According to Spiegel, SPD members of the Bundestag in a recent meeting joined local and regional politicians in voicing doubts over Scholz’s chances to succeed and called for Pistorius to step in.
The comments were made on Tuesday at a meeting of the Seeheimer Kreis (Seeheim Circle), a conservative wing of the SPD which claims to be aiming at “a modern and pragmatic policy,” the German newspaper reported
(February 13, 2024)
(October 29, 2024)
Delays in the Palestine investigation trace back to 2015 when former ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda initiated a preliminary examination. Although the investigation met the necessary criteria in 2019, it was postponed due to jurisdiction debates over Palestinian territories. The formal investigation began in March 2021, yet no meaningful progress has been made, further delaying requests against Netanyahu and Gallant.
(May 28, 2024)
Thanks to their comprehensive access to Palestinian telecoms infrastructure, the sources said, intelligence operatives could capture the calls without installing spyware on the ICC official’s devices.
“If Fatou Bensouda spoke to any person in the West Bank or Gaza, then that phone call would enter [intercept] systems,” one source said. Another said there was no hesitation internally over spying on the prosecutor, adding: “With Bensouda, she’s black and African, so who cares?”
The surveillance system did not capture calls between ICC officials and anyone outside Palestine. However, multiple sources said the system required the active selection of the overseas phone numbers of ICC officials whose calls Israeli intelligence agencies decided to listen to.
According to one Israeli source, a large whiteboard in an Israeli intelligence department contained the names of about 60 people under surveillance – half of them Palestinians and half from other countries, including UN officials and ICC personnel.
In The Hague, Bensouda and her senior staff were alerted by security advisers and via diplomatic channels that Israel was monitoring their work.
Israel’s Justice Minister Yariv Levin has announced Thursday, October 31, he’s pushing a bill to impose 20-year prison sentences on Israelis who advocate for sanctions against the country or its leaders. In other words: 20-year prison sentence for exercising freedom of speech in Israel.
The far-right government craziness in Israel is intensifying after a “Call for International Pressure,” initiated by Academy for Equality activists, was wide-world published last week and signed by over three thousands petitioners, including a group of leading Israeli academics, among them: Anat Matar, Smadar Ben-Natan, Moshé Behar, Tamir Sorek, Rafi Greenberg, Shira Klein, Lior Sternfeld, Ophira Gamliel, Hilla Dayan, Regev Nathansohn, Uri Hadar, Snait Gissis, Amalia Saar, Avishai Ehrlich, Efraim Davidi, Maya Rosenfeld, Avraham Oz, Ronnen Ben-Arie, Yael Berda, Anat Biletzki, Sivan Rajuan Shtang, Hannan Hever, Orly Lubin, Raz Chen-Morris, Hannah Safran, Revital Madar, Ilana Hairston, Amos Goldberg, Tamar Hager and Miriam Eliav-Feldon.
The petition stated, “We, Israeli citizens, living in Israel and abroad, are calling on the international community – the United Nations and its institutions, the United States, the European Union, the Arab League and all the countries of the world – to intervene immediately and apply every possible sanction… put real pressure on Israel for an immediate ceasefire.”
Among the acts that would be construed as support for terror would be visiting the family of an attack suspect.
According to the proposal sponsored by Likud MK Ofir Katz, a candidate can be banned by the Central Election Committee without needing the final approval of the High Court of Justice, as is currently required. The proposed law is at base to ban Hadash and Arab parties from participating in the election, as well as weaken the Supreme Court’s power to overturn the decision. Furthermore, since left-wing and Arab voters do not belong to the right-wing camp, blocking participation of Hadash and Arab parties will also benefit the current far-right governing coalition electorally and increase its chances to win the next election.
Usama Shaheen: “At the time of dawn prayers exactly, they raided the house. They broke down the door and damaged everything in the house. Nothing was left in the house. I was beaten from the moment I left the house to when we went to Majnoune. They brought me back here. All sorts of beatings, all sorts of beatings, on my chest, on my head. It was severe. … Each one got a number on his forehead. And in the army jeep, everyone there hits you. Everyone hits you. Most of the beating is to the head, mostly to the head.”
Troops humiliate Palestinians swept up in West Bank raid by referring to them only by their numbers instead of by name
הביטו בשתי התמונות האלה. הן צולמו באותו יום, ה-21 באוקטובר 2024. מימין רואים שיירת עקורים, למעשה נשים וילדים, שצולמה במחנה ג‘בליה ההרוס. הגברים (מעל גיל 16) בנפרד, מרימים דגל לבן ואת תעודות הזהות שלהם. הם בדרך החוצה. משמאל רואים את מחנה הסוכות שהקימה תנועת „נחלה“ סמוך לקיבוץ בארי, כהכנה להתיישבות יהודית בעזה, אירוע שהתכבד ב-21 שרים וח“כים מן הימין. הם בדרך פנימה.
