UNRWA head says agency was in dark about Hamas center under Gaza HQ; Israel: ‘You knew'

 

Philippe Lazzarini says allegations should be probed, any other ‘suspicious’ activity reported to UN; COGAT says officials ignored information; Katz calls for agency chief’s ouster.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, denied Saturday any knowledge of a Hamas data center found by Israeli troops underneath its Gaza headquarters, with the Israeli military and Foreign Minister Israel Katz immediately casting doubt on his claim.

In a tweet shortly after the findings were published by The Times of Israel and other media outlets, Lazzarini said his organization, UNRWA, “did not know what is under its headquarters in Gaza.”

He said that the reports “merit an independent inquiry that is currently not possible to undertake given Gaza is an active war zone.”

He also said Israel has “not informed UNRWA officially about the alleged tunnel.”

The subterranean data center, seen by The Times of Israel’s military correspondent on Thursday during an Israel Defense Forces media tour, included an electricity room, industrial battery power banks, and living quarters for alleged Hamas terrorists operating the computer servers.

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The Red Cross and the Holocaust

 

One of the sorry backstories of World War II is found in what the Red Cross did — or, more precisely, failed to do — during the Holocaust. 

The pointed question was asked aloud by one survivor in May 1945 — “Where, above all, was the International Red Cross Committee?” — and now it is answered with authority and in compelling detail in “Humanitarians at War: The Red Cross in the Shadow of the Holocaust” by Gerald Steinacher (Oxford University Press).

Steinacher is the Hymen Rosenberg Professor of Judaic Studies at the Lincoln campus of the University of Nebraska. One of his previous books, “Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice,” was honored with a National Jewish Book Award by the Jewish Book Council in 2011.

In his new book, Steinacher reminds us that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as the Swiss-based organization was formally titled, deferred to the German Red Cross throughout the 1930s, when Hitler’s concentration camp system was first put into operation. Already “deeply Nazified,” the German Red Cross assured the ICRC that “the living standard in the camps [was] higher than most of the inmates were generally used [to].” Steinacher writes: “The German Red Cross had for all practical purposes … turned into a National Socialist medical service unit supporting Hitler’s Wehrmacht.”

Even after the outbreak of World War II, the ICRC did little or nothing to assist the victims of Nazi terror. Steinacher describes how the ICRC managed to send a few food parcels to Germany in 1943, including 882 packages that reached Dutch and Norwegian inmates, and 31 packages that reached Jewish inmates. But when the ICRC proposed to send food parcels to Auschwitz, the German Red Cross “claimed that the Jews were employed exclusively in labour camps in the East and that food and medication there [were] reportedly abundant,” Steinacher writes. In a message tainted with bitter irony, a representative of the German Red Cross wrote to the ICRC that “shipments of supplies to these camps were in principle not necessary.”

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Portugal — 2024 general election (Source: POLITICO)

 

Portugal goes to the polls on March 10 to elect a new parliament. Here’s the latest polling data from POLITICO Poll of Polls. What is Poll of Polls and how does it work? 

New GPAHE Report Profiles Far-Right Hate and Extremist Groups in Portugal; Includes Chega!

 

The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism today released a report profiling 13 far-right extremist groups in Portugal.

Most groups profiled spread the racist and anti-immigrant “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory; others push anti-LGBTQ+ hate 

The report, Far-Right Hate and Extremist Groups, Portugal (also available in Portuguese), details 13 hate and extremist groups — including the rising far-right political party Chega! — that GPAHE identifies as embracing beliefs and activities that demean, harass, or inspire violence against people based on their identity traits.

The majority of the groups profiled are anti-immigrant, white nationalist, or both. The four anti-LGBTQ+ groups are also anti-immigrant, showing the trend seen elsewhere around the globe of far-right groups expanding the targets of their hate and extremism efforts, and exploiting the public scare over drag and Pride events happening across the West. The report also identifies groups that are neo-Nazi, antisemitic, anti-women, and anti-Roma as well as conspiracist, some of which started in response to the health measures during COVID. See list of groups by ideology.

“The anti-immigrant and white nationalist fervor among far-right groups in Portugal is very troubling,” said Global Project Against Hate and Extremism co-founder Wendy Via. “Especially when political parties and hardcore groups are spreading the same hate.”

The political parties named in the report, including Chega!, Alternativa Democrática Nacional and Ergue-Te/Partido Nacional Renovador, are profiled in addition to dangerous well-known hate and extremist groups with an international presence including the white supremacist Proud Boys, the neo-Nazi skinhead group Hammerskins, and Identitarian groups.

