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How Israel quietly crushed early American Jewish dissent on Palestine

How Israel quietly crushed early American Jewish dissent on Palestine

Debbie Nathan writes: The Israeli government covertly meddled into American Jewish politics from the 1950s to 1970s, and they did so to quash Jewish criticisms of the 1948 Nakba — the mass dispossession and expulsions of Palestinians during Israel’s founding — and Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. Israeli diplomats who oversaw the furtive campaign were at one point assisted by Wolf Blitzer — today the host of CNN’s primetime show “The Situation Room.” These are some of the findings of “Our…

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In race for top EU, NATO jobs, Eastern Europe asks: ‘Are we equals or not?’

In race for top EU, NATO jobs, Eastern Europe asks: ‘Are we equals or not?’

Politico reports: Two decades after joining the European Union and NATO, Eastern European countries fear they’ll once again be passed as the top jobs of both institutions are reshuffled later this year. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s likely appointment as the new head of NATO this summer may have received the endorsement of Washington, London, Paris and Berlin. Among many of the alliance’s newer members, however, in particular those bordering Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, the welcome was far less warm….

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Kamala Harris urges Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire, pushes Israel on aid to Gaza

Kamala Harris urges Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire, pushes Israel on aid to Gaza

Reuters reports: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday demanded Palestinian militant group Hamas agree to an immediate six-week ceasefire while forcefully urging Israel to do more to boost aid deliveries into Gaza, where she said innocent people were suffering a “humanitarian catastrophe.” In some of the strongest comments by a senior leader of the U.S. government to date on the issue, Harris pressed the Israeli government and outlined specific ways on how more aid can flow into the densely-populated…

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War cabinet member Benny Gantz to visit Washington, meet with VP Harris on ceasefire

War cabinet member Benny Gantz to visit Washington, meet with VP Harris on ceasefire

Middle East Eye reports: US Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz at the White House on Monday, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s disapproval. Gantz agreed to the trip as Washington seeks to reach a deal for a temporary ceasefire and increase the flow of aid to Gaza. A senior figure close to Netanyahu told Haaretz newspaper that the leader did not sanction the meeting. “The prime minister made it clear to Gantz last…

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Will Biden reconsider his unconditional support for Israel?

Will Biden reconsider his unconditional support for Israel?

  US policy on Israel “looks incoherent because it is incoherent,” argues Matt Duss, former adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, and this is making the United States look “feckless and weak”. Duss tells host Steve Clemons that Israel is violating US law by using US-supplied weapons while preventing humanitarian aid. But President Joe Biden “has simply taken the tools of leverage off the table”. Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, says there are still no…

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Pankaj Mishra: Is Israel, in its survivalist psychosis, the portent of the future of a bankrupt and exhausted world?

Pankaj Mishra: Is Israel, in its survivalist psychosis, the portent of the future of a bankrupt and exhausted world?

  Pankaj Mishra, in a recent lecture, said: In​ 1977, a year before he killed himself, the Austrian writer Jean Améry came across press reports of systematic torture against Arab prisoners in Israeli prisons. Arrested in Belgium in 1943 while distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets, Améry himself had been brutally tortured by the Gestapo, and then deported to Auschwitz. He managed to survive, but could never look at his torments as things of the past. He insisted that those who are tortured…

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Russia is on a quest to divide U.S. voters. This time it’s immigration

Russia is on a quest to divide U.S. voters. This time it’s immigration

The Associated Press reports: For Vladimir Putin, victory in Ukraine may run through Texas’s Rio Grande Valley. In recent weeks, Russian state media and online accounts tied to the Kremlin have spread and amplified misleading and incendiary content about United States immigration and border security. The campaign seems crafted to stoke outrage and polarization before the 2024 election for the White House, and experts who study Russian disinformation say Americans can expect more to come as Mr. Putin looks to…

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The enormous pressures about to land on Judge Tanya Chutkan

