The Vicious Babushka

The Enemy Within: Excessive Navel Gazing

 
The results of "Breaking the Silence"

Soldiers say received orders to shoot first, worry later in Gaza war

Breaking the Silence activist group presents report of testimonies from Gaza offensive in which soldiers say destruction, civilian casualties were direct result of IDF policy. Army: Testimonies are general, anonymous, and unreliable

A number of IDF soldiers who took part in Israel's recent Gaza offensive say they were urged by commanders to shoot first and worry later about sorting out civilians from combatants. Accordingly, they say, the force went into Gaza with guns blazing.
 
In print and video testimony published on Wednesday by the activist group Breaking the Silence, the 30 soldiers say the army's imperative was to minimize its own casualties to ensure Israeli public support for the operation.

"Better hit an innocent than hesitate to target an enemy," is a typical description by one unidentified soldier of his understanding of instructions repeated at pre-invasion briefings and during the 22-day operation, from Dec. 27 to Jan. 18.
 
"If you're not sure, kill. Fire power was insane. We went in and the booms were just mad," says another. "The minute we got to our starting line, we simply began to fire at suspect places. In urban warfare, anyone is your enemy. No innocents."
 
The 112-page report by Breaking the Silence includes testimonies of 30 soldiers "who served in all sectors of the operation".

Read more of this fifth-column enemy propaganda at (where else?) YNet.

We are at freaking war!

Just imagine if Germans went whining to "human rights groups" during World War 2. There would be no Jews left on earth, and everyone else would be speaking German or Japanese.

More Sheet Happens: KKK Loser's Girlfriend is Carrying his Jewish Baby

KKK man's Israeli girlfriend gave him up

New details emerged on Tuesday on the remarkable fugitive life led by a US white supremacist who chose Israel as a refuge from American law enforcement efforts to hunt him down, including startling revelations on the suspect's relationship with a Jewish Israeli woman, whom he reportedly impregnated while staying in the country.

Micky Louis Mayon, 33, one of America's 100 most wanted criminals and a member of the Ku Klux Klan, arrived in Israel on a tourist visa in January 2008, and became an illegal migrant after overstaying his visa, a source from the National Immigration Authority's Oz unit told The Jerusalem Post. Though he entered using his own passport, it was unclear whether his entry into the country was a result of a miscommunication between US and Israeli authorities.

With the help of an Israeli friend, Mayon took up odd jobs to survive in Tel Aviv, such as washing dishes, while also receiving money from his parents, who knew of his whereabouts, the source said.

Around four months ago, Mayon entered into a romantic relationship with a Jewish Israeli woman, who became pregnant one month ago. Mayon did not tell his partner about the fact that he was a wanted KKK member back in the US.

But after learning that his girlfriend was pregnant, Mayon decided it was time to reveal his dark past to her, and she reportedly reacted with shock, and went on to tip off the authorities to Mayon's location.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

Oh Behave! Bubbie Finds Porno on Library Video

 

A Brooklyn grandma got more than she'd bargained for when she rented a copy of "Austin Powers" from her local library and found it spliced with long pornographic scenes.

Esther Klein got the tape from the Borough Park branch for her three grandkids, ages 7 to 15. The X-rated footage appeared as the credits rolled at the end.

Klein contacted her assemblyman, Dov Hikind -- and he's now demanding that local libraries ban all VHS tapes.

"This is unbelievable," Hikind fumed. "The bottom line is that the local library can be unsafe for young children. It's pretty sick stuff."

The Brooklyn Public Library said it had the problem under control and would remove the tape.

But Hikind said that showed "unbelievable chutzpah," and added that therapists have warned that children can suffer lasting psychological damage from exposure to pornography.

NY Post

Babushka has to ask, what was Bubbie thinking, that "Austin Powers" would be appropriate entertainment for a 7-year-old? My grandkids have been ruined from watching "Shrek."

Obama Orders U.S. Jews to Bow Down to him, and They Bow Down!

 

At White House, U.S. Jews offer little resistance to Obama policy on settlements

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Top Jewish organizational leaders expressed support for President Obama's Middle East peace strategies at a White House meeting but said the president must do a better job of showing he expects hard work from all sides, not just Israel.

Obama’s meeting Monday afternoon with 16 Jewish leaders from 14 groups comes after weeks of tense exchanges between the Obama administration and Israel’s government over freezing Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank, prompting expressions of "concern" from some U.S. Jewish organizational leaders.

