Over 20 testimonies were collected by B’Tselem from Palestinians who were abused by [...] occupation soldiers between May and August 2024. Victims describe being randomly seized by soldiers, mostly as they were walking down the streets of the city, going about their daily affairs. “They were beaten and subjected to severe abuse by soldiers, sometimes in the street, and at other times inside military outposts where they were taken,” the rights group said.

“After more than a year of [...] an unchecked war against the Palestinian people, and the Israeli government dehumanisation of Palestinians in public discourse, this collective abuse has become part of the routine operations of the Israeli military in the West Bank,” B’Tselem explained.

“Soldiers,” it explained, “are being urged to take more “proactive” and “offensive” actions… In practice, every soldier has been granted virtually unlimited power to use violent means of oppression. Much like the abuse running rampant in Israeli detention facilities for Palestinians (who are classified by Israel as “security prisoners”), soldiers in the field, too, know they will not be held accountable for their conduct.”

As a result, soldiers are searching victims’ phones to find “justification” for harassing and detaining them. “In several incidents, the pretext given for the abuse was “punishment” for content found on phones, such as updates on the situation in Gaza or on military activities in Hebron,” the report explained.

Several victims recounted varying degrees of sexual violence and physical humiliation, ranging from explicit threats of rape, to forced undressing and strong blows to the genitals.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz frequently reinforces his support of Israel, both through words and weaponry, and refers to the ‘Staatsräson’: the responsibility Germany has to protect the state of Israel after the Holocaust. Due to this concept, it may be considered too risky for any political parties to speak out about the genocide in Gaza, as there is a terrifying culture of censorship in contemporary German politics. Yet, the AfD’s support of Israel predates October 7th, for example, supporting Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital. (This support is not mutual; Israel has cut all ties with the AfD.)

Following [the] October 7th attacks, Alexander Gauland (speaking as the honorary AfD chairman) said “The attack was not only aimed at the Jewish state, it was also aimed at us. Israel is the West in an environment that rejects and fights the West. When we stand with Israel, we are also defending our way of life”. This idea of ‘defending a way of life’ is common anti-immigrant rhetoric, and one the AfD frequently utilises to criticise immigration policy in Germany.

The AfD also submitted proposals in October to end financial donations to the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees. Following this, a press release from the Bundestag said “the SPD accused the AfD of using Hamas’ terror to fuel Islamophobia”, and also mentioned a representative of the Greens calling out the antisemitic comments made by AfD members, as well as contacts between party members and Iran (who support Hamas).

The AfD is notorious for intra-party division, with some members decidedly far-right, and others leaning to the more moderate, Eurosceptic right. Attitudes to Israel are no exception, with co-leader Tino Chrupalla condemning the October 7th attack, but calling for ‘de-escalation’, also saying ‘a viable solution for all sides must be the goal’. This Tweet was criticised by many within the AfD, particularly his use of the word ‘war dead’ for Israeli victims.

The AfD have a long track record of antisemitism and neo-Nazi affiliations, ranging from Björn Höcke’s use of a Nazi paramilitary slogan (‘Everything for Germany’), to Alice Weidel’s advisor Roland Hartwig attending a meeting in Potsdam with known neo-Nazi groups. Specifically in relation to memory culture, Höcke was critical of Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, saying Germans are “the only people in the world to plant a monument of shame in the heart of its capital.” How can a party claim to care about Jewish citizens when they show such blatant disrespect toward those who were murdered during the Holocaust?

Quoting Loathed by Jews, Germany’s far-right AfD loves the Jewish state (dated 2017):

The [...] party derided for anti-Semitic, xenophobic views redolent of the Nazis is also staunchly supportive of Israel, one of a number of right-wing populist parties in Europe that have tried to make common cause with Israel’s tough stance toward terror and self-styled position as a forward bulwark against Islamic extremism.