התמונות האלה מספרות חלק גדול מן הסיפור, בעיקר את סופו המסתמן והולך. סדרת אירועים מהירה מאד בשלושת השבועות האחרונים, שעדיין נמצאת בעיצומה ופרטיה מאיימים כבר להישכח, אם בכלל חדרו לתודעה, הובילה אל הנקודה המפחידה הזאת. את הסיפור אפשר להתחיל בכל נקודה לאורך ההיסטוריה, בנכבה, בנכסה, ב“אזור הסייג“ בנגב – הרי הן כל כך דומות. עקורים פלסטינים עם מיטלטליהם, רעבים ופצועים ותשושים, ולמולם – מתיישבים יהודים צוהלים, מתקדשים אל האדמה החדשה ששוטחה ופונתה עבורם. מתחטאים.
The “Generals’ Plan,” published in early September, has a very simple goal: to empty the northern Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population. The plan itself estimated that about 300,000 people were still living north of the Netzarim Corridor — the Israeli-occupied zone that bisects Gaza — although the UN put the number closer to 400,000.
During the first phase of the plan, the Israeli army would inform all of those people that they have a week to evacuate to the south through two “humanitarian corridors.” In the second phase, at the end of that week, the army would declare the whole area a closed military zone. Anyone who remained would be considered an enemy combatant, and be killed if they didn’t surrender. A complete siege would be imposed on the territory, intensifying the hunger and health crisis — creating, as Prof. Uzi Rabi, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University, put it, “a process of starvation or extermination.”
Much alarm has been raised over the so-called „Generals‘ Plan,“ an ethnic cleansing proposal for northern Gaza that has reportedly garnered attention in the highest reaches of the Israeli government.
But Israeli scholar Idan Landau argued in a column published in English by +972 Magazine on Friday that what the Israeli military is actually doing in northern Gaza „is even more appalling“ than the plan outlined by a group of retired generals. Landau argued that focus on the details of the Generals‘ Plan has served to obscure the „true brutality“ of Israel‘s deadly operations in northern Gaza, which has been rendered a hellscape of death and destruction by the military assault and siege.
Landau, a professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University, opened his column—first published in Hebrew on his blog—by pointing to two photos: one showing a celebratory event at a camp built by an Israeli settler organization just outside of the Gaza Strip, and the other showing displaced Palestinians lined up at gunpoint amid the ruins of northern Gaza.
Netanyahu’s coalition decided to ban Hadash and is still unclear which legislation will be used to ban Islamic Ra’am party. This is done under the false accusation of “support for terrorism”.
According to the political correspondent Daphna Liel of Channel 12 at the beginning of next the week, a bill by the chairman of the coalition, MK Ofir Katz (Likud), will be brought to the legislative committee to allow the disqualification of lists and Arab members of the Knesset.
The bottom line of the bill is proof of “mass manifestations of support for terrorism” will no longer be required and it will be possible to be satisfied in individual cases to disqualify a candidate and a list.
Israeli forces stormed the last operational hospital in besieged northern Gaza on Friday after bombing it and killing children inside, according to doctors and media reports.
The attack on the Kamal Adwan hospital, located in Beit Lahia northwest of Jabalia, was launched around 2am local time, shortly after a World Health Organisation delegation left the hospital.
A Steering Committee for the Lebanon Response Plan (LRP) was formed today following the endorsement of the humanitarian and stabilization response plan for Lebanon for 2024. The meeting was co-chaired by the Prime Minister and the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator of the UN. It was attended by the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministers of Education and Higher Education, Public Health, Social Affairs, Energy and Water, Labor, Agriculture and Environment; alongside the Ambassadors to Lebanon of Canada, France, the EU, Germany and the charge d‘affaires for the US; as well as Representatives of UN Agencies and national and international NGOs.
Below are the opening remarks as delivered by the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the LRP Steering Committee meeting:
Your Excellency, Prime Minister Mikati, esteemed ministers, honorable ambassadors, distinguished guests, dear colleagues, good morning.
We gather here today at a truly unprecedented time for Lebanon. This country has already faced many years of multi-layered crises. Over the past year, the escalation of hostilities has inflicted severe damage on communities in the South. In the last weeks, the violence has intensified, causing widespread civilian casualties, mass displacement, and extensive destruction across the country.
