Monday, January 13, 2014
Israel is the Second Most Philanthropic Country in the World
The Data shows that: in 2012 Israeli households and businesses donated 7.6 billion Shekels to nonprofits, an increase of 8.8% as compared with 2011. Israeli philanthropy made up 0.76% of the country’s GDP, taking second place in world philanthropy after the USA, which saw 2.1% of its GDP donated to nonprofits in 2012. Australia follows Israel with 0.69% of its GDP in donations; the UK with 0.65% of its GDP; South Africa with 0.64%; Canada with 00.48%; Ireland with 0.47%, Holland with 0.45%; New Zealand with 0.29%; Germany with 0.22%, and France with 0.19%.Tom Gross: Holocaust amnesia
According to Yonatan Ben-Dor, CEO of IsraelGives, which facilitates online fundraising for over 600 nonprofits in Israel: “A large portion of the increasing amount of money donated to nonprofits in Israel stems from the rise of online philanthropy. Online donations grew by 66% in the past year, 8 times that of traditional philanthropy. As an example of this rise in online giving, in 2013 627 nonprofit organizations received donations through IsraelGives.org, Israel’s online donation portal.
Holocaust Memorial Day falls again on January 27. It is the ninth consecutive year that this (in many ways uniquely) evil event is being officially commemorated in Britain and the EU.Europe's New Crowd-Pleasing Jew-Hate
Predictably there are voices — including some Jewish — who say, haven't we heard enough about the Holocaust? What more is there to learn?
I take the opposite view — that collectively the world has not studied it nearly enough, and has not properly learned its lessons. If it had,
anti-Semitism wouldn't once again be rife in so many countries, including European ones.
It is an anti-Semitism that seems to come mostly from people affiliated with the French radical "left": members and sympathizers of Trotskyist movements, of the neo-communist French "Left Front", and of "pro-Palestinian" organizations such as Europalestine. Its followers accuse the Jews of having "monopolized" human sufferings, of having "rapaciousness" behind the "Holocaust industry" and of being complicit in the "imperialist crimes" committed by Israel against the "Palestinians". Unsurprisingly, a growing number of young Muslims identify with these arguments.
Members of the politically right-leaning "nationalist revolutionary" parties, and other Neo-Nazi organizations see all this as a boon and an exoneration. They hate Islam, but they hate Jews and Israel even more, and when people such as Dieudonné say that "Zionists" in the Middle East are worse than Nazis, or that Holocaust commemorations are "memorial pornography," they exult.
When Dieudonné invites a famous Holocaust -denier such as Robert Faurisson on stage, and then praises the gas chambers, members of the audience are full of joy. When Dieudonné sings "Shoah-Ananas" ["Holocaust Pineapple"] in the company of Faurisson, the audience sings along with gusto. "The Anti-Semite," a movie Dieudonné made with Iranian money to mock the Auschwitz concentration camp, was never released in theaters, but has became an on-line success anyhow.
Will accepting Palestinian 1967 “Border” Demand Make Peace More Likely?
The Palestinian peace effort so far has been a combination of failing to abide by previous agreements (Arafat committed to stopping incitement against Israel, a phenomenon that continues until today); impose new terms on Israel (prisoner releases were meant to apply only to non-violent prisoners and was a confidence building measure not a requirement); and ensure that grievances remain (claiming that Israel “occupies” their territory when over 90% of Palestinians have lived under the PA since the end of 1995.)David Singer: Abbas Dismantles Kerry’s Framework Agreement
The record suggests that accepting the Palestinian demand for a return to the 1949 armistice lines won’t bring Israel any closer to peace. The Palestinians are looking for concessions, not an agreement.
The narrative issues raised by Abbas’s latest comments underscore the two very different Jewish and Arab perspectives of their 130 years old conflict which appear certain to continue to remain irreconcilable.Do not say ‘transfer’
These issues goes to the very heart of the conflict – and short of a complete retraction by Abbas – will continue to be the quicksand into which Kerry’s framework agreement will collapse into political oblivion.
