Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

-Great Cultural Revolution

Harvard expands lawsuit after Trump terminates another $450 million in grants

2025-05-14

[IsraelTimes] Complaint argues US gov’t cannot identify ‘any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological and other research’ grants it froze or canceled

Harvard University expanded its lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s moves to cut off billions of dollars in federal funding to the Ivy League school on Tuesday after officials said they are terminating an additional $450 million in grants.

Harvard filed the amended complaint in federal court in Boston hours after a federal antisemitism task force announced that eight government agencies were canceling additional grants on top of the $2.2 billion in funding US President Donald Trump
...Oh, noze! Not him!...
’s administration had already terminated.

The task force, which includes representatives from agencies including the US departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice, did so after accusing the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school of failing to confront "pervasive race discrimination and antisemitic harassment plaguing its campus."

In response, Harvard expanded a lawsuit it first filed on April 22 after the administration froze the initial $2.2 billion to cover those latest research-grant terminations, which came from agencies including the US departments of Defense and Energy as well as the National Science Foundation.

The revised complaint also now challenges a decision by the administration announced in a letter from Education Secretary Linda McMahon

...business executive, and former professional wrestling performer. She was the 25th administrator of the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019. McMahon has been nominated to lead the Department of Education under the second Trump administration. McMahon, along with her husband, Vince McMahon, founded sports entertainment company Titan Sports, Inc. (later World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.) where she worked as the president and later CEO from 1980 to 2009. During this time, the company grew from a regional business in the northeast to a large multinational corporation. She made occasional on-screen performances, most notably in a feud with her husband that culminated at WrestleMania X-Seven. In 2009, she left World Wrestling Entertainment to run for a seat in the United States Senate from Connecticut as a Republican, but lost to Richard Blumenthal in the 2010 general election. She was the Republican nominee for Connecticut's other Senate seat in the 2012 race, but lost to Chris Murphy because that's the kind of guy people in Connecticutt like best. ...
last week to freeze billions of dollars in future research grants and other aid until the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college concedes to the administration’s demands.

Harvard argues the administration’s sweeping demands violate the free speech guarantees of the US Constitution’s First Amendment. It says the massive funding freeze is overly broad and was instituted without following proper procedures.

They do have the right to speak hatefully. There are two caveats, though:

1. It is illegal for Harvard as an institution to not only allow, but to foster an environment where students, instructors, and support staff of the Jewish faith and the intersecting but not fully overlapping set of all those students, instructors, and support staff who support Israel (Zionists)are physically and verbally harassed and discriminated against, and

2. The federal government is forbidden to give federal funds to an institution that breaks such laws.

The ball’s in your court, O Harvard.

"The government has not identified — and cannot identify — any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen or terminated," the lawsuit said.

See above. They don’t have to identify a connection, merely the lawbreaking. And Harvard never stopped breaking the laws against discrimination — Jews/Zionists being only the most violent of its manifestations — though the justification has changed over the years.

Harvard is asking US District Judge Allison Burroughs to declare the administration’s actions unlawful and block the grant terminations. She previously scheduled arguments in the case for July 21.

Trump has targeted Harvard,

…only one of the first of many, not the only — Harvard does pride itself on setting precedents, after all…

citing allegations of antisemitism on campus during pro-Paleostinian protests against Israel over the war 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...
with Hamas
..always the voice of sweet reason...
, which sparked the fighting with its October 7, 2023, terror onslaught.

Trump has alleged pro-Paleostinian protesters are antisemitic and sympathetic to Hamas. Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly conflates their criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza with antisemitism and their advocacy for Paleostinian rights with support for extremism.

The protesters are lying. Blatantly. Have the small numbers of actual Jews among them not heard of self-hating Jews ?

The Trump administration has moved to cancel funding after announcing in late March it was launching a review of about $9 billion in grants and contracts with Harvard. Trump has also threatened to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status.

Harvard in its complaint said it is committed to combating antisemitism and has taken steps to ensure its campus is safe and welcoming to Jewish and Israeli students. It said the administration’s actions are a threat to academic freedom.

Harvard has a $53 billion endowment, the largest of any US university, but the funds are often restricted and used for things like financial aid and scholarships.

Link

-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Antarctica discovery sends climate change deniers into mass celebration

2025-05-08

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Scientists have made a shocking discovery in Antarctica that has climate change deniers claiming there's now proof global warming is just a hoax.

Researchers from Tongji University in Shanghai found the frozen continent suddenly reversed its decades-long trend of catastrophic melting and actually gained record amounts of ice in recent years.

Although the Antarctic Ice Sheet had been losing ice at an alarming rate for nearly two decades, between 2002 and 2020, that trend sharply changed in 2021.

From 2021 through 2023, the study found unusually 'intense snowfall' in Antarctica helped build up layers of fresh ice, an event that also caused sea level rise to slow as well.

The world's sea levels have been growing in height as ocean temperatures rise and more glaciers melt due to global warming, threatening to flood major coastal cities worldwide.

Overall, scientists found that this three-year climate reversal cut the annual rise in global sea level rise by nearly 15 percent, a significant difference.

Before this recent change in Antarctica, the study calculated that the ice sheet lost about 120 billion tons of ice per year over the previous two decades. Between 2021 and 2023, the continent gained roughly 108 billion tons of ice each year.

While the researchers noted that the surprising results only reflect a temporary change in Antarctica's weather patterns that could eventually change back, climate change skeptics quickly pounced on the findings on social media.

The scientists who made the discovery found that, between 2021 and 2023, abnormal weather patterns brought more moisture to the continent, especially the Eastern half of Antarctica.

These patterns were likely caused by shifts in winds or storms, possibly influenced by climate changes, but the study authors made sure to note that this change was an 'unprecedented' event.

Despite the historic gains in ice growth throughout Antarctica from 2021 to 2023, the study revealed that the continent suffered a net loss of 1.848 trillion tons of ice over the last two decades.

This ice loss added about 5.99 millimeters (roughly a quarter of an inch) to global sea levels by February 2020.

The connection between snow melting and sea level rise has real consequences. Rising sea levels can flood coastal cities, erode beaches, and harm ecosystems.

Recent studies have argued that climate change is the major driving factor for flooding problems in major cities like New Orleans, which is now sinking as that entire Gulf Coast area erodes.

In fact, climate scientists have warned that the rising sea levels triggered by melting Antarctic glaciers has now put over two dozen cities at higher risk of sinking over the next three decades.

Despite the evidence that climate change is doing widespread damage, a University of Cambridge professor said skeptics still have a valid argument about so-called 'climate alarmists.'

