Secret HistoryS


Star of David

The price of 'victory': How Israel created one of its own worst enemies


RT
Sun, 17 Dec 2023 10:45 UTC
composite
Ariel Sharon • Menachem Begin
The Jewish state triumphed in the 1982 Lebanon War, but years later the victory appears pyrrhic...

The battle for Gaza adds yet another page to Israel's long list of military operations in Arab nations and enclaves. We are shocked by the brutal fighting going on today, but history has seen many similar military operations where it was impossible to draw the line between war and terrorism. The 1982 Lebanon War is one such example. Israel may have won that war, but as a result it only acquired a fiercer enemy.

Setup for slaughter

By the mid-1970s, Israel had defeated the regular armies of several opposing Arab nations. However, the Jewish state still had an irreconcilable enemy: the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) headed by Yasser Arafat. The PLO was initially based in Jordan, but when it came into conflict with the local authorities, it was forced to move to Lebanon.
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Blue Planet

'Unique' cave art discovered in Madagascar hints at connections with ancient Egypt and Borneo

David Burney
The Conversation
Sun, 17 Dec 2023 15:17 UTC
Andriamamelo cave
© David BurneyAndriamamelo cave art panel
The art is the first ancient pictorial art, which depicts images of nature with human-like and animal-like figures, to be found in Madagascar.

Unique, prehistoric rock art drawings have been discovered in the Andriamamelo Cave in western Madagascar.

I was part of a team that discovered and described these ancient treasures. They're the first truly pictorial art, depicting images of nature with human-like and animal-like figures, to be seen on the island. Until recently, rock art in Madagascar had only yielded a few sites with basic symbols.

The dramatic discoveries contained several surprises, including hints at some remarkable cultural connections.

Comment: Recent discoveries have revealed extensive trade networks across vast swathes of the planet in the Bronze Age, and early Medieval Age, and which were previously thought to have been improbable.

At the same time, with regards to certain symbolism, there is data showing that it may have been inspired by people observing phenomena in the skies, and sometimes the slight differences to similar symbols has been shown to be due to the oberserver's geographic location and thus their vantage point: Depicting plasma? Ancient 'mantis-man' petroglyph discovered in Iran

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Dig

31,000-year-old artifacts reveal use of advanced projectile weapon millennia earlier than previously thought

Christopher Plain
The Debrief
Wed, 13 Dec 2023 00:00 UTC
drawing
© ULiège/TraceoLabSpearthrowers/ Artist's rendering shows fracture patterns on 31,000-year-old points from the Maisières-Canal archaeological site
A forensic examination of 31,000-year-old artifacts has revealed the potential use of advanced spearthrowers by Stone Age Europeans, according to the results of a controversial new study.

Archaeologists previously believed that spearthrowers, which are sometimes called atlatls, were first put into use sometime around 17,000 or 18,000 years ago based on evidence of their use found in European caves, primarily located in southern France.

However, the results of the recent study appear to put those original findings in doubt by showing that these advanced weapons may have been in use millennia earlier than previously believed.

'ARCHAEOLOGICAL FRACTURE SIGNAL' ANALYSIS OF 31,000-YEAR-OLD FLINT ARTIFACTS

A spear thrower is a long shaft with a cup or notch at one end. When used properly, the device functions like an extra extension to the human arm, allowing the thrower to generate significantly more thrust than simply throwing a spear by hand.

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Better Earth

Decline of megafauna began 50,000 years ago, humans might be partly to blame

Aarhus University
Phys.org
Thu, 14 Dec 2023 00:03 UTC
megafauna
© First printed in Bryant & Gay, 1883. Wood carving by E. Bayard.Prehistoric people are attacking an elephant. New research shows that humans and not the climate caused a sharp decline in almost all megafauna on Earth 50.000 years ago.
For years, scientists have debated whether humans or the climate have caused the population of large mammals to decline dramatically over the past several thousand years. A new study from Aarhus University confirms that climate cannot be the explanation.

About 100,000 years ago, the first modern humans migrated out of Africa in large numbers.


Comment: Except that's not supported by the data: Ancient Chinese relics point to unbroken cultural links that began a million years ago, further discrediting Out of Africa theory say researchers


They were eminent at adapting to new habitats, and they settled in virtually every kind of landscape — from deserts to jungles to the icy taiga in the far north.

Comment: Could it be that both cosmic catastrophes, in addition to human activity, had noticeable impacts on the populations of megafauna?

