Thomas Friedman's Latest in the New York Times

Friedman has a new column in the New York Times, with a rather limited anchor in TRVTH.

He starts by saying the world is divided into democracies and autocracies, and there is the Resistance Movement, dedicated to preserving the autocracies, and the Inclusion Movement who want to join the Democracies.

The Ukrainians are all in the Inclusion Movement, fighting hard to join the democracies as Putin is futilely trying to keep them under his autocracy. This is only costing the US a few dollars, the Ukrainians are doing all the dying that NATO must spend to stop the evil Putin, so the Ukrainians are saving American lives.

And the war has cost Putin 90% of all the soldiers in the Russian army and most of his tanks. Putin only has outmoded Soviet and Czarist weapons while NATO weapons have twice the range and much greater accuracy, so the Ukrainians have destroyed Putin's army at the cost of a relatively few Ukrainian lives.

I've seen this reiterated in all the Western media. Not just the New York Times, but CNN, the BBC, and Yahoo News.

Of course, those actually in the Ukraine reporting have rather a different take, but what do they know? To report accurately about the Ukraine one should do most of the writing in New York and London and Paris and Berlin, getting your information from your government's information office. A trip to Kiev is OK, but don't go into the Ukrainian countryside or you could end up like Gonzalo Lira, and that would be entirely your own fault.

Don't believe Russian disinformation that it is Russia that killed off at least three Ukrainian armies, and the Ukraine are now drafting women, even pregnant women, since Russia have killed off most of the male draftees.

Officially, Russia were just like Saudi Arabia, selling energy to Europe and using the money to buy everything they needed from Europe. Sanctions cut off all their money, so the Russian military had no financial support and had to use old, inept, outmoded, and in very poor repair Soviet and even Czarist weapons, and had very little ammunition. Ignore the fact that the PRC where, when I was a boy, people dreamed of someday owning a bicycle but knowing that was just a dream, is now the country with the most cars and which buys the most oil, and pays more than the super discounted price Russia gave to Europe to buy their friendship. The PRC, where those in the north were barely able to keep their homes above freezing in the winter, now provide ample heat, and so buy more gas than any other nation. So Russia had money and materials coming in and restarted all the industries closed when Russia were buying almost everything from Europe. And the Russian defence industry is now the most advanced in the world. Remember, all the West, all the Western news media say that is all just Russian disinformation. All the Russian defence industry was outsourced to Europe, so their military only had outmoded and inept equipment, and all the Russian soldiers have been killed and all the Russian tanks destroyed by the brave, well trained, and well equipped Ukrainians. But we do need to give the Ukraine a lot more money, but that's still cheap at half the price.

Meanwhile, Hamas and Iran are also in that Resistance Movement, while Israel and Saudi Arabia are very much in the Inclusion Movement. Saudi will soon be 'a Dubai on steroids' according to Friedman, and will work closely with Israel to join the Democracies of the world.

OK, I'm close enough to see Saudi and Israel, and that Inclusion Movement and their rush toward Democracy don't look all that much better than the autocracy movement, rather worse if one looks too closely.

So stick with Friedman and the New York Times: the Hamas attack on 7 October was unendurable, and Israel have the right to self defence. Israel are providing food and medical care to the Ghazans injured by Hamas, so all claims of genocide are pure lies. The Ghazans can't see that food, and nor can I, but if Friedman and the New York Times say Israel is providing the Ghazans more than enough food and medical care, we must believe him and not our own eyes. His information is much better than ours. Some say that, as an occupying power, international law does not, in fact, give Israel any right to self defence, and certainly no right to block all food going into Ghaza, but Friedman knows what International Law should be, favouring the US as the Leader of Democracy, so whatever the US does and supports is the Law, not what's written in some old books like the ones still available in South Africa that they tried to bring before the ICJ. Nothing Israel does can be considered genocide when the US says it can't possibly be genocide.

