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Israeli ambassador to U.S. receives fierce backlash for Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Twitter Q&A

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© AFP Photo / Chris Kleponis
Ron Dermer, Ambassador of Israel to the United States
Israel's Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer received fierce backlash on Thursday as he defended his country's Operation Protective Edge offensive on Gaza during a Twitter Q&A.

According to the latest Pew Research polling on the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, Americans still heavily lean toward sympathizing with Israel. Yet Dermer urged those who oppose Israel's military actions to ask him any questions so he could clarify his government's position. So they did, but the result was probably not the one that Dermer expected.
What response do you expect when you steel my land, destroy my house and kill my kids?#AskDermer

- Ahmad Enaya (@Ahmad_Enaya) July 17, 2014
After killing so many kids in #Gaza can you see into your own child's eye when you read him bedtime stories? #AskDermer

- Sameer Bhat (@sameerft) July 17, 2014
How do justify killing over 200 and injuring roughly 2,000, when 80% of the victims are civilians? #Askdermer @ambdermer

- Global Revolution (@GlobalRevLive) July 17, 2014
While enacting policies of occupation and ethnic cleansing, does your spine ever shudder with the shame of your ancestors? #AskDermer

- Sarah Slamen (@VictorianPrude) July 17, 2014

Megaphone

An increase in pro-Palestinian protests against the genocide in Palestine prompts France to ban rallies!

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© AFP/Phillipe Merle
People protest on July 16, 2014 in the central French city of Lyon against Israel's deadly bombing of Gaza.
As thousands of protesters took to Parisian streets in demonstrations this week against the rising Palestinian death toll in Israeli military operations, French authorities reportedly imposed a full ban on pro-Palestinian marches in several cities.

The ban comes at a time when Jewish-Muslim tensions in the country have reached their peak. France is already known for such emotions spilling over into violence. Among them was last Sunday's rally, which started out peacefully, but ended in stone-throwing and sporadic violence, with some Jews holed up inside two synagogues, as police quickly upped the security around Jewish establishments and businesses. There were several injuries.

Another event was planned for Saturday, but was called off due to "the serious risk of disruption of public order that such a protest could engender, in a context of heightened tension," according to an anonymous police source speaking to the AP.

The world's biggest concentration of both Jewish and Muslim communities continues to stand on the brink of chaos that mirrors the Gaza-Israel standoff.


Comment: Your average person with a conscience is going to get emotional and angry about Israel's wholesale slaughter of women and children. The people in Gaza are being completely annihilated and the world needs to pay attention regardless of "sporadic violence" that may occur.

Latest Gaza bombardment: What you're not being told


Ambulance

Gruesome images of Malaysian Flight MH17 crash scene appear online

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© Reuters / Maxim Zmeyev
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was traveling from Amsterdam to Malaysia when it went missing near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on Thursday. There were 285 people and 15 crew members aboard the Boeing-777.

The passenger plane was expected to enter Russian airspace at 5:20pm local time - but the plane had failed to do so.

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© Eyewitness photo
"The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace," the airline tweeted shortly after early news of the plane's disappearance began to emerge.

Airplane

U.S. intel: Missile brought down Malaysian flight - all sides deny responsibility

Malaysia Airlines
© Dmitry Lovetsky/AP
People inspect the Malaysia Airlines crash site.
A Malaysia Airlines plane crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday with 295 people on board, and U.S. intelligence later confirmed that it was brought down by an antiaircraft missile.


Comment: And how, pray tell, do they know?


The Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine immediately blamed each other for the crash, which occurred as the Boeing 777 was flying its regular route from Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

President Obama said his administration was "working to determine whether there were American citizens on board" the downed plane. "It looks like it may be a terrible tragedy," he told an audience in Wilmington, Del. Russia's Interfax news agency said as many as 23 Americans may have been among the passengers. More than half the passengers were Dutch, the airline said.


Comment: "May" be a terrible tragedy? I guess it's only a tragedy when Americans die... Just like it's only a tragedy when Israelis die, not Palestinians.


