Wednesday, April 02, 2014
Real satisfaction: Rolling Stones choose Israel over BDS boycott
The father of the failed boycott is Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, who not long ago compared playing for Israeli audiences with appearing in Nazi Germany. His main recruit is Elvis Costello (a fact that would have dismayed the original Elvis, an ardent Zionist).Survey: Judea, Samaria and Gaza Arabs Reject Normalization
Annie Lennox has also said she won’t play here again, but her ex-husband is an Israeli, so she probably has her reasons. Other boycotters proudly claimed by the BDS are nonentities; stars like Oi Palloi, which sings in Scottish Gaelic; Gorillaz Sound System, whose last hit was in 2001 and which no longer exists; a few anonymous jazz musicians (invariably described as “legendary”); and, most recently, Pal Moddi Knudsen, a self-taught Norwegian accordion player. Audiences in Tel Aviv would pay to see Costello, Lennox and maybe even Waters (Israeli fans tend to be tolerant). As for the others, they are like pimply teenage boys bragging about how they turned down a night on the town with Angelina Jolie.
The vast majority of Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza support a boycott of joint activities with Israelis, according to a recent public opinion survey conducted by the Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD).Hevron Arabs Kick Out Leftist Activists near Peace House
Seventy percent of the respondents opposed joint cultural and sports activities with Israelis, while 55% said they wouldn't agree to cooperate with Israel in the fields of science, environmental protection and health.
Despite the wide calls for a boycott on activities with Israel, 78% said they had not heard about the Ramallah-based Palestinian BDS National Committee. Of those who were aware of the organization, which leads boycotts to delegitimize Israel, only 51% (in Gaza, Judea and Samaria) were familiar with its activities.
Roughly 20 extreme-left activists and Arab protesters arrived at Hevron in Judea this week, but their plans to spark a confrontation with Jewish residents of the 'Peace House' and IDF soldiers were upset, as local Arab residents kicked them out of the city.
The activists had arrived with cameras and the flags of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), hoping to spark clashes with Jews in Peace House, the Hevron building that in early March finally was recognized by the Supreme Court as having been duly purchased by its Jewish owners, after a six-year-long trial and a ten-year-long struggle.
Netanyahu: In Each Generation Enemies Rise Up to Destroy Us (VIDEO)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday quoted the Passover haggadah when he said, “In every generation enemies rise up to destroy us but G-d saves us from them.”Saudi-owned paper defends decision to not allow ‘Post’ reporter entry to country
Speaking after a visit to a matza bakery in Kfar Chabad, Netanyahu told leaders of the Chabad Jewish outreach movement,”The haggadah mentions four sons – wise, wicked, simple and the one who does not know how to ask – but each one has a Jewish spark and you watch over this Jewish spark.”
A columnist for the Saudi owned paper Al-Hayat defended the decision to not allow a representative from an “extremist, racist right-wing Israeli newspaper” to enter the kingdom.UN Watch: Rare: UN High Commissioner details abuses of PA & Hamas against Palestinians
Last week, Riyadh denied a visa to Michael Wilner, The Jerusalem Post’s Washington bureau chief.
Wilner was the only journalist denied access to the president’s trip, despite firmly-worded requests from US National Security Adviser Susan Rice and assistant to the president Tony Blinken to Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir.
When it comes to UN reporting on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, it is usually the case that Israel is mostly criticized, with a brief reference in the end calling for Hamas to stop firing missiles and rockets against Israeli civilians. However, a recent report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, apart from listing Israel’s alleged violations, it dealt in great detail on the serious human rights violations of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority against their own people, regular Palestinian civilians. Some of the main findings are provided below.Unintended Consequences of Israel Boycotts
This report also reveals the great protection gap that exists in the UN system with regards to the rights of the Palestinian people, as the so-called Special Rapporteur on Palestine only looks at Israel’s actions and has no mandate to examine violations committed by the PA or Hamas.
Some form of legislation triggered by the ASA boycott has appeared in New York, Florida, and Kansas, and was recently defeated in Illinois.Eastern American Studies Association rejects Israel boycott
Just this week, the ASA published an urgent call to supporters to fight a measure currently in discussion in Maryland, where legislators placed anti-boycott measures into the state’s proposed budget:
Even better, Electronic Intifada tells us that the measure includes a definition of anti-Semitism that references hate directed at Israel:
The Eastern American Studies Association (EASA) has joined its California counterpart in rejecting the ASA’s decision to boycott Israeli academic institutions. This is the second major regional chapter officially to reject the boycott, showing that many neutral scholars are distancing themselves from the anti-Israel ASA National Council and activists.BDS resolves ‘will not be implemented’ and movement ‘not promoted’ but motion will still be published
This is an important development which shows how much damage the anti-Israel activists have done to ASA and the field of American Studies. It also shows that the ASA boycott was not the watershed event it is portrayed as being.
