Saturday, January 18, 2014
134 House Members sign letter against academic boycott of Israel
A total of 134 Members of the House of Representatives have signed a letter, organized by the offices of Reps. Peter Roksam (R) and Ted Deutch (D) condeming the academic boycott of Israel passed by the American Studies Assoction. The effort was truly bipartisan, with 65 Republicans and 69 Democrarts signing. The full list of signatories is at the bottom of this post.Report: Soccer Club Sponsor Delivers Ultimatum Over Anelka ‘Reverse Nazi Salute’
As previously reported, the congressional organizers were hoping for 50 signatures, so the response was better than expected. Gathering signatures on short notice was difficult, one of the staffers explained to me, because of the press of House business before members left today on break.
The shirt sponsor of British soccer club West Bromwich Albion (WBA) has threatened to immediately axe its multi-million pound deal with the club over the growing furor surrounding one of its star players, who recently used a quenelle “reverse Nazi salute” after scoring a goal, the UK’s Marketing Week reported.British City of Liverpool Overwhelmingly Rejects Anti-Israel Motion
Zoopla, an online property portal, which is concerned that its brand is being tarnished, reportedly told WBA that if the offending player, Nicolas Anelka, plays in an upcoming match against Everton on Monday its threat will go into immediate effect. Zoopla is co-owned by Jewish businessman Alex Chesterman.
The city council of Liverpool, England, has rejected a motion that condemned Israel for “human rights violations,” voting it down 74 to two, the UK’s Jewish Chronicle reported on Friday.
The JC said the motion was tabled by two members of Britain’s Green Party ahead of the Liverpool International Festival for Business 2014, in June and July, when Israeli investors and businesses are expected to come to Liverpool to take part in the business networking event. The motion urged the council to “distance” the city from “condoning or tolerating the human rights violations, of some participating countries,” including Israel, Russia and China.
State Dep’t had refused to sponsor UNESCO’s cancelled Israel exhibit
US now protesting that show on Jewish people’s historic tie to land of Israel was dropped, but last week it declined invitation to support it
The State Department said Friday it was outraged at the cancellation of the exhibit. “The United States is deeply disappointed and has engaged with senior levels at UNESCO to confirm that the action to postpone does not represent a cancellation and to underscore our interest in seeing the exhibit proceed as soon as possible,” it said in a statement reported by JTA. “UNESCO was designed to foster just this kind of discussion and interaction between civil society and member states and the United States firmly supports the right of civil society in member states such as the Wiesenthal Center to be heard and to contribute to UNESCO’s mission. We trust that UNESCO will approach this issue fairly and in a manner consistent with the organization’s guidelines and past precedent.”Three nasty memes about Jews and Israel
Here are three disturbing memes about Jews and Israel that I’ve noticed in three separate-but-related news stories recently.Jews in Space
Meme Number One: “You’re Ungrateful”
Here’s State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf responding to reported remarks by the Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Ya’alon, attacking Secretary of State John Kerry. “We find the remarks of the defense minister to be offensive and inappropriate, especially given all that the United States has done to support Israel’s security needs and will continue to do,” said Harf. (h/t Bob Knot)
At the end of his 1981 movie A History of the World, Part I, Mel Brooks added three funny fake “trailers” for non-existent movies, one of them being Jews in Space. The trailer showed a Star of David-shaped spacecraft, crewed by bearded guys in yarmulkes and prayer shawls, winning an interstellar holy war. In titling this piece “Jews in Space,” I’m not referring to that kind of Jew in space – I’m talking about a category of Jews who seem to be so hostile to their own people and their own heritage that they’ve entirely escaped the gravitational pull of basic common sense, decency, and fact and spun out into the orbit of rabid anti-Israeli and pro-Islamic radicalism. I’m not going to use the term “self-hating Jew.” After all, who’s to say who’s a self-hating Jew and who isn’t? I don’t know these people’s hearts. By the same token, however, I can’t help it if many other observers, after examining these individuals’ records, have decided that they are, indeed, self-hating Jews of the first water – odious wretches who’ve broken faith with everything their forefathers believed in and stood for. But hey, just to repeat, I’m not going to call them that.‘Palestinians to reject Kerry peace plan, launch diplomatic war on Israel’
The Palestinian Authority is currently setting up teams to wage diplomatic war against Israel in “every conceivable” forum, including pushing for boycotts of Israel and seeking legal rulings against Israel via international courts in The Hague, Israel’s Channel 2 news reported Friday night.Netanyahu confidante: Jordan wants Israel to keep presence along West Bank boundary
Unless Kerry significantly changes the current formulation of his proposals, the report said, the Palestinians will reject his overtures, confident that much of the international community will consider them to be the injured party and hold Israel responsible for the failure of peace efforts.
MK Ofir Akunis told a town hall gathering in Tel Aviv on Saturday that Israeli officials have received feedback from their Jordanian counterparts who are alarmed at the prospect of an Israeli withdrawal from the boundary that separates the West Bank from the Hashemite kingdom.Israel to return remains of 36 Palestinians, including murderer
“The Jordanians are opposed to an Israeli withdrawal from the Jordan Valley out of fear that if a Palestinian state arises and is taken over by extremist elements like Hamas and Al-Qaida, this would endanger the king’s rule, not just Tel Aviv,” Akunis said.
The news agency quoted Salim Khillah, a spokesman for a committee to retrieve Palestinian remains from Israeli custody, as saying that the remains would be returned on January 26.French Presidential Aide Meets Hezbollah Official
Among those whose remains will be returned is Majdi Abd al-Jawad Khanfar, who was killed by IDF fire in 2002 after killing an Israeli soldier at a West Bank checkpoint, Khillah said.
