Tuesday, May 05, 2020

From Ian:

Failed by Israel, Malki Roth’s parents hope US can extradite her gloating killer
There might be all manner of “creative ways” to help the Jordanians mitigate any damage and the US should certainly give them “time and space to advise us on how they intend to do it,” said Shapiro. “But that’s quite different from the seeming lack of conversation for a long time, where they simply refuse to discuss it and we conduct business as usual.”

Hoenlein and Conference of Presidents CEO William Daroff told The Times of Israel in Jerusalem in February it was outrageous that Tamimi was walking around freely in Jordan.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations executive vice president Malcolm Hoenlein (R) and CEO William Daroff at The Times of Israel offices in Jerusalem, February 6, 2020. (Times of Israel)

“I speak to [Malki’s] parents and we are getting more involved in it,” said Hoenlein. “They are right: it is an outrage. Because of the sensitive position the king is in, everybody tiptoes. Rightfully, we have good relations with him, and when he comes to America, he meets with us always and we want to see him strengthened. We don’t want to jeopardize the stability of Jordan, which would have grave implications for Israel, for everyone in the region. But this is really an unacceptable situation.”

Along with the simple principle of justice, Congressman Perry, the legislator whose bid to condition US aid on Jordan honoring its treaty led to that extraordinary new “extradition” clause in this year’s Appropriations Bill, raised another central point when considering the balance between pushing Jordan hard for Tamimi’s extradition and preserving Jordan’s internal stability: the imperative that neither Jordan, nor any other country for that matter, be permitted to turn itself into a safe haven for terrorists.

“Delivering justice to the loved ones of the three Americans killed in the August 2001 senseless bombing is a top priority. Under United States law, we have the legal authority to try individuals whose attacks against US Nationals outside the US result in death; as such, we’re seeking the rightful extradition of Al-Tamimi from Jordan,” Perry said in an emailed statement. “Jordan’s unwillingness to cooperate with our extradition request is unacceptable, and I fear its resistance will turn them into a safe harbor for international terrorists and thugs.

“If Jordan is unwilling to allow Al-Tamimi to stand trial in the United States for the actions about which she publicly boasts and brags,” he added, “this is a very dangerous message to other bad actors that consider attacking innocent civilians.”
Congress Members Push for Extradition of Wanted Terrorist Ahlam Tamimi From Jordan
A group of Republican members of Congress have called on the Jordanian ambassador to the United States for the Hashemite Kingdom to extradite wanted Palestinian-Jordanian Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to the United States.

Tamimi has been accused of being the mastermind behind the Sbarro Pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem on Aug. 9, 2001, that killed 15 people, including eight children, and wounded 121 others. Among those killed were two American citizens, 15-year-old Malki Roth and 31-year-old Judith Greenbaum, who was pregnant at the time. A third American, Chana Nachenberg, has remained in a permanent vegetative state ever since.

“Today, appallingly, Tamimi is a media celebrity, the subject of wide popular admiration. She has appeared publicly side-by-side with prominent political figures and received extraordinary recognition in Jordan’s mainstream press and television media as a respected commentator and as an object of Jordanian national pride,” wrote the group of Republican congressmen to Jordanian Ambassador to the United States Dina Kawar.

The signees were Reps. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), Brian Mast (R-Fla.), Scott Perry (R-Penn.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

“She has been showered with acclaim by the students of the Arab world’s most important graduate school of journalism, the Amman-based Jordan Media Institute, who declared her to be their “success model,’ ” they wrote. “For five years, she traveled widely and often to deliver public speeches throughout Jordan and in numerous Arab countries beyond Jordan’s borders. Her theme has always centered on promoting terror and terrorists.”

Tamimi, who planned the attack, has shown no remorse, saying she has “no regrets.”
UK Supreme Court BDS Ruling Will Not Prevent Israel Divestment Ban
The Supreme Court’s "narrow" technical ruling against the government over local authority divestments will not prevent forthcoming legislation to ban public bodies from imposing boycotts, the Conservative Friends of Israel group has said.

In a joint response to last week’s ruling that former Communities Secretary Said Javid had gone too far in telling local councils that they could not choose to shun certain countries when investing pension funds, CFI’s chair Stephen Crabb MP, Lord Pickles and Honorary President Lord Polak said the judge’s decision "serves to reinforce the importance of the government’s forthcoming legislation."

