Dr. Patrick Slattery’s News Roundup
A service of DavidDuke.com
From PressTV
ISIL threats never scare Hamas: Official
A senior member of Palestine’s resistance movement Hamas has warned ISIL Takfiri militants against any attack on the Palestinian faction.
Mahmoud al-Zahar, a founding member of Hamas, said on Wednesday that the resistance movement would respond to any threats from the terrorist group.
The senior Palestinian official made the remarks after militants from the ISIL Takfiri group threatened to attack the Palestinian resistance movement in a 16-minute video released earlier in the day.
These threats “never scare Hamas,” Zahar added.
The official further noted that the resistance movement would not bow to the threats and would continue its policies in the blockaded Gaza Strip, which is under the de facto control of Hamas.
“Those who violate the law, our security deals with them and those who want to argue with us in terms of beliefs and doctrines, we can also discuss and debate these thoughts with them,” Zahar added.
Hamas has taken strict measures in the besieged territory to curb the activities of those affiliated with the ISIL terrorist group.
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From PressTV
Israeli forces detain 40 Palestinian activists in West Bank
Israeli forces have detained more than 40 Palestinians, including members of Hamas resistance movement, across the occupied West Bank in recent days.
According to local media reports, the activists were detained in the northern city of Nablus and surrounding towns.
The detainees include senior Hamas members, who have been jailed repeatedly by the Israeli regime over the past years.
The Tel Aviv regime has accused the detainees of expanding the military network of Hamas and pursuing anti-Israeli activities across the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israeli authorities allege that the activists were assigned with creating a central headquarters for Hamas in Nablus and expanding the group’s infrastructure, including the appointment of regional chiefs and allocating responsibilities in areas such as finance, education, intelligence and communications.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
British gov’t official: We oppose BDS
(JTA) — Britain’s cabinet minister for the Middle East sought to reassure Israeli politicians of his government’s opposition to boycotts against Israel.
“Many people have been concerned by recent media coverage about the United Kingdom links to the BDS movement,” Minister Tobias Ellwood said last week at a conference on Israeli-British ties, speaking of the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. “But I hope I can reassure you all that this government’s position is very clear indeed. We oppose boycotts. We oppose attempts to delegitimize Israel – they do not further progress towards peace.”
The conference, titled “UK Israel Shared Strategic Challenges Conference,” took place at the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the British government and parliament, and was organized by BICOM, a pro-Israel lobby, and the London-based Jewish News weekly.
Last month, Britain’s national student union voted to join the BDS movement.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Spoilers alert: Six guys to watch the day after an Iran deal
WASHINGTON (JTA) – A nuclear deal between Iran and the major world powers is due to be finalized by Tuesday. Until now, critics of the emerging deal have argued that it’s bad, getting worse, but it could be improved. Once negotiators on both sides come up with a final deal, the skeptics will have to decide whether and how to oppose it.
Here are six figures to watch once the deal is done:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
“This agreement is going from a bad agreement to a worse agreement, and is becoming worse by the day,” the Israeli prime minister said Sunday when he met with his Cabinet just two days before the original deal deadline, June 30.
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From Russia Today
Assange writes open letter to Hollande, Paris rules out asylum
Edited time: July 03, 2015 12:58
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has written an open letter to France’s President Hollande, implying he would like to get political asylum in France. However, the Elysee Palace promptly rejected the possibility.
In an open letter to French President Francois Hollande published by Le Monde, the fugitive transparency activist said he is a victim of persecution by the US government over exposure of its human rights violations and controversial practices.
Julian Assange : « Monsieur Hollande, accueillez-moi en France » http://t.co/Bqhnv9Jnyfpic.twitter.com/ec6UhU3Qyg
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From Russia Today
Collateral damage: Yemeni man loses 27 family members in 1 Saudi airstrike
Published time: July 03, 2015 04:11
A man hosting guests for his daughter’s marriage proposal lost all 27 members of his family, including 17 children, in the deadliest case of Saudi-led airstrikes killing civilians in Yemen, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Walid Al-Ibbi lost his wife, his father, four daughters and 21 other family members, as Saudi Arabia-led strikes hit his house in Yemen’s northern city of Saada, known as a Houthi stronghold. Overall 17 children were killed that night, one of which was just a one-month-old infant.
