Bibibak

bak 7 25

neglected

merri ok

a kind of uncle to jared (dad chabad---?)

war criminal ICC

:{===

[### Federal judge blocks US sanctions against UN rapporteur ...

Al Jazeera

https://www.aljazeera.com › ... › Israel-Palestine conflict](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/14/federal-judge-blocks-us-sanctions-against-un-rapporteur-francesca-albanese)

11 hours ago — UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese was sanctioned in July 2025 after she publicly criticised Washington's policy on ...Read more

By Alex Milan Durie, AFP and Reuters

Published On 14 May 202614 May 2026

A federal judge has temporarily ⁠blocked United States sanctions against Francesca Albanese, a United Nations expert on the occupied Palestinian territory.

UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese was sanctioned in July 2025 after she publicly criticised Washington’s policy on Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.

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Albanese’s husband and daughter filed a lawsuit in February against the Trump administration over the sanctions. It argued that the sanctions were an effort to punish Albanese for bringing attention to Israel’s rights abuses against Palestinians.

In his court order on Wednesday, US ⁠District Judge Richard Leon granted a preliminary injunction against the sanctions.

He found that the Trump administration sought to regulate ‌her speech because of the “idea or message expressed”.

“Albanese has done nothing more than speak,” judge Leon wrote in his memorandum opinion. “It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions – they are nothing more than her opinion.”

Albanese, who said the US sanctions were “calculated to weaken my mission” when they were first imposed, celebrated the ruling on social media.

“Thanks to my daughter and my husband for stepping up to defend me, and everyone who has helped so far,” Albanese said in a statement on X.

“Together we are One.”

[vid?]

Torture in Israeli prisons is institutionalised and normalised: Albanese

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Israel’s Ben Gvir storms Al-Aqsa during Jerusalem Day march

Since 2022, Albanese, a legal scholar, has served as the special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, where she monitors human rights abuses against Palestinians. The UN Human Rights Council selected her for the position.

The Trump administration sanctioned her last July, calling her “unfit” for her role and accusing her of “biased and malicious activities” against the US and its ally, Israel. Albanese had also recommended that the International Criminal Court (ICC) pursue war crimes prosecutions against Israeli and US nationals.

The sanctions barred the Italian lawyer and human rights expert from entering the US, using US banks and payment systems, and prevented anyone else in the US from doing business with her.

Albanese’s husband and her daughter, a US citizen, claimed in the lawsuit that the US ⁠sanctions were “effectively debanking her and making it nearly impossible to meet the needs of her daily life”.

see iran nuclear deal

bolton freakin envoy to Iran?!

bibi up on changes? corrupt but is he authoritarian? they won't let him be except to palestine? bolsonaro, erik prince

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// trump keep war going to stay in office, avoid jail? 3x down on gaza raffah invasion

biden ~ bar hug starts to distaNCE kamala now chuck

Frank Gaffney calls Sen. Chuck Schumer a "Court Jew" and claims the "psychology" of Jews is "pretty twisted" | Media Matters for America

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andrew cuomo

7 25 beat badly by z mamdani, offered legal services to war crim bibi

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VERY CLEAR PR WE NOT INVOLVED/INFORMED, WANTED TO HIT KOMENI? NOW WE USE USN DESTROYER FOR AA?

note kim jung un, bibi and putin all disobey trump; ordered no strike iran; refused love ltr?

86’d his leverage when he trashed nato and imposed tariffs? switch side in cold war with zelensky ambush? TAco? NO ONE TRUSTS HIM?

an 6 25

'Kremlin-owned puppet': Critics slam Trump for jetting off to Canada to defend Putin at G7

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AN 6 25

Although Donald Trump has, at times, taken an imperialistic turn during his second presidency by calling for the United States to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal and saying that Canada should become "the 51st state," the America First ideology that he usually champions is known for being isolationist. MAGA proponents of America First thinking — including Vice President JD Vance, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) and "War Room" host Steve Bannon — typically make an anti-interventionist argument that is a big departure from the hawkishness favored by traditional Reagan and Bush conservatives.

In an article published on June 10, Politico reporters Rachael Bade and Felicia Schwartz detail the infighting among Republicans over Iran.

"An influential group of GOP hawks has launched a behind-the-scenes lobbying offensive pressing President Donald Trump to not only back off his administration’s quest for a nuclear deal with Iran, but greenlight an attack on Tehran by Israel," the journalists explain. "The campaign is raising alarms among Trump and his allies, who have launched a counteroffensive to keep the president's diplomacy on track."