Most German Jews repudiate the AfD as anti-Semitic, pointing to its anti-immigration and anti-Muslim platform and arguing that whoever targets Muslims and other minorities will sooner or later seek to harm the Jews’ religious freedoms.

“It is abhorrent that the AfD party, a disgraceful reactionary movement which recalls the worst of Germany’s past and should be outlawed, now has the ability within the German parliament to promote its vile platform,” said World Jewish Congress president Ron Lauder.

[...]

Over half of the AfD respondents said they “totally” agree with the statement that support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to be anti-Semitic; no other major party had such a strong opposition to BDS. [...] Some 88% said Israel’s 70th birthday next year was a reason for Germans to celebrate, while fewer than 4% disagreed with that statement.

Support for the neocolony may be waning as of late, but mostly because almost everyone is getting really tired of an extermination campaign that has been dragging on for over a year now. Because of the diuturnal violence in Ukraine and the Middle East, the isolationist right has been growing in popularity.

“Egypt rejects the Israeli military presence on the Palestinian side of the Rafah Crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor, and the obstruction of humanitarian aid,” Foreign Minister, Badr Abdelatty, said during a meeting in Cairo with UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, on the sidelines of a conference for Gaza humanitarian response.

The Israeli army captured the Palestinian side of the Rafah Crossing in southern Gaza in May during its offensive on Rafah city. The terminal is a vital route for humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been under a crippling blockade since 2007.

Tel Aviv has rejected Egyptian calls to withdraw forces from the Philadelphi Corridor, a demilitarised zone on the Egypt-Gaza border.

Abdelatty underlined the importance of rallying international efforts to allow access of humanitarian aid into Gaza, according to a statement by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.

During the meeting, the top Egyptian diplomat and UN official discussed Egypt’s efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.

Mediation efforts led by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar to reach a Gaza ceasefire and prisoner swap agreement between Israel and Hamas have failed over Netanyahu’s refusal to halt the war.

There are still around 200 Palestinian martyrs under the rubble of their homes destroyed by the [...] occupation army in the northern Gaza Strip during the past 48 hours, the Palestinian Information Centre has reported. According to Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia in the enclave, “The humanitarian situation in the northern Gaza Strip is approaching an absolute catastrophe due to the ongoing Israeli aggression.”

Abu Safiya pointed out that, “It broke our hearts to hear the voices of the living calling for help from under the rubble, but when people tried to rescue them, they were targeted by Israeli warplanes, which made the task almost impossible.”

When the Al-Araj family home was targeted, he said, it was “tragic”, as there were about 100 people inside the house. “Only one person survived, an employee at the laundry of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who happened to be at work during the raid.”

The hospital director explained that the hospital is currently facing major challenges, most notably the ban on the entry into Gaza of medical equipment, medicines and medical disposables, in addition to blocking the entry of ambulances which arrive with great difficulty. He added that there are 63 hospitalised patients, most of them wounded, including nine in the intensive care unit and two new-born babies.

Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree said that his group targeted a vital target in central Israel with a hypersonic ballistic missile, saying the attack “successfully hit its target.”

He, however, did not provide any details about the nature of the target.

Saree vowed more missile and drone attacks until Israel’s ongoing onslaught on Gaza is halted and siege lifted.

The Israeli public broadcaster KAN earlier reported that a missile launched from Yemen had been intercepted by air defenses.

According to the same source, four Israelis were injured while rushing to shelters after air-raid sirens sounded in central Israel.

“Now, with an agreement reached regarding the northern border with Lebanon, it is time to finalize a deal and bring the hostages home” from Gaza, Herzog said during a meeting with the family of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza.

He added that negotiations were taking place “behind the scenes.”

“Now is the opportunity to bring about a meaningful change that will lead to a deal to free the hostages,” he added.

On Saturday, Palestinian resistance group Hamas released a video of Edan Alexander, an Israeli-American hostage pleading to US President-elect Donald Trump to intervene to secure his release and other captives.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar claimed early Sunday that there were indications of progress in a potential hostage exchange deal with Palestinians.