As Friedman concludes, Netanyahu hoped to convince Saudi to fully join the Inclusion Movement without giving the slightest concession to the Ghazans, when it would be so easy to get diplomatic recognition by Saudi for Israel if Netanyahu would offer some minuscule, insignificant token and call it full freedom for the Palestinians. No need to give any real concessions, just some meaningless, token concessions, but Netanyahu says Saudi are so desperate to be in the Inclusion Movement that not even a token will be necessary, Saudi will eventually come round, the Inclusion Movement is just too tempting to resist.

And this is making it harder and requiring more time, and Friedman can't understand why Netanyahu is doing this when that meaningless concession would be so much easier and quicker.

Palestine and Zionism

The word 'Zionism' was coined by a Jew in the second half of the 19^th century. The idea was formed by an Anglican clergyman named Rev. Keith in the first half of the 19^th century: he said 'Palestine is a land without a people for a people without a land.' The Anglican clergy did not want Jews, whom they considered deicides, living in the UK, they wanted them all sent back to Palestine.

The Greeks transliterated the Hebrew word as Φιλιστιν, or Philistine. The Romans transliterated it as Palestine. The first Hebrew letter can be pronounced like the Greek Φ or the Roman P, and the vowels are not written in Hebrew. But in the 19th century, the Roman province of Palestine was a small part of the Ottoman vilayet of Syria. Then the Ottoman Empire somehow found themselves as part of the Central Powers in WWI, and lost, and all their Asian vilayets were chopped up and split between the French and the British, and the British got Palestine and Jordan, both formerly parts of Syria, and the French got Syria and Lebanon, both also once parts of Syria. And the British wrote the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate that Palestine was for British Jews. The UK would have liked to force all UK Jews to Palestine, and they got quite a few to go. Palestine went from almost all Palestinians to about 30% British Jews.

Russian Jews, about half of all Jews worldwide, were in the Pale, and suffered pogroms, so some of them wanted to go, but the British said Palestine was only for UK Jews. And anyway, the Russian Empire ended, and the USSR banned ethnic groupings and religion, so there were no Jews in the USSR, but anyone caught practicing the Jewish religion, or any other religion, would be punished. And no one was allowed to leave the USSR. Or the Warsaw Pact, for that matter (but a few managed to escape).

The Nazis wanted a Judenfrei Europe, but, again, the UK said that, while all Jews are a problem, European Jews were a European problem and the Royal Navy would prevent any from being shipped out of Europe. So the Nazis rounded up the Jews, put them in Concentration Camps, which were originally not so bad, a German confined in one in the early '30s wrote that he was there for a year or so and nothing bad happened. But, with WWII, the Axis was short of food, so they starved those in the Concentration Camps, and, as one starves, the immune system weakens and the inmates started getting bad infections and infecting the guards, so the Germans ordered anyone who could not work be killed and the body burned.

The best estimates are that the Germans murdered between 4.5 million to 6 million Jews.

There is, of course, one and only one war crime: losing the war. After they lost the war, any German who had anything to do with killing Jews was severely punished by the Allies.

The Germans also killed Slavs for lebensraum, and considered Slavs as terrible, a race to be exterminated, but, since this is an obvious fact in the West, the Western allies rewarded and honoured Germans who killed Slavs. Quite recently, Canada gave an elderly Nazi a standing ovation for his valuable contribution killing Slavs during WWII, fighting with Canada against the USSR.

But what to do with the survivors in the West European concentration camps? The US said, 'Send them all to Palestine,' and that was done. Well armed, they started killing Philistines, who were advised by the Arabs to flee Palestine until the Jews could be killed by the Arab armies. Only the Arab armies lost. The Philistines who fled Palestine was never allowed to return, and no one knows what to do with them. Most are still in refugee camps, not citizens of any state.

The Jews forced into Palestine want the whole state, but it's not quite Apartheid. The South Africans would not let anyone with a drop of Asian or African blood to become a citizen, but a European Jew was considered European, and was welcomed as a citizen. Israel made 2 million Palestinians legal to stay in Palestine, something South Africa under Apartheid would never have done. But the rest of the Palestinians, about 5.5 million, are illegal aliens.

