Germany to come in on Israel’s side at the ICJ

The New Neo Posted on by

Germany announced yesterday:

Germany is planning to intervene in the ongoing genocide case against Israel at the UN’s top court, a government spokesman said on Friday.

“German government firmly and explicitly rejects the accusation of genocide that has now been made against Israel before the International Court of Justice. This accusation has no basis whatsoever,” spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement.

He stressed that Germany bears special responsibility for Israel due to the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II, and said the government will continue to support Israel to defend itself against Hamas.

This Politico article (which seems to have an anti-Israel slant) reports on the following exchange:

Caroline Gennez asked German officials a rhetorical question in an interview with a Belgian weekly: “Do you really want to be on the wrong side of history twice? Will we continue to stand by while ethnic cleansing takes place? Surely that was ‘never again’?”

Germany, which has offered Israel unyielding support since the October 7 Hamas attack, has stood in stark contrast to public statements in recent months from officials from Ireland, Spain and Belgium.

I’m not sure how the German officials responded, but I’d suggest the following response to people like Gennez: “Why do you want to be on the wrong side of history this time, defending savage genocidal Jew-hating murderers like Hamas, and blaming Israel for defending itself?”

As for Caroline Gennez herself, she’s pretty much what you’d expect:

Caroline Gennez … is a Belgian socialist politician who has been serving as the Minister of Development Cooperation and Urban Policy in the De Croo Government since December 2022. She is a former chairwoman of the Socialist Party … in Flanders. …

[In 2003] she called for a boycott of the Israeli song in the Eurovision song festival contest.

Many countries of Europe are right up there – or down there – with Belgium. But I must say that Belgium is in the forefront.

But at least some countries besides Germany, in Europe and elsewhere, are on Israel’s side, although I don’t think they’re planning to do as Germany has announced it will do: to intervene in the ICJ proceeding on Israel’s behalf. But support is support, and I’m surprised that Trudeau voiced any support for Israel at all. My guess is his motive was fear of political disapproval from the Canadian people if he didn’t at least offer some sort of verbal support:

Germany’s statement is very strong:

The German government sharply rejected on Friday allegations before the UN’s top court that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza and warned against “political instrumentalization” of the charge …

As a signatory of the 1948 Genocide Convention, [Germany] has the right to join cases and put forward its arguments on the case. …

[German spokesman] Hebestreit acknowledged diverging views in the international community on Israel’s military operation against Hamas in Gaza.

“However the German government decisively and expressly rejects the accusation of genocide brought against Israel before the International Court of Justice,” he said.

“The accusation has no basis in fact,” he said.

Netanyahu told German Chancellor Scholz, “Your stance and Germany’s stance on the side of the truth moves all the citizens of Israel.” Scholz was the very first Western leader to visit Israel in support after 10/7.

It’s been almost eighty years since the end of WWII, but this is indeed moving – in both senses of the word.

Excess deaths and COVID vaccines: interpretation of medical data

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m really tired of feeling the need to write this sort of thing, having dealt with it over and over again over the last few years. It is my observation that many people have no idea how to interpret medical data – and some of them are even doctors and science reporters. I’m not an expert either, but I learned long ago how to read data of that sort, and I think I’m generally not bad at it.

As for me, I don’t have a dog in the vaccine versus anti-vaccine race. I’m certainly not eager to believe that tons of vaccinated people are dropping like flies from the aftereffects of the vaccine, but if the data is there the data is there and I would acknowledge it. But I’ve read literally hundreds of studies that someone or other says proves it, and I have yet to find one study that actually indicates it strongly, much less proves it.

I’ve written many posts about this in the past, and it would take me a long time to gather them. This post is going to take me long enough without doing that, but here’s one, for example.

So now we have this:

First six months of 2023, 26,000 excess deaths particularly in young and middle aged males. And the main cause of it? Heart conditions: 47% inexplicable heart conditions. 50-64 age group just in the 13 month period after Covid, 44% higher. …

But even the bold Katie’s challenge to the MSM did not mention that all too obvious elephant in the room of explanation – vaccine injury.