The trio added: "We reiterate our strong support for the Conservative government’s manifesto commitment to ban public bodies from imposing their own boycotts, divestments, and sanctions, which have all too often sown discord within local communities”.

Meanwhile a government spokesperson underlined the continued support for legislation – a commitment that was confirmed by Boris Johnson in the Queen’s Speech debate following the December general election. “We are committed to ensuring public bodies take a consistent approach to investments and to stop local boycotts," a spokesperson said this week. "We will therefore bring back new legislation that addresses the technical points raised by the Supreme Court."

A legal expert told the JC that last week’s ruling was "a narrow one" which applies in relation to a specific law, rather than making any general points about the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

They added that nothing in the judgement prevents parliament from passing new legislation.
Guardian promoted BDS letter by '130 parliamentarians' is not what it seems
A May 1st Guardian article by Patrick Wintour (“MPs press for sanctions against Israel over West Bank annexations“) promotes a letter organised by the Council for Arab British Understanding (Caabu), a UK lobby group which promotes BDS and other forms of deligitimisation against Israel.

It begins thusly:
Nearly 130 parliamentarians, including former Conservative cabinet ministers, have written to Boris Johnson urging him to impose economic sanctions against Israel if Benjamin Netanyahu’s new coalition government goes ahead with its threat to annex parts of the West Bank.

However, we examined the 130+ parliamentarians who signed the pro-BDS letter, and it turns out to be far less impressive than the Guardian’s framing.

First, here’s our breakdown of the party affiliation of those who signed.
42 Labour MPs
12 Labour Peers
31 SNP MPs
7 Lib Dem MPs
17 Lib Dem Peers
9 Conservative MPs
3 Former Conservative MPs
5 Conservative Peers
1 Green MP
1 Plaid Cymru MP
1 Northern Ireland Alliance MP
8 Crossbench Peers
1 Green Peer

Some observations:
In total, only 92 signatories are current MPs. (The rest are either peers or retired MPs)

The number of current Labour MPs who signed the letter (42) is actually small when you consider that 91 Labour MPs are members of Labour Friends of Palestine, and that there are 202 Labour MPs overall. Further, signatures from high profile Labour MPs – including Jeremy Corbyn – were noticeably absent, and, in fact, not one member of Keir Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet signed.



Vatican minimised Shoah reports due to antisemitism, researchers claim
German researchers working in the Apostolic Archive claim to have found evidence that the Vatican was handed reports about the extent of the Holocaust in 1942, but dismissed some of the information they contained.

The seven-person team from the University on Münster claimed that the Vatican had minimised information on the massacres of Jews, considering that Jewish and Ukrainian sources could not be trusted.

The conclusions hinge on a 1942 American démarche to the Holy See.

The team found that on September 27, 1942, the Holy See was passed a report by the American envoy to the Vatican, detailing the murder of Jews in occupied Poland and asking if the Catholic Church could independently confirm the crimes it outlined.

The report outlined how Jews were being taken out of the Warsaw Ghetto, and murdered outside of the city in camps.

The report, read by Pius XII on the day that it was received in Rome, said that 100,000 Jews had been murdered and that 50,000 had been murdered in Lviv, in what was then eastern Poland, and is now western Ukraine.

The report added that there were no Jews remaining in eastern Poland, and that Jews from Germany, Slovakia and the Low Countries had been transported to Eastern Europe where they were murdered.

The Vatican Apostolic Archives, which until October were known as the “Secret Archives”, contain up to two million pages of documents from Pius XII’s papacy. The Vatican threw open their doors, which were due to remain closed until 2028, on 1 March.

The researchers, led by priest and professor Hubert Wolf, a historian of the Catholic Church, spent a week working in the Apostolic Archive from March 2 before it was closed due to coronavirus restrictions.

Mr Wolf’s team found documents showing that the Holy See had received two letters independently confirming reports of massacres of Jews from Warsaw and Lviv.
Dutch king acknowledges Jews felt ‘abandoned’ by his great-grandmother Wilhelmina
King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands in a memorial day speech acknowledged his great-grandmother’s perceived indifference to the fate of Dutch Jews during the Holocaust.

The unprecedented public acknowledgment came Monday during the annual speech at the national memorial ceremony in Amsterdam for Dutch victims of armed conflicts during and after World War II. The king spoke there for the first time.

It concerned Queen Wilhelmina, whose reign ended in 1948. She referenced the persecution of Jews only three times in 48 radio speeches made during her exile in the United Kingdom — all in general terms and after mentioning other cruelties visited on the general population.