Israel have said that the events of 7 October 2023 mean those 5.5 million must be removed, one way or the other. If some other country will take them, Israel will send them. If not, they must be killed. So far, Israel has only killed about 26,000 Philistines in  Ghaza, but they have a strict limit of two trucks of food a day, so more than a million Philistines are in danger of death from starvation. Since the Ghaza have no guards inside the Ghaza (there are three batallions of Israeli soldiers outside the Ghaza, guarding that no Ghazan gets out) so if epidemics spread inside Ghaza, they should not infect the Jews outside the Ghaza. And no one seems to care, if no country will take them in, the rest of the world have no objection if Israel kill all the Philistines.

Of course, one question is, 'Why ship all the European and UK Jews to Palestine in the first place? Wasn't that wrong? Didn't Palestine belong to the Palestinians?'

And then, after the US sent all the Western European Jews to Palestine, many Muslim countries punished the Jews living there for something they had nothing to do with, so they fled to Israel since no other place would take them.And after the USSR collapsed, so did the economy, and many former USSR and Warsaw Pact Jews went to Israel.

But now, after more than 70 years, Morocco says they'll be glad to take back all the Jews they evicted in 1948. That's a start. Most of the European Jews in Israel have two passports, so they could leave. No one wants the Philistines, so why not let the Jews go back where they came from and let the Philistines stay in Palestine?

But the Israeli Jews have the full power of the US military behind them, and no one seems to care if they exterminate 5.5 million Philistines, and no one seems to want those 5.5 million Philistines, so it is looking like Israel will starve at least two million to death. And then they'll think about the best way to get rid of the remaining 3.5 million. And the world figures that's OK.

Or at least the world leaders all figure that's all for the best. The world has a lot of people protesting, saying what Israel is doing is wrong, saying their country should help the Palestinians, but their leaders know it's best to close their double-pane windows and drapes so they can't see or hear those protests.

New, Clear Fizz-on

Iran has been less than a month away from a nuke for more than 20 years now.

But the secret has been out since 1945.

It started in 1942 when the US put together the Chicago Pile, reported in newspapers across the world. The Chicago Pile was 60 tonnes of uranium. Most of that was uranium oxide, but about 15% was metallic uranium. Uranium naturally oxidises, so it is usually found as the oxide, which is yellow, and so is called yellowcake. It is easy enough to refine the metal from the oxide, but, as calculated by the scientists who put together the Chicago Pile, this was not necessary for the whole pile.

And, when they put the pile together, Bingo! they had a chain reaction: the pile got hot. So they put in the dampers that stopped the chain reaction. All this got well reported, then it all disappeared under a cloak of Top Secrecy. Everyone and everything was secretly moved to several places, among them Los Alamos, New Mexico which appeared on no maps.

One of my high school professors said he'd spent WWII separating U₂₃₅ from the rest of the uranium, which was U₂₃₈, and this was the key to creating the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Of course, his actual work was Top Secret, so I have no idea what he really did.

After the US nuked Japan, they said they'd used bombs made from U₂₃₅, and the big effort was separating out the U₂₃₅ by fluorinating all the uranium then centrifuging the uranium fluoride gas until the U₂₃₅ was separated out, and this had taken 3 years.

I remember a Walt Disney cartoon book where they had a tiny speck of U₂₃₅; and the scientist tossed it into a great canyon. Someone said, 'Nothing happened,' and the scientist replied, 'It hasn't hit bottom yet.' When the tiny speck finally did hit bottom, there was a huge explosion that filled the entire canyon.

However, since 1945, no one else has managed to get a critical mass of U₂₃₅ by fluorinating and centrifuging uranium. And then it turned out that the US finally admitted that only one bomb was U₂₃₅, the other was plutonium.

Basically, if one has 60 tonnes of uranium one can easily cause a chain reaction (the pile has to be sculptured correctly, and plates of other substances have to be placed correctly), and if one lets the chain reaction continue for three years, one gets several critical masses of plutonium, which is easily separated and made into nukes. But the plutonium was the Top Secret bit, the US hoped everyone would waste time on fluorinating and centrifuging uranium.