Obama said U.S. national security officials are in close contact with the Ukrainian government. "The United States will offer any assistance we can to help determine what happened and why," he said. Vice President Biden called Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to extend that offer, the White House said.


Comment: Yeah, and if you call the cops you can expect polite service! Does anyone really trust the U.S. to offer impartial assistance?!


Hours later, a U.S. official said American intelligence agencies had confirmed that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. The official, who was not authorized to speak on the record about an early intelligence assessment, said government analysts were scrambling to determine who fired the missile.

Attention

Apple to pay consumers up to $400 mn for illegal price-fixing

Apple Logo
© Unknown
The Apple logo is seen on September 11, 2012 at the Yerba Buena Center for Arts in San Francisco
Apple will pay up to $400 million to compensate consumers for illegal price-fixing conspiracy for electronic books, officials said Wednesday.

The settlement would reimburse consumers in 33 states whose authorities sought damages for Apple's price-fixing, according to a statement from New York's attorney general.

But the settlement is contingent on the verdict being upheld in a July 2013 federal court ruling that Apple violated antitrust laws by orchestrating a conspiracy with five publishers to raise e-book prices.

If Apple's federal conviction is overturned, no money will be paid. If the case is retried, the settlement amount will be $50 million, the statement said.

Airplane

Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 downed over warzone Ukraine. Who was behind it? Cui Bono?

MAS B777
© Global Research
Yet another Malaysia Boeing 777 is lost under extraordinary circumstances this year.
Flying over warzone Ukraine, The probable and Convenient Happens

At no juncture during the Ukrainian crisis could the downing of Malaysian Boeing 777 flight MH17 have been more convenient for NATO and its proxy regime in Kiev.

Kiev's forces were being picked apart in eastern Ukraine with several units encircled and destroyed. In the west of the country, dissent was growing by Ukrainians unwilling to march off to fight in the east. NATO's attempts to bait Russia into moving into Ukrainian territory and shift global opinion against Moscow had repeatedly failed.

The final card to be played by the US was another round of sanctions that almost immediately was ridiculed as ineffective and impotent. Even US corporate-financier interests condemned the latest round of sanctions claiming they were "unilateral" in nature and thus limited US enterprise from interacting with Russia while leaving European competitors free to move into the void. An effective US policy of confronting, containing, and undermining Russia would require multilateral sanctions with almost universal support - but the impetus for such sweeping sanctions did not exist - until now.

The US FAA Declared Ukrainian Airspace Off-Limits 3 Months Ago

Indeed, the stars have aligned for NATO. While the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) declared Ukrainian airspace off limits to all aircraft under its jurisdiction, it appears other airlines continued flying over what has been a warzone for months. The Atlantic in a report titled, "The FAA's Notice Prohibiting Airline Flights Over Ukraine," stated clearly that:
Did aviation authorities know that this was a dangerous area?
Yes, they most certainly did. Nearly three months ago, on the "Special Rules" section of its site, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration put out an order prohibiting American pilots, airlines, charter carriers, and everyone else over whom the FAA has direct jurisdiction, from flying over parts of Ukraine.

Binoculars

Israel invades Gaza, sends in ground troops

Israeli missile
© AFP/Getty Images
The remnants of an Israeli missile lay on the ground inside a heavily damaged building of the Erez border crossing in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces, backed by artillery shells and airstrikes, launched a major ground offensive into Gaza late Thursday, marking a dramatic escalation in the 10 day-old conflict with the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Declaring a new phase in its operation, Israel's military said it was entering the coastal strip to wipe out Hamas's rocket capabilities and to dismantle what is believed to be an extensive network of tunnels used by the militants to infiltrate Israel.

The operation came hours after diplomatic efforts in Cairo to negotiate a sustainable truce between Israel and Hamas failed.

The ground offensive began at 10 p.m. Thursday and involves dozens of infantry, armed core, and artillery units, as well as air and naval support, said Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner. The military, he added, plans to call up additional reservist troops to bolster the 50,000 reservists called up so far.


