Category Archives: Fundamentalist terror

Israeli diplomat who plotted against MPs also set up political groups | World news | The Guardian

An Israeli embassy official who plotted to “take down” MPs regarded as hostile has also set up a number of political organisations in the UK that operated as though entirely independent.Shai Masot was filmed covertly as he boasted about establishing several groups, at least one of which was intended to influence Labour party policy, while appearing to obscure their links to Israel.The disclosure comes as Labour demanded the government launch an immediate inquiry into “improper interference in our democratic politics”. A former Tory government minister also called for an inquiry into the Israeli embassy’s links with two organisations, Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI).

Source: Israeli diplomat who plotted against MPs also set up political groups | World news | The Guardian

Coachella owner denies donating to anti-LGBT groups amid outrage | Music | The Guardian “Talking from both sides of mouth – he uses funds from Coachilla to fund Trump supporters!”

A major Republican donor, Anschutz gave more than $1m to conservative candidates and political fundraising groups in 2016, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog. Employees of the Anschutz Corporation also leaned heavily toward Republican candidates. The businessman has attended political events hosted by the Koch brothers, the billionaire scions of an oil fortune and also Republican donors, and Anschutz has donated to their political group Americans for Prosperity, which opposes climate change research and regulations. Anschutz’s natural gas company has also sued small towns in pursuit of fracking rights, and the businessman has invested heavily in a gigantic Wyoming wind farm.

Source: Coachella owner denies donating to anti-LGBT groups amid outrage | Music | The Guardian

‘I’m an American and I was racially profiled in Berlin 23 times’ – The Local

Nine months later and she had been stopped and checked by police a total of 23 times – while going to a museum, going to the U-Bahn station, or while out to socialize, being picked out of a group of white friends.“It really makes you feel like an outsider. I have never felt so much like an outsider as I have in Germany,” Kambhampati says.“I don’t feel welcome and that bothers me the most because I think about especially the large number of refugees that are coming in and being welcomed into the country… I’ve heard from some that have said they were racially profiled and don’t feel at home. They should feel at home.”But since she’s a journalist who came to Berlin to work for investigative news initiative Correctiv, Kambhampati didn’t let her feelings of frustration stop there.She met with Berlin police department’s press spokesman, who apologized and said the checks could be seen as illegal. But he also noted that officers wouldn’t search a “blond, German-looking person,” before later saying this wasn’t what he meant.Kambhampati first wrote about her experiences in an in-depth article for Vox last month, which can be read here. And now she’s working on an investigation with her colleagues at Correctiv, looking to find others who have had similar experiences.Different histories, different discussionsGrowing up in New Jersey and studying in Ohio, Kambhampati said she had encountered discrimination in the US as well, and similar issues of racism exist in both places. But the different immigration histories of the two countries also seems to have affected how people act today.“In Germany, many people assume I’m from India based on my skin colour rather than considering that I could be from somewhere like the US,” she explained.“I’ve gotten that before in the US, but not as much. Maybe it has to do with the way that different people have come to the US for generations now.“Some people that I’ve spoken to who have experienced racial profiling have been living in Germany their whole lives… and they still don’t feel like they are welcomed into the German society. And that’s largely in part because they’re stopped and asked questions like this.”

Source: ‘I’m an American and I was racially profiled in Berlin 23 times’ – The Local

Italy boat migrant numbers surge 20% in 2016 – The Local – “This is what greed, fear, war, hate, sexism, racism, profiteering brings all over the world!”

Migrants and refugees wait to be transferred from Malta’s Topaz Responder ship after being rescued off the coast of Libya on November 5, 2016.

Source: Italy boat migrant numbers surge 20% in 2016 – The Local

Man told to take citizenship test despite living entire life (32 years) in UK | Politics | The Guardian

A man born in London to German parents has been told he cannot get a British passport unless he takes a UK citizenship test because he cannot prove his mother was legally in the country when she gave birth.Dom Wolf, 32, said he felt betrayed by the country in which he was born and has written to Theresa May in the hope she can intervene.Wolf’s parents came to Britain in 1974 with his mother working for the University of London as a lecturer and his father being self-employed. He has been told by authorities he needs to provide proof they were here legally, even though they were entitled to live and work in Britain under EU law.

