TBR News April 22, 2017

Apr 22 2017

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C. April 22, 2017:” “It is well-known to people who work inside the Beltway that our legislators and political leaders consider the bulk of the American people,(minus those with money who can be counted on to bribe) are nothing but a flock of stupid sheep. The sheep, it is true, via their automatically deducted tax money, support the government and their business friends. We saw the boring old formula trotted out when the machinery decided that Hillary would be the new President. When, almost without warning, the machinery failed, shock and rage filled the shriveled souls of those accustomed to command, and they retaliated with spite and lies. Their hysterical eruptions are so transparent that many of the sheep deserted them and ran of bleating to another pasture.”

Table of Contents

  • Why Not a Probe of ‘Israel-gate’?
  • The Bunche Report
  • The Spy State Unleashed
  • German intelligence agency spied on Interpol and news organizations: Spiegel
  • Erdogan Leads His Country into the Abyss
  • American Airlines apologises to woman hit with buggy by crew member
  • ‘Totally surreal’: Blackouts hit LA, New York and San Francisco
  • ‘Hobbit’ species did not evolve from ancestor of modern humans, research finds
  • The Cro-Magnon man: Not out of Africa
  • New evidence suggests Stone Age hunters from Europe discovered America
  • US regressing into a developing nation for most people, MIT professor warns
  • Border Agency Under Investigation for Trying to Unmask Anonymous Twitter Account

 Why Not a Probe of ‘Israel-gate’?

As Official Washington fumes about Russia-gate, Israel’s far more significant political-influence-and-propaganda campaigns are ignored. No one dares suggest a probe of Israel-gate

April 20, 2017

by Robert Parry

consortium news

The other day, I asked a longtime Democratic Party insider who is working on the Russia-gate investigation which country interfered more in U.S. politics, Russia or Israel. Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “Israel, of course.”Which underscores my concern about the hysteria raging across Official Washington about “Russian meddling” in the 2016 presidential campaign: There is no proportionality applied to the question of foreign interference in U.S. politics. If there were, we would have a far more substantive investigation of Israel-gate.

The problem is that if anyone mentions the truth about Israel’s clout, the person is immediately smeared as “anti-Semitic” and targeted by Israel’s extraordinarily sophisticated lobby and its many media/political allies for vilification and marginalization.

So, the open secret of Israeli influence is studiously ignored, even as presidential candidates prostrate themselves before the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both appeared before AIPAC in 2016, with Clinton promising to take the U.S.-Israeli relationship “to the next level” – whatever that meant – and Trump vowing not to “pander” and then pandering like crazy.

Congress is no different. It has given Israel’s controversial Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a record-tying three invitations to address joint sessions of Congress (matching the number of times British Prime Minister Winston Churchill appeared). We then witnessed the Republicans and Democrats competing to see how often their members could bounce up and down and who could cheer Netanyahu the loudest, even when the Israeli prime minister was instructing the Congress to follow his position on Iran rather than President Obama’s.

Israeli officials and AIPAC also coordinate their strategies to maximize political influence, which is derived in large part by who gets the lobby’s largesse and who doesn’t. On the rare occasion when members of Congress step out of line – and take a stand that offends Israeli leaders – they can expect a well-funded opponent in their next race, a tactic that dates back decades.

Well-respected members, such as Rep. Paul Findley and Sen. Charles Percy (both Republicans from Illinois), were early victims of the Israeli lobby’s wrath when they opened channels of communication with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the cause of seeking peace. Findley was targeted and defeated in 1982; Percy in 1984.

Findley recounted his experience in a 1985 book, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby, in which Findley called the lobby “the 700-pound gorilla in Washington.” The book was harshly criticized in a New York Times review by Adam Clymer, who called it “an angry, one-sided book that seems often to be little more than a stringing together of stray incidents.”

Enforced Silence

Since then, there have been fewer and fewer members of Congress or other American politicians who have dared to speak out, judging that – when it comes to the Israeli lobby – discretion is the better part of valor. Today, many U.S. pols grovel before the Israeli government seeking a sign of favor from Prime Minister Netanyahu, almost like Medieval kings courting the blessings of the Pope at the Vatican.

During the 2008 campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama, whom Netanyahu viewed with suspicion, traveled to Israel to demonstrate sympathy for Israelis within rocket-range of Gaza while steering clear of showing much empathy for the Palestinians.

In 2012, Republican nominee Mitt Romney tried to exploit the tense Obama-Netanyahu relationship by stopping in Israel to win a tacit endorsement from Netanyahu. The 2016 campaign was no exception with both Clinton and Trump stressing their love of Israel in their appearances before AIPAC.

Money, of course, has become the lifeblood of American politics – and American supporters of Israel have been particularly strategic in how they have exploited that reality.

One of Israel’s most devoted advocates, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has poured millions of dollars in “dark money” into political candidates and groups that support Israel’s interests. Adelson, who has advocated dropping a nuclear bomb inside Iran to coerce its government, is a Trump favorite having donated a record $5 million to Trump’s inaugural celebration.

Of course, many Israel-connected political donations are much smaller but no less influential. A quarter century ago, I was told how an aide to a Democratic foreign policy chairman, who faced a surprisingly tough race after redistricting, turned to the head of AIPAC for help and, almost overnight, donations were pouring in from all over the country. The chairman was most thankful.

The October Surprise Mystery

Israel’s involvement in U.S. politics also can be covert. For instance, the evidence is now overwhelming that the Israeli government of right-wing Prime Minister Menachem Begin played a key role in helping Ronald Reagan’s campaign in 1980 strike a deal with Iran to frustrate President Jimmy Carter’s efforts to free 52 American hostages before Election Day.

Begin despised Carter for the Camp David Accords that forced Israel to give back the Sinai to Egypt. Begin also believed that Carter was too sympathetic to the Palestinians and – if he won a second term – would conspire with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to impose a two-state solution on Israel.

Begin’s contempt for Carter was not even a secret. In a 1991 book, The Last Option, senior Israeli intelligence and foreign policy official David Kimche explained Begin’s motive for dreading Carter’s reelection. Kimche said Israeli officials had gotten wind of “collusion” between Carter and Sadat “to force Israel to abandon her refusal to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, and to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

Kimche continued, “This plan prepared behind Israel’s back and without her knowledge must rank as a unique attempt in United States’s diplomatic history of short-changing a friend and ally by deceit and manipulation.”

But Begin recognized that the scheme required Carter winning a second term in 1980 when, Kimche wrote, “he would be free to compel Israel to accept a settlement of the Palestinian problem on his and Egyptian terms, without having to fear the backlash of the American Jewish lobby.”

In a 1992 memoir, Profits of War, former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe also noted that Begin and other Likud leaders held Carter in contempt.

“Begin loathed Carter for the peace agreement forced upon him at Camp David,” Ben-Menashe wrote. “As Begin saw it, the agreement took away Sinai from Israel, did not create a comprehensive peace, and left the Palestinian issue hanging on Israel’s back.”

So, in order to buy time for Israel to “change the facts on the ground” by moving Jewish settlers into the West Bank, Begin felt Carter’s reelection had to be prevented. A different president also presumably would give Israel a freer hand to deal with problems on its northern border with Lebanon.

Ben-Menashe was among a couple of dozen government officials and intelligence operatives who described how Reagan’s campaign, mostly through future CIA Director William Casey and past CIA Director George H.W. Bush, struck a deal in 1980 with senior Iranians who got promises of arms via Israel in exchange for keeping the hostages through the election and thus humiliating Carter. (The hostages were finally released on Jan. 20, 1981, after Reagan was sworn in as President.)

Discrediting History

Though the evidence of the so-called October Surprise deal is far stronger than the current case for believing that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign, Official Washington and the mainstream U.S. media have refused to accept it, deeming it a “conspiracy theory.”

One of the reasons for the hostility directed against the 1980 case was the link to Israel, which did not want its hand in manipulating the election of a U.S. president to become an accepted part of American history. So, for instance, the Israeli government went to great lengths to discredit Ben-Menashe after he began to speak with reporters and to give testimony to the U.S. Congress.

When I was a Newsweek correspondent and first interviewed Ben-Menashe in 1990, the Israeli government initially insisted that he was an impostor, that he had no connection to Israeli intelligence.

However, when I obtained documentary evidence of Ben-Menashe’s work for a military intelligence unit, the Israelis admitted that they had lied but then insisted that he was just a low-level translator, a claim that was further contradicted by other documents showing that he had traveled widely around the world on missions to obtain weapons for the Israel-to-Iran arms pipeline.

Nevertheless, the Israeli government along with sympathetic American reporters and members of the U.S. Congress managed to shut down any serious investigation into the 1980 operation, which was, in effect, the prequel to Reagan’s Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal of 1984-86. Thus, U.S. history was miswritten. [For more details, see Robert Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative; Secrecy & Privilege; and Trick or Treason.]

Looking back over the history of U.S.-Israeli relations, it is clear that Israel exercised significant influence over U.S. presidents since its founding in 1948, but the rise of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party in the 1970s – led by former Jewish terrorists Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir – marked a time when Israel shed any inhibitions about interfering directly in U.S. politics.

Much as Begin and Shamir engaged in terror attacks on British officials and Palestinian civilians during Israel’s founding era, the Likudniks who held power in 1980 believed that the Zionist cause trumped normal restraints on their actions. In other words, the ends justified the means.

In the 1980s, Israel also mounted spying operations aimed at the U.S. government, including those of intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard, who fed highly sensitive documents to Israel and – after being caught and spending almost three decades in prison – was paroled and welcomed as a hero inside Israel.

A History of Interference

But it is true that foreign interference in U.S. politics is as old as the American Republic. In the 1790s, French agents – working with the Jeffersonians – tried to rally Americans behind France’s cause in its conflict with Great Britain. In part to frustrate the French operation, the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts.

In the Twentieth Century, Great Britain undertook covert influence operations to ensure U.S. support in its conflicts with Germany, while German agents unsuccessfully sought the opposite.

So, the attempts by erstwhile allies and sometimes adversaries to move U.S. foreign policy in one direction or another is nothing new, and the U.S. government engages in similar operations in countries all over the world, both overtly and covertly.

It was the CIA’s job for decades to use propaganda and dirty tricks to ensure that pro-U.S. politicians were elected or put in power in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, pretty much everywhere the U.S. government perceived some interest. After the U.S. intelligence scandals of the 1970s, however, some of that responsibility was passed to other organizations, such as the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

NED, USAID and various “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs) finance activists, journalists and other operatives to undermine political leaders who are deemed to be obstacles to U.S. foreign policy desires.

In particular, NED has been at the center of efforts to flip elections to U.S.-backed candidates, such as in Nicaragua in 1990, or to sponsor “color revolutions,” which typically organize around some color as the symbol for mass demonstrations. Ukraine – on Russia’s border – has been the target of two such operations, the Orange Revolution in 2004, which helped install anti-Russian President Viktor Yushchenko, and the Maidan ouster of elected pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.

NED president Carl Gershman, a neoconservative who has run NED since its founding in 1983, openly declared that Ukraine was “the biggest prize” in September 2013 — just months before the Maidan protests — as well as calling it an important step toward ousting Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2016, Gershman called directly for regime change in Russia.

The Neoconservatives

Another key issue related to Israeli influence inside the United States is the role of the neocons, a political movement that emerged in the 1970s as a number of hawkish Democrats migrated to the Republican Party as a home for more aggressive policies to protect Israel and take on the Soviet Union and Arab states.

In some European circles, the neocons are described as “Israel’s American agents,” which may somewhat overstate the direct linkage between Israel and the neocons although a central tenet of neocon thinking is that there must be no daylight between the U.S. and Israel. The neocons say U.S. politicians must stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel even if that means the Americans sidling up to the Israelis rather than any movement the other way.

Since the mid-1990s, American neocons have worked closely with Benjamin Netanyahu. Several prominent neocons (including former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, Meyrav Wurmser and Robert Loewenberg) advised Netanyahu’s 1996 campaign and urged a new strategy for “securing the realm.” Essentially, the idea was to replace negotiations with the Palestinians and Arab states with “regime change” for governments that were viewed as troublesome to Israel, including Iraq and Syria.

By 1998, the Project for the New American Century (led by neocons William Kristol and Robert Kagan) was pressuring President Bill Clinton to invade Iraq, a plan that was finally put in motion in 2003 under President George W. Bush.

But the follow-on plans to go after Syria and Iran were delayed because the Iraq War turned into a bloody mess, killing some 4,500 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Bush could not turn to phase two until near the end of his presidency and then was frustrated by a U.S. intelligence estimate concluding that Iran was not working on a nuclear bomb (which was to be the pretext for a bombing campaign).

Bush also could pursue “regime change” in Syria only as a proxy effort of subversion, rather than a full-scale U.S. invasion. President Barack Obama escalated the Syrian proxy war in 2011 with the support of Israel and its strange-bedfellow allies in Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni-ruled Gulf States, which hated Syria’s government because it was allied with Shiite-ruled Iran — and Sunnis and Shiites have been enemies since the Seventh Century. Israel insists that the U.S. take the Sunni side, even if that puts the U.S. in bed with Al Qaeda.

But Obama dragged his heels on a larger U.S. military intervention in Syria and angered Netanyahu further by negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program rather than bomb-bomb-bombing Iran.

Showing the Love

Obama’s perceived half-hearted commitment to Israeli interests explained Romney’s campaign 2012 trip to seek Netanyahu’s blessings. Even after winning a second term, Obama sought to appease Netanyahu by undertaking a three-day trip to Israel in 2013 to show his love.

Still, in 2015, when Obama pressed ahead with the Iran nuclear agreement, Netanyahu went over the President’s head directly to Congress where he was warmly received, although the Israeli prime minister ultimately failed to sink the Iran deal.

In Campaign 2016, both Clinton and Trump wore their love for Israel on their sleeves, Clinton promising to take the relationship to “the next level” (a phrase that young couples often use when deciding to go from heavy petting to intercourse). Trump reminded AIPAC that he had a Jewish grandchild and vowed to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Both also bristled with hatred toward Iran, repeating the popular falsehood that “Iran is the principal source of terrorism” when it is Saudi Arabia and other Sunni sheikdoms that have been the financial and military supporters of Al Qaeda and Islamic State, the terror groups most threatening to Europe and the United States.

By contrast to Israel’s long history of playing games with U.S. politics, the Russian government stands accused of trying to undermine the U.S. political process recently by hacking into emails of the Democratic National Committee — revealing the DNC’s improper opposition to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s campaign — and of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta — disclosing the contents of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street and pay-to-play aspects of the Clinton Foundation — and sharing that information with the American people via WikiLeaks.

Although WikiLeaks denies getting the two batches of emails from the Russians, the U.S. intelligence community says it has high confidence in its conclusions about Russian meddling and the mainstream U.S. media treats the allegations as flat-fact.

The U.S. intelligence community also has accused the Russian government of raising doubts in the minds of Americans about their political system by having RT, the Russian-sponsored news network, hold debates for third-party candidates (who were excluded from the two-party Republican-Democratic debates) and by having RT report on protests such as Occupy Wall Street and issues such as “fracking.”

The major U.S. news media and Congress seem to agree that the only remaining question is whether evidence can be adduced showing that the Trump campaign colluded in this Russian operation. For that purpose, a number of people associated with the Trump campaign are to be hauled before Congress and made to testify on whether or not they are Russian agents.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other establishment-approved outlets are working with major technology companies on how to marginalize independent news sources and to purge “Russian propaganda” (often conflated with “fake news”) from the Internet.

It seems that no extreme is too extreme to protect the American people from the insidious Russians and their Russia-gate schemes to sow doubt about the U.S. political process. But God forbid if anyone were to suggest an investigation of Israel-gate.

The Bunche Report

Foreword: In view of the tragic assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte by identified Jewish terrorists on September 17 of this year, the following report has been prepared for the use of Dr. Bunche, Count Bernadotte’s immediate replacement.

This report is a compilation of all identified terrorist attacks on British, American and Arab individuals and entities in the assassination of the British Resident Minister in the Middle East on November 6, 1944 by members of the terrorist Jewish Stern gang to the assassination of Count Bernadotte on September 17, 1948 by members of this same gang of fanatics.

