"Can you believe it, Vlad? I could kill José Andrés himself in the middle of 5th Avenue - and the Americans would still throw money at me!"

"What a country."

Six nations hatched a plot to elect Trump. The plot was hatched in 2015; the nations involved were Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt. The leaders of these countries were all involved.

Three of these six nations—Russia, Israel, the UAE—had infiltrated deep into the Trump campaign by March 2016: Russia through Dimitri Simes; the UAE through Yousef al-Otaiba; Israel through Kushner, Groner, and Birnbaum. The campaign understood the plan these nations had.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216474439#post60



one of the articles from that link:


Exclusive: Jeffrey Epstein’s investment in an Israeli start-up reveals a myriad of links to Donald Trump and Israeli spies.

https://narativ.org/2019/07/27/building-big-brother/

It’s been thirty-two years since the “Pollard Affair” pierced the seemingly impenetrable façade of U.S.-Israeli relations. Now, two suspected Israeli agents are in jail – indicted on separate charges of sex trafficking of minors. Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on July 6 and charged with trafficking minors across state lines. George Nader – a key witness for Robert Mueller – was arrested last month for possession of child porn and transporting a minor for sex from Europe.

Epstein and Nader share a personal network that includes Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Erik Prince, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and his UAE counterpart, Mohamed Bin Zayed. But their association goes further than powerful friends and proclivities for teenage boys and girls. Epstein and Nader are believed to be agents for Israeli Intelligence. Narativ has independently confirmed with two separate sources who were in a position to know that Epstein worked for Israeli military intelligence.

Both men also have ties to a burgeoning Israeli tech sector which is bringing Mossad-style military intelligence to the private sector and endangering the global balance of power. The Haaretz newspaper has previously reported that Epstein, who was Donald Trump’s friend through the ’80s and ’90s, partnered in an Israeli start-up alongside former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Barak is seeking to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu as Israeli Prime Minister in the upcoming re-run elections scheduled for September. Since 2015, he has been the front-man for Carbyne, an Israeli start-up which purports to be a high-tech solution for 911 emergency call centers, but the platform’s architecture and investors raise serious privacy concerns. Narativ undertook an extensive investigation into Carbyne, and can now reveal a myriad of troubling connections between the start-up and people connected to Donald Trump.

snip

and so little of our lauded fourth estate shining a light on it.

to have to read this later, my head hurts too much right now.

Thank you.

Inside an effort to influence American elections, starting with one small-town race.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/18/private-mossad-for-hire

https://archive.is/Fia3F



One evening in 2016, a twenty-five-year-old community-college student named Alex Gutiérrez was waiting tables at La Piazza Ristorante Italiano, an upscale restaurant in Tulare, in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Gutiérrez spotted Yorai Benzeevi, a physician who ran the local hospital, sitting at a table with Parmod Kumar, a member of the hospital board. They seemed to be in a celebratory mood, drinking expensive bottles of wine and laughing. This irritated Gutiérrez. The kingpins, he thought with disgust. Gutiérrez had recently joined a Tulare organization called Citizens for Hospital Accountability. The group had accused Benzeevi of enriching himself at the expense of the cash-strapped hospital, which subsequently declared bankruptcy. (Benzeevi’s lawyers said that all his actions were authorized by his company’s contract with the facility.) According to court documents, the contract was extremely lucrative for Benzeevi; in a 2014 e-mail to his accountant, he estimated that his hospital business could generate nine million dollars in annual revenue, on top of his management fee of two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars a month. (In Tulare, the median household income was about forty-five thousand dollars a year.) The citizens’ group had drawn up an ambitious plan to get rid of Benzeevi by rooting out his allies on the hospital board. As 2016 came to a close, the group was pushing for a special election to unseat Kumar; if he were voted out, a majority of the board could rescind Benzeevi’s contract.