THE BDS motion resolves will not be implemented, nor will the union promote the BDS movement, KCLSU (King's College London Students' Union) announced this evening.A Day in History: The First Nazi BDS of Jewish Business
However the Union’s Trustee Board said that it “should not override the motion in its entirety”, and it will be published in the KCLSU Welfare and Community Zone.
After a four hour long meeting last Thursday, trustees made two decisions: “The first decision was that the Board should not override the motion in its entirety. (h/t Rabbi Burns)
On April 1, 1933, 81 years ago, the Nazis carried out their first nationwide, coordinated action against the Jews: a boycott of Jewish businesses – today these activities are commonly known as BDS: Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.Contradictory Stories from Christ at the Checkpoint
And even today, that Nazi-inspired BDS tactic continues, directed at the Jewish state of Israel.
Two years later, attendees heard a different story. The first night of the conference, Munir Kakish, the leader of the Council of Evangelical Churches in the Holy Land called on the Palestinian Authority to recognize Evangelical churches and accord them their civil rights. Here is what he said:Jerusalem Neighborhood a Victim of Lazy Journalism
As a religious group, we are still unable to practice our basic civil rights to issue marriage certificates, register our church properties in the name of the church, or even open bank accounts to manage our churches’ financial affairs.One of these statements cannot be true.
If Christians “worship with freedom” and “exercise rights like all Palestinians,” then why can’t Evangelical churches open bank accounts in Palestinian society?
The descriptions of Gilo are symptomatic of the journalistic laziness surrounding the entire issue of settlements and precisely what these actually refer to. After all, many media outlets do nothing to dispel the largely mistaken image of all Israeli settlements as a collection of isolated homes on windswept hilltops. In the case of Gilo, this is as far from the truth as could be possible.LA Times Bungles Talks Coverage
As Maurice Ostroff, writing in the Jerusalem Post, explains:
"The $64,000 question then, is whether Gilo is in fact a settlement and if so, what type of settlement it is. To all who prefer to analyze a situation before arriving at a conclusion it is important to look at the facts in context. …
The reality is that Gilo is very different than the outposts in the West Bank. It is not in east Jerusalem as widely reported. It is a Jerusalem neighborhood with a population of around 40,000. The ground was bought by Jews before WWII and settled in 1971 in south west Jerusalem opposite Mount Gilo within the municipal borders. There is no inference whatsoever that it rests on Arab land."
The Los Angeles Times news article today about Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' steps to pursue membership in international bodies is marred by two gross factual errors ("Palestinian Authority leader takes steps to press issue of statehood").Anti-Semitic Cartoons Published in Egyptian-Canadian Newspaper
First, Maher Abukhater and Paul Richter err: ". . . Palestinian leaders are angry about news Tuesday that Israeli Land Authority offered developers the rights to build 708 housing units on land Palestinians claim should be part of their future state."
The 708 housing units in question are all located in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, and Palestinians do not claim Gilo should be part of their future state. Although the Jerusalem neighborhood is located over the Green Line, in previous rounds of negotiations, such as in Camp David, and again in the 2008 Olmert talks, it was never under consideration to transfer Gilo to the Palestinian Authority.
On March 24, Al-Ahram, an Egyptian-Canadian online newspaper published the following antisemitic cartoon:Barbed wire from Auschwitz found in tourists’ suitcase
The heading of the cartoon reads: (translation) “The true relation between the Muslim Brotherhood and the U.S.” The caption says: “Your eminence General Murshid (leader of the Muslim Brotherhood) of the global movement of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The cartoon depicts Jewish control of the U.S. government and suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood was created by a Jewish and American cabal.
Another cartoon published by Al-Ahram on August 1, 2013, shows Yusuf al-Qaradawi (an important Muslim Brotherhood influence) being funded by Israel to issue destructive fatwas (Islamic edict) against Syria, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia.