According to Bade and Schwartz, far-right radio host Mark Levin is among the Republicans pushing for a hawkish policy on Iran. Levin, they report, is claiming that Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon, while members of Trump's intelligence team are disputing that claim.

IFrame Content

"Levin urged Trump to allow the Israeli government to strike Iranian nuclear sites, which Trump has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would torpedo the diplomacy," Bade and Schwartz explain. "Levin has been waging a public war against Trump's longtime friend and special envoy leading talks, Steve Witkoff."

Meanwhile, some of Rupert Murdoch's media outlets, according to the Politico reporters, have "savaged Witkoff" and promoted Levin's position.

A senior Trump Administration official, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Politico, "They’re trying to push the president to make a decision that’s not what he wants…. There’s clearly a lobby for war with Iran versus those who are more aligned with the president, that know he is the one that has been able to bring them to the negotiating table."

*Read the full Politico article at this link.

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an 12 24

Alex Gibney on 'The Bibi Files,' Netanyahu’s corruption case and how endless war keeps him in power

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13 Nov 2024

US President-elect Donald Trump has announced the appointment of pro-settlement former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the US ambassador to Israel.

The controversial political figure and TV personality who claims to have visited Israel more than 100 times will replace Jack Lew, who has held the position for a year.

UN aid chief warns of ‘gravest crimes’ committed in Israel’s war on Gaza

list 2 of 4

Houthis launch attacks against US warships off coast of Yemen

list 3 of 4

Israel’s UNRWA ban is another declaration of genocidal intent

list 4 of 4

Biden dismisses journalist’s question on reaching deal for Gaza captives

end of list

Who is Mike Huckabee, and what was he doing before this appointment?

The devout 69-year-old evangelical Christian was born in the southern US state of Arkansas.

He served as governor of his home state between 1996 and 2007 before launching unsuccessful bids to be the Republican presidential candidate during the 2008 and 2016 primary seasons.

Between these two bids, he had his own talk show, Huckabee, which ran on the Fox News Network between 2008 and 2015.

In 2017, the show was revived and broadcast on TBN, a Christian-based broadcast television network.

Since ending his campaign for presidential candidacy in 2016, Huckabee has consistently supported Trump.

Arkansas Governor

Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee shake hands after participating in a roundtable discussion hosted by Building America’s Future in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, on October 29, 2024 [File: Charly Triballeau/AFP]

What is Huckabee’s position on Israel and Palestine?

Huckabee is a staunch supporter of Israel.

After his appointment, Trump released a statement in which he said Huckabee “loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!”

His appointment demonstrates a “very hawkish, very pro-right-wing Israel” approach by the Trump administration, Yossi Mekelberg, an expert on Israel at the Chatham House think tank, told Al Jazeera.

He said Huckabee’s appointment is similar to that of David Friedman, who served as US Ambassador to Israel between 2017 and 2021 and supports Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Huckabee views Israel as an “overwhelming ally of the United States”, Paul Musgrave, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera.

“He will certainly be a strong voice for a pro-Israel faction in the administration and the country,” he said.

Huckabee has tied his evangelical faith to support for Israeli control of the West Bank and his support for Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law.

In an interview in 2017 with the CNN news network, he said: “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria (the territory’s biblical name). There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”

Huckabee has gone as far as to question Palestinian identity.

During his Republican presidential campaign, he said: “I need to be careful about saying this, because people will really get upset – there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.”

Huckabee is against a two-state solution.

Instead, in various TV interviews, he has propagated the idea that “there’s plenty of land” for Palestinians in countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Syria.

Huckabee

Mike Huckabee visits a large settler enclave, called Maale HaZeitim, in the Ras al-Amoud neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem on August 17, 2009 [File: David Furst/AFP]

He has also criticised US President Joe Biden for requesting that Israel temper some of its actions in the war on Gaza and the administration’s calls for a ceasefire.

“If a person is pro-Israel, how can you be pro-Biden because the Biden administration has made it very clear they will make concessions to Hamas,” Huckabee said in an interview in March on News Nation.

In a recent interview with a podcaster, he labelled himself an “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist”.

He also said “radical Muslims want to take us back to the seventh century” adding “I don’t want to go back there”. He said: “I like modernity.”

What has the reaction been like in Israel to his appointment?

The Israeli government, in its current form, will be very pleased with the appointment of an ambassador who supports settlements and annexation, Mekelberg said.

Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right, pro-settler security minister, took to X to celebrate Huckabee’s appointment, simply posting emojis of the US flag, the Israeli flag and a heart alongside the former Arkansas governor’s name.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, took to X to offer congratulations to Huckabee, who he described as “my dear friend”.

