IDF Conducts Massive Exercise To "Simulate Conditions Of War With Hezbollah"

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted a massive military exercise last week which was designed to prepare soldiers for combat operations in "topographical conditions" comparable to those in Lebanon, The Times of Israel reported.

Carried out by the 401st Brigade of the Armored Corps, the exercise was the largest in years.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-16/idf-conducts-massive-exercise-simulate-conditions-war-hezbollah

The Green New Deal Isn’t Just About Energy, It’s Also About Controlling What Americans Eat

The Green New Deal seems to embrace the anti-beef and dairy industry sentiment of the environmental left.

Green New Dealers want to remake American society, including how produce and eat food.

“I think it’s pretty clear they want to change people’s consumption habits,” said one economist.

The Green New Deal isn’t just a climate change manifesto targeting U.S. energy, it also looks to drastically change how food is produced and, ultimately, what Americans eat.

“I think it’s pretty clear they want to change people’s consumption habits,” Nic Loris, an energy economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey introduced highly anticipated Green New Deal bills in early February, calling for “net-zero” greenhouse gas emissions within 10 years through a radical transformation of America. The bills also call for a slew of new social justice and welfare programs totally unrelated to global warming.

The accompanying FAQ’s reference to eliminating “farty cows” sent ranchers into a panic, fearing Democrats were taking aim at their livelihoods. Environmentalists have targeted the beef industry for years, and concern over methane only gave activists more ammunition.

“Livestock will be banned,” Wyoming GOP Sen. John Barrasso, who represents lots of cattle ranchers, warned on the Senate floor after the Green New Deal was introduced. “Say goodbye to dairy, to beef, to family farms, to ranches.”

“Farty” was eventually deleted — in fact, most of the methane cows emit is from burping, not farting. The entire gaffe-riddled FAQ was eventually taken offline by Ocasio-Cortez’s staff amid the ridicule.

Even so, the legislation itself is no less radical than Ocasio-Cortez’s Kinsley gaffes. The bill calls for “working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers … to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible.”

“It’s technologically feasible to shut down factories and farms,” Loris told TheDCNF in an interview. “It can happen today.”

Loris’ point is that the seemingly benign language in the Green New Deal resolution is worryingly broad. Technological feasibility is an open-ended phrase the government has used to crush industries in the past.

The Obama administration, in fact, used a similar rationale to impose a de facto ban on new coal plants. The Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) essentially ruled the best way to reduce emissions from coal plants was to, well, use natural gas or renewables.

Loris said the Green New Deal seems to endorse the long-held disdain for industrial agriculture harbored by the environmental left, especially when it comes to beef and dairy operations. The resolution even calls for policies to encourage small-scale, “sustainable” farming. Does that mean they want the whole country to go local and organic?

https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/16/green-new-deal-energy-diet/

Several Injured as Car Rams Into Yellow Vests Rally (VIDEO)

According to eyewitnesses, quoted by the Daily Express, the car was in the middle of the rally when a passenger opened the door to shout at the protesters, which was then followed by the driver accelerating.

Several people were overthrown and at least four were injured as a result of a car that drove into yellow vests protesters in the French city of Rouen, BFM TV reported, citing a police source. As the broadcaster specified, first aid to those injured was provided immediately.

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201902161072490751-yellow-vests-rouen-car-attack/

Lindsey Graham Pitches Syria Safe Zone to Prevent ISIS Reemergence

MUNICH, GERMANY — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Breitbart News that he is proposing a plan to keep a “small percentage” of U.S. troops in Syria, after the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) caliphate is destroyed.

“The bottom line is we can reduce our presence, but there needs to be some U.S. forces — a small percentage compared to what we have today, making sure our gains are maintained,” he said in an interview Friday at the Munich Security Conference.

Graham is hoping to get allies and partners onboard with creating a stabilizing force that could maintain a safe zone in northern Syria, along its border with Turkey.

He said the safe zone would help prevent ISIS’s reemergence, as well as the prospect of a new war between Turkey and the Syrian Democratic Forces — a group of primarily Kurdish fighters who helped the U.S. defeat ISIS on the ground. He also said it would reduce Iranian influence.

“This stabilizing force, within a safe zone to prevent the reemergence of ISIS, would lessen the conflict between Turkey and people inside of Syria we actually work with, and make it almost impossible for Iran to be the biggest winner of any withdrawal,” he said.

He said the U.S. could “substantially withdraw” its forces from the approximately 2,700 there now.

He declined to give an exact number of U.S. troops that would be needed for the stabilizing force but said he wanted to leave U.S. airpower and technology in Syria.