The Nazis and local collaborators murdered 75% of the Netherlands’ prewar Jewish population of 140,000 – the highest death rate in Nazi-occupied Western Europe. The community never replenished its numbers.

“Fellow human beings felt abandoned, insufficiently heard, insufficiently supported, even with words,” Willem-Alexander said at the ceremony. “Also from London by my great-grandmother, despite her steadfast resistance [to the Nazis.] It’s something that won’t let go of me,”
Journey Into a Changing Middle East
Last November, three dozen prominent figures from throughout the Arab world—including an Egyptian member of parliament, a former Kuwaiti minister, journalists from Tunisia and the Gulf States and a Shiite cleric from Lebanon—gathered in London to found the Arab Council for Regional Integration, calling for an end to the anti-Israel boycott. For the first time in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a grassroots pan-Arab movement is urging normalization with Israel.

Wary of being manipulated, the group has insisted on its independence, avoiding any government sponsorship, whether from the Arab world or from the West. No Israelis were present at the November gathering. Many participants come from countries where just meeting with Israelis can land you in prison for “normalizing” relations with the enemy. As expected, the group faced devastating criticism in Arab social media—but also vocal support. The Iranian regime and its Hezbollah proxy condemned the council’s members as traitors, but Arab governments have been intriguingly silent.

For many years I, like most Israelis, was a peace skeptic. The traumatic experience of the Second Intifada, the four-year wave of suicide bombings that broke out in 2000 after Israel had agreed to a two-state solution, convinced me that the Palestinian national movement, and the Arab world generally, had not yet come to terms with Israel’s right to exist.

But changes in the region, along with my own recent experiences, have challenged that skepticism. Not that peace will happen anytime soon: We are more likely to find ourselves on the battlefield—against Hamas or Hezbollah or even Iran—than at the negotiating table. And Palestinian public discourse still forbids any acknowledgment of Israel’s legitimacy. According to a recent poll of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, two-thirds of Palestinians support armed struggle against Israel and only 39 percent back a two-state solution.

But for the first time after many years, I am allowing myself to cautiously hope again.

The new edition of my book concludes with a joint letter written by two friends—a young Palestinian-American named Rawan Odeh and a young Israeli named Bar Galin who first met at a coexistence seminar in Washington, D.C. “As a result of your book, we decided to travel to campuses across the United States and tell our very different stories alongside one another to students,” they wrote. “The book brought us together to create a serious dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis in their 20s. We are the next generation that will be responsible for handling the consequences of the failures of the generation of Oslo, who today cannot let go of their preconceived notions of the other—especially the notion that the other is the only obstacle for moving forward.”

When I find myself slipping back into despair, I remind myself of Rawan and Bar.
Eli Cohen, in first person
The first time I heard of the spy Eli Cohen was when I was in school. During a class trip to the Golan Heights, the guide pointed to the tall eucalyptus trees growing between the structures of an abandoned Syrian post and told us about "our man in Damascus."

"When Eli, who was operating over the border as the Arab businessman Kamel Amin Thaabet, he and his friends visited the Golan, which was then in Syrian hands, and noticed that the Syrian soldiers on duty were exposed to the burning sun," the guide said.

"He suggested to the commanders that they plant eucalyptus trees, supposedly to provide shade for the soldiers and make things easier for them, but actually the proposal served the Israeli Air Force: In the Six-Day War, our pilots could identify the eucalyptus trees from above and be certain that an enemy base was underneath them," he said.

I remember that the story impressed me and my classmates. The resourcefulness attributed to Eli Cohen couldn't not enthrall us. Years later, I pondered over the eucalyptus story, and began to suspect that it was nothing more than a nice tale.

Itai Landsberg, the chief editor of the new documentary series about Cohen, which aired its first episode on public broadcaster Kan 11, says that despite the focus on the famous story, he has not been able to confirm the story. No mention of the eucalyptus trick was found in the many telegrams Cohen sent from Damascus, and his family never mentioned anything like it.

But even without the eucalyptus, Cohen's achievements during his years of secret service in Damascus are better than any fiction.