Healthcare and frontline workers have come under attack, as have civil defense centers and water supply systems, pushing essential services to the brink of collapse. This must stop.
In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and wounded scores more people, including four U.N. peacekeepers. During the 2006 war, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed nearly three dozen people, a third of them children. Israel said at the time that it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building.
(October 11, 2024)
AMY GOODMAN: After the Nobel Peace Prize was announced, the co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, Toshiyuki Mimaki, spoke to reporters in Tokyo.
TOSHIYUKI MIMAKI: [translated] What? Nihon Hidankyo? How did Nihon Hidankyo? It can’t be real. It can’t be real. … We will appeal to the world, as we always have done, for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the achievement of an everlasting peace. … Why Nihon Hidankyo? I thought for sure it would be the people working so hard in Gaza, as we’ve seen.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Toshiyuki Mimaki, the co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, which won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize today. He wept as he spoke. He went on to say, quote, “In Gaza, bleeding children are being held [by their parents]. It’s like in Japan 80 years ago.”
Two weeks of Israel‘s bombardment of Lebanon has resulted in destruction, civilian casualties and fear that this time will be worse than 1982
(search results)
(April 16, 2008)
„We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,“ Ma‘ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events „swung American public opinion in our favor.“
Netanyahu reportedly made the comments during a conference at Bar-Ilan University on the division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.
(12. September 2001)
Asked tonight what the attack meant for relations between the United States and Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, replied, “It‘s very good.“ Then he edited himself: “Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.“ He predicted that the attack would “strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we‘ve experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.“
(Devember 21, 2023)
That might have been why, when President Biden and Israeli officials said that Oct. 7 was Israel’s Sept. 11, intending the comparison as a rallying cry for self-defense, their words seemed to many instead a cruel provocation of trauma. Were they kidding? The response to Sept. 11 was catastrophic for the Arab and Muslim world and, eventually, terrible for the United States. A similar response to Oct. 7 would be terrible for the Israeli people, and a total reinvention of hell for the Palestinians. We know this because we are Americans. In the Israelis, we saw our own leaders: shocked victims for a day, destroyers of worlds every day thereafter.
(22 October 2021)
But we also find that human brain size reduction was surprisingly recent, occurring in the last 3,000 years. Our dating does not support hypotheses concerning brain size reduction as a by-product of body size reduction, a result of a shift to an agricultural diet, or a consequence of self-domestication. We suggest our analysis supports the hypothesis that the recent decrease in brain size may instead result from the externalization of knowledge and advantages of group-level decision-making due in part to the advent of social systems of distributed cognition and the storage and sharing of information. Humans live in social groups in which multiple brains contribute to the emergence of collective intelligence. Although difficult to study in the deep history of Homo, the impacts of group size, social organization, collective intelligence and other potential selective forces on brain evolution can be elucidated using ants as models.
(16.11.2021)
Dass unser Gehirn langsam etwas an Masse verloren hat, ist jedoch nicht ganz so lange her: Erst vor rund 3.000 Jahren begann es zu schrumpfen.
(…)
Die Art und Weise, wie sich Individuen in einem Ameisenstaat organisieren, ähnelt unseren modernen Gesellschaftsstrukturen. Die Insekten haben, verglichen mit ihrer Körpergröße, ein Mini-Gehirn. Es ist etwa eine Million Mal kleiner als das eines Menschen – sie können aber Großes leisten. Das Prinzip dahinter ist eine Art kollektive Intelligenz. Nicht jeder muss alles können oder wissen, es gibt eine klare Aufgabenteilung.
(4 days ago )
The Israeli police decides to close down the headquarters of the Communist Party in Haifa
Israel and Ben Gvir’s Police have just decided to shut the headquarters of the Communist Party in Haifa for ten hours starting at 19:00 this evening.
For now, Trump has called the recent protests “antisemitic” and “far worse” than the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. Biden has similarly condemned “the antisemitic protests” and “those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” (…)
Like their association of civil rights and peace demonstrators with communism throughout the Cold War, politicians on both sides of the aisle are now broadly hurling claims of antisemitism against anyone protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, many of whom are Jewish.
The purpose then, as it is now, is to intimidate administrators into a false political choice: Will they protect students’ right to demonstrate or be seen as acquiescent to antisemitism?
The British public should realise that Muslim scapegoats today, much like the Jewish, Irish or Black scapegoats used by demagogues yesterday, are not their enemies
In an earlier statement, Gove‘s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said the definition had been updated to respond to an “increased extremist threat since October 7 terror attacks in Israel”, citing an increase in reported antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes.
