Tag: israel

Yes, There Is a World Zionist Congress – and It’s Meeting Now

I’m sometimes astounded at the fact that a major political movement over a century old is so little known among Americans – especially since it has had a momentous impact on the world in general and on the U.S. in particular, causing multiple wars, vast population displacement, and global instability.

In my travels around the US, I’ve found that most Americans know extremely little about Zionism. I would guess that the vast majority of Americans could not define the term (that was certainly my situation for most of my life), and that a great many may not have even heard of it.

And among those who have heard the term, many may think it refers to some antisemitic conspiracy theory.

The fact is, however, that Zionism – according to the dictionary, “a worldwide Jewish movement that resulted in the establishment and development of the state of Israel and that now supports the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland” – is both very real and extremely significant.

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Unit 8200: Israel’s cyber spy agency

In a searingly hot afternoon at a campuslike new science park in Beer Sheva, southern Israel, I watched as a group of bright, geeky teenagers presented their graduation projects. Parents and uniformed army personnel milled around a windowless room packed with tables holding laptops, phones or other gadgets. There was excited chatter and a pungent smell of adolescent sweat. This was a recent graduation ceremony for Magshimim (which roughly translates as “fulfilment”), the three-year after-school programme for 16 to 18-year-old students with exceptional computer coding and hacking skills. Magshimim serves as a feeder system for potential recruits to Unit 8200, the Israeli military’s legendary high-tech spy agency, considered by intelligence analysts to be one of the most formidable of its kind in the world. Unit 8200, or shmone matayim as it’s called in Hebrew, is the equivalent of America’s National Security Agency and the largest single military unit in the Israel Defence Forces. It is also an elite institution whose graduates, after leaving service, can parlay their cutting-edge snooping and hacking skills into jobs in Israel, Silicon Valley or Boston’s high-tech corridor. The authors of Start-up Nation, the seminal 2009 book about Israel’s start-up culture, described 8200 and the Israeli military’s other elite units as “the nation’s equivalent of Harvard, Princeton and Yale”.

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Israel Has Officially Banned Fluoridation of Its Drinking Water

On Tuesday of this week (Aug. 26), Israel officially stopped adding fluoride to its water supplies. The decision has “been lauded by various rights groups, but criticized by many in the medical and dental communities as a serious mistake,” as the Times of Israel put it.

The tasteless, colorless chemical is put into water for the purpose of reducing cavities, but critics say that it amounts to mass medication, and forces people to consume the substance whether they want to or not.

By law, fluoride had been added to public drinking water supplies of large Israeli towns since the 1970s, and until this week about 70 percent of the country was fluoridated. (For comparison, 67 percent of Americans receive fluoridated tap water.)

Health Minister Yael German announced last year that she planned to end the practice, but faced a wave of backlash. Undeterred, she said earlier this month that she had nevertheless decided to end the process effective Aug. 26, and to not even allow optional fluoridation in communities that support it.

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Is Israel Hoping To Start A War With Iran Before US Elections?

Recent rounds of sabotage attacks against Iranian targets have been consistently blamed on Israel. It’s not just Israel being Israel, according to some officials familiar with the situation, but rather, Israel trying to start a war while Trump is still in power.

Israel sees war as a tougher sell if Biden gets elected, while Trump would be easier, especially ahead of the vote. EU officials were reportedly concerned Israel would try to provoke something soon. Israeli officials refuse to comment on specific sabotage operations.

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The Forward reports that U.S. presidents signed secret agreements with Israel to cover up Israeli nuclear weapons

The Forward reports today that U.S. presidents have signed secret documents that “Israelis saw as an American commitment not to ask them to give up their undeclared nuclear arsenal.”

According to its website, the Forward is “the most influential nationwide Jewish media outlet today.”

When Helen Thomas asked President Obama at his first presidential press conference whether any country in the Middle East had nuclear weapons, he evaded the question (video here). Finally in 2015, in a move ignored by most U.S. media, the Pentagon finally publicly admitted that Israel has nuclear weapons.

While the Israel lobby promotes fears about a possible Iranian nuclear program (U.S, intelligence agencies have found no evidence that this exists), U.S. media and politicans turn a blind eye to Israel. Numerous groups have tried to raise the issue.

An American thinktank, Institute for Research: Middle East Policies (IRMEP) has filed a “39-page federal lawsuit challenging the secrecy of a gag order that forbids all U.S. government agency employees and contractors from discussing Israel’s nuclear weapons program.”

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