Source: Man told to take citizenship test despite living entire life in UK | Politics | The Guardian

When Good People Don’t Act | Dame Magazine

History remembers us for our actions, not our intentions, after all. Do you want to be the one who trembled in the corner while someone suffered or the person who spoke up bravely, with a quaver in your voice, and made a difference?

Source: When Good People Don’t Act | Dame Magazine

Netanyahu backs calls for convicted Israeli soldier to be pardoned | World news | The Guardian – He cannot see it as a criminal case outside of politics.

The rare case of an active serviceman being charged had been seen as a test of Israeli military justice.It also exposed deep divisions in Israeli society, not only between left and right, but between the Israeli military’s most senior officers – who pushed for the prosecution – and nationalist political figures, who have campaigned for Azaria’s acquittal.AdvertisementOn Tuesday, however, the Israeli military’s chief of staff pushed back at the most recent campaign slogan of Azaria’s supporters, which claims the soldier was “the child of us all”.Speaking at a conference in Herziliya, Gen Gadi Eisenkot warned that the attempt to portray Azaria as immature and confused “undermines the most fundamental values that we look for in our soldiers”.Among the pages of commentary in the Israeli media and on social media during the trial, perhaps most bizarre was the decision by Makor Rishon’s Profile magazine to declare Azaria one of its men of the year for “sparking the stormiest argument in Israeli society”, complete with a cover picture of the accused soldier posing with a gun.The video of the killing was filmed by a Palestinian volunteer for the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, which accused the security forces of “routine whitewashing” in a statement after the verdict.“The fact that one soldier was convicted today does not exonerate the Israeli military law-enforcement system from its routine whitewashing of cases in which security forces kill or injure Palestinians with no accountability,” B’Tselem said.“The exception of a much-publicised trial, marked by a rare instance of video documentation, is not enough to change this norm.”

Source: Netanyahu backs calls for convicted Israeli soldier to be pardoned | World news | The Guardian

The annexation of Palestine could be closer than you think | +972 Magazine

Bennett’s desire to incrementally annex parts of the West Bank are neither new nor secret. The chairman of the Jewish Home party has run on a platform of annexation since he first ran for office in 2013 and in every election since. Through short videos and aggressive sound bites, the Israeli education minister has attempted shift the public discourse, in Israel and around the world, toward his annexationist aims.

Source: The annexation of Palestine could be closer than you think | +972 Magazine

+972’s Person of the Year: The women standing up to sexual harassment | +972 Magazine

Every womanizing culture is sleazy in its own special way. In America it’s frat-boy sniggering. There’s the Mediterranean suffocating pseudo-romantic come-ons, or the conservative Middle Eastern trick of punishing women for men’s sexuality.In Israel too, sexual aggression expresses a dark underside of national and cultural flaws: swaggering ego-driven entitlement, the unquestioned certainty that specific people and positions are above both law and morality. If they break it, their buddies will cover up for them — that is the sensual intoxication of sheer physical military power.In a bygone era, these traits were romanticized and marketed to Israel’s people and outside admirers alike. Israelis prided themselves on being brash and direct; they disregarded rules to release creative problem-solving genius that is the secret of the Jews’ mythologized, centuries-old resilience. Israel views itself as the triumph of the gun over the ghetto. For heroic, nation-saving military men, helping themselves to women’s bodies seemed like a natural extension of that.When values are so deeply rooted in society, they become transparent and unquestioned. But when so many women (one high-profile man was accused by no less than 14 people) are able to step outside and see what was previously invisible, it means the silent rules that define women’s natural role in society are no longer functioning. The more visible these values become, the more flimsy their force.The women of 2016 may not have realized it, but their actions conveyed that entitlement, impunity, and brash invasiveness — at least as manifested in sexual aggression — are now anathema. No longer do military, religious, or political causes justify the sacrifice of their physical and spiritual integrity. Manipulate these causes for self-satisfying urges, and it won’t end well.

Source: +972’s Person of the Year: The women standing up to sexual harassment | +972 Magazine

176 settlers break into the yards of Al-Aqsa mosque – PNN “What do you call it when people break into your place of worship to hold their rites, not yours?”

176 Israeli settlers on Wednesday morning broke into the yards of the Al-Aqsa mosque in consecutive small groups, heavily protected by Israeli special forces.Local sources in Jerusalem said that extremist settlers have entered the mosque from the Mughrabi gate by Israeli police, and carried out Talmudic rituals in it.

Source: 176 settlers break into the yards of Al-Aqsa mosque – PNN