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From The Times of Israel
Soros, Spielberg among Clinton super PAC top donors
Group supporting the Democratic candidate said to raise over $15m, including $2m from media mogul Haim Saban
July 2, 2015, 10:21 pm
Democratic presidential candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, gestures to supporters as she arrives to speak Saturday, June 13, 2015, on Roosevelt Island in New York. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
WASHINGTON (AP) — New York hedge fund billionaire George Soros and Hollywood director Steven Spielberg are among the biggest donors to a group backing Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential run.
In all, Priorities USA Action will report having raised $15.6 million in the past three months when it discloses its fundraising information this month, according to an official at the group who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss fundraising.
The group is called a super PAC, an organization that can campaign on behalf of a candidate, but cannot coordinate efforts with them.
Super PACs can take donations of unlimited size. The biggest gift to the pro-Clinton group was worth $2 million and came from media mogul Haim Saban, owner of the Spanish-language Univision network in the US
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Rioters chant against ‘Jewish murderes’ in Muslim Dutch neighborhood
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Dozens of people chanted anti-Semitic slogans during riots that broke out in a predominantly-Muslim neighborhood of The Hague over the slaying of a suspect by police.
More than 100 people chanted about “Jewish murderers” on Thursday night in the Schilderswijk, a neighborhood where a handful of Jews live in a Jewish-owned enclave surrounded by project apartments populated by low-income families, according to a report on the The Post Online.
The riots took place at a theater stormed by protesters approximately a mile away from the enclave, the De Telegraaf daily reported.
More than 200 people were arrested since protests broke out in the Schilderswijk over the death of Mitch Henriquez, an Aruban citizen, at the hands of police officers who suffocated him during his arrest at a park.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Dutch lawmakers oppose slashing aid to Holocaust survivors
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Dutch lawmakers called on the government to spare six Holocaust survivors whose assistance would be slashed by cutbacks.
The predicament of the six Jewish survivors from The Hague was reported last week by the Algemeen Dagblad daily. According to the report, they are among approximately 2,000 elderly and disabled people whose eligibility for care at government-funded facilities has been revoked. Instead, they have been offered a plan that gives financial compensation to relatives willing to step in and act as care takers.
The survivors have almost no family. Approximately 75 percent of Dutch Jewry was annihilated during the genocide, a higher percentage than anywhere else in Western Europe save Germany and Austria.
“These vulnerable individuals need to receive the aid they deserve,” Sjoerd Potters, a lawmaker for the ruling VVD party, said on Twitter.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Report: Alan Gross never debriefed after release from Cuba
(JTA) — Alan Gross, the Jewish-American government contractor who was jailed in Cuba for five years as a spy, was never debriefed after his release from prison and return to the United States, according to a new report.
No U.S. government official has debriefed Gross since his release from prison in Cuba more than nine months ago, the Daily Beast reported Thursday citing an “authoritative source.” The report comes a day after President Barack Obama announced that the United States would open an embassy in Havana more than 50 years after diplomatic relations were severed. Cuba also plans to open an embassy in Washington.
While in prison it was rumored that Gross was an undercover CIA agent.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Cruz blasts Obama for opening embassy in Havana before Jerusalem
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) contrasted President Barack Obama’s announcement of plans to open an embassy in Havana, Cuba, with the U.S. refusal to move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem.
“How sad is it that under the Obama administration the United States is going to have an embassy in Havana before we have an embassy in Jerusalem, that this administration will be friendlier to a Communist dictator who hates America and seeks to undermine our nation, than it is willing to stand with our close friend and ally, the nation of Israel,” Cruz said Wednesday, the day Obama announced the opening of a U.S. embassy in Havana.
Cruz was speaking on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, and his remarks were first reported by Breitbart.com. He later tweeted a link to the interview.
