Beastly Boy
Beastly Boy's JournalInteresting article in Jerusalem Post:
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/exclusive-iran-hezbollah-help-hamas-islamic-jihad-trounce-israel-with-propaganda-688000Hamas and Islamic Jihad have become serious propaganda professionals who think carefully about which influence campaigns to invest in.
By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Iran and Hezbollah are helping Hamas and Islamic Jihad trounce Israel in the broader propaganda war, especially surrounding the Gaza war this past May, according to a report exclusively obtained by The Jerusalem Post.
The report, by Dr. Michael Barak of the The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) of Reichman University, notes that, “One of the major areas terrorist organizations operate to influence their enemy’s public opinion is propaganda, including an increasing focus on social media.”
In recent years, the Gazan terror groups have “managed to build a body of knowledge and acquire a propaganda tool kit, in large part thanks to mentorship by pro-Iranian media outlets, some of which are controlled by Hezbollah (either in Lebanon or Gaza), or via online guidance by the latter.”
This tool kit, besides social media and propaganda techniques, has also turned Hamas and Islamic Jihad into serious propaganda professionals who think carefully about which influence campaigns to invest in, which to ignore, while constantly analyzing and learning lessons about how to maximize their impact and resources.
“The Iranian regime tries to shape public perception and opinion in the Arab world through the use of ‘soft power’ thinking that this would be best to promote its agenda. The Islamic Radios and Televisions Union (IRTVU) serves as a major channel to deploy the above “soft power,” says the report.
IRTVU was formed in Tehran in June 2007 and it “reports to the Iranian Islamic Culture and Guidance Bureau” as well as serving “as the propaganda arm of Quds Force which is an integral part of IRGC,” the report states.
In fact, in October 2020 the US imposed sanctions on IRTVU “for trying to meddle with the US elections, inter alia via dissemination of disinformation to the American public over the internet and social media to influence their voting.”
The IRTVU’s membership includes over 210 media outlets in 35 countries on five continents.
More at the link
It appears that Hamas' failure to overwhelm Israel's air defenses in the May bombardment campaign has led Iran to rethink the effectiveness of its funding of Hamas' paramilitary infrastructure and instead redirect its resources into a sustained propaganda campaign against Israel's interests worldwide.
Watching Putin teleconferencing with Biden.
He is trying to act smug and self-confident, but he is overdoing it. His hands are betraying his posture. They dance around the objects on the table in abrupt, tense and random, almost involuntary, motions.
Putin is nervous.
Palestinian killed after ramming car into West Bank checkpoint, Israel says
Source: Reuters
JERUSALEM, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian teenager who rammed a car into a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Monday, seriously injuring an Israeli guard, Israel's defence ministry said.
The incident occurred at a roadblock between Israel and the central West Bank near the Palestinian city of Tulkarem.
Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh accused Israel of "cold-blooded murder".
He gave no details of his own on what transpired at the checkpoint.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/palestinian-killed-after-ramming-car-into-west-bank-checkpoint-israeli-ministry-2021-12-06/
intersting op-ed article in The Week: If bosses want workers, they have to actually try
https://theweek.com/business/1006446/if-bosses-want-workers-they-have-to-actually-tryThat's right, I'm talking about business owners. Complaints about a labor shortage abound, but it's time these coddled snowflakes learned some discipline.
The plain fact is we've had an employer's economy for a decade. After the Great Recession, unemployment was chronically high — only touching something like full employment in 2019, 11 years after the crash. Bosses got used to having the pick of the litter.
-snip
Simultaneously, the pandemic rescue packages have created a huge spending boom. Americans are buying stuff at a record pace, creating all sorts of snarls in shipping and production (in part because there was little excess capacity, again thanks to weak demand during the feeble post-2008 recovery). Higher-productivity firms are scrambling to expand, offering jobs with much better pay and benefits. This too puts a strain on employers whose business model is premised on exploited, low-wage labor.
Together, all this has given the American working class its greatest leverage in more than 20 years. People are quitting over pay, benefits, and working conditions. Thousands of workers are on strike at hospitals, tractor factories, and elsewhere. Thousands more may strike soon. Job applicants have turned the tables on employers, treating them with the same apathy they received after 2008 — ghosting hiring managers on outreach, interviews, or even job offers.
Employers don't like it, but they're finally recognizing something has changed.
Worth the read.
6 killed as protest over Beirut port blast probe descends into chaos
Source: CBS news
Beirut — Gunfire killed six people and wounded 30 at a Beirut rally organized by the Shiite Hezbollah and Amal movements on Thursday to demand the dismissal of the lead investigator into last year's port blast. Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi told a press conference that the death toll had climbed to six. He said that some of the victims were shot in the head.
Heavy fire rang out as ambulances rushed the wounded through the deserted streets, a few blocks from the Palace of Justice, where hundreds of black-clad protesters had gathered to demand Tarek Bitar's removal.
The judge has in recent days been in the sights of the Hezbollah and Amal parties in particular for insisting on subpoenaing top officials from those groups in his probe into last year's deadly port blast.
The deaths include a 24-year-old woman who was hit in the head by a stray bullet while inside her home, a doctor at the Sahel hospital in Beirut's southern suburbs told AFP. The Lebanese Red Cross said at least 30 people had been wounded.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/beirut-clashes-lebanon-deaths-at-protest-over-port-blast-investigation/
Alex Jones Flips On Trump, Decides Maybe 'He's A Dumbass'
Source: HuffPost
Far-right talk radio host and prolific conspiracy theorist Alex Jones turned on Donald Trump after the former president said he’d been vaccinated against COVID-19 and encouraged his supporters to do the same.
