealth, resources and people who cannot and will not do someone else’s bidding.
The West is ready to cross every line to preserve the neo-colonial system which allows it to live off the world, to plunder it thanks to the domination of the dollar and technology, to collect an actual tribute from humanity, to extract its primary source of unearned prosperity, the rent paid to the hegemon. The preservation of this annuity is their main, real and absolutely self-serving motivation. This is why total de-sovereignisation is in their interest. This explains their aggression towards independent states, traditional values and authentic cultures, their attempts to undermine international and integration processes, new global currencies and technological development centres they cannot control. It is critically important for them to force all countries to surrender their sovereignty to the United States.
In certain countries, the ruling elites voluntarily agree to do this, voluntarily agree to become vassals; others are bribed or intimidated. And if this does not work, they destroy entire states, leaving behind humanitarian disasters, devastation, ruins, millions of wrecked and mangled human lives, terrorist enclaves, social disaster zones, protectorates, colonies and semi-colonies. They don’t care. All they care about is their own benefit.
I want to underscore again that their insatiability and determination to preserve their unfettered dominance are the real causes of the hybrid war that the collective West is waging against Russia. They do not want us to be free; they want us to be a colony. They do not want equal cooperation; they want to loot. They do not want to see us a free society, but a mass of soulless slaves.
They see our thought and our philosophy as a direct threat. That is why they target our philosophers for assassination. Our culture and art present a danger to them, so they are trying to ban them. Our development and prosperity are also a threat to them because competition is growing. They do not want or need Russia, but we do. (Applause.)
I would like to remind you that in the past, ambitions of world domination have repeatedly shattered against the courage and resilience of our people. Russia will always be Russia. We will continue to defend our values and our Motherland.
The West is counting on impunity, on being able to get away with anything. As a matter of fact, this was actually the case until recently. Strategic security agreements have been trashed; agreements reached at the highest political level have been declared tall tales; firm promises not to expand NATO to the east gave way to dirty deception as soon as our former leaders bought into them; missile defence, intermediate-range and shorter-range missile treaties have been unilaterally dismantled under far-fetched pretexts.
And all we hear is, the West is insisting on a rules-based order. Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who agreed or approved them? Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter deceit, double standards, or even triple standards! They must think we’re stupid.
Russia is a great thousand-year-old power, a whole civilisation, and it is not going to live by such makeshift, false rules. (Applause.)
It was the so-called West that trampled on the principle of the inviolability of borders, and now it is deciding, at its own discretion, who has the right to self-determination and who does not, who is unworthy of it. It is unclear what their decisions are based on or who gave them the right to decide in the first place. They just assumed it.
That is why the choice of the people in Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson makes them so furiously angry. The West does not have any moral right to weigh in, or even utter a word about freedom of democracy. It does not and it never did.
Western elites not only deny national sovereignty and international law. Their hegemony has pronounced features of totalitarianism, despotism and apartheid. They brazenly divide the world into their vassals – the so-called civilised countries – and all the rest, who, according to the designs of today’s Western racists, should be added to the list of barbarians and savages. False labels like “rogue country” or “authoritarian regime” are already available, and are used to stigmatise entire nations and states, which is nothing new. There is nothing new in this: deep down, the Western elites have remained the same colonisers. They discriminate and divide peoples into the top tier and the rest.
We have never agreed to and will never agree to such political nationalism and racism. What else, if not racism, is the Russophobia being spread around the world? What, if not racism, is the West’s dogmatic conviction that its civilisation and neoliberal culture is an indisputable model for the entire world to follow? “You’re either with us or against us.” It even sounds strange.
Western elites are even shifting repentance for their own historical crimes on everyone else, demanding that the citizens of their countries and other peoples confess to things they have nothing to do with at all, for example, the period of colonial conquests.
It is worth reminding the West that it began its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, followed by the worldwide slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India and Africa, the wars of England and France against China, as a result of which it was forced to open its ports to the opium trade. What they did was get entire nations hooked on drugs and purposefully exterminated entire ethnic groups for the sake of grabbing land and resources, hunting people like animals. This is contrary to human nature, truth, freedom and justice.
While we – we are proud that in the 20th century our country led the anti-colonial movement, which opened up opportunities for many peoples around the world to make progress, reduce poverty and inequality, and defeat hunger and disease.
To emphasise, one of the reasons for the centuries-old Russophobia, the Western elites’ unconcealed animosity toward Russia is precisely the fact that we did not allow them to rob us during the period of colonial conquests and forced the Europeans to trade with us on mutually beneficial terms. This was achieved by creating a strong centralised state in Russia, which grew and got stronger based on the great moral values of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as Russian culture and the Russian word that were open to all.
There were numerous plans to invade Russia. Such attempts were made during the Time of Troubles in the 17th century and in the period of ordeals after the 1917 revolution. All of them failed. The West managed to grab hold of Russia’s wealth only in the late 20th century, when the state had been destroyed. They called us friends and partners, but they treated us like a colony, using various schemes to pump trillions of dollars out of the country. We remember. We have not forgotten anything.
A few days ago, people in Donetsk and Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye declared their support for restoring our historical unity. Thank you! (Applause.)
Western countries have been saying for centuries that they bring freedom and democracy to other nations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of bringing democracy they suppressed and exploited, and instead of giving freedom they enslaved and oppressed. The unipolar world is inherently anti-democratic and unfree; it is false and hypocritical through and through.
The United States is the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. And they created a precedent.
Recall that during WWII the United States and Britain reduced Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and many other German cities to rubble, without the least military necessity. It was done ostentatiously and, to repeat, without any military necessity. They had only one goal, as with the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities: to intimidate our country and the rest of the world.
The United States left a deep scar in the memory of the people of Korea and Vietnam with their carpet bombings and use of napalm and chemical weapons.
It actually continues to occupy Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and other countries, which they cynically refer to as equals and allies. Look now, what kind of alliance is that? The whole world knows that the top officials in these countries are being spied on and that their offices and homes are bugged. It is a disgrace, a disgrace for those who do this and for those who, like slaves, silently and meekly swallow this arrogant behaviour.
They call the orders and threats they make to their vassals Euro-Atlantic solidarity, and the creation of biological weapons and the use of human test subjects, including in Ukraine, noble medical research.
It is their destructive policies, wars and plunder that have unleashed today’s massive wave of migrants. Millions of people endure hardships and humiliation or die by the thousands trying to reach Europe.
They are exporting grain from Ukraine now. Where are they taking it under the guise of ensuring the food security of the poorest countries? Where is it going? They are taking it to the self-same European countries. Only five percent has been delivered to the poorest countries. More cheating and naked deception again.
In effect, the American elite is using the tragedy of these people to weaken its rivals, to destroy nation states. This goes for Europe and for the identities of France, Italy, Spain and other countries with centuries-long histories.
Washington demands more and more sanctions against Russia and the majority of European politicians obediently go along with it. They clearly understand that by pressuring the EU to completely give up Russian energy and other resources, the United States is practically pushing Europe toward deindustrialisation in a bid to get its hands on the entire European market. These European elites understand everything – they do, but they prefer to serve the interests of others. This is no longer servility but direct betrayal of their own peoples. God bless, it is up to them.
But the Anglo-Saxons believe sanctions are no longer enough and now they have turned to subversion. It seems incredible but it is a fact – by causing explosions on Nord Stream’s international gas pipelines passing along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, they have actually embarked on the destruction of Europe’s entire energy infrastructure. It is clear to everyone who stands to gain. Those who benefit are responsible, of course.
The dictates of the US are backed up by crude force, on the law of the fist. Sometimes it is beautifully wrapped sometimes there is no wrapping at all but the gist is the same – the law of the fist. Hence, the deployment and maintenance of hundreds of military bases in all corners of the world, NATO expansion, and attempts to cobble together new military alliances, such as AUKUS and the like. Much is being done to create a Washington-Seoul-Tokyo military-political chain. All states that possess or aspire to genuine strategic sovereignty and are capable of challenging Western hegemony, are automatically declared enemies.
These are the principles that underlie US and NATO military doctrines that require total domination. Western elites are presenting their neocolonialist plans with the same hypocrisy, claiming peaceful intentions, talking about some kind of deterrence. This evasive word migrates from one strategy to another but really only means one thing – undermining any and all sovereign centres of power.
We have already heard about the deterrence of Russia, China and Iran. I believe next in line are other countries of Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, as well as current US partners and allies. After all, we know that when they are displeased, they introduce sanctions against their allies as well – against this or that bank or company. This is their practice and they will expand it. They have everything in their sights, including our next-door neighbours – the CIS countries.
At the same time, the West has clearly been engaged in wishful thinking for a long time. In launching the sanctions blitzkrieg against Russia, for example, they thought that they could once again line up the whole world at their command. As it turns out, however, such a bright prospect does not excite everyone – other than complete political masochists and admirers of other unconventional forms of international relations. Most states refuse to ”snap a salute“ and instead choose the sensible path of cooperation with Russia.
The West clearly did not expect such insubordination. They simply got used to acting according to a template, to grab whatever they please, by blackmail, bribery, intimidation, and convinced themselves that these methods would work forever, as if they had fossilised in the past.
Such self-confidence is a direct product not only of the notorious concept of exceptionalism – although it never ceases to amaze – but also of the real ”information hunger“ in the West. The truth has been drowned in an ocean of myths, illusions and fakes, using extremely aggressive propaganda, lying like Goebbels. The more unbelievable the lie, the quicker people will believe it – that is how they operate, according to this principle.
But people cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros. You can’t feed them with those pieces of paper, and the virtual, inflated capitalisation of western social media companies can’t heat their homes. Everything I am saying is important. And what I just said is no less so: you can’t feed anyone with paper – you need food; and you can’t heat anyone’s home with these inflated capitalisations – you need energy.
That is why politicians in Europe have to convince their fellow citizens to eat less, take a shower less often and dress warmer at home. And those who start asking fair questions like “Why is that, in fact?” are immediately declared enemies, extremists and radicals. They point back at Russia and say: that is the source of all your troubles. More lies.
I want to make special note of the fact that there is every reason to believe that the Western elites are not going to look for constructive ways out of the global food and energy crisis that they and they alone are to blame for, as a result of their long-term policy, dating back long before our special military operation in Ukraine, in Donbass. They have no intention of solving the problems of injustice and inequality. I am afraid they would rather use other formulas they are more comfortable with.
And here it is important to recall that the West bailed itself out of its early 20th century challenges with World War I. Profits from World War II helped the United States finally overcome the Great Depression and become the largest economy in the world, and to impose on the planet the power of the dollar as a global reserve currency. And the 1980s crisis – things came to a head in the 1980s again – the West emerged from it unscathed largely by appropriating the inheritance and resources of the collapsed and defunct Soviet Union. That’s a fact.
Now, in order to free itself from the latest web of challenges, they need to dismantle Russia as well as other states that choose a sovereign path of development, at all costs, to be able to further plunder other nations’ wealth and use it to patch their own holes. If this does not happen, I cannot rule out that they will try to trigger a collapse of the entire system, and blame everything on that, or, God forbid, decide to use the old formula of economic growth through war.
Russia is aware of its responsibility to the international community and will make every effort to ensure that cooler heads prevail.
The current neocolonial model is ultimately doomed; this much is obvious. But I repeat that its real masters will cling to it to the end. They simply have nothing to offer the world except to maintain the same system of plundering and racketeering.
They do not give a damn about the natural right of billions of people, the majority of humanity, to freedom and justice, the right to determine their own future. They have already moved on to the radical denial of moral, religious, and family values.
Let’s answer some very simple questions for ourselves. Now I would like to return to what I said and want to address also all citizens of the country – not just the colleagues that are in the hall – but all citizens of Russia: do we want to have here, in our country, in Russia, “parent number one, parent number two and parent number three” (they have completely lost it!) instead of mother and father? Do we want our schools to impose on our children, from their earliest days in school, perversions that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want to drum into their heads the ideas that certain other genders exist along with women and men and to offer them gender reassignment surgery? Is that what we want for our country and our children? This is all unacceptable to us. We have a different future of our own.
Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a “religion in reverse” – pure Satanism. Exposing false messiahs, Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” These poisonous fruits are already obvious to people, and not only in our country but also in all countries, including many people in the West itself.
The world has entered a period of a fundamental, revolutionary transformation. New centres of power are emerging. They represent the majority – the majority! – of the international community. They are ready not only to declare their interests but also to protect them. They see in multipolarity an opportunity to strengthen their sovereignty, which means gaining genuine freedom, historical prospects, and the right to their own independent, creative and distinctive forms of development, to a harmonious process.
As I have already said, we have many like-minded people in Europe and the United States, and we feel and see their support. An essentially emancipatory, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is taking shape in the most diverse countries and societies. Its power will only grow with time. It is this force that will determine our future geopolitical reality. Friends,
Today, we are fighting for a just and free path, first of all for ourselves, for Russia, in order to leave dictate and despotism in the past. I am convinced that countries and peoples understand that a policy based on the exceptionalism of whoever it may be and the suppression of other cultures and peoples is inherently criminal, and that we must close this shameful chapter. The ongoing collapse of Western hegemony is irreversible. And I repeat: things will never be the same.
The battlefield to which destiny and history have called us is a battlefield for our people, for the great historical Russia. (Applause.) For the great historical Russia, for future generations, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We must protect them against enslavement and monstrous experiments that are designed to cripple their minds and souls.
Today, we are fighting so that it would never occur to anyone that Russia, our people, our language, or our culture can be erased from history. Today, we need a consolidated society, and this consolidation can only be based on sovereignty, freedom, creation, and justice. Our values are humanity, mercy and compassion.
And I want to close with the words of a true patriot Ivan Ilyin: “If I consider Russia my Motherland, that means that I love as a Russian, contemplate and think, sing and speak as a Russian; that I believe in the spiritual strength of the Russian people. Its spirit is my spirit; its destiny is my destiny; its suffering is my grief; and its prosperity is my joy.”
Behind these words stands a glorious spiritual choice, which, for more than a thousand years of Russian statehood, was followed by many generations of our ancestors. Today, we are making this choice; the citizens of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the residents of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions have made this choice. They made the choice to be with their people, to be with their Motherland, to share in its destiny, and to be victorious together with it.
The truth is with us, and behind us is Russia! (Applause.) |
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Vladimir Putin’s Battle Cry Against The Deep Stateby Tyler Durden, 07October2022 – 06:00 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/vladimir-putins-battle-cry-against-deep-state Authored by Oscar Silva-Valladares via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity, The recent ceremony of accession of four Ukrainian regions to Russia brought a speech from President Putin that outlined the reasons behind Russia’s current struggles, the character and identify of its foes and, more importantly, laid the groundwork for Russia’s next level of confrontation with the West beyond the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine. In his speech, Putin clearly defined the present fight as a worldwide battle in which Russia plays a leading role against the Deep State that ultimately runs the West and which uses all available tools – including military, economic, cultural, and social – in its attempt to preserve unipolar world domination.  Vladimir Putin speech on the four Russian Ukrainian regions joining Russia Putin’s words were directed to three distinctive audiences: the collective West, the Global South and Russia. He went back to Middle Ages history to remind the origins and impact of Western resource exploitation and colonialism in the Americas, Asia and Africa through imperialistic wars, racism, and slavery. He touched upon the military exploits of the 20th century led primarily by the US and its allies and its impact in Germany and Japan at the end of the Second World War, Korea in the 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960-70s and its latest failed adventures in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. He also highlighted the dire days of Russia during the 1990s and the Western powers’ attempts to turn it into a dismembered and passive cheap natural resources outlet. Putin’s message to Russians had nationalistic and religious tones, touching on the defence of traditional family values as a call to arms against the threat caused by dwindling population growth. He also named US monetary printing as one of the key tools used by the Western establishment to achieve its self-preservation and supremacy goals, reminding that paper doesn’t feed nor warms human beings.
It would be tempting to see this speech narrowly as just another manifestation of Russia’s position in the big geopolitical battles, but what Putin has done is setting international rivalry in deep historical and cultural terms which have an undoubted appeal across the globe. Critics will see Putin’s benign characterization of Russia as a cynical ploy that hides the country’s role, through its commanding post in the Soviet Union, in the subjugation of Eastern European countries after World War II, but nevertheless the Global South will see things differently.
Putin’s scathing attack against the West is a multi-headed weapon as it rallied to the conservative segments of a population dismayed by globalism imposing a deeply disturbing agenda that goes against traditional views on family, marriage and sex, but it also has leftist tones, as his criticism also goes against the same globalism that is worsening wealth disparity, and even a libertarian appeal as he referred to the imposition of states of emergency, media control and sanctions on other societies as examples of Western made totalitarianism. Putin’s primary target was the Anglo-Saxon establishment, mainly the US and Great Britain, and he attempted to build a wedge within the West as he focused on sovereignty, a cry with resonance in countries like Hungary and Italy, and on traditional anti-war sentiments in Germany and Japan by remembering the horrors of the World War II bombings in Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
An immediate consequence of Putin’s rhetorical escalation will be increased US pressure on the Global South to follow anti-Russian sanctions. To successfully counter this menace, and as Russia needs its continuous support, it will have to combine ideology with pragmatic and tangible support in terms of access to critical energy and food resources to the poorer countries. The recent abstentions of China, India and Brazil on a UN Security Council resolution calling for condemnation of the Ukraine referenda no doubt were driven by these countries’ expectations on Russia’s future actions.
Following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and as it gradually abandoned socialism, Russia lost the powerful ideological appeal that it had during decades in the Global South and in the West’s anti-establishment segments. The most remarkable aspect of Putin’s recent speech is bringing back ideological confrontation into the forefront. This new battle looks to present the West’s defence of democracy, freedom, and sovereignty as hollow and hypocritical. A combined message of anti-colonialism and conservatism is a powerful tool but Putin’s indirect and subtle appeal to people power as the only way to finally counter the Deep State is even stronger. Putin’s identification of the Deep State as humanity’s foe may be his ultimate ideological legacy, something avoidable if the US would have resigned itself to be just a normal country and to focus primarily on its people’s prosperity. |
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Rising tensions (8)Russia declares war on the Straussiansby Thierry MeyssanRussia is not waging war on the Ukrainian people, but on a small group of people within the US power that has transformed Ukraine without its knowledge, the Straussians. It formed half a century ago and has already committed an incredible amount of crimes in Latin America and the Middle East without the knowledge of the United States. This is their story. Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 5 March 2022 https://www.voltairenet.org/article215855.html  Leo Strauss Thierry MeyssanPolitical consultant, President-founder of the Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network).
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| At dawn on February 24, Russian forces entered Ukraine en masse. According to President Vladimir Putin, speaking on television at the time, this special operation was the beginning of his country’s response to “those who aspire to world domination” and who are advancing Nato’s infrastructure to his country’s doorstep. During this long speech, he summarized how NATO destroyed Yugoslavia without the authorization of the United Nations Security Council, even bombing Belgrade in 1999. Then he perused the destruction of the United States in the Middle East, in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Only after this lengthy presentation did he announce that he had sent his troops to Ukraine with the dual mission of destroying the Nato-linked armed forces and ending the Nato armed neo-Nazi groups.
Immediately all the member states of the Atlantic Alliance denounced the occupation of Ukraine as comparable to that of Czechoslovakia during the “Prague Spring” (1968). According to them, Vladimir Putin’s Russia had adopted the Soviet Union’s “Brezhnev doctrine”. Therefore, the free world must punish the resurrected “Evil Empire” with “devastating costs”.
The interpretation of the Atlantic Alliance is aimed above all at depriving Russia of its major argument: although Nato is not a confederation of equals, but a hierarchical federation under Anglo-Saxon command, Russia is doing the same. It refuses Ukraine the possibility of choosing its destiny, just as the Soviets refused it to the Czechoslovakians. It is true that Nato violates the principles of sovereignty and equality of states stipulated in the UN Charter, but it should not be dissolved, unless Russia is also dissolved.
Perhaps, but probably not. President Putin’s speech was not directed against Ukraine, or even against the United States, but explicitly against “those who aspire to world domination”, i.e. against the “Straussians” in the US power structure. It was a real declaration of war against them.
On February 25, President Vladimir Putin called the Kiev leadership “a clique of drug addicts and neo-Nazis”. For the Atlantic media, these words were those of a mental patient.
During the night of February 25-26, President Volodymyr Zelensky sent a ceasefire proposal to Russia via the Chinese embassy in Kiev. The Kremlin immediately responded by setting out its conditions:
The Atlantic press ignored this event, while the rest of the world, which knew about it, held its breath. The negotiation failed a few hours later after Washington intervened. Only then would Western public opinion be informed, but the Russian conditions would always be hidden from them.
What is President Putin talking about? Who is he fighting against? And what are the reasons that have made the Atlanticist press blind and mute?  Paul Wolfowitz A brief history of the StraussuiansLet us stop for a moment to consider this group, the Straussians, about whom Westerners know little. They are individuals, all Jewish, but by no means representative of either American Jews or of Jewish communities worldwide. They were formed by the German philosopher Leo Strauss, who took refuge in the United States during the rise of Nazism and became a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. According to many accounts, he had formed a small group of faithful students to whom he gave oral instruction. There is no written record of this. He explained to them that the only way for the Jews not to fall victim to a new genocide was to form their own dictatorship. He called them Hoplites (the soldiers of Sparta) and sent them to disrupt the courts of his rivals. Finally, he taught them discretion and praised the “noble lie”. Although he died in 1973, his student fraternity continued.
The Straussians began forming a political group half a century ago, in 1972. They were all members of Democratic Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson’s staff, including Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. They worked closely with a group of Trotskyite journalists, also Jewish, who had met at the City College of New York and edited the magazine Commentary. Both groups were closely linked to the CIA, but also, thanks to Perle’s father-in-law Albert Wohlstetter (the US military strategist), to the Rand Corporation (the think tank of the military-industrial complex). Many of these young people intermarried until they formed a compact group of about 100 people.
Together they drafted and passed the “Jackson-Vanik Amendment” in the midst of the Watergate crisis (1974), which forced the Soviet Union to allow the emigration of its Jewish population to Israel under pain of economic sanctions. This was their founding act.
In 1976, Paul Wolfowitz [1] was one of the architects of the “Team B” charged by President Gerald Ford with assessing the Soviet threat [2]. He issued a delirious report accusing the Soviet Union of preparing to take over “global hegemony”. The Cold War changed its nature: it was no longer a question of isolating (containment) the USSR, it had to be stopped in order to save the “free world”.
The Straussians and the New York intellectuals, all of whom were on the left, put themselves at the service of the right-wing president Ronald Reagan. It is important to understand that these groups are neither truly left nor right wing. Some members have switched five times from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party and back again. What is important to them is to infiltrate power, whatever the ideology. Elliott Abrams became an assistant to the Secretary of State. He led an operation in Guatemala where he put a dictator in power and experimented with Israeli Mossad officers on how to create reserves for the Mayan Indians in order to eventually do the same thing in Israel with the Palestinian Arabs (the Mayan Resistance earned Rigoberta Menchú her Nobel Peace Prize). Then Elliott Abrams continued his exactions in El Salvador and finally in Nicaragua against the Sandinistas with the Iran-Contra affair. For their part, the New York intellectuals, now called “Neoconservatives”, created the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Institute of Peace, a mechanism that organized many colored revolutions, starting with China with the attempted coup d’état of Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang and the subsequent repression in Tiananmen Square.
At the end of George H. Bush’s (the father’s) term of office, Paul Wolfowitz, then number 3 in the Defense Department, drew up a document [3] based on a strong idea: after the decomposition of the USSR, the United States had to prevent the emergence of new rivals, starting with the European Union. He concluded by advocating the possibility of taking unilateral action, i.e. to put an end to the concerted action of the United Nations. Wolfowitz was undoubtedly the designer of “Desert Storm”, the operation to destroy Iraq that allowed the United States to change the rules of the game and organize a unilateral world. It was during this time that Straussians valued the concepts of “regime change” and “democracy promotion.”
Gary Schmitt, Abram Shulsky and Paul Wolfowitz entered the US intelligence community through the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence’s Working Group on Intelligence Reform. They criticized the assumption that other governments think the same way as the US government [4]. Then they criticized the lack of political leadership in intelligence, leaving it to wander into unimportant issues instead of focusing on the essential ones. Politicizing intelligence is what Wolfowitz had already done with the B-team and what he would do again in 2002 with the Office of Special Plans, inventing arguments for new wars against Iraq and Iran (Leo Strauss’ “noble lie”).
The Straussians were removed from power during Bill Clinton’s term. They then entered the Washington think tanks. In 1992, William Kristol and Robert Kagan (the husband of Victoria Nuland, widely quoted in the previous articles) published an article in Foreign Affairs deploring President Clinton’s timid foreign policy and calling for a renewal of “benevolent global hegemony” [5]. The following year they founded the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) at the American Enterprise Institute. Gary Schmitt, Abram Shulsky and Paul Wolfowitz were members. All of Leo Strauss’s non-Jewish admirers, including the Protestant Francis Fukuyama (the author of The End of History), immediately joined them.
 Richard Perle In 1994, now an arms dealer, Richard Perle (a.k.a. “the Prince of Darkness”) became an advisor to the President and ex-Nazi Alija Izetbegović in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was he who brought Osama Bin Laden and his Arab Legion (the forerunner of Al Qaeda) from Afghanistan to defend the country. Perle was even a member of the Bosnian delegation at the signing of the Dayton Accords in Paris.
In 1996, members of the PNAC (including Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser) wrote a study at the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS) for the new Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. This report [6] advocates the elimination of Yasser Arafat, the annexation of the Palestinian territories, a war against Iraq and the transfer of Palestinians there. It was inspired not only by the political theories of Leo Strauss, but also by those of his friend, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the founder of “revisionist Zionism”, of whom Netanyahu’s father was the private secretary.
The PNAC raised funds for the candidacy of George W. Bush (the son) and published before his election its famous report “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”. It called for a Pearl Harbor-like catastrophe that would throw the American people into a war for global hegemony. These are exactly the words that PNAC Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used on September 11, 2001.
 Robert Kagan Thanks to the 9/11 attacks, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz installed Admiral Arthur Cebrowski in Donald Rumsfeld’s shadow. He played a role comparable to that of Albert Wohlstetter during the Cold War. He imposed the strategy of “endless war”: the US armed forces should not win any more wars, but start many of them and keep them going as long as possible. The aim would be to destroy all the political structures of the targeted states in order to ruin these populations and deprive them of any means of defending themselves against the US [7]; a strategy that has been implemented for twenty years in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen…
The alliance between the Strausians and the revisionist Zionists was sealed at a major conference in Jerusalem in 2003, which Israeli political figures from all sides unfortunately thought they should attend [8]. It is therefore not surprising that Victoria Nuland (Robert Kagan’s wife, then ambassador to NATO) intervened to declare a ceasefire in Lebanon in 2006, allowing the defeated Israeli army not to be pursued by Hezbollah.
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 Bernard Lewis and Benjamin Netanyahu – Prime Minister Office Some individuals, such as Bernard Lewis, have worked with all three groups, the Straussians, the Neoconservatives and the Revisionist Zionists. A former British intelligence officer, he acquired both U.S. and Israeli citizenship, was an advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu and a member of the U.S. National Security Council. Lewis, who halfway through his career assured that Islam is incompatible with terrorism and that Arab terrorists are in fact Soviet agents, later changed his mind and assured with the same aplomb that the religion preaches terrorism. He invented the strategy of the “clash of civilizations” for the US National Security Council. The idea was to use cultural differences to mobilize Muslims against the Orthodox, a concept that was popularized by his assistant at the Council, Samuel Huntington, except that Huntington did not present it as a strategy, but as an inevitability that had to be countered. Huntington began his career as an advisor to the South African secret service during the aparteheid era, and later wrote a book, The Soldier and the State [9]understanding national security needs.