Gutiérrez, a political-science major, was a leader of the Young Democrats Club at the College of the Sequoias, and during the 2016 Presidential campaign he attended a rally for Bernie Sanders. Gutiérrez grew up watching his father, a dairyman, work twelve-hour shifts, six days a week, and Sanders’s message about corporate greed, income inequality, and the ills of America’s for-profit health-care system resonated with him. Seeing Benzeevi and Kumar enjoying themselves at La Piazza inflamed Gutiérrez’s sense of injustice. He spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s knocking on doors and asking neighbors to sign a petition for a recall vote, which ultimately garnered more than eleven hundred signatures. Gutiérrez later asked his mother, Senovia, if she would run for Kumar’s seat; the citizens’ group thought that Senovia, an immigrant and a social worker, would be an appealing candidate in a community that is around sixty per cent Hispanic. The recall was a clear threat to Benzeevi’s hospital-management business, and he consulted a law firm in Washington, D.C., about mounting a campaign to save Kumar’s seat. An adviser there referred him to Psy-Group, an Israeli private intelligence company. Psy-Group’s slogan was “Shape Reality,” and its techniques included the use of elaborate false identities to manipulate its targets. Psy-Group was part of a new wave of private intelligence firms that recruited from the ranks of Israel’s secret services—self-described “private Mossads.” The most aggressive of these firms seemed willing to do just about anything for their clients.

Psy-Group stood out from many of its rivals because it didn’t just gather intelligence; it specialized in covertly spreading messages to influence what people believed and how they behaved. Its operatives took advantage of technological innovations and lax governmental oversight. “Social media allows you to reach virtually anyone and to play with their minds,” Uzi Shaya, a former senior Israeli intelligence officer, said. “You can do whatever you want. You can be whoever you want. It’s a place where wars are fought, elections are won, and terror is promoted. There are no regulations. It is a no man’s land.” In recent years, Psy-Group has conceived of a variety of elaborate covert operations. In Amsterdam, the firm prepared a report on a religious sect called the Brunstad Christian Church, whose Norwegian leader, Psy-Group noted, claimed to have written “a more important book than the New Testament.” In Gabon, Psy-Group pitched “Operation Bentley”—an effort to “preserve” President Ali Bongo Ondimba’s hold on power by collecting and disseminating intelligence about his main political rival. (It’s unclear whether or not the operations in Amsterdam and Gabon were carried out. A spokesperson for Brunstad said that it was “plainly ridiculous” that the church considered “any book” to be more important than the Bible. Ondimba’s representatives could not be reached for comment.) In another project, targeting the South African billionaire heirs of an apartheid-era skin-lightening company, Psy-Group secretly recorded family members of the heirs describing them as greedy and, in one case, as a “piece of shit.” In New York, Psy-Group mounted a campaign on behalf of wealthy Jewish-American donors to embarrass and intimidate activists on American college campuses who support a movement to put economic pressure on Israel because of its treatment of the Palestinians.

Psy-Group’s larger ambition was to break into the U.S. election market. During the 2016 Presidential race, the company pitched members of Donald Trump’s campaign team on its ability to influence the results. Psy-Group’s owner, Joel Zamel, even asked Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, to offer Zamel’s services to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. The effort to drum up business included brash claims about the company’s skills in online deception. The posturing was intended to attract clients—but it also attracted the attention of the F.B.I. Robert Mueller, the special counsel, has been examining the firm’s activities as part of his investigation into Russian election interference and other matters. Psy-Group’s talks with Benzeevi, after the 2016 election, spurred the company to draw up a plan for developing more business at the state and local levels. No election was too small. One company document reported that Psy-Group’s influence services cost, on average, just three hundred and fifty thousand dollars—as little as two hundred and seventy-five dollars an hour. The new strategy called for pitching more than fifty individuals and groups, including the Republican National Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and major super pacs. The firm published a provocative brochure featuring an image of a goldfish with a shark fin tied to its back, below the tagline “Reality is a matter of perception.” Another brochure showed a cat that cast a lion’s shadow and listed “honey traps” among the firm’s services. (In the espionage world, a honey trap often involves deploying a sexually attractive operative to induce a target to provide information.)

snip

It is so ironic how our whole species has lost its way.

When we come out of the womb we have nothing. We are raised and then work fifty years. In the end we shed these clay vessels that are our physical bodies and go on, taking nothing with us.

Why then do we have freakish people who feverishly amass billions of dollars? For what? And why do the rest of us have to 'lose' in some zero-sum game so these few can have more and more and more. How much does one person even need? How can we ever justify billionaires?