"The view was expressed among the organizations at a minimum there was concern about an imbalance in pressures placed on Israel as opposed to on the Palestinians and Arab states," Alan Solow, the chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told JTA. "The president indicated he had a sensitivity to the perception of that imbalance and had to work harder to correct that perception."

One participant quoted the president as saying that "there’s not a lot of courage among the Arab states; not a lot of leadership among the Palestinians."

The consensus was that on substance, Obama had the support of the room when it came to his peacemaking strategies -- or, at least, he did not face opposition.

The meeting comes as Obama faces sharp criticism from Jewish conservatives in the media who claim the president is bent on scaling back U.S. support for Israel. In particular, critics have cited the Obama administration’s repeated calls for an Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank.

At least two of the leaders of centrist organizations who attended the White House meeting -- Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League and Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations -- have said they are increasingly hearing from people who are worried about Obama’s intentions, including some who voted for him.

Liberal groups are rejecting such claims, saying that the president and his approach to advancing Israeli-Palestinian talks enjoy the support of most American Jews.

The two representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, president David Victor and president-elect Lee Rosenberg, asked non-confrontational questions about Saudi Arabia and Iran, respectively, and did not press the settlements issue.

Rosenberg and Solow, who are both from the Chicago area, were major fund-raisers for Obama's presidential run.

Some of Obama's most ardent critics -- including the Zionist Organization of America and the National Council of Young Israel -- were among the notable absences from the list of those invited to the White House. [Agudath Israel and Chabad-Lubavitch were also excluded--VB]

Read more at JTA.

If Agudah, Young Israel, ZOA and Chabad had shown up, they would have refused to bow, and then Obama would have ordered them thrown into the fiery furnace that he had prepared for them.

Gaza Used Bride Blowout Sale

 
Gaza mass wedding from July 31, 2008. At first we believed that these little girls might be the brides, since there are no other females in sight. But they may be the children of the "used brides" that are being offered for bargain prices.

Gaza: Marry a Terror Widow, Get Cash

(IsraelNN.com) Hamas held a ceremony over the weekend in which 100 widows of Hamas terrorists were remarried. The women were widowed during Operation Cast Lead earlier this year, when IDF troops battled Hamas in Gaza for three weeks in response to years of terrorist rocket attacks on Israel's south.

In order to round up grooms, Hamas offered each man willing to wed a widow $2,800. Most of the brides married members of their husband's family, particularly brothers-in-law. Only 20 married someone not related to their deceased husbands.

Many of the widows have children. The children attended the ceremony dressed in white dresses or black suits, while the widows, adhering to a strict Islamic dress code, wore black veils, floor-length shapeless dresses and gloves.

Many of the grooms are already married, but are taking on a second or third wife, as is common in Gaza. “I believe I'm the one who should take care of my brother's wife and their children,” one told the Qatar-based Gulf Times in explanation of his actions.

Hamas has held several mass weddings in Gaza in recent weeks, and is planning more in the near future. Prior to the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza and the subsequent Hamas-Fatah dispute, the terrorist group arranged several mass weddings in Judea and Samaria as well, including events at which several hundred couples were wed.

The weddings allow Muslim couples to marry without facing the normally prohibitive costs of arranging a wedding, while gaining popularity and political support for Hamas. The families of engaged Arab couples in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are expected to pay for elaborate weddings that are beyond the means of many.

Hamas weddings are much cheaper than traditional weddings. Instead of paying for a gown and stylist, brides appear in black robes, headscarves, and Hamas banners. In some mass weddings the brides have not been seen at all, and young girls in white dresses play the part of bride during the event.

Read more at Israel National News

Sheet Happens: KKK Honcho Arrested in Tel Aviv

 

Man wanted by FBI arrested in Tel Aviv

Micky Louis Mayon wanted in US for belonging to KKK, torching cars belonging to federal judges; Interpol says he's been residing in Israel illegally since 2008

US national Micky Louis Mayon, one of the FBI's 100 most wanted criminals, was apprehended in an apartment in Tel Aviv's Florentine neighborhood Sunday by a newly-created task force dealing with illegal immigration.

Mayon, 33, is wanted in the US for several federal crimes, including membership in the Ku Klux Klan, the burning of vehicles belonging to federal judges and several charges of severe violence.

According to intelligence information relayed by Interpol, Mayon has been residing in Israel illegally since entering the country in 2008 and has changed his location every couple of days since his arrival.