This information is compiled from reports of the US Department of State, the British Foreign Office and various American and British press services.

New York, October 1, 1948

Chronology

 

1944

1

November 6, 1944, Cairo. Lord Moyne, British Resident Minister in the Middle East, and his driver were assassinated outside the minister’s Cairo residence. Two murderers were involved. One was injured, and both were imme¬diately arrested.

 

1945

 

2

January 10, 1945, Cairo. The British supreme military court today put on trial Eliahu Bet-Tsours from Tel Aviv and Eliahu Hakim of Haifa, both admitted members of the Jewish terrorist Stern gang.

3

January 18, 1945, Cairo. The British supreme military court sentenced the murderers of Lord Moyne to death. Both killers admitted their act and also admitted their membership in the Stem gang which they said ordered the killings as a warning to the British not to interfere with future Jewish immigration to Jerusalem.

4

March 22, 1945, Cairo. The two convicted Jewish Stern gang terrorists who murdered Lord Moyne and his driver were hanged today in the Cairo prison British authorities announced.

 

1946

5

January 12, 1946, Palestine. A train was derailed by Jewish terrorists at Hadera near Haifa by a bomb and robbed of £35,000 in cash. Two British police officials were injured.

6

January 18, 1946, Haifa. Over 900 illegal Jewish immi¬grants were captured off Haifa by the British Royal Navy

7

January 19, 1946, Jerusalem. .Jewish terrorists destroyed a power station and a portion of the Central Jerusalem prison by explosives. Two persons were killed by the police.

8

January 20, 1946, Palestine. Jewish terrorists launched an attack against the British-controlled Givat Olga Coast Guard Station located between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Ten persons were injured and one was killed. Captured papers indicated that the purpose of this raid was to take revenge on the British for their seizure of the refugee ship on January 18. British military authorities in Jerusalem ques¬tioned 3,000 Jews and held 148 in custody.

9

April 25, 1946, Palestine. Jewish terrorists attacked a British military installation near Tel Aviv. This group, which contained a number of young girls, had as its goal the capture of British weapons. British authorities rounded up 1,200 suspects.

10

June 24, 1946, Palestine. The Irgun radio “Fighting Zion” warns that three kidnapped British officers are held as hostages for two Irgun members, Josef Simkohn and Issac Ashbel facing execution as well as 31 Irgun members facing trial.

11

June 27, 1946, Palestine. Thirty Irgun members are sen¬tenced by a British military court to 15 years imprison. One, Benjamin Kaplan was sentenced to life for carrying a firearm.

12

June 29, 1946, Palestine. British military units and police raided Jewish settlements throughout Palestine searching for the leaders of Haganah, a leading Jewish terrorist agency The Jewish Agency for Palestine was occupied and four top official arrested. At the end of June, 1946 2,000 were arrested and four Jews and one British soldier were killed.

13

July 1, 1946, Palestine. British officials announced the discovery of a large arms dump hidden underground at Meshek Yagur. 2,659 men and 59 women were detained for the three day operation in which 27 settlements were searched. For were killed and 80 were injured.

14

July 3, 1946, Palestine. Palestine High Commissioner Lt. General Sir Alan Cunningham commuted to life imprisonment the death sentences of Josef Simkhon and Issac Ashbel, Irgun members.

15

July 4, 1946, Tel Aviv. British officers, Captains K. Spencer, C. Warburton and A. Taylor who had been kidnapped by the Irgun on June 18 and held as hostages for the lives of Simkohn and Ashbel, were released in Tel Aviv unharmed. At this time, Irgun issued a declaration of war against the British claiming that they had no alternative but to fight.

16

July 22, 1946, Jerusalem. The west wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which housed British Military Headquarters and other governmental offices was destroyed at 12:57 PM by explosives planted in the cellar by members of the Irgun terrorist gang. By the 26 of July, the casualties were 76 persons killed, 46 injured and 29 still missing in the rubble. The dead included many British, Arabs and Jews.

17

July 23, l946 Jerusalem. The Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorist group takes responsibility for the King David bombing but blames the British, calling them “tyrants.”

18

July 24, 1946, London. The British government released a White Paper that accuses the Haganah, Irgun and Stern gangs of “a planned movement of sabotage and violence” under the direction of the Jewish Agency and asserts that the June 29 arrest of Zionist leaders was the cause of the bombing.

19

July 28, 1946, Jerusalem. The British Palestine Commander, Lt. General Sir Evelyn Barker, banned frater¬nization by British troops with Palestine Jews whom he stated “cannot be absolved of responsibility for terroristic acts.” The order states that this will punish “the race . . . by striking at their pockets and showing our contempt for them”

20

July 29, 1946, Tel Aviv. Police in Tel Aviv raided a workshop making bombs.

21

July 30, 1946, Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is placed under a 22-hour-a-day curfew as 20,000 British troops began a house-to-house sweep for terrorists. The city is sealed off from the rest of Jerusalem and troops are ordered to shoot to kill any curfew violators.

22

July 31, 1946, Tel Aviv. A large cache of weapons, extensive counterfeiting equipment and $1,000,000 in counterfeit Government bonds were discovered in Tel Aviv’s largest synagogue.

23

July 31, 1946, Haifa. Two ships have arrived at Haifa with a total of 3,200 illegal Jewish immigrants.

24

August 2, 1946, Tel Aviv. British military authorities ended the curfew in Tel Aviv after detaining 500 persons for further questioning. A second arms dump was discovered on July 1 in a school building.

25

August 2, 1946, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government disclosed that 91 persons were killed and 45 injured in the King David bombing.

26

August 2, 1946, Jerusalem. Jerusalem police announced the arrest of Itzhak Yestemitsky second man in the Stern gang.

27

August 12, 1946, London. The British Government announced that it will allow no more unscheduled immigration into Palestine and that those seeking entry into that country will be sent to Cyprus and other areas under detention. Declaring that such immigration threatens a civil war with the Arab population, it charges a “minority of Zionist extremists” with attempting to force an unacceptable solution of the Palestine problem.

28

August 12, 1946, Haifa. Two ships carrying a total of 1,300 Jewish refugees arrived at Haifa. The port area was isolated on August 11 by British military and naval units. The first deportation ship sailed for Cyprus with 500 Jews on board.

29

August 13, 1946, Haifa. Three Jews were killed and seven wounded when British troops were compelled to fire on a crowd of about 1,000 persons frying to break into the port area of Haifa. Two Royal Navy ships with 1,300 illegal Jewish immigrants on board sailed for Cyprus. Another ship with 600 illegal immigrants was captured and confined in the Haifa harbor.

30

August 26, 1946, Palestine. British military units searched the coastal villages of Casera and Sadoth Yam for three Jews who bombed the transport  “Empire Rival” last week Eighty-five persons, including the entire male popu¬lation of one of the villages were sent to the Rafa detention center.

31

August 27, 1946, Palestine. During the searches conducted on August 26, an explosive limpet mine similar to the one used on the “Empire Rival” was found.

32

August 29, 1946, Jerusalem. The British Government announced the commutation to life imprisonment of the death sentences imposed on l8 Jewish youths convicted of bombing the Haifa railroad shops.

33

August 30, 1946, Palestine. British military units discovered arms and munitions dumps in the Jewish farming villages of Dorot and Ruhama.

34

September 8, 1946, Palestine. Zionist terrorists cut the Palestine railroad in 50 places.

35

September 9, 1946, Tel Aviv. two British officers were killed in an explosion in a public building.

36

September 9, 1946, Haifa. An Arab constable was killed.

37

September 10, 1946, Palestine. British troops imposed a curfew and arrested 101 Jews and wounded two in a search for saboteurs in Tel Aviv and neighboring Ramat Gan. Irgun terrorist group took the action against the railways on September 8, as a protest.

38

September 14, 1946, Jaffa. Jewish terrorists robbed three banks in Jaffa and Tel Aviv, killing three Arabs. Thirty-six Jews were arrested.

39

September 15, 1946, Tel Aviv. Jewish terrorists attacked a police station on the coast near Tel Aviv but were driven off by gunfire.

40

October 2, 1946, Tel Aviv. British military units and police seized 5O Jews in a Tel  Aviv cafe after a Jewish home was blown up. This home belonged to a Jewish woman who had refused to pay extortion money to the Irgun terrorist gang.

41

October 6, 1944 Jerusalem. An RAF man was killed by gunfire

42

October 8, 1946, Jerusalem. Two British soldiers were killed when their truck detonated a land mine outside Jerusalem. A leading Arab figure was wounded in a simi¬lar mine explosion in Jerusalem and more road mines were found near Government House.

43

October 31, 1946, Rome. The British Embassy in Rome was damaged by a bomb, believed to have been planted by Jewish terrorists.

44

November 3, 1946, Palestine. Two Jews and two Arabs were killed in clashes between Arabs and a group of Jews attempting to establish a settlement at Lake Hula in northern Palestine.

45

November 4, 1946, Rome. Italian authorities released a letter in which the Jewish terrorist gang, Irgun, took credit for the October 31 embassy bombing.

46

November 5, 1946, Palestine. British authorities released the following eight Jewish Agency leaders from the Latrun concentration camp where they had been held since June 29: Moshe Shertok, Dr. Issac Greenbaum, Dr. Bernard Joseph, David Remiz, David Hacohen, David Shingarevsky, Joseph Shoffman and Mordecai Shatter. A total of 2,550 Haganah suspects have also been released as well as 779 Jews arrested in the wake of the King David bombing.

47

November 7, 1946, Palestine. Railroad traffic was suspended for 24 hours throughout Palestine following a fourth Irgun attack on railway facilities in two days.

48

November 9 through November 13, 1946, Palestine. Nineteen persons, eleven British soldiers and policemen and eight Arab constables, were killed in Palestine during this period as Jewish terrorists, using land mines and suitcase bombs, increased their attacks on railroad stations, trains and even streetcars.

49

November 14, 1946, London. The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned Jewish terrorist groups who threatened to export their terrorism to England.

50

November 18, 1946, Tel Aviv. Police in Tel Aviv attacked Jews, assaulting many and firing into houses. Twenty Jews were injured in fights with British troops following the death on November 17 of three policemen and an RAF sergeant in a land mine explosion.

51

Five persons were injured when a bomb exploded in the Jerusalem tax office.

52

December 2 through December 5,1946, Palestine. Ten persons, including six British soldiers, were killed in bomb and land-mine explosions.

53

December 3,1946, Jerusalem. A member of the Stern gang was killed in an aborted hold-up attempt

54

December 26,1946, Palestine. Armed Jewish terrorists raided two diamond factories in Nathanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with nearly $107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds. These raids signaled an end to a two- week truce during the World Zionist Congress.

 

 

1947

 

55

January 1, 1947, Jerusalem. Dov Gruner was sentenced to hang by a British military court for taking part in a raid on the Ramat Gan police headquarters in April of 1946.

56

January 2, 1947, Palestine. A wave of terror swept Palestine as Jewish terrorists staged bombings and machine gun attacks in five cities. Casualties were low. Homemade flame-throwers were used in several cases. Pamphlets seized warned that the Irgun had again declared war against the British and Arabs of Palestine.

57

January 4, 1947, Jerusalem. British soldiers have been ordered to wear sidearms at all times and were forbidden to enter any cafe or restaurant

58

January 5, 1947, Egypt ,Eleven British troops were injured in a hand grenade attack on a train carrying troops to Palestine. The attack took place near Benha, 25 miles from Cairo.

59

January 8, 1947, Palestine. British police arrested 32 per¬sons suspected of being members of the Irgun terrorist gang’s “Black Squad” in raids on Rishon-el Zion and Rehoboth.

60

January 12, 1947, Haifa. A single terrorist drove a truck filled with high explosives into the central police station and exploded it, killing two British policemen and two Arab constables and injuring 140 others. The terrorist escaped. This action ended a 10-day lull in the violence and the Stern gang took the credit for it

61

January 13, 1947, Haifa. British soldiers and police screened 872 persons in Haifa and detained 10 for further questioning as Arabs and Jews both condemned the bombing.

62

January 14, 1947, Jerusalem. Yehudi Katz is sentenced to life in prison by a Jerusalem court for robbing a bank in Jaffa in September of 1946 to obtain funds for the terrorists.

63

January 21, 1947, London. Dr. Emmanuel Neumann, vice president of the Zionist Organization of America, declared US. Zionists would spend “millions” to finance illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine. A Haganah spokesman in Paris claimed that 211,878 Jews entered Palestine illegally during the past 15 months.

64

January 22, 1947, Palestine. Sir Harry Gurney, Chief Secretary, stated that the British administration was taxing Palestine $2,400,000 to pay for sabotage by the terrorists.

65

January 22, 1947, London. Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones informed the House of Commons 73 British subjects were murdered by Palestine terrorists in 1946 and

“no culprits have been convicted.”

66

January 27, 1947, London. Britain’s conference on Palestine, boycotted by the Jews, reconvened. Jamal el Husseini, Palestine Arab leader, declared that the Arab world was unalterably opposed to partition as a solution to the problem. The session then adjourned.

67

January 29, 1947, London. It was officially announced that the British Cabinet decided to partition Palestine.

68

January 29, 1947, Jerusalem. Irgun forces released former Maj. H. Collins, a British banker, who they kidnapped on January 26 from his home. He had been badly beaten. On January 28, the Irgun released Judge Ralph Windham who had been kidnapped in Tel Aviv on January 27 while trying a case. These men had been taken as hostages for Dov Bela Gruner, an Irgun member under death sentence for terrorism. The British High Commissioner, Lt Gen.. Sir Alan Cunningham, had threatened martial law unless the two men were returned unharmed.

69

January 31, 1947, Jerusalem. General Cunningham ordered the wives and children of all British civilians to leave Palestine at once. About 2,000 are involved. This order did not apply to the 5,000 Americans in Palestine.

70

February 3, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government issued a 7-day ultimatum to the Jewish Agency demanding that it state “categorically and at once” whether it and the supreme Jewish Council in Palestine will call on the Jewish community by February 10 for “cooperation with the police and armed forces in bringing to justice the members of the terrorist groups.” This request was publicly rejected by Mrs. Goldie Meyerson, head of the Jewish Agency’s political department

71

February 4, 1947, Jerusalem. British District Commissioner James Pollock disclosed a plan for military occupation of three sectors of Jerusalem and orders nearly 1,000 Jews to evacuate the Rehavia, Schneler and German quarters by noon, February 6.

72

February 5, 1947, Jerusalem. The Vaad Leumi rejected the British ultimatum while the Irgun passed out leaflets that it was prepared to fight to the death against the British authority. The first 700 of some 1,500 British women and children ordered to evacuate Palestine leave by plane and train for Egypt. British authorities, preparing for military action, order other families from sections of Tel Aviv and Haifa which will be turned into fortified military areas.

73

February 9, 1947, Haifa. British troops removed 650 ille¬gal Jewish immigrants from the schooner ‘Negev” at Haifa and after a struggle forced them aboard the ferry ‘Emperor Haywood” for deportation to Cyprus.

74

February 14, 1947, Jerusalem. The British administration revealed that Lt Gen. Sir Evelyn Barker, retiring British commander in Palestine, had confirmed the death sen¬tences of three Irgun members on February 12 before leav¬ing for England. The three men, Dov Ben Rosenbaum, Eliezer Ben Kashani and Mordecai Ben Alhachi, had been sentenced on February 10 to be hanged for carrying firearms. A fourth, Haim Gorovetzky, received a life sen¬tence because of his youth. Lt Gen. G. MacMillian arrived in Jerusalem on February 13 to succeed Gen. Barker.

75

February 15, 1947, Palestine. The Sabbath was the set¬ting for sporadic outbreaks of violence which included the murder of an Arab in Jaffa and of a Jew in Bne Brok, the kidnapping of a Jew in Peta Tikvah and the burning of a Jewish club in Haifa.

76

March 9, 1947, Hadera. A British army camp was attacked.

77

March 10, 1947, Haifa. A Jew, suspected of being an informer, was murdered by Jewish terrorists.