And why do we have so-called 'power brokers' who work to amass political and economic power? For what? Gosh, we sure are killing the planet because of these two misguided groups of people. Killing the planet, wars grinding on, poverty and homelessness increasing, concertina wire at borders, nonpotable water, starvation (eleven people a minute die of starvation on this planet, did you know?), drug 'wars' that disproportionately affect minorities, drug addiction perpetrated by big pharma crime families like the Saklers, union busting, cutting corners on worker safety, trying to privatize charities instead of providing public funding, irresponsible tax cuts for billionaire and corporations - we are so very misguided.

The real priority should be peace, and ensuring everyone has enough through good policy. Trump is making such a big deal of bringing so-called Christians into his camp, but the truth is that the liberal democracies in the West have been so corrupted by greed, wrath, pride, envy, lust, gluttony and addictions that we don't even worship God anymore. We are instead worshipping that bronze bull on Wall Street - our very own Golden Calf.

Unless we all wake up, our great grandchildren will be facing a world much worse than the one people who are now living were born into. Do you wonder why the right wing is denigrating 'wokeness' so much? Because the opposite of being woke is being asleep, and that is how the billionaires want us. Asleep and docile so they can keep amassing money and power at the expense of everyone else.

In the 1700's France had a solution and the rich were not around anymore-but there will always others to take their place

In the 1700's France had a solution and the rich were not around anymore-

Lots of space between them.

Old Cynic wonders if deliberately bombing one charity would have the planned effect of discouraging others from serving there and thus lead to starving the population.

I firmly believe that Netanyahu is determined to starve out Gaza and to do whatever possible to keep supplies from reaching it. And I also believe there are enough Israelis who'd be disgusted and sickened by these policies.

My first thought was that this was intentional and nothing has changed my mind. Per Malcolm Nance the drone operators had to know that the caravan was a humanitarian caravan and it was clearly marked as such. Netanyahu does not want anyone to see his dirty work as he attempts to turn all of Gaza into a pile of rubble.
Hamas clearly miscalculated when they attacked Israel on October 7th. I don't believe they felt that the Israelis would respond the way that they have. It is also clear that Hamas feels that the citizens of Gaza are just pawns in thier war against Israel and they are only useful as propaganda. This war may adversely affect our election which is what both Trump and Netanyahu want.

Although Gantz has supported the war, he seems to be the only one with enough approval to perhaps force a new election.

a coalition govt...don't know enough about the various players.

There is a nice Wikipedia article on. The alliance which did win 61 seats in 2020, but fell apart quickly.

I remember the also brief alliance between Lapid and Naftali Bennet. Bennett is more conservative than Gantz, I think. Yamina party, New Right per wiki.

This is not new for him or the IDF.

for the tax checks I write quarterly not to go to this genocidal destruction and it infuriates me beyond description that we are helping to bankroll it!

I also object to Reuters' use of the term "celebrity chef." He is the head of an army of volunteers who deliver food to places nobody else wants to go. He is the definition of a stand-up guy, and I doubt he spends one second a day thinking about his image.

and everything.

The people of Gaza are starving. Now WCK and other organizations are pausing giving aid - and food situation will be exacerbated. Deliberate? Well . . . I sure know what I think - although I'm sure there will be others who will say "war is hell" although there has never been another war where this extraordinary number of aid workers have been killed in this amount of time.

So - Deliberate? Or incompetent?

Approximately 500 aid workers are killed each year around the world trying to do their very dangerous jobs (Aid Worker Security Report Figures at a glance - Humanitarian Outcomes, https://www.humanitarianoutcomes.org/sites/default/files/publications/ho_aws-preview_july_23_final.pdf ).

In Ukraine, Russian forces killed at least 11 aid workers and illegally detained at least 39 aid workers, many of whom were reportedly abused. https://www.aidworkersecurity.org/incidents/report

Israel is not intentionally targeting aid workers. The strike on the 3 WCK vehicles happened at night, so their roof insignia was not evident like it would have been during the day. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-04-03-2024-3e379f56a6153c347179e3e99823c407 Israel says it was a mistake, apparently by lower level IDF soldiers who conducted the strike without properly confirming the vehicles' identity. Israel is working with aid organizations to get aid through, and was in fact coordinating deliveries specifically with WCK. Those 3 vehicles had just delivered aid and were on their way back, unloaded of aid, when they were hit.