Bertoldo Lori, 40, and his wife were stopped by border guards at 9 a.m. Sunday March 30 as they attempted to board a flight to Rome. The wire was identified in his luggage during check-in for their flights.ADL cites 20% drop in anti-Semitic incidents in US
Border control spokesperson Captain Katarzyna Walczak said, “In his luggage we found approximately 40 centimeters of rusted barbed wire wrapped in clothing.”
“He admitted that the wire had come from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, and that he had taken it to keep as a souvenir. But he insisted he had found it lying on the ground, rather than taken it from a fence,” Walczak said.
Despite the overall decline, the audit found a “significant” increase in “violent anti-Semitic assaults” — 31 assaults compared to 17 in 2012, although no assault was life threatening or required hospitalization.NBA players visit Holocaust museum
“The high number of violent in-your-face assaults is a sobering reminder that, despite the overall decline in anti-Semitic incidents, there is still a subset of Americans who are deeply infected with anti-Semitism and who feel emboldened enough to act out their bigotry,” Foxman said.
Players and most of the coaching staff, along with owner Bruce Levenson and General Manager Danny Ferry, made the visit to the Washington museum.Israeli making movie about ’94 Argentina bombing
They were joined by Irene Boyarsky, 85, who spent time in a Jewish ghetto in Hungary and a concentration camp in Austria. Two of her brothers were killed in the Holocaust, but Boyarsky was reunited with her parents at the end of World War II.
The Brazilian production company Prana Films will produce the movie based on the 1994 bombing attack on the center that left 85 dead and hundreds wounded.Stand With Us: Drowning Israel's California Detractors with Hope, Technology
One shooting location will be the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este, which shares a border with Argentina and Brazil. The terrorist Hezbollah organization reportedly is active in the city, according to intelligence sources.
Argentine actor Ricardo Darin and French actress Juliette Binoche reportedly have expressed interest and received an updated script for a film with an expected budget of $3.5 million.
Regarded by many as the progressive holy land, California prides itself on its pursuit of social justice, economic equality and environmental advocacy. The Golden State's ideals are conspicuously displayed on campuses throughout its public university system, exemplified by the aggressive support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. But California also happens to be in dire economic straits, experiencing a drought of near-Biblical proportions. That is why it's ironic that they have turned to the People of the Book to hydrate their economy and citizenry.Pope receives Madonna lily seeds from BGU scientists to bloom for spring Annunciation
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to California and met with Governor Jerry Brown to discuss how Israel can help save California from what Reuters described as “a three-year dry spell that threatens to have devastating effects on the state and beyond.” During their highly publicized meeting, the two leaders signed a deal to strengthen economic and research ties between the Golden State and the Jewish State.
Pope Francis, who arrives in Israel at the end of May, has just received a special gift -- seeds of the white Madonna lily of the type that existed during the time of Jesus two millennia ago. The seeds were developed in the lab of Dr. Michelle Zakai with the help of Asael Ram at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba.Racy Bar ad banned from daytime TV
According to Christian tradition, the lily was connected to the Annunciation during which the Angel Gabriel told Mary that she was pregnant with Jesus. The Madonna lily, according to Christian iconography, symbolizes the virgin birth of Jesus in the spring. The flower appears in many Italian Renaissance paintings of Christian themes that were painted by the great artists of the day.
A risqué ad featuring Bar Refaeli in bed with a purple, mustached Muppet has been banned from running before 10 p.m. in the Holy Land.6th-century Byzantine monastery excavated in Negev
According to the governmental supervisory body, the Second Authority for Television and Radio, the ad for local fashion brand Hoodies has “too many sexual insinuations” to be aired during prime time.
The floor of the dining hall is decorated with colorful birds, pitchers, amphorae, baskets, flowers, leaves and other geometric shapes, with a diamond-shaped pattern in the background.3,800-year-old biblical fortress discovered in City of David
Both floors were also decorated with Greek inscriptions bearing the names of the abbots of the monastery — Elijah, Nonos, Salomon and Ilrion — as well as the dates of the monastery’s construction. One of the inscriptions has a Syriac translation beside the Greek.
The inscriptions indicate that the monastery’s mosaic floors were laid down during the second half of the 6th century.
The 3,800-year-old "Spring Citadel" was excavated in the City of David National Park by dozens of researchers led by Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukrun of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
"The Spring Citadel was built in order to save and protect the water of the city from enemies coming to conquer it, as well as to protect the people going down to the spring to get water and bring it back up to the city," said Director of Development in the City of David, Oriya Dasberg.
The citadel is believed to have protected the Gihon spring, described in the Book of Kings as the location of King Solomon's anointing.
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