78

March 12, 1947, Jerusalem. The British Army pay corps was dynamited in  Jerusalem and one soldier killed.

79

March 12, 1947, Palestine. British military units captured most of the 800 Jews whose motor ship “Susanna” ran the British blockade and was beached north of Gaza on this date. A British naval escort brought the “Ben Hecht,” the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation’s first known immigrant ship, into Haifa, and its 599 passengers were shipped to Cyprus. The British arrested the crew, which included 18 US. seamen.

80

March 13, 1947, Jerusalem. British authorities announced 78 arrests as a result of unofficial Jewish cooperation, but two railroads were attacked, resulting in two deaths, and eight armed men robbed a Tel Aviv bank of $65,000.

81

March 14, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists blew up part of an oil pipeline in Haifa and a section of the rail line at Beer Yakov.

82

March 16, 1947, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency building was bombed.

83

March 17, 1947, Jerusalem. British authorities ended martial law which had kept 300,000 Jews under house arrest for 16 days and tied up most economic activity

84

March 17, 1947, Palestine. A military court sentenced Moshe Barazani to be hanged for possessing a hand grenade.

85

March 18, 1947, Palestine. Terrorist leaflets admitted the murder of Michael Shnell on Mount Carmel as an informer.

86

March 22, 1947, Palestine. British officials announced the arrest of five known terrorists and the discovery near Petah Tikvah of the body of Leon Meshiah, a Jew presumably slain as a suspected informer

87

March 26, 1947, London. Britain’s Privy Council rejected the appeal of the death sentence against Dov Bela Gruner.

88

March 28, 1947, Haifa. The Irgun blew up the Iraq Petroleum Co. pipeline in Haifa.

89

March 29, 1947, Palestine. A British army officer was murdered by Jewish terrorists when they ambushed a party of horsemen near the Ramle camp. A raid by terrorists on a Tel Aviv bank yielded $109,000.

90

March 30, 1947, Palestine. Units of the British Royal Navy, answering an SOS, took the disabled “Moledeth” with 1,600 illegal Jewish refugees on board under tow

some 50 miles outside Palestinian waters.

91

March 30, 1947, Tel Aviv. The Stem gang killed the wife of a British soldier.

92

March 31, 1947, Haifa. Jewish terrorists dynamited the British-owned Shell-Mex oil tanks in Haifa, starting a fire that destroyed a quarter-mile of the waterfront The damage was set at more than $1,000,000, and the British government in Palestine has stated that the Jewish community will have to pay for it

93

April 2, 1947, Cyprus. The “Ocean Vigour’ was damaged by a bomb in Famagusta Harbor, Cyprus. The Haganah admitted the bombing.

94

April 3, 1947, Jerusalem. A court in Jerusalem sentenced Daniel Azulai and Meyer Feinstein, members of the Irgun terrorist gang, to death for the October 30 attack on the Jerusalem railroad station. The Palestine Supreme Court admitted an appeal of Dov Bela Gruner’s death sentence.

95

April 3, 1947. The transport “Empire Rival” was damaged by a time bomb while en route from Haifa to Port Said in Egypt

96

April 7, 1947, Jerusalem. The High Court denied a new appeal against the death sentence of Dov Bela Gruner, and a British patrol killed Moshe Cohen.

97

April 8, 1947, Jerusalem. Jewish terrorists killed a British constable in revenge for the Cohen death.

98

April 9, 1947, Palestine. The Palestine Government abandoned “statutory martial law” in the face of unfavorable publicity but granted itself military dictatorship powers in “controlled areas” it may impose.

99

April 10, 1947, London. The British Government requested France and Italy to prevent Jews from embarking for Palestine.

100

April 11, 1947, Jerusalem. Asher Eskovitch, a Jew, was beaten to death by Moslems when he entered the forbidden Mosque of Omar.

101

April 13, 1947, Jerusalem. Guella Cohen, Stern gang illegal broadcaster, escaped from a British military hospital.

102

April 14, 1947, Tel Aviv. A British naval unit boarded the refugee ship “Guardian” and seized it along with 2,700 passengers after a gun battle in which two immigrants were killed and 14 wounded.

103

April 16, 1947, Haifa. In spite of threats of reprisal from the Irgun, the British hanged Dov Bela Gruner and three other Irgun members at Acre Prison on Haifa Bay. Jewish communities were kept under strict curfew for several hours. Soon after the deaths were announced, a time bomb was found in the Colonial Office in London but was defused.

104

April 17, 1947, Palestine. Lt Gen. C. Macmillan con¬firmed death sentences for two more convicted terrorists, Meier Ben Feinstein and Moshe Ben Barazani, but reduced Daniel Azulai’s sentence to life imprisonment

105

April 18, 1947, Palestine. Irgun’s reprisals for the Gruner execution were an attack on a field dressing station near Nethanaya where one sentry was killed, an attack on an armored car in Tel Aviv where one bystander was killed and harmless shots at British troops in Haifa.

106

April 19,1947, Haifa. British naval units exploded depth charges in Haifa harbor to prevent an underwater assault by Jewish “frogmen” on three British deportation vessels that took the “Guardian’s” passengers to Cyprus.

107

April 20, 1947, Tel Aviv. A series of bombings by Jewish terrorists in retaliation for the hanging of convicted terrorist Gruner injured 12 British soldiers.

108

April 21, 1947, Jerusalem. Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani, condemned terrorists, killed themselves in prison a few hours before they were scheduled to be hanged. They blew themselves up with bombs smuggled to them in hollowed-out oranges.

109

April 22, 1947, Palestine. A troop train arriving from Cairo was bombed outside Rehovoth with five soldiers and three civilians killed and 39 persons injured.

110

April 23, 1947, London. The British First Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Hall, defended the Labor Government’s policy in Palestine and he acknowledged in the House of Lords that Britain would not “carry out a policy of which it did not approve” despite any UN action. He blamed contributions from American Jews to the Palestine terrorists as aiding terrorism there and cited the toll since August 1, 1945: 113 killed, 249 wounded, 168 Jews convicted, 28 sentenced to death, four executed, 33 terrorists slain in battles. Viscount Samuel urged increased immigration.

111

April 23, 1947, Palestine. The Irgun proclaimed its own “military courts” to “try” British troops and policemen who resisted them.

112

April 24, 1947, Palestine. Lt. General Sir Alan Cunningham, Palestine High Commissioner flew to Egypt and requested Lt General Sir Miles Dempsey, Middle-East land force commander, for more troops to be sent to Palestine.

113

April 25, 1947, Tel Aviv. A Stern gang squad drove a stolen post office truck loaded with explosives into the Sarona police compound and detonated it, killing five British policemen.

114

April 26, 1947, Haifa. The murder of Deputy Police Superintendent A. Conquest climaxed a week of bloodshed.

115

May 4,1947, Acre. The walls of Acre prison were blast¬ed open by an Irgun bomb squad and 251 Jewish and Arab prisoners escaped after a gun battle in which 15 Jews and 1 Arab were killed, 32 (including six British guards) were injured and 23 escapists were recaptured. The Palestine Government promised no extra punishment if the 189 escapees still at large will surrender.

116

May 6, 1947, Jerusalem. former British Commando Sgt Dov Bernard Cohen, head of the Acre bomb squad, was fatally wounded in the attack.

117

May 4, 1947, New York. The Political Action Committee for Palestine ran a series of advertisements in New York newspapers seeking funds to buy parachutes for young European Jews planning to crash the Palestine immigration barrier by air.

118

May 8, 1947, Tel Aviv. A Jew was ambushed and shot to death by an Arab group near Tel Aviv, and three Jewish-owned Tel Aviv shops whose owners refused to contribute money to Jewish terrorist groups were burned down.

119

May 12, 1947, Jerusalem. Jewish terrorists killed two British policemen.

120

May 12, 1947, Jerusalem. The British authorities announced that 3l2 Jewish political prisoners were held in Kenya, East Africa, 247 in Latrun and 34 in Bethlehem, Palestine.

121

May 15, 1947, The Stern gang killed two British lieutenants and injured seven other persons with two derailments and three bridge demolitions.

122

May 16, 1947, Palestine. On the fifth day of another terrorist drive, Haifa Assistant Police Superintendent, Robert Schindler, a German Jew, was murdered by the Stern gang, and a British constable was killed on the Mt. Carmel-Haifa road near Jerusalem.

123

May 17, 1947, Haifa. The 1,200-ton Haganah freighter “Trade Winds” was seized by the Royal Navy off the Lebanon coast and escorted into Haifa, and over 1,000 ille¬gal immigrants were disembarked pending transfer to Cyprus.

124

May 19, 1947, London. The British government protested to the United States government against American fund-raising drives for Palestine terrorist groups. The complaint referred to a “Letter to the Terrorists of Palestine” by playwright Ben Hecht, American League for a Free Palestine co-chairman, first published in the New York ‘Post” on May 15. The ad said, “We are out to raise millions for you.”

125

May 22, 1947, Palestine. Arabs attacked a Jewish labor camp in southern Palestine, retaliating for a Haganah raid on the Arabs near Tel Aviv, May 20. Some 40,000 Arab and Jewish workers united the same day in a one-day strike against all establishments operated by the British War Ministry

126

May 23, 1947, Palestine. A British naval party boarded the immigrant ship “Mordei Haghettoath” off South Palestine and took control of its 1,500 passengers. Two British soldiers were convicted in Jerusalem of abandoning a jeep and army mail under a terrorist attack.

127

May 27, 1947, Germany. Jewish underground migration officials in Frankfort-am-Main declared they hoped to transport 1,000,000 Jews from Europe to Palestine, 30,000 of them this summer. The Costa Rican ship “Colony Trader” has been detained at Gibraltar under suspicion of its use for smuggling illegal immigrants into Palestine. London is investigating reports that non-Jewish Poles and Slavs in DP camps are being recruited for the Palestine army. Other investigations are being conducted into persistent reports that Soviet Russia has been supplying technical advisors to The Jewish terrorist groups.

128

May 28, 1947, Syria. Fawzi el-Kawukji who spent the war years in Germany after leading the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine, told reporters in Damascus that an unfavorable decision by the UN inquiry group would be the signal for war against the Jews in Palestine. “We must prove that in case” of an Anglo-American war with Russia, “we can be more dangerous or useful to them than the Jews,” he added.

129

May 28, 1947, Haifa. Jewish terrorists blew up a water main and a shed in the Haifa oil dock areas and made three attacks on railway lines in the Lydda and Haifa areas.

130

May 31, 1947, Haifa. The Haganah ship “Yehuda Halevy” arrived under British naval escort with 399 illegal Jewish immigrants, the first from Arab territories. They were immediately transshipped to Cyprus.

131

June 4, 1947, London. The terrorist Jewish Stern gang sent letter bombs to high British governmental officials. Eight letter bombs containing powdered gelignite explosive were discovered in London. Recipients included Ernest Bevan, Anthony Eden, Prime Minister Attlee and Winston Churchill.

132

June 5, 1947, Washington. President Truman asked all persons in the US. to refrain from helping Palestine terrorists. The American Jewish Committee and Jewish Labor Committee condemned Ben Hecht’s campaign for Palestine terrorist funds.

133

June 5, 1947, Tel Aviv. Jewish terrorist mines wrecked two trains near Tel Aviv and Haifa and the Athlit railroad station but without casualties.

134

June 6, 1947, London. Scotland Yard official now acknowledge that a total of 20 letter bombs have been found.

135

June 6, 1947, New York. Secretary General of the UN, Trygve Lie has forwarded a request to all countries a request by the British that they guard their frontiers against departure of illegal immigrants bound for Palestine.

136

June 18, 1947, Tel Aviv. Haganah disclosed that one of its men was killed by a booby trap which foiled an Irgun plot to blow up British Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv.

137

June 19, 1947, Jerusalem. Major Roy Farran, held in connection with the disappearance of a 16-year-old Jew, escaped from custody in the army barracks in Jerusalem.

138

June 28, 1947, Palestine. The terrorist Stern gang opened fire on British soldiers waiting in line outside a Tel Aviv theater, killing three and wounding two. Another Briton is killed and several wounded in a Haifa hotel. This action was claimed by Jewish terrorists to be in retaliation for British brutality and the alleged slaying of a missing 16 year old Jew, Alexander Rubowitz while he was being held in an Army barracks on May 6.

139

June 29, 1947, New York. The UN Committee votes 9-0 to condemn the acts of terrorism as “flagrant disregard” of the UN appeal for an interim truce as Stern terrorists wounded four more British soldiers on a beach at Herzila. Major Roy Alexander Farran surrendered voluntarily after his escape from custody in Jerusalem on June 19. He had been arrested in connection with the Rubowitz case.

140

June 30, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine government permitted oil companies to raise prices of benzene nearly 10% to pay for $1 million damage suffered when Jewish terrorists blew up oil installations at Haifa on March 31.

141

July 1, 1947, Jerusalem. The British Government rejected the UN Commission’s move to halt the execution of three Irgun members convicted of terrorism and also said that the UN Assembly truce resolution of May 15 had no bearing on “the normal processes of the administration of justice” in Palestine.

142

July 2, 1947, Haifa. Irgun members robbed a Haifa bank of $3,200 while both the Stem gang and the Irgun warned the British that their “provocative” acts in Palestine must end before a truce can be effected. The Guatemalan and Czech members of the UN Commission visited two Jewish convicts in Acre Prison. In Pretoria, South Africa, Prime Minister Smuts, who was a party to the Balfour Declaration, said “the promise of a national home in Palestine never meant the whole of Palestine.” He favored partition into Arab and Jewish states.

143

July 12, 1947, Jerusalem. Dr. Ariem Altman, president of the United Zionist Revisionists, told a party rally in Jerusalem that the Revisionists would settle for nothing less than an unpartitioned free Jewish state in Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Irgun announced in Jerusalem that two British sergeants kidnapped in Nathanaya are being held in Tel Aviv and have been sentenced to death by Irgun court-martial.

144

July 14, 1947, Nathanya. The British imposed martial law and placed the 15,000 inhabitants of Nathanya under house arrest. They made 68 arrests and sentenced 21 persons to 6 months each in the Latrun detention camp.

145

July 17, 1947, Nathanya. The Irgun in five mine opera-lions against military traffic to and from Nathanya killed one Briton and injured 16.

146

July 17, 1947, Nethanya. Mines killed a second Briton and injured seven.

147

July 18, 1947, Haifa. The American-manned Haganah refugee ship “Exodus 1947” (formerly the ‘President Warfield”) was escorted into Haifa by British naval units after a battle in which the American first mate, William Bernstein and two immigrants were killed and more than 30 injured. The blockade runner itself was badly damaged. The remainder of the 4,554 passengers, the largest group of illegal immigrants to sail for Palestine in a single ship, were put aboard British prison ships for removal to Cyprus. The American captain, Bernard Marks, and his crew were arrested. The ship sailed from France.

148

July 19, 1947, Haifa. Rioting, quickly suppressed, broke out among the passengers of the “Exodus 1947” when they learned they were to be returned to France

149

July 19, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government charges that a Jewish “campaign of lawlessness, murder and sabotage” has cost 70 lives and $6 million in damage since 1940.

150

July 21, 1947, Jerusalem. Before officially admitting that 4,529 passengers of the “Exodus 1947” who had been trans¬ferred to three British ships, were being sent not to Cyprus but back to France, the Palestine Government took the pre¬caution of first placing Jerusalem’s 90,000 Jews under nightly house arrest.

151

July 23, 1947, Haifa. Haganah sank the British transport “Empire Lifeguard” in Haifa harbor as it was discharging 300 Jewish immigrants who had officially been admitted to Palestine under quota. Sixty-five immigrants were killed and 40 were wounded. The British were able to refloat the ship.

152

July 24, 1947, Amman, Trans-Jordan. Seven members of the UN Palestine Commission flew to Amman and were informed by Jordanian Premier Samir Pasha el Rifai that: (1) Palestine belongs to the Arabs; (2) the Arabs never accepted the Balfour Declaration; (3) the Jews are imperialistic invaders whose immigration “must be stopped forthwith”; (5) Palestine should get unpartitioned independence under the Arab majority; (6) the plight of European refugees does not concern Palestine; (7) the Arabs will justly resist with force any unfavorable decision.