After the destruction of Iraq, the Straussians were the subject of all sorts of controversies [10]. Everyone is surprised that such a small group, supported by neoconservative journalists, could have acquired such authority without having been the subject of a public debate. The U.S. Congress appointed an Iraq Study Group (the so-called “Baker-Hamilton Commission”) to evaluate its policy. It condemned, without naming it, the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy and deplored the hundreds of thousands of deaths it had caused. But Rumsfeld resigned and the Pentagon inexorably pursued this strategy, which it had never officially adopted.
In the Obama administration, the Straussians found their way into Vice President Joe Biden’s cabinet. His National Security Advisor, Jacob Sullivan, played a central role in organizing the operations against Libya, Syria and Myanmar, while another of his advisors, Antony Blinken, focused on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. It was he who led the negotiations with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of key members of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s team in exchange for the nuclear deal.
Regime change in Kiev in 2014 was organized by the Straussians. Vice President Biden is firmly committed to it. Victoria Nuland came to support the neo-Nazi elements of the Right Sector and to supervise the Israeli “Delta” commando [11] in Maidan Square. A telephone intercept reveals her wish to “fuck the European Union” (sic) in the tradition of the 1992 Wolfowitz report. But the leaders of the European Union do not understand and protest only weakly [12].
“Jake” Sullivan and Antony Blinken placed Vice President Biden’s son, Hunter, on the board of one of the major gas companies, Burisma Holdings, despite opposition from Secretary of State John Kerry. Hunter Biden is unfortunately just a junkie, he would serve as a front for a gigantic scam at the expense of the Ukrainian people. He would appoint, under the supervision of Amos Hochstein, several of his stoner friends to become other front men at the head of various companies and to plunder Ukrainian gas. These are the people that President Vladimir Putin called a “clique of drug addicts”.
Sullivan and Blinken relied on mafia godfather Ihor Kolomoysky, the country’s third largest fortune. Although he is Jewish, he financed the heavyweights of the Right Sector, a neo-Nazi organization that works for NATO and fought in Maidan Square during the “regime change”. Kolomoïsky took advantage of his connections to take power within the European Jewish community, but his co-religionists rebelled and ejected him from international associations. However, he managed to get the head of the Right Sector, Dmytro Yarosh, appointed deputy secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council and to get himself appointed governor of the Dnipropetrovsk oblast. Both men would be quickly removed from any political function. It was their group that President Vladimir Putin called a “clique of neo-Nazis.”
In 2017, Antony Blinken founded WestExec Advisors, a consulting firm that brought together former senior Obama administration officials and many Straussians. The firm’s business is extremely low-key. It uses the political connections of its employees to make money; what anywhere else would be called corruption.  Joe Biden is not a Straussian, but he has been doing business with them for about fifteen years. Here with Anthony Blinken. The Straussians are still the same as everSince Joe Biden returned to the White House, this time as President of the United States, the Straussians have been running the show. “Jake” Sullivan is National Security Advisor, while Antony Blinken is Secretary of State with Victoria Nuland at his side. As I have reported in previous articles, she went to Moscow in October 2021 and threatens to crush Russia’s economy if it ded not comply. This was the beginning of the current crisis.
Undersecretary of State Nuland resurrected Dmitro Yarosh and imposed him on President Zelinsky, a television actor protected by Ihor Kolomoysky. On November 2, 2021, he appointed him special advisor to the head of the army, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi. The latter, a true democrat, rebelled at first and finally accepted. When questioned by the press about this astonishing duo, he refused to answer and mentioned a question of national security. Yarosh gave his full support to the “white führer”, Colonel Andrey Biletsky, and his Azov Battalion. This copy of the SS Das Reich division has been staffed since the summer of 2021 by American mercenaries formerly from Blackwater [13].
Having identified the Straussians, we must admit that Russia’s ambition is understandable, even desirable. To rid the world of the Straussians would be to do justice to the million or more deaths they have caused and to save those they are about to kill. Whether this intervention in Ukraine is the right way remains to be seen.
In any case, if the responsibility for the current events lies with the Straussians, all those who let them act without flinching also have a responsibility. Starting with Germany and France, who signed the Minsk Agreements seven years ago and did nothing to ensure that they were implemented, and then with the fifty or so states that signed the OSCE declarations prohibiting the extension of Nato east of the Oder-Neisse line and did nothing. Only Israel, which has just got rid of the revisionist Zionists, has expressed a nuanced position on these events.
This is one of the lessons of this crisis: democratically governed peoples are responsible for the decisions taken for a long time by their leaders and maintained after alternations in power. Thierry Meyssan [1] “Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon’s Soul”, by Paul Labarique, Voltaire Network, 4 October 2004. [2] Killing Detente: The Right Attacks the CIA, Anne H. Cahn, Pennsylvania State University Press (1998). [3] This document was revealed in “US Strategy Plan Calls For Insuring No Rivals Develop”, Patrick E. Tyler, New York Times, March 8, 1992. See also the excerpts published on page 14: “Excerpts from Pentagon’s Plan: ’Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival’”. Additional information is provided in “Keeping the US First, Pentagon Would Preclude a Rival Superpower” Barton Gellman, The Washington Post, March 11, 1992. [4] Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence, Abram N. Shulsky & Gary J. Schmitt, Potomac Books (1999). [5] « Toward a neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy », Robert Kagan & William Kristol, Foreign Affairs, july-august 1996, vol. 75 (4), p. 18-32. [6] «A Clean Break : A New Strategy for Securing the Realm», Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (1996). [7] “The Rumsfeld/Cebrowski doctrine”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 25 May 2021. [8] «Sommet historique pour sceller l’Alliance des guerriers de Dieu », Réseau Voltaire, 17 octobre 2003. [9] The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations, Samuel Huntington, Samuel Huntington, Belknap Press (1981). [10] This controversy is still ongoing. To write this article I have mainly consulted these eight books: The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss, Shadia B. Drury, Palgrave Macmillan (1988). Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire, Anne Norton, Yale University Press (2005). The Truth About Leo Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy, Catherine H. Zuckert & Michael P. Zuckert, University of Chicago Press (2008). Straussophobia: Defending Leo Strauss and Straussians Against Shadia Drury and Other Accusers, Peter Minowitz, Lexington Books (2009). Leo Strauss and the Conservative Movement in America, Paul E. Gottfried, Cambridge University Press (2011). Crisis of the Strauss Divided: Essays on Leo Strauss and Straussianism, East and West, Harry V. Jaffa, Rowman & Littlefield (2012). Leo Strauss, The Straussians, and the Study of the American Regime, Kenneth L. Deutsch, Rowman & Littlefield (2013). Leo Strauss and the Invasion of Iraq: Encountering the Abyss, Aggie Hirst, Routledge (2013). [11] «Qui sont ces anciens soldats israéliens parmi les combattants de rue dans la ville de Kiev ?», AlyaExpress-News.com, 2 mars 2014. « The new Gladio in Ukraine », Manlio Dinucci, Il Manifesto (Italie) , Voltaire Network, March 18, 2014. [12] “What about apologizing to Ukraine, Mrs. Nuland?”, by Andrey Fomin, Oriental Review (Russia) , Voltaire Network, 7 February 2014. [13] « Exclusive : Documents Reveal Erik Prince’s $10 Billion Plan to Make Weapons and Create a Private Army in Ukraine », Simon Shuster, Time, July 7, 2021. |
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A panicked Empire tries to make Russia an ‘offer it can’t refuse’Realizing NATO’s war with Russia will likely end unfavorably, the US is test-driving an exit offer. But why should Moscow take indirect proposals seriously, especially on the eve of its new military advance and while it is in the winning seat?By Pepe Escobar 30January2023 https://thecradle.co/article-view/20878/a-panicked-empire-tries-to-make-russia-an-offer-it-cant-refuse  Does US Secretary of State Antony Blinken think a Washington Post op-ed will move Russian Armed Forces Chief Valery Gerasimov to postpone his planned military offensive on Ukraine? Does US Secretary of State Antony Blinken think a Washington Post op-ed will move Russian Armed Forces Chief Valery Gerasimov to postpone his planned military offensive on Ukraine? Those behind the Throne are never more dangerous than when they have their backs against the wall.
Their power is slipping away, fast: Militarily, via NATO’s progressive humiliation in Ukraine; Financially, sooner rather than later, most of the Global South will want nothing to do with the currency of a bankrupt rogue giant; Politically, the global majority is taking decisive steps to stop obeying a rapacious, discredited, de facto minority.
So now those behind the Throne are plotting to at least try to stall the incoming disaster on the military front.
As confirmed by a high-level US establishment source, a new directive on NATO vs. Russia in Ukraine was relayed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken, in terms of actual power, is nothing but a messenger boy for the Straussian neocons and neoliberals who actually run US foreign policy.
The secretary of state was instructed to relay the new directive – a sort of message to the Kremlin – via mainstream print media, which was promptly published by the Washington Post.
In the elite US mainstream media division of labor, the New York Times is very close to the State Department. and the Washington Post to the CIA. In this case though the directive was too important, and needed to be relayed by the paper of record in the imperial capital. It was published as an Op-Ed (behind paywall).
The novelty here is that for the first time since the start of Russia’s February 2022 Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, the Americans are actually proposing a variation of the “offer you can’t refuse” classic, including some concessions which may satisfy Russia’s security imperatives.
Crucially, the US offer totally bypasses Kiev, once again certifying that this is a war against Russia conducted by Empire and its NATO minions – with the Ukrainians as mere expandable proxies. ‘Please don’t go on the offensive’ The Washington Post’s old school Moscow-based correspondent John Helmer has provided an important service, offering the full text of Blinken’s offer, of course extensively edited to include fantasist notions such as “US weapons help pulverize Putin’s invasion force” and a cringe-worthy explanation: “In other words, Russia should not be ready to rest, regroup and attack.”
The message from Washington may, at first glance, give the impression that the US would admit Russian control over Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson – “the land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia” – as a fait accompli.
Ukraine would have a demilitarized status, and the deployment of HIMARS missiles and Leopard and Abrams tanks would be confined to western Ukraine, kept as a “deterrent against further Russian attacks.”
What may have been offered, in quite hazy terms, is in fact a partition of Ukraine, demilitarized zone included, in exchange for the Russian General Staff cancelling its yet-unknown 2023 offensive, which may be as devastating as cutting off Kiev’s access to the Black Sea and/or cutting off the supply of NATO weapons across the Polish border.
The US offer defines itself as the path towards a “just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity.” Well, not really. It just won’t be a rump Ukraine, and Kiev might even retain those western lands that Poland is dying to gobble up.
The possibility of a direct Washington-Moscow deal on “an eventual postwar military balance” is also evoked, including no Ukraine membership of NATO. As for Ukraine itself, the Americans seem to believe it will be a “strong, non-corrupt economy with membership in the European Union.”
Whatever remains of value in Ukraine has already been swallowed not only by its monumentally corrupt oligarchy, but most of all, investors and speculators of the BlackRock variety. Assorted corporate vultures simply cannot afford to lose Ukraine’s grain export ports, as well as the trade deal terms agreed with the EU before the war. And they’re terrified that the Russian offensive may capture Odessa, the major seaport and transportation hub on the Black Sea – which would leave Ukraine landlocked.
There’s no evidence whatsoever that Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the entire Russian Security Council – including its Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev – have reason to believe anything coming from the US establishment, especially via mere minions such as Blinken and the Washington Post. After all the stavka – a moniker for the high command of the Russian armed forces – regard the Americans as “non-agreement capable,” even when an offer is in writing.
This walks and talks like a desperate US gambit to stall and present some carrots to Moscow in the hope of delaying or even cancelling the planned offensive of the next few months.
Even old school, dissident Washington operatives – not beholden to the Straussian neocon galaxy – bet that the gambit will be a nothing burger: in classic “strategic ambiguity” mode, the Russians will continue on their stated drive of demilitarization, denazification and de-electrification, and will “stop” anytime and anywhere they see fit east of the Dnieper. Or beyond. What the Deep State really wants Washington’s ambitions in this essentially NATO vs. Russia war go well beyond Ukraine. And we’re not even talking about preventing a Russia-China-Germany Eurasian union or a peer competitor nightmare; let’s stick with prosaic issues on the Ukrainian battleground.
The key “recommendations” – military, economic, political, diplomatic – were detailed in an Atlantic Council strategy paper late last year.
And in another one, under “War scenario 1: The war continues in its current tempo,” we find the Straussian neocon policy fully spelled out.
It’s all here: from “marshaling support and military-assistance transfers to Kyiv sufficient to enable it to win” to “increase the lethality of military assistance transferred to include fighter aircraft that would enable Ukraine to control its airspace and attack Russian forces therein; and missile technology with range sufficient to reach into Russian territory.”
From training the Ukrainian military “to use Western weapons, electronic warfare, and offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, and to seamlessly integrate new recruits in the service” to buttressing “defenses on the front lines, near the Donbass region,” including “combat training focusing on irregular warfare.”
Added to “imposing secondary sanctions on all entities doing business with the Kremlin,” we reach of course the Mother of All Plunders: “Confiscate the $300 billion that the Russian state holds in overseas accounts in the United States and EU and use seized monies to fund reconstruction.”
The reorganization of the SMO, with Putin, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and General Armageddon in their new, enhanced roles is derailing all these elaborate plans.
The Straussians are now in deep panic. Even Blinken’s number two, Russophobic warmonger Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland, has admitted to the US Senate there will be no Abrams tanks on the battlefield before Spring (realistically, only in 2024). She also promised to “ease sanctions” if Moscow “returns to negotiations.” Those negotiations were scotched by the Americans themselves in Istanbul in the Spring of 2022.
Nuland also called the Russians to “withdraw their troops.” Well, that at least offers some comic relief compared with the panic oozing from Blinken’s “offer you can’t refuse.” Stay tuned for Russia’s non-response response. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle. |
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We will kick you out of Europe, you muslim subhumans
 RudolfWagner-tweet-9February2016-We will kick you out of Europe, you muslim subhumans
 We will kick you out of Europe, you muslim subhumans
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Escobar: Russia-China Partnership Defangs US Empireby Tyler Durden, 01October2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-russia-china-partnership-defangs-us-empire
China’s State Council has released a crucial policy paper titled ‘A Global Community of Shared Future: China’s Proposals and Actions’ that should be read as a detailed, comprehensive road map for a peaceful, multipolar future.
That is if the hegemon – of course faithful to its configuration as War Inc. – does not drag the world into the abyss of a hybrid-turned-hot war with incandescent consequences.
In sync with the ever-evolving Russia-China strategic partnership, the white paper notes how “President Xi Jinping first raised the vision of a global community of shared future when addressing the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 2013.”
That was ten years ago, when the New Silk Roads – or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – was launched: that became the overarching foreign policy concept of the Xi era. The Belt and Road Forum next month in Beijing will celebrate the 10th anniversary of BRI, and relaunch a series of BRI projects.
“Community of Shared Future” is a concept virtually ignored across the collective West – and in several cases lost in translation across the East. The white paper’s ambition is to introduce “the theoretical base, practice and development of a global community of shared future.”  Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin
The five key points include building partnerships “in which countries treat each other as equals”; a fair and just security environment; “inclusive development”; inter-civilization exchanges; and “an ecosystem that puts Mother Nature and green development first,” as Xi detailed at the 2015 UN General Assembly.
The white paper forcefully debunks the “Thucydides Trap” fallacy: “There is no iron law that dictates that a rising power will inevitably seek hegemony. This assumption represents typical hegemonic thinking and is grounded in memories of catastrophic wars between hegemonic powers in the past.”
While criticizing the “zero-sum game” to which “certain countries” still cling to, China completely aligns with the Global South/global majority, as in “the common interests of all peoples around the world. When the world thrives, China thrives, and vice versa.”
Well, that’s not exactly the “rules-based international order” in play. It’s All About HarmonyWhen it comes to building a new system of international relations, China prioritizes “extensive consultation” among equals and “the principle of sovereign equality” that “runs through the UN Charter.” History and realpolitik, though, dictate that some countries are more equal than others.
This white paper comes from the political leadership of a civilization-state. Thus it naturally promotes the “increase of inter-civilization exchanges to promote harmony” while elegantly remarking how a “fine traditional culture epitomizes the essence of the Chinese civilization.”
Here we see a delicate blend of Taoism and Confucianism, where harmony – praised as “the core concept of Chinese culture” – is extrapolated to the concept of “harmony within diversity”: and that is exactly the basis for embracing cultural diversity.
In terms of promoting a dialogue of civilizations, these paragraphs are particularly relevant:
BRI Caravan Rolls OnChinese diplomacy has been very vocal on the need to develop a “new type of economic globalization” and engage in “peaceful development” and true multilateralism.
And that brings us inevitably to the BRI, which the white paper defines as “a vivid example of building a global community of shared future, and a global public good and cooperation platform provided by China to the world.”
Of course, for the hegemon and its collective West vassals, BRI is nothing but a massive debt trap mechanism unleashed by “autocrat China”.
The white paper notes, factually, how “more than three-quarters of countries in the world and over 30 international organizations” had joined the BRI, and refers to the sprawling, ever-expanding connectivity framework of six corridors, six routes, an array of ports, pipelines and cyberspace connectivity, among others via the New Eurasian Land Bridge, the China-Europe Railway Express (a “steel camel fleet”) and the New Land-Sea Trade Corridor crisscrossing Eurasia.
A serious problem may involve China’s Global Development Initiative, whose fundamental aim, according to Beijing, is “to accelerate the implementation of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”
Well, this agenda has been designed by the self-described Davos elites and conceptualized way back in 1992 by Rockefeller protégé Maurice Strong. Its inbuilt wet dream is to enforce the Great Reset – complete with a nonsensical zero-carbon green agenda. Better Listen to Medvedev’s WarningThe hegemon is already preparing the next stages of its hybrid war against China – even as it remains buried deep down into a de facto proxy hot war against Russia in Ukraine.
Russian strategic policy, in essence, completely aligns with the Chinese white paper, proposing a Greater Eurasian Partnership, a concerted drive towards multipolarity, and the primacy of the Global South/global majority in forging a new system of international relations.
But the Straussian neocon psychos in charge of the hegemon’s foreign policy keep raising the stakes. So it’s no wonder that after the recent attack on the HQ of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, a new National Security Council report leads to an ominous warning by Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev:
The Russian Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, has revealed that Ukraine has suffered a staggering 83,000 battlefield deaths since the start of the – failed – counteroffensive four months ago.
And Defense Minister Shoigu all but gave away the game in terms of the long-term strategy, when he said, “the consistent implementation of measures and activity plans until 2025 will allow us to achieve our goals.”
So the SMO will not be rounded up before 2025 – incidentally, much later than the next US presidential election. After all, Moscow’s ultimate aim is de-NATOization.
Faced with a cosmic NATO humiliation on the battlefield, the Biden combo has no way out: even if it declared a unilateral ceasefire to re-weaponize Kiev’s forces for a new counteroffensive in the spring/summer of 2024, the war would keep rumbling on all the way to the presidential election.
There’s absolutely no way some sharp intellect in the Beltway would read the Chinese white paper and be “infected” by the concept of harmony. Under the yoke of Straussian neocon psychos, there are zero prospects for a détente with Russia – not to mention Russia-China.
Both the Chinese and Russian leaderships know quite well how the Ray McGovern-defined MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex) works.
The kinetic aspect of MICIMATT is all about protection of the global interests of big US banks, investment/hedge funds and multinational corporations. It’s not a coincidence that MICIMATT monster Lockheed-Martin is mostly owned by Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street. NATO is essentially a mafia protection racket controlled by the US and the UK that has nothing to do with “defending” Europe from the “Russian threat.”
The actual MICIMATT and its NATO extension’s wet dream is to weaken and dismember Russia to control its immense natural resources. War Against the New ‘Axis of Evil’NATO’s incoming graphic humiliation in Ukraine is now compounded with the inexorable rise of BRICS 11 – which embodies a lethal threat to the hegemon’s geoeconomics. There’s next to nothing the MICIMATT can do about that short of nuclear war – except turbo-charging multiple instances of Hybrid War, color revolutions and assorted divide-and-rule schemes. What’s at stake is no less than a complete implosion of neoliberalism.
The Russia-China strategic partnership of true sovereigns has been coordinating full-time. Strategic patience is the norm. The white paper reveals the magnanimous facet of the number one economy in the world by PPP: that’s China’s response to the infantile notion of “de-risking”.
China is “de-risking” geopolitically when it comes to not falling for serial provocations by the Hegemon, while Russia exercises Taoist-style control to not risk a kinetic war.
Still, what Medvedev just said carries the implication that the hegemon on desperation row could even be tempted to launch WWIII against, in fact, a new “axis of evil” of three BRICS nations – Russia, China and Iran.
Secretary of the [Russian] National Security Council Nikolai Patrushev could not have been more crystal clear:
If only they could join the community of shared future – hopefully on a later, non-nuclear, date. |
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JerusalemCats Comments: This is a time of Midah K’negged Midah, measure for measure. Just as the West and the Soviet Union(Russia) destroyed the Jewish body and soul now it is happening to them. Some people would call it Karma.
Power Blackout Risks Loom For Quarter Of All Americansby Tyler Durden 18November2022 – 03:49 PM https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/power-blackout-risks-loom-quarter-all-americans The US heating season has officially begun, and new warnings show that a quarter of all Americans could experience energy emergencies this winter if temperatures fall below average due to tight fossil fuel supplies.
Power grids from the Great Lakes to Louisiana, New England, Carolinas, and all of Texas are the most at risk for power supply shortfalls during high-demand periods, according to Bloomberg, citing a new report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a regulatory body that manages grid stability.
NERC said a cold snap for an extended period could spark grid strain due to soaring power demand from households and businesses. This would cause supplies of natural gas, coal, and backup diesel generators to draw down more quickly and possibly experience shortages.
 How power is shared in North America For instance, the demand for diesel is rising, but East Coast supplies are at record lows for this time of year. Shortage of fuel used to power the economy, from heating to trucking, has about 25 days left of supplies in storage. Any supply disruption could leave power generation plants with supply gaps this winter.  US diesel supply Jim Matheson, chief executive officer of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, told Bloomberg that electricity demand is set to outpace “available supply during peak winter conditions, consumers face an inconceivable but real threat of rolling blackouts.”
Matheson warned: “It doesn’t have to be this way. But absent a shift in state and federal energy policy, this is a reality we will face for years to come.”
NERC’s warning about unstable grids covers about a quarter of the US population. The average household is expected to pay 47% more for electricity than a year ago — and there are at least 20 million households behind on utility bills.
The tightest power supplies are expected to be in the central US, managed by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator due to a large number of generators shut last winter and Gulf Coast power plants aren’t shielded against cold snaps. Then there’s New England, consists of six states in the US Northeast, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, which faces NatGas shortfalls due to inadequate pipeline infrastructure.
Rapid decarbonization of the electricity sector is one of the main reasons America’s power grid is less reliable than ever before. Solar and wind are inconsistent, as Europe found out last winter, which only paves the path for a nuclear future. |
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The Blessing that Cured the Queen19September2022 by Lazer Brody https://lazerbeams.com/the-blessing-that-cured-the-queen/
 Shotzer Rebbe-King George VI c. 1939 Here is an amazing true story that few people are aware of. It’s also a secret that even fewer people knew. And, it’s the unforgettable account of when the Shotzer Rebbe of London met face-to-face with King George VI. This was the momentous meeting that saved the life of the future Queen Elizabeth. Epilepsy and the Royal FamilyEpilepsy was in the genes of the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth’s uncle Prince John, the youngest son of King George V, died at age 13 from a severe seizure. That was in 1918.
 Queen Elizabeth, age 9, with her grandparents King George V and Queen Mary on the balcony of buckingham Palace, 1935 Let’s fast-forward to 1939. Now, King George VI was deathly afraid that his 13-year-old daughter Elizabeth would meet the same fate as his brother Prince John. The KindertransportThat same year, the Jewish Agency was organizing the famous Kindertransport (German for “children’s transport”). This was the rescue effort of children from Nazi-controlled territory. It took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the World War II in September of 1939. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. This initiative encountered strong resistance from certain British circles.
The Chief Rabbi of England at the time was Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz. He decided to intercede on behalf of the Kindertransport, so he visited King George VI together with the holy tzaddik, The Shotzer Rebbe of London, Grand Rabbi Shalom Moscowitz, osb”m. The Rebbe’s BlessingKing George VI never saw such an illuminated countenance as that of the Shotzer Rebbe. He asked for a blessing for his daughter, who was 13 at the time, and suffering from epileptic seizures. “Please, might the Rebbe pray that my daughter will live.”
The Rebbe answered unequivocally, “If Your Majesty will assure that the Kindertransport is approved, and thereby save Jewish children, then undoubtedly measure for measure, the princess will not only live, but her ailment will disappear altogether.”
The King was deeply moved. The Kindertransport began immediately and the princess – later to be Queen Elizabeth II who passed away at the ripe old age of 96 on September 8, 2022 – was miraculously cured immediately.
Rabbi Lazer Brody’s teacher and spiritual guide, Grand Rabbi Naftali Moscowitz shlit’a, aka the “Melitzer Rebbe of Ashdod,” is the grandson of The Shotzer Rebbe of London, Grand Rabbi Shalom Moscowitz, osb”m. Recently, Rabbi Lazer visited the holy gravesite of the Shotzer Rebbe at the Adath Yisroel Cemetery in Enfield, outside of London, and prayed for all of our readers, subscribers and supporters.
 Rabbi Lazer Brody praying at the holy gravesite of the Shotzer Rebbe in London |
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Gush Katif and Hurricane Katrina –
Israel’s Disengagement from Gaza | History of Israel Explained | UnpackedPosted Posted 01August2019: Gush Katif | Gaza Disengagement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gush_Katif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza#Greenhouses EvacuationOn August 13, 2005, the Gush Katif region was closed to non-residents, in keeping with the plan to evacuate the Katif bloc. Though effectively violating the Disengagement law, which most residents viewed as highly immoral and illegitimate,[25] most settlers did not voluntarily leave their homes or even pack in preparation for the eviction. On August 15, 2005, the forcible evacuation of the Gush Katif settlements began. On August 22, 2005, the residents of the last settlement, Netzarim, were evicted. In essence, many residents returned to pack the contents of their homes and the Israeli government began the destruction of all residential buildings. On September 12, 2005, the Israeli Army withdrew from each settlement up to the Green Line. All public buildings (schools, libraries, community centres, office buildings) as well as industrial buildings, factories, and greenhouses which could not be taken apart were left intact.
