Thursday, October 31, 2013
Extinguishing the Fires of Anti-Israel Agitation (REVIEW)
In Financing the Flames, we finally get the real answer to the question, as Edwin Black meticulously details how anti-Israel efforts are being funded by non-Arab nations (such as the United States and Great Britain) and by presumably non-aligned, well-intentioned private donor groups – some Jewish, which are then implemented by misguided Jews and Jewish organizations.Author of ‘IBM and the Holocaust’ Takes Apart NIF Funding Sources in New Book (INTERVIEW)
In other words, the Jewish gifts for socially-conscious fund raising and media wizardry, if indeed such things exist, are ironically being used against Israel.
We learn from Financing the Flames how these funds have created an industry-of-confrontation against Israel, and have led to careers for many of Israel’s adversaries.
The book, “Financing the Flames,” takes a hard look at the many non-profits funded by NIF, the role of the historically anti-Semitic Ford Foundation in propagating hate materials in 2000 and 2001, and how that ethos and funding transformed into NIF. Black also highlights many of the grievances long made by watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch and others, showing general readers the payments, effectively subsidized by U.S. tax payers, and received every month by Arab terrorists sitting in Israeli jails.Financing the flames from a mobile home in Florida
Those who wonder whether Palestinians and Israeli can reconcile and co-exist in peace must also confront the fact that foreign influences are working to make that more difficult. In the case of the internationals at Deir Istiya, the foreign intervention reaches all the way into the United States, and to a humble trailer located off the road, deep in the woods of Florida.JPost Editorial: Israel and the Rights Council
This was accompanied by nebulous carrots dangled before Israel. One is that Israel will cease being the sole geopolitically unaffiliated country at UN forums in Geneva.CFR: What is the U.S. position regarding the legality of Israeli settlements? by Elliot Abrams
Presumably, at some unspecified date, Israel will be coopted to the Western European and Others Group, as it is in New York’s UN forums.
The other carrot is that moves will be undertaken, again at an unspecified time, to release Israel from the dishonorable unique status accorded it at the UNHRC under Agenda Item 7. This turns Israel into a permanent subject of debate at every council session. No other country has a compulsory agenda item reserved for it.
These promises are far too vague to constitute tangible diplomatic achievements. They certainly do not justify Israel’s reversal of an eminently justified policy.
U.S. officials have tried to avoid an argument over the legal status of the settlements, instead urging that expansion is a bad policy. The use of the term "illegitimate" rather than "illegal" suggests a desire to express disapproval as a political judgment without getting bogged down in arguments over the international legal status of the Palestinian territories and Israel's actions in them.Douglas Murray: Are we losing the war for the soul of Islam?
The extremists may have a bad interpretation of Islam, they may have a wrong interpretation of Islam, but for very many people it is also a perfectly plausible interpretation of Islam. We do not acknowledge this because we do not want to.Jewish groups launch pro-circumcision task force
In February 2011 America's Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, was asked about the Muslim Brotherhood at a House Intelligence Committee hearing. He declared the Brotherhood to be a "largely secular" organisation with "no overarching agenda".
Whatever his title, Mr Clapper is clearly a man of no curiosity or intelligence. Since its founding in 1928 the agenda of the Brotherhood has been absolutely clear. It desires to impose sharia and restore the caliphate.
Responding to recent attacks in Europe on ritual circumcision, Jewish groups convened a special task force in Brussels to mount a “proactive defense” of the practice.Report: Deal in works to reveal fate of IAF navigator Ron Arad
“The days of waiting around to firefight individual attacks on brit milah are over,” said Philip Carmel, European policy adviser for the European Jewish Congress, in reference to the non-medical circumcision of 8-day-old Jewish males for religious reasons.