Mike Hulme told DailyMail.com that climate alarmists have created so much distrust and ill will among the public by blaming almost all of society's issues on the climate emergency.

Read More
EXCLUSIVE
The 'inevitable' US disasters that keep scientists up at night
article image
'Climate change is cited as the sole explanation for everything going wrong in the world. Drought, famine, flooding, wars, racism – you name it. And if it's bad, it's down to global warming caused by humans,' Professor Hulme said.

'I disagree with the doom-mongers. Climate change is not like a comet approaching Earth. There is no good scientific or historical evidence that it will lead to human extinction or the collapse of human civilization,' the professor of human geography added.

To Hulme's point, the new study revealed a much more complicated picture of what's happening at the South Pole.

While this study and others have uncovered trends linked to climate change, such as ice melting speeding up and oceans becoming hotter, the same research can find wild swings where temperatures drop and appear to debunk those trends.

From 2021 through 2023, scientists said the main reason Antarctica was able to rebuild so much of its ice was because of 'large precipitation anomalies' - or massive snow totals that can't be counted on year after year.

Just like in other regions that get snow throughout the world, blizzards don't strike every single year like clockwork, which is why the scientists believe this reversal may be a temporary event.

While climate deniers are taking a victory lap right now, the study published in Science China Earth Sciences still showed a concerning trend developing throughout the 21st century.

Link

Science & Technology

Scientists have discovered signs of possible life outside the solar system

2025-04-18

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Scientists have discovered signs of possible biological activity beyond the Solar System. This was reported on April 17 by the press service of the University of Cambridge.

It is noted that chemical traces of two rare gases were found in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18b - dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide (DMDS). This was learned thanks to data collected using the James Webb telescope.

"On Earth, DMS and DMDS are produced only by life, primarily microorganisms such as marine phytoplankton. Although the source of these molecules in K2-18b's atmosphere may be an unknown chemical process, the results provide the strongest evidence yet that life can exist on a planet outside our solar system," the paper says.

The scientists also said that the findings are not conclusive and that new observations are needed to ensure that the DMS and DMDS findings were not a measurement error.

As reported by the Regnum news agency, on March 6, the Metro publication stated that Joe McMonigle, who participated in a secret project of the US Department of Defense, saw evidence of life on Mars.

It was noted that between 1978 and 1995, the man was engaged in telepathic research that led him to a planet one million years before our era. There he saw a giant pyramid in which very tall and thin beings in strange clothes were hiding from a powerful storm. Then he told how he saw other areas of Mars where there were supposedly bones and ruins of buildings.

Link

Government Corruption

Newly declassified FBI memos detail concerns, payments to Russia collusion informant

2025-04-11

Very long, excruciatingly detailed, link to the newly released 700 pages.

[JustTheNews] Newly declassified documents show informant Stefan Halper was motivated in part by "monetary compensation", was paid nearly $1.2 million from FBI over three decades, and continued snitching even after agents concluded he told them an inaccurate story about future Trump National Security Advisor Mike Flynn.

The nearly 700 pages of once-secret documents, obtained by Just the News, were recently turned over by FBI Director Kash Patel to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan after President Donald Trump ordered them declassified at the start of his second administration.

They provide the most extensive portrait yet of former FBI informant Stefan Halper, a Pentagon consultant and academic who, along with retired British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, was used by bureau agents to build the Crossfire Hurricane case against Trump and his advisers during the end of the 2016 election and the beginning of Trump's first term in office.

The memos confirm Halper was the source of one of the most sensational bogus claims to land in the FBI's probe in summer 2016: that Flynn had left a 2014 foreign meeting alone with Russia scholar Svetlana Lokhova when he was a three-star general leading the Defense Intelligence Agency.

FBI agents ultimately deemed Halper's account to be "not plausible" and "not accurate", but the bureau proceeded to investigate Flynn, kept paying Halper and continued to vouch for his veracity as a confidential human source codenamed "Mitch," the memos show.

The Defense Department inspector general also previously revealed that the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment paid Halper $1.05 million for projects he allegedly did for them between May 2012 and September 2016. The Pentagon under Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in March that it was disestablishing the office.

Despite the efforts by the FBI and Halper, a two-year investigation by Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller “did not establish” any criminal Trump-Russia collusion. In addition, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found huge flaws with the FBI’s investigation, including criticizing the “central and essential” role of a dossier in the FBI’s politicized surveillance of former Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

HALPER — AND THE FBI — TARGET MIKE FLYNN
At Cambridge University, Halper worked alongside MI6’s Sir Richard Dearlove and MI5 historian Christopher Andrew. Together, they founded and organized Cambridge Intelligence Seminars, including one in 2014 attended by Flynn.

CHS reports show Halper, an academic who long worked for the bureau as a trusted informant, was the original source of a story that Flynn had left a 2014 event in Cambridge, England, with the Russia scholar Svetlana Lokhova while he was still the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. It was also listed in FBI documents as part of the reason the bureau opened a counterintelligence probe of Flynn. The story was later leaked to the news media and became the focal point of a defamation lawsuit by Lokhova that was dismissed and affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

Excerpt from Cambridge Union Debate on Trump As a Fascist-Superb Rhetorical Debunking

2025-02-20

[X]

“Calling Donald Trump a fascist is an insult to democracy and to history. You are turning the graveyards of the 20th century into a playground to have out your political spats. Get a grip”

Tom Slater at the Cambridge Union pic.twitter.com/tYxvaBaBHk
— spiked (@spikedonline) February 18, 2025

Link

Fifth Column

Jew-hate at American universities round-up: 12/2-12/14

2024-12-15

An incomplete list of things I came across while looking for other things. Two weeks worth, because I was distracted by the HTS blitzkrieg conquest of Syria, now apparently settling down to the usual Middle Eastern caliphate.

UCLA student files petition against Cultural Affairs Commissioner who allegedly warned against hiring 'zionists'
A student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has filed a petition against a student government official for discrimination against Jews in hiring.
'PSA ... lots of zionists are applying — please do your research when you look at applicants and I will also share a doc of no hire list during retreat,' the petition alleges that the official wrote.

New ADL study exposes SYSTEMIC job discrimination against Jewish applicants, students
The study found that on average, Israeli-Americans must complete 39 percent more job applications than Western Europeans in order to receive an equal number of responses.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt stated that ‘this is groundbreaking evidence of serious antisemitic discrimination in the labor market.’

