Wednesday, October 09, 2013
Ron Prosor: Where Is the Flotilla for Syria?
Today much of the international human-rights arena resembles a masquerade ball, where the most extreme views can be easily masked beneath the empty utterance of words like "democracy" and "human rights." Norwegian scholar Johan Galtung, the leader of the Scandinavian ship to Gaza, was recently suspended from the Swiss World Peace Academy for a series of anti-Semitic rants. He recommended that all university students read "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," the infamous piece of 19th-century propaganda used in Nazi classrooms.
Far from criticizing the tyrants of the Middle East, the flotilla crowd often joins hands with them. Just this May, the British activist group Viva Palestina enjoyed the hospitality of Bashar Assad, making a pit stop in Syria on its way to trying to enter Gaza. Around the same time that Assad's thugs were gearing up for their massacre of children in Houla, members of Viva Palestina were proudly tweeting their whereabouts and posting photos on Facebook of themselves next to the regime's representatives.
Instead of dancing with dictators and tangoing with tyrants, what if the flotilla crowd actually set sail in the direction where aid is so desperately needed?
Prosor: Appointing Iran to UN disarmament c'tee like making drug lord CEO of pharmaceutical company
Prosor compared Iran serving on the UN’s leading disarmament committee to “appointing a drug lord CEO of a pharmaceutical company.”Iran & Hezbollah: Axis of Terror
The envoy argued that “Iran’s appointment erodes the UN’s legitimacy and its ability to promote arms control and disarmament as well as, preserve global peace and security.” He added, that “rather than provide a global stage for Iran’s defiance and deception, the UN should shine a spotlight on the regime’s ongoing pursuit of nuclear weapons and its support for terrorism across the globe.”
IDF Blog: Hackers Beware - The IDF’s Digital Battleground
Since 1948, the IDF has fought on three battlegrounds: land, sea and air. Now, in 2013, cyberspace has become the newest battlefield as hackers try to hurt Israel virtually.The Cyber-War Against Iran Is a Real War, and a Rehearsal for Future Conflicts
A revolution is taking place in the IDF, but it’s probably not one you’ve heard about in the news. The IDF is transforming into a military that is prepared to defend itself from enemies on the newest battlefield: cyberspace. The IDF’s Teleprocessing Corps is at the center of this revolution, fortifying the military’s cyber defense against the threats of enemy hackers, while developing technologies that will make it easier to defend the country on the ground.
The United States and Israel are taking advantage of the newly globalized system that ties together all the world’s economies as well as its production of knowledge, a system whose commanding heights—banking, the Internet, and information technology—the United States and its allies now dominate. While some have seen the information war between the West and Iran as a prelude to a shooting war with bombs, air raids, naval maneuvers, and possibly large troop movements, the reality is that, taken all together, these campaigns are warfare.David Mamet Tells the Left to Go Screw
David Mamet is right to reject the western-left, because the western-left is no friend to the Jewish people and has betrayed its own values.Solution to BDS Movement May Come from China
If the western-left ever actually stood for social justice and human rights, it does so no longer.
Until we wrap our brains around this particular fact, we will have nothing to say, just as most progressive-left Jews who favor Israel basically have nothing to say.
They are mutes who shrug their shoulders, hold up their palms, and wish for the best – that is, when they are not attacking “right-wing” Jews, also known as those of us willing to stand the hell up.
“While academics around the world are attempting to damage Israel’s economy with calls for boycotts and divestment, it is the Chinese who see the inherent value in Israeli ingenuity, innovation and education,” Carice Witte, executive director of Sino-Israel Global Network and Academic Leadership (SIGNAL), an institute working to advance Israel-China relations, told JNS.org.The intolerant crusade against circumcision
“Economic stability is one of China’s main goals. They view this collaboration as an investment in their own future,” Witte said.
I am not sure what my father would make of the current intolerant crusade against circumcision. It is difficult to make sense of the strong views held by campaigners and policymakers who seek to criminalise and pathologise the circumcision of Jewish and Muslim boys. Last Tuesday, a resolution passed by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe condemned male circumcision as a ‘violation of the physical integrity of children’. Unlike Antiochus IV, these parliamentarians did not use the narrative of a civilisational mission against barbarism to justify their assault on people’s way of life; instead they used the apparently neutral language of health and child protection to legitimise their crusade. The Council’s resolution called on governments to ‘clearly define the medical, sanitary and other conditions to be ensured for practices such as the non-medically justified circumcision of young boys’.Eldad: Circumcision – That’s the Threat
"The Council of Europe has found at last the greatest threat to kids in the world,” Eldad said declared. “No, it’s not Assad and his chemical weapons. It’s not Khamenei and his nuclear weapons. They are already considered to be ‘the good guys’ and must’ve already been invited for a party at Catherine Ashton’s place.”When it comes to criticizing Netanyahu, hard to tell Iran and NY Times apart
“It’s not even settlements this week,” he continued. “Now what is in their sites – unabashedly – are the foreskins of the Jews in Europe, who insist on circumcising their sons.”
