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Star of David

Poll: Large majority of Canadians oppose annexation of West Bank, nearly half want sanctions on Israel

Michael Arria
Mondweiss
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC
canadian poll israel annexation west bank
A new poll found that three out of four Canadians want their government to oppose Israel's proposed annexation West Bank, and almost half would support sanctions on the country over the issue.

The survey (which randomly sampled 1,000 random Canadians over the age of 18) was conducted by EKOS Research Associates and co-sponsored by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, Independent Jewish Voices Canada, and the United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine-Israel. 74% of those surveyed "want the government to express opposition to Israeli annexation in some form" and 42% want economic or diplomatic sanctions placed on the country.

"These results prove that Canadians want more than words from Trudeau when it comes to opposing Israel's annexation," said Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME, in a press release. "Not only is it necessary to threaten sanctions to discourage annexation from taking place, but there is considerable support among the Canadian public to do so."

Comment: Not that this will make much difference as the Canadian government is tone deaf to the desires of its citizens, preferring instead to support Israel unequivocally:
Israeli annexation, Canada's confusion and hypocrisy

Canada welcomes the importation of settlement products, extends preferential tariff treatment to them under the terms of the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA) and defends Israel's right to label settlement products as Israeli in origin. The Trudeau government knows full well why Israel insists on labeling settlement products as Israeli, and it isn't for tariff favors. In response to a complaint of mine [full disclosure: read more here], Ottawa went to Federal Court to defend Israel's right to stake sovereign claim to its colonies on Canadian stores shelves. It lost its case. 'Product of Israel' labels on settlement wines are "false, misleading and deceptive," Justice Anne Mactavish ruled in July 2019. Undeterred, Canada's Attorney General is now appealing Justice Mactavish's decision — going to the wall in support of Israel's annexationist ambitions.

Meanwhile, the Canada Revenue Agency lets Canadian Zionists write settlement contributions off their taxes. The Jewish National Fund of Canada, Canadian Friends of Ariel University (in Ariel, the largest settlement in the northern West Bank) and Canadian Friends of Yeshivat Har Etzion (in the Gush Etzion settlement block) are all registered charities, in spite of their declared commitment to colonization and de facto (if not de jure) annexation of Palestinian land. Among Yeshivat Har Etzion's publicly stated goals: To foster a "lifelong commitment" to "Am Yisrael and Eretz Israel."

Astonishingly, Canadian government support for settlement expansion is accompanied by acknowledgement that settlements are absolutely illegal, under both the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) and Canada's own Geneva Conventions Act (GCA).


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Yoda

Best of the Web: Can we talk about JK Rowling . . . and more?

Rosemary Frei
Off Guardian
Tue, 16 Jun 2020 16:17 UTC
JK Rowling
© Getty Images/Gabriel BouysJK Rowling
JK Rowling's June 10 blog post about the downsides of trans rights activism — including the erosion of the legal definition of sex and its replacement with gender — has been met with outrage by trans activists and with joy by those seeking open dialogue.

Rowling is continuing to speak up despite receiving cancellations, and a torrent of hate and violent threats since entering this fraught arena nearly two years ago.

In her blog post she describes how much is at stake, from freedom of speech to women's rights.

"We're living through the most misogynistic period I've experienced," she writes. "... Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now" by people ranging to the sexual predator who's US president to "the trans activists who declare that TERFs [trans-exclusionary radical feminists] need punching and re-educating,"

Rowling comes across as having great empathy for trans people and deep understanding of the issues, not as being a transphobe.
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Syringe

Flashback Troubling ethics: Documentary exposes anthrax vaccine experiments on US and Israeli soldiers


Alliance for Human Resource Protection
Mon, 19 Dec 2016 00:00 UTC
Direct Order, anthrax vaccine, soldiers vaccine experiments
Published studies have linked anthrax vaccination to the development of Gulf War Syndrome- including a study in the most prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, and an analysis by Meryl Nass, MD in the American Journal of Public Health (2002). The government dictated military anthrax vaccine policy has never been justified.
"Direct Order": An award-winning documentary (first released in 2003; updated and posted on YouTube in 2013) focuses on U.S. military personnel who were ordered to take the controversial anthrax vaccine against their will, who suffered life-changing adverse health effects as a result. The biotechnology company, Bioport, which had purchased the anthrax vaccine manufacturing facility from the state of Michigan, was awarded a $13.6 million in the first of a series of continuing federal contracts for the purchase of the anthrax vaccine. The company was renamed Emergent Biosolutions and was given the green light to test its experimental anthrax vaccine BioThrax, on U.S. soldiers without their informed consent. This mandatory covert government sponsored medical experiment, conducted on US. soldiers was approved by federal regulators in 1998, during President Bill Clinton's administration.