"Eli Cohen's actions saved Israel many battalions of soldiers, and the information he brought in before the Six-Day War was worth its weight in gold and led to the great victory in the Six-Day War," former Prime Minister Levi Eshkol said.
David Collier: In the UK, our bookshelf is nobody’s business but our own
The hard left morality police
The hard left are so locked within their own bubble they are incapable of looking at themselves in the mirror. They really cannot see what they have become – modern day fascists. They tell us what is moral and right and they silence us when we disagree with them. If we stand up to them their voices often turn to threats. The only thing this has done is expose that those like Jones are Cassidy are narrow in their own reading – and have bookshelves that confirm their own bias – which perhaps explains some of their views.

It should also be recalled that Owen Jones defended Jeremy Corbyn for writing a forward in a deeply antisemitic book. Is Jones suggesting that the book was never on Corbyn’s bookshelf? But again, these type of justifications and arguments play into the hands of the fascists. Stephen Pollard wrote this in the Jewish Chronicle:
Michael Gove has probably done more for Holocaust education and the Jewish community in Britain than any senior politician other than Gordon Brown. It’s obvious to anyone why he would have read the work of a Holocaust denier.

Which, whilst it is true, is in its own way just more justification. I would have written this:

Michael Gove lives in the UK. As British citizens we are privileged to be free to hold on our bookshelf whatever books we choose and what is on them is nobody’s business but our own. Wars have been fought for those freedoms and we need to reject those that attempt to tell us what we can write, what we can read and what we can think. There is no argument needed beyond this.
Owen Jones attacks Michael Gove for buying book by Holocaust-denier David Irving in order to debunk it, despite Jones spending years defending antisemitic Corbyn
The columnist and activist Owen Jones has come under fire on Twitter for criticising the philosemitic Government minister, Michael Gove, and his journalist wife, Sarah Vine, for owning a book by David Irving, after he saw the volume on their bookshelf in an interview conducted from their home.

David Irving is a discredited historian and notorious Holocaust-denier who lost his libel case against Deborah Lipstadt twenty years ago.

During his career as a journalist, Michael Gove wrote about David Irving repeatedly, but only to attack him, describing him as “notorious” and “perverse”.

Mr Jones, a vocal supporter of former Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn and one of the outriders of Mr Corbyn’s far-left movement, was, however, less troubled by Mr Corbyn’s own antisemitism, not to mention his glowing foreword of an antisemitic book and his relationship with the self-professed Holocaust-denier, Paul Eisen, to whose work Mr Corbyn even made a financial contribution. Although Mr Jones has written in general terms about left-wing antisemitism and the need to address it, he has missed repeated opportunities to do so and has indulged the biggest political threat to Britain’s Jewish minority in living memory.

Scrambling to defend himself, Mr Jones tweeted several more times on the subject, at one point asserting that “Holocaust denial is not a viewpoint, something to take or leave, agree or not with. It is a hateful evil to be crushed, nothing else.” Mr Jones is right, which is why it was so disappointing that he never expressed a similar sentiment toward Mr Corbyn with respect to his association with Mr Eisen. Indeed back in 2015, when this association emerged, Mr Jones seemed more eager to defend Mr Corbyn than to “crush” the “evil” with which he had associated.
The HIASization of American Jews
Three years ago, the leaders of radical left-wing groups signed a letter in support of Linda Sarsour. The defenders of the anti-Semitic figure who had cheered Farrakhan, terrorists killing Jews, and viewed Jews as subhuman, included leaders of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish groups such as J Street, JVP, T’ruah, If Not Now, Bend the Arc, JFREJ, and Tony Kushner: who once wished that Israel had never existed.

Also signing the petition alongside terrorist and BDS supporters were two leaders of HIAS.

HIAS, formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, had dropped the ‘Hebrew’ part of its name along with its Jewish identity in 2014 and left New York City, where it once aided Jewish immigrants coming to America, to refocus on lobbying Congress. Instead of listening to calls by members of the Jewish community to shut down the organization and do something productive instead, it followed the money.

“Hebrew,” was an exclusionary and outdated term, Mark Hatfield, the HIAS boss opined. And so he dispensed with the Jewish part of its name and with aiding Jewish immigrants in New York.

Hetfield was one of the signatories of the Sarsour letter.

HIAS moved to D.C. to be closer to the government grants that made up its budget. Back then, 65.3% of the organization’s budget came from government grants. But the writing had already been on the wall in the 90s. Leonard Glickman, HIAS' former president, had admitted in the late 90s that the decline in Jewish refugees affected, "the amount of money we receive from the government is based strictly on the number of people we resettle. As a result, it has declined markedly."
J Street welcomes letter urging DNC to oppose annexation on Party platform
A group of 32 foreign relations experts, many of whom served under the Obama-Biden administration, sent a letter on Monday to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), urging Party leaders “to ensure that the Israel/Palestine section of the party’s platform expresses support for the security and rights of both Israelis and Palestinians.”