153

July 26, 1947. Jewish terrorists blew up the Iraqi Petroleum Co. pipeline 12 miles east of Haifa and destroyed a Mt. Carmel radar station.

154

July 26, 1947, Palestine. Two British soldiers were killed by a booby trap near Jerusalem, raising the week’s violence toll to 12 killed and 75 wounded.

155

July 26, 1947, Palestine. Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun, announced from his secret headquarters that Haganah had planned the King David Hotel bombing in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946 in which 91 persons were killed.

156

July 27, 1947, Palestine. An ambush and mines cost the British seven more casualties, all wounded.

157

July 28, 1947, Haifa. Two small Haganah ships loaded with 1,174 Jews from North Africa were intercepted by British naval units off Palestine and brought into Haifa. The illegal immigrants were transshipped aboard British transports and taken to Cyprus.

158

July 29, 1947, Palestine. The British authorities hanged three Irgunists in Acre prison despite appeals from Jewish leaders. The condemned, Myer Nakar, Absalom Habib and Jacob Weiss, had fought in the Czech underground during the war. They were convicted of blowing up Acre Prison on May 4 and liberating 200 Arabs and Jews.

159

July 29, 1947, France. The 4,429 “Exodus 1947” illegal immigrants who sailed from Sate, France, July 11 for Palestine only to be shipped back by the British aboard three transports, refused to debark as the vessels anchored off Port de Douc, France. Only a few who were ill went ashore. The French government informed the refugees that they do not have to debark but will be welcomed if they do. The transports are the “Runnymede Park,” “Ocean Vigour” and “Empire Valour”

160

July 30, 1947, Palestine.   Irgun terrorists announced that they have hanged two British sergeants, Marvyn Paice and Jifford Martin, whom they had held as hostages since July 12, for “crimes against the Jewish community.” The two were seized when death sentences on the three Irgun members were confirmed by the British authorities. Two more British soldiers were killed by a land mine near Hadera. British troops attacked the Jewish colony of Pardes Hanna in revenge for the murders.

161

July 31, 1947, Nathanya. The bodies of the two murdered British sergeants were found hanging from eucalyptus trees one and a half miles from Nathanya about 530 AM. A booby trap blew Martin’s body to bits when it was cut down. Enraged British troops stormed into Tel Aviv, wrecked shops, attacked pedestrians and sprayed a bus with gunfire killing five Jews: two men, two women and a boy.

162

August 1, 1947, Tel Aviv. Thirty-three Jews are injured in an anti-British riot at Tel Aviv during the funeral procession of five civilians killed by British soldiers on July 31. In Jerusalem a Jewish terrorist attack on the British security zone in Rehavia was repulsed with one attacker killed and two captured.

163

August 2, 1947, Tel Aviv. The body of an unidentified Jew was found on a road near Tel Aviv. He was believed to have been kidnapped by men in British uniforms two weeks ago. Total casualties in Palestine since mid-July: 25 persons slain, 144 wounded. The dead include 15 Britons, two Jewish terrorists, eight civilians. Anti-British slogans, swastikas and dollar signs are painted onto British consulates in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles.

164

August 3, 1947, Palestine. Haganah warned in Jerusalem that the Britons who killed five Jews in Tel Aviv On July 31 will be found and punished.

165

August 4, 1947, Paris. An Irgun leader in Paris states that his organization has sentenced high British military and civilian officials in Palestine to death “in absentia” and will hang them upon capture.

166

August 4, 1947, Palestine. British troops blew up a Jewish house in a Jerusalem suburb in which arms were found. Jewish terrorists robbed Barclays’ Bank in Tel Aviv of $5200 and a Haganah member was killed.

167

August 5, 1947, Palestine. Striking at dawn, British security forces arrested 35 leading Zionists and sent them to the Latrun detention camp in an attempt to wipe out the Irgun leadership. In reprisal, Irgunists blew up the Department of Labor in Jerusalem, killing three British constables. Those arrested included Mayor Israel Rokach of Tel Aviv; Mayor Oved Ben Ami of Nathanya; Mayor Abraham Krinitzki of Ramat Gan, Arieh Altman, president of the radical Revisionist Party; Menahem Arber, leader of the Revisionist youth organization, B’rith Trumpeldor, which is outlawed; Max Kritzman, Dov Bela Gruner’s attorney, and David Stern, brother of the late founder of the Stem gang.All those arrested except the three mayors were Revisionists. Among many papers confiscated was corre¬spondence from Soviet Russian agents in Italy and Bulgaria and extensive plans to poison the water supply of the non-Jewish parts of Jerusalem with botulism, anthrax and other bacteria. Bacteria was supplied by Soviet sources through Bulgaria.

168

August 5, 1947, England. Anti-Semitic outbreaks slackened after five days of rock throwing, window-smashing and other incidents including daubing Jewish businesses with swastikas and numerous assaults on British Jews. These incidents occurred in Liverpool, Manchester, Cardiff (Wales), Leeds, London and Birmingham as retaliation for the murder of two British sergeants in Palestine. Thirty-eight persons were arrested in Liverpool but in the main, the British police ignored the rioters and permitted them to run their course.

169

August 8, 1947, Palestine. The Bank of Sharon in Ramat Can was robbed by Jewish terrorists of $8,000.

170

August 14, 1947, Geneva. The UN Special Sub-committee on Palestine returned to Geneva after a seven-day tour of DP camps in Austria and Germany. The tour took the group to Munich, Vienna, Berlin and Hamburg. In Berlin it heard reports August 13 from General Lucius D. Clay, US. Military Governor. Clay testified that anti-Semitism is growing very sharply among the ranks of the US. military units in the US. Zones of Austria and Germany because of the violent, asocial and criminal behavior of the Eastern European DPs, all of whom are Jewish. He recommended that these DPs be allowed to enter Palestine before some incident with American sol¬diers, who have been beaten, robbed and killed by Jewish DPs, leads to severe spontaneous reactions on the part of other soldiers. His views were seconded very strongly by Sir Brian Robertson, Deputy British Military Governor.

171

August 15, 1947, Palestine. A mine derailed a Cairo-Haifa troop train north of Lydda, killing the engineer, and Irgun terrorists claimed the incident was part of its campaign to disrupt all the Palestine rail traffic.

172

August 16, 1947, Palestine. Arab-Jewish clashes have brought death to l2 Arabs and l3 Jews and heavy property destruction this week in the regions of Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa. Interracial strife was renewed on August 10 when Arabs killed four Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe, in reprisal for the deaths of two Arabs in a Haganah raid in Fega two months ago. Haganah responded to the Arab actions by bombing a house in an Arab orange grove near Tel Aviv, killing eleven Arabs, including a woman and four children. British military curfews imposed on August 13 on slum districts between modern Tel Aviv and Jaffa have failed to prevent mounting casualties. British military authorities, citing captured intelligence and statements from Jewish defectors from terrorist organizations, state that it now appears that the Jewish terrorists are beginning to attack Arabs where ever they found them because Jews wish the Arabs to be driven out of Palestine entirely.

173

August 18, 1947, Palestine. The shops of five Jewish merchants in Tel Aviv were destroyed by the Irgun because the owners refused to give money to that organization.

174

August 23, 1947, Jerusalem. British authorities reported that five Arabs in one family; two men, one woman and two children, were murdered by Jewish terrorists as retaliation for the British arrest of two Irgun leaders on August 15.

175

September 9, 1947. Hamburg, Germany. In a bitter three-hour fight aboard the “Runnymede Park,” 350 British troops completed a two-day forced debarkation of 4,300 “Exodus 1947” illegal Jewish refugees from three ships in Hamburg, Germany. First ashore yesterday were the “Ocean Vigour’s”1,406; a few put up token resistance and five passengers sustained minor injuries. Early today, the “Empire Rival’s” 1,420 passengers debarked peaceably after a home made bomb was found in the ship’s hold. Many of the “Runnymede Park’s” 1,485 passengers fiercely resisted the debarkation process and British military units had to use fire hoses and truncheons to rout resisters below decks. The Jews were taken ashore screaming “Nazis” to the British. “Runnymede Park” casualties, officially, were 24 Jews and three Britons injured, with 50 leaders of the resis¬tance on that ship taken to jail. German police broke up a Hamburg demonstration by 1,300 Jewish DPs from the Bergen-Belsen camp, where British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin was hanged in effigy on September 7. The debarked “Exodus” passengers were interned in Poppendorf camp near Luebeck for screening by nationalities and at first all of them refused to cooperate with British authorities until the passengers were threatened with a diet of bread and water.

176

September 10, 1947, Washington D.C. Secretary of State George C. Marshall disclosed that the US. had urged Britain to reconsider sending the “Exodus” group to Germany, but Britain replied that there were no facilities for housing them elsewhere because the French did not want them and there were a number of vacant detention camps in Germany.

177

September 11, 1947, Paris. The French government has now announced that it would admit the “Exodus” refugees if they were not forcibly deported from Germany and on the understanding that they will be admitted eventually to Palestine.

178

September 7, 1947, Paris. French police state a Stern gang plot to attack London with home-made fire extinguisher bombs from the air was thwarted through the cooperation of Reginald Gilbert of St Louis, Missouri, a student and wartime RCAF and AAF pilot He was taken into custody with Rabbi Baruch Korif, of New York, co-chairman of the Political Action Committee for Palestine, and Judith Rosenberger, Hungarian-born Stern gang member, as the three started to enter a private plane last night at Toussus-le-Noble field near Versailles. Gilbert informed French police that Korif had approached him in Paris a week ago with an offer for flying a bombing mission over London the day of the“ Exodus” illegal immigrant landings in Germany. Gilbert accepted for some other pilot who would actually perform the mission. He at once notified Paris police, then worked with them and Scotland Yard while pretending to go through with the Stern gang’s plot. Korff was charged in Paris on September 9 with illegal possession of bombs he was intending to drop on London. He began a hunger strike. Paris police state that nine other conspirators were in custody.

179

September 12, 1947, Palestine. Irgun has threatened to assassinate British representatives in the US. Zone of Germany and all British delegations there are under 24-hour guard, the US. command announced in Frankfurt-on-the Main. A probe of Irgun thefts from US. Army ammunition depots in Germany was reported on September 7.

180

September 20, 1947, Jerusalem. British raids September 16-19 uncovered several arms caches and terrorist hideouts in the Jerusalem area. The home of David Ben-Gurion, Jewish Agency executive chairman was robbed of important papers September 18. In Paris, Rabbi Baruch Korff, leader of a Stern gang plot to bomb London, ended a hunger strike in Sante prison on September 15.

181

October 13, 1947. Jerusalem. A terrorist bomb damaged the US. consulate general in Jerusalem, injuring two employees slightly. Similar bombings occurred at the Polish consulate general last night and at the Swedish consulate on September 27.In Baghdad, the Iraq foreign office advised an American House Foreign Affairs Committee group not to make a projected visit there because of  “high feeling” over US. endorsement of partitioning of Palestine. The State Department in Washington announced it will issue no passports to American citizens who want to take part in terrorism in Palestine; Americans so involved will forfeit protection normally due US. citizens abroad.

182

October 18, 1947, Palestine. The Palestine Government states that Palestine Arab forces have been sent from the Trans-Jordan frontier to the Syrian and Lebanon borders to replace a British brigade which recently left Palestine. Zionists protested having Arab troops on the border of northern Palestine.

183

November 14, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists killed two British policemen in Jerusalem and two soldiers in Tel Aviv to raise the total casualties in three days of violence to 10 Britons and five Jews killed and 33 Britons and five Jews wounded. The outbreaks began after British troops killed three girls and two boys in a raid on a farmhouse arsenal near Raanana on November 12. The terrorists retaliated yesterday by throwing hand grenades and firing a machine gun into the Ritz Cafe in Jerusalem.

184

November 15, 1947, London. The British Foreign Office denied Jerusalem press reports that Britain planned to take over any financial surplus left in Palestine’s treasury to pay for the costs of evacuation and combating unauthorized Jewish immigration.

185

November 16, 1947, Palestine. About 185 European Jews landed near Nahariya from a small schooner and escaped before the British could intercept them. A larger vessel, the “Kadimah,” was seized and brought to Haifa where 794 Jews were transshipped to a British transport for Cyprus.

186

November 17, 1947, Jerusalem. The British administra¬tion disclosed that it will sell state-owned real estate along the Haifa waterfront, from which it expects to make $8 mil¬lion. It will also invest in England about $16 million from bonds that had been sold to Palestinians. Zionists strongly protested this as they said it would denude Palestine of its assets. There was no comment from the administration to these charges.

187

November 22, 1947, Haifa. Another Arab was murdered in Haifa by the Stern gang following their execution of four Arabs near Raanana November 20 in retaliation for the British shooting of five Stern gang members on November12. Arabs retaliated against this killing at Raanana by wounding five Jews on a bus near Tel Aviv on November 20.

188

November 30- December 6, 1947, Palestine. A week of disorders brought on by Arab wrath over the UN’s deci¬sion to partition the Holy Land ended with at least 159 killed in the Middle East, 66 in Palestine. While Jews in Palestine, Europe and the US. celebrated and began planning their new state and the UN moved to implement its plan, war talk was rife throughout the Arab world. The Arab League announced on December 1 that pre¬miers and foreign ministers of seven Arab states would meet in Cairo next week to plan strategy against partition. In Palestine: Jerusalem and the Jaffa Tel Aviv boundary zone were centers of week-long strife which began when seven Jews were killed throughout Palestine on November 30 and the mayor of Nablus, Arab nationalist center, proclaimed jihad or a holy war. British High Commissioner Sir Alan Cunningham warned the Arab Higher Command on December 1 that Britain was determined to keep order so long as it held its mandate, and police stopped Arab agitators from raising crowds in Jerusalem. But Jewish celebrations there were stoned. Arabs looted and burned a three-block Jewish business district in Jerusalem on December 2, the first day of a three-day Arab general strike during which 20 Jews and l5 Arabs were killed. When British troops failed to intervene, Haganah (unofficial Zionist militia) came into the open for the first time in eight years to restrain large-scale Jewish retaliation and also guard Jewish districts. Some Haganah men were arrested for possessing weapons. The day’s strife caused $1 million worth of damage and resulted in a 24-hour curfew being applied to Arab Jerusalem for the rest of the week. The curfew was extended to outlying roads on December 3 to stop stonings of Jewish traffic and keep rural Arabs out of the capital. Max Pinn, head of the Jewish Agency’s Trade and Transfer Department was killed on December 2 when Arabs stoned his auto near Ramleh. On this day Jews stoned Arab buses in Jerusalem. On the Jaffa-Tel Aviv boundary, which also is under around-the-clock curfew, the week’s heaviest battle was a six-hour clash between Hagariah and Arabs on December 3 in which seven Jews and five Arabs were killed and 75 persons injured. On December 2, Haganah claimed to have mobilized 10,000 men in the intercity trouble zone, and the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan reported on this date that it had reinforced Jaffa. Seven Jews were killed in Jaffa-Tel Aviv on this date. There were lesser attacks in Haifa this week. It becomes clearly evident that the partition is not going as planned and that although the Jews are pleased, the Arabs are not.  There appears to be no way to control the Jews or their determination to drive all of the Arabs out of Jerusalem by force if necessary. The Arabs, initially living in peace with the Jewish minority, have been increasingly victimized by the Jews who, now that the British are leaving, are turning their savage behavior against them. The Jews have redoubled their efforts to build a military force and arm them. They claim that this force is to protect the Jewish population against attacks from the Arab countries as well as the Arab population of Jerusalem but an even stronger argument can be made that the Zionists are determined to drive out the Arab population by armed force. The initial Arab response to Jewish harassment over the past year has been very slow in coming but it seems to be quite inevitable and a terrible civil war is foreseen. The United States Department of State announced on December 5, 1947 that they were placing an embargo on all American arms shipments to the Middle East It appears that the Soviets have been sending weapons- mostly captured German pieces, to assist the Zionists and accompanying these clandestine arms shipments the Soviets have also sent a very sizable contingent of instructors and advisors to Palestine in months past As many of the Zionists are Russian or Polish in origin, these Communist Russians have been received gladly by the Jewish extremists and quickly blend in with the local populations. Soviet interest in Middle East oil and an overriding interest in obtaining warm-water ports are a prime factor in their interest in a Jewish state in Palestine. The most violent reactions in the Arab world to the UN partition idea are Syrian and Egyptian. However, it is noted that the worst outbreak of anti-partition violence outside Palestine occurred in Aden, a British colony at the entrance to the Red Sea. On December 5, British military reinforcements were sent to Aden after four days of Arab-Jewish fighting in which 5O Jews and 25 Arabs were killed. In Syria, public demonstrations by the Arab population paralyzed business in Damascus earlier this week. The Soviet cultural center and Communist headquarters in Damascus were wrecked on November 30 with four persons killed. The Syrian Communist Party was officially disbanded by the government and the US. and British Embassy flags were torn down. On December 1, Syria introduced military training into all boys’ schools and on December 2, the Syrian Parliament enacted a draft law and voted $860,000 for the relief of Palestinian Arabs. On the same day Arabs attacked the Jewish part of Aleppo. In Egypt the Chamber of Deputies resolved on December 1 to help keep Palestine a totally Arab state and to support the Arab population of Palestine against attacks by the Jewish minority. There were repeated anti-US. And British demonstration in Egypt’s main cities, and the British Institute in Zagazig was burned on December 2. All public meetings were banned in Cairo after Egyptian police fought with 15,000 people on December 4.In Lebanon, Arab students smashed the windows of the US. Legation in Beirut on December 1 and Lebanese Communists demonstrated against the partition of Palestine and all schools were closed to prevent student disorders. In Iraq, students in Baghdad wrecked the US. Information offices on December 4. In Saudi Arabia, anti-American demonstrations by Arabs in the oil fields were restrained by the government

