Thursday Links Part 2

From Ian:

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Honest Reporting: No Sugarcoating BDS Ignorance

According to the paper, PAG’s promotional material claimed that Max Brenner supports Israel, the IDF, and the torture and genocide of Palestinians.
"But Mr Harrison appears in the video saying: “Max Brenner itself is a franchise. So financially speaking there isn’t really any connection between this Max Brenner store in particular and Israel. It’s become really a kind of cultural ambassador for Israel, this store . . ."
By that logic, other foreign companies with operations in Israel, like, Intel, Microsoft, IBM, and McDonalds, are also “ambassadors” for Israel on some level, if not financially supportive of the Zionist entity. Which begs the question: Can the BDS supporters wash off their Windows and Whoppers?

Unis tolerating intolerance

As a pluralistic democracy that provides for the security and well-being of Palestinians, Israel is not remotely comparable to apartheid South Africa. For decades Arabs have had greater democratic and human rights in Israel than in any Arab country. They make up about a sixth of Israel's population and Palestinian Muslims hold seats in the Knesset on a platform of creating a viable Palestinian state. Israel is not perfect and the Palestinian issue must be resolved. But demonising Israel and Jews is not only wrong because it is racist, it is also an incorrect and deceptive interpretation of reality. (PM) Julia Gillard is right to condemn the BDS campaign, now so marginalised it has been disowned even by the Greens. We are entitled to expect our universities to take a stronger stand both against racism and in favour of facts.

Stand With US: StandWithUS to counter anti-Israel posters in Metro-North with Pro-Israel posters May 13 until June 9

StandWithUs [SWU] is placing seven posters in 25 New York (Westchester) Metro-North locations from May 13 until June 9, 2013. The ads counter the misinformation in anti-Israel posters currently on display at these sites. This is the third time the non-profit Israel education organization has countered anti-Israel posters in New York’s metro system. In July-August 2012, SWU placed six different ads at 75 Metro-North locations, and in 2011 it posted a billboard on 25 New York subway platforms.

How UC Berkeley killed BDS

For years now, the BDS movement in the United States has failed to enact any boycott against, or divestment from, Israel. Not once has it harmed Israel’s pockets or stature. Not once has it benefitted Palestinians, let alone the cause of peace, because it rejects entirely the concept of peace between a Jewish state of Israel and an Arab state of Palestine. Two weeks ago, the student government of America’s most radical student body rejected it outright, explicitly and repeatedly. If it cannot succeed at Berkeley, how can it ever hope to succeed elsewhere? It cannot. Berkeley killed BDS.

Can You Be Sued for Boycotting Israeli Companies?

New York-based legal think tank The Lawfare Project and Israeli civil rights organization Shurat HaDin were among the first entities to recognize the applicability of section 296(13) to anti-Israel discriminatory business practices perpetrated by New York companies. In March 2012, human rights attorney and Lawfare Project Director Brooke Goldstein briefed the Brooklyn-based Park Slope Food Co-op on the potential legal implications of its proposed boycott of Israeli products, which contributed to the Co-op's overwhelming vote against enacting the boycott.

The closing of the academic mind in Ireland

When seen through the prism of what is taught in Israeli and in Palestinian schools, can anyone doubt that there is hypocrisy at play in Ireland? When the Irish Teachers Union picks out one set of teachers and loathes them above all others, when it simplifies politics and history to fit a biased ideology of victim and oppressor, or imposes a twisted view of good and evil on events that defy such categorization, academic thinking has been abandoned. As such, such actions should have no place in any academic union purporting to represent scholars and teachers.

Newseum and Freedom House Smear Israel

The report claims that the appearance on the scene of Israel Hayom, a relatively new Israeli newspaper, is a threat to press freedom because it is a success that has hurt the business prospects of its competitors. No, you didn’t misread that sentence. Freedom House is taking the position that the fact that Israel Hayom has claimed an impressive share of the hyper-competitive newspaper market is undermining the freedom of the press. The justification for this ridiculous claim is that Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul and well-known contributor to Republican candidates, has “subsidized” the paper and that its editorial line favors Prime Minister Netanyahu. The paper, which is distributed free of charge, is now the most-read paper in Israel, a state of affairs which Freedom House not unreasonably connects to the demise of Maariv, a longtime mainstay of the Hebrew daily press. But the question readers of this report have to ask is what in the name of Joseph Pulitzer does the ability of Adelson’s paper to succeed where many other print papers are failing have to do with freedom of the press?

A lesson from Martin Luther King

In his 1968 speech to the Rabbinical Assembly, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said “peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy.” Less than two weeks after giving that speech, Dr. King was assassinated.
Unfortunately, since Dr. King’s passing, some high-profile African-American individuals have embraced anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Rather than building upon the strong ties forged between Jews and African-Americans during the struggle for civil rights, some African-American leaders have damaged both communities with their demagoguery.
This was not Dr. King’s dream.

Israeli translation tech promotes ‘understanding’

Before Google Translate, there was Babylon. Although the Israeli translation software and service has long been eclipsed in numbers of users by Google’s product — due, for the most part, to Google’s Internet ubiquity — Babylon is now getting its shot at mass web usage. The company has signed a four-year cooperation agreement with Yahoo to provide online translation services for web users and mobile devices. The two companies will share advertising revenue.

Buffett: Israel a Top Place for Ideas, Investments

“Israel needs to continue doing what it does,” Buffett said. “You are a nation of entrepreneurs with fantastic capabilities. You need to continue providing the best and most comfortable conditions for investors. This is the responsibility of the government, which ensures a positive climate for investors.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway pays $2 billion for Iscar

American business magnate says Israel is the best place to invest outside the US.

Sephardi Stories, on the Record

Stanley Urman, executive vice-president of Justice for Jews From Arab Countries, says that just as Spielberg documented the stories of survivors in order to negate Holocaust revisionism, Sephardi Voices can ensure that nobody can deny the legacy of Jews from Arab lands. “Arabs say that Jews weren’t discriminated against in their countries and that they left from their own free will,” he said. “They try to expunge the legacy of Sephardi Jews from the history of the Middle East. Jews lived in the Middle East for over 2,500 years—1,000 years before the advent of Islam. Jews are the indigenous people of the Middle East, and their story must be told and recognized.”