Read more at YNet

This gets tagged as an Epic Fail and Doofus of the Day!

Judges Refuse to Declare Jerusalem a Part of Israel

 
Babushka's son's Jerusalem birth certificate

(CN) - The D.C. Circuit refused to take sides in the contentious debate over whether Jerusalem is a part of Israel, denying a request to record Israel as the official birthplace of a U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem.

Ari and Naomi Siegman Zivotofsky asked the court to direct the secretary of state to recognize Israel as their son's birthplace.

But the federal appeals court refused to take a stance where the United States did not.

"That the United States expresses no official view on the thorny issue of whether Jerusalem is part of Israel has been a central and calibrated feature of every president's foreign policy since Harry S. Truman," Judge Griffith wrote.

"Because the judiciary has no authority to order the Executive Branch to change the nation's foreign policy in this matter, this case is unquestionably under the political question doctrine."

The doctrine protects the judiciary from political entanglements by allowing courts to decline cases which are deemed best left to the "political" branches of government.

Courthouse News

Evil Zionist Sex Gum

 

Hamas: Israel distributes libido-increasing gum in Gaza

Islamist group claims Israeli intelligence operatives transfer merchandise to Gaza dealers that increases sex drive, even encourage them to distribute them free of charge in order 'to destroy' young generation. Affair exposed after young girl chews gum, complains of bizarre side effects

Is Israel targeting the Palestinian population in Gaza by distributing libido-increasing chewing gum in the Strip? A Hamas police spokesman in the Gaza Strip Islam Shahwan claimed Monday that Israeli intelligence operatives are attempting to "destroy" the young generation by distributing such materials in the coastal enclave.

Shahwan said that the police got their hands on gum that increases sexual desire that, according to him, reaches merchants in the Strip by way of the border crossings. According to him, a Palestinian drug dealer admitted that he sold products that increase sex drive. The dealer said that he received the materials from Israeli sources by way of the Karni crossing.

A number of suspects have been arrested.

The affair was exposed when a Palestinian filed a complaint that his daughter chewed the aforementioned gum and experienced the dubious side effects.

Shahwan even claimed that Israeli intelligence operatives encourage dealers in Gaza to distribute the gum for free.

"The Israelis seek to destroy the Palestinians' social infrastructure with these products and to hurt the young generation by distributing drugs and sex stimulants," said Shahwan.

Read more at YNet

More PETA Shenanigans: Topless Mermaids Protest Sea Kitten Toss

PETA claims that throwing around a dead sea kitteh is the same as throwing around a dead kitten or a dead puppy. And PETA has plenty of experience throwing around dead kittens and puppies.

Shards of Stories, Blank Spaces at Israel Spy Memorial

 

GLILOT JUNCTION, Israel – Near a multiplex cinema and a nondescript highway junction outside Tel Aviv is the place where Israel's secrets go when they get old.

The names and stories are carved into limestone walls and arranged in binders at a sleepy clump of buildings known by a misleadingly dull name — the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center. They offer a unique, if fragmentary, glimpse into the exploits of the Mossad agents and intelligence operatives who have waged this country's shadow wars.

Here, on a memorial wall, you can encounter names like Shalom Dani, a Holocaust survivor who became the Mossad's master forger. Dani honed his skills under cover in North Africa, taking part in the Mossad's effort to spirit thousands of Moroccan Jews to Israel before being dispatched to Argentina in 1960. There, he counterfeited the documents that allowed a team of agents to smuggle Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Nazi genocide, to his trial and eventual hanging in Israel.

Nearby, in a room dedicated to people who died of old age after long intelligence careers, there is a page in a binder describing Rachel Spinner, the Mossad's longtime cook. When Jordan's King Hussein came to hold top-secret meetings with Israeli leaders four decades ago, when the two countries were still officially at war, it was Spinner who made supper.

Once Israel's most closely guarded information, whatever appears here has aged and been deemed no longer worth keeping secret.

The center was created as a memorial to the dead of Israel's intelligence community — the Mossad, which operates abroad, the Shin Bet, the internal security agency concerned largely with the Palestinians under Israeli military occupation, and military intelligence. The only official window into this murky world, the center exists on the line between what is secret and what is not, its content carefully vetted by a committee before being approved for public consumption.

Often more is hidden than revealed: The shards of information here — the names of dead agents, the dates of their death, short biographies — seem to be only the tips of stories still submerged in secrecy.

