By Pete McArdle

When Jeffrey Epstein, the renowned financial maven and friend to the rich and powerful, was arrested for underage sex-trafficking, I knew his days on the planet were numbered. Epstein simply knew too much to live.

What undoubtedly happened was that a lot of money changed hands, deals were made, prison guards and possibly their superiors were bought, cameras were surreptitiously disabled, and Epstein’s murder was declared a suicide by bedsheet, an official conclusion that exactly zero people bought.

And now that Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s pal, paramour, and fellow pervert, is behind bars for her part in the sex scandal, her eventual “suicide” is a certainty. We’ll never know exactly what went on between Epstein and his famous friends.

Did Epstein and Woody Allen discuss Manhattan, Allen’s ode to sex with a 16-year-old? Did Jeff and former president Clinton talk about bjs in the Oval Office? How about the esteemed lawyer Alan Dershowitz? Did he and Jeff discuss legal strategies? We’ll never know.

Whatever Epstein and Kevin Spacey discussed, I’d rather not know.

No, the powerful will be protected. Ghislaine Maxwell must die. But how will she do it?

I assume your average inmate has access to dental hygiene products. Will Ghislaine stab herself to death with her toothbrush, harakiri a la Sonicare? Or possibly strangle herself with dental floss? Glide floss is amazingly strong, you can floss your entire mouth with one piece without it breaking.

Anything’s possible, really. Maxwell might break her neck practicing yoga, downward dog does carry certain risks. Or she may contract rabies from a prison rat — that was placed in her cell. Let’s face it, we don’t know how Ghislaine will commit “suicide,” only that she will.

And then all the usual suspects will tut-tut about the lack of supervision, official investigations will find no wrongdoing, and certain folks’ bank accounts will suddenly grow fat. Most important, people like will breathe a big sigh of relief.

I put the over-under on Maxwell’s demise at two weeks, but do check the Vegas odds before laying down your money.

And say a prayer for Ghislaine. She surely knows what’s coming and is probably terrified. Terrified not only by her imminent death but also her appearance in God’s Court. Unlike on Earth, divine justice will simply not be denied.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/ghislaine_maxwells_pending_suicide.html

In an unprecedented full-frontal attack on the foreign policy spokesman for the largely anti-Israel Left Party in Germany, the country’s leading expert on Jew-hatred on Thursday accused the MP of stoking antisemitism against Israel and Jews in his Bundestag speech.Henryk M. Broder, the prominent German-Jewish columnist for the large Die Welt broadsheet paper, wrote in his Welt column about Left Party MP Gregor Gysi’s tirade against Israel.

“A sentence that justifies an initial suspicion that even one like Gysi could not be entirely free of antisemitic residue that was widespread in the [German Democratic Republic], especially in nomenklatura circles.”Gysi delivered a speech against Israel’s plan to extend sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.The commentator Broder cited a passage in Gysi’s speech as being packed with bias because Gysi appears to single out only Israel for opprobrium. “For many Jews it is more than shameful if Israel, in particular, has to be associated with violations of international law, occupation, and humiliation of the Palestinians,” Gysi said.Broder posed the question: “Have you heard him [Gysi] say that it must be shameful for many Chinese for how China deals with Uyghurs, Tibetans and dissidents in Hong Kong? Jews should be ashamed of Israel, referring to other ethnic groups would be an inadmissible generalization.”The column by Broder, who has testified in the Bundestag about post-Holocaust antisemitism in Germany, is believed to be the first allegation of antisemitism against Gysi, a well-known lawyer in the now-defunct East German socialist state – the German Democratic Republic.