But the USSR knew about the Chicago pile, which was public, and they knew what it was for, but in 1942, they had no idea if it would work. In 1945, they did know, so they built a 60 tonne pile of uranium and in 1949, the USSR had a nuke. For which two Jews were executed by the US for giving the USSR the secret that wasn't really a secret.

Iran do not have 60 tonnes of uranium, so they cannot create that chain reaction that produces plutonium, hence they are fluorinating and centrifuging uranium. And have been less than a month from a nuke for 20 years.

Basically, everyone who wanted a nuke and had 60 tonnes of uranium has a nuke. Everyone who has 60 tonnes (or more) of uranium and does not have a nuke does not want a nuke. And everyone who wants a nuke and does not have one does not have access to 60 tonnes of uranium.

It is said (and Israel wants everyone to believe) that they hijacked a ship with 100 tonnes of uranium on board. The owners of the ship never said anything, and one can certainly imagine why they did not. But did this really happen? Do Israel really have 100 or so nukes?

In any case, Israel (and Fox News) want a US invasion of Iran, regime change, and permanent prevention of any nuclear labs of any kind anywhere in Iran.

Not clear if those really in charge of the US military will order that invasion of Iran, or how such an invasion will go.

My father and me

When my father was the age I am now, when he read the newspaper, he knew he'd seen it all before. He was 20 years younger when the US put a couple of men on the moon, so that was old, and new attempts to do stuff in space were all old (and not that impressive). The new wars were like wars he'd seen before, and likewise the inflation, the recessions, & etc..

Now, when I read the newspapers, I don't recognise anything.

After WWII, the US produced more than 50% of World GDP. The animated short film, "Meet King Joe", made in 1949, was about the typical US factory worker. The film starts with the question: "Doesn't the factory owner get $millions while the worker gets wages that are barely enough to live on?" The answer (back then) was, 'NO!' The factory worker with all the machines was immensely productive, so he earned quite a large salary, 100 times as much as a Chinese coolie. That was then, when taxes on income more than 5 times the average US income were 91%; with state income taxes (and most business headquarters were in places like New York with 10% state income tax on incomes more than 5 times the average) amounted to 101%, so management could not pay themselves more than 5 times the average US income, so a lot of "King Joe's" production went to "King Joe". The Chinese coolie did everything manually, so he was only 1% as productive as "King Joe" and only earned 1% as much.

That was 1949. Now, rich Americans earn thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of times as much as average Americans. And most workers are not factory workers with their productivity multiplied hundreds of times by the machines they operate, so they don't produce that much, and the rich get most of what they produce.

Back in 1970, the top GDP countries were the US, then the USSR, then Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy, and Canada. The USSR didn't associate nor trade much with the West, and the other 7 countries formed the G7 with most of the world's GDP.

The typical Chinese person dreamed of a bicycle, but knew that dream would probably never come true. The US produced some oil, but almost every adult American had a car, so the US bought much of the oil the Middle East could produce. China had few cars, didn't need much oil, couldn't afford much oil, and so had little impact on the oil market.

Saudi and the US were firmly locked in a strategic embrace: the US desperately needed Saudi oil, and Saudi desperately needed US cash and protection.

When the Ayatollah took over Iran, the US imposed a strict blockade, and the Iranian economy fell by more than 50%. No one dared buy Iranian oil in violation of the US blockade. The US could shoot down an Iranian airliner with more than 2000 passengers and Iran could do nothing.

That was then.

Today, most Chinese have cars. The PRC are the biggest oil importer in the world (and Bharat/India now have enough cars to be a major oil consumer, but nothing like the PRC).

So, in 2021, a huge fleet of oil tankers and some destroyers arrived at the Iranian oil port and loaded with Iranian oil, then, protected by the PLAN, all the oil tankers made it back to the PRC. The Iranian economy has grown rapidly since 2021.