The Lancent piece is here. The blog post is entitled “How will they explain away these latest excess death figures?” I’ll oblige with ideas that immediately came to mind before I even read the Lancet study: isolation and depression and lack of exercise and healthful eating due to lockdowns and other stresses; fewer doctors and much longer waits for health care, including people being unable to find doctors (it’s extremely difficult where I live, for example); lack of mental health care; and COVID infection itself, which is known to more commonly cause more heart problems than the small and generally mild and transient problems sometimes caused in young men by COVID shots.

And then when I found the Lancet article and looked at it, I saw that the researchers had indeed covered a lot of that – so I’m not sure why the author of the blog post would wonder what they would say to “explain away” the figures (or just perhaps explain them?). If you read the study report, you’ll see what they actually said:

The causes of these excess deaths are likely to be multiple and could include the direct effects of Covid-19 infection, 1 acute pressure son NHS acute services resulting in poorer outcomes from episodes of acute illness,4 and disruption to chronic disease detection and management.5 Further analysis by cause and by age-and-sex-group may help quantify the relative contributions of these causes.

The article goes on to say the following:

…[T]here were 22% more deaths in private homes than expected compared with 10% more in hospitals, but there was no excess in deaths in care homes and 12% fewer deaths than expected in hospices. For deaths involving cardiovascular diseases the relative excess in private homes was higher than all causes at 27%. Deaths in hospital were 8% higher and deaths in care homes only 3% higher.

That doesn’t seem to track with vaccines being the cause, because the vaccination rates in care homes and hospices would be very likely to be higher than the vaccination rates in the well population.

The Lancet article is a short one and tells us little else about causes. My belief is that fallout from the lockdown – including greater difficulty in getting health care and/or reluctance to get it – is much to blame, in addition to depression and stress and perhaps the after-effects of COVID infection itself.

Excess death numbers are only one aspect of the anti-vaccine data that I’ve discussed at length. Another is cardiomyopathy and another is the VAERS data (see this, for example). As I said, I detest writing about this at this point, but every now and then I revisit it. I think people’s minds are made up, though.

I also haven’t bought a lot of what the government did regarding COVID and I consider the lockdowns to have been a terrible mistake. If you look at my early writings on COVID, you’ll see that I have been quite consistent about that.

NOTE: On cardiomyopathy and COVID vaccines, I had an exchange in the comments today in which I presented a great deal of data. Please see this for what I wrote, which basically amounts to an entire post on the subject.

The “Islamophobia” shooting in Vermont

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “Barry Meislin.”]

Remember this?:

When three Arab Muslim students were shot and wounded in Burlington, Vermont, politicians and the media immediately hyped it as the ‘Islamophobic Crime of the Century’.

President Biden issued a statement declaring that “there is absolutely no place for violence or hate in America.” …

The three Muslim men [shot in Burlington, Vermont] identified as ‘Palestinian’, two of them were wearing keffiyehs and Kamala [Harris], like many other leftists, was implying that the shooter was ‘anti-Palestinian’.

“The idea that three young men walking down the street get shot, perhaps because of no other reason than they are Palestinian, is unspeakable,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said. ”But I gotta tell you, this is not just a local phenomenon, this is happening all over the country.”

Then he blasted Israel.

Of course.

More:

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee falsely claimed that “a man shouted and harassed the victims, then proceeded to shoot them. We have reason to believe this shooting occurred because the victims are Arab.”

In reality, they had been shot by a local resident outside his house who did not say a word.

The three Muslim men were returning home from a party on Saturday night when James J. Eaton, a local resident with a history of mental instability, stumbled out of a white clapboard house on the residential street and without a word fired four shots at the three men.

Eaton had been described as “that hippie guy” and “progressive”, an organic farmer who had posted a meme with a definition of “Amerika” that called it “the worst sense of the United States, ie imperialism, corruption and the global exportation of American culture.”

He appeared to be a Biden supporter …

In reality, Eaton supported Hamas.

On December 6, Seven Days, a local news outlet known for breaking stories about local politics, revealed that Eaton had tweeted, “the notion that Hamas is ‘evil’ for defending their state from occupation is absurd. They are owed a state. Pay up.” …

Local politicians were aware of this …

But the original narrative was so much more useful. The article goes on to detail a host of other “Islamophobia” crimes that were falsely labeled that way. But don’t sit on a hot stove till any of this becomes common knowledge.