Critics, including Broder, accused Gysi of blaming Israel and Jews for antisemitism – a pattern that has a longstanding tradition in the history of Jew-hatred since the modern founding of the Jewish state.Gysi said during his address that “Israel’s reputation will become significantly more negative worldwide when the annexation plans are implemented. This also affects Jews everywhere. Neither they nor Israel will become safer, on the contrary.”Broder declared that “Gysi’s feigned concern for Israel’s reputation and its consequences for Jews around the world also contains a thinly veiled threat. If there is an attack on Jews or a Jewish facility anywhere, the Jews will be jointly responsible. Because they watched Israel humiliate the Palestinians and did nothing about it. It is the precedent justification for an act of terrorism that is just being hatched somewhere. Because the Jews are to blame for everything, including what happens to them.”When asked about Broder’s column that appears to deal a shattering blow to the Left party position on Israel, Gysi wrote The Jerusalem Post by email on Friday.“Mr. Broder’s claim is utter nonsense. Not only that I myself have Jewish ancestors, some of whom were murdered during the Nazi era, [and] not only that I had a particularly close relationship with my Jewish grandmother, [and] not only that I always had a close relationship with the Jewish community in Berlin during the GDR period, but my visits and discussions in Israel and Palestine prove the opposite. The difference is very simple. Broder and probably you too find Netanyahu and his politics to be great. Many Jews in Israel and elsewhere and I just don’t.”Gysi flatly rejected that he blamed Jews and Israel for antisemitism. “I did not claim in any sentence that Israel was responsible for antisemitism. I am not uninformed to seriously believe that Israel could have anything to do with millennia-old antisemitism.”He continued that “It is completely wrong—instead of responding to my criticism of the policies of Netanyahu—to falsely and highly non-credibly accuse me immediately of antisemitism only to prevent a political debate.”The 72-year-old politician  added that ” I also know that antisemitism and racism are fundamentally different, which is why I named both. Otherwise there would only be one term.”The Left Party MP said his speaking time was limited to “three minutes” and “an overall historical lecture was not possible.” He urged that a reading of his speech on “60 Years of Israel” held in 2008.The Left Party is viewed as divided about Israel and combating modern antisemitism.Gysi is considered to be part of the reformist wing of the Left Party that recognized Israel’s existence in 2008 and pushed for opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign targeting Israel.The anti-reformist wing consists of the Left Party deputy Christine Buchholz, who has defended the “legitimate resistance” of Hamas and Hezbollah against the Jewish state. The US and Germany both classify the jihadi organizations Hamas and Hezbollah to be terrorist movements. Buchholz is also on the advisory board of the pro-BDS organization German-Palestinian Society.Gysi said in his speech that there are organizations, people and governments that seek to destroy Israel. However, he did not name names.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and its chief proxy Hezbollah, along with Hamas, have declared multiple times that the Jewish State needs to be obliterated. Both the Trump and Obama administrations declared Iran’s regime to be the worst state-sponsor of terrorism.In his email to the Post, Gysi stressed that “Of course, I know that the Arab states initially rejected the UN decision” to recognize Israel.Gysi said that “It is absolutely true that the Palestinian leadership is also making serious mistakes. I only remember [Yasser ] Arafat’s talks with [Ehud] Barak and [Bill] Clinton. But there are now peace offers by President [Mahmoud] Abbas. In the event of the establishment of the Palestinian State, he was ready to dispense with any army. But Netanyahu doesn’t want a two-state solution.”Gysi urged during his speech for an arms embargo in the event of annexation. 

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism-leveled-against-german-left-mp-for-anti-israel-diatribe-633793

It was a rainy first of July in Berlin, and a protest was expected outside of the Reichstag, Germany’s historic house of parliament (Bundestag) with its famously post-war transparent dome above the parliament that tourists can alight for a view of the capital and of modern Germany’s democracy in action.

For the handful of protesters on the wet stone near the neo-Baroque edifice, it was a day of shame for Germany democracy. An hour later, the “grand coalition” consisting of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democrats (SDP), along with the Free Democrats (FdP) from the opposition, would vote on a non-binding resolution to condemn Israel over plans to extend sovereignty over Israeli-controlled areas in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, a moved often dubbed “annexation.” The debate was symbolically timed on the day from which Israel could execute the move (but hasn’t yet) and in which Germany assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The protest, which essentially turned into a one-man show, starred its initiator, Marcel Goldhammer, a journalist with both German and Israeli citizenship.

“Germany killed 6 million Jews in World War II, in the Holocaust, and now Germany wants to tell Israel how to defend its security,” Goldhammer told JNS, holding an Israeli flag which he proudly waved to passersby, at one point breaking out in Israel’s national anthem “Hatikvah.” He also slammed Germany’s alleged funding of NGOs that support or excuse Palestinian terrorism, saying, “Shame on you!”

The only political opposition came from the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which abstained from the motion largely on the grounds that Germany shouldn’t tell Israel what to do. The populist party, which has been embroiled in controversy over statements believed to minimize the Holocaust, is largely shunned by the mainstream German Jewish community.

One pro-Israeli activist, who asked to remain anonymous, came to the protest and then left when she noticed AfD affiliates; still, she expressed dismay at the lack of any organized Jewish-German opposition to what she considered a vote against Israel. The Central Council of Jews officially representing Germany Jewry and the Israeli embassy in Berlin declined to comment on the motion.