Originally, the Israeli cabinet had planned to destroy synagogues in the settlement, but the government caved in to pressure from religious Jewish organizations and reversed its decision.[26][27] However, most of the synagogues were destroyed by Palestinian mobs immediately after the evacuation. Abu Abir, a member of the Popular Resistance Committees terrorist organization, commented that “The looting and burning of the synagogues was a great joy…It was in an unplanned expression of happiness that these synagogues were destroyed.” Later, in 2007, it was reported that “The ruins of two large synagogues in Gush Katif, the evacuated Jewish communities of the Gaza Strip, have been transformed into a military base used by Palestinian groups to fire rockets at Israeli cities and train for attacks against the Jewish state, according to a senior terror leader in Gaza.”[28]  IDF dragging Jews from Gush Katif
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JerusalemCats Comments: The So Called Experts promised Peace with the Gaza-the Jews got Death
Video: ‘Wise Men’ of 2005: No Rocket ThreatThe “Wise Men of Chelm”? Knesset Members in 2005 said it is “ridiculous” to think terrorists will hit Ashkelon after the exit from Gaza.Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu 12MarchM2012, 10:35 AM (GMT+2) https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/153660 In what many would say is a parallel to the “Wise Men of Chelm,” Knesset Members in 2005 said it is “ridiculous” to think terrorists will hit Ashkelon after the exit from Gaza.
Arutz Sheva now presents a video of an Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) television in 2009, when the IDF entered Gaza in the counterterrorist Cast Lead campaign against terroroists, aired a Channel Two program, in which Amit Segal viewed promising speeches in 2005 on behalf of the “Disengagement” program to exit Gaza. Politicians: “There is No Threat of Rockets from the Disengagement”
A majority of MKs voted in favor of the law that resulted in the expulsion of more than 9,000 Jews from Gaza, as well as from four Jewish communities in northern Samaria, and the withdrawal of all IDF forces.
“There is an argument according to which there will be a threat…a threat and retreat…a threat on the Negev communities,” said Meir Sheetrit, formerly of the Likud and now in the Kadima party, which was founded by Ariel Sharon after he feared the Likud would not approve his plan.
“I have never before heard such a ridiculous argument,” MK Sheetrit proclaimed.
Meretz MK Ran Cohen stated from the Knesset podium, “The Disengagement is good for security,”
He then scoffed at the “right wing people [who] stood here and talked about Kassams flying from here to there….If we don’t go out of Gaza in two or three years, maybe after one year, the [rocket] range will reach Ashkelon.
Even doctor of philosophy and current Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, who now is calling for a ground invasion of Gaza, opined, “I think that this plan under the conditions is appropriate for our confidence.”
Before the Disengagement, Hamas relentlessly and brutally attacked Jews, including women and children, in Gaza for years, escalating the attacks with the onset of the Second Intifada, also known as the Oslo War in 2000.
After the expulsion in the summer of 2005, Hamas immediately fired rockets on the western Negev and the outskirts of Ashkelon. As they improved their rocket capability and smuggled into Gaza advanced missiles, the attacks reached Ashkelon and Ashdod and as far north as the edge of metropolitan Tel Aviv, prompting the Cast Lead counterterrorist operation.
Since then, southern cities have been under attack several times, the latest being the current assault that began Friday. Hamas and other terrorist groups have fired more than 150 rockets on Israeli civilians in the past five days. |
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 Israel Affairs The Oslo disaster 30 years onEfraim Karsh ABSTRACTThirty years after its euphoric launch, the ‘Oslo peace process’ between Israel and the PLO stands as the worst calamity to have afflicted Israelis and Palestinians since the 1948 war, and the most catastrophic strategic blunder in Israel’s history. By replacing Israel’s control of the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians with corrupt and repressive terrorist entities that indoctrinated their subjects with burning hatred of Jews and Israelis, as well as murdered some 2,000 Israelis and rained thousands of rockets and missiles on their population centres, the Oslo process has made the prospects for peace and reconciliation ever more remote. By deflating the combative ethos of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), it has weakened Israel’s national security and made the outbreak of a multi-front war a distinct possibility. By transforming the PLO (and, to a lesser extent, Hamas) into internationally accepted political actors without forcing them to shed their genocidal commitment to the Jewish state’s destruction, it weakened Israel’s international standing. And by deepening Israel’s internal cleavages and destabilising its sociopolitical system, it has created a clear and present danger to the Jewish State’s thriving democracy, indeed to its very existence.
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Israeli feelings about Gaza settlements withdrawal – 17 years laterSimcha Pasko – September 14, 2022 at 09:00 PM – latest revision September 14, 2022 at 05:01 PM  NICOLAS ASFOURI / AFP – A young child stands next to a banner with the inscription “Gush Katif Forever” at the Gaza Strip settlement of Nezer Hazani in the Gush Katif bloc, Gaza Strip, August 17, 2005. The Israeli army withdrew from Gush Katif 17 years ago, and Israelis are still feeling the anger
In 2005, Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip. As a result, roughly 8,000 people – mostly Orthodox Religious Zionists – were forcibly removed from their homes, a settlement bloc known as Gush Katif. This week marks the anniversary of the completed disengagement, with September 12 being the final withdrawal.
Now, some 17 years later, the mention of Gush Katif still sparks feelings of outrage among Israelis. Why? BackgroundIsrael’s 11th Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon – who served from 2001 to 2006 – was known as “the father of settlements,” urging young settlers to “run and grab as many hilltops as they can.”
That’s why it was so shocking when, in 2003, Sharon proposed total disengagement from the Gaza Strip. The preliminary parliament vote passed in October 2004, with sixty-seven in favor, forty-five against, seven abstentions, and one absentee. The plan was officially approved in 2005, implemented in August, and completed in September of that same year.
As a result, the 8,000 Jewish settlers from settlements in the Gaza Strip were relocated. The army gave them two options: leave voluntarily and receive a compensation package, or be forcibly evicted.
The 17-settlement bloc known as Gush Katif – located on the southwestern edge of the Gaza Strip, bordered on the southwest by Rafah and the Egyptian border, on the east by Khan Yunis – was first established in 1986.  Edited GoogleMaps screenshot / Simcha Pasko – A map of Gaza Strip denoting the location of the Gush Katif settlement blocs. According to the Jewish community, their history in the area extends far before then.
Israel’s army closed Gush Katif to non-residents on August 13, 2005, and just two days later, forced evacuations began. During the disengagement, Israeli authorities destroyed all Jewish residents’ homes but left significant infrastructures such as electricity, pipes and roads.
Palestinians dismantled what remained, using the sites for construction materials.
The eviction of all residents, demolition of the residential buildings and evacuation of associated security personnel from the Gaza Strip was completed by September 12, 2005, 17 years ago Monday.
Less than a year later, elections were held in the Palestinian Territories, with the militant group Hamas seizing power in Gaza and leading the enclave ever since. BacklashThe disengagement was controversial among Israelis.
But while the Israeli government said that more than half of the settlers agreed to leave voluntarily, many refused and resisted. The settlers, backed by the right-wing, claimed that Israel had a historic right to the land.
People who opposed the plan also argued that the decision to disengage was a capitulation to Palestinian terrorism and not in the context of mutually agreed concessions.
The first protest was held in May of 2005, with over 400 protestors arrested, half of them youths. And in June 2005, a Channel 2 poll showed that public support for the plan had fallen below 50 percent for the first time.<
Right before the evacuation, in August of 2005, nearly 50,000 Israelis protested in the Gaza border communities, with over 15,000 police officers and soldiers attempting to prevent them from reaching the Gaza enclave.  DAVID FURST / AFP – Israeli settlers link arms to prevent Israeli soldiers from entering the rear entrance to the southern Gaza Strip Gush Katif settlement of Neve Dekalim, 15 August, 2005. Settler leader Avner Shimoni said at the time, “It is impossible to stop the masses of Israel who have only one goal, to reach Gush Katif and overturn this cruel decree.”
The Rabbinical Council of Judea and Samaria and Rabbi Avraham Shapira, a former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, even called upon religious soldiers to refuse orders to facilitate evacuation in the settlements.
On August 11, 2005, 150,000 and 300,000 people massed in and around Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square for an anti-disengagement rally, which organizers called “the largest expression of public protest ever held in Israel.”
17 years later
Gush Katif has been called a “lingering wound,” one still open and fresh for Israelis.
“It’s a trauma,” an Israeli named Hillel told i24NEWS. “The whole country was hurting.”
He noted that he thought it did nothing but make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict worse.
 DAVID FURST / AFP – An Israeli mourns over the grave of a relative for last time prior to the uprooting of graves as part of Israel’s ongoing disengagement plan, at the Gush Katif cemetery near the southern Gaza Strip settlement of Newe Dekalim August 23, 2005 Daniel and Ayal, two Israelis who were only six when the withdrawal happened, explained to i24NEWS how the event was presented to them as they got older.
“Everyone has an opinion on it. How could you not?” Daniel noted. “One of the main things, for many people, is the idea that a Jew should never kick out another Jew. It was us against ourselves, which is – for many people – unacceptable.”
Slogans like “Jews don’t evict Jews!” could be found on bumper stickers during the time of the disengagement, as the protests became a political movement. Residents of Gush Katif even chanted the saying in Hebrew during their final hours in the community.<
“At the time of the withdrawal, my parents tried to censor it from me,” Ayal explained. “They are very patriotic and didn’t want me to grow up in fear that my own country could do such a thing to me.”
To Daniel, and many other Israelis, Gush Katif is a “sign of the government’s failure.”
“The public was against it. Everyone was against it,” he explained. “And the government did it anyway.”  RONI SCHUTZER / AFP – Jewish settlers employ Nazi-era imagery, including Stars of David on their T-shirts, in protest against their forced removal by Israeli troops from their home as they walk out of their front door in the Jewish settlement of Kerem Atzmona in the Gush Katif settlement bloc, Gaza Strip, August 17, 2005. Daniel explained to i24NEWS the prevailing idea, translated from Hebrew, that “we shall return to there.”
“I don’t think very many people still believe it. But, when it happened – and for many years after – people said, ‘we shall return there. We have to make things right.’”
Several people still believe in that idea.
“Yes,” he wrote, “to physically return and rebuild it.”
The West Bank
The topic of Gush Katif tends to come up when the idea of withdrawing from the West Bank is mentioned.
West Bank leaders feared at the time that the Gaza pullout would lead to further withdrawals from areas claimed by the Palestinians, as four settlements in the West Bank were also dismantled as part of the 2005 disengagement.  GoogleMaps screenshot / Simcha Pasko – A map of Israel and the West Bank. Many who were evacuated from Gush Katif reestablished themselves in West Bank settlements, and the fear of another forced withdrawal remains. A vast number of Gush Katif settlers relocated to the city of Ariel, one of four thriving city settlements in the area. Ariel has over double the number of people that Gush Katif once did, its own soccer team and a university.
The idea that the government could dismantle Ariel and the city settlements like it is unconscionable to many Israelis.
Ayal told i24NEWS, “I think Gush Katif proved something very important. Since the withdrawal, there were three wars fought in the area that was given,” referring to several of the Israeli operations that took place in the Gaza Strip.
“Those wars took thousands of lives.”  JACK GUEZ / AFP – A view shows the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank, on July 1, 2020. “When there are no settlements, there is no military to keep the peace. When there is no military keeping the peace, deadly wars take place.”
And although, to many religious-nationalists, Gaza is a part of the Land of Israel that God promised to the Jews, the land of the West Bank is far more critical.
The claim that Jewish presence in the area has existed for thousands of years is one that religious Zionists frequently tout.
Pro-Israel watchdog HonestReporting notes, regarding areas near the Green Line that would remain part of Israel in any peace agreement with the Palestinians, “Gush Katif didn’t have the wider consensus support that the West Bank blocs have.”
Additionally, Palestinians’ supposed destruction of what remained haunts those forced from Gush Katif. The prevailing idea for many Israelis is that the Palestinians were left some 3,000 greenhouses to assist their economic regrowth, which they immediately destroyed in the aftermath of the withdrawal.
Journalist Richard Chesnoff wrote in the Huffington Post in 2014, “Even the network of miraculously flourishing greenhouses that Israeli settlers had built became Palestinian, something Israel hoped would help convince the Gaza leadership to keep peaceful borders with the Jewish state.”  Roberto SCHMIDT / AFP – A Palestinian worker unbolts a metal framework as he and others help dismantle Israeli owned greenhouses near the New Pe’at Sade settlement of the Gush Katif settlement bloc in southern Gaza Strip, July 29, 2005 “That didn’t happen. The chain of greenhouses was soon looted and all but completely destroyed.”
Religious Zionists consider the disengagement a watershed moment that can not, and most likely will not, be repeated.
“In practice, it’s impossible,” Daniel told i24NEWS regarding the thought of completely withdrawing from the West Bank. “There would be massive unrest; people would fight for every chunk of land. They wouldn’t let anyone kick them out again.”
One settler removed from Gush Katif, Dror Vanunu, told The Jerusalem Post in 2020 that “another evacuation will never happen.”
“There is no doubt that Gush Katif saved Judea and Samaria,” he stated, using the biblical term for the West Bank. He added that the continued violence from Gaza led many Israelis to believe the disengagement was a mistake.
One day, he continued, he hopes that “I – or my children – will return to Gush Katif.”
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What did the Jews of Israel get with the “Disengagement”?Rockets from Gaza rain havoc on Israeli cities in latest war15 Seconds in Sderot, Israel
An Open Letter to Critics of Israel BLOOD CELLS EVERYWHERE: An IDF map of the locations of rockets launched from Gaza from July 8th to August 4th. (Still awaiting a map from Hamas, in case the terrorist group disagrees.)  Violent Hamas Riots and Rockets summary 2018  Friday, 11 July 2014 Miracle in Ashdod: Direct Hit on Gas Station, no Fatalities What’s the war like in Ashdod?  Tel Aviv hit with rocket fire from Gaza  LONGSHOT: At a cost of as much as $100,000 per unit, Israel’s Iron Dome, seen here in action, has a rocket-interception rate of 85-90%. But it doesn’t cover the whole country—not by a longshot. Hurricane Katrina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina Katrina emerged into the Gulf of Mexico on August 26 and began to rapidly intensify. The storm strengthened into a Category 5 hurricane over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico[1] before weakening to Category 3 strength at its second landfall on August 29 over southeast Louisiana and Mississippi. Flooding, caused largely as a result of fatal engineering flaws in the flood protection system (levees)[2] around the city of New Orleans, precipitated most of the loss of lives.[3] Eventually, 80% of the city, as well as large tracts of neighboring parishes, were inundated for weeks.[4] The flooding also destroyed most of New Orleans’s transportation and communication facilities, leaving tens of thousands of people who had not evacuated the city prior to landfall stranded with little access to food, shelter, or other basic necessities. The scale of the disaster in New Orleans provoked massive national and international response efforts; federal, local, and private rescue operations evacuated displaced persons out of the city over the following weeks.  The Louisiana Superdome stands littered and deserted, except for some police, military and an occasional stray dog, Saturday, Sept. 3, 2005, after Hurricane Katrina refugees staying at the Superdome evacuated New Orleans. (AP Photo/The Times, Greg Pearson) The Superdome, which was sheltering many people who had not evacuated, sustained significant damage.[66] Two sections of the Superdome’s roof were compromised and the dome’s waterproof membrane was essentially peeled off. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport was closed before the storm but did not flood. On August 30, it was reopened to humanitarian and rescue operations. Limited commercial passenger service resumed at the airport on September 13 and regular carrier operations resumed in early October.[67]  Memorial Medical Center nurse Mary Jo D’Amico fanned a patient waiting in the hospital’s parking garage for helicopter transport from New Orleans. (Brad Loper/The Dallas Morning News)
Gush Katif and Katrina – Even 5 Years Later – InseparableAugust 23, 2010 https://yeranenyaakov.blogspot.com/2010/08/gush-katif-and-katrina-even-5-years.html
The emotional toll of the victims of the Disengagement was, and still is, extremely high – years after it took place. Just look at this study that underscores this. The study was done in 2008. I doubt much has changed. The emotional toll on Hurricane Katrina victims is also still very high, according to Fox News.
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Katrina and Isreal’s Withdrawal from GazaPosted by Pauly 07SEPTEMBER2009 https://randomthoughtsbypauly.blogspot.com/2009/09/katrina-and-isreals-withdrawal-from.html Close to 10,000 Jews were expelled from their homes in the Gaza Strip and parts of northern Samaria. Katrina’s death toll is now expected to reach at least 10,000.
Gaza’s Jewish communities were located in Israel’s southern coastal region; America’s southern coastal region now lies in ruins.
The U.S. government called on Louisiana residents to evacuate their homes ahead of the storm. The Israeli government, backed by statements from U.S. officials, demanded Gaza residents evacuate their homes.
Katrina, written in Hebrew, has a numerical equivalent of 374, according to a biblical numbering system upheld by all traditional Jewish authorities. Two relevant passages in the Torah share the exact numerical equivalent: “They have done you evil” (Gen. 50:17) and “The sea upon land” (Exodus 14:15).
Bush, from Texas, and Rice, from Alabama, were the most vocal U.S. backers of the Gaza evacuation. Hurricane Katrina hit the states in between Texas and Alabama – Louisiana and Mississippi.
Similarity in scenes: Many residents of Jewish Gaza climbed to their rooftops to escape the threat of expulsion, while residents of the Gulf Coast climbed on their own rooftops to protect themselves from the rising waters. Jewish Gaza homes described as beautiful and charming were demolished this week by Israel’s military. Once beautiful homes in New Orleans now lie in ruins.
The day Katrina hit, Israel began carrying out what was termed the most controversial aspect of the Gaza withdrawal – the uprooting of bodies from the area’s Jewish cemetery. There have been media reports of corpses floating around in flooded New Orleans regions.
Citizens of Israel were barred from entering Gush Katif; people were only allowed to leave Jewish Gaza. As Katrina was making landfall U.S. authorities barred citizens from entering the affected areas. People were only allowed out. ==== ====
JerusalemCats Comments: This Data was going around in E-Mails; The Katif-Katrina ConnectionBy Daniel Sieradski https://jewschool.com/the-katif-katrina-connection-9355 Fresh from the inbox:
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Katrina’s messageAugust 29, 2005 Rebbe Nachman of Breslev teaches that we must constantly search for the Divine message in all the events of our lives, since Hashem speaks to us by way of our environment.
At the time of this writing, hurricane Katrina has been declared a national emergency in the USA; her winds now exceed 175 mph (nearly 300 km/hour). She’s a mere one hundred miles from the US coast, and approaching at a foreboding 13 miles per hour. Authorities in Louisiana have ordered hundreds of thousands of people to flee from their homes.  Fleeing from Katrina, New Orleans, Sunday afternoon, travelers try to leave downtown New Orleans on 28August2005 Fleeing from Katrina, New Orleans, Sunday afternoon Katrina is hitting just as the bulldozers are completing the destruction of Gush Katif. The Talmud teaches that Hashem administers the world according to the “ATFAT” principle, in other words, “a turn for a turn” (for an elaboration of the ATFAT principle, see Chapter Six of The Trail to Tranquility). My heart tells me that there’s a link between the forced expulsion of 8500 people from their blood, sweat, and tear-soaked homes in Israeli Gaza and between the nearly 850,000 people who are forced to flee from their homes in Louisiana. Sharon, at the prodding of the American government, has destroyed hallowed centers of prayer, Torah learning, and settlement in the Land of Israel. Hashem isn’t wasting much time in showing His wrath. In fact, Katrina has chosen Ms. Rice’s home state as a target; I humbly believe that the unfortunate people of Louisiana can blame Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice for their misfortune. This is a classic ATFAT situation: He who creates exiles in the Holy Land, will have a hundred-fold exiles in his own land.  A Louisiana National Guardsmen holds back residents as they gather outside the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans on Sunday, Aug. 28, 2005. The Superdome opened Sunday to residents of New Orleans who are seeking shelter from Hurricane Katrina which is expected to make landfall on Monday. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) A bizarre turn of events – for weeks, the media was savoring over the confrontations between Jewish settlers and Jewish soldiers; now, similar pictures are pouring over the wire from New Orleans. In the above photo, courtesy of Reuters, a National Guardsman holds back people seeking refuge in the Louisiana Superdome, Sunday afternoon.A coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidences.
Katrina, written קטרינה in Hebrew, has a numerical equivalent of 374. Two relevant passages in Torah share the exact numerical equivalent of 374 also: רעה גמלוך, or “They have done you evil” (see Gen. 50:17), and ים ביבשה, or “The sea upon land” (see Exodus 14:15). The former passage may be an indication as to the spiritual cause of Katrina, while the latter passage describes the physical manifestation.
Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice, I implore you to repent, to ask Hashem’s forgiveness for destroying a flourishing part of Israel. Cancel all your demands for further territorial concessions in Israel. If by your initiative more Jews are rendered homeless, G-d forbid, I shudder to think of what could happen. Please take Katrina very seriously, for she is a no-nonsense messenger from The Almighty. |
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The US forced Israel out of Gaza and Northern Shomron in 2005The rabbi who knew the real reason for Arik Sharon’s “Disengagement”Reflections on the passing of Rabbi Shaar-Yashuv HaKohen zt”l: The Rabbi who heard the real reason Arik Sharon retreated from Gaza and expelled the Jewish communities from Katif and Northern Shomron.David Bedein, 06/09/16 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/19442 The death of the Chief Rabbi Emeritus of Haifa, Rabbi Shaar-Yashuv Cohen, brings to mind the most stirring episodes in the history of the modern State of Israel.
Rav Shaar-Yashuv Cohen, wounded in the battle for the Old City in Jerusalem, was the last Jewish civilian who left the Old City as it fell, carried on a stretcher into captivity…And Rav Shaar-Yashuv Cohen, who served as the deputy Mayor of Jerusalem in 1967, was given the honor of being the first civilian allowed to enter the Old City in Jerusalem at the time of its liberation during the six day war.
Yet there is yet another mission to Jerusalem which was little known.
In August, 2005, Rabbi Shaar-Yashuv Cohen traveled to Jerusalem to attempt a last minute plea for then Prime Minister Ariiel (Arik) Sharon to reconsider his plan to retreat from Gush Katif, which involved Israel’s obliteration of the 21 Jewish communities there, including 325 thriving Jewish farms and 86 synagogues and Jewish study centers. Rav Shaar-Yashuv Cohen told me at the time that the rapport between Arik Sharon and himself had lasted since his days of captivity in the 1948 war and that Rav Shaar-Yashuv was the only Rabbi who was ready to speak with him at the time.
Sharon gave a clear answer to the rabbi: “This is what the US is demanding that I do and I must do it.”
It did not matter that half of the 9,000 Jews who live in Gush Katif had nowhere to go, and that their relocation plans were still up in the air.
It did not matter that the Israeli government cannot offer more than two containers to each family to help them remove their possessions.
It did not seem to matter that the experts in Israel’s security establishment are warning that the result of Israel’s hasty retreat will be the creation of a new Islamic terror base.
Rav Shaar-Yashuv Cohen heard Sharon making it clear that he was under pressure from the US government and that is that, and that the myth of an autonomous Israeli policy in this regard had nothing to do with reality.
Indeed, one of the common assumptions was that the Sharon government’s plan to expel Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria, and unilaterally hand the area over to an independent Palestinian entity, had been an entirely autonomous Israeli decision.
But the US government was behind it all along.
In meetings with concerned American citizens, Danny Ayalon, Israeli ambassador to the US at the time, clearly stated that Sharon’s Retreat Plan was part of an overall Israeli-American agreement.
In late June, 2005, Ayalon met with representatives of the Orthodox Union, one of the largest contingents of American Orthodox Jews, and told them clearly that “Prime Minister Sharon is left with no choice. He is doing exactly what the US expects him to do.”
In an interview with the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, published on June 22nd, 2005, Ayalon reversed earlier Israeli government statements, saying that Israel does not expect the Palestinian Authority (PA) to dismantle terrorist infrastructure until after the planned expulsion. He mentioned that ending terrorism and anti-Israel incitement had been conditions Israel had demanded from the PA before carrying out the plan; however, Ayalon indicated that the agreement with the US was more important than an agreement with the PA.
The Israeli ambassador said, “Disengagement has to be viewed in the context of Israel-United States relations…. This pullout did not follow an agreement with the Palestinians, but it followed something which is much more important, an agreement with the United States. Disengagement is something that creates a common agenda between us and the United States.”
In the final interview given by Benyamin Netanyahu before his resignation from the Sharon government, he indicated that the current policy pursued by the government of Israel should be perceived as a threat to the security interests of the US and of all Western countries, since it created a terror base in Gaza, and since the Palestinian Authority incorporated the Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations instead of dismantling them.
Yet, the directive of the US State Department remained unaltered: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon must dismantle and withdraw any and all Israeli presence from every Jewish community in the Katif district of Gaza by mid-August.
When Israel did go ahead with the retreat of the IDF and the expulsion of the Jewish communities from Katif and the Northern Shomron, Rav Shaar-Yashuv Cohen told me that he wanted to tell the world that this policy was implemented as a the result of a clear dictate to Arik Sharon issued by the government of the United States. This was not meant as rationalization for Sharon’s policy.
Few people want to hear the warnings of Rav Shaar-Yashuv Cohen that Israeli policy is often dictated from Washington. |
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MEDIA RELEASES SEPTEMBER 2005admin 3September2005 SEPTEMBER 2005 https://womeningreen.org/media-releases-september-2005/ IS THERE A CONNECTION? Letter from Ruth Matar (Women in Green) Jerusalem As you read this letter of mine, you are probably still deluged with reports of the horrific devastation wrought on the United States by Hurricane Katrina. Since Monday August 29, worldwide television seems to have featured nothing but images of the destruction of thousands of homes and businesses, streets, highways, and other infrastructure. Worst of all are images of continued human suffering. New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin said the hurricane might have killed thousands in his city alone.
From the 16th to the 23rd of August, worldwide television featured continual scenes from Israel of weeping fathers, mothers and children forcibly dragged out of their homes in Gush Katif and Samaria and loaded onto buses by the Israeli Police and Army, upon the orders of the Ariel Sharon Government. The bulldozing and destruction of the homes, schools, farms, hot houses, and businesses continues. The decision to level all the synagogues in Gush Katif has still not begun. The disinterment of graves in Gush Katif is being done today.
Is there a connection between the two tragedies? Dr. James Vineyard, a pastor of a large church (3500 members) firmly believes that there is such a connection. Pastor Vineyard is a committed Christian-Zionist and passionately believes that President Bush’s “ROAD MAP PLAN” and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “DISENGAGEMENT PLAN” are directly against the word of the G-d of Israel as expressed in the Judeo-Christian bible.
In response, Pastor Vineyard has written numerous letters to President Bush ever since he adopted the Saudi sponsored “ROAD MAP PLAN”.
Similarly, he has written many letters to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, since he put forward his harmful, irresponsible “DISENGAGEMENT PLAN”. After literally hundreds of letters, Prime Minister Sharon finally answered Pastor Vineyard on August 16, 2005.
I am reproducing three important letters here in their entirety. Please read them carefully, as they shed light on the current situation: 1. Prime Minister Sharon’s letter to Pastor Vineyard – August 16, 2005 Dear Pastor Vineyard, Thank you for your recent letters. I have dedicated my entire life to defending the security of the people of Israel and the State of Israel. For many years I have been engaged in settlement, establishing new communities and strengthening our hold on this land.
I believe that today, the best interest, welfare and security of the people of Israel necessitate a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, an area where there is no chance of establishing a Jewish majority and which will clearly not be part of the State of Israel under any permanent settlement. We are now diverting most of our attention to areas which are vital to our existence- the Galilee, the Negev, Greater Jerusalem, the population centers and the security zones.
