Puppet MastersS


Star of David

Hasbara fail: Israeli govt admits it 'astroturfed' Eurovision vote but lost anyway

Wyatt Reed
The Grayzone
Tue, 14 May 2024 19:58 UTC
israel gaza genocide eurovision bribes astroturf vots
© The GrayzoneIsrael's fifth-place Eurovision contestant Eden Golan
Israeli officials hyped their country's 5th place Eurovision finish as proof of quiet global grassroots support for their assault on Gaza. Now, they admit they manipulated the results through an international propaganda blitz.

On May 11, Israeli candidate Eden Golan took home 5th place at the Eurovision contest in Malmo, Sweden. The decision to allow the Israeli singer to participate sparked heated protests and calls to boycott the event. Against the rancorous backdrop, many were surprised by Golan's apparent success, which was driven almost entirely to votes by individual audience members. Israeli media and government officials quickly seized on the news as proof that deep down, Europeans secretly support Israel's military rampage in Gaza.

While the mere 52 points that judges awarded Golan would have left her in 12th place, viewers managed to propel the Israeli singer into 5th place by awarding her an astonishing 323 points via televoting. In the end, Golan received the maximum possible 12 points from audiences in Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, and received the second-highest possible 10 points from Albania, Austria, Cyprus, Czechia, Moldova, Slovenia, and Ireland.

Comment: Hasbara can be put to many uses: Earlier iterations:

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Big Bomb

Damage being assessed as IDF confirms Hezbollah drone hit sensitive military site

Michael Bachner and ToI Staff
Times of Israel
Thu, 16 May 2024 19:34 UTC
israel radar blimp missile detection
© Israel Ministry of DefenseA massive blimp containing an advanced radar system that Israel plans to deploy into the sky over northern Israel to detect incoming missiles and drones, as seen at its home base on November 3, 2021.
Terror group claims to target missile-detecting balloon in deepest strike in Israel amid war; in response, air force attacks weapon manufacturing plant in northeastern Lebanon

Hezbollah managed to hit a sensitive military facility in the Lower Galilee with an explosive drone on Wednesday evening, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed Thursday, as fighter jets responded by striking targets belonging to the terror group in northeastern Lebanon.

In the attack on Wednesday, Hezbollah claimed to have launched explosive-laden drones at an Israeli Air Force base from which a giant missile-detecting blimp, known as Sky Dew, is operated.

The base is located near Golani Junction, some 35 kilometers (21 miles) from the Lebanon border.

Comment: Hezbollah, under its leader, Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, has carefully calibrated its responses to the Israeli assault on Gaza, avoiding escalation into an all-out second front. It is creating enough concern to keep at least a third of the IDF occupied in the north, as well as by keeping thousands of illegal Israeli settlers out of the region, who fled their homes in the early days of the conflict. The loss of productivity and the cost of supporting this internally displaced population is not well-publicized, but is still quietly crippling the Israeli economy.

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Star of David

Who tried to pull the rug on Netanyahu, and why?

Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 13 May 2024 00:00 UTC
protest
© public domainIsraeli Protest
The young American generation of today says: We will not identify with suspect genocidal tendencies against an indigenous people.

The core issues at the heart of release of hostages held in Gaza were two: A complete cessation to the war and full withdrawal of all Israeli forces.

Netanyahu's position was that whatever the hostage outcome, the IDF would return to Gaza and that the war there might continue for ten years, he said.

These were the most sensitive words in Israeli politics - with Israeli politics electrically polarised around them. The continuation or fall of the Israeli government could hinge on them:
The Right had warned that they would quit the government unless the invasion of Rafah were green-lighted; the Biden position, however, was communicated to Netanyahu by phone as not just 'no Rafah light', but rather, 'Rafah zero'.
Then these explosive words - cessation of military operations and complete Israeli withdrawal - burst forth in the final text as agreed by the mediators in Cairo; and subsequently in Doha, on Monday, taking Israel by complete surprise. CIA Chief Bill Burns had represented the U.S. in both sessions, but Israel had chosen not to send a negotiations team.

Comment: Surely everything the US does - be it planned or spontaneous - is known in advance by Israel. They are glued together from conception to fate. Crooke offers excellent insight.

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Tank

450,000 Palestinians flee Rafah as Israeli tanks move in


RT
Tue, 14 May 2024 18:17 UTC
Strike
© AFPChildren observe smoke bellowing during Israeli strikes east of Rafah, Gaza • May 13, 2024
"Nowhere is safe" in Gaza, the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees has warned.

Some 450,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah since Israel ordered more of the city evacuated on Saturday, the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees said on Tuesday. Reports from the city suggest that Israeli forces are closing in on its densely-populated urban core.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ordered people in the southeastern neighborhoods of Rafah to leave "immediately" on Saturday, with IDF spokesman Avichai Adraee warning that Israeli forces were preparing to strike Hamas targets there "with great force." The IDF has now evacuated the entire eastern third of the city following a similar order given earlier this month.