189

December 13, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists shifted from defense to attack in the second week of conflict with the Arabs since the UN voted for partition of Palestine. The death toll for the past 14 days was at least 220 in Palestine and 336 in the Middle East, including 111 in Aden. Arab retaliatory raids at Jaffa and Tel Aviv had killed 30 Jews and Arabs when local businessmen on both sides arranged for a truce on December 10 to effect an orange harvest On December 11, however, the Arabs renewed their assaults in the Old City of Jerusalem, which was the worst day of the current strife with 41 fatalities throughout Palestine. On December 12, Haganah launched attacks on both the Arabs and British with a death toll of 20 Arabs, five Jews and two British soldiers killed. On December 13, bombings by the Irgun killed at least 16 Arabs and injured 67 more in Jerusalem and Jaffa and burned down a hundred Arab houses in Jaffa. In Syria, an anti-Jewish attack in retaliation for the Irgun actions burned down a 2,750-year old synagogue in Aleppo and destroyed the priceless Ben-Asher Codex, a 10th century Hebrew Bible of original Old Testament manuscripts.

190

December 14, 1947, Lydda. Regular troops of the Arab Legion of the Trans-Jordan Army killed 14 Jews and wounded nine Jews, two British soldiers and one Arab when they attacked a bus convoy approaching their camp near Lydda. The Arabs said the Jews attacked them first

191

December 17, 1947, Cairo. Premiers of the seven Arab League states called on the Arabs to “prepare for the struggle.” They promised to “prosecute the fight until victorious” General Nuri as-Said Pasha, president of the Iraqi Senate, accused the US. of breaking a promise of neutrality.

192

December 17, 1947, Nevatim. British troops came to the aid of police standing off a raid by 100 Arabs on the Jewish settlement of Nevatim, seven miles west of Beersheba.

193

December 18, 1947, Khisas. Haganah killed 10 Arabs, including five children in a reprisal raid on Khisas in Northern Palestine.

194

December 19, 1947, Damascus. Reliable reports from Damascus state that Arab guerrillas are massing there in preparation to launching an attack into Palestine before the first of the year.

195

December 20, 1947, Palestine. Haganah carried out another raid on Arabs by attacking the village of Qazasa near Rehovoth.  One Arab was killed and two were wounded.

196

December 21, 1947, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency gave official approval for Haganah to make reprisal raids on Arab villages and “exterminate nests of brigands.”

197

December 25, 1941, Haifa. Emir Mohammed Zeinati, an Arab landowner, was killed in Haifa for selling land to the Jews.

198

December 25, 1947, Tel Aviv. Stern gang terrorists machine-gunned two British soldiers in a Tel Aviv cafe.

199

December 26, 1947, Palestine. Armed Jewish terrorists raided two diamond factories in Nazthaanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with $107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds.

The Stern gang distributed leaflets reporting that Israel Levin, a member, was murdered in Tel Aviv on December 24 for trying to betray a Stern gang member.

200

December 29, 1947, Palestine. Irgun members kidnapped and flogged a British major and three sergeants in retaliation for the flogging of Benjamin Kimkhim who was also sentenced to 18 years in prison on December 27 for robbing a bank. The major, E Brett, was seized in Nathanya and the sergeants in Tel Aviv and Rishon el Siyon. Each got 18 lashes, the same number Kimkhim received.

201

December 29, 1947, Jerusalem. An Irgun terrorist bombing at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem killed 11 Arabs and two Britons.

202

December 30, 1947, London. The Dollis Hill Synagogue in London was set on fire and 12 sacred scrolls were destroyed by angry British citizens who scrawled on the burned edifice “You whip—we burn.”

203

December 21-31, 1947, Palestine. Arab- Jewish conflict in the Holy Land increased the death toll to 489 from vio¬lence in Palestine in the 33 days since the UN decided on partition.

 

 

1948

 

204

January 3-10, 1948, Palestine. Extensive Jewish Agency purchases of US. war surplus high explosives with which to fight Arabs were disclosed in the New York City area. While 191 tons of TNT and the more powerful M-3 were seized before shipment, 73 tons cleared New York for Palestine. The TNT shipment was accidentally discovered when longshore men loading the American Export Lines freighter “Executor” in Jersey City on January 3, dropped a box marked “industrial machinery” and while attempting to repair the box, found cans of TNT bearing US. Army markings. The “machinery” proved to be 32 1/2 tons of TNT, which the US. Customs impounded as contraband because of the ban on American arms shipments to the Middle East On January 10, the FBI was attempting to trace the source of the contraband. The Jewish Agency for Palestine acknowledged on January 10 that it had purchased 199 tons of M-3 from the War Assets Administration at the Army’s Seneca Ordnance Depot near Romulous, New York Federal and state agents recovered 126 tons from a farmhouse and trucks near Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Barclay Heights and Saugerties, New York on January 8-9 but 73 tons were believed to be en route to Palestine. The Jewish Agency called its transaction with the WAA legal, admitted having set up “Foundry Associates, Inc.” in New York with a Haganah agent in charge, to buy explosives for their war on the Arabs. The FBI said Leonard Weisman, president of three New York firms (Pratt Steamship Line, Material Redistribution Corporation and Paragon Design and Development Co.) gave the Haganah agent office space but did nothing illegal.WAA stopped all deliveries on unfulfilled orders on January 9 in the New York area. It said Foundry Associates, Inc., had sworn that it was a normal trader in explosives, thereby qualifying to buy the M-3, and that the export question was a US. Department of State matter.

205

January 4, 1948, Jaffa. A series of Jewish terrorist bombings inflicted heavy Arab casualties. 14 were killed and 100 injured when the Stern gang destroyed the Arab National Committee headquarters in Jaffa.

206

January 5, 1948, Jerusalem. 15 Arabs were killed after Haganah bombed the Semiramis Hotel.

207

January 6, 1948, Jerusalem. The British Government denounced the Semiramis attack as “wholesale murder of innocent people” but the Jewish Agency alleged that “Arab gangs” used the hotel and asked why attacks on Jews had not been equally denounced.

208

14 Arabs were killed by two Irgun terrorist bombs at Jerusalem’s Jaffa gate.

209

January 10, 1948, Jerusalem. The official death toll in Palestine since November 29 (when the UN voted for partition) had risen to 646.

210

January 12, 1948, Tel Aviv. Stern gang members looted Barclays Bank in Tel Aviv of $37,000.

211

January 13, 1948. Washington. The US. War Assets Administration received orders from Army Secretary Kenneth Royal to cancel its sale of 199 tons of M-3 explosive to a purchasing agent of the Jewish Agency, which got 73 tons out of the country before the rest was seized.

212

January 14-15, 1948, New York The FBI arrested six Newark men on charges of trying to ship Haganah 60,000 pounds of TNT, which was seized in Jersey City after having been bought from the Letterkenny Arsenal Ordnance Depot in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

213

January 16-17, 1948, Haifa. Zionists claimed they had murdered 82Arabs, mostly civilians, in a 24 hour period. In retaliation for the massacres, Arabs machine-gunned 35 Haganah men who were en route to attack another Arab farming settlement.

214

January 17, 1948, Jerusalem: The official death toll of Arabs killed by Jewish terrorists since November 29 had risen to 831.

215

January 25, 1948, Jerusalem. Following the deaths of ten Jews and two Arabs killed in a battle outside Jerusalem, British authorities stated that 721 Arabs, 408 Jews, 19 civilians and 12 British policemen (a total of 1,160) had been killed in an eight-week period that 1,171 Arabs, 749 Jews, 13 civilians and 37 British officers had been wounded.

216

January 26, 1948, Palestine. Mrs. Gold Meyerson, Jewish Agency political director in Jerusalem, and Mote Sheraton, chief of all Agency political operations, told the UN Palestine Commission that Jews must arm against possible Arab threats and Sheraton demanded a UN policy that would compel the US. to lift its embargo on arms destined

for Jewish groups in the Middle East

217

January 28, 1948, Jerusalem. Rabbi Hillel Silver, chief of the Jewish Agency’s American division, cut short a trip to Jerusalem to return to the US. and campaign for American public support of armed Jewish backing for partition and eventual Zionist control of all Palestine. On January 27, his agency called upon 15,000 young men and women to join Haganah by February 15. British intelligence reports indicate that Haganah had grown from 3,500 to 12,000 full-time members since December 1.

218

January 31, 1948, London. British Foreign Office officials revealed that over 1,000 Soviets, all Russian-speaking Communist military technicians, had been intercepted on the immigrant ships “Pan York” and “Pan Crescent”

219

February 1, 1948, Jerusalem. Arab groups took credit for a bombing that destroyed the “Palestine Post” building. The newspaper had an extensive history of inciting the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem to “destroy Arabs and force them out” of Palestine.

220

February 1, 1948, Milwaukee. WI, Moshe Shertok, Jewish Agency political director, stated that statements that Communist agents were among the intercepted “Pan York” and “Pan Crescent” immigrants from Bulgaria were untrue. Shartok cited a statement from Cyprus refugee camp commissioner, Sir Godfrey Collins, confirming his statement Collins subsequently denied making such a statement .Shertok further said that the Jews of Palestine welcomed all Jews into their country and that Jewish Communists were equally welcome. He denied rumors of Soviet clandestine assistance to various Jewish terrorist groups.

221

February 3, 1948, Jerusalem. Stern gang terrorists killed two British policemen because the bombers of the “Post” had allegedly worn police uniforms. Arabs attacked the Jerusalem Central Prison but were driven off by the guards.

222

The British Foreign Office sent Bulgaria a note of rebuke for “deliberately conniving” in the transshipment of illegal Soviet immigrants to Palestine.

223

February 10, 1948, Jerusalem. British military units prevented Arabs from bringing dynamite and firebombs into Jerusalem’s Old City in an attempt to blow up its Jewish Quarter.

224

February 10, 1948, Palestine. Jewish terrorist groups murdered ten Arabs near an RAF camp in central Palestine A further 23 Arabs were murdered by Jewish groups throughout Palestine.

225

February 11, 1948, Palestine. The British Royal Navy intercepted the ship “Beleaguered Jerusalem” off Nahariya and its 679 Jewish illegal immigrants were transshipped to Cyprus.

226

February 13, 1948, Palestine. A British Army sergeant was arrested in a probe of the death of four Jewish terrorists who were arrested at their sniper post and then released in an Arab neighborhood. The Jews were immediately stoned to death by the Arabs.

227

February 15, 1948, Galilee. Jewish terrorists raided an Arab settlement in upper Galilee, killing 30 Arabs, including 10 children, and blew up bridges.

228

February 16, 1948, New York The UN Palestine Commission reported to the Security Council that it would take a UN military force to save the Palestine partition from “cata¬strophic” failure. The report criticized “(c)ertain elements of the Jewish community,” for “irresponsible ads of violence which worsen the security situation.” The Commission quoted official British figures on Palestine casualties during November 30-February 1:869 killed, including 427 Arabs, 381 Jews, 46 British and 15 of other nationalities; 1,909 wounded, including 1,035 Arabs, 725 Jews, 135 British and 14 others.

229

February 20, 1948, Jerusalem. Twelve Jewish terrorists, including Moshe Svorai, second in command of the Stern gang, escaped from the Central Prison in Jerusalem.

230

February 22, 1948, Jerusalem. Two truckloads of high explosives were detonated in Ben Yehuda Street in the Jewish section of Jerusalem. The blast leveled a three block Jewish business center, killing at least 60 with 20 missing and 200 injured. Jews blamed the British because armored trucks with police insignia had escorted the truck bombs into the area.

231

February 23, 1948, Palestine. Northern Palestine Arabs took credit for the BenYehuda bombing and said they had carried out the attack as retaliation for a Jewish bombing that had killed seven Arabs in Ramleh.

232

February 27, 1948, Jerusalem. Two anti-Communist Polish residents of Jerusalem were murdered by Stem gang terrorists who claimed the Poles were “pro-Arab.”

233

February 29, 1948, Rehoveth. The British Mandate Government denounced the Jewish Agency after 28 British soldiers were killed and 35 seriously injured when a Haifa-bound train from Cairo was blown up. Stern gang terrorists took credit for the bombing of the British train as revenge for the Ben Yehuda Street bombing in Jerusalem.

234

March 1, 1948, Jerusalem. The British Mandate government accused the Jewish Agency of circulating false charges that Britons had committed the BenYehuda bombing and of tolerating Jewish terrorists “for political reasons.” It warned that “continuance of indiscriminate murder” would mean “forfeiture by the Jewish community of all right . . . to be numbered among civilized peoples. ”Immediately after issuance of this statement, the car of British Commander Lt Gen. McMillan was bombed near Jerusalem but the general was not in the car at the time.

235

March 2, 1948, Haifa. Stern gang terrorists detonated a truckful of explosives at an Arab office building in Haifa, killing at least 14 Arabs.

236

March 4, 1948, Ramallah. In retaliation for the Haifa bombing of March 2, Arabs ambushed and killed 17 Haganah youths near RamaIlah

237

March 5, 1948, Tel Aviv. Haganah killed 15 Arabs near Tel Aviv in revenge for the March 4 ambush of their members

238

March 5, 1948, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency stated that large-scale Jewish arms shipments were ready in various Mediterranean ports destined for the arming of Jewish partisans in Palestine to “fight and drive out” the Arab population of what the Agency stated “was eternal Jewish land” that could not be occupied by either the British or the Arabs.

239

March 11, 1948, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency’s building in Jerusalem was bombed with 13 persons killed and 84 injured. An American car, believed to have been stolen from the US. consulate by an Arab chauffeur, was driven through the agency’s elaborate barricades with a load of explosives. The driver escaped.

240

March 11, 1948, New York. Communist and their left wing labor unions turned out over 10,000 persons in a protest rally against US. “betrayal” of partition.

241

March 12, 1948, New York Columnist Drew Pearson said in his “Washington Merry-Go-Round” column that President Harry Truman had given Democratic party leaders the following reason for holding back on enforcement of Palestine partition after having championed this in the UN last year: Russia was after a US. Army-built railroad north from the Persian Gulf, plus all Arab oil regions and the Eastern Mediterranean. On March, Pearson had stated in the same forum that President Truman had told a New York publisher that New York Jews were “disloyal” to the United States.

