8/01 Links Part 2: Anti-Boycott Lawsuit in Australia, 'Viva Palestina' Investigated, Israeli Ice Rinks!

From Ian:

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'Shurat HaDin' Files Suit Over Australian Israel Boycotts

An Israeli civil rights group, Shurat HaDin, has filed a class action complaint under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 with the Australian Human Rights Commission over a Sydney professor's participation and public support of boycotts of Israel including an academic boycott of Israeli universities.
Recently, faculty and students at Sydney University called for the severing of links with Israeli institutions, actions that would be deemed racist and in violation of Australian Federal anti-discrimination laws.
The complaint filed by Shurat HaDin's Australian solicitor Alexander Hamilton is the first time that a Racial Discrimination Act action has been launched in Australia against those promoting boycotts, sanctions and divestment (BDS) against the Jewish State. It is the first time that Australia's anti-racism laws have been utilized against those seeking to harm Israeli academics or businesses because of their national origin.

‘Viva Palestina’ UK Charity Connected to Anti-Israel Activist George Galloway, Under Investigation

A UK charity created in 2009 supposedly to provide aid in the wake of the Israeli ground incursion into Gaza at the time, is being investigated by the Charity Commission after failing to file any annual reports since its inception, Jewish News reported, citing the commission.
Viva Palestina was set up by a group that included far-left British member of parliament, Bradford West MP George Galloway who is known for his anti-Israel rhetoric, and has tried to run convoys carrying supplies into the area.

The anti-Israel lesbian avenger

The real “washing” is by Schulman who consistently whitewashes those most guilty of violating progressive and LGBT principles. She whitewashes Hamas, claiming she can’t judge the group because all she knows “was fed to me on American television” though she could have looked at Hamas’ founding document and leaders’ statements which call for the murder of Jews, obliteration of Israel and establishment of an Islamist caliphate, and liberally quote from the anti-Semitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” She justifies participating in demonstrations with Hamas supporters because, she explains, she had also participated in gay parades with Republicans and Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, equating these groups with an internationally designated terrorist organization notorious for its suicide bombing and rocket attacks on innocent civilians. She attributed her concerns about Hamas to her “prejudice.”

BBC Persian Service promotes antisemitic Holocaust denier Atzmon

It is bad enough that the BBC promotes Atzmon in English language broadcasts, especially given that anti-racists in Britain are trying to oppose the spread of his hate speech. But it is even more reprehensible and irresponsible on the part of the BBC to go to the trouble of translating his racist opinions into Persian for promotion in a part of the world which has been spoon-fed with anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial for years by its own repressive regime.

Guardian falsely claims that most new Israeli immigrants move to the West Bank

So, a photo depicting a joyous occasion for a new arrival to the Jewish state was contextualized by the editor to suggest that since such immigrants disproportionately become “settlers”, they can be seen as injurious to the peace process.
However, contrary to the claim made in the caption, most new immigrants do NOT move to “settlements” in the West Bank. As statistics over the last several years published by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics indicate, the most popular destinations are Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, with a small minority going to the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).

Obama: Weapons Transfers to Hezbollah Are “Unusual and Extraordinary Threat” to U.S. National Security

In a letter addressed to the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president of the Senate, Obama extended for one additional year a 2007 decision to freeze the assets of individuals whose activities undermine stability in Lebanon. “Certain ongoing activities, such as continuing arms transfers to Hezbollah that include increasingly sophisticated weapons systems, serve to undermine Lebanese sovereignty, contribute to political and economic instability in Lebanon, and continue to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” Obama said in the letter.

Chief of IDF Northern Command: Hezbollah is Better Armed, Better Trained and More Cautious

The ceremony, held at a memorial site in Israel’s north, honored IDF soldiers who lost their lives in the Second Lebanon War. Senior IDF leaders, including Deputy Chief of the General Staff Major General Gadi Eizenkot, attended the ceremony.
“With regard to the situation seven years ago, Hezbollah is better armed, better trained and more cautious,” Maj. Gen. Golan said. “It is facing internal challenges, fighting inside Syria, continues to be a central pillar in the axis of evil and continues to see Israel as a devil that but be exorcised from the world. Hezbollah is deterred, very deterred, but is still intent on evil.”