Bibi is incompetent and corrupt. He is hurting Israel. He probably would have been pushed out by now had Hamas not attacked on October 7.

Please don't try to rationalize this away. The point is they knew the aid workers were there and bombed them anyway. It's like the three Israeli's who escaped Hamas and came out in the open waving a white flag. What happened to them? And for the record military drones have night vision.

Come on.

That was obviously a tragic incompetence-induced mistake, caused by scared soldiers who thought it was a trap by disguised Hamas fighters. Like the targeting of these 3 vehicles.

Sadly, it is not.

This is urban warfare. In urban warfare, 90% of deaths are civilians.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/07/opinions/israel-hamas-gaza-not-war-crimes-spencer/index.html

this will help.

https://www.aidworkersecurity.org/incidents/report/country]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68711282]

Posting only on the off-chance that you actually are interested. But I'm guessing probably not.

Your links do not help, nor does your snark and insults aimed at me.

Neither link says who killed 198 aid workers, nor do they even support the 198 figure.

Your first link just goes to a page that says 53 aid workers were killed (it does offer causes) in the "Occupied Palestinian Territories" through 2022.

Your BBC link states, "More than 196 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October, according to the US-funded Aid Worker Security Database, which records major incidents of violence against aid personnel." But it does not state the cause of their deaths.

anything I show you will not be sufficient.

Sorry BBC isn't what you are looking for. There are dozens of reports available from news organizations and humanitarian organizations. You could find them if you wanted to. And they all report more than 196 aid workers have been killed. You might have to google/search yourself for what you are looking for as I'm at a loss.

Not sure how that's an insult - but then I find it very insulting that anyone on this message board asks a fellow poster to present a "non-Hamas" link. I don't think anyone has access to Hamas links.

Have a good day.

Suggesting I don't care is an insult. I care about facts. Everyone should.

Hamas' word cannot be relied on. That is a fact. To simply restate Hamas' claims without noting that they are Hamas' claims is dishonest reporting.

They do not address how the aid workers were killed, only that they died. I asked you to provide links to how the aid workers were killed, since you were suggesting Israel intentionally killed them all.

BTW, "Okey dokey" and "you do you" is snark. It is not how one takes a conversation seriously. I am serious and genuinely interested in this issue. This is not a game.

War crimes.

convoy.

Unreal.

Aid workers coordinated with the US coalition during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

It is unreal and deplorable to make up some nonsense without evidence to justify the killing.

Number of people and they really don’t want to know the truth. I keep reminding myself to remember my Mark Twain “Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” and move on.

an antisemite.

I am sure they weighed the possible outcomes of doing this and determined it was worth the risk. I hope Biden and his team react appropriately.

Israel is in fact working with aid organizations to get aid through, and was in fact coordinating deliveries specifically with WCK. Those 3 vehicles had just delivered aid and were on their way back, unloaded of aid, when they were hit.

Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said a preliminary investigation indicated "it was a mistake that followed a misidentification — at night during a war in very complex conditions. It shouldn’t have happened.” He said an independent body would complete a thorough investigation in the coming days. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-04-03-2024-3e379f56a6153c347179e3e99823c407

Israel is not intentionally targeting aid workers. The strike on the 3 WCK vehicles happened at night, so their roof insignia was not evident like it would have been during the day. Apparently lower level IDF soldiers conducted the strike without properly confirming the vehicles' identity with superiors.

If Israel wanted to stop aid shipments, why are they talking with WCK right now trying to get them to resume their operations in Gaza?

aid workers stay out, food shipments stop, and everyone in Gaza starves to death more quickly.

That is Netanyahu's goal, to "depopulate" Gaza so he can gift it to his supporters on the right. Plus, he's probably going to get a hefty chunk of the natural gas money.

but everyone in Gaza dead does. It allows him to give Gaza to the settlers and access the natural gas fields offshore, cementing his grip on power.