Read more at Associated Press

Telethon for Gaza Hospital A Scam

 
Al Ahli Hospital, undamaged by Gaza war

ATHENS (JTA) -- A campaign in Greece to raise money to rebuild a Chrisian Palestinian hospital in Gaza allegedly destroyed by Israel appears to be a scam, JTA has learned.

The hospital that was the focus of a campaign, which included the participation of Greece’s president and foreign minister, never actually existed.

For nearly a week in February, Greece’s official state television network inundated viewers with news about a telethon that would take place Feb. 9 to raise money to “rebuild the Christian hospital in Gaza that Israelis destroyed with their bombs” during the Israeli army's operation there in January.

In its announcements, the network made clear that it was referring to a specific Christian hospital destroyed by Israel.

The telethon included recorded video messages by Greek President Carolos Papoulias and Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyianni, along with a parade of Greek politicians, singers, public personalities and trade unionists. Many used the telethon to cast broadsides at Israel.

The campaign raised $1.67 million, according to telethon organizers, who said little Greek children had gone so far as to break their piggy banks to offer $14 to Palestinians in need.

A JTA investigation revealed, however, that no Christian hospital was on the list assembled by the United Nations and the Red Crescent Society of structures in Gaza damaged and destroyed as a consequence of the Israel-Hamas war in January.

JTA spoke to two Palestinians living in Gaza who are active in or former members of nongovernmental organizations there, both of whom looked into the issue independently. Both reported that the only Christian hospital in Gaza, Al Ahli, was used during the war and did not receive a scratch. Al Ahli is financed by the Church of England.

Outside the city there is also small medical center supported in part by the Near East Council of Churches that was destroyed during the war.

One of the Palestinians demanded to know where the money from the Greek telethon went.

Read more at JTA

Demjanjuk Charged in 27,900 Counts of Murder

 

MUNICH – German prosecutors formally charged John Demjanjuk on Monday with 27,900 counts of being an accessory to murder at a Nazi death camp during World War II.

The charges against the 89-year-old retired auto worker, who was deported from the U.S. in May, were filed at a Munich state court, prosecutors in the city said in a brief statement.

Doctors cleared the way for formal charges earlier this month, determining that Demjanjuk (dem-YAHN'-yuk) was fit to stand trial so long as court hearings do not exceed two 90-minute sessions per day.

The court must now decide whether to accept the charges — usually a formality — and set a date for the trial. Court spokeswoman Margarete Noetzel said the trial was unlikely to start before the autumn.

Demjanjuk lawyer Guenther Maull had no immediate comment on the charges, saying he had not yet seen them.

Charges of accessory to murder carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison in Germany.

Prosecutors accuse Demjanjuk of serving as a guard at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943.

Demjanjuk, a native of Ukraine, says he was a Red Army soldier who spent the war as a prisoner of war and never hurt anyone.

But Nazi-era documents obtained by U.S. justice authorities and shared with German prosecutors include a photo ID identifying Demjanjuk as a guard at the Sobibor death camp and saying he was trained at an SS facility for Nazi guards at Trawniki, also in Nazi-occupied Poland. U.S. and German experts have declared the ID genuine.

Demjanjuk gained U.S. citizenship in 1958. The U.S. Justice Department moved to revoke the citizenship in 1977, alleging he hid his past as a Nazi death camp guard, and it was revoked in 1981.

Read more at Associated Press

 

Israeli Cell Phone Ad "Causes Palestinian Suffering"

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A television advert for an Israeli cellphone firm showing soldiers playing football over the West Bank barrier has sparked cries of bad taste and prompted Arab lawmakers on Sunday to demand it be taken off air.

The jaunty commercial for Israel's biggest mobile phone company Cellcom makes light of Palestinian suffering and shows how far Israelis fail to understand their neighbours, critics said. The company stood by the ad, however.

It shows a ball falling on an Israeli army jeep from the far side of a towering wall. A game ensues, back and forth with the unseen Palestinians after a soldier dials up "reinforcements," including two smiling women in uniform, to come and play.

The advertisement made by McCann Erickson, part of U.S. Interpublic Group, ends with the upbeat voiceover: "After all, what are we all after? Just a little fun."

Since the ad went out last week -- as Palestinians marked the fifth anniversary of a World Court ruling that Israel's walls and fences in the West Bank were illegal -- some Israelis have taken to blogs and social networking sites to voice dismay.