June 26, 2023

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Portugal: grupos de ódio e extremistas de extrema-direita

 

Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (Strengthening a diverse global community committed to exposing and countering racism, bigotry, and hate)
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A extrema-direita portuguesa é cada vez mais dominada pelo partido de extrema-direita Chega, liderado pelo carismático líder populista André Ventura. Desde que elegeu o primeiro deputado em 2019, o partido tem trabalhado para envenenar o discurso nacional com uma retórica racista, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-imigração e anticigana.
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O Chega, que superficialmente se assemelha aos típicos partidos populistas de extrema-direita de toda a Europa, também é o vetor comum para movimentos mais extremos da extrema-direita portuguesa, incluindo nacionalistas, identitários, conspiracionistas, supremacistas brancos, nostálgicos de Salazar, nacionalistas cristãos e outros que apoiam o autoritarismo. O apoio de Chega entre a população portuguesa disparou desde 2019 e sondagens recentes colocam-no num terceiro lugar não muito distante (cerca de 13% dos votos em junho de 2023). Durante a maior parte da era pós-revolucionária, Portugal foi visto por muitos observadores como um caso excecional de um país sem um grande partido populista de extrema-direita, mas a rápida ascensão do Chega é um aviso de que nenhum país é verdadeiramente imune a forças demagógicas excludentes e que minúsculos partidos de extrema-direita podem expandir rapidamente a sua base de apoio.

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Portugal’s third political force among prominent ‘hate’ organisations 

CHEGA! A sceptre of the mainstream Portuguese parties’ disaggregation or a spectre of fascism?

'They say they’re not racist': How far-right extremism seeped into Portugal’s mainstream politics

The rise of the far-right Chega can cause political instability in Portugal

Wikipedia - The elephant in the room (or in the living room)

 

The expression “the elephant in the room” (or "the elephant in the living room")[2][3] is a metaphorical idiom in English for an important or enormous topic, question, or controversial issue that is obvious or that everyone knows about but no one mentions or wants to discuss because it makes at least some of them uncomfortable and is personally, socially, or politically embarrassing, controversial, inflammatory, or dangerous. 

The metaphorical elephant represents an obvious problem or difficult situation that people do not want to talk about. [1][4][5]
It is based on the idea/thought that something as conspicuous as an elephant can appear to be overlooked in codified social interactions and that the sociology/psychology of repression also operates on the macro scale. 

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The term refers to a question, problem, solution, or controversial issue which is obvious to everyone who knows about the situation, but which is deliberately ignored because to do otherwise would cause great embarrassment, sadness, or arguments, or is simply taboo. The idiom can imply a value judgment that the issue ought to be discussed openly, or it can simply be an acknowledgment that the issue is there and not going to go away by itself.
The term is often used to describe an issue that involves a social taboo or which generates disagreement, such as race, religion, politics, homosexuality, mental illness, or suicide. It is applicable when a subject is emotionally charged; and the people who might have spoken up decide that it is probably best avoided.[13]

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The idiom is commonly used in addiction recovery terminology to describe the reluctance of friends and family of an addicted person to discuss the person's problem, thus aiding the person's denial. Especially in reference to alcohol abuse, the idiom is sometimes coupled with that of the pink elephant, "the pink elephant in the room."[citation needed]
The expression has also been used as a metaphorical idiom in Spanish. In 1994, the 8000 Process was a legal investigation of a Colombian presidential campaign. There were accusations that the campaign of Colombian Liberal Party candidate Ernesto Samper was partially funded with drug money from the Cali Cartel. Insisting on his innocence, Samper stated that if drug money had entered the presidential campaign, it had done so "behind his back". 

Cardinal Pedro Rubiano, a leader of Colombia's Catholic Church, stated in an interview that not knowing that drug money financed part of the presidential campaign was similar to not noticing "an elephant entering one's living room".[14][15] Since then, the events that led to drug money financing the "Samper for President" campaign have been referred to as "The Elephant."
The title of Alan Clarke's 1989 television film Elephant references the term. This was in turn influential in the naming of Gus Van Sant's 2003 film of the same name, although Van Sant thought a different expression was being referenced.
Alexandra Burke's 2012 single "Elephant" also uses the concept,[16] as does a poem by Terry Kettering, entitled The Elephant in the Room.[17] In a November 2013 edition of Time magazine, New Jersey governor Chris Christie was labeled as the "Elephant in the Room" on the cover page.[18]  

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Rape in Sweden: from 3039 offenders aged 15–60 convicted of raping over 18 years of age in the 2000–2015 period, 59.2% had an immigrant background

 

