Monday, September 09, 2013
'40 Years on, It's Time to Mark Victory in the Yom Kippur War'
In an interview with Arutz Sheva, Gur says the time has come for Israelis to realize that even though the war caught Israel's leaders unprepared, the efforts of the military are a cause for great pride.Isi Leibler: Candidly Speaking: A friendlier Australian government
The Yom Kippur War began on the holiest day of the Jewish Calendar in 1973 when an Arab force led by Egypt and Syria made a joint surprise attack on Israeli positions in the Sinai desert to the south, and the Golan Heights on Israel's northern border.
The community came out strongly for the Liberal party and Tony Abbott, who has been leader of the opposition in the House of Representatives since 2009. Abbott has been a passionate friend of Israel since his first visit to the country as a young man and subsequently as an MP prior to being elected leader of the party. He is a protégé of former prime minister John Howard, recognized as having been one of Israel’s greatest champions among world statesmen. It is anticipated that the new government headed by Abbot will foster robust support for Israel on par with that of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.Defense minister ridicules notion of democracy in Mideast
It is also ironic that, whereas the former Labor government abandoned Israel in order to procure Arab support for its candidature to the UN Security Council, the Arabs will have effectively guaranteed the appointment of what will in all likelihood be the most pro-Israel government on the council.
Surging as far back in time as the Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916, which dictated the eventual parceling of the Middle East among the world powers, Ya’alon said that just as the nation state was right for Europe at the time and wrong for the Middle East, so, too, is democracy today — as ushered in at the ballot box — wrong for the region.Israel complains to US over Palestinian leaks
Advocating for democracy, he said, in a region where death is frequently valued over life, reeked of “ignorance, naiveté, wishful thinking and, no less important, patronization.”
He also voiced outright surprise that, despite the upheaval in the Arab world, there was still a movement to push for the founding of a Palestinian state.
The anonymous Palestinian official said Israel had proposed leaving dozens of settlements and military bases in the West Bank and seeks a Palestinian state in provisional borders.Guardian columnist Giles Fraser finds ‘caged’ Palestinians in Jerusalem
The Israeli official said Sunday some of the information the Palestinians have leaked is incorrect or distorted. He refused to elaborate. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as both sides said they wouldn’t brief the media.
Towards the end of his column, Fraser acknowledges that “understandably, Israelis hate outsiders like me arriving in their country and talking about the conditions in which Palestinians live” – a sentiment which is only partly true. It would be more accurate to say that what most irritates Israelis is outsiders with little or no understanding of our country who engage in lazy generalizations, half-truths, or outright lies, about every imaginable social and economic disparity between Israelis and Palestinians.Israel’s Tourism Minister Plans Birthright-Style Program for Christians
Naturally, for instance, Fraser doesn’t ponder why UNRWA (the UN agency tasked with administering Shuafat), with 29,000 employees and a budget of $1.3 billion, can’t provide adequate services for such a tiny Palestinian community – a query which would of course force Fraser to venture beyond the predictable agitprop he and his Guardian Left amen corner so faithfully disseminate.
Israeli Tourism Minister Uzi Landau says that he hopes to create a program modeled after Taglit-Birthright Israel trips for young Evangelical Christians, as part of an effort to increase Christian tourism in the Jewish state.Jordan’s King Abdullah Invokes ‘Duty’ to Protect Mideast Christians
“The Christians have a problem with their next generation too,” Landau said, Ynet reported. “We are looking to get closer to this public in order to generate tourism and support for Israel when they return to their homeland, become our ambassadors and view Israel not through CNN’s eyes.”
In his speech to the conference, Jordan’s King Abdullah said that protecting the rights of Middle East Christians “is a duty rather than a favor” because “Arab Christians have had a key role in building the Arab society and in the defense of our nation,” theJordan Times reported.Google Places Israeli Towns in Jordan
“Christians were in this region before Muslims. They are not strangers, nor colonialists, nor foreigners. They are the natives of these lands and Arabs, just as Muslims are,” Prince Ghazi said in his remarks to the conference, according to the Jordan Times.