242

March 12, 1948, New York An Arab Higher Command paper was issued that charged the Jewish Agency with massing Soviet trained and equipped illegal immigrants in Eastern Europe for war service in Palestine and had “set up laboratories for bacteriological warfare.”

243

March 30, 1948, Palestine. British authorities released the latest casualty figures: In March, 566 persons, including 271 Jews 256 Arabs, 39 British and others were killed.

244

March 30, 1948, New York Soviet and Jewish groups informed the UN Security Council that they defended the UN’s previous decision for a separate Jewish state. Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, told the Security Council that partition was “a just solution,” that he was not convinced that it could not be carried out peacefully and that by “wrecking” it the US. would have to take the full blame for “a serious blow upon the UN organization”

245

April 1, 1948, New York The UN found that it had transversed a circle—from one special General Assembly session to another—in its year-long effort to solve the Palestine problem. Britain referred the Holy Land dispute to the UN April 2, 1947, and asked for a special Assembly session, Events since then:

April 28-May 15, 1947. Assembly met, decided on special committee inquiry into the Palestine situation.

August 31. Special Palestine Committee (UNSCOP) recommended partition, internationalized Jerusalem.

November 29. Assembly approved partition, 33-13 (10 abstentions): US. led the fight for a separate Jewish state. Intensified Arab-Jewish fighting in Palestine.

December 11. Britain set May 15 as the date for surrender of its mandate over Palestine.

February 16, 1948. Assembly’s Palestine Commission asked for UN army to enforce partition over Arab resistance.

February 24. US. sidestepped endorsing forcible parti¬tion, asked the Council to seek Arab-Jewish agreement

March 19. After the Big Five conciliation efforts failed, the US.abandoned its partition plan and proposed UN trusteeship over Palestine.

April 1. The Security Council agreed (Russia abstaining) to US proposal for a special Assembly session to reconsider the Palestine problem and passed the US. resolution urging an Arab-Jewish truce.

246

April 4, 1948, New York A Zionist rally in New York’s Madison Square Park was attended by 100,000 persons, including 40,000 Jewish war veterans.

247

April 6, 1948, Palestine. Jewish terrorists invaded the British Army’s largest Palestine camp near Pardes Hannan south of Haifa in a raid for firearms and murdered seven British soldiers.

248

April 9, 1948, Washington The US. Department of State refused to lift its embargo on arms shipments to the Middle East

249

April 9, 1948, Jerusalem. Irgun and Stern gang terrorists stormed an Arab suburb of Jerusalem, Dir Yashin, killing 250 Arabs, half of them women and children.

250

April 25, 1948, Jaffa. The Irgun launched an attack on Arab Jaffa claiming that it was a stronghold for Arabs. They also attacked Tel Aviv with 2,000 men, armored cars and mortars and captured the Arab district of Mansielt. Their advance was halted when British fighter planes and light artillery were used against the Irgun.

251

April 27, 1948, Palestine. Initially condemning the Irgun for its attack on Jaffa, the Haganah reached an agreement with Irgun and the latter agreed to operate under Haganah control. Both groups then attacked, Haganah seizing Jaffa’s eastern and southern suburbs. The Arab city was encircled by April 29, and all but 15,000 of Jaffa’s Arab inhabitants had been driven from the city, although the town was officially termed an Arab area. In Tel Aviv, the Stern gang robbed Barclays Bank of $1 million.

252

April 30, 1948, Jerusalem. Haganah scored victories against the Arab residents after fruitless UN efforts to arrange a truce that would protect historical shrines in the ancient Walled City. Jewish extremists threatened to dynamite the Arab Dome of the Rock Mosque unless all Arabs immediately evacuated Jerusalem. The British response was that if this happened, they would blow up the Wailing Wall, the last remnant of the destroyed temple. The Haganah agreed to respect both Arab and Christian monu¬ments but insisted all Arabs and Christians must leave Jerusalem. In a move they described as “defensive,” the Haganah overran the Christian Arab Katamon quarter in southwestern modern Jerusalem and captured most of the Moslem Mamilla cemetery. Jewish workers seized the general post office in Jerusalem. In Katamon, Haganah captured St Simon’s Greek Orthodox Monastery, drove out the monks and vandalized the building. British troops stepped in to prevent further massacre of the Arabs.

253

May 2, 1948, Jerusalem. The British finally halted wide-spread strife in Jerusalem by rushing several thousand mechanized army units and Royal Marine commandos back to Palestine. Their primary purpose was to protect Arab civilians who were being slaughtered by rampaging Zionists.

254

May 5-8, 1948, Palestine. The Haganah, now styling itself a “Jewish Army,” struck Upper Galilee in northeastern Palestine and claimed to have crushed any Arab resis¬tance by the end of the week. Safad, capital of Upper Galilee and normally a city of 15,000 Arabs, was reported by the Jewish Agency as having been “cleansed” of Arabs by May 6. The only remaining occupants of the town were 2,000 Jews. Haganah announced that all Arab property had been confiscated from the owners and would be given to Jewish settlers.

255

May 4, 1948, Tel Aviv. The 37-man Jewish Legislative Council met in Tel Aviv and heard Premier-designate David Ben-Gurion declare that 150,000 Arabs had been dri¬ven from their homes in the past five months but that the Jews “haven’t lost a single settlement” The Stern gang resumed “direct war” against the British for protecting the Arab population of Jerusalem. Seven British soldiers were killed near Nethanya. At the same time, the Stern gang took credit for a letter bomb which killed the young brother of a British army officer in England.

256

May 6, 1948, Jerusalem. Haganah was redesignated as the Jewish State Army and reported that 200 aircraft, later revealed by British authorities as having come from Czechoslovakia, whose new communist government is almost entirely composed of Zionists and who have been pouring weapons into Palestine, are slated to reinforce the new army. The army will be increased to 85,000 immediately.

257

May 16, 1948, New York The number of states recognizing Israel increased to eight this week, and the new country applied for admission to the UN. Russia immedi¬ately granted recognition on May 17, implying that it recognized Israel’s government as the de jure (legal) government while the United States recognized Israel only as the de facto (in fact) government

258

May 22, 1948, Jerusalem. Thomas Wasson, US. Consul General in Jerusalem and a member of the Council’s Truce Commission, was fatally wounded by a Stern gang sniper near the US. Consulate. Two other Consulate members were also assaulted, one dying the next day.

259

September 17, 1948, Jerusalem. Angered by his order to readmit 8,000 Arab refugees driven from three villages near Haifa by attacks of Jewish terrorists, the Stern gang assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, UN mediator for Palestine. Also killed in the attack was French Col. Andre Serot, chief of France’s 100-man contingent in the unarmed UN truce-observer team.

The Spy State Unleashed

And you’re next

April 21, 2017

by Justin Raimondo

AntiWar

After hearing about an alleged Russian plot to throw the election to Donald Trump for eight months, amid leaks by “former government and intelligence officials,” this media narrative being pushed relentlessly by Rachel Maddow and the fake journalists over at CNN has come to naught.

None of the official reports issued by our intelligence agencies and made public contains a lick of real evidence that the Kremlin guided and encouraged Trump’s rise to power: they consist of simple assertions, and exclamations of “high confidence,” without giving anyone a reason to feel the least amount of confidence in their conclusions. They hide behind the old “sources and methods” excuse in their failure to provide what could even loosely be defined as proof of their allegations. Yet some of these “sources and methods” have come to light anyway, as the leakers desperately try to salvage their failing narrative.

The latest focus of the conspiracy theorists is that Carter Page, an economic consultant specializing in Russian energy resources, who served as an unpaid and informal advisor to the Trump campaign, is the key link between the Russians and the Trump campaign. A report in the Washington Post alleges that the FBI obtained an order from the FISA court allowing it to spy on Page, and CNN followed up with a story telling us that the factual basis of the surveillance request was the infamous “dirty dossier” compiled by “ex”-MI6 agent Christopher Steele, which contains sensationalistic allegations about Trump’s sexual activities while in Russia. The dossier also alleges that Carter was bribed with offers of a deal with the Russian energy company Rosneft in exchange for somehow effecting a 180-degree turnabout in US policy in Ukraine.

The dossier is dodgy is more ways than one: aside from the fact that it contains a number of factual errors, Steele was paid by a mysterious group of anti-Trump Republicans, initially, and later by an opposition research firm linked to the Democrats. Furthermore, Steele paid his sources – an incentive to make stuff up, or at least blow marginal “intelligence” out of proportion. In a letter to FBI director James Comey requesting documents relating to this arrangement, Sen. Charles “Chuck” Grassley” (R-Iowa), writes:

“The idea that the FBI and associates of the Clinton campaign would pay Mr. Steele to investigate the Republican nominee for President in the run-up to the election raises further questions about the FBI’s independence from politics, as well as the Obama administration’s use of law enforcement and intelligence agencies for political ends.”

The media and the Clintonian dead-enders – or do I repeat myself? – are unconcerned about the implications of such an arrangement. That the FBI and who knows what other “intelligence” agencies were paying Steele to spy on the opposition party in the run up to and in the aftermath of a presidential election is just routine, as far as these people are concerned.  It doesn’t matter to them that a bought-and-paid-for dossier consisting of unconfirmed speculation was the basis for the FISA court’s approval of a request to spy on the Trump campaign. Evidence? Facts? Don’t be so old-fashioned! The Surveillance State is a lawless entity, and there’s no use trying to tie it to traditional standards of legality, never mind propriety.

The New York Times reports that the FBI’s interest in Page was sparked when he went to Russia and made a speech criticizing US foreign policy:

“[W]hen [Page] became a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign last year and gave a Russia-friendly speech at a prestigious Moscow institute, it soon caught the bureau’s attention. That trip last July was a catalyst for the F.B.I. investigation into connections between Russia and President Trump’s campaign, according to current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials.”

It doesn’t take much to attract the FBI’s attention. All you have to do is dissent from the foreign policy “consensus.” As Mollie Hemingway notes over at The Federalist:

“If this is true that this was the catalyst, it is concerning. The Times article explains at great length how little a role Page had in the campaign and how far from central he was, to put it mildly. It notes that he worked in Russia and was critical of U.S. foreign policy toward Russia. At no point is anything illegal alleged. To be clear, since many in the media are not clear on this point, it is still legal in this country to be critical of US foreign policy toward another country.”

It may still be legal to be critical of US foreign policy, but it’s also legal to spy on you if you get too noisy about it. When you have a secret “court” that has only denied permission to spy on Americans a mere 12 times out of some 34,000, as Hemingway notes, then the standard of “legality” is formally met, but in reality what you have is a police state apparatus in place.

The FISA court and it’s “legal” underpinning have been around since 1978, and in all that time we never heard a peep out of anyone but a few marginalized libertarians pointing out its potential for political repression. Now, suddenly, conservatives are waking up the fact that our “intelligence” agencies are policing the political discourse – because it’s their ox being gored.

Well, better late than never.

It’s not like the FBI has been politically neutral all these years: remember Cointelpro? Remember how they spied on Martin Luther King? And lest you think it’s just the left they’ve gone after, here’s a little bit of largely hidden history for you: Franklin Roosevelt sicced the feds on the America First Committee and other opponents of going to war in Europe in the run up to World War II. He had his Attorney General charge war opponents with “sedition,” and the media – far from rising up against this abuse of power – cheered the President on. Indeed, a Washington Post reporter, Dillard Stokes, collaborated with the FBI in setting up the defendants for the phony charge of encouraging mutiny in the armed forces.

I don’t recall anyone at The Federalist rushing to the defense of Antiwar.com when it was revealed that the FBI was spying on us due to our foreign policy position. Not a single conservative voice was raised in protest at their designation of myself and our webmaster, Eric Garris, as possible “agents of a foreign power” – a conclusion based on absolutely nothing substantial.

First they came for the right, and liberals said nothing but “good job!” Then they came for the left, and conservatives said “But communism!” Then they came for Antiwar.com, and nobody said a word. Now that they’re coming for Trump, the left is once again cheering while the right is aghast – and the Trump administration, far from dismantling the apparatus of repression, wants to give “law enforcement” a blank check to spy on the American people.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

German intelligence agency spied on Interpol and news organizations: Spiegel

The respected news magazine “Spiegel” has reported that Germany’s BND spied both on international police agencies and media outlets for years. The latest revelations come as a result of another spy scandal in the US.

April 22, 2017

DW

Germany‘s foreign intelligence agency – the BND – spied on Interpol, the international police agency based in Lyon, France, as well as national offices in dozens of countries, including the United States, Austria and Greece, the German news magazine “Spiegel” reported on Saturday.

The magazine cited documents it had viewed, reporting that the spying had taken place over many years. It said the BND included the email addresses, phone and fax numbers of police investigators in its sector surveillance list.

About 190 countries – almost every nation on earth – are Interpol members.

The BND also monitored the European police agency, Europol, which is based in The Hague, the report said.

Neither the BND, Interpol nor Europol responded to requests for comment.

In February, “Spiegel” reported that the BND also spied on various news organizations, including the “New York Times” and Reuters – monitoring their telephones, faxes and emails.

Spy scandal contagion

Ironically, the BND’s activities have become the focus of intense scrutiny during a German parliamentary probe into allegations of US spying. Washington’s National Security Agency (NSA) carried out mass surveillance outside the US, including a cell phone used by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Konstantin von Notz, a Greens Party member who is on the investigative committee, slammed the latest news about the BND’s spying activities, calling it “scandalous and unfathomable.”

“We now know that parliaments, various companies and even journalists and publishers have been targeted, as well as allied countries,” von Notz said in a statement.

He said the latest reports showed how ineffective parliamentary oversight has been, despite new legislation aimed at reforming the BND.

“It represents,” he said, “a danger to our rule of law.”

 

Erdogan Leads His Country into the Abyss

Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged victorious from last Sunday’s referendum, but his slim margin of victory may actually have weakened his rule. Opposition to the Turkish president’s power grab is forming and the EU can do little other than stand aside and watch.

April 21, 2017

by Onur Burçak Belli and Maximilian Popp

Spiegel

Nothing can hold them back. Not the rain, not the wind and not the well-armed anti-terrorism police. On Tuesday evening, several thousand demonstrators marched through Istanbul, a diverse group including students, pensioners, women in headscarves and punks, and many of them held up signs as they walked: “No to the presidency!” They also chanted: “Thief! Murderer! Erdogan!” And: “This is just the beginning. Our fight goes on!”

The protests began on Sunday, just a few hours after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed victory in the referendum that grants him significantly expanded powers and the demonstrations have become larger on each successive day since then, spreading to more than three dozen cities. People in Ankara and Izmir, in Adana and Mersin, in Edirne and Canakkale have taken to the streets in opposition to Erdogan, accusing him of having manipulated the vote on the constitutional referendum.

According to media reports, the country’s electoral commission accepted up to 2.5 million ballots despite their not having been stamped in accordance with the rules. Election observers from the OSCE found significant shortcomings with the vote, outlined in a 14-page preliminary report that also noted the unfairness of the campaign leading up to the referendum. The vote itself, the organization found, also violated some aspects of Turkish law. The opposition has refused to recognize the results.

“Erdogan robbed us of victory,” says Istanbul-based businessman Koray Türkay, who is one of the organizers of the protests in Istanbul.

For the time being, only a small portion of the Turkish population is rising up against the government, with a total of 20,000 people thought to have participated in the nationwide protests. Türkay, though, is nevertheless drawing parallels to the Gezi Park protests in summer 2013, which were ultimately crushed by the police.

More Repressive Measures

Immediately after the vote, Erdogan denied that any manipulation had taken place and claimed that the referendum had been “the most democratic election … ever seen in any Western country.” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim added that the protests were “unacceptable.” On Wednesday, dozens of protesters were detained and the police presence at the protests was boosted.

Türkay believes that more repressive measures are coming. “But we are not afraid. We will continue protesting until the referendum is repeated,” he says. Turkey, in other words, could be facing the kind of escalation that took place during the Gezi Park protests.

The vote last Sunday was the most far-reaching political decision made in Turkey’s recent history. The constitutional amendments approved in the referendum essentially sweep away what was left of democracy in Turkey, completing Turkey’s transformation from the republic of Atatürk into the republic of Erdogan.

