[IsraelTimes] Ben Cohen accuses parent company of ‘corporate butt kissing’ to Trump, launches online campaign to create his own ice cream in support of Palestinians
#1
Ben Cohen?
What the hell?
Why is he attempting to help a genocidal enemy of the entire human race?
I hate to praise Unilever but I just don't know what to do here.
#8
Why is he attempting to help a genocidal enemy of the entire human race?
Being strongly Progressive, Messrs Ben and Jerry have long preferred the Palestinians, Jairong.
Unilever first slapped them down in 2021 when they announced the Israel licensee would no longer sell their product in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, meaning the West Bank beyond the 1948 border. The licensee, American Quality Products, Ltd., had been producing ice cream according to corporate recipes since 1987, so when they sued Unilever wrote a contract to sell them the Israeli business altogether, much to our villains’ fury — and they then sued Unilever to prevent the sale to the local producer on top of their suit to be able to block AQP from selling ice cream beyond the Green Line.
In 2022 all was resolved back to pre-fuss status, except that B&J sulked because Unilever would not allow them to continue anti-Israel actions when Management demands to be apolitical.
There may be just a few thousand votes between the two top parties in the Dutch national elections as the very final results come in for the dead heat vote.
With 99.7 per cent of votes counted, at the time of publication both Geert Wilders’ right-wing-sovereigntist Party For Freedom (PVV) and Rob Jetten’s centre-left-liberal Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... 66 (D66) both have 16.7 per cent of the national vote. This is enough to give them 26 parliament seats each, well short of the 76 seats needed to form a government.
Until the final votes are counted it is unclear which party will edge out the other as the largest. The late votes, which include many in capital Amsterdam and those of Dutch citizens abroad, may favour D66 and the party may yet be able to — just — claim to be the winner with a margin of just a few hundred votes from a turnout of over 10 million.
Nevertheless, at the time of publication Mr Wilders’ PVV is ahead by a little less than 2,000 votes nationwide.
UPDATE 1530 — More votes counted
As earlier reported, those late votes are trickling in and they have certainly allowed D66 to pull — very slightly — ahead, so it looks like they will be taking the lead on government formation by appointing a ’scout’ to sound out other potential coalition partners from tomorrow.
The gap has widened from just a few thousand votes with Wilders’ PVV in the lead, as it was this morning, to D66 sitting on 16.9 per cent nationally with 1.76 million votes, and PVV on 16.7 per cent and 1.74 million votes.
This doesn’t impact the number of seats apportioned — both parties look like they’re going to be entering the new parliament in joint-first place with 26 seats each.
The original story continues below
While Wilders can take some solace in his joint-first finish, it is a far cry from his 17-seat lead after the 2023 general election. Like in many European countries, almost all other parties agree to maintain a "cordon sanitaire", refusing to work with any right-wing populist party such as the PVV to form a government.
It has often been the case that even border-control conservative parties would rather enter government with the left than work with a party to their right. Yet the scale of his convincing win then forced other right-wing parties to break the cordon and cooperate, out of respect for the democratic result.
I think it’s time for Mr Wilders to play hardball and promise to force new elections of any government that does not include his party — no doubt why nobody has ever asked me to get involved…
In the end the coalition didn’t work; despite early promises other parties in the government were obstructionist on Mr Wilders delivering the border control reform his party had been elected for. In the end, Wilders walked away from the coalition, bringing the government down and forcing a snap election.
Building a coalition may be even more difficult this time, however, even if the final result sees Wilders’ faction edge out the D66 by a few hundred votes. Nevertheless, Mr Wilders has asked the Speaker of the House to hold off on government formation until the results of the election, including recounts, are truly set in stone.
He is reported by Dutch national broadcaster NOS to have said: “The differences are so small, and it formally matters who gets to start the exploratory phase… The rule is that the largest party starts, not how likely it is to form a coalition”.
Beyond the knife-edge finish, the election has held several other surprises. The Green-Left-Labour party of former European Commissioner Frans Timmermans was expected to come in a strong second-place position and was polled to possibly take a surprise first.
In either case, it would have been in a strong position to form the next government and make veteran Europhile globalist Timmermans the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands. But in a shock result, the Dutch people defied the pollsters and the party actually lost votes and seats. Once a titan of European politics, Timmermans said early Thursday morning that the Dutch people had delivered a verdict on his leadership and resigned on the spot.
Another notable result was the collapse of the New Social Contract (NSC) party, which campaigns on sound money, reforming government, and reducing immigration. It featured prominently in the last government but has churned leaders this year and they’ve gone from a respectable 20 seats in the house to zero.
Exit polls show most NSC voters drifted away to the legacy-conservative CDA, which correspondingly went from 5 to 18 seats, and to the liberal D66.