“I look forward to continuing to work with you and to strengthening the eternal bond our two countries share!” Danon wrote.

Mekelberg said even though it will raise concerns about any potential peace agreement, the Israeli public, in general, will be supportive as, given the current climate, “anyone who expresses full support of Israel will be welcome.”

What can be expected from his term?

It is too early to tell how his appointment will affect Israel’s strategy for Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon, Musgrave said.

However, he noted it likely indicates that there will be little “pushback” from a Trump administration against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war plans.

It is a sentiment shared by Mekelberg, who said any fears in the Israeli administration that an incoming ambassador could have placed restraints on how Israel may conduct itself will have “eased considerably” after Huckabee’s appointment.

Source: Al Jazeera

===

an 8 24

Former President Donald Trump may have called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss a potential ceasefire deal with Hamas that President Joe Biden's administration is currently negotiating. Now, experts are saying Trump may have committed a felony.

Newsweek reported that two anonymous "U.S. sources who were briefed on the call" confirmed to Axios that Trump spoke with Netanyahu. And according to the New Republic and PBS, the former president reportedly urged Netanyahu to reject the deal currently on the table. The Israeli prime minister's office has denied reports that Trump spoke with him, and the Trump campaign hasn't publicly commented on whether the call actually took place.

A private citizen engaging in diplomatic conversations with foreign governments is a violation of the Logan Act of 1799. U.S. code stipulates that violating the act is a felony punishable by fines and up to three years in prison. However, no one has been successfully prosecuted under the Logan Act in the past, and national security expert Steve Vladeck recently called the law "unconstitutionally vague."

Still, news of the reported call has prompted calls for an investigation. Democratic National Committee member David Atkins told Newsweek that if Trump indeed called Netanyahu, it would constitute a "massive crime." Actor Steven Pasquale expressed a similar sentiment in a Wednesday tweet.

"Trump, a convicted felon citizen, no longer in any role as an elected official, conspiring with Netanyahu, to avoid peace, because it might help his political opponent, is pretty balls to the wall treason," he wrote. "Logan act. A crime. We still have laws here don't we?"

Anti-Trump Republican group Lincoln Project also called for the former president to be investigated for the alleged call, tweeting: "Donald Trump is undermining US foreign policy to win an election. He's willing to burn it all down to get what he wants. There's absolutely no line he won't cross."

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn — who served in his role for less than a month before resigning — was prosecuted for similar allegations. Prior to Trump taking the oath of office, Flynn was found to have had conversations with Sergey Kislyak, who at the time was the Russian ambassador to the United States, about sanctions imposed by former President Barack Obama's outgoing administration in response to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Flynn — who was a three-star general prior who served in the Obama administration's Defense Intelligence Agency before joining the Trump White House — ultimately pleaded guilty to making false statements to investigators about his conversations with Kislyak. Trump would later pardon him during his lame-duck period after losing the 2020 election.

The Hamas-Israel ceasefire negotiations are still ongoing. According to Axios, there are an estimated 115 hostages still in Hamas' custody. The Gaza health ministry reports that nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its war on Gaza following Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack.

Click here to read Newsweek's report in full

READ MORE:[Mike Flynn film 'starkly silent' about his role in 'spreading Christian nationalism'

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bibi ct BS

https://theintercept.com/2023/02/16/israel-jeff-yass-kohelet/

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rw govt trying to grab courts

https://www.alternet.org/cannot-run-a-racist-government/

netanayu

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cBS host confronts Israel's Netanyahu: Are you killing Palestinians as a plot 'to stay in power'?

David Edwards Raw Story

CBS host John Dickerson on Sunday pressed Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about his motivations for using disproportional force to kill Palestinian people, including...

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/iran/

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no lnx twt map

reports of secret meeting between Netanyahu, MbS and Pompeo 'extremely alarming': foreign policy analyst

Jake Johnson and Common Dreams November 23, 2020

The alarming possibility of a military attack on Iran—a nation that has long been in the sights of war hawks in the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel—was immediately invoked by foreign policy analysts Monday following reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in secret late Sunday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

First divulged by unnamed Israeli officials and publicly denied Monday morning by the Saudi foreign minister, the reported covert meeting in Neom, Saudi Arabia comes on the heels of news last week that U.S. President Donald Trump asked his senior advisers for options to bomb Iran's primary nuclear energy site, prompting Iran to vow a "crushing response" to any attack.

