The Evening Blues - 11-11-24



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Mississippi John Hurt

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features delta blues guitarist Mississippi John Hurt. Enjoy!

Mississippi John Hurt - Spike Driver Blues

"The only thing I like about Trump is exactly what so many empire managers hate about him: he gives the game away. He says the quiet parts out loud. He’s the only president who’ll openly boast that US troops are in Syria to keep the oil or lament that they failed to take the oil from Venezuela, or just come right out and tell everyone he’s bought and owned by Zionist oligarchs.

Trump is the opposite of Obama, who was very skillful at putting a pretty face on the evil empire. Trump puts a very ugly face on a very ugly thing. He is a much more honest face to have on the empire. A crude, stupid plutocrat who is owned by other plutocrats is the perfect representative of that tyrannical power structure."

-- Caitlin Johnstone


News and Opinion

Biden’s Legacy Is Genocide, War, And Nuclear Brinkmanship

Biden’s legacy is genocide, war, and nuclear brinkmanship. That’s all anyone should talk about when this psychopath finally dies. Anything positive he may have accomplished in his political career is a drop in the ocean compared to the significance of these mass-scale abuses.

Biden spent his entire career promoting war and militarism at every opportunity, and then spent the twilight years of his time in Washington choosing to continue supplying an active genocide that is fully dependent on US-supplied arms.

He refused off-ramp after off-ramp to the horrific war in Ukraine that has burned through a generation of men in that country, which he knowingly provoked by amassing a military proxy threat on Russia’s border in ways the US would never tolerate being amassed on its own border. In the early weeks of the conflict Biden and his fellow empire managers sabotaged peace talks to keep the war going for as long as possible with the goal of bleeding Moscow, and at one point his own intelligence agencies reportedly assessed that the probability of a nuclear war erupting on this front was as high as 50–50.

Coin toss odds on nuclear war. To call this a crime against humanity would be a massive understatement.

Biden has been facilitating Israeli atrocities in the middle east with US military expansionism in the region and bombing operations in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. He will spend his lame duck months backing Israel’s scorched earth demolition of southern Lebanon.

This is who Biden is. It is who he has always been. It is true that his brain has begun to rot away like just like his conscience has rotted, but in his lucid moments he adamantly defends his administration’s decisions as the only correct course of action, and it aligns perfectly with his past. To know this, one need only to look at the pivotal role he played in pushing the Iraq invasion, or his extremist rhetoric about how “If there were not an Israel we’d have to invent one.”

This is the legacy that Democrats were forced to spend the last election cycle pretending is great and awesome. It’s no wonder they lost. So now, as a parting gift from Joe Biden, Americans and the world get another four years of Donald Trump.

That’s the story of Joe Biden. That’s the whole entire thing. Anything on top of that is irrelevant narrative fluff.

"Complete Charade": Qatar Withdraws from Ceasefire Talks, Middle East Prepares for Trump Presidency

'Horrific Reality': Nearly 70% of UN-Verified Gaza Deaths Are Women and Children

Nearly 7 in 10 people killed by Israeli forces in Gaza during an earlier six-month period of the ongoing assault on the Palestinian enclave were women and children, the United Nations human rights office said Friday.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) verified 8,119 of the more than 34,500 Palestinians killed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bombs and bullets between November 2023 and April 2024. Among those killed were 3,588 children and 2,036 women ranging in age from newborns to nonagenarians. Minors under the age of 18 made up 44% of the victims in the analysis.

The OHCHR report noted the "unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness, disease, displacement, detention, and destruction" wrought by Israel's onslaught, as well as the "wanton disregard" by Israeli forces and Hamas of international humanitarian law.


The analysis also highlights "the Israeli government's continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate, and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement."

"If committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population... these violations may constitute crimes against humanity," OHCHR said. "And if committed with intent to destroy—in whole or in part—a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, they may also constitute genocide."

South Africa is leading a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. On Thursday, Ireland became the latest of around 30 countries and regional blocs to announce its intent to intervene in the case on behalf of Palestine.

OHCHR found that 88% of the verified Palestinian fatalities from Israeli attacks on residential buildings were people killed in strikes that claimed at least five lives. In recent weeks, Israel's renewed offensive in northern Gaza—which some experts believe is an attempt to ethnically cleanse the area by bombing and starving its people before forcibly expelling them to make way for Israeli recolonization—has wiped out a staggering number of civilians, including many women and children, in single strikes on homes, hospitals, and refugee camps.