The three biggest economies by GDP are now: 1) the PRC; 2) the US; and 3) Bharat.

So when the PRC went to Saudi and Iran and said, 'Make peace,' both meekly said,'Yes, sir.'

And after I saw the US do all it could to avoid WWIII, now I see the US doing everything it can to start WWIII to preserve US hegemony.

It's a world I've never seen before, and I'm not sure if it's better or worse (of course, if the US starts WWIII, that'll be a lot worse than anything I've ever seen).

Who and what is ZAKA???

 The New York Times recently had a long article about ZAKA. ZAKA, according to the New York Times, are responsible to cleaning up after terrorist attacks on Israel, so they had to go on 7 October to collect all the 1,200 dead bodies. They saw children beheaded and burned by Hamas, they saw many, many women brutally raped then murdered. The New York Times admit that ZAKA are not forensic experts, they did not have actual rape kits, but the sights and smells showed the horrors Hamas inflicted on 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians. One did not need a rape kit to see that the women had obviously been raped and murdered. The members of ZAKA are still suffering from their memories of the sights and smells of the murder scenes, from the horrors that the Philistines from Ghaza inflicted on the innocent Israeli civilian women and children. Hamas, according to ZAKA, the Israeli government, the New York Times, and the US government, are rabid Antisemites who want to start by killing every Jew in Israel, then continue to kill every Jew in the world. And if the US do not stop them, who will? The Ghaza holds more than 2 million Nazis who are all determined to commit genocide, to murder all the Jews. The tiny, unarmed population of Israel are trying to fight the monsters of Hamas, but they cannot do so without a lot of help from the US, help the US must provide in the name of decency and humanity.

A month ago, The Grayzone also had a long article about ZAKA. They said ZAKA are an Israeli hasbara organisation, that ZAKA write stories that make Israel the poor, innocent victim of Antisemitism, of attacks by people who want to exterminate every last Jew, who murder babies, who rape and murder Jewish woman, stories that are all provably false. The beheaded babies? Israel gave a list of all the victims of 7 October, and the identities of the 'beheaded babies' don't match any of the dead on the official list. There is no proof of a single rape, all the available evidence shows ZAKA are lying.

So one must either believe all the Western media, who, since 2013 must publish/broadcast what they are ordered to publish/broadcast by their governments, or The Grayzone who are an independent publication run by anti-Zionist Jews who believe in the truth.

Israel on Trial at the ICJ

Pretty much the entire UN Security Council voted for a ceasefire in Ghaza several times, but the US vetoed every time.

So South Africa filed a case of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). South Africa spent Thursday presenting the case, and Israel responded on Friday. The ICJ already found Israel guilty of violating Philistine rights years ago, but Israel refused to do any of the things the ICJ ordered. So if the ICJ find Israel guilty of genocide, the clearing of Ghaza will continue. As Israel and the US both reiterate, one must not abuse the word genocide, and Israel cannot commit genocide. Hamas did commit genocide on 7 October, but Israel's response has been very moderate. As the US said they had confirmed (or as The Gray Zone says, the US repeated what Israel told them) there were no hospitals, schools, mosques, nor churches in Ghaza, all were Hamas military facilities disguised as hospitals, schools, mosques, and churches, and were used to fire rockets at Israel, so all had to be destroyed, along with the human shields Hamas forced to remain with the terrorists firing the rockets.

In fact, Israel say every man, woman, and child in Ghaza is a Nazi, all are determined to exterminate every Jew in Israel, and that's just for starters, their goal is to exterminate every Jew in the world. How 5,000 or so with limited weaponry are going to exterminate every last Jew might not be clear to the goyim, but Israel are sure that it is true, so all those Nazis must be stopped before they can succeed in their evil plan.

Actually, Israel say they would be willing to let all the women and children go to any other country, but they cannot allow a single one of those Ghaza Nazis to remain in Ghaza, so if no other country will take them, all must be killed, but Israel are innocent, it is all those other countries who are killing those women and children by not giving them a place to live outside Israel.