If you think he's a good guy, well, go with that. I think he's just like the other right wing dickheads who run various countries. He's Trump, MBS, Erdogan, etc. in a different language.

NOTE: I am speaking of Netanyahu and his cronies, not every person in Israel; he and his right wing cronies are the ones calling the shots here.

ETA: Before long there will be no journalists left in Gaza either, so there will be no images that are not put forth by the IDF. It benefits him to get rid of the humanitarian workers, doctors, and journalists.

It would not have given them months to move south. Much more than 30,000 would be dead of the 2.2 million in Gaza. [And note that the 30,000 total dead figure the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry provides does not distinguish between Hamas fighter deaths and noncombatant deaths, and includes deaths by any cause.]

I am no fan of right wing asshole Netanyahu. He is corrupt and incompetent. His support of illegal settlements is abhorrent. Nobody on DU supports Netanyahu. The majority of the people of Israel don't either. Your attempt to insult me and suggest I think he is a good guy serves no constructive purpose. Let's stick with the facts, shall we?

If Israel had done what Republicans suggest, hitting Gaza "like Nagasaki," it would have hurt Israel, resulting in complete loss of aid and support from the international community. That is why Israel is similarly ignoring Trump's call for Israel to "hurry up and get it over with" and just "bulldoze" through Gaza. Instead, Israel is listening to Biden to open additional aid crossings. Israel said it would open the Erez crossing point, which has been closed since it was destroyed during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that started the war, and increase aid through the Kerem Shalom crossing. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-welcomes-israel-opening-more-aid-gaza-proof-is-results-2024-04-05/#:~:text=Israel%20said%20it%20would%20open,through%20the%20Kerem%20Shalom%20crossing.

Therefore, food convoys must be discouraged. The targeted killings have halted the convoys.

They have to pretend it was an accident and they really do want humanitarian aid. Their actions speak otherwise.

They are the ones who want pictures of starving Palestinians to be plastered on front pages, so they can get the world to pressure Israel to stop fighting Hamas. Hamas does not care that the Palestinian people are starving.

Hamas is trying to sustain itself at all costs, and Netanyahu is trying to reduce the Palestinian population because he believes the long term survival of Israel as the Jewish state depends on Palestinians within its borders being no more than a pacified minority.

Blaming it on a "Rogue Commander".

More Fucking war crimes

The aid workers are people who are far braver and better than I am. Now, they are dead, dead, dead. They ain't coming back.

What is left behind is the empty rhetoric of Netanyahu, and that of those here who say "such is war."

Everyone knows this.

you can't just declare a kill zone and kill anyone in the area. It's absolutely disgusting to see DUers make excuses for these atrocities. IDF should be protecting aid convoys except starvation is the point. Cruelty is the point.

But Hamas....

Hamas are suicidal and don't care if IDF kills them. Other people didn't make that choice.

It's hard to believe this was an accident.

... answer questions about this issue.

I don’t know if it’s even an option. Has talking to them or lobbying them helped? Maybe it won’t work but it sure might get their attention, even if only to bring it up as a topic of discussion.

AIPAC is spending millions to keep their supporters in Congress. They are never going to vote to cut aid.

This war is already way over the line. Why do we continue to aid Israel with money and weapons? Besides the fact that we are the arms dealer to the world.

https://russblib.blogspot.com/?m=1

I no longer see Israel as having a claim to high ground. Now it's just bloody rubble.

IMO

....now it just seems like bloodlust. Targeting humanitarian aid workers? Sounds like a war crime. Letting IDF commanders on the ground do whatever they want? WTF? Everybody just go crazy y'all! They did.



https://russblib.blogspot.com/?m=1

World Central Kitchen bringing life-saving food. Car one….check. Car two….check. Car three….check.

FUCK them all

This one is mind blowing. Beyond the beyond.

Needs to go.
This was inexcusable.
They have the best equipment in the world...........

It bring back memories of the Israeli unprovoked attack on the USS Liberty, an unarmed communication ship. It still hurts after all these years. My anger isn’t just at the Israeli military. Our government sided with the murders of my brothers on the Liberty.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/israel-attacks-uss-liberty

Israel can go ...

Love Joe, but he is getting bad advice on this..

Hope it doesn't cost him or us