There's a variety of evidence showing that cometary bombardment and the accompanying environmental shifts wrought havoc on our planet, and life on it changed (repeatedly) as a result. At the same time, it's likely that human migrations and population centres would have sought to benefit from, and control, their environment; which would have involved hunting, but also possibly alongside other measures - such as controlled culls - that sought to ameliorate living alongside such massive, and potentially lethal, creatures.

It seems that the drastic changes in the environment was the strongest driver behind the megafauna extinctions, but is it possible that this genetic data hints at some of the impact that human activity had?

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Blue Planet

How early farmers in Scandinavia dealt with thousands of years of dramatic climate changes

Jan Steffen
Phys.org
Wed, 13 Dec 2023 23:51 UTC
scandanavia
© Quaternary Science Reviews (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108391Radiocarbon-dated settlement sites and summer temperature records across southern Scandinavia, southern Norway and Arctic Norway. The map displays a total of 1,734 settlement sites with a corresponding 6268 reliable 14C dates. Summer temperature records are based on marine, lacustrine, bog and speleothem records.
As the world faces the challenges of present-day climate change, scientific inquiry is, among other objectives, exploring how human societies navigate environmental variations at large. Investigating the past provides valuable insights into this.

A new study, published by researchers from the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence at Kiel University, together with colleagues from Oslo, Tromsø, and Stavanger (Norway), in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews presents an unprecedentedly extensive set of archaeological and environmental data revealing connectivities between climate changes, population dynamics and cultural changes in present-day Northern Germany and Scandinavia during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (approximately 4100 to 1100 before common era).

Comment: As revealed above, and in contradiction to the global boiling fanatics, the climate on our planet is cyclical in nature, and periods of warming, including pronounced warming, have a positive effect on population growth.

Unfortunately for us, all the data points to our own era as having left a brief warming spell and that we have now entered a period of cooling. And there is a wealth of evidence already showing that, as a result, the food chain is suffering, civilization is struggling to adapt, and this is alongside a number of other phenomena that often seem to accompany these shifts in climate:

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Info

'The Holodomor': How Ukraine distorted the history of a tragic Soviet famine to help build its modern national myth

Dmitry Plotnikov
RT
Mon, 11 Dec 2023 15:24 UTC
'The Holodonor'
© RT
Official Kiev has been talking about an alleged "genocide of Ukrainians by Russia" for more than 30 years

At the end of November, Ukraine commemorates the victims of the great Soviet famine of the 1930s. According to different estimates, the tragedy claimed from four to nine million lives throughout the country - in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine.

The exact number of deaths is hard to determine due to a lack of records, but the general Western consensus is that most deaths happened in the Russian and Ukrainian republics, with slightly more overall in the latter. However, per capita, the biggest effect was in Kazakhstan (where it is called the Asharshylyk), which lost over a third of its entire population.

From the very first years of Ukraine's independence, this event - known as the Holodomor (death by hunger) in the Ukrainian language - was politicized and served as a basis for constructing the country's new national identity.

Comment:
Genocide claims and counterclaims is not a new topic, below are other articles, and many more could have been found:

Africa related Africa - Rwanda related Americas Around the world Europe
Armenia related Europe - Britain and France Europe - WW2 holocaust Former Yugoslavia Israel and Palestine The future? Understanding some of the causes of genocides, and what to do about it. A genocide is not something that happened once and will never happen again. History makes this quite clear. What I found interesting while collecting the links is, that the powers that fuel the Western arms and money deliveries to Ukraine have such a rich history of having perpetrated genocides all over the globe, and in fact are very much at ease with having sponsored them since WWII. Moreover, it is ongoing, as we read and write. There is not even a guarantee that some of us will not be next in line.

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Colosseum

Ancient Roman home with 'unparalleled' mosaic found near Colosseum

Shivali Best
The Daily Mail
Tue, 12 Dec 2023 22:55 UTC
mosaic roman home colosium dicovery
© Italian Ministery of Culture/AFPArchaeologists have uncovered a luxurious Roman home near Rome's Colosseum, boasting an 'unparalleled' mosaic
Archaeologists have uncovered a luxurious Roman home near Rome's Colosseum, boasting an 'unparalleled' mosaic.

The stunning mosaic features shells, marble and precious glass, the culture ministry said.

