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This is the largest part of the real back story on John Kerry's feverish effort to negotiate a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine apartheid problem. The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions ("BDS") movement against Israel is growing rapidly, nearly doubling the rate of growth of the former BDS movement that successfully ended apartheid government of South Africa.   Israel has become a pariah state diplomatically because of its war crimes against Palestinians and because of BDS, is increasingly becoming a pariah state economically. At the same time, Israel has illegally colonized Palestine to the extent that a 2-state solution is all but impossible, meaning that the most likely outcome is that Israel will cease being the "Jewish State" and be forced to grant equality to Palestinians as well in a new secular government. The situation became all the more dire for Israel as the "Jewish State" when the U.N. General Assembly granted Palestine observer state status, opening the way for Palestine to, e.g., pursue criminal prosecution of Israeli leaders for war crimes before the International Criminal Court.  That has dramatically increased the Palestinian Authority's leverage in negotiations. Kerry is on a rescue mission to see if he can coerce the Palestinian Authority to cede sufficient land and powers to Israel to make a 2-state solution credible. Kerry's leverage is that the U.S. has been underwriting the Palestinian Authority's expenses and can threaten to withdraw the financial support.  All of which brings it down to the question of Palestinian Authority leadership corruption. If the PA stands tall and refuses to accept Kerry's ridiculous demands, there will almost certainly be no 2-state solution, ever, because Israel continues to colonize Palestine and has locked up most of Palestine's water resources. Further colonization means still less water for an "independent" Palestine state. The Palestine Authority, on the other hand, suffered f

Exhaustive article about how the Chinese are converting US DEBT into economic assets - converting US assets to Chinese owned assets. Instead of breaking our knees to collect on our debt, the Chinese are taking land. Exactly what the Japanese did back in the 1980's. Convert the dollars into hard assets; business's and land. And get the conversion done before the dollar collapses totally. Intro: "What in the world is China up to?  Over the past several years, the Chinese government and large Chinese corporations (which are often at least partially owned by the government) have been systematically buying up businesses, homes, farmland, real estate, infrastructure and natural resourcesall over America.  In some cases, China appears to be attempting to purchase entire communities in one fell swoop.  So why is this happening?  Is this some form of "economic colonization" that is taking place?  Some have speculated that China may be intending to establish "special economic zones" inside the United States modeled after the very successful Chinese city of Shenzhen.  Back in the 1970s, Shenzhen was just a very small fishing village, but now it is a sprawling metropolis of over 14 million people.  Initially, these "special economic zones" were only established within China, but now the Chinese government has been buying huge tracts of land in foreign countries such as Nigeria and establishing special economic zones in those nations.  So could such a thing actually happen in America?  Well, according to Dr. Jerome Corsi, a plan being pushed by the Chinese Central Bank would set up "development zones" in the United States that would allow China to "establish Chinese-owned businesses and bring in its citizens to the U.S. to work."  Under the plan, some of the $1.17 trillion that the U.S. owes China would be converted from debt to "equity".  As a result, "China would own U.S. businesses, U.S. infrastructure and U.S. high-value la

An act of desperation by the NYT editorial board. They wouldn't be taking this position if they had not learned that the U.S. is preparing a U.N. Security Council Resolution to deal with Israel's intransigience. Of course that would only be a "bureaucratic response," as the NYT puts it, if it is not a resolution under the U.N. Charter's Chapter 7, which authorizes military force to enforce the resolution. By rooting for a resolution that only makes a recommendation, the editorial board is retaining the ability to gripe about a Chapter 7 resolution. But this is also a heads-up from the editorial board directed to the Netanyahu government of Israel that staunch Israel backer NYT has also had it with Israeli colonization of Palestine's West Bank. It's a signal that the era of NYT being Israel's mouthpiece with the loudest voice may come to an end over the colonization issue. The problem for all of the above is that the 2-state solution is dead as a doornail, outpaced by Israeli created facts on the ground. The nation of Israel as we know it is expiring as we watch. A single democratic nation for all of Palestine with equal rights for all citizens, Arab and Jewish, Israel is the only practicable outcome.