‘Antisemitism on steroids’: Pro-Israel law professor rips Cornell ‘Gaza’ course
[CollegeFix] Cornell professor, president condemn course for ‘radical,’ ‘biased view,’ faculty committee fires back

Menachem Rosensaft, a pro-Israel law professor at Cornell University, condemned the school’s course on Gaza for its “inflamingly biased pseudo-scholarship” in an op-ed Wednesday.

The op-ed follows similar criticism from the university president, who faced backlash from a faculty committee accusing him of violating academic freedom in response.

“My principal objection to this course is not that it has a decidedly and unabashedly pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel bent,” Rosensaft wrote in The Cornell Daily Sun.

“What I find most problematic and unacceptable about it is that it is firmly rooted in shoddy, selectively and inflamingly biased pseudo-scholarship,” he wrote.

Rosensaft stated that when he first learned of Professor Eric Cheyfitz’s course, titled “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance,” he told Interim President Mike Kotlikoff that it would “promote and inflame political divisiveness at Cornell and encourage antisemitic manifestations against Israeli and Jewish students.”

Follow up from the Times of Israel:

Cornell University’s Jewish interim president is facing growing blowback from higher education groups over emails published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last month, in which he raised objections to an upcoming class on Gaza.

Michael Kotlikoff’s remarks, which JTA reported on November 11, were a violation of academic freedom, say representatives of the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association. The episode is the latest instance of campus scrutiny over Israel shifting from protests to the classroom, more than a year removed from the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught that launched the war in Gaza.

In the email, Kotlikoff expressed his objections to a new course entitled “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance,” scheduled to be taught next term by Jewish professor Eric Cheyfitz, a pro-Palestinian activist who teaches in the school’s American Indian and Indigenous Studies program. Writing to a different Jewish professor, Kotlikoff said he was “extremely disappointed” with “the course’s apparent lack of openness and objectivity,” and promised to work with other departments to offer alternative courses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The email, which Kotlikoff says was never meant to be publicized, has prompted anger over the past week as the story gained traction in the Cornell Daily Sun, the student newspaper.

Students at Columbia University launch anti-Israel ‘Columbia Intifada’ newspaper: ‘Outrageous’
[NYPost] An anti-Israel student club at Columbia University freely distributed a new hateful newspaper on campus Friday — peddling antagonistic rhetoric calling Jews “colonists” and “subjugators.”

While the Ivy League institution denounced the publication, the hate-fueled group Students for Justice in Palestine openly handed out its inaugural edition of “The Columbia Intifada.”

The group printed 1,000 copies of the rag, which contains about a half-dozen articles with titles including “Zionist Peace Means Palestinian Blood,” “The Myth of the Two-State Solution” and a handy “Guide to Wheatpasting” — a method of vandalizing public surfaces with propaganda fliers or other messaging.

Allowing such a publication to take root on campus is “outrageous,” said New York Congressman Mike Lawler, who represents voters in Rockland, Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties.

“If Columbia cannot protect Jewish students on their campus, they should lose federal funding and have their tax-exempt status revoked,” the rep wrote in a post on X.

“And for those students here on a visa engaged in an “intifada” against American students of the Jewish faith? Deport them,” he raged.

Columbia itself denounced the newspaper’s publication, including its unauthorized association with the school by name. The university suspended the group last November for repeatedly violating school policies, including with its “threatening rhetoric and intimidation.”

“Using the Columbia name for a publication that glorifies violence and makes individuals in our community feel targeted in any way is a breach of our values,” a school representative said in a statement to The Post on Friday.

Columbia’s anti-Israel student alliance booted from Instagram
[IsraelTimes] Columbia University Apartheid Divest removed from social media platform after post calling Barnard College trustees ‘enemies,’ ‘murderers,’ and ‘violently genocidal zionists’

INTERVIEW: Columbia’s Task Force on Antisemitism co-chair expounds on complexity of anti-Israel protests
[IsraelTimes] Emeritus journalism dean Nicholas Lemann talks challenges of determining when antisemitism, anti-Zionism intersect, why critics of Ivies are oversimplifying issue.

“Academic freedom and free speech are not the exact same thing.…Academic freedom is about classroom teaching and research. You can’t propagandize in class, or you shouldn’t. There’s a power imbalance.”

“Protest is constant at Columbia, but the level of protest we were seeing last year was by far the highest I’ve ever seen in my 21 years at Columbia. Most of the causes that sweep through the university are on the left, and this one is too. But in most cases, these stakeholder groups that I mentioned are pretty much on the same side of the issue — everybody’s against climate change or supported the post-George Floyd wave and things like that. In the case of [the Israel-Palestinian conflict], significant stakeholders or subgroups within the stakeholder groups 100% passionately disagree about the question at hand. That’s uncharacteristic of most of these university protest waves.”

Interview: US dean of education defends campus diversity training, seeks more inclusivity for Jews
[IsraelTimes] Michael J. Feuer of George Washington University, visiting Israel for an educational conference, weighs in on the wartime campus protest movements and Trump’s plans for the US.

Jewish University of Michigan official’s home, car vandalized; school says attack antisemitic
[IsraelTimes] Jordan Acker posts pictures on social media showing his wife’s car spray-painted with the phrase “Divest and Free Palestine” and the window of his home shattered after he said a mason jar was thrown at it in the middle of the night while his family was sleeping.

“This is the third time that I — and now my family — have been the target of these [Ku Klux] Klan-like tactics,” Acker writes on Facebook.

Acker has become a primary target of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel student activists at the University of Michigan who have sought unsuccessfully to convince their school to cut all ties with Israel. Earlier this year, Acker’s law firm was targeted by anti-Israel vandals. Police have yet to make an arrest in that case.

More here.

SF Hillel graffitied with slogan about battle that ended in Muslim slaughter of Jews
Head of local Jewish group says assailants tried to break into Jewish center at San Francisco State University after spraying ‘Khaybar’ and ‘death to Western imperialism!’ graffiti.

At Harvard, US academics compare notes on a year of post-Oct. 7 campus antisemitism
Jewish Studies faculty from around the United States convene in Cambridge this week to dissect an ongoing period of unprecedented hostility.

NYPD’s hate crimes unit investigating alleged attack on Jewish Columbia student
A Jewish Columbia University student who says he was assaulted at an anti-Israel protest next to the campus on Monday says the NYPD is investigating the case and calls on the university to take action.

Jewish Columbia student Jonathan Lederer, 22, says he and his twin brother went to the anti-Israel protest on 116th and Broadway on Monday to document the event and “show our voice.” They stayed across the street from the anti-Israel demonstrators and were wearing Israeli flags and kippahs.