In a statement on Tuesday, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said that 450,000 people had heeded the orders. "People face constant exhaustion, hunger and fear. Nowhere is safe," the statement read. "An immediate cease-fire is the only hope."

Comment: History is written by the survivors, rewritten by agenda with 'no comment' from the dead.

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Magic Wand

Canada 'whitewashing' Nazi crimes - Russian prosecutor-general


RT
Mon, 13 May 2024 10:56 UTC
Krasnov
© Sergey Guneev/SputnikRussian Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov
Igor Krasnov blasted Ottawa's refusal to prosecute SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka, honored last year by Parliament.

Ottawa's failure to prosecute a former Nazi soldier amounts to its government "whitewashing" the crimes of Adolf Hitler's regime, Russian Prosecutor-General Igor Krasnov has claimed.

Last September, SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka, 98 at the time, was invited to the Canadian parliament and given a standing ovation for his role in fighting "for Ukrainian independence against the Russians" during World War II. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had blamed a "mistake" amid the ensuing scandal. He claimed that his government was unaware of the former Nazi allegiance of the man.
stamp
© Russian Embassy/XA fake Ukrainian stamp posted by the Russian embassy in London uses the Yaroslav Hunka incident in Canada's House of Commons for propaganda purposes.

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Up

China vows to take 'all necessary actions' in response to Biden's tariffs

Wayne Chang, Mark Thompson
CNN
Tue, 14 May 2024 12:02 UTC
Wenbin
© Johannes Neudecker/picture-alliance/dpa/APWang Wenbin, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, at a press conference in March
China has vowed to resolutely defend its interests in the face of huge new US tariffs and warned that the trade barriers would affect the wider relationship between the two economic superpowers.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced that tariffs on $18 billion worth of imports of Chinese electric vehicles and an array of other products would soar over the next two years.

The White House said the measures were designed to protect American workers and businesses in the face of China's unfair trade practices, including "flooding global markets with artificially low-priced exports."

China "firmly opposes" the new tariffs, the country's Commerce Ministry said in a statement.
"The increase in ... tariffs by the United States contradicts President Joe Biden's commitment to 'not seek to suppress and contain China's development' and 'not to seek to decouple and break links with China'. This action will seriously impact the atmosphere of bilateral cooperation."
EVs imported from China will see their tariffs more than quadrupled from 27.5% to 100% — a policy lever meant to challenge Beijing's practice of encouraging aggressively low pricing by domestic EV manufacturers while levying a 40% tariff on US car imports.
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Pocket Knife

Ex-president issues sharp rebuke of Iran's leadership after election disqualification

Ardeshir Tayebi
RFE/RL's Radio Farda
Wed, 15 May 2024 00:00 UTC
Rouhani
© IRNAFormer Iranian President Hassan Rohani
Former Iranian President Hassan Rohani has issued a stern rebuke of the country's Guardians Council following his disqualification from elections to the Assembly of Experts earlier this year, accusing the body of undermining the role and freedom of future presidents.

Rohani said in a statement:
"The disqualification notice was as an indictment against the institution of the presidency that signals a 'crisis' for political independence in Iran.

"What is mentioned in the letter from the secretary of the Guardians Council as the reasons for my disqualification is not only not a crime, but in some cases, I consider it an honor."
Rohani criticized the council for charging him with "insulting the judiciary and the Guardians Council," "a lack of political insight," "nonadherence to the constitution," and "an assault on genuine religious beliefs."

The 88-member Assembly of Experts, founded in 1982, appoints and can dismiss the supreme leader, but rarely intervenes directly in policymaking.
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Attention

The lone gunman strikes again

Stephen Karganovic
Strategic Culture Foundation
Thu, 16 May 2024 18:37 UTC
Robert Fico
© Social Media
The "lone gunman," that cartoonish figure that for the last several decades - at least since November 1963 - has regularly framed most high-profile assassinations, has struck again, this time in disobedient Slovakia. He always pops up whenever his presence is required to warn misfits and discipline even team players who are inattentive to their tasks.

The assassination attempt on the Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico fits (no pun intended) that pattern. Fico's political record going back for decades may have provoked a measure of distrust in globalist circles. However, his electoral victory and return to power in the fall of last year probably would have been treated as a manageable challenge had Fico been rotten enough to act as his colleagues routinely do, saying one thing before elections and doing the opposite afterwards.

He has, instead, turned out to be a man true to his word, certainly quashing any rumours that he had ever been recruited as one of WEF's Young Leaders. At a critical juncture for the globalist string-pullers, when being a cooperative team player is considered de rigeuer, he chose to go off the beaten path with other outcasts like Victor Orban and to champion old fashioned values, such as Slovakia's national sovereignty.

