The corruption of Judaism: Sacralisation of a wall

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 28. February 2017 by

According to police estimates, somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 Orthodox high school girls, many of them from schools affiliated with the national religious Bnei Akiva movement, filled up the women’s section of the Western Wall. The girls were bused in by Liba, an extreme right-wing organization behind a new campaign to force the government to repeal its plan to create a new egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall for the Reform and Conservative movements, as well as Women of the Wall.

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Book review: Wayne Madsen’s crank science

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 24. February 2017 by

For experts on 9/11 who read Wayne Madsen’s book, the question is not whether it possesses any evidentiary value. It definitely has little or none. The question is rather whether the author is simply incompetent or whether his book represents deliberate disinformation aimed at maintaining in the mind of a certain public the “red herring” of Israel and/or Saudi responsibility for 9/11. The shabby quality of the book suggests rather the former answer. But I may be wrong.

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The Disturbing Alliance Between Zionists and Anti-Semites

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 20. February 2017 by

The history of the Zionist movement demonstrates that there is no inherent contradiction between Zionism and anti-Semitism. The two ideologies have in fact often worked in concert to achieve their shared goal: concentrating Jews in one place (so as to better avoid them in others). Even before the modern Zionist movement arose in the late 19th century, Christian philosophers and statesmen debated what to do with the “oriental” mass of Jewry in their midst. As the scholar Jonathan Hess of the University of North Carolina has noted, one “solution” popular among Enlightenment figures who harbored anti-Semitic feelings was to deport Jews to a colonial setting where they could be reformed. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, among the founders of German Idealism, noted in 1793 that the most effective protection Europeans could mount against the Jewish menace was to “conquer the holy land for them and send them all there.”

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Gabriel Weimann, Terrorism in Cyberspace (Book Review)

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 3. December 2016 by

The author’s book is presented by Bruce Hoffman, who wrote the introduction, as embodying “the hallmarks of Weimann’s decades of scholarship: presenting a comprehensive, thoughtful, and sober analysis – supported by voluminous empirical evidence and trenchant, revealing examples.” Gabriel Weimann’s book does not deserve such ode. One of the elementary tasks of a scholar is to substantiate the facts he or she is presenting by attaching to factual claims verifiable and trustworthy evidence. Another elementary task of scholarly writing is to refrain from omitting relevant facts. As shown below, Weimann’s book represents a collection of unsubstantiated claims and negligent omissions. His book lacks therefore scholarly value.

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The Anti-Empire Report #147

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 1. December 2016 by

The most frequent comment I’ve read in the mainstream media concerning Fidel Castro’s death is that he was a “dictator”; almost every heading bore that word. Since the 1959 revolution, the American mainstream media has routinely referred to Cuba as a dictatorship. But just what does Cuba do or lack that makes it a dictatorship?

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Fifteen years of U.S. crimes in Afghanistan

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 8. November 2016 by

Millions of Afghans have had their lives permanently changed by the U.S. war, which marked its 15th anniversary on Oct. 7 — an unpropitious date that came and went with little attention in the media, and virtually no acknowledgment by major American politicians. More than a decade of nonstop war has pushed Afghanistan to the brink of catastrophe. And things are getting worse, not better.

At least 220,000 Afghans were killed in the first 12 years of the war, in a conservative estimate, according to a report by the Nobel Prize-winning organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

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Israel’s sex trade booming

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 1. November 2016 by

The Parliamentary Inquiry Committee, headed by Knesset member Zehava Galon of the left-wing Yahad party, commissioned the report in an effort to combat the sex trade in Israel. Findings showed that some 3,000 and 5,000 women are smuggled to Israel annually and sold into the prostitution industry, where they are constantly subjected to violence and abuse.

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Sex Slavery in Israel: Half-Billion-Dollar “Industry” Largely Staffed By Sex Slaves

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 1. November 2016 by

In July 2001, the U.S. State Department placed Israel on a “third tier” list of countries, or worst offenders, of Traffickers in Persons. In the shadows of the “beacon of light” lurks a brutal and inhumane abuse – trafficking of women and children for the sex-slave trade. Israel was on the same list as Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Sudan, Yugoslavia, Bahrain, Greece, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and 12 others.