"The high number of fatalities per attack was due to the IDF's use of weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas," the analysis states, adding that some Palestinians may have been killed by errant projectiles launched by Hamas or other Gaza-based militants.

The new report also raises concerns over Isrsel's forcible transfer of Palestinians, systematic attacks on medical workers, journalists, and reported use of white phosphorus munitions—which are banned in populated areas.

Israel has not yet responded to the OHCHR report but has previously said that it "will continue to act, as it always has done, according to international law."

Since October 7, 2023, when Israeli forces launched their assault on the densely populated coastal enclave of 2.3 million people in response to the Hamas-led attack on Israel, the Gaza Ministry of Health and U.N. agencies say that more than 43,600 Palestinians have been killed and over 102,500 others wounded. More than 10,000 others are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the ruins of bombed homes and other structures.

Among those killed, say officials, are more than 18,000 children. Last month, the U.K.-based charity Oxfam International said that Israel's yearlong assault on Gaza has been the deadliest year of conflict for women and children anywhere in the world over the past two decades.

The relentless death and destruction has caused the "complete psychological destruction" of Gaza's youth, according to the charity Save the Children. The same has been said of many Gazans of all ages.

Last December, the U.N. Children's Fund called Gaza "the world's most dangerous place to be a child." Earlier this year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres for the first time added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts.

The ICJ—which is a U.N. body—has issued three provisionsal orders in the ongoing genocide case, including directives for Israel to prevent genocidal acts, stop its assault on Rafah, and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel has been accused of flouting all three orders.

"The trends and patterns of violations, and of applicable international law as clarified by the International Court of Justice, must inform the steps to be taken to end the current crisis," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement Friday.

"The violence must stop immediately, the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released, and we must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid," he added.

"A Campaign of Genocide": Noura Erakat Speaks to Ta-Nehisi Coates About Israel's War on Gaza

US F-15 Fighter Jets Arrive in Middle East as Part of Buildup Aimed at Iran

The US military said Thursday that additional F-15 fighter jets arrived in the Middle East as part of a buildup meant as a threat to Iran as Tehran is vowing it will respond to Israel’s October 26 airstrikes on Iranian territory. ...

The Pentagon announced last week that it was sending additional military assets to the region for the “defense” of Israel. CENTCOM said that B-52 bombers arrived in the region on November 2.

According to flight and satellite data, six US B-52 bombers are at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Haaretz reported that the US F-15 fighter jets were being sent to Jordan. The Pentagon said it would also be deploying additional US Navy destroyers and tanker aircraft to the region.

Initiative to halt arms shipment to Israel reflects 'grave concern' about rising violence in Gaza: Turkish UN envoy

Türkiye's UN envoy Ahmet Yildiz voiced "grave concern" Thursday about rising violence and continued violations of international law by Israel, and urged immediate international action.

Speaking on behalf of 52 countries, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the Arab League, Yildiz noted a joint letter sent to the UN Security Council that urged immediate action to halt the flow of weapons and ammunition to Israel.

"This initiative reflects our grave concern over the unprecedented escalation of violence and the blatant violations of international law in Gaza and the broader Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as well as in Lebanon and across the Middle East," Yildiz said at a news conference at UN headquarters in New York.

Describing the toll on civilians, especially women and children, as "unacceptable and intolerable," Yildiz warned that further delays could risk a wider regional conflict.

“We stand in strong, unified commitment to protect civilians, deter further grave breaches of international humanitarian law, and work to end the illegal occupation and attacks in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and throughout the region," he said, urging the Security Council to take "concrete steps to protect civilians and ensure accountability."

Alastair Crooke : Will There Be a Trump Foreign Policy?

Much more at the link, worth a click:

Tooth-Fairy Politics

Kamala Harris didn’t lose because she’s a woman or because she’s black. She lost because, if your political and media system — rigged by donors — limits the choice to two hardline neoliberal candidates, with anything else denounced as “communism,” the most hardline, neoliberal candidate has an edge. Over time, the system keeps moving further to the hardline, neoliberal right. You can’t stop that relentless shift by voting for one of the two symptoms of your diseased political system.

You have to rise up against the diseased system itself.

Notice a pattern of behaviour by the establishment media that week after week told us Kamala Harris was poised for a narrow win, that her “politics of joy” would ultimately swing the day. For more than two years, that same establishment media told us Ukraine would win if only we sent a few more bombs / tanks / planes. None of those weapons helped. They just incentivised each side to invest more deeply in war. What happened instead was entirely predictable: lots of Ukrainians and Russians have died fighting a protracted war Ukraine could never win and that could have been snuffed out early on with a peace agreement — an agreement that was actively blocked by the U.S. and Britain.