Three large ships ride waves in the mosaic towards a coastal city, its walls dotted with small towers and porticoes.

This scene suggests the owner of the more than 2,000-year-old home, or domus, had been victorious in battle.

The building, which dates to between the second half of the 2nd century BC and the end of the 1st century BC, is 'an authentic treasure', Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said in a statement.
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Red Flag

Ukrainian trial demonstrates 2014 Maidan massacre was false flag

Kit Klarenberg
The Grayzone
Mon, 11 Dec 2023 00:00 UTC
huddle street
© vrtStreet barricade
A massacre of protesters during the 2014 Maidan coup set the stage for the ouster of Ukraine's elected president, Viktor Yanukovych. Now, an explosive trial in Kiev has produced evidence the killings were a false flag designed to trigger regime change.

Two police officers charged with the mass shooting of opposition protesters in Kiev's Maidan Square in 2014 have been released after a Ukrainian court determined the fatal shots in the infamous massacre were fired from an opposition-controlled building.

On October 18, 2023, Ukraine's Sviatoshyn District Court determined that of the five officers on trial, one would be acquitted outright, while another was sentenced to time served for alleged "abuse of power."

The remaining three, who no longer live in Ukraine, were convicted in absentia on 31 counts of murder and 44 counts of attempted murder. This, under a Supreme Court opinion stipulating suspects can be held collectively responsible for the actions of a group deemed criminal.

The verdict means no one will face jail time, or be in any way punished for their alleged role in the infamous Maidan massacre, which saw over 100 protesters killed, triggered an avalanche of international condemnation and led directly to the downfall of President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled the country mere days later.
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Calendar

Volcanoes, plague, famine and endless winter: Welcome to 536, what historians and scientists believe was the 'worst year to be alive'

Miles Pattenden
The Conversation
Tue, 01 Feb 2022 02:41 UTC
'destruction'
© Wikimedia Commons
It's only February and already 2022 is shaping up badly. A huge volcanic eruption off the coast of Tonga, the prospect of war with Russia, the ongoing pandemic (and its economic disruptions). And that's even before we touch on Chinese sabre-rattling over Taiwan or Sex and the City's disastrous reboot.

Welcome to the New Year: as ghastly as the old one.

A history of bad times

I write not to make light of our world's very real problems, but rather to put them into some perspective. 2020, 2021 and perhaps now 2022, have all been bad.

But they have not been worse years than, say, 1347, when the Black Death began its long march across Eurasia. Or 1816, the "year without a summer". Or 1914, when the assassination of an obscure Habsburg archduke precipitated not one but two global conflicts - one of which brought about millions of deaths in the world's most horrific genocide.

There have been plenty of other bad years, and decades, too. In the 1330s, famine set in and ravished Yuan China. In the 1590s a similar famine devastated Europe, and the 1490s saw smallpox and influenza begin to work their way through the indigenous populations of the Americas (reciprocally, syphilis did the same amongst inhabitants of the Old World).

Life has often been "nasty, brutish, and short", as the political philosopher and cynic Thomas Hobbes observed in his Leviathan in 1651. And yet historians, even now, sometimes point to one particular year as worse than the others.
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Star of David

Revealed: A British charity gave over £1m to 'Israel's largest militia'

Rivkah Brown
Novara Media
Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:00 UTC
climbers
© HaShomer HaChadash/FacebookHaShomer HaChadash volunteers patrol a hillside carrying Israeli flags, October 2022.
HaShomer HaChadash offers 'weaponised volunteering'.

One of the most prominent Jewish charities in the UK donated more than £1m to a group since described by Israel's newspaper of record Haaretz as "Israel's largest militia".

Accounts for the Jewish National Fund (JNF) show that between 2015 and 2018 it donated over £1m to HaShomer HaChadash (HH). JNF's website says it has been supporting HH since 2011, though evidence of its donations to the organisation ends in 2018.

On its website, the Jewish National Fund (JNF UK) is open about providing "capital and operational" support to HaShomer HaChadash (HH), which it describes as "a grassroots organisation helping farmers and ranchers in the Negev and the Galilee safeguard their land". It is less open about what exactly the organisation does.

The new guards

JNF UK is an arm of the JNF, an international organisation established at the turn of the 20th century to buy up and cultivate land in Palestine for Jewish settlement. The charity describes itself as having "supported the Zionist pioneers since the days of the second aliyah"; the umbrella organisation still owns 13% of Israel's public land.
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