NOTE: The propaganda use made of this incident reminds me somewhat of the murder of Matthew Shepard, which most likely was not motivated by homophobia, although it was consistently reported on with the homophobia motive angle.

Israel’s turn to defend itself in the kangaroo ICJ

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday was Orwellian accuser South Africa’s turn, standing in for so many of the tyrannies and failed states around the world in using the ICJ (International Court of Justice) to accuse Israel.

Or, as this group succinctly put it yesterday: “Today South Africa took a short break from being a failed state that allows – basically – people to be killed in its own country because of their race, in order to lecture Jews on why trying to prevent a second Holocaust is genocide.”

Here’s what happened today:

Israel’s six legal representatives asserted that the ICJ has no jurisdiction over the complaints brought by South Africa since they relate to the laws of armed conflict, not genocide; argued that “random” inflammatory comments of Israeli politicians did not reflect policy determined in the state bodies making war policy; and insisted that the widespread harm to Palestinian civilians during the war was a result of Hamas’s massive use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes, and not genocidal acts.

They also underlined in depth the steps Israel has taken to warn civilians to evacuate from Israel Defense Forces operational areas and to provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, including facilitating the establishment of field hospitals in Gaza to aid Gazans and mitigate harm to them.

In a court of actual justice, this case would have been thrown out at the outset – or, if the case were allowed to proceed, the verdict of “not guilty” would be obvious and inevitable. But this is not a court of actual justice, and I would not be the least bit surprised if it rendered a verdict of “guilty.” In fact, it would surprise me greatly if it issued any other verdict.

Here is the text of Israel’s opening remarks. Some excerpts:

The State of Israel is singularly aware of why the Genocide Convention, which has been invoked in these proceedings, was adopted. Seared in our collective memory is the systematic murder of 6 million Jews as part of a premeditated and heinous program for their total annihilation. …

… [T]he Genocide Convention was not designed to address the brutal impact of intensive hostilities on the civilian population, even when the use of force raises “very serious issues of international law and involves enormous suffering and continuing loss of life.” The convention was set apart to address a malevolent crime of the most exceptional severity. …

The applicant [South Africa] has regrettably put before the court a profoundly distorted factual and legal picture. The entirety of its case hinges on a deliberately curated, decontextualized, and manipulative description of the reality of current hostilities.

… [I]n its sweeping counterfactual description of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, [South Africa] seemed to erase both Jewish history and any Palestinian agency or responsibility. Indeed, the delegitimization of Israel since its very establishment in 1948 in the applicant’s submissions sounded barely distinguishable from Hamas’s own rejectionist rhetoric.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that in the applicant’s telling, both Hamas’s responsibility for the situation in Gaza and the very humanity of its Israeli victims are removed from view.

The attempt to weaponize the term “genocide” against Israel in the present context does more than tell the court a grossly distorted story, and it does more than empty the word of its unique force and special meaning. It subverts the object and purpose of the convention itself, with ramifications for all states seeking to defend themselves against those who demonstrate total disdain for life and for the law….

We know of the brutality of October 7 not only from the harrowing testimonies of the survivors, the unmistakable proof of carnage and sadism left behind, and the forensic evidence taken at the scene. We know it because the assailants proudly filmed and broadcast their barbarism.

The events of that day are all but ignored in the applicant’s submissions, but we are compelled to share with the court some fraction of its horror, the largest calculated mass murder of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.

We do so not because these acts, however sadistic and systematic, release Israel of its obligations to uphold the law as it defends its citizens and territory. That is unquestionable. We do so because it is impossible to understand the armed conflict in Gaza without appreciating the nature of the threat that Israel is facing and the brutality and lawlessness of the armed force confronting it.

Much more at the link.

Hunter Biden agrees …

The New Neo Posted on by

… to testify in a closed session of the House if they issue a new subpoena.

I guess the threat of charging him with contempt actually had some effect.

Should be … interesting.

It’s also interesting to recall the history of the laptop and the way the press, social media, and the “intelligence community” covered it – that is, covered it up (with the exception of the NY Post) prior to the election of 2020.

What would you pay for Pablo Picasso’s palette?

The New Neo Posted on by

Seventy thousand dollars or so? Someone shelled that out back in 2020.

I looked that fact up because of this comment by “Oligonicella”:

I have a long running joke of a habit as I paint. I clean my palette board off at the end of each session because I use a mix that dries fairly rapidly. I do this by scraping with a palette knife and then smearing it on a smaller canvas.

