Tag: israel

Who is José Antonio Kast, Chile’s new pro-Israel, ultra-conservative president?

Chile elected a new ultra-conservative and pro-Israel president on Sunday, a result set to mark a sharp shift in the country’s foreign policy.

José Antonio Kast, 59, defeated his communist rival Jeanette Jara by 58 percent to 42 percent, campaigning on a platform focused on security and immigration reform, including tighter controls along Chile’s northern borders with Peru and Bolivia.

Kast is a deeply polarising figure among Chileans, due to both his family history and his ultra-conservative views.

A controversial family

A lawyer by profession, Kast is a staunch Catholic and has been active in politics for around three decades, with this election marking his third presidential bid.

In 2016, he broke away from Chile’s main conservative party to found the Republican Party.

Beyond his opposition to abortion, same sex marriage, divorce and euthanasia, Kast has openly expressed admiration for the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, a period marked by widespread human rights abuses. One of Kast’s brothers served as a minister during that era.

His family background has also drawn scrutiny. Kast’s parents settled in Chile in 1950 after leaving post-war Germany.

His father was a member of the Nazi Party during the Second World War and served in the German military. Kast has denied that his father was a Nazi, saying he was “forcibly” conscripted.

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A Story of a 1930s Uprising Against British Colonialism Is Key To Understanding Gaza Today

Anyone wondering why the British state and media, despite the latter’s pretension to serve as a watchdog on power, continue to cheerlead Israel’s genocidal slaughter of civilians in Gaza will find the answers in a new film.

It recounts not the current period of history, but a story from nearly 90 years ago.

Palestine 36, directed by the remarkable Palestinian film-maker Annemarie Jacir, illuminates more about the events unfolding for the past two years in Gaza than anything you will read in a British newspaper or watch on the BBC – if, that is, you can find anything at all about Gaza in the news since Donald Trump rebranded the killing and dispossession of Palestinians as a “ceasefire”.

And Palestine 36 does so, unusually for a Palestinian film, with a budget worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster and with a cast that includes names recognizable to western audiences, from Jeremy Irons to Liam Cunningham.

This is a major episode of British colonial history told not through British eyes but, for once, through the eyes of its victims.

The “36” of the title refers to 1936, when Palestinians rose up against British colonial tyranny – more usually, and deceitfully, referred to as a “British Mandate” issued by the League of Nations.

The problem for Palestinians was not just the systematic violence of those three decades of tyranny. It was that Britain’s role as a supposed caretaker of Palestine – an “arbiter of peace” between native Palestinians and mostly Jewish immigrants – served as cover for a much more sinister project.

It was British officials who ushered Jews out of Europe – where they were unwanted by racist governments, including Britain’s – to implant them in Palestine. There, they were actively nurtured as the foot soldiers of a coming “Jewish state” that was supposed to be dependent on Britain and assist in strengthening its imperial, regional agenda.

In effect, an overstretched British empire hoped over time to outsource its colonial role to a “Jewish” fortress state.

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Oxford University student, 20, is charged with stirring up racial hatred after allegedly promoting an antisemitic chant at pro-Palestine demonstration

An Oxford University student caught on camera allegedly making antisemitic chants at a pro-Palestine demonstration has been charged with a public order offence.

The Metropolitan Police said Samuel Williams, 20, was charged with stirring up racial hatred at a Palestine Coalition demo in Whitehall, central London, on Saturday, October 11.

He was charged today and will appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court in the new year.

Williams was identified by the Daily Mail after footage emerged of a man allegedly chanting an antisemitic chant at the pro-Palestine protest.

Williams was arrested at a property in Oxfordshire on suspicion of inciting racial hatred following an investigation launched by Scotland Yard detectives.

The philosophy, politics and economics student at Balliol College was also suspended by Oxford University.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said there had been an ‘unacceptable increase in anti-Semitism’ at universities and added that many Jewish students did not feel safe on campus.

She called on universities to strengthen protections for Jewish students and said the Government was funding training to help staff and students ‘tackle this poison of antisemitism’.