A reading of the speech shows that it was quite skilled. Netanyahu explained how Iran is ruled by a regime that is currently destabilizing the Middle East and exporting terror globally. He also explained how, in the past, Iran used the illusion of moderation and negotiations to advance its nuclear program. (This is something that then candidate Hassan Rouhani boasted about in a recently reported video.)Guardian publishes letter by Jenny Tonge on the issue of antisemitism
But Netanyahu wasn’t arguing to attack Iran. He was arguing to keep sanctions in place, and strengthen them if necessary, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. (In fact the public statements of the Obama administration don’t sound that different from what Netanyahu said about sanctions.) The threat of military force was meant as a last resort.
Tonge has clearly demonstrated a malign obsession with Jews and the alleged power of the ‘Israel lobby’, and the decision by the Guardian to provide her a forum to weigh on the extremely serious issue anti-Jewish racism is, in a word, “deplorable”.BBC repeats misrepresentation of Bar Noar shooting
Unfortunately, as can be seen in this version of the filmed programme (also available on iPlayer for a limited period of time for those in the UK), the Bar Noar shootings are still being misrepresented as an anti-gay hate crime and the political associations of Professor Aeyal Gross are still not being made clear to BBC audiences, in clear breach of editorial guidelines.BBC parrots Ha’aretz editorial bemoaning demise of Israeli democracy
Obviously not, so consider this line (which, like much of the rest of the piece, appears to have been taken from an AP article by Tia Goldenberg) from an October 4th report titled “Jerusalem court rejects Israel nationality petition” which appeared on the Middle East page of the BBC News website:Report: Ukrainian police tortured, urinated on Jewish man
“Jewish religious holidays are also national holidays in Israel.”
That, of course, is an undisputed fact and indeed one would not expect otherwise in the world’s only Jewish state, just as one would not expect Christian festivals not to be national holidays in predominantly Christian countries or Islamic festivals not to be national holidays in mainly Muslim states.
Investigators in Lviv are looking into claims that two policemen assaulted and urinated on a Jewish man as part of an anti-Semitic attack, Ukrainian media reported.Israel Approves High-Speed Train Route to Eilat
The alleged victim, Dmitry Flekman, 28, told the Ukrainian newspaper Segondiya that two men, who identified themselves as police but did not give their names, assaulted him in the western Ukrainian city on Oct. 1 inside a police station and tried to extort money from him.
An Israeli government committee has approved plans for Israel’s most expensive transportation project ever, a high-speed rail line from central Israel to southern port city of Eilat on the Red Sea.Israelis Develop New Pesticide From Strawberry Leaves
The 217-mile track to Eilat will run along the eastern flank of the Negev, allowing it to avoid rocket fire from Gaza or the Sinai. The train is expected to reach speeds up to 155 miles per hour, which will cut travel down to two hours from the four-to-five-hour trip by car or bus. An estimated 5 million passengers a year are expected to ride the train, Haaretz reported.
Yissum Research Development Company, Hebrew University’s Technology Transfer Arm, and Israeli crop-protection company Makhteshim Agan partnered to develop and market a non-toxic and environmentally-friendly bio-control method for protecting plants based on a yeast isolated from strawberry leaves.US TV Stars Meet Terror Victims, Dexter’s CS Lee Says Israel Inspiring
The first visit of C.S. Lee – popularly known as Vince Masuka from the American TV show Dexter – to Israel, was an inspiring one for the Korean-American actor. In an exclusive interview, Lee told Tazpit News Agency that there were many moving points during the trip to the Holy Land. “The visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial was particularly special,” recalled Lee during his last evening in the country.Magen David Adom Raises $3.8 Million at Star-Studded LA Event
American Friends of Magen David Adom said the Oct. 6 event produced the highest amount it has ever raised for MDA, an organization that is mandated by the Israeli government but not funded by it, instead relying on private donors.3 Jewish professors — two of them Israeli — share 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Funds raised at the gala—which included performances by comedian Jackie Mason and singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka, and expressions of support for MDA by celebrities such as former Destiny’s Child member Michelle Williams—will benefit emergency medical services and the building of a new National Blood Center in Israel.
Kibbutz-born Arieh Warshel fought in ’67 and ’73 wars; Pretoria-born Michael Levitt taught at the Weizmann Institute for most of the 1980s, took Israeli citizenship; Martin Karplus fled as a child to the US from Nazi-occupied Austria. Prestigious prize awarded ‘for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems’