Among the people who signed the letter: Martin Indyk, former US Ambassador to Israel and US Special Envoy for Israeli – Palestinian Negotiations; Daniel Kurtzer, former US Ambassador to Israel; Rob Malley, Former Special Assistant to former US president Barack Obama; Ned Price, former Special Assistant to Obama; and Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Adviser.

“The actions of the Trump administration have upended decades of bipartisan US support for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the letter reads. “In his ‘Deal of the Century,’ President Trump has provided the Israeli government with a green light to annex all West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley and maintain its occupation in perpetuity, making a sovereign, independent and contiguous Palestinian state impossible,” they added.

“These moves imperil Israel’s future as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people, undermine the US-Israel special relationship and harm Palestinians,” they argued. “Past party platforms have rightly stated a commitment to Israel’s security and included condemnations of threats and actions against our ally, in addition to embracing a two-state outcome.”
Mays Abu Gosh: Firebomber wannabe, and JVP latest Cause célèbre
Has Jewish Voice for Peace ever met a terrorist they didn't embrace? Jewish Voice for Peace is so devoid of a moral compass they honored Rasmea Odeh at their annual gala. Odeh is a vile terrorist whose claim to notoriety was placing a bomb in a kosher grocery store in Jerusalem, just before Shabbat.

Mays Abu Gosh (aka Mais Abu Gosh) is the latest cause célèbre for Jewish Voice for Peace.

Mays Abu Gosh's history is difficult to ferret out, so dominant is the Palestinian narrative on the Web. She's either
1) a student
2) a journalist
3) student journalist
4) a peace activist

depending on what what piece of agitprop you're reading.

Cospicuously absent from the online #FreeMays puff pieces are any mention her family, and their history of violent terrorism directed against the Israeli people

Mays Abu Gosh's brother Hussein murdered a 24 year old, Shlomit Krigman, in front of a Beit Horon grocery store in 2016. He was shot by a security guard after he tried to attack others in the store. The 17 year old Hussein (yes, another one of the "children" dead in the conflict) had planned to detonate 3 pipe bombs before he was neutralized. His accomplice Ibrahim Osama Allan, 23, was also killed

Mays Abu Gosh 's cousin Hussein Salem Abu Ghosh, 24, attempted to ram his car into a bus stop, near the town of Kochav Yaakov. He was shot to death, still clutching his knife.


BBC News misleads on effect of Germany’s Hizballah ban
Readers of the BBC’s report are informed that:
“The ban will enable authorities to put a stop to anti-Israel marches and the use of anti-Semitic slogans, observers say. Hezbollah flags and anti-Israel banners often appear at the annual al-Quds march in Berlin.”

The identity of those quoted “observers” is not provided but obviously the German government’s move against Hizballah activity will not – as the BBC’s statement claims – ban anti-Israel demonstrations or antisemitic slogans in Germany. As reported by DW:
“The ban essentially criminalizes public expression of support for Hezbollah within Germany. Followers can no longer display the flag of the Lebanese militia, a green rifle on a yellow background.”

Reuters reported that:
“The move means that Hezbollah symbols are banned at gatherings and in publications or in the media and Hezbollah assets can be confiscated, said the ministry, adding as it is a foreign organisation, it is not possible to ban and dissolve it.”

In short, this BBC report misleads audiences with regard to the consequences of the German government’s ban and downplays the activities of the terror organisation while providing readers with a link to the corporation’s profile of Hizballah which has not been updated for over four years and hence provides no information concerning the most recent designations of the organisation, including that of the UK.
The Times retracts claim that Israel 'swept aside authority of parliament, courts and elections'
A new Knesset was sworn in following the March elections and has been active – and passed legislation – ever since. Further, though the courts did curtail their activity due to concerns over the spread of the virus, they certainly didn’t close, nor was their authority “swept aside”. In fact, the Supreme Court has been quite active, and even ruled against the ruling party .

The suggestion that elections were “swept aside” is even more absurd. Though the results of the March 2nd contest (the third national elections in less than a year) were inconclusive, after weeks of negotiations it led to an agreement between Likud and Blue and White to form a unity government.