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Israel obtained, ignored Hamas document laying out Oct. 7 attack plan, report alleges

Israeli officials had intelligence that Palestinian terror group Hamas was preparing a wide-ranging attack before its October 7 assault but dismissed the information, The New York Times reported Thursday.

A document obtained by Israeli authorities at least a year before the attack “outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people,” the newspaper reported.

The 40-page document, which was reviewed by the newspaper, did not specify when the attack might happen. But it provided a blueprint that Hamas appears to have followed: an initial rocket barrage, efforts to knock out surveillance, and waves of gunmen crossing into Israel by land and air.

Some 3,000 Hamas terrorists burst into Israel on October 7 under cover of heavy rocket fire, attacking army bases and invading communities at a music festival. Some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were brutally slaughtered in the unprecedented assault, and another approximately 240 people were taken hostage.

The Times said the document, which included sensitive security information about Israeli military capacity and locations, circulated widely among the country’s military and intelligence leaders, though it was not clear if it was reviewed by senior politicians including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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The Nonsense of Christian Zionism

I am sure this going to anger some people, but so be it. Christian Zionism is a theological and political movement primarily among evangelical Protestants (especially in the United States) that expresses strong support for the modern State of Israel and the Jewish people’s right to the land. Its beliefs are rooted in a particular interpretation of the Bible—known as dispensational premillennialism—which views biblical prophecies as literal and still applicable today.

Christian Zionists (aka CZs) take God’s covenants with Abraham and his descendants (the Jewish people) as eternal and unconditional. The CZs rely to two snippets from the Old Testament / Pentateuch to justify exalting the modern state of Israel:

Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.”

Genesis 17:8: God promises the land of Canaan “to you and your descendants after you… as an everlasting possession.”

Christian Zionists support Israel because they believe the Bible literally promises the Jewish people an eternal covenant with the land, that modern Israel fulfills ancient prophecy, and that backing Israel aligns believers with God’s end-times plan and brings divine blessing. This theological conviction drives both spiritual solidarity and strong political advocacy.

But there are several problems with this. Let’s start with the polygamous activities of Abraham. The initial promises to Abraham in Genesis (e.g., Genesis 12:1–3, 15:18) are broad, speaking of blessing Abraham’s “offspring” or “seed” (zera in Hebrew) without naming a specific child. Abraham had eight sons total: Ishmael (with Hagar), Isaac (with Sarah), and six others (Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, Shuah) with Keturah (Genesis 25:1–6). Abraham, if he were alive today, would fit in well in some Florida retirement villages that are notorious for rampant sexual activity among the senior citizens.

So why do the CZs assume that God’s promise to Abraham only applies to Isaac and not the other seven offspring? I maintain that is a consequence of author bias. The traditional Jewish (and much Christian) view attributes the entire Torah—including the first five books (Genesis through Deuteronomy)—to Moses himself, around the 13th–15th century BCE, as divine revelation received at Sinai and written down by Moses. The is ZERO archeological evidence to support that claim.

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Israel Used Palantir Technology In Its 2024 Lebanon Pager Attack

Palantir software was used by Israel in its 2024 pager attacks in Lebanon, according to a new book by Alex Karp, co-founder of the Palantir tech company. On September 17, thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah members, including civilians not involved in any armed activity, were detonated across Lebanon.

Many showed “error” messages and vibrated loudly prior to exploding, luring Hezbollah members or, in some cases, their family members to stand close by at the point of detonation. The next day more communication devices exploded, including at the public funerals of Hezbollah members and civilians who had been killed the previous day.

While many Israeli figures celebrated, praised and even joked about the attacks, United Nations experts called them a “terrifying” violation of international law. In total, 42 people were killed and thousands wounded, many left with life-altering injuries to the eyes, face and hands.

Karp’s new biography reveals that Israel deepened its use of the company’s technology after it launched the war on Gaza in October 2023, deploying it in numerous operations.