“There’s certain capability we have that nobody [can] substitute. Airpower and technology,” he said.

He said the U.S.’s top military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, would be asking allies to contribute forces.

“So they do more, we do less, but there’s still a unique role for America. But the post-caliphate footprint for America will be substantially smaller,” he said.

Graham said he talked to President Trump on Friday, right before pitching his plan at the conference. The Munich Security Conference is the largest annual gathering of world leaders, military officials, and national security experts in Europe.

The proposal comes as the U.S.-led military coalition is getting closer to taking back all of the land that ISIS once controlled in Iraq and Syria. Graham said at the conference that the fight is down to a “couple [of] kilometers” in Baghouz, Syria.

“I want to congratulate President Trump for focusing on destroying the caliphate like a laser. After his visit to Iraq, he saw that we could destroy the caliphate and he’s brought it about. We’re down to a couple of kilometers inside of one city, so the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is no more,” he said.

Graham touted the U.S.-led military operation in Syria as a success. “It’s probably the best military operation in history — 2,700 [troops], eight casualties. God bless the casualties, but it’s been low casualties. Most of the fighting’s been done by indigenous people,” he said.

Graham said his hope is to not repeat the mistakes of the Iraq War, when President Obama withdrew all U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011, only to have to send troops back when the terrorist threat from Al Qaeda in Iraq morphed into ISIS.

“My hope is once the caliphate’s destroyed, just within a day of it that we will not repeat the mistakes in Iraq,” he said. “
Then you hopefully go to Geneva and get an agreement for the Syrian people.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/15/exclusive-lindsey-graham-pitches-syria-safe-zone-to-prevent-isis-reemergence/

Italy: Nigerian Mafia Bust Reveals Sexual Slavery, Voodoo Rituals

The Italian authorities have discovered the Nigerian mafia luring young women to Italy and using a combination of threats and voodoo rituals to force them into sexual slavery.

Italian authorities busted the Nigerian mafia operation in the city of Catania, Sicily this week, arresting five leading members including two sisters, Susan Elaho and Naomi Ikponwmasa, Il Giornale reports.

Investigators say that the organisation’s downfall came after a Nigerian girl who had been trafficked by them revealed the extent of their illegal activities, which included luring women from Nigeria and forcing them into street prostitution.

The two sisters were not the only women arrested in the operation. Helen-Susan Ikponwmasa was also taken into custody in Rome, where she also worked for organised crime.

According to the authorities, the group acted in co-ordination with other mafia groups both in Nigeria and in Libya, from which many of the girls would then be trafficked into Italy.

Often the girls were simply told they would become prostitutes when they arrived in Italy, but in some cases the gangsters also used voodoo rituals to force the young girls to co-operate with them.

The use of voodoo rituals has been seen in African sexual slavery operations across different countries in Europe since the onset of the migrant crisis, including in Sweden where court documents described a ritual where one girl “was forced to eat a raw chicken heart and was cut over the chest with razor blades, after which the priest rubbed animal blood in the wounds.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/02/16/italian-bust-nigerian-mafia-reveals-voodoo-rituals-sexual-slavery/

$1.7 Million in Methamphetamine Seized at Texas Border Crossing

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers seized 86 pounds of methamphetamine estimated to be worth more than $1.7 million during two separate vehicles inspections. The seizures occurred on Wednesday at two different ports of entry in Laredo, Texas. The alleged seizures resulted in the arrests of two Mexican nationals on drug smuggling charges.

In the first incident, CBP officers assigned to the Office of Field Operations (OFO) contacted a male driver in a 2010 Ford Focus at the Gateway to the Americas International Bridge. Officers referred the driver to a secondary examination station where a K-9 drug detection officer detected the possible presence of drugs, according to information obtained from CBP officials. The officers also carried out a non-intrusive inspection. After the K-9 alerted to an odor it has been trained to detect, CBP officers discovered three packages containing a total of 63 pounds of alleged methamphetamine within the vehicle. Officers arrested the driver and identified him as a 21-year-old male and Mexican citizen who resides in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico.

During the second seizure, OFO officers contacted a female driver in a 2008 Chevrolet Captiva at the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge in Laredo. Officers referred the driver to a secondary examination station and employed a K-9 drug detection officer. The officers also utilized a non-intrusive inspection, officials stated. After the K-9 alerted to an odor it has been trained to detect, CBP officers discovered a total of 19 packages of methamphetamine concealed within the vehicle weighing a total of 23 pounds. Officers arrested the driver and identified her as a 42-year-old Mexican citizen who resides in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

Officers arrested both drivers and turned the cases over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) special agents for further investigation. Officials estimated the total estimated street value of both seizures totaling 86 pounds to be approximately $1,714,296.