Goldhammer, who is politically independent, does not believe that the AfD is an anti-Semitic party but a legitimate opposition force.

In the name of ‘friendship’ …

At the plenary debate, all parties aside from the AfD expressed, in varying degrees, their opposition to annexation, in the name of upholding international law, the diplomatic process, regional stability, the “two-state solution”—and Germany’s friendship with Israel.

“Germany feels an obligation toward Israel, as part of our historical responsibility,” said the first speaker Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD), who proudly noted that Israel was the first country he visited post-coronavirus lockdown, in part to stop Israel from executing U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” Mideast peace plan on which sovereignty is predicated. He also lauded Germany’s continued financial contributions to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. “That also applies to the observance of international law, however. And if those two come into conflict, we must face up to that. Silence is not an option.”

Unlike the other parties signing onto the motion, the FdP levied criticism at the Palestinians. “It must be pointed out here that the so-called Palestinian leadership has not shown any willingness to compromise in recent years. The permanent ‘no’ attitude of the Palestinian leadership is not a policy,” said FdP’s Bijan Djir-Sarai.

Following the debate, the FdP told JNS that it nevertheless seeks to enforce new Israeli-Palestinian talks within the European Union.

“We will continue to use the special relationships and contacts to express our existing concerns and our urgent request to the Israeli government to refrain from annexing parts of the West Bank and from further expanding the settlements,” said FdP’s Benjamin Strasser.

AfD’s Dr. Anton Friesen doesn’t buy the “friendship” argument. “The invocation of Germany’s special relationship with Israel is an old rhetorical phrase. It is often used to justify an essentially anti-Israeli policy that is hidden behind it,” he told JNS.

Representing the AfD at the debate, Friesen said at the podium: “Now, we can stand off to one side, shouting, ‘bad, bad, bad!’—the kindergarten style of international affairs we have come to expect from Germany, the world power of hyper-moralizing—or we can accompany this process reasonably and rationally, giving new initiatives the chance they deserve, possibly as part of a Middle East Peace Conference, as the Alternative for Germany supports.”

For the Greens and Die Linke (“The Left”), the motion was too easy on Israel in part because it deemed sanctions against the Jewish state as “unproductive.”

Die Linke’s Dr. Gregor Gysi called for an arms embargo in the event of annexation and suggested Israel would bring upon itself violence and anti-Semitism. “Israel’s reputation will become much more negative worldwide if the annexation plans are implemented. This also affects Jews everywhere. Neither they nor Israel will be safer. On the contrary.”

Parliamentarians from the SPD, Die Linkie and the Greens were among the 1,080 lawmakers from 25 European countries to sign a letter expressing grave concern over annexation moves. The E.U.’s High Representative, Josep Borell, published similar statements.

A history of mixed signals

Despite numerous claims by politicians (including at the July 1 debate), particularly from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU, that Israel’s security is Germany’s “reason of state,” Israel’s voting records in the Bundestag have trended towards “Israeli-kritik” (a term often used to describe disproportionate criticism of Israel) since 2010. That’s the year when all parties condemned Israel for its interception of the Gaza Strip-bound Mavi Marmara flotilla.

In May 2019, the Bundestag passed a resolution that deemed the BDS movement an anti-Semitic endeavor to the applause of the Israeli government. In December 2019, it voted to ban Hezbollah. (Both motions came on the heels of AfD’s more strident, rejected versions against BDS and Hezbollah.) However, in March 2019, the ruling coalition voted against FdP’s motion to change Germany’s anti-Israeli voting patterns at the United Nations. In 2018 alone, Germany voted 16 out of 21 times for anti-Israel resolutions while abstaining from four, prompting the human-rights organization, the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) to name Germany’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Christoph Heusgen, one of 2019’s top 10 list of worst anti-Semitic outbreaks.

“Other than mouthing ‘Never Again’ on Holocaust Memorial Day events, has there been any wall-to-wall consensus in the Bundestag to sanction the Ayatollah [Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameini] for his genocidal, Holocaust denying regime?” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director of global social action at SWC. “How about a national consensus to actually combat growing anti-Semitic hate and extreme anti-Israel rhetoric from the far-right, far-left and Islamists beyond just tabulating the numbers?”

He said he would leave it to Israel to decide on annexation, but added “since Germany continues to fund UNWRA’s anti-peace curriculum, continues to send checks to corrupt pay-to-slay Palestinian Authority, continues to overwhelmingly vote against Israel during the Merkel Administration at the U.N., Germans will have to excuse us if we don’t embrace such blatant hypocrisy and double standards.”