After repeated sessions at the real painting it starts looking like post modern art, which is exactly the mockery I’m looking for.

I’ve sold two – “Old Man’s Lament” and “The Detritus of Life”.

Coming summer I’ve another portrait lined up. Maybe scrape off “Clinging to Existence”. Heh.

No offense to Oligonicella, but I doubt the going rate was $70K. The person who did pay that for the used Picasso palette was buying, not a work of art, but a sort of talisman, a relic of the Great Artist. I recall reading somewhere that Picasso used to say any time he signed his name to anything, even a napkin, people could sell it for big bucks. It must be very odd to have that degree of fame in one’s own lifetime.

Picasso’s star has somewhat fallen compared to in his heyday. He’s unwoke, of course, and unusually prolific and so his works aren’t rare. But don’t try to buy a painting of his for bargain prices. Don’t even try to buy a signature of his for a pittance. It’ll set you back about two thousand dollars.

More on the Soviet-generated spread of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda

The New Neo Posted on by

In line with my recent post on the Soviet influence on pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel – as well as anti-Semitic – propaganda, here are two more articles I recommend. The first was brought to my attention by commenter “Gringo,” and it’s quite comprehensive in featuring examples of Soviet political propaganda that set the tropes, and current examples in the West that follow the same templates.

Some excerpts – but I highly recommend the article itself:

The claim that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians is among the longest-running lies told about Israel. “Genocide Israeli style”; “Zionist-engineered genocide”; “the ‘final solution’ of the Palestinian question”—these may look like snippets from some recent campus proclamation, but they are not. They appeared in a Soviet pamphlet titled “Zionists Count on Terror.” Published in 1984 by Novosti, a Soviet foreign propaganda arm masquerading as a news agency, this pocket-sized brochure was meant to promote the Soviet view of Israel and Zionism to English-language audiences.

The propaganda was designed and intended to spread the world around the world.

English-speaking readers around the world were meant to understand that Zionists were genocidal and racist settler-colonialists who deployed Nazi methods in the service of global imperialism, while suppressing the anti-colonial national-liberation struggle of the Palestinian people. In the pamphlet’s 76 pages, variations on the words genocide, terror, and racist appear some 300 times. Novosti made clear that Zionists were perfidious double-dealers by associating them with the CIA, MI6, and of course, the Mossad in 100 instances. Readers were told to dismiss Jewish claims of antisemitism as Zionist tricks meant to deflect attention from Israel’s crimes.

The terms of the argument are the same ones so very popular among our young people now. I think the propaganda campaign (which of course was not limited to that pamphlet) can be counted a great success, if one measures success in terms of the scope of the indoctrination. Again, please read the article; it’s quite informative and illuminating if you’re puzzled by what’s going on these days.

Here’s another recommended article that’s related. It details some of the Soviet support through the KGB, starting in the late 1960s, for the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The idea that the USSR was behind a great deal of this sounds like a conspiracy theory. But some conspiracies exist and some conspiracy theories are based on solid fact. I don’t think there’s much doubt about the truth of this one. Does it matter anymore, now that the propaganda has been spread around the globe and is accepted by so many people, even in our country? I think it’s not just of purely academic interest to understand how these things occur, in order to help counter them now and prevent them in the future. Of course, much more is needed than understanding. A plan of action would be nice, and the hour is late and getting later.

Another October 7 survivor interview worth watching

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve watched a great many of these October 7 survivor videos, and they’re nearly all extraordinary. I view them because I’ve long been interested in the psychological reactions of people in extreme situations – how they respond in the moment, and then how they integrate the experience into their lives afterwards.

The people in the October 7 interviews I’ve seen are often extremely strong and very insightful and reflective. Some are more traumatized then others by the events they experienced and witnessed, which reflects not only the different conditions they endured but the differences in their personalities and life experiences before then. In short, people vary. But all seem to agree that October 7 and its aftermath have been profoundly life-changing for them, a watershed.

