Dr. Patrick Slattery’s News Roundup
A service of DavidDuke.com
From The Times of Israel
NSA phone collection bill clears Senate hurdle
Lawmakers pass legislation ending some post-9/11 surveillance programs that collect Americans’ calling records
June 3, 2015, 1:27 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate sped toward passage Tuesday of legislation to end the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ calling records while preserving other surveillance authorities. But House leaders warned their Senate counterparts not to proceed with planned changes to a House version.
Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority leader, said amendments contemplated by the Senate “would bring real challenges” in getting the House to go along.
“The best way to make sure America is protected is for the Senate to pass the USA Freedom Act,” he said, referring to the House version.
The Senate version of that bill cleared a procedural hurdle Tuesday by a vote of 83-14, and it was expected to pass the Senate by day’s end. But Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he planned votes on three modifications.
The law authorizing government bulk collection and storage of Americans’ phone records expired at midnight Sunday. The NSA stopped gathering the records from phone companies hours before the deadline. Other post-9/11 surveillance provisions considered more effective than the phone-data collection program also lapsed, leading intelligence officials to warn of critical gaps.
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From The Times of Israel
Erekat: PA to dissolve if no deal with Israel by end of year
Chief Palestinian negotiator scoffs at Netanyahu’s suggestion to delineate border of settlement blocs, says talks unlikely
June 3, 2015, 12:55 am
![Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, speaks during a press conference, following an emergency meeting at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Aug. 11, 2014 [photo credit: AP/Amr Nabil]](http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/uploads/2015/06/AP50292564810-e1433279000413.jpg "Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, speaks during a press conference, following an emergency meeting at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Aug. 11, 2014 [photo credit: AP/Amr Nabil]")
The Palestinian Authority will dissolve itself if a peace agreement with Israel resulting in two states is not reached by the end of this year, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Tuesday.
Speaking on a panel in Jerusalem titled “Time for international legitimacy,” organized by the Palestine-Israel Journal, Erekat said that a committee established by the PLO Central Council in its last meeting in March decided to place an ultimatum before Israel as a last resort.
“Israel will have to make a choice before the end of this year: either we have a contract and partnership that will lead to a two-state solution, or Israel will be solely responsible [for the areas and the people] from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean,” he said. “This cannot be sustained.”
PA President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened in the past to “return the keys” to Israel for Palestinian civilians living in the West Bank. But while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed his willingness to relaunch peace talks without conditions, appointing Interior Minister Silvan Shalom to spearhead them, the Palestinians have shown no great enthusiasm to do so.
“Do we expect negotiations with the government of Mr. Netanyahu? No. He stopped the negotiations, you all know that … What are you going to negotiate [about] with Palestinians? Ukraine?” Erekat wondered facetiously. “Can you [Netanyahu] utter the number 1967? Can you put a map on the table?”
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From PressTV
Israel set to demolish Palestinian village in West Bank
Hundreds of Palestinian are facing imminent displacement as Israel plans to demolish a village in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian media report says.
Nearly 300 inhabitants of Susiya village are at risk of being displaced after Israel’s high court last month rejected a petition filed by local residents to halt demolition orders for the village, the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported on Wednesday.
The ruling by the court means that the Israeli regime could move in and demolish the residential and agricultural structures at any time, the report added.
The village is located just a hundred meters away from an Israeli settlement in southern Hebron (al-Khalil).
The ruling is the latest setback for the Palestinians in a decades-long battle against forced displacement by the Israeli regime.
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From PressTV
Israeli forces abduct five Palestinian fishermen off Gaza
Israeli naval forces have opened fire on a Palestinian fishing boat off the coast of the besieged Gaza Strip, abducting all five fishermen on board.
Head of the Gaza Fishermen’s Syndicate Nizar Ayash said a number of fishermen were sailing near the shores of the Gaza City on Wednesday morning when Israeli forces targeted their boat, Arabic-language Sky News Arabia satellite news network reported.
Israeli troops later confiscated the boat and took it to an unknown location.
An estimated 4,000 Palestinians are employed in Gaza’s fishing sector, and more than half of them are living destitute.
Under a ceasefire agreement clinched between representatives from the Israeli regime and the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement following a deadly 50-day Israeli war in August 2014, Tel Aviv agreed to increase the fishing area off the coast of Gaza Strip to six nautical miles from the previously three nautical miles.
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From Russia Today
Israel could lose ‘credibility’ over Netanyahu’s stance on Palestine – Obama
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s inconsistent views on Palestine could cost Israel its world “credibility,” US President Barack Obama has warned. This is the latest jab at Netanyahu in the ongoing US-Israeli rift over Palestinian statehood.