A group of around five protesters wearing keffiyehs harassed the pair, calling them “Nazis” and saying “You like killing babies,” says Lederer, a junior studying computer science. One of the demonstrators tore a flag from Lederer’s hands. Lederer sought to retrieve the flag, at which point one of the protesters punched Lederer in the right side of his face, causing pain but no significant injuries.

The NYPD tells The Times of Israel that the police’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident and releases a photo of the suspect.

Lederer caught the incident on video, although his camera was pointed away from the assailant when he threw the punch. The attacker was wearing a mask at the time, but had exposed his face earlier in the event.

It’s unclear if the alleged assailant was a student. The demonstration was organized by student organizations and led by Within Our Lifetime, a hardline activist group in the city that has worked with Columbia student protesters. Posts announcing the protest included violent imagery and prompted school officials to tighten security at Barnard, Columbia’s women’s college.

Lederer says university officials including a top dean have reached out to him, but calls on the school to take more action against the student groups. Lederer says he was also assaulted at a protest on campus in April.

Columbia’s anti-Israel student group reinstated to Instagram
Columbia University’s alliance of anti-Israel activist groups is reinstated to Instagram after being suspended from the platform earlier this week.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of dozens of student groups, was suspended after posting plans for a protest targeting university trustees that included an image of a figure holding a Molotov cocktail.

That protest targeted Barnard College, the women’s college associated with Columbia. Barnard condemned “inflammatory posts with violent imagery” and stepped up security measures on campus in response.

Meta, Instagram’s parent company, did not respond to a request for comment on the suspension at the time.

Instagram is the student group’s main platform for organizing and advertising its events. The account has more than 47,000 followers.

Anti-Israel protester punches Jewish student, calls him 'Nazi' in deranged attack outside Columbia University
December 12, 2024 | 11:10am
An anti-Israel protester slugged a Columbia University Jewish student in the face after calling him a Nazi and comparing Israel to Hitler during a deranged attack outside the Ivy League,...

He Sits on Columbia's Top Disciplinary Body. He Also Lauds Terrorist Plane Hijackings as 'Spectacular.'
Joseph Slaughter, who has defended illegal encampments at the Ivy League school, helped write new guidelines surrounding campus protest rules.

A Columbia spokeswoman told the Free Beacon that "promoting violence" is "antithetical to our values."

"As we have said repeatedly, promoting violence or those who support violence and harm is antithetical to our values. We remain committed to our core mission of teaching, creating and advancing knowledge," the spokeswoman said.

Police find ammo, ‘death to Jews’ sign at George Mason student leaders’ home
Pro-Palestinian sisters banned from campus for four years over vandalism allegations; faculty said armed raid was due to ‘activism’

When George Mason University suspended the campus Students for Justice in Palestine group, and subsequently assisted in a police raid of its leaders’ home, it violated students’ free speech rights and targeted them for “activism,” according to supporters.

But in reality, it appears to have stemmed from concerns about items at the home of two sister leaders of the group.

Jena and Noor Chanaa had their family home raided by the FBI following allegations they were responsible for pro-Palestinian vandalism on campus in late August. Both sisters have been given four-year suspensions from campus. (The featured image is not necessarily one of the two students but is from the GMU Coalition for Palestine Instagram page).

The Washington Free Beacon reported more on the November raid on Monday. The Free Beacon reported, based on a review of documents and interviews, that the police “found firearms—modern weapons, not antiques—as well as scores of ammunition and foreign passports.”

It reported further:

They also found pro-terror materials, including Hamas and Hezbollah flags and signs that read “death to America” and “death to Jews,” according to court documents and sources familiar.

Police seized the weapons under Virginia’s red flag law, arguing that Mohammad Chanaa, the students’ brother and a George Mason alumnus, was “linked to destruction of property in connection with a large group of people with like-minded rhetoric” and posed a danger to others given his possession of “terroristic” materials.

Link

Britain

UK anti-Israel activists who ‘abducted’ busts of Weizmann post threats on social media

2024-11-06

If Mossad happens to be interested in a road trip…

[IsraelTimes] Palestine Action group shares photo of sculptures of Israel’s first president wrapped in keffiyeh scarves, threatens to send ‘an ear’ to US Jewish group that offered reward

Days after Paleostine Action published footage of activists stealing two busts of Chaim Weizmann from the University of Manchester, the British anti-Israel group posted threats on social media on Monday lauding the "abduction" of the statues of Israel’s first president.

Greater Manchester Police said that they were investigating the incident on Saturday.

A photo posted to X on Monday showed the busts wrapped in keffiyeh headscarves, an emblem of solidarity with the Paleostinian cause.

Weizmann is now under Palestine Action's control pic.twitter.com/ebg2LoYnK7
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) November 3, 2024

Another post threatened to send "one ear" from the sculptures in exchange for the reward offered by Betar US, a right-wing pro-Israel group that traces its roots to pre-state Zionist activist Zeev Jabotinsky.

I say let them smash it to bits. If the University of Manchester can’t be bothered to protect this memento of one of their most famous scholars, they deserve to lose it just as Britain lost the man himself to Israel. There are plenty more equally artistic statues of the man, I imagine, and an entire nation to look at for those who want a trigger for memory.

On Saturday, Paleostine Action said that activists had taken the sculptures of the late Israeli leader from the university in northern England because he "secured" the 1917 Balfour Declaration, "which began the ethnic cleansing of Paleostine by signing the land away."

Over the weekend, the activist group also sprayed the London office of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) with red paint and carried out a similar protest at the Britannia Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) lobby group’s headquarters in London.

It also collaborated with students from the University of Cambridge, where Balfour was educated, to spray the university’s Institute of Manufacturing and Senate House.

The group said the activists stole the busts to mark the 107th anniversary of the declaration, in which the British government issued a commitment to "establish in Paleostine a national home for the Jewish people," which was at the time governed by the Ottoman Empire.

The declaration is considered the first of many steps that led to the creation of Israel.

Weizmann, who worked as a biochemistry professor at the University of Manchester, was a leading statesman of the Zionist movement in the early 1900s. He spearheaded the international diplomatic efforts that led to international recognition of the budding Jewish state and is considered one of Israel’s founding fathers.

Link

Britain

Palestinian terror enthusiasts destroyed another piece of art

2024-11-04

[X]

Palestinian terror enthusiasts destroyed another piece of art.pic.twitter.com/BSwdWoEX7U
— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) November 3, 2024

Palestine Action destroys a Balfour painting.