I initiated the Disengagement plan as I believe it is the best tool to generate fundamental change in the national situation of the State of Israel. A pullout from Gaza will have a tremendously positive effect on all aspects of life in Israel: the security, economy and standard of living in this country.
For the first time, the Palestinians will be presented with a clear choice: do they want to start building or continue destroying? Are they capable and willing to change or do they want to continue wallowing in hatred and incitement, condemning their people to a life of poverty and misery?
I am aware of the great sacrifice asked of the residents of the Gaza Strip and the four communities in Northern Samaria who must relocate, and genuinely feel their pain. However, as we have no desire to rule over millions of Palestinians, disengagement is necessary to allow us to embark on a new reality. With best Wishes, Sincerely, Dear Mr. Sharon: I have received your letter of August 16, 2005. Thank you for answering. However, with all due respect, Sir, I wish to take issue with you that Israel’s “best interests, welfare, and security” necessitated a withdrawal from Gaza and Shomron. The pullout will not have “positive effects” on Israel’s security, economy, and standard of living.
For instance, Sir, I know for a fact that on April 30, 2003, you were “not advocating pulling out” from Gaza and Shomron after having defeated Amran Mitzna in the elections.
But, on that day, April 30, 2003, you were given the Condi Rice-authorized, Flynt Leverett-authored (in the Saudi-funded Jim Baker Public Policy Institute, Rice University) Road Map to Peace Plan.
When written, the Road Map went to the Saudis for their approval, then the European Union, then Tony Blair, then Colin Powell, then Bush, and from him, it came to your government on April 30, 2003.
Interesting, Sir, is the fact that the Road Map was given to you after Abu Mazen was sworn in as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.
The next day, Sir, a British al-Qaeda martyr-bomber (aiming for those seventy-two dark-eyed virgins in the Islamic version of a Hollywood Whorehouse) blew up the Tel Aviv pub Mike’s Place as a fitting reaction to the new Road Map Policy. Casualties? Three were killed and over twenty wounded!
Sir, Islamic terror is not caused because of “Israel’s supposed occupier” position. Ten weeks before you became a Jewish state (February 22, 1948), a triple truck bomb was detonated on Ben Yehuda Street. Fifty-four people were killed with hundreds wounded.
The lesson? It is obvious that Islamic terrorism is caused, not by the “desperation” of “occupation,” but by THE VERY THOUGHT OF A JEWISH STATE.
Mr. Prime Minister, I did not fall off a “cabbage truck” yesterday! I have been studiously following events in Israel the entirety of my Christian experience, which now is forty-one years! During that period of time, the Palestinians have been given “clear choices” hundreds of times.
And, Sir, I am aware that the USA continues to disregard realities in the Middle East, putting extremely heavy pressure on Jerusalem to go along with the Road Map and ignoring the Palestinians’ ongoing terrorist activities – the daily casualties among Israeli civilians and the firing of mortar shells and Qassam rockets at Israeli targets!
Sir, the Disengagement was a huge prize for Islamic terror. In its wake, Sir, the Palestinians will not only achieve their strategic goals but will also reach a clear conclusion – TERROR PAYS!
They will get all the concessions Israel, the USA, the European Union, and the United Nations showers on them – billions and billions of dollars! From those funds, they will reorganize themselves and rebuild their Islamic terror units; and the moment it is convenient, the homicide bombers will start blowing up buses; and Qassams will start falling on Askelon, Sderot, Tel Aviv, etc.
Your experience from Oslo ought to have taught you that this WRONG WAY – ROAD MAP “bodes” a future in which Islamic terror will be much worse.
Back, Sir, to the Spring of 2003, and to the presentation of the WRONG WAY – ROAD MAP Peace Plan – I know for a fact that on May 10, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell marched into Israel with a list of WRONG WAY – ROAD MAP “demands” requiring substantial Israeli concessions in return for only imprecise, ambiguous, and perplexing assurances from the Palestinians.
Israel was to freeze all settlement activities! (I grew up, Sir, in the Panhandle of Texas. As a boy, I was taught Texas History about how settlers came and settled the Panhandle! Now, I live in Oklahoma! Oklahoma History teaches how settlers settled this Indian Territory, and as a matter of fact, the Oklahoma University fight song, “BOOMER SOONER,” has to do with that settling! But, since it “weren’t Jews,” it is OKAY in America!)
Sir, Secretary of State Powell (then) and Ms. Doctor Condi Rice (now) “rudely ignore” Israel’s reservations, and both insist on sticking to the original WRONG WAY – ROAD MAP dictates!
Israel has been put in a position by the USA to make “confidence-building measures” (HOGWASH, I SAY, SIR) unilaterally! Israel is expected to unilaterally undertake these conciliatory measures demanded by the USA irrespective of Palestinian actions!
Sir, the “NEW REALITY” you speak about, which Disengagement allows you to embark on, is “SANCTIMONIOUS RHETORIC”! It is “only” the advancement of Bush’s naive political interests in the Middle East.
I remember the day you met Abu Mazen (Arafat #2) on May 17, 2003. Then, the Palestinians refused to live up to Washington’s promises that they would fight terrorism after significant withdrawals.
Your squabble with Arafat #2 on May 17, 2003, was immediately followed by the May 18, 2003, bombing of yet another bus in Jerusalem which killed seven and wounded twenty-four.
On my birthday, May 19, 2003, an Islamic female suicide bomber hit the shopping mall in Afula, leaving three dead and seventy wounded.
As I recall, Sir, exceptionally detailed intelligence left no doubt in Washington or Jerusalem that both bombings were directed from Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah.
And yet, the IDF did not act because of intense U.S. pressure not to embarrass Bush by undermining the Road Map, even though the price would be paid with the lives and limbs of Israeli civilians.
After those events, in Maaleh Adumim, I told my friend, Mayor Benni Kashriel, that if I were Prime Minister of Israel, I would give a six-hour notice to folks in Ramallah and allow all the women and children to leave.
Then, I would drop a US Arsenal Daisy Cutter (25,000-pounder) on the thug of all thugs – Arafat – and his cronies! Benni was so impressed by that statement that he attempted to get me an appointment with Sha’ul Mofaz so that I could tell him. Mr. Prime Minister, I am your friend and not your enemy. I am a Yedid and Chaver to the Jewish people. I have no hidden agenda. I just believe that G-d meant what He said when He said He would bless those who blessed the Jews.
Now, Sir, you question, “Do they [Islamic Palestinians] want to continue to wallow in hatred and incitement, condemning their people to a life of poverty and misery?”
Sir, in all the countries where Islam now holds sway, common, ordinary people are condemned to a life of poverty and misery! THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS WHATSOEVER, SIR!
SUICIDE BOMBERS are standing in line to get at US forces in Iraq! As we get closer to Congressional and Senatorial elections in 2006, the liberal, leftist US Media will find a Democrat Champion; and as American soldiers continue to die, they will turn the “no-stomach-for-the-fight” Americans against Bush’s Middle East efforts.
Israel will then be left holding the bag of their Disengagement, but in a much more dire situation! This morning, our church marquee reads: “ROAD MAP EVICTS 9000 JEWS FROM THEIR HOMES IN GAZA-SHOMRON! KATRINA EVICTS ONE MILLION FROM THEIR HOMES IN USA. CONNECTION? GEN. 12:3 & JER. 31:35!” Neither the US News Media nor the Bush Administration will listen to what we are declaring! Please pay attention, Sir! A True Yedid and Chaver of the Jews, Dear Mr. Bush: You profess to be a believer in the Messiah, for Whom we owe the Jews. And, you profess to read the Holy Bible (for which we owe the Jews) on a daily basis.
Sir, in the Holy Bible, in Jeremiah 31:35, we read: “Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:”
Anytime, in our King James Version of the Bible, when the name LORD is in all upper case, then the LORD God of Israel’s name there is JEHOVAH. Jehovah is the only true God. All other gods, including “allah,” are false gods.
Now, Sir, as evidenced by many scholarly folks, our “common enemy” with Israel is Terrorism – the majority of which (99.99%) is directed “ideologically” by the Religion of Islam from Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, etc.
Sir, Arafat #1 did direct and now Arafat #2 (Abu Mazen) is directing Islamic terrorism against the nation of Israel, and Osama and gang are directing Islamic terrorism against the USA.
Under the “Road MapDisengagement” Peace Plan, nine thousand Jewish people were “EVACUATED” from their homes in the Gush and Shomron. The USA has already promised and given $50 million to Arafat #2.
Israel is asking for $3 billion in aid to implement the Road Map-Disengagement just in Gaza and Shomron. Ms. Rice says, “Gaza is only the start.” If that be true, there will be many more billions of dollars spent on this travesty of justice.
Now, here come THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL’S roaring, dividing waves (Jeremiah 31:35) named KATRINA, which causes the estimated evacuation of 1 million residents (480,000 in New Orleans; 384,000 along the Alabama coastline; and 140,000 in Mississippi).
The estimated cost of Katrina is up to $26 billion dollars in damages. Is there a connection, Sir? The LORD GOD OF ISRAEL has stirred up the Waves so that they roar. Satan cannot do that. Old allah cannot do that either! It was the LORD GOD OF ISRAEL!
Soon, the Road Map will displace the Jewish residents adjacent to the Avraham Avinu neighborhood in Hebron. MK Uzi Landau said this morning that the main problem facing Ariel Sharon is “his loss of legitimacy among members of his party.”
At the same time, Kofi Anan congratulated Sharon on his “courageous decision-making process” which led to the implementation of the Road Map-Disengagement plan.
Mr. President, you profess to be a Christian! As a Christian, you know the Holy Bible teaches, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
The LORD OF HOSTS has divided the Sea, and America has reaped for what we have done in Israel. If we do not get off the path we are on, America will be the cause of the first democracy (Israel) suffering defeat at the hands of our “common Islamic enemy”!
Then, Sir, with all due respect, KATRINA will look like child’s play relative to what THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL will send our way! A man who LOVES THE LORD with all his heart, soul, mind, body, and strength and who realizes that as a Christian, we have no alternative other than being a blessing to the sons and daughters of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and King David, Jim Vineyard
The so called DISENGAGEMENT PLAN of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was initiated in response to the “ROAD MAP” of President Bush- the plan to establish an Arab State in the Holy Land. As a consequence of that plan, 9,000 Jews were forcibly expelled from their homes in Gush Katif and Samaria.
A week after their expulsion the United States is struck by Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst disasters in American history. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have been evacuated from disaster areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and made homeless.
Is there a connection? Is this merely coincidence or is there cause and effect? It is up to each one us to answer this question!
We urge all our friends in America to call on the President of the United States to stop pressuring Israel to withdraw from the Land of Israel and to recognize that all the land promised in the Holy Bible to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob belongs to the Jewish people.
With Blessings and Love for Israel, |
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The 1993 Oslo Accord dismissed the writing on the wall6September2023 The Oslo Accord assessed the Palestinian Arab issue via Western lenses, sacrificing Mid-East reality on the altar of wishful thinking.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” Oslo Accord’s writing on the wall In January 1979, President Carter facilitated the Ayatollahs’ rise to power in Iran, assuming that they would be “preoccupied with tractors, not with tanks.” In September 1993, Prime Minister Rabin embraced the Oslo Accord, assuming that Arafat would be “preoccupied with domestic issues of the newly-established Palestinian Authority, not with terrorism.”
The architects of the 1993 Oslo Accord subordinated the 1,400-year-old violent and shifty Middle East reality to their eagerness to achieve “peace now.” They refused to read the following 72-size-font writing on the wall:
*The September 1993 Oslo Accord salvaged the PLO from the abyss – at a time when it was abandoned by the Arabs – paving the road to an unprecedent wave of terrorism.
*The Accord transferred PLO terrorist headquarters from Tunisia, Yemen and Sudan to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza, which are contiguous to the key target of Palestinian terrorism: Israeli population centers.
*The relocation of the PLO headquarters (currently, the Palestinian Authority) was openly defined by PLO leadership as a “Trojan Horse.” It expanded the potential of PLO terrorism, by facilitating direct control over the Arab population of Gaza, Judea and Samaria, significantly radicalizing the neighboring Israeli Arabs.
*The Oslo Accord provided a tailwind to the 1974 PLO’s “Phased Plan,” which determined that – irrespective of diplomatic agreements – every land ceded by the “Zionist entity” would become a springboard for ending the “1948 occupation” (pre-1967 Israel). This view of the Oslo Accord was articulated by Arafat in a September 13, 1993 statement made on Jordanian television, while the Accord was signed on the White House lawn…
*As expected, the Oslo Accord yielded a corrupt, ruthless, terrorist Palestinian Authority, and a wave of unprecedent terrorism – including thousands of missiles launched at Israeli civilians – fueled by hate education, mosque incitement, idolization of arch terrorists and generous monthly allowances to families of terrorists. The stated goal has been to traumatize Israel’s Jewish population into emigration.
Tom Friedman ignored the writing on the wall In September 1993, Tom Friedman described the Oslo Accord as “a triumph of hope over history,” describing Arafat as a reformed-terrorist transformed into a peace-pursuing statesman. This was consistent with his reference to Arafat as a “teflon guerrilla”, “gipper” and a rock star, while serving in Lebanon as the New York Times Bureau Chief (1984-1988).
In July 2000, he posed the question: “Who is Arafat? Is he Nelson Mandela or Willie Nelson?” In fact, based on Arafat’s track record, T.F. should have asked: Who is Arafat? Is he Jack the Ripper or the Boston Strangler?
Contrary to T.F. and the architects of the Oslo Accord, Arab leaders are aware of the Palestinian inter-Arab track record of subversion, terrorism, ingratitude and treachery. Therefore, they limit their support of the proposed Palestinian state to talk, not walk. Shimon Peres dismissed the writing on the wall The late Shimon Peres, the chief architect of the Oslo Accord, published a book – The New Middle East – which highlights the underlying assumptions of the Oslo Accord. It is a blueprint for ignoring the crystal-clear writing on the wall. It underscores the triumph of a virtual and convenient Middle East over the frustrating and inconvenient Middle East reality, which has not experienced inter-Muslim peaceful coexistence since the 7th century. For example: “The international political setting is no longer conducive to war (p. 80) … “We must focus on this new Middle East reality, with its new dimensions and different nature of security, and not wander among memories of victories in long-gone wars – wars that will never be fought again (p. 85) …
“The Trojan horse of war is obsolete (p. 51) … All things considered, any war entered into now will be an unnecessary one (p. 52) … We continue to learn war, but we no longer do so in order to declare war. We do so to keep the peace and thwart aggression (p. 69) … “After hundreds of years of brutal hostilities, the Middle East must be fully aware of the significance of peace… We must awaken to this revolutionary significance of peace (p. 77) …
“Strategic depth may no longer have the same meaning when peaceful relations and reciprocal control systems are in effect… We must revise our general concept of war as a tool of international relations (p. 78) …
“At the threshold of the twenty-first century… soft borders means that armies do not have to be stationed right next to the border (p. 174) …
“We must strive for fewer weapons and more faith. Soft, open political boundaries will make it easier to reach an agreement, and will help it withstand stormy times (p. 173) …” The Oslo Accord acumen *The Oslo Accord assessed the Palestinian issue via Western lenses, sacrificing Middle East reality on the altar of wishful thinking, which dooms the pursuit of peace and fuels terrorism.
*The assumption that Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) would doom Israel demographically, ignores demographic reality, which features a dramatic Westernization of Arab demography and the unprecedented Jewish (especially secular) demographic momentum.
*The Oslo state of mind is doomed by its obsession with a theoretical encouraging future Palestinian track record, taking lightly the well-documented rogue Palestinian inter-Arab track record. It ignores the fact that rogue entities bite the hand that feeds them.
*The Oslo state of mind underestimates deeply rooted Palestinian aspiration and vision to uproot the “infidel” Jewish sovereignty from “the abode of Islam,” deluding itself that dramatic gestures would induce the Palestinians into peaceful coexistence with Israel. Palestinian ideology – as documented in Palestinian hate education, the PLO and Fatah charters and the “Phased Plan” – has transcended generous financial and diplomatic benefits.
*In 2023, notwithstanding the glaring writing on the wall, the State Department still embraces the Oslo Accord, ignoring the impact of the proposed Palestinian state on US interests: toppling the pro-US Hashemite regime; transforming Jordan into a platform of Islamic terrorism; violent ripple effects into the pro-US oil-producing Arab states; rewarding Sunni terrorists, Iran, China and Russia with a strategic bonanza, while dealing a blow to the US economy, homeland and national security.
*The late Senator Daniel Inouye, who was the Chairman of the full Appropriations Committee and the Intelligence Committee, and the most supportive legislator (by far!) of enhanced US-Israel relations, read the writing on the wall. He was concerned that the Oslo Process could evolve into a funeral procession of the Jewish State.
*Senator Inouye knew that a precondition to the realization of the Palestinian aspiration is the annihilation of the Jewish State, unlike all Arab states which can realize their aspirations simultaneously with the existence of Israel.
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A Haunting Visit To The Gush Katif MuseumBy Devora Spitzer – 17 Tevet 5772 – January 11, 2012 https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/front-page/a-haunting-visit-to-the-gush-katif-museum/2012/01/11/ In the doorway of the museum stand a haredi husband and wife. Nearby are young people from a kibbutz in the Galilee. They glanced at each other hesitantly and entered, walking quietly through the museum’s rooms, looking at the various exhibits.
The haredi husband and wife both admit they had never realized the enormity of the atrocity.
“We have never been shown these sights,” says one of the kibbutz members to his companion. “When they were expelled, I didn’t understand what they wanted. What’s the problem? They’ll get other homes elsewhere. Seeing these videos here help me understand what a great tragedy it was and how much compassion we should feel for them.”
Near the museum’s side entrance, high-school kids crowd around two pictures. One asks, “Did you ever realize it was so terrible?” Another replies, “I never paid much attention to it. I thought the residents were just crybabies. Now I’m starting to understand that the injustice done to them cries out to the very heavens. Only now do I realize their expulsion brought about the continuous Kassam rocket attacks we’re getting from Gaza.” * * * * * The Gush Katif Museum in Jerusalem was established by Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpo, head of the Rambam Hashalem Torah Institute, centered in the town of Beitar Illit. Rabbi Wolpo has authored many highly regarded works of halacha, including two that research the halachic prohibition of forfeiting territories of the Holy Land to non-Jews.
At the time of the so-called Gaza disengagement, he and his colleagues invested tremendous effort in attempting to derail the expulsion of nearly 10,000 Jews. As the disengagement was implemented and while the fires were still burning, they resolved to establish this museum. But their resolution took three years to come to fruition.
The museum’s early visitors, back in 2008, were mostly from the national religious segment of Israel’s population. But gradually this changed. Both haredim and secular leftists had remained largely ignorant of what actually happened to Gush Katif’s residents. As they heard about the museum, more and more started visiting and were deeply affected by the exhibits.
“The people of Israel have been experiencing disillusionment,” says Rabbi Wolpo. “The Kassam rocket attacks, the Hamas ascent to power, the revolutionary changes in surrounding Arab nations, the enormous danger from terror organizations based in the Sinai desert – all these have brought Israelis, including many who once supported the expulsion, to rethink their positions. Now they’re opposed to further expulsions of Jews from Judah and Samaria, God forbid. I’m sure the museum has played an important role in this, because when people visit, they start to understand what really happened there.” * * * * * The museum’s curator, Shlomo Wasserteil, welcomes me. Six and a half years have passed since he was expelled from his home in the Gush Katif town of Ganei Tal, but he has not yet become accustomed to his new situation.
“For thirty years I lived in Gush Katif,” he says. “I had one of the world’s largest flower hothouses, with fifty employees. We exported flowers to Europe for tens of millions of dollars. After we were expelled, I became unemployed. My wife and I were both at home with nothing to do. It plunged me into a terrible psychological state. I couldn’t understand why they had done this to us. These wounds haven’t healed. At times I even sank into deep depression.”
Four years after the expulsion, Shlomo was offered this position at the museum. Now he feels that at least he can do something so that the expulsion won’t be forgotten. “When Rabbi Wolpo established this museum, he called the artist Yankele Klein and told him, ‘Set up a museum.’ He had no funding, and incurred vast debts. But it all seems to have been worthwhile.
“Tens of thousands visit here – ordinary Jews, educators and their students, Knesset members and government ministers, soldiers and their officers, members of European parliaments, and U.S. congressmen. And after their visits, something happens in the minds of all of them. Even left-wing Knesset members, with tears in their eyes, have written in the visitors’ book, ‘Never again!’ ” * * * * * We pass through the rooms. Pictures document the history of Gush Katif, revealing that ever since the time of the Hasmoneans, of Chanukah story fame, there was a continuous Jewish presence in Gaza and its environs. This continued until the terrible 1929 Arab pogroms. Only after the 1967 Six-Day War did Jews return. They built thriving communities, never dreaming that one day they would be cruelly uprooted by their own government.
In February 2001, the first rocket was fired at Gush Katif. At the time, the news was widely featured in the Israeli and international media. But later, if news accounts of rocket attacks appeared at all, they were relegated to the back pages.
Two months passed. One day a 15-month-old baby named Ariel was playing outside his home in the town of Atzmona. Three rockets fell on the town, and one sent pieces of shrapnel into Ariel’s brain and body, injuring him grievously. His mother, hanging laundry nearby, was also wounded.
A picture of Ariel hangs in the museum. Now a big boy, he is still healing from his wounds. “Everyone helped in his rehabilitation,” explains Rabbi Yigal Kirschenzaft, who is also visiting the museum, “and now he’s studying in a regular class.”
For many years Rabbi Kirschenzaft ran the Chabad House in Neve Dekalim, the largest town in the Gush. “I lived in Gush Katif for twenty-four years,” he says simply, leaving no need for further explanation.
“When Yigal first visited here,” Shlomo recalls, “he simply couldn’t conceal his deep emotion. Every picture ‘spoke’ to him, and he couldn’t stop explaining every picture’s background. Locating his house on the aerial picture of Neve Dekalim, he pointed it out, saying, ‘Every house in this picture arouses memories. I knew the map of Gush Katif like the palm of my hand!’ ”
A month before the expulsion, Yigal was injured by shrapnel from a rocket attack. Pointing to the cemetery of the Arab city of Khan Yunis, he explains, “From here they used to fire rockets at us regularly. That morning I was standing in the middle of my town with a friend from Los Angeles, and a mortar fell on the car park and injured us.”
More than 5,000 rockets fell on Gush Katif. Those attacks, along with so many other terror acts and shootings, claimed the lives of dozens of Jews; hundreds more were injured. The dead were buried in the sand of Gush Katif, but even they were dragged out of their repose when the Israeli government carried out the disengagement.
Rabbi Shai Gefen, one of the museum’s founders and directors, gives me the honor of lighting the eternal lamp perpetuating the memory of Gush Katif’s martyrs, whose names and pictures are exhibited in the Memorial Corner.
“Despite all the attacks,” says Rabbi Gefen, “the idealism of the residents would not let them leave. The terror could not convince them to give in, because you don’t give in when this concerns the Holy Land. They always insisted that if they wouldn’t be located there, the rockets would be fired at the population centers in the heart of Israel.” * * * * * “Sometimes visitors surprise us,” says Shlomo. “We might have expected only right-wing people to come. But ever since it opened, the museum has attracted visitors from the entire political spectrum, including many media figures, who cover the museum in a sympathetic manner.”
On the day the government established a commission of inquiry to investigate the treatment of the Gaza evacuees, Yaakov Achimeir of the Israel Broadcasting Authority paid a visit. In an article for the Israel Hayom newspaper he wrote, “Before my visit, I thought I would soon be subjected to a barrage of acrimonious ideological propaganda. But no! What I saw consisted of pictures, facts illustrated by modest graphic design, an exhibition of paintings, and videos of the evacuation of Gush Katif. The museum has the atmosphere of an art gallery, with revealing documentation that leaves one with a most painful sensation.”
An elderly Jewish couple examines the exhibits, groaning audibly. “Where are you from?” I ask. “From Sderot,” they reply. “This is how [then-Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon brought us to this great pitfall. We, who have endured years of Kassam attacks, understand better than anyone else how this entire operation was a bad joke right from the start! Sharon knew the Arabs will never change.”
They find it difficult to endure the museum’s pictures. When they see, in the wing called the Black Room, a picture of soldiers dragging an elderly Jew from the synagogue of Kfar Darom, the woman nearly collapses, crying out, “How could they possibly do this?” Her husband tries to calm her.
Shlomo has his own memories of that terrible time. A week before the evacuation, two New York Times reporters visited him at home. During their conversation they asked, “Haven’t you packed yet?” He told them he hadn’t. “I won’t do the executioner’s job for them,” he said. “Don’t you believe the day of expulsion will come?” they persisted. “No,” he had answered confidently. “I can’t believe it.”
A year later, the reporters came back, this time to his decrepit mobile home at Yad Binyamin. “You said then that you couldn’t believe it,” they reminded him. “What do you say now?” He replied, “Jews answer one question with another. Let me ask you: If you had been told, after the expulsion, that our worst enemies would gain control of the Gaza Strip, would you have believed it?” They had no answer.
“Who would have believed that hundreds of Kassam rockets would be fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli towns all the way up to Beersheba?” Shlomo asks rhetorically. “Who would believe that our best youth, expelled from Gush Katif, would have to return there to fight in Operation Cast Lead? My own son was drafted into one of the elite units and entered the Gaza Strip during the war. After returning unharmed, he told us, ‘I got a “whiff” of our old home.’ ” * * * * * Two years ago, on Chanukah, the late Rabbi Menachem Porush, who had been a long-time Knesset member, visited the museum. He was 95 years old at the time and in a wheelchair. As he was led through the rooms, he burst into tears. After his two-hour visit, he wrote in the visitors’ book, “What can I say or speak? The feelings experienced in this museum, which commemorates the life of 25 flourishing Jewish settlements in the land of Israel, are indescribable. The houses destroyed, the families expelled, the life shattered for thousands of wretched families who have been cruelly plucked from their communities and land, and thrown into mobile homes until today – without livelihood, homes, or the wherewithal to support their families as they had until this cruel expulsion.”
My visit is coming to an end and I ask Rabbi Wolpo what the museum is doing now to help the evacuees.
“Many of the expelled families have already used up all the compensation received from the government,” Rabbi Wolpo replies. “They’re paying the bank a mortgage for their destroyed home in Gush Katif, together with high rent for their present leaky mobile homes in Nitzan or Yad Binyamin. Many simply don’t have money to buy bread.
“That’s why we established a Kindness Center to supply food baskets for these families for Shabbat and Yom Tov. It also helps their children get school bags and other school supplies.”
On a table I notice an eight-page multi-colored bulletin under the name Eretz Yisrael Shelanu – “Our Land of Israel.”
“Whoever observes the results of the previous withdrawals, and considers the present revolutionary upsets in the Arab world, yet still speaks of further expulsions from Judah and Samaria and the establishment of a terrorist state in the heart of this land – is either insane or is an agent of our enemies,” Rabbi Wolpo tells me.
“That’s why we publish a biweekly bulletin which gives the true picture of our security situation, our right to the entire Land of Israel, and the ways to reach a true peace. Every two weeks, 100,000 copies are disseminated throughout Israel. The bulletins are snatched up like hot cakes. If we could afford it, we would publish it every week and could easily distribute many hundreds of thousands of copies.”
I notice a page in the bulletin about “A Day of Fun for Children.”