“CBP has numerous layers of enforcement and our officers will go above and beyond to keep these illicit drugs from entering our country and affecting our community,” Port Director Albert Flores, Laredo Port of Entry said in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection media release.

Breitbart Texas reported on a seizure last week where U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers seized a half a ton of methamphetamine estimated to be worth more than $14 million dollars concealed within a commercial shipment of fresh produce at the Pharr International Bridge.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/02/16/1-7-million-in-methamphetamine-seized-at-texas-border-crossing/

US Venezuela envoy confronted by RT America correspondent over past war crimes (VIDEO)

Intercepted by RT America correspondent Dan Cohen while leaving a conference in DC, US envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams did not seem in the mood to discuss his criminal convictions or Iran-Contra weapons shipments.

Cohen confronted Abrams, recently appointed point man for the US effort to oust the elected government in Caracas, as he exited a conference on the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela hosted by the Organization for American States (OAS) in Washington, DC. The former Reagan official, who played a key role in securing US support for death squads in Central America during the 1980s, was not in the mood to chat about his past exploits, however.

“What do you say to people who are skeptical about you because of your history of using humanitarian aid to send weapons to contras in Central America? Do you have any comment about that?” Cohen asked Abrams as he walked out the conference with a female colleague.

Clearly unnerved by the line of questioning, Abrams asked Cohen to “leave us alone, please.”

Undeterred, Cohen kept his camera rolling. “I’m doing my job, you are too,” he shot back.

As the RT America journalist walked alongside the pair, he asked a follow-up question: “What do you have to say about your criminal convictions for lying to Congress? The people want to know why you see yourself as qualified for this. You lied to Congress. You’re convicted of crimes.”

Abrams refused to answer, instead claiming that Cohen was “harassing” him.

“You know, you’re going to have to leave us alone, or we’ll actually have to have…” he said, without finishing his thought. Cohen noted that he had every right to walk down the public sidewalk.

Eventually Cohen gave up the pursuit and returned to covering the Venezuela conference, but expressed hope that he would cross paths with Abrams again.

https://www.rt.com/usa/451591-abrams-cohen-video-crimes-venezuela/

German Chancellor declares support of anti-Russia sanctions

MUNICH, February 16. /TASS/. Germany supports sanctions against Russia, Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, adding that restrictive measures should be coordinated.

"We support sanctions against Russia. They should be coordinated (with Ukraine)," she said.

Western countries should maintain the dialogue with Russia, German Chancellor said, adding that it is necessary to observe the Russia-NATO Founding Act.

"As before, we are committed to the Russia-NATO Founding Act," she said, adding that "from the geostrategic viewpoint, Europe cannot be interested in breaking the relationship with Russia.".

Economic sanctions were imposed against Russia on July 31, 2014, after the crash of the Malaysian Boeing flight MH17 over Donbass. Since then, they have been extended every six months in unchanged form. In March 2015, the EU summit decided that sanctions could only be lifted after the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

http://tass.com/world/1045027

First lawsuit against Trump wall declaration filed in Washington court

The first lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C., Friday evening challenging President Trump’s new emergency declaration to build his border wall.

Three Texas landowners and the Frontera Audubon Society in Texas asked a judge to halt any action Mr. Trump might take under the declaration, arguing that a fight with Congress over spending money doesn’t constitute an emergency under the 1970s-era National Emergencies Act.

The landowners say they’re in the path for future wall construction, while the Audubon Society says its members are bird-watchers who might see their favorite fowls chased out of the area by wall construction, impeding their ability to birdwatch.

The litigants said whatever justification Mr. Trump had for declaring an emergency disappeared earlier Friday when, in announcing his plans, the president said he could have waited and gotten the money over time from Congress.

“I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster,” the president said.

The lawsuit challenges both a $3.6 billion transfer of funds from military construction projects to the border wall and another $2.5 billion pot of money for Defense Department counter-drug efforts.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/15/first-lawsuit-against-trump-wall-declaration-filed/

'More than 40% of people don't know about Auschwitz..how can that be?' One locals reaction to a new bill in Indiana

A new bill proposed by Senator Jon Ford requires 6th-8th grade students to study the Holocaust. News 10 reached out to locals for their reactions.

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI)- A new bill proposed by Senator Jon Ford requires students in 6th through 8th grade to study the Holocaust.

It is a topic frequently taught in high school but not typically on the curriculum for middle schoolers.