We had a report back in March of this lot destroying the portrait of Lord Balfour hanging in the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College. It looks like this the same event, though they did have another protest yesterday.

Pro-Palestinians stage protest over Balfour declaration
November 3 2024
[Varsity] Demonstrators burned a copy of the declaration which which announced British support for a homeland ‘for the Jewish people’

Pro-Paleostinian protesters burnt a copy of the Balfour declaration yesterday evening (02/11) — a document which announced British support for a homeland "for the Jewish people".

The protest, which took place outside Trinity College, was organised by Cambridge for Paleostine.

Demonstrators condemned Lord Balfour, the former British Prime Minister and Trinity alumnus, who signed the declaration on 2 November 1917.

One protester told Trinity to "taste the fire you inflict upon the Paleostinian people" as the declaration burned. "Cambridge is the belly of the beast" and "is complicit in the genocide in Paleostine," protesters said.

They called on Cambridge to divest from Israeli weapons manufacturing, and said they "will not forgive and forget for this imperialist university".

The Balfour declaration announced the support of the British government for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Paleostine, which was then an Ottoman region with a minority Jewish population.

It was signed 107 years ago yesterday (02/11), prompting what protesters called "107 years of genocide".

Last night's protest was not the first in Cambridge to target Lord Balfour. In March, a pro-Paleostinian activist slashed a painting of the former Prime Minister held at Trinity College. Paleostine Action, who organised the protest in March, said Lord Balfour "gave away the Paleostinians’ homeland — a land that wasn’t his to give away".

Yesterday evening protesters celebrated the "brave activist" involved in slashing the artwork, who "painted his portrait with the blood that remains on his hands today".

Yesterday, pro-Paleostinian activist students also sprayed the University Institute for Manufacturing with red paint, over their links to companies with ties to Israel.

Paleostine Action, the group responsible, targeted the front of the building, after stating that the Institute was a "centre of complicity". They said Cambridge had painted "blood on the institution’s walls for blood on the institution’s hands".

Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

War at full strategic depth

2024-09-11

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Text taken from an article posted at report.press.
[ColonelCassad] Hybrid war is a common term used to describe the state of "peace as war". However, this hybridization - that is, the mixing of methods of warfare - contains only one feature of the "world of war". Hybridity does not describe the dramatic and total nature of the penetration of the "logic of war" into all spheres and to the full depth of world politics. To describe this largely new nature of war, the authors introduce and substantiate the term deep war. The article examines the essence, goals, strategy, tools of deep war and the measures that must be taken at the political and power levels in the face of growing threats and challenges.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF WORLD DOMINATION
The war for the reorganization of the world, for the world's resources - human, intellectual, material, fossil - is already underway. It is waged by hybrid methods in the "gray zone", the owners of which are the global elite - a network structure of control over the world, which is commonly called the Deep State. Since the price of resources will objectively grow, one day it will be equal to the costs and price of war. And then, with a high degree of probability, the owners of the Deep State will unleash the Third World War openly. But to do this, they need to destroy the world system of national states, which today is being successfully prevented by Russia, China, Iran, India and other countries trying to pursue sovereign policies. That is why the Deep State's war for hegemony over the world has a hidden - deep character.

However, conceptually, this hegemony has already been formalized. In August 2024, a report was released by the "Club of Rome" and the "Council on the Future of Humanity" (hereinafter referred to as the Club of Rome, the Council on the Future of Humanity) - the leading centers designing the policy of the globalists - the published document is essentially a program strategy of the deep state. One of the authors of the report, Australian science fiction writer Julian Cribb, author of books on the existential problems of humanity, including How to Fix a Broken Planet (2023, Cambridge), wrote: “World War III has already begun, although few have noticed... It is an almost silent war that will take the lives of millions, perhaps billions, of people and destroy the planet forever... World War III is a universal conflict between proven truth and convenient lies. Between reality and invented fantasy. It is a battle for the human soul... "

Analyzing the proposals of the Club of Rome, prepared by Cribb, one cannot help but note their manipulative and very dangerous nature. The report talks about global problems and a general crisis of power, which threatens the end of human civilization already in the middle of the 21st century. The thesis is promoted that "the power of states is dissipating", since states are allegedly unable to solve the global problems of humanity, and therefore must give way to what will in fact be a "world government". To do this, it is necessary to take urgent measures to create governing bodies at the global level and the need for countries to give up part of their sovereignty. For these purposes, it is proposed to create a UN Parliamentary Assembly and a "Council on the Earth System", which will adopt legislation that is binding on all countries. That is, we are talking about the degradation and complete devaluation of the concept of national sovereignty.

One of the fundamental changes proposed by the authors of this document is the reform of the UN Security Council with the abolition of the veto right of permanent members. And in order to finally eliminate the threat of their hegemony from sovereign states, globalists propose to ban nuclear weapons. Also alarming are the dangerous for humanity ideas of "voluntary" population reduction and the creation of a "Global Truth Commission" (it was put forward by Cribb), as well as proposals for a "radical green" change in the economic system, supplemented by the introduction of a single and mandatory world currency for all.

If we remove the "verbal-cognitive camouflage", it becomes obvious that the authors of the Club of Rome report with their customers from the Deep State see the solution to humanity's problems in total control over it - that is, over each of us. These ideas, in general, are not new to world politics, but their aggressive, offensive and radical nature is striking, reminiscent of the escalation of the very war going on at a deep level.

At the same time, six months earlier, at the Davos Forum, held in the winter of 2024, the intention to take control of the future of humanity was directly declared.

We need a paradigm shift... We must act as trustees of a better future for humanity. As trustees of the future, we are responsible for the development of the world...

~ Klaus Schwab, Chairman of the Davos Forum

The Club of Rome report makes it clear that the struggle for energy and resources is the dominant feature of world politics in the near and medium term. According to their calculations, there are not enough resources for the "Golden Billion", and therefore the resource collapse is becoming increasingly obvious. The West formulated a solution to this problem more than twenty years ago by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the leading American politician of the second half of the 20th century, who stated: "The new world order will be built against Russia, on the ruins of Russia and at the expense of Russia."

According to the programmatic guidelines of the collective West and NATO - this is stated in the "US National Security Strategy" - Russia is considered a fundamental enemy and the main threat. The strategic defeat of Russia, which is understood as its "cancellation", civilizational breakdown, deprivation of historical independence, is the main priority of the policy of the collective West.