Rabbi Gefen explains, “The children of Gush Katif, expelled from their homes, and experiencing every day their families’ unfortunate situation, have become broken in spirit. It’s our duty to encourage them to hope for better times. The children of Judah and Samaria as well are deeply afraid that if a Palestinian state is established, God forbid, their settlements will be uprooted. So we arrange for them, at least three times a year, a “Day of Fun.” We rent an amusement park for the kids to enjoy themselves, and we invite them all to come with their parents, at our expense. They enjoy themselves and forget about their troubles.”
I ask Rabbi Wolpo how the museum and its many projects are maintained.
“Without help from the public, it’s difficult to maintain and expand these vital activities,” he says. “Many Jews around the world believe in the integrity of the Land of Israel and identify with the themes expressed here at the museum, in our bulletin and at the Kindness Center. We’re sure they’ll offer help by becoming partners in this important cause.”
He adds that plans are underway for a dinner in Brooklyn on February 22 in honor of the museum and its activities, with the participation of important guests. Full details are still being ironed out. He urges all interested individuals to e-mail him (wolpo@012.net.il) or visit www.sos-israel.com or www.gushkatif.022.co.il for more information.
Devora Spitzer lives with her husband and six children in the settlement of Mata, in the Eila Valley. She is a sixth-generation resident of Israel, descended from Jews born in Hebron. Many of her family members were murdered in the 1929 Arab pogrom. |
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Irrerversible damage caused by Gush Katif destruction continuesThe August 2005 expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif helped put Hamas in power, worsened the security of Israelis, and contributed to the isolation of Israel internationally (Edmund Sanders)Arye Yizhaki 23July2018, 8:04 AM (GMT+3) Updated: 24July2018, 10:45 PM https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/351101  Gush Katif What are the results of the August 2005 Gaza Expulsion that began right after the 9th of Av fast? The operation, euphemistically known as the “Disengagement,” saw over 8000 Jews were expelled from homes they had lived in for decades in the Gaza Strip after having moved there with the Israeli government’s encouragement. It was a one-sided move that resulted in their homes being destroyed, synagogues torched and millions of dollars worth of profitable greenhouses given to the Gazans purposefully wrecked.
The terrorist state of Hamas, which has turned terror from a tactical threat into a strategic one, was established in the Gaza Strip in June 2007. The entire southern and central region of Israel became an accessible target for missile strikes, including the security control centers (the Ministry of Defense), Ben-Gurion International Airport, Sde Dov airport, and other important strategic targets, including the Central Region.
In the first decade since the expulsion from Gush Katif, the IDF has been forced to carry out hundreds of anti-terror operations, including four massive operations against terrorist bases, the scope of which only continues to grow.
Operation “Warm Winter”: February-March 2008.
Operation “Cast Lead”: December 2008 – January 2009
Operation “PIllar of Defense” : November 2012 (8 days)
Operation “Protective Edge”: July 8 – August 26, 2014 (51 days of war)
During this period, 9,000 Kassam and Grad rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israeli targets. Hundreds of explosive devices were detonated; 115 soldiers and civilians were killed, and over 700 were injured. The fighting caused serious economic damage to the Israeli economy and the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip were partially abandoned.
A fifth confrontation began in May 2018 and has been going on for three months, during which two new types of terror were launched – the processions of return and the burning kites terror. It is too early to sum up damages.
2. The Arab Jihad movement has received a significant tailwind – the latest fighting has proven that the State of Israel finds it difficult to stand up to the “resistance” (the “Muqama”), and it might even be forced to withdraw from territories liberated in 1967. The next targets of Jihad are Yehuda, Shomron (Judea, Samaria) and East Jerusalem.
3. It has become clear that that democracy in Israel is a conditional democracy, and a cruel, determined and cunning dictator [referring here to Arik Sharon, Likud prime minister] can use this “democracy” for his own personal ends, even though he has no majority in the nation. As prime minister, he wanted the “Disengagement,” his personal branchild, and rammed it through, firing ministers who opposed it and ignoring a Likud referendum that did the same.
4. The IDF suffered severe post-traumatic distress after the forced destruction of Gush Katif. The soldiers were forced to fight against their brothers which proved deeply traumatic. This refers especially to the soldiers who participated in the expulsion itself. This was not a military mission in the defense of Israel, but a political mission of hatred against the ‘settlers’.
5. Some 8,500 Israeli citizens who were “salt of the earth” – the spearhead of Zionism – were severely affected. Their homes and the fabric of their lives were destroyed; And despite all promises made by the ruling government, more than 20 percent of them have not received a permanent residence or proper employment after 13 years. The expulsion was a grave and shameful act of injustice, treachery, and an unforgivable crime against humanity. In Summary: The expulsion and destruction of Gush Katif was an act of serious betrayal of the Jewish people and the basic values of Zionism. The Disengagement Law must be annulled immediately, and a new law should be enacted that will establish that its initiators, the “Sharon Farm Group” should be prosecuted, and their crimes not subject to the Statute of Limitations.
Translated from Hebrew Arutz Sheva site by Chaya Chava Shulman |
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Jihad Watch25 Years After Oslo: The Elephant in the Room14April2019 By Robert L. Meyer, https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/04/25-years-after-oslo-the-elephant-in-the-room I have been a student of Islam for five+ years because I wanted to know what motivates so called “Islamist” or “Radical” Muslims against Jews, Israel and the West. I now understand.
The short article below sets out the argument why “Land For Peace” is simply impossible under Islam, owing to Koran Sura 2, Verse 191 — and it is for this reason (and Western and Israeli diplomats and negotiators’ ignorance of it) that it has been, is, and will be impossible for Muslim Palestinians to make peace with Israel.
This Palestinian position has been confirmed by the top Palestinian religious figures, who have corroborated that ALL of Palestine is a holy, Islamic waqf (Arabic: an inalienable religious endowment under Islamic Shariah law), and therefore it is prohibited to give up “even a millimeter” of it. The article has been vetted and approved for accuracy by a number of Islamic experts. 25 Years After Oslo: The Elephant in the Room It is now more than 25 years since the Oslo Accords were signed in October 1993. Yet in the many published opinion pieces and reporting on this anniversary and the failure of the parties to agree on a final two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, nowhere is found any Israeli politician or journalist who has the slightest inkling of the massive effect of Islam in influencing and motivating the Palestinian supposed peacemakers.
Islam is indeed “The Elephant in the Room.” The Koran, chapter 2, verse 191 states: “Drive them out from where they drove you out.” Islamic scholars universally have interpreted this verse to mean that once land becomes Islamic, by conquest or otherwise, it stays Islamic forever and that Muslims must drive out any non-Muslim government that takes power in a land once ruled under Islamic law.
Caliph Umar conquered Jerusalem and Palestine in 637 AD, and the Land of Israel remained under Muslim rule (with the exception of the 188-year Crusader Period, 1099 – 1187 AD) until September 1923, when the British Mandate began. To Muslims, Palestine has been “Muslim land” since its conquest by Islam in 637 AD. Moreover, this position has been corroborated and confirmed (in Arabic) by Mahmoud Al-Habbash, who is Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor on Islam and also the Supreme Shari’ah Judge of the Palestinian Authority (“PA”): “Mahmoud Al-Habbash emphasized that according to Islamic Shari’ah law, the entire land of Palestine is waqf (i.e., an inalienable religious endowment under Islamic law) and is blessed land, and that it is prohibited to sell, bestow ownership or facilitate the occupation of even a millimeter of it.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 22, 2014, translation by Palestinian Media Watch (“PMW”)] See also the statement below from the Palestinian Authority, translated from the original Arabic: “Anyone who thinks that the nation has sold its Palestine or its Jerusalem is just imagining things. Anyone who thinks that a day will come when the nation will sell one inch or millimeter of the blessed and sanctified land of Palestine is just imagining things. The entire nation says what [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas said: ‘The Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, or Christian who will relinquish one inch of Jerusalem has not been born and will never be born.’” [Official PA TV, April 20, 2018, translation PMW] The Palestinian Authority’s current Mufti, Muhammad Hussein, has corroborated this same position: “Palestine, that includes within it Jerusalem, is waqf land [and] it is forbidden by Shari’ah law to relinquish it or ease the transfer of ownership of it to enemies, because it is part of the Islamic public property. Granting ownership over Islamic territory or part of it to enemies is invalid and constitutes treason.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2018, translation PMW] Please note that the Palestinian Authority reflects the same view set out in the Hamas Charter (Article Eleven): “The Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.”
For these reasons, the exchange of Muslim “Land for Peace” with Israel simply is impossible under Islam. Has anyone in Israel ever noticed and considered this point — or are we so ignorant of Islam that it has never been properly considered and evaluated?
The Koran, chapter 2, verse 191 was once mentioned to Shimon Peres in 2015. He replied, “No. You are wrong. We made peace with Egypt. We made peace with Jordan.”
Shimon Peres was right — and wrong. Prior to signing the Israel/Egypt Peace Treaty of March, 1979, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat held out for — and ultimately received — his stated demand to get back “every square inch” of the Sinai. This occurred notwithstanding Israel’s initial negotiating position for a continuing Israel monitoring presence at Sharm el Sheikh and the western mountains of Sinai and retention of both the Israel-developed Taba and Yamit tourist communities in the Sinai near Eilat.
After the Israel / Egypt peace treaty was signed, Sadat could turn to the Egyptian people and rightfully claim that he had recovered “every square inch” of Egyptian-administered Muslim land.
The Jordanian case is even more interesting and illuminating.
In a two-step exercise starting in June 1988, King Hussein first renounced all Jordanian claims to Judea and Samaria, the wishfully named “West Bank” of Jordan. Six years later, in October 1994, Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty.
However, there had been a serious problem: Israel occupied three areas of Jordanian land since June 1967: The tiny “Peace Island” in the middle of the Jordan River, and two agricultural fields belonging to Israeli settlements in the Arava, south of the Dead Sea.
In Annex 1A and 1B of the Peace Treaty, this matter was resolved: Israel fully recognized Jordanian sovereignty over all this land. Jordan agreed that Israel could continue to “use” the lands in the same manner as previously for a rolling 25-year period unless terminated by Jordan following a one-year notice (which Jordan gave in late October 2018).
After the signing of the peace treaty, King Hussein could turn to the Jordanian people and rightfully claim that he had recovered every square centimeter of Jordanian-administered Muslim land.
As for the land of Israel/Palestine itself located “from the River to the Sea,” the Arab League and Jordan left this to Palestinian President Yassir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole entity to negotiate and resolve with Israel. What did Yassir Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, do?
At the Camp David negotiations in July 2000 between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yassir Arafat, following Israel’s offer to give up 97% of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians, Arafat stunned Barak and President Bill Clinton by never making a counteroffer. Why? Because he could not do so: the Koran (chap. 2, verse 191) did not permit it. Allah says that Muslim land can never be given to the kufaar (infidels) under penalty of death. Palestinian recognition of Israeli sovereignty over any part of Palestinian land was impossible, Muslim Palestinians never would have accepted it and Arafat would have been murdered by his own people.
After the Camp David negotiations failed, Yassir Arafat was asked by an Israeli Muslim Arab journalist in Arabic why he walked away from the negotiations. “Because the Israelis would not give us 100%!” he replied. The Koran mandated that Arafat recover all of Palestine starting with the so-called “West Bank.” He was not free to do otherwise.
It was the same story seven years later in the negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held at the Annapolis Conference in November 2007: Ehud Olmert made very generous offers to the Palestinians, delivering 97% of Judea and Samaria to them, “slicing and dicing” Jerusalem horizontally and vertically, creating a land bridge between Gaza and Judea and Samaria and even allowing some Palestinian refugees back into Israel.
However, how did Abbas respond? He also made no counteroffer. Why? Because he could not do so (Koran, chap. 2, verse 191). The Koran prohibited recognizing Israeli sovereignty over any part of Muslim Palestinian land, Muslim Palestinians would never have accepted it, and Abbas also would have been murdered by the Palestinians.
According to the Koran, the Palestinians are commanded to reclaim ALL Palestinian Muslim land “from the River to the Sea,” a holy waqf under Shariah law. The concept of Israeli-administered Muslim land (i.e. recognizing the sovereignty of the State of Israel over any part of Palestine) is impossible in Islam.
Have you ever noticed how Palestinian claims are always rooted in land-based terms? They speak of the “occupation” of their land, being “driven out” of Palestine by the Israelis in 1948, and recovering all their land “from the River to the Sea.” The Palestinian Authority’s Law No. 1 criminalizes Palestinian sales of land to Jews under penalty of death. Mohamed on his deathbed gave an order to “expel the Jews and the Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and not leave any but Muslims there.” The Hamas riots at the Gaza / Israel border are in commemoration of “Land Day.” Does any of this ring a bell?
In the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians pledged to recognize the State of Israel behind the “Green Line” and to amend the Palestinian Covenant accordingly. They never did. They cannot and will not do so without contravening Allah’s command in the Koran, chap. 2, verse 191.
As you think of the thousands of hours of negotiations by Israel, the USA and other international negotiators in trying to reach a final accord with the Palestinians on a “two state solution” since Oslo, one is reminded of the “mirror principle.”
Israeli, US and other politicians and negotiators keep thinking that they are negotiating with “the man in the mirror,” i.e., someone who thinks as they do in a Western, secular way, without regard to prevailing religious factors.
Some commentators state that the leadership of the Palestinians, starting with Yassir Arafat, is secular. To the extent that this may be true, it does not matter. The Palestinian people certainly are not secular. A survey undertaken by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre published on August 6, 2018 asked Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) and Gaza: “In general, is religion an important part of your life? The response was 96.8% “yes” in the West Bank and 99.2% “yes” in Gaza.
Israeli and American negotiators are not negotiating with “the man in the mirror” like themselves, but with religious Muslim believing Palestinians. A little more hard knowledge about Islam, which is “the Elephant in the Room,” would help in understanding the Palestinians as driven by their own seriously held religious and cultural imperatives, which are completely the opposite of those of the Israelis and the Americans. |
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JerusalemCats Comments: This post is before the liberation of Russian Ukraine on 24February2022
Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and the Coming InvasionWhat does the current war between Russia and Ukraine tell us about Gog and Magog and the coming invasion of Israel? What can God-fearing people do right now?David Ben Horin Posted on 01February2022 https://breslev.com/3069572/  Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and the Coming Invasion “When you are about to go into battle, every day is like Yom Kippur.” Says my good friend Eli. A veteran of both the IDF and Chabad, Eli is a Torah Jew and IDF combat fighter who has been in every Israeli war for the last 15 years.
“The guys in my unit are an unbelievable mix of Israeli society. We are secular who became religious, religious who became secular, and everything in between. The most amazing sight comes each morning when the soldier with the tattoo on his arm shows the soldier with the black kippa how to recite the morning prayers properly.”
“I always carry a tzedakah box in our tank. It’s such a wonderful thing. The Torah tells us that charity protects us from death. It’s a mitzvah we can all agree on. Before a battle, everybody puts a coin in. Baruch Hashem, everybody comes back.”
“Thank G-d, the same cannot be said for our enemies.” He says with a smile. Rabbi Mizrachi says, “There are no atheists in a hospital.” He goes on his ‘rounds’ often, visiting Jews that have asked him to come. When he finishes his visit, he cannot walk three steps outside the room before a patient begs him for a Blessing that Hashem should give him health.
We live stable and ordered lives. When a situation changes that we have no control over it, the uncertainty makes it Yom Kippur for everyone. The Day of JudgmentFor the Ukrainians who woke up to bloodshed, Yom Kippur is today.
They have an opportunity to pray to Hashem from the deepest place of their hearts, with focus and intention greater than most of us can only dream of.
In King David’s time, when Israel went to war, the Kohanim would rush to the front lines. They would go where arrows and heavy stones were being fired at them at velocities five times that of a tank.
Only under enemy fire could they pray with such intensity, because they didn’t know what would happen next. They could pray with all their helpless hearts to our True King and Protector. Ukraine is at Our DoorstepDon’t waste this opportunity. Russia didn’t just run into Ukraine. Vladimir Putin, the master tactician, is way too smart for that. He massed his troops gradually. He waited to see what NATO would do.
He put his troops into attack formation, ready to pounce. Putin waited to see how the world would react. The empty threats of the civilized world became his green light to invade.
The West literally said, “Russia will not go it alone unless Russia decides to go it alone.”
Had Putin believed that attacking Ukraine would lead to a battle with America or Europe, things would have been a lot different. At any moment, America can still get involved. China can get involved.
The rest of Europe can get involved. Russian retaliation will not be against Ukraine; it will be aimed at the free world. Ukraine sits alongside Serbia, where the fallout of a political assassination got so out of hand that it led to World War I. Seize this Chance to Do our BitRabbi Avigdor Miller tells us to be grateful for the morning peace.
Every day we wake up with enough food in the fridge for breakfast. We wake up with the security that there will be no enemy soldiers bombing our homes or local secret police pounding on our doors.
It’s a blessing that what we had yesterday we still have today. It’s a blessing to feel that there will be no robbers, foreign invaders, or secret police outside our gates, ready to take us away.
Every day we wake up to peace. It’s our chance to recite Modeh Ani Lifanecha (I gratefully thank You) with great enthusiasm. We can say in our own language, “Thank You, Hashem, for giving me peace today. Thank You for letting me wake up to enough food and safety to serve Your Will with a tranquil heart.”
We can see what every Ukrainian stands to lose and tell Hashem “Thank You” that we still have it. How Bad Can It Get?Over the past century, we Jews have woken up to nothing more than once. In 1923, the Jews of Russia lost what little they had when Stalin seized everything. A decade later, the Jews of Germany, a very wealthy community, lost everything overnight. Their careers, businesses, assets that they had built up over a century were confiscated in a moment. A decade later, the same happened to the Jews of France and most of Europe.
Fifteen years later, after the establishment of the State of Israel, the half a million Jews in Arab lands had everything ripped from them. Thirty years later, it happened again to the Jews of Persia. Fifteen years after that, those Jews leaving the Soviet Union could only do so with what they could carry on their backs.
Everything we have in our life is a gift from our Creator. He gives it to us every moment. He can take it back or give it to someone else at any time.
Understanding how fickle our comforts are, we can look to Ukraine and be inspired to make heartfelt repentance. We can work on eliminating our Loshon Hara. We can strive to use our body the way Hashem commands by improving our Shmirat HaBrit. We can pray with more focus.
We can do it knowing that the sword of exile, poverty, and sickness hangs over us no less than they do every man, woman, and child of Ukraine. The Miracle for Israel and the JewsGod has his eyes upon the Land from the first day of the year to the last. (Devarim 11:12) We should get on our knees and thank our Creator for what He has done for Israel and His Jews.
The Americans tried to sign a treaty that brought belligerent nuclear weapons to Israel’s back door. As part of his strategy, Putin is putting Russian nukes into Belarus, which is a thousand kilometers closer to Western Europe. He hopes to place nukes inside Ukraine, which borders Hungary. He is mulling a Russian withdrawal from a series of treaties obligating Russia not to point its nuclear arsenal at America.
Instead of America placing dangerous nuclear weapons aimed at Israel, Hashem is pointing dangerous atomic weapons at America.
This conflict also continues a new exciting development: Donor Israel. Instead of asking the Jews of the diaspora to help Jewish communities in need, Israel is doing it directly. We are lending to other countries without borrowing.
The world is even considering appointing Binyamin Netanyahu as its emissary to end the fighting. The signs are clear: Israel is slowly rising to re-assume its role in the world.
Even in tragedy and chaos, the message of Redemption is clear. The West gave Putin the green light to invade Ukraine with empty rhetoric.
With His Divine protection and material blessing over the Holy Land, Hashem is giving every Jew the green light to invade Israel. * * * David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his wife and children. Since moving to Israel in 2002, David has discovered Torah, writing hi-tech, hiking, coding ReactJS Apps, and hearing stories about the Land of Israel from anyone excited to tell them. Check him out on Highway 60 or email him your favorite Israel story at: david.ben.horin@spreadyourenthusiasm.com. |
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Why This Russian-Ukrainian War Should Never Have Happened, Plus More Reasons Not to Support the Sleazy Ukrainian Leader9March2023 http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/why-this-russian-ukrainian-war-should-never-have-happened-plus-more-reasons-not-to-support-the-sleazy-ukrainian-leader I would really like to stop writing about the sleazy Ukrainian elected as leader of the Ukraine, but because the media — and most disturbingly the Jewish media, including some Orthodox outlets — exalted him, then we must emphasize the FACTS. In addition to doubts about his actual Jewish status (who is his mother?), his behavior and objects of admiration condemn him. (BTW, even if proof comes out of a Jewish maternal line, then that would make him Erev Rav, and not of a Yisrael soul.) First of all, while I don’t have access to video to confirm this, you can apparently find English-subtitled clips of his stand-up routines in which he “jokes” about robbing Russians and Jews. Are you laughing? I’m not. We see how much he hates Russians. Apparently, he lumps Jews in the same category…but he simply hasn’t acted on it yet. Or maybe he has. After all, photos and other evidence appear to show him previously aligned with the Ukrainian Nazis organization. Again, I’m not personally able to confirm this. But I put it out there as evidence why we should NOT support him or even think of him as more than something gross stuck to the bottom of a dirty sneaker. Show Me Who Your Heroes are and I’ll Show You Who You areUkrainians built a monument to their national hero, Stefan Bandera. Bandera inspired the Ukrainians to massacre Jews during the Holocaust. The Great Ukrainian Sleazebag Leader also considers Bandera a national hero. Furthermore, the Great Ukrainian Sleazebag Leader recently lauded fellow Ukrainian sleazebag, Dimitro Kotsyubaylo, as a hero. Disturbingly, Kotsyubaylo jokes about feeding the bones of Russian children to his pet wolf. Please note: He doesn’t even make the gruesome joke about Russians, but davka about the children. Sick. (FYI: My heroes are Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld and Recha Sternbuch.) The 13-Point Minsk Agreement, What’s In It, and Why the Ukraine Would’ve Been Better Off Submitting to the AgreementTo avoid war with Russia, all V.Z. had to do was adhere to the 13-Point Minsk Agreement, which says:
(Source: https://byjus.com/free-ias-prep/minsk-agreement/) As you can see, the agreement is perfectly reasonable — especially for a pathetic, incompetent country like the Ukraine. As evidenced in previous posts, the Ukraine as a newly independent nation was an impoverished, profoundly corrupt, conflicted, bigoted, alcoholic mess. (Yes, there are good people & successful people there too. But as a society, the numbers show the country as a failure in almost every way.) The millions of displaced Ukrainians who lost their homes, communities, and livelihoods & now live as undesirable and resented refugees in other countries are NOT better off than they would have been under the Minsk Agreement. Certainly, the Ukrainians killed or maimed by the war are NOT better off than alive and whole under the Minsk Agreement. Furthermore, if the nuclear-armed Russian bear decides to put a quick end to the fighting and turn the Ukraine into glass, that is NOT better than agreeing to the Minsk Agreement. Note: Reports coming out of the Ukraine claim the Ukrainians murder captured Russian soldiers with gory viciousness. No one who knows the history of the Ukraine should be surprised; many Ukrainians throughout history have displayed a particularly bloodthirsty barbarian side. (Ironic how so many of them are ending up in Germany & Poland…) Rather than continuing to send in Russian soldiers to die and to die in such torturous ways, the Russians might just nuke the Ukraine. How Do I Despise Thee? Let Me Count the Ways…My loathing of V.Z. stems from his eagerness to involve Israel in his war against Russia, thereby making Israel a target of the heavily armed and vast Russian bear (who is already on our border in Syria, by the way). Just that alone makes him mud in my book. Everything else just provides more evidence of his despicable character. Predictably, Ukrainian refugees — mostly non-Jewish — started flooding into Israel. We already have a problem with the negative impact of the vast non-Jewish Soviet immigration to Israel. Intermarriage, unemployment, anti-Torah positions, alcoholism, pritzus, crime, antisemitic incidents, and support of the same socialist policies that oppress Eastern European countries — all this shot up with the predominantly non-Jewish immigration from Soviet countries. Furthermore, Eastern Europeans who immigrate to America tend to want to blend into American society. But in Israel, these same non-Jewish Eastern Europeans tend to want to maintain their culture & make Israeli society more like them. And I’m genuinely flabbergasted why the Orthodox Jewish media did not immediately cotton on to the real V.Z. and davka did the opposite — they started lauding him. To me, with my limited access to news & research, the truth about this sleazebag was obvious from the beginning. With all their access to research, why didn’t they see it immediately? How disgusting that Israel sent its representative to speak directly with the Great Ukrainian Sleazebag and promise him Israel’s support. Not my support! Why should anyone support him when he is an immoral, greedy, sleazy, psychopathic war-mongering Jew-hater? UKRAINE INC – MEAT GRINDERhe media write that French animators have launched a new animated series Ukraine. Inc, in which the president of “Ukraine” Vladimir Zelensky became the main character. The cartoon reflects the grim realities of the political regime in Ukraine. Zelensky, in order to increase his own rating and increase financial capital, as shown in the cartoon (in episode 1), throws his people into a meat grinder. Everyone is sent for slaughter without exception: men, women, children and the elderly. https://ukraine-inc.info/ |
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The Sanctions Game:JerusalemCats Comments: At the G20 Meeting on 16November2022 in Bali, Indonesia, the sanctioning countries were acting like Spoiled Children sitting at their own table. Will there be a G20 meeting next year? The Global South (BRICS+) vs. the West? The West-NATO/EU at the G20-in Indonesia-16November 2022
Interesting Map Shows Countries Who Support Western Govt Sanctions Against Russia vs Those Who Do Not DarkGoldenMan March 28, 2022 An enterprising journalist from Bolivia [Twitter Link] mapped the countries that support the sanctions against Russia (yellow) versus the countries that are not participating in the western sanctions against Russia (grey). The image provides a visual reference to consider our previous discussions about the cleaving of the global economy between two overarching ideologies.
 The countries in yellow have sanctioned Russia. The countries in gray have not sanctioned Russia. Click to Enlarge
 Ollie Vargas-tweet-25March2022-The countries in yellow have sanctioned Russia In my estimation this intentional global cleaving, using the opportunity created by the Ukraine crisis, is going to be the major story of this year. This global splitting can be looked at in multiple ways, but the overarching story is the ramifications of two global trade relationships.
The western alliance (in the yellow above), has forced the world to reevaluate the dollar as the global trade currency, by denying Russia and their trade partners the ability to use the financial mechanisms under western control. To work around the sanctions, Russia is working on new financial systems to sell oil and farm products in non-dollar currencies. There is also a possibility the petro-dollar, for the global trade of oil, might be dropped.
Russia is part of OPEC. While many countries develop their own resources, OPEC sells the majority of oil the rest of the world consumes as the basis for their economic engine. One way to look at the global cleaving is to look at the way energy is viewed.
Two world groupings. One group, oil-based energy (traditional) – let’s label them the RED GROUP (grey on map), and one group GREEN energy (the build back better plan, yellow on map). It is not accidental these two groups hold similar internal geopolitical views and perspectives, hence, their alignment with the sanctions against Russia.
♦ The important part to see is… if this cleaving continues, there are going to be two sets of nations with two structurally different economies. A red group and a green group.
These two groups are going to end up in competition with each other. It is as inevitable as sunrise, if you can see this cleaving I am talking about.
Now, think about the economic system of trade that exists between the Red and Green groups. There has to be a way for them to exchange value if they are going to purchase from and sell to each other.
