Some interesting stuff you might have missed reading in May, 2024

https://open.substack.com/pub/starkrealities/p/george-washington-warned-against

As war rages in Gaza, the intensifying debate over the US-Israel relationship spotlights a political paradox: Those Americans who view George Washington with deepest reverence — that is, would-be “conservatives” — are often the ones who most zealously violate the central tenet of his foreign policy philosophy.

Specifically, their fierce devotion to the State of Israel defies Washington’s admonition against “passionate attachments” to other countries — attachments that, he said, inevitably lead America “astray from its duty and its interest.”

That’s not to say that excessive advocacy for Israel is confined to the American right: As demonstrated by President Biden’s backing of Israel’s destruction of Gaza, the championing of policies that serve Israel to America’s detriment also runs rampant among establishment Democrats.

Regardless of your position on the political spectrum, Washington’s foreign policy advice merits your attention, and the US-Israel relationship serves as a case study that validates his warnings about the many evils that spring from “habitual fondness” for a foreign nation...including one that didn’t exist when his warnings were issued................

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https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/israeli-american-council/

T he Israeli-American Council has worked in tandem with Israeli intelligence agencies for years. Last month, its leaders vowed to shut down the encampment at UCLA.

James Bamford

 

  t was time to fight back on America’s college campuses. And the little known Israeli-American Council (IAC), an organization with close ties to Israeli intelligence, and made up mostly of Israeli expats, decided that it would lead the nationwide charge. On Sunday, April 28, as members of the group arrived on UCLA’s grass-covered Dickson Plaza, the IAC’s CEO, Elan Carr, took the stage. A Republican politician, former member of the National Council of AIPAC, and special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism in the Trump administration, he had little regard for anyone who disparaged Israel. In the past, he had compared the call for an economic boycott of Israel to actions by the Nazis. And he has said that the group Jewish Voice for Peace, whose members were taking part in the protest, “openly traffics in anti-Semitism.”

 

Among those addressing a crowd of Israeli-flag-waving counterprotesters, with the encampment holding the pro-Palestinian demonstrators directly behind them, was Israel’s Consul General to the Pacific Southwest, Israel Bachar. Also speaking was Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. Then came Carr, who announced that the fight had begun. “We will take back our streets. We will take back our campuses from Columbia University to UCLA and everywhere in between,” he said. The question is, given IAC’s long history of close links to Israeli intelligence organizations, for whom are they taking the campuses back?.....

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https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/the-trouble-with-world-government-5649684

 

The Trouble With World Government

 By Jeffrey A. Tucker

5/14/2024

 Well, at least that’s one setback for world government.

A court in Australia has told the government’s own eSafety Commission that Elon Musk is correct: One country cannot impose censorship on the world. The company X, formerly known as Twitter, must obey national law but not global law.

Mr. Musk seems to have won a very similar fight in Brazil, where a judge demanded not just a national but global takedown. X refused and won. For now.

This really does raise a serious issue: How big of a threat are these global government institutions?

Dreamy, dopey, and often scary intellectuals have dreamed of global government for centuries. If you are rich enough and smart enough, the idea seems to be the perennial temptation. The list of advocates includes people who otherwise have made notable contributions: Albert Einstein, Isaac Asimov, Walter Cronkite, Buckminster Fuller, and many others...................

 

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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/magazine/israel-west-bank-settler-violence-impunity.html

The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel

After 50 years of failure to stop violence and terrorism against Palestinians by Jewish ultranationalists, lawlessness has become the law.

By Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti

  This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state itself. Taken together, they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power.

 

By the end of October, it was clear that no one was going to help the villagers of Khirbet Zanuta. A tiny Palestinian community, some 150 people perched on a windswept hill in the West Bank near Hebron, it had long faced threats from the Jewish settlers who had steadily encircled it. But occasional harassment and vandalism, in the days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, escalated into beatings and murder threats. The villagers made appeal after appeal to the Israeli police and to the ever-present Israeli military, but their calls for protection went largely unheeded, and the attacks continued with no consequences. So one day the villagers packed what they could, loaded their families into trucks and disappeared..............

 

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https://mishtalk.com/economics/shocking-headline-of-the-day-germany-to-re-introduce-slavery/

 Shocking Headline of the Day: Germany to Re-Introduce Slavery

May 10, 2024

Young Germans will have to choose between the Bundeswehr (military service) and unpaid social service work. Libertarians to a person, will call this slavery, because that is what it is.

Germany to Re-Introduce Slavery

Please consider the Eurointelligence headline story Germany to Re-Introduce Slavery

The headline might be bordering on the hysterical, but the big idea in German politics right now is to re-introduce the general draft. This is not happening because Germany expects to be at war. It is not about the military at all. Under the plans, young people, male and female, can choose between the Bundeswehr or a year of forced labour in the social services, essentially uncompensated.

The main reason we see is that their fiscal rules have depleted them with the resources to fund the Bundeswehr and critical social services like old-age care. For example, there is a big row going on right now within the coalition currently between Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, and Christian Lindner, over Pistorius’ demands for another €6bn for the Bundeswehr. The discussions on the reintroduction of the draft are at an early stage. They won’t affect the current budget dispute. But it could go some way to fix the Bundeswehr’s budget issues.

The SPD leader Lars Klingbeil sugar-coated the idea as giving young people an opportunity to serve the state at one point in their lives. Another underlying assumption is that young people are infinitely stupid. German high school goes until the age of 19. This is higher than elsewhere because German children do not start school until they are 6. With a year of enforced military or social services, they won’t start their studies or apprenticeship until they are 20. A Bachelor’s degree takes three, but this is usually not sufficient. So they will be 24 or 25 when they hit the labour market. This puts them at a distinct disadvantage to young people elsewhere.

We expect mass emigration as a result. Young Ukrainian men who try to escape the draft often do so at the risk of their lives. Romanian police have discovered bodies of young Ukrainians trying to swim through the Tisa river into Romania. Young Germans won’t have to swim through the Rhine. They can just go anywhere within the Schengen area, and study where they like. For a country that is facing structural labour shortages, the re-introduction of the draft is about the worst policy decision imaginable. The smart people will leave.

The political support is strengthening. The FDP has called for it. The SPD is also now in favour. The CDU says it is open to a discussion. The AfD will naturally support it. The Greens and the Left Party are opposed, but that won’t be enough to stop it.

Not an “Opportunity”

What’s being proposed is not an opportunity. It’s a mandate for servitude.....................