Best of the Web:


Star of David

Best of the Web: How Israel became one of the world's worst rogue states

Alain Gabon
Middle East Eye
Fri, 29 Nov 2019 12:40 UTC
Netanyahu
© AFPsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pictured in Jerusalem on 3 September
Despite propaganda to the contrary, Israel is not a democracy and never has been

As an integral part its ongoing propaganda, Israel, along with its fervent supporters and legions of paid and anonymous agents, zealously repeats and disseminates - in the media, on university campuses, in blogs and comment sections, at conferences and more - the same old, tired Zionist myths.

Propaganda guides and tool kits, such as the "global language dictionary", offer ready-made arguments and counter-arguments to sell Israel to journalists and critics. Such talking points come with tips on what tone and rhetorical tactics to use, what words and formulas "work", and how to discuss "sensitive" issues, such as Israel's illegal colonisation and annexation of Palestinian land, Jewish settlements and the killing of civilians.

All of which are now set to get worse since US President Donald Trump has both rewarded and emboldened Israel by recognising its illegal and brutal colonisation (its "settlements"). By the same token he has offered yet another spectacular demonstration of the complete contempt of the United States for the rule of international law.

Setting such an example will only send the message to all the despots, autocrats and tyrants of various stripes around the globe that not only it is ok to steal, colonise, and brutalise weak and defenceless populations, but that you may even be rewarded by the West for adopting the "law of the jungle".
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Control Panel

Best of the Web: Macron tells NATO Russia must come in from the Cold War

Michael Luongo
Guns, Gold 'N Goats
Sat, 30 Nov 2019 00:00 UTC
Macron Putin
Last week I went through just some of the highlights as to why Russia is becoming a destination for global capital.

For years it's been a little lonely out here banging on about how well the Russian state headed by Vladimir Putin has navigated an immense campaign by the West to marginalize and/or isolate Russia from the world economy.

But that is changing rapidly. And 2020 will likely be the year the New Cold War begins to end. And it starts with Europe. In recent weeks there have been a number of moves made on both sides to end the economic isolation of Russia by Europe.

As always, however, it begins politically. French President Emmanuel Macron speaking at a press conference before 70th Anniversary NATO Summit in London no less, made it clear that he no longer wants the EU positioning itself as an adversary of Russia or China.

Standing next to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Macron put a further down payment that he is looking to replace German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the person setting the tone for European Foreign Policy.

Comment: See also:

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Star of David

Best of the Web: Britain's Chief Rabbi is helping to stoke antisemitism

Jonathan Cook
Mondoweiss
Mon, 02 Dec 2019 10:47 UTC
Rabbi Efraim Mirvis
© Still from ChiefRabbi.orgChief Rabbi Efraim Mirvis
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has not only misrepresented the known facts about Labour and its supposed antisemitism crisis. He has not only interfered in an overtly, politically partisan manner in the December 12 election campaign by suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn - against all evidence - is an antisemite.

By speaking out as the voice of British Jews - a false claim he has allowed the UK media to promote - his unprecedented meddling in the election of Britain's next leader has actually made the wider Jewish community in the UK much less safe. Mirvis is contributing to the very antisemitism he says he wants to eradicate.

Mirvis' intervention in the election campaign makes sense only if he believes in one of two highly improbable scenarios.

Comment: The evidence of Israel and its acolytes meddling in UK (and international) affairs abounds: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Snakes in Suits

Best of the Web: NATO at 70: The sclerotic & bureaucratic zombie should be pensioned off

John Laughland
RT
Tue, 03 Dec 2019 08:55 UTC
nato brussels
Seventy is normally considered a ripe old age at which people should be enjoying retirement. The NATO alliance, which meets to celebrate its anniversary in London, should have been pensioned off long ago.

The French president, who told the Economist in early November that NATO was "brain dead", seems determined to jolt the alliance and its members out of their collective coma. In a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Paris on November 28, Macron tried to inject a large dose of realism and clarity into a body which years ago haemorrhaged into a sclerotic and bureaucratic zombie.

Macron's shock therapy consists of asking the one question which, according to the German political theorist Carl Schmitt (although Macron did not quote him), constitutes the very essence of politics itself: "Who is the enemy?" Without an answer to this question, a military alliance has no purpose whatever. The fact that Emmanuel Macron had to ask it at all shows how badly NATO has lost the plot; in the theatre of the absurd, the Atlantic alliance is a character in search of an author.

NATO lists so many threats in its official Strategic Concepts of 1999 and 2010 that it sounds like Piglet in Winnie the Pooh, frightened of everything... terrorism; piracy; ethnic violence; inadequate economic reform; threats to energy supplies; arms proliferation; drug trafficking; cyber attacks; laser weapons; electronic warfare; health risks; climate change; even undefined "instability." Yet, the word "enemy" is nowhere in the mountain of challenges NATO says it faces.