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Hillary Laughed ‘I Came He Died’

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 19. October 2016 by

As the news of murder of Libya’s revolutionary leader, Chairman of the African Union and defender of Africa from European neocolonial murderous exploitation was still fresh, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shared a laugh with a television news reporter moments after hearing the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi had been killed.
“We came, we saw, he died,” she joked when told of news reports of Qaddafi’s death by an aide in between formal interviews.”

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Destroying Syria: a Joint Criminal Enterprise

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 12. October 2016 by

Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, in August 2016:

“The West should seek the further weakening of Islamic State, but not its destruction… Allowing bad guys to kill bad guys sounds very cynical, but it is useful and even moral to do so if it keeps the bad guys busy and less able to harm the good guys… Moreover, instability and crises sometimes contain portents of positive change… The American administration does not appear capable of recognizing the fact that IS can be a useful tool in undermining Tehran’s ambitious plan for domination of the Middle East.”

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Nathan Lean, the Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims (Book Review)

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 12. October 2016 by

I recommend this book for those who wish to know more about the professional Islam-bashers of the United States (although the coverage of this scene is by far not comprehensive). For those who wish to understand the political agenda of Islamophobia, its strategical role for US imperialism and to the role played by government-manufactured “Islamic terrorism”, the book will be of little value.

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U.S. and EU Sanctions Are Punishing Ordinary Syrians and Crippling Aid Work, U.N. Report Reveals

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 4. October 2016 by

Five years of devastating civil war and strict economic sanctions have plunged over 80 percent of Syrians into poverty, up from 28 percent in 2010. Ferdinand Arslanian, a scholar at the Center for Syrian Studies at the University of St. Andrews, says that reduction in living standards and aid dependency is empowering the regime.

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Yes, Netanyahu, Let’s Talk About Ethnic Cleansing

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 13. September 2016 by

Israel knows a thing or two about ethnic cleansing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows a thing or two about propaganda. The video he posted on Friday proves both points. Here’s the real thing — yet another record for Israeli chutzpah: The evacuation of settlers from the West Bank (which has never happened, and presumably never will) is ethnic cleansing.

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Reflections By An ARAB JEW

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 2. September 2016 by

In Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia, Jews became members of legislatures, of municipal councils, of the judiciary, and even occupied high economic positions. (The finance minister of Iraq in the ’40s was Ishak Sasson, and in Egypt, Jamas Sanua–higher positions, ironically, than those our community had generally achieved within the Jewish state until the 1990s!)

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The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 24. July 2016 by

The intellectual’s provisional home is the domain of an exigent, resistant, intransigent art into which, alas, one can neither retreat nor search for solutions. But only in that precarious exilic realm can one first truly grasp the difficulty of what cannot be grasped, and then go forth to try anyway.

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US and Britain wrangled over Iraq’s oil in aftermath of war, Chilcot shows

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 10. July 2016 by

The US and British governments fought bitterly over control of Iraq’s oil following the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the Chilcot papers show. Tony Blair seemed more concerned than the Americans about any invasion being seen by critics as a war for oil, telling them it would be very damaging if the two countries were seen to “grab Iraq’s oil”.

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Iraq invasion was about oil

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 10. July 2016 by

Thus, the primary motive of the war – mobilising Iraqi oil production to sustain global oil flows and moderate global oil prices – has, so far, been fairly successful according to the International Energy Agency.

Eleven years on, there should be no doubt that the 2003 Iraq War was among the first major resource wars of the 21st century. It is unlikely to be the last.

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Israel: Tax haven for Jews

Aldeilis (EN) Posted on 30. June 2016 by

One possible reason for Israel’s attractiveness for some is the fact that in 2008, the law was amended to give new immigrants and returning Israelis who had left the country a 10-year tax exemption on income produced outside of Israel or generated from assets outside the country. The amendment also exempted them from reporting overseas income and assets. That’s no small attraction for someone seeking to bring black market assets into the country, but Israeli government authorities have no data on the extent to which such assets have been transferred here.

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