DEEP WAR
Hybrid war - a state of "peace as war", in this hybridization - mixing - the essence of the current era is seen. However, mixing is only one facet of the picture of the "world of war", and hybridity does not describe the entire dramatic intensity of modernity, the total penetration of the "logic of war" into all spheres and to the full depth of world politics. It is the deep profile of war that complements the hybrid nature of the modern confrontation, within the framework of which the humanitarian sphere is technologized, and the keys to the codes - civilizational and mental - become military goals. At the core of this deep hybrid warfare technology are networks of control and power influence that entangle the world: from cyber to information, from energy and logistics to intelligence and PMC networks, from ethno-financial transnational network groups and crypto-shadow corporations to the Deep Web. Often, these all-pervasive networks are outside legitimate state and public control, in the so-called "gray zone" where there is no war/no peace.

The story of the global Windows crash in July 2024 reflected an important feature of the modern network world system - an error made at one point in the system can bring down the entire world system. So far, this is more like "reconnaissance in force", which will be followed by a sequel. Regular breaks in internet cables, unexpected failures of satellites, accidents at strategically important infrastructure facilities, interruptions in the power supply of critically important territories, the growth of "random" but synchronous epidemics, "targeted" influxes of waves of migrants, political rebellions and coups d'état induced seemingly out of nowhere, etc. - all this is part of a war that is tangible for many, but hidden and understandable only to real actors. This, taken together, is the hybrid profile of a deep war - Deep War - the battles and battles of which are often hushed up by the media.

Thus, the deep war (Deep War) is total in its scale and penetration into all spheres of human activity, it is a form of poly-domain confrontation in the military and civilian spheres, in the geopolitical space, which is described by the concept of the gray zone. This is a war for control over the world, which is being prepared and waged by globalists from the Deep State according to the concepts of the same Club of Rome and similar institutions. This war is not waged for territories or even for resource assets as such, but for the establishment of a new world order. In this war, there are no "turning points and battles", instead, multi-scale operations and processes are implemented that "accumulate damage" in the existing system, leading to tectonic changes at the deepest levels of the functioning of the world system. The fundamental thing is that in this case, it is precisely the issues of war that are being resolved - depriving the enemy of subjectivity, will and ability to sovereign development, and ultimately destroying him.

PERSONNEL SYNERGY OF VICTORY
In any war, people win - only strong-willed people are capable of withstanding grandiose challenges and implementing the transformations that Russia needs.

The essence of the approach is that since war becomes the deep essence of politics, and the boundaries of war and peace are dissolved in the gray zone, the division into civilian and military spheres becomes conditional, so the civilian and professional spheres inevitably merge and intertwine with the military. Hence, the strategic priority of the state is the creation of a system that ensures personnel synergy of the military and civilian spheres.

Personnel and technological mobilization, the unification of military and civilian specialists and developments are vitally important today. In this matter, the experience of Britain is interesting - a country that has always and not without success laid claim to leading world roles, without having significant resources and population, but competently promoting its interests through the elite - very devoted to the country, strong in spirit and purposeful.

A strategic personnel priority of the UK national security policy is to ensure the continuous involvement of highly qualified civilian specialists from various fields directly and indirectly related to national security issues. One of the most interesting examples of such a structure is the Specialist Group of Deep Warfare of the UK Military Intelligence (SGMI). SGMI specifically and systematically recruits personnel from specialists, primarily because of their unique special skills, including academic, scientific and professional skills, acquired in the civilian field. And what is important to note: these specialists often carry out their tasks within the SGMI on a pro bono basis - that is, serving their country is a priority for them.

This gives a result: in cognitive operations and mental warfare, the British are among the best today. And these are not episodes or exceptions, this is a personnel system tailored to specific war tasks. In his interview from August 2023, US Army General Mark Milley (at that time Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) emphasized that the wars of the 21st century will be for cognitive-mental dominance, for which the mental-cognitive area is defined and doctrinally formalized as the sixth operational environment/"sixth domain" (along with land, air, sea, space, info-cyber sphere), where - as stated in NATO developments - "influence and control of the enemy's mind make it possible to avoid a frontal confrontation." And it is no coincidence that British General Hockenhull (Head of Strategic Command, British military intelligence) stated in January of the same 2023: “

… the conflict in Ukraine can in some ways be seen as the first digital war, and much of this digital capability comes from open sources and commercially available services, rather than traditional military capabilities…

~ Ben Hockenhull, Head of Strategic Command, UK

All this, in essence, speaks about deep warfare, its personnel and technologies. Another example of personnel strategy - in late summer 2024, news appeared that the Pentagon was creating new Theater Integrated Information Detachments (TIADS). This is a new type of unit, which is planned to be created in the 2026 fiscal year (12 cyber groups of 65 highly qualified military personnel each), which are designed to monitor the efforts of China and Russia to conduct information warfare at the field level. This approach reflects the desire of the US Army command to unite cyberneticists, electronic warfare specialists, communications specialists, data transmission systems engineers, information operations, intel (integrated electronic technologies) and specialists in information and psychological operations - PSYOPs. This was stated by Lieutenant General Maria Barrett, Commander-in-Chief of the Army Cyber Command.

It is necessary to understand that such operational and tactical decisions are what can provide a strategic advantage in the competencies and on the battlefield of any state. Therefore, the creation of similar structures and institutions, but adapted to the management traditions of Russia, on the basis of interested specialized, primarily security agencies, should be a strategic personnel priority of the state, since it can not only strengthen the defense potential, but also form a highly professional core of a nationally oriented elite - this is the main recruiting elite resource.

The West's deep hybrid war against Russia is being waged both from the outside and from the inside across the entire front - from the economy, politics, spiritual and mental spheres and cyberspace to local military clashes and proxy conflicts around the world. In such a deep war, defeats and victories are not recorded by the "Act of Surrender", they are sometimes unclear, poly-domain and hybrid, and the qualitative shifts achieved as a result of this war are often evolutionary, but irreversible and destructive.

(c) A. Ilnitsky, O. Yanovsky

https://repost.press/news/vojna-na-vsyu-strategicheskuyu-glubinu - zinc

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Britain

Anti-Israel BDS calls on UK campuses thwarted by lawfare as antisemitism spikes

2024-09-01

[IsraelTimes] Bombastic university protests fuel a record-breaking rise in reported incidents of Jew-hatred — but the type and scope of divestment they seek is often contrary to British law

For decades, the prestigious London School of Economics has been seen as a hotbed of student radicalism and left-wing politics.