Comment: After the end of Cold War NATO contributed generously to the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and that of Libya, offered a hand in the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and assured its expansion up to the borders of Russia, just to name a few of its activities. Despite its munificent nature however, the entire world will breathe a sigh of relief once it is gone for good!

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Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Kyoto failed. Paris failed. Will the Greta-starring Madrid UN climate conference be any different?

Rob Lyons
RT
Sun, 01 Dec 2019 07:41 UTC
Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg.
© Reuters / Mike BlakeSwedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg.
The ill-fated COP25 has found a host location at the third time of asking but, just like its predecessors, the high-powered international summit looks to be big on gestures and small on reversing the direction of humankind.

Starting on Monday, COP25, or the 25th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, to give the summit its full name, will bring together top officials from 197 countries with the aim of establishing a set of new national targets towards cutting emissions. The talks were originally due to be held in Brazil, but the government there pulled out 12 months ago. Chile offered to take over but, after weeks of street protests, the government there pulled out, too. Finally, the Spanish government stepped in four weeks ago to take over.


Comment: Wow. Whether the Powers That Be realize it or not, their 'agitation' of the masses - through global warming hysteria, terrorism and color revolutions - has overtaken them. In a sense, they're 'on the run' from a beast they can no longer control.


What are the talks about?

The talks will review the progress made since the much-ballyhooed Paris Agreement was signed at COP21 in December 2015. The Agreement aims to reduce emissions enough to keep global temperature rises 'well below' two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and ideally 1.5 degrees. The world has already warmed by about one degree Celsius from that baseline, leaving nations with even less leeway.

Each country has promised to set a national goal for lowering emissions along with a plan for how that might be achieved.

Comment: Nice try by the author to 'take the middle ground', but he doesn't understand that the entire premise is wrong. You can't reason with this ultra-revolutionary movement. It is determined to destroy civilization and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

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Fireball 2

Best of the Web: Astronomers suspect 2016 meteor fireball event in Australia was caused by asteroid that had been 'captured' by Earth's gravity

Jasper Hamill
Metro UK
Mon, 02 Dec 2019 18:01 UTC
asteroid earth artist impression
© GettyBoth space rocks detected recently could cause major damage if they crashed into our planet
Humans have good reason to fear comets, asteroids and other massive space objects.

Now we'd like to add 'mini-moons' to the list of heavenly bodies we should be worried about. Scientists have claimed our planet was recently hit by one of these mysterious rocks, which exploded in a gigantic fireball.

A mini-moon is an object which becomes entangled in Earth's orbit as it's zooming through space. It will either whirl around the planet harmlessly forever, zoom off back off on its journey through the solar system or, in the worst case, smash into our planet.

'Objects gravitationally captured by the Earth-Moon system are commonly called temporarily captured orbiters, natural Earth satellites, or minimoons,' scientists wrote in a new study published in The Astromomical Journal.

Comment: God, MSM reporting on space rocks is INFURIATINGLY stupid...
"Scientists say there's just no way to know when and where they'll impact us because even in our near-Earth environment they're highly unstable and unpredictable... but we're glad to report that everything was, is, and always will be JUST FINE!"
Anyway, the astronomers who published this paper have touched on something we've been wondering about: whether some (or most) of the 'slow-moving meteors' may in fact be objects that had been previously captured by Earth's gravity.

The same phenomenon is apparently occurring with respect to other planets in our solar system, whose numbers of 'moons' grow by the year. Those new 'moons' are typically accounted for by 'better observation technology', but clearly the actual numbers of 'moons' are growing...

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Light Sabers

Best of the Web: Indispensable or obsolete? Reheated Cold War rhetoric can't patch fractured NATO that lacks sense of purpose & vision for future

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Mon, 02 Dec 2019 15:39 UTC
νατο
© Sputnik / Alexey Vitvitsky
A war of words between prominent NATO members over its continued existence has revealed cracks in the 70-year-old alliance, which seems to be returning to its Cold War roots in desperate search for a new sense of purpose.

"The transatlantic relationship is in a very, very healthy place," insisted US officials briefing reporters on the eve of the NATO summit in London. Meanwhile, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has been repeating that NATO is the "most successful alliance in history."

Behind this brave facade, however, the septuagenarian alliance is tearing itself apart. US President Donald Trump's insistence on everyone dedicating two percent of their GDP to military spending is a target only seven members have met so far. Most NATO countries are nothing but hangers-on to the US military, and can't conduct independent operations. Only a few, like Turkey, can - and the fact that Ankara just did, without bothering to consult the rest of the alliance, is the cause for the latest display of discord.

French President Emmanuel Macron set things off by complaining about Ankara's operation in Syria last month, pointing to "no coordination whatsoever" between either the US or Turkey with the rest of NATO and calling the alliance "brain dead."