Trump's request for military strike options came days after he lost the presidential election to Joe Biden, who has pledged to act quickly to reenter the Iran nuclear agreement that Trump violated in May of 2018. Contrary to baseless and ongoing allegations by the U.S. and Israel, Iran says it is not developing and has no plans to develop nuclear weapons—a claim U.N. inspectors have repeatedly verified in recent years.

The context of the Trump administration's aggressive posturing and militaristic threats against Iran fueled critics' concerns following word of the secret meeting between MbS, Netanyahu, and Pompeo, which was also reportedly attended byYossi Cohen, director of the Israeli spy agency Mossad.

"It is extremely alarming that the warmongers most reliant on Trump's blank checks are secretly meeting in the middle of the night as the clock nearly runs out on the Trump administration," tweeted foreign policy analyst Omar Baddar. "Do they have Iran in the crosshairs?"

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft,echoed Baddar's fears and raised the additional concern that the "actual target" of the meeting was "the incoming Biden team, with the aim of deterring the U.S. from seeking diplomacy with Tehran."

Despite the public denial by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan—who tweeted early Monday that "the only officials present" at the meeting "were American and Saudi"—unnamed Saudi officials told the Wall Street Journal that Netanyahu attended the meeting with Pompeo and MbS.

:{:{}:

Among the topics discussed at the hours-long meeting, according to the Journal, were Iran and normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Both Netanyahu and Pompeo refused to comment on the meeting, but neither denied that it took place.

Joe Cirincione, a distinguished fellow at the Quincy Institute, warned in an op-ed last week that while unlikely, an attack on Iran by either the U.S. or Israel is a possibility worth taking seriously and guarding against.

"A member of Netanyahu's cabinet, Settlements Minister Tzahi Hanegbi, flatly predicted in early November that Israel will attack Iran if Joe Biden is elected president," Cirincione pointed out. "Ominously, the U.S. Central Command announced... that it moved a detachment of F-16 fighter-bombers from Germany to the UAE, across the Gulf from Iran."

Returning the U.S. to compliance with the Iran nuclear agreement, argued Cirincione, "would allow the United States to establish a more robust relationship with Iran with regular contacts—as was the case during the Obama administration—that would reduce the risks of conflicts that could escalate, intended or unintended, into a war that would make the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look trivial in comparison."

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Netanyahu vows to annex large swathes of West Bank ‘in maximum coordination with Trump’Jake Johnson / Common Dreams

erik 2

bibi

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/revealed-erik-prince-had-business-ties-with-netanyahus-disgraced-chief-of-staff-1.5627887

Revealed: Blackwater Founder Erik Prince's Business Ties With Netanyahu’s Disgraced Chief of Staff

U.S. businessman at center of storm over allegedly setting up back-channel between Trump and Putin has ties to Ari Harow and an Israeli financier

Hagai Amit SendSend me email alerts

Dec 06, 2017 12:49 PM

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Blackwater USA Chief Executive Erik Prince testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on security contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington, October 2007.

Blackwater USA Chief Executive Erik Prince testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on security contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington, October 2007. Larry Downing/REUTERS

U.S. businessman Erik Prince – who has just been accused of trying to set up a back-channel for communications between the Trump administration and Russia – has deep Israeli connections as well, including business dealings with Ari Harow, the disgraced former bureau chief to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The founder of the military contracting firm Blackwater is worth a reported $2.4 billion and is at the center of a ruckus over U.S. President Donald Trump’s relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Want to read more articles about Israel business news?

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According to U.S. media reports, Prince was behind Trump’s indirect channels to Putin, through the Persian Gulf states. Last week Prince, 48, testified before the House Intelligence Committee on meetings that took place in the Emirates in January. He admitted to meeting with the head of a Russian investment fund earlier this year, but claimed it was nothing to do with Trump and Putin.

Haaretz has learned that Prince used to do business in Israel with Harow, the former chief of staff to Netanyahu. Harow turned state’s evidence in August after pleading guilty to fraud and breach of trust, and is collaborating with the police on two investigations into Netanyahu’s affairs.

Ari Harow in 2014, while working as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chief of staff.

Ari Harow in 2014, while working as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chief of staff.Marc Israel Sellem

Prince also has long-standing ties with the Israeli financier Dorian Barak, formerly Harow’s business partner.

A former Navy Seal, Prince is reportedly close to Trump – so much so that, according to U.S. media reports, he was present at the Trump election party in New York’s Trump Tower in November 2016. He also advises Trump and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, on topics related to American foreign policy – from refugees to U.S. policy on Afghanistan. Prince reportedly has opinions on everything and isn’t shy about sharing them. His sister is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

His involvement in foreign policy raises eyebrows because of his involvement in Blackwater (now known as Academi), the multinational security firm that operates around the world. Though he sold the company in 2010, Prince has made a fortune from wars – from Iraq to Afghanistan. He has also attracted bad press: In September 2007, Blackwater employees escorting a convoy killed 17 Iraqis. They claimed it was an ambush, but Iraq claimed the killings were unprovoked. The Iraqi government refused to renew Blackwater’s license in 2009.