“The company’s technology was deployed by the Israelis during military operations in Lebanon in 2024 that decimated Hezbollah’s top leadership,” wrote Michael Steinberger, author of The Philosopher in the Valley: Alex Karp, Palantir, and the Rise of the Surveillance State.

“It was also used in Operation Grim Beeper, in which hundreds of Hezbollah fighters were injured and maimed when their pagers and walkie-talkies exploded (the Israelis had booby trapped the devices).”

He said that the demand for Palantir’s assistance by Israel “was so great that the company dispatched a team of engineers from London to help get Israeli users online“.

The involvement of a range of tech companies in Israel’s attacks on its neighbors in recent years, as well as for attacking and surveilling Palestinians, has sparked anger from rights campaigners and UN officials.

In a report produced by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese in July, several tech companies were accused of profiting from crimes including illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide in occupied Palestine. The report referenced AI systems that were developed by the Israeli military to process and generate targets during the war on Gaza.

“There are reasonable grounds to believe Palantir has provided automatic predictive policing technology, core defense infrastructure for rapid and scaled-up construction and deployment of military software, and its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which allows real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision making,” the report said.

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The billionaire family poised to rewire U.S. media in Israel’s favor

In early September, the Hollywood producer Lawrence Bender — known for his work with Quentin Tarantino on films including “Pulp Fiction” and “Inglourious Basterds” — had what he later described as “a really tough conversation” with the investors in “Red Alert,” an Israeli miniseries that dramatizes the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.

With just weeks remaining before the anticipated release on the second anniversary of the attacks, the show, produced by Israeli mass media company Keshet Media Group, was struggling to secure distribution outside of Israel. The news environment was far from favorable: Israeli fighter jets had just attacked a residential compound in Qatar, and a pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions that were “implicated” in the genocide in the Gaza Strip had collected thousands of signatures in Hollywood.

“No one’s going to want to buy something from the Israelis,” Bender, an executive producer of “Red Alert,” told the investors, as he recalled on stage at a Jewish National Fund–USA conference the following month. Among those investors was the Israel Entertainment Fund, which JNF–USA established last year with the Israeli streaming service Izzy to produce television and film for international audiences, with a focus on projects filmed in the “Gaza Envelope” region of southern Israel. “We were pretty stressed about what we were going to do,” Izzy CEO Nati Dinnar‏, interviewing Bender on stage, recalled.

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Kolomoisky In Court Describes Assassination Attempt Against Timur Mindich, ‘Zelenskiy’s Wallet’, In Israel

The Russian Telegram channel ‘Baza’ has reported an attempted assassination attempt against Timur Mindich, the Ukrainian/Israeli entertainment mogul who is close to Ukrainian President Zelenskiy. Mindich fled to Israel after being accused of laundering $100M of Ukrainian defense funds.

An assassination attempt was made on Timur Mindich in Israel, Ukrainian businessman Ihor Kolomoisky* testified in court, reported Baza.

According to him, the incident occurred on November 28. During the attack, the perpetrators mistook the house and wounded the housekeeper. All the attackers were subsequently detained. Kolomoisky* added that he would provide details in the coming days.

Mindich is known as “Zelensky’s wallet.” Last month, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) conducted large-scale searches as part of an investigation into a corruption scheme in the Ukrainian energy sector orchestrated by Timur Mindich, co-owner of Kvartal 95. Some of the accused are wanted, while others have already been dismissed.

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Defending Israeli Mass Murder Isn’t Easy

Although much has already been said, I can’t not comment on Sarah Hurwitz, the former Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama speechwriter, who faults young people (especially young Jews) for applying their power of abstraction in thinking about the Holocaust.

What do I mean by that? Hurwitz thinks (or says she does) that the TikTok generation makes a big mistake by drawing general lessons from the National Socialist regime’s mass murder of European Jews last century. She is dismayed that young people have concluded that powerful bad people, no matter who they are, should not harm weak people, no matter who they are.

