Monday, November 04, 2013
£1bn haul of art treasures seized by Nazis found in squalid Munich flat
The 1,500 works by such masters as Picasso, Renoir, Matisse and Chagall were said to have been lost to the flames when Allied aircraft bombed Dresden in 1945.UN Watch: What's wrong with U.N.'s human rights council by Hillel Neuer
They had been taken from their owners, many of them Jewish, by the Nazis, who regarded the Impressionist, Cubist and Modernist pieces as ‘degenerate’, and never seen again.
Their astonishing rediscovery nearly 70 years on in a rundown apartment in Munich came about because of a chance customs inspection of a man returning to Germany by train from Switzerland.
The man turned out to be Cornelius Gurlitt – the reclusive son of Hildebrandt Gurlitt, the art dealer who in the run-up to the Second World War had been in charge of gathering up the so-called degenerate art for the Nazis. (h/t Bob Knot)
Supporters of a credible and effective Human Rights Council – be they member states, U.N. officials, or human rights NGOs – must act now to prevent the council from meeting the same fate as its discredited and now-defunct predecessor. They need to honestly address the council’s strengths and weaknesses; call out abusive regimes by submitting resolutions even if they will be defeated; and expose and confront council appointees who bring the good name of the United Nations into disrepute.Im Tirtzu: University of Haifa legal clinics are politicized
The election next month of so many repressive regimes will only serve to escalate the council’s credibility crisis, while complacency will only lead it down the same ignominious path as the old commission. Only if we act now, with conviction and alacrity, will the world’s highest human rights body have any chance of improving on the fortunes of its predecessor – and, more importantly, helping those who for too long have had their voices stifled.
The Im Tirtzu organization has published a new report concerning what it describes as the "severe politicization" of legal clinics at the University of Haifa.Almagor to Haifa U: What About Helping Victims of Terror?
The report focuses on three clinics in particular, the Clinic for Prisoners' Rights, the Clinic for Human Rights in Society and the Clinic for the Rights of the Arab-Palestinian Minority.
The report says that these clinics have become anti-Zionist, radical organizations that "cooperate with organizations that oppose the existence of the State of Israel as a democratic state." (h/t Yenta Press)
Indor was reacting to a report by the Im Tirtzu organization, which found that the legal clinics at Haifa University devote most of their resources to helping non-Jews, with a special preference for Muslim-Arab terrorists.Holocaust Remembrance: New Tool for Anti-Semitism?
One of the cases handled by the clinics reportedly involved the demand by a man convicted of cruel acts of rape to receive festive meals on the Muslim holidays, and not just the sweet dessert that prison authorities hand out.
The Anne Frank Museum, writes Meotti, has "sanitized Anne Frank's story of almost all its Jewish references ... The result is that the public is now completely desensitized to the unique catastrophe that was the destruction of European Jewry. The Museum has also turned into a powerful source of criticism of Israel in Europe." "Israel," the Anne Frank Foundation wrote in a report, "pushes Palestinians economically into a corner and humiliates them psychologically."Israel boycotter admits protest is against Jews, not just Israelis
In 2004, an exhibition in the Anne Frank Museum compared former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Adolf Hitler. The former Soviet dissident, Natan Sharansky, then a Israeli government minister, reacted indignantly , saying the museum was "showing contempt for the memory of the six million who were murdered in the Holocaust."
The video, recorded by Simon Cobb of the Sussex Friends of Israel group, shows two men interviewing a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigner who says that he doesn’t not believe in the two-state solution (i.e. wants the destruction of the State of Israel) and who falsely claims that Palestinians employed by Israeli companies are paid at a lesser rate than those who are not.
But the crucial part of the video [1 minute 25 seconds] comes when Cobb and his fellow interviewer ask the man why he is boycotting Ecostream in Brighton, a shop which is Jewish and Israeli-owned, and if the man would boycott a Muslim, or Arab-Israeli owned shop.
Anti-Israel activists refuse to wear poppy to honour war dead
Self-styled “pro-Palestinian” activists outside the Ecostream store were repeatedly quizzed as to whether or not they would wear a Royal British Legion poppy, which serves each November to commemorate the lives of those lost fighting in World War I, and against the Nazis in World War II.German TV: How anti-Semitic is Germany?
Unfortunately, as you can see below, no BDS activists would wear a red poppy, claiming they opposed war, and therefore the poppy was not for them.
The German public television station ARD broadcasted last week a documentary film about modern anti-Semitism at the heart of German society.Hungarian demonstrators protest statue of Hitler ally
Close observers of contemporary anti-Semitism showered praise on the film for not shying away from showing anti-Semitism in all walks of life in Germany.