Following the vote, some pro-Israel activists grew more vocal in their condemnation of the condemnation. “It is absolutely disgusting for the German Bundestag to have held this role,” said Sacha Stawski, president of the German-based Israel advocacy organization, Honestly Concerned. “If you listen to the speeches held by the different parties, there was not a single speech in my opinion, even from our supposed friends, that didn’t have some problems in it. Most of the [pro-Israel] NGOs are literally in a state of shock in many ways.”

jewishjournal.com/news/318439/german-lawmakers-denounce-israels-annexation-plan-say-silence-is-not-an-option/

The police department in San Francisco will no longer publish mugshots of people arrested in an effort “to end racial stereotypes”, the city police chief announced on Wednesday.

San Francisco police chief Bill Scott said the ban on mugshots will take effect immediately. Photos of suspects will therefore not be given out to the media nor would officers be able to reveal the faces of criminals online unless they pose a threat to the public, the Associated Press reported.

In the US, it is standard practice to take a photo of an arrested suspect. But because most of these suspects are African Americans, the department said mugshots contributed to perpetuate racial stereotypes since Americans established an unfair association between people of colour and criminals, said Scott.

Los Angeles and New York already have policies against publishing such photos, but make exceptions. For example, the New York City Police Department, the largest in the country, only publish mugshots when investigators believe it will prompt witnesses to come forward to help find a suspect.

Scott said the release of photos or information about an arrested person must in future be approved by the public relations team of the police force.

Despite this new policy, the representation of African Americans in US official crime data paint a bleak picture. Jack Glaser, professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, said new data showed that apprehended blacks were more likely to see their case dismissed by prosecutors.

freewestmedia.com/2020/07/03/san-francisco-police-stop-publishing-mugshots-to-end-racial-bias/

Antisemitic behavior toward Jews is alarmingly common in Switzerland, a new academic study of victim experiences published on Thursday revealed.

The report — conducted by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) — surveyed 500 Swiss Jews about their experiences of antisemitism, discovering that 50 percent of the respondents had been personally targeted for antisemitic abuse during the last five years.

About 18,000 Jews live in Switzerland.

The survey’s director, Prof. Dirk Baier, told the Berner Oberlander newspaper that he was not surprised by the results, pointing to a recent Swiss government survey showing that one in ten citizens held negative views of Jews.

He pointed out that similar animosity existed toward other minorities.

“If you asked 500 black people in Switzerland about their experiences, you’d probably get responses similar to those of the Jewish community now,” Baier commented.

Baier highlighted the survey’s conclusion that, in Switzerland, antisemitism “obviously comes from the middle of society.”

He contrasted the middle-class character of antisemitic offenders in Switzerland with other European countries, such as France and Germany, where perpetrators of antisemitic acts often came from poor immigrant backgrounds, or were motivated by far-right or extreme-left political views.

Baier explained that his survey in Switzerland had been informed by a Europe-wide survey of Jewish experiences of antisemitism carried out by the EU in 2018. The survey of Jews living in 12 EU member states showed that 28 percent of respondents had personally experienced antisemitic abuse during the previous year.

The Swiss survey showed that the most common form of harassment experienced by Jews involved verbal threats and insults. Respondents said they had encountered verbal abuse in their workplaces, at universities and in schools, as well as in public places like parks or simply walking in the street.

Six percent of respondents said their properties had been targeted for antisemitic vandalism, while 3.5 percent disclosed that they had been the victims of physical violence.

Dominic Pugatsch — head of the GRA Foundation against Racism and Antisemitism, a Swiss NGO — said that his organization’s research supported the conclusions of the Zurich University survey.

“There is an ‘everyday antisemitism’ in Switzerland,” Pugatsch stated. “Verbal harassment is unfortunately widespread on the street, at work or at school.”

One Jewish student who participated in the survey remarked that — as was the case in much of the rest of Europe — observant Jews had to be cautious about where and when they displayed visibly-Jewish symbols.

The student told the Berner Oberlander that he did not wear his kippah on public transport or at university.

“I don’t want to attract attention in certain places and I don’t want to risk being approached,” he said.

The student said that on some of the occasions that he wore his kippah, cyclists or passing motorists had shouted ‘Heil Hitler!’ or a similar epithet in his direction.

