The more he gets convicted for his crimes, the funnier this gets

America invaded half the globe for the sake of freedom

”Hey, we’re genocidal war criminals too!”

Not the amazing counter-argument this man thinks it is.

The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.

Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.

That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.

The prosecutor’s decision to apply to the ICC’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, alongside three Hamas leaders, is an outcome Israel’s military and political establishment has long feared.

Cohen’s personal involvement in the operation against the ICC took place when he was the director of the Mossad. His activities were authorised at a high level and justified on the basis the court posed a threat of prosecutions against military personnel, according to a senior Israeli official.

Another Israeli source briefed on the operation against Bensouda said the Mossad’s objective was to compromise the prosecutor or enlist her as someone who would cooperate with Israel’s demands.

A third source familiar with the operation said Cohen was acting as Netanyahu’s “unofficial messenger”.

Cohen, who was one of Netanyahu’s closest allies at the time and is emerging as a political force in his own right in Israel, personally led the Mossad’s involvement in an almost decade-long campaign by the country to undermine the court.

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This is not necessarily a pro-Biden post or pro-Hamas post, but it IS import to note that, 1) Hamas is willing to negotiate, even from an American plan, and 2) Trump would never offer such a plan with terms that were remotely agreeable to Hamas, and 3) Israel insists on continuing its genocide. A prolonged war is collective punishment. A prolonged conflict helps Netanyahu, hurts, Biden and helps Trump

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday laid out what he described as a three-phase Israeli proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza in return for the release of Israeli hostages, saying “it's time for this war to end” and winning a positive initial reaction from Hamas.

The first phase involves a six-week ceasefire when Israeli forces would withdraw from “all populated areas” of Gaza, some hostages - including the elderly and women - would be freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Palestinian civilians could return to their homes in Gaza and 600 trucks a day would bring humanitarian aid into the devastated enclave.

In this phase, Hamas and Israel would negotiate a permanent ceasefire that Biden said would last “as long has Hamas lives up to its commitments.” If negotiations took more than six weeks, the temporary ceasefire would extend while they continued.

In the second phase, Biden said there would be an exchange for all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza and the permanent ceasefire would begin.

The third phase would include a major reconstruction plan for Gaza and the return of the “final remains” of hostages to their families.

“It's time for this war to end and for the day after to begin,” said Biden, who is under election-year pressure to stop the Gaza conflict, now in its eighth month.

Hamas, which Biden said received the proposal from Qatar, released a statement reacting positively.

Hamas said it was ready to engage “positively and in a constructive manner” with any proposal based on a permanent ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli forces, the reconstruction of Gaza, a return of those displaced, and a “genuine” prisoner swap deal if Israel “clearly announces commitment to such deal”.

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New York CNN — On online forums that have previously been linked to mass shootings, people are threatening violence and attempting to publicly identify the 12 New York jurors who on Thursday decided to convict former President Donald Trump.

The calls for retribution began immediately after the verdict was announced. Experts who track online extremism told CNN the volume of violent rhetoric in the last 24 hours is as high as it was after the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in August 2022.

“Hope these jurors face some street justice,” one anonymous user on a pro-Trump forum wrote. Another suggestively asked, “Wouldn’t [it] be interesting if just one person from Trump’s legal team anonymously leaked the names of the jurors?”

Anonymity is supposed to add a layer of protection for jurors doing their civic duty. Once reserved only for cases involving violent criminal enterprises, the practice is becoming more common. The judge in the Trump New York trial issued an order in March agreeing with prosecutors that most information about the jurors would be sealed. Trump’s lawyers did not disagree, according to the order.

Overnight, however, anonymous internet users on sites that are known havens of hate and harassment began sharing names, home addresses and other personal information belonging to people they say might have been members of the jury, a practice known as doxxing.

This form of amateur online sleuthing can lead to real-life security issues.

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This is how my morning begins every day. Obtaining water is one of the hardest things in Gaza. Every day at six in the morning, a truck comes to fill our water containers and then leaves, not returning until the next day. If you don't arrive early, you will be without water for the entire day. It becomes even more difficult when I need to shower. I plead with the truck driver to increase my share of water so that I have the chance to shower. Every night, I pray to God that I reach the spot early before the truck arrives. Sometimes, I can't make it on time, and I start thinking about how the day will go without water. Providing water for me and my siblings throughout the day has become a dream, whereas we once had much bigger dreams. Thank God, today I arrived early and managed to take this picture to show you our painful reality. My hope in you, after God, is to rescue us from this nightmare so that we can move to a place where we can start new dreams and have a beautiful life.💔🇵🇸

Why do people need subtitles to watch a show in English? I don't get it. What is wrong with the ears of young people?

When I was a kid, we moved into a house that had a huge lilac tree out front. It was mostly rotten, and it needed to be taken down before it fell. It took a while, but eventually, it was gone.

Mostly. A couple years later, little lilac babies popped out of the ground in its place. My mom was determined to get rid of them, because she'd planted a beautiful flower garden there, and the lilac trees would overshadow and kill the whole garden. I insisted on saving at least a few saplings. She said fine, but I had to dig them out and put them in pots myself.

So, I did. I spent days digging little lilac bushes out of the ground and putting them into pots. Some couldn't be saved, but some could. When all was said and done, I had five brand-new lilac saplings. Seven or eight years old, and it was my absolute pride and joy.

Three died due to sun scorching, severe drought that no amount of watering could save, and perhaps just being moved from their place in the ground. But two survived, and I was awfully proud of them! I'd go out and talk to them every single day. I watered them by hand and made sure they were fertilized properly. I learned all about their favored environments, and I was determined to make sure they lived.

One of my mom's friends saw what I was doing with the lilacs. She asked if she could have one to put in her backyard, and I agreed on the condition that she take very, very good care of it.

It's now fucking enormous. I'm talking ten feet tall and bursting with beautiful purple flowers every spring. My mom still gets updates each year as they start to bloom, which she forwards to me. And all I can think is, "That's my friend! Thriving some twenty years on, there it is."

The other tree nearly died, too. It lived in a pot for far, far too long. I wanted to plant it somewhere in my parents' yard, but my mom was reluctant. Eventually, we agreed to put it in the far back garden. It grew okay for many years, despite the shade, but in all these years, it's never bloomed.

Last year, the massive tree casting massive shadows over the lilac and the garden cracked in half and fell. It tumbled into the garden, crushing part of the nearby shed and destroying a few plants beneath it.

It missed my lilac by inches.

The clean-up is long done. The rest of the tree has been cut down, and my lilac has full sunlight for the first time in fifteen years. It won't bloom this year, I know. But it's got new shoots up. It's taller than ever. I spent half an hour a few weeks ago praising it for surviving all this time, dreaming about its future and telling it how I believe it'll become the tall beauty it's always been meant to be.

I think next year, I'll see flowers.

❤️🖤🤍💚 🇵🇸

Thursday May 30th, 2024

The verdict is in: The 45th occupant of the White House, Donald Trump, was found guilty on 34 felony counts.

🥂

A woman reaches under a block from the apartheid wall trying to hold the hand of her mother on the other side. Many families have become segregated after the Israeli occupation regime completed the construction of the wall which runs through Palestinian lands. This is just one of thousands of cases. 

On May 30, 1962, President John F. Kennedy advocated for a government-funded healthcare system that covers everyone, “from time you’re born, til the time you die.“ 

Raaginder • Summer Nights (Feat. Wisechild)