“The danger here is that Israel as a whole loses credibility,” Obama told Israel’s Channel 2 in an interview on Tuesday. “Already the international community does not believe that Israel is serious about a two-state solution.”
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From Ynet News
Hamas: IDF attempted to stop paving of Gaza border road
Hamas official magazine reports that four IDF bulldozers crossed the border fence, accompanied by ground troops and drones in an attempt to stop construction on new border road. Hamas: IDF attempt failed.
Hamas’s official website reported Wednesday that IDF had tried and failed to stop the organization’s military wing from continuing the construction of a new road near the border fence. The construction of the road was first reported by Ynet.
The Hamas report stated that four bulldozers,and two vehicles had crossed the border fence, while soldiers fired warning shots. The report mentioned that two jeeps belonging to Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade military wing arrived at the scene to secure the construction site.
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From The Times of Israel
IDF lifts seizure of radical West Bank yeshiva
Border Police had taken control of Od Yosef Chai seminary since last year after its students’ alleged involvement in ‘price tag’ attacks
June 2, 2015, 8:44 pm
The IDF and Border Police withdrew this week from the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in the West Bank outpost of Yitzhar after holding the building for the past year.
A Border Police detachment was stationed in the building since last April after a string of anti-Arab incidents of vandalism in the surrounding Palestinian villages and attacks against Israeli security personnel by local settlers and yeshiva students.
In June, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon extended what was intended to be a short-term seizure of the radical seminary after noting that the military’s presence in the building dramatically reduced the spate of attacks.
Intended to exact a price for Israeli government policies seen as detrimental to the settlement enterprise, “price tag” attacks — designated hate crimes by Israeli authorities — target Palestinian and Israeli Arab property, but have also included attacks on other non-Jews, as well as left-wing Israelis and the security forces.
While the attacks have long been a problem in the West Bank, attacks by Jewish extremists targeting Israeli citizens and mosques and churches within Israel have intensified in recent years.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jewish teens say they vandalized Israeli synagogue out of boredom
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Two Jewish teens were arrested for vandalizing a synagogue in the central Israeli city of Raanana.
The 17-year-olds were arrested on Tuesday for the weekend vandalism. They told police that they acted out of boredom, the Times of Israel reported.
The teens allegedly tore mezuzahs off the doorways of the Ahavat Reim Synagogue, and painted crosses and swastikas on the parchments — reportedly in their own blood — before sticking them on the walls of the synagogue.
About a dozen mezuzahs also were torn from the doorposts of nearby apartments, and local residents said they saw the teens in the area.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
French Jews call out FM on policies seen as endangering France-Israel ties
(JTA) – In a rare rebuke, leaders of Jewish communities in France warned the nation’s foreign minister that France’s policies on Israel were ruining friendly relations between the countries.
The warning was made public last week when CRIF, the umbrella group of Jewish communities in France, published a letter sent to Laurent Fabius on April 21 by its president, Roger Cukierman.
The French “attitude toward Israel counters the friendly atmosphere created during the visit of President Francois Hollande to Israel and Ramallah,” Cukierman wrote. “While the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan oppose or abstain in votes hostile to Israel, France is the only major democratic power voting in favor of these resolutions.”
Last year, France voted in favor of passing six resolutions at UNESCO, the United Nations cultural and education branch, that CRIF deemed anti-Israel. One described the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem as Palestinian and primarily Muslim heritage sites, despite their significance to Jews.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Lebanese reports: Israeli airstrikes attacked targets near Syrian border
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli airstrikes attacked targets in eastern Lebanon, the Lebanese media reported, but the claims were denied by Hezbollah.
Citing Lebanese security officials, the reports on Tuesday said that Israeli Air Force planes attacked Hezbollah targets near the city of Brital, on the Syrian border. Several Lebanese civilians were injured in the attack, according to the Daily Star, a Lebanese daily newspaper.
The Israel Defense Forces neither confirmed nor denied the reports, saying it does not comment on foreign media reports.
The attacks may have been spillover from the civil war in Syria, according to reports.
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From The Times of Israel
US-led coalition doubles down on IS group strategy
Washington promises more arms to Iraq; PM decries lack of practical support as jihadists make territorial gains
June 3, 2015, 1:27 am
PARIS (AP) — The U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State is doubling down on its strategy to fight the extremists, despite the radical group’s recent conquests on both sides of the border between Iraq and Syria.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi pressed his case Tuesday for more support from the 25 countries in the coalition at a one-day Paris conference on fighting the militant group, organized within weeks of the fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi and the Syrian city of Palmyra.