Once the constitutional reforms come into force following the next election in 2019, the president will be able to pass laws by decree and dissolve the parliament whenever he sees fit — and the office of prime minister will also be eliminated. It will mark the end of the separation of powers in Turkey. The president alone will make decisions regarding war and peace and he will have almost complete control over the judiciary.

Some of the 18 new articles come into force immediately. The High Council of Judges and Prosecutors, for example, which supervises the judiciary, will be reduced from 22 to 13 members, four of whom can be directly appointed by Erdogan. But should he go on to win re-election, Erdogan will become practically omnipotent.

The country that he rules, though, is deeply divided and the referendum has only exacerbated those divisions, with one half of the population venerating Erdogan practically as a cult leader and the other half not even recognizing his legal right to hold the presidency.

‘A Victory, But Not a Triumph’

Indeed, Erdogan emerges from the April 16 referendum as both the victor and as the loser, with the vote having laid bare his weaknesses. Europeans are turning away from him, the debate over putting a halt to Turkish-EU accession negotiations has flared up again and the Turkish president is more isolated than ever before. He received congratulations on his referendum victory from only two Western heads of government: Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Erdogan has presented the referendum result as a success, even if the margin of victory — 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent — was extremely thin. But even among his supporters, there is nothing approaching a feeling of euphoria. “Erdogan has achieved a victory, but not a triumph,” writes the columnist Abdulkadier Selvi.

Indeed, given the extreme effort the government put into the referendum campaign, the result for Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) can almost be seen as a humiliation. Together, the AKP and the right-wing extremist MHP party received more than 60 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary elections and they joined forces ahead of this referendum, assuming they would receive an equal level of support. Now, though, Erdogan’s advantage has shrunk to a paltry 2.8 percentage points.

And this despite the fact that Erdogan leaned heavily on the state authorities prior to the vote — on the police, on the administration and on imams in the mosques. Most media outlets paid no attention whatsoever to opponents of the constitutional amendments, opposition protests were prohibited and “no”-camp activists were arrested.

Erdogan’s edge is so thin that it isn’t even clear that he will be re-elected in 2019 so that he can exercise the unlimited powers that the referendum was designed to give him. AKP politicians are thus expecting that Erdogan won’t wait that long and will call snap elections much earlier. But such a move also seems risky. Erdogan suddenly seems vulnerable.

The Turkish president is falling victim to the demographic shift that he himself promoted. In the last two decades, millions of Turks have moved from the countryside to the cities, they have profited from the country’s now stalling economic boom and improved their lots in life. The number of universities in Turkey has doubled.

Reasserting Strength

Paradoxically, a young, urban middle class has developed under the leadership of the AKP, one that is religious, but which is also oriented towards Europe and isn’t interested in living in an autocracy. The result is that Erdogan lost in three of the country’s largest cities. Even in Üsküdar, the conservative-leaning quarter of Istanbul where Erdogan lives, a slim majority voted against the constitutional referendum.

Erdogan is likely to follow up his narrow referendum victory with an attempt to reassert his strength. The constitutional reform includes a provision that releases the president from political neutrality requirements, which means Erdogan can once again become the head of his party — and he will no doubt seek to use that position to unify the AKP, which has recently shown signs of division. Prime Minister Yildirim announced on Wednesday that the cabinet will soon be reshuffled and AKP officials are likely to soon find themselves being monitored even more closely by the presidential palace.

The move, though, isn’t likely to solve the fundamental problem facing the AKP: The connection between party leaders and the grassroots has frayed in many places, with the conflict between Erdogan and the Islamist movement led by the cleric Fethullah Gülen having alienated a huge number of supporters. Erdogan’s coalition partner, the MHP, has also emerged weakened from the referendum. According to one survey, two-thirds of MHP supporters voted “no,” defying the recommendation of party leaders. Prominent dissidents like former Turkish Interior Minister Meral Aksener could even take the step of forming their own party, which would leave Erdogan facing a serious challenge from the center-right political camp for the first time.

The opposition, too, is hopeful despite its defeat. It was long divided between Kemalists, nationalist, Kurds and socialists, “but April 16 has shown us that we can beat Erdogan if we work together,” says Sezgin Tanrikulu, a member of parliament with the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP).

On the Wednesday following the referendum, Tanrikulu is sitting in the Istanbul tea garden from which leftist students launched the fight against the military dictatorship 40 years ago and which still serves as a meeting point for critics of the regime. It takes him fully 30 minutes to recite the irregularities that marred the referendum. In several polling stations, he says, police forced people to vote “yes,” and the state-run news agency Ajansi announced the results before all the votes were counted. There are likewise videos in circulation showing election volunteers replacing significant numbers of “no” votes with “yes” ones.

A Simple Calculation

But Tanrikulu is particularly bothered by the electoral commission’s decision to recognize unstamped ballots. In 2014, AKP ordered a regional election to be repeated for precisely this reason.

Members of the electoral commission are unable — or unwilling — to say where the ballots came from or how many of them there were, and they have neither confirmed nor denied the 2.5 million number that election observers have cited. Without additional investigation, it will likely never be possible to say for sure whether the questionable votes affected the outcome of the referendum.

Tanrikulu makes a simple calculation: The “yes”-camp won the referendum by around 1.2 million votes. Should it emerge that only half of the unofficial ballots were manipulated, the result would have been different. “You can’t change the constitution on that basis,” he says.

On Wednesday, the complaint lodged by CHP with the electoral commission was dismissed and the party has now announced it plans to go to the Constitutional Court, Turkey’s highest legal body. It has also threatened to pull out of parliament. Tanrikulu, though, doesn’t think that the effort will ultimately be successful. In Turkey, he says, the rule of law has long since been suspended.

Opposing Erdogan is risky, as the persecution of thousands of opposition activists as alleged terrorists in recent months has shown. And Tanrikulu isn’t immune. Pro-government media outlets have called for his arrest, with the newspaper Yeni Akit writing: “Why is this man still free?”

The referendum has triggered yet more uneasiness in a country that has seemed recently to be on the verge of disintegration. The mass arrests that followed the July 15 failed coup attempt have paralyzed elements of the state administration and the Turkish military is involved in conflicts in both Iraq and Syria. Even worse, tourists are staying away and the economy is struggling, with the country’s statistical office announcing one day after the referendum that unemployment has risen to a record high of 13 percent. The lira is weaker against the dollar than it has been since 1981.

‘Nothing Left’

Frustration with the government could explode into violence at any time, particularly in southeastern Turkey, where people have been suffering under massive state repression for months. Thousands have lost their lives in battles between Turkish soldiers and PKK rebels while hundreds of thousands more have been forced to leave their hometowns.

Kazim Örmek, 63, clearly remembers celebrating on the streets of his hometown Diyarbakir in June 2015 after the Kurdish party HDP won seats in Turkish parliament. He hoped that lasting peace would be the result, but was quickly disappointed. Shortly after the election, Erdogan reversed course and returned to the bellicose policies of the 1990s. The military began bombarding Diyarbakir and Örmek’s house was destroyed. He now lives with his family in a rental on the outskirts of the city. Through the window, one can hear the roaring of the warplanes as they take off from the Diyarbakir on their way to bomb PKK positions in northern Iraq. “We have nothing left,” he says.

Desperation can be seen on every corner of Diyarbakir. The historic city center lies in ruins following months of fighting and the shops are empty. Furthermore, the military has set up myriad roadblocks, where cars are searched and papers are checked. Tanks frequently roll through the city streets.

In the months leading up to the referendum, the government essentially outlawed the HDP, arresting 13 parliamentarians, including the two heads of the party, along with 84 mayors and several thousand functionaries. Party rallies were also banned.

People in the Kurdish areas of the country essentially had little choice but to vote on the constitutional referendum in a state of siege. Soldiers patrolled in front of the polling stations and election observers were arrested. But despite the intimidation efforts, eight out of 10 eligible voters in Turkey’s southwest cast their ballots last Sunday.

The government has pointed out that several HDP voters in Kurdish provinces defected to the “yes” camp and has interpreted that as a sign that its anti-terrorism policies are working. But accusations of electoral fraud were particularly numerous in the southwest, with one election observation organization reporting that in almost 1,000 Kurdish polling places, not a single “no” vote was recorded. In addition, tens of thousands of internally displaced people were not allowed to take part in the vote because they do not have a permanent place of residence. Nevertheless, a particularly substantial number of people in Kurdish areas voted “no.”

Into the Abyss

They now feel, similar to Örmek, that they have yet again been betrayed. Rumors of electoral manipulation have confirmed the suspicions of many Kurds that the Turkish government cannot be trusted. Young people in particular are now turning to the PKK or other militant groups.

The country needs a conciliator, a leader who can reduce the current tensions and reconcile antagonistic elements of society. It needs the opposite of Erdogan.

The Turkish president has based his entire career on polarization and on dividing his friends from his foes. He relies heavily on Islamist, nationalist rhetoric. Had he enjoyed a large margin of victory in the referendum, he may very well have made concessions to his opponents, but now he will attempt to consolidate his power by way of intimidation and violence.

On Monday evening, Erdogan gave a speech from the balcony of the presidential palace in Ankara, his voice hoarse and his eyes squinted. “The crusader mentality in the West and its servants at home have attacked us,” he cried. “But we as a nation were unshaken.” As he did during the campaign leading up to the referendum, Erdogan once again promised to hold a referendum on the reintroduction of the death penalty. “We aren’t interested in what Georg, Hans or Helga think. We only care what Ayse, Fatma, Ahmet and Mehmet have to say.”

The government has extended the state of emergency, which has been in place since last summer’s failed coup, by three months. Erdogan no longer sees himself as the representative of all citizens of Turkey, he is only interested in being the patron of the 51.4 percent that voted “yes” last Sunday. He considers everyone else to be terrorists and coup supporters. Since the failed coup, more than 100,000 civil servants have been suspended and almost 50,000 people have been arrested. Now, the next wave of arrests is likely to be on the horizon.

It looks as though there is nobody left in the government who could mollify the president. Long-time Erdogan confidants, such as former president Abdullah Gül, have withdrawn from politics and internal party critics would likely only have risked sticking their necks out had a majority voted against the constitutional reform.

In this entire process, the European Union has been relegated to the sidelines, looking on with no input whatsoever. The EU failed to deepen ties with Turkey at time several years ago when the country was more open to the West. Now, it can do nothing but watch as the Turkish drama unfolds.

Erdogan may ultimately stumble over his own hubris. But for the time being, the president seems determined to pull the country into the abyss along with him.

American Airlines apologises to woman hit with buggy by crew member

Video posted on Facebook shows woman in tears and flight attendant confronting passenger after argument over pushchair

April 22, 2017

by Nadia Khomami and agencies

The Guardian

American Airlines has suspended an employee and issued an apology after an altercation on one of its planes involving crew members, several passengers and a young child.

The airline responded after a video posted on Facebook by another passenger showed a confrontation between flight crew and passengers at the front of the aircraft bound for Dallas from San Francisco on Friday.

Surain Adyanthaya, who shot the video, said the incident occurred after the employee forcefully took a child’s buggy from a woman, hitting her with it and narrowly missing her child.

The three-minute clip shows the aftermath of the incident, with the woman crying and asking for the pushchair. Another passenger comes to her defence and threatens to punch the flight attendant, who in turn challenges the passenger to hit him.

Less than a fortnight ago Dr David Dao, 69, was injured when Chicago aviation police dragged him off a United Airlines flight. The incident sparked international outrage and was a public relations disaster for the carrier.

Leslie Scott, an American Airlines spokeswoman, said the incident was sparked by a dispute over whether the woman could bring the buggy into the cabin.

“We have seen the video and have already started an investigation to obtain the facts,” the airline said in a statement. “What we see on this video does not reflect our values or how we care for our customers. We are deeply sorry for the pain we have caused this passenger and her family and to any other customers affected by the incident.

“We are making sure all of her family’s needs are being met while she is in our care. After electing to take another flight, we are taking special care of her and her family and upgrading them to first class for the remainder of their international trip.”

American added: “The actions of our team member captured here do not appear to reflect patience or empathy, two values necessary for customer care. In short, we are disappointed by these actions. The American team member has been removed from duty while we immediately investigate this incident.”

‘Totally surreal’: Blackouts hit LA, New York and San Francisco

April 21, 2017

RT

Power outages hit Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, leaving commuters stranded and traffic backed up Friday. About 90,000 customers were affected in San Francisco.

While the outages occurred around the same time there is no evidence they were connected or coordinated.

NEW YORK

The first outage occurred at around 7:20am in New York when the power went down at 7th Avenue and 53rd Street subway station. That sent a shockwave of delays into the rest of the subway system.

A Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman told AP some passengers were stranded on trains. Some cars were dark except for phone light, and some riders say their commutes took two to three hours. Stations were packed.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called for a state investigation into the power outrage that ruined Friday’s commute for many straphangers.

“The loss of power due to a Con Edison equipment failure during the morning rush hour caused a cascading effect and impacted the lives of thousands of commuters,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Simply put, this was completely unacceptable.”

“The @MTA started the weekend early, I guess? Power outage at 53rd & everything is crazy,” one commuter wrote on Twitter.

The weekend is when the MTA does many of its major subway repairs and cuts or reduces subway service.

“It took me an hour and 20 mins to go one stop, give up, find my way out of this mob, then walk back home @MTA,” wrote Liz Baker on Twitter.

By 11:30am, MTA spokesman, Kevin Ortiz, confirmed the generators were running again at the station, and delays were cleared up by the afternoon.

The utility company, Con Edison, said one of its electric lines triggered the outage. Spokesman Allan Drury told AP it is not clear how long the repairs will take or how the failure occurred.

LOS ANGELES

Later in the morning, power outages were reported in Los Angeles International Airport, as well as in several other areas around the city.

SAN FRANCISCO

In San Francisco, the power outages were widespread.

The utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric, said a series of outages began at 9 am and within 30 minutes about 90,000 customers lost power.

PG&E spokeswoman Tamar Sarkissian said crews are assessing the situation but there’s no immediate estimate for when power will be restored.

PG&E officials are pointing to a substation fire as the primary cause of the outage, but have given no public estimates as to when power will be restored.

The blackout includes the Financial District, Presidio and stretch to the Marina/Cow Hollow area, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Traffic lights were out at scores of intersections, and cars backed up on downtown streets as drivers grew frustrated and honked at each other.

BART’s Montgomery Station was closed for more than two hours, with trains running through the station without stopping, before the agency reopened it.

All cable cars were down, as were several Muni bus lines that typically run on electricity from overhead wires,. Shuttles were put in place to provide service, according to the Municipal Transportation Agency.

The blackout took out traffic signals, affecting office buildings with residents and workers in the area calling it “totally surreal.”

Twenty-one schools in San Francisco were affected by the outage that affected utilities, including the internet, but they remained open and their schedules adjusted. Families were to be notified if there were changes at the schools.

The Philip Burton Federal Building and US Courthouse were closed down by the outage.

The San Francisco Fire Department said it has responded to more than 100 calls for service since a power outage struck a large area of the city. No injuries were reported.

The department tweeted that the calls included 20 elevators with people stuck inside.

The department adds there have been no delays in responding to calls.

Daisy Prado, a 23-year-old South Bay resident, told the San Francisco Chronicle she was sitting at her desk on the 14th floor of an office building in the Financial District when the power suddenly dropped out. She looked out the window and saw the buildings across the street go dark.

“They told us on an intercom to just stay calm,” Prado said. “People are hanging out the side of their buildings waiting to see what’s going to happen.”

Pacific Gas and Electric’s own outage map shows thousands affected and current estimates indicate that the outage is hitting up to 100,000 customers.

At a 2:00 pm press conference, city officials said 300 traffic signals went still down, with either flashing red or no signals, in the North East section of the San Francisco. The city employed 100 parking patrol officers to help with traffic control.

Drivers were asked to treat intersections as ‘Always Stop.’

There had been no reports of traffic collisions.

San Francisco Police Chief, Bill Scott, said “Our major issue is traffic.”