He added that he had faced “violent” hate speech on the soccer field as well, while playing for a Jewish team.

algemeiner.com/2020/07/02/middle-class-and-everyday-new-survey-exposes-alarming-nature-of-antisemitism-in-switzerland/

This crime is hardly surpassed in its repulsiveness.

Hamid A. (47 years old) is said to have chased Christiane B. (83 years old) from Delitzsch to the railway underpass near the station in the early evening of January 9th.There he is said to have pushed the hearing impaired senior citizen from behind to the ground and raped her.

Since Wednesday, the Afghan whose asylum application was rejected as early as 1999 has been standing trial in the regional court for rape.

The public prosecutor at the arraignment: “The woman suffered tremendous pain from the fall itself, as she fell with her face onto the asphalt and broke her prosthesis.”

In a preliminary opinion, the defendant was certified “low intelligence”. In addition, he was dangerous in case of drinking alcohol. A., who had initially confessed to the crime, claimed at Wednesday’s trial: “I just wanted to help her up.”

This is not the first time he has been on trial. In 2016 he was sentenced to two years in prison for child abuse and other crimes. He is now facing at least four years in prison. Verdict today.

https://www.bild.de/regional/leipzig/leipzig-news/vergewaltigung-verurteilter-schaender-soll-rentnerin-83-missbraucht-haben-71634178.bild.html?fbclid=IwAR0ckv0J9pzD0HVNTuHH3n_ihC9tFP3hK3ySASAdk4Qn5Nnn7a002JcXnqc

At the proposal of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the country has launched administrative procedures to approve the conversion of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul’s second most visited tourist attraction into a mosque, conservative Hungarian news portal Mandiner reports.

The Council of State (which, despite what its name suggests, is the country’s top administrative court) began proceedings in a case that goes back to 2016, when a conservative group asked that a 1934 decision by the Council of Ministers to turn the monument into a museum be annulled, arguing that the decision was taken in violation of private property.

By law, the church has been the property of Sultan Mehmet II, who conquered Constantinople in 1453. Built in 537 and regarded as the pinnacle of Byzantine architecture, it was the seat of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople for most of the time, except a short period (1204-1264) when the Fourth Crusaders turned it into a Roman Catholic church. It was converted into a mosque in the year Mehmet II conquered the city.

The group behind the motion also claims that on the decision of converting the monument into a museum then President Kemal Atatürk’s signature is a forgery.

Archbishop of Constantinople Bartholomew I (who is also the de facto spiritual leader of the Orthodox Christians worldwide), said that “instead of uniting, a 1,500-year-old heritage is dividing us”.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that “the Government of Turkey has administered the Hagia Sophia as a museum – officially recognized by UNESCO as part of the Historic Areas of Istanbul World Heritage Site – in an outstanding manner for nearly a century,” adding that it should remain a museum.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985, Hagia Sophia attracted in 2018 2.92 million visitors, ranking it second among Istanbul’s attractions behind the Topkapi Palace (three million visitors).

rmx.news/article/article/turkey-wants-to-reconvert-hagia-sophia-into-a-mosque

Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer and Integration Minister Susanne Raab have been placed under police protection following death threats from the far-right Turkish Grey Wolves after a series of riots last week in Vienna.

Both ministers, who are members of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), have been given police protection since Tuesday night. They are currently being guarded by the elite Cobra unit of the Austrian police force.

Austria’s domestic security agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has also commented on the matter, saying: “We are investigating online hate and death threats against officials of the Republic of Austria.”

“I am not intimidated by the threats. I will not deviate from my course and will continue to take decisive action against extremist ideologies such as political Islam and influences from Turkey,” Integration Minister Raab said, according to tabloid Kronen Zeitung.

The death threats come as tensions continue to remain high between Austria and Turkey following a series of riots between the far-right Grey Wolves and Kurdish supporters of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and their far-left Antifa allies. Clashes occurred last week in the heavily migrant-populated Vienna district of Favoriten.

The Turkish media responded to the clashes by claiming that Austria, which banned the public display of PKK symbols and flags last year, was “a PKK country”.

Chancellor Kurz, meanwhile, slammed the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier in the week, saying “that there must be an end to Turkey trying to influence the people here in Austria and instrumentalising them for their conflicts”.

“Because I know exactly what Turkey is trying to do here: namely to use Turks in Europe to sow strife and to create moods here and there above all for Turkey’s own interests,” he said.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/07/02/austrian-ministers-police-guards-after-death-threats-turkish-grey-wolves/