It said the new definition would be used by government departments and officials to help them decide which groups they should engage with and fund, and to identify “extremist organisations, individuals and behaviours”.
But it said: “This definition is not statutory and has no effect on the existing criminal law – it applies to the operations of Government itself.”
The Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion said they conducted a string of raids into the Belgorod region in May and June 2023, claiming to have taken temporary control of several settlements after breaking through a border checkpoint.
In March last year, Russia launched a wave of retaliatory missile strikes on Ukraine after it said a sabotage group killed civilians in the Bryansk border region.
(13.02.2024)
Even after a lapse of more than seven hours, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has not given any reason for the delay leading to the expression of suspicions from contesting parties.
Prior to the elections, the electoral watchdog had introduced a new system called the Election Management System (EMS) to organize the results, but so far, the performance of the system has belied the ECP claims.
Politicians and political parties rise and fall with the backing of the military, which this year was widely believed to be backing the party of three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
hochverehrte Frau Szepesi,
auch ich möchte mich bei Ihnen bedanken dafür, dass Sie hierhergekommen sind und gesprochen haben zu uns – nicht um Sühne oder gar Rache einzuklagen, sondern: um zu erinnern, um zu wecken, wo nötig. Damit geben Sie diesem neuen, anderen Deutschland mit unfassbar großem Herzen eine zweite Chance – eine zweite Chance, es anders zu machen, besser zu machen und es richtig zu machen! Dafür kann Ihnen dieses Deutschland und können Ihnen diese Deutschen nicht genug danken.
(…)
Aber diese zweite Chance darf nicht – darf niemals und nirgends – vertan werden! Und deshalb: Ich mag das Wort „Mahnung“ in diesem Zusammenhang nicht, es lässt mir zu viel vermeintlichen Spielraum. „Nie wieder!“ ist mitnichten ein Appell. „Nie wieder!“ kann nur sein, darf nur sein, „Nie wieder!“ muss sein: gelebte, unverrückbare Wirklichkeit!
(31.01.2024)
Ab diesem Zeitpunkt war ich nur noch die Nummer A-26877
Zu den stundenlangen Appellen draußen im eiskalten Schnee, wo mir die Finger und Zehen erfroren, kamen noch die Misshandlungen dazu….
Ich wurde immer schwächer, lag auf der Pritsche und nahm kaum noch wahr, was um mich herum geschah.
Eines Tages bekam ich mit, dass die Deutschen alle Häftlinge zusammentrieben.
„RAUS ! AUFSTELLEN ! LOS ! MARSCH !“
Ich blieb liegen, hatte keine Kraft mehr zu reagieren.
Dann war es auf einmal still in der Baracke.
Neben mir lagen noch einige Frauen regungslos. Sie waren tot.
Ich weiß nicht wie lange ich so da lag, doch irgendwann spürten meine vom Fieber brennenden Lippen, eine Hand die mich mit kaltem Schnee fütterte.
Der Schnee tat gut, er stillte meine Schmerzen.
Dann versank alles wieder im Dunkeln.
Als ich das nächste Mal das Bewusstsein wieder erlangte, leuchtete ein feuerroter Stern über mir.
Als mein Blick langsam klarer wurde, erkannte ich einen russischen Soldaten der sich lächelnd über mich beugte.
Die menschliche Wärme in seinem Blick tat mir gut.
Es war der 27. Januar 1945 und ich lebte.
(…)
Und dann kam der 7. Oktober.
Der Tag an dem der tödlichste Angriff gegen Juden seit der Shoah stattfand.
Der Tag an dem die Terrororganisation Hamas Babys, Kinder, Eltern und Großeltern, in Israel bestialisch ermordete – nur weil sie Juden waren.
Der Tag an dem die Hamas glücklich tanzende Jugendliche auf dem Nova Friedensfestival vergewaltigten ermordeten und verschleppten……
Meine Enkelin die in Israel lebt, hätte auch dort sein können…
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren es hätten auch IHRE Kinder sein können….
Immer noch sind über 100 Geiseln in den Händen der Hamas,.
Ich hatte so gehofft, dass ich das heute nicht mehr sagen müsste.
BRINGT SIE NACH HAUSE, Jetzt !!!!
Der 7. Oktober, der Tag, der für uns Juden auf der Welt ALLES veränderte….
Mein Alltag hier in Deutschland, ist seitdem geprägt von erhöhten Sicherheitsmaßnahmen.
Von vermehrten antisemitischen Vorfällen.
Von Ängsten.
Von Gesprächen die mit „Ja Aber..“ beginnen….