Bear in mind that the "two state solution" is *only* an excuse for postponing the day of reckoning on Palestinian rights. The "solution" in its variations involves swapping territory between Israel and the State of Palestine. However, it ignores the fact that all Palestinians driven from their homes by the Zionist Jewish invaders in the 1948 era, and all Palestinians driven from their homes subsequent to Israel's occupation of the remainder of Palestine (and part of Syria) in 1967, all have a personal right of return to their homes under international law, a right that according to the Fourth Geneva Convention is not subject to negotiation by the occupying power and any government of the occupied territory. There is no lawful government power to extinguish that right. So when the Quartet calls for the "two state solution," keep in mind that it is only an excuse for continuing the occupation and Israel's colonization of Palestine. The Meretz is a minor party in Israel, combining Green-socialist-progressive traits with a Zionist agenda. See WIkipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meretz

A very high profile win for the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions ("BSD") movement as the Gates Foundation divests.  Despite the bravado in this article, G4S announced today that it will not renew any of its contracts to provide security services not only in Palestine but also in Israel. http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/g4s-end-israel-prison-contracts-pressure-mounts-over-torture-complicity After the Gates Foundation announced its divestment, the UK government announced that it was launching an investigation of G4S activities in Israel.  The BSD movement, modeled on the BSD campaign that brought down the apartheid government of South Africa, has been racking up more and more wins lately, in each week.  BSD activists are in guarded optimism mode because, they say, G4S has previously lied about its plans in regard to Palestine. In addition to providing prison security services, G4S also operates a series of border checkpoints between Israel, Israel settlements in Palestine, and areas of Palestine still occupied by indigenous Palestinians, including checkpoints along the border of the largest open air prison in the world, the Gaza Strip. The BSD movement has also targeted American companies that profit from Israel's illegal occupation and colonization of Palestine, including Caterpillar Corp. The ultra-high profile divestment by the Gates Foundation just might have been a watershed moment that unleashes a torrent of related actions by other investors around the world.   

This has implications not only for the Mavi Marmara Israeli act of piracy; the ICC judges are advertising that Israel's leaders will not get off scot-free when the court receives the case being prepared by the Prosecutor involving Israel's invasion of Gaza last year and its colonization of Palestine. An international warrrant for Bibi Netanyahu on war crime charges: what not to like in that? 

"Doug Casey: I don't see a real recovery until they stop debasing the currency, radically cut government spending and taxation and eliminate most regulation. In other words, cease doing the things that caused this depression. And that's not going to happen until there's a collapse of the current order. Things have cyclically improved since the height of the crisis of 2008-09. The trillions of currency units created by the Federal Reserve have jammed the stock market higher and kept the big banks from going under. What surprises me is that retail prices have not moved as significantly as I would have expected. The reason, I believe, is that most of that money is still sitting in financial institutions. It has gone into cash out of fear, into stocks because they represent real wealth with earning power and into various speculative assets like artwork and collectible cars. Real estate has recovered somewhat, not because of strong fundamentals but strictly because of money creation. This isn't going to last because the way you get wealthy is by producing more than you consume and saving the difference - not by consuming more than you produce, and borrowing the difference. With the Fed keeping interest rates at artificially low levels, hoping to increase consumption, they're making it very foolish to save - when you get ½% or 1% on your savings. So people are saving less and they're borrowing more than they otherwise would. This is a formula for making things worse, not better. They are, idiotically, doing exactly the opposite of what they should be. Although, I hasten to add, I hate to pontificate on what the Fed "should" do. In point of fact, the Fed should be abolished; the market, not bureaucrats, should determine interest rates. We wouldn't be in this pickle to start with if the government wasn't involved in the economy. In fact, if it wasn't for the state, I suspect we'd all have a vastly higher standard of living, and would be colonizing the Moon, Mars and

What's remarkable here is that Obama has apparently ratcheted down his fear of the Israel Lobby. But it's not as though Mr. Netanyahu was not warned that the world would see Israel as responsible if it blew up the Kerry-brokered negotiation between Israel and Palestine. Israel did blow it up by not delivering the last shipment of Palestinian prisoners required by the pre-negotiation agreement, attempting to gain further concessions using their release as leverage.  Palestine responded by joining a large number of U.N. treaty organizations and was thus recognized by most nations on the planet as a nation: a critically important move, because it is recognition by other nations as a nation that qualifies Palestine as a full-fledged U.N. member rather than an observer state, an application Palestine can now make at the time of its choosing. That is also important because Palestine is now positioned to join the Rome Convention that created the International Criminal Court, providing Palestine with legal standing to file war crime charges against high Israeli officials that would then obligate the Court to investigate. Palestine is holding back on that move, using it as bargaining leverage on the world stage.   Palestine also responded by forming a coalition "unity" government with Hamas, the political party that nominally rules the Gaza strip, the world's largest open-air concentration camp. At Israel's request, the U.S. had several years ago designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. But that was a purely political move. It seems that the political situation has changed. Obama is pivoting out of the Mideast as he performs his ballyhooed "pivot to Asia," which is actually a pivot to contain Russia that isn't working and a pivot to subjugate Africa and its huge store of untapped natural resources, including lots of oil. Blocking China's economic deals in Africa with military force seems to be the current top concern in the White House. Israel was already a pari