Over the past year, that same establishment media told us that Israel wasn’t committing a genocide, even as we watched it kill and maim 10,000s of children in Gaza. That same media told us that our leaders were “working tirelessly” for peace, even as they sent Israel more and more weapons to kill and maim. The establishment media isn’t there to report the world as it is. It is there to shape our consciousness of it — to the benefit of the establishment.

It is there to sell us pipe-dreams. It is there to buy time. It is there to make us believe next time will be different. It is there to buy our docility. It is there to conceal the fact that our leaders are sociopaths, more committed to lining their pockets than saving the only world we have.


The Amsterdam 'Pogrom' That Wasn't: Corporate Media Fails To Tell the Whole Story

Thursday night, Israeli soccer fans clashed with Amsterdam residents before and after a Europa League soccer match between their team Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax in Amsterdam.

Clashes occurred outside the Johan Cruyff Arena and across the city on Thursday night. Police on Friday said five people had been taken to hospital, and 62 arrests had been made.

The violence reportedly started when the far-right Israeli soccer hooligans began chanting racist and violent anti-Arab slogans, attacked Arab and Muslim residents, and vandalized houses and businesses with Palestinian flags.

Al Jazeera reported:

In one video, Israeli supporters were heard singing: “Let the IDF win, and f*** the Arabs!” referring to the Israeli army’s offensive on Gaza. Another video captured a fan screaming: “F*** you terrorists, Sinwar die, everybody die,” in reference to the Hamas leader who was killed last month.

The Israeli fans instigated the violence after arriving in the city and attacking Palestinian supporters before the match, an Amsterdam city council member said.

“They began attacking houses of people in Amsterdam with Palestinian flags, so that’s actually where the violence started,” Councilman Jazie Veldhuyzen told Al Jazeera on Friday.

“As a reaction, Amsterdammers mobilised themselves and countered the attacks that started on Wednesday by the Maccabi hooligans.”

Yet the corporate media - both in the US and abroad - portrayed the events as one-sided "anti-semitic" attacks on helpless soccer fans:


US President Joe Biden, his Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer were quick to echo Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that the events in Amsterdam were unprovoked anti-semitic attacks reminiscent of pogroms or the Kristallnacht.




However many social media posts reported the context of the violence that was missing from corporate media reporting:






Larry Johnson : Kiev Attacking Moscow!

Moscow targeted as Ukraine and Russia trade large drone attacks

Ukraine has carried out its biggest drone strike on Moscow since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Russian media said on Sunday, as the Kremlin launched its own record air attack over Ukraine. Three airports in the Russian capital were temporarily closed and flights were diverted. At least one person was injured. Russia said its air defences shot down 70 drones, nearly half of them in the skies above Moscow and the rest in western Russia.

The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said it successfully targeted an ammunition dump near the Russian city of Bryansk. Video showed multiple explosions coming from warehouses on the military site. Fires could be seen burning in the night sky.

Other footage posted on Russian Telegram channels recorded drones buzzing above urban areas including suburbs of multistorey buildings and a lorry park.

Ukrainian commentators said the strike on Moscow was in response to a massive Russian drone barrage directed at Kyiv on Thursday, soon after Donald Trump was elected as US president. On Saturday and Sunday, Moscow sent over another wave of 145 drones, the largest number yet. There was damage to the Black Sea port of Odesa. Ukrainian officials said 62 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were downed and others lost en route.

MSM stirring up trouble for TRUMP and RUSSIA

The Guardian catapults the propaganda:

Trump speaks with Putin and advises him not to escalate Ukraine war

Donald Trump spoke on the phone with Vladimir Putin on Thursday and discussed the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. The US president-elect advised the Russian president not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of “Washington’s sizeable military presence in Europe”, the Post reported.

It added that Trump expressed interest in follow-up conversations on “the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon”. During the election campaign, Trump said he would find a solution to end the war “within a day”, but did not explain how he would do so.

According to one former US official who was familiar with the call and spoke to the Washington Post, Trump likely does not want to begin his second presidential term with an escalation in the Ukraine war, “giving him incentive to want to keep the war from worsening”. ...