"Aside from being a great contender for the 'creepiest ads of all time', this one-minute ad says a lot about how mainstream Israel likes to see itself and the Palestinians," journalist Dimi Reider wrote in a blog which concluded most of his fellow Israelis did not understand Palestinians' rage at the barrier.

Ahmed Tibi, an Arab member of Israel's parliament, said he had written to Cellcom demanding it pull the ad: "The barrier separates families and prevents children from reaching schools and clinics," he told Reuters. "Yet the advertisement presents the barrier as though it were just a garden fence in Tel Aviv."

"RACIST COMMERCIAL"

Few Palestinians watch the Israeli stations where the advert aired but there was outrage among liberal Israelis on the Web.

A Hebrew-language Facebook group called "I too got nauseous watching the new Cellcom ad" had signed up 218 members. They demanded "take this racist commercial off the air immediately."

Israeli blogger Ami Kaufman told Reuters: "We see Israeli soldiers playing with ... the people that they are incarcerating behind the wall. But the most grotesque, most disturbing part of this ad is the fact that the Palestinians basically aren't seen ... They're like monsters or aliens ... This is the alienation that Israeli society feels towards the Palestinian people."

Read more at Reuters.

Somebody call the waaaaahmbulance!

Hamas Uses Drug-Addicted, Illiterate Children in Smuggling Tunnels

 

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AFP) — Anwar, 15, can't read or write, but says he's good at tunnel work. He needs a new job as Israeli planes bombed his workplace, one of hundreds of smuggling tunnels on Gaza's border with Egypt.

His rough voice and tough looks belie his young age, but his small, wiry body is what makes him a perfect candidate for the job.

And, like thousands of other children in the impoverished and war-shattered Gaza Strip, his family badly needs the money. The job is comparatively lucrative, with children getting up to 30 dollars for a 12-hour shift.

"I have six brothers. I'm the breadwinner for the family," says Anwar.

He says he doesn't mind not getting an education.

"School is useless."

Asked about the Israeli offensive that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and devastated Gaza, Anwar shrugs. "The worst thing about the war is that I spent all my savings from working the tunnels."

Warplanes heavily bombed the Rafah border area during the 22-day war that ended on January 18, and again on several occasions since, targeting the tunnels that defy Israel's crippling blockade of the overcrowded coastal strip.

"We bring in anything you can imagine. Food, shoes, toys, refrigerators, ovens. Even cars -- they take them apart, cut them in half and put them together again in Gaza," says Anwar.

Israel says Hamas, Gaza's Islamist rulers, also uses tunnels to bring in the rockets and mortars they fire at Israel.

Anwar insists the tunnel in which he worked brought in only commercial goods. "Never weapons, the government has special tunnels for that."

He says he doesn't worry about the Israeli air strikes. "The Jews are our enemy. I'm not scared of them."

Tunnel operators say Egypt too is increasingly cracking down on the underground smuggling, pumping sewage or gas, or throwing explosives into the tunnels.

Read more at AFP.

h/t Kilgore Trout

Bibi to Palestinians: No "Right of Return" to Israel

 

PM to Palestinians: Abandon right of return

During State ceremony marking 105 years since Herzl's death, Netanyahu says Palestinians' must 'recognize Jewish nation's right to its own state, relinquish desire to gradually eat away at Israel'; Peres: Zionist reality outdid the dream

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Palestinians to relinquish the right of return demand as a prerequisite to a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel.

Speaking Sunday evening at a State ceremony marking the 105th anniversary of the death of Theodore Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism, Netanyahu said "They (Palestinians) must abandon their demand to settle the descendents of Palestinian refugees in Israel and gradually 'eat away' at the State of Israel after a peace agreement is signed."

The prime minister continued to say, "I long for the day when Palestinian leaders will tell their people 'we have had enough of the conflict. We the Palestinians recognize the Jewish nation's right to its own state in this country. We will live beside you in peace'."

Read more at YNet.

Abbas: PA Demands Complete Settlement Freeze, Right of Return, and Ponies for All Palestinian Children

 

Abbas: No peace talks before settlements' freeze

In response to Netanyahu's call for meeting in Beersheba, Palestinian leader says during joint press conference with Romanian counterpart, 'PA cannot negotiate unless all Jewish West Bank construction halted'

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that the Palestinian Authority cannot negotiate with Israel unless it halts all settlement expansions.