“There are indications regarding a ceasefire with Hamas. We may see a greater degree of flexibility on their part. In my opinion, we will know in the coming days,” Sa’ar told a conference hosted by Israel Hayom newspaper.

Big if true.

Romania is accusing Israel's Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli of interfering in the country's elections, after he held a publicized phone call last week with radical-right presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, who has a long record of glorifying the country's Nazi collaborationist leaders.

Romania's ambassador to Israel told Haaretz that Chikli's conduct hurts his country's close relationship with Israel, and emphasized that Romania never intervened in Israeli politics in a similar manner.

Chikli spoke last week with Georgescu, a far-right, pro-Russian politician who won 24 percent of the vote in last week's first round of the Romanian presidential election. He is supposed to face off against liberal politician Elena Lasconi, but authorities in Romania are now investigating potential foreign intervention by Russia and other countries in the election, and therefore the first-round results may be annulled. Georgescu has expressed pro-Russian, anti-NATO positions, and is considered the preferred candidate of the Kremlin in Romania.

During his call with Chikli, the Romanian far-right leader promised to move the country's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and not to respect the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The phone call was publicized by far-right media outlets in Romania and other countries, and mainstream Israeli media sites. Georgescu found the call useful because he is under criticism for his long history of praise for antisemitic Romanian leaders and organizations who took part in the mass murder of the country's Jews.

Georgescu has praised the antisemitic Iron Guard organization, which is famous for its involvement in sadistic acts of violence and persecution against Jews, including the 1941 Bucharest pogrom in which more than 100 Jews were murdered. He has also praised [Axis] dictator Ion Antonescu, who collaborated with Nazi Germany and was responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

Georgescu described the Iron Guard and Antonescu as heroes and martyrs, and did so repeatedly, despite facing criticism from Jewish organizations for his words.

Romanian ambassador to Israel, Radu Ioanid, who is himself a world-renowned Holocaust historian, told Haaretz that he "learned with dismay and outrage that minister Amichai Chikli recently had a phone conversation with Calin Georgescu, a presidential candidate in Romania who openly and repeatedly praised the leader of the fascist and antisemitic Iron Guard as well as dictator Ion Antonescu, both involved in pogroms and mass murder of the Romanian Jews."

Ioanid added that "for 31 years I was part of the senior management of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum based in Washington. I find it shocking to see a minister of the government of the State of Israel be perceived as backing, in a crucial electoral moment, a Romanian political candidate who is loudly and proudly glorifying historical figures who were directly responsible for mass murder of Jews."

He called Chikli's actions "a direct insult to the memory of the Romanian Holocaust victims, both dead and survivors," and also "a direct hit on all good-faith efforts at Holocaust education in Europe and building policies to fight antisemitism based on historical reality, not on conveniently whitewashed versions which serve contemporary political objectives."

The ambassador said that he recommends Chikli "read my works on the Holocaust in Romania and the Wiesel Report, the work of an international commission chaired by the late Elie Wiesel and endorsed by Yad Vashem."

Apart from the historical aspects of Chikli's support for Georgescu, Ambassador Ioanid said that the minister's behavior was also damaging to the warm relationship between Romania and Israel: "Romania always showed respect and friendship to Israel and staunchly stood by Israel after the 7th of October Hamas attack. No Romanian official has ever taken the liberty to get involved in internal Israeli electoral matters. Acting this way, Minister Chikli endangers the solid friendship which exists between Romania and Israel."

This isn't the first time the Netanyahu government has intervened in Romanian politics. In August 2023, Israel's Ambassador Reuven Azar met George Simion, leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians on the orders of then-Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.

Israel had previously boycotted the party, whose members frequently glorify Antonescu and the Iron Guard, over its antisemitic rhetoric and advocacy of Holocaust revisionism. Diplomatic sources in Bucharest at the time called it a "very unfortunate and very unhappy initiative."