Comment: All this against a region with no real military to speak of, no advanced military hardware, and largely ineffectual rockets. Either the IDF is stupendously inept, or it's the biggest psychopathic bully in the world. I think we all know which.


In Gaza City, from a high floor in an apartment building, reporters watched an hour of heavy fire along the eastern and northern borders of the Gaza Strip.

The sky was lit, as if by lightning strikes. There were sustained barrages, flares and drones flying overhead. Israeli warships fired from the Mediterranean Sea. Hamas' military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, reported fighting with Israeli troops near the Erez border crossing.


Comment: How convenient. While the world watches Ukraine and the passenger plan crash tragedy, the Israelis invade Gaza for the umpteenth time.


Cult

'Senior advisor' to British government responsible for instituting online porn filter that blocks 20% of ALL websites... arrives in court to face kiddie porn charges

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© AFP Photo / Leon Neal
Patrick Rock, a former senior adviser to British Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, attends Westminster Magistrates Court in central London on July 3, 2014.
David Cameron's senior adviser on internet porn filters has appeared at crown court accused of child indecency offenses.

Patrick Rock is charged with three counts of making indecent photographs of children and one count of possessing indecent images of children.

The offences, said to have been committed last summer in the US, relate to more than 60 images, all described as category C - the lowest on the scale.

Before his arrest and resignation, Rock was an adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron on internet porn filters, introduced last year to curb children's ability to access adult content online.

According to the Open Rights Group, the government-backed ISP filters have been overzealous in blocking completely innocuous websites, raising concerns over web censorship. The percentage of sites hosting legal pornographic material online is thought to be close to 4 percent.

Comment: A clear-cut case of the 'fox guarding the hen-house'?

If so, was Rock thrown to the wolves to distract from ongoing police investigations into pedophile politicians?

It's possible that he was framed because he was a little 'overzealous' in clamping down on kiddie porn, a subject close to the hearts of many prominent Tory party members and senior British establishment figures...
Leading British opposition party politicians under investigation for channeling public funds to elite pedophile network

UK MP calls for public inquiry into child sex abuse: 'If MPs are discovered to be harboring pedophiles, damage to British democracy will be fatal'

Crocodile tears, impression management: Investigation into 'powerful pedophiles' continues in UK

Confirmed: British Labour and Conservative governments in 1970s gave elite pedophile network nearly half a million quid

The U.K. political pedophile ring scandal is just the tip of the iceberg - The full story is much more disturbing



Snakes in Suits

Moscow says allegations it shot down Ukrainian jet 'absurd'

Sukhoi Su-25
© Reuters / Vasily Fedosenko
Sukhoi Su-25 jet fighter.
Kiev's accusations that Russia shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet are "absurd," the Russian Ministry of Defense said.

"This is absurd, like all previous accusations from Kiev officials concerning Russia's Ministry of Defense," a ministerial official told journalists on Thursday.

Kiev has accused Russia of downing its Su-25 fighter jet on June 16. Andrey Lysenko, spokesman of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, said a Russian military jet shot down a plane that was fulfilling a military operation over the east of Ukraine at 19:00 local time. Earlier Kiev blamed the attack on self-defense forces.

On Wednesday, self-defense forces claimed they had shot down two of the Ukrainian Air Force Su-25 fighter jets.

The high-ranked Defense Ministry official said that "almost every day" Russia "gets exposed" and receives threats that "irrefutable evidence" will be released, but every time "this evidence disappears somewhere."

"And the confusion is being covered with new, more fantastic accusations," he added.

Eye 2

Psychopath Netanyahu orders military ground invasion of Gaza

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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the military to start a ground operation in Gaza, his office has announced.

"The prime minister and defence minister have instructed the IDF to begin a ground operation tonight in order to hit the terror tunnels from Gaza into Israel," the statement said.

A large IDF force has launched a new phase of Operation Protective Edge starting a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, IDF spokesperson has confirmed.
BREAKING NEWS: A large IDF force has just launched a ground operation in the Gaza Strip. A new phase of Operation Protective Edge has begun.

- IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) July 17, 2014