A Kuwait newspaper reported Wednesday that a deal was coalescing by which Israel would be given new information on prisoner of war Ron Arad in exchange for Iran receiving information on four Iranian diplomats who went missing near Beirut during Lebanon’s civil war in 1982. The report comes 27 years after IAF navigator Arad was taken as a prisoner of war by the Lebanese Shi’ite group Amal. (h/t Bob Knot)Helping the Methodists with their Israel boycott questionnaire
The UK Methodists have put out a questionnaire to help them construct a briefing on the arguments for and against boycotting Israel. As the deadline looms we offer some helpDaphne Anson: Adelaide BDSers Scrubbing The Uncomfortable Truth (videos)
British Methodists have until November 4, to complete a questionnaire on what they think about BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) against Israel. We thought we'd offer a bit of help. Here are the questions with our answers underneath them and in italics:
In the City of Churches, BDSers get busy with the scrubbing brush when, in two separate incidents earlier this year, they find subversive messages from a pesky supporter of the Zionist Entity who got there ahead of them chalked on their patches in the Rundle Mall.Israeli Law Center Sues Australian Academic for BDS Campaign
In the first video, which, like the second, features well-chosen supplementary footage from elsewhere, BDSers in their familiar green t-shirts discover that their patch bears the chalked label "Danger Propaganda Zone" followed by the very appropriate "Boycott Real Racism":
Israeli law center Shurat HaDin has filed a legal suit in the Australian federal court against the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University in Australia Jake Lynch for supporting the the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.Satanic Israel and Other Acts of Refined Anti-Semitism at York University
Then I saw a press release, plastered all over the place, announcing that Satan has donated $25 million to York University, signed by Gloria Suhasini, Senior Media Relations Officer at York University. Normally, I would think that something like this is a bad joke, but at this notorious university you can’t dismiss any possibility.The Humiliation of Palestinians in Arab States
French Jewish Leader Says Climate for Jews in Country is ‘Not Pleasant’
According to i24 News, Curkierman said France “is facing three distinct forms of anti-Semitism. First, there is the rise of the far right, including the growing public acceptance of National Front party; on the other hand, there is the anti-Semitism of the far left, originating with pro-Palestinian activists calling for a boycott of Israel. Cukierman described this type as ‘anti-Semitism dressed up as anti-Zionism.’Jewish Actress Lisa Kudrow Talks Anti-Semitism, Her Son’s Bar Mitzvah in Revealing Interview
Finally, anti-Semitism prevails among young suburban immigrants, ‘predominantly Muslims,’ who are ‘eager to commit violence when they see a Jew a yarmulke.’”
Jewish actress Lisa Kudrow opened up about her past experiences with anti-Semitism in a recent interview with the Saturday Evening Post, describing how in college she faced a dispiriting backlash because of her religion.Thank You Pastor John Hagee
“In college there was more anti-Semitism than before college, because there were people who never met a Jew before. A friend of mine, when she found out I was Jewish, said, ‘Really? Oh, I don’t like Jews,’” she shared.
The Jewish community owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to Pastor John and Diana Hagee. On November 7, at the Grand Hyatt in New York, notable community leaders and friends of Israel will gather to say thank you. Professor Elie Wiesel, Ari Fleischer, Malcolm Hoenlein, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and others will add their voices to the chorus of praise.Israel’s Mekorot Wins Contract to Create Water Master Plan for Azerbaijan
The project is part of a wide memorandum of understanding between Mekorot and Azerbaijan’s government that calls for water treatment within its capitol city of Baku, building a command and control center, and treating water contaminated by radioactive sources. So far, Mekorot has provided monitoring laboratories and sampling equipment, and has been training Azerbaijani officials at seminars in Israel.Israel and Japan to Collaborate in Agricultural Research
Israeli Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir announced Monday that the Israeli and Japanese governments will establish a joint research and development fund after a meeting with Japanese Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi in Tokyo.US LGBT leaders praise Tel Aviv’s support for Gay Cente
American LGBT leaders from advocacy organizations, government and academia visited the Gay Center, owned and operated by the city of Tel Aviv.Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark to Israel’s Peres: ‘I Will Remember this Visit for the Rest of My Life’
“None of us are aware of another municipality where they are solely funding the LGBT community center,” said Malcolm Lazin, executive director of the Equality Forum, a national and international LGBT civil rights organization with an educational focus.
On a state visit to Israel, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark told Israeli President Shimon Peres, who thanked Danes for saving Jews during the Holocaust 70 years ago, that he “will remember this visit for the rest of [his] life.”
“On a personal note, it is fantastic to be in Israel and to visit so far the museum and to witness also the part that tells a positive story during World War II about Danish Jews being shipped and rescued on small boats across from the shores of eastern Denmark to Swedish shores, that was a very bold act of good Danish citizens who came from all walks of life and who did not hesitate to act when it was very necessary,” the crown prince said. “For me this is something personal but today our two countries commemorate this. I will remember this visit for the rest of my life.”