Five years ago, well before anybody predicted Trump’s election, Prince visited Israel and was hosted by Harow. At the time, Harow was a businessman with a private investment fund as well as being chief of Netanyahu’s bureau. Harow tried to interest Prince in investing in Indigo Strategic Capital, a venture capital fund that Harow was co-managing with Dorian Barak.

How much Prince invested in Indigo remains unknown, but it is known that through Indigo he invested in the Israeli companies NowForce (security) and Agent Vi (real-time video analytics).

Beyond Israel, Barak also tried to interest Prince in investing in an African rail project – with the Spanish infrastructure company Eurofinsa – and in a joint investment with the Tehran-born, British-Jewish billionaire Vincent Tchenguiz. Prince and Barak were also involved in a mining company called Alufer.

In late 2013, Harow signed a conflict of interest agreement, undertaking to sever ties with his private company 3H and vowing not to be involved in its management. It would be run by partners and his two brothers, he said, and Harow returned to serve as chief of staff for Netanyahu.

Harow is not known to have had ties with Prince over the last five years. But Indigo Strategic Holdings, a Cayman Islands-listed company that Barak set up to handle his joint activity with Harow, only closed in August.

Beyond Prince’s investments in Israel, the deeper significance of Harrow’s relationship with Prince may have been in introducing him to Barak. Previously, Barak worked as head of the mergers, acquisitions and business development division at Bank Hapoalim’s international division. He also prays at the same synagogue as Naftali Bennett, to whom he donated 1,800 shekels ($510) when the latter was successfully running for the leadership of Habayit Hayehudi in 2012.

Barak became an adviser to Prince on investments and finance, and served on the boards of Agent Vi, Indigo and other companies worldwide in which Prince had stakes – from Austria to Gibraltar. They include the British hydrocarbons and mineral exploration company Bridgeporth; another U.K. company called Airborne Technologies, which makes aviation systems (some refer to it as Prince’s private air force); and Alufer.

Barak and Prince are also involved in a holding company called Frontier Capital.

Barak also has ties in China, and launched an innovation center in Israel with KuangChi Science last year. The fund is supposed to invest $250 million, half in Israel. Its portfolio shows that it invested in companies in which Barak had previously invested money himself, partly through Prince.

With various people now touting Prince for a Senate run (including Steve Bannon), his Israeli ties could prove significant.

Harow’s representative said that in connection with a private company he had founded, he had been in touch with various business and philanthropic entities in Israel and elsewhere. During that time, he had not held any public office, and the ties described in this article ended in 2012, years before the U.S. presidential election, the statement said. “Any attempt to connect Harow with Prince and his activity in recent years is a cynical distortion of reality,” it added.

Hagai Amit

Haaretz Contributor

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poster w/ djt, opponent paired with darkened BO (liz w pod save)

Chomsky: Trump radically interfered with Israel’s election to help re-elect Netanyahu Amy Goodman, Democracy Now

day before election (on criminal charges) annex illegal settlements 4/19 and/or West Bank

Pecker’s alleged attempt to blackmail Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would not ordinarily attract my eye, except for this paragraph:

“And sometimes Mr. Pecker mixes it all together:

“After Mr. Trump became president, he rewarded Mr. Pecker’s loyalty with a White House dinner to which the media executive brought a guest with important ties to the royals in Saudi Arabia. At the time, Mr. Pecker was pursuing business there while also hunting for financing for acquisitions.…”

We knew that Pecker had brought the French investment banker and Saudi publicist Kacy Grine to the White House.

And Spencer Ackerman had reported on Pecker’s strange move to put a pro-Saudi glossy magazine in grocery store checkout lanes in spring of 2018.It is as though he thought American housewives would thrill to the soap opera in Riyadh, where the Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr.-Hyde Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman had, in summer of 2017, sidelined his rival, Mohammed bin Nayef, dethroning him as crown prince and greedily taking his place, before he kidnapped many in the Saudi elite to shake them down for $100 billion while imprisoning them in the Ritz-Carlton. “Days of Our Lives” had nothing on the Saudis.

In short, there is every reason to believe that Pecker is entangled with the Saudi royal court of bin Salman, perhaps, as Bezos alleges, in search of investment opportunities.