The 50 minute film – titled Anti-Semitism Today: How hostile is Germany toward Jews? – was created by Ahmad Mansour, an Israeli Arab, and two other Germans, Kirsten Esch and Jo Goll. Mansour is a policy advisor to the Brussels-based European Foundation for Democracy. He has lived in Berlin since 2004 and studied Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology at Tel-Aviv University. VIDEO no subtitles
On Sunday, protesters wore yellow Stars of David and chanted “Nazis go home” at supporters of Miklos Horthy, who was regent of Hungary from 1920 to 1944.S. Africa would be wise to ponder its Israel stance
The unveiling was organized by a pastor with far-right ties, the French news agency AFP reported.
The South African government has resisted domestic pressures to cut diplomatic relations and Nkoana-Mashabane made clear this is not being planned. Instead, as she said, South Africa will "slow down and curtail senior leadership contact with [Israel] until things begin to look better."South African Jews slam campaign to free Palestinian prisoners
The direct effect on Israel is likely to be minimal. South Africa will suffer far more. It is struggling with deep seated problems and by reducing contact is depriving itself of opportunities to gain access to invaluable Israeli expertise in areas such as agriculture, use of water, health and education.
Launched late last month by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 18 of his 27 years’ imprisonment by the apartheid government, the Free Marwan Barghouti campaign’s support committee includes five Nobel Peace laureates, among them Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.Report: Turkey’s Zorlu Enerji in Talks to Build Gas Pipeline to Israel
The South African Zionist Federation, or SAZF, said in a statement that Barghouti had been jailed for terrorism and the murder of Israeli civilians and it was an insult to struggle leaders such as Mandela to compare him with them, the daily Cape Times reported.
Turkey’s Zorlu Group, which holds an indirect stake in an Israeli power plant, has begun talks with Israeli companies to finance a pipeline that could export gas from the Jewish state’s Leviathan and Tamar offshore fields to Turkey, Reuters and Turkey’s Hurriyet daily reported on Friday, citing industry and diplomatic sources.Israel is the go-to address for cyber-security
The report also cited Ömer Yüngül, chief executive of Zorlu Holding, the owner of Zorlu Enerji, as saying, “Turkey is a very suitable route for Israeli gas. I can even say it is the most suitable,” although he would not confirm the talks.
As the global threat of cyber-attacks grows exponentially, so do companies that develop software to fight them off. Some of the world’s oldest and best-trusted players are headquartered in Israel (beginning with Check Point Technologies, founded in 1993), or have R&D operations here.GM Using Israeli Technology to Create Self-Driving Cars
“Everybody understands that you buy Swiss watches from Switzerland and information security from Israel,” says Udi Mokady, CEO of CyberArk Software, Israel’s largest private cyber-security company since IBM’s recent acquisition of Israeli financial data security firm Trusteer. IBM now plans to open a cyber-security software lab in Israel.
Israel is home to a significant amount of the technology General Motors (GM) is using to create the cars of the future, which will include features such as self-driving capability.Hebrew University Professor wins German Literary Prize
“The technologies that will power autonomous vehicles include smart sensing, vision imaging, human machine interface, wifi and 4G/LTE communications, and much of that is being done at our Herzliya facility, in conjunction with GM’s other R&D facility in Silicon Valley,” said Gil Golan, director of GM’s Advanced Technical Center in Israel, the Times of Israel reported.
Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Otto Dov Kulka, professor emeritus at the Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, is the winner of the Geschwister Scholl Prize for 2013.Paula Abdul On Visit to Israel: ‘Most Magnificent Trip I’ve Ever Taken’
Kulka’s book, Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death. Auschwitz and the Limits of Memory and Imagination, was chosen as the winner of the annual 10,000-euro prize.
“I’ve traveled the world touring and things like that but I don’t get the chance to see much of wherever I’m at,” she said. Abdul described the visit as “the most magnificent trip I’ve ever taken … magical and emotional.”IDF Blog: Meet 4 Pro Athletes Who Double as IDF Soldiers
An official guest of Israel’s ministry of tourism, Abdul has been touring the country on a 10-day visit, which has included a meeting with President Shimon Peres, a trip to the Western Wall—where she reportedly celebrated her bat mitzvah—and other sites throughout the country.
Young Israeli athletes who reach the age of enlistment in the IDF have a difficult decision. Remaining a world-class athlete means maintaining a strict training regimen and competition schedule — not so easy to do as a soldier. And yet, the IDF has many young professional athletes who, though hungry for success, report for basic training nevertheless.Shaare Zedek Medical Center-Jerusalem: It's All in Our Hands (finally with English subtitles)
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