The Holocaust was one event that is hard to forget which is why some locals feel it's important to maintain that memory in the classroom.

Dorothy Chambers has worked at Candles Holocaust Muesum for the past five years and she is constantly surrounded by reminders of what happened.

She often visits Auschwitz with Holocaust survivor, Eva Kor, and each time the visit brings new feelings.

"It stands as a test to humanity, and it's a remind that we can't let it happen again," Chambers said.

Chambers says teaching middle school students would allow an opportunity for a deeper connection to the subject.

"93% of American adults feel Holocaust education should be required in schools. So the recognition of holocaust education is here..we know this is somethng of value to teach our children. We just need to figure out an effective way of doing it," Chambers told us.

Betsy Frank is the President of the United Hebrew Congregation here in Terre Haute. She told News 10 that a study shows over forty percent of Americans don't know about Auschwitz.

"Over forty percent of Americans don't know about Auschwitz..how can that be? How can that be," said Frank.

She also says that people often don't think about the Holocaust because it happened so far away.

"It did happen in Europe, it did happen 70 years ago, but that's not very long. Some of those survivors are still alive today," said Frank.

Survivors like Eva Kor, who created the Candles Museum, remind us that it did happen and that it's possible to remember such a horrific event by educating those around us.

"Over middle school and high school that they will have something as they become adults that sticks with them and that will affect their lives," said Chambers.

The bill is still in the early stages but both Chambers and Frank hope that it goes in effect sooner rather than later.

https://www.wthitv.com/content/news/505857851.html

Zionism Contradicts Judaism

New York historian, journalist, and lecturer, Alfred M. Lilienthal, was the leading 20th century American Jewish spokesman against the Zionist project of creating a Jewish state in Palestine. His views gained a wide audience in the United States when his essay, “Israel’s Flag Is Not My Flag,” was published in the September 1949 Reader’s Digest. The following is an excerpt from that article, which was written in the form of a letter to his mother:

The plain fact is that we Jews are not a race and we should not let the Zionists persuade us that we are. Proof to the contrary lies in Palestine, plain for all to see. You had my letter, Mother, from my Army furlough there. I was second to none in my enthusiasm for. what my co-religionists had done for a desert brought to bloom, for clean new cities rising out of age-old sand dunes. All of these wonders had come to pass while only a few fanatics talked of statehood. One evening I went to see a performance of an opera in Jerusalem. In that theater lobby you could distinguish almost at a glance the Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazic Jew from Poland, the Spanish-speaking Sephardic Jew from North Africa or Turkey, the German Jew, Jews from a score of countries all differing in dress, language, manners and mental attitudes. I had visual proof of the arguments of anthropologists. who laugh at the notion of a distinct Jewish race.

Anyone who tells me those foreign Jews are exclusively my people that I should be closer to them than to Bob McCormick, the kid on the block with whom I used to play ball: or to Nick Galbraith, who roomed next to me at Cornell; or Dave Du Vivier with whom I studied in law school that man is talking dangerous nonsense. I have also learned, Mother, that when something. goes wrong in my relations with non-Jews. I avoid the habit of thinking that it happened just because I am a Jew. Such self-pity is comforting, but it is usually wrong and therefore dangerous.

It is dangerous, indeed, because it is precisely the sort of paranoia and us-against-the-world mentality upon which the very dangerous little state of Israel is founded. Take it from Lilienthal, as bad ideas go, this Israel foolishness has to be just about the worst.

The sentiments that Lilienthal expressed in that article, I dare say, were also the sentiments of a very large proportion of American Jews at the time. It is certainly the sort of sensible approach to the Israel issue that I encountered among the first group of Jews that I rubbed shoulders with in graduate school at the University of North Carolina, 1968-1972. In my first year I shared an apartment with two of them and my office mate was also Jewish for most of the time I was there. Several other of my student colleagues in the economics department were also Jewish, as were a few of my professors. Almost all of them were sort of standard left-liberal in their politics and as a consequence their sentiments probably leaned naturally toward the plight of the native Palestinians. The one exception was a professor for whom I was a teaching assistant for one semester, and I was amazed by his extreme Zionist, Israel-first attitude. It was really a brand-new experience for me, and I frankly found it shocking. My thought at the time—which I dared not express to him—was that he was really living in the wrong country. In fact, his son, he told me, was planning to emigrate to Israel. From my admittedly very small sample, I got the impression that his views were that of a quite small minority of American Jews.

https://heresycentral.is/dcdave/zionism-contradicts-judaism/

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>>5208035

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Meddling, anyone? Pro-Israel groups spent $22 million on lobbying & campaign contributions in 2018

Pro-Israel lobbyists funneled more than $22 million into the 2018 US election cycle, making the lobby far more active and influential than those aligned with other foreign nations, public records show.