The young man – he’s twenty-four – impresses me as being exceptional in his ability to describe both the events that transpired that day and his own reactions to them. He is very strong. Towards the end of the interview, the person asking him questions (who most of the time just lets him tell his tale) attempts to suggest he needs more psychological help in dealing with it, and he tells her why he’s not pursuing that right now. I think he knows what’s best for him:

Anti-Israel farce in the International Court of Justice

The New Neo Posted on by

Orwell could have given this court its name. “Justice” indeed:

Earlier the international tribunal heard South African accusations that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. The South African delegation was the first to present their case to the 17-judge panel aiming for an injunction to be issued by the court to stop Israel’s fighting in Gaza.

“The world should be ashamed,” South Africa claimed after accusing Israel of purposeful genocide of Palestinians and much more. Among accusations Israel was said to conduct an annihilation of Gaza, targeting population growth there, turning it into the largest concentration camp in the world.

It is indeed the world that should be ashamed – for entertaining this biased show trial. Then again, all trials in the International Court of Justice are show trials because it has no way to enforce its rulings except if countries decide to abide by them. “How many divisions does the ICJ have?”

The point of the charade is propaganda, and the “international community” has been very good at anti-Israel propaganda for many decades. There’s strength in numbers, and unfortunately way too many countries in the world are run by corrupt despots, and anti-Israeli sentiment is ripe among them. South Africa is certainly one of those countries.

More:

The [Israeli] Foreign Ministry on Thursday said the South African accusations against Israel in its war in Gaza were baseless lies and the most hypocritical in history. In a statement released soon after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearing was adjourned the ministry said South Africa was being used as a judicial arm of the Hamas terror group and had presented a perverted account of the October 7 massacre while completely ignoring Hamas atrocities and the kidnapping of hostages.

The atrocities which are the entire reason for the Israeli action against Gaza, and the hiding by Hamas in civilian areas in order to use Gazan civilians as human shields – these apparently are mere irrelevant details to the South African lawyers.

Also:

Diaspora Minister Amichai Shikli said the proceedings in the Hague were a new low for the UN institutions which have become a bastion for world antisemitism. “It is doubtful whether the UN still has any moral standing as an organization that was established to promote human rights but appoints the representatives of the Iranian dictatorship to be at the helm of its human rights council,” he said.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid also criticized the proceedings in the ICJ. “It is not Israel that is on trial today,” Lapid said, “it is the international community. If a country defends itself against a barbaric attack by murderous terrorists, and can then find itself facing charges of genocide in court, then the Genocide convention has become a means to reward terror and advance antisemitism,” he said.

That’s what the UN and the international community have become. Actually it’s even worse – the UN is actively involved in directly teaching the Palestinians their murderous hatred of Jews through the educational system.

Fetterman part of a bipartisan bill to help students combat anti-Semitism on campus

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “miguel cervantes.”]

I guess it’s no longer a surprise that Senator Fetterman is deeply committed to this issue, but it’s still newsworthy:

Senators Bill Cassidy, R-La., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., are introducing a bipartisan bill Thursday aimed at protecting students on college campuses from antisemitism and other discriminatory acts.

The Protecting Students on Campus Act of 2024 seeks to “empower students” to file civil rights complaints if they experience discrimination on college campuses, according to a statement exclusively shared with Fox News Digital. …

The bill would require colleges to post information and links on their websites and in high-traffic public areas, like student centers, detailing how to file a Title VI discrimination complaint with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

It would also require the OCR’s assistant secretary to give monthly briefings to Congress explaining the number of complaints the office had received, how they were addressed and how long the complaints had been pending with the OCR.

Additionally, each college receiving federal funds would have to submit an annual report to the Education Department’s inspector general detailing the number of complaints it had received regarding discrimination, an analysis of the number of such complaints, and the action the institution took to address them.

Even without the bill, though, students can file lawsuits – and have done so. For example:

Harvard University was sued by Jewish students who claim the school has failed to punish campus antisemitism that soared after the Hamas attack on Israel and helped lead to the ouster of President Claudine Gay.

Harvard administrators failed to enforce policies that should protect Jewish students from antisemitic speech and conduct, according to the lawsuit filed late Wednesday in Boston federal court. Students cited a US civil rights law that’s been used to sue New York University, the University of Pennsylvania and University of California, Berkeley.

The only way to improve university conditions in this regard is to make sure there are negative consequences for failing to protect students from threats and discrimination. One problem that could arise is deciding how to protect free speech while giving redress for the more extreme cases.