The conference also focused on the rapid emigration of Christians from the region. Today, nearly every Christian community in the Middle East, with the exception of Israel’s small Christian community, is shrinking.
Some Israeli web surfers recently looked up information about religious Zionist settlement pioneer Rabbi Hanan Porat, as the second anniversary of his death is approaching. Besides a list of entries concerning Porat, the search results also yielded a concentrated summary of information about Porat next to his picture. The summary said that he died on October 4, 2011, at "Kfar Etzion, Jordan."'Cheat' claims mar Thomas Bach's challenge in race to succeed Jacques Rogge as IOC president
This is not the first clash between Gush Etzion and Google. Several months ago, residents of the Bloc who were surfing the internet were surprised by Hebrew messages from Google that suggested they use the Palestinian Authority Google site, google.ps, instead of the Israeli google.co.il. (h/t Jewess)
Thomas Bach, the firm favourite to succeed Jacques Rogge as head of the IOC on Tuesday, found himself the subject of a withering television documentary in his native Germany last week that has also sparked suggestions he has become the victim of a smear campaign.Israeli start-up Outbrain to seek billion-dollar IPO
A programme called Sport Inside saw the 59-year-old lawyer and former Olympic fencing champion accused of cheating when an athlete by using a wet glove to disrupt electronic scoring apparatus, of appearing in the files of the East German secret police – or Stasi – as part of an influence-peddling scheme, and of fronting an Arab-German chamber of commerce with anti-Israeli leanings.
After the massive buyouts of two Israeli tech companies for nearly $1 billion apiece, a third Israeli start-up is set to implement an alternative high-value exit strategy. A report Monday said that Israeli start-up Outbrain plans to go public with a valuation of a billion dollars, or a sum very close to it.IBM acquires CSL International cloud computing firm
According to the report in the business daily Calcalist, Outbrain, which provides a platform for content management and promotion, will seek to raise $250 million, probably on the NASDAQ.
IBM has announced its acquisition of Israel’s CSL International, a leading provider of virtualization management technology for the American company’s zEnterprise system. The deal is seen as a strategic investment that will enhance IBM’s cloud capabilities.Film on Egypt’s Jews wins ‘best documentary’ award
CSL International’s CSL-WAVE software enables companies to monitor and manage their z/VM and Linux on System z environments using an easy-to-use interface. The software provides drag and drop simplicity to instantly create, discover, visualize and connect virtual servers to resources allowing clients to free up more skilled staff to address other business challenges.
The “Jews of Egypt” follows the lives of the Egyptian Jewish community in the 20th century until they left in large numbers under duress in the 1950s. Ramses describes it as a documentary about the cosmopolitan Egypt in the early 20th century, asking, “how did the Jews of Egypt turn in the eyes of Egyptians from partners in the same country to enemies?”Timna copper mines dated to King Solomon era
The film is based on testimonies of researchers, political figures and exiled Egyptian Jews.
New archaeological finds, including date and olive pits, have backed up the biblical narrative according to which the Timna copper mines in the south of Israel were active during the reign of King Solomon, around the 10th century BCE.Gold treasure trove unearthed at base of Temple Mount
The findings — based on the radiocarbon dating of material unearthed at a new site in Timna Valley in the Arava Desert, and released last week by a team led by Tel Aviv University’s Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef — overturn a consensus that had held sway among archaeologists for several decades.
Hebrew University researchers on Monday announced the discovery of a rare trove of Byzantine-era gold and silver artifacts, the most impressive of which is a 10-centimeter solid gold medallion emblazoned with a menorah and other Jewish iconography.Simon Schama: The Story Of The Jews Episode 2 - Among Believers
The find, unearthed in the area adjacent to the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount known as the Ophel, was dated to the early 7th century CE, in all likelihood the time of the brief Persian conquest of Jerusalem.