Additionally, and this is *key*, the Red group is going to have a strong strategic advantage in production costs. The Red group is going to be using oil, coal and gas (fossil fuels), which are abundant, cheap and the infrastructure is already in place.
The Green group is going to be at a strong disadvantage, at least for a generation or two, as the costs associated with the production of goods and systems is going to be much more expensive to operate, as the transition into Build Back Better sustainable or renewable energy takes place.
In the macro view, stuff from the Red group is going to be cheap. The exact same stuff from the Green group is going to be more expensive.
If you are still with me, hopefully, you can see how this is all coming together. ♦ The western debt incurred during COVID-19 is a problem. However, this debt diminishes with inflation. A $20 trillion debt is not as big a problem when bread costs $100/loaf and people are earning $50,000 a month. The Green group is entering into this position. In this position, the BlackRock approach of physical ownership of real estate and physical stuff is way more important than holding money or dollars which will immediately lose value. Physical ownership of stuff is important. ♦ It is likely, based on the economic alignment, the Green group will be forced to assemble under one currency (set of financial valuations), and the Red group will then assemble under their own currency (set of financial valuations). My hunch is the western group (green) will use a digital currency. Once both sets of currencies are established, then trade between the Red group and Green group can be determined based on a central valuation. In the Red group, a 20″ tire is worth 100 red bucks. In the Green group, a 20″ tire is worth 150 digital green bucks. Two vaults and two exchanges.
In order for all of this to come together, the population needs to be shifted in their perspective of money and material value. That takes us to where this conversation started by Blackrock and the World Economic Forum: “owning nothing and being happy” is akin to “prizing experiences over possessions.”
The Western financial mega-system operators (Blackrock, Vanguard) are going to own the physical assets, and the people will live under that ownership. The western construct of a modern serfdom. In the Red group, that socioeconomic system (essentially) already exists.
Last point, it is always important to remember the ultimate goal of the ‘climate change’ promotors is not an energy system that changes the global climate. The goal of the ‘climate change’ group is to create a carbon trading system; a new financial mechanism (a global tax program) to control human activity on a world-wide basis.
As a consequence, when we look at the fracturing of the global energy marketplace, it is worth viewing the Green group through the prism of their carbon trading scheme. As with the vaccination passport leading to a digital identity, the carbon trade program needs a similar unique id for carbon attribution. The countries in yellow have sanctioned Russia. The countries in gray have not sanctioned Russia.
Another way to look at this map (notice the overlay):
 World Map of Western media when tragedy hits  Waldgänger-tweet-17August2022-85% of the world’s population has not imposed sanctions against Russia |
Why the War? Cui bono? Who benefits? :Ukraine is a proxy war between the US Military Industrial Complex/Corrupt Deep State and RussiaThe Truth about Russian Ukraine War23February2023 Brachaim’s: |
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Inside Russia’s Military OperationPosted 09Novembe2022 iEarlGrey: The West is shipping arms to Ukraine, and American and EU leaders keep discussing more supplies of tanks and planes instead of peaceful solutions. Military aid provided to Ukraine don’t change the course of the conflict and only increases the number of deaths among civilians and soldiers. Why the ongoing fighting in Ukraine is the fault of a years-long policy of the West and a boon for the American defence industry – in this documentary. |
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Kyiv Seizes Assets Of Russian Orthodox Clericsby Tyler Durden, 14December2022 – 10:30 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/kyiv-seizes-assets-russian-orthodox-clerics Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute, Ukraine has ratcheted up its campaign against a branch of the Eastern Orthodox church with ties to Russia. On the order of President Volodymyr Zelensky, seven senior clerics from the Russian Orthodox church will have their assets seized and face bans on a range of economic and legal activities.
During his nightly video address on Sunday, the Ukrainian president said “by decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, sanctions were applied against seven people,” adding that his administration is “doing everything to ensure that the aggressor state does not have a single string of Ukrainian society to pull.”  St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kiev, Ukraine. Wikipedia image
According to Reuters, the new penalties mean that the seven clerics will have “their assets seized and are subject to a ban on a range of economic and legal activities as well as a de facto travel ban.”
The vast majority of Ukrainians belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church, with many worshiping in parishes that take direction from the Moscow Patriarchate. On December 1, Zelensky announced that Kiev would attempt to expel all religious institutions with ties to Russia, arguing the move would make it “impossible for religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation to operate in Ukraine.”
The president went on the claim that the Russian Orthodox Church poses a threat to Ukrainian culture, saying “we will never allow anyone to build an empire inside the Ukrainian soul.”
He additionally denounced Ukrainians who continue to attend the allegedly Russia-controlled parishes as succumbing to “the temptation of evil.”
 Orthodox Christianity-tweet-13December2022-Ukraine sanctions five more hierarchs Kiev has conducted a series of raids on Russian Orthodox parishes and claims to have uncovered clerics attempting to subvert the Ukrainian government, though has provided little evidence to support its assertions.
Nonetheless, Kiev sanctioned 10 top clerics of the church last week, suggesting they threatened “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
 Max Blumenthal-tweet-11December2022-Ukraine Russian books music banned |
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Nuclear Blackmail | The shelling of Zaporozhye power plant puts intl safety at risk (the shelling by Ukraine)Posted 07Novmeber2022 iEarlGrey “Nuclear Blackmail | The shelling of Zaporozhye power plant puts intl safety at risk”: The Zaporozhye nuclear plant in Energodar is the largest in Europe. Since March 2022 it has been under Russian control and Zaporozhye Region recently voted in a referendum to join Russia. In the meantime, Kiev continues to attack the plant, putting Europe at risk of a disaster six times bigger than the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Despite IAEA warnings and the referendum, Kiev continues to use the Zaporozhye plant as a blackmail tool. The documentary shows the timeline of the attacks and focuses on potential risks of Ukrainian provocations. |
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Donbass: I’m Alive! | Mariupol survivors of Ukrainian attacks find shelterPosted 15November2022 iEarlGreyTV: These are the NAZI Terrorist that Biden and the Neocon Democrats have installed in Ukraine and are supporting. Thank you, Victoria Nuland for the needless death and destruction, May you roast in Hell.
“It’s the Azov battalion. They forced people out of their houses and into basements. Then tanks started shooting from here, from there,” a Mariupol resident shared her story with the film crew. Over 400,000 people in Mariupol had to go underground because they couldn’t leave the city. The film tracks stories of people who had to survive in Mariupol under Ukrainian shelling. Sheltering in cellars and watching Ukrainian tanks firing at residential buildings. They have all gone through hell and back. Now they’re happy to be alive and hope for a new beginning.
A Russian military officer drives across shelled Mariupol to distribute humanitarian aid. A volunteer from Texas, who came to Donbass eight years ago, as he refused to believe American propaganda, helps reunite families separated during the evacuation. A hieromonk who was taken hostage by Azov members and tortured miraculously survived and dedicated his life to studying the origins of nazism in Ukraine. A courageous OB-GYN who runs a maternity ward helped give birth to 25 women during the bombing.
Hundreds of people who got a chance to be evacuated lost connections with the rest of their families who stayed. With no cell service and internet connection, their only hope was to get a word through Russian soldiers who would find relatives and friends and relay their messages. |
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Is the West aiding and supporting the Hamas Nazis like it is supporting the Ukrainian Nazis? Hamas Child suicide Bomb Terrorist  Shmuel HaNavi bus bombing From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Shmuel HaNavi bus bombing was the suicide bombing of a crowded public bus (Egged bus 2) in the Shmuel HaNavi quarter in Jerusalem, Israel, on August 19, 2003. Twenty-four people were killed and over 130 wounded. Many of the victims were children, some of them infants. The Islamist militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.  Gaza “protesters” loft molotov cocktail on swastika kite over Israeli border |
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 International Neo Nazi Fund
 Victoria Nulland meets with Svoboda neo-nazis
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Stockman: No More Ukrainesby Tyler Durden, 28February, 2023 – 11:45 PM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/stockman-no-more-ukraines Authored by David Stockman via LewRockwell.com, Joe Biden must think that he’s the world’s Rich Uncle. In a meeting with the so-called Bucharest Nine today he promised these former Warsaw Pact nations—which should never have been admitted to NATO in the first place—unlimited economic and military support. Nine more Ukraines if need be. Biden conveyed reassurances that the United States is prepared to speed to their defense if they come under offensive action by Moscow. These nations include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
For want of doubt, here’s the just-in-case-you-missed-the-message amplification from NSC spokesman John Kirby. Said the Deep State’s favorite shill, who is apparently serving the national security complex in endless rotation, having moved from State to DOD and then to the National Security Council during the last decade, with a stop in between at CNN:
He said the president’s purpose in the meeting is to “reaffirm the United States’ unwavering support for the security of that alliance and trans-Atlantic unity.” It’s also meant to send a message to Putin that his country can’t intimidate these democracies, some of them relatively new and fragile.
Well, let’s see. Where is it documented that Putin has ever threatened Bulgaria or Hungary or Slovakia or Lithuania or any of the others for that matter? As it transpired, Hungary’s leader even refused to attend this pointless Biden photo op.
After all, what in the world could Putin gain by attacking these nations and occupying what would be hostile populations and damaged economies? A tremendous fiscal drain on his already beleaguered finances would be the only certainty.
The fact is, Washington has become so crazed with anti-Putin war fever that it doesn’t even ask, let alone answer, these foundational questions. Instead, it has just lapsed into grade school reasoning by analogy. If Putin attacked the government of Ukraine, why then it’s a sure bet that the nine yellow dominoes highlighted in the map below are next on the list to fall.  Bucharest Nine NATO European Countries
No, not at all. Ukraine is sui generis. It’s a hodge-podge of variant histories, ethnicities and religious traditions that never belonged under the roof of a single state.
Moreover, its propinquity to things Russian is an unassailable matter of history. Prior to the arrival of communist rule after WWI, its various regions had marinated for centuries as vassals under the tutelage of Czarist Russia. Ukraine’s historically meandering boundaries, in fact, were only finally frozen in current form by the brutal dictates of Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev.
During the long amalgamated history of these neighboring, mainly Slavic populations the eastern and southern portions of the current Ukraine map became populated and economically developed by Russian speaking migrants. At length, they converted the largely empty, herder-dominated steppes into the flourishing bread basket, mining district and industrial work shop of old Russia.
This arrangement was essentially continued by the communist commissars after they consolidated control in 1922, save only for an arbitrary administrative re-arrangement which put the old “Novorossiya” (New Russia) of Catherine the Great’s time into a wholly unnatural state rechristened as the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine.
These artificial borders and the ethnic hodge-podge within them were held together at the gun point of Ukraine’s local communist rulers until 1991, when the scourge of Soviet Communism perished from the earth. And almost immediately thereafter, the elections showed that the state confected by Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev had never been built to last; and that the verdict of Ukraine’s nascent democracy was that partition would someday be the only answer.
As it happened, Viktor Yanukovych was the last democratically elected politician before Washington essentially took-over the country. Of course, by the writ of the Ukraine’s de facto rulers on the Potomac he was illegally deposed and driven out of the country via the coup d’ etat in February 2014.
Needless to say, Yanukovych had been the champion of the Russian speaking populations of the Donbas and southern rim of the Black Sea. He ran on what was called the “Regions” party platform in both 2004 and 2010, against vehemently pro-Ukrainian candidates, whose bases of support were in the central and west geographies.
As shown in the two maps below, both elections were a case of red state versus blue state electoral division on steroids. Except unlike the US where a GOP gubernatorial candidate actually got a 47% showing in the deep blue state of New York this past election, the vote split in the most hard core of the respective regions (dark red and dark blue) was upwards of 90/10 in many localities.
In the 2004 election, Yanukovych narrowly lost the overall count, even as he dominated overwhelmingly in the east and south. 2004 Election Results in Ukraine  2004 Election Results in Ukraine
By contrast, in 2010 Yanukovych retraced the same massive domination of his own Russian-speaking regions while striking out in the west. But this time with the help of Washington-based election consultants (i.e. the infamous Paul Manafort) he managed to accumulate enough incremental votes to come out on top in the nation-wide tally. 2010 Election Results in Ukraine  2010 Election Results in Ukraine
Needless to say, when the foolish neocons led by the detestable Victoria Nuland, who surrounded then Vice-President Joe Biden, fomented the coup against Yanukovych in February 2014 they had no clue as to the tenuous political balance they were upending. But it didn’t take long to strike the match. In short order the followers of the WWII Hitler ally, Stephan Bandera, who dominated the unelected, Washington-installed government in Kiev, made two destructive moves that amounted to a signal to “let the partition begin”.
The first of these was to abolish Russian as an official language in the Donbass and elsewhere. And the second was the massacre by fire of pro-Russian trade unionists in a building in Odessa by supporters of the Kiev government.
It was only a matter of time, therefore, before most of the red-colored territories on the maps above declared their independence. It was also in short order that the people of what had been the Russian province of Crimea after Catherine the Great purchased it from the Ottoman’s in 1783 voted overwhelmingly to re-join the Russian Federation. That ended their brief sojourn in the Ukrainian state, which had been Khrushchev’s 1954 gift to the communist thugs in Kiev who had helped him seize power after Stalin’s death.
Also, in short order the new proto-Fascist government in Kiev moved to deeply antagonize its historic neighbor and former fealty overlord in Moscow by seeking to join NATO and launching a brutal, unrelenting war on the breakaway Republics of the Donbas. This onslaught ended up killing upwards of 15,000 civilians during the eight year run-up to Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Needless to say, Putin was no more interested in having nuclear missiles planted even closer to his own border than was President John Kennedy in October 1962. Nor was he about to countenance the continued slaughter of Russian speakers in the Donbass after Kiev launched a drastically stepped up shelling and bombing campaign on these beleaguered areas one week before the February 24th invasion.
Below, we will amplify further on the overwhelming reasons why the Ukraine situation is a one-off civil war situation and the unfinished and unstable residue of a state which was never built to last.
Accordingly, it is not a case at all of legitimate sovereign borders being violated. Nor does it involve an assault on the hypocritical notion of a “liberal international order” that has not actually ever existed and which, instead, has been a cover for Washington’s global hegemony all along.
But the lessons are nonetheless profound. History accumulates and eventually leads to destructive, but wholly unnecessary outcomes.
That is the case today with the utterly foolish action of Washington during the 1990s and 2000s to bring former Warsaw Pact Nations, and even breakaway Soviet Republics into a NATO alliance whose mission was over and done in 1991.
It should have been dismantled then and there. When the old Soviet monster with its 50,000 tanks and 7,000 nuclear warheads posed along-side the Bucharest Nine pictured above disappeared into the dustbin of history, there was no longer a threat to the east. There was no “front line” to defend.
At that point Washington should have and easily could have led the world to disarmament and to a revival of the lasting peace that had disappeared in the “Guns of August” in 1914.
But now the NATO section 5 mutual defense commitment to these nations is equivalent to a stupid charity that the nearly bankrupt Federal government cannot afford in any case.
There is absolutely nothing in it for the enhancement of America’s homeland security, and huge incentives for the politicians of these nations to caterwaul against Russia rather than seek peaceful accommodation.
But Sleepy Joe is a captive of the Dems “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and cannot think rationally for a moment about the Russian President.
Still, the latter most definitely did not cause the Dems to loose the 2016 election. They brought Trump’s freakish victory upon themselves by their choice of candidate and embrace of policies that much of Flyover America found deeply repugnant.
When Washington began its foolish campaign to expand NATO to Russia’s doorstep in 1997, there was one American who actually possessed more knowledge, experience and analytical savvy about Russia and eastern Europe than the entire treaty-ratifying US Senate combined.
We are referring, of course, to Ambassador George F. Kennan. The latter was the intellectual father of the post-war containment policy against the Soviet Union and had spent decades in the US embassies of Europe and the Soviet Union, before going on to hold high rank in the State Department during the crucial years after WWII when the Cold War was born. Thereafter he joined academia at Princeton, where he produced a prodigious flow of scholarly work on national security policy, including a ringing dissent on the folly of LBJ’s war on Vietnam.
So by the time he penned a New York Times op ed upon the initial expansion of NATO in 1997, which he succinctly entitled “A Fateful Error”, the 93-year old Kennan had decades and decades of wisdom under his belt as a policy-maker and historian. And almost all of it was directly pertinent to the disorder left behind in the wake of the sudden collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991.
Kennan pulled no punches on the matter of NATO expansion:
A fair share of the script readers and stenographers who comprise today’s mainstream media, of course, have a faint knowledge of George Kennan and his unequivocal stance against NATO expansion, if any at all. Their blinders are simply the product of a quarter-century of accumulated recency bias—a process by which the once unthinkable becomes the unchallenged status quo.
The fact is, once the Soviet Union with its 50,000 tanks, 40,000 nuclear warheads, 5 million men under arms and frightfully militarized economy disappeared into the dustbin of history there was no purpose whatsoever for the perpetuation of NATO.
In that sense, Kennan’s “containment” policy had achieved 100% of its goal. The fearsome enemy on the eastern flank of Europe had literally vanished, meaning that what had been a one-time expedient of the Cold War could and should have been disbanded. In the rubble of the dismembered Soviet Union there was no threat left and nothing to defend or contain.
NATO’s warranted interment didn’t happen, however, and for the immensely trivial reason that the utterly unprincipled Bill Clinton determined to make hay one more time in the political posturing grounds of the “Captive Nations”. And with respect to this long forgotten matter your editor happened to have held a front row seat.
When we went to work on Capitol Hill for a GOP congressman at the peak of the Cold War in 1970 our first assignment was drafting a resolution during Captive Nations Week calling for the liberation of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania etc from yoke of Soviet tyranny. Such resolutions had nothing to do with actual policy, of course, which was to leave the Great Russian Bear undisturbed in his lair called the Warsaw Pact. But as a home-front politicking matter such resolutions were catnip to the eastern European constituencies.
After eastern Europe was peacefully liberated in 1991, however, this Captive Nations gambit became self-evidently obsolete, but the Clinton Administration soon had a handy PR substitute. Namely, NATO membership for the woebegone remnants of the Warsaw Pact—a seemingly harmless gesture that had no real purpose other than to express solidarity with back home constituencies of eastern European descent.
NATO expansion, in effect, was a way for Washington politicians to say: We are still with you! Indeed, since there was no plausible reason for maintaining a war alliance against an enemy that didn’t exist, NATO became the equivalent of a diplomatic American Legion hall. It was a place for bureaucratic veterans of the Cold War to swap combat stories and to pretend they still had something worthwhile to do.
Unfortunately, it didn’t stay that harmless. The military-industrial complex soon realized that it needed a tangible enemy to justify current procurement and new weapons systems and also that the former Captive Nations comprised an expanded market for its wares.
So the 14 new NATO nations formed a ready-made shopping mall for additional weapons sales.  new NATO nations by Date
That all might have been harmless enough, save for two untoward developments. The first was the designation of Russia and Putin as enemy #1 by the neocons after their adventures against “terrorism” in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the middle east came a cropper a few years after the memory of 9/11 had dimmed.
The demonization of Putin became especially urgent in late 2013 when he deftly put the kibosh on the neocon’s plan for regime change in Syria. By convincing Assad to give up his chemical weapons under international supervision, the case for military removal of the Syrian president quickly evaporated.
In short order, however, these same neocons got their revenge by fomenting a coup d’ etat on Putin’s doorstep in Ukraine. And it was led by Washington’s hand-picked proto-fascists who detested all things Russian, including the considerable populations and regions of Ukraine which were Russian-speaking.
As it happened, you don’t need a tinfoil hat to recognize the near-conspiracy on the banks of the Potomac that sent the fragile politics of the artificial state of Ukraine into a tail-spin, and which at length paved the way to the catastrophe underway there at present.
The fact is, the detestable Kagan family comprises the high preisthood of the neocon synod that has infiltrated the foreign policy establishment of both parties. And it just so happens that the very high priest of that lamentable synod, Robert Kagan, is married to Victoria Nuland, a war-mongering national security apparatchik who has served every administration since Bush the Younger, and who was the archetict of the Maidan coup on the streets of Kiev in February 2014.
From that moment on, Putin was transformed from a mere bad guy into the incarnation of evil itself in the neocon narrative. And his rational actions after the coup to reclaim Moscow’s centuries old naval bases in Russian Crimea and to offer succor to the imperiled Russian-speaking populations of the Donbas only added fuel to the fire.
But then came the deluge. In a word, the freakish election of Donald Trump in 2016 was falsely laid at Putin’s doorstep, even as Washington’s bipartisan ruling elites and their henchman in the mainstream media went berserk against the Donald.
At length, it turned into a a full-fledged mania—a Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) that pales into insignificance prior outbreaks of American political irrationality, such as the McCarthyism of the 1950s and the Red Hunts of 1919.
In a word, the TDS has utterly destroyed Washington’s foreign policy compass. The demonization of Putin has become so extreme and un-moored from reality that Washington is literally possessed by a ghost of the old Soviet Union. That is, it imagines a ferocious and powerful enemy on the “eastern front” that simply does not exist.
For crying out loud, GDP is a measure of latent capacity to make war, but the GDP of NATO is 26 times larger than that of Russia. Likewise, defense budgets are a measure of actual current military capacity, of which NATO’s war spending is 15 times larger. And that’s in the here and now.
Moreover, from the point of view of Vlad Putin leaping over the Atlantic and Pacific ocean moats to invade the American shores, the question recurs: How many aircraft carriers does he have compared to America’s 20 aircraft and heliocraft carriers? One! And it’s 38 years old! In a word, the absurdity of Washington’s proxy war against Russia and this week’s meeting of the so-called Bucharest Nine is the product of a foreign policy compass that has been shattered by two decades worth of myths and lies that served the short-term interests of Washington’s career politicians and their Deep State masters.
But go back to the fact that George Kennan was right 26 years ago and the truth that nothing has changed in the interim to alter his judgement.
In that context, what would a president not entombed in the false narrative of the past quarter century actually do? Here are a few possible starters:
That would be a start. It would put America back on the road toward rational homeland security, and enable a global future not imperiled by the threat of Nuclear Armageddon. * * * Originally posted at David Stockman’s Contra Corner. |
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 Azov-patch-2022-5-17 Ukraine Nazi Azov Battalion – source https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/05/17/the-fall-of-the-azov/ Ukraine Nazi Azov Battalion
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The Dreizin Report – 2022-05-17 – The Fall of the AzovPosted 17May2022 The Dreizin Report: How did the Azov come about? Why were they never a part of the Ukrainian army? Why are almost all of them bearded? What is their place in history? What is the significance of their downfall? And everything else you ever wanted to know about the Azov! Stepan Bandera |
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Fast Forward to Fascism [Ukraine today]Posted 12November2022 iEarlGreyTV: The nationalist movement in Ukraine didn’t just happen; it took years to build. It’s been growing for years, nurtured by western curators and supported by western funds. By the beginning of the Maidan, an entire network of neo-nazi units had already been up and running in Ukraine, but the Ukrainian government didn’t prosecute them. Ready and able military and terrorist units dispersed and showed up at anti-Maidan meetings in Ukraine’s cities. The years 2019 and 2020 saw meetings and protests in Kiev demanding the denial of special status for the DNR and LNR breakaway regions.
One of its main goals was to form an ideology that would dehumanize Russians and break all ties that existed for decades before. Initially, Russians weren’t seen as a minority in Ukraine, but the anti-Russian sentiment gradually became overwhelming. Nationalists have been taught how to lead a war on social media, eventually launching a guided communication battle against the Russian people.
Stepan Bandera was the head of the Ukrainian nationalist organisation in 1929. In 1934, the Gestapo accepted the Berlin chapter of the organization — he organized terrorist acts, killing officials. In 1941, the Ukrainian nationalist organization was responsible for the biggest Jewish pogrom in Lvov, killing about 7,000 people. Yet, in 2010, Stepan Bandera was pronounced a national hero, with torch-lit marches in his honour ever since. |
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The incredible feat of Alexander MaltseviEarlGrey 19March2023 https://t.me/iEarlGreyTV/5006  Alexander Maltsev iEarlGrey – He was seconded to me, – told me the commander of the assault company of the 488th regiment of the 144th division, Sergei Legostaev. – I made a reconnaissance unit, which Maltsev commanded. A very intelligent and literate boy, he thought with his head, he knew why he came here. Fucking Russian kid. You give the task, he will turn inside out, but he will complete it. Do you know what it actually looks like in the front-line report is usually called “taking the enemy’s stronghold”? Imagine a dank dawn hour, a rare forest of ugly “shorn” trees with fragments, clay porridge under your feet, from shelters – fallen pines and craters from shell explosions. A few hundred meters to the enemy’s trench, and from there they generously poured water from machine guns. The artillery, of course, worked out in advance on the opornik, but this never guarantees the destruction of the enemy, which is proved by long lines from the other side, which literally mow down first one of your comrades, then another, then a third … They fall wounded, but you have to go forward. Alexander Maltsev from St. Petersburg walked. This was not the first battle of the 47-year-old mobilized. All movements have already been perfected to automatism, he does not waste his cartridges in vain, he moves slowly and secretly. I look at the footage taken from the drone, and I understand that a rare Hollywood screenwriter will take aim at such an episode. There is no such “Rambo” in reality! Happens… Read my big report, soon. |
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 Zelensky awards Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the ‘Hero of Ukraine’ award How Ukraine’s Jewish president Zelensky made peace with neo-Nazi paramilitaries on front lines of war with RussiaAlexander Rubinstein and Max Blumenthal, March 4, 2022 https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/
While Western media deploys Volodymyr Zelensky’s Jewish heritage to refute accusations of Nazi influence in Ukraine, the president has ceded to neo-Nazi forces and now depends on them as front line fighters.Back in October 2019, as the war in eastern Ukraine dragged on, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Zolote, a town situated firmly in the “gray zone” of Donbas, where over 14,000 had been killed, mostly on the pro-Russian side. There, the president encountered the hardened veterans of extreme right paramilitary units keeping up the fight against separatists just a few miles away.
Elected on a platform of de-escalation of hostilities with Russia, Zelensky was determined to enforce the so-called Steinmeier Formula conceived by then-German Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier which called for elections in the Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.
In a face-to-face confrontation with militants from the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion who had launched a campaign to sabotage the peace initiative called “No to Capitulation,” Zelensky encountered a wall of obstinacy.
With appeals for disengagement from the frontlines firmly rejected, Zelensky melted down on camera. “I’m the president of this country. I’m 41 years old. I’m not a loser. I came to you and told you: remove the weapons,” Zelensky implored the fighters.
 Liveuamap-tweet-26October2019-Zelensky has visited disengaging area in Zolote today
Once video of the stormy confrontation spread across Ukrainian social media channels, Zelensky became the target of an angry backlash.
Andriy Biletsky, the proudly fascist Azov Battalion leader who once pledged to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen”, vowed to bring thousands of fighters to Zolote if Zelensky pressed any further. Meanwhile, a parliamentarian from the party of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko openly fantasized about Zelensky being blown to bits by a militant’s grenade.
Though Zelensky achieved a minor disengagement, the neo-Nazi paramilitaries escalated their “No Capitulation” campaign. And within months, fighting began to heat up again in Zolote, sparking a new cycle of violations of the Minsk Agreement.
By this point, Azov had been formally incorporated into the Ukrainian military and its street vigilante wing, known as the National Corps, was deployed across the country under the watch of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, and alongside the National Police. In December 2021, Zelensky would be seen delivering a “Hero of Ukraine” award to a leader of the fascistic Right Sector in a ceremony in Ukraine’s parliament.