We’ll see next week, but it looks like the silent majority of Jews do not agree with the noisy radicals
[IsraelTimes] New York Jews favor former governor Andrew Cuomo over the far-left Israel critic Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race, a new poll says, days before the election.
The Quinnipiac University poll finds that, if elections were held today, 60 percent of Jews would vote for Cuomo, and 16% for Mamdani. The survey has a relatively small sample size of 170 Jews, with a ±9.2% margin of error for Jewish respondents.
Twelve percent of Jews would vote for Republican Curtis Sliwa, while the remainder are undecided, favor another candidate, or refused to answer.
The poll says that 75% of Jews have an unfavorable view of Mamdani and 15% are in favor, while 39% have a favorable view of Cuomo, and 50% have an unfavorable view.
The top issue for Jewish voters, by a wide margin, is crime, followed by affordable housing and schools. The survey does not ask about Israel or Jewish issues.
For all voters, Mamdani leads Cuomo 43% to 33%, and Sliwa trails both at 14%.
Early voting is underway and the general election is on November 4.
[Rudaw] Hundreds of Iraqis were transferred from a camp in northeast Syria (Rojava) housing individuals with alleged links to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) to a rehabilitation facility in northern Iraq, marking the 30th such transfer since the Iraqi government began addressing the issue in 2021.
Around 840 Iraqi refugees departed from the al-Hol refugee camp in Rojava’s eastern Hasaka province for the al-Jadah camp in Iraq’s Nineveh province on Monday.
Located in Rojava’s eastern Hasaka province, al-Hol is one of the largest and most volatile displacement camps in the region.
As of September, Rudaw learned that the camp hosted around 27,488 people - approximately 7,770 families - mainly women and kiddies with alleged ties to ISIS. The population includes about 15,233 Syrians, 5,854 Iraqis and thousands of individuals from other countries.
The Iraqi families transferred from al-Hol are chiefly transferred to the al-Jadah camp in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province. Previously a general settlement for internally displaced persons (IDPs), the camp was re-designated in May 2021 to receive women and kiddies with confirmed or suspected ISIS affiliations.
The Monday transfer marks the 30th batch since the repatriation process began.
In late August, Ali Abbas, spokesperson for Iraq’s migration ministry, had told Rudaw that 29 batches had been completed since 2021. The ministry reported on Sunday that around 19,000 people had already returned from al-Hol, with the latest group bringing the total to roughly 20,000.
Footage of the repatriation showed United States forces accompanying the convoy, believed to include family members of ISIS fighters.
In September, Iraq hosted a conference on the sidelines of the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... General Assembly (UNGA) in New York to discuss plans for emptying and dismantling al-Hol. The meeting resulted in the formation of a joint task cell, led by the US, to facilitate the repatriation of foreign nationals from the camp.
However,
alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... some governments continue to resist taking back their citizens, citing security concerns.
In addition to al-Hol, the Roj camp - also located in Hasaka - holds around 2,600 foreign nationals linked to ISIS.
Roj is generally considered less volatile than al-Hol, and some detainees have been transferred there for security or potential rehabilitation purposes.
Both camps are administered and secured by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and their affiliate internal security units (Asayish). Backed by the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, the SDF has managed these facilities since the terror group’s territorial defeat in Syria in early 2019.
[IsraelTimes] Edan Alexander, an IDF soldier who was released in May after 584 days in Hamas captivity, was promoted today by the chief of the Personnel Directorate, the military says.
After being freed, Alexander said he wished to resume his service in the IDF.
During a military conference today, Personnel Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa awarded Alexander the rank of sergeant first class.
Alexander, 21, came to Israel from the United States to serve as a lone soldier in the Golani Brigade. He was abducted from an army post near the border community of Nirim on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel.
Hardening and funneling. Like Gaza before 10/7/2023, there was none of this before the Palestinians started killing.
[IsraelTimes] Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, Israel has erected nearly 1,000 barriers in cities and towns in the West Bank, a Palestinian Authority body reports.
According to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, 916 gates, barriers and walls have been installed since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel.
Among the new barriers are metal gates stationed at many village and town entrances and between cities, blocking access in and out. Sometimes the military is stationed at them.
Palestinians say the gates have erratic opening hours, with some staying shut for days. Some people sleep at friends’ or relatives’ homes or go around the gates on foot.
Israel’s military says the gates are not meant to restrict people but rather to “manage and monitor.”
Other barriers include concrete blocks placed along sidewalks to prevent car-ramming attacks, frequently launched against Israeli soldiers and civilians.
A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said Israeli forces operate under a “complex security reality” in the West Bank, where terrorists embed themselves within the population and “accordingly, there are dynamic checkpoints and ongoing efforts to monitor movement in various areas.”