Benjamin Netanyahu is facing difficulties in the new Israeli election because of single-digit popularity ratings. But his Likud Party is still expected to be tapped post-election to form a new ruling coalition. Thus the world needs to worry about who is running against Netanyahu and the positions that person, Danny Danon, takes.  Here, Danon paints himself into the corner of annexing the entire West Bank as Israeli territory if the U.N. Security Council recognizes the Palestinian Authority as the "state of Palestine" in a vote expected on Monday. But he may find himself in a position where he has to face the impact of this statement.  The U.S. has been unusually elusive on whether it will exercise its veto power on the proposed Resolution, saying only that it "does not support" the Resolution, which is diplomaticspeak for "we may abstain from voting."   The Resolution, although presented by the PA, was actually drafted by the French. The EU Parliament just went on record as supporting Palestinian statehood. And there seems to be growing recognition among Israel's friends in the U.S. that the nation needs to be rescued from itself, before the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Movement does away with the Israeli state as part of its advocated single-state solution. BDS is approaching the strength of its predecessor organization that broke the back of the apartheid state of South Africa. I would not be surprised if the resolution passes with a U.S. abstention.  If that happens, watch for extreme fireworks in Israel and Palestine. The Israeli settlers in Palestine are violent, radical, and their interests in retaining their settlements rule Israeli politics. The last published draft of the resolution sets a 2017 deadline for conclusion of peace negotiations, borders along the pre-1967 borderline, a freeze on further Israeli colonization of the West Bank, retuirn of water rights, and recognition of an independent Palestine state government.   What Israel wants,

In the wake of Israel's retaliation against the Palestinian Authority by witholding taxes it collects on behalf of the PA, the government owned Israel  Electric Company will now turn off the PA's electricity for non-payment. Note carefully that the vast majority of the debt owed is not owed by the PA, but by the heavily Israeli-colonized East Jerusalem Electric District. 

The saga of bankster and vulture capitalist attempts to establish an international tribunal that could declare nations bankrupt and sell of their land holdings, using Argentina as the exemplary of such efforts. But did Argentina just out-maneuver them?

The report is dubious. Although the article states that the source is the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida, "The report" is linked to an article in Arutz Sheva, the voice of religious Zionist Israeli colonizers in Palestine. That article too states that the source is Al-Jarida. But a site search of Al-Jarida produces no such article. Coming the day before Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu addresses a joint sesion of Congress in an attempt to scuttle the negotiations with Iran over the Iranian Nukes Myth, the article seems designed to provoke anti-Obama and anti-Iran fervor in Congress and among Israel-Firsters in the U.S. It will be interesting to see how this meme plays out.   

More than 60 years overdue, but better late than never. We're not there yet, but apartheid Israel is definitely approaching the point where it must bow to the anti Palestinian Boycott, Sanctions, and DIvestment movement, just as the apartheid South African government had to. A boatload of European nations joining the BSD movement is a powerful message to the Izzies that the era of them occupying and colonizing Palestine is quickly approaching its end. 

Some conflicting reports on Palestine taking Israel to the International Criminal Court charging war crimes. The conflict may be because of the different times they were published This article published yesterday says that Abbas said last week that he would only do so if Hamas agrees and said he was awaiting a decision by Hamas. But the Haaretz live blog on Gaza says that "Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki says after meeting prosecutors at the International Criminal Court [today] that there was "clear evidence" that Israel committed war crimes in  Gaza." http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.608928 So it sounds like Palestine has initiated the process at the ICC and that Hamas leadership has decided to accept the risk that they will face war crime charges themselves. If so, that's a strong sign that some nation has agreed to bankroll the Palestine government if the U.S. ends its aid to Palestine. Most likely Qatar from what I've read. The U.N. Human Rights Council has already launched its own investigation of potential war crimes committed during Israel's latest invasion of Gaza. An article passed by me sometime during the last 48 hours that quoted the Chief Prosecutor at the ICC to the effect that she would act if Palestine filed charges but said that "the ball is in Palestine's court." The ICC has been widely criticized for its preference of convicting the leaders of African nations rather than of caucasian nations. Given that circumstance, the Court of 15 judges may welcome the Palestinian opportunity to prove that it is willing to convict leaders of a non-African nation. Certainly, Israel's occupation and colonization of Palestine since hostilities ceased in 1967 offers more than fertile ground for such a case. I have to admit that I enjoy my mental picture of Benjamin Netanyahu in chains standing in the Court's dock in The Hague. 