The enormous pressures about to land on Judge Tanya Chutkan

Ankush Khardori writes: The Supreme Court seemed to drop a bomb this week when the justices agreed to hear Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election. But the fallout may not be as clear-cut as it seems. Almost immediately after the court’s order, a consensus seemed to form among the pundit class: that it will now be impossible for Trump’s trial in Washington to take place before the election. Here is…

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U.S. blocks Security Council motion blaming Israel for Gaza aid convoy massacre

U.S. blocks Security Council motion blaming Israel for Gaza aid convoy massacre

The Times of Israel reports: Amid American opposition, Arab nations failed Thursday overnight to get immediate support for a UN Security Council statement that would have blamed Israeli forces for the more than 100 reported deaths as Palestinians in northern Gaza swarmed an aid convoy. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, told reporters after an emergency closed council meeting on the deaths, that 14 of the 15 council members supported the statement put forward by Algeria, the Arab representative on…

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Bernie Sanders slams Biden’s ‘totally absurd’ Israel policy: ‘You can’t reconcile it’

Bernie Sanders slams Biden’s ‘totally absurd’ Israel policy: ‘You can’t reconcile it’

  Senator Bernie Sanders talks with Alex Wagner about the “almost an unprecedented humanitarian disaster” Israel has created in Gaza and the urgency and volume of relief needed to prevent hundreds of thousands of children from starving. Sanders says “not another nickel” should go to the Netanyahu government as long as it continues “the wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people.”

Deadly chaos at Gaza aid convoy is a symbol of the desperation enveloping the territory

Deadly chaos at Gaza aid convoy is a symbol of the desperation enveloping the territory

Politico reports: The chaos punctuated by heavy Israeli fire that killed 115 Palestinians trying to get bags of flour from an aid convoy highlights the desperation of the hundreds of thousands struggling to survive amid the devastation of northern Gaza after nearly five months of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Residents say they have taken to searching piles of rubble and garbage for anything to feed their children, who barely eat one meal a day. Many families have begun mixing…

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Israeli MP denounces ‘tsunami of fanatic nationalism’ in Israel

Israeli MP denounces ‘tsunami of fanatic nationalism’ in Israel

  Over the past five months, Israel’s war on Gaza has caused mass devastation and led to more than 30,000 deaths. In January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague found that there was a plausible risk that Israel may be committing genocide. While the ICJ case has been met with opposition from Israel’s political class, there have been those who have voiced support. Israeli parliament member Ofer Cassif has been an outspoken supporter of the ICJ procedures…

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Putin failed to conquer Navalny or Ukraine. He’s had better luck with Trump’s GOP

Putin failed to conquer Navalny or Ukraine. He’s had better luck with Trump’s GOP

Gil Duran and George Lakoff write: Alexey Navalny was one thing Vladimir Putin can never be: heroic. Navalny’s murder, carried out by Putin’s agents in an Arctic Circle prison on February 16, is a testament to this fact. The dictator could only beat him by killing him — or so he believed. Even now, Putin continues to fear his murdered opponent. He refused for weeks to hand Navalny’s body over to his family for burial. The punishment for Navalny’s crime…

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Biden’s planned airdrop of food to Gaza is a ‘major policy failure’ says former USAID official

Biden’s planned airdrop of food to Gaza is a ‘major policy failure’ says former USAID official

The Independent reports: Jeremy Konyndyk, who led USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance during the Obama administration and oversaw humanitarian air drops to Nepal, the Philippines and Iraq, described the potential US plan to drop aid by air as a “major policy failure” on the part of the Biden administration. “When the US government has to use tactics that it otherwise used to circumvent the Soviets and Berlin and circumvent Isis in Syria and Iraq, that should prompt some really…

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Israel has yet to provide UN with evidence to back UNRWA 7 October attack claims

Israel has yet to provide UN with evidence to back UNRWA 7 October attack claims

The Guardian reports: A month after Israeli allegations that a dozen United Nations staff were involved in the 7 October Hamas attack, UN investigators have yet to receive any evidence from Israel to support the claims, though they expect some material to be forthcoming “shortly”. The allegations against the 12 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) led 16 major donors to suspend contributions totalling $450m at a time when more than 2 million Gazans are…

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