It is also not the first time that Chikli himself has intervened in the elections of another country by expressing support for a far-right candidate with a damning record on antisemitism and memory of the Holocaust. Ahead of the French parliamentary election earlier this year, Chikli endorsed the party of far-right leader Marine Le Pen. His intervention in the election led to a crisis in Israeli-French relations; eventually, Le Pen's party finished third in the election, and Chikli's involvement was denounced by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

So far, there has been no response from the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem regarding Chikli's involvement in Romania, but an Israeli diplomatic source told Haaretz that Foreign Minister Gideon Saar is aware of the unease in Bucharest over the subject. "Romania is a friendly country and it's important that we put out an official statement against this kind of intervention in their politics," the source added.

(Spotted here.)

“A 10-year-old Palestinian child has died after his health condition deteriorated due to the shortage of oxygen and medical supplies at the hospital in the northern part of the strip,” [...]

The UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) said Thursday that Israel blocked the delivery of humanitarian aid to the besieged northern Gaza Strip.

UNRWA confirmed that the UN made 91 attempts to deliver aid to northern Gaza between Oct. 6 and Nov. 25.

It said Israel obstructed 82 attempts and completely prevented the other nine from entering.

“To President Trump, I am an American-Israeli citizen currently held captive in the Gaza Strip. As an American, I have always believed in the power of the United States, and now I am sending my message,” Eden Alexander said in the video.

“Please use your influence and the full power of the United States to negotiate for our freedom. Every day here feels like an eternity, and the pain within us grows from day to day. Please do not make the same mistake Joe Biden has been doing,” he said. “The weapons he has sent are now killing us, and the unlawful sieges are now starving us. I don’t want to end up dead.”

In a message to [...] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Alexander said: “I heard that you will give $5 million to whoever brings us back alive.”

He added: “A prime minister is supposed to protect his citizens and soldiers, but you have neglected us.”

Tel Aviv [...] holds more than 10,000 Palestinians in its prisons. Estimates are that there are 101 Israeli captives in Gaza. Hamas announced that dozens of the captives were killed in random Israeli air strikes.

The Israeli opposition and families of captives accuse Netanyahu of refusing to end the war and withdraw from Gaza for fear of his coalition government collapsing, amid threats by extremist ministers to withdraw from the ruling coalition.

Hamas, however, said the conflict will end only when Israel stops its military campaign in the blockaded enclave, which has killed nearly 44,400 [confirmed] victims since October 2023.

Popkiewicz believes these coins may have belonged to the [Axis] soldier, possibly a numismatics enthusiast, as they hail from several countries the [Wehrmacht's] 73rd Infantry Division likely traversed, to which the soldier may have belonged. The hypothesis suggests that the soldier collected ancient coins as a hobby or perhaps exchanged or acquired them during his military movements.

The Fascists did fetishize ancient European civilizations, so this is a very reasonable hypothesis.

Australian police stopped a man because his car had 'anti-Semitic' material on the window. When the driver queried what the anti-Semitic material was, the dejected-looking officer replied 'the small watermelon'. The incident is emblematic of how solidarity with Palestine is policed in countries like Australia, the U.S. and Europe, where the individuals tasked with enforcing the law often have very little knowledge about Gaza, Palestine or Israel.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2848151

Quoting James Heartfield’s An Unpatriotic History of the Second World War, page 162:

It was Churchill, wrote his cousin Claire Sheridan, ‘who is talked of as the likely leader of a Fascisti party in England’.^21^ Churchill said of Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf that ‘the story of that struggle cannot be read without admiration [for the courage, the perseverance, and the vital force which enabled him to challenge, defy conciliate or overcome, all the authority of resistances which barred his path]’.^22^

Churchill’s views of Communism were close to Hitler’s. As Home Secretary Churchill used troops to kill two revolutionaries in the ‘siege of Sidney Street’ in January 1911 he used troops to break up strikes at Newport Docks in May 1910, at Tonypandy 9 November 1910, and at Liverpool docks in August 1911, when he anchored the warship Antrim in the Mersey. During the 1926 General Strike Churchill established military control of the country, including a government newspaper, the British Gazette.