One question I have long had is whether investigators looking at the Russian element in the election of Trump are not unduly downplaying a United Arab Emirates and Saudi angle. That is, did those two oil monarchies help put Trump in power in the first place, and is there a prehistory to their entanglements with his circle?

But what Bezos goes on to say is that he hired a private investigator to find out how Pecker got hold of his texts and exchanges of smartphone photographs with his lover, Lauren Sanchez.

And the investigator, Gavin de Becker, looked into whether Pecker’s National Enquirer is influence-peddling for Saudi Arabia for some sort of quid pro quo.

Bezos also hints that Pecker was upset about The Washington Post’s quest to get to the bottom of the Saudi government’s murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Oct. 2, 2018. Bezos owns the Post, though he maintains he is a hands-off owner.

Bezos alleges that the investigation of the Saudi connection alarmed Pecker and precipitated the alleged attempt to blackmail the Amazon CEO into falling silent and backing off, with the threat of releasing further compromising photographs and text messages of a private nature.

Ronan Farrow said on Twitter that Pecker’s hired gun, Australian Dylan Howard, also attempted to intimidate him when he was investigating Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment of women in Hollywood.

This charge makes me wonder ifPecker isn’t America’s answer to Rupert Murdoch, whose British tabloids were famous for hacking Britons’ telephone messages and then blackmailing or smearing them with the stolen material. Former Prime Minister John Major alleged that Murdoch threatened him with bad press unless he bent to Murdoch’s will.

I have to say that I never took Pecker or the National Enquirer seriously, but maybe he is secretly one of the more powerful men in the world, holding files on politicians and celebrities and coercing them behind the scenes.

One piece of jeopardy for Pecker is that he was granted immunity, for cooperating with the Mueller probe, from charges of election fraud for paying off nude model Karen McDougall, Trump’s lover, to gain her silence during the 2016 election campaign. That immunity depends on his avoiding further acts of illegality. It is not clear that the courts would accept Bezos’ claim of extortion. But Pecker wouldn’t be so nervous about Bezos investigating his Saudi ties unless there was something to hide in that regard.

Finally, the Bezos investigator has been telling The Washington Post’s Manuel Roig-Franzia that he does not believe Bezos’ phone was hacked. He thinks that a “government entity” captured the signals from the phone somehow.

Speculation went immediately to Saudi Arabia, which used Israeli spyware to hack Khashoggi’s WhatsApp account.

Of course, Saudi Arabia and its partner in crime, the United Arab Emirates, are also good at hacking, and actually got into the cellphone of the emir of Qatar and then put out fake video of him.

And, since the far-right-wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu is hoping to be rescued politically by a normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia, the Israeli Mossad has a motive to protect Saudi allies like Trump and Pecker as well.

I’m confused, however, as to how a foreign government could capture text and photos from an AT&T or Verizon server (Bezos uses an iPhone). That is to say, the allegation is that the iPhone was not hacked and that the signals were scooped up in some other way. Moreover, the diction is “a government entity,” not a foreign government.

It appears to me that de Becker may be alleging that the U.S. National Security Agency captured that material, a capability that has been well documented. The NSA, of course, reports directly to Trump, Pecker’s dear friend and co-conspirator in election fraud through the suppression of the McDougall affair.

I pointed out in 2016, in a piece at The Nation, that the Bush and Obama administrations had made a huge error in not reining in the NSA on Fourth Amendment grounds, thus bequeathing to a maniac like Trump the ability to spy on all Americans. Are those chickens now coming home to roost? Did the NSA spy on Bezos at Trump’s request and then turn the material over to Pecker?

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"If you take out Saddam, I guarantee you, it would have enormous, positive reverberations on the region." ~Netanyahu

Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (Hebrew: בִּנְיָמִין "בִּיבִּי" נְתַנְיָהוּ‎ (help·info); born 21 October 1949) is the current Prime Minister of Israel. Netanyahu also currently serves as a member of the Knesset and Chairman of the Likud party.

Born in Tel Aviv to secular Jewish parents,^[1][2] Netanyahu is the first Israeli prime minister born in Israel after the establishment of the state.

Netanyahu joined the Israel Defense Forces shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, and became a team leader in the Sayeret Matkal special forces unit. Netanyahu took part in many missions, including Operation Inferno (1968), Operation Gift (1968) and Operation Isotope (1972), during which he was shot in the shoulder. Netanyahu fought on the front lines in the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, taking part in special forces raids along the Suez Canal, and then leading a commando assault deep into Syrian territory.^[3][4] Netanyahu achieved the rank of captain before being discharged.