Abbas has clearly signalled the continuing refusal of the PLO to accept the unanimous decision of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922 legally sanctioning the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in its ancient and biblical homeland – as promulgated in the Mandate for Palestine. (h/t Bob Knot)
"Ethnically homogeneous states must be created… Creating homogeneous states would require drawing new borders and transferring populations.”The Emergent Palestinian Imaginary
“The great powers should organize and finance the transfer of the remaining populations behind the new national borders.”
These statements were not made by a right-wing extremist or a member of an Israeli party which supports ‘transfer’, even though no such party exists. They were also not made in the 1940’s, when the concept of transfer was normative.
These statements were made by two leading professors. At least one of them even became a hero of the anti-Israel camp. I am referring to John J. Mearsheimer, the co-author of a book which slanders the pro-Israel lobby. The second quote belongs to Professor Stephen Van Evera of MIT.
UN "expert" and professional antisemite Richard Falk has been allowed to serve out his entire 6-year term as the UN's top human rights investigator on Israel. His term expires in 2014, and he is choosing to bring it to a close by declaring exactly what he stands for - and why he was appointed. He rejects the legitimacy of the state of Israel. He supports violence as a legitimate tool of resistance against Israel, he blames Muslim vs. Muslim violence in Syria, and Egypt on Israel, and he refuses to accept a Jewish state period.The EU's "covert" boycott of Israel starts to kick in
The UN "Human Rights" Council appointed Richard Falk and it could have terminated him at any time. Instead, President Obama joined the Council after Falk was appointed, insisted the United States enter a second 3-year term despite the fact that Falk remained in office, and has become one of the Council's leading cheerleaders.
Without any fear of being denied UN credentials despite voicing hatred for Israel across the globe, here is Richard Falk's latest statement- delivered in Doha, Qatar in December, and posted on his own blog on January 10, 2014.
Israel is involved with Mexico in high-tech irrigation and cyber security. The EU might note that the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, through his telecommunication company America Movil, is investing $60 million in Mobli, the Israeli photo and video sharing platform startup company.The pettiness of the academic Boycott Israel movement revealed
The EU might also note that investors in Mobli, who include Leonardo DiCaprio and Serena Williams, have not succumbed to Palestinian pressure to boycott any Israeli places or businesses.
Now that relations between Israel and the Obama administration have become less warm than in previous years, Israel is adroitly cultivating political as well as economic ties with countries in different parts of the world, including Russia, Asia, the Gulf states, and Saudi Arabia.
For example, removing the word "Gaza" because the resolution presenters were not even aware of the simple fact that the entry to Gaza is in Egyptian and not Israeli control. What else did they not tell and what else do we need to know to make an informed decision? They also said there is a State Department warning not to visit Israel. Not true. The warning is not to visit Gaza because it's run by a terrorist organization."Anti-Israel academic boycotters demand Freedom From Criticism
Israel's visa requirements are similar to those of other liberal democracies, though Israel is forced to be more vigilant because of the dangers of ongoing terrorism. The resolution never acknowledged this reality. Israel's visa denials can be appealed in Israel's courts. Nonetheless, in 2012, Israel rejected only .02% of the 626,000 Americans who sought visas while the U.S. denial rate of Israeli applications for B-visas was 5.4 percent. Furthermore, Palestinian universities themselves boast about the number of foreign professors, including Americans, who teach at their schools.
Rather, it appears the boycotters cannot withstand the withering criticism from American civil and political society.American Studies Association's new tack: Cry Victim
The academic boycotters have lived for too long in a bubble in which their views predominated because students were too intimidated to speak up, other professors didn’t want to take on single-issue fanatics, and administrators were intimidated.
But we are not intimidated. As I stated before, this is the hill we will fight on. Lawfully. Intellectually honestly. And without allowing the academic boycotters to play victim.
The days of the hateful BDS ideology going unchallenged on campuses and in academic organizations are over.