So what’s the problem? According to Hurwitz, they were supposed to learn that killing weak people of a particular ethnicity or religion is horrible only when the victims are Jewish. Moreover, they should have learned that Jews by definition can never constitute the oppressor. Therefore, TikTok’ers are wrong to think of the Holocaust when they see videos of powerful Israeli soldiers harming weak Palestinians in Gaza. Or so Hurwitz believes. See for yourself. (By the way, Ms. Hurwitz, in both cases, the mass murderers did not only harm weak, emaciated victims; they made them weak and emaciated in the first place.)

All this perplexes Hurwitz and others in the American pro-Israel constituency. Young people have drawn broad rather than narrow lessons – and she equates that with antisemitism. Of course, this is buncumbe. Abstracting – drawing generalizations—from real events is a virtue, not a vice. It is quintessentially human. Ayn Rand disparaged persons who refuse to abstract as “concrete-bound.” We think in concepts, and we wouldn’t be able to do much thinking without them. Concepts are abstractions. We observe reality, note differences and similarities among entities, and integrate similar things into a conceptual hierarchy (for instance, chairs, furniture, manmade things). This facilitates efficient thinking by economizing on mental units. (Rand explained all this.)

Of course, we can make mistakes. We can misclassify things. We’re not infallible, which is why logic and reason are indispensable guides. If Hurwitz thinks that certain generalizations drawn from the Holocaust are fallacious, let her argue for her opposing position. However, she can’t get away with the libel of attributing those generalizations to  “people who don’t really love Jews.” For one thing, many Jews have drawn those generalizations. At demonstrations protesting Israel’s destruction of life and property in Gaza, Jewish participants have held signs reading, “Never Again Is Now.” Hurwitz thinks that “Never Again” means only that Jews should not be persecuted or exterminated. Apparently, she also believes that if officials and military forces of the Jewish state seem to be committing those crimes, it can’t really be so, no matter how it looks. “Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” said Chico Marx.

Only an idiot or a demagogue could draw those conclusions. (I’ve drawn an additional lesson.)

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Israel Funds Summit For 1,000 US Pastors Overseen By Amb. Huckabee

A group of more than 1,000 American Christian Zionist pastors and influencers has spent a week in Israel on an all-expenses-paid trip that was funded by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Tuesday.

“This is the first time in history that the state of Israel has officially partnered with 1,000 strategic pastors to commission them as ambassadors to combat antisemitism and reach the youth of their generation,” Mike Evans, an evangelical pastor who helped organize the trip, told CBN News. “Right now there’s an ideological war that Israel is losing, so they need the evangelicals, they need the Zionists to fight an ideological war,” Evans added.

Christian Zionists like Evans believe that the modern state of Israel has the right to all of the land in historic Palestine, including the Israeli-occupied West Bank, based on the Bible, a view that has its roots in dispensationalism, a Christian theology developed in the US in the 19th century.

The view runs counter to thousands of years of Christian tradition, as it’s rejected by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and many Protestant denominations, yet it has significant influence on US foreign policy. During a speech to the crowd of pastors at the Shiloh archeological site in the West Bank, Evans addressed recent remarks from Vice President JD Vance and President Trump about not supporting the Israeli annexation of the Palestinian territory, which he calls Judea and Samaria.

“You said that the policy of the administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel. Mr. Vice President, we love you, and we love America, but the policy of the God who birthed America and the policy of the God who gave these people this land is in fact that Judea and Samaria is Bible land,” Evans said.

“Eighty percent of Bible stories come out of Judea and Samaria. So don’t pressure Israel to give illegal, radical Islam Jew-haters Judea and Samaria,” he said, adding that the MAGA movement is based on the Bible and “upon the God of this book, the God of Israel.”

While American evangelicals have always comprised a solid base of support for Israel, that support has been declining, part of an overall trend among Americans due to Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza.

“There is a growing cancer within the evangelical movement in America, where people are thinking Israel doesn’t matter and there’s nothing biblical about our relationship with Israel. This is very dangerous,” US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told CBN News during the summit.

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