Following our complaint, and subsequent follow-up emails to editors, they finally agreed to remove the claim that Israel has “swept aside the authority of parliament, the courts and elections”.
Top US Antisemitism Official Urges ‘Aggressive’ Response to Rise of Online Hate Speech During Coronavirus Crisis
A top US State Department official said on Monday he was “deeply concerned” by a sharp rise in online antisemitism during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“What we’ve seen in the past two months is really a wave — a tsunami, I might say — of antisemitism on the internet focused on the coronavirus,” US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Elan Carr said in a telephone briefing marking Jewish American Heritage Month. “And this is really nothing more than the recycled blood libel of the Middle Ages. Jews were blamed for spreading the Bubonic Plague and the Black Plague in the Middle Ages. And so this is really a hallmark of antisemitism that it morphs to adopt whatever current events has and focuses its venom using the vehicle of the day.”

“Yes, it’s concerning, and we’ve got to fight it,” he stated.

“I want to also say, though, that the virus eventually — God willing soon — will be over and done with, but what might be longer lived is the economic dislocation that results from this pandemic,” Carr added. “And when one looks at world history, whenever there have been periods of deep economic downturn and economic suffering, Jews have been targeted.”

“This rise in antisemitism, which we’re seeing on the far right, the ethnic supremacist far right, the radical anti-Zionist left, militant Islam…this is not a German problem or a European problem or a Latin American problem or a US problem,” he said. “This is a global problem that requires a global coordinated, focused response.”
Spate of anti-Semitic incidents leads to stark warning from WZO
he latest series of anti-Semitic events that have cropped up across Europe in recent days has triggered a call for governments and Jewish communities to not remain complacent.

World Zionist Organization Vice Chairman Yaakov Hagoel said on Monday: "Anti-Semitic events have become commonplace for the Jews around the world. Unfortunately, for worldwide governments, the window of time to build a plan to eradicate anti-Semitism is running out."

The incidents include inscriptions such as "Juden Raus" (Jews outside) that appeared on the walls of the cemetery in Soveria Mannelli, Italy. Swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans appeared in the stairwell, sidewalk, and in front of the house of Sherlock Baines (65), a Jew living in Dusseldorf whose parents were concentration camp inmates.

In Berlin, anti-Semitic abuse was hurled at a woman who spoke Hebrew with her children while shopping in Berlin when a foreign man turned to them and said, "these Jews are everywhere, get away from here, Zidovsky scum" (in Polish "Zidovsky" can be translated to "Jew", in Russian, it is an anti-Semitic word). "Bystanders noticed the anti-Semitic insult without responding to it," WZO said in a statement.

In Weimar, Germany, portraits of survivors from the Buchenwald concentration camp were vandalized in an open-air exhibition.

"The coronavirus-related anti-Semitic events will escalate and become even more violent and physical," Hagoel warned.
Ohio state rep. calls Jewish Department of Health director a ‘globalist'
An Ohio state representative drew criticism for calling the state’s Jewish Department of Health director a “globalist.”
In a Facebook post on Friday, Rep. Nino Vitale said the director, Amy Acton, was denying state residents their human rights by extending a stay-at-home order until May 29.

“Your basic human rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness do not come from an unelected Globalist Health Director, who signed the order in the dark of night. Your basic human rights are inalienable and cannot be bought, sold, traded or taken from you,” Vitale wrote in a post on Facebook on Friday and in a letter to supporters.

Vitale’s Facebook page has since become unavailable, but in a note on his campaign website Vitale said “it appears web search engines and web relays are currently banning my Facebook page.”

In a statement, the Cleveland office of the Anti-Defamation League urged Vitale to apologize for using the term, which recalls the anti-Semitic stereotype that a Jewish cabal secretly controls the world.

“Whether Rep. Vitale purposely invoked antisemitism or not, we strongly urge him to remove that term from his vocabulary, and to issue an apology to Dr. Acton and the entire Jewish community. ADL is willing and able to provide Rep. Vitale, and all elected officials, training on anti-Semitism,” the ADL wrote on Facebook.
Intel buys Israeli smart-transit startup Moovit for $900 million in bid for data
US tech giant Intel Corp. on Monday said it has acquired Israel’s smart-transit startup Moovit for some $900 million.

