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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

7/10 Links Part 2: FIFA President Shown How Hamas Uses Football Fields to Launch Missiles at Israel

From Ian:

Netanyahu Shows FIFA President How Hamas Uses Football Fields to Launch Missiles at Israel
In response to comments Blatter made during his visit to Israel, the Prime Minister decided to show him concrete evidence of how football fields are used as bases by Hamas for launching rockets at civilian populations in Israel.
Netanyahu presented photographs showing missiles being launched at Israel from the heart of civilian populations in Gaza. The aerial shots from November 16, 2012 show Fajr-5 missile launch sites in the Gaza football stadium. A photograph of a building that was hit by missiles in Rishon Lezion and a video clip that was taken by civilians on March 10, 2012, which shows a football match between Be’er Sheva and Um Al-Fahm being suddenly halted due to rocket fire in the stadium area, was also shown.


Maccabi Tel Aviv Match Cancelled in Germany Amid Security Fears
Police in Austria this weekend cancelled a soccer match between Germany’s Energie Cottbus and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv due to security fears, Der Spiegel’s website reported Tuesday.
The decision was taken last Saturday when police in the Alpine town of Angerberg in the Tyrol region of Austria were tipped-off to the fact that dozens of far-right supporters of Cottbus, including members of Inferno, a fan club banned last month for showing “anti-Semitism signs,” planned to attend the match.
Why Did IDF Not Share Al-Dura Video?
Now he has revealed that just weeks after the alleged shooting, senior IDF officials met and watched the entire video, rather than the edited version presented by France’s Channel 2 that sparked the accusations against Israel.
"Despite the media reports based on edited and doctored video footage, we watched the original, and all sounds of IDF fire was muffled - far away in the background. When the barrage fired at al-Dura was fired, the audio was suddenly close by - in other words Arab gumen right beside the camera near al-Dura fired them, not the IDF,” he reported.
Terra Incognita: The racist romance of the Arab village
Outsiders taking credit for “saving” Arabs is simply a modern-day variation on the “white man’s burden”; only intervention by the West can save the East.
In some cases when Arabs don’t fit the narrative, their identities are even changed. A Palestinian woman from Azariya near Jerusalem whose Negev Beduin husband murdered her children was turned into an “abused Beduin mother” from the Negev by one Israeli NGO leader. Her identity was changed from modern urban woman to rural Beduin to fit a narrative.
The twin perception of the Arabs as parts of the landscape, rather than real, contemporary people, and the desire to communicate their views through third parties represent a racist assault on their humanity; a holdover from the 19th century.
Lawmakers urge Argentina to let AMIA lawyer speak at US hearing
Two US congressmen expressed concern over Argentina’s decision not to allow its prosecutor in the Buenos Aires Jewish center bombing to testify at a House hearing on Iran’s influence in South America.
Who said it: Julian Assange or David Icke?
Julian Assange and David Icke become more alike every day. Both are white-haired blokes with a messiah complex who love nothing more than wagging an erect index finger at the hidden conspiracies of evil men who control world affairs and stupid people’s minds. Can you tell Assange’s ravings from Icke’s bollocks? It’s time to find out. See if you can guess which of Britain’s two best-loved bonkers spectres said the following.
Israel Names Ron Dermer as New Ambassador to U.S.
Ron Dermer has been named to replace Michael Oren as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told The Algemeiner on Tuesday, confirming recent media speculation.
In an email to reporters Prime Minister Netanyahu added praise for Dermer. “Ron Dermer has all the qualities necessary to successfully fill this important post. I have known him for many years and I know that Ron will faithfully represent the State of Israel in the capital of our greatest ally – the USA. On behalf of the citizens of Israel, I wish him great success,” he said.
Israel, China Move Closer to Free Trade Agreement with Survey
Israel and China have moved closer to a bilateral free trade partnership, agreeing to hold a survey to quantify its impact as a first step, Israel’s Globes reported on Tuesday, citing sources in Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett’s delegation, currently on a trade mission in China.
Globes said that Israel had expressed interest in conducting such a survey over the past two years, but, unexpectedly today, Chinese leadership responded positively. The survey could take up to two years complete.
Bennett told Globes that trade between Israel and China totals about $8 billion annually.
Jordan Eyes Israel For Energy, As Egypt Gas Pipeline Attacked Again
Egypt traditionally provides energy to several of its neighbors, but the political and security environment in the country has traditional importers looking for other suppliers. Israel in particular is increasingly discussed as a future key source of natural gas to the Hashemite kingdom.
IBM buys Israeli cloud computing company
IBM on Tuesday announced an agreement to acquire CSL International, a leading provider of virtualization management technology headquartered in Herzliya Pituach • Financial terms are not disclosed, but market sources say IBM is paying about $20 million.
Consortium raises necessary financial guarantees for Israeli fibre-optic venture
A consortium led by Sweden’s ViaEuropa that won the right to build the superfast broadband network operating over infrastructure owned by the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) has moved a step closer to making the project a reality. Haaretz reports that consortium has now raised the required capital, having obtained ILS100 million (USD27.3 million) in equity as well as an ILS200 million bank guarantee, with this being the amount required by the government from the consortium before the joint venture can get underway.(h/t Zvi)
Remains of a sphinx found in northern Israel
Ben-Tor and Zuckerman said that the sphinx likely came from the ancient city of Heliopolis (the Biblical “On”), north of today’s capital city of Cairo.
As no records exist of a connection between Egypt and what was then Canaan in the time of King Mycerinus, Ben-Tor and Zuckerman believe that the sphinx was probably brought to Hazor either during the period of the Hyksos, a Canaanite tribe that ruled Egypt around the 17th-16th centuries BCE, or between the 15th and 13th centuries BCE, when Canaan was under Egyptian rule.
Temple Mount: Oldest Ever Artifact Discovered in Jerusalem
Working near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar has unearthed the earliest alphabetical written text ever uncovered in the city.
The inscription is engraved on a large pithos, a neckless ceramic jar found with six others at the Ophel excavation site. According to Dr. Mazar, the inscription, in the Canaanite language, is the only one of its kind discovered in Jerusalem and an important addition to the city’s history.
Dated to the tenth century BCE, the artifact predates by two hundred and fifty years the earliest known Hebrew inscription from Jerusalem, which is from the period of King Hezekiah at the end of the eighth century BCE.
Completing the 118-year-old puzzle of the Cairo genizah
Think of it as the world’s oldest and largest jigsaw puzzle: Images of about 200,000 fragments of ancient Jewish documents, held in 67 separate locations across the world, are being matched up digitally by a powerful computer network in the basement of Tel Aviv University.
At the rate of half a million comparisons per minute, the task ran from May 16 through the end of June.
Boy injured by rampaging hyenas brought to Israel for treatment
Abdul Razek, an eight-year-old from Ethiopia who was violently attacked by wild hyenas outside his home and could not receive the necessary medical care in his country, was brought on Monday to the Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariya.
The government hospital’s director-general, Dr. Masad Barhoum, praised the collaboration of the United Jewish Communities, the Jewish Agency, the Joint Distribution Committee and the Foreign Ministry to make the effort successful. (h/t Zvi)