That, ironically, brought otherwise feuding NATO members together - in condemnation of the French leader. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tore into Macron on Friday, suggesting he should have "his own brain death checked."

Comment: Marc Champion and Jonathan Stearns write for Bloomberg:
Were Johnson to lose to Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, that would give NATO yet another individual to worry about at its next summit, due in 2021.

Over his career the socialist firebrand has called NATO "a danger to world peace and a danger to world security". He has more recently fallen into line with party policy, which is for the U.K. to stay in the alliance, but he'd likely prove another awkward partner.

The last time Britain hosted NATO leaders, in 2014, he told an anti-NATO rally the end of the Cold War "should have been the time for NATO to shut up shop, give up, go home and go away."


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X

Best of the Web: AG Barr says Epstein died via 'series of coincidences', ends all conspiracy theories forever

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Sat, 23 Nov 2019 00:00 UTC

Comment: Imagine our shock...


AG Barr
© twitter.comUS Attorney General William Barr
In an interview with Associated Press, US Attorney General William Barr put all conspiracy theories to rest once and for all by assuring the world that alleged sex trafficker and alleged billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's death was simply the result of a very, very, very long series of unfortunate coincidences.

"I can understand people who immediately, whose minds went to sort of the worst-case scenario because it was a perfect storm of screw-ups," Barr told AP on Thursday.

This perfect storm of unlucky oopsies include Epstein being taken off suicide watch not long after a previous suicide attempt and shortly before his successful suicide, suggestions that the first attempt may have actually been an assault via attempted strangulation inflicted by someone else, two security guards simultaneously falling asleep on the job when they were supposed to be checking on Epstein, one of those guards not even being an actual security guard, security footage of two cameras outside Epstein's cell being unusable due to a mysterious technical glitch, at least eight Bureau of Prisons officials knowing Epstein wasn't meant to be left alone in his cell and leaving him alone in his cell anyway, Epstein's cellmate being transferred out of their shared space the day before Epstein's death, Epstein signing a will two days before his death, unexplained injuries on Epstein's wrists and shoulder reported by his family after the autopsy, and a forensic expert who examined Epstein's body claiming that his injuries were more consistent with homicide than suicide.

Comment: Common sense says there's more to Epstein's death than presented; thus whitewashed assessments are suspect. Epstein was the tip of an iceberg and just that idea alone is enough to not trust the 'evidence' nor Barr's conclusions. Barr was in fact directly intimately involved (twice) in Epstein's 'career'. Did he capitulate? If so, why and for whom?

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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: US abuses justice systems to target its enemies, like it did with Huawei - Assange's father


RT
Sun, 01 Dec 2019 09:52 UTC
Assange supporters
© REUTERS / Luis CortesSupporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange protest in Mexico City.
The incarceration and extradition trial of Julian Assange is one of many examples of the US abusing the legal systems of other countries to target its political enemies, said John Shipton, the father of WikiLeaks' founder.

Assange is currently held at a top security UK prison pending a hearing on extradition to the US. An American court wants him on espionage charges that may effectively result in imprisonment for life. Assange's case is one of many in which Washington puts pressure on other nations to abuse their legal systems to persecute people that the US government doesn't like, Assange's father believes.

The situation with Assange is similar to what happened to other people in Washington's crosshairs, Shipton told an audience at the University of Cologne on Saturday.

One similar case he cited is that of Huawei Chief Financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada on a request from the US. Like Assange, she is fighting an extradition request by the US, which accuses her of financial fraud in relation to violations of anti-Iranian sanctions imposed by Washington.
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Video

Best of the Web: Hong Kong unmasked: The real reasons & instigators behind anti-Beijing riots

Michele Greenstein
RT
Sun, 01 Dec 2019 15:33 UTC
hong kong protester
© Reuters / Tyrone SiuAn anti-government protester throws a molotov cocktail during clashes with police, outside Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU)

Comment: The following documentary explains plainly the real issues behind the Hong Kong arrests, which mainstream western media would prefer you didn't know about.


As Hong Kong's anti-government movement continues to rage, RT looks into what sparked the unrest, the dire social inequality problems that fuel it, and how forces in Washington exploited this public discontent for their own ends.

Having personally witnessed brutal clashes and spoken to key figures on both sides of the barricades, RT America's Michele Greenstein paints a comprehensive picture of the protest's origins and handlers.

The contentious extradition bill, which was the catalyst for the uprising this summer, served only as a pretext, while its nature was grossly misinterpreted. It doesn't mean that the islanders - suffocated by prosaic issues like high prices, poor housing conditions, and declining employment prospects for graduates, rather than a lack of 'democracy' - have nothing to be angry about.

Yet the demonstrators never challenged Hong Kong's own authorities over this social inequality, directing their rage solely at mainland China - all while destroying their own city and virtually begging the US to sanction it, just to hurt Beijing.
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