After graduating from MIT with Bachelor of Science (SB) and Master of Science (SM) degrees, Netanyahu was recruited as an economic consultant for the Boston Consulting Group. Netanyahu returned to Israel in 1978 to found the Yonatan Netanyahu Anti-Terror Institute, named after his brother Yonatan Netanyahu, who died leading Operation Entebbe. Netanyahu served as the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations from 1984 to 1988.

Netanyahu became the leader of Likud in 1993. Netanyahu won the 1996 elections, becoming Israel's youngest ever Prime Minister, serving his first term from June 1996 to July 1999. Netanyahu moved from the political arena to the private sector after being defeated in the 1999 election for prime minister by Ehud Barak. Netanyahu returned to politics in 2002 as Foreign Affairs Minister (2002–2003) and Finance Minister (2003–2005) in Ariel Sharon's governments, but he departed the government over disagreements regarding the Gaza disengagement plan. As Minister of Finance, Netanyahu engaged in a major reform of the Israeli economy, which was credited by commentators as having significantly improved Israel's subsequent economic performance.^[5] Netanyahu retook the Likud leadership in December 2005, after Sharon left to form a new party, Kadima.^[6]

In December 2006, Netanyahu became the official Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset and Chairman of Likud. Following the 2009 parliamentary election, in which Likud placed second and right-wing parties won a majority,^[7] Netanyahu formed a coalition government.^[8][9] After the victory in the 2013 elections, he became the second person to be elected to the position of Prime Minister for a third term, after Israel's founder David Ben-Gurion. In March 2015, Netanyahu was elected to his fourth term as prime minister.

Netanyahu has been elected Prime Minister of Israel four times, matching David Ben-Gurion's record. Netanyahu is the only prime minister in Israel's history to have been elected three times in a row.^[10] Netanyahu is currently the second longest-serving Prime Minister in Israel's history after David Ben-Gurion,^[11] and if his current government lasts a full term, upon its completion he will become the longest-serving Prime Minister in the history of Israel.^[12]

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Biography

Early life and career

Netanyahu was born in 1949 in Tel Aviv, Israel, to an Israeli-born mother, Tzila Segal (28 August 1912 – 31 January 2000) and a Warsaw-born father, Prof. Benzion Netanyahu (1910–2012), the middle of three children. He discovered via a DNA test that he is of part Sephardi Jewish ancestry.^[13] He was initially raised and educated in Jerusalem, where he attended Henrietta Szold Elementary School. A copy of his evaluation from his 6th grade teacher Ruth Rubenstein indicated that Netanyahu was courteous, polite, and helpful; that his work was "responsible and punctual"; and that Netanyahu was friendly, disciplined, cheerful, brave, active and obedient.^[14]

Between 1956 and 1958, and again from 1963 to 1967,^[15] his family lived in the United States in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, where he attended and graduated from Cheltenham High School and was active in a debate club. To this day, he speaks fluent English, with a noticeable Philadelphia accent.^[16]

After graduating from high school in 1967, Netanyahu returned to Israel to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. He trained as a combat soldier and served for five years in an elite special forces unit of the IDF, Sayeret Matkal. He took part in numerous cross-border assault raids during the 1967–70 War of Attrition, rising to become a team-leader in the unit. He was wounded in combat on multiple occasions.^[4] He was involved in many other missions, including Operation Inferno (1968), and the rescue of the hijacked Sabena Flight 571 in May 1972 in which he was shot in the shoulder.^[17]

After completing his army service in 1972, Netanyahu returned to the United States in late 1972 to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He returned to Israel in October 1973 to serve in the Yom Kippur War in the Sayeret Matkal commando unit.^[3][18] While there, he fought in special forces raids along the Suez Canal against the Egyptian forces, before leading a commando attack deep inside Syrian territory, whose mission remains classified today.^[19]

He then returned to the United States and under the name Ben Nitay, completed an SB degree^[20] in architecture^[21] in February 1975 and earned an SM^[20] degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management in June 1976. Concurrently, he was studying towards a doctorate^[18] in political science,^[22][23] until his studies were broken off by the death of his brother in Operation Entebbe.^[18]

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http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/invention-white-people

...None of these facts have been hidden to us. There is a vast body of scholarly literature on the social construction of race, gender, and ethnicity.

In his monumental two-volume study, The Invention of the White Race (Revised edition, 2012), as early as in the 1960s Theodore W. Allen had documented the manner in which the ruling elite in the United States had devised the category of "white people" by way of economic exploitation of the African slaves and the social control of the emerging polities. More recently, in her Birth of a White Nation: The Invention of White People and Its Relevance Today (2013), Jacqueline Battalora has offered an examination of the enduring issue of race in the US tracing it back to when "white people" were invented through legislations and enactment of laws.