The acquisition will help another Israeli firm acquired by Intel, Mobileye, to achieve its aim of becoming a complete mobility provider, including offering robotaxi services, Intel said in a statement. Intel bought Mobileye in 2017 for a massive $15.3 billion, the largest ever acquisition in Israel.

Moovit, a free, crowdsourced application that provides real-time information about public transportation schedules, is used by 800 million riders across in 3,100 cities across 102 countries, the statement said. Moovit combines information from public transit operators and authorities with live information from the user community to offer travelers a real-time picture of the best route for their journey.

Mobileye’s Advanced Driver Assisted Systems (ADAS) technology “is already improving the safety of millions of cars on the road,” said Bob Swan, Intel CEO in the statement. “Moovit accelerates their ability to truly revolutionize transportation — reducing congestion and saving lives — as a full-stack mobility provider.”

Moovit will now join the Mobileye business, but will retain its brand and its existing partnerships, the statement said. The acquisition of Moovit, together with that of Mobileye, will enable Intel to tap into a huge amount of data regarding transportation and transit in cities around the world. Indeed, Mobileye and Moovit generate complementary data: the data that Mobileye generates relates to vehicles, while Moovit generates data about people on the move.
Defense Ministry orders Firefly loitering munition for IDF ground forces
Israel’s Defense Ministry has placed an order for Rafael’s Spike FireFly loitering munition for the IDF ground forces.

Known as FireFly, it was jointly developed by the ministry and Rafael for the dismounted soldier who is fighting within the urban arena where, despite precision being critical, the enemy is behind cover and the soldier’s situational awareness is limited.

Weighing only three kg., the light, small and agile munition can be rapidly deployed within seconds. It is portable, durable and includes a rugged airframe to withstand the harsh environment of urban combat.

“The operation of FireFly is very intuitive, with no special skills required,” Rafael said in a statement. “FireFly enables overmatch to break combat deadlock, and has a lethal effect on stationary and moving targets with or without line-of-sight to operator.”

The weapon system kit includes three miniature loitering munitions and a control unit which is based on a ruggedized tablet with a military standard bidirectional data link. FireFly, which can be operated day or night, has a low visual and acoustic signature as well as an abort/wave-off capability and full, safe returnability to the operator up to attack command.
The Sea of Galilee is full, but virus rules mean nobody is there to see it
After an especially rainy winter, the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel is at its highest level in two decades, but the beaches and major Christian sites along its banks are empty.

Tourism usually peaks in April, when Christians flock to the holy sites during the Easter season and Israelis descend on the beaches and nearby national parks to enjoy the spring weather and see the wildflowers bloom.

This year, that coincided with a lockdown aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus. The borders have been closed and Israelis have been largely confined to their homes since mid-March.

While authorities have recently begun loosening the restrictions, they imposed a full lockdown over Independence Day last week, and regulations still bar anyone from traveling more than 100 meters (yards) from home for any non-essential purpose.
This April 25, 2020 photo shows the water level meter in the Sea of Galilee, locally known as Lake Kinneret (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

That left the shores of the Sea of Galilee, or Lake Kinneret, empty. Chairs and umbrellas were stacked up on beaches that in previous years would have been packed with families enjoying outdoor cookouts and watching fireworks displays.

“It’s full of water and we are very excited,” said Idan Greenbaum, head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council. “Unfortunately, because of the virus, it’s empty.”
Kiss frontman Simmons learns about Holocaust survivor mother’s ordeal
Kiss frontman Gene Simmons said his mother almost never spoke about her Holocaust ordeal, including time in Nazi camps.

A German newspaper has provided him with plenty more information.

Bild am Sonntag presented the Israel-born rock star with 100 pages of documents about his mother’s ordeal, including her impact statement, to mark the 75th anniversary of her liberation.

Flora Klein, a native of Hungary, was 19 when American troops liberated the Mauthausen camp on May 5, 1945. She died at 93 in the United States.

In her statement to the former Restitution Office in Koblenz, Klein wrote: “In November 1944, I was brought to the Ravensbruck concentration camp. I lived there in block no. 21 and worked in the fields, gathering potatoes outside the camp. I wore old civilian clothes with a white oil (paint) cross painted on the back, in a camp surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by the SS.”

Klein was transferred to the Venusberg subcamp of the Flossenburg concentration camp in January 1945, and arrived at Mauthausen in March that year.

“She was strong,” Simmons told Bild in an interview published Sunday as he read the documents. “She fought all of this on her own.”



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