Controversy was sparked last week after freshman Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar tweeted that pro-Israel money affected the decisions of members of Congress. Omar faced swift backlash and condemnation even from her own party, as her colleagues rushed to label her comments as “outrageous,” “disgraceful” and even“anti-Semitic.”

In the aftermath, the Guardian examined figures available from the Center for Responsive Politics – a D.C.-based organization which tracks money in politics – and found that the Israel lobby is indeed “highly active and spends heavily” to influence lawmakers.

In response to a tweet from a Jewish journalist asking who she believed was “paying American politicians to be pro-Israel,” Omar specifically highlighted the influence the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). While AIPAC does not donate directly to political campaigns, it does spend millions on lobbying.

Indeed, the publicly available data shows that AIPAC – which lobbied against the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 and supported Trump’s withdrawal from it in 2018 – spent more than any other pro-Israel lobbying group. AIPAC spent more than $3.5 million on lobbying during the 2018 election cycle and over $5 million in the year in total — which was the highest since tracking began in 1998.

The powerful group is also known for taking newly elected members of Congress on junket trips to Israel which the Intercept called“incredibly influential” in that they provide new House members with a “distinctly pro-Israel viewpoint on complex controversies” in the region.

On the Democratic side, those trips are usually led by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has received $1.02 million from pro-Israel groups during his career, according to CRP figures.

Pro-Israel groups and individuals gave nearly $15 million to political campaigns during the 2018 election cycle, the highest since 1990, with the J Street Pac giving the highest amount of $4.03 million. About $2.1 million was also spent on political activity by pro-Israel foreign agents registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 2017 and 2018.

https://www.rt.com/usa/451583-israel-lobby-millions-influence/

>>5208119

History showed when the Khazars and Pharisees had taken over all they could possibly own they would turn on each other. I see this very much being the case now with the Marxists and Zionists now fighting each other. The only thing they do agree on is portraying themselves as victims and trying to pass as many laws as possible to maintain the mind control over the masses.

Israel Chokes Off Water Supply to 17 Palestinian Communities

Israeli forces this week opted to cut off water supply lines feeding into more than a dozen communities in the West Bank city of Hebron, according to the Palestine News Network.

In total, the changes will affect 17 Mafasir Yatta communities, where an estimated 1,500 Palestinians reside.

The Wednesday move has been largely criticized by locals as yet another Israeli measure to force Palestinians away from their home in order to expand settlements, PNN reported.

A 2009 Amnesty International report on Palestinian access to water supplies notes that "Palestinian consumption in the [Occupied Palestinian Territories] is about 70 litres a day per person — well below the 100 litres per capita daily recommended by the World Health Organization — whereas Israeli daily per capita consumption, at about 300 litres, is about four times as much."

"The stark reality of this inequitable system is that, today, more than 40 years after Israel occupied the West Bank, some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities there have no access to running water, and even in towns and villages, which are connected to the water network, the taps often run dry," the report continues.

More recently, a 2018 United Nations report found that "at least 1.9 million Palestinians experience, or are at risk of, conflict and violence, displacement and denial of access to livelihoods, among other threats."

"The most vulnerable Palestinians are currently denied or restricted in their access to essential services such as water and health care. A recurrent cycle of shocks, natural and manmade, has eroded the resilience of vulnerable households to cope with the prolonged nature of the humanitarian crisis," it noted.

News of the water lines being closed off came on the same day that Israeli forces destroyed a recently reconstructed road that connected Khallet Ad-Dabe' to Masafer Yatta in the south of Hebron. The road provided Palestinian farmers the ability to access farmlands and residential areas.

Rateb al-Jabour, the coordinator of the Anti-Wall and Anti-Settlement Committees in Yatta, told the Palestine News Agency that Israeli servicemembers provided protection to a military bulldozer as the road was being destroyed.

Earlier this week, residents of the troubled city of Hebron also witnessed Israeli settlers attacking various Palestinian homes in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, Ma'an News Agency reported. The attack was reportedly preceded by an organized mass demonstration in the city center, where participants chanted anti-Arab remarks.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201902141072402715-israel-cuts-off-water-supply-palestinians/

>>5208258

> I'll take the Zionists.

The noahide World Order???? really

I submit to no one that's why I'm here fighting.

https://israelpalestinenews.org/haaretz-noahide-project-seeks-to-create-a-world-religion-whose-believers-adore-israel/

>>5208521

WTF climate change is bullshit FFS