So we know the US will pressure the ICJ to find Israel innocent, but, based on the previous case, a likely outcome will be that the court will find Israel guilty but the US will block the ICJ from imposing the slightest penalty on their unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East.

Zionists

 The word 'Zionist' was coined by a British Jew in the late19th century, but the concept is recorded (without the name) in the first half of the 19th century when the (Anglican) Rev. Keith said that Palestine was 'a land without a people for a people without a land'.

The overwhelming majority of Zionists are Christians who know that Jesus cannot return before every Jew is in Palestine.

Jewish Zionists are more of a mixed lot, with some figuring Palestine is for the Jews, so they moved there, and some figuring Palestine is for other Jews, so they tithe in support of the State of Israel; however, most of the world's Jews living outside Palestine have no desire to move to Palestine nor to pay for other Jews to colonise Palestine.

Israel made 2 million Philistines legal in Israel, but there are more than 7 million Philistines living in Israel, so more then 5 million are illegals as far as Israel is concerned, and they want them all gone, one way or the other. Officially, there are two million Nazis in Ghaza, and all must be removed. If some other country will take them, women and children can leave. Israel keeps saying they never wanted to kill any women or children, but Hamas use the women and children as human shields as they fire rockets to kill Israelis, so what can the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) do? They must protect Israelis from the rockets, and the only way to do that results in the deaths of some women and children, but this is all the fault of Hamas, not Israel.

And, of course, it is also the fault of those countries that refuse to take in the women and children Philistines who must leave Israel or die.

What is really happening in Ghaza?

Ramzy Baroud believes that Israel does not tell the truth about what is happening in Ghaza, he believes Hamas who put out videos on Rumble.com saying they have killed more Israelis and destroyed far more tanks than Israel admit.

On the other hand, Brian Berletic notes that the videos of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killing many of the 1,200 Israelis killed on 7 October might be fake, as well as the Hamas videos showing the destruction of Israeli tanks, so probably Israel, with the strongest military in the Middle East, are slowly destroying Hamas at a cost of about 160 dead IOF members for 5,000 or more neutralised Hamas terrorists, along with the destruction of most of the Hamas tunnel network.

Reading both Baroud and Berletic, I can't figure out which one is the more believable.

But the fact that Israel asked for a week-long ceasefire to analyse and modify their strategy and tactics, then resumed their attack on Hamas for three weeks, and are now asking for another week-long ceasefire would seem to indicate that things are not going all that well for the IOF in their efforts to destroy Hamas. They had one obvious victory in Beirut. Hezbollah have threatened retaliation, but, again, I read that in the 2006 war, Israel destroyed the Hezbollah forces and bought themselves a few years peace with no threat from Hezbollah, and I also heard from another source that Israel lost many troops and a lot of equipment and failed to neutralise Hezbollah or remove them from the part of Lebanon adjacent to Israel as the Israeli spokespersons claimed Israel had done.

In any case, Israel have promised to destroy Beirut for starters, and then most of the rest of Lebanon if Hezbollah try to intervene in support of Hamas. So it is not clear what, if anything, Hezbollah will do now.

***

Israel and the US both say the bombing at the 4 year anniversary of General Suleimani's death from a US drone strike, a bombing that killed more than 100, was by Iranians who dislike the current regime, neither Israel nor the US had anything to do with it. The Western establishment media all accept whatever version of reality is promulgated by the US and Israel, but not everyone agrees, many figure Israel, with or without US help, managed to set up the bombs that killed so many at the 4-year memorial. But how can anyone be certain who was responsible for the bombs that were remotely detonated at the memorial?

***

Meanwhile, today's rumour is that the US are in negotiations with some African countries to take all the Ghazan women and children: Israel do not want to be forced to kill all of them. Twenty three thousand Philistines from Ghaza are dead, and all those who might have been members of Hamas must die, but Israel and the US would like all the rest of the women and children to go to Africa so Israel will not be forced to kill them all in self defence.