A full-scale conflict with Russia was approaching, and the distance between Zelensky and the extremist paramilitaries was closing fast.
This February 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukrainian territory on a stated mission to “demilitarize and denazify” the country, US media embarked on a mission of its own: to deny the power of neo-Nazi paramilitaries over the country’s military and political sphere. As the US government-funded National Public Radio insisted, “Putin’s language [about denazification] is offensive and factually wrong.”
In its bid to deflect from the influence of Nazism in contemporary Ukraine, US media has found its most effective PR tool in the figure of Zelensky, a former TV star and comedian from a Jewish background. It is a role the actor-turned-politician has eagerly assumed.
But as we will see, Zelensky has not only ceded ground to the neo-Nazis in his midst, he has entrusted them with a front line role in his country’s war against pro-Russian and Russian forces. The president’s Jewishness as Western media PR deviceHours before President Putin’s February 24 speech declaring denazification as the goal of Russian operations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “asked how a people who lost eight million of its citizens fighting Nazis could support Nazism,” according to the BBC.
Raised in a non-religious Jewish family in the Soviet Union during the 1980’s, Zelensky has downplayed his heritage in the past. “The fact that I am Jewish barely makes 20 in my long list of faults,” he joked during a 2019 interview in which he declined to go into further detail about his religious background.
Today, as Russian troops bear down on cities like Mariupol, which is effectively under the control of the Azov Battalion, Zelensky is no longer ashamed to broadcast his Jewishness. “How could I be a Nazi?” he wondered aloud during a public address. For a US media engaged in an all-out information war against Russia, the president’s Jewish background has become an essential public relations tool.
 Alex Rubinstein-tweet-28February2022-Watch left & right wing factions of MSM unite
A few examples of the US media’s deployment of Zelensky as a shield against allegations of rampant Nazism in Ukraine are below (see mash-up above for video):
Behind the corporate media spin lies the complex and increasingly close relationship Zelensky’s administration has enjoyed with the neo-Nazi forces invested with key military and political posts by the Ukrainian state, and the power these open fascists have enjoyed since Washington installed a Western-aligned regime through a coup in 2014.
In fact, Zelensky’s top financial backer, the Ukrainian Jewish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, has been a key benefactor of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other extremists militias.  The Azov Battalion marches with Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel flags in Mariupol, August 2020 Backed by Zelensky’s top financier, neo-Nazi militants unleash a wave of intimidationIncorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard, the Azov Battalion is considered the most ideologically zealous and militarily motivated unit fighting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbass region.
With Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel insignia on the uniforms of its fighters, who have been photographed with Nazi SS symbols on their helmets, Azov “is known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology…[and] is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing US-based white supremacy organizations,” according to an FBI indictment of several US white nationalists that traveled to Kiev to train with Azov.
Igor Kolomoisky, a Ukrainian energy baron of Jewish heritage, has been a top funder of Azov since it was formed in 2014. He has also bankrolled private militias like the Dnipro and Aidar Battalions, and has deployed them as a personal thug squad to protect his financial interests.
In 2019, Kolomoisky emerged as the top backer of Zelensky’s presidential bid. Though Zelensky made anti-corruption the signature issue of his campaign, the Pandora Papers exposed him and members of his inner circle stashing large payments from Kolomoisky in a shadowy web of offshore accounts.  President Zelensky (C) meets with billionaire oligarch and business associate Ihor Kolomoisky on September 10, 2019 When Zelensky took office in May 2019, the Azov Battalion maintained de facto control of the strategic southeastern port city of Mariupol and its surrounding villages. As Open Democracy noted, “Azov has certainly established political control of the streets in Mariupol. To maintain this control, they have to react violently, even if not officially, to any public event which diverges sufficiently from their political agenda.”
Attacks by Azov in Mariupol have included assaults on “feminists and liberals” marching on International Women’s Day among other incidents.
In March 2019, members of the Azov Battalion’s National Corps attacked the home of Viktor Medvedchuk, the leading opposition figure in Ukraine, accusing him of treason for his friendly relations with Vladimir Putin, the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter.
Zelensky’s administration escalated the attack on Medvedchuk, shuttering several media outlets he controlled in February 2021 with the open approval of the US State Department, and jailing the opposition leader for treason three months later. Zelensky justified his actions on the grounds that he needed to “fight against the danger of Russian aggression in the information arena.”
Next, in August 2020, Azov’s National Corps opened fire on a bus containing members of Medvedchuk’s party, Patriots for Life, wounding several with rubber-coated steel bullets.
 The Eurasianist-tweet-27August2020-bus carrying members of Ukraine’s opposition party was attacked by Ukrainian National Corps
Zelensky failed to rein in neo-Nazis, wound up collaborating with themFollowing his failed attempt to demobilize neo-Nazi militants in the town of Zolote in October 2019, Zelensky called the fighters to the table, telling reporters “I met with veterans yesterday. Everyone was there – the National Corps, Azov, and everyone else.” A few seats away from the Jewish president was Yehven Karas, the leader of the neo-Nazi C14 gang.  Zelensky meets with “veterans” including Yehven Karas (far right) and Dmytro Shatrovsky, an Azov Battalion leader (bottom left). During the Maidan “Revolution of Dignity” that ousted Ukraine’s elected president in 2014, C14 activists took over Kiev’s city hall and plastered its walls with neo-Nazi insignia before taking shelter in the Canadian embassy.
As the former youth wing of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda Party, C14 appears to draw its name from the infamous 14 words of US neo-Nazi leader David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
By offering to carry out acts of spectacular violence on behalf of anyone willing to pay, the hooligans have fostered a cozy relationship with various governing bodies and powerful elites across Ukraine.  C14 neo-Nazi gang offers to carry out violence-for-hire: “C14 works for you. Help us keep afloat, and we will help you. For regular donors, we are opening a box for wishes. Which of your enemies would you like to make life difficult for? We’ll try to do that.” A March 2018 report by Reuters stated that “C14 and Kiev’s city government recently signed an agreement allowing C14 to establish a ‘municipal guard’ to patrol the streets,” effectively giving them the sanction of the state to carry out pogroms.
As The Grayzone reported, C14 led raid to “purge” Romani from Kiev’s railway station in collaboration with the Kiev police.
 Alex Rubinstein-tweet-28February2022-C14 Nazi terror gang carrying out a pogrom against a Romani camp
Not only was this activity sanctioned by the Kiev city government, the US government itself saw little problem with it, hosting Bondar at an official US government institution in Kiev where he bragged about the pogroms. C14 continued to receive state funding throughout 2018 for “national-patriotic education.”
Karas has claimed that the Ukrainian Security Serves would “pass on” information regarding pro-separatist rallies “not only [to] us, but also Azov, the Right Sector and so on.”
“In general, deputies of all factions, the National Guard, the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Internal Affairs work for us. You can joke like that,” Karas said.
Throughout 2019, Zelensky and his administration deepened their ties with ultra-nationalist elements across Ukraine.  Then-Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk onstage at the neo-Nazi “Veterans Strong” concert After Prime Minister attends neo-Nazi concert, Zelensky honors Right Sector leaderJust days after Zelensky’s meeting with Karas and other neo-Nazi leaders in November 2019, Oleksiy Honcharuk – then the Prime Minister and deputy head of Zelensky’s presidential office – appeared on stage at a neo-Nazi concert organized by C14 figure and accused murderer Andriy Medvedko.
Zelensky’s Minister for Veterans Affairs not only attended the concert, which featured several antisemitic metal bands, she promoted the concert on Facebook.
Also in 2019, Zelensky defended Ukrainian footballer Roman Zolzulya against Spanish fans taunting him as a “Nazi.” Zolzulya had posed beside photos of the World War II-era Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera and openly supported the Azov Battalion. Zelensky responded to the controversy by proclaiming that all of Ukraine backed Zolzulya, describing him as “not only a cool football player but a true patriot.”
In November 2021, one of Ukraine’s most prominent ultra-nationalist militiamen, Dmytro Yarosh, announced that he had been appointed as an advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Yarosh is an avowed follower of the Nazi collaborator Bandera who led Right Sector from 2013 to 2015, vowing to lead the “de-Russification” of Ukraine.  Dmytro Yarosh poses with Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces A month later, as war with Russia drew closer, Zelensky awarded Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the “Hero of Ukraine” commendation. Known as “Da Vinci,” Kosyubaylo keeps a pet wolf in his frontline base, and likes to joke to visiting reporters that his fighters “feed it the bones of Russian-speaking children.” Zelensky awards Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the ‘Hero of Ukraine’ award
 Zelensky awards Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the ‘Hero of Ukraine’ award Ukrainian state-backed neo-Nazi leader flaunts influence on the eve of war with RussiaOn February 5, 2022, only days before full-scale war with Russia erupted, Yevhen Karas of the neo-Nazi C14 delivered a stem-winding public address in Kiev intended to highlight the influence his organization and others like it enjoyed over Ukrainian politics.
 Alex Rubinstein-tweet-27February2022-Yevhen Karas the leader of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi terror gang C14’s speech
“LGBT and foreign embassies say ‘there were not many Nazis at Maidan, maybe about 10 percent of real ideological ones,’” Karas remarked. “If not for those eight percent [of neo-Nazis] the effectiveness [of the Maidan coup] would have dropped by 90 percent.”
The 2014 Maidan “Revolution of Dignity” would have been a “gay parade” if not for the instrumental role of neo-Nazis, he proclaimed.
Karas went on to opine that the West armed Ukrainian ultra-nationalists because “we have fun killing.” He also fantasized about the balkanization of Russia, declaring that it should be broken up into “five different” countries.  Yevhen Karas delivering the Nazi salute “If we get killed…we died fighting a holy war”When Russian forces entered Ukraine this February 24, encircling the Ukrainian military in the east and driving towards Kiev, President Zelensky announced a national mobilization that included the release of criminals from prison, among them accused murderers wanted in Russia. He also blessed the distribution of arms to average citizens, and their training by battle-hardened paramilitaries like the Azov Battalion.
With fighting underway, Azov’s National Corps gathered hundreds of ordinary civilians, including grandmothers and children, to train in public squares and warehouses from Kharviv to Kiev to Lviv.
 Max Blumenthal-tweet-1March2022-Azov Battalion’s fighters training and passing out arms to residents of Kharkiv
On February 27, the official Twitter account of the National Guard of Ukraine posted video of “Azov Fighters” greasing their bullets with pig fat to humiliate Russian Muslim fighters from Chechnya.
 НГУ-tweet-27February2022-Azov fighters of the National Guard greased the bullets with lard against the Kadyrov orcs
A day later, the Azov Battalion’s National Corps announced that the Azov Battalion’s Kharkiv Regional Police would begin using the city’s Regional State Administration building as a defense headquarters. Footage posted to Telegram the following day shows the Azov-occupied building being hit by a Russian airstrike.
Besides authorizing the release of hardcore criminals to join the battle against Russia, Zelensky has ordered all males of fighting age to remain in the country. Azov militants have proceeded to enforce the policy by brutalizing civilians attempting to flee from the fighting around Mariupol.
According to one Greek resident in Mariupol recently interviewed by a Greek news station, “When you try to leave you run the risk of running into a patrol of the Ukrainian fascists, the Azov Battalion,” he said, adding “they would kill me and are responsible for everything.”
Footage posted online appears to show uniformed members of a fascist Ukrainian militia in Mariupol violently pulling fleeing residents out of their vehicles at gunpoint.  Deus Abscondis-tweet-26February2022-Ukrainian NAZI are preventing people from leaving Mariupol and are shooting at them
Other video filmed at checkpoints around Mariupol showed Azov fighters shooting and killing civilians attempting to flee. On March 1, Zelensky replaced the regional administrator of Odessa with Maksym Marchenko, a former commander of the extreme right Aidar Battalion, which has been accused of an array of war crimes in the Donbass region.
Meanwhile, as a massive convoy of Russian armored vehicles bore down on Kiev, Yehven Karas of the neo-Nazi C14 posted a video on YouTube from inside a vehicle presumably transporting fighters.
“If we get killed, it’s fucking great because it means we died fighting a holy war,” Karas exclaimed. ”If we survive, it’s going to be even fucking better! That’s why I don’t see a downside to this, only upside!” |
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 Alex Rubinstein |
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 Max Blumenthal Max Blumenthal The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions. |
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The Real Politick with Mark Sleboda
Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief is an Open Banderite Fascist Mark Sleboda Mark Sleboda, 14January2023 https://marksleboda.substack.com/p/ukraines-commander-in-chief-is-an?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2  The Real Politick with Mark Sleboda – Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief is an Open Banderite Fascist
 Nazi Stepan Bandera
 celebration of Stepan Bandera
Ukraine: march for Bandera’s birthdayThis year the Kiev Putsch regime’s Parliamentary body the Rada, celebrated the fascist holiday with a tweet, now deleted, on Twitter showing the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 4 star general Valery Zaluzhny, standing smiling smugly, in front of a portrait of Stepan Bandera, accompanied by one of Bandera’s quotes,
 Christopher Lash-tweet-2January2023-tweet commemorating Stepan Bandera
This is almost certainly one of the criteria for which he was chosen to lead the Kiev regime’s military forces.
In 2021, right after becoming the Kiev regime’s Commander-In-Chief, Zaluzhny officially appointed Dmitry Yarosh, the head and founder of the NeoNazi & white supremacist paramilitary group, the Right Sector, as his personal “senior military advisor”.  Ukraine appoints former neo-Nazi paramilitray leader to senior army advisory role
This year, the Kiev regime’s Commander-in-Chief posted to his own Twitter account a “frontline” photo of him striding in uniform, with assault rifle in hand, prominently displaying a bracelet carved with swastikas.
 Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine-tweet-6October2022  Ukrainian army’s commander-in-chief poses with swastika bracelet
 Zaluzhnyi is shown in uniform standing in a military office
 Zaluzhnyi’s office also has a bust of Bandera
In a civil conflict in country where 20% of the population is ethnic Russian and a significant proportion of the rest, particularly in the East, are Russian-speaking and regard Russians as a brother people, not as “the enemy”.  Percentage of Ethnic Russian in Ukraine by region in 2001 Ukrainian census  Ukraine and Crimea by ethnic identity
The grim reality is that as long as Zaluzhny’s hatred and violence, and that of his NeoNazi hordes, are directed, for the moment, primarily against ethnic Russians, “pro-Russian Eastern Ukrainians” and leftists, then his brand of Banderite fascism is geopolitically useful to the West, and thus “kosher”.
Zaluschny…Hey – the bastard may be a fascist, but he’s OUR fascist, god-damn it! Ukraine’s Commander in Chief is an Open Fascist |
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 PRRESS – Trending Italian News  Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hidingby Alex Viajaenmoto https://prress.com/world/heres-what-the-azov-battalion-tattoos-are-hiding/ [EDD: Original Post: Ecco cosa nascondono i tatuaggi del Battaglione Azov23 Maggio 2022 – 08:57 Il ministero della Difesa russo mostra le immagini dei prigionieri del Battaglione Azov, accusato di simpatie neonaziste. Abbiamo analizzato i tatuaggi dei militari ucraini: cosa rappresentano23May2022 https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/mondo/ecco-cosa-nascondono-i-tatuaggi-battaglione-azov-2036447.html ] The soldiers of the Azov Battalion they are called one by one. A nod from the Russian soldiers, who ask
The most common symbol is that of the Battalion, wrapped in the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag. As we have already explained, it is the Wolfsangel the love of the wolves, which was the first coat of arms of the party founded by Adolf Hitler then also entered the iconography of SS.
Other soldiers wear the black Sun used before by the Thule company one of the esoteric organizations that contributed to the thought and rise of Nazism, and then from the Schutzstaffel, the aforementioned SS.  Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 2 Another frequently recurring element is the Totenkrof, the “death’s head”. It is a skull from whose nape emerge some crossbones. Starting in 1809, this symbol was widely used in German military and political iconography. But it is during the Third Reich that the use of the Totenkrof reaches its peak. It is used by the SS and, in particular, by SS-Totenkopfverbände. Founded in 1936, after the annexation of Austria by Germany, Hitler entrusted them with the custody of the concentration camps.  Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 3 Runes are widely used by Battalion soldiers. In particular the Ôþalan, literally “heritage, inheritance”. Symbol of iron, in ancient times it was worn to protect against trolls and, in general, evil influences. Under the Nazis, this rune was used by the Seventh Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen”, a unit of the SS that was used on the Yugoslav front during the Second World War.  Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 4 In addition to the Ôþalan, some soldiers of the Battalion were branded with the Lebensrune used by the SS used in the (insane) Lebensborn eugenics project strongly supported and supported by Heinrich Himmler, to defend the Aryan race. Tattooed swastikas seem widespread. And it is hard to believe – as stated by Michail Pirog, chief of the 4th Azov Battalion stationed in Zaporizhzhia – whether it is just an “ancient Slavic, pan-European, even Indian symbol”.  Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 5 Also because there are those who have had the Sigrunea symbol that indicated the sun but which was then associated with victory (in German Siegin fact) and then at the initials of the SS. These images were recorded outside the Azovstal factory, as can be guessed from the background and the long avenue behind the soldiers of the Azov Battalion.  Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 6 However, the Russian Defense Ministry has also released other photos, taken in an indoor location, impossible to identify. So we don’t know if they are pictures of Azov prisoners or not. But they are significant, as long as they are taken with some caution (like all the images that come from this conflict). In the first weeks of the war, in fact, various Russian media released some carefully edited videos and photographs in which Nazi flags and copies of the Mein Kampf, strangely intact  Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 7 Yet another soldier preferred to immortalize Hitler, with swastika in the arm. Another one, Stepan Bandera the  Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 8 Then there is a last vein that the Azov soldiers have decided to represent on their bodies, that one esoteric,  Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding 9 Putin is not fighting to “denazify” Ukraine. Just look at the numbers to figure it out. The Ukrainian army can count on about 200,000 troops, which can reach 900,000 if we consider reservists. The Azov Battalion, which in 2014 had a few hundred followers, today can count on a few thousand men. A minimal percentage if you compare it to the armed forces of Kiev. Yet the tattoos on the body of Ukrainian volunteers demonstrate the link between them and the Third Reich. A bond that, in these eighty days of conflict, has been forgotten for too long to justify their resistance to the troops of Moscow.
We want to thank the author of this article for this outstanding content Here’s what the Azov Battalion tattoos are hiding Explore our social media accounts along with other pages related to themhttps://prress.com/related-pages/ |
Interview with a StormtrooperPublished by on https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/07/01/interview-with-a-stormtrooper/  Star Wars Stormtrooper If the Star Wars rebels took as prisoner an Imperial stormtrooper clone, and sat him down for an on-camera interview, without his armor, with a cigarette, he would come across much like this.
This Azov prisoner was recently interviewed in captivity. Among other things: He is supernaturally calm and confident, cocky at times, knows he won’t be mistreated, says he is safe because he is on Russian territory (i.e. not in Donetsk.)
He says about five times that he is a soldier and not a war criminal, his unit was ethical, his unit was ethical, Russia has nothing to charge him with, “I am a prisoner of war, I am not a criminal, I am a soldier”, his unit was ethical, basically you got nothin’ on me, detective. He’s obviously repeating a short script that was drilled into him and all his comrades before the Azov’s surrender.
He claims that his sniper squad (in which he was the number two in rank) didn’t know if they actually killed anyone; they absolutely never kept any records of how many they shot, they never even talked about it. (LOL, this is fantastical, but at least he’s not claiming to have been just a cook or mechanic.)
He says, OK sure there were Azov guys with swastika tattoos, but not in his squad. He’s not a Nazi, the Azov are not Nazis. All the guys with Swastikas, checked out of the Azov by late 2015 (which contradicts the first sentence of this paragraph.) In fact, he knows a guy in Russia with a swastika tattoo, so what’s the big deal about all this Ukraine Nazi stuff?
(If you didn’t know, ticky-tacky Viking-ism is a quasi-religion among “ultranationalist” young Ukrainian men of low intelligence. It was likely introduced by more intelligent people as an “acceptable”—to foreign sponsors—alternative to Nazism, although many of its adherents do have Nazi tattoos and/or collect Nazi paraphernalia.)
He claims the Azov never shot any Russian prisoners, the infamous video from the Azov’s Kharkov affiliate is fake, or they’re lying when they say there’s a video, whatever.
He says Bandera is THE national hero of the Ukraine. Bandera couldn’t have been a bad guy, because the Germans locked him up at one point.
He claims to know Ukrainian history very well. Claims that Kharkov was founded by a Cossack named Kharko (this is a folk story or sort of a joke, not historical.)
He claims that his squad released 11 Russian/Donetsk prisoners for no particular reason—just didn’t feel like bringing them to the bunkers when the Azov was retreating into the steel plant. (LOL. As I said, this guy has been “coached.”)
One of the Russian prisoners, whom he so much enjoyed talking to, and with whom he really hit it off, was a Caucasus guy with the given name of Shakh (which means Shah, as in the Shah of Persia—literally no one in Russia, or perhaps anywhere, has this name.) There are family names like Shakhnazarov and other derivatives, but Shakh by itself, as a given or family name, is fantastical.)
He is grateful for the protection that the vakk-seenz continue to provide. (Haha, just kidding, he didn’t say that, but surely this guy has much in common with people you know!)
(1) The Azov is a cult. Literally. (2) The Azov’s zampolits (political officers) are/were operating on a very high level. (3) The practice of inculcating dumb “talking points” into the broad population, is as well developed in the Ukraine as it is in the USA—indeed, Russia lags far behind in this capacity. Just remember please, since 2015, the Azov was the main “behind the scenes but not always” authority in Mariupol, and operated a business empire in the city, also setting up affiliates in Kharkov and Kiev, as well as running the Ukraine’s single largest politically-oriented youth organization.
At its peak (just prior to the Russian invasion), the Azov had likely close to 10,000 uniformed personnel and civilian employees. It was by far the single largest military component within the Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, and also the only one that was essentially also a political organization in its own right.
The Azov is not marginal in the Ukraine, the Azov is the Ukraine, or one of the Ukraines, anyway—the dominant one.
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The Azov Battalion: Laboratory of NazismThe Alternative World 23 May2022 https://thealtworld.com/thealtworld/the-azov-battalion-laboratory-of-nazism  The Azov Battalion Western propaganda continues to present the defenders of Mariupol as heroic martyrs, but every day it becomes harder to do so. They have been involved in the murder and brutal torture of women and children. The Azov Battalion is a symbol of hell and years of terror for the people of Donbass.
On 30 October 2014, Ganja was detained in Mariupol by five men in military uniform with Azov Battalion chevrons and balaclavas. Already in a car, they beat her with their guns and urinated on her. They took her out of her car, kicked her, and fired a volley of shots over her head. They took her to Mariupol airport, where they carried on torturing her until 8 November. After that, they took her to court and a pre-trial detention centre.
Tatiana was a member of the Communist Party of Ukraine, now outlawed in the country. She took part in protest rallies in Mariupol and the 11 May referendum over the future of the Donetsk region. She was not even aware that she was blacklisted as an “intransigent separatist”.
In March 2019 during a press conference in Moscow, former officer of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) Vasily Prozorov spoke about “The Library”: a secret prison at Mariupol airport, a city controlled by the Azov Battalion. The “Library” contained “books”, the name given to captured DPR militiamembers and ordinary citizens “suspected of separatism”. They were tortured there. The place had two disconnected refrigerated cells with sealed doors and no furniture. Prozorov showed photographs of nine prisoners from the “Library” – among them were a teenager in a khaki t-shirt and two old men. All of them showed signs of beatings.  Former SBU Lieutenant-Colonel Vasily Prozorov shows a picture of one of the “Library” prisoners at a press conference in Moscow. Former SBU Lieutenant-Colonel Vasily Prozorov shows a picture of one of the “Library” prisoners at a press conference in Moscow. © Sputnik / Vladimir Astapkovich Azov survivors also confirmed his declarations to Sputnik Former “Library” inmate Tatiana Ganja described the prison as a “real hell and place of death”.
On 8 November 2014, Ganja was taken from the airport for investigative actions. She was released following a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and the Donetsk People’s Republic on 26 December. Since then, she has been living in Donetsk in one of the dormitories for refugees. Azov looted her home in Mariupol.
One day, Elena Blokha, a journalist from Mariupol, also found herself in the “Library’s ‘fridge’”.
They detained Blokha along with her son and placed him in a male cell with several other prisoners.
Azov: The Beginning In April 2014, after the Maidan triumph and when a street war between supporters and opponents [of Maidan] broke out in all major cities in southeastern Ukraine, the then-Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov announced an Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) in Donbass. While the NATO was started in order to form “volunteer battalions”, these batallions later became infamous for their atrocities against civilians and captured militiamembers.
The Azov Battalion was officially established on 5 May 2014 in the Kharkov neo-Nazi organisation Patriots of Ukraine*, the power wing of the Social-National Assembly. The “patriots” opened their first congress in 1999 with a torchlit procession similar to the marches seen in Hitler’s Germany.
The unit of 50-60 fighters possessed several smooth bore rifles and traumatic pistols. The head of the press service, Stepan Baida, described the Azov’s level of equipment at the time as “reinforced troops”.
The Black Corps patches, which directly allude to Reichsführer SS Himmler’s military (“Das Schwarze Korps”, translated from the German as “Black Corps”, the official printed media of the SS), continued to be used by the Azov even after its incorporation into legalranks commanded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
At first, it was a deemed a volunteer battalion in the Special Tasks Patrol Police of Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Then, in October 2014, it became a regiment of the National Guard. As a military unit, Azov was authorised to acquire artillery and tanks.  Azov Battalion cadets deployed in the conflict zone in southeastern Ukraine, 2014. Azov Battalion cadets deployed in the conflict zone in southeastern Ukraine, 2014. Mariupol Massacre The presence of Azov became fatal for the residents of Mariupol long before 2022. What happened there in the spring of 2014 was the most important episode of the Donbass conflict.
The Victory Day demonstration on 9 May 2014 ended in clashes near the city police headquarters. According to Kiev’s official information, 13 people were killed, including police officers, National Guard members and Azov Battalion fighters, as well as civilians.
The local police were sympathetic to the Donetsk People’s Republic, but did not take any action against their own superiors or the Ukrainian authorities in general.  Former SBU Lieutenant-Colonel Vasily Prozorov addressing the situation in Ukraine after the coup at a press conference in Moscow. Former SBU Lieutenant-Colonel Vasily Prozorov addressing the situation in Ukraine after the coup at a press conference in Moscow. A referendum on the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic was scheduled for 11 May 2014. According to Former SBU Lieutenant-Colonel Prozorov, Mariupol police officers received orders to prevent the voting by blocking polling stations and detaining election commission members. However, the majority refused to obey, as they wanted to avoid conflicts with their fellow compatriots, including relatives.
 Flowers and candles in memory of those killed at Mariupol police headquarters in May 2015. Flowers and candles in memory of those killed at Mariupol police headquarters in May 2015. The list of those killed in Mariupol that day include only police officers, security forces and civilians. ‘White Leader’  Andriy Biletsky, the leader of the National Corps political party. Andriy Biletsky, the leader of the National Corps political party. Andriy Biletsky, a neo-Nazi known as White Leader (a nickname that a civilised person would find absurd which was given to him by his supporters before the Maidan), became Azov’s leader. That same year, 2014, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament].