Churchill’s sympathised with the fascist cause and in 1937 Brigadier Packenham Walsh reported ‘Winston says at heart he is for Franco’.^23^ Asked about anti‐Jewish laws in 1938, Churchill thought ‘it was a hindrance and an irritation, but probably not an obstacle to a working agreement’.^24^

Britain’s Prime Minister in the First World War, David Lloyd George also saw value in Hitler’s [fascism]. ‘In a very short time, perhaps in a year or two, the Conservative elements in this country will be looking to Germany as a bulwark against Communism in Europe’, Lloyd George had told the House of Commons in 1934. ‘Do not let us be in a hurry to condemn Germany’ he said, ‘we shall be welcoming Germany as our friend.’^25^

Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, page 97:

Churchill […] added some words of praise: “I have always said that if Britain were defeated in a war I hoped [that] we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among nations.” The world would now rejoice, Churchill said, to see a mellowed Hitler of peace and tolerance. “Let this great man search his own heart and conscience before he accuses any one of being a warmonger.”

Gaetano Salvemini’s Prelude to World War II, page 108:

At Leghorn, Lady Chamberlain was photographed with the Duce, wearing the Fascist insignia; and Winston Churchill declared on January 20, 1927, that he “could not help being charmed by Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing”: “if I had been an Italian I am sure that I would have been whole‐heartedly with you. […] Your movement has rendered a service to the whole world […] provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison.” He, too, would don a blackshirt if he were an Italian.^3^

Alan Cassels’s Mussolini’s Early Diplomacy, page 311:

Nor did the proclamation of the Fascist dictatorship on January 3, 1925, diminish British Conservative support. For example, on January 7, Winston Churchill, so Italy’s finance minister reported to Mussolini, expressed “sympathy for Your Excellency and appreciation of Your Excellency’s energetic work in the repression of bolshevism.”^73^ Churchill continued in this vein during 1925, confiding to Ambassador Delia Torretta his admiration for the “discipline […] firmness and severity” of Fascist Italy.^74^

He expressed this admiration tangibly by helping to arrange a war‐debt settlement favorable to Italy. In early 1927 Churchill visited Rome privately and made a speech at the British embassy to a group of journalists, once more extolling Mussolini.^75^

Richard Lamb’s Mussolini and the British, page 76:

Winston Churchill, who had become Baldwin’s Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924, was equally enthusiastic for Mussolini. In January 1926, against the advice of his Treasury officials, Churchill as we shall see negotiated a generous settlement of Italy’s war debts to Britain, and during a visit to Genoa in 1927 he described the atmosphere of Fascism, writing to his wife, ‘This country gives the impression of discipline, order, goodwill and smiling faces.’

[…]

In 1933 Churchill praised Mussolini as the ‘Roman genius’, describing him as ‘the greatest lawgiver amongst living men’.^9^

Christopher Duggan comments in Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini’s Italy, page 76

There was an element of political calculation in such comments. Chamberlain and Churchill certainly did feel genuine admiration for Mussolini, but they also subscribed to the Foreign Office line that the best way to curb the fascist leader’s impulsiveness was through flattery.^61^ But such endorsements inevitably strengthened Mussolini’s hand back home, fuelled belief that he was indeed a ‘man of genius’, and weakened the position of his opponents.

Turning now to Greece:

The British Army under the guidance of Churchill perpetrated a massacre on the streets of Athens in the month of December 1944. [Twenty‐eight] protesters were shot dead, a further 128 injured. [London] demanded that all guerrilla groups should disarm on the 2nd December 1944. The following day 200,000 people took to the streets, and this is when the British Army under Churchill’s orders turned their guns on the people.