’Hezbollah maintains complex network of front companies trading in counterfeit medicine’

Hezbollah runs a complex network of front companies in Lebanon, the Gulf states and Europe that trade in counterfeit medicine, Kuwaiti daily Al-Seyassah reported on Tuesday.
This international business in counterfeit medicine “facilitates the group’s terrorist operations,” the report stated, and includes Iranian citizens.
The group exploits the free trade zone in the Gulf and in Europe to run its business.
Hezbollah also steals drugs from shipments of drugs donated to African countries, sources quoted by the paper said.

French President to Visit Israel by ‘End of the Year’

French President Francois Hollande will visit Israel by the end of the year, the country’s foreign minister said Tuesday, according to French media reports.

A Far East collision with the Middle East

Encouraging Chinese students to study at Rothberg is part of an initiative that aims to strengthen ties between Israeli and Chinese universities. Twelve additional scholarships will be offered in October to Chinese students interested in obtaining a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies and the council will continue to offer additional scholarships to Chinese students over the next two years.
“The perception of Israel in China is not favorable, to my knowledge,” said Azjenstadt, noting that the Chinese are often scared to come to Israel, knowing only what they hear in the news. “This program shows them that life goes on here and Israel is not a scary place. It’s an important diplomatic mission. Forty-seven students won’t change China, but you have to start somewhere.”

Futuristic transport pods coming to Tel Aviv

A group of engineers and dreamers are hoping to ease Tel Aviv’s notorious traffic by making the First Hebrew City the first city in the world to host a mass transport system of magnetically levitating pods.
The city recently hired US consultancy Jenkins Gales & Martinez to get the ball rolling, or pod sliding, on the project.

IDF boot camp commander traveled the world to find a place he belongs

Jonathan Sleischmann was 13 years old when a firebomb was hurled into the open window of his Jewish day school in Caracas.
He didn’t see it. He just heard the screams. The teachers asked the children to quickly exit the classroom and lie down outside. They hid in the grass for five hours.
This wasn’t the first bout of violence. A few years earlier, a Jewish student was kidnapped in the same school – Venezuelan soldiers came through the doors and simply escorted a child from his classroom seat. Everyone watched, stunned.
Chavez could do what he wanted. He happened “to have close relationships to countries that don’t like Jews,” Sleischmann told The Jerusalem Post in a recent interview.

IDF legal adviser backs detention of 5-year-old Palestinian stone-thrower

The soldiers who detained a five-year-old Palestinian stone-thrower in Hebron earlier this month were justified, the IDF’s West Bank legal adviser Doron Ben-Barak wrote to NGO B’Tselem in response to a complaint it had filed with him.
“One can’t stand idly by while minors throw stones that endanger bystanders and themselves,” Barak wrote in an opinion dated July 22, which B’Tselem published only on Wednesday.

IDF Honors ‘Inspiring’ Foreign Volunteers

Senior military officers, including Technical and Logistics Directorate head General Kobi Barak and Chief Logistics Officer Brigadier-General Mofid Ghanem, attended the event, as did Sar-El director Brigadier-General (res.) Tzvi Shor.
Since the Yom Kippur war in the early 1970s, more than 160,000 people have volunteered through various IDF programs.

Start-Up Nation: TaKaDu and Netafim Apply Israeli Ingenuity to Improve Global Water Use

Israeli start-ups TaKaDu and Netafim are bringing the country’s ingenuity and experience in water management to play an important part in helping the world use its limted water resources as efficiently as possible, BBC News reported, in a feature on the global water crisis.
TaKaDu has developed a platform to manage big data analytics with cloud-based software to monitor water networks, increasing efficiency with quicker detection of leaks and burst pipes, and saving municipal users millions of dollars annually.

Advantix air-con empire built on ice and salt

When three Israeli brothers back from vacation decided to start a recreational ice-skating business in Israel, they came up against the obvious challenges of making ice float in the Middle East: heat, humidity and high energy bills.
Taking a slab of Dead Sea salt and inspired by the way the lowest place on earth sucks up water from the atmosphere, a new cooling idea was born.
Dan, Tom and Mordechai Forkosh, with their father and uncle, eventually went on to build 22 slush-free ice rinks in Israel and Europe using their patented energy-saving approach.

Israel Daily Picture: Before There Was Jerusalem, There Was Shiloh

We recently discovered online an antique book, "A Month in Palestine and Syria, April 1891," posted by the New Boston Fine and Rare Books. The book includes a travelogue and several dozen photographs of tourists and pilgrims. They also visited Shiloh.