Anthrax vaccine safety and effectiveness — a contentious unresolved controversy

A number of published studies have linked anthrax vaccination to the development of Gulf War Syndrome; including a study in the most prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, and an analysis by Meryl Nass, MD in the American Journal of Public Health (2002). The government dictated military anthrax vaccine policy has never been justified — just as Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction never materialized.

Hundreds of soldiers — including seasoned pilots — refused the anthrax vaccine shots after evidence emerged that the vaccinations are connected to a variety of debilitating illnesses. A survey conducted by the GAO found that 77% of U.S. pilots and aircrew who were injected with the anthrax vaccine stated they would not have agreed to be vaccinated if they had been given a choice. (General Accounting Office Report. 2002) Despite the evidence, the US government refuses to acknowledge vaccine-related damage.

Comment:

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NPC

Irish Lives Matter? Icelandic Socialist leader calls for removal of statue of country's founder over 9th century Irish slaves


RT
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 18:09 UTC
The statue of Ingolfr Arnarson in Reykjavík
© Flickr/ Christophe PinardThe statue of Ingolfr Arnarson in Reykjavík
The leader of Iceland's Socialist Party has taken the crusade against statues to dizzying new heights with a call to tear down a statue honoring the founder of the country because he had Irish slaves 1,100 years ago.

The Black Lives Matter protests that have swept across many countries have brought a push for the removal of statues, with candidates of varying levels of legitimacy being targeted by activists.

Gunnar Smári Egilsson, the founder of the Socialist Party of Iceland, now says the country needs to come to terms with its own bloody history and remove a monument to Iceland's first permanent Norse settler Ingolfr Arnarson, who founded the capital Reykjavík in 874.
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Chess

EU's top court slaps down Hungarian law on NGO transparency imposed amid Budapest feud with Soros over 'political meddling'


RT
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 18:04 UTC
juncker billboard soros
© REUTERS/Bernadett SzaboA Hungary government billboard accusing then-European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker of pushing migration plans encouraged by George Soros
A 2017 Hungarian law on the transparency of foreign funding for NGOs, imposed in response to what Budapest called meddling by billionaire George Soros, violates EU laws, the union's top court has ruled.

The Hungarian law required non-governmental organizations operating in the country to disclose foreign funding exceeding about $1,600. Such NGOs were supposed to register with the Hungarian courts, make the names of its foreign donors public, and report the fact that foreign funding had been received on their websites.

In a ruling reported on Thursday, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) said the law imposed "discriminatory and unjustified restrictions with regard to both the organizations at issue and the persons granting them such support." Hungary had breached several articles of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as well as violating its obligations on the free movement of capital within the EU, the court ruled.

Comment: Previously:

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NPC

Best of the Web: Portland protesters barricade streets and declare new 'autonomous zone' outside mayor's residence


RT
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 18:00 UTC

Comment: You've been introduced to 'C.H.A.Z.' in Seattle. Now meet 'G.A.Z.'...


portland protest
© REUTERS/Terray Sylvester
Anarchists, protesters and activists have taken to the streets of Portland once again, this time establishing an "autonomous zone" outside the mayor's home, after their demands were not met at a city hall meeting.

Portland City Council voted to cut $15 million from the Portland Police Bureau budget, eliminating some 107 full-time positions, though mostly via vacancies and retirements, according to local media reports.

However, the protesters - who'd gathered in their thousands across the city for the 20th consecutive night in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, calling for racial justice and police reform - were not appeased by the budget cuts. In response, they established at least one new self-rule area in the city - the Glisan Autonomous Zone, outside Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler's home.
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Light Sabers

German prosecutors accuse Russian government of ordering killing in Berlin


RFE/RL
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 17:48 UTC
Zelimkhan Khangoshvili
Zelimkhan Khangoshvili
Prosecutors in Germany have filed murder charges against a Russian national accused of the slaying of a Georgian man in Berlin last year and said the Russian government ordered the killing.