Trump had also spoken to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, according to media reports. Biden has invited Trump to come to the Oval Office on Wednesday, and on Sunday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that Biden’s top message will be his commitment to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. He will also talk to Trump about what’s happening in Europe, in Asia and the Middle East.



the horse race



Sweep of swing states rubs salt in Democrats’ wounds as Trump prepares to meet Biden

Donald Trump was declared the winner in Arizona early on Sunday, completing the Republicans’ clean sweep of the so-called swing states and rubbing salt in Democrats’ wounds as it was announced that the president-elect is scheduled to meet with Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday to discuss the presidential handover.

In a national campaign that was projected as being extremely close but he ended up winning handily, the result in Arizona gives Trump 312 electoral college votes, compared with Kamala Harris’s 226. The state joins the other Sun belt swing states – Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina – and the three Rust belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in voting Republican. All were expected to be extremely competitive but all went for Trump, though by fairly close margins.

Republicans also regained control of the Senate – they hold 53 seats to the Democrats’ 46 – and look likely to keep control of the House of Representatives, where 21 races remain uncalled but Republicans currently have a 212-202 advantage, giving them a “trifecta” – both houses of Congress as well as the presidency – that will allow them to govern largely unfettered for at least the next two years.

Dem Establishment GOES TO WAR With Bernie Sanders After Trump Victory

After $16 Billion Election, Nonprofit Tracking Money in Politics Lays Off 1/3 of Staff

Journalists and other critics of how money influences U.S. politics expressed alarm and disappointment in response to Friday reporting that shortly after the nation's latest election, the research nonprofit OpenSecrets had to lay off a third of its staff.

Citing a current staffer, Politico's Daniel Lippman revealed that OpenSecrets "laid off 10 employees yesterday due to financial difficulties" and "much of the research team were among the casualties, which constituted around a third of the group's total headcount."

According to the Politico Playbook newsletter:

Executive director Hilary Braseth wrote in an email to supporters that "OpenSecrets remains committed to its mission—serving as the trusted authority on money in American politics—but our task has become more difficult as groups have opted to fund a partisan outcome rather than nonpartisan democratic infrastructure."

She said in a subsequent email to Playbook that the layoffs were "a necessary first step to make our organization sustainable," and that she had "no doubt that our team will continue to produce the high-quality data that the public has come to rely on."

With a mission "to serve as the trusted authority on money in American politics," OpenSecrets envisions a country in which citizens "use data on money in politics to create a more vibrant, representative, and responsive democracy."



the evening greens


Cop29 CEO filmed agreeing to facilitate fossil fuel deals at climate summit

The chief executive of Cop29 has been filmed apparently agreeing to facilitate fossil fuel deals at the climate summit. The recording has amplified calls by campaigners who want the fossil fuel industry and its lobbyists to be banned from future Cop talks. The campaign group Global Witness posed undercover as a fake oil and gas group asking for deals to be facilitated in exchange for sponsoring the event.

In the calls, Elnur Soltanov, Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister and chief executive of Cop29, agreed to this and spoke of a future that includes fossil fuels “perhaps for ever”. Cop officials also introduced the fake investor to a senior executive at the national oil and gas company Socar to discuss investment opportunities. Soltanov told the fake investment group: “I would be happy to create a contact between your team and their team [Socar] so that they can start discussions.” Shortly after that they received an email from Socar. ...

On the recording, Soltanov tells the fake oil and gas group: “There are a lot of joint ventures that could be established. Socar is trading oil and gas all over the world, including in Asia.” He then described natural gas as a “transitional fuel”, adding: “We will have a certain amount of oil and natural gas being produced, perhaps for ever.” At Cop28 last year, the countries involved agreed to transition away from fossil fuels, and the UN body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is clear that developing new oil and gas fields is incompatible with climate goals signed up to in the Paris agreement.

The Cop29 team also appeared willing to waive climate requirements for the company if it sponsored the event. Cop event sponsors are supposed to commit to cutting their emissions and are expected to sign a “national pledge”, promising to come up with a “credible net zero transition plan” at some point over the next two years. However, during the negotiations, these requirements were waived and a new clause was added to give the fake investment group “meeting opportunities with key local stakeholders from the energy sector at Cop29”.

There was a similar scandal at the Cop28 talks last year in the UAE when leaked documents revealed the host planned to use climate meetings with other countries to promote deals for its national oil and gas companies. The talks were chaired by Sultan Al Jaber, the chief executive of the national oil company Adnoc and the UAE’s climate envoy.


Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Trump Puts An Appropriately Ugly Face On A Very Ugly Empire

‘House of horrors’: Israeli journalist-turned-intel officer confirms widescale torture of Palestinians

Prepping Readers to Accept Mass Slaughter in Lebanese ‘Strongholds’

Israel Keeps Finding New Ways To Play Victim While Committing Genocide

'Pogrom' Against Hooligans Accusations Follow A Zionist Propaganda Scheme

Trump now faces 'out of control' conflict in the Middle East

‘The movement is not over’: leaders of Uncommitted look ahead at organizing during Trump term

After Weeks of Political Chaos and Uncertainty, Mexico’s Judicial Coup Fizzles to Nothing

Black Americans Slam Racist Texts Promoting Slavery After Trump's Election

Bernie Takes Huge Dump On Kamala & Democrats!

Ali Abunimah on Uncommitted's deal with the devil


A Little Night Music

Mississippi John Hurt - Candy Man Blues

Mississippi John Hurt - Payday

Mississippi John Hurt - Farther Along

Mississippi John Hurt - Louis Collins

Mississippi John Hurt - Casey Jones

Mississippi John Hurt - Let The Mermaids Flirt With Me

Mississippi John Hurt - Cow Hooking Blues No. 2

Mississippi John Hurt - My Creole Belle

Mississippi John Hurt - Stack O' Lee


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snoopydawg's picture

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The truth

After someone got a phone call from Netanyahu

Heh…..don'cha love double standards?

I don’t think this the hit women think it is….

With mounting solidarity, they are banding together (with some even shaving their heads in protest so as not to appeal to the male gaze) to adopt the 4B strategy: no more children, no more marriages, no more dating men until women’s rights are restored.

So Biden is going to do a peaceful transfer of power with Hitler huh?

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

heh, the ptb and the media are making it too obvious.

i guess those 4b gals are doing the world a service. we need fewer mouths for the planet to feed and house.

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snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

Lots of thoughts about how that might have been cooked up by Netanyahu to get the Bibi-Gate story off the front page. Or for other reasons, but the fact that Mossad accompanied the zionasties to Amsterdam sure makes it seem like it was a planned event.

Truer words

But what Israel and its goons are doing is certainly going to make anti semitism a bigger problem. Not a smart move to post one’s war crimes on social media.

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

i suppose that this story has managed to push bibigate off of the front pages and i'm sure that it wasn't difficult to engineer a provocation by soccer hooligans.

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snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

Micron has already said that he would provide lots of police protection for the Israeli soccer team. Gosh Im old enough to remember that Russia was kicked out of soccer after it started protecting itself from NATO which is a valid reason to go to war. But Israel not only invaded Gaza it destroyed 90% of it, killed more than 10% of the civilians, is starving more than 400,000 people and its soccer team is still welcomed around the world. And this soccer team will get protection for….whatever the hell it wants to do.

Weird how the media fails to compare civilian casualties between Russia and Israel isn’t it? Anyone else disgusted with the double standards?

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

i would imagine that the french gendarmes will keep a sharp lookout for a chance to crack some skulls.

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snoopydawg's picture

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Ain’t this the truth?

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$16 billion was spent on the election? That’s not an election. It’s an auction between the 2 different factions of the oligarchy parasite class. And it’s money laundering without a trail for where it went.

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

i guess mr. smith won't be able to afford to go the washington. perhaps that's the point, eh?

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snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

But I bet that doesn’t include all the money from PACs and super PACs because the oligarchs on the SC ruled that it doesn’t need to be reported. That’s the biggest reason why 3rd parties don’t have a chance here. They can’t compete with the oligarchs money nor AIPAC. Ain’t it grand that we have the best government money can buy? And yet few people have a problem with it.

61 degrees today…some rain tomorrow and then back to sunny and warm. Weirdest winter yet. It’s too warm for ski resorts to create snow. And we are getting the Olympics back in '34. Will we even have winter then? If the lake is gone we definitely won’t have the greatest snow on Earth.

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enhydra lutris's picture

much else going on except all the usual.
Thanks for the EBs
be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

i guess a little bit of rain is an excellent thing, as opposed to no rain or way too much rain.

have a great evening!

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snoopydawg's picture

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The first 2 rows will be blocked off so no one can charge the field, plus…

"There will be no Palestinian flag at the Stade de France. There will only be French or Israeli flags, and messages of support for the teams," Nunez said.

Ha…wanna bet?

"Although Fifa has sanctioned and sanctions the non-respect of this commitment [to protect SOME human rights] by other countries - South Africa from 1962 to 1992 because of its apartheid policy and more recently Russia and Belarus following the invasion of Ukraine - it allows Israel to flout international humanitarian law with complete impunity," the petition reads.

It’d be a shame if the game was boycotted…as all games with Israel should be.

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?