Rape in Sweden - Wikipedia
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In 2014, there were 6,697 rapes reported to the Swedish police, or 69 cases per 100,000 population, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRÅ), which is an 11% increase from the previous year.[18] In 2015, the number of reported rapes declined 12%, to 5918. On the other hand, Swedish Crime Survey in 2015 showed that 1.7% of the total population, or 129,000 people between 16–79 years old have been exposed to some extension of sexual offenses (including rape) previously in their lives, increased from 1% in 2014.[19]
In 2016, the number of reported rapes increased again to 6,715.[20] 

The number of rapes reported to the authorities in Sweden significantly increased[4] by 10% in 2017,[21][22] according to latest preliminary figures from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.[21][22] The number of reported rape cases was 73 per 100,000 citizens in 2017, up 24% in the past decade.[22] In 2018, official numbers showed that the incidence of sexual offences was on the rise;[4][23][22] the Swedish Government declared that young women are facing the greatest risks and that most of the cases go unreported.[4]
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Birthplace of perpetrators
In 1994, of the 314 men arrested for rape, 79% were born in Europe, 21% were born outside of Europe; 50% were foreigners.[33]
In 2018, Swedish Television investigative journalism show Uppdrag Granskning analysed the total of 843 district court cases from the five preceding years and found that 58% of all convicted of rape and attempted rape had a foreign background.[23][32] 40% were immigrants born in the Middle East and Africa, with young men from Afghanistan numbering 45 standing out as being the next most common country of birth after Sweden.
When only analysing rape assault (Swedish: överfallsvåldtäkt) cases, that is cases where perpetrator and victim were not previously acquainted, 97 out of 129 (75%) were born outside Europe, with 40 percent of these having been in Sweden for a year or less.[32]
 

The Mission Investigation programme, broadcast by SVT, said that the total number of offenders over five years was 843. Of those, 197 were from the Middle East and North Africa, with 45 coming from Afghanistan, and 134 from Southern Africa.[32] "We are very clear in the programme that it is a small percentage of the people coming from abroad who are convicted of rape," chief editor Ulf Johansson told the BBC News. 

Former policeman Mustafa Panshiri, who was born in Afghanistan, said that Afghan immigrants bring with them attitudes towards women and sexuality which collide with Swedish values concerning equality.[32][23] Swedish Television's investigating journalists found that in cases where the victims didn't know the attackers, the proportion of foreign-born sex offenders was more than 80%.[23]
In 2021, a study found that of 3039 offenders aged 15–60 convicted of raping over 18 years of age in the 2000–2015 period, 59.2% had an immigrant background and 47.7% were born outside Sweden.[34] 

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In 2016 ten out of the 105 murder cases were honor killings, representing roughly 10% of all murder cases and a third of all murders of women in Sweden.[44]
In May 2017 a survey by Dagens Nyheter showed that of 100 suspects of murder and attempted murder using firearms, 90 had one parent born abroad 75% were born in the 90s.[45]
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n 2021, Sweden was found to have the 2nd highest gun homicide rate (after Croatia) out of 22 European countries surveyed. Most other countries surveyed had instead experienced a decline in gun homicides.[64][65]
According to researcher Amir Rostami in 2021, those responsible for the gun violence are predominantly young men and often second generation immigrants.[35]
By 2023 gun violence in Sweden had risen to 2.5 times the European average. Most of the violence continued to be attributable to an influx of guns, drug dealing, and marginalized immigrant communities.[66]
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In August 2018, SVT reported that rape statistics in Sweden show that 58% of men convicted of rape and attempted rape over the past five years were immigrants born outside of the European Union: Southern Africans, Northern Africans, Arabs, Middle Easterns, and Afghans.[95][96] Swedish Television's investigating journalists found that in cases where the victims didn't know the attackers, the proportion of foreign-born sex offenders was more than 80%.[96] 

The number of rapes reported to the authorities in Sweden significantly increased[97] by 10% in 2017,[98][99] according to latest preliminary figures from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.[98][99] The number of reported rape cases was 73 per 100,000 citizens in 2017, up 24% in the past decade.[99] Official numbers show that the incidence of sexual offences is on the rise;[96][97][99] the Government has declared that young women are facing the greatest risks and that most of the cases go unreported.[97]

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Norway: Rape prevention classes for refugees (BBC News)

 

Migrants in Norway are being given classes which educate asylum seekers in Norwegian 'cultural codes' when it comes to relationships with women, personal boundaries, sexual assault and what constitutes rape. We spoke to some of the men taking the class, as well as the organisers and instructors. But the classes, which other European countries may also introduce, have been criticised for stigmatising migrant men. 

James Longman reports (BBC News)