Abbas, who was responding to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call for the immediate resumption of the peace talks, added that the US and the European Union were making considerable efforts to resume the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Abbas, who made the comments during a joint press conference in Ramallah with his Romanian counterpart Traian Basescu, also called on Israel to endorse the two-states for two peoples paradigm and halt all settlement construction ahead of negotiations on a permanent agreement.

According to the PA leader such an agreement would include resolving issues related to Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, water, borders, security and prisoners. Abbas further demanded that Israel live up to its obligations as specified by the US-backed Road Map for peace.

Read more at YNet

IDF Uses New "Skunk Bomb" Against Rioters

 

The IDF stepped up efforts to quell violent anti-security barrier demonstrations in the West Bank over the weekend, using, for the first time in six months, the "skunk bomb."

The skunk bomb is a foul-smelling liquid which is sprayed on the rioters.

"The smell is so strong that people flee immediately," explained an IDF source, noting that the demonstration on Friday was dispersed within minutes of firing the bomb into the crowd.

On Friday, IDF and Border Police forces used the spray against nearly 100 Palestinian, Israeli and foreign demonstrators near the village of Bil'in, east of Modi'in Illit. They were protesting against the construction of the security barrier nearby. The skunk bomb was last used in January.

Some 300 people participated in another demonstration at Na'alin on Friday, causing serious damage to the barrier and throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at security personnel.

A top officer in the Central Command said on Friday that Col. Aviv Reshef, commander of the Binyamin Brigade, recently met with Palestinian leaders from Bil'in and Na'alin and urged them to restrain the rioters.

Read more at JPost

Doofii of the Day: UK Racists Seek Asylum, Get Jail

The neo-Nazi 'asylum seekers'

They looked like a pair of cranks straight out of a Louis Theroux documentary.

One was an unrepentant woman hater whose racist and anti-Semitic views were too hard-line even for the British National Party.

The other, his long-haired sidekick, sought the protection of a pseudonym that he used to make extremist rants.

Their hunger to stir up controversy saw them flee from justice in the north of England and stage an unlikely claim for political asylum in Los Angeles.

But their journey has now ended with jail sentences in the UK.

Jurors at Leeds Crown Court decided neo-Nazis Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle were not just harmless oddballs, but dangerous propagandists dedicated to whipping up racism.

On Friday, Sheppard was jailed for four years, 10 months and Whittle for two years, four months.

In a landmark case, they have become the first Britons to be convicted of inciting racial hatred via a foreign website, having printed leaflets and controlled websites in the US featuring racist material.

'Obnoxious and abhorrent'

The court heard the investigation into the pair began when a complaint about an anti-Semitic comic book called Tales of the Holohoax was made to the police in 2004 after it was pushed through the door of a synagogue in Blackpool, Lancashire.

It was traced back to a post office box in Hull registered to Sheppard, 51, a former BNP organiser kicked out of the far-right party after he was jailed in 2000 for distributing a racially inflammatory election leaflet.

The spotlight fell on the publishing activities of Sheppard, of Selby, North Yorkshire, a self-styled "scientific publisher", whose online ramblings took in a hatred of women and a morbid fixation with cannibalism.

Read more at BBC

French Court Convicts Islamic Gangbangers in Anti-Semitic Murder

 

PARIS – A Paris court on Friday convicted a gang leader for the 2006 kidnapping, torture and murder of a young French Jew and sentenced him to life in prison — a verdict that drew a thumbs-up sign from the head of the self-styled "gang of barbarians."

Twenty-four others, including eight women, also were found guilty in the kidnapping, torture and murder of Ilan Halimi, who was 23 years old.

Halimi, held captive for more than three weeks, was found naked, handcuffed and covered with burn marks near railroad tracks in the Essonne region south of Paris on Feb. 13, 2006. He died on the way to the hospital. The horrific death revived worries in France about lingering anti-Semitism, considered an aggravating circumstance in this case, and led to deep anxiety in France's Jewish community, the largest in western Europe.

Youssouf Fofana, 28, pretended to applaud, then grinned at the packed courtroom and stuck his thumbs up when the verdict was read. He must spend a minimum of 22 years behind bars before parole can be considered.

Fofana, who describes himself as a hardline "Salafist" Islamist, came into the court room wearing a shirt depicting the map of Africa.

Defendants were convicted on a variety of charges, including kidnapping by an organized group, sequestration that resulted in death or failing to assist a person in danger.

Read more at Associated Press

Fatah Peace Partners Declare: "Our Goal Has Never Been Peace"