But this summer the school has struck twin blows against anti-Israel student protesters — taking legal action in June to end a monthlong occupation of a university building and last month robustly rejecting the demands of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The stance by the London School of Economics (LSE) reflects the failure of BDS campaigners to advance their goals on Britannia’s campuses despite a wave of pro-Paleostinian protests and a surge in antisemitic incidents in the UK following the October 7 Hamas
Hamas

..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
-led terror onslaught and the subsequent war 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 an 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...
According to the latest analysis by the Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antisemitism and provides protection for Jewish venues, there has been "a significant rise in anti-Jewish hate incidents in higher education settings." January to June 2024 saw a record half-year figure and a sharp increase of 465% over the same period in 2023. Nearly three-quarters of incidents — in which the victims or offenders were students or academics, or which involved student unions, societies or other representative bodies — contained discourse relating to Israel, Paleostine and the Middle East, compared to 52% of all incidents nationally.

The Union of Jewish Students agrees. "Following a year where Jewish students have experienced the worst campus antisemitism crisis — that continues to unfold — a renewed campaign of BDS that targets Jewish life on campus is misguided, disruptive, and unacceptable," a union spokesperson said in a statement. "BDS is a divisive
...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled...
movement prioritizing a single narrative instead of nuanced and respectful discussion. It divides peers, alienates Jewish students and creates an atmosphere that can and has fueled antisemitism on campuses across the UK."

Since October 7, there has been a jump in anti-Israel campaigning on campuses. Student unions have passed motions attacking the Jewish state and demanding university authorities heed the demands of the BDS movement.

But, as has often been the case in the past, events at the LSE have drawn the most media attention. Anti-Israel, pro-Paleostinian students occupied a building on the school’s central London campus in mid-May and issued a laundry list of demands they wanted fulfilled if they were to vacate. These included divestment from "any and all companies identified as complicit in crimes against the Paleostinian people"; a ban on "representatives of the Israeli state or Zionist holy warriors" speaking at the university; and a bar on "active or reserve IDF members who have participated in genocidal acts or war crimes" enrolling at the university as students.

The students also demanded the university issue a public statement in collaboration with the Paleostine, Islamic and other pro-BDS societies "expressing unwavering solidarity with Paleostinian liberation," and trash its adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.

At graduation ceremonies in July, students receiving their degrees unfurled Paleostinian flags and banners accusing the university of being "an Islamophobic institution." Unsurprisingly, Jeremy Corbyn, the far-left former leader of the Labour Party, addressed students at the encampment, telling them they were "on the right side of history."

Nonetheless, anti-Israel campaigners appear to have largely faltered in their efforts to use the conflict to push their agenda.

In June, the LSE went to court and became the first UK university to take legal action to end an anti-Israel encampment on its campus. The school’s administration has also taken a tough line against students’ BDS demands.

In a report issued in July, the LSE’s governing council said the school would not adopt the divestment policy demanded by the students which, in effect, encompassed all companies "that do business in or with the State of Israel."

The council’s report argues its decision is consistent with LSE’s environmental, social and governance policy, noting the "impossibility of distinguishing this conflict from so many others of concern to different groups within the LSE community."

The council rejected demands that the university back the Paleostinian cause, saying its duty was to preserve "free expression and thought on campus and protect the academic freedom of all our faculty and students." The Israeli-Paleostinian conflict, it said, is "an ongoing geopolitical dispute with many complex dimensions as to which members of our community hold a wide range of views and positions."

And the council said it would protect "protest and criticism," before pointedly adding "so long as it does not cross the line into harassment or hate and does not impede the teaching, research, and learning opportunities of others."

LEARNING FROM THEIR YANKEE COUNTERPARTS
Inspired by similar efforts in the US, the summer saw pro-Paleostinian encampments appear at universities across the country, including at elite "Russell Group" colleges, such as the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, Exeter, and the LSE. In some instances, welcome talks at open days for prospective students were invaded — on occasion, with the permission of staff — by pro-Paleostinian activists. Elsewhere, summer exams were disrupted, canceled and moved due to students barricading themselves in buildings.

The organization UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has been keeping a close eye on developments, warning student unions and university administrators when their actions are likely to breach various British laws which regulate and have an impact upon the higher education sector.

Student unions, for instance, are charities and are barred from campaigning on issues beyond those directly affecting student life.

Those who administer university pension funds — a key target for activists calling for divestment from Israel and companies linked to the Jewish state — are subject to complex legislation. They are, for instance, not allowed to make decisions which might risk significant financial damage to the fund or which might not command broad support from the beneficiaries of the funds — primarily, former university staff.

More broadly, given their reliance on taxpayer funding, universities have to comply with regulations that bar them from allowing politics to influence their purchasing decisions.

Finally, the UK’s Equality Act is stringent and bars discrimination, harassment and victimization on the basis of factors including race (which covers nationality and ethnic origin), religion, or philosophical belief (which may include anti-Zionism), while public order legislation criminalizes threatening or abusive language and stirring up racial or religious hatred. The Terrorism Act bans the expression of views supportive of proscribed terrorist organizations, such as Hamas.

UKLFI has demanded tougher action by universities to protect Jewish students against antisemitism, harassment and discrimination, while warning them of the perils of acceding to the — often illegal — demands made by anti-Israel activists on campuses.

"We are concerned that they are responding to these unlawful encampments by giving in, which will only cause more trouble in future," Jonathan Turner, UKLFI’s chief executive, told The Times of Israel. "They really shouldn’t allow the intimidation by the encampments to affect their policies. It’s one thing to hear reasoned argument from people behaving in a civilized way, but paying off, as it were, those who are making it extremely unpleasant for many of the other students is not actually the best course."

In April, for instance, UKLFI told the University of Exeter, which is ranked one of Britannia’s top universities, that the "current situation" on the campus was "unacceptable" for Jewish students.

It highlighted "extremely aggressive" weekly anti-Israel protests which were accompanied by chants of "genocide," "murderers" and "from the river to the sea." Jewish students, the letter said, were now being forced to cover up outward signs of their Jewish identity and walk in groups. It also detailed instances of lecturers describing the October 7 massacre as "resistance," and PhD students making "viciously antisemitic" comments in an online group.

In June, UKLFI claimed that Oxford University’s "appeasement" had encouraged disruption which had led to the cancellation of some exams, while others took place amid noisy anti-Israel protests. The exam papers of Israeli, Jewish and Zionist students, who had been the "targets of such venomous hostility and threatening behavior," should be marked more generously than those of other students, UKLFI argued, noting anti-discrimination legislation.