In response to these alleged "threats" and "intimidation" ASA members have set up a blog, BDS Love letters: Hate Mail to BDS Supporters aimed at "tracking the (unsolicted) communications directed at supporters of the Israeli BDS movement" and publishing what we can only assume are the worse of what they have received. You can count the postings on both hands. Its not much of an avalanche.Partial victory over anti-Israel efforts at 2014 MLA Convention shows battle winnable
There are no actual threats published, and there is nothing on their site that holds a candle to what Israeli students, and supporters of Israel have faced.
In a severe blow to BDS advocates, only 41% of the delegate assembly voted to send the Radical Caucus resolution to the floor for debate. This fell far shy of the 75% requirement to consider an “emergency resolution.Who Won at the MLA?
Despite delegate refusal to even debate the resolution, the chair of the session assured the Professor Furr that his resolution would still be referred to the MLA’s Executive Committee for consideration.
The chair who chose to circumvent the delegate assembly is Margaret Ferguson, professor from UC Davis. She is a public supporter of BDS and the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
The tweet I just linked to quotes one Grover Furr, of Montclair State University. Furr is a defender of Stalin (perhaps one of the last remaining on the left), a retailer of disgusting allegations of Zionist complicity in the Holocaust, and a critic of non-violent protest (BDS is apparently too soft for him). Don’t take my word for it. He says it all on his own website here and here.Supermodels love Livne designs
Furr, by the way, proposed the emergency resolution on behalf of the Radical Caucus.
While I am not given to optimism, perhaps it is not too much to hope that the overwhelming rejection of Furr’s resolution means that the MLA is starting to notice that the variety of Israel criticism that has been on display this year, most prominently in the BDS movement, is an embarrassment and a liability.
And it was Campbell’s stylist who saw and snagged one of Livne’s dresses during New York’s fall Fashion Week, following up several months later with an official invitation for his black tap-pants-plus-chiffon piece. Once Campbell settled on Livne’s work for the show’s promo photo, her fellow models, Anne V and Hearst, also opted for Livne designs.Israeli students' experiments to be performed in space
It’s been a successful year for the 28-year-old designer, whose first brush with fame began when performer Beyoncé commissioned the Project Runway winner’s cherry red cutout-gown for her “Freakum” outfit in the Mrs. Carter Show World Tour.
Two scientific experiments planned by Israeli school students were launched to the International Space Station Wednesday, where they will be performed by zero-gravity astronauts.Unique syringe keeps hospital staff safe from fatal drug residue
The grade 8 to 10 students from schools in Holon and Mateh Yehuda Regional Council have gone through a long learning process in the past year, in which they learned about space, science and experimentation.
It’s been said that hospitals are a great place to get sick – not for those who are already ill (although they, too, risk exposure to all sorts of germs and viruses during their stay), but for the healthy, especially for hospital workers who are exposed to hazardous substances all day long.Israeli Company’s Futuristic Back Implant Can Repair Damaged Spines
Of course, safety precautions are taken, but there are some procedures that by nature put workers’ health at risk, such as the administration of powerful and dangerous drugs, like those used in chemotherapy. Workers who prepare these drugs for injection risk exposure to dangerous substances that could make them sick – even a wayward drop that escapes from a needle as it is removed from a vial of antineoplastic drugs could be bad news. “It’s a major problem,” said Eric Shem-Tov, CEO of Israeli biotech company Equashield. “The only way to avoid this is with a sterile transfer system that ensures that the medicine remains uncontaminated, as do workers, and our product helps accomplish this.”
Bend. Flex. Extend. Rotate. Though these words are ordinary to most people, they (literally) send shivers down the spines of the millions around the world who suffer from chronic lower back pain. Premia Spine is an Israeli company looking to once again render these words innocuous to patients with their revolutionary spinal implant.New implant brings high hopes for back pain relief
The Israeli company is offering an alternative treatment for patients who have been prescribed spinal fusion operations. Rather than attach a rigid structure of bolts and rods to the patient’s spine, Premia Spine’s TOPS (Total Posterior Solution) system is a spinal implant that recreates the natural motions of the back, giving patients not only a greater range of motion, but also claims a more reliable and faster recovery.