The killing in broad daylight on August 23 in the German capital strained ties between Moscow and Berlin. In December, Germany expelled two Russian diplomats, citing a lack of cooperation with its probe.

In a statement on June 18, German federal prosecutors filed charges of murder and a violation of weapons laws against a Russian citizen they identified Vadim K., alias Vadim S.

They said that, at some point before mid-July last year, "state agencies of the central government of the Russian Federation" tasked him with "liquidating" the victim, Tornike K., who has been identified in reports on the killing as Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity who fought against Russian troops in Chechnya.

Comment: Previously:

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Red Flag

Flashback Alarming number of US soldiers have severe reactions to vaccines, health officer suspects military experimenting on troops


WLWT5
Tue, 08 May 2007 12:53 UTC
vaccine injuries soldiers, US military vaccines
Target 5 has discovered that an alarming number of U.S. troops are having severe reactions to some of the vaccines they receive in preparation for going overseas.

"This is the worst cover-up in the history of the military," said an unidentified military health officer who fears for his job.

A shot from a syringe is leaving some U.S. servicemen and women on the brink of death.

"When the issue, I believe, of the use of the vaccine comes out, I believe it will make the Walter Reed scandal pale in comparison," said the health officer.

Lance Corporal David Fey, 20, has dialysis three days a week. His kidneys are failing, his military career is over, and he feels like his country abandoned him.

Comment: The following 2007 news video documents the number of troops having severe reactions to vaccines:

A growing number of scientists are providing evidence that Covid-19 was engineered in a lab. While many are pointing the finger at China, some epidemiologists suspect that US soldiers were infected via an experimental vaccine and may have unwittingly carried the virus to China during the military games last October. Considering the military's past history, this is a distinct possibility:

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Red Flag

UK jobless claims surge by more than half a million in May amid COVID-19 fallout


Sputnik
Tue, 16 Jun 2020 17:42 UTC
job center
© AP Photo / LEFTERIS PITARAKIS
The over two-month lockdown has expectedly had a heavy toll on British citizens' employment, prompting Whitehall to introduce an all-embracing furlough scheme to cover wages until October 2020 and a special supportive programme for the self-employed.

Claims for jobless benefits went up by 529,000 across Britain last month, taking the total claimant count to 2.8 million, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday, adding that the figure for April was revised up to more than one million.

The numbers were registered at the height of the lockdown measures, which have been in place all over the country since 23 March in a bid to curb the spread of the highly contagious COVID-19 disease. The headline rate for unemployment lingered at 3.9% in the three months through April, when the number for April alone rose by 429,000, ONS said, with a large share of Brits rendered economically inactive.
Data from last week showed the economy shrank by a fifth in April, with the government now proceeding to usher in the next stage of the lockdown easing, allowing non-essential stores in England to reopen on Monday, with UK policymakers expected to announce a further expansion of their asset-purchase programme.
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Light Saber

'Myriad of fatal errors': Jordan Peterson returns to spotlight warning academia about the pitfalls of PC culture


Sputnik
Wed, 17 Jun 2020 08:43 UTC
Jordan Peterson
The Canadian professor, renowned for his conservative views on a bulk of life values, hasn't been online much in recent months, even as almost the entire world has been confined to the four walls of apartments and houses due to the corona healthcare crisis.

Jordan Peterson has returned to the spotlight after a several-month absence due to health issues, adding an update to his personal website, to the great joy of fans.

In a new post on his website, Canadian professor of psychology Jordan Peterson has warned of the pitfalls of political correctness, regarding the dangerous effects it is having in universities and on fundamental academic research.

To illustrate his viewpoint, he turns to the examples of several educational institutions, writing at length:
"I have observed the colleges and universities of the Western world devour themselves in a myriad of fatal errors over the last two decades, and take little pleasure in seeing what I knew was inevitably coming manifest itself in an increasingly comprehensive manner". He further notes that with this in mind, "the catastrophic failures of process and aim" were in no way hidden from the public view by the said institutions.

Comment: Douglas Murray: The high price Jordan Peterson has paid for telling the truth

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