Churchill regarded ELAS (Greek People’s Liberation Army) and EAM (National Liberation Front) as “miserable banditti”, these were the very people who ran the [Axis] out. His actions in the month of December were purely out of his hatred and paranoia for communism.

[London] backed the right‐wing government in Greece returned from exile after the very same partisans of the resistance that Churchill ordered the murder of had driven out the [Axis] occupiers. Soviet forces were well received in Greece, this deeply worried Churchill. He planned to restore the monarchy in Greece to combat any possible communist influence. The events in December were part of that strategy.

In 1945, Churchill sent Charles Wickham to Athens where he was in charge of training the Greek security police. Wickham learned his tricks of the trade in British occupied Ireland between 1922–1945 where he was a commander of the colonial RUC, responsible for countless terror.

In April 1945 Churchill said “the [Axis] collaborators in Greece in many cases did the best they could to shelter the Greek population from German oppression” and went on to say “the Communists are the main foe”.

On this, Stephen Dorril noted in MI6: inside the covert world of Her Majesty’s secret intelligence service, page 314:

He added that there should be ‘no question of increasing the severities against the collaborationists in order to win Communist approval’. Even the conservative and often reactionary Foreign Office found Churchill's stance ‘astonishing’ but there was little it could do to change it.^22^

Churchill donated also funds for an Axis war criminal Erich von Manstein’s defence when he was on trial after 1945. Quoting Benoît Lemay’s Erich von Manstein: Hitler’s Master Strategist, page 456:

Churchill, who denounced the “belated trial of an aged German general,” was one of the first to contribute to it by making a donation of 25£ (300DM). In all, the event raised a sum of 2,000£ (24,000DM) to adequately provide for Manstein’s defense.

David Swanson’s Leaving World War II Behind, chapter 8:

Immediately upon [Berlin’s] surrender, Winston Churchill proposed using Nazi troops together with allied troops to attack the Soviet Union, the nation that had just done the bulk of the work of defeating the Nazis.^238^ This was not an off-the-cuff proposal. The U.S. and British had sought and achieved partial [Fascist] surrenders, had kept [Fascist] troops armed and ready, and had debriefed [Fascist] commanders on lessons learned from their failure against the [Soviets].

Paul Addison in Winston Churchill in the Twenty First Century, page 19:

In the opening stages of the Spanish Civil War he leaned strongly towards Franco and the Nationalist side. With unconscious irony he also declared in a debate in the House of Commons in 1937: ‘I will not pretend that if I had to choose between Communism and Nazi‐ism, I would choose Communism.’^24^

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

A word of warning: don’t expect any of this to concern anticommunists one bit. Churchill’s cult of personality is not easily broken.

Click here for events that happened today (November 30).

1929: A shiteload of reorganization in the Empire of Japan’s navy again.
1938: King Carol II’s henchmen executed the leaders of the Iron Guard party in captivity during the night.
1940: As Chinese troops halted the offensive in Hubei Province launched by the Japanese 11th Army five days prior, Wang Jingwei of the Imperialist‐sponsored régime in Nanjing, China established diplomatic relationship with fellow collaborationist state Manchukuo. In the southern Indian Ocean, Axis armed merchant cruiser Pinguin attacked British ship Port Wellington overnight, killing 2 and capturing 87, whereas Axis submarine U‐101 sank British ship Aracataca northwest of Ireland, massacring 36 but leaving 34 alive.
1941: The SS‐Einsatzgruppen rounded up eleven thousand Jews from the Riga Ghetto and slaughtered them in the Rumbula massacre.
1942: A smaller squadron of Axis destroyers headed by Raizō Tanaka defeated a U.S. Navy cruiser force under Carleton H. Wright in the Battle of Tassafaronga.