[IsraelTimes] Speaking in New York, al-Thani also says Doha pushing terror group to acknowledge need for disarmament, criticizes Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners
Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... i Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani indicated on Wednesday that Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... violated the US-brokered ceasefire in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... on Tuesday when it attacked IDF soldiers and killed a reservist. al-Thani stopped short of specifically blaming Hamas, referring instead to "the Paleostinian party."
The deadly incident in the Rafah area of the southern Gaza Strip was "very disappointing and frustrating" for Qatar, said al-Thani, who was giving an onstage interview at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.
On Tuesday afternoon, a cell of Paleostinian terror operatives targeted troops with sniper fire in Rafah’s Jenin neighborhood, killing Master Sgt. (res.) Yona Efraim Feldbaum, before following up a short while later by firing several RPGs at IDF forces.
The military responded by striking several targets in the area that posed a threat to troops, including buildings and tunnel shafts. The Israeli Air Force then conducted a wave of strikes across the Gaza Strip between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, with Hamas health authorities — who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants — reporting at least 104 dead, including dozens of women and kiddies, before Israel announced that it would resume observing the ceasefire.
"What happened yesterday was a violation," al-Thani said, acknowledging that mediators had expected Israel to respond after one of its soldiers was killed.
Pressed on who specifically was responsible for Tuesday’s "violation," al-Thani responded, "What happened yesterday — the attack on the Israeli soldiers — that’s basically a violation by the Paleostinian party.
"Hamas has put [out] a statement that they are not in communication with this group [that carried out the attack]," he said. "We don’t know yet [if that’s true]."
Clarifying further, the Qatari premier said that Hamas had offered "conflicting statements" regarding the attack on Israeli troops, with one claim being that the button men responsible for it "lost communication" with the Hamas leadership and "didn’t know what they were doing." Hamas also claimed that those responsible for the violation belonged to a different group "that is not related to them."
"It doesn’t matter for us who did what; what matters to us... is making sure that this event doesn’t... make this agreement collapse," al-Thani said, noting that both Israel and Hamas have subsequently expressed their desire for the ceasefire to hold.
The Qatari prime minister was also asked about Hamas’s reluctance to disarm, as it is expected to, under the terms of US President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... ’s 20-point plan for Gaza.
Implementing this demand, al-Thani acknowledged, will be "complex."
"It will be a complicated process...to go through the disarmament and the decommissioning, but it’s part of the agreement," he said, referring to Trump’s plan.
However,
man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... the agreement signed by Israel and Hamas in Egypt on October 9 only focused on the first half of that plan, which pertained to the initial ceasefire, IDF pullback, hostage-prisoner swap, and humanitarian provisions.
Nonetheless, al-Thani said that the mediators were pushing Hamas and all Paleostinian factions in Gaza to "get to a point where they acknowledge that they need to disarm."
The purpose of the disarmament goal is ensuring that both Paleostinians and Israelis feel safe, al-Thani said, arguing that the way to ensure that is by "creating a political horizon for the Paleostinian people."
[IsraelTimes] ‘The opportunity in Syria is enormous, and there’s room for everyone,’ president says; World Bank: ‘Conservative best estimate’ cost of rebuilding Syria is $216 billion
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday his country had managed to secure $28 billion worth of investments in the past 10 months following the overthrow of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... ’s government last year.
The president cited the figure while speaking in Riyadh at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, where he was touted as a special guest during the ninth-edition of the forum.
"The opportunity in Syria is enormous, and there’s room for everyone in Syria," Sharaa added as he sought to assure potential investors at the conference.
Syria has begun the mammoth task of trying to rebuild the country’s shattered economy, after over a decade of war saw that tens of thousands killed, millions displaced and cities flattened.
For decades, the country was also unable to secure significant investments due to layers of sanctions targeting its government.
Earlier this month, the World Bank put a "conservative best estimate" of the cost of rebuilding Syria at $216 billion.
Since the overthrow of Assad last year, Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... has been courting Damascus’s new leaders, as the kingdom seeks to draw the country long dominated by Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... and Russia closer.
In May, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
...Crown Prince and modernizer of Saudi Arabia as of 2016. The Turks hate him, so he must be all right, despite the occasional brutal murder of Qatar-owned journalists... convinced US President Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... to promise to lift Syria sanctions.
The crown prince also arranged a landmark meeting between Trump and Sharaa, a former jihadist who spent five years in US custody in Iraq.
The kingdom has also deployed its vast oil wealth in pursuit of its goals.
In July, Saudi Arabia signed investment and partnership deals with Syria valued at $6.4 billion to help with post-war reconstruction.
In April, Saudi Arabia vowed, alongside Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... , to settle $15 million in Syrian debt to the World Bank.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...every time you hear the phrase 
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