At a rally Saturday night in Cullman, Alabama, Trump was booed after telling followers the vaccine works. “I believe totally in your freedoms, I do. You got to do what you have to do. But I recommend — take the vaccines. I did it. It’s good,” he said.
During his InfoWars programming Sunday, Jones raved about the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine and how he’s certain it will create “mutants.” He declared that Trump was following orders from “the left” to “go out and push” the vaccine.
“CNN snaps their fingers. [CNN President] Jeff Zucker snaps his fingers, and Trump clicks his heels and hops up there at attention and says, “How high do you want me to jump, boss?” Jones said.
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alex-jones-donald-trump-covid_n_61243726e4b07fee0cb09433
This is getting interesting. Trump's money-making scheme has infringed on Jones' money making scheme, and Jones is fighting back. Looks like the right wing grifters are getting too greedy to share the pie, and they are begiinning to fight over it.
Promises to be a hell of a food fight.
Hezbollah Warns Israel, U.S. as Iranian Fuel Sails for Lebanon
Source: Bloomberg
Militant group Hezbollah appeared to warn Israel and the U.S. against intercepting an Iranian ship carrying fuel for Lebanon as the country reels from a crippling power crisis.
The vessel would sail “in hours,” the Iran-backed group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah was cited as saying by Al Jazeera Thursday. “I tell the Americans and the Israelis that as soon as the ship sails, it becomes Lebanese territory.” More such ships would follow, he said.
Iranian and Israeli-operated ships have in recent months been targeted in regional waters in unclaimed attacks widely believed to be tit-for-tat actions by the Middle Eastern rivals. Iran’s oil exports are under U.S. sanctions.
The Shiite Hezbollah movement also plays a powerful role in Lebanon’s politics. One of its rivals, former premier Saad Hariri, criticized Nasrallah’s intervention for endangering the country. “Considering the Iranian ships as Lebanese territory is the height of compromising of our national sovereignty, and an call to treat Lebanon as if it were an Iranian province,” he tweeted. “We will not, under any circumstances, be a cover for projects to drown Lebanon into futile wars hostile to the Arabs and the world.”
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-19/hezbollah-warns-israel-u-s-as-iranian-fuel-sails-for-lebanon
Iranian Refugee Saeid Mollaei Thanks Israel After Silver Medal Win
Mollaei left Iran in 2019 after exposing that authorities ordered him to throw a match in order to avoid facing an Israeli opponent.
https://www.thewrap.com/iranian-refugee-saeid-mollaei-thanks-israel-after-silver-medal-win/
Excerpt:
The whole situation eventually came to light as the Judoka began talking about it, despite threats to his safety. This led to the International Judo Federation banning Iran from any future competitions in the World Championships.
Mollaei refused to forfeit the match and was then pushed out of Iran. He competed briefly as a German under a two-year visa, then accepted an offer of citizenship from Mongolian President Khaltmaagiin Battulga in 2019.
Hmmm... I am beginning to suspect that the recent wave of wrestlers from muslim countries refusing to face Israeli wrestlers have less to do with their devotion to the Palestinian cause and more to do with threats of retaliation coming from their respective "authorities".
New Israeli government and Palestinian Authority reach deal on COVID vaccines
Source: Axios
The new Israeli government agreed on Friday to transfer 1.2 million doses of Pfizer COVID vaccines to the Palestinian Authority. In return, Israel will receive the Pfizer vaccine shipment that the Palestinians were expected to get in October.
Why it matters: It's the first major decision by the new Israeli government on the Palestinian issue. Negotiations on the deal began during Netanyahu’s term but were expedited by the new government, Israeli health officials say.
Driving the news: The vaccines Israel will transfer to the Palestinian Authority are doses that will expire soon, and which Israel doesn’t need anymore because the majority of the population has already been vaccinated.
Israeli officials say this will allow the Palestinians to get the vaccines they urgently need three months ahead of time. Israel will get the shipment the Palestinians ordered from Pfizer that was supposed to arrive in the West Bank in October. As part of the agreement, the vaccines will be transferred to the Palestinian Authority, who will distribute them in the West Bank. No vaccines will be transferred to Hamas-controlled Gaza at the moment. A first shipment of more than 100,000 doses will be transferred to the Palestinian Authority on Friday, and the rest next week.
Read more: https://www.axios.com/israel-palestinian-authority-covid-vaccines-34565ee9-36ea-4b9e-ab52-6e98f90447d8.html
Blinken Says U.S. Will Aid Gaza Without Helping Hamas
Source: Huffpost
JERUSALEM (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed Tuesday to “rally international support” to aid Gaza following a devastating war there while keeping any assistance out of the hands of its militant Hamas rulers, as he began a regional tour to shore up last week’s cease-fire.
The 11-day war between Israel and Hamas killed more than 250 people, mostly Palestinians, and caused widespread destruction in the impoverished coastal territory. The truce that came into effect Friday has so far held, but it did not address any of the underlying issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something Blinken acknowledged after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We know that to prevent a return to violence, we have to use the space created to address a larger set of underlying issues and challenges. And that begins with tackling the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza and starting to rebuild,” he said.
“The United States will work to rally international support around that effort while also making our own significant contributions.” He added that the U.S. would work with its partners “to ensure that Hamas does not benefit from the reconstruction assistance.” Blinken will not be meeting with Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and which Israel and the U.S. consider a terrorist organization.
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/blinken-us-aid-gaza-without-helping-hamas_n_60acd8f3e4b09604b5272aa5
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