‘Hobbit’ species did not evolve from ancestor of modern humans, research finds

Bone study shows there is no evidence the 1.1-metre tall Homo floresiensis had any links with the much larger Homo erectus

April 21, 2017

by Melissa Davey

The Guardian

Researchers who studied the bones of Homo floresiensis, a species of tiny human discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, say their findings should end a popular theory that it evolved from an ancestor of modern humans.

The study, led by the Australian National University researcher Dr Debbie Argue from the school of archaeology and anthropology, found there was no evidence the diminutive 1.1-metre-tall Homo floresiensis evolved from the much larger Homo erectus, the only other early hominid known to have lived in the region.

It was one of several theories about the origins of the “hobbit” species. Since it was discovered, researchers have tried to determine whether Homo floresiensis was a species distinct from humans.

Argue was overseas and unavailable to comment but a member of her research team, prof Colin Groves, said the theory of a link with the Asian Homo erectus, the first of our relatives to have modern human proportions, was “a good scientific hypothesis”.

“But we believe it has now been thoroughly refuted,” he told Guardian Australia.

Groves said the researchers had gone into the study of the species with an open mind. But their findings support another popular theory: that Homo floresiensis was in fact far more primitive than Homo erectus and had characteristics more similar to Homo habilis, which lived between 1.65m and 2.4m years ago, and which is the most ancient representative of the human genus.

The researchers collected 133 cranial, postcranial, mandibular and dental samples from a variety of ancient and more modern species for analysis and comparison, travelling toseveral countries, including to Africa and Europe. The number of samples collected was more comprehensive and ambitious than had been carried out in the field before. Most previous studies of the species examined only the skull and lower jaw.

The researchers also used modern methods of statistical analysis based on latest evidence. Homo erectus and floresiensis were found to have completely different bone structures, particularly in the jaw and pelvis.

“A close relationship between Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis is rejected, which contradicts the proposal that island dwarfing of Asian Homo erectus led to Homo floresiensis,” the study, published in the Journal of Human Evolution on Friday, concluded.

The findings add support to the theory that the species evolved from one in Africa, most likely Homo habilis, and that the two species shared a common ancestor. It was possible that Homo floresiensis evolved in Africa and migrated, or the common ancestor moved from Africa and then evolved into Homo floresiensis somewhere, the researchers concluded.

Prof Mike Lee of Flinders University and the South Australian Museum used statistical modelling to analyse the data collected by the researchers. He said the findings were clear.

“Homo floresiensis occupied a very primitive position on the human evolutionary tree,” Lee said. “We can be 99% sure it’s not related to Homo erectus and nearly 100% it isn’t a malformed Homo sapiens.”

The Cro-Magnon man: Not out of Africa

The Cro-Magnon man was, compared to the other so-called anatomically modern humans in his areas, the Neanderthal man, far superior physicialy and intellectually.

The Cro-Magnon were skilled hunters, toolmakers and artists famous for the cave art at places such as Lascaux, Chauvet, and Altamira. They had a high cranium, a broad and upright face, and cranial capacity larger than modern humans and their remains show few small differences from modern man.

The males were as tall as six feet.

Neanderthals, on the other hand, had shorter legs and longer arms and stood at about four feet, eleven inches tall.

The Cro-Magnon man suddenly appeared in Europe in the upper Pleistocene about 35,000-40,000 years ago and their geographical origin appears to be located on the mouth of the Volga River near the Caspian Sea.

The current socially acceptable ‘out of Africa’ theory advocates theorize that the Cro-Magnon came from Sub-Saharan Africa.

There is, of course, the problem of a 60,000-year time lag between the appearances of the sub-Saharan type of species who showed no improvement in his technology whatsoever.

If Cro-Magnon evolved in Africa, why isn’t there a continuous record of incremental developments?

By the same reasoning, if he evolved only after crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, why isn’t there a continuous record of incremental developments?

Cro-Magnon’s tools are described as the Aurignacian technology, characterized by bone and antler tools, such as spear tips and harpoons. They also used animal traps, and bow and arrow. They invented shafts and handles for their knives, securing their blades with bitumen, a kind of tar, as long as 40 thousand years ago. Other improvements included the invention of the atlatl, a large bone or piece of wood with a hooked groove used for adding distance and speed to spears.

They also invented more sophisticated spear points, such as those that detach after striking and cause greater damage to prey.

The Cro-Magnon type man was also the originator of such abstract concepts as time.

They marked time by lunar phases, recording them with marks on a piece of bone, antler or stone. Some of these calendars contained a record of as many as 24 lunations.

In the relatively recent past, tool industries diversified.

The Gravettian industry (25 to 15 thousand years ago), characterized by ivory tools such as backed blades, is associated with mammoth hunters. One type of brief industry was Solutrean, occurring from 18 to 15 thousand years ago and limited to Southwest France and Spain. It is characterized by unique and finely crafted “laurel leaf” blades, made with a pressure technique requiring a great skill.

The industry is associated with horse hunters. The tool industry of the Clovis Culture in North America (11 to 8 thousand years ago) is notable for its remarkable similarity to Solutrean. Some suggest that the Solutrean culture migrated to North America around 12,000 thousand years ago.

Cro-Magnon people lived in tents and other man-made shelters in groups of several families. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers and had elaborate rituals for hunting, birth and death. Multiple burials are common in the areas where they were found. What is most interesting is that from 35 to 10 thousand years ago, there was no differentiation by sex or age in burials.

They included special grave goods, as opposed to everyday, utilitarian objects, suggesting a very increased ritualization of death and burial..

They were the first confirmed to have domesticated animals, starting by about 15 thousand years ago.

They were the first to leave extensive works of art, such as cave paintings and carved figures of animals and pregnant women. Huge caves lavishly decorated with murals depicting animals of the time were at first rejected as fake for being too sophisticated. Then they were dismissed as being primitive, categorized as hunting, fertility or other types of sympathetic magic.

Re-evaluations have put these great works of art in a more prominent place in art history.

They show evidence of motifs, of following their own stylistic tradition, of impressionist- like style, perspective, and innovative use of the natural relief in the caves.

At Lascaux, France, are the famous caves of upper Paleolithic cave art, dated to 17 thousand years ago, and even older, in some cases, by many thousands of years!

In spite of politically correct anthropologists attemting to prove the origins of modern man in Africa, there is simply was no way to prove that Cro-Magnon evolved in Africa or the Levant and then moved to Europe.

What the archaeological record clearly shows is that in Europe, after millennia of almost no progress at all, suddenly human culture seems to take off like an explosion with the appearance of Cro-Magnon man.

Not only does culture explode, but also new ways of doing things, new styles and innovations that were utterly unknown in the period immediately preceding them, suddenly appear in many archaeological sites across Europe and southern Russia.

From Spain to the Urals, sites list the developments of sewing needles, barbed projectiles, fishhooks, ropes, meat drying racks, temperature controlled hearths, and complex dwellings.

The most amazing part of all of it is the art. Art suddenly springs onto the landscape, fully formed, with no period of gradual development; no signs of childish attempts preceding it. A piece of ivory carved 32,000 years ago is as realistic as anything turned out by the most accomplished carver of the present day.

The Upper Paleolithic signals a most fundamental change in human behavior, a change and development that the archaeological record has clearly proven.

The only explanation for this tremendous change is that a new kind of human appeared, a human that had no physical or intellectual connection with the more primitive types of human types that originated and developed in Africa.

New evidence suggests Stone Age hunters from Europe discovered America

February 28, 2012

by David Keys

The Independent

New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe – 10,000 years before the Siberian-originating ancestors of the American Indians set foot in the New World.

A remarkable series of several dozen European-style stone tools, dating back between 19,000 and 26,000 years, have been discovered at six locations along the US east coast. Three of the sites are on the Delmarva Peninsula in Maryland, discovered by archaeologist Dr Darrin Lowery of the University of Delaware. One is in Pennsylvania and another in Virginia. A sixth was discovered by scallop-dredging fishermen on the seabed 60 miles from the Virginian coast on what, in prehistoric times, would have been dry land.

The new discoveries are among the most important archaeological breakthroughs for several decades – and are set to add substantially to our understanding of humanity’s spread around the globe.

The similarity between other later east coast US and European Stone Age stone tool technologies has been noted before. But all the US European-style tools, unearthed before the discovery or dating of the recently found or dated US east coast sites, were from around 15,000 years ago – long after Stone Age Europeans (the Solutrean cultures of France and Iberia) had ceased making such artefacts. Most archaeologists had therefore rejected any possibility of a connection. But the newly-discovered and recently-dated early Maryland and other US east coast Stone Age tools are from between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago – and are therefore contemporary with the virtually identical western European material.

What’s more, chemical analysis carried out last year on a European-style stone knife found in Virginia back in 1971 revealed that it was made of French-originating flint.

Professor Dennis Stanford, of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, and Professor Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter, the two leading archaeologists who have analyzed all the evidence, are proposing that Stone Age people from Western Europe migrated to North America at the height of the Ice Age by travelling (over the ice surface and/or by boat) along the edge of the frozen northern part of the Atlantic. They are presenting their detailed evidence in a new book – Across Atlantic Ice – published this month.

At the peak of the Ice Age, around three million square miles of the North Atlantic was covered in thick ice for all or part of the year.

However, the seasonally shifting zone where the ice ended and the open ocean began would have been extremely rich in food resources – migrating seals, sea birds, fish and the now-extinct northern hemisphere penguin-like species, the great auk.

Stanford and Bradley have long argued that Stone Age humans were quite capable of making the 1500 mile journey across the Atlantic ice – but till now there was comparatively little evidence to support their thinking.

But the new Maryland, Virginia and other US east coast material, and the chemical tests on the Virginian flint knife, have begun to transform the situation. Now archaeologists are starting to investigate half a dozen new sites in Tennessee, Maryland and even Texas – and these locations are expected to produce more evidence.

Another key argument for Stanford and Bradley’s proposal is the complete absence of any human activity in north-east Siberia and Alaska prior to around 15,500 years ago. If the Maryland and other east coast people of 26,000 to 19,000 years ago had come from Asia, not Europe, early material, dating from before 19,000 years ago, should have turned up in those two northern areas, but none have been found.

Although Solutrean Europeans may well have been the first Americans, they had a major disadvantage compared to the Asian-originating Indians who entered the New World via the Bering Straits or along the Aleutian Islands chain after 15,500 years ago.

Whereas the Solutreans had only had a 4500 year long ‘Ice Age’ window to carry out their migratory activity, the Asian-originating Indians had some 15,000 years to do it. What’s more, the latter two-thirds of that 15 millennia long period was climatologically much more favorable and substantially larger numbers of Asians were therefore able to migrate.

As a result of these factors the Solutrean (European originating) Native Americans were either partly absorbed by the newcomers or were substantially obliterated by them either physically or through competition for resources.

Some genetic markers for Stone Age western Europeans simply don’t exist in north east Asia – but they do in tiny quantities among some north American Indian groups. Scientific tests on ancient DNA extracted from 8000 year old skeletons from Florida have revealed a high level of a key probable European-originating genetic marker. There are also a tiny number of isolated Native American groups whose languages appear not to be related in any way to Asian-originating American Indian peoples.

But the greatest amount of evidence is likely to come from under the ocean – for most of the areas where the Solutreans would have stepped off the Ice onto dry land are now up to 100 miles out to sea.

The one underwater site that has been identified – thanks to the scallop dredgers – is set to be examined in greater detail this summer – either by extreme-depth divers or by remotely operated mini submarines equipped with cameras and grab arms.

US regressing into a developing nation for most people, MIT professor warns

April 22, 2017

RT

Growing income inequality is turning the US into a dual economy, with one economy for the rich and another for the poor, according to an MIT professor, who warns that the middle class is vanishing.

In his new book, “The Vanishing Middle Class,” Peter Temin, professor emeritus of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, warns that the US is moving backward and becoming more like a developing nation, as the “the vanishing middle class has left behind a dual economy.”

“We are still one country, but the stretch of incomes is fraying the unity of the nation,” Temin wrote in the introduction of his book, according to a copy obtained by Barnard College.

The economist describes a dual economy, where the gap between the rich and the poor has grown wider.

Temin points to a study from the Pew Research Center, which, he said, “shows that the income share lost by the middle class has gone to people earning more than double the median income.”

“In short, the rich got richer. The poor did not disappear, and the middle class shrank sharply,” Temin wrote. “We are on our way to become a nation of the rich and the poor with only a few people in the middle.”

Temin argues that American history and politics had a lot to do with the increasing wealth inequality.

Over a period of 40 years, from World War II to the 1970s, Temin said that wages grew with the rest of the economy. Then, starting in the 1970s, national production continued to grow, but wages did not.

“The middle class’s share of total income fell 30 percent in 44 years,” Temin wrote.

The wealthiest 20 percent of the population had access to education, good jobs and social networks, while the other 80 percent was increasingly burdened with debts, low-wage jobs, and health problems. Now, Temin said the conditions where many poorer Americans live in resemble developing countries, with dilapidated housing, crumbling public transportation, and roads and neglected social structures.

Temin splits the economy into the “FTE sector” (finance, technology, and electronics) and low-skill work. The economic gap between rich and poor began with the war on drugs, he said.

“The low-wage sector—like the FTE sector—was born in 1971 as President [Richard] Nixon replaced [President Lyndon B.] Johnson’s War on Poverty with a new War on Drugs and appointed Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court,” Temin wrote. “As the War on Drugs expanded in subsequent decades, it was enforced far more strongly for African Americans than for whites, becoming… the ‘New Jim Crow,’ revamping and renewing the racist intent of the repressive old anti-black Jim Crow laws that followed Reconstruction in the South.”

After that, Temin said, the FTE sector became driven by money and free-market individualism. They began to ignore the needs of the low-wage sector, turned away from public-spirited universalism to free-market individualism and even began to work against the low-wage sector.

The FTE sector was able to stay in power, Temin said, because of Investment Theory of Politics, which he describes as “the connection between the income distribution in the United States and political decisions.”

Investment Theory of Politics was developed by political scientist Thomas Ferguson, director of research at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), who said that there is a direct correlation between the money major political parties spend and the votes they win.

The evidence can be seen in a simple graph from a study conducted by the Roosevelt Institute on the influence money had on the 2012 presidential election.

Temin used a model created by Nobel Prize winner Arthur Lewis, which was designed to describe how far inequalities have progressed in developing nations. When Temin used the applied the model to the US, he said: “The Lewis Model actually works.”

“We have a structure that predetermines winners and losers. We are not getting the benefits of all the people who could contribute to the growth of the economy, to advances in medicine or science which could improve the quality of life for everyone — including some of the rich people,” Temin wrote, according to the Independent.

To break the cycle, Temin provides some recommendations, including reducing mass imprisonment, which costs around $1 trillion a year, or 6 percent of the total US gross domestic product, according to a 2016 study from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

He recommends using the money to increasing funds for public education, so families can escape the low-skill trap and integrate into the broader economy.

Border Agency Under Investigation for Trying to Unmask Anonymous Twitter Account

April 21 2017

by Sam Biddle

The Intercept

In the first week of April, Twitter revealed that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency was trying to force the company to reveal the identity of @ALT_USCIS, an anonymous, deeply anti-Trump account claiming to be run from within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The Department of Homeland Security is now formally investigating whether the attempted unmasking was an abuse of power.

Just one day after Twitter said that it had been targeted by a CBP summons demanding identifying information about @ALT_USCIS, Senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat outspoken on privacy issues, wrote a letter to the agency’s acting commissioner asking for an explanation of what clearly appeared to be a politically motivated attempt to stifle speech critical of the Trump administration. In a response sent today, John Roth, inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, the parent organization of both CBP and USCIS, said that “We have concluded that no classified information was released via the @ALT_USCIS Twitter account,” and that the summons itself is now the subject of an internal review:

I can confirm that DHS OIG is investigating whether the investigation conducted by CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility relating to the @ALT_USCIS Twitter account was improper in any way, including whether CBP abused its authority in issuing the March 14, 2017 summons to Twitter. DHS OIG is also reviewing potential broader misuse of summons authority at the Department and/or its components.

Roth added that the Office of the Inspector General only learned of CBP’s attempt to reveal the Twitter critic’s identity “when it was reported in the media.”

 

 

 

 

 

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