Fico however did not just insist on Slovakia's sovereignty, which would have been bad enough, but also on other despised notions, equally discredited in present-day Europe: Statehood, Nationhood, Religion, and Family. It is his adherence to those values, once the cornerstone of the European civilisation before its cultural implosion, that made Fico a lone gunman target.

But to these shortcomings several other, no less bothersome and also potentially life threatening faults, should be added. Over the last several months, as Project Ukraine was turning into a shipwreck, Fico defiantly refused to allow military aid for the Kiev regime, called for cancelling anti-Russia sanctions, and repeatedly expressed the prohibited notion that Ukraine will be defeated.
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Bomb

West chooses to prolong fighting in Ukraine - Lavrov


RT
Mon, 13 May 2024 12:00 UTC
Acting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
© Sputnik / Russian Federation CouncilActing Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addresses the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, on May 13, 2024.
Moscow is ready to settle on the battlefield what could be resolved through diplomacy, Russia's acting foreign minister has said

The Ukrainian conflict will be decided on the battlefield if that is the wish of the US and its allies, Acting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

The veteran diplomat was speaking to members of the upper chamber of the Russian parliament as part of the process of his reappointment after a government reshuffle. The assessment he offered is that Western nations have no desire for a negotiated end to the hostilities.

Comment: The news keep coming fast and furious:

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Better Earth

'No country should be punished for its sovereignty' - Fico in quotes

Georgiy Berezovsky, Vladikavkaz-based journalist
RT
Wed, 15 May 2024 23:42 UTC
Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico
© Getty ImagesSlovak prime minister, Robert Fico speaks during a joint press conference after summit of the Visegrad Group (V4) in Prague.
How Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who survived an assassination attempt, sees the world and what he says

An assassination attempt on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico took place on Wednesday in the city of Handlova, where a government meeting was being held. The attacker fired up to five shots at the prime minister, who received gunshot wounds to the chest, abdomen, and arm.

Fico's condition after the assassination attempt was critical, and the operation ended up being protracted due to damage to several organs. However, according to Slovak media reports, it was ultimately successful. The prime minister's condition has stabilized, and he is now able to communicate with doctors.

The shooter has been arrested. He turned out to be 71-year-old Slovak writer Juraj Cintula, who was also an activist of the liberal party Progressive Slovakia. Before opening fire, the assailant shouted at Fico: "Robo, come here."

Comment: Words do not carry weight, at least it is minimal in a physical sense, but the value of the above statements should not be overlooked, although that may in fact happen, as one thing is survive, but will Fico be able to recover enough to return to his post?

From the same source:
15 May, 2024 15:50
Slovak PM Robert Fico: Noted critic of Western approach to Ukraine conflict
The shots targeting the premier were also aimed at Russian-Slovak relations, a Moscow lawmaker has said

Robert Fico's third term as prime minister of Slovakia has put him squarely at odds with both the European Union and NATO on the matter of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. RT takes a look at the Slovak leader's stance, and why it has drawn the ire of Brussels.

The Slovak prime minister was shot on Wednesday, during a visit to the town of Handlova, and was rushed to the hospital for surgery in serious condition. His attacker has been arrested and identified in media reports as Juraj Cintula, 71, a poet and supporter of the opposition Progressive Slovakia party. Cintula told police he shot Fico because he "disagreed" with his government's policies.

"This is not only a shot at Fico and Slovakia, but also at Russian-Slovak relations," Russian lawmaker Konstantin Zatulin said in reaction to the news.

"Fico knew very well that the majority of Slovaks, at least half, sympathize with Russia, despite the campaign of deception that rules the roost in Europe," Zatulin added, noting that the Slovak PM had been "subjected to endless extortion and threats" from the EU over his political positions that ran counter to those of Brussels.
[...]

Earlier this month, Fico pushed back on talk by French President Emmanuel Macron about possibly sending NATO troops to help Kiev's war effort, saying this would bring the world to the brink of a third world war.

"Slovakia has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine, and let me send a clear message to the whole of Slovakia: Whoever might ask us, no Slovak soldier will set foot beyond the Slovak-Ukrainian border," Fico told the parliament in Bratislava.

Just a few days later, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell lamented that "not everybody in the EU" agreed with his assertion that Russia is an existential threat to the bloc, and that some members considered Moscow "a good friend." While he did not name any names, both Fico and Hungarian PM Viktor Orban have dissented from Brussels on the matter of Ukraine, and have sought to maintain relations with Russia.

During his first term as PM, Fico sought to improve relations with Moscow, citing Russia's support for the Slovakian national awakening in the 1850s. He criticized the 2014 EU sanctions on Russia as "senseless" and harmful to Slovakia's economy. He has said the same about the expanded sanctions imposed since February 2022.
See also:
Best of the Web: Slovakia's PM Robert Fico in 'life-threatening condition' after assassination attempt

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