If Goldberg and Stephens have it right, a U.S./Israel divorce might just spell the end of the appartheid state of Israel. It is only the U.S. veto on the U.N. Security Council that has enabled Israel to continue to treat Palestinians with impunity and to retain control of and colonize the territory it seized in the 1967 war that it launched. (The right to acquire territory by conquest was abolished by the U.N. Charter and the Fourth Geneva Convention in the late 1940s.)  Israel is now a pariah state internationally, with only the U.S., Canada, and a few minor island nations dependent on the U.S. still voting for Israel even in the U.N. General Council. Moreover, the U.S. public is fed up with the foreign wars the U.S. has been waging in the Mideast in aid of Israel's empirical goal of destabilizing and Balkanizing Israel's Arab neighbors. A U.S./Israel divorce would almost certainly bring down Netanyahu's government. On the other hand, the Obama Administration's relationship with Israel has been a departure from the historical norm in the U.S. and Obama's likely successor, Hillary Clinton, has long been much more friendly with the Israel Lobby than Obama.  Many close observers believe that Netanyahu's strategy with Obama has been to wait until Obama is out of office, betting that his successor will be much more amenable to Bibi's desires. But with Bernie Sanders hat in the ring for Auction 2016 and possibly Elizabeth Warren as well, it's conceivable that issues they raise might push Hillary to adopt a less Israel-friendly stance. But on yet another hand, Obama's stance on ISIL is entirely consistent with Israel's longstanding goal of regime change in Syria and Balkanization of Iraq into three nations along ethnic/religious lines, an independent  Kurdistan in the north, a Shia-stan in the South, and a Sunni state in the middle. Note in this regard Obama's strategy of arming "moderate" Syrians only to defend territory ISIL has not yet seized, then to bring down t

The neocons are howling about former Reagan Secretary of State James Baker being one of Jeb Bush's advisors. Baker has never been forgiven by the neocons since he barred the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister -- Benjamin Netanyahu -- from being allowed into the State Dept. building because of his outrageous public statements. Now Baker is doubly hated because he is scheduled to be a keynote.  speaker at a conference of the liberal pro-Israel J Street lobbying group. J Street is "left-leaning" in neocon eyes because it actully supports a 2-state solution in Palestine, rather than using the 2-state solution as a political fig leaf while Israel completes its colonization of Palestine and then annexes it. But while screaming that only AIPAC represents Israel's real interests and acknowledging that Baker is closely tied to the Bush family, they're not addressing the political reality that Baker is the global oil industry's top lobbyist nor the fact that it was Baker who put the kibosh on the neocons' goal of privatizing all the oil in Iraq and flooding the market with cheap oil to break the OPEC Cartel. The western oil companies are profoundly against privately owned oil in the Mideast and even less enthused about breaking the OPEC Cartel, which normally keep crude oil prices high, enabling higher oil company profits. Apparently the oil industry also wants the 2-state solution to actually happen in order to obtain a more stable Middle East. And that is anathema to Netanyahu, AIPAC, and the neocons..   

It's a lawsuit that's decades overdue. Israel's colonization of Palestine is a war crime forbidden by the Nuremberg Principles and the Fourth Geneva Convention, and through the Constituion's Treaty Clause, stand on the same footing as federal statutes. Encouraging war crimes through tax exemption is not a sustainable position for U.S. government in litigation. On the other hand, we have three Zionist Jews on the Supreme Court, so who knows. But if that tax exemption is lost in the U.S., look for similar government decisions in Europe.  

Pepe Escobar, himself a Brazilian expatriate journailist, riffs on the Brazilian coup-gone-sour-by-discllosure-of-plans. If you have a browser extension to do translations, read the article linked from the "U.S. Department of Justice" text. It seems that the U.S. played a part in setting the coup in motion. Surprise, surprise. A very fun read.