Oder dem so lauten Schweigen aus der Mitte der Gesellschaft….
Mir selbst wurden Lesungen kurz nach dem 7. Oktober in Schulen abgesagt… da nicht für meine Sicherheit gesorgt werden könnte.
Die letzten Male sprach ich in Schulen unter Polizeischutz.
Ich weiß, dass ich das Trauma der Shoah an meine Kinder, Enkel und Urenkel weitergegeben habe.
Aber, dass sie jetzt diese Existenzängste auch REAL erleben müssen,
schmerzt mich sehr.
Die Shoah begann nicht mit Auschwitz. Sie begann mit Worten…
Sie begann mit dem Schweigen und dem Wegschauen der Gesellschaft.
Es schmerzt mich,
wenn Schüler jetzt wieder Angst haben in die Schule zu gehen – nur weil sie Juden sind.
Es schmerzt mich,
wenn meine Urenkelkinder immer noch von Polizisten mit Maschinengewehren beschützt werden müssen, – nur weil sie Juden sind.
Ich wünsche mir,
dass nicht nur an den Gedenktagen an die toten Juden erinnert wird,
sondern auch im Alltag an die Lebenden.
S i e brauchen jetzt Schutz.
Es erschreckt mich,
das rechtsextreme Parteien wieder gewählt werden.
Sie dürfen nicht so stark werden, dass unsere Demokratie gefährdet wird.
Wir sind kurz davor.
Ich wünsche mir das die Gesellschaft nicht schweigt, wenn am Nebentisch antisemitische Äußerungen fallen.
Wer schweigt macht sich mitschuldig.
Ich wünsche mir,
dass Studenten ihre jüdischen Kommilitonen unterstützen, wenn sie angefeindet werden.
Ich bin dankbar, dass unsere Regierung sich gleich nach dem 7. Oktober, mit Israel solidarisiert und sich hinter die Jüdischen Gemeinden in Deutschland gestellt hat.
Ich fühle mich durch unsere Demokratie beschützt…Noch…
Aber es macht mir große Sorgen und ich bin traurig zu Sehen, was sich auf den Straßen abspielt,
die Bereitschaft zur Gewalt…
der Judenhass…der Menschenhass..
Warum verteidigen nicht alle Menschen dieses wunderbare Grundgesetz und unsere Demokratie in der wir leben ?
President Joe Biden is under increasing pressure to respond in a way that stops these attacks for good. Iran-backed militants have targeted US military facilities in Iraq and Syria over 160 times since October, and several Republican lawmakers have called for the US to hit inside Iran directly to send a clear message.
But the biggest challenge now for the Biden administration is how to respond to the drone strike – the deadliest attack on US forces in the region since the bombing at Abbey Gate killed 13 US service members in the closing days of the Afghanistan withdrawal – without sparking a regional war.
Das beschämende Spektakel, dass die Bürger definitiv mehr und mehr von denjenigen entfernt, die behaupten, ihre Vertreter zu sein, hat schon seit Langem nichts mehr mit dem Gesetz und der Verfassung zu tun, sondern mit den persönlichen Begehrlichkeiten dieser Personen.
Das Argument von Anfang 2023, dass sie mit einem Terroranschlag konfrontiert seien, ist widerlegt worden. Jetzt besteht der Terrorismus-Vorwand nicht mehr, und wir haben eine politische Krise, die vielleicht sogar noch schlimmer ist als die von vor einem Jahr. Das Land ist weiterhin unregierbar, aber nicht wegen der Mobilisierung von denen „da unten”, sondern wegen der unersättlichen Gier von denen „da oben”.
(21.01.2024)
Many will say this is the second Palestinian Nakba, and it is for the majority of Palestinians in Gaza who were driven from their homes and lands in 1948.
But for my family, and for nearly 30 percent of Gaza’s population, this is our first experience of Nakba. This is the first time our connection to the city that has held our lives, our stories, and our history, for thousands of years, has been disrupted.
The house my aunty was driven out of belongs to my great-grandfather and was first built during the Ottoman empire, more than 100 years ago. Our neighbourhood, Tuffah, and its adjacent Mohatta Street, where the old railway station used to be, are much older than Israel and all its wars.
Over the past months, Yemen-based Houthi militants have engaged in unprecedented attacks against United States military forces and international maritime vessels operating in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. These attacks fit the textbook definition of terrorism. They have endangered U.S. personnel, civilian mariners, and our partners, jeopardized global trade, and threatened freedom of navigation. The United States and the international community have been united in our response and in condemning these attacks in the strongest terms.
Today, in response to these continuing threats and attacks, the United States announced the designation of Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.