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From Russia Today
‘Forced measure’: Hungary to build fence along Serbia border to stop migrants
Published time: July 02, 2015 21:17
The construction of a four-meter-high, 175-km-long fence is to start along the Hungarian border with Serbia “within weeks” to limit the flow of illegal migrants into the EU, according to Hungarian Prime Minister’s chief of staff.
The central European country has become more entrenched in the last month’s plan to build a fence at the border with its southern neighbor, according to Janos Lazar, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, Reuters reported on Thursday.
READ MORE: Hungarian police fire tear gas to ‘pacify’ overcrowded migrant camp
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From The Times of Israel
Iran media claims only ‘one or two’ issues remain in nuke talks
Amid reports of deadlock, a semi-official news agency says nearly all points of contention in negotiations are resolved
July 2, 2015, 11:07 pm
Tehran’s Deputy Foreign Minister and negotiator Majid Takht Ravanchi tells Iranian media on July 2, 2015 that ‘one or two issues’ remain in ongoing nuclear negotiations between Tehran and world powers. (screen grab: YouTube)
Despite numerous reports in recent days that the emerging nuclear deal between Iran and world powers has been stalling over several key issues, Iranian media reported Thursday that nearly all the points of contention in the extended negotiations had been resolved.
According to Iran’s semi-official FARS news agency, Tehran’s deputy foreign minister and negotiator Majid Takht Ravanchi asserted that only “one or two” issues remain to be resolved before Tehran and world powers can reach a final accord that seeks to put long-term caps on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for economic sanctions relief.
“Most of the issues in the experts meetings have ended, while talks among the deputies continue and there will possibly remain one or two issues that will need ministerial decisions,” Ravanchi told reporters in Vienna.
The report comes as a senior Iranian negotiator told reporters that Tehran had rejected any extraordinary inspections of its nuclear sites and threatened to ramp up enrichment of bomb-making material if the United States and other countries re-impose sanctions after the deal is in place.
The unnamed official urged negotiators to be “realistic,” and said the International Atomic Energy Agency’s standard rules governing access to government information, sites of interest and scientists should be sufficient to ensure that Iran’s program is solely for peaceful purposes. Anything beyond that, he said, would be unfair.
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From The Times of Israel
State Department backs away from anti-BDS law’s language
Legislation’s ‘conflation’ of Israel, Israeli-controlled territories ‘runs counter to longstanding US policy,’ says spokesman, indicating measure will not apply to settlements
July 1, 2015, 12:43 am
Illustrative photo of signs calling for the boycott of Israel at an anti-Israel protest in San Francisco, April 2011. (CC BY-dignidadrebelde, Flickr)
WASHINGTON – The US State Department backed away Tuesday from controversial language included in the anti-BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama a day earlier, indicating official discomfort with a clause that critics say intentionally blurs the lines between Israel and the West Bank.
“By conflating Israel and “Israeli-controlled territories,” a provision of the Trade Promotion Authority legislation runs counter to longstanding US policy towards the occupied territories, including with regard to settlement activity,” State Department Spokesman John Kirby wrote in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon. “Every US administration since 1967 – Democrat and Republican alike – has opposed Israeli settlement activity beyond the 1967 lines. This administration is no different. The US government has never defended or supported Israeli settlements and activity associated with them and, by extension, does not pursue policies or activities that would legitimize them.”
Kirby’s comments referred to the part of the Trade Promotion Authority law which sponsors said were designed to discourage European governments from participating in BDS activities by leveraging the incentive of free trade with the US.
The provisions require US trade negotiators to make rejection of BDS a principal trade objective in Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations with the European Union, instructing them to discourage “politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from or sanction Israel and to seek the elimination of politically motivated non-tariff barriers on Israeli goods, services, or other commerce imposed on the State of Israel.”
The anti-BDS legislation was attached as a rider to the Trade Promotion Authority, a bill for which the administration fought long and hard. The broader legislation was necessary to authorize the president to conduct key trade deals with Pacific states and work toward a trade deal with the European Union.
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