And last month, UKLFI wrote to the vice-chancellor of Bristol University — another top UK institution — after masked anti-Israel protesters disrupted visiting day lectures, and were then permitted or encouraged by staff to deliver speeches labeling the university "complicit in the genocide in Gaza" because it had failed to break ties with arms companies. Anyone choosing to attend Bristol University, the protesters told prospective students and their parents, had a "duty to resist" Israel’s "genocide." The "uninterrupted hate speech," and the role of staff in facilitating it, warned UKLFI, breached the university’s obligations under the Equality Act.

FOCUS ON PENSION FUNDS
A number of student unions — including at the University of Manchester and University of Nottingham — that passed motions calling for BDS campaigns have been forced to reverse course by their trustees following warnings by UKLFI and legal advice that advocating on issues not directly affecting students would breach their status as charities.

Turner believes the situation at UK universities is "not quite as bad" as the "horrifying" position on many US campuses.

Nonetheless, pro-Israel groups are not complacent about the potential threat posed by BDS on British campuses. Turner cites the University of Edinburgh’s response to an anti-Israel encampment which included instructions to its fund manager to pause the purchase of new shares in Amazon and Alphabet (Google’s parent company). Amazon and Google are targeted by the BDS movement because they have contracts with the Israeli government to provide cloud technology.

In a letter to the university’s vice-chancellor in June, UKLFI warned that, if the instruction affected the institution’s pension fund, the university could be opening itself up to legal action.

UKLFI is also concerned about decisions made by the University of Aberdeen in response to a pro-Paleostinian student encampment.

Aberdeen has pledged a review of its investments and its contracts with IT giant HP and fast-food company Subway. (HP provides and operates technology for the Israeli government while Subway’s local franchises are accused of offering in-kind donations to the IDF).

And although the university responded to the encampment’s demand of a boycott of Israeli academic institutions by defending academic freedom, it went on to say that it had no active agreements with Israeli universities and no intention of embarking on new ones.

Britannia’s previous Conservative government was pushing an anti-BDS bill through parliament when the general election was called. While the new Labour administration hasn’t proposed reviving the bill, Turner believes the UK’s existing laws remain "quite strong."

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Britain

Backgrounder: Likely key ministers in Starmer’s UK Labour government

2024-07-09

[IsraelTimes] With Labour predicted to become the biggest party in the UK parliament, here are the contenders for the most prominent ministerial positions.

Deputy Prime Minister: Angela Rayner
Rayner, 44, is an outlier in a country long dominated by a ruling class disproportionately educated at private schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities.

She grew up in social housing in northern England, left school without a degree and became a single mother at 16.

A trade unionist before being elected to parliament in 2015, she was elected as Labour’s number two in 2020.

Her left-wing background and straight-talking style — complete with strong northern accent — contrasts with Starmer’s more staid public persona.

"He smooths off my rough edges. I bring him out of his shell," she has famously said of their partnership.

As well as being deputy prime minister — filling in for Starmer at weekly parliamentary questions when he is unable to attend — Rayner would be responsible for housing policy and tackling regional inequalities.

Finance: Rachel Reeves
The former Bank of England economist is in line to become the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer, living next door to Starmer at 11 Downing Street.

Reeves, 45, has called that prospect shattering "the last glass ceiling in politics".

A central figure in Labour efforts over the last four years to regain the electorate’s trust on economic issues, she insists it is now "the natural party of British business".

Using her reputation for economic competence, Londoner Reeves, whose younger sister is also an MP, has pledged "iron discipline" on public finances.

The former child chess champion, an MP since 2010, has vowed to be both "pro-worker" and "pro-business" in her role overseeing the public purse.

Foreign affairs: David Lammy
Lammy, 51, a black politician descended from slaves, has honed his vision for UK diplomacy with dozens of foreign trips in the past two years.

He has argued that the foreign ministry needs to "rediscover the art of grand strategy" in the post-Brexit era.

Lammy, an MP since the age of 27 in 2000, is likely to steer Britannia towards closer EU ties — no easy task with both Brussels and Eurosceptic Britons reticent.

He will also likely face pressure from Labour’s left flank over issues including its policy towards Israel and its war against Hamas
Hamas

..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
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 an 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...
A friend of former US President Barack Obama
If you like your coverage you can keep it...
, Lammy may also have to deal with the possible White House return of Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and whatever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
He once described Trump as a "neo-Nazi
...adherents of a philosophy that was seen even at the time as pure evil, which makes them either consciously and purely evil, or attention-seeking ratbags. Pick one, or both....
sympathising sociopath" and "profound threat to the international order".

Home Affairs: Yvette Cooper
Cooper’s decades of political experience will undoubtedly be sorely tested heading the Home Office — Britannia’s interior ministry — a notoriously hard government department to succeed in.

An MP since the late 1990s and a minister in the 2000s, Cooper, 55, has been Labour’s home affairs spokesperson over two stints during its 14 years in opposition.

A candidate to be party leader in 2015, plaudits credit her grasp of policy and details as well as stellar communication skills.

Immigration — a major election campaign issue and potential weak point for Labour — will likely dominate much of the public discussion around her brief.

Health: Wes Streeting
A fresh-faced Labour centrist, Streeting has been one of the most visible Labour figures during the election campaign.

Hailed as one of its best communicators, the 41-year-old from a working-class background in east London is tipped as a potential future leader.

But first he will have to prove himself in one of the toughest jobs in UK government, charged with reversing the decline in the country’s cherished but ailing National Health Service (NHS).

Weighed down by years of austerity under the Conservatives and still struggling to recover from the pandemic, Streeting — a cancer survivor — will rely in part on his own experience of the system.

Defence: John Healey
Party veteran Healey is set to become defense secretary as the policy area gains importance given the war in Ukraine and rising global insecurity.

The 64-year-old, who first became an MP in 1997 when Tony Blair won power for Labour, held a series of government posts during the party’s 13-year spell in charge.

Labour has promised to increase military spending to 2.5 percent of GDP (from 2.3 percent this year) "as soon as" economic conditions allow.

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Economy

Biden unveils latest attempt to kill off gas cars

2024-06-09

[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] The Transportation Department told automakers they have eight years to squeeze another 16 miles per gallon out of their cars if they want to stay in business - while the fuel efficiency of their trucks will have to double.

Friday's edict came just weeks after the EPA slashed the limits on tailpipe emissions as part of the White House pledge to ensure that more than half of all new vehicles sold are electric by 2032.

But the administration admitted last week that just seven EV charging stations have been built since a $5-billion program was signed off in 2021.

'That's just pathetic,' Sen Jeff Merkley (D-Ore) told a Senate hearing on Wednesday. 'Something is terribly wrong and it needs to be fixed.'

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