So what did White Leader do before Azov? Shortly before heading the battalion, Biletsky was released from prison. He was freed from the Kharkov pre-trial detention centre in late February 2014 thanks to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who favoured Azov and admitted that he had “special plans” for the unit.
Biletsky and his accomplices were imprisoned on charges of assaulting Sergei Kolesnik, who, as a result of an incident, sustained open skull and brain injuries and multiple stab wounds. The case was opened under the article of “robbery”.
The reason for the attack stemmed from an online argument in which the victim had been careless in speaking out against fascism. Biletsky was arrested and immediately became a “martyr” to the victorious Euromaidan; his detention was seen as political repression.
Biletsky has never concealed his Nazi views. Here are some of his most striking quotes.
On his mission and Jews:
On blood purity:
On his perception of Nazi collaborators the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA, an extremist organisation banned in Russia):
According to Kharkov journalists, Biletsky’s supporters began holding more or less visible actions in the fall of 2005. As early as 14 April 2006, on the anniversary of Koliivshchyna (the Cossack uprising of 1768, which led to a mass slaughter of Poles and Jews), they organised a xenophobic “Ukraine against the occupation” march in the city’s centre. According to various estimates, between 100 and 200 people took part in the rally. This event was followed by actions against the Vietnamese hostels in Kharkov.
Biletsky’s unit skillfully recruited or attracted representatives of far-right youth subcultures to join its ranks. The young neo-Nazis were drawn by their focus on violent methods of struggle: beatings, raids and pogroms.
The “vyshkols” – training camps – of the Patriots of Ukraine organisation were completely different from, for example, the [far-right paramilitary organisations] Tryzub of Stepan Bandera (another extremist organisation banned in Russia), the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists or the Youth Nationalist Congress. In these camps, the organisation held activities for schoolchildren shooting air rifles, marching through forests and singing songs around a campfire. Biletsky, in turn, taught how to storm buildings or “remove” a guardsman from behind (how to strangle and stab him in the heart).
The Kharkov branch alone had between 200 and 300 fighters in the early 2010s, some of whom lived permanently in the barracks at the organisation’s premises.  Radicals protest outside Russian banks in Kiev Radicals protest outside Russian banks in Kiev Where Did the Money Come From?
The Azov was funded – at least partially – by oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, as was the case with the other volunteer battalions operating in the ATO. Furthermore, Svetlana Zvarich, director of the Ukrainian National Information Service (one of the largest companies in the local information collection, transmission and processing market), provided assistance.
On 16 April 2015, Ukrayinska Pravda mentioned the charity foundation for educational innovations, which officially “works with Azov and provides it with everything it needs” in a report from Azov’s base at the ATEK engineering plant in Kiev , citing a comment by “the chairman of the supervisory board of the foundation, Svetlana Zvarich”.  Radicals protest outside Russian banks in Kiev Radicals protest outside Russian banks in Kiev SBU Chief Vasyl Hrytsak said at the time that the Secret Service was checking Azov’s involvement in at least ten similar crimes.
There is also knowlegde of a bribe of two million hryvnias ($68,000) extorted from a Kiev businessman by the battalion’s head of manning Vladimir Brzezinski and former Azov Chief of Staff Vadym Troyan under threats of reprisals.
In other words, the Azov militiamembers were simply engaged in racketeering. According to the owner of one of the gambling halls, the so-called patriots showed up in mid-2015. Couriers from local radical organisations visited all the gambling halls, offering to “negotiate”.
‘Laboratory of Nazism’ The Azov Battalion stands out for its strong ideological background. Neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and racists are at the forefront of the unit. Its symbols contain elements that refer to the emblems of Third Reich military units.  Fighters of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion take the oath of allegiance to Ukraine in Sophia Square in Kiev before being sent to Donbass. Members of the Nazi battalion have committed hundreds of war crimes against the population of Donbass over eight years. The Azov flag has an inverted image of the runic symbol “Wolfsangel”, which was used by the Nazis. Fighters of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion take the oath of allegiance to Ukraine in Sophia Square in Kiev before being sent to Donbass. Members of the Nazi battalion have committed hundreds of war crimes against the population of Donbass over eight years. The Azov flag has an inverted image of the runic symbol “Wolfsangel”, which was used by the Nazis.
The photo shows Azov fighters taking the oath of allegiance before being sent to Donbass in July 2014. The regiment’s flag bears a black Wolfsangel (“wolf’s hook” in German). This sign was the emblem of Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP). Subsequently, the Wolfsangel became the tactical mark of the SS Panzer Division “Das Reich”, and was also used in other SS and Wehrmacht units, in particular, the 34th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division “Landstorm Nederland”.
Over time, representatives of the Social National Assembly, Automaidan and Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists activists, ultras (hooligans) of the Dynamo (Kiev) and Shakhtar football clubs, members of Dmytro Korchynsky’s Bratstvo party* and the Cossack Rifle Brotherhood joined Azov.
The open demonstration of misanthropy attracted radicals and neo-Nazis from all over the world to join the Azov Battalion.
Biletsky said in an interview that there were representatives of three dozen nationalities in Azov, but “not once did a Chinese or a Nigerian come to them”.
The Azov expanded, fought against the Donbass militia, and attracting new volunteers, including foreigners.
A series of video interviews with foreigners associated with the regiment were published on the page of the National Corps and National Druzhina units, both projects set up in 2016 by the Azov.
Alexei Levkin from Tver, Russia, is one of the typical characters. He is a neo-Nazi fugitive convicted of being part of a gang that committed numerous ethnic murders. He is also the lead singer of the band M8L8TH, which glorifies fascism, the SS and the concentration camps of the Third Reich.
Quotes from Levkin’s diary hit the internet in 2008.
Another volunteer, Joachim Fürholm from Norway, calls himself a “national socialist revolutionary” and “admires” what [2011 far-right Norway bomber Anders] Breivik did. In an interview with the Nazi radio Radio Wehrwolf, found by Bellingcat (an organisation recognised as a foreign agent in Russia), Fürholm considers Azov to be a “laboratory of fascism”.
Beat the Dog Before the Lion From the outset, all of the volunteer battalions were haunted by scandals: looting and sexual violence (Shakhtersk and Tornado Battalions were the most prominent), kidnapping and killing of civilians (by the notorious Donbass Battalion) and the seizure of businesses.
There was less talk about the Azov. After all, it was an extremely closed unit and the strict hierarchy and the constant threat of reprisals against one’s own people played a role.
However, some who joined Azov as volunteers without right-wing radical ideas could not get along in the Nazi environment and revolted. They were the ones who made the White Leader’s unpleasant juicy details public.
From ‘Hateful’ to ‘Heroes’ Now, almost 80 years after the demise of the Third Reich, Nazi battalions openly marching through the streets of European cities with their symbols which are banned in the civilized world, the unpunished killing of civilians, looting, extortion, reprisals and punitive operations are again a reality.
Back in 2015, the US Congress banned the Pentagon from supplying portable anti-aircraft missile systems to Ukraine and from training and equipping the Azov Battalion. Congressional representatives called it a “disgusting Nazi formation”. This was a reaction to a number of publications in the US press in which shocked journalists wrote about the openly Nazi views of both the leadership and fighters of Azov.
But seven years later, the world is witnessing how the “hideous Nazi formation” began to be fashioned into valiant heroes, the “defenders of Mariupol”.
https://sputniknews.com/20220522/the-azov-battalion-laboratory-of-nazism-1095700345.html |
This is who the West/EU/NATO is supportingThe following is a “People to Kill List” put out by the NAZI Ukraine SBU
Security Service of UkraineFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Security Service of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Служба безпеки України, romanized: Sluzhba bezpeky Ukrayiny) or SBU (Ukrainian: СБУ) is the law enforcement authority and main intelligence and security agency of the Ukrainian government, in the areas of counter-intelligence activity and combating terrorism.  Ukraine SBU Hitlist-myrotvorets.center-Banner source: https://rumble.com/v1gxbrr-live-stream-monday-august-22nd-2022-news-from-saint-petersburg.html JerusalemCats Comments: If an Antisemite such as Roger Waters is on the Ukraine SBU Azov Hitlist (People to Kill List), what about Jew who want to visit Rebbe Nachman’s Kever In Uman, Ukraine? https://myrotvorets.center/criminal/uoters-rodzher/  Roger Waters added to Ukraine Myrotvorets SBU-Hitlist-Chrome The Homepage of the Ukrainian Security Service SBU Kill list Warning Graphic screenshots – website of Ukraine SBU Hitlist myrotvorets center https://myrotvorets.center/ Ukrainian Nazis Celebrate Independance Day With PoW ISIS VideoPosted 25August2022 iEarlGreyTV:https://rumble.com/v1hatx5-ukrainian-nazis-celebrate-independance-day-with-pow-isis-video.html Journalists who challenge NATO narratives are now ‘information terrorists’: https://beeley.substack.com/p/journalists-who-challenge-nato-narratives |
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Stepan Bandera![Stepan Bandera Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (Ukrainian: Степа́н Андрі́йович Банде́ра, romanized: Stepán Andríyovyč Bandéra, IPA: [steˈpɑn ɐnˈd⁽ʲ⁾r⁽ʲ⁾ijoʋɪt͡ʃ bɐnˈdɛrɐ]; Polish: Stepan Andrijowycz Bandera; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was an Ukrainian nationalist leader, politician and theorist of the militant wing (OUN-B), served as head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists,[1][2] organization responsible for ethnic cleansings and also implicated in collaboration with Nazi Germany.[1][3]](http://www.jerusalemcats.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Stepan-Bandera.jpg) Stepan Bandera 
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Andriyovych and the family name is Bandera.
Born in the economically backward Galicia (officially Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, created after the first partition of Poland) into the family of a priest of Eastern Catholic Church.[4] After the Empire disintegrated in the wake of World War I, Galicia briefly became a West Ukrainian People’s Republic; following the Polish–Ukrainian War of 1918–1919, it was again integrated into eastern Poland. In this period, Bandera became radicalized. He enrolled at the Lviv Polytechnic, where he organized Ukrainian nationalist organizations. For orchestrating the 1934 assassination of Poland’s Minister of the Interior Bronisław Pieracki, Bandera was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In September 1939, as a result of the invasion of Poland, he was freed from Bereza Kartuska prison, and moved to Kraków, in the German-occupied zone, where he maintained close connections with Abwehr and Wehrmacht.[5][6]
For a time, Bandera collaborated with Nazi Germany. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he prepared the 30 June 1941 Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood in Lviv, pledging to work with Nazi Germany.[7][5] For his refusal to rescind the decree, Bandera was arrested by the Gestapo and on 5 July 1941 held under house arrest.[8] After January 1942 Bandera was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp but kept in special, comparatively comfortable detention.[9][10][11] In 1944, with Germany rapidly losing ground in the war in the face of the advancing Allied armies, Bandera was released in the hope that he would be instrumental in deterring the advancing Soviet forces. He set up the headquarters of the re-established Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council, which worked underground. After the war, Bandera with his family settled in West Germany where he remained the leader of the OUN-B and worked with several anti-communist organizations such as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations[12] as well as with the US and British intelligence agencies.[12][4] Fourteen years after the end of the war, Bandera was assassinated in 1959 by KGB agents in Munich, West Germany.[13][14]
On 22 January 2010, the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the posthumous title of Hero of Ukraine.[15] The European Parliament condemned the award, as did Russia, Poland and Jewish politicians and organizations.[16][17][18][19][20] President Viktor Yanukovych declared the award illegal, since Bandera was never a citizen of Ukraine, a stipulation necessary for getting the award. This announcement was confirmed by a court decision in April 2010.[21] In January 2011, the award was officially annulled.[22][23] A proposal to confer the award on Bandera was rejected by the Ukrainian parliament in August 2019.[24]
Bandera remains a highly controversial figure in Ukraine,[25][26][27] with some Ukrainians hailing him as a liberator who fought against the Soviet Union, Poland and Nazi Germany trying to establish an independent Ukraine, while other Ukrainians condemn him as a fascist[28] and a war criminal[28] who was, together with his followers, largely responsible for the massacres of Polish civilians[29] and partially for the Holocaust in Ukraine.[30][31][32][33] |
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BURNT ALIVE IN ODESSA. Documentary | 2May2014 Odessa, Ukraine firebombed by NationalistPosted 27December2021 Bonanza Media: May 2, 2014 people of Ukrainian Odessa were trapped in a building and set on fire. Because they protested against new nationalist government that came to power in Kiev as a result of a coup d’état. Officially, 42 were announced dead, including 7 women and 1 minor. No one has been held responsible for this massacre. Alexander, one of the few survivors, shares his memories of what really happened and new battles he has to fight in the aftermath. |
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The Uman MassacreWhat really happened in Uman? Why did Rebbe Nachman want to be buried there? Tal Rotem gives an historical overview of a monumental “Kiddush Hashem”. Uman and Emuna go together…Tal Rotem Posted on 31.05.08 https://breslev.com/307327/ The Massacre of Uman took place in the year 1768, a mere four years before the birth of Rebbe Nachman of Breslev. 33,000 Jews from Uman and the surrounding villages who took refuge from the murderous Jew-hating Ivan Gonta, the Ukrainian rebel that led the revolution against Poland, who then governed the Ukraine and was relatively decent to the Jews. Uman and the HaidameksUman was a well-fortified city where a major part of Polish troops in the Ukraine were stationed. This fact made Uman one of the primary objectives of the Kolivivschyna movement, known popularly as the “Haidameks”, the organization of bitterly anti-Semitic Ukrainian Cossacks and their peasant supporters who revolted against Poland. Commanded by cut-throat Ivan Gonta who prided himself that he drank a fresh glass of his enemies’ blood every morning, the Cossacks began their siege on Uman.
In early June of 1768, on the way to Uman, the Ukrainian rebels by Gonta and Maxim Zalizniak razed a number of Jewish cities in one of history’s most cruel pogroms. As Zalizniak openly encouraged the slaughter of Jews, Uman filled with refugees from all over the Podolia region of the Central Ukraine in the Jewish Pale of Settlement.
A large camp filled with Polish nobility and their private militia, regular soldiers and Jewish refugees was stationed outside the city walls. The Cossacks routed the Polish encampment on June 14th and tried to take the city by surprise but to no avail. After this first unsuccessful attempt, the siege on Uman began on June 17th. The very first day large number of Ukrainians deserted the ranks of Polish forces and joined the rebel Cossacks when the city was surrounded.
After three days of the siege the city fell to Zalizniak in spite of a courageous defense in which the Jews also played an active role. The tragic point occurred during the peace negotiation on the third day of the siege that concluded in a combat and subsequent takeover of the city. It is unclear whether the resulting fight was initiated by Ukrainian or Polish side as the accounts of the event differ. What we do know is that the Jewish fighters led by Leib Shargorodski and Moses Menaker in an attempt to defend themselves, and barricaded themselves in one of Uman’s synagogues, but they were destroyed by cannon fire. All but a handful of Uman’s 33,000 Jews were subsequently killed by Gonta and his henchmen. Martyrs in “Kiddush Hashem”Gonta set up a tremendous cross in a lot in front of a church. He then set up a low canopy in front of the cross. After his men rouned up all the Jews that weren’t slaughtered in the fierce hand-to-hand and house-to-house fighting, he told them that anyone who passed through the canopy would be spared. But, in order to do so, one would have to prostrate oneself before the cross. Not a single Jewish man, woman, or child agreed to do so, despite the fact that parents were slaughtered in front of their children and children were brutally maimed in front of their parents. This became the greatest sanctification of Hashem’s name in history. Gonta’s ExecutionFearing that the rebellion would spread into her domain, Catherine the Great, then Empress of Russia, dispatched a regiment of her best soldiers to help Poland suppress the rebellion. The commander of the Russian unit, Guriev, made the Haidameks believe he was siding with them against Poland and managed to capture approximately 900 of them without firing a single shot. He siezed Ivan Gonta and handed him over to the irate Poles and was tried for high treason. Sentenced to a bitter and agonizing death by grand, Gonta’s nailed to gallows and exhibited in 14 towns of Podolia. The Ukranian View of GontaAlthough an arch-criminal and murderer, Gonta is a Ukrainian folk hero, immortalized in songs, legends, and poetry, such as Shevchenko’s controversial epic poem “Haidamaki”.
As a whole, the Cossacks and the haidameks are respected and worshipped in Ukraine, considered defenders of their motherland who fought against invaders. Ukrainians believe that the rowdy, brutal, and bloodthirsty insurgents defended social freedoms, the Ukrainian Orthodox faith and Ukraine’s independence. They view the Haidameks as paragons of courage, patriotism and dignity. Ukrainian many parents used to bring up their children. One Ukrainian history book. To this day, Ukrainians believe that the Haidameks fought against “Polish occupiers and Jewish landlords,” as one high school teacher in Uman told me, but this is of course a falsity since Jews were not allowed to own land in the Ukraine. Why Uman?Why did Rebbe Nachman choose Uman as his place of eternal rest?
Once, on the way from eastern Ukraine to his new home in Brelev, he passed by the mass grave of Uman’s Jews. He stopped the wagon driver, pondered, took a deep breath and said, “Here is the scent of Heaven. This is a good place to lay in rest.” He chose Uman because of its many holy martyrs who gave their lives for their “emuna”, their pure and complete faith in Hashem. Uman is therefore an eternal monument of emuna, may the holy martyrs lay in eternal peace, amen. (Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Gonta) |
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 Statue of Ivan Gonta, Cossack murderer of Uman’s 33,000 Jews in 1768
Ivan GontaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Gonta
Ivan Gonta (Ukrainian: Іван Ґонта; died 1768) was one of the leaders of the Koliivshchyna, an armed rebellion of peasants and Ukrainian Cossacks against Bar confederation in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Born in Rożyszki (modern Rozsishky) near Uman’ in Bracław Voivodship, Gonta served as a sotnik (captain) of Cossack household militia of Franciszek Salezy Potocki, the Voivode of Kiev, and commanded a small unit in the garrison of Uman since 1757. During the Koliivshchyna he was ordered to fight the approaching haidamaka forces of Maksym Zalizniak. Instead, he and his militia joined the rebels, and the joint forces captured and ravaged the town of Uman on June 21, 1768. In what became known as the Massacre of Uman, thousands of local Polish szlachta, Jews, Uniates and other people were slaughtered. After that, Gonta was proclaimed colonel and commanded the garrison of Uman.
When Gonta sent a detachment to spread rebellion into the Ottoman Empire, Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia, dispatched a regiment of Don Cossacks fighting against Bar confederation to help Poland suppress the rebellion to prevent Ottomans from waging a war against Russia. The commander of the Russian unit, Guriev, made the rebels believe he was siding with them for the joint trip against Bar confederation and managed to capture approximately 900 of them without a single shot. After that, Ivan Gonta was handed over to the Poles and was tried for high treason. Sentenced to death by grand Crown Hetman Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, he was then executed in the village of Serby (modern Gontivka) in the Podolian Voivodship. As an added measure, his body was partitioned and nailed to gallows in 14 towns of Podolia.
Although largely non-notable during his life, after his death he became a hero of countless folk songs and legends that portrayed him as a hero and a martyr. He was immortalized in Taras Shevchenko‘s controversial epic poem Haidamaky though Gonta had never killed his Roman Catholic sons, because his wife and children were of Orthodox faith and in fact he had never initiated the massacre of Uman himself. |
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UKRAINE: DONBASS. YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW (Warning: Graphic)4March2022 TruthFreedom
There are mass graves scattered across Donbass, from which bodies of civilians are regularly exhumed. Yet, while the shelling and killings continued, Western media remained silent. According to UN estimates, over 13,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
The Donbass people call it a ‘genocide of the Russian-speaking population’. Kiev outlawed the Russian language from everyday life, endeavouring to limit its use, despite Russian being the native language in large areas of the country.
Donbass. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow takes a look back at events that unfolded before the start of the crisis in 2014. Historians and journalists share their views on the conflict, players and motives, while ordinary citizens from the Donetsk and Lugansk regions describe the horrors of war. |
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Larry the Cat – UK Prime Minister
 Larry the Cat-tweet-20October2022-“The King has asked me to become Prime Minister because this nonsense has gone on long enough.”
 Larry the Cat-tweet-04November2022-To answer some of your questions To answer some of your questions: – No I’m not “Rishi Sunak’s cat” – I live here permanently, politicians are temporary residents – Some of them very temporary – I agree, he’s not off to a great start – No, I’ve not found his wallet. Yet.
 Larry the Cat-tweet-19August2023-Politicians come and go; cats are permanent
 Larry the Cat-tweet-4September2023-I can still attract a crowd Background:Larry – Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office Larry: Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office is the title of the official resident cat at 10 Downing Street, the residence and executive office of the prime minister of the United Kingdom in London.
Official dutiesFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_(cat) The Downing Street website describes Larry’s duties as “greeting guests to the house, inspecting security defences and testing antique furniture for napping quality”. It says he is “contemplating a solution to the mouse occupancy of the house” and has told Downing Street that such a solution is still in the “tactical planning stage”.[6] Unlike his predecessors since 1929, Larry’s upkeep is funded by the staff of 10 Downing Street.[7] Fund-raising events to pay for his food are believed to have included a quiz night for Downing Street staff held in the state rooms.[8]
Who is Larry the Cat and how does he keep outlasting UK leaders?BY NATALIE PRIEB – 07/07/22 10:09 AM ET https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3548594-who-is-larry-the-cat-and-how-does-he-keep-outlasting-uk-leaders/ British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is out, resigning Thursday after less than three years on the job. Larry the Cat, a mainstay at 10 Downing Street, is not going anywhere. The brown and white tabby, whose official title is chief mouser to the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom, has been living in the country’s executive office since 2011. With Johnson’s resignation, Larry has now outlasted three British prime ministers, having previously seen the ends of David Cameron’s and Theresa May’s terms at 10 Downing. Larry was initially brought to Downing Street by Cameron to handle a rat issue near the prime minister’s official residence. He was a former stray adopted from London’s Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and was the first cat to take over the unofficial rat-catching post since the retirement of Humphrey in 1997. The chief mouser is well-versed in interacting with world leaders. He appeared to have warmed up to former President Obama but took a nap under former President Trump’s armored vehicle during his visit in 2019. Now it seems that Larry has garnered enough respect from British politicians in his lengthy tenure as chief mouser that some are facetiously floating him for a potential prime minister bid himself. “Well at some basic level, almost anybody in Parliament would be a better prime minister than Boris Johnson. Larry the Downing Street cat would be a better prime minister,” Rory Stewart, a former Conservative member of Parliament, said in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Following Johnson’s election to the office in December 2019, it was rumored that Larry may be headed for the door since Johnson is inclined toward dogs. However, even after Johnson’s Jack Russell terrier Dilyn moved into Downing Street, Larry has remained in his post and can now add Johnson to the list of prime ministers he has outlasted. |
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Rabbi Kahana: The Tenth and Conclusive Test17 November 2022 https://habayitah.blogspot.com/2022/11/rabbi-kahana-tenth-and-conclusive-test.html
BS”D Parashat Chayai Sarah 5783 by Rabbi Nachman Kahana | Nov 16, 2022 The Tenth and Conclusive Test
The United States government has warned our government to refrain from appointing Knesset member Mr. Betzalel Smotrich as the next Minister of Defense and/or Knesset member Mr. Itamar Ben-Gvir from serving as our Minister of Internal Security. And if we do so, the American State Department, Defense Department and other relevant governmental and economic agencies will not co-operate with them.
What does the U.S. government have against these two Israelis, except for the fact that their ancestors stood at the foot of Mount Sinai when Hashem, the Creator of all, declared the Jews to be His chosen race and nation for all time; and closed the holy bond by mutual agreement that HaShem presents us with His 613 commandments intended solely for the Jewish nation; and we abide by them?
What did these two Torah observant Jews do to release the genie of discrimination and outright hate? I submit: HaShem put Avraham Aveinu through ten tests. The ninth was in last week’s Shabbat parasha, the “binding of Yitzchak” (Akeidat Yitzchak) and the tenth in this Shabbat’s parasha Cha’yai Sarah. the negotiations between Avraham and Efron the Hittite for the purchase of Ma’arat Ha’machpela as a burial site for Sarah.
Logic dictates that the physical and mental challenges of every succeeding test increase in difficulty. What is it about the last test of real-estate set before Avraham that made it more trying than the Akeida?
Was it due to the necessity to deal with worldly matters of “real estate” while in the midst of a profound emotional crisis at the loss of his beloved Sarah? Was it his being taken advantage of by the unscrupulous Efron who charged 400 shekels for a burial site which was not worth nearly that much?
These were indeed aggravating realities, but the hard core of the test, I believe, ran far deeper into the area which was to impact upon Jewish history.
A fundamental religious principle appears in many of our classical commentaries and responsa: מעשה אבות סימן לבנים The actions of the fathers (Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov) guide their children (the Jewish people) along the path to redemption. The moment of truth came when Avraham, despite the dangers inherent in what he was presently going to do, stood up before the Hittite council of elders and proclaimed: גר ותושב אנכי עמכם I am a stranger and a resident among you. Rashi quotes the Midrash that explains Avraham’s intent: אם תרצו הריני גר ואם לאו אהיה תושב ואטלנה מן הדין שאמר לי הקב”ה ‘לזרעך אתן את הארץ הזאת’ If you wish [to sell the burial site amicably], I will act as a stranger who recognizes your rights over the area; but if you refuse to sell me the burial site, then I will implement my right of sovereignty and seize the land by virtue of God’s promise to me, “And to your children will I give this land.”
At the time when Avraham was told by HaShem to leave his land, his birthplace and his father’s home to take up residence in a land which HaShem would identify later, Europe was mostly desolate, as were most parts of Africa and Asia, not to speak of the Americas. But instead of sending Avraham to establish a Jewish State in some unpopulated area where there would be no protest, Avraham was directed to the most populous area in the world: a thin sliver of land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea populated by seven pagan nations numbering in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions!
Each of these peoples descended from Cham, son of Noach, and arrived in the land much before Avraham. They cultivated its fields, constructed buildings and established places of worship, which taken together served as a common civilization.
At this junction in their history, a stranger arrives from the east and declares before the Hittite council of elders: גר ותושב אנכי עמכם
I am a stranger and a resident among you.
That he is the true sovereign over all the land. Not just the area of Canaan, but of all the lands from the Euphrates in the northeast to the Nile in the southwest, and from the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia. By this statement, Avraham, a lone unprotected Jew, was challenging the rights of countless peoples who considered themselves the owners of these lands by virtue of conquest and/or purchase.
This was an act of immense courage, because from that moment on Avraham was perceived by all those people to be a threat to their way of life and to their very existence. Here is the thorn in the side of our relationships with all gentiles: we Jews are HaShem’s chosen people! And Avraham spoke the plain, fundamental truth which all humanity must accept.
To the gentiles, Messrs. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are guilty of the “sin” of their forefather Avraham. They spoke the truth: that the act that sealed the bond between the Creator and the Jewish people is possession of the holy land in all its borders.
Whether or not Messrs. Smotrich or Ben-Gvir will serve as ministers in the next government is irrelevant. What is very relevant is the fact that the majority of Israeli Jews, by their vote, testified that we have borne the torch of Judaism to this day despite the intense efforts of many people and faiths to extinguish it’s flame, the torch shines now brighter that it did even 2000 years ago. Shabbat Shalom Nachman Kahana Copyright © 5783/2022 Nachman Kahana |
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