A French presidential aide held talks on Friday in Beirut with a Hezbollah official, the movement said, AFP reported.Lebanese girl dons TNT belt for art
The meeting comes months after the EU listed the group's so-called "military wing" as a terrorist organization.
Najdi, a multidisciplinary artist, thought up a new project inspired by the fatal blasts: “Madame Bomba,” an alternate persona dressed in a fake suicide belt, as a statement against the recent rise in attacks.Russia steps up military lifeline to Syria's Assad - sources
“We are all afraid of the same thing. We see explosives wherever we go,” Najdi told Lebanon’s LBC in an interview. “I wanted to check how people react when they see explosives,” she said of her costume, which she said was meant to be “comical” rather than “in-your-face.”
In recent weeks Russia has stepped up supplies of military gear to Syria, including armored vehicles, drones and guided bombs, boosting President Bashar al-Assad just as rebel infighting has weakened the insurgency against him, sources with knowledge of the deliveries say.Iran Top Nuke Negotiator: Deal Reversible In One Day
Moscow, which is trying to raise its diplomatic and economic influence in the Middle East, has been a major provider of conventional weapons to Syria, giving Assad crucial support during the three-year civil war and blocking wider Western attempts to punish him with sanctions for the use of force against civilians.
In an interview with Iranian television, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator says Tehran can resume enriching uranium to 20 percent levels within one day if it so desires.444 Muslim Brotherhood Members Arrested During Vote on New Constitution
According to various media reports, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that 444 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested and nine people were killed in confrontations among Brotherhood supporters, residents, and security forces across the country.Sinai Terrorists Blow Up Natural Gas Pipeline
Egyptians approved the new constitution by a 98 percent margin, according to preliminary results.
A security official in Egypt said on Friday that terrorists have blown up a natural gas pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula.BBC’s Berlin correspondent: Jews “displeased the Nazis”
According to The Associated Press (AP), the official said a strong explosion rocked a village in central Sinai called el-Riysan, after explosives were planted beneath the gas pipeline connected to cement factories in the area.
There are perhaps two ways of reading that miserable sentence. Were one being charitable, it could be interpreted as intending to say that Jews who did something to incur the displeasure of the Nazis risked their lives. Clearly that was not the case: Jews were persecuted and exterminated en-masse not because of anything they had done or said, but purely and simply because they were Jews.Swedish editor defends Sharon-Hitler comparison
But when one actually listens to Evans’ report, one notes that he pauses after the word ‘Jews’ and again after the word ‘Nazis’, thus clearly indicating that his intention is to convey to listeners that in general, Nazis were “displeased” by Jews.
Writing on his Facebook page, Bachman said Jönsson “continues to ‘ride over Israel’s back’ on his way to fame. I guess he has not forgotten but ‘just’ ignored the fact that the Nazis were engaged in a genocide, with no provocation on behalf of their totally innocent victims, while Israel – from its very first day of independence – is defending itself from cruel and unceasing terrorism, and organized hatred towards Jews and Israelis alike.”‘Aftermath:’ A Riveting Portrayal of Polish Anti-Semitism
Bachman added, “but this is a minor detail to be even mentioned. It starts being boring to read the things Jönsson writes on the Middle East, since it will always follow the basic and simplistic guideline – ‘Israelis are the bad guys and this is common knowledge.’ The troubling thing is that, Jönsson writes and expresses himself in a very official framework. I hope and believe that at least some of his colleagues to the UI have a different attitude.”
At other times one hears comments such as the Poles learn their anti-Semitism from their mother’s milk or the Poles were even worse than the Germans. These are most unfortunate comments because while Polish anti-Semitism was real and virulent, there is an implication of something historic and inherent about Poland that does not square with the record.Local start-up spirit boosts staid German software giant
The question that must be posed is: If Poland was always an anti-Semitic country, why were 3 million Jews living there on the eve of World War II? The answer is that for many centuries, Poland was a more welcoming place for Jews than countries in Western Europe.
On the surface, the presence of an enterprise software company like Software AG in Israel could seem like an anomaly. Local entrepreneurs are known for their flouting of the rules and working outside the system to get the impossible done.A guitar maker turned paratrooper
It’s almost the exact opposite of what one would expect from a conglomerate like Software AG, the German maker of the big data systems that run the banks, insurance companies, and government offices of the world. A conservative company from a conservative country, working with some of the most conservative institutions in the world, just seems out of place in the Start-Up Nation.
What prompts a young guitar maker and music major to make aliyah, enlist in the Israel Defense Forces and strap a different kind of instrument on his shoulder? Taglit-Birthright Israel, an initiative that brings Jewish youths on short trips to Israel.Stephen Harper’s moral leadership
Louis Berman, a 24-year-old from South Carolina, didn't know much about Israel until his 10-day trip to Israel.
"I knew this was the holy land and that Jews pray for its continued existence and success. But that's it," he recalls. "I wasn't particularly interested in the subject; neither were my parents or two younger siblings." (h/t Bob Knot)
It hard to comprehend the depth and consistency of Canada’s strong support for Israel in recent years without appreciating the deep moral underpinnings of Prime Minister Stephen J. Harper’s worldview.
“Canada has proven once again that morals come before political expediency, and that policy must reflect principles and values,” President Shimon Peres said when Canada cut diplomatic relations with Iran in 2012. “I thank Canada for taking a stance based on the highest morals, and hope that other nations will see Canada as a role model.”
There are four pillars that undergird Prime Minister Harper’s approach.