The coalition has mustered a mix of airstrikes, intelligence sharing and assistance for Iraqi ground operations against the extremists. Al-Abadi said more was needed — his country reeling after troops pulled out of Ramadi without a fight and abandoned U.S.-supplied tanks and weapons.
“We will redouble our efforts,” said Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who was leading the delegation after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry broke his leg in a cycling accident in eastern France over the weekend. IS, Blinken said, “stands for nothing and depends on people who will fall for anything.”
He said the U.S. would make it easier for Iraq to obtain new weapons, after al-Abadi said the sanctions-hit countries of Iran and Russia were potentially important arms suppliers.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
British students’ union passes BDS resolution
(JTA) — The British National Union of Students voted to boycott Israeli companies and align with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
In a 19-4 vote with one abstention, the confederation of 600 student unions across the United Kingdom passed the pro-BDS proposal on Tuesday at a meeting of its National Executive Council.
The motion “condemns Israeli military presence in the West Bank and Gaza,” according to the Jewish Chronicle, and calls on students to “co-ordinate a nationwide student day of action to commemorate UN Palestine Solidarity Day” on Nov. 29.
Titled Solidarity with Palestine: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, the motion was proposed by the School of Oriental and African Studies students union in London.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
African-American bus driver sues haredi school alleging discrimination
(JTA) — An African-American bus driver for a haredi Orthodox Jewish school in Brooklyn filed a $2 million lawsuit against the school alleging discrimination.
The lawsuit by Willis Baker against the United Talmudical Academy of Boro Park was filed recently in U.S. District Court in New York, according to Newsweek, which first reported the lawsuit on Tuesday. Baker was the only African-American bus driver at the school from July 2014 to December 2014, according to the magazine.
Baker said in the lawsuit that he was referred to as “monkey” and “blackie” by students, who also threw objects at him while he was driving, and that Yanke Schaefer, who hired him, called him his “monkey friend” in front of others. The suit, which also names Schaefer, also alleges that Baker was required to clean and service buses driven by the non-African-American drivers, the only driver ordered to do so, and he was not paid for the additional work.
The lawsuit also claims money was deducted from Willis’ paycheck for accidents that he says never occurred. He was fired after a car scraped itself against his bus while making a wild turn.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WATCH: Bill de Blasio dances and sings with Chabad
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio isn’t visiting Israel until August. But that doesn’t mean he can’t hold hands and dance with Hasidic Jews before then.
The mayor may not have known all the words, but as the video below shows, he certainly got into the spirit of “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem” and “Am Yisrael Chai” at Sunday’s “Celebrate Israel” parade in New York. He’s hardly the first politician to dance with Chabad — you can watch Texas Gov. Rick Perry doing it here.
From Russia Today
Siberian tiger population rising thanks to Putin & WWF
The endangered Siberian tiger is making a comeback, a fresh census has found. The numbers have increased about 10 percent over the last decade, thanks to WWF conservation efforts and a program overseen by the Russian president.
In the 1940s, the Siberian tiger population was nearly extinct, dropping below 40; but now, it has reached 480-540, with around 100 of them cubs, the preliminary results of the census showed. The final results will be released in October.
There was a jump to nearly 50 new tigers – also known as the Amur tigers – in the last decade. A census is carried out every 10 years.
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From The Times of Israel
Where the Obama-Netanyahu relationship went wrong
Top aides to US president detail long, slow deterioration of trust between two leaders
June 2, 2015, 10:18 pm
WASHINGTON (JTA) – When David Axelrod, then a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, first learned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly had referred to him and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as “self-hating Jews,” he remembers feeling stung.
“For people to suggest that I would be anti-Israel or worse, anti-Semitic – it hurts,” Axelrod recalled of the 2009 episode.
Robert Wexler, the former Florida congressman who was Obama’s Jewish community liaison in the 2008 and 2012 elections, remembers his own oh-no moment with Netanyahu.
It was in May 2011, when Netanyahu, irritated by Obama’s call for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal based on the 1967 lines, decided to use an Oval Office photo opportunity to publicly lecture Obama on Middle East history.
“I was embarrassed, as an American, that an American president is forced to sit and listen to a reciting of a point of view,” Wexler said. “Had Prime Minister Netanyahu been the prime minister of probably any other nation on earth, the president would have gotten out of his chair and walked away.”
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