The problem with this scholarly body of literature is not only the fact that its erudite message does not get through the thick skulls of illiterate racists like Donald Trump's white supremacist supporters. The problem is that such archaeology of hatred does not erase the fact that a massive body of humanity has suffered precisely because they have been branded as "black" or "red," or "yellow" or "brown." Racially constituted to divide and rule, those colorful delusions have become social facts.

Central to all such socially constructed delusions are the relations of power they entail and sustain - whether color-coded, classed, racialized, or gendered. "One is not born, but rather becomes a woman," Simone de Beauvoir declared in her path-breaking book The Second Sex (1949). In later, critical expansion of this idea, scholars like Judith Butler have shown how varied social practices are definitive to the social constitution of gender. The same is true about race or ethnicity. One is not born, we may extend de Beauvoir's insight, but rather becomes white, or black, etc.

The gross spectacle of racist terrorists in August in Charlottesville, US, and President Trump's unabashed siding with the proto-Fascist white supremacists have now brought this solid streak in American politics to global attention. However limited or extensive this "base" of Donald Trump's presidency might be, the politics of white supremacy has now become openly integral to the racial imagination of the US.

Taking their cues from their president and his chief advisers like (until recently) Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Sebastian Gorka in the White House, a small but increasingly vocal armed militia calling itself "white nationalists" (a euphemism for white supremacists) march with torches like the KKK, saluting like Nazis, and chant xenophobic and anti-Semitic slogans through Charlottesville. These are the driest and deepest layers of racial hatred from the time of the first slaughter of Native Americans, from the time of mass slavery of African Americans, now finding the right environment to come up to surface.

As a society and a polity, the US has never been cured, never been treated, and it has never resolved its murderous racist history. It has just kept shoving it under a thin veneer of liberal hypocrisy and bourgeois etiquette at home and projected it outward in the form of warmongering abroad. From the Korean, to Vietnam, to Afghan and Iraq wars the US invasions and occupation of other countries are underwritten by racial hatred. The Israeli occupation and systemic land theft of Palestine is an extended chapter in the same book.

The Racist Nexus of US/Israel

The affinity of neo-Nazi white supremacists for Zionism and Israel is a match made in the racists' heaven. Self-delusional liberal Zionists act surprised that a nefarious white supremacist like Richard Spencer has openly admitted on an Israeli TV show that Israelis "should respect him" for he is "a white Zionist". But the world at large is not surprised at all. Of course, he and his ilk are all "white Zionists" - a phrase that is in fact redundant. What the liberal Zionists do not wish to admit (for it exposes their own racism) is that the white supremacists' Zionism is integral to their anti-Semitism and vice-versa. The roots of Zionism as the dominant ideology of a settler colony are in European white supremacy, evident in their much more universal colonial culture in Asia, Africa, and Latin America - to all of which Israel is now a last bastion.

Israel today is a perfect model, an aspiration in fact, for neo-Nazi white supremacists in the US and Europe. That these neo-Nazis are also anti-Semitic and Zionist is exactly the recognition that now stares American Jews in the eye.

Today, American Jews find themselves at a momentous crossroads where their historic struggles against racism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism place them face to face with Israel and the racist ideology on the basis of which it was founded. Benjamin Netanyahu's son openly calling Black Lives Matter and the Antifa "thugs" and "scum" and dismissing the significance of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville speaks voluminously of the racist foundation of Israel. The young Mr. Yair Netanyahu speaks openly and without the diplomatic finesse of liberal Zionists or the intellectual sophistication of a New York Times columnist. He says it as it is: the structural hostility of Zionism to any emancipatory civil rights movement, and its equally foundational affinity with xenophobic anti-Semites.

Today, Israelis have absolutely no moral authority, not an iota, to denounce the Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, for the neo-Nazis intend to do in the United States what the Zionists have already done in Israel: the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is a model for the white supremacists in the United States. Mass expulsion of Palestinians, the massacre of Palestinians in Deir Yasin and elsewhere: those are the Zionist trademarks the Neo-Nazis hope and wish and strive to replicate in the United States.

"Charlottesville," as a result, "is moment of truth for empowered US Zionists," as it has been pointedly suggested, especially for those boldfaced conquerors of Palestine "who name their children after Israeli generals." The militant nexus of US/Israel is today the transatlantic prototype